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Marco Arment on Instapaper’s intent:
When you have something of significant length on the Internet, normally the tendency would be to skim over it, or to just read a little bit of it. “Then oh, I want to get to the next item in my feed reader, or something else is going on on my sceen…” As a result people don’t really read a lot of long-form content online…
Instapaper is a tool to encourage the publishing of significant, substantial content on the Internet by making it easier for readers to attentively read it.
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Helen Thomas in Wednesday’s White House press briefing, in discussion over the president’s “town hall” meeting where the questions and audience were preselected:
The point is the control from here. We have never had that in the White House — this White House. And we have had some control but not this control. I mean I’m amazed, I’m amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency and you have controlled…
Here is a transcript of the briefing, but the video captures just how non-responsive Gibbs was to Thomas’s and Reid’s question.
The issue Reid and Thomas raise is important: town halls are intended to be a direct way for the public to ask questions, to eliminate the typical control that public political events have, so politicians are more responsive. But today’s “town hall,” although dressed up to look like one (the TV screens even read “Open for Questions”), wasn’t. It was a means for the president to get his message to the public in precisely the way he wanted.
Here is why that is so wrong: today’s event is as defined and controlled an event as any other, but it is presented to look like it is open and transparent. Good politics maybe, but certainly not honest.
—June 30th, 2009—
Here is a little feature Apple added in iPhone OS 3.0. If you tap and hold a phone number or address in Mail, Safari, or Notes, it gives you several options. For phone numbers you can call it, send a text message, create a new contact or add to an existing contact:
And for addresses, you can open it in Maps, create a new contact or add to an existing one, or copy it:
Nice little touch.
KB
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The Acumen Fund provides capital to for-profit companies whose goal is to help solve poverty:
We believe that pioneering entrepreneurs will ultimately find the solutions to poverty. The entrepreneurs Acumen Fund supports are focused on offering critical services – water, health, housing, and energy – at affordable prices to people earning less than four dollars a day.
The key is patient capital. We use philanthropic capital to make disciplined investments – loans or equity, not grants – that yield both financial and social returns. Any financial returns we receive are recycled into new investments.
I find this absolutely fascinating. I wrote about exactly this kind of company when I first began writing TightWind.
It is a difficult proposition, both for Acumen and for the companies they provide funds to, because their target market does not have much funds. But unlike the developed world, their market has something incredible — a vast amount of untapped potential.
I am glad that they are not afraid to be a for-profit company, and to support for-profit companies. Non-profits certainly have their place, but for-profit firms are self-sustaining and, more important, build reserves of capital that can be invested in other areas to further develop their market.
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Logbook for 37Signals’ Backpack.
Transmissions’ Logbook is an application with a very specific purpose: quickly and unobtrusively updating a Backpack journal with your status and completed tasks. It sits in the menu bar and can be invoked with a keyboard shortcut.
It’s a beautiful little application with an equally beautiful web site. If you use Backpack, give it a look.
(Via Patrick Rhone.)
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Apple has agreed to use micro USB for the iPhone beginning next year.
The agreement is only in Europe, but I can’t see Apple manufacturing one iPhone with micro USB and another with the dock connector.
It is a curious move on Apple’s part considering the number of devices which use the dock connector.
(Via Mac Rumors.)
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True, The Economist virtually never gets scoops, and the information it does provide is available elsewhere … if you care to spend 20 hours Googling. But now that information is infinitely replicable and pervasive, original reporting will never again receive its due. The real value of The Economist lies in its smart analysis of everything it deems worth knowing—and smart packaging, which may be the last truly unique attribute in the digital age.
The Economist succeeds because they provide reporting on places and issues that others cannot cover or just are not interested in, and analysis that, although not always correct, is generally well-researched, thorough, and untainted by partisanship. Those two things are rare right now.
They also happen to know who they are and how to position themselves. They are an up-scale magazine for in-the-know political or business professionals (or just geeks) who desire a world perspective. The magazine’s design is not especially flashy, and the newsstand price is relatively high. They are not devaluing their content.
So maybe it is not so curious why the Economist succeeds — they know their niche, and they base their business on serving the niche with high quality reporting and analysis. In fact, it reminds me of a little article I wrote in April.
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Michael Mistretta in his Fever overview:
When I saw Fever’s “saved posts” feature (which involves tapping the ’s’ key on any item you wish to save for later), I couldn’t help but ponder a better way to not only find content, but to share it.
What if Fever had the ability to not only “save” but “star” a post or link that one thought was particularly interesting. Fever could easily make this custom “starred” list into a public RSS feed that other Fever users could throw into their blobs of awesomeness to create an even bigger blob of awesomeness.
Great idea.
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Iranian protestor on Twitter:
60% of Iran’s population is under 30, we control this country now, not you old pricks that live in the 12th century. You can arrest us… kill us, but you can’t stop us. We will not live in a country that doesn’t follow the Koran. You old bastards need how to read.
This was two tweets broken up. The first is here, and the second is here.
This movement will not end without serious change. Let’s all hope it is true to the movement’s ideals.
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The MLB iPhone app will stream live games.
The most interesting thing is it will stream over both WiFi and AT&T’s 3G network — which makes AT&T’s decision to only allow SlingPlayer to stream over WiFi quite suspicious.
(Via Daring Fireball.)