megawertz::blog

- July 21 -

“Avoid becoming an administrator, or your job will consist of dealing with money and disputes.”

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Children can learn from bad teachers →

- June 25 -

Danah Boyd and Samantha Biegler have released a draft literature review on “Risky Behaviors and Online Safety,” commissioned by Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. It looks at the latest papers on the risks presented to young people by using the Internet; if you’ve been reading the newspapers, the distance between the reality and what you’ve heard in the sensationalist accounts of pedos, cyberbullies, etc, will surprise:

(via Instapaper)

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The Rumpled Anarchy of Bill Murray →

- June 20 -

From 1988. Interesting read after all these years. Great actor.

(via Instapaper)

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- June 15 -

While the high-profile Google settlement has captured the attention of the publishing industry at large, a contentious copyright infringement lawsuit filed in Atlanta in 2008 by academic publishers against four individuals at Georgia State University has quietly progressed. And while a New York court now considers whether to approve the sweeping Google deal, a court in Atlanta could yet deliver something that publishers expressly chose to avoid in their settlement with Google: a fair use ruling.

(via Instapaper)

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Apple is being ruthless, not monopolistic. Why is this so hard to understand?

I’ve been reading a few articles, such as this one on Ars, discussing the Government’s interest in Apple over possible monopolistic practices with its new iAds product. Here’s what everybody is missing.

Google owns AdMob. AdMob collects user data on the ads it sells on iOS and it passes that data on to the Android team. The Android team has detailed analytics on how iOS users use their devices in addition to what types of ads they prefer. Google also has this insight into other mobile platforms.

Apple doesn’t have this same window into the usage patterns and ad preferences of Android users. This puts Apple at a competitive disadvantage for allowing this analytic data to fall into the hands of a major competitor.

Apple has two options. Block AdMob from collecting data or start selling ads into the Android ecosystem to compete head-on with Google. Blocking AdMob is the more Apple thing to do because Apple wants to control the entire ad experience and that includes the OS.

The mobile ecosystem is evolving. Everybody is forging new ground and issues such as this will take time to figure out. Relax.

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