The world would be a much better place if we could ensure all wars are fought with only robots on BOTH sides. Think of all the human lives which would be saved.
Also, I don't see why TFA seems to think all the profit would be passed on to Google. Almost by definition, companies pass cost, like the original cost of goods, shipping and handling, taxes, and a profit margin, onto their constomers. In that sense, there is no such thing as a "free" search - eventually the expense for advertising, including online advertising, will be reflected in product pricing. Perhaps for items with an inelastic curve we will see some Google driven price inflation?
One of the things I am trying out is to switch my google preferences from 10 hits per page to 100 hits per page. This allows more of the ads to show up on the now much bigger "first page", in fact, for most of the stuff I search for, it looks like I get ALL the ads at once. If everyone did this it would make it a lot easier for all the producers to get onto the first page.
As founder of http://www.developeradvantage.com/ I may be a bit biased, but anything with audio is hot right now. The basic infrastructure is in place and growing, iPods rule, and satellite radio is taking off (Howard Stern recently moved there). This is a great way for Google to acquire people with expertise in the audio medium.
Also, I believe their targetted ads fit very well with the radio medium. They know what content is being played, at least what type of content, so they can easily provide complimentary ads. Also, with satellite radio, the stations will only get more specialized, making it easier for Google to provide relevant ads.
Yep, listing titles from multiple publishers is a benefit, but this could easily be achieved with good search engine technology (as alluded to).
I usually only buy books that I have heard about or read about somewhere else, either in another book or article or on the web, so usually I know exactly what I am looking for.
I definitely like the reviews they provide, athough I do find that with the reviews, it is sometimes difficult to sort out the noise from genuine helpful reviews. On the other hand, for movies I commonly use imdb.com specifically for their reviews and ratings. I often find the amateur reviews are much better aligned with my own taste than what the professional reviewers have to say.
The advantages (at least with digital content) are not as clear. To illustrate, I am going to use an audio example, since it is the area I work in. The retail cost to ship one physical CD in a jewel case is about $5-15, depending upon how fast the consumer wants it. One audio CD is equivalent to about 50MB of MP3 CD quality sound (44.1 khz). In terms of bandwidth, for $10 you can purchase roughly 10GB a month, which would allow some 200 downloads. So, even allowing for some duplicate downloads, the "shipping" costs for downloadable content are negligible, roughly two orders of magnitude lower than physical goods. Of course, for books the economics you described are correct, and many people, myself included, still love to read a physical book (or at least print the pdf).
The other key issue you mention is the cost to run a full-blown e-commerce site. This has also shrunk, particularly with services like Paypal (and others) who can handle online payments. As time goes on, this cost will only shrink further, helping to close the gap between producer and consumer. Soon, the only significant cost of developing and distributing content will be the author's time.
The economics of digital content favor the closing of the gap between producer and consumer, with both of them sharing the benefits of reduced cost.
Although the article is well written and an easy read, there is actually little factual information as to why the author does not like Web 2.0 or doesn't think it is an advance in technology. Although I tend to agree with the article, I don't think it contributes much in terms of intelligent discussion.
I think over the next few years the real progress will be in the following key areas:
1. Content
2. Producer/consumer gap
3. Location independence
First, with respect to content, much of the web is dominated by what could be called amateur content. How many more podcasts do I have to listen to where every second word is uhm... and aww.... You can really tell most of them were simply recorded in a hour or two, received little or no editing, and then were hastily uploaded to the nearest server as fast as possible. There is something to be said about everyone having the ability to put content on the internet. But, there is also something to be said about the value of content developed by professionals. I think over time we will see higher quality content and there will be better mechanisms to sort out the signal from the noise. As an example of at least improved due diligence, we have sent out over 70 review copies of a recent product. http://www.developeradvantage.com/
Second, the producer/consumer gap. Surprisingly, there is still a significant gap between the producers and consumers, which I would expect to shrink. This gap is filled with people skimming off profit or passing on cost when really they don't need to be involved. It is interesting that I think some of the most successful internet companies are not directly producers (say of content) but really are simply in the middle. Think about amazon.com or ebay or even google. Should people be buying directly from amazon or directly from the publisher or why not directly from the author? Historically, editing and distribution were huge advantages of going through a publisher, but, now with the Internet, distribution should be much more simple and often online communities, private or public, function as extremely thorough editors and reviewers. So what is the benefit of having all these people in the middle? We know they add to the cost, how do they help in terms of benefits?
Third, location independence. Arguably the most successful physical product in the last couple years has been the iPod. What does the iPod give you? Well, really it means that you can take the equivalent of boxes and boxes and boxes (depending upon the size of your box), and listen to them where ever you go. The iPod gives your music location independence. I can see something similar happening with video, but I don't think it will be as successful. There are biological limitations to how much an individual can do at one time. Audio is attractive while "on the go" but it remains to be seen if video will also be successful. I don't think natural selection will be kind to those who exceed the biological limits on what they can do at what time.
We do have free samples available on our website. Click on the title you are interested in, and on the list of tracks for that title you will find a short sample for each audiobook. Also, if you purchase the audiobook and are not happy with it, let us know within 30 days and we will provide a refund.
It is difficult to cover technical content in an audio format. I love books, and like you said, for software developers screen shots and code samples are important. That said, in my experience as a professional developer, I have found it extremely important just to have an awareness of what is out there and a basic conceptual understanding of what it is, the advantages and disadvantages, and when to apply it (this is really what is covered on the J2EE Patterns CD). If you know this, then at least you know what to look for and the deeper details, code samples and diagrams required for further consideration or implementation can be found on the Internet or in a book. Also, many people find listening to audiobooks a great way to help them remember details, which is where a product like our Java Syntax module fits in.
I do not have any grand illusions of our product replacing books (my background is technical, not in marketing!). But, our products are a great complement to what is currently available. One of our listeners, a senior developer who has been writing software almost as long as I have been breathing, found that he picked up valuable knowledge by listening to our modules while out for this daily run. There is no other product which would allow him to do this.
One reason the economics is slanted toward buggy software is due to the legal issues. I have seen very few cases where developers of buggy software actually are held responsible for the mess which they have delivered...actually, I can't think of any off the top of my head (although I am sure they are out there).
In fact, often it is beneficial to the software provider to provide a product with enough defects so the software provider can get follow-up work or support contracts to fix them.
Consumers of software services, or even shrink wrapped software, need to start demanding higher quality.
Read through an end user agreement and you will see who bears the cost of defects.
The media industry (including online and offline publishers and to some extent the writers themselves), have simply found out that, at this particular stage of java's evolution, attacking java simply sells better than saying something positive about it. Attacking java attracts more eyeballs, gets more postings in response and basically generates higher revenue.
It will be interesting to see how much of a self-fulfilling prophecy these predictions on java's decline become.
As a simple test, I have given this posting a very negative subject. If you read this posting, please visit my website http://www.developeradvantage.com/. Within a day, I will review my website traffic and post a reply with some quantitative indicator of the increase in traffic.
Some of the postings in this thread comparing experienced and inexperienced developers remind me of an article I came across a few years ago by Gerard Holzman titled "The Logic of Bugs". In his article, Holzman states, as one of his first points, the following:
Bugs can adjust to the level of experience of the programmer. One common misconception is that experienced programmers make fewer mistakes than novice programmers. Experienced programmers and novice programmers make roughly the same number of mistakes when writing the same amount of code. The mistakes made by the experienced programmer, however, will be more subtle than those of the novice programmer. The more complex bugs that the experienced programmer can seed into the code are often harder to find than the simpler typos of less experienced colleagues.
Holzman is an extremely distinguished researcher, and I found his comment so counter-intuitive that I approached him and asked if there was any quantitative research behind such a bold statement. He said it was based his many years of observation in the industry.
I googled and found the pdf for Holzman's article at:
http://spinroot.com/gerard/pdf/FSE2002.pdf. In the article he also makes the point that developers and writers (say for the New York Times), have similar defect rates in their finished products!
Will google index other types of audio content with their music service (say like audiobooks or audio training)?
For example, I am currently working on http://www.developeradvantage.com/, which is creating audio training modules specifically for software developers. So far, there is really nothing else out there in terms of professional, high-quality audio training modules. On amazon.com, you can find over 2000 Java books, but, if you search for audio content, you will find zero results that are technical java books (maybe a few on indonesia though). Same with audible.com, they have no technical content for software developers.
It would be great if I could go to a search engine, type in, say Java, and find some great training modules to listen to while exercising or commuting to work (or perhaps even while working on other stuff at my desk!).
I don't know why you would consider "Taiwan and Tibet" as "neighbors". Taiwan definitely is part of China and has always historically been part of China. Maybe China should start supporting, and arming militarily, the Southern United States so they can gain their freedom and independence and liberation.
Also, in terms of "rights-abusing monster", again you should really look no further than the US. Health care - if you are rich, education - if you are rich. What does the US offer to its poor people? Not much more than death in so many forms: getting blown up in Iraq (all too often the soldiers are just poor, young people who joined the army just trying to pay for an education); executions - how many poor people are on death row? The US is always near the top of the list of most executions in the world.
Why is it that the american government can use tax dollars to blow up people half way around the world, but can not find the cash to educate or heal its own people; let alone to at least get them some bottles of water after a hurricane.
I firmly believe that when history is written, the United States will be described as a beautiful country full of wonderous potential and a great people who were brutally betrayed by their own government, and, as you put it so eloquently, by their own profit-whoring mutlinationals.
Slashdot Mirror
because the issue continues to draw media attention I've decided to publicly document my investigation.
:)
i.e., I'd better hurry and get this out before nobody cares.
I think by then half of their team will be working at google!
The world would be a much better place if we could ensure all wars are fought with only robots on BOTH sides. Think of all the human lives which would be saved.
Also, I don't see why TFA seems to think all the profit would be passed on to Google. Almost by definition, companies pass cost, like the original cost of goods, shipping and handling, taxes, and a profit margin, onto their constomers. In that sense, there is no such thing as a "free" search - eventually the expense for advertising, including online advertising, will be reflected in product pricing. Perhaps for items with an inelastic curve we will see some Google driven price inflation?
One of the things I am trying out is to switch my google preferences from 10 hits per page to 100 hits per page. This allows more of the ads to show up on the now much bigger "first page", in fact, for most of the stuff I search for, it looks like I get ALL the ads at once. If everyone did this it would make it a lot easier for all the producers to get onto the first page.
As founder of http://www.developeradvantage.com/ I may be a bit biased, but anything with audio is hot right now. The basic infrastructure is in place and growing, iPods rule, and satellite radio is taking off (Howard Stern recently moved there). This is a great way for Google to acquire people with expertise in the audio medium.
Also, I believe their targetted ads fit very well with the radio medium. They know what content is being played, at least what type of content, so they can easily provide complimentary ads. Also, with satellite radio, the stations will only get more specialized, making it easier for Google to provide relevant ads.
Yep, listing titles from multiple publishers is a benefit, but this could easily be achieved with good search engine technology (as alluded to).
I usually only buy books that I have heard about or read about somewhere else, either in another book or article or on the web, so usually I know exactly what I am looking for.
I definitely like the reviews they provide, athough I do find that with the reviews, it is sometimes difficult to sort out the noise from genuine helpful reviews. On the other hand, for movies I commonly use imdb.com specifically for their reviews and ratings. I often find the amateur reviews are much better aligned with my own taste than what the professional reviewers have to say.
The advantages (at least with digital content) are not as clear. To illustrate, I am going to use an audio example, since it is the area I work in. The retail cost to ship one physical CD in a jewel case is about $5-15, depending upon how fast the consumer wants it. One audio CD is equivalent to about 50MB of MP3 CD quality sound (44.1 khz). In terms of bandwidth, for $10 you can purchase roughly 10GB a month, which would allow some 200 downloads. So, even allowing for some duplicate downloads, the "shipping" costs for downloadable content are negligible, roughly two orders of magnitude lower than physical goods. Of course, for books the economics you described are correct, and many people, myself included, still love to read a physical book (or at least print the pdf).
The other key issue you mention is the cost to run a full-blown e-commerce site. This has also shrunk, particularly with services like Paypal (and others) who can handle online payments. As time goes on, this cost will only shrink further, helping to close the gap between producer and consumer. Soon, the only significant cost of developing and distributing content will be the author's time.
The economics of digital content favor the closing of the gap between producer and consumer, with both of them sharing the benefits of reduced cost.
Although the article is well written and an easy read, there is actually little factual information as to why the author does not like Web 2.0 or doesn't think it is an advance in technology. Although I tend to agree with the article, I don't think it contributes much in terms of intelligent discussion.
I think over the next few years the real progress will be in the following key areas:
1. Content
2. Producer/consumer gap
3. Location independence
First, with respect to content, much of the web is dominated by what could be called amateur content. How many more podcasts do I have to listen to where every second word is uhm... and aww.... You can really tell most of them were simply recorded in a hour or two, received little or no editing, and then were hastily uploaded to the nearest server as fast as possible. There is something to be said about everyone having the ability to put content on the internet. But, there is also something to be said about the value of content developed by professionals. I think over time we will see higher quality content and there will be better mechanisms to sort out the signal from the noise. As an example of at least improved due diligence, we have sent out over 70 review copies of a recent product. http://www.developeradvantage.com/
Second, the producer/consumer gap. Surprisingly, there is still a significant gap between the producers and consumers, which I would expect to shrink. This gap is filled with people skimming off profit or passing on cost when really they don't need to be involved. It is interesting that I think some of the most successful internet companies are not directly producers (say of content) but really are simply in the middle. Think about amazon.com or ebay or even google. Should people be buying directly from amazon or directly from the publisher or why not directly from the author? Historically, editing and distribution were huge advantages of going through a publisher, but, now with the Internet, distribution should be much more simple and often online communities, private or public, function as extremely thorough editors and reviewers. So what is the benefit of having all these people in the middle? We know they add to the cost, how do they help in terms of benefits?
Third, location independence. Arguably the most successful physical product in the last couple years has been the iPod. What does the iPod give you? Well, really it means that you can take the equivalent of boxes and boxes and boxes (depending upon the size of your box), and listen to them where ever you go. The iPod gives your music location independence. I can see something similar happening with video, but I don't think it will be as successful. There are biological limitations to how much an individual can do at one time. Audio is attractive while "on the go" but it remains to be seen if video will also be successful. I don't think natural selection will be kind to those who exceed the biological limits on what they can do at what time.
The designs looks exactly the same as an iPod, except the shape is closer to a square than the long, thin iPod rectangle.
Thank you for your interest.
We do have free samples available on our website. Click on the title you are interested in, and on the list of tracks for that title you will find a short sample for each audiobook. Also, if you purchase the audiobook and are not happy with it, let us know within 30 days and we will provide a refund.
It is difficult to cover technical content in an audio format. I love books, and like you said, for software developers screen shots and code samples are important. That said, in my experience as a professional developer, I have found it extremely important just to have an awareness of what is out there and a basic conceptual understanding of what it is, the advantages and disadvantages, and when to apply it (this is really what is covered on the J2EE Patterns CD). If you know this, then at least you know what to look for and the deeper details, code samples and diagrams required for further consideration or implementation can be found on the Internet or in a book. Also, many people find listening to audiobooks a great way to help them remember details, which is where a product like our Java Syntax module fits in.
I do not have any grand illusions of our product replacing books (my background is technical, not in marketing!). But, our products are a great complement to what is currently available. One of our listeners, a senior developer who has been writing software almost as long as I have been breathing, found that he picked up valuable knowledge by listening to our modules while out for this daily run. There is no other product which would allow him to do this.
If you are looking for audiobooks for software developers, take a look at our site at http://www.developeradvantage.com/.
We have two MP3 audiobooks currently available, one on Java and the second on J2EE Patterns. An Ajax one is on its way.
You can not get technical content like ours on amazon.com or audible.com.
One reason the economics is slanted toward buggy software is due to the legal issues. I have seen very few cases where developers of buggy software actually are held responsible for the mess which they have delivered...actually, I can't think of any off the top of my head (although I am sure they are out there).
In fact, often it is beneficial to the software provider to provide a product with enough defects so the software provider can get follow-up work or support contracts to fix them.
Consumers of software services, or even shrink wrapped software, need to start demanding higher quality.
Read through an end user agreement and you will see who bears the cost of defects.
I cancelled one of my subscriptions for an audiobook service because they would not make downloads available in an MP3 format.
We are developing audiobooks for software developers (see http://www.developeradvantage.com/products.html) which are released as MP3 files - simple and easy to use!
I checked today, only about a 10% increase...
The media industry (including online and offline publishers and to some extent the writers themselves), have simply found out that, at this particular stage of java's evolution, attacking java simply sells better than saying something positive about it. Attacking java attracts more eyeballs, gets more postings in response and basically generates higher revenue.
It will be interesting to see how much of a self-fulfilling prophecy these predictions on java's decline become.
As a simple test, I have given this posting a very negative subject. If you read this posting, please visit my website http://www.developeradvantage.com/. Within a day, I will review my website traffic and post a reply with some quantitative indicator of the increase in traffic.
Some of the postings in this thread comparing experienced and inexperienced developers remind me of an article I came across a few years ago by Gerard Holzman titled "The Logic of Bugs". In his article, Holzman states, as one of his first points, the following:
Bugs can adjust to the level of experience of the programmer. One common misconception is that experienced programmers make fewer mistakes than novice programmers. Experienced programmers and novice programmers make roughly the same number of mistakes when writing the same amount of code. The mistakes made by the experienced programmer, however, will be more subtle than those of the novice programmer. The more complex bugs that the experienced programmer can seed into the code are often harder to find than the simpler typos of less experienced colleagues.
Holzman is an extremely distinguished researcher, and I found his comment so counter-intuitive that I approached him and asked if there was any quantitative research behind such a bold statement. He said it was based his many years of observation in the industry.
I googled and found the pdf for Holzman's article at: http://spinroot.com/gerard/pdf/FSE2002.pdf. In the article he also makes the point that developers and writers (say for the New York Times), have similar defect rates in their finished products!
Will google index other types of audio content with their music service (say like audiobooks or audio training)?
For example, I am currently working on http://www.developeradvantage.com/, which is creating audio training modules specifically for software developers. So far, there is really nothing else out there in terms of professional, high-quality audio training modules. On amazon.com, you can find over 2000 Java books, but, if you search for audio content, you will find zero results that are technical java books (maybe a few on indonesia though). Same with audible.com, they have no technical content for software developers.
It would be great if I could go to a search engine, type in, say Java, and find some great training modules to listen to while exercising or commuting to work (or perhaps even while working on other stuff at my desk!).
I don't know why you would consider "Taiwan and Tibet" as "neighbors". Taiwan definitely is part of China and has always historically been part of China. Maybe China should start supporting, and arming militarily, the Southern United States so they can gain their freedom and independence and liberation.
Also, in terms of "rights-abusing monster", again you should really look no further than the US. Health care - if you are rich, education - if you are rich. What does the US offer to its poor people? Not much more than death in so many forms: getting blown up in Iraq (all too often the soldiers are just poor, young people who joined the army just trying to pay for an education); executions - how many poor people are on death row? The US is always near the top of the list of most executions in the world.
Why is it that the american government can use tax dollars to blow up people half way around the world, but can not find the cash to educate or heal its own people; let alone to at least get them some bottles of water after a hurricane.
I firmly believe that when history is written, the United States will be described as a beautiful country full of wonderous potential and a great people who were brutally betrayed by their own government, and, as you put it so eloquently, by their own profit-whoring mutlinationals.
In my spare time, I am working on developing audio training modules for developers/programmers:
http://www.developeradvantage.com/products.html
I only have one finished, but expect to roll out a few more by the end of the year.