Martin Gordon's Blog

Scott Gilbertson of Wired writes on how the iPhone is breeding the next generation of IE4-only web sites in the context of iPhone-optimized sites:

In suggesting that developers use the web to build iPhone applications, what Apple has done (perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not) is force the creation of a subset of the mobile web that only works with the iPhone’s unique features — namely the touch-screen interface.

While Apple is pushing HTML and JavaScript for iPhone app development, they aren't (inadvertently or not) forcing the creation of sites that only work with the touch screen. In fact, I recall reading (correct me if I'm wrong) that the iPhone browser doesn't even support draggin or hovers/mouseovers. There's very little in the way of iPhone-only features (only a few CSS attributes and the tel:/map: protocol for dialing and Google Mapping, as I recall) and so the only way sites are being iPhone-optimized are that they're being dumbed down for the device, thanks to a lack of support for Flash and some JavaScript events (and possibly more). Furthermore, most iPhone-optimized sites are extensions of existing sites. There's no killer app for the internet out there that we're all missing out on because it only runs on the iPhone; hell, there isn't even a web-based killer app out for the iPhone (and I saw this as a launch day iPhone owner).

To be honest, I find all these iPhone-optimized web sites to be completely garbage. This stems largely from one thing: the sites are attempting to mimic Apple's native UI. Of course, the web apps have two huge disadvantage when compared to Apple's apps: they're loading data over a (potentially) slow data connection and JavaScript performance is atrocious on the iPhone.

For something I truly wanted to use heavily, I would go out of my to find a mobile, but not iPhone-optimized, site to use over its iPhone-optimized brethren. The two big winners in the mobile but not iPhone-optimized category are Google Reader and Twitter. I use both daily primarily because they're lightweight (prettier, slower competitors to both are out there). The most recent loser: Facebook – and I'm sure there are many others, but I stopped using them so long ago I can't even remember any of them.

The shoddy state of the mobile web being what it is, I went and jailbroke my iPhone last week, allowing for third-party apps to be installed. It was fairly straightforward, though I had to piece together instructions from a handful of websites to actually get it done. Tonight's release of the Mobile Twitterrific proof-of-concept also spurred me to get the iPhone development toolchain installed. Also, fairly straightforward except for finding out what the hell a "heavenly dmg" was (it's an unencrypted version of the iPhone restore image). There's nothing absolutely must-have out there yet, but it's only a matter of time. You don't really get a sense of how powerful and extensible the iPhone really is (or could be) until you've run a terminal on it or ssh'ed and sftp'ed in.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, SDK, Microsoft, Internet Explorer, standards, Wired, web apps, Web 2.0, Cocoa, hacking, JavaScript

I've been back in Philly since last Wednesday, but Verizon won't activate my DSL until this Wednesday, so I've had very limited internet access. Work starts tomorrow, but once things get settled, I'll be posting more frequently. With WWDC starting tomorrow, I'm sure there will be plenty to talk about too.

Technorati Tags: Philly, Verizon, WWDC, Apple, blogging

I posted this as a comment on Dave Winer's Scripting News for 03/14/07 (via Thomas Hawk). I don't want to forget it so I'm reposting it here.

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I have two big concerns with Twitter that set it apart from blogging and that could impact its success:

1. How do I find out about other Twitters I might be interested in? I only added people to be followed because they linked to it from their blogs. What about Twitter-only "bloggers"? Furthermore, blogging created a network because bloggers link to each other. The "@user" is limited because it requires so much effort to find that user. This could be solved by Twitter auto-linking when it finds an @user, but so far it doesn't do it.

2. It's too distributed. To follow a conversation, I have to either be following all the users taking part or sort through the "With Friends" section where other conversations may be taking place.

3. It's too concentrated. At least with Technorati, Techmeme, et al, I have a small chance of discovering gems in the long tail. This is practically impossible on Twitter since the only mechanism to discover new people is the public timeline, which will become increasingly useless as the service grows.

Technorati Tags: Twitter, blogging, Technorati, Techmeme, memetracker, Dave Winer, Scripting News

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

Hugh of gapingvoid has posted some "Random Blogging Notes". At first glance, it looks like a typical "How to get more traffic/become rich/etc." After actually reading it, you'll quickly learn it's typical Hugh MacLeod "f**k you and the world you live in" style (which I enjoy thoroughly), and so by definition doesn't sugarcoat any of the realities both A- and Z-listers face. Some of my favorites:

8. So you a read lot of A-Listers. Congratulations. You now know a lot of stuff everybody else knows.

9. It’s damn hard not to read a lot of A-Listers. They got to where they are for a reason.

16. The day you can write as compellingly and consistently as say, Kathy Sierra, Jeff Jarvis, Guy Kawasaki or Michael Arrington, will be the day I start taking your complaints of low traffic seriously.

40. When people ask me what the future of media is, I always answer, “RSS”. Thank you, Winer & Co. Seriously.

And to top it all off…

41. Most of the stuff on this list is wrong.

Technorati Tags: blogging, blogs, notes, a-list, gapingvoid, Hugh MacLeod

Robert writes about how Windows Live search has gotten a lot better. He then wonders if it'll do them any good.

Now, the problem is, if Microsoft matches Google, who will switch away from Google? I won’t. The trust I’ve built since the late 1990s of searching Google many times a day without a problem is going to be a very hard thing to beat. To get me to switch Microsoft will have to be better than Google.

How about you? Does Microsoft (or Yahoo or Ask) have any hope of getting you to switch your default search engine?

I have to agree with him. Any time I use a search that's not Google, I'm left with the lingering thought, "Is there something missing here that Google would find?" I trust Google's search results completely. I'm not quite there yet with any other service. And I don't think I ever will be. First of all, I'm probably not going to search my default search engine, but if I did, I'd most likely go through a trust-earning period where I'd double-check all my searches in Google. It would probably be way too much overhead to be worthwhile. I'm right back to Google.

Heck, when I directed one of my Yahoo-favoring friends to do a web search, I told him to "just use Google" without even waiting to see if what we were looking for was in the page results.

Something as simple as the name has a profound effect on search engine choice. "Just google it" sounds right. "Just live.com it", "just yahoo it", or "just ask.com it" sound awkward.

So will just being better than Google get me to switch? Probably not, since I'll have no way of knowing.

Technorati Tags: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Live.com, Ask.com, search, web search

I just got an email from our Undergraduate Assembly chair announcing that Ruckus will be available to all Penn students for free (read: factored into tuition):

The Undergraduate Assembly, working with GAPSA, College Houses and Academic
Services, the Residential Advisory Board, and Information Systems and Computing
proudly provide a FREE, legal, music downloading service to all Penn students.

http://www.upenn.edu/computing/music/index.html

The Ruckus music library contains over 1.5 million tracks of music!

Ruckus offers:

* Unlimited downloads of music to your computer
* Downloads that are legal, virus free and sypware free
* New releases added every Wednesday
* Albums download in under a minute
* Online community, allowing you to trade playlists, share
recommendations and connect with friends
* Hundreds of movie titles and many current and classic television
series for an extra fee
* For more information about Ruckus at Penn, read the FAQ
-NOTE: Does not upload songs to iPod-

For what it's worth, here is the Daily Pennsylvanian article on it and the University FAQ page.

I do have to say that this is a huge disappointment. While I don't necessarily condone piracy and I do understand the University's need to cover their asses, they could have tried something a little more out of the box. Penn alum, Larry Lessig, spoke here for New Student Orientation. Why not work something out with Creative Commons? I'm sure the Podsafe Music Network wouldn't mind the exposure if they were willing to work out a deal. eMusic offers DRM-free (and hence cross-platform) music. What about a straight subsidy for a subscription based on the student's choice? I'll take $100/year from the iTunes Store over a worthless subscription to Ruckus. Now, I'm not discounting the evils of Apple's closed system, but if you want everyone to use your service, make it work on the devices everyone already used (I know this is impossible in the current state of things).

This is just stupid, stupid, stupid. Despite being pretty OS-agnostic, the University is now indirectly adopting Windows as the default OS choice. Imagine campus sales rep: "Well, the Mac would be ideal for your photography/filmography major, but you won't have access to the music service you're forced to buy into." And what about the 80%+ marketshare (probably a lot higher in college) the iPod holds? How do you explain to Joe English Major that his iPod can't play the music he's listening to on his PC? Even Microsoft's own Zune music player won't play PlaysForSure music from other services.

Is this new music service going to make music piracy disappear on campus? Absolutely not. Mac and Linux users gain nothing from the service and will continue to acquire music by the same means they used to. Windows users with iPods are in the same boat. They'll continue to pirate music or buy it from iTunes so it'll play on the iPod. Those that are able to might try it out, but it's not going to replace conventional means. Meanwhile, I'll be subsidizing this little experiment while listening to my free podcasts and live recordings.

Technorati Tags: University of Pennsylvania, Penn, UPenn, DRM, copyright, music, online music, Ruckus, subscriptions, Windows, PlaysForSure, Apple, iTunes, Creative Commons, iPod, Microsoft, Zune, eMusic, student government

The class I am currently sitting in has a list of recommended blogs on the syllabus. We just watched a video podcast. Cool!

Technorati Tags: blogs, yomoblog, copyright, culture, penn, university of pennsylvania

Larry Lessig spoke at Penn yesterday as part of the Penn Reading Project. His book, Free Culture, was given to all freshmen who were split up into discussion groups after Lessig's presentation. Penn Law professor Polk Wagner presented an opposing side. I was excited to see the famed Lessig presentation method in person and I hope Professor Lessig makes the presentation (or at least the links to the videos he showed) available.

I've got some pictures up on Flickr and here's a direct link to the audio.

This audio work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Technorati Tags: Larry Lessig, Lessig, Creative Commons, copyright, law, regulation, Free Culture, remix, Penn Reading Project, Penn, UPenn, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

No, this isn't a religious post, it's just part of a funny conversation I had with my sister earlier today:

Me: Did your internet just go down?
Her: Yeah. Whenever that happens I think it's a message from God to get off the computer and do my homework.
Me: Well what am I supposed to do? … Oh wait, it's back.
Her: Guess he wanted you to have it again.

Technorati Tags: funny, internet, downtime, homework, conversation