YellowHandMan

Free?

Chris (Long Tail, Wired editor) Anderson's new book Free is out. My gut reaction is scepticism - what he's talking about isn't really making stuff completely free, but just finding some other way to pay for creativity. While Malcolm Gladwell's criticisms probably are slightly overblown because they take Anderson as advocating that content should be made completely free, I think there are serious problems in Anderson's basic argument, in contrast to his Long Tail argument which made a lot of sense to me. His concept of 'Free' could be taken as the logical extension of the Long Tail, but there's probably a point beyond which the original concept ceases to work...

Yesterday's YellowHandTweets after the cut, posted by LoudTwitter.

Party

Busy today, because we had a combined party for Ryan's 4th birthday and Sophie's 1st month. Photos and a report sometime in the future, once I get my act together.

Yesterday's YellowHandTweets after the cut, posted by LoudTwitter.

The Apple Way

Just loved Gruber's line about Apple : "...better nothing at all than something less than great."

Yesterday's YellowHandTweets after the cut, posted by LoudTwitter.

Jacko R.I.P.

Woke up, picked up my iPhone, read the WSJ update that said Jacko's in hospital. Actually laughed out lot, thinking that he was finding a way out of the comeback concerts in London that nobody in their right mind should've believed he could pull off, unless he appeared for just a few minutes each night (as has been rumored was contractually stipulated).

Then I flick to the next e-mail. Further update from WSJ - Jacko's dead.

---

I've never been a Michael Jackson fan. Objectively, his music is good - some if it even great - but I've never understood the adulation he attracts. How do people see past his weirdness (and that's putting it charitably, insofar as the molestation allegations go)? And why does he continue to gain fans when his last good stuff was released over 20 years ago, and he's barely released anything since?

Anyway, this is going to be Elvis all over again, ironically given his past marriage to Lisa Marie. There will be Jacko sightings, and conspiracy theories...Jacko transcended real life long ago, and so his death seems in some ways just a case of the facts catching up with the (un-)reality.

Sorry if that sounds harsh - I don't wish him ill at all. Indeed, there's a part of me that feels he's probably better off now, away from all the things that made him so obviously an unhappy person during his lifetime.

Yesterday's YellowHandTweets after the cut, posted by LoudTwitter.

Leave Steve alone!

I am really sick of the media's attempts to stir up a controversy over Apple's non-disclosure of Steve Jobs' liver transplant. While the critics claim to be protecting investors' interest, it's pretty obvious that triggering a panic by announcing the news earlier would've been unduly damaging to AAPL's stock price. However, such a drop in the stock would've been wholly disproportionate and due to the completely overblown (and media-stoked) perception that Apple's success is entirely reliant on Jobs.

There's no doubt that he's a big part of Apple's multi-year resurgence, probably the biggest part, but the company's businesses (Macs, iPhones, iPods) are all now long-established and thriving, and won't fall apart simply because Jobs has to back off from day-to-day operations. It's in big-picture strategy that his main contribution to Apple's success lies, and despite all the noise, there's nothing to suggest that Jobs was, at any time, near death or incapable of continuing to contribute to major strategic decisions (apart from, one would imagine, the time when he was actually being operated on).

I think the fundamental question is this: was Jobs' illness and consequent need for a liver transplant really an immediate threat to Apple's business, or is that mainly an exaggerated perception that has been actively promoted and promulgated by the press? In my opinion, the numbers speak for themselves - Apple's business has continued to thrive despite Jobs being on medical leave, objectively demonstrating that he really isn't as vital to Apple's success as the press has made out.

In other words, just because some stupid investors might panic because of what they've been led to believe by the press, the reality is that Jobs' liver transplant did not, at the time, represent any real immediate danger to Apple's ongoing business. Apple shouldn't be subjected to a higher standard of disclosure simply because the press has decided to manufacture a cult of personality (and thus, a myth of indispensibility) around Steve Jobs.

Yesterday's YellowHandTweets after the cut, posted by LoudTwitter.

Peace in our time

So it turns out as I expected it would - the entry of the deep-pocketed manufacturers, unused to being ordered around, meant that Max held a losing hand. Once the manufacturers went nuclear with their breakaway series threat, the commercial interests behind Bernie left the erstwhile supremo with no option but to stick the knife in his long-time ally's back. By doing that, Bernie appears to have saved his (and CVC's) own share of the pie, at least until 2012.

As I write this, Max is trying to restart things by threatening to run after all, but it seems like just a last-minute attempt to save face, after his initial pathetically-transparent attempts to spin it as a personal victory failed in the face of FOTA's 'deep background' briefings. FOTA was clearly trying to be magnanimous in victory, but the unattributed 'real story' in many articles made the truth clear - Max had been forced to back down.

Ultimately, this was a victory for F1 fans. As I blogged previously, Max's ham-fisted attempt to ram the unreasonable budget cap down the manufacturers' throats would have resulted in a "dual-track" championship - even if they wanted to, there was no way that the manufacturers could have slashed their budgets sufficiently, and thus they'd have been condemned to burn money while new teams running according to different regulations ran away from them.

As I've blogged in the past, such a championship would've been a farce. Faced with those prospects, it's no surprise that FOTA concluded that they had to hold the line.

Yesterday's YellowHandTweets after the cut, posted by LoudTwitter.

Nice try, Celtics

So the Celtics are shopping Rondo? He was clearly their best player in the playoffs, but I guess Ainge is trying to repeat his trick twice, and trade the future for another quick ring.

Unfortunately, it isn't so easy being a "great GM" when you don't have a former Celtic giving you a present on the other side of the negotiations. Joe Dumars isn't stupid, nor is he going to be in a hurry to do the Celtics any favours, even if the Pistons themselves are in a rebuilding process.

Yesterday's YellowHandTweets after the cut, posted by LoudTwitter.

One million iPhone 3GSes?

Dear Apple,

It's great you sold a million of 'em, but can you please figure out an elegant way to pluralize "iPhone 3GS"? It is one million iPhone 3GSes, or one million 3GS iPhones, or one million iPhones 3GS? 'Cuz your press release stating "one million iPhone 3GS models" makes it sound like you were selling a million different varieties of 3GS.

At the very least, "one million iPhone 3GS handsets" would've been better.

Cheers, and well done!

(P.S. Nice way to subtly slip in Steve's return to work...better than making a big deal out of it, which would only reinforce the wrong perception that Apple depends solely on him!)

Yesterday's YellowHandTweets after the cut, posted by LoudTwitter.

Ooooo-YEAH!

Looking forward to watching the Macho Man DVD collection...it's a pity that the bad blood between him and Vince (rumored to arise from Macho making a pass or doing something derogatory at Steph) prevents WWE from doing more to promote this collection.

Unlike Ric Flair, whom I only came to appreciate when I became a 'serious' wrestling fan in the 'naughties, Randy Savage was my childhood favorite wrestler. Still remember marking out while watching the video of Savage's face-turn, when Elizabeth saved him from Honky-Tonk and he subsequently carried her on his shoulder around the ring. Plus, of course, watching the Megapowers unite then break up.

Yesterday's YellowHandTweets after the cut, posted by LoudTwitter.

Jobs' Liver

Wow, this was a surprise. It's amazing that he kept it quiet this long, and it's pretty obvious that the news has only broken because of an intentional leak from within Apple. The timing is just too good, with the successful launch of the iPhone 3GS to cushion it.

Ultimately, this sounds like good news. If he needed it, the liver transplant can only be a good thing (as opposed to not getting one), and the story also confirms that he'll be back at work. In the meantime, Apple has been executing brilliantly, since that's been Tim Cook's job all along.

Yesterday's YellowHandTweets after the cut, posted by LoudTwitter.