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April 16, 2004
Tim O'Reilly on Why GMail Matters
In his inimitable style, Tim O'Reilly tells us why GMail matters. The piece is entitled, "The Fuss About GMail" but that doesn't begin to properly identify the real meat of what Tim's saying. For example, here's one part I found surprising:
Pioneers like Google are remaking the computing industry before our eyes. Google of course isn't one computer -- it's a hundred thousand computers, by report -- but to the user, it appears as one. Our personal computers, our phones, and even our cars, increasingly need to be thought of as access and local storage devices. The services that matter are all going to run on the global virtual computer that the internet is becoming.
Until I heard about gmail, I was convinced that the future "internet operating system" would have the same characteristics as Linux and the Internet. That is, it would be a network-oriented operating system, consisting of what David Weinberger calls "small pieces loosely joined" (or more recently and more cogently, a "world of ends"). I saw this as an alternative to operating systems that work on the "one ring to rule them all principle" -- a monolithic architecture where the application space is inextricably linked with the operating system control layers. But gmail, in some sense, shows us that once storage and bandwidth become cheap enough, a more tightly coupled, centralized architecture is a real alternative, even on the internet.From O'Reilly Network: The Fuss About Gmail and Privacy: Nine Reasons Why It's Bogus [Apr. 16, 2004]
Referenced Fri Apr 16 2004 12:28:54 GMT-0600
I have to admit, when I first heard about GMail, my response was "so what?" since there are already so many free, hosted email solutions, but size does matter and 1Gb of storage for mail changes some things. Most importantly, it makes smart searching and analysis of email possible. For Google to make that work, they need lots of mail on their servers and this gives them that. This is an example of where "more of the same" enables dramtically different results.
12:34 PM | Recommend This | Print This
Jim's Blogging Again: Fiber to the Home
Jim Stewart is blogging again and has published the first of three articles he plans on fiber to the home called "Embracing Change." His conclusions from the first article:
- Fiber to the home is the future.
- Wireless has a place in the home.
- A new generation of consumers is coming and they will not settle for narrowband access.
- New opportunities abound and will generate new profits.
- The old model will not work and will only frustrate both the consumers and the service providers.
- There will likely only be enough capital to build one fiber infrastructure. It should not be left to one company to do this. However, all companies should be allowed to benefit.
- Competition should be differentiated on services, not infrastructure.
Pay specific attention to the last point. "Facilities-based" carriers like Comcast and Qwest are doing just that. In fact, its the only basis on which they want to compete. When a telecom provider says "facilities-based" just translate it into "monopoly." That's what they're really saying.
09:26 AM | Recommend This | Print This
Who Controls My Movies
If you read or listen to the first chapter in Larry Lessig's newest book Free Culture, you'll quickly realize that Lessig believes that society is damaged when our right (and yes, maligned as it is, it is a right) to rip, remix and burn content is diminished. In today's Deseret News, there was an article about one of our local companies, ClearPlay, that brought Lessig to mind.
I first ran into ClearPlay three years ago when they were seeking initial venture funding. Their technology is simple in concept: skip frames of a DVD while its playing according to the instructions in another file. With this you can delete scenes from a movie you may not want to see, delete commercials or other content from a program you've recorded on DVD, or even mix frames from multiple DVDs playing back simultaneously. The most obvious use for the technology, of course, is editing films to delete offensive scenes. Note that the technology doesn't modify the disk in anyway. It simply decides which portions of the disc will play back when.
Well, despite lawsuits from the film industry, the Director's Guild and others, ClearPlay technology will be offered in a player manufactured by RCA and sold in Wal-Mart and K-Mart. The Director's Guild had the following to say:
In the guise of making films 'family-friendly,' ClearPlay seeks to make whatever 'edits' they see fit to any material they don't like," the group said in a prepared statement. "By not seeking the consent of the director, whose name on the movie reflects the fact that the film comprises his or her work, or of the studio as copyright holder, they can and do change the very meaning and intent of films."From deseretnews.com | Retailers to offer DVD film filters
Referenced Fri Apr 16 2004 08:42:19 GMT-0600
Just so I've got this straight, let me read this back. I go to the store and pay $30 for a DVD and place it in a player. I don't modify the DVD, I simply play it back in a different way than it was placed on the DVD. The Director's Guild thinks I shouldn't be able to do that because I am messing with the "intent" of the director. I guess that the "random" button on my CD player ought to be illegal as well then since I'm clearly changing the intent of whoever laid out the tracks on the CD by playing them back in a different order. If this isn't about the clearest example of hubris then I don't know what is.
This may seem different than the complaints of the music industry, but its not. The foundational argument is who gets to control content and to what end. Consumers want to be able to do anything they like with the content they've purchased and Hollywood and the music industry and trying desperately to force us to take it there way. The ClearPlay case illustrates that the nature of this entire debate isn't about the theft of intellectual property so much as the ability to do as we please with the things we buy.