Consider this post to be a gripe. The gripe is about iCloud, the Apple voodoo that will keep all of your documents, photographs, and music magically in sync between your iOS and OS X devices. Just turn it on and it works, without any further effort on your part. Edit a document on your iPad, and there it is waiting for you when you pick up your Mac. Except that it doesn’t quite work that way if you’re a Mac user.
We give cloud storage a lot of love here. And why not? Having access to, and the ability to share, your files wherever you are is peachy keen — and convenient too. It’s a competitive world, though, and the main contenders — Dropbox, Box.net, and SugarSync — have been battling it out via pricing, free storage offerings, and promotions to ensure they get a solid chunk of the target market that is you. The latest play has come from Box.net — and it’s a doozie: 50GB of free storage just for logging in to their iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch app.
Before you ask, there’s no catch. You don’t have to sell the idea to your friends, you don’t have to buy anything after so many days of use, and you don’t have to give them your first-born child. All you have to do is log in and the 50GB is yours! The promotion started October 12th, 2011 and runs until December 2nd, 2011 (50 days). Just make sure you have the most recent version of the iOS app, and away you go.
For those who take advantage of the promotion, Box.net has also increased the maximum file-size upload to 100MB — it’s usually 25MB for free accounts. That doesn’t beat out Dropbox, for me, but there’s a lot you can do with 50GB of 100MB files, and Box has cool collaboration features that most of the competitor services don’t match. The only other thing to watch for is the 10GB bandwidth limit.
If you’re already paying for an account with Box.net, don’t fret. You can get the 50GB, too, if you downgrade to a free account. You lose out on the more advanced security and collaboration features and the like, as well as your 1GB+ upload limit, but you will still be able to share your files quickly and easily.
If you’re on Android, you might be feeling a bit of “What the hell! Can I haz…???” For Android users in general, at the moment it appears you’re out of luck. However, if you have a Sony Tablet S — which uses Android — there’s a similar promotion running. BlackBerry Playbook and HP TouchPad users are on as well. But don’t get too upset, Android Army (or those with other devices), according to the Box.net blog, they have some more promotions up their sleeves just for you guys.
What will you do with your 50GB of free storage?
Recently, Netflix angered a large amount of its US subscriber-base by announcing changes to its pricing model. It used to be that, if you wanted to do the Neflix videos-by-mail thing and stream content as well, it would only cost you an extra couple of bucks per month. Now (as of two days ago, in fact), if you want both, you need to pay double — $7.99 for each service. While the Netflix move may be understandable, and part of a potentially larger plan to phase out physical delivery altogether, the customer backlash was also unsurprising — and significant.
To make matters worse for Netflix, on the very day that the new pricing came into effect, Starz, the distributor of Sony and Disney content decided not to renew their contract with Netflix. This is probably going to hurt Netflix customer relationships even more, but believe it or not, it happened as a result of Netflix attempting to preserve their pricing model, and, presumably, to keep their customers from imploding.
Netflix has been doing well, business-wise, of late. They opened up content streaming in Canada — which I use all the time, even though we don’t get the coolest content up this way — and they have plans for world internet-streaming domination that could be very viable. Unfortunately, their content and entire business is dependent on their relationship with content license owners. Starz Entertainment apparently insisted that Netflix put their content behind an additional pay-wall, making customers pay more to access it. Netflix offered them in excess of $300 million per year for the content, but that wasn’t good enough for Big Media, who initially asked for more than 10 times what Netflix paid them in 2008, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In a press release, Starz cited the usual spiel regarding “protecting the premium nature” of their brand and “preserving the appropriate pricing” of their “exclusive and valuable content.” The bottom line here, however, is that Starz holds all of the cards here. Disney and Sony content is good content. It is sought after. In a statement to Business Insider, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings maintains that it only marks 8% of their overall audience views, and that the content would have likely gone down to 5-6% of domestic views by Q1 2012 anyway, but as we all know, it takes less than 8% of pissed off people who perceive that they’ve lost something they felt they paid for to make 80%-sized noise about it.
One also has to wonder if other Big Media groups will follow Starz lead. To many of them, Netflix is likely more of an experiment that they tolerate to see if it will pay out big in the long run. Now that the dollars are coming in, naturally, they are going to want a bigger cut — one that makes them feel more like they are returning to their original business model that made them a money hand over fist — you know, before the advent of broadband and the explosion of extremely easy content piracy.
Speaking of piracy… it has been proven that consumers, by and large, are willing to pay a subscription price for content. If they weren’t, Netflix would never work; neither would Hulu Plus, Rdio, Sirius, pay-to-play MMORPGs, or any of the other premium-based multimedia providers out there. However, those prices need to be reflective of the general feel of pricing online — pricing that Apple was the baseline for with iTunes and apps taking over the online world as we know it. That is to say, the pricing needs to be low-ish. If all of the major license holders start clamouring “premium subscriptions for our content or else,” Netflix and their sizeable customer base will be threatened. When a media consuming customer base is threatened, they jump ship — and they have a tendency to land in a submarine that stealths its way into a dialect punctuated with “yo ho ho’s” and the occasional “Aaargh!” Not to beat the pirate metaphor to death or anything…
So what do you think of Starz demands for a Netflix pay-wall for their content? What about their decision to pull out? Should Netflix have given in?
I just confirmed with the CEO of Memonic that the crazy premium account deal ($3.33 Euro for 10,000 notes and 50GB storage) link works until the end of October. And it works for whomever, not just the Swiss/Germans. Translate the page from German and get it while it’s hot!
There’s been a lot of discussion on 40Tech about which is the best note-taking app. While the battle is generally between Springpad and Evernote, occasionally a new option steps in for a punch or two. This week’s contender has been watching, learning, and in many cases even improving upon the competition. I’d like to introduce you all to Memonic — there’s a reason it made App of the Week.
When it comes to note-taking apps, there are five key things to look for: how easy it is to get information into the app, organization and sharing features, overall usability, cross-platform possibilities, and personal preference. That last is a huge factor in user adoption. Depending on what you need your notes app to do, one or another may work better for you.
Evernote, for example, is well suited to those who just need a straight ahead, highly searchable portable filing cabinet. It can do many other things, true, such as be used for a GTD system, but portable (and searchable!) filing cabinet is what it does best. Springpad, on the other hand, is great for taking notes, but has this fantastic capacity for making certain types of notes “smart.” If you like to comparison shop, find good deals, or get value from what the people in your network are interested in, Springpad’s note-alerts system offers you something no other note-taking app can match.
Memonic doesn’t have the budget that Springpad or Evernote has. They’ve been bootstrapping their system for a while now, and when you consider that and then see what they’ve put together, I have no doubt you’ll be impressed. I was — and am. Just as Evernote and Springpad differ in their approach and target markets, Memonic has brought its own angle to the field: research and collaboration. Now, before the Evernote lovers start touting shared notebooks, and the Springpad-enamoured bring up the oh-so-very-cool Board, hear me out. Those are all excellent features — but if you want an app that makes it easy to share and organize notes on a project (or projects), easy to be notified when new notes and research snippets have arrived or been commented on, and ridiculously simple to gather information in the first place, then Memonic is the clear choice. Here’s why:
Memonic can be used as a central collaboration notebook for research, planning, and discussions on projects. You can create a group, invite a few people, and then get to work. The group gets its own page with its own activity feed, too, which makes it simple to be notified and to keep an eye on progress.
If you run into the ever-present problem of working with someone who doesn’t want to use the service, sharing notes with people outside of Memonic is easy, too. You can share via Facebook, Twitter, email, or a link, RSS feeds, and you can even embed notes on web pages — which is a nice touch.
Memonic’s group and contacts features are fully realized with the feed-like Dashboard. The Dashboard not only shows you a quick clip of everything you’ve posted recently, but it also shows the public posts of your contacts — which can be opened and read in full right from the dashboard itself. See something you like? Copy it to your own collection of notes, or share it with others via email, link, Facebook, or Twitter (or even copy it to Word) with just a few clicks.
I love the Evernote Web Clipper, and I like the Springpad Clipper even better, but both can get a bit irritating if you’re in a hurry. Memonic’s clipper does away with the click and drag highlighting and breaks each section of content on a page into regions that can be selected with a single click. You can do multiple parts of the page, or even the entire page in one go. When you’re doing a lot of web research, this speeds up the process immensely.
Quick content selection isn’t the only reason the Memonic clipper stands out over the others. The other big one is Gathering Mode, which is a little toggle switch that allows you to lock in your settings for where you want to put your notes — folder, privacy level — and save you the trouble of having to re-establish those settings for every single clipping. It’s awesome — and I have no idea why other clippers don’t do the same. The only thing I would like to see added to Gathering Mode is the ability to lock in tags, as well.
Finally, the Memonic clipper has a variety of other useful modes that can replace a number of other services with just this one:
The web clipper works with all major browsers — and even works by bookmarklet with Safari for iPad. If that isn’t enough, there is also a clipper for Windows that allows you to clip content outside of the browser.
Memonic focuses on the minimal. The way notes are displayed in expandable windows that are neatly separated from one another is easy on the eyes and easy to use. The look and feel is distinctly uncluttered, and is fairly persistent across all versions of the app. And you can get Memonic pretty much anywhere: Windows and Mac desktop apps, iPhone, iPad, Android devices, and the web app for everything else. Mobile versions don’t have the Dashboard, unfortunately, but everything else you could want is there, both online and off.
For a small operation, Memonic is throwing around some important integrations, especially for the business set. Here’s just a few: Salesforce, SugarCRM, Confluence, Sharepoint — and guess what… they are planning to integrate with Evernote! That may seem a bit weird, but soon, all those who can’t bear to walk away from Evernote, but love the power of the Memonic clipper, will be able to use the super-awesome clipper to save content directly to their Evernote accounts. A nice, tidy little bit of genius on the part of Memonic, if you ask me.
If, for some strange reason, you need more than the promise of Evernote integration, well, Memonic also integrates a save button into Facebook so you can save your favourite photos, status updates, and wall posts. Want more? How about Google Reader integration so you can clip your favourite posts while reading your feeds? How’s that tickle you?
Memonic’s co-founder, Dorian Selz, and the rest of the team have worked their butts off on a bootstrap budget to put together one of the most robust note-taking apps I’ve ever come across — a definite rival for Evernote and Springpad if it gets the notice it deserves. The only issue I personally have with Memonic is that their free version is limited to only 100 notes and doesn’t have Gathering Mode. To get the full service, though, only costs $28/year — which isn’t bad considering Evernote premium is $45/per year — and Memonic doesn’t have any advertising to clutter up your experience. If you do a lot of research on your own, or as part of a student or business team, give Memonic a try — you just might love it. And there are discounts for students, too.
What do you think of Memonic?
How Important Are Grammar And Spelling Online?
One might think that the world wide web, which is still predominantly text-based, would be the spearhead in the rise to new heights of literary articulation. Unfortunately, if you were the one who was thinking that, you were sadly misinformed. In actuality the ability or willingness to write with proper grammar and spelling has been replaced by a general acceptance of a lower standard. The acceptance appears general, that is. Where do you stand on the subject?
Image by JD Hancock
I confess that poor spelling and grammar is a pet peeve of mine. When I am reading something that runs rampant with glaring errors, I find it difficult, irritating, and that the work loses credibility in my eyes. There are levels, however. While misspellings like “definately” and “loose” (for lose) always make me cringe a bit, I make allowances for posts and comments that have mistakes in them. I recognize that, while English is the most prominent language on the web (at least in my own experience), many of the active participants of the social and interactive super-real-time web are not native speakers (or writers). If I were to have to communicate in other languages, I have no doubt that my writings could easily be the stuff laughing stocks are made of.
Where I draw the line, however, is with “texting” or “IM” style writing. Some of that has its place, too — or had, before the mass adoption of full hardware and software keyboards — but forgive me if I think that there is never a good excuse to write “wat” in place of “what.” That’s almost enough to get me to stop reading altogether. I also can’t stand l33t. Practically unheard of for a tech-geek, I know, but the secret code of elite nerds always struck me as a really annoying oxymoron.
Now before those that are inclined start tearing apart some of the grammatical inconsistencies of this post, I should mention that I am ok with conversational writing. That is to say that I don’t mind some liberties being taken to convey tone and flow that, on some level, emulates how two friends or acquaintances would talk with one another. In fact, I think that sort of writing is essential on the web. It is part of what makes a blog post resonant, and helps the reader and writer to identify with one another. How far I’m willing to accept this style of writing is dependent on the subject matter, the points I made above, and quite likely, my age/maturity level while reading. And I’m fully aware and accepting of the fact that my maturity level can fluctuate… :P
Is my acceptance of even a limited degradation of writing on the web part of the overall problem? Probably. Is it one of the factors that leads to established journalists getting lazy (and sometimes disappointing) with their writing? Again, probably. It’s all tied in with other factors like language barriers and the attention deficit fostering speed of the online world. Is there a line that should be drawn in the sand somewhere, though? Should people be publicly flogged for ignoring the oh-so-convenient spell-check integrations out there? Personally, I think that spell-check, auto-correct, and especially auto-complete are actually part of the problem. Since I started using the iPhone and iPad, for example, I have noticed a marked increase in mistakes while typing on a full keyboard — especially with contractions.
What about you? Where do you draw the line — or do you care at all? Why?