I still hold the opinion that Google faces a difficult enough task transforming itself into Facebook. But getting into consumer electronic hardware means they want to be Apple, too. Or Microsoft. And trying to become too many things at once just reiterates Steve Jobs’ thought that Google just needs to decide what it wants to be, and grow up already. The longer they muddle about, they unintentionally become Yahoo!. Plus I have no idea what an entertainment system has to do with indexing the world’s information.

Lastly, maybe they could come up with an original idea. The networked entertainment system thing is already being done by Apple and Sonos. And the very idea of copying other people’s ideas is, well, very Microsoft. It’s like they’re copying another company’s strategy of copying other companies, in and of itself, a borrowed idea.

My personal hope is the general realization that its P/E of 14 is actually pretty low for a tech stock (Google = 20, Amazon = 136 (!)), and Steve Jobs’ passing hasn’t affected things as much as the cynics had believed (or hoped).

Anyhow, I bought a humble position at $450, and it’s working out better than expected. Maybe I can retire at 85 vs. 86. And I must append the reality check of the Netflix debacle: this post from last year… followed by this one.

Above and beyond the music, should be interesting as a preview to how this whole Apple TV Proper thing might fly, with Apple propping up the content end of things via live events like this one.

And now we have the iPhone app Path, some social thing, that uploads the contents of your Address Book for some friend-finding purpose that’s supposed to be really great.

Problem is, I’ve used my Mac’s Address Book for years locally, well before the iPhone with no expectation that its contents would be shared. If that’s really true, it would totally change how I currently use it. And so Path’s comment (in comments below that post) that contact sharing is a current “best practice” among iPhone apps is deeply disturbing. Really? Maybe among trendy social app developers, but certainly not to end-users. If so, the more accurate term should be “worst-practice.” I’ve long assumed the Address Book contents were private and would expect to be asked permission before sharing.

So the end result is bad for Path. I’ve yet to download the app and am now unlikely to ever do so. The damage is done; whatever coolness this app provides is now tainted by the “icky feeling” — they care more about that contact list or my data than me as a user, so the service they provide is a shady cover, really. And that ickyness extends to other social apps until this issue is resolved — hopefully Apple will lock the address book down like location and fire an alert asking for explicit permission — at least once.

And in the future, possibly years from now, I look forward to aged relatives saying, “oh… I don’t want to download those app things… I hear they steal your address book and spam all your friends.”

Thanks for nothing, Path. You just made everyone — justifiably — a little more paranoid.

Update: Path is fixing things. Still not motivated to try the app anytime soon, though.

Anyhow, watch the video and judge for yourself. My verdict: it ain’t getting past the spousal-approval test.

First, Siri and hand gesture control would do a great deal toward my present annoyance with too many boxes and remotes to control them. But my ultimate usability test will be the spouse — I look forward to visiting the Apple Store and plopping her before one of these manifestations of Steve Jobs’ final wishes… if she can figure out how to use this iTV with hand gestures or whatever within a minute or so, I’m sold.

Second, the whole “Minority Report” / Siri might put this device into an iPad-like strategy, where the device comes first and is so cool that the content holders feel the need to provide content for it, via apps, licensing agreements with Apple, etc. This device-first approach might be Apple’s only available strategy toward breaking the cable / reluctant studio stranglehold, anyhow.

Lastly, collaboration with cable companies implies that the TV may act as cable box, too. That would be such a huge coup on Apple’s part, I don’t believe it’s possible. But consider how through the iPhone, Apple already has relationships with AT&T and Verizon here in the states, both of whom provide cable services. Hmmm.

Anyhow — rather pointless to continue speculating about speculation, but at least the stock continues to benefit from the nonsense.

Yet I do believe the company is poised for a great 2012 and therefore, the stock has more room to run. Many reasons to believe it could continue to rise from here. One big one: the competition seems to be faltering. Google disappointed, now Amazon.

It feels like a pretty rich purchase at $450 per share, but I can see it crossing $500 sometime this year.

Perhaps this is nuts, but before iPad 3 and iPhone 5 seems like a good time to get in.

Well, maybe I’ll wait until after Greece defaults.

The closest thing I can compare it to was Google’s IPO back in 2004. At the time, the mood was actually pretty sour, with the dot com, Web 1.0 pain still fresh in people’s minds. But somewhere from there to here, Google persevered and diversified into other products, growing to be the next big Silicon Valley tech giant mentioned in the same breath as Microsoft, Apple, HP, Amazon, etc.

And while the overall mood isn’t all that bleak today (well, except for that Euro-recession-real-estate-bankrupt–thing), there are doubters.

But off the top of my head I can see many more reasons to pick up some Facebook stock than not. And no, none of them have much to do with business fundamentals. This is tech stock picking we’re talking about, here.

First, Facebook has essentially won the whole Web 2.0 social networking wave. Totally agree with Steve Jobs himself as quoted from the Isaacson biography: “We talk about social networks in the plural, but I don’t see anybody other than Facebook out there. Just Facebook, they are dominating this.” I feel a few leaders emerge from each tech wave, Amazon and eBay survived the last, and Facebook is clearly in line as next. This ain’t no Groupon, Zynga, or even LinkedIn. This is mother-freaking Facebook.

Personal observation supports this. I’d estimate the majority of my peers are on Facebook to varying degrees, and if they aren’t, they’ve at least heard of the company. Even the aged relatives inquire about whether or not they should sign up, or can they at least get a tutorial on what it is? Heck, they even had their own critically acclaimed movie. You can’t not know what Facebook is these days: it has become part of our culture. We may debate whether or not to use it, whether they’re evil or if you hate it, but we’re still talking about it.

Next we have Zuckerberg himself, a scary combination of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates — a young, charismatic, autocrat founder who can also code.

And another thing to consider: The shared enemy of Google could get Facebook and Apple to work together. While Jobs supposedly wasn’t able to overcome Zuckerberg’s “onerous” demands for a partnership last year, the continued pressure of Android and Google+ on both companies could force them to work together. And then imagine Facebook integration into iOS - something that will never happen with Google+.

I stand by earlier statements that all Facebook has to do after a successful IPO is follow the Google playbook (ads, email, office apps, search). They can match Google+ feature for feature in a Netscape / IE-esque war. Flush with cash, they’ll continue to attract employees and acquire competitors.

Needless to say, I never bought any Google shares. But I’ll get in on Facebook for sure. It has the next Google, Netscape, Yahoo! written all over it.

Note: Yes, I have bitched about Facebook’s evil privacy issues in the past. Yes, I don’t use the service much myself. Yes, I think using the service is largely a waste of time and the very definition of “fake work.” But I’d invest in McDonalds without ever eating there myself.

Just check out the site. There’s just a search box, the name of the website and a duck logo. Enter a string, get some results, and leave. I get the same clean, no-nonsense, just-brushed feeling — an emotion once associated with Google after years using Yahoo!.

The search results are solid, without any ads, animated logos that change daily, Google+ links, pictures, site previews, or YouTube links. A breath of fresh air.

And while Google leaves you with no choice when it comes to tracking all your data across its services, DuckDuckGo proudly doesn’t track. They don’t care where you go, and hope you care about your data enough to use DuckDuckGo.

I reset my browser home pages from Google to DuckDuckGo (which loads noticeably faster than Google) a few days ago and after a bit of mental adjustment, like the change.

I see this going down similarly to Blockbuster vs. Netflix or Tower Records vs. Apple. Infinitely easier for a tech company to take on a company entrenched in an obsolete business model than the latter turning themselves into a tech company.

Don’t bother with a Nook. Get a Kindle. Or an iPad. Unless you like doorstops…

I just came across this post by Tim O’Reilly on Google+:

Collecting data isn’t evil. It’s the currency of the future, a currency that we provide in order to buy useful services, many of which can ONLY be provided if that data is aggregated and analyzed and made relevant.

Sure, if you’re a publicly traded company with advertising as its only business model. But let me just go to the grocery store and see if they’ll accept my shopping data (which they already have thanks to that customer loyalty card) as payment for groceries, or ask my cell phone bill to be refunded since my location was tracked. And the credit card companies should just give me a refund on all the stuff purchased through them since they got my data in the process.

The whole business model of mining people’s data for profit only applies to a small subset of Internet companies. That’s a far cry from the “currency of the future.” And if I’m wrong, I look forward to the day when we can sit on our assess all day and retire wealthy just sitting around spreading our precious data all over the Internet. I’ll make sure to throw some disinformation in there just to make it all the more useless.

Oh, and I’m still waiting for a proper Google response to their not being a search engine anymore. Tim’s post falls under the banner of “don’t complain — it’s free.”

However — that’s not good enough for most investors — including myself. Personally, the stock has got to see another 100% gain from here for me to merely break even. And if by some miracle it gets there, I still lean toward dumping the stock.

Obviously, the company has a very long way to go to make amends for last year’s debacle.

And of course, the cynical wonder if this was a fluke quarter. But looking forward to what Apple may have in store for 2012 — I believe this torrid, almost exponential growth can continue.

First, even if Apple plays it totally safe, we have iPad 3 early this year and iPhone 5 in the summer. The killer earnings of last quarter were for iPad 2 — a product nearly a year old. So: iPad 3 — even with incremental upgrades like a retina display and better camera — could seriously continue to dominate throughout 2012. Add something extra like 4G, and all bets are off.

Then we have iPhone 5. Consider that the hot-selling iPhone 4S was an incremental upgrade — the same case design as the iPhone 4 and a mere incremental speed bump like the iPhone 3G to iPhone 3GS (even I called it “disappointing”). So if an incremental upgrade resulted in last quarter — well, I can’t begin to imagine what a new iPhone 5 release will do. Even the safe bets — a slightly larger screen, a new case design will see huge demand. Add in 4G or NFC and again — all bets are off.

And this speculation doesn’t include improvements to the entire Mac line. Or iCloud. Lion. Or the possibility of an Apple TV proper. Or an entirely new, secret product.

But to sum up: here’s a final thought that didn’t even cross my mind until recently. Looking back over all of 2011, the only Apple hardware we purchased was the spouse’s Verizon iPhone (we got an iPad 2 as a gift). The last Mac I bought was a MacBook Air in late 2010; same with the latest Apple TV. So basically, in terms of Apple hardware, 2011 was a wash — I contributed essentially nothing to Apple’s killer earnings all year.

Which means — even if Apple sticks to incremental upgrades, in 2012 I can already see purchasing the iPad 3, iPhone 5 (my iPhone 4 contract will end just in time), probably a new Mac Mini and MacBook Air, and an Apple TV (whatever form it takes) — five hardware products — possibly more than I’ve spent in an entire year on Apple products ever.

To sum up: 2011 was actually rather light in terms of new hardware, yet Apple still knocked it out of the park. Therefore — at the risk of being proven wrong later this year — I can seriously see how they can push things even further in 2012.

Now that it’s clear Google wants to turn into Facebook and updated their privacy policy with no opt-out to match, perhaps they should update their mission statement to be more in line with their new, true purpose.

Here’s my attempt:

“Google’s (new) mission is to organize its users’ information and make it universally accessible and useful to advertisers.”

Oh, and maybe replace the increasingly inaccurate credo “don’t be evil” with “don’t complain — it’s free.”

Meanwhile, check out DuckDuckGo. Clean interface. They don’t collect your personal information. A breath of fresh air — like Google once was.

All I can say is, is there anybody who doesn’t price-compare online vs. retail when out retail shopping? I do it all the time, increasingly so since getting an iPhone several years ago. I would say if you are shopping retail and not checking the prices online, you’re being ripped off and wasting money.

Yeah, I know there’s a bit of an argument for supporting your local shopping economy, but in tough financial times Amazon with no sales tax and cheap shipping (even more so if you subscribe to Amazon Prime) wins out almost every time. Then subtract the time savings driving to a store, the gas, the saved frustration looking for parking and waiting in line and it makes less and less sense to shop physical retail.

There’s a handful of retail that requires a physical presence, like groceries, clothing, and furniture, but everything else is increasingly likely to be swallowed up by online. Retailers adjust accordingly — Target’s recent move into groceries makes sense. But fighting against shoppers just being smart — does not.

There was definitely some prior indication that this would be a surprising, blow-out quarter, first a chart showing a huge jump in iOS marketshare from late 2011 sales, putting iOS on an even level with Android. Second, personal anecdotal evidence seemed to confirm this — I see iPads all over the place; folks holding them like giant books and laptop replacements  to the point of impracticality and slight ridiculousness — saw someone walking down the Embarcadero holding an iPad like a giant iPod, headphones plugged in and likely consulting a map. Lastly, the cheaper iPhone 4 and free iPhone 3GS shouldn’t be underestimated, as several acquaintances have picked those up.

But still, I wasn’t expecting this much of an upside surprise.

Now in retrospect we can see that Apple’s decision to delay the iPhone 4S until Fall resulted in some quarters where Android gained traction, but there were also a lot of consumers who waited to the latest Apple kit, so the delay didn’t impact things all that much and they made up the difference and then some this past quarter. And momentum could continue if the iPhone 5 drops this summer.

Second, iPad is pretty clearly owning the tablet space. The Kindle Fire may have had some impact but considering the entire Android tablet space = Kindle Fire, it’s not nearly as damaging as many of the Android fans had hoped for last year. And an updated iPad 3 is due to arrive sooner than a new iPhone.

Anyhow, this Apple shareholder couldn’t have asked for anything better from this announcement. The only can think of is a stock split or a dividend. But for now I’ll totally take an 8% pop…

Whoever the heck is writing crosswords these days — keep ‘em coming.

Piracy wouldn’t be such a big deal if the content holders would just give consumers decent alternatives.

At one time, Napster was the preferred place to get music and the labels weren’t receiving a dime. Then iTunes and Steve Jobs came along with a grand compromise, and guess what, it actually worked. Getting music through iTunes was easy and not too expensive to where for many people, the inherent inconvenience of piracy wasn’t worth the effort.

Now we’re talking largely about video, and it’s a similar situation. The studios are pissed at sites like Megaupload. But they continue to have trouble with an iTunes-video agreement with Apple (or distribution agreements with Microsoft, Netflix, or Google for that matter) and figure out video delivered over the Internet, iTunes-style. The studios don’t want to “give Apple too much control.” Or they’re just greedy. But the end result is always wrong: too expensive, not convenient, and piracy continues unabated.

And this all comes back to my long-wished for “digital video nirvana.” I am still waiting for any movie TV show available on demand within minutes for a reasonable price. Waiting for years, and it’s still not here. And it’s no surprise to me that many just shrug their shoulders and look elsewhere for said video.

Now this is not to say piracy can be completely eliminated. There will always be folks who want everything to be free out of some anti-DRM principle, or because they’re just cheapskates — but I believe they’re in the minority. I think a lot of folks are in my middle ground where I want to rent something, and if it’s on Netflix, Hulu, or iTunes, I’ll go with that instead of firing up a torrent — which takes longer. Often, a few bucks which I’d drop on a snack or a coffee without thinking about it is worth handing to Apple (and then to the studios) as it saves time.

So piracy could be lessened and the content holders could make some money in the process whereas now they get nothing. And the opposing sides of consumer and content producers are on the verge of a huge conflict that will harm the Internet as a whole because of this unwillingness to compromise.

The short thought: if consumers could just download the stuff they want for a reasonable price, there’d be less piracy and therefore no need for nonsense like SOPA.

• Apple did their best to answer the chicken-and-egg problem of any content / consumer ecosystem: several big-name publishers are on board from day one, with very generous prices. Meanwhile, students will be tempted by the low prices, interactivity, convenience, and possibility they already have an iPad.
• Apple woos the content producers with a complete publishing platform: the allegedly easy-to-use iBooks Author and vacuum-tube-to-the-wallet App Store-esque iBooks 2. And the huge installed user base of iOS users should provide a huge incentive to any textbook publisher — students already accustomed to purchasing iTunes music and iOS apps will have no problem adding a few textbooks.
• The pricing of a $15 textbook vs. the more typical $75 seems like a deal too good to be true, but can be made up by the publishers through volume (check out this All Things D article): textbooks purchased by schools and then lent to students last about five years in the hands of multiple students, while the iBooks version would be purchased by the student with new textbooks purchased each year as a student moves on to the next grade.
• Challenges Amazon’s Kindle platform in a number of areas: interactive textbook content that will look and run better on the iPad, Mac-specific publishing tools, new relationships with textbook publishers and independent authors, rock-bottom pricing, and pushing the ePub format. But the largest implication for any student is to purchase an iPad and read Amazon content via a Kindle app, vs. a Kindle device.

All in all, the most impressive thing is how Apple presents a new platform as a win-win for just about everyone involved (as opposed to Google TV where the platform arrives without content agreements, or WebOS with no apps). Well, unless you’re Amazon, or an employee of a brick-and-mortar school bookstore.

Who will be writing there? Mike Arrington, Paul Carr, MG Siegler, and Lacy herself. Check, check, check, and check — that’s the entire roster of “A list” writers I once read TechCrunch for.

The potential conflict of interests is personally irrelevant — that roster could write about pandas, pandas who recently came back from maternity leave, or drunk pandas who live in hotels paid for and sponsored by Android and I’d still somehow find it amusing.

Added to Google Reader.

• March debut.
• “High-definition” screen.
• Faster processor (quad core).
• LTE.

All makes sense and falls in line with my earlier thoughts. And there is no hint of the biggest personal prediction I continue to stand by: no smaller form factor.

iPad 3 will be essentially a better iPad 2 (which was essentially a better iPad 1) with the same dimensions. And that will be sufficient to maintain charts like this for the foreseeable future.

As a user, I am not into this new direction. I get why it’s happening, as in competition from Facebook, Twitter, and social sites in general are locking larger segments away from Google Search. But I don’t know if turning Google into a social network itself is a proper response.

I can’t help but think of the “search engine wars” between MSN, Yahoo!, Ask Jeeves, AltaVista, etc. where the trend was to turn your search engine into a “web portal.” And then Google came along to wipe the slate clean with a superior algorithm and a super clean, clutter-free interface of nothing but a search box on white.

That’s why I originally started using Google. Yet their recent moves indicate a direction away from that pure origin, and toward the very products they were once superior to.

I am sad when I read articles like this that say: “Google is no longer a ‘search company’”. Because what they are becoming is still in flux, and may be something I don’t want to use. Going “all in” behind Google+ indicates they want to be a social network. But Android indicates they want to be like Apple. And Chrome indicates they want to be Microsoft. And all these different directions indicate at worst, a company desperately searching for new revenue streams, and copying what’s already out there and making enemies of pretty much everyone in the process (pretty much Micrsoft). But Google will be hard pressed to compete with — let alone try to become — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft simultaneously.

I seriously think Google would better serve their users if they “doubled-down” on search and made it even better. Acknowledge that searches don’t all have to go through Google. When want to shop at Amazon, I go to the Amazon web site and search there. When I want to search Facebook data, I go to Facebook. Same for Twitter. To expect all those results to flow from the Google search box may never happen at this point. Game over.

Because: even minus Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon, that still leaves a crap load of undiscovered web content out there that I’ll still go through Google for. But by suggesting irrelevant Google+ content and pimping out other Google properties weakens that use case. Adding clutter and nonsense where there used to be none — seriously, makes me want to give Bing a whirl.

Start with these Microsofty-moves and the end of the road is Yahoo!. And meanwhile, someone else will do a better job of indexing the world’s information. In becoming something else entirely, Google leaves the door open for someone else to take the place of what they once were.

From the recent biography, Steve Jobs on Google:

“Figure out what Google wants to be when it grows up. What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest because they’re dragging you down. They’re turning you into Microsoft.”

Someone at Google has taken that advice to heart — over the past year, unwanted products have been dropped, righting the Titanic away from a giant iceberg named Facebook. It’s the Internet memo all over again, with Google+ the equivalent of IE.

And with “Search plus Your World” we have something that frankly, whiffs of Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer in Windows and sticking it deep into the OS. Which (IMHO deservedly), sparked the interest of the Federal Government.

I don’t think linking Google+ and search = anticompetitive is that much of a stretch. There’s an entire industry built around getting high rankings in Google search results. Now there’s a huge incentive for people to use Google+ to juice those results. And the feds are currently prodding those results with a fairly big stick.

Looking through things with that filter defines my opinion about this whole thing:

• During the IE vs. Netscape days I was a die-hard Mac user, so you can infer whose side I supported.
• If Google+ were some small scrappy startup (like FriendFeed was) and getting users based on a killer product — I’d support them. Maybe even use the product out of principle alone.
• Rooting for Google — a huge company with its fingers in just about everything (search, browsers, Internet, mobile, television) is fast becoming the equivalent of rooting for the Microsoft of the late nineties.

In a sick way, this situation may actually drive me to use Twitter and Facebook more (despite not being a Facebook fan). Recall Steve Jobs’ thoughts on Facebook:

“We talk about social networks in the plural, but I don’t see anybody other than Facebook out there,” Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson in excerpts of an interview released online by “60 Minutes,” the CBS television show. “Just Facebook, they’re dominating this.”

“I admire Mark Zuckerberg,” Jobs said of Facebook’s chief executive officer on the recording. “I only know him a little bit, but I admire him for not selling out, for wanting to make a company. I admire that, a lot.”

At the time I read this, it was a little scary, but now in light of Google plus Your World I’m inclined to support the iceberg.

Note: And ultimately: is this search plus results from a social network something we really want, anyhow? I still remember my first visit to Google way back when and two things made it immediately clear that it was a superior product: fast, accurate search results and a super clean interface — words on stark white, in direct contrast to other cluttered search engines littered with ads. “Enhancing” my searches with LOLcats, artsy photographs, optical illusions, and social media nonsense (what’s in my Google+ streams these days) seems pretty far from those original reasons.

The article’s final line regarding the Chromebook: “as a consumer device, they’re dead in the water.”

Here’s a post I wrote last year. What do I win?

• iBooks Content: Decent Kindle Fire sales may spur Apple toward defining the iPad as a superior reading device. There are rumblings of a content-related announcement at a January Apple event. New agreements with publishers would be nice — Amazon has more eBooks at better prices. Apple could also spotlight graphic-intense content (magazines, education textbooks) that show off the iPad’s better display and faster processor.
• Lighter: The Kindle Fire is light enough to hold in one hand while reading. I hope the same for the iPad 3, but with the same screen size as the current iPad. Maybe a tall order, but if anyone can pull such hardware alchemy it’s Apple (MacBook Air).
• Better display: A higher-resolution display and better backlight controls would improve readability. I’d personally like an even lower backlight level for reading in the dark.
• Better camera: I avoid using the current ones.
• Faster: Makes sense.
• No new design: The iPad’s basic, curved design is solidly simple and needs no overhaul. Like the MacBook line, it’s pretty much perfect.
• No 7″ iPad: Doubtful. Even with a retina display, smaller UIs for current apps introduce basic usability problems. Current periodicals would suffer from harder-to-read text. I feel a lighter device with the iPad’s current screen size would be the best solution.
• No iPad Pro, either: Seems better specs at the same price point would satisfy pretty much everyone. I don’t think there are demanding enough games and apps to break out a juiced-up iPad into its own “Pro” designation just yet.

First is mention of an already-built television locked away in Jonathan Ive’s studio, implying Apple has a product far along in development if not ready to go. And the rumored screen sizes are 42+ inches. The larger sizes will make upgrading from our current 40″ Samsung more justifiable.

Second, a possible reason is given as to why the Apple TV proper hasn’t been announced yet — lining up content deals with those backwards studios in order to create an “ala carte” model where users could subscribe to only the channels or shows they want, as opposed to the usual cable package containing channels you don’t really want.

I’d love to pick particular channels. Right now we’re cable-less, and use iTunes to subscribe to a handful of current shows, but it’s not cost-effective for a large number of shows. I’d gladly pay a monthly fee for say “Food Network” and be done with it.

And if you’re into conspiracy theories perhaps this article itself is a lever to loosen the negotiations between Apple and those stick-in-the-mud studios. Yes, there’s an Apple TV ready to go. Ive and Jobs worked on it; it’s surely awesome. There’s an ala carte model that most current cable customers would love. But it’s all being held back by those darned studios. So you can’t have it just yet.

Drool.…

The Good

• Consumer Power: Netflix, GoDaddy, Bank of America, Verizon — all made silly, customer-annoying moves, and the ensuing backlash and their effect was notable. I can totally get behind spreading a message through social media, voting with your wallet, and getting clueless companies to listen to their customers.
• Apple. iPad 2, Lion, iPhone 4S, and iCloud. The iPad dominated tablets. Apple survived some negative events (delay of the iPhone 4S, death of Steve Jobs) that would have hurt lesser companies. And the stage is set for huge earnings in 2012 and new products throughout the year (iPad 3, iPhone 5, Apple TV [fingers crossed]). I think Apple is up to the challenge of maintaining its almost-most-valuable-company-in-the-world status in 2013.
• Facebook. Despite my personal disinterest I observe addicted individuals continue to use Zuckerberg’s baby with no signs of moving to elsewhere. Facebook is set to IPO in 2012 as the biggest debut since Netscape. As for Google+, at best we’re in the early stages of a multi-year platform war between two companies with loads of cash to burn — not unlike PC vs. Mac or Netscape vs. IE.
• Android. Despite my iPhone love, I can’t deny Android provides a worthy smartphone alternative for Apple-phobes. If you have some irrational dislike for Apple and don’t mind a lesser product that’s “good enough” and lacks the polish of the Apple ecosystem that puts the user experience first — buy Android. You probably have a Windows PC that’s good enough, too.

The Bad

• Netflix. Staggering flip from hero to zero. I started out the year a huge fan, even buying stock. At year’s end, I could very well cancel the service and take the stock out behind a woodshed and put it out of its misery.
• AOL / TechCrunch. AOL bought a great company and took it out behind the woodshed.
• Yahoo! Waiting for them to be bought by AOL.
• HP. Waiting for them to merge with Yahoo! and AOL.
• WebOS. Flash. RIM. You get the pattern.
• Rise of the Google Fanboy. Now that Google+ and Android haven’t proved whiffs like Wave and Buzz, there are more smug faces around… and Google support is growing as annoying as the Apple version. I get it — Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon are all building “walled gardens.” But be careful what you wish for — Google isn’t a scrappy start-up worthy of a handicap as they fight off the big boys. They are a big boy. If they win, we all get… a garden with slightly lower walls, but a stranglehold on the web, hardware, and software, and less scrappy start-ups.

Anyhow, here’s to 2012 which will surely prove no less amusing…

I don’t do much video streaming or app downloading away from WiFi. The only thing I can think of regarding the increased data use is iTunes Match. That blows; another knock to Apple’s music service due to AT&T, holding back the future yet again.

What also sucks is I’m still technically on an “unlimited” plan, signed up for with my original iPhone which was supposedly grandfathered in for this iPhone 4 purchase. But obviously, I gotta put “unlimited” in quotes, since if AT&T can’t crack down on the amount of data, they can still limit the speed.

Yeah, there’s some excuse about improving network quality but I don’t buy that for a second. Build more towers, don’t bitch at your paying customers. Don’t our monthly payments go toward that kind of stuff?

This Christmas communication from AT&T = a big lumpy coal reminder to go Verizon come iPhone 5.

First thought: am not offended by the finger, instead find it pretty funny, as a stylistic trademark of Siegler’s work is careful use of obscenity when making a point (which he always has, even if you disagree).

Second, Google will now find it increasingly difficult to define and identify “mature or offensive content” — certainly pornography or Hitler are rude, but there’s so much grey. How about an extended index finger — that on closer look is actually a dildo? Someone dressed as Jesus sporting a Hitler mustache? A guy chowing down on a hamburger — that’s posted to a vegan circle? And as word spreads of this filtering policy, Google+ will likely encounter Internet pranksters testing its boundaries while we watch Google struggling to define “offensive.”

And there’s a larger issue of how Google+ wants to be perceived. Yes, it’s Google’s property and they get to define the rules. I can understand why Google would want to whitewash the profile photos — their content is largely publicly displayed and appear in search results. And advertisers don’t want their brands associated with shifty content.

But any service putting nice content over the colorful variance of humanity always leaves me cold. The closest analogy I can think of is the generic high school yearbook spread — walls of generic faces with all interesting variations washed away. The school wants to put their best foot forward and keep the parents happy, but you end up with something unrepresentative of, well — reality. And the high school yearbook, ultimately, may not be for the students at all, but parents who want to remember a whitewashed version of the past while carpeting over all the sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Note to self: change profile picture to something subversive.