Robert Cringely's new column is about Google and YouTube. The theory
was that YouTube will be a huge drain on Google cash-wise, the
premise of the article is that YouTube was actually making money
and that this revelation was a surprise to everyone but just a
few.
Well, for the record I thought it was a bad idea for Google to
pickup YouTube for a colossal $1.65b (in stock) for other reasons.
I thought, and think, it stinks because of what YouTube offers:
video. But then I'm not an analyst or a Google tycoon, so what do I
know. We'll find out if this was a good move or a Flickr-type
move.
From the sound of the article, and a post about the transaction on
watchmojo.com, Google's was a brilliant move if only
because of the Adsense opportunity. In short, rather than sharing
the Adsense revenue with a partner's site, since they own YouTube
Google will retain 100% of the transaction (less expenses, etc, but
there's no revenue sharing here). Plus, Google will ad (no pun
intended) new video-specific ads on the popular video site.
Nice.
That makes the transaction look downright smart when one considers
how many videos YouTube serves on a daily basis. Reports range from
100m down to a still impressive 40m. That's a lot of ad
impressions, and presumably a fairly predictable number of
clickthroughs. Good on you GOOG.
So, my take isn't looking so good anymore is it? I mean, Google
stands to make a bundle off the deal, right? Well, that's going to
be true until someone comes out with the next viral video site. Not
that I know much, but look at Friendster now. They went from prom
queen levels of popularity to, what about me?! popularity. That
will happen to plenty of so-called web 2.0 companies, and it
will.
Well, we'll see how well Google does with ads on shitty quality
video content. I mean, what advertiser wants their ads to look like
the crap streaming from YouTube? Ah, that's an easy one: none,
zero, nada. This, in my opinion, is a problem Google and YouTube
will have to fix at some point. No, I'm not saying the ship is
sinking, I'm simply asserting that there's something missing
here.
Thankfully I could care less about either Google or YouTube. Things
change fast in general, and even faster online. Personally, I think
there's a lot more interesting Web-related technology on the way.
And it won't be coming from the usual suspects.
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More Apple.
Sure, we could swing by our new(!) Apple Retail Store tomorrow
to grab an Apple 'T, but we've got other stuff planned
It is tempting, though. Maybe we'll squeeze it in. If you see a Scott CR1 roll up with a white Apple logo sticker on it, you'll know it's Apple-Project representing.
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Ok, ok, ok, no one needs that kind of power. Right? Who are we kidding, there should
be on of these things on everyone's desk. And at $2200, marked down
from $2400, you've got about two-hundred more reasons to
cave.
Here are the insane specs:
Refurbished Power Mac G5 Dual 2.3GHz
Dual-core 2.3GHz PowerPC G5 processor
1.15GHz frontside bus per processor
1MB L2 cache per core
512MB of 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-4200)
250GB Serial ATA hard drive
16x SuperDrive (double-layer)
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 with 256MB GDDR SDRAM
Learn More
• Save 21% off the original price
Toss a 30-inch Cinema on the order and this is a Mac that will last a Mac-lover a while. At least until the next fast Mac ships. Check out Apple's Special Deals section of the online store for availability.
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Like the new look? Let us know.
With Apple-Project's new paint job, we got a little nostalgic for
the old content. Not that it's out of date, it's just not built
into the new site. Not yet.
So if you've arrived looking for some of our most popular How-To's,
here's a quick rundown (they're also in the sidebar):
How to Buy An Apple Macintosh and save big!
How to Really save 25%-50% on DotMac.
How to Really save 15%-50% on AppleCare Plans.
How to Check Mail.app storage status with just a few clicks right from your Mac.
How to Add Adsense to your iBlog blog
How to Add Adsense to your iWeb blog
How to Painlessly add your iChat status on your blog
How to Make iWeb your .mac homepage
How to Easily and inexpensively (how's about $7/year sound?) forward a domain to .Mac.
How to Customize .Mac homepage, that is, if you're still using homepage.
How to Integrate Google Maps into Address Book application.
How to Easily host ebay images w/ .Mac. Free.
How to Create an easy-to read serial number in Address Book application.
There's more where that came from (click here). We're also going to pretty-up all of our how-to's and add them to this site. Plus, we've got plans to do a bunch of new Apple how-to's so stay tuned, bookmark Apple-Project and tell your friends and your pets, etc.
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for one don't think Steve Jobs is going anywhere anytime soon. But,
hell, how would I know.
Arstechnica is being more pragmatic: they're speculating as to who might be next to take the leadership role at Apple. Here's a tidbit from the article:
"One has to examine the list of candidates as if Steve Jobs were leaving Apple today, if for no other reason than adding five or ten years disqualifies several people because of age. Even without adding time, it's probably safe to eliminate those individuals collecting Social Security, so York and Campbell are gone, probably Thompson too. A peek at the Executive Profiles and Board of Directors shows leadership at Apple begins with a Y chromosome, so that likely eliminates Susan Decker. As for Allchin, does anyone really think Apple Computer is going to hire the midwife of Windows Vista?"
No matter how you slice it, SJ is going to leave Apple Computer one of these days, years, whatever. I just hope it's still a long way off.
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Funny how Sony's gone so far off course. I remember when I was
really little standing in line to take a look at the first cassette
Walkman. I wasn't old enough to buy one, not really even old enough
to ask the clerk to check it out, but I remember that thing really
well: back then Sony was the be-all-end-all.
Now then only Sony product I'll buy isn't really all-Sony: I use
Sony Ericsson phones exclusively. I've talked
about them a ton on Apple-Project in the past. They do a million
more things than the iPod, and that should be where Sony goes with
its marketing.
Instead, they're trying to hit the iPod on sound quality. Nice, Sony. There's a minuscule number of iPod owners who give a rat's behind, and an even smaller number who don't like what they're getting from Apple now.
To be fair, the article states that Sony's beefing up their players and their music store, and that's one thing I've heard a few critics of the iTunes Store point out, that they want better quality sampling. Fair enough, Sony's picking up on this, rightly.
But if you look at this over the long-term, Apple was the first-mover in the category, as a result, think of the amount of bandwidth they've saved by keeping the bar just high enough. Apple can improve sound quality by increments as bandwidth becomes less expensive and all the while compression technology is getting better. This is a win-win-win for Apple: most people in the equation are happy.
Enter Sony. They get out of the gate with the claim that they sound better, but Apple will be quick to respond and their customers won't see a benefit in changing platforms. There's two sides to every argument, but my point is: Sony should be killing Apple with their MP3 phones, not on the music quality.
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$10 from each iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED purchase goes to the Global
Fund to fight AIDS in Africa.
Want to learn more about (PRODUCT) RED stuff? Here's the Official Product Red site. They're on it too: the new iPod nano is already up there. Nice.
DId you see the (PRODUCT) RED Motorola V3? Still think that phone sucks, but what if there's a 'RED iPhone? Better yet, an unlocked RED iPhone.
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How to Buy a Macintosh Guide. Save money on your next Apple
Computer purchase.
Geeks.com, an Apple-Project.com sponsor, has iMacs and iBooks
starting at about $60 and $475 respectively. Remember those ads for
the Graphite iMacs? So retro:
Apple iMac G3 400MHz 128MB 13GB DVD w/15" CRT OS9 (Gray) -
B
Search Geeks.com for "apple" to see everything they have
in stock.
Note that these are not Factory Refurbished units, but reseller refurbished. The difference starts with the warranty, which is a fully year of AppleCare with the Factory Refurbished Macs, and a fraction of that with the reseller refurbished Macs.
It might be worth looking into whether or not you can add AppleCare plans on these Macs.
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How to Buy a Macintosh Guide. Save money on your next Apple
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Apple-Project.com used iBlog 1.4.6 to manage our site since the
very beginning. Monday it crashed, leaving the Apple-Project blog
(and a few others) in shatters.
We've put data back together from backups. But since this has happened to us a few times in the past, we're moving on. So for now, this is the new look of Apple-Project.com. All of the original How-To's are still online, links to which are in the sidebar. We'll keep that site up indefinitely since Google has those pages cached.
Because of the new software, we're able to add some new stuff to the site. Comments, new and better themes and more. We'll be rolling out more stuff in the days ahead so keep an eye on Apple-Project.com.
The new look is courtesy of a theme called "Sprout" from elixirgraphics.com (that's the Sprout logo at right). If you like the look-feel of this site, you'll want to visit their site. If you place an order, tell Adam we sent you.
We plan to customize, or Apple-ize, the site a little more, but for now we like it. Tell us what you think. Have a logo idea? We'd love to see it.
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