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What Google Hasn't Done: Explained Why We as Users Would Want a Unified Online Identity

Liz Gannes — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:00:34 +0000

After years of providing us with many very good products — search, Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome — Google is now on a mission to turn itself into one big product that understands each of us as one unified person.

In a forceful Gizmodo essay called “The Case Against Google,” Mat Honan argues that Google has become evil, because the company’s leadership now realizes that, in a world divided into apps and social networks, playing on the open Web won’t cut it anymore.

Google is in the process of tying all its products together so our usage of each one can inform the others, but it hasn’t really told users what’s going on and what it means. And as its set of products becomes more interwoven, Google is cross-promoting them ahead of the competition.

As Honan accurately describes the situation, in order to answer complex and subjective queries, Google needs to know a lot about the person asking the question. And that requires entrusting Google with lots of our private data and control.

But I want to live in a world where I can use the best tools and they work together. I don’t necessarily need Google to be the one to connect everything, but I’m not opposed to Google making it happen with some combination of its own products and other people’s.

Here’s a scenario that sticks in my mind. I want my phone to buzz me to say, “Hey, you should really leave now, because with the extra traffic today, your next meeting is 35 minutes away.”

And then the phone should tell me what I need to know about who I’m meeting with, and show me our recent correspondence and his or her latest tweets, and what friends and interests and experiences we have in common. It should tell me exactly where the meeting is and what’s a good place to park, and then it should start speaking turn-by-turn directions. If traffic gets worse, it should help compose a text to the person’s cell number that says I’ll be a few minutes late, and help me send it without distracting me from driving.

If you think about it, the who, what, where and when of a meeting are often split into four different apps: Our contacts, email, maps and calendar. That’s redundant, annoying and totally ridiculous on a phone, where I need to glance down and see what I need to know, now, before I walk into a pole.

I really like a lot of Google products. I don’t imagine I’ll ever voluntarily leave Gmail. Google Voice and its voicemail transcriptions make my life so much easier. As a voracious news consumer, I live in Google Reader. The Chrome browser is excellent. I’m generally quite happy when these products work together; for instance, when Gmail recognizes an event invitation in an email and helps put it on my calendar.

But when I’m looking for local stuff, I generally prefer Yelp and Foursquare to Google’s local products. If I want the latest news and commentary, I need my Twitter. Facebook is where the people are, and the good stuff is on Path and Instagram. I chat on Skype and AIM all the time. We run AllThingsD’s editorial team on WordPress and Socialcast. On my phone, I’ve recently gotten lots of value out of Highlight (dossiers on who’s nearby), Orchestra (to-dos), and Quora and Pinterest (for high-quality text and photos).

In many cases, Google has a competing product. I don’t want to be forced to use Google’s product, and I don’t want my favorite apps to have to live as subjects on a Google-owned platform (or, for that matter, a Facebook-owned platform). What I’d like is for these services to work together and share data respectfully.

If Google wants to push its unification agenda, it should do a better job of explaining why that’s a good thing for me. We billion users, many of whom have been on Google for five years or more, should be given a fair chance to decide whether we want to opt in.

But again, I don’t think unification is a bad thing, if it can be done right. In app form, the closest thing I’ve used to have my online identity unified for my own sake is Greplin. Being a fairly trusting person, I’ve given this start-up access to search across my personal data on my multiple Google email accounts, calendars and docs, plus my Dropbox, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Each time I open Greplin, it guesses that I probably want to search for information about the people in my calendar for that day, so it preformats them into suggested searches. When I click through on each name, I can see my historical correspondence with that person on every place we’re connected online (email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Greplin also scans through the correspondence to make a best guess at the person’s phone number, which has more than once been a total lifesaver.

But Greplin is just one app, and it’s only available on the iPhone. Imagine if these kind of connections could be made by the mobile operating system itself. Unlike iOS, Android at least lets apps communicate a bit between each other by signaling users’ intent when they switch between applications.

In fact, I would be okay with Google being the smart glue between services — understanding who I am, where I am, and what I prefer — and securely and respectfully moving that information around. That’s the kind of unified identity I’d want.

(Images courtesy of Flickr users Quinn Ryan Mattingly and Joi Ito)

Auditing the Supply Chain

Eric Johnson — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 07:59:09 +0000

I would tell you that no one in our industry is doing more to improve working conditions than Apple. We are constantly auditing facilities, going deep into the supply chain, looking for problems, finding problems, and fixing problems. And we report everything, because we believe that transparency is so very important in this area.

– Apple CEO Tim Cook, at Tuesday’s Goldman Sachs conference

BuzzFeed Bulks Up Again, With a Tech Section Run by Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan

Peter Kafka — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:18:45 +0000

Do we need more Web sites writing about tech? Yes, yes we do.

Which is good, because here’s another one: BuzzFeed, the online publishing start-up that’s the toast of people who like to write about online publishing start-ups, is adding a tech section run by Gizmodo star Matt Buchanan.

This follows a now-familiar pattern we’ve seen from BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti. Last month, Peretti brought on Politico star Ben Smith to start up the site’s political coverage and to run its overall editorial operations. A couple of weeks ago, he hired Doree Shafrir from Rolling Stone’s Web site to oversee “culture” coverage for the site.

Now Buchanan*, a five-year veteran of Gawker Media’s gadget-obsessed site, will start a new “vertical,” along with John Herrman from Popular Mechanics.

All of this hiring comes as Peretti is flush with cash courtesy of a $15 million funding round, and has reconnected with many of the people he used to work with at Huffington Post, which he co-founded.

Fellow HuffPo cofounder Ken Lerer is also a BuzzFeed co-founder, and former HuffPo ad boss Greg Coleman has come on as an advisor. Everyone who types about the media business likes writing about Peretti, but if you haven’t read any of this yet, I’d suggest starting with this New York Observer profile.

Buchanan and his crew will start publishing in mid-February, says Smith, who says the coverage will be something like what Buchanan did at Gizmodo, and also nothing like it. Think more “tech culture,” and less “stuff about gadgets.”

Well, maybe you should hold off on calling it “tech culture,” too, Smith says. “I guess I hesitate to call it tech culture, because I don’t think there’s a clear line between tech and culture anymore.”

Okay. So what’s next up in the BuzzFeed expansion plan? There’s got to be a bunch of cash left, right? “There will be more. Stay tuned.”

And now, a lightly edited version of a superfast exit interview I conducted via IM with Buchanan, who I gather is headed out for a couple of drinks as I type this.

Peter Kafka: Why’d you leave Gawker Media? I know lots of people have come to you in the past. Why go now?

Matt Buchanan: It’s an opportunity to build something completely new on a really exciting platform, which, even though the hallmark of Gizmodo is the immense freedom we all have, you know, the one thing I can never get here is the chance to do it all from scratch. And to do something that’s different from what a lot other tech sites are doing, I hope. I do love Gawker, and everybody here. I was from the generation that never got screwed over, so I only have good things to say about it.

Kafka: So should we be looking elsewhere for unboxing coverage, liveblogs of Android OS unveilings, and other blow-by-blow standards of tech coverage? Or will you leave all that behind?

Buchanan: Leaving almost all of that behind. I think technology deserves writing and criticism at the same level as any other aspect of culture, like film or music, because the reality of our world now is that it is just as important as those things. It is mainstream culture now. So we want to do tech for humans, as a main thing — but I also want hardcore tech readers to like what they see, too.

Like, we’ll talk about phones and gadgets to the extent that we find it interesting, and that other people might find it interesting, but no, this isn’t another gadget site. I would like to note that it is the first technology site powered entirely by ginger tears, which is what I’m most excited about.

Kafka: Curious about your take on your new employer. Seems to me that, while they’re uncomfortable saying this out loud, Jonah and crew are really setting out to build a new version of HuffPo: Build site by aggregating/curating, etc., other people’s content, then use that momentum/money to hire their own folks to build on that. The big obvious difference is that there isn’t a personality driving it from the get-go. And it’s tuned more to social than to search. Thoughts?

Buchanan: Yes! I think it’s too early to tell for some of that — even for me — but what I’m into is the fact that it’ll give John and I the freedom and flexibility to do the kind of tech writing and journalism that we want to do.

*Disclosure: I’ve met Matt a couple times, have chatted with him online a few more times, and I like him. He’s also an excellent resource if you’re planning a trip to Momofuku Ssäm (which you should definitely do, unless you’re a vegetarian) and need help with your ordering strategy.

Facebook Finds Quieter Ways to Complain About Google's Search+

Liz Gannes — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:00:40 +0000

While Twitter led the charge this week in publicly and unequivocally blasting Google’s new promotion of Google+ in its search results, Facebook stayed quieter.

Well, on the surface, at least. Multiple stories about Google and Facebook’s 2009 failed negotiations over a search deal can clearly be traced back to Facebook.

Facebook says it couldn’t come to terms with Google over how to handle private content; Google says Facebook wanted a clause that would have prevented Google from building its own social service.

Meanwhile, Facebook employees criticized Google’s moves in public status updates. Several prominent Facebookers shared and endorsed a Gizmodo article by Mat Honan about switching his default search engine to Bing after “Google broke itself.”

They included Pedram Keyani, an engineering manager who is a frequent public face of Facebook; Paul Adams, the former Google user experience researcher whose ideas about social circles were famously influential there, but who left for Facebook before Google+ launched; and Joe Lockhart, the former White House press secretary, who is now Facebook’s VP of global communications.

Keyani wrote of the Gizmodo story:

This is a pretty interesting read. Google became something we love because they always focused on speed and giving us the best results. They have made a pretty big departure from that with their most recent change.

They say fear is a great motivator (fear of facebook and twitter) but I think in this case it has also clouded their vision.

Google was my first real fulltime job the direction they are moving in makes me sad. I hope they find their way.

Bing, by the way, did end up signing that 2009 Facebook search deal that Google backed out of — and besides that, Microsoft is an investor in Facebook. Bing passed Yahoo to finally become the second-place U.S. search provider in December.

(Image courtesy of Flickr user thepeachmartini)

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

Gawker Media's Nick Denton Wants Out of the Porn Business

Peter Kafka — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:37:32 +0000

Pssst. Hey. You. Want to buy a porn site?

Nick Denton has something for you: The Gawker Media owner is pawning off Fleshbot, the porn site he has operated for eight years in addition to sites like Gawker, Gizmodo and Deadspin.

In addition to, but not really “along with” — Fleshbot, which is most definitely not safe for many workplaces, has always been kept at a distance from Denton’s other properties, at least when it came to advertising and PR.

It’s not that other Denton sites are prudish — ask Brett Favre — but they’re still in the business of attracting mainstream advertisers. And Fleshbot could never do that.

“As GM has grown, its sales strategy and technology platform have ceased to effectively support Fleshbot’s needs. We think someone else could be a much better partner to grow the site with us,” editor Lux Alptraum wrote in a “for sale” post yesterday.

As with all things Denton, the move will touch off a little wave of speculation about What It All Means, etc. I figured I’d kick things off this morning by asking him myself, via IM.

Denton: “Just hadn’t fit for a long long time.”

Kafka: “y i know. so why not anytime in the last tk years?”

Denton: “Oh, I don’t know. Because I’m slow to realize the inevitable?”

Thanks to AVN for spotting, and Jim Romenesko for aggregating.

Meanwhile! In other Nick Denton news: Denton held a party in his Soho loft last night, to toast the new editors of the Guardian, the U.K. paper that’s trying to establish a footprint in the U.S. (join the club). Had you been there (I wasn’t), you would have seen bold-faced names like the New York Times’ Bill Keller, New York magazine’s Adam Moss, (rhetorical) bomb-thrower Naomi Wolf, and some of the folks who spend time figuring out how to Occupy Wall Street. “Best party ever,” Denton types.

Here’s the host (sitting on the back of the sofa), along with fellow online heavyweights Jacob Weisberg (Slate), Arianna Huffington (duh), Janine Gibson (guardiannews.com) and Henry Blodget (Business Insider). “152 million global uniques,” Denton boasts.

On The Verge of a New Tech Site, Which Finally Debuts

Kara Swisher — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 02:18:14 +0000

Tonight at 1 am PT, techies who have nothing else to do — that would be me! — can click onto a brand new tech site called The Verge.

Well, kind of — it’s the result of many months of work by the gang that defected from AOL’s popular Engadget tech powerhouse, set up temporary shop under the Web site name This Is My Next and busied themselves with creating The Verge.

I have another screenshot below of the new site that will be focused on news, reviews and features about tech, and which has been getting a final tweaking all today.

From my quick perusal, it has a vibrant and slick design, with a lot of packed boxes, swooshy movement and plenty of content.

Along with the launch, The Verge’s parent company — formerly doing business as SB Nation, focused on sports — will also transform into Vox Media.

In a chit-chat with Vox’s CEO Jim Bankoff, top exec Marty Moe and Josh Topolsky, The Verge’s Editor-in-Chief, the trio of former AOLers all said they were going to for the big time.

“We want to build the platform for talented native Web voices, in sports and tech for now, and then we plan to grow more verticals,” said Bankoff.

“We want to create more than a news site or blog about tech — the frustration at AOL was that we did not get the resources or manpower to realize that bigger vision,” said Topolsky.

(You’re speaking to the choir, brother!)

Said Moe: “We think this category has not had a large enough vision…not enough has been innovated over the years and we think it is a big opportunity.”

Topolsky said the site, along with a mass of original content from 30 writers, will also be helped by a strong database of information about all its topics and gadgets and also focus a lot on community input.

“What we want to do was graduate beyond the blog,” he said.

(Hmm…and here I just got the hang of this blog thing.)

Bankoff, who would not say how much Vox spent on launching The Verge — my back-of-the-envelope guess, several million dollars — said that costs were spread out between the tech and sports sites with centralized sales and product teams.

Initial launch sponsors are BMW, Sony and Samsung, said Moe, who is aiming to sell “major brand advertisers on the idea that we will be the premiere destination of consumer tech coverage.”

It has to grow past big sites like Engadget to do so, but Topolsky said that This Is My Next had three million unique visitors in the last month and more than 10 million page views.

“We have done that with a lot of editorials and in-depth reviews,” he said. “I think people are really hungry for great content and stories.”

As to competitors, Topolsky said that “this not to necessarily I win if you lose,” although his clear aim is to unseat sites like CBS-owned CNET, Engadget and Gawker Media’s Gizmodo and perhaps even newsier sites such as TechCrunch and AllThingsD (as if!).

“We are going to do the nuts and bolts stuff,” he said. “Somewhere between Engadget and Wired.”

Topolsky compared The Verge to a “boutique hotel — we have the same stuff everyone else has, but it is a much more elegant experience.”

Later, that will change, he promised, noting that “this is only version 1.0.”

Of course — but what else would you expect from a gadget site?

(Good luck and congrats to the entire The Verge team from AllThingsD!)

And here is another lovely screenshot, as promised:

Sellers of Lost iPhone 4 Prototype Get Probation

Ian Sherr — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 03:21:27 +0000

The long saga of a lost iPhone prototype has finally come to an end.

Brian John Hogan, 22 years old, and Sage Robert Wallower, 28, pleaded no contest on Tuesday to misdemeanor theft of lost property for selling an Apple Inc. iPhone prototype for $5,000 to a technology blog in 2010. The pair was sentenced to one year of probation and 40 hours of public service, according to San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe.

Messrs. Hogan and Wallower are also required to pay Apple a total of $250 in restitution. Mr. Wagstaffe said the pair are allowed to keep the $4,750 they made on the sale.

The sentencing brings to a conclusion a particularly weird episode — even by Silicon Valley’s skewed standards. At one point, a special police task force kicked in a reporter’s door in search of evidence.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Will the Gizmodo-iPhone 4 Caper Be the Lisa of Legal Vendettas?

John Paczkowski — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:32:21 +0000

The San Mateo County district attorney’s decision not to bring charges against Gizmodo or its parent company Gawker Media in the iPhone 4 prototype caper has left Apple in awkward position. As you may recall, Steve Jobs made it quite clear in an onstage interview at our eighth D: All Things Digital conference in 2010 that he wanted to punish the publication.

“When this whole thing with Gizmodo happened, I got a lot of advice from people who said, ‘You’ve got to just let it slide,’” Jobs said. “‘You shouldn’t go after a journalist because they bought stolen property and they tried to extort you.’ And I thought deeply about this, and I concluded the worst thing that could happen, as we get big and we get a little more influence in the world, is if we change our core values and let it slide. I can’t do that. I’d rather quit.”

Well, Jobs is still CEO, even though the DA has now let Gizmodo off the hook.

So — as Jobs said he wanted to — will Apple go after the online media site with a civil suit? Or is the company too busy with other legal matters to bother?

Below, video of Jobs talking at D8 about the Gizmodo situation, in full:

[ See post to watch video ]

Charges Finally Near in Case of the Wayward iPhone 4 Prototype

John Paczkowski — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:12:41 +0000

It has taken over a year, but the iPhone 4 prototype caper is finally moving toward resolution. CNET reports that the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office is pressing charges against the men who found the device in a bar last year and sold it to Gizmodo, which then revealed it to the world. The gadget blog, however, is off the hook.

No New Splashy Engadget Editor Yet, But AOL Site Cleaning Begins

Kara Swisher — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 08:09:59 +0000

AOL will begin rolling out its plans to overhaul its panoply of content sites as early as today, a key part of its integration with the Huffington Post, sources familiar with the situation said.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong will be sending out an internal memo on the topic soon, said sources with knowledge of the moves.

He will outline how the New York-based Internet portal, which paid $315 million to acquire the high-profile news and opinion site, will essentially close down dozens of its dedicated content sites–some being shuttered completely and others integrated with existing Huffington Post sites.

One example of the first is Politics Daily, as has been previously reported; it will no longer exist as a brand. Its staff is being integrated into the Huffington Post’s more robust political offerings.

It goes both ways, though–the Huffington Post’s travel site will be closed in favor of AOL’s stronger offering in that arena.

And still other well-known AOL brands, such as its PopEater celebrity site and its StyleList fashion and beauty site, will keep their names but no longer exist as separate destination sites. PopEater will be integrated into HuffPo’s entertainment and StyleList to its similar site.

[UPDATE: StyleList's status was shifted just this morning--it will remain a standalone brand and AOL's Shelterpop will become StyleList at Home, integrating into StyleList. Plus it will all now be called Stylist--losing the "e" and capped "L."]

The changes are causing some tension within AOL, given it is a drastic shift from relatively recent efforts to expand its portfolio of editorial sites.

In fact, some insiders are calling the recent vetting of which content sites to close and which to keep as “death panels,” a somewhat dicey reference to controversies over the Obama administration’s healthcare plan.

Also on deck for tomorrow will be letters sent out to freelancers about new plans to hire some–though not all–of them. According to several sources, AOL content head Arianna Huffington outlined the plan to editors recently, stressing the need to focus on staff-generated and more journalistically focused content.

One thing that is not happening is the appointment of a new editor-in-chief for AOL’s flagship tech news site, Engadget.

BoomTown reported on the recent departure of Engadget’s top two editors, Editor-in-Chief Josh Topolsky and Managing Editor Nilay Patel.

The news rocketed around the small echo chamber that is the tech blogosphere, which is no surprise since Engadget is one of the largest sites on the Web covering the tech sector.

In the interim, staffer Darren Murph has been appointed managing editor of Engadget. He reports to Joshua Fruhlinger, editorial director for Engadget, Switched and AOL Tech. Brad Hill is the business director for the properties.

Engadget is one of the largest in tech, with 14 million unique visitors a month. Its main competitor is Gawker’s Gizmodo. AOL also owns TechCrunch, another tech news site.

An email to AOL for comment has not yet been returned.

Exclusive: Engadget's Top Editors Topolsky and Patel Exit From AOL's Giant Tech Site

Kara Swisher — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 23:03:05 +0000

Josh Topolsky, the editor-in-chief of Engadget, is leaving the AOL-owned property, one of the largest tech news sites on the Web.

Also departing is Managing Editor Nilay Patel, said sources. [UPDATE: Patel delivers the goodbye news himself in a blog post here.]

Sources said the move by Topolsky (pictured here, although the coffee cup is not permanent) and Patel is not out of the tech news arena and both are considering several options.

[UPDATE: Topolsky just confirmed the move in a blog post on Engadget, which is below, writing, in part: "I'm not leaving the industry or the news game--in fact, I've got a few fantasy projects in mind that hopefully you'll be hearing about soon."]

Sources said the departures have been a long time in coming, related to a range of ongoing issues the veteran editors have had working for the large New York-based Internet company. Sources said it was not precipitated by AOL’s recent $315 million acquisition of the Huffington Post.

In fact, AOL’s new content head Arianna Huffington had tried hard to persuade Topolsky to stay on, but that “he had already mentally made up his mind to go.”

This has been a regular occurrence at the site, including two top Engadget editors–Paul Miller and Ross Miller, who are not related–who departed the tech site in recent months. Both stated publicly that they did not like the editorial direction AOL was going in, especially a controversial content strategy document titled “The AOL Way.”

In a post in mid-February, Paul Miller was explicit about the issue on his personal blog:

I’d love to be able to keep doing this forever, but unfortunately Engadget is owned by AOL, and AOL has proved an unwilling partner in this site’s evolution. It doesn’t take a veteran of the publishing world to realize that AOL has its heart in the wrong place with content. As detailed in the “AOL Way,” and borne out in personal experience, AOL sees content as a commodity it can sell ads against. That might make good business sense (though I doubt it), but it doesn’t promote good journalism or even good entertainment, and it doesn’t allow an ambitious team like the one I know and love at Engadget to thrive.

In this case, “The AOL Way” was not the main reason for the departure of Topolsky or Patel (pictured here, looking rather fetching), sources said, but was more about the challenges of working within a large corporate entity.

Engadget is one of the largest in tech, with 14 million unique visitors a month. Its main competitor is Gawker’s Gizmodo. AOL also owns TechCrunch, another tech news site.

BoomTown sent an email to AOL execs for comment and am awaiting a reply.

UPDATE: Topolsky just posted a goodbye on the Engadget titled, “Hello, I Must Be Going”:

It’s hard to believe that I’m currently writing the words I seem to be writing, though a casual stock-taking of my senses dictates that it must be true. Here I am, at my computer, typing letters one by one into a plain text document, rolling along through one of the strangest posts I’ve ever penned for this site. Okay, probably the strangest ever.

After nearly four years at Engadget, it’s time to make my exit. There are things I’m after and challenges I want to take on that just don’t fit with my day-to-day schedule here, so off I go.

I didn’t make this decision lightly. The time I’ve spent here has been–without question–the most amazing, rewarding, and just insanely fun period of my life. And I like to think I’ve had some pretty good times. The Engadget staff is easily the greatest collection of human beings I’ve ever encountered, and they’ve made waking up and freaking out over tech news for 12 to 18 hours a day into basically a party. I’ve never worked so hard or had so much fun doing it. I don’t use religious terms very often, but if there’s such a thing as being blessed, I would say the opportunity I had to work with these people certainly made me feel that way.

And it’s not just the core team at Engadget; all the groups at Weblogs (and its director Brad Hill), have been tremendous friends, partners, and peers.

Then there’s you guys — the readers. The hive mind. The Engadget fan-boys and -girls. It’s hard to sum up my experiences with the readership of Engadget in one paragraph. It would probably be hard in a hundred. But I can say that you’re simply the most informed, passionate, and excited group of people anywhere on the planet. Sure, you can get a little crazy sometimes–but what an astounding group of super-geniuses you are as well. Writing and working for the throngs of people who visit this site every day has been a huge challenge, a learning experience, and just kind of awe-inspiring.

But as I said, it’s time for me to step away. I’m not leaving the industry or the news game–in fact, I’ve got a few fantasy projects in mind that hopefully you’ll be hearing about soon.

Don’t worry though, Engadget is going to keep doing what it does best: being awesome. We have an amazing staff of senior editors and writers that will keep the machine chugging along (and growing!) for years to come. My friend and our editorial director Josh Fruhlinger will be taking on a bigger role in our day-to-day during the transition, and I won’t be completely disappearing from the site–I’ll stay on as editor-at-large, to advise and direct when necessary. I’ll also be sticking around to host more episodes of the Engadget Show, so you can continue to get your fix (if you’re into nerdy video shows about gadgets and technology, that is).

And with that, I’m shuffling over towards the door, just underneath that dim exit sign that keeps blinking on and off, its fluorescent bulbs cracking with some syncopated rhythm all their own. It’s just started to rain a little bit outside, but I’ve got my coat and umbrella. I’ll be fine, and so will you.

Till we meet again…

PlayBook on Track for Q1 Kick-Off

John Paczkowski — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Research in Motion’s PlayBook tablet is on schedule for launch in the first calendar quarter of 2011. That’s the word from the company itself, which was forced to issue a hasty clarification after its announcement of a 4G version of the device launching this summer raised fears that the Wi-Fi-only version might be delayed.

“The BlackBerry PlayBook is expected to begin shipping in the U.S. in Q1,” RIM said in an email statement.

And there you have it.

Meanwhile, the device is garnering mixed reviews at CES. After some hands-on time with it, Engadget described the PlayBook as “blazingly fast, comfortable to hold, and intuitive to use.” Gizmodo liked it as well, talking up its hardware, responsive display and UI. “RIM’s got something here that could really stand on top of the bajillion other crappy tablets that are going to launch this year,” the site concluded. “They just have to take it the rest of the way.”

Wunderlich Securities analyst Matthew Robison agreed. “RIM’s PlayBook strategy [is] exceptionally compelling— pending successful execution,” he wrote in a note from CES. “The company’s ace card in tablets is sure-fire security for IT departments who loathe adding another piece of client software to enterprise networks.”

But others, like Wedge Partners analyst and RIM bear Brian Blair, were not so impressed. Though he praised the device’s sturdy build and crisp screen, he slagged its lack of native email and calendar support.

“There is not a built-in e-mail program that we saw, nor is there a calendar: arguably the two most critical features of a Blackberry,” Blair said. “Calendar and Email are only available, if the PlayBook is “tethered” to a Blackberry. Short of that, users need to use the browser for e-mail and calendar.”

And, admittedly, that does seem silly. Unless you’re a CIO. In which case, you probably prefer to push data (and remotely wipe it, if necessary) from one device instead of two, and appreciate the gesture.

Still, Blair came away with the impression that the PlayBook isn’t yet fully baked, and to be fair, it isn’t–after all, this is a pre-release device.

“We know this is an early build and that bugs are being worked through over the next couple of months, but nearly every feature we tried on our demo unit was having problems,” he concluded. “The video player froze and the games wouldn’t play. The only thing that worked was the ‘Coverflow-like’ scrolling of the different applications, which the device did with ease.”

But as Blair himself observed, a lot can change in three months. And presumably RIM is doing its damndest to ensure that it does–before Apple debuts the iPad 2, which will undoubtedly become the new standard against which all tablets are compared.

In the meantime, here are a few PlayBook promo videos RIM released in conjunction with CES.

Welcome to ATD: The Very Enterprising Arik Hesseldahl

Kara Swisher — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 12:20:53 +0000

And Arik Hesseldahl (pictured here) makes it four.

New reporters and bloggers for All Things Digital, that is.

The well-known tech writer–based in New York–will be covering the enterprise arena, as well as chips, for us.

As most regular readers know, this site has been expanding its staff, adding even more top-notch editorial might to our already terrific work.

That includes Ina Fried on mobile, Liz Gannes on social and Tricia Duryee on e-commerce.

All are key areas of tech coverage for ATD, obviously. But, as we thought about it, it was clear that there was not nearly enough cutting-edge tech journalism going on in the enterprise space.

It’s an important topic, involving a range of companies, such as Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and a spate of interesting start-ups. And, did you hear Google’s moving into enterprise?

While all the attention in the tech press is usually focused on the latest minor innovation from Facebook or some other Silicon Valley phenom, enterprise is also a hotbed of change and disruption, as businesses seek to understand and adapt to what digital technologies mean to them.

Thus, we turned to Arik, who has a long history covering a wide range of beats in tech.

He’s most recently been working for Bloomberg Businessweek, where for five years he covered it all: PCs, consumer electronics and semiconductors.

He was also the third person to write Businessweek.com’s popular “Byte of the Apple” column, and contributed to a companion blog of the same name.

Before joining Businessweek, Arik spent five years at Forbes.com, covering pretty much every aspect of tech, writing a daily column called “Ten O’Clock Tech,” a daily survey of a single new tech product that predated properties like Engadget and Gizmodo.

Before that, he cut his tech teeth learning all there was to know about the chip industry as a reporter for a now-defunct trade newspaper called Electronic News, which is notable for being the place where the phrase “Silicon Valley” was first used in print.

One Friday in March, 2000, in fact, he actually got to say “Stop the presses” to editors in San Jose, Calif., as the paper was being put to bed, with the dramatic news that AMD would the following Monday announce its first chip to run at the then-blistering speed of 1GHz.

The story was flashed to subscribers of a daily fax newsletter–quaint, no?–that night before tearing out that issue’s front page. Previously, chip speeds were measured in Megahertz.

Arik attended the University of Oregon, and is originally from that state. After a two-year stint reporting for a daily newspaper in Idaho, he moved to New York to attend graduate school at Columbia University.

He has been a New Yorker ever since. When not working, he can often be found catching a jazz show at the Village Vanguard.

Welcome to ATD: The Very Enterprising Arik Hesseldahl

Kara Swisher — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 13:20:44 +0000

And Arik Hesseldahl (pictured here) makes it four.

New reporters and bloggers for All Things Digital, that is.

The well-known tech writer–based in New York–will be covering the enterprise arena, as well as chips, for us.

As most regular readers know, this site has been expanding its staff, adding even more top-notch editorial might to our already terrific work.

That includes Ina Fried on mobile, Liz Gannes on social and Tricia Duryee on e-commerce.

All are key areas of tech coverage for ATD, obviously. But, as we thought about it, it was clear that there was not nearly enough cutting-edge tech journalism going on in the enterprise space.

Thus, we turned to Arik, who has a long history covering a wide range of beats in tech.

He’s most recently been working for Bloomberg Businessweek, where for five years he covered it all: PCs, consumer electronics and semiconductors.

He was also the third person to write Businessweek.com’s popular “Byte of the Apple” column, and contributed to a companion blog of the same name.

The story was flashed to subscribers of a daily fax newsletter–quaint, no?–that night before tearing out that issue’s front page. Previously, chip speeds were measured in Megahertz.

He has been a New Yorker ever since. When not working, he can often be found catching a jazz show at the Village Vanguard.

Nick Denton's New Yorker Profile–The Video Version (Bonus! One Paragraph Version, Too)

Peter Kafka — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 10:30:39 +0000

The New Yorker‘s new profile of Nick Denton isn’t behind the magazine’s pay wall. So when you have time, you should read the whole thing. It’s good!

If you’re in a hurry, though, you can get a good sense of Denton, at least in present tense, via this clip. It’s an abridged version of my onstage chat with the Gawker Media founder at an Interactive Advertising Bureau event last month, and the editors have done a nice job of distilling it down to seven minutes. Bonus for you guys: This thing is so well-edited that I don’t appear in a single frame.

And if you’re in a real hurry, here’s the money quote, which I extracted from Denton by asking him if he thinks what Gawker does is “journalism”:

In the U.S., traditional media has killed itself. And it’s provided a great opportunity for organizations like us, because they have cared too much about the journalism, about the Pulitzers, about the respect of their peers–and too little about the entertainment of their readers.”

If you’re looking for more detail from our talk, which included Denton lavishing praise on Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs but refusing to shed any light on the Gizmodo/iPhone 4 case, check out David Kaplan’s summary at PaidContent.

Naked Brett Favre Won't Make Money for Nick Denton

Peter Kafka — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 17:27:02 +0000

Gawker Media’s Deadspin sports site says it will publish nude photos of Brett Favre today, along with some voicemails it says the quarterback left for a woman who is not his wife.

Which means that corner of Deadspin is going to be very, very popular today.

As well as unprofitable, says Gawker Media owner Nick Denton.

“These things are always money-losers,” Denton says via IM, before referring me to Gawker Media marketing director Erin Pettigrew for more.

But while I wait for her to get back to me, I can make some educated guesses to explain why lots of traffic won’t mean lots of money for Denton today.

It’s hard to serve ads into traffic spikes. Or at least that’s what Denton always says about his most popular posts, like the iPhone 4 prototype that Gizmodo showed off to Apple’s dismay, or a sorta-sex tape featuring “McSteamy” from “Grey’s Anatomy,” etc.
In this case, Gawker is very likely to serve up the Favre post without any advertising, anyway. When I interviewed Denton onstage at an Advertising Week event last week, I asked him specifically about how advertisers feel about “athlete dong” photos, which his readers love. His answer, in short, was that advertisers are understandably squeamish about this stuff, and can opt out of posts that contain it in advance. Have to assume this is one of those cases.

Requisite to-be-sure: Denton runs a for-profit business, and he won’t run athlete dong photos or anything else unless he can make money doing it.

So while those individual pageviews that the post generates won’t make him money, those visitors may well end up visiting other, dong-free posts on Gawker sites today, which will have ads.

And of course, the post will give Gawker and Deadspin that much more publicity, as mainstream media outlets that would never stoop to running athlete dong photos find time to talk about the site that did. (Cough.)

UPDATE: Sure enough, both the Favre post and the rest of Deadspin are currently ad-free. Via e-mail, Erin Pettigrew explains why that’s so:

In the case of major ad/edit adjacency issues such as this, we have a cadre of tech tools to handle the display conflict. Usually the decision is made to prevent ads from showing next to NSFW or similarly questionable content and then the tech solution is put into place to effect that immediately after. The tech tools range from removing ads on a per-post basis to scanning post content for particular topics against which we can negatively target ads.

If the adjacency affects takeovers and sponsorships where ad inventory cannot be otherwise rerouted, we communicate the scenario upfront to the client and involve them in the decision-making. The same tech solutions then apply.

It’s the classic airplane ad next to an airliner crash scenario for which publishers need to develop contingencies. For this particular scoop, the decision was indeed to clean the Favre post pages of ads.

I saw your note about spikes — you are correct that we aren’t able to instantly match ad demand to the surge of inventory supply caused by traffic spikes. This is because our inventory is 100% directly sold versus hawked by real time auction marketplaces. More pageviews does not directly equal more dollars! Also, note that our ad bookings close weeks to months before creative hits the websites. So, unless a spike is ‘scheduled,’ it can’t really be sold.

Digg's Decline, Illustrated

Peter Kafka — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:34:20 +0000

Why does Digg have a new design and a new CEO? Here’s one answer, via a handy chart.

This one comes from Christopher Mascari, a Gawker Media marketing guy, and it illustrates the blog network’s traffic from social media sites. Less than a year ago, Digg was the single most important social site for Gawker, Gizmodo, Jalopnik et al. Now it has been eclipsed by the likes of Facebook, Twitter and, a little surprisingly, StumbleUpon. And note that Reddit, Condé Nast’s “Digg clone,” is catching up as well:

The other big takeaway from the data is the story that many publishers have been telling in the past year or so: Social traffic is becoming as important, or more so, than search traffic from the likes of Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO). Last fall Gawker was getting 10 million visits a month from social sites; now that number is up to 20 million. And Facebook, at 7.7 million visits, now represents more than a third of that number:

Windows Phone 7 Previews: And Now for Something Completely Different…

Voices — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 22:30:41 +0000

If it’s going to recover from its admitted stumble in the mobile market, Microsoft very much needs Windows Phone 7 to be a hit. Based on the early word from tech media outlets that have been playing with a close-to-final version of the totally revamped operating system, the company has reason to be encouraged but not comfortably confident. Here are some in-depth previews from Engadget, Gizmodo, ZDNet and Boy Genius Report.

Gizmodo to Cooperate With Probe Into Lost iPhone Prototype

Shira Ovide — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:09:18 +0000

Gizmodo said it has reached an agreement with California authorities over access to some computer and other material related to an investigation of how the technology website obtained a prototype of the new Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPhone months before its release.

In April, Gizmodo published details and video of the new iPhone 4 model. The website said it paid to obtain the phone, which was allegedly left behind in a bar by an Apple employee. The San Mateo County, Calif., district attorney’s office opened an investigation into whether crimes were committed in how the iPhone 4 details got out.

Gizmodo and its parent company, Gawker Media LLC, had been resisting efforts by the district attorney’s office to search computers and other equipment seized from the home of Jason Chen, the Gizmodo editor who wrote about the iPhone prototype. Gawker had said that it was inappropriate for law-enforcement officials to seize materials from a news organization just with a search warrant, which news organizations can’t challenge in court.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

"Yellow Blotch" Display Complaints Mar iPhone 4 Launch Day

John Paczkowski — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 12:10:52 +0000

Early adopters beware: Apple’s new iPhone 4 officially went on sale earlier today and there are already reports of problems with it. Some new owners of the device report finding yellow discoloration on its Retina Display.

“I just noticed a flaw on my display,” one wrote in a message to Apple’s support forums. “It wasn’t very obvious, i was messing with the phone for a good 45 minutes till i even spotted it. On the bottom 10% of the screen there are 3 blotches about the size of shirt buttons that discolor the screen a brown/yellow color. Again hardly noticeable at first but now that i know it’s there my eyes get drawn too it. Shows up well when its a white background. I was hoping it was just some grime but wiping down the front didn’t help. Oh well, guess i’ll hang onto it until Apple gets a few more in stock and trade it in a few weeks from now.”

Similar reports are showing up on Gizmodo and MacRumors, where the blotch is described as more of a bar. “Just synced up my iPhone 4 and noticed that, on screens with a white background (i.e., Settings.), there is a decidedly yellow spot on the lower left corner of my screen,” another report reads. “It appears circular (about the size of a pencil eraser) but when you rotate the phone sideways, it’s more visible as running across the bottom edge of the screen a ways.”

It’s not yet clear how widespread the issue is, but there are enough complaints on Apple’s (AAPL) support forums to be concerning. I’ve asked the company for comment and will update here if offered one.

Meanwhile, reports of problems with the iPhone 4′s signal-strength bars are beginning to circulate as well. But as Walt Mossberg noted in his review, this is a known issue that Apple intends to fix:

In some places where the signal was relatively weak, the iPhone 4 showed no bars, or fewer bars than its predecessor. Apple says that this is a bug it plans to fix, and that it has to do with the way the bars are presented, not the actual ability to make a call. And, in fact, in nearly all of these cases, the iPhone 4 was able to place calls despite the lack of bars.

However, on at least six occasions during my tests, the new iPhone was either reporting “no service” or searching for a network while the old one, held in my other hand, was showing at least a couple of bars. Neither Apple nor AT&T could explain this. The iPhone 4 quickly recovered in these situations, showing service after a few seconds, but it was still troubling.

[Image credit: elitemrp, Apple Support Discussions]

UPDATE: AT&T Now Dropping iPhone Calls and iPhone 4 Pre-Orders

John Paczkowski — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:10:33 +0000

Apple began taking pre-orders for its new iPhone 4 this morning, though the process was far less seamless than the company had hoped. Availability was limited to the black model only and early morning order attempts were plagued by AT&T account-verification errors.

Early adopters hoping to pre-order the device ran into trouble at both the Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T) Web sites, where the pre-order process failed between the “check eligibility” and “Please wait while we access your AT&T account information” stages. The situation was much the same at the companies’ brick-and-mortar stores, where clerks handling purchases ran into similar issues. Gizmodo reports that things grew so bad at one AT&T store, its staff began processing orders “on pen and paper.”

“They’re just using some Web interface, not the exact same customers are using online, but not much better. It’s probably the same servers. Basically, they were getting one pre-order thru every 20 minutes. They said the problem was system wide,” Gizmodo’s Kyle VanHemert reports.

“Here’s how it worked,” VanHermert explains, “They just kept mashing on the ‘submit’ button and getting error after error. On the umpteenth try, it’d go through and then the next step, whatever that was, would get error after error. After a long time, it would finally go through. What’s worse is that the first step of the process reups your 2 year contract, so you can’t walk away if you get fed up.”

It seems likely, then, that the problem here is with AT&T’s provisioning system, though obviously high demand is an issue as well. To wit, the outgoing message on Apple’s 800-MY-APPLE number.

“Thank you for calling Apple. Due to extremely high call volumes, we are unable to answer your call at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please try your call again later. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you in the future.”

In any event, today’s pre-order debacle isn’t going over well at all with iPhone owners already frustrated by AT&T’s service, as evidenced by this mock error message from Michael Aleo (click to enlarge):

Reached for comment on today’s pre-order pandemonium, AT&T declined to give one. Apple hasn’t responded to a similar request.

[Top image credit: Larry Legend]

D8 Video: Steve Jobs on Gizmodo and Missing 4G iPhone

Peter Kafka — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 06:45:49 +0000

We’ve heard Gizmodo’s version of the 4G iPhone saga. And we’ve heard the San Mateo County Sheriff’s telling of the tale. Here’s Steve Jobs’ take, which has a couple of different layers: At one point, the Apple (AAPL) CEO makes it clear that this is a police matter, but at another, he makes it clear that he’s quite upset about the whole thing and unwilling to “let it slide.”

[ See post to watch video ]

More Coverage on the Steve Jobs D8 Speaker Page »

Apple CEO Steve Jobs Live at D8: All We Want to Do is Make Better Products

John Paczkowski — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:45:49 +0000

Much has happened since Apple CEO Steve Jobs last appeared on the D stage. At that time, in May 2007, the iPhone had not yet arrived at market, the app ecosystem it would usher in was still gestating and the iPad was simply a long-running rumor.

So the conversation onstage focused largely on the iPod, iTunes and Apple’s (AAPL) relationship with the music industry, and the forthcoming launch of the iPhone. A few months earlier, Jobs had penned a widely read open letter, “Thoughts on Music,” calling on the “big four” music companies to sell their music without digital rights management. iTunes was already the world’s largest online music distribution system, so his thoughts generated quite a bit of discussion–and a fair bit of controversy.

Today, the iPhone is nearly three years old. It has sold 50 million units worldwide, and the multitouch interface and app ecosystem it pioneered have arguably revolutionized the smartphone industry.

Today, the iPad is no longer a rumor. Launched just two months ago, it has already sold two million units and seems poised to revolutionize an industry or two of its own.

And today, Jobs is once again shaking up an industry with another open letter, “Thoughts on Flash,” a withering rumination on Adobe’s (ADBE) Flash platform and the future of online video.

Much has changed in three years. But one thing has remained constant: Apple, under Jobs, continues to drive innovation in every industry it touches.

Liveblog

A note about our coverage: This liveblog is not an official transcript of the conversation that occurred onstage. Rather, it is a compilation of quotes, paraphrased statements and ad-lib observations written and posted to the Web as quickly as possible. It is not intended as a transcript and should not be interpreted as one.

5:54 pm: In a few moments, Steve Jobs will once again take the D stage for the opening session of D8.

6:21 pm: Following a welcome from News Corp. (NWS) CEO Rupert Murdoch and a few introductory remarks from Walt and Kara, the pair welcome Jobs to the stage.

6:22 pm: The first question is about Apple surpassing Microsoft in market valuation. Jobs says “It’s surreal, but it doesn’t really mean anything.”

6:23 pm Walt references Jobs’s recent “Thoughts on Flash” essay. Even if everything you say is true, is it really fair to consumers to be so abrupt and cut them off, he asks? Jobs doesn’t seem to think it’s unfair. “Apple is a company that doesn’t have the most resources in the world, and they way we’ve succeeded is to bet the right technological horse, to look at technologies that have a future. We try to pick things that are in their springs. And if you choose wisely, you can be quite successful.”

Apple has a history of doing that, Jobs says, noting that Apple was the first company to dump the floppy and later, to adopt USB. “Sometimes when we get rid of things, people call us crazy….But sometimes you just have to pick the things that are going to be the right horse to ride forward….And Flash has had it’s day…but HTML5 is starting emerge….The video looks better and it works better and you don’t need a plug-in to run it. And while 75 percent of the video on the Web may be available in Flash, a lot of it is available in HTML5 as well.”

6:29 pm: What about developers, asks Walt. How are they impacted? Jobs draws a quick parallel to Apple’s HyperCard. “HyperCard was huge in its day,” he says, going on to note that the thousands of apps on the iPhone OS platform are testament to developer involvement.

6:31 pm: Jobs: “We didn’t set out to have a war over Flash. We made a technical decision. And it wasn’t until the iPad that Adobe raised a stink. They came after us….That’s why I wrote “Thoughts on Flash.”…We were getting tired of being trashed by Adobe in the press.”

6:32 pm: Walt: What if people demand Flash. What if they say the iPad is crippled without Flash. “We’re just trying to make great products,” says Jobs again. “We don’t think Flash makes a great product, so we’re leaving it out. Instead, we’re going to focus on technologies that are in ascendancy. If we succeed, people will buy them and if we don’t they won’t….And, so far, I have to say, people seem to be liking the iPad. We are selling an iPad every 3 seconds.”

6:35 pm: Ah! The inevitable lost-iPhone question. Walt quickly recounts the history of the discovery of the iPhone prototype, its revelation on Gizmodo and the subsequent police investigation that involved the seizure of a blogger’s computers. Where do you come down on this, asks Walt. “To make a wireless product work well, you have to test it. And one of our employees was carrying one and there’s a debate about whether it was left in a bar or stolen….And the person who found it decided to sell it…and it turned out this person plugged it into his roommate’s computer and that roommate called the police.”

6:40 pm: Jobs continues, “And the police showed up and took this guy’s computers…and the DA is investigating it…and I don’t know where it will end up.” In other words, it’s a police matter. That said, Jobs is very clearly irked by the whole debacle.

6:40 pm: Any comments on the Foxconn suicides which we’ve been hearing so much about, asks Kara. Apple is extraordinarily diligent and rigorous about vetting its manufacturing partners, Jobs answers. “Foxconn is not a sweatshop,” he adds. “They’ve got restaurants and swimming pools….For a factory, it’s a pretty nice factory.”

6:42 pm: Jobs notes that the recent suicides at Foxconn, which number 13 at last count, I think, are still below the national average in the U.S. “But this is very troubling to us,” he says. “So we send over our own people and some outside folks as well, to look into the issue.”

6:44 pm: Walt: You spent a significant portion of your career involved in a platform war with Microsoft (MSFT). And you lost. But now there are new platforms out there and you’re doing quite well on them, as are others–Google (GOOG) and Facebook. So there’s a new platform war going on. Do you see it like that?

No, we don’t see ourselves in a platform war says Jobs. “We never saw ourselves in a platform war with Microsoft, either…Maybe that’s why we lost. … But we never thought of ourselves in a platform war; we just wanted to make good products.”

And what about Google, asks Walt. The relationship has clearly changed there, hasn’t it? “Well, they’re competing with us,” says Jobs, referring to the mobile space. “We didn’t go into search.”

6:47 pm: Kara: How do you look at Google as a competitor? Eric [Schmidt, Google CEO] was on your board.

Jobs: “They decided to compete with us and got more and more serious.”

Walt circles back, asking if Jobs doesn’t feel betrayed by Google. Jobs, clearly not buying in to this line of questioning, parries: “My sex life is great, how’s yours” he says trying to end it.

6:50 pm: Kara asks if Apple might remove Google from the iPhone and iPad. Jobs says no. Again, he notes that Apple is simply trying to make the best products it can and that the market will decide whose is better. “Right now, we have the better product.”

6:52 pm: Walt wonders why Apple bought Siri, a search company. “I don’t know if I would describe Siri as a search company,” Jobs says. “They’re not in the search area…they’re in the AI area.” Then he adds, a bit vehemently: “We’re not going into search.”

6:53 pm: Walt asks about AT&T (T), whose network continues to face criticism. Jobs: They’re doing pretty good in some ways and in others they could do better. We meet with them once a quarter. Remember, they deal with way more data traffic than anyone else. And they’re having trouble. But they have the fastest 3G network and they’re improving. I wish they were improving faster….I’m convinced that any other network, had you put the iPhone on it, would have had the same problems.

6:56 pm: Jobs continues: We found a way to sell the phone that we wanted to sell and to define it the way we wanted to define it. We were able to change the rules of the game, and that’s what got us excited about the phone business….AT&T took a big leap on us and decided they were going to trust us to do the right thing with the phone. And that’s worked out quite well for both of us.

6:59 pm: The conversation moves to talk of tablets. Walt asks if Apple knew it would build a tablet before it built the iPhone.

Jobs: “I’ll tell you a secret. It began with the tablet. I had this idea about having a glass display, a multitouch display you could type on with your fingers. I asked our people about it. And six months later, they came back with this amazing display. And I gave it to one of our really brilliant UI guys. He got [rubber band] scrolling working and some other things, and I thought, ‘my God, we can build a phone with this!’ So we put the tablet aside, and we went to work on the iPhone.”

7:01 pm: What does the iPad mean for the publishing industry, Kara asks. Is it the savior that some are touting it as?

“One of my beliefs very strongly is that any democracy depends on a free, healthy press, and so when I think of the most important journalistic endeavors in this country, I think of things like the Washington Post, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and publications like that,” Jobs replies. “And we all know what’s happened to the economics of those businesses. I don’t want to see us descend into a nation of bloggers. Anything that we can do to help the news-gathering organizations find new ways of expression so that they can afford to keep their news-gathering and editorial operations intact, I’m all for.”

7:03 pm: Jobs adds that he believes people are willing to pay for content and that content providers are not pricing their offerings as aggressively as they should.

7:05 pm: When you did your presentation on the iPad, you described it as a new category of device, says Walt. But in order for it to succeed, people have to feel that it’s worth carrying around. Do you think the tablet will succeed the laptop, he asks.

Jobs: “When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that’s what you needed on the farm. But as vehicles started to be used in the urban centers, cars got more popular. Innovations like automatic transmission and power steering and things that you didn’t care about in a truck as much started to become paramount in cars. … PCs are going to be like trucks. They’re still going to be around, they’re still going to have a lot of value, but they’re going to be used by one out of X people. … I think that we’re embarked on that. Is the next step the iPad? Who knows? Will it happen next year or five years from now or seven years from now? Who knows? But I think we’re headed in that direction.”

7:10 pm: What are your thoughts on content creation on the iPad, Walt asks, noting that some people believe tablets aren’t good devices for content creation.

“Well, why wouldn’t they be good for content creation,” asks Jobs. “It can’t be that the software isn’t powerful enough, because the software is improving….These devices over time are going to grow to do new things. … You know, people laugh at me because I use the phrase “magical” to describe the iPad. But it’s what I really think. You have a much more direct and intimate relationship with the Internet and media, your apps, your content. It’s like some intermediate thing has been removed and stripped away. …. I think we’re just scratching the surface on the kind of apps we can build for it. I think one can create a lot of content on the tablet.”

What sorts of apps, asks Kara.

Productivity apps…video-editing software, says Jobs.

7:12 pm: Now a question about App Store rejections: Isn’t there a downside to Apple’s efforts to protect its customers from porn, malware, etc.

In reply, Jobs first notes that Apple, by supporting HTML5, supports a completely open platform. But it also supports a curated platform–iPhone OS. And that platform has rules. “We approve 95 percent of the apps that are submitted to the App Store every week and we approve them within in seven days.”

So what happened with that political-cartoon app you declined to approve a few weeks ago, asks Walt.

“We have a rule that says you can’t defame people,” says Jobs, noting that political cartoonists by virtue of their profession sometimes defame people. The cartoon app was rejected on those grounds, he adds. “Then we changed the rules…and in the meantime, the cartoonist won a Pulitzer….But he never resubmitted his app. And then someone asked him, ‘Hey why don’t you have an iPhone app?’ He says we rejected it and suddenly, it’s a story in the press….Bottom line is, yes, we sometimes make mistakes…but we correct them….We are doing the best we can, changing the rules when it makes sense. What happens sometimes is that some people lie, we find it, and reject it, and they run to the press, and get their 15 minutes of fame and hope it will get us to change our minds. We take it on the chin, and we move on.”

7:20 pm: Kara: “What do you do all day?”

Jobs: “I have one of the best jobs in the world. I get to hang out with some of the most talented, committed people around and together we get to play in this sandbox and build these cool products….Apple is an incredibly collaborative company. You know how many committees we have at Apple? Zero. We’re structured like a start-up. We’re the biggest start-up on the planet. And we all meet once a week to discuss our business…and there’s tremendous teamwork at the top and that filters down to the other employees…and so what I do all day is meet with teams of people and work on ideas and new problems to come up with new products.”

7:24 pm: Are people willing to tell you that you’re wrong, asks Walt.

Of course, Jobs answers. The best ideas have to win, no matter who has them.

7:25 pm: What do you imagine the next 10 years of your life is going to be about?

Oddly Jobs replies with a comment about Gizmodo and the lost iPhone prototype. “When this whole thing with Gizmodo happened, I got a lot of advice from people who said you’ve got to just let it slide…you shouldn’t go after a journalist because they bought stolen property and tried to extort you….And I thought about that and I decided that Apple can’t afford to change its core values and simply let it slide….We have the same core values as when we started, and we come into work wanting to do the same thing today that we wanted to do five years ago.”

7:27 pm: But you are going into new businesses, says Walt, trying to redirect Jobs back to the question at hand or at least get him to comment on any new markets that the company is eyeing. Advertising, for example, with its new iAds initiative.

Jobs concedes that Apple is pursuing new businesses like iAds. But he suggests the main reason it’s doing that is to make its developers more money. “We want to help our developers make some money so that they can keep providing free or really low-cost apps to customers,” he says. “That’s why we’re doing it. We’re not going to make much money in the ad business.”

7:29 pm: Jobs continues on the mobile advertising theme. “Something really interesting is happening on mobile phones,” he says. “They’re not mirroring desktops or laptop PCs. If people want to find out what restaurant to go to, they’re not going to their search engine typing in “Japanese” and “Palo Alto,” they’re going to Yelp or whatever app they want. Ads in mobile apps today, you touch them, and what is the first thing they do? They rip you out of your app, send you to the browser and then you’ve got to figure out a way back to your app. So, wouldn’t it be great if mobile ads didn’t take you out of the app, but rather took over the screen, gave you this great experience of an interactive ad, but anytime you wanted you could hit a little button that takes you right back to where you left off in your app? We figured out we could build something like this into the operating system so the apps don’t have to do it. We can make it so that an app developer can add these interactive ads in their apps with 30 minutes’ worth of work versus working with every advertiser to do some custom thing in their app, which is crazy.”

7:31 pm: A question about privacy. Is privacy looked at differently in Silicon Valley than in the rest of the world?

“We’ve always had a very different view of privacy than some of our colleagues in the Valley,” Jobs says. “We take privacy extremely seriously. That’s one of the reasons we have the curated apps store. We have rejected a lot of apps that want to take a lot of your personal data and suck it up into the cloud. Privacy means people know what they’re signing up for. In plain English, and repeatedly, that’s what it means. Ask them. Ask them every time. Make them tell you to stop asking if they get tired of your asking them. Let them know precisely what you’re going to do with their data.”

Q&A

Q: Given the events of the past few years, what would you add to the Stanford graduation speech you gave a few years ago?

A: I’ve no idea. I’d probably just turn up the volume a little bit because the past few years have reminded me how precious life is.

Q: I’d like you to put your Disney hat on for a moment….How do you preserve the value of content?

A: The way that we market movies is undergoing a radical shift. It used to be that you spent a fortune on advertising on TV running your trailers. But now you can advertise on the Web….When we went to the music companies, we said “who is your customer?” And they said, “Best Buy, Tower”…their distribution partners. But that wasn’t their customer. They needed to recognize who their true customer was….So what changed in the music business was not the back end, but the front end. The way that you market to the consumer….The film industry needs to embrace that. And it needs to let people watch the content they want to watch, when they want to watch it and where they want to watch it.”

Q: A complaint about dropped calls on AT&T’s networks. Is someone from Apple working on that?

A: You can bet we’re doing everything we can do….I can tell you what I’m told by reliable people: To make things better, people reallocate spectrum and they do things like increasing backhaul and they put in more robust switches…and things in general, when they start to fix them, get worse before they get better…and if you believe that, things should be getting a lot better real soon.

Q: How is HDCP helping the antipiracy effort?

A: We didn’t invent the stuff. The problem is that Hollywood doesn’t want what happened to the music industry to happen to them. You can’t blame them. But content protection isn’t their business and they’re grasping at straws here. But we’ve got to deal with their restrictions….I feel your pain.

Q: What’s your vision of social gaming?

A: Clearly, iPhone and iPod touch have created a new class of gaming and it’s a subset of casual gaming, but it’s surprising how good the games are. Typical console games cost $40, but on the iPhone, they cost somewhere between free and $10, and gaming on the platform is taking off. We’re trying to do the right things to enable more gaming and social gaming.

Q: Is it time to throw out the interface for TV? Does television need a new human interface.

A: The problem with innovation in the TV industry is the go-to-market strategy. The TV industry has a subsidized model that gives everyone a set top box for free. So no one wants to buy a box. Ask TiVo, ask Roku, ask us… ask Google in a few months. The television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business model that gives everyone a set-top box, and that pretty much undermines innovation in the sector. The only way this is going to change is if you start from scratch, tear up the box, redesign and get it to the consumer in a way that they want to buy it. But right now, there’s no way to do that….The TV is going to lose until there’s a viable go-to-market strategy. That’s the fundamental problem with the industry. It’s not a problem with the technology, it’s a problem with the go-to-market strategy….I’m sure smarter people than us will figure this out, but that’s why we say Apple TV is a hobby.

More Coverage on the Steve Jobs D8 Speaker Page »

The Long, Weird Cops and Robbers Tale of Gizmodo, Apple and the 4G iPhone

Peter Kafka — Fri, 14 May 2010 20:43:48 +0000

Here’s the definitive tale, so far, of iPhonegate. It comes via the search warrant affidavit filed by the San Mateo cops, who were investigating Gizmodo’s purchase of a 4G iPhone prototype as a felony.

A lot of this stuff has been out in one form or another, but the narrative is pretty fascinating. If you plow through the document embedded at the bottom of the post, bear in mind that it’s a tale told by Matthew Broad, a detective in San Mateo County Sheriff’s office. So it’s possible that other parts of the story, and/or different versions of the same story, may still end up coming to light.

Among the highlights:

Apple knew that Brian Hogan, the 21-year-old who found the iPhone, had the thing because his roommate, Katherine Martinson, called and told the company he had it. Her reasoning, according to Apple (AAPL) security chief Rick Orloff: “Suspect Hogan connected the stolen iPhone to her computer and she believed that Apple would eventually trace the iPhone back to her via IP addresses. Therefore she contacted Apple in order to absolve herself of criminal responsibility.”
Martinson told police that Hogan had offered the phone to Gizmodo, AOL’s (AOL) Engadget.com and PC World. While Gizmodo owner Gawker Media had previously said it paid $5,000 for access to the phone, the affidavit is a bit fuzzier. Martinson says Hogan told her Gizmodo offered $10,000 for the gadget and later said he’d received $5,000 from Gizmodo and a total of $8,500. But she wasn’t clear where the other $3,500 came from. “Martinson said Hogan also told her that he will receive a cash bonus from Gizmodo.com in July if and when Apple makes an official product announcement regarding the new iPhone.”
There’s a long cops-and-robbers interlude where police show up at Hogan’s house, but he takes off and is eventually tracked down at his father’s place. In the end, Hogan and Thomas Warner, another roommate, help the cops retrieve a computer, a flash drive and other equipment they’d removed from their place “in order to ‘protect’” Hogan.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs did indeed reach out to Gizmodo to ask for the phone back. Here’s editor Brian Lam’s response to Jobs, via email (click to enlarge):

And here’s the entire affidavit, which we’re able to see because a group of media companies, including CNET, Bloomberg, Wired and the Los Angeles Times, petitioned a California judge to unseal it. Gawker Media, via COO Gaby Darbyshire, declined to comment on the affidavit and its contents.

UPDATE: Here’s Gawker’s position, via an email Darbyshire sent Saturday afternoon:

First of all, the warrant and supporting affidavit do not appear to acknowledge the sanctity of the newsroom or even address the serious issues at stake.

Second, the idea that it is a felony trade secret theft to photograph an item that was admittedly left in a bar is ridiculous.

Finally, Gizmodo from the start was attempting to investigate if this item was a genuine prototype of a product belonging to Apple; we believed that confirmation of its authenticity and ownership quite reasonably needed to be made in writing – and once we obtained that, the item was returned immediately.

EFF has a detailed piece on the warrant issue here.

Gizmodo-iPhoneOrder

Bad News, Steve. You Know My iPhone HD Prototype? Well, I Was Celebrating My Birthday at This Bar in Hanoi…

John Paczkowski — Wed, 12 May 2010 13:01:17 +0000

If it’s true that Apple CEO Steve Jobs personally monitors the list of employees who have permission to take pre-release versions of the company’s products off campus, he might want to raise his standards for inclusion a bit. Because the company seems to have lost yet another next-generation iPhone prototype.

Photos of the intact device and a teardown were posted to the Vietnamese forum, Taoviet, yesterday, and they look genuine, though obviously, there’s no way of knowing for sure.

The prototype is nearly identical to the one lost in a German ale house and subsequently purchased by Gizmodo, though it’s a bit more polished. It features the same iPad-esque glass and aluminum design and a chip with an “APL0398″ designation–the same one found on the iPad’s A4 system-on-chip. It lacks the two screws so prominent on the Gizmodo device, which suggests it may be a near-final production model.

Again, there’s no way to be certain. But I imagine we’ll find out for sure during Apple’s (AAPL) Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address, the traditional venue for introducing new iPhones.

Below, photos and video of the device.

[Image/video credit: Taoviet.nv]