Blue Sky On Mars

According to the Financial Times,

The Bush administration has shelved a report commissioned by the Treasury that shows the US currently faces a future of chronic federal budget deficits totalling at least $44,200bn in current US dollars.

This figure is apparently 94% of all US household assets. That’s some scary stuff. This makes the government sound like a dot com. Next thing you know, Bush will be calling for Aeron chairs for everyone in the country.

The first of the three CNET articles about online music is State of the art: A medium reborn. It talks about current efforts in online music and the genesis of the Apple iTunes Music Store. Here’s an interesting bit:

Jobs initially wanted to sell music that had no restrictions at all, with songs that could be played and used as easily as free files downloaded from Kazaa using standard MP3 technology. Warner executives said no, but they eventually compromised on a set of rules that had fewer limitations than those granted for any previous store they sanctioned.

Jobs, of course, has it right. He’s generally pretty in touch with what people want, I think. Note that iTunes has quickly become the standard bearer for paid online music, and I bet that is in large part because their songs have fewer limitations. Many people think that subscription services are the way to go. The problem is that subscription services have to have all sorts of restrictions on the files, because the files need to stop working when you stop your subscription. Regardless of how that is implemented, it will be less convenient than an MP3 file.

Part 2 of CNET’s three parter on music talks about Microsoft’s positioning in the online music biz. There’s a lot of talk about Apple’s niche position in the marketplace, MS’ monopoly, and the formats that will ultimately win. Toward the end of the article, Ecast CEO Van-Adibé said:

“In the Windows marketplace, WMA is now a de facto standard for secure music.”

In my opinion, the trick here is that “secure music” is a sham. Consumers don’t want secure music. They want reasonably priced and convenient music. If a consumer is unable to buy a song and play it on any computer in their house, in their portable player (or car player) and at work, then they’re not going to be happy with it. Almost by definition, the DRM systems don’t allow this. If they do somehow allow it, and it’s perfectly convenient, then you’ll have a winner in the format wars.

In the last of three articles about the state of online music, CNET explores free (Kazaa) and paid online music services (Apple iTunes Music Store). I absolutely disagree with this statement:

Rather than fear their demise, free music services say the large music companies and e-tailers will have no choice but to work with file-swapping technology instead of against it.

The most successful paid online music service, iTunes, does not “work with file-swapping technology”. The P2P companies want to ensure that they have a part in the future of online music, but I don’t think that’s guaranteed. iTunes is successful because it’s easy and it’s faster than P2P, because you’re not downloading from someone’s home cable connection. Or worse, downloading from someone’s modem.

Michael Robertson, former CEO of MP3.com has it right:

“The majority of people will say, ‘I’ll just steal because then I get to use it the way I want to.”

Exactly. Even iTunes seems a bit restrictive to me, but people are still downloading millions of songs despite the fact that the service only works on Macs.

For reasons of potential allergies or choking hazards, there are a number of foods to be wary of until age 3.

The last time that I really spent any time directly working on web interfaces was in 1999, and I didn’t have a lot of time then to spend on a web UI. Lack of browser compatibility (and even support, in the case of CSS) made Javascript and CSS painful to use. Since 1999, my work has been focused on server-side technologies, because I have had other people to lean on to do the front end. Now, I’m in a 3 person group and the HTML is my concern… but, I’m actually enjoying it!
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Back in the heady days of 1999, everyone (and their sisters, brothers, parents, cousins) was sending off business plans to venture capitalists. I was part of that group. By February of 2000, I had a business plan that I was happy with and a financial model that looked like it would be solidly profitable. By the summer of 2000, I found the flaw in my model. Nick Denton has created what my model should have been.
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History

This site was originally called We Write Online (at http://www.wewriteonline.org/blog) when I created it in June, 2001. There is actually more of a story about what We Write Online was going to be, and I’ll write about that sometime. All it ever actually became was my blog.

For 2001, I was running Thatware and wrote a fair bit about technology and other stuff that interested me. In 2002, I switched to Drupal as my weblog program. The topics didn’t change much, but the amount of writing decreased dramatically, largely due to the very busy job I had. In 2003, I’ve switched blog programs again… this time to MovableType. I’ve also changed the name to Blue Sky On Mars.

So what is it?

It’s my weblog, and that’s it. Nothing more or less pretentious than that.

This blog is here as a place for me to gather my thoughts on things that may interest me, and provide me with an easily accessible memory that is sometimes more reliable than the one I’ve got between my ears. I’ve made it public, because I do like hearing other people’s comments and sharing these thoughts that I’ve written down. But, even if I’m the only reader, this site will continue to exist.

What’s with that name?

It’s a phrase from Total Recall, and I like it. It evokes an image of people flying to Mars, possibly hanging out with the Martians (who ideally look like the Sea Monkeys pictured on the packages), and having a good, old fashioned barbecue. I’m not sure what we’d be barbecuing, because it doesn’t seem like there’s much on Mars other than rocks, but that’s beside the point.

The site css Zen Garden: The Beauty in CSS Design is, indeed, a beautiful site that really shows how powerful CSS is.

Microsoft, having been found guilty of abusing monopoly power and sued by Netscape which it had essentially driven from the market, has reached a settlement with AOL, current owner of Netscape. According to the settlement, Microsoft will pay AOL $750 million. But, check this out:

Under the terms of the settlement, AOL, the world’s No. 1 Internet services provider, won the option to use Microsoft’s flagship digital media software as well as its Internet Explorer technology for Web browsing on a royalty-free basis for seven years.

To me, this paints the picture of AOL, stock battered, lots of debt, deciding that they don’t feel like continuing a long, drawn-out multiyear lawsuit with a company that has more cash than Fort Knox. So, Microsoft says “Hey! We’ll give you $750 million in cash if you’ll continue to use IE and also embrace Windows Media.” This is probably a pretty good deal for Microsoft, because

1) They were found guilty.
2) IE has not been visibly going anywhere, whereas AOL’s Netscape/Mozilla is releasing featureful new versions every 3 months
3) AOL’s WinAmp is fairly popular, too
4) AOL Time Warner happens to own one of the major record labels and a movie studio to boot

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but somehow I doubt it. The one good thing is that AOL and Microsoft will reportedly cooperate on making their IM platforms interoperate.