“Here is what Chris Anderson means by ‘Free’: If you want to know what he really thinks, you’re going to have to pay for more than his book. He acknowledges that he is giving his book away online so he can be hired for much more lucrative speaking and consulting jobs. He is sufficiently crass, reckless and lazy to have had someone else read the science-fiction books he uses to illustrate the perils of scarcity and abundance. […] ‘The way to compete with Free is to move past the abundance to find the adjacent scarcity,’ he writes. And ‘Free’ is full of specific examples of how to do just that. But after beating the drum for giveaways throughout most of his book, Mr. Anderson eventually acknowledges that his idea is in fact not viable.”
— Janet Maslin of the NYTimes reviews Free in hilarious fashion
BAM!
Today, we’re announcing a new project that’s a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be. Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010.
Okay, so this is very exciting at first glance, since rumors of a Google OS have been popping up for the better part of this decade. And it will be nice to have another lightweight, fast-booting Web-centered OS backed by a major company (like Intel’s
Moblin) - always good to have some competition in the market.
Google’s very good at waiting for years until its products catch on - they have more than enough money and manpower to comfortably do so. Android, Google’s mobile OS,
was announced in 2007 - but the first phone that actually ran the software didn’t come out until
a year later. Even today, there still
only two Android phones on the market - but there’s an estimated 20 Android devices currently being developed by various manufacturers, and many are rumored to have a Christmas release date. The wording of this announcement feels tentative yet optimistic - again, they’re looking for long-term success instead of immediate adoption.
For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.
I would argue that the success of Chrome OS over the next few years depends on the long-term viability of netbooks as a platform. I don’t really think they’re
viable at all, but a browser-based operating system has many uses: perhaps you could slap it inside a TV or have it pre-installed on laptops as
an instant-on OS that appears before booting into Windows (if you want to do some quick Web browsing without waiting for the computer to fully start up). I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a phalanx of bloggers 18 months from now proclaiming Chrome OS as a failure… but I think we might need to wait a little longer before we can really judge Google’s level of success.
Media, Recently Consumed
More posts soon, I promise (I’ve got 20 Safari tabs about the Pirate Bay acquisition staring me in the face). But here’s what I’ve been taking in these past four days - most of it very enjoyable or at least entertaining. I’ll be writing full posts about some of these in the future.
MUSIC
-
La Roux - La Roux
-
Far - Regina Spektor
-
Bitte Orca - Dirty Projectors
-
Fever Ray - Fever Ray
FILMS
- Shoot ‘Em Up
- Code 46
- Helvetica
- The Hurt Locker
- Doubt
BOOKS
Taken as a series of recommendations, it’s a somewhat pedestrian list - sorry. I’m plowing through a backlog. (No innuendo intended.)
No listings in New England yet, unfortunately, but still a great resource.
[via Manystuff]
A presentation that gives a general overview of the topic. Bookmarked here for my own future reference.
[via Workbook Project]
My Musical Taste Is
A tiny pool of my expectoration on grime-soaked concrete, released while pacing in worn slacks and exhausted sneakers on four hours of sleep and on a rushed deadline. I have months-long stretches where the music I’m listening to achieves that bland and soulless state usually experienced during sleep deprivation - and that’s when it just becomes another external stimuli to drive away the boredom instead of an actual source of enjoyment. I think of listening to The Black Album while walking alongside the train tracks after leaving a 12-hour day of data entry; waking up with a start at 4pm on Summer St. and running up hills as fast as I can to hand in that assignment I’ve been working on for almost two days straight; subsisting on ramen and 12-packs of Coca-Cola alone in the house during a maddening December while playing Nine Inch Nails remixes and Paramore on loop (??ugh). I guess I can only hope it gets better.
“Though it is eminently mockable, masculinity is nevertheless very difficult to navigate—just as femininity is—which is I suppose why I don’t have many male friends. Dude rules are not my rules.”
— barthel
Reblogged from Mike Barthel's Tumblr.
B-Roll [June 29-July 2, 2009]
You can get these B-roll links in real time by
following me on Twitter.
![Lights, Camera, Action For Concession Coupons
This month through December, Sprint Nextel is sponsoring a cinema-centric marketing effort, placing kiosks in about 500 movie theaters nationwide. Sprint customers can scan in a code from their phones, and the kiosks will print coupons, like a free upgrade to a bigger popcorn or larger soda.
“We see a very natural affinity between cinemagoers and our target audience,” said Simon McPhillips, director of media for Sprint.
Back in December, when Sprint was visibly hemorrhaging money, PaidContent reported the company’s strategy going forward as detailed by Sprint CFO Bob Brust: In 2009, the emphasis will be keeping the subscribers the company already has, and by 2010, they hope they will start adding customers. Brust said they’ll do that by focusing on customer service and investing in the brand. ‘We’ve had a lot of trouble with the brands since the [Sprint-Nextel] merger because of dropped calls and bad customer service. As we spend more money on recapturing subscribers, we can get the brand back where it belongs… you’ll see a more aggressive advertising campaign.’](http://23.media.tumblr.com/6Akhqq4XYpoic852EbFfUjMko1_400.jpg)
![Cheaper Than Paper - TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris
[Winner of Cannes Lions Gold]
Having been driven into exile and saddled with a massive duty, our client had a limited budget but a need for their message to break through the reams and reams of coverage on Zimbabwe.
One of the most eloquent symbols of Zimbabwe’s collapse is the Z$ trillion dollar note, a symptom of their world record inflation. This money cannot buy anything, not a loaf of bread and certainly not any advertising. But it can become the advertising. So, we turned the money into its own medium by printing our messages straight onto it. By sticking notes together we created posters and then we silk-screened our message straight onto the money.
[via idsgn]](http://1.media.tumblr.com/6Akhqq4XYpnxfrv7G2KdCncgo1_400.jpg)
