John Ahrens › Likes

Nope. I think that Android is a smartphone OS just like Windows Mobile and the iPhone OS. So it competes with them both. - Dare Obasanjo

The user experience should be portable across devices and device types. Microsoft has not been able to achieve this. Apple is not going to try. - scott anderson

A better way to see it is as a way of competing with dumb phones. - DeWitt Clinton

DeWitt: I think you have started drinking your own kool-aid ;) People only have one cell phone. So any cell phone competes with all other cell phones. iPhone competes with dumb phones, and Android phones compete with the iPhone. Features and cost play a part, as they do with every other purchasing decision. Saying they don't compete is just expectation-setting, like the candidates telling the press how bad they are at debating before every debate. - Bret Taylor

Hehe. No, my argument is that now that there is an iPhone quality operating system available, open source, for free, there will be no excuse for every device not to be a smart phone. - DeWitt Clinton

Looks like Bret beat me to the punch. :) - Dare Obasanjo

Open isn't enough to win. It has to be good too. Note though that Android != G1, so even if you don't fancy that device, just wait.... there will be more. Did you read how companies are jumping in with Android? E.g. Motorola putting 350 people on it (allegedly). - Dion Almaer

Viz "people only have one cell phone" that may be true in the US but from where I'm sitting I can see 2 of my mobile phones. In many parts of the world the number of phones is greater than 1. According to wikipedia this is true in 50 countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Adewale Oshineye

Agreed with Dion that open isn't alone enough to win. But open *and* a phone that is as good as the iPhone, and thus arguably at least the second best overall, and now you're talking profound. And there are something like what, 10 million iPhones, but almost 4 billion phones in existence. That's 99.75% of the market that can be upgraded, even if the end goal for Android isn't sales numbers (sales are upside for the carriers to realize). That's not Kool-Aid - that's a paradigm shift. - DeWitt Clinton

I've been quiet publicly so far about my enthusiasm for Android. But now that the covers are coming off I can say that I truly believe that Android has the potential to change the world. I think of it like this -- Google would not have have been possible without open source software, particularly the GNU tools and compilers and the Linux kernel, and the open web ecosystem to nuture it. What future Googles will Android make possible? I honestly don't know -- only time will tell, and that's why I'm excited. - DeWitt Clinton

There will still be a market for cheap dumb phones going forward. They can be made to run Android and customized by adding one or more Android apps locked into the device by the carrier. The software will be free to the carriers and the hardware commodites. I don't know if Apple and Microsoft will want to compete in the dumb phone market. - scott anderson

Android is a smart phone OS, not a dumb phone OS. Part of what makes a phone a dumb phone is hardware limitations. No one at Google has been talking publicly about putting Android on phones like the ones in the story at http://www.nytimes.com/2008... and even then Symbian is more likely to make it happen given its popularity and maturity. Nice rap though. - Dare Obasanjo

True, to a point. But the dumbest of dumb hardware today is smarter than the smart hardware just a few years ago. A couple of years from now, just try buying a device without a capacitive touch screen, an 802.11 chip, a camera, flash storage, etc. And if you were building an ultra-low cost device for developing nations, wouldn't you chose the open source platform that was free of licensing fees? - DeWitt Clinton

And back to the original point, is no one else blown away by the fact that version 1.0 of Android -- the first public release -- is already being compared with the very best mobile OS, the iPhone OS? That Dare would even feel the need to write that post? - DeWitt Clinton

If Symbian is so popular and mature then why are they trying to steal the Android / OHA game plan? As far as I know Symbian will still have to cater to the OMA. That is a severe handicap for them. BTW, my definition of dumb phones would include a dedicated map device that you could talk to and a phone that only has a voice interface, something you would want to have while jogging, etc. You would operate all these devices over the same networks. - scott anderson

Dewitt, you should be a politician with your ability to switch positions so quickly. The point is that today Android is a competitor to smartphone OSes like Symbian, WinMobile and the iPhone OS. Of these Symbian is the most popular and iPhone has the most hype. So unsurprisingly the press is all about Apple vs. Google since is the Brangelina of trade press news. - Dare Obasanjo

Haha. I have the family name for it, too. : ) But I'll cede you the point. The Android OS *is* competitive with other smart phone operating systems, and maybe even to their market share. But what excites me is that the ecosystem -- the openness, the licensing, etc -- around Android is *nothing* like the other smart phone operating systems. Android is inventing an entirely new class there. So even if it failed against the smart phones (and I don't think it will) it will still change everything. - DeWitt Clinton

"That's not Kool-Aid -- that's a paradigm shift." ??? [reads packet of Google Paradigm Shift] hmmm... sugar, fructose, citric acid, calcium phosphate...Yellow 6 lake, Red 40 lake... artificial flavor.... What flavor? I honestly don't know -- only time will tell, and that's why I'm excited!!! Woo!!! - Karim

[grabs nearest passing stranger by the lapels] This drink has the potential to change the WORLD!!!!!! - Karim

Personally, I think we should be comparing the G1 to Apple's first phone, which was called the E1. You might know it as the ROKR: http://bit.ly/2062si . And just as Apple's OS and the phones that ran the OS got much better over time, so too will Android phones. With an open-source OS, anyone could write Exchange support. Dare, where are the docs on Exchange's APIs, just so people can learn about them? - Matt Cutts

Here you go - http://www.microsoft.com/about... - Dare Obasanjo

ROKR OS was not created by apple, not the slightest, Motorola made it look like the ipods of the time to add that extra oomph for the marketing department, but when everyone got to play with it they hated it. Not to mention the fact that it only came with 128 MB of ram out of the box. - Stepan Mazurov

have to agree with Stepan -- the ROKR E1 was basically a older Motorola E398 onto which Apple glommed a single application called the iTunes Client. (Which they then intentionally crippled to hold very few songs, so as not to cannibalize iPod sales.) You don't want to confuse a single app with an entire OS. [thinks about Chrome] Or *do* you? Muahahaha... :-D - Karim

Compare Mac OS 7,8,9 to Windows 3.0. Arguably, the former was way more usable. Guess which one achieved market dominance. The open system on an open architecture will beat the closed system on a closed architecture in the long run. (It wasn't obvious in 1989 that Apple was in trouble --- their profits weren't really affected until 1998 or so) - Piaw Na

Piaw, we're all dead in the long run. It seems pretty myopic to reduce the lessons of Windows vs. Mac and iPod vs. MP3 players to "openness wins in the long run". The best value for customers wins in the long run. Being able to run more apps on Windows proved to be more valuable to customers than whatever else Mac had to offer. This isn't the same dynamic in MP3 players (good luck waiting for openness to win) but it might be for cell phones. - Dare Obasanjo

excellent example of wy microformats need to be adopted. love this! - Paulo Elias from twhirl

the concept of Humanized Enso further developed... Aza Raskin rocks! - Adarsh

WOW! just installed and am totally blown away - Benton

Love Aza Raskin's work...always quick to show there is so much room for improvement in making all this wonderful technology usable. - Devlin Dunsmore from twhirl

This just looks fantastic. Can't wait to play around with it. - J. McConnell

This will be huge, IF we can get people to understand the power of keyboard shortcuts. Off to install! :) - Richard Goodwin from twhirl

Just tested it in Ubuntu. Awed! Way better than greasemonkey. More powerful than Yubnub. Better user experience than AlchemyPoint. And the documentation is witty too. Kudos to the good people of Ubiquity. This one promises a lot. It surely rocks in my world! That's why I like to follow Scoble. Don't know him, and probably never will, but it's less likely that I'll lose the next big thing ;) Thank you friendfeed community! - Guillaume

I've just tested it...it is a beta indeed,but really really cool! - Daniele Russolillo

This does look *VERY VERY* cool! - Nicholas Kreidberg

This is an amazing concept. Blown away. - Aaron Crews

bastards stole my idea :P http://allansideas.wordpress.com/2008... - Allan Anderson

Using it now and really really liking it. - Nicholas Kreidberg

Too bad it isn't fully supported on Linux. I wonder why they don't use Firefox functionality to display the notifications, so it could be completely cross-platform. - J. McConnell

This is completely awesome. It's like Quicksilver for everything else. - Andrew

dang their logo looks like a slight rip off of mine. don't make me change my logo on another business. :( - Anika

Yeah, juxtapose this with the fact that there was only one video feed for the opening ceremonies. - Alex Scoble

Which is how China was able to inject the computer generated images of the "firework" footprints. - Alex Scoble

Wow. Corral is definitely the right word. I wonder if it's first come, first seated? - Lisa L. Seifert

At least they have paying work. - tom sparks

Also think of it as commiditising the images - one camera, one source, one expensive picture! - Simon Bisson from twhirl

If they actually were spread around and had different points of view it might make sense but my guess is that 5 or 10 total would guarantee complete coverage. Of course Nikon and Canon are happy - Brian Sullivan

If copyright law wasn't so screwed up, then yes, it might make sense to have one or a few photographers, and then distribute their photos. But that would never work in our screwed up world... - Josh Bancroft

Why? If you've ever seen the crying accordion player at FDR's funeral you would know why. Everyone was taking pics of the funeral, and one photog turned around to take this classic shot (which I think won several awards) http://www.mishalov.com/images... - Andrew Leyden

and maybe some of them are simply doing it for their photoblog :) - Midori

Not all photogs are created equal. not all are looking for the same shot. Some might be better at shooting one sport than another. I know I can shoot rowing better than I can shoot baseball. - Andrew Feinberg

Andrew: You mention rowing. Did you mean sculling? Have you done much shooting of kayaking? - Mathew A. Koeneker

I'd shoot sweep rowing (one oar per athlete) differently from sculling (two oars per athlete). I haven't shot kayaking at all. but I'd probably be shooting sprint, not whitewater. - Andrew Feinberg

If only we could have access to all of those pictures, and digitally combine them into a single explorable gigapixel image... - Chris Hollander

i wonder if they realize that they could take a high quality video and capture like a trillion stills from it ;) - Steven Livingstone-Pérez from twhirl

seriously ridiculous amount of photogs in attendance in the "corral" - Susan Beebe

Probably not... but who decides who actually gets to shot that? Who are the best photographers, do they have a 'club'? If I'm not the best photographer, how am I ever gonna get the chance to try or indeed learn if I'm never accepted into the club. Not every lens is always aimed at the one thing. If we didn't have a variety of pictures then complaints would be raised about the lack of coverage. Or maybe the government could pick them. I'd take oversaturation to maintain freedom of the press than say... China - Johnny Worthington

Can you see Thomas Hawk in there? - Adam Helweh

you can say the same about blogs - Antonio Altamirano

The better question is : Do we need THAT much RebelXT's lol ;) - Martin Gommel from feedalizr

Do we need THAT many newspapers? Do we need THAT many news websites? Do we need THAT many magazines? Do we need THAT many news TV stations? Why won't we all be hooked up to our big brother central news feed and live like drones???? - Amit Morson

Do we need this many blogs? :-) - Colby Olson

If you were paid to go by FastCompany to cover the tech angle would you have gone and my other question (like colby) is do we need so many bloggers at each conference covering the same thing. 1. Its bad for your carbon footprint and 2. The noise is the same with a slight twist. - sam sethi

For a great behind-the-scenes insight into the work of photographers at the Olympics I highly recommend this Newsweek blog, co-authored by their 3 photographers in Beijing: http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs.... - Ole Begemann

Sam: seriously? I am the one who makes the resource decisions for Fast Company TV and I could never justify taking so much time off to cover an event that so many others are covering. I try not to do that anymore even when the event is in my backyard, much less in China. No, we don't need so many bloggers covering the same thing at events. That's why I don't try to go to things anymore with lots of other bloggers. - Robert Scoble

do we need this many tech bloggers ? - Dave Ploch from fftogo

Dave: probably not. But one thing, we aren't using up lots of resources and we're not complaining that we're getting laid off from our jobs (hundreds of journalists in San Francisco area alone have lost their jobs recently thanks to the business model of newspapers changing radically). So, the comparison does not stand up. - Robert Scoble

I blame copyright laws. They're all taking essentially the same photo, but IP laws prevent them from sharing it. - Gabe

agreed, but I would argue the point about resources. Bloggers are extremely green. Also, how many blogger have this as their sole income or even as their only responsibilty in a business? - Dave Ploch

not green I meant - Dave Ploch

Gabe: that's not true. The Associated Press exists for sharing photos and saving journalistic resources. My photo of John Edwards was given to the Associated Press and dozens of newspapers and TV stations used it. - Robert Scoble

Robert. Really - I don't understand the schadenfreude? It's actually starting to sound chippy. Andrew was actually spot on. Out of the thousands of photos taken, only a very few are actually goint to be sufficiently interesting to warrant sticking on the page. One of the things I miss about newspapers and like when I do still pick them up, is a great page composition with a fabulous photo. - mattpovey

you're right. One guy with a flickr Account would have been enough. - Bertrand Duperrin

I really don't see the semi-obsession with this. Who is supposed to now decide how many is enough? Who is supposed to tell us how we can make a living, or what is worth taking a picture of. I know I wouldn't;t be thrilled with only one or two photographers being allowed to shoot there. What is this supposed to be saying about us? That all around the world humans are interested int he performance of the most gifted athletes on earth? Why am I supposed to feel bad about that again? - Soulhuntre

Similarly I don't "blame" IP laws - though obviously they are a factor here. But that's a good thing. It is a GOOD thing that humans are allowed to own what they produce... anything else is slavery. The right to decide what I produce, and who benefits from it, is to me a core human right. Besides, many of those photos will be resold time and again. - Soulhuntre

I agree with Soulhuntre -- let the market decide. Those photog are there meeting someone's demand, right or wrong. - Charles Barthold from Alert Thingy

I think it would be easier if all these outlets just told common people , send us your pics, we'll pay if its used in our publication. However, I dont think the common man has faith with the MSM.. as MSM are perecived as crooks .. take the pic, pub it and dont let any1 know who sent it in. - Peter Dawson

I'm still wondering why no one ever talks about Elgg when it comes to creating a niche social network site. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Good call on the disparate social graphs. - Hao Chen

Agreed... building a social network right now built on WordPress for our local twitter community -> http://dmtweetup.org - andy brudtkuhl

@Stupid Blogger - Elgg is pretty cool - andy brudtkuhl

Elgg classic was very good, now elgg one is much better. And it was a software intended for social nets, not a converted =) - Arturo Servin from twhirl

Andy Peatling will be talking about BuddyPress (WP-based social network project) at WordCamp SF on Saturday... good timing. - Mark Jaquith from twhirl

It will be interesting to see if BuddyPress can compete in the enterprise social networking space. - hellonm

bolog and ne - adolfo foronda

Sarah, I didn't know about the Action Streams plugin, but I liked DavidRecordon website so much that I did my own c# script to generate something like that. http://www.alexsauceda.com - Alex Sauceda

Funny. I was searching Digg.com for this art... er post and leave a comment there. I typed in the beginning of the title "The Next Social Networks" and found one post in particular made end of last year (<a href="http://gigaom.com/2007..." target=_blank>click here</a>) titled: "The Next Social Network: WordPress". Personally, after having played... more... - lelapin from FriendFeed MT Plugin

"Jeff Atwood and I ... [are] starting to build a programming Q&A site that's free. Free to ask questions, free to answer questions, free to read, free to index, built with plain old HTML, no fake rot13 text on the home page, no scammy google-cloaking tactics, no salespeople, no JavaScript windows dropping down in front of the answer asking for $12.95 to go away. You can register if you want to collect karma and win valuable flair that will appear next to your name, but otherwise, it's just free. - J. McConnell

Cool. Cuz I can't stand getting expertexchange results in my google queries. - Josh Haley

I look at it as Yahoo! Answers for programming questions. - Alan Le

oh they also have an interesting podcast by the same name that's worth listening to if you're a developer or interested in the software industry. - Alan Le

Guess it's ready enough for prime time they're starting to bring in the spokespeople? :) - Paul Whitaker

Paul: no spokespeople are involved yet. That is what is cool about this effort. - Robert Scoble

Cool! Just signed up for the beta. A coworker and I were just talking about how crappy the google results have become for programming q&a lately. - Jeremy Brooks

Robert: I meant you! :) Sounds neat, though. Looking forward to it. - Paul Whitaker

Paul: I'm not a spokesperson. I haven't even talked to the company about this yet. What you are reading here and on my blog at http://scobleizer.com/2008... is completely from hearing about this via word-of-mouth. - Robert Scoble

It is easier to ask forgiveness than permission. - Jeremy Brooks

You get in more trouble doing something someone has told you not to do than doing something that nobody has given permission for. If you ask 10 people and one says 'nay' you open yourself up to trouble. Ask as few people as needed to CYA and then do the right thing for the company as you see it. - Kevin Fox

+1 Jeremy - Akiva Moskovitz

+1 Kevin - This is something you don't learn from schooling, but from experience. Still, the best kind of learning IMHO. - Jeanette Bosman

+1 Jeremy - that has always been my philosophy! - Sarah Perez

First rule of sales: Once you've made the sale, stop selling. - Stephen Mack

I never asked. :-) - Robert Scoble

i've heard it's better to apologize than to ask permission - Mister Groonk from twhirl

it seems to me this might occur only if you don't know the right person to ask in the first place. but i'm not a permission-seeking type of person, so i wouldn't know. - idnan

Same here... if it feels right to you just do it! - Ricardo Rabago

I like to apologize in advance about something I'm going to do that you won't like. - Amir Gharaat

CYA by sending out your proposal in advance, stored in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory marked "beware of the leopard." Then, instead of begging forgiveness or apologizing, tell the naysayers that it's no use crying about it now. - Stephen Mack

Just posted this. Sad to see it happen, everything was so close. Free trade between countries should be something we'd achieved by 2008 - Steven Cains

Another triumph of the American farm export lobby over technological free trade. We could reduce intellectual trade barriers a lot more if we stopped carrying water for farmers and the copyright cartel. - Daniel Dulitz

Link returned a 404 error for me? - asiriusgeek

Same here - borked link - metaverseoz

Good post Dave. While I love many of the iPhone features I still don't like the closed platform, short non-replaceable batter, and single carrier aspects of the product. Seeing people stand in line like sheep just amazes me, but it's their right to be able to get one and run home to show off to their friends, or perhaps to be part of the 'in' crowd. - Jim McCusker

Fake Steve Jobs prescient answer:http://tinyurl.com/ytfk68 Don't like walled gardens? Have fun w/ OpenMoko or waiting for Android - Steve Weis

Jim, not to be a fanboy, but to say the iPhone isn't the best phone on the market is misleading. I don't get camping out for a phone, but in a world of walled gardens and not, when the walled garden is the only good thing on the market, you bet that is where people will go. I would love to see carriers open up networks and platforms, but barring that, having one cell phone that doesn't suck is still a step forward. As in most things, "It works" beats out ideals in head to head competition every time. - Robert Cooper from twhirl

The iPhone is good - but it is not the best phone on the market for many people - and for many uses. It simply lacks a number of features that a lot of folks use on their phones every single day. No tethering, no MMS, no stereo bluetooth, no background processing for 3rd party apps, no copy / paste, no Java, no flash, no turn by turn gps, no tether to third party gps receiver for car use, no removable memory, no ability to swap for a spare battery. As a smartphone it is feature poor. - Soulhuntre

Great post! Left you some comments here http://friendfeed.com/e... Remember Trolls are magical. ;-) - Igor The Troll יִצְחָק

Dont get me wrong, what it does do it often does brilliantly, but for peopel who need the features entirely lacks it doesn't work at all. - Soulhuntre

@Robert, the iPhone definitely has major differentiators from any other phone on the market. But the fundamentals of being a phone, like battery life & carrier choices, reception and sound quality are definite negatives that have been noted. For anyone who doesn't care about those issues the iPhone is by far the best. I personally think Apple can and will do better in future releases. - Jim McCusker