The owners are doing this because they don't make as much ad revenue on online ads as they do on cable/over-the-air ads. Now, anybody can understand that with Internet based ads, they should be able to charge significantly more than for traditional ads. A *lot* more, in fact. They can have an exact count of how many times the ad has been shown, who saw the ads, and a lot of other very, very detailed information about the ad consumers that's impossible to get via cable/satellite/airwaves. Hulu, for example, knows where I am, what my birthday is, what my viewing patterns are, and now, even what ads I like and I don't like. If they're working with Google, then they know a heck of a lot more about me, too.
The only logical reason that content providers don't want to stream everything is because the rates they're charging advertisers for ads shown using cable/satellite/air distribution is because those rates are grossly inflated. They can say "1,000,000 people saw your ad for StupidWidget last Thursday night during StupidTVShow" and there's no way to prove them wrong. For ads shown over the Internet, there's no way that they can make up a number, because everybody and their grandmother knows that ABC/NBC/whoever else can say that "your ad for StupidWidget was seen 10,251 times. 25% were women under 30, 20% were men 30-40, etc, etc".
Neilsen ratings are a joke, because A. the sample size is so small as to be useless and B. they're paid by the broadcasters!
So, until advertisers understand that they are being and probably always have been grossly overcharged for traditional TV advertising and refuse to pay the inflated rates, the content providers are going to continue to smother online broadcasting because there's no way to lie to their customers (advertisers).
I buy advertising, but I've since stopped buying traditional media advertising because I realize that all of the circulation/viewer/listener numbers are all completely made up. I'll only buy online advertising where I have a reasonable expectation that I'll know who/where/when sees/hears my advertisements. I don't know why all of the mega companies are so incredibly stupid and continue to pay for traditional media advertising.
Obama's simply too conservative to sign a bill like this. He should, but he won't. The fact that marijuana is 100% safe isn't enough to sway the screaming, mindless Christians, and Obama needs at least some of their votes.
There are an endless supply of IPO driven, marketing oriented, bullshit companies like this one trying to make the next payment system. The truth is: none of them will work. Not one. Every one of these guys is in it to get a piece of the action. I don't blame them. There's an ungodly amount of money to be made, but that's exactly the reason why it won't work. Merchants pay about 2-3% already for accepting credit cards. That's a metric shit ton of money right there, and no merchant in his right mind is going to cough up an extra percentage point or two for some stupid gimmick like this. Credit cards and cash work fine. There's no problem for these moronic companies to solve.
Why? Because they haven't gotten Firefox working all that well yet. They're 10 years behind on some bugs. Hopefully somebody organizing realizes that they need to try to do one thing well, at least first, before trying to do a bunch of other stuff half-assed.
If I want to rent a movie tonight, I can't. Impossible. No video rental stores because everybody used Netflix. If I want to get opinions of people who work in the video store or my neighbors, I can't. Oh yeah, and all of that money leaves my community, too.
MP3 downloads aren't the same as a CD Audio CD. Not even close if you have an actual stereo system. Oh yeah, and all of that money leaves my community, too.
Browsing book stores is impossible since there often aren't any. Going to book signings or other such events are impossible. Oh yeah, and all of that money leaves my community, too.
If you're happy sitting in front of your computer mindlessly consuming, sending your money out of your community to god knows who, and interacting with no actual humans in the process, then good for you. I feel that my life has been significantly negatively impacted by the bad decisions of peope interested in nothing more than their own wallets.
The government won't have to step in. People are stupid and short sighted enough to do it to themselves. It's already impossible to rent movies and buy music and in some instances, buy books in most places in the US.
" In fact I strongly recommended my mother just get an iPad recently instead of spending thousands upgrading to whatever random assemblage of lowest-bidder hardware Dell or HP is putting together these days."
Why would any causal user spend thousands on a PC? A totally usable PC can be had for less than $500 anywhere.
All of my PC's are just devices. Apple products are more of a lifestyle than "devices"... you have to buy a combination of Apple devices and overprices Apple subscriptions for mediocre Apple services and continuously replace those Apple devices as Apple pushes out newer models and discontinues support for older ones.
If I want to play music, I have music files, and I play them wherever, however I'd like on any device. If I were an Apple customer, I'd have to convert my files into an Apple approved format, use Apple's atrocious software, iTunes to upload my music to my Apple device.
I mean, if you're a regular rat on the treadmill of work/spend/work/spend, then maybe being tied into a company like Apple is great. For those of us who want to just use whatever devices as we see fit, Apple laughably bad.
And while yes, phasing out OSX in favor of iOS would be the ultimate victory for vendor lock in, and a huge cash cow for Apple, it ain't gonna happen.
Why? Econ 101. Commerce comes to a grinding halt if I'm trying to pay you with chickens and you only accept widgets, and you need to pay somebody with gold. It doesn't work.
The value of the US dollar has always experienced mild inflation. The Federal Reserve has been around for almost 100 years, and in those 100 years, the US has had the most stable currency on the planet.
The gist of what you're saying is right, but the whole money conspiracy theory thing is just silly. Money needs to be organized and controlled by a single point. Gold fanatics and all of the wacky right wingers trying to invent their own money not only is silly, but is completely untenable, as well. Real change could happen if all of the crazy right wingers would wise up and turn their attention to actual problems... not conspiracy theories.
It's really simple. Pick a point in time in the past, and develop for that. With web browsers, I'd guess that aiming for standards (whether official or defacto) about 3 years ago should be usable for 99% of visitors. Trying to develop using features included in current browsers is nearly impossible.
Foursquare is a silly game. The number of people who use it are so trivial, that it really doesn't provide any useful data. On top of that, only the most techie geek people use it. Most people do not walk around with pants computers out when they're walking into restaurants/retail establishments.
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The owners are doing this because they don't make as much ad revenue on online ads as they do on cable/over-the-air ads. Now, anybody can understand that with Internet based ads, they should be able to charge significantly more than for traditional ads. A *lot* more, in fact. They can have an exact count of how many times the ad has been shown, who saw the ads, and a lot of other very, very detailed information about the ad consumers that's impossible to get via cable/satellite/airwaves. Hulu, for example, knows where I am, what my birthday is, what my viewing patterns are, and now, even what ads I like and I don't like. If they're working with Google, then they know a heck of a lot more about me, too.
The only logical reason that content providers don't want to stream everything is because the rates they're charging advertisers for ads shown using cable/satellite/air distribution is because those rates are grossly inflated. They can say "1,000,000 people saw your ad for StupidWidget last Thursday night during StupidTVShow" and there's no way to prove them wrong. For ads shown over the Internet, there's no way that they can make up a number, because everybody and their grandmother knows that ABC/NBC/whoever else can say that "your ad for StupidWidget was seen 10,251 times. 25% were women under 30, 20% were men 30-40, etc, etc".
Neilsen ratings are a joke, because A. the sample size is so small as to be useless and B. they're paid by the broadcasters!
So, until advertisers understand that they are being and probably always have been grossly overcharged for traditional TV advertising and refuse to pay the inflated rates, the content providers are going to continue to smother online broadcasting because there's no way to lie to their customers (advertisers).
I buy advertising, but I've since stopped buying traditional media advertising because I realize that all of the circulation/viewer/listener numbers are all completely made up. I'll only buy online advertising where I have a reasonable expectation that I'll know who/where/when sees/hears my advertisements. I don't know why all of the mega companies are so incredibly stupid and continue to pay for traditional media advertising.
If somebody can come up with a reason to keep marijuana illegal other than "Jeebus says so", I certainly have never heard it.
That being said, it's not "bashing" if it's the truth.
Obama's simply too conservative to sign a bill like this. He should, but he won't. The fact that marijuana is 100% safe isn't enough to sway the screaming, mindless Christians, and Obama needs at least some of their votes.
When you're sending out junk faxes, it is definitely harmful.
Wow. That's like a shit sandwich. The worst retailer with the worst music software. Where do I sign up?
There are an endless supply of IPO driven, marketing oriented, bullshit companies like this one trying to make the next payment system. The truth is: none of them will work. Not one. Every one of these guys is in it to get a piece of the action. I don't blame them. There's an ungodly amount of money to be made, but that's exactly the reason why it won't work. Merchants pay about 2-3% already for accepting credit cards. That's a metric shit ton of money right there, and no merchant in his right mind is going to cough up an extra percentage point or two for some stupid gimmick like this. Credit cards and cash work fine. There's no problem for these moronic companies to solve.
Why? Because they haven't gotten Firefox working all that well yet. They're 10 years behind on some bugs. Hopefully somebody organizing realizes that they need to try to do one thing well, at least first, before trying to do a bunch of other stuff half-assed.
And most people can't tell the difference because they're listening to crap (computer generated) music on crap hardware (i*something with earbuds).
Still not as good as a CD. But that's the trend... Americans are willing to settle for crap more easily these days (Wal-Mart).
You can buy crap copies DRM free. It's pretty tough to find lossless, DRM-free music these days (ie: CD's).
What's wrong with it?
If I want to rent a movie tonight, I can't. Impossible. No video rental stores because everybody used Netflix. If I want to get opinions of people who work in the video store or my neighbors, I can't. Oh yeah, and all of that money leaves my community, too.
MP3 downloads aren't the same as a CD Audio CD. Not even close if you have an actual stereo system. Oh yeah, and all of that money leaves my community, too.
Browsing book stores is impossible since there often aren't any. Going to book signings or other such events are impossible. Oh yeah, and all of that money leaves my community, too.
If you're happy sitting in front of your computer mindlessly consuming, sending your money out of your community to god knows who, and interacting with no actual humans in the process, then good for you. I feel that my life has been significantly negatively impacted by the bad decisions of peope interested in nothing more than their own wallets.
The government won't have to step in. People are stupid and short sighted enough to do it to themselves. It's already impossible to rent movies and buy music and in some instances, buy books in most places in the US.
I list my books at $0.99, meaning I have to sell 100 or so of them before I get a $10 royalty check.
Hang on... you mean Amazon keeps 90%???
Thou shalt make the game work only with video cards made within the past year that cost more than the game, itself.
Yes. What does a $2400 Mac Book Pro do that a $300 PC can't do?
" In fact I strongly recommended my mother just get an iPad recently instead of spending thousands upgrading to whatever random assemblage of lowest-bidder hardware Dell or HP is putting together these days." Why would any causal user spend thousands on a PC? A totally usable PC can be had for less than $500 anywhere.
About what I pay for 8 PC's. Want to compare ROI?
All of my PC's are just devices. Apple products are more of a lifestyle than "devices"... you have to buy a combination of Apple devices and overprices Apple subscriptions for mediocre Apple services and continuously replace those Apple devices as Apple pushes out newer models and discontinues support for older ones. If I want to play music, I have music files, and I play them wherever, however I'd like on any device. If I were an Apple customer, I'd have to convert my files into an Apple approved format, use Apple's atrocious software, iTunes to upload my music to my Apple device. I mean, if you're a regular rat on the treadmill of work/spend/work/spend, then maybe being tied into a company like Apple is great. For those of us who want to just use whatever devices as we see fit, Apple laughably bad. And while yes, phasing out OSX in favor of iOS would be the ultimate victory for vendor lock in, and a huge cash cow for Apple, it ain't gonna happen.
Why? Econ 101. Commerce comes to a grinding halt if I'm trying to pay you with chickens and you only accept widgets, and you need to pay somebody with gold. It doesn't work.
The value of the US dollar has always experienced mild inflation. The Federal Reserve has been around for almost 100 years, and in those 100 years, the US has had the most stable currency on the planet.
Again... more conspiracy theory nonsense.
The gist of what you're saying is right, but the whole money conspiracy theory thing is just silly. Money needs to be organized and controlled by a single point. Gold fanatics and all of the wacky right wingers trying to invent their own money not only is silly, but is completely untenable, as well. Real change could happen if all of the crazy right wingers would wise up and turn their attention to actual problems... not conspiracy theories.
It's really simple. Pick a point in time in the past, and develop for that. With web browsers, I'd guess that aiming for standards (whether official or defacto) about 3 years ago should be usable for 99% of visitors. Trying to develop using features included in current browsers is nearly impossible.
It costs the merchant more. It won't be implemented widely in the US, considering that Google's fees are higher than American Express.
Foursquare is a silly game. The number of people who use it are so trivial, that it really doesn't provide any useful data. On top of that, only the most techie geek people use it. Most people do not walk around with pants computers out when they're walking into restaurants/retail establishments.
It's not needed. Most apps do it themselves.
Microsoft Security Essentials is free.