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diff --git a/wired/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/12.18.06/Wed/build.txt b/wired/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/12.18.06/Wed/build.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..80faa8a --- /dev/null +++ b/wired/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/12.18.06/Wed/build.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +The Nightly Build, compiling the days headlines for your nutritional benefit:
* Sony has finally [settled][1] with the State of California for a measly $750,000 on charges of violating "state laws prohibiting false or misleading advertising, unfair or unlawful businesses practices, and unauthorized access to computers." The Sony fiasco involved a CD that secretly installed a program on users hard drives as an attempt at DRM. There should definitely be at least two more zeros on the end of that settlement figure.
[1]: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7005915959 "Sony settles with California"
* Popular social bookmarking site del.icio.us has a new [developer API][3] coming soon. Details are few thus far, but there is a screencast preview. Among the cool new features is the ability to display tags that other people have applied to your page.
[3]: http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2006/12/preview_of_the.html "del.icio.us API"
* And just to balance the last item, Google has gotten rid of an API. The search giant quietly [removed its SOAP search API][4] earlier this month and is telling developers to switch to the AJAX API instead. Perhaps not coincidentally the AJAX API embeds ads on the users page, whereas the SOAP API did not.
[4]: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/006996.html "Google ditches SOAP"
* The Wall Street Journal's Joseph Rago has an op/ed piece entitled *[The Blog Mob][2]* with the lede: "Written by fools to be read by imbeciles." Ah, thanks Joe. Wait a second, you're writing for a "Journal" and that journal displays its [entries in reverse chronological order][7]... Joe, are you saying you're a fool? (Note the first link may require registration -- natch)
[2]: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009409 "Fools and imbeciles"
[7]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog "Wikipedia definition of a blog"
* And finally, it has nothing to do with software or the web, but it's pretty darn remarkable: "Japanese man [survives][5] 3 weeks in the outdoors by hibernating." [via [BoingBoing][6]]
[5]: http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/061220/K122004AU.html "Japanese Man survives by hibernating"
[6]: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/20/japanese_man_survive.html "BoingBoing on hibernation"
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/wired/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/12.18.06/Wed/delicious.txt b/wired/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/12.18.06/Wed/delicious.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d258168 --- /dev/null +++ b/wired/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/12.18.06/Wed/delicious.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +My article on the MacHeist app bundle experiment was [published][2] on Wired earlier today and since Monkey Bites readers are the inquiring sort, we thought we'd post some more of the developer feedback we received.
After the jump is the full text of an email interview with Wil Shipley, "Chief Monster" at Delicious Monster Software maker of the popular Mac application [Delicious Monster][1], which was part of the MacHeist Shareware bundle.
<b>There's was some negative reaction to MacHeist's profits versus that of developers, do you feel cheated at all?</b>
I don't feel "cheated," since I knew exactly what the terms of the deal were going in -- I agreed to a fixed amount so they could include my software in a bundle for a week.
The point that most of the detractors are ignoring is that none of us knew how successful the bundle would be -- not the developers, not the guys at MacHeist. They were taking as much of a risk as we were -- if all of their site's visitors had said, "Nice site, but I'm not interested in the bundle" then they would still have been liable to pay all of us developers a fixed amount. There was simply no way to accurately guess how many of the people who were on the MacHeist site might decide to buy the bundle at the end of the game. We were all gambling.
Now, in fact the bundle was enormously successful, more than any of us had ever thought, so MacHeist made a killing. I guess I could whine about this, but such is the nature of gambles -- they assumed more of the risk, and as such they got the bigger payoff when the jackpot hit. Plus, MacHeist actually decided to double what they are paying us developers after it hit so big.
Sure, it twinges a little to think they made something like half a million dollars in two months, but that's largely just jealousy. My reasoning behind agreeing to be in the bundle was pretty straightforward: the first version of Delicious Library has been out for over a year, and so it doesn't get covered a lot in the press -- nobody wants to review a product that is considered "old", and have everyone say, "Dude, I've been using that since, like, your mom used to ride her dinosaur to school!" Exposure is much harder to get at this point, so bundles and sales and other kinds of events are much more attractive to me.
If Phil had come up to me next year sometimes after Delicious Library 2 had shipped and offered me the same bundle -- well, he would have been turned down. But at this point what I have from the bundle is: (a) a pile of cash, (b) a ton of exposure, (c) a week of increased non-bundle sales from said exposure, and (d) 16,821 new customers who might potentially upgrade to 2.0 or recommend 1.0 to their friends.
My philosophy on software sales has always been, if I could GIVE my software to half the people in the world, and they would recommend it to the other half and they all would buy it, I'd be the richest guy who ever lived. The problem with that abstract theory is somehow figuring out how to divide the computer users of the world in half, because if you accidentally give your software to EVERYONE in the world you're boned. This bundle offered the opportunity to get my software into the hands of what I believe to be connected Mac users, at a steep discount for them.
<b>Would you do it again?</b>
If there's ever a MacHeist 2 or similar bundle, I'll certainly consider participating (depending on how long Delicious Library 2 or Delicious Interiors has been out, or whatever), but I'm going to ask for a lot more money. The MacHeist team is a victim of their own success here -- now that everyone in the world KNOWS how popular their bundles are, we KNOW that they aren't taking that much risk, and so the risk/reward calculation is different the second time, and we'll all ask for a bigger slice. C'est la vie!
[1]: http://www.delicious-monster.com/ "Delicious Monster"
[2]: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/software/0,72333-0.html?tw=wn_index_1 "MacHeist Is a Bundle of Joy"
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Previously Pandora was somewhat limited in its sharing tools. You've always been able to email station to friends whether or not they were Pandora members, but there weren't many tool for interacting with other Pandora users. The focus of the site was clearly on the music and search tools.
While the focus of Pandora hasn't radically shifted, the new features do put some additional emphasis on Pandora users and community, rather than just services.
All the new profile features come with privacy controls, users can set their profiles public or private and turn comments on and off. It would nice if Pandora had an option to control the privacy of comments rather than just turning them on and off, for instance perhaps an option to allow trusted users to comment but block everyone else. Unfortunately that isn't currently possible.
In addition to the new profile features, there's also a couple of new search possibilities that let you find other users with similar tastes. When you find another user with a station that fits your musical taste, you can add that person by clicking the blue "bookmark this person" button on their profile page (assuming their profile is public of course).
While not exactly revolutionary, the new features bring Pandora more in line with competitors like [last.fm][4] and give yet another way to discover new music. Of all the services I [reviewed][3] last month for Wired, Pandora continues to deliver the most exciting and varied recommendations.
[1]: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2006/12/the_morning_reb_13.html "The Morning Reboot, Wednesday December 20"
[2]: http://www.pandora.com/ "Pandora"
[3]: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/internet/0,72182-0.html?tw=wn_technology_software_9 "Fine Tune Your Music Discoveries"
[4]: http://www.last.fm/ "last.fm"
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/wired/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/12.18.06/Wed/reboot.txt b/wired/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/12.18.06/Wed/reboot.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..45f18d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/wired/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/12.18.06/Wed/reboot.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +<img alt="Any_key_3" title="Any_key_3" src="http://blog.wired.com/photos/uncategorized/any_key_2.jpg" border="0" style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" />The morning reboot, feeling young today:
* The new version of the popular blogging platform, [Blogger][2], is out of beta. [According][1] to Google: "the old version of Blogger is not dead, but it would like to retire for a little while... maybe go to Hawaii or play World of Warcraft all day?"
[1]: http://buzz.blogger.com/2006/12/new-version-of-blogger.html "Blogger out of beta"
[2]: http://www.blogger.com/start "Blogger"
* The Wall Street Journal [reports][3] that Ticketmaster has bought a 25 percent share of the social music site [iLike][4]. Ticketmaster hopes to use links on iLike to <strike>rip off consumers</strike> sell tickets. I really enjoy iLike, hopefully Ticketmaster won't screw it up.
[3]: http://users1.wsj.com/lmda/do/checkLogin?mg=wsj-users1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB116657976118655285.html%3Fmod%3Drss_whats_news_technology "WSJ on iLike-Ticketmaster deal"
[4]: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2006/10/post.html "Monkey Bites on iLike"
* "It's Pat" as a ringtone? Apparently yes, for Cingular customers anyway. Cingular has [partnered with Saturday Night Live][5] to offer multimedia downloads, including video clips and "original material produced with the mobile screen in mind." And yes, famous sketches as ringtones.
[5]: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=internetNews&storyid=2006-12-20T092931Z_01_N20333885_RTRUKOC_0_US-SNL.xml&src=rss "Cingular to offer SNL sketches, ringtones and more"
* Popular social music site [Pandora][6] has added some [new social features][7] like listener profiles with musical preferences and listener searches.
[6]: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/internet/0,72182-0.html?tw=wn_technology_software_9 "Wired.com on Pandora and others"
[7]: http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/12/19/pandora-goes-social/ "Techcrunch on Pandora"
* The Free Software Foundation [launched][8] a new anti-Microsoft website called BadVista.org earlier this week. The FSF claims that BadVista.org has a "twofold mission of exposing the harms inflicted on computer users by the new Microsoft Windows Vista and promoting free software alternatives that respect users' security and privacy rights."
[8]: http://badvista.fsf.org/ "BadVista.org"
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/wired/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/12.18.06/Wed/zoho.txt b/wired/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/12.18.06/Wed/zoho.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a04b7b --- /dev/null +++ b/wired/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/12.18.06/Wed/zoho.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +<img border="0" src="http://blog.wired.com/photos/uncategorized/zoho_logo.gif" title="Zoho_logo" alt="Zoho_logo" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; float: right;" />Zoho, the online office tool suite we've [looked at before][2], quietly [updated][1] earlier today adding a new feature -- the Zoho Wiki.
Zoho is pushing their wiki as "wiki for the rest of us," with some nice features like a WYSIWYG editing interface with spell checking, revision history and difference comparisons.
Creating a wiki is one-click simple, just fill in the form information and the wiki will be added under your username with the address something like: mywikiname.wiki.zoho.com. Note that the name of your wiki is not editable after you create it, though you can change the title at any time.
Under the settings button you can control outside access to your wiki by making it public, private or limited to a select group of members.
Wikis are customizable with number of skins available and in addition, users can upload a logo or other image. There's also an option to control the position of the nav bar on the public wiki pages.
Zoho wikis can handle a number of embedded Zoho objects like Zoho Sheet charts, Zoho Show slide shows and Zoho Creator applications, as well as outside content like YouTube videos and more. Any changes to the Zoho object are automatically synced both ways whether the edit is made in the Wiki or the Zoho app.
In total Zoho users can create three wikis and each of those wikis can contain an unlimited number of pages.
Like most of Zoho's offerings the new Wiki feature is free for registered users.
[1]: http://blogs.zoho.com/general/introducing-the-zoho-wiki/
[2]: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2006/11/zoho_announces_.html "Monkey Bites on Zoho"
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