Spotify kisses mp3 bye bye

Spotify launches in Europe
Spotify - a British/Swedish music streaming service - launched a couple of weeks ago in Europe offering a huge music database with pop music as well as jazz and classical. Not exactly a new concept but Spotify offers such high-quality service that it could very well threaten online music stores like iTunes and Amazon.  After a few weeks of intensive trial I'm convinced it could mark the transition from mp3 to streaming music and consequently the beginning of the end of both (illegal) p2p downloading as well as of buying online music.

Getting started
is fairly easy. Make an account and download the client to your computer. It automatically detects the music that's already available on your hard drive including playlists you've made in iTunes. It's all imported in the Spotify player. Also it connects automatically to your Facebook friends who use Spotify. They show up in the upper right of the player window. From there you can graze through their playlists and the playlists from others they've subscribed to. You can hop from one to another on and on, the browsing possibilities are endless enabling you to discover new music and people's playlists you like.

The end of owning music
The Spotify player is quite basic compared for instance with iTunes that has a lot of possibilities to categorize your music collection just the way you want it. And that's actually the hardest part of getting used to for an old geezer like me. The concept of owning music simply disappears with all music all the time available "in the cloud". My digital music collection currently consists of some 1000+ albums using over 60 GB of my hard drive and carefully backed up to an external hard drive. This collection was carefully compiled over the years by ripping old cd's, downloading music and categorizing it all in iTunes according to my "system". One of the fun parts of owning music - grazing through your collection - disappears when there's no more need to store anything locally. Then again, the trick ultimately lies in knowing Music rather than owning music so I guess we'll have to figure out a new system that helps  remember the old stuff we (used to) like.

Different plans
The basic open subscription is free and allows 20 hours of streaming per month accompanied with ads both in audio (every 15 minutes or so) as quite large banners in your player screen. The €5.00/m unlimited plan releaves you from both ads and streaming limitations. The €10.00/m premium plan ads better (actually terrific) music quality (320 kBps in ogg vorbis-format) and the possibility to sync with a mobile player (currently Android, iPhone and Symbian).


Syncing with smartphone
One of the great advantages of having Spotify on your smartphone is that it syncs your music instantly without the need to ever connect it to a home computer. Compared to the hassle of syncing your iTunes music to your mp3 player that's quite a relief! You can choose to listen to it streaming (if you have decent data connection and a flat fee contract) or make your playlists available off-line by just syncing it over the air.

To enjoy online music and watch movies and tv shows I recommend a cheap netbook that's connected to stereo and tv set. To improve sound you could consider a DAC like the V-DAC from Music Fidelity

Check out My Trackbook

My Trackbook offers a multilingual platform to share your maps with the world. It's also a site where you can easily find public Google Maps submitted by others.

The homepage consists of a global map. You can zoom in on the area of your interest, choose different categories and click on markers to go to the submitted maps that they represent.

To submit a map you simply submit the URL of the Google Map or a KML/GPX file. After approval your map will be added to the site and you can submit more maps.


Read review

Chat Roulette new internet hype

Every now and then a new hype emerges on the internet. The newest is Chat Roulette, a simple website that connects people randomly with their web-cams. You go to the site, you give permission to connect with your cam, start new game and there you go... In no time you'll be connected with a perfect stranger somewhere in the world who's staring in your face.



It's weird, it probably won't lead to deep and meaningful contacts and it's certainly not meant for underaged. But it's understandable why it's such a big hit. The procedure is dead -simple. You wonder why this wasn't invented earlier. You don't need to do anything, just watch what comes along. You can start a chat - even talk with each other - but intelligent conversations are very rare as most will click you away instantly after seeing you're not a beautiful girl willing to show boobs.

The site already has made one guy famous: Merton. He's playing the piano and improvises songs based on who appears on the screen.

The web 2.0 revolution on the workplace

In a guest post on TechCrunch of feb 24 2010 Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of Salesforce argues that enterprise software should take its cues from Facebook and become more social.

"In this decade, I’ve become obsessed with a new simple question: “Why isn’t all enterprise software like Facebook?” ( ) The compelling aspect of feeds, profiles, and groups, amplify the service’s stickiness. So does its functionality on a mobile device like an iphone—necessary to secure a service’s status as a “killer app.” Facebook is where I start my day to find out what my friends and family are doing. It’s where I go to see the important events in my social life. Everything I care about and need to know is pushed to me—and it requires no work on my part.


Now, we need to take this idea to our businesses. We need to transform the business conversation the same way Facebook has changed the consumer conversation. Market shifts happen in real time, deals are won and lost in real time, and data changes in real time. Yet the software we use to run our enterprises is in anything but real time. We need tools that work smarter, make better use of new technology (like the mobile devices in everyone’s hands), and fully leverage the opportunities of the Internet."


Anticipating on this coming revolution Salesforce has developed Salesforce Chatter an application that presumably unites the best of Facebook and Twitter and applies it to enterprise collaboration - making people more productive and businesses more competitive.



Other companies like Yammer, SocialText, Jive, SocialCast, and others compete with similar applications, some running "in the cloud", others running on internal servers. No doubt one force not to be taken lightly will  come from Google that recently opened up an open source marketplace for Google Apps and Gmail integrated contextual apps extensions. See earlier post. These let developers integrate all sorts of enterprise data right into Apps and Gmail. Whilst a company like Salesforce has a few million users, Google already has 25 million Apps users and apparently this number is vastly growing. For companies like Salesforce this is potentially a huge marketplace that they should either embrace or compete with.

For whom it may concern: here's Google's elaborate "Campfire presentation" where they announce the marketplace. The presentation is divided in several different 10 minute video's including a number of business cases.

Android: Something happened

On iTunes U you can find audio and video from loads of universities. The course "The future of the Internet" from Ramesh Johari from Stanford University dates from 2007. In this fragment he discusses "Network Neutrality" on mobile networks. At the end he tells about rumours that Nokia is developing an open-source Operating System based on Linux and discusses the consequences if that would happen.

"An open platform on which people could develop anything they wanted... It seems to me that's not likely to happen, but it also seems to me it would really be nice if it could happen. I just don't know - given past history - what the economics are that line up with the technology..."



Less than 3 years later we can conclude something did happen - not with Nokia though.

Google Apps opens open-source marketplace

Today Google announced a marketplace that'll give third party developers the opportunity to sell   applications to businesses that use Google Apps. According to Google there are currently 25 million Apps users divided over 2 million companies and it's growing at fast pace. Up ´till now Apps mainly consisted of `GMail`and gmail-linked apps like `Talk` and ´Tasks´, ´Calendar´, ´Docs´, ´Discussion Groups', ´Sites´ and ´Video´.

The main advantages of Cloud-Computing are

• No more need to update/upgrade software
• Savings on IT maintenance
• No more need to back-up files on (external) data servers

These advantages combined with an open source platform where an unlimited amount of third party software can be offered, opens up the road to a potentially very powerful marketplace. 

At the start of the marketplace today there are already more than 50 businesses selling applications across a range of categories.

Example of Manymoon: a social productivity tool that simplifies your work life by letting you organize group projects, tasks, documents...  

From the official Google Blog

We've found that when businesses begin to experience the benefits of cloud computing, they want more. We're often asked when we'll offer a wider variety of business applications — from accounting and project management to travel planning and human resources management. But we certainly can't and won't do it all, and there are hundreds of business applications for which we have no particular expertise.
In recent years, many talented software providers have embraced the cloud and delivered a diverse set of features capable of powering almost any business. But too often, customers who adopt applications from multiple vendors end up with a fractured experience, where each particular application exists in its own silo. Users are often forced to create and remember multiple passwords, cut and paste data between applications, and jump between multiple interfaces just to complete a simple task.

Android analogy
How powerful an open source platform combined with an open market for third party developers can be is proven by the Android Market. Within a year more than 20,000 applications - the majority offered for free - were developed, and consequently Android became in no-time a major threat for Apple´s iPhone dominance. See earlier post.

Microsoft and Apple team up against Google

Meanwhile the dinosaurs  from the 20th century  - former arch-enemies Microsoft and Apple - are more and more beginning to feel the heat from the Open Source threat to their closed-source fundamentals. They even begin warming up to each other when it becomes clear to both companies that Google is becoming their biggest competitor. Microsoft and Apple are reportedly close to adding Bing search to the iPhone. BusinessWeek on Jan. 19 reported the companies were in extended talks about replacing Google as the iPhone's default search service.

Google pulling a Microsoft on Apple

This week Apple announced a lawsuit against HTC. It's quite clear that the lawsuit is all about Android, being Apple’s response to its skyrocketing popularity.


from the 1996 PBS documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" in which Jobs quotes Picasso's "good artists copy, great artists steal" and adds, about Apple: "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."

The iPhone is currently clearly the leader with 63.7% market share. But this position is challenged by Android, in February the iPhone lost 3.2% of its market share while both Android and RIM gained market share. Since its introduction in the end of 2008, Android has steadily been gaining ground on the iPhone, but the growth has accelerated considerably over the last four months. For example, Android’s market share has grown 44% over the past quarter, and has doubled over the past year. All the while, the iPhone has lost 5% from last quarter and 10% from last year.


Apple always relied heavily on the integration of hardware and software. Mac computers with Mac OS. iPods with iTunes. iPhone with its own closed operating system and closely controlled applications. They undeniably give a product that does the things it does very well. It will look cool, it will function as advertised and it will be integrated with the other core Apple products.




History repeating
In the 1980's however, this strategy was crushed by Microsoft's operating system - DOS - that evolved to Windows, gradually adopting many of the features that initially were developed by Apple. Whilst the hardware became a commodity with loads of manufacturers, Microsoft managed to achieve a near monopoly with their complementary OS. This actually looks an awful  lot like the strategy Google has deployed with their Android OS for mobile smart phones that's now flooding over the market. The big difference: unike Windows, Android is free and it's open source, thus challenging the principles iPhones are built on. Google does not necesarily need to make money out of it because for them both device as OS are just  links between people who click on and companies that pay for their ads.

New York Times, march 12 2010: Apple’s Spat With Google Is Getting Personal

Battle for Bandwidth

Google recently announced plans to offer experimental fiber internet access 100 times faster than standard DSL connections to 50 - 500,000 households in the US. While Google is characterizing the move as an "experiment," it clearly strikes at the core of companies like AT&T. The approach is similar to the way Google has taken on incumbents in other industries, offering a radically different approach within a marketplace. For telecom industry this threat follows:

• The Development of Google Voice - that offers free sms text messages and - eventually - will make free Skype-like VoIP conversations through your mobile phone possible. 
• The development of the Android open source operating system for mobile phones that gives developers and users the opportunity to develop and install software without intervention of neither manufacturers nor cellular phone companies. 
• And lately the introduction of the Nexus One `Google Phone` that´s being offered unlocked without the ususal ties with a long-term contract with a cellular phone carrier. So, manufacturers (who are at the mercy of the cellular phone companies selling their product) and cellular companies (who ultimately give the final thumbs up or thumbs down with regards to which apps can run on their networks) have no say in what happens on or with Nexus One. 

Google's long term business strategy is to be a major hub on the expanding internet and sell ads on their (partnering) sites.It's a quite simple numbers game: the more time people spend on the internet the more money Google makes. So, you need e-mail? No problem here's G-mail. Need to make a phone call or send a message? We'll give you Google Voice. Need to search the web? Speak out your query and Google's "voice to text" takes you to the nearest gas station or coffee shop making use of their Google Maps Data. Then there is Google Docs, Calendar, Wave, Picasa, Youtube, etc. Everything you need from the cloud and always on. 

A world wherein internet will be available as a datasphere around the planet - accessible from everywhere at any time - is dawning and Google wants to be the major hub in this sphere. In order to accomplish that, they have to either dominate or commoditize what sits between the person clicking on an ad and the company paying for the ad. According to Chris Dixon this roughly breaks down to:

Human - device – OS – browser – bandwidth –  websites - ads – ad tech – relationship to advertiser – $$$

In this chain Google obviously dominates websites, ads (search and syndicated AdSense partners), ad technology and relationship to advertisers (adwords). Devices are already highly commoditized (except for mobile hardware, hence Google Phone Nexus One). Operating system and browser are dominated by archenemy Microsoft. Hence Chrome, Chrome OS and Android. 

Bandwidth is dominated  by wireless carriers, cable operators and telcos. Because of massive infrastructure investments it's a hard market to get into for new players and consequently it's expensive, competition-free, and scarce. A recent FCC report concluded that 93 million Americans lack access to high-speed Internet service, with affordability being the primary barrier. This is a serious obstacle to Google's continued growth. The same goes for Facebook, eBay, Twitter, Amazon.com, Apple's  iTunes Music Store and every other website or online service you can think of. But it's Google that has the pocketbook and the self-regard to attempt to do something about it. Besides, it might prove to be a wise investment of a part of the mountain of cash they've piled up in recent years; profit margins on internet services were no less than 95% last year...

How Apple and Google's Romance Turned To Hate - Apple - Gizmodo

How Apple and Google's Romance Turned To Hate - Apple - Gizmodo

TAT Face recognizer

This looks cool!




TAT web site

Search engines getting a foot in the door

Without the big public being aware of it, there's a war going on out there between search engines trying to get their foot in the door to our computers. For the majority of people a search engine is a commodity: as long as it does the job. Google has proven though with their multi billion revenues that for search and advertising companies it is major business.

Here are a few examples I ran into the past weeks:

1. Using Internet Exlorer at a friend's place I discovered that Microsoft is - understandably - plugging their Bing search engine as default in their Internet Explorer address bar. More and more people use their browser as search engine instead of going to a specific search engine homepage. Internet Explorer still has a huge market share, so do the math... One of Google's responses is a huge - for Google unprecedented - on and of-line marketing campaign for their own browser: Chrome.

2. When downloading Google's newest Picasa update, a menu appeared with a few pre-checked options. One of them was: "Set Google as default search engine in Internet Explorer". No evil huh? Duh...

3. When installing a free anti-spyware application, the following warning from Google emerged from my system tray:

So I pressed OK. Then yet another warning - this time from the other camp - appeared. What's going on here!?

4. And then the news broke that the idealistic Open Source guys from the Linux/Ubuntu camp had fallen for the big money. They announced changing the default search engine and home page bundled into Firefox  from Google to Yahoo. The switch is due to a new, and presumably more profitable, revenue sharing agreement with Yahoo, and will be implemented in the next official release. 

Probably to be continued......

Nexus One Multitouch Available Now; Floodgates Open for Hackers - Nexus one multitouch - Gizmodo

Nexus One Multitouch Available Now; Floodgates Open for Hackers - Nexus one multitouch - Gizmodo

Google's China defiance brilliant marketing move

After a hack attempt to Chinese dissidents' gmail accounts Google defied Chinese government by threatening to completely shut down their business in China. With this move Google imposes an ultimatum on the Chinese to allow free unfiltered internet in a so far heavy censored marketplace.

As a first reaction of investors Google shares immediately went down , whilst shares of Chinese competitor Baidu won 7% after hours. Although quite cynical - the free market supporting censorship - as a first reaction this seems to make sense because - as JPMorgan analyst Imran Khan estimates - Google's China revenues at around $600 million this year are at stake. But it's very probable those 600 million will prove to be be a very smart investment, both from a short as a long term investors point of view.

For the short term this move generates an enormous amount of very positive publicity around the world. Once again Google will be the champion of free speach and openness of the internet. Google can do with some positive publicity in a world that becomes more and more suspicious of the monopolistic marketing power of the internet giant. Only a week ago German minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said in an interview with "Der Spiegel" that she was concerned the firm was accruing too much power and information about citizens via programs like Google Earth and Google Books.

On the longer term history will eventually prove the Chinese government unable to completely control, filter and restrain the internet for their citizens. With a (temporary) withdrawel from China - where Google's market share is relatively small - Google will do a lot of damage to the image of the Chinese regime and consequently will gain a lot of  sympathy with the Chinese public. Already Chinese dissidents put flowers outside Google's Chinese headquarters. Baidu on the other hand will in the long run be hurt by their image of complying to the regime's demands and restraining their customers from a free information flow. So by temporarily losing some revenue, Google could very well secure a significant gain in future market share in China.

Update march 25, 2010
http://tcrn.ch/9x4u4j

Battle for the Browser: Is Bing threatening Google?

Last summer Microsoft launched search engine Bing. It more than doubled its US market share from Q3’09, and over the course of the year MS even gained 500% in market share. In Q4’09, this growth apparently came at the expense of Google, which recorded its lowest market share in the US in the 3 years of the study – 72%. This all started at the end of May/the start of June 2009, when Bing replaced their Live Search engine. According to Microsoft, Bing's success is due to a new perspective on the search engine turning it more into a "decision machine".

I doubt if that is the case. The main reason that most consumers use Google is simply because they're used to it. At some point they've probably installed it as their internet startpage, but - in the end - who really cares about a search engine?  It's for the average user an extremely low-interest product - as long as it produces results. Now that search is more and more being executed from within the browser - just enter your search in the address bar; no more need to go to the familiar Google or Yahoo! pages - search engines become even less interesting to the average user. And consequently for search companies the browser becomes a much more important tool to generate search traffic.  This is why it is extremely important for companies like Google and Microsoft to convince people to use or keep using their browser. Most users however also are completely indifferent about the browser that is being used. They are willing to spend hours considering all kinds of hardware options in the computer store, but when it comes to the user interfaces, most people just use whatever appears on the screen when they turn on their computers. The following video - made by Google - shows how little people actually even  know what a browser is and most seem to confuse browser and search engine. "Which browser do you use?" "uuuhhm, Google!" This obviously explains why Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) - generally known to be the worst browser both in terms of speed as in functionality  -  is still the browser of  "choice" of 65% of US and 80% of EU users.



So what then explains the sudden soaring of market share and the shift of about 11 million people in a half years time to Bing? The answer is quite simple. It's most probably the introduction of Windows 7. A new  Windows version makes you having to set up your user settings, including opening page and default search engine. A fresh start so to speak. So, knowing that most people simply use what they're used to or what's pre-installed, this is the perfect time to strike for Microsoft. So you decide to keep using IE, it's pre-installed, the icon's familiar, it always seemed to work. So why bother? Now what do you think happens when you start searching using the URL address bar in IE?. Bingo, you're directed to .....BING! Without even being aware of it, you've become a Bing user! Again, for the average internet surfer, this is no big deal, as long as you're getting your results right?

In 2010, after a whole lot of negotiations and being fined billions of U$, Microsoft is now set to offer European users of its Windows operating system with a browser choice. This choice is not (yet?) offered to US users though. On internetnews.com Sean Michael Kerner complains:

"Why don't U.S. consumers get the same choice?Yes I know full well that any user can go and download Safari, Firefox, Chrome or Opera for Windows. I also know that for a whole lot of people out there, who just don't know any better the big blue E is the Internet and that's all there is to it. 


Google´s response
Google of course is fully aware of its reliance on their search engine's paid clicks that obviously make out a good deal of the revenues they generate. They constantly develop or acquire new products to commit their users to their free on-line services  and generously give away free online storage space. If you use Gmail, you can store more than 7 Gigabyte of emails and attachments on the net. Picasa gives away 1 GB of photostorage. YouTube (max 1 GB per video!) and Docs don't even seem to have limits. But despite this diversification efforts they´re still for a good part dependant on the massive use of their search engine. According to CEO Eric Scmidt Google "is always one click away from losing the end user". They even seem willing to compromise their "do no evil" motto in their efforts not losing the customers to Bing. When I recently upgradedy my Picasa version, a box with a few options appeared. One of the pre-checked options was something like "Make Google default search engine in Internet Explorer". And who can blame them? The huge interests at stake with regards to the low-interest internet browser are also illustrated with the recent massive billboard and newspaper campaign for Google's new Chrome browser. Another attempt to make the big crowd a little more aware of the existence of  browsers other than Internet Explorer. Although the word of mouth approach has done wonders for most of its products, Google decided not to rely entirely on that marketing strategy for their Chrome browser. This clearly illustrates the intensifying "Battle of the Browsers".

Van Google Chrome campaign

The billboard and full page newspaper ads are - in Google style - mostly white. They describe typical internet sessions that involve some heavy browsing, resulting in a lot of open tabs and .... ultimately: 0 crashes. They claim the browser to be "made for everyone", thus trying to appeal to the mainstream internet users.

Van Google Chrome campaign

How Google Could Change the Telecom Industry | The Atlantic Wire

How Google Could Change the Telecom Industry | The Atlantic Wire

By NIRAJ CHOKSHI on January 07, 2010 3:05pm

Google's plunge into the telecom industry accelerated this week with its Monday proposal asking the FCC to let it manage a new white space database and the Tuesday release of the Nexus One smartphone. (Catch up on Wire coverage of the Nexus phone here.) Both are part of a what is widely believed to be a broad telecom strategy for the Mountain View company, but what exactly is Google doing and how might it change telecoms?

• Beginning of a Grand Strategy  Before petitioning to become its administrator, Google long championed the creation of the FCC white space database, which will track free TV channels, enabling companies to use them. So why does it matter? The Ottawa Citizen's Vito Pilieci saysGoogle wants the database up and running so it can become an irresistible carrier: "The company wants its products to be available to you always. You need e-mail? No problem, here's G-mail. Need to make a phone call? No problem, here is Google Voice. ... Then there is Google Docs, Calendar, Wave, Picasa, Youtube, etc." As far as Pilieci's concerned what Google is doing in the consumer electronics market has only been rivaled once: by what Microsoft's Windows OS did to the PC market.

• Revolution Is Coming, but Slowly  Wired's Ryan Singel sees a lot of as-yet untapped potential to shake up the mobile phone industry. But he laments that the company didn't use the Nexus One as a way to welcome the uninitiated or turn the standard business model on its head: "How about a smartphone starter plan, deeply subsidized by ads, that offered a cheap data plan to entice the 'I don't need a smartphone' crowd into joining the revolution? Even better, would have been an order form where you could buy the Google phone and then choose from three or more carriers who are competing to provide you with a data and voice plan -- just as you do when you buy a laptop." While the company hasn't revolutionized phones yet or streamlined the buying process, there's still time, he writes.

• Hands Tied by Business Partners  While there is plenty of potential for the new phone to help Google's broader telecom push, the company may have to tread lightly, write Reuters reporters Alexei Oreskovic and Sinead Carew. "For all Google's might on the Internet, analysts don't see it upending the wireless business model in the near term, saying the company must tread carefully so as not to upset the business partners of its Android mobile operating software." And besides, the company doesn't seem to be in any sort of rush, Current Analysis analyst Avi Greengart told Wall Street Journal reporters Jessica E. Vascellaro and Niraj Sheth: "Unless [Google] gives it a big push with marketing dollars, which they are not, consumers aren't going to know the phone exists," he said.

The Debate

• A Possible Revolution? Ryan Singel, Wired Epicenter
• Google As Carrier Vito Pilieci, Bits and Bytes (The Ottawa Citizen)
• Moving Slowly Jessica E. Vascellaro And Niraj Sheth, The Wall Street Journal
• Google Should Tread Lightly Alexei Oreskovic and Sinead Carew, Reuters