A new version of Twitterrific, the popular Twitter client for Mac OS X, was released today. The changelog details new features and improvements.
The most glaring change, however, has to be the monetization scheme: either you pay $15 for it or you get an ad in your tweet list every hour. If there ever was a desktop application that could function as well on an ad-supported model as websites can, Twitterrific is it. The ads fit in so seamlessly and they're so not bothersome that it feels like Iconfactory could have gotten away with more ads. But I'll stop before I give them any more ideas.
Technorati Tags: Twitter, Twitterrific, The Deck, ads, ad-supported, Iconfactory, software, OS X
Whatever little ethical integrity or journalistic standards the Daily Pennsylvanian still had left, it probably lost after a "guest editorial" ran this past week. The so-called editorial was basically an advertisement for the Ruckus Network, an online music subscription service that aims to compete with Napster, Rhapsody, et al by forming agreements with universities for campus-wide coverage instead of having to deal with pesky end users.
The editorial is "written" by Ruckus President and CEO Michael Bebel and tries to extol the benefits of using Ruckus over illegal services by running the RIAA line about how illegal downloading steals from the record industry ("According to industry observers, more than 25 million songs are illegally downloaded daily. This translates into roughly $4.5 billion worth of pirated music annually, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.") and how it can lead to getting sued ("Last year, the RIAA sent letters to 700 colleges nationwide, informing those students who ignore warnings and continue to engage in illegal downloading of music they will be sued.").
How do I know Ruckus paid to run this "editorial"? I don't. But why else run something like this? Surely the paper isn't starved for content; I haven't seen anything like this in the 3.5 years I've been reading the paper and there definitely hasn't been a shortage of news either (like what the University is doing about the string of assaults on campus?) Either it was a straight ad buy or there were promises of ad purchases or free iPods or something else fishy. I do think that running this type of ad under the guise of an editorial shows how morally bankrupt the editors of Daily Pennsylvanian are. This ad is a cut and paste/mail merge job. An almost identical piece was run in the Daily Princetonian on December 15th. And that was what I found from just searching for the last sentence of the article.
I've detailed why I don't like Ruckus when the Penn service was announced. Between this and the Brock Ruckus/Facebook incident that I just read about on the Wikipedia article, I like them even less. Only now I like the DP much less also.
Technorati Tags: Ruckus, file sharing, music, p2p, Ruckus Network, PayPerPost, Daily Pennsylvanian, Daily Princetonian, advertising, editorial, RIAA, University of Pennsylvania, UPenn, Penn, Pennsylvania, Ivy League
Some from last week:
A map of soda/pop/coke popularity by county. Some interesting little pockets of "soda" in the mid-West and I didn't know most of Florida preferred Coke, but with only 120k respondents across the U.S., maybe it's not too accurate.
A McDonald's billboard features a sundial. Too bad it's McDonald's because the ad is pretty cool. Total calories consumed before 1pm according to the ad: over 3000.
Pacman for Excel. For some reason I have had this page open for a few days and have yet to download it. Weird.
The Wiimote retail box unveiled. Nintendo's Apple-like design approach has extended to the Wiimote box, which looks a lot like the new iPod nano enclosure.
Interesting coincidences while watching the 6 Star Wars movies simultaneously. Some are a bit of stretch and I doubt that any of them were planned.
Technorati Tags: soda, pop, coke, culture, dialect, McDonald's, billboard, sundial, Pacman, Excel, VBA, Nintendo, Wii, Wiimote, Apple, iPod nano, Star Wars, movies
A Gizmodo reader observes that the circulars in today's New York Times have no iPods in them. This almost guarantees we'll see new iPods at Apple's "It's Showtime" special event on Tuesday. It's been almost a year since the nano and the 5G iPod were released, so updates are long overdue. The real question, then, is will we get all new iPods to go along with the movie store or are we going to just see capacity upgrades?
Technorati Tags: Apple, iPod, iPod nano, iTunes, movie store, special event, Gizmodo, ads, New York Times
We're going to see job boards pop up all over the place since it's a much easier way to monetize a site than traditional banner ads. Compare pulling in $200-$250 a job post guaranteed versus the crapshoot that is AdSense et al (click-thru rate, cost per impression, # of clicks and # of impressions are all variable). If you've got the traffic already (as 37signals, Om Malik and TechCrunch do), then it's a no-brainer, especially once you take into account the fact that geekier audiences are more likely to ignore ads.
Mike Arrington writes about how both Jason Fried of 37signals and Om Malik turned down offers to join forces. Mike envisioned a job posting API and all sorts of interoperability. The problem is that these job boards are simple revenue-generating machines. By keeping the boards closed from one another, each company looking to hire will have to pay Mike, Om, and 37signals a separate listing fee. If we open the system up, then employers only have to pay one fee and all but one job board site lose.
While the idea of a job board API for interoperability sounds great, I don't think it can come from a job board site (at least not one bolted on to a blog), it will have to come from the employers themselves. And since the employers are each competing with each other for the best talent, I don't see any of them really taking a lead on the project (see 37signals' response above). Dave Winer has volunteered to develop the API, and he possesses the objectivity necessary to do so (at least for the time being), but for the same reason Jason Fried and Om Malik didn't join forces with CrunchBoard, I don't see them adopting any API either.
Technorati Tags: TechCrunch, Michael Arrington, CrunchBoard, jobs, Monster.com, job search, job board, Jason Fried, 37signals, Om Malik, GigaOM, Dave Winer, Scripting News, API, open network, walled garden
