It only took 10 episodes of our illustrious podcast series for us to get the big-dog interview. That’s right, Matt Asay, me, and Ashlee Vance spent an hour with Marten and Rich to figure out just what the heck happened and why it didn’t happen to us!
Open Season Episode 10: The MySQL acquisition forces us off our respective couches.
I wish someone would give me $1 billion after a five week courtship.
While these initiatives are powerful and important for MySpace, and are good for users, neither implementation is, yet, fully open, since they’re both one way. As I said, MySpace is not yet allowing users to login to the service with OpenIDs obtained elsewhere, nor is it allowing Data Availability partners to write data into MySpace profiles. Benedetto told me, “It would be very beneficial to us to have data coming in,” but that the company needs to take a phased approach to supporting data sharing. “We’re stepping in to uncharted territory,” he said. Previous sharing projects in the industry have failed, he said.
Jim Benedetto, MySpace VP Technology, says that he is not opposed to letting users login to MySpace from other OpenID parties. The current initiative, he says, “is step one.” “We’re looking at down the road becoming the relying party,” (a site that recognizes other OpenID logins) he said.
In the future, Benedetto says, the OpenID and Data Availability projects will merge. Users will be able to use their MySpace OpenID to access their profile and network, “even when they are not on MySpace.” Supporting OpenId will allow users to “login to the long tail of the Internet” via MySpace. Data Availability could make their profiles ubiquitous.
All MySpace users will, by default, get OpenIDs when the project is turned on at some point in the near future. If they don’t use the OpenID login from other sites, they will not notice any changes to their MySpace login experience.
MySpace's Data Availability program allows other sites to import MySpace profiles. Eventful shown here.
Data Availability is a powerful concept. It makes it possible to take your profile page and your social network created in MySpace, and push them into another service. Like MySpace’s OpenID initiative, this project is part of MySpace’s plan to become a hub of identity.
The company is also announcing today that two implementations of its Data Availability program are going live. It’s showing how profile data from MySpace can be imported into user accounts in Eventful and Flixter.
(Credit:
MySpace)
MySpace today is announcing support for the OpenID identify platform. This means users of services that let you log in to them with OpenID will be able to use their MySpace credentials for the login. As TechCrunch pointed out, though, this appears to be a “land grab for user identities,” since MySpace isn’t allowing users to log in to MySpace with an OpenID account from another identity provider.
Full and open synchronization with other identify platforms and social networks would be much more complex than the current initiatives, and would likely confuse users at first, but ultimately this is what users are going to want: Truly portable social network data. It’s the only way users can end up owning their online identities.
By now, everyone–yours truly, included–will be hitting the “publish” button to weigh in on the cosmic significance (or insignificance) of Microsoft’s Live Mesh technology. But I’m not going to snow you. At this juncture, it’s too early to predict how this is going to play out.
If some other company had produced it, Mesh would be just another interesting product. But because it’s coming out of Redmond, that can’t be the case. It never is.
Ray Ozzie
(Credit:
Dan Farber/CNET News.com)
Still, I think Microsoft is onto a big idea: a cloud service where users can tap into an always-available online hub that synchronizes all their digital data. But haven’t we seen some of this before? A service which offers both synchronization and replication? Remember Lotus Notes and Groove? Hardly a surprise, then, to learn that Ray Ozzie was the creative force behind Notes, Groove, and now, Live Mesh.
If you follow Ozzie’s career, there’s a consistent theme to his thinking about the nature of work in the computer age. In the mid-1970s, he worked on the PLATO project at the University of Illinois, where he explored how to use networked computing for communication and group collaboration. That idea later found partial expression in Lotus Notes, which synchronized e-mail online and offline. However, Notes was a client-server technology where everything got stored on the server. After IBM acquired Lotus in 1995, Ozzie went on to found Groove, where he created a product that was about synchronization. However, it approached the question through a highly decentralized P2P topology where there was no notion of a “center.”
Live Mesh takes things further, where the Web is the hub, but you incorporate a client. The architecture is designed to embrace all of your data. True to Microsoft form, this is your classic work-in-progress. Developers will get a look at the preview version this week, while a broader beta test begins around October.
If it works as advertised, this will be the culmination of Ozzie’s career. Live Mesh is a core technology underpinning Microsoft’s vision for software and services. It’s a hybrid approach based on practical user scenarios. At this stage, the client is good for some things while meshing with the cloud is the path of least resistance for most users. It’s not a zero sum game where it’s cloud or client.
However, Ozzie’s also fighting against a corporate legacy for botching big ideas. Hailstorm never got off the ground. Passport was a bust. The jury’s still out on Trustworthy Computing, and Longhorn promised a lot but delivered a lot less in the form of Vista.
What are the odds Microsoft can sidestep that same fate with Live Mesh? A couple of items to consider:
•  Microsoft laid the groundwork when it introduced Web-based software and services under the “Live” rubric last year. You can argue that Mesh is the logical extension of that idea.
•  The success of Notes–which was both a application and platform–was predicated on fostering a vibrant ecosystem of developers. Groove never enjoyed that same support because it was hard to build distributed applications. But creating a third-party community of developers is old hat for Microsoft.
Steve Ballmer’s got Ozzie’s back on this one. And if Microsoft needed further incentive to get it right, there’s always the specter of Google picking up the pieces…and the users if Mesh fails. Failure is just not an option.
Paramount Pictures announced on Tuesday that it acquired ScreenLife, the maker of the popular DVD game Scene It, in a move designed to boost the studio’s profile in DVD, online, and mobile gaming.
Viacom-owned Paramount declined to disclose the purchase price for Seattle-based ScreenLife. Since launching in 2002, ScreenLife has sold more than 15 million copies of Scene It, a trivia-game that requires players to identify film clips. The company has over 25 DVD game titles on the market.
“The acquisition of ScreenLife advances Paramount Digital Entertainment’s multi-platform strategy,” said Thomas Lesinski, president of Paramount Digital Entertainment. ScreenLife “will enable us to create new digital content that is interactive, entertaining, and easily accessible to audiences.”
Video games are becoming more attractive to film and music companies. It’s common now for movie franchises such as The Godfather, Star Wars and Harry Potter to be offer a video game based on the film. Nowadays, action films often offer a game to give fans a way to interact with a flick.
Music-based video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, which is also owned by Viacom, have created a whole new way for fans to interact with recorded music.
News of the acquisition was first reported by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Intrigued to learn that Microsoft has been testing its ad-supported version of Microsoft Works here in the U.S., I wanted to see it for myself.
A Microsoft Office ad inside the main screen of Microsoft Works 9 SE.
(Credit:
Ina Fried/CNET News.com)
After work on Friday, I headed to Costco and to Best Buy, both of which carried Sony laptops that included the product, known as Works SE (Sponsored Edition). As Microsoft said, the product carries largely “house ads” that pitch Microsoft products such as Office. The ads themselves are small, taking up just about a 2-inch square in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
Clicking on the ad didn’t appear to do anything either. Of course, this is largely a test of the technology. Microsoft has built into Works SE the ability to serve ads via the Internet, should it choose to do so.
I took a few pictures with my cell phone camera, which are included not for their photographic quality, but rather to give a better sense for the feel of the advertising.
As can be seen in the image below, the ad isn’t what takes up the most space. It’s the right-hand pane in general, something that I believe exists in non-SE flavors of Works as well. This was less of an issue on the 15-inch Sony laptop I was looking at than it might be on a smaller screen.
Inside a word-processing document, the advertisement is just a small one in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
(Credit:
Ina Fried/CNET News.com)
Although the advertising makes Works free, for most of its users, Works is already seen as free software. Historically, most Works users got the standard version of the program when they bought a new PC, so they weren’t “paying” for it separately.
What has changed is the dynamics between Microsoft and the computer maker. Instead of paying Microsoft a couple of bucks to load Works, PC makers in the trial are getting Works SE for free. The price difference may not seem like much, but margins on PCs these days are razor-thin. Computer makers already clutter up their desktops with icons for all kinds of crapware to squeeze out a few extra dollars.
In that context, I think it is probably wise that Microsoft is going with smallish ads. However, the company could certainly gain more value from the advertising by making the ads more dynamic and by targeting them based on a user’s Live ID. It could go a step further and try to serve up context-specific ads by scanning the contents of the document, but this would doubtless raise privacy concerns and arguably produce ads no more relevant than by using user profiles.
Also of note, while most of Microsoft’s testing is around letting computer makers bundle Works SE for free, the company has done some other trials in Poland in which the software was distributed on its own.
Apple and AT&T may soon offer an official way to get your laptop online using your iPhone 3G.
(Credit:
Apple)
Apple CEO Steve Jobs seems very responsive to customer e-mail these days.
Gizmodo has obtained another e-mail supposedly sent from Jobs’
iPhone, claiming that Apple and AT&T want to officially bring “tethering” to the iPhone 3G.
Lots of other carriers and handset makers offer ways to wirelessly hook your laptop up to your smartphone, and use the data connection of the phone to get on the Internet. But Apple and AT&T scuttled one early iPhone application called NetShare that was designed to do just that.
One Gizmodo reader claims to have asked Jobs why Apple and AT&T don’t offer the option of paying for such a service, calling their reluctance “ludicrous.” Steve supposedly said in reply, “We agree, and are discussing it with ATT.” You can tether if you’re willing to jailbreak, but that might get you in trouble with Apple and/or AT&T.
Is it just me, or does the recent rash of Jobs’ e-mail replies to disgruntled customers raise anybody else’s eyebrow? Jobs has been known to reach out to customers this way, and has invited shareholders to e-mail him directly, if they have questions or concerns, but over the last couple of weeks, he seems to have really picked up the pace.
I e-mailed Jobs directly this morning to see if he’d confirm whether he’s actually responding to these e-mails, or whether a crack team of marketing department “Steves” monitors his in-box and selectively responds to keep that grassroots feeling alive. We shall see.
Related idea: I’d like it if there were a way to subscribe to the thought leaders in a particular category all at once. For example, I want to bulk-follow the best 10 or so Twitterers covering the presidential election–likewise, the best science writers and whoever is covering San Francisco politics well.
If you follow Twintro on Twitter, you’ll get updates from a different “fascinating, amusing, and thought-provoking” Twitter user every day. If you like what you’re reading, you just start following that person so you keep getting their updates. You’ll get a new person the next day.
Here are full instructions.
My name for this dream feature is “Twitter packs.” If anyone knows of something like this, drop me a line or respond in comments, and I’ll cover it. The same idea could work for FriendFeed; the “rooms” feature doesn’t quite do it.
Robert Balousek, my collaborator on the Swagalicio.us blog, has launched Twintro a new service to help Twitter users find people to follow outside of the usual self-reinforcing Twitterholic circle.
I think Rob is onto something, although this little service is all about the content. Rob’s the guy manning the velvet rope, deciding who gets Twintro’d each day. I hope he has good taste. You can nominate yourself or someone else.
It also parallels what Salesforce.com has done with its AppExchange for its hosted applications.
Google and Salesforce are also rumored to announce a partnership on Monday that will let Salesforce resell Google Apps.
Google Solutions Marketplace, a catalog of third-party business applications.
The move is a bid to find more customers for Google Apps by encouraging third-party product development and sales, much the way that Microsoft has built an ecosystem of third-party add-ons around Office.
According to TechCrunch, the Marketplace replaces a simpler Enterprise Solutions Gallery.
On the Solutions Marketplace, Google won’t be hosting other companies’ applications, as Salesforce does with AppExchange. But companies can create their own listings, and customers can review them.
“The Marketplace’s initial focus is connecting customers of our communications and collaboration products like Google Apps and Enterprise search with 3rd parties that sell complementary products and services. But that’s just a start. We expect to grow to fit the needs of an expanding set of Google customers and developers,” he wrote.
Not content to offer just applications and search appliances to businesses, Google has launched its Solutions Marketplace, a listing site for third-party add-on products to Google Apps.
(Credit:
Google) The marketplace allows software developers to post their applications in a catalog for business customers to browse. For example, listings on the site now show an offshore development service for customizing Google Apps and consulting services for small businesses.
On the Official Google Enterprise blog, Scott McMullan, the Google Apps partner lead for Google Enterprise, said that it intends to expand the catalog.
When I was a college student living on a lowly work-study salary, few things angered me more than shelling out dough for a required course book, only to have the professor assign a single chapter for reading. (It’s been 10 years since I took the class, but I still remember fuming as I paid $30 for 30 pages in From Max Weber.) And don’t get me started on science textbooks that cost hundreds of dollars but only net you a few bucks once the class is over.
While other textbook rental sites only offer rentals by quarter, semester, or summer, BookRenter offers multiple rental periods–30, 45, 60, 90, or 125 days–with the price set according to how long you’re keeping the book. Even if you’re renting books for the whole semester, BookRenter’s rates are competitive with similar sites. For example, the Max Weber book I mentioned above costs $12.93/semester from BookRenter, $12.98/semester from WhyRentBooks.com, and $13/semester from Chegg (formerly TextBookFlix).
In a perfect world, of course, all these textbooks would be available as digital downloads for you to consume on your preferred reading device. But until that day, you might as well free up some beer money by renting the textbooks you don’t need to keep.
Online textbook rental service BookRenter wants to ease at least this part of a student’s financial pain. As the name implies, BookRenter will rent you a textbook for a set period of time, with the option to extend your rental or even purchase the book as the return deadline draws near. If you choose to return the book, the company provides a prepaid UPS shipping label to minimize the hassle.
The site itself is attractive and easy to use, and I was able to find books from various disciplines in the catalog just by searching for the title. Unlike most used textbooks, BookRenter titles are shipped in new or like-new condition. Of course, the flip side is that you have to return the books in the same condition or face damage fees. (The site will eventually start renting its used-condition books, as well.)
“This move will permanently signal the end of the music business as it was once known,” McQuivey wrote. “From that point on, more music will be sold digitally than on CD, reducing CD sales to just $3.8 billion in 2012.”
That’s a fitting title because the report reads like an obituary. Tower Records, a music mecca for decades, has already closed but McQuivey argues the real deathblow to the industry will come when Wal-Mart Stores, Best Buy, and other large retailers begin scaling back shelf space for CDs.
McQuivey, a former professor at Boston University, tells record executives to cheer up because there are ways to rise from the ashes. He says first, the industry should quit fooling around with music subscriptions and ad-supported models. People want to own their music and downloads have won. Only 7 percent of adults on the Web say they have ever tried a subscription service, according to the report.
“Artists who used to pretend that their platinum album success was really about their “art” will no longer have that luxurious pretense because labels won’t sign them unless they agree to a barrage of sponsorship opportunities,” McQuivey wrote. “There will eventually come a day when Chips Ahoy will contend with the Keebler Elves over who can be the official cookie of the Taylor Swift world tour.”
When it comes to artists, the labels should focus more broadly on a musician’s career, including merchandise and concerts, as well as recordings. He said it’s the artists, not the CDs that are the music industry’s true product.
“The gold medal for 2007 (in music discovery) should have gone to Slacker,” McQuivey wrote. “(The) portable device provides instant access to radio-formatted music that can easily convert to a digital download with the click of a button. This model combines the simplicity of the radio experience with the power of music ownership.”
These are the conclusions of James McQuivey, a Forrester analyst, according to a report titled “The End Of The Music Industry As We Know It,” issued on Tuesday.
In a final note, McQuivey suggests that music artists, who have historically looked down their noses at advertising, had better change. He says the industry should rip a page out of NASCAR’s playbook.
Hey, Mr. Music Executive: scrap your preoccupation with CD sales and start looking for ways to help people share, yes share music; focus more on developing and profiting from artists; and forget about subscription services and ad-supported music.
McQuivey’s finding here was particularly timely. Over the weekend, PaidContent reported that MySpace is in talks with the four top labels about launching a jointly operated, ad-supported music service.
Sharing is vital, according to McQuivey, because it makes new music discovery easier, which the Web was supposed to help with but so far has tanked. In this effort, he sends a special shout out to Slacker, a personal online-radio service.
The analyst also sent a message to ad-supported music services, such as SpiralFrog and Qtrax. The ad-supported model should stay “on the radio where it belongs,” he said in his report. Social networks are better places for selling ads against music, and they also allow users to share songs virally.
