Joshua Gans at Digitopoly:

 

While I wouldn’t want this to be a general statement: platform-owned apps can be really terrible. Why? Because they don’t permit level-playing field competition between their own apps and third party apps on their platform. And that lack of competition is costly; maybe even for the platforms themselves.

 

​(..)

 

It is precisely when a use case is ill defined that you want to encourage platform experimentation and innovation.

 

​(..)

 

I say all of this to highlight a theme but also to argue that for some platforms the cost is worse than others. Sadly, it is hard to come up with a convincing business rationale that allows this state of affairs to continue and certainly impossible to come up with one that squares with the seeming damage done to user experience.

 

iTunes and Twitter are indeed good examples of this. (And there is no reasonable business argument against modularizing the user interface of the former.)

 

​

 

 

 

Bubble:

Bubble introduces a new layer of abstraction on the top of programming technologies.
It lets you design your application by dragging and dropping elements and program it with workflows.

This looks really interesting. Kind of like Jimdo/Squarespace for web apps.

Ben Thompson:

I think many folks missed the implications of my conclusion:

There is one more point though: books don’t exist in a vacuum. The implication of ebook sales falling while remaining 20% of the industry is that the industry itself is in decline. Ultimately, in the grand competition that is the market for consumer attention, the fact that books aren’t really improving while everything else is getting better means the publishers may in the end be celebrating the most pyrrhic of victories.

If ebooks don’t really modularize books, that doesn’t mean modularization isn’t happening. Consider this blog: the length of a standard book is about 64,000 words which just so happens to be about how many words I write in a month-and-a-half! Basically, since the launch of the Daily Update, I’ve written the equivalent of about 10 books.

Moreover, the time you all spend reading this update has to come from somewhere: attention is the ultimate zero sum game. By my count I have basically reduced ebook sales by the tens of thousands, in part by breaking up what in the past may have been my book into many component parts. That, ultimately, is probably the true modularization: ideas, not books.

This.

The Verge:

By the time XOXO got underway, attendees had created more than 150 channels to discuss and organize around nearly every topic imaginable. The most widely read channels were “the commons,” where the Andys posted news about the festival relevant to all attendees. But subgroups formed in a hurry. There were channels for discussing accessibility; channels for singles and the polyamorous; channels for people interested in cannabis; channels for attendees who identify as LGBT. Some channels had dozens of members; others had 10 or fewer.

The result was that by the time many attendees arrived in Portland, there was already a subset of their fellow festival-goers waiting to greet them. And throughout the three days of XOXO, Slack was a thriving hub of conversation, offering a place for attendees to encourage and congratulate speakers, ask questions about the event’s code of conduct, and find like-minded souls with whom to sneak out and grab a beer, or a bite, or whatever.

Fascinating.

Slack has cracked online communication in a new way. Turns out, this can be used for far more than just internally by companies.

Tim Bajarin at Tech.pinions:

One important thing to note about the Fire 7 is that this is a quality device. Today, most tablets in the $65-$99 range are of poor quality. In fact, the ones I have purchased in Asia when traveling have all died since they were not durable or even all that functional. But a quality tablet at $50 in the US and other markets where Amazon sells products is an eye catcher and I think they know there will be a lot of interest in them. One unique marketing move by Amazon is to offer a “buy 5 tablets get one free” promotion. They believe that, at $250 for 6 tablets, a lot of people will buy them over the holidays as gifts for family members and even business colleagues.

MG Siegler on the rumored new Apple TV:

And so, my ultimate prediction is that this is going to be death by a thousand slices in Fruit Ninja. The consoles will remain for a decade at the high end — maybe one more cycle. Then the “hardcore” gaming moves solely to PCs (including Macs, by the way). Meanwhile, casual gaming takes over. And I wouldn’t bet against iOS powering that in the living room.

Yes. See also Horace Dedius “Game Over” on game consoles from 2013.