Starting a new paradigm – a Daily Flipboard

Brilliant, Brazen, or Batshit Crazy?
[Via Daring Fireball]

MG Siegler on Apple’s new subscription rules:

He might as well be saying: “Everyone take a deep breath — here’s why this makes sense.” And there’s no question that it does make sense — for Apple. But a lot of third-party developers both large and small are going to be very, very pissed off by this move. Why? Because it totally changes the game. Companies with subscription elements of their content had been accustomed to leveraging Apple’s platform for free. Now there will be a fee. And it will be a significant fee.

You’ll seldom go wrong betting on Apple doing something that’s good for Apple and good for its users — no matter what the ramifications for everyone else.

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I am sure this upsetting for those who were hoping they could just transfer the analog paradigm for publishing magazines to a digital world. But the old way of doing things was geared for the benefit of the shareholders and advertisers, not the readers.

The Daily has many flaws but the main one for me has recently been discussed – Why would I pay for all this content that I do not care about one bit? The Daily has a couple of thigs I like each day and a vast majorioty I could care less about. Why should I pay for all that society stuff? Is the news I do care about compelling enough to pay for even with all the stuff I do not want?

Not in my opinion. I want to read the news I want, not be spoonfed what others have decided is the best.

Let’s make Flipboard into the paradigm shifting monster it can be – providing a straightforward aggregation of information the individual cares about or a reasonable price.

An aggregator like Flipboard but with a subscription feature.

We pay for cable as an aggregator of a lot of stuff I may not care about because of the stuff I do care about. Sure, each channel could require a payment. We could have a totally ala carte approach but then all the channels would have to be competing with ex-other and try for mass appeal. The stuff that appeals to a smaller but valuable percentage would disappear.

But by aggregating channels and giving each a part of the pie, the entire value becomes higher and something worth paying an aggregate price for.

Perhaps we could have a very different type of subscription for Flipboard. Let’s have something like Major News Media Domestic where for say $1 a week we could get access to the national news developed in-house by the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, LA Times, Houston Chronicle and others. No wire service stuff – that would be a separate subscription.

Now, every time I see an article in Flipboard I want to read, I can click it and read it. I chose the news I want to read from the media I want. But is it aggregated and each of the papers gets a cut from my subscription.

So, in much the same way the Gold Channel can survive, these media could survive.

They could even track which articles are popular helping their metrics in very valuable ways, particularly for advertisers. They could have links to more in depth articles that I could make an in-app purchase for. Like in this example where you can click if you wish to know more.

This would be a paradigm shifting approach to reading the news, permitting those organizations that produce the best in-house material to work together.

Perhaps, several smaller organizations could aggregate a ‘channel’ providing value for a weekly $1. What would it take to please the reading habits of say 20,000 people a week? What could $1 million a year create? Well, actually $700,000 after Apple gets it cut.

Just think of the ability for useful newsletters to be aggregated like this? Five guys writing about the Star Trek Universe, who might even be doing it for free right now, could move some content to this realm.  10,000 subscribers and they could make a pretty good living.

This is where things will go. I think the group that gets this business plan up and going soonest will kill any old style publisher trying to create a Daily-like edition. Ecen if Apple gets their 30%.

Getting over our aversion to GMO in order to gain energy supplies

Get ready for genetically modified biofuels
[Via Ars Technica]

The cell wall of plants is made of a network of cellulose, a polymer of the simple sugar glucose, and a complex polymer called lignin. Lignin is tough enough to support everything from buildings to the largest living thing on the planet, a giant sequoia. But, if we’re to boost biofuel production, we need an efficient way of getting at the individual sugar molecules within the polymer. A team of biologists might have found a shortcut to better processing: they’ve made genetically modified switchgrass that’s easier to digest.

Their target wasn’t the cellulose itself, but the other polymer present in the cell wall, lignin, which seems to lock a lot of cellulose in place, preventing it from being digested. In a number of plants, mutations in the gene for a specific enzyme (caffeic acid 3-O-methyltransferase, for the aficionados) has been linked to reduced lignin production. So, they created a piece of DNA that encoded an interfering RNA that would, ideally, limit the enzyme’s production, and hence the amount of lignin present. When the DNA was introduced into switchgrass, it worked, dropping the levels of enzyme below a quarter of that present in unmodified plants. This didn’t seem to bother the switchgrass; with the exception of a reddish-brown tint, the plants looked normal.

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This is actually a relatively simple thing to do and, as it reduces an activity rather than adds an activity, it actually is a pretty reasonable thing to work with. It holds no reasonable selective advantage over normal switchgrass. Any mutation in the regulatory RNA will result in loss of inhibition and only produce the original plant.

A lot of work will have to be done to see if this is really viable. But it would be very hard for me to see that this modified form of switchgrass could survive in the wild – just as most of our cultivated foods are unable to really survive without us.

At some point, we will have to decide if the huge energy benefits of this sort of approach will override any philosophical worry. Switchgrass production should not displace normal agricultural needs, as biofuels from corn do. Thus could become a very important way to generate energy from solar sources, in a way that is much more carbon neutral than we have today.

Hard to believe that half the GOP are birthers

This recent poll certainly makes one wonder about the sanity of the majority of the GOP. 51% think President Obama was not born in the United States. Only 28% know that he was born here.

For this latter group – the ones with a connection to reality – Palin has the lowest favorability rating:  41-52, an eleven point drop. For the birthers, Palin has an 82-12 favorability rating.

This is a small poll – 400 Republican primary voters – so I hope there are some real problems with it because I would hate to think half the GOP are birthers.

The good thing is that it did not matter whether those polled were birthers or not, they all hated Donald Trump as a candidate. Both men and women disliked him a lot.

I got the 1000 minute email. How it shows changes in teleco marketing.

by DeusXFlorida

Take that Verizon! AT&T offers iPhone owners 1000 free Rollover minutes
[Via Edible Apple]

With the Verizon now available on iPhone, iPhone owners in the US will, for the first time, be able to savor the sweet and delicious taste of competition. Up until recently, AT&T was able to do as it pleased with its millions of iPhone customers, but with Verizon now entering the race, both carriers will be trying to out-do the other as each looks to steal subscribers away from the other. Or in the case of AT&T, prevent users from defecting to Verizon.

Early on Friday, 9to5Mac reported that AT&T was sending text messages out to iPhone users, thanking them for sticking with AT&T and offering them 1000 bonus rollover minutes on the house. As far as we’ve heard, this offer is available to all AT&T iPhone customers and if you haven’t yet received a message indicating as much, simply text the word “yes” to 11113020 and you’ll get a text back stating that your account has been credited.

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And a very interesting transaction. I get a text with the details and simply text back yes if I want the minutes. Then a few seconds later a nice confirmation.

I think few have really discussed the ramifications of real competition for the carriers because of the iPhone. With other phones (eg Android), the carriers can do what they have always done – confuse us all. There are so many deals and different phones on each that it is impossible to tell what is the best deal.

But the iPhone is the iPhone. It is the same – pretty much – across all the carriers. So now customers can tell very quickly what is the best deal being offered.

This is where competition really comes in. ATT gives me 1000 minutes. Makes me want to hold onto that iPhone while I use those minutes up. Not bad for me and is really good for ATT.

What will be Verizon’s response? SHould be fun.

This is not a situation the telecos want to be in. They have to actually compete head-to-head rather than behind very confusing marketing approaches.

Subscriptions in the iOS App store brings out the complainers

Apple unveils subscriptions for iOS App Store, bans links to out-of-app purchases
[Via AppleInsider]

Apple on Tuesday unveiled its new App Store subscription service, allowing publishers of content-based applications for iOS devices — like newspapers, magazines, video and music — to offer recurring billing, but preventing them from including links to external websites to purchase content or subscriptions.

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A lot of discussion in the comments. Some feel that the 30% cut is too much and Apple is being greedy. Of course, if it is, then none of the publishers will use it and Apple will have to make changes.

But getting easy access to millions of new subscribers is worth something. And for most magazines, subscription prices are not the major form of income – that comes from ads. Providing more subscribers means they can charge more for the ads. The goal is having more subscribers, even if they have to give up some profit to get them.

In particular, if the publishers look to subscriptions for only digital forms of their magazines using the App store, then they could easily make more money, since the overhead for simply digital is much smaller.

I think what might upset the publishers more is only getting personal data from subscribers if the customers decide to. Now, the subscriber gives a lot of data to the publisher that they can then sell in ways to make quite a bit of money.

Apple puts some constraints on this, giving power to the customer. I’d imagine many publishers will be leery of this.

But I bet some young,digital only magazine will forge ahead, providing a model for making it work. This is a business opportunity.

For example, if Flipboard offered in app subscriptions for a slew of magazines, I’d be on board.

The same groups that fight terror fight plain Americans for policial/commercial gain

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Thugs Used ‘Terror Tools’ for Disinfo Scheme Targeting Me, My Family and Other Progressives | | AlterNet
[Via Alternet]

“[W]ho better to develop a corporate information reconnaissance capability than companies that have been market leaders within the DoD and Intelligence Community.” - ‘Team Themis’, from their 11/3/10 ”Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell” proposal delivered to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s law firm Hunton & Williams.

As I learned late last Thursday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the most powerful Rightwing lobbying group in the country, was revealed to have been working with their law firm and a number of private cyber security and intelligence firms to target progressive organizations, journalists and citizens who they felt were in opposition to their political activism, tactics and points of view.

As I went on the air Thursday night — my fifth in a six-day guest hosting stint on the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show — revelations about the planned multi-million dollar political hit job by the security/intelligence firms working to develop a scheme for the U.S. Chamber (and another one, almost identical to it, on behalf of Bank of America) were just beginning to come to light. Both plots were being developed by the Chamber and BofA by the very same law firm, Hunton & Williams and with the cyber intelligence firms HBGary Federal, Berico Technologies & Palantir Technologies.

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So, a journalist is targeted by these security companies. His personal information is there along with a sophisticated scheme to destroy his career. All because he has written hard hitting reports about the Chamber of Commerce.Being against the Chamber of Commerce now gets you attacked by the same people who are targeting terrorists, using the same tools.

And, as shown by their own evidence, they are actually targeting totally innocent people. So, even if you have done nothing wrong, these security experts can tag you by mistake bringing the tools against terrorism you.

Does it make anyone a little uncomfortable that our own Department of Justice recommends these asshats to Bank of America and the Chamber of Commerce to target Americans with dirty tricks?