Stupid business model appbuchet snappzmarket get 5 years ... Chris Castle finds a way to blame(?) Open Source, Google

Texas based Music Business Attorney, Chris Castle is busy again misrepresenting the communications revolution. I post another retort to his seemingly uninformed anti Open Source rantings...

First you might want to read some clear reporting about what Castle in on about this time:
ars technica - Mar 24 2014 | "US gov’t secures first-ever win against Android app pirates" | by Cyrus Farivar | http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/us-govt-secures-first-ever-win-against-android-app-pirates/

..And now this week's exceptionally annoying snippet from Castle's  "MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY" blog:

MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY

Light the Cat Signal: Did Google Ask the Feds to Arrest Android Hackers?

April 2, 2014 - by Chris Castle

Are These More Alike Than Not?

According to the Department of Justice, the operators of the Android version of Megavideo have–with one exception–pleaded guilty. Recall that the DOJ seized two domain names earlier this year under its pre-trial seizure process (kind of like they did with Rojadirecta, the tiny Spanish single member LLC pirate site–more about them later–during the SOPA days).

Remember this is not just any pirate app site–this is an Android pirate site. And this exists because Google and Google alone allows unknown third parties to maintain storefronts for Android apps. Unlike Apple that actually thinks its more important to maintain brand integrity than to allow their footprint to be used for illegal activity. You can get iOS apps from one place only–the App Store. Windows Phone Apps from the Windows Phone Store. If Google had the same values as Apple or Microsoft, this problem would not exist, and app developers would face much lower risk of being pirated. All the more reason not to develop apps for Android.

...

To which I respond:

Chris Castle, your unenlightened knee jerks against Google's business model are extraordinarily annoying. But because you represent popular reaction when complex reasoning is required instead ... I must respond.

First off - 'Did Google Ask the Feds to Arrest Android Hackers?'

No.

Google allows crowd sourced development because developers in offices at Apple and Microsoft (especially MS) don't know what the world needs apps for. Free enterprise in software development speeds the adoption of new innovation - enables innovation that would not have occurred otherwise.

Also there are only two major web phones Apple and Google - one uses the propitiatory model, and the other doesn't - not as you say, 'Google is the only one that allows independent development'. As well, because Google does allows independent development based on their open source software architecture (as does Firefox), there are lots of Android style brands out there - and they're all hackable too. So to put it correctly - there are thousands of web phone brands - only one (major one) uses the propitiatory model.

A mobile browser is a very simple thing - it's like a radio - anyone can build a radio from parts found at an electronics store. Fooling the consumer public with branding and a beautiful containers is a symptom of the early years of this particular communications revolution. You don't need an App to access the weather for example - what you need is a way to manage links on a mobile browser - like bookmarks.

As a natural function of development problems with software will be found and exploited; and developers will create fixes; criminals will innovate new exploits; the web development community will plug the holes --- and so on.

This is a revolution, and it's not going to end any time soon. Get used to it - learn how to secure your web platform - just like you secure your wallet.

Don't bank online for example.

_____________

List of mobile browser software containers, and the mostly proprietary software that are slightly tweaked versions of the same thing) inside each:
Wikipedia | "Mobile browser" | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_browser#Popular_mobile_browsers

Read the rest of Castle's rant at his blog:
MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY | "Light the Cat Signal: Did Google Ask the Feds to Arrest Android Hackers?" | http://musictechpolicy.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/light-the-cat-signal-did-google-ask-the-feds-to-arrest-android-hackers/



mh

The "Uber-App" - a multi-functional node that allows all interface technology in

The following are the notes from a recent scorekeeping of a MLB baseball game at an online Baseball Scorecard I've developed that runs in a Blogger.com blog. The scorecard of the game, "Scorecard: July 26, 2011 Orioles at Blue Jays - Game 1 of 3" is at the Blogger Baseball Scorecard blog - at the link.

Ugly game.

But baseball's not what consumed me tonight. Tonight was about the tools that make the scorecard happen - the new craft of scorekeeping in the IT age...


A Review of Blogger.com's New Interface

This is my first scorecard using the new Blogger interface. It loads FAST, and comes back for another edit FAST.

I 'm using FireFox 3.6.17 Browser to score with this scorecard - because an error in the coding of that browser reads 'text background color' as, 'background color' - and that allows me to score with colour notations (the little coloured triangles). I'll bet it would be even faster in FireFox5.

I've asked the Blogger in Draft Team to add a background color widget - no response, and no indication that they're working on it. Don't know how much call there would be for it... . Do you want to change background colours all the time - and have to head into the html to do it? :) If so click the feedback button and let them know please.

Meanwhile the Minima II scorecard is moving furhter and further away from blogger combatablity, soon I'll be designing and coding a web site to hold it - and that has got me thinking...


Blogger could be SO much more...

All this has allowed me re-envision what I like to call, The Uber-App, an interface for the internet that allows all the interfaces and social tools to work together in one place, seamlessly.. (I've mused about the Uber-App (edit) here before (/edit) - link.)

As I'm imagining it now, the Uber-App would be a blogging interface, a code editing interface (like Notepad++), with video edit, chat, email, Skype, draw graphic design and so on - all on one page. As well, the Uber-App would be a programmable interface - so if I wanted a widget that changed background colours for example, I could build it and place it in my widget box in the form of a button.

So instead of going the Word Press route as Blogger in Draft Team has done - with more and more objects and JavaScript (which slows everything, and is quirky, and funnels users into a populist design that is constantly changing anyway) - rather, the new blog would be a multi-functional node that allows all interface technology in - configured the way the user chooses to lay it out - to fit the job they're doing with it.

Easier said than done - but I think we have to assume a better code literacy in the future than we are imagining right now. I see people being able to juggle several functioning elements in speech; I think this is going to develop - and not just in speaking and writing - but in the way we work with knowledge workers tools.

The craft of communication is going to specialize, the way carpenters, stone masons and plumbers crafts became magical to non-crafts-people over the 400 years of the industrial revolution. The Uber-App will be the hammer that all the trades use - but now specialized in each trade so that the "ball-pein" hammer that blacksmith's, engineer's or machinist's use is completely different from a carpenters hammer.

What do you think?


Michael

"The UberApp" may be 'Importing Tools' arrayed around a Social 'Tool Box'

I imagine a blank page, an empty 'tool box', to use Stowe Boyd's analogy, surrounded by 'importing tools' which let the user import the social tools of their choice in the same way blogger lets you import elements in push button publishing.

With the ever increasing number and mobility of the social tools like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and now Seesmic, Foursquare and Google Buzz, a need has emerged for an application that ties them together, a utility I like to call "The UberApp". But how does one connect all your important social tools when new tools are still coming, when the demand for new tools has yet to be satisfied?

I think Seesmic, Foursquare and Buzz saw themselves as great connectors or UberApps when they began development, but after their release web developers and network effects are re-purposing them. The latest connecting applications may yet become the next generation of social tools, and thus may soon be among the number that need connecting, rather than those pretending to UberApp status.

As such, early adoptors are left to combine the various social tools as best they can with the application connecting devices already out there: email, bookmarks, and RSS feeds.

All kinds of applications use the Atom or RSS protocols to stream updating data back and forth; Twitter is a perfect example. This knowledge lead me to think that Atom feeds may be the best way to unite the social tools going forward.

Using feeds to import social tools and their feeds, I imagine a blank page, an empty 'tool box', to use Stowe Boyd's analogy, surrounded by 'importing tools' which let the user import the social tools of their choice in the same way blogger lets you import elements in push button publishing - in flash or html - configurable by the user to any colour, font, size or location. As such, the eventual UberApp would be developed by users using this 'empty box' and 'importing tools' over time.

Perhaps 'potential box' is better.

To this end I've noticed that it's not simple enough for 'consumers of the web' to set your blog up with an RSS feed. I've been thinking about those places that create a widget for you by asking you to input specified data into boxes. HTML code is then written that you then cut from a box and paste into your sidebar 'Add a Gadget' box.

As I am educating myself about RSS and Atom feeds as I go, I thought I'd better start at the beginning. I found that a simple, push button, consumer oriented way of connecting blogs via RSS and Atom feeds was not available. I had to go to forums through search to find an explanation. I then created a blog post explaining to consumers of digital media how to RSS feed my blog to theirs, and theirs to mine - which I posted in my sidebar and now below. But what is really needed is an Atom feed writer that configures the elements Atom address and imports the content management software all in simple push button publishing style.

Sidebar Post

PUSH THE RSS BUTTON above and it will take you to an Atom (the simpler RSS) Google Live Bookmarks page (Wikipedia article on Atom (RSS) that allows you to direct a FilterBlogs feed to your browser, your home page, your email, your phone etc., etc..

In the new era of social networking connectivity I'm using my Atom feed application, "Bookmarks Toolbar" more and more. In my Firefox browser the toolbar appears under the address bar. The titles of Blogs I've chosen to follow appear in small boxes; when I click a box, it shows me that blogs last 30 days posts in a drop down window.

Atom is a great way to spread Your Blog - it's a syndication feed to the web. To get syndicated first check to see that your browser has a 'content management system' for Atom feeds installed (like Live Bookmarks from Mozilla), then take your blogs front page address (mine is "http://filter--blog.blogspot.com/"), and simply add "atom.xml" to the end of it (http://filter--blog.blogspot.com/atom.xml).

Now you've created your Atom feed address. Paste it in your address window and the address will take you to a page that looks like this (I've dropped down the choice window):



"Choose Application" took me to "Bookmarks Toolbar" application - I clicked 'Create Feed', 'Save Bookmark' and I'm done.

Wherever I am on the net, an easy reference to any article in my blog (and yours) is two quick clicks away. :)

(end of sidebar post)


I think I have the HTML hacking expertise to create an RSS feed html writer page. That's the next step towards the much more complex 'Empty Tool Box surrounded by Importing Tools' UpperApp creation kit.


iphone icons image courtesy Little Box of Ideas Blog.

PC Social Media Icons courtesy Kaplang Blog.



mh

Facebook: Game playing Xenophobes stalked by Tricky-Dick snake-oil Salesmen

As an interactive communications tool Youtube is still just a one way device, much like old broadcast media. It's big difference is that users are producing a lot of the content, instead of a New York or Hollywood production colossus - and - it's On-Demand.

But the experience of Youtube is boring compared to the typing and clicking social networks like facebook and Twitter.

Facebook brings in multi-media better than twitter right now, so it's part of the way to that multi-media all-in-one "UberApp" that the world is looking for. In 2006 facebook opened a developers interface to allow open source applications in, and subsequently - because it didn't have a vision of what it wanted to be - began to go off coarse. So the progressive step of allowing users to create new functionality, became facebook s' death knell. It has since become a refuge for neurotic game playing xenophobes stalked by tricky-dick snake-oil salesmen.

Sometimes I enter and heroically try to dig out lost friends, dragging them out with inspiring "off-world" stories. Usually though, I won't touch facebook with a ten foot RSS feed.

It's icky in there, I don't like it.


(This is the 2nd snippet of an article on 'new media' that I am in the process of writing called, "The Interactive Narrative".)




mh

Seesmic buys Ping.fm and Promises an UberApp that Updates 'Fifty Sites at Once'

Today I sent this gmail to a friend I hadn't seen on the Internet in a while. It made me realise how much time I'm spending on pooling, producing, and disseminating my content threads:

Yes I finally got Cool and got a gmail account. It's much better/easier to use than the older ones. We can chat I see. Also I switched all my web presence from hotmail over to gmail.

So you can check my Profile in Google and click trough to:
---> my blogs (9),

But not Twitter:

• Twitter account @m_holloway
• -----> my DJ machine I've invented #m_hollowayDJ
• -----> #BBBA where my baseball friends and I meet
• -----> #LeftFilm where I list films I like

facebook me is here.

Ya, so, thats me on the web.

Get back to me through your gmail please, so I can have that.

Mike

Then I checked my Inbox and saw that the task will be a lot simpler soon.

(Image of Seesmic s' email produced by my "ScreenPrint32" Application)

Soon Seesmic will bring an Application to the internet that unites it's Twitter only functionality with all other social networking platforms and tools such as "email, chat, sms, Blackberry, Android, web, Windows, OSX and much more soon." See the announcement, Youtube Video "We've acquired Ping.fm. Get ready to update 50 social networks from Seesmic"

In my words Seesmic is building an UberApp that will allow me to update my publishing activities in several different places, all at the same time if I so choose. Right now I do that in one place only from Twitter through RSS feed to facebook.

GigaOm s' Liz Gannes calls it a "Grand Central Station for social network updates".

Trying to unite all my information using Google Profile hasn't worked as well as I had hoped. I still have to use my three email accounts to dig out comments I've made here and there, check correspondences from family, friends and business, check on blog comment replies. And Twitter is a whole other universe of applications that I have to check separately.


All this maintenance of my blog publishing concern is taking too much time away from writing and research, which is what all this is supposed to be about!

Right now I use Seesmic as a place to catch up on my Twitter time line. With columns labelled 'Time Line', 'Mentions', 'Lists' and many more, I can see - in one place and in real time - what's happening in Twitter with regards to my presence there ( #FilterBlogs, @m_holloway, #m_hollowayDJ, #BBBA, #LeftFilm,).

Hopefully Seesmic s' new functionality will include Youtube which has been left out of the social networking explosion. Seesmic started as a video sharing 'Twitter', but has been de-emphasizing video since the summer (2009) as they realized the 'Youtube' market wasn't growing. (See GigaOm s' NewTeeVee column by Liz Gannes from June 2009) That's when they began focusing on Twitter usability - as such - they have the technology to efficiently parse video content in this new UberApp. I hope Seesmic s' CEO Loic Le Meur puts a lot of thought into the possibility of including a Youtube usability in to this new thing even if it is included at a later date. Unfortunately what still holds the video market back is the Internet s' infrastructure, which is unable to deliver a high enough bit rates to make video sharing as big, and as instant as Twitter - which is essentially short bursts of conversation, observation, information with links. This future vista includes video phones and mobile media yet to be envisioned.

What I 'really, really want' though, is an all-in-one-place where I can check and see if all my different addresses have gotten a 'ping'. and respond to them one at a time or all at once.

Google Wave (Developers Google Video 1:20:12) seems to be far along that road but Seesmic I think, is right there too.



mh

Youtube: Betcha George Orwell Didn't See This Metric Coming!

Youtube remains a TV set 'On Demand' but with a difference. There is a popular myth that surrounds the Youtube user community - that they are "Sticking it to the Man" by posting and watching stuff without permissions. This zeitgeist gives users the idea that stealing (which they are not) = freedom (which it is not).

Betcha George Orwell didn't see that metric coming!

People use P2P file sharing to share TV content and Youtube to post the content online. Users are not breaking copyright law because no one is charging anything. Youtube simply has to pay the producers a percentage of what they make through ad revenue on the site. These amounts are being settled in court and in the market place as we speak write.

Youtube is another revenue stream for producers, one they're going to need as ad revenues are currently imploding. Unless TV gets with the On-Demand thing quickly (which they are), they'll all be bankrupt by summer.


1984 Image courtesy: Slavenka & Obi Blog (no attribution)
YouTube Image courtesy: University of Kentucky - Engineering - Solar Car Team page


(This is a snippet of an article on 'new media' that I am in the process of writing called, "The Interactive Narrative".)



mh

What is the UberApp? Where is the UberApp?

My father became involved with applying the new magnificence and speed of the silicon chip back in 1977 - I was 14. I remember gazing into the distance one afternoon back then and realizing, "I get it". I understood his passion for the thing; I had gleaned a 'Rumsfeldian slice' of the potential of microprocessing. A few years later I took a computer course in high school - the first of it's kind - where we wrote a sequence of 'goto' commands on a Apple ll PC. When you selected a 'y' or 'n' the program we'd written would select the appropriate tine in a fork and 'goto' the correct line in the program, then the computer would flash up the 'right' answer in ugly green letters.

Image courtesy engadget.com.

I was not impressed and picked up a guitar instead. I thought the internet was an unfriendly niche for geeks that had different minds than mine. I always kept up with the progress of the thing though, the PC, the internet; but I felt I had no way 'in'. In 2000 I became aware of the Google search engine and I thought, "brilliant, this is it!", but still, I had no way 'in'. In 2003 a fiend showed me blogger.com and I was off to the races - I had a quarter century of catching up to do.

The evolution of social networking technology, especially Twitter have gotten me considering an idea that's been simmering in the back of my mind ever since that Rumsfeldian epiphany back in 1977. I've tried to express the coming sudden intuitive leap of understanding I'm looking for in pieces I've written here related to Tim O'Reilly's 'Web 2.0' idea. I've compared it to the industrial revolution: the steam engine was the silicone chip of its day - the vista operating system may be compared to the Ford Edsel some day 8-). (Hey! That's Groucho! (-that's not a period - it's a cigar!)).

(Image: Time.com).

The Ford Edsel, the Microsoft Vista of it's day. Looked really sharp but never ran properly, cost it's owners buckets of money to keep on the road.

We've come a long way and much more quickly than the industrial revolution moved forward a century ago; and although we have gotten to the 'gas turbine engine' in micro processing speed, the F-22 of applications still eludes us.

That intuition I have - that thing that is so-close-you-could-touch-it, the F-22 of applications - has a name I needed to help me think about it. My possible neologism:

UberApp.

Today a method came to me to recognize it - distinguish it in the gale of new applications we are inventing, and the swirl of new ways we are applying them.

It's simply a series of questions I ask when I comes across an ingenious new application; or someone's ingenious new way of using one, or several applications in combination (which happens about 20 times a day on Twitter):

• What is the uber-app?
• Can we see it now?
• Can we simply gather the elements of it together - and by placing them in the proper order - create it?

If not, how can we find it?

• What do we think it will it look like?
• What will it do?
• What do we want it to do?
• What do we need it to do - right now?
• What are our dreams of it?

Now, back on my Twitterboard to try it out... .



mh