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Rumors Spread: An Apple Tablet or Another E-Reader...
The much rumored Apple Tablet is starting to shed its “rumor” title for something a little more concrete. When we found out about the tablet back in July, we fell for one rumor that Apple’s new product would be available for the Christmas season. Obviously, that was far from true. New rumors say the tablet won’t be officially revealed until Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in late June of 2010. These same rumors, from TheAppleBlog.Com, also say that the tablet might not be what everyone is expecting. Maybe it won’t be a computer at all. It could take a completely different direction and be an e-reader similar to the Amazon Kindle. Talk about a curve ball.
Through all these rumors, Apple remains nothing short of mysterious. They have not commented at all. Sources other than the ones claiming the tablet is really an e-reader maintain that the tablet will be officially revealed as early as January, despite delays.
TechCrunch did some intense research on the Apple Tablet and found a lot of dead ends. However, when they researched Trademarks on the two possible names (iSlate and iGuide), they found both with Apple written all over them. It is still too early to tell, but it probably means that both will have to do with the tablet, like the tablet name and maybe an external service.
Even though the rumors may not agree on the name or release date or even the general use of the tablet, the overwhelming buzz about Apple’s new product confirms that it is worth talking about.
Read MorePosted by Jeremy Scott | 1 Comment
The Internet Takes A Step Backwards: Time Warner B...
Their genius solution? Let’s meter out how much Internet each person can have, and charge them extra when they go over. For instance, if your plan is 50GB per month, and you hit 53GBs, you’ll have to pay overage costs on those 3GBs.
Wonderful. Now my Internet service is becoming more like my cell phone plan. Except, with cell phones, the industry trend lately has been the opposite: they used to charge you for going over your monthly minutes, but more and more plans are becoming “unlimited minutes” plans.
Time Warner is testing this metered access approach in Texas as we speak. Comcast is rumored to be looking into it as well.
How is this any different from the airlines saying, “You remember how we used to let you check 2 bags with every ticket purchased? Yeah, we’re going to stop doing that. Now you have to pay for every bag you check.”???
This is not going to sit well with Internet power users like myself, who are online for several hours a day. In fact, there may well be some sort of revolt.
Metering out the Internet access is a giant step backwards, not forward. Remember dial up? Yeah, in the early days of the web, you had so many hours per month of dial up access. Then the cable companies got wacky with the broadband and trained all their customers to expect unfettered access.
And now they want to take it away.
It’s like taking candy from a baby, after training the baby to think candy was a regular feature of baby life.
From the article:
Those who mainly do Web surfing or e-mail have little reason to pay attention to the traffic caps: a gigabyte is about 3,000 Web pages, or 15,000 e-mails without attachments. But those who download movies or TV shows will want to pay attention. A standard-definition movie can take up 1.5 gigabytes, and a high-definition movie can be 6 to 8 gigabytes.
And there’s the rub. Movie and television downloads (legal or otherwise) have caught fire and are clearly the direction that industry is headed. Very soon there will be more people downloading digital copies of movies than those buying DVDs in the store. So it’s hard not to see this new metered Internet approach as anything but a way to make more money.
Maybe it would be easier to take if there wasn’t such a clear problem with monopolies in the cable/broadband world. If I had any other cable company to choose from besides Comcast, for instance, I could at least go see if they’d offer me a better deal. If I want broadband cable Internet, though, I have only one choice… and soon they’re going to be telling me how much Internet I can use.
Read MorePosted by Jeremy Scott | 0 Comments
Everybody’s Buying Everyone Else Today
In the world of Technology and the Internet, mergers and acquisitions are fairly commonplace. You won’t hear about most of them, because the lion’s share are concerning companies and services you probably haven’t heard of.
Every once in a while, though, there’s a “Google Buys YouTube” or a “Microsoft Makes Bid for Yahoo” story that sort of grabs everyone’s attention.
Today there were three major acquisitions in the world of tech.
- First, CBS is buying C|Net for $1.8 Billion.
- Second, Comcast has purchased Plaxo for a rumored $150-$170 Million.
- Lastly, Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves) has bought Dictionary.com (actually, they purchased Dictionary.com’s parent company, Lexico, which means they also bought Reference.com and Thesaurus.com) for a rumored price of around $100 Million.
Now, I’m sure you’ve heard of Dictionary.com, as most moderate Internet users have. So that’s kind of an interesting purchase.
The Comcast deal is surprising, considering that no one in my office could even tell me what Plaxo is or what they do. Plaxo is a “social contact list” service that promises to help you “stay in touch with the people you care about most.” It’s kind of a mash-up of your address books and all your favorite websites.
The CBS/C|Net deal is the most astounding to me, purely from a dollar amount standpoint. $1.8 Billion is a heck of a lot of money for a site that offers tech news and reviews. Granted, C|Net has a stellar reputation, and is one of the most cited sources for Tech news on the web.
That being said… how many of you reading this recognized the name C|Net? It’s kind of amazing that a website you’ve never heard of is worth as much as a small country, isn’t it? Now I know that the bulk of our readers, while Internet-savvy, are not as plugged in to the latest services and hot companies online–hey, you’re busy running your small business. We get that. That’s why we’re here to keep you abreast of what’s going on.
But even if their business name doesn’t ring a bell, some of their subsidiary companies probably will:
CNet is an early pioneer in the Internet, and now includes a large stable of businesses in the entertainment, news and music areas such as ZDNet, GameSpot.com, TV.com, mp3.com.
The world wide web is a crazy place, where dollars are thrown around like candy. I’m sure next week we’ll read that Ask, CBS, and Comcast have all merged and that they’ve been bought by Google for $4.6 Quadrillion.
I’m currently trying to pinpoint exactly which website I want to buy today. Hey, why should the big guys have all the fun? I don’t have $1.8 Billion, but I have enough to buy someone’s dormant blog. Maybe I’ll do that. Or maybe we could pool our money, you and I, and buy a MySpace account or something. How much you got? I just want to get in on the action… because today is definitely THE day to buy a web property.
Read MorePosted by Jeremy Scott | 0 Comments
Microsoft Just Wants to Buy Something
New reports today suggest that, having walked away from their proposed purchase of Yahoo, Microsoft has turned its affections toward Facebook.
But wait–there are also reports that they’re trying to buy AOL.
Or not. Some reports are suggesting they’re still after Yahoo.
Man, does Bill Gates have some money burning a hole in his pocket or what?
Am I the only one starting to see Microsoft as the high school senior who just got $1000 in graduation money and can’t decide on what unnecessary & useless thing he wants to buy first? I mean, Yahoo, AOL, and Facebook are three very different companies… with three very different customer bases.
But they’re also very large companies.
Maybe Microsoft just wants to make a big splash. Maybe they’re more like the school bully who reigned for years until a new bully (Google) moved to town and starting stealing his press. So the first bully starts beating people up with vigor, left and right, just to make sure no one forgets that he was there first.
I’m not sure why anyone would be interested in buying AOL–I don’t even know what they do anymore.
I half expect to see headlines this afternoon like “Microsoft Submits Bid to Purchase NFL” or “Microsoft in Talks to Buy China.” Personally, I’d rather see Microsoft take the billions of dollars they’re dying to throw away on some huge merger and instead spend it on, oh, maybe making Vista run faster.
But that’s just me.
Read MorePosted by Jeremy Scott | 0 Comments
Apple Wants to Give You Unlimited Free Music Downl...
The current iTunes business model is that you pay $0.99 per song. It’s been that way for quite some time, in fact.
But according to news reports, Apple is negotiating with record labels for a new model that would be music to the ears of iTunes fans: free music access.
That’s right. Free. Apple is trying to get the labels to consent to an iTunes where users gain access to any and all music they desire. The catch–there’s always a catch, isn’t there?–is that Apple would then charge more for their digital music devices, and pass that extra revenue on to the record companies as payment.
So your new iPod might cost $500 or $600, but then you’d have free music access to download all the free songs your device can hold. Well, there’s also a rumor that Apple may include a sort of “membership” or “download subscription” fee–and I can’t tell if that’s in conjunction with the added cost to the mp3 player or as an alternative pricing model. Either way… free music is probably on its way to iTunes soon.
Pretty sweet, eh? Just look at the guy in that picture; that dude is loving this news.
Theoretically, you’d never have to pay for music again… only for mp3 players. Granted, those mp3 players might end up costing as much as a gently used motorcycle, but hey… unlimited free music downloads, right?
Unfortunately, if you own a Zune, you’re out of luck. Sounds like the only folks who will be able to take advantage of this new model will be people who own or buy Apple products like the iPhone and the iPod. Of course, if you own a Zune, you’re probably already used to being in the minority.
The change in revenue model will be huge news if it goes through, and will further cement iTunes’ status as the top destination for digital music downloads. Check back frequently for updates as news of this development becomes more readily available.
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