The Case for Google+

Since the July release of Google+, I have struggled to find a use for the service.  Don’t get me wrong, Google+ is actually a really well designed network.  The UI is clean, I love Circles which realistically display our relationships with others, and it has some pretty good integration into the rest of Google’s services.  Google has made a wonderful social networking platform with tons of potential, arguably more elegant and better designed than Facebook.  Yet, I can’t find a damn reason to use it.

Facebook, with its 700 Million+ users, is living proof of the economic power of “network externalities.”  The service becomes only as useful as the number of people who use it.  Seeing as how that number is more than twice the population of the United States, I’d say Facebook has a pretty damn strong network.  With upwards of 1000 friends, I’ve invested a lot of time, effort, and clicking “accept” on friend requests on Facebook to just pick up and move to a new system.  The fact is that I have upwards of 4 years of networking locked into Facebook’s closed walls.  It’s hard to move on, especially when the new system requires a Google Account.  It’s hard to move on from Facebook.  Love it or hate it, Facebook is the definition of “ubiquitous” and though often a kludge of a system, it gets the job done.

But I think there is a real point to Google+.

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The Failure of RIM

Over the summer a lot of technology blogs and pundits wrote their own manifestos or complaints on the failure of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM)’s ability to modernize.  Hell, even an executive at RIM has made his feelings known to the world about the Canadian company’s doldrums.  I feel it only appropriate that I join suit.  However, unlike my other posts in which I voice the belief that struggling companies can come back from the dead, that’s not the case with RIM.

Previously, I stood as an opposing voice when others called it quits for Palm and, more recently, Nokia.  I was wrong on both counts, with Palm taken over by HP and Nokia jumping to Windows Phone 7. Perhaps I’m just playing it safe now by running with the crowd?  Not really.  I believed that Palm really had something special with webOS but had poorly executed the release.  Nokia had impeccable hardware and the impressive MeeGo, but was hobbled by its Symbian legacy.  Palm had software strength and Nokia has hardware strength.  RIM lacks either of these qualities.  Both its hardware and software are antiquated, and its future plans don’t give me confidence either.

The Wii is Dead! (And Other Challenges for Nintendo)

So we’ve had a few days to digest Nintendo’s announcement of its new home console: the Wii U.  Rotten names aside, the big focus of the console is, again, in the controller more than the processing machine.  Instead of a motion sensing and IR tracking remote, this time the controller is more akin to a tablet PC with a 6.2″ WVGA touch screen, camera, accelerometer, and internal processing along with the usual cadre of buttons needed for interaction.  There are TONS of questions that remain about the Wii U and chances are Nintendo won’t answer them until later next year.  That’s a long way from now, so what can possibly tide us over until then?  What about Nintendo’s current console, the Wii?

The Rise and Fall of the Wii

I can still remember the giddy nature with which I counted down the days to the release of the Nintendo Wii back in 2006.  Sure, the name was stupid, but this was going to be the console that changed it all.  Finally games could get back to focusing on gameplay and not graphics.  Motion control would be the final frontier in-game control, allowing for unprecedented levels of interaction and immersion.  It would be cheap, it would be awesome.  And for over a year after launch, the glow of the Wii remained in effect.  Stock was constantly depleted, whole new segments of gamers were arising as Nintendo pushed into the casual audience, the best iterations of Nintendo’s franchises launched full force on the console – dazzling us with Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.  And Nintendo?  Well they reaped the benefits.  They demolished the competition in sales and profits, they became a media-darling in the US and Japan.  Nintendo had by all intents and purposes, won this generation of the console war.

But I believe the Wii was ultimately a failure.  As grand as the sales were and as strong as the hype was for a long time, here we stand in 2011 and the Wii has been largely irrelevant for the better part of 2 years.  We’ve come to understand the Wii as “that console” while the 360 and PS3 are “this generation”.  The Wii excluded itself from the console war but at the same time excluded itself from the mainstream.  Third parties have been lack luster throughout the Wii’s lifespan, and “lazy” was an excuse that could only hold up for so long.  What was the last non-Nintendo game on the Wii we really craved?  Hell, what was the last Nintendo game that we really craved?  I can’t think of much since Super Mario Galaxy 2 that has really captured my attention as a piece of software that I want.

Apple’s Pulling a Nintendo

With the unveiling on the iPad 2, Apple made it clear that they were not concerned with technical parity against their competitors.

This is worth repeating. It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology is not enough. It’s tech married with the liberal arts and the humanities. Nowhere is that more true than in the post-PC products. Our competitors are looking at this like it’s the next PC market. That is not the right approach to this. These are pos-PC devices that need to be easier to use than a PC, more intuitive…. The hardware and software need to intertwine more than they do on a PC. We think we’re on the right path with this. – Steve Jobs

While the iPad is for all intents and purposes technically comparable against the latest and greatest from Motorola and other emerging tablet manufacturers, we can’t really be sure.  Ideally, this shouldn’t matter.  What hardware the tablet uses should be secondary to the experience of the software and hardware meshing together.  Ideally.  In reality its good to have specs fleshed out for our devices.  Not just to satiate techie desires, but because analysts and pundits and even prospective developers should know what they are dealing with in its entirety.  I mean, it’s not going to be hard to peg the iPad 2’s specs, that will happen pretty quickly after the release.  But why does Apple play this game of cat and mouse with us?  Lauding the supposed power of the A5 chip but shrouding its exact abilities in secrecy?  It’s contradictory and obnoxious.

I’m an eBeliever

I have tried for a long time to avoid ebooks, largely because I was relatively uninterested in the technology for a long time.  With the exception of some relative popular e-book commentary, I haven’t had much interest in exploring the devices or software.  The fact is that I’m simply not a big reader or particularly well-read.  I’m a product of my generation, I’m sorry to say.

Still, one of the most notorious factors in college is the hidden cost of books.  It’s a sort of running joke in college that you pay more for your books than your food (a poignant and ultimately depressing thought if you are on George Washington University’s frustrating meal plan).  So imagine my surprise when I discovered that one of my costly books – a copy of the legendary Don Quixote – was actually in spanish instead of being a translated version of the novel.  It was a frustrating revelation, since the tome was the exact ISBN book my professor had requested us to buy (an unfortunate mistake, I’m sure….)  And thus I was left to find another copy of the classic comedic novel very quickly.

Print costs money, but online text can be free.  And luckily for humanity, Don Quixote has long been in the general domain, making it an excellent choice for the Guttenberg Project, a group devoted to making classic and out of copyright books available to the public.  I found a classic translation of the novel, and realize that Guttenberg is available on for iBooks, free.  Now I must tell you I debated this for a long time, probably longer than I should have, but with good intention.  I have tried very hard to avoid ebooks also because I have feared them.  As I’ve said, I’m not well read.  I’m so slow at reading it borders on autistic (I’m not illiterate, just slow), and though I have a strong vocabulary and prose, I blame most of that on extensive movie quoting and my acting experience.  In light of the countless reports I read about how our minds act different when reading on a computer versus a book, I’ve always feared my already under-utilized literary capacity would make any attempt to read a book on an electronic device futile.

And yet, I did it.  On the one hand I was running out of options, but on the other I felt it was time to face my fears.  And so I downloaded the iBook of Don Quixote on to my iPhone at 2AM this morning.

I made the right decision.

I felt something click when reading the novel on my phone.  Perhaps it was that very fact: I was reading a book on my phone.  Chapters, bookmarks, turning pages, highlighting, making notes, all from my phone.  Much of this just speaks to the powerful design of Apple’s iBooks application, but the fact was I felt this wonderful sense of convergence.  It was old meeting new as one of history’s greatest novels was being presented to me in a whole new way.  I didn’t need a lamp (which my roommate I’m sure was thankful for), there was no adjusting my reading position beyond deciding between landscape or portrait, and it was all in the palm of my hand.  Not only that, but I was reading.  Really reading the book and loving it (Don Quixote is a wonderfully hilarious book).  There was no subconscious block to my absorbing the text.  If anything, my brain being accustomed to reading online made the experience easier for me.

At the gym this afternoon, I was still reading while on the exercise bike, something I have never done because of the inconvenience of a bulky book.  It finally happened folks: I saw the light of ebooks, their clear advantage of portability, interactivity, and versatility became very real to me today.  It’s only fitting I make this revelation on the eve of the iPad 2’s announcement, a device I have the clear intention of buying and now want only more so.  Who knows?  Maybe the iPad will enhance my reading skills.  Perhaps it can really change my generation for the better and make us want to read again.

One can only hope.  I’m a believer.

The Future of the Macbook Line

When Apple announced the Macbook Air revamp late last year, the company said it was the “Future of the Macbook”.  Despite none of the Air’s design enhancements making the move to the Macbook Pros yesterday, I still believe that bit of marketing jargon.  Eventually, the Air’s design philosophy will translate to the entire line, just not yet.  So while we know the future of the MacBooks from a technical standpoint, we still don’t know exactly what the Macbook as a series will look like a year or so.  A lot is changing in the world of laptops, and given the major focus on performance of the most recent Macbook refresh (and their staggering prices), we have to wonder how Apple is going to evolve their notebooks forward.

Could Steve Jobs be the Hero HTML5 Needs?

Fall out continues from Google’s announcement last week of dropping H.264 support from the Chrome browser.  It has become clear that while Google hides behind a veil of promoting openness on the internet and ending the codec schism, they are really making a move to promote WebM and even send support to their buddies at Adobe.  It’s bad people and every media outlet with some stake in the future of HTML5 has come out with near universal disapproval.  Of course, some support it in the genuine belief that we should not have royalties associated with HTML5.  While that is a completely valid belief, don’t think for a second that’s Google’s real intention.

So I’m going to suggest something pretty radical here, and bear with me as I explain.  We don’t need Google to be HTML5’s guardian.  Instead, I nominate Steve Jobs.  Over the past few years, Jobs has on rare occasions released manifestos of sorts on topics that he feels are worthy of an extended response beyond his usually terse emails.  It was Jobs who placed the last nail in the coffin on DRM for music downloads when he released his “Thoughts on Music” essay in 2007.  Few fully comprehend how much of a landmark effort that was by Jobs, unequivocally placing Apple is support of a world without DRM.  By later that year, EMI was offering DRM-free content and eventually the entire music industry folded in 2009.

Then, in 2010 Jobs provided another manifesto against the current state of web video with “Thoughts on Flash”.  While less ground breaking than ending DRM, the remarks about Flash laid down the law in Apple’s development community that they will do all in their power to move away from the plug-in that they only begrudgingly have to support.  Jobs alluded to HTML5 often in that essay, but I think he can guide HTML5 away from the damage that Google has created.  It may involve the “Reality Distortion Field” but HTML5 needs an enthusiastic leader.  Jobs and Apple was that leader for iOS, but they now need to lead the rest of the internet.

I’m not saying this because H.264 has to be the codec of choice, but because Google propping up Flash with their move towards WebM.  It’s no secret Google has gotten very cozy with Adobe over the years.  They bundle Flash 10.1 with Android 2.2, Youtube continues to be one of the largest repositories of Flash video on the net, and Chrome now has Flash player bundled in it.  In Google’s ideal world, you will have two options for video: Flash with H.264, and HTML5 with WebM.  Sure, Google may want to see HTML5 end Flash eventually, but not as long as they have such a rich relationship.  Think about it: clearly Adobe was very threatened by Apple’s refusal to adopt Flash video on iOS.  So they turned to Google as their trojan horse into the mobile space.  Google makes it clear they are ok with Flash continuing, this is a quote from their Chromium Blog post yesterday regarding the issue:

H.264 plays an important role in video and the vast majority of the H.264 videos on the web today are viewed in plug-ins such as Flash and Silverlight. These plug-ins are and will continue to be supported in Chrome.

See?  Google is saying that if you want H.264 video, just turn to Flash and Silverlight plug-ins.  Plugins like the WebM version arriving for Safari and IE9 soon.

Given that Adobe and Google are creating a power play against Apple and the rest of the MPEG, I think Jobs is the man to continue the support of H.264 as the preferred codec for HTML5.  There should be no compromise.  How does Jobs do this?  Apple extends an olive branch by forgoing the royalties they would get from their contribution to the H.264 standard.  The time is now for Apple to nail Flash’s coffin shut by ensuring that H.264, the best video codec on this damn earth, does not remain a jewel in Flash’s crown.  Help us Steve Jobs, you are our only hope.

Google Misinterprets “Open”, Threatens HTML5

Over the past two years we have seen a different Google emerge on to the internet.  They’re not just a search company anymore, but one of the most integral software companies in the history of the internet.  Building operating systems, web services, sponsoring custom hardware, and powerful browsers.  But as Google’s ambitions have grown, the company’s greed and cliché corporate malice has become more visible.  First they spar with Apple, then they attack net neutrality, and now they threaten to undo all the progress of HTML5 in the past year.  This newest development has arisen from the news earlier this week that Google will drop support for H.264 in HTML5 from the Chrome browser and most likely all their web services.  Focusing completely on their own “open” video codec: WebM, and Ogg Theora instead of the “insufficiently open” standard of MPEG-4/H.264.

Ed Note: Some of this editorial may reference the recent ArsTechnica article “Google’s dropping H.264 from Chrome a step backward for openness” by Peter Bright.  Bright gives an excellent overview of the situation surrounding Google’s decision.  The editorial will use Bright’s remarks and thoughts as support or possibly refute a few of his points.  I recommend you read that article as well at some point for a more complete understanding.

Let’s start at the beginning and weigh how Google considers the term “open”.  To paraphrase Bright’s position, which I agree with: they don’t know shit!  H.264 is the definition of open.  The video codec was designed and standardized by ISO and ITU-T, the authorities on standardization on this planet.  The technology was compiled and developed by a team of engineers stemming from across the industry, voted on and ratified by an international standards organization.  Now, compare that with Google’s WebM.  That was originally called VP8, built by the private firm On2 (in secret) before being acquired by Google.  They released it as a free and open standard, but they have yet to submit it to a standards organization and Google controls the codec by itself.  So you tell me, what is more open here?

10 Great Moments in Tech for 2010

It’s that time of year again.  We’re stuffing the stockings, spinning the dredels (if the Jewish lunar calendar places Hanukkah over Christmas time), and…. doing whatever people do over Kwanza.  Yes, its Winter, December, Holiday Season, and the end of 2010 is close at hand.  2009 was a rough year for the tech industry, rearing from a horrible recession and trying to hold on.  However, we ushered in a new decade with much fanfare and by all accounts, we’re back on track towards a thriving world of new gadgets and software.  So, just like last year when I detailed my 9 Great Moments in Tech for 2009, I’ll be doing 10 great moments for 2010.  So, where do we possibly begin in this year of years?