Twitters dilemma

Seth Godin:

If they relentlessly sell the attention of their users, they will have a misalignment as they maximize profit.

The advertisers will want ever more attention, and the users will want to avoid those interruptions the advertisers are paying for.

Tension will keep rising as users feel trapped by a medium with few substitutes that begins to charge an ever higher tax in the form of attention wasted.

Detta är på så många sätt kärnan i problemet för, och med, Twitter och också, tror jag, en stor anledning till att App.Net drog in 803 000 dollar från 12 315 personer.


Fem minuter med en Samsungtelefon

Davin O’Dwyer:

A few years ago, about 2005, I got a Samsung mobile, a small little flip-phone reminiscent of a Star Trek communicator. It looked a hell of a lot cooler than the standard-issue Nokia model I was using, and it boasted way more features too.

It didn’t take me long to realise, however, that it was the worst gadget I’d ever endured. Using it was just excruciating – it’s little exaggeration to say that it featured not so much a user-interface as an impenetrable, never-ending aptitude test.

Something as basic as sending a text required a baffling series of taps and menu choices that went on so long it felt like sending messages by Morse Code. All those features I thought might be handy were buried in obscure menus you needed a map to negotiate.

All the time I had it, I kept wondering who at Samsung let this thing out the door? Did anybody actually use it before it was released? And if so, what kind of contempt for their user did they have?

Five minutes with that phone would have the jury awarding full damages to Apple, no doubt about it.

How did Samsung go from designing junk like that to becoming the second most profitable phone manufacturer in the business, after Apple?

Ja det kan man ju fundera över…


Flash för Android dör imorgon

The Verge summerar Adobes och Googles dansande runt den heta gröten de senaste åren:

Adobe, 2010:

Adobe, Google, and other members of the Open Screen project are working together to make sure the full web experience can be delivered on the largest number of devices”

Adobe, 2011:

HTML5 is the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms”

Det är inte helt svårt att tänka sig att Google, som först omfamnade HTML5 och sedan tvärvände och stödde Flash helhjärtat gjorde detta för att försöka slå in en kil på marknaden och vinna kunder som trodde att Flash var en nödvändighet i mobila webbläsare.

Adobe å sin sida har försökt andas liv i en döende plattform och fick via Google en sista livlina, men personligen undrar jag om Adobes beslut att lägga ner Flash kommit efter att de insett hur mycket stryk Android fått på marknaden, och att kramkalaset med Google knappast ledde till att övertyga Apple om att en nedsunkning av iOS med Flash var rätt väg framåt.