by Larry Magid
The Federal Trade Commission and Facebook have reached a settlement on charges that Facebook deceived consumers “by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public.” › Continue reading…
Facebook is reportedly considering an IPO some time in 2012 that could value the company at $100 billion. If that were to happen, CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s share would be worth $24 billion, making him wealthier than the Google founders but not as rich as Bill Gates.
On Tuesday morning, the BBC Today Programme talked with Larry Magid about the likely IPO.
Here is the 2 minute interview.
IBM Smarter Commerce has reported the following as of 6:00 PM Eastern time on Cyber Monday:
Cyber Monday 2011 online sales are 15% of same period last year › Continue reading…
This post first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News
by Larry Magid
A story at TabTimes.com has me wondering if Apple’s market dominance in tablets might soon be over. The article, which quoted Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney, predicted that Amazon will ship 5 million Kindle Fires in the fourth economic quarter “before reaching 12 million units in 2012 and 20 million units in 2013.”
If that happens, Amazon will have 15 percent of the market, making it the No. 2 tablet vendor. By several analyst estimates, Apple currently has about 75 percent of the tablet market.
The Kindle Fire is no iPad killer. But at less than half the price, it’s definitely an iPad wounder. I own an iPad and a Kindle Fire and when it comes to what I do most with the devices, I don’t have a strong preference between the two.
True, the iPad 2 has a larger screen, a camera, a more intuitive user interface, longer battery life and a much better design than the Kindle Fire. But as much as I appreciate those factors, I mostly use tablets to consume content. And when I’m deep into reading a book or watching a movie, I’m not thinking about the device’s industrial design — I’m focused on what I’m consuming.
It’s kind of like comparing a glossy magazine to a newspaper. Sure, a glossy magazine is often prettier and feels better in the hand, but I’d much rather read an interesting article on newsprint than a boring one on glossy paper.
And like the paper that newspapers and magazines are printed on, the Kindle Fire isn’t really the product — it’s the delivery vehicle. iSupply estimates that the materials used to make the Kindle cost slightly more than its retail price. Amazon hopes to make its money on books, video, other content and even the sale of physical goods.
I’m sure Amazon could have done a better job in its design of the Kindle Fire. It certainly could have made it larger, with a beefier battery — Amazon says it runs 7.5 hours for reading or 8 hours for video with Wi-Fi turned off, compared to 10 hours on an iPad with Wi-Fi on. And there’s no question that Amazon could have created a less boxy and boring design. But the Kindle Fire’s $199 price tag makes it affordable for many people. I could have borrowed an evaluation unit from Amazon as I did from Apple when the iPad came out, but at $199 with free shipping, I just bought one, figuring that if I don’t use it, I could give it to a family member.
But sorry, family, I’m not planning to give away my Kindle Fire because I find myself using it almost as often as my iPad 2. If I feel like reading or watching a movie at home, I’m likely to grab the iPad or the MacBook. But if I’m headed to the gym or going out for coffee, I’m more likely to grab the Kindle Fire because it fits into my pocket. It’s bit of a stretch, but I can get the device into the front pocket of most of my pants and, of course, it can easily be slipped into a backpack.
I do plan to bring the Kindle Fire with me next time I get on a plane. I never leave home without a laptop, so a tablet is an extra device that I use to read or watch video. But the last time I got on a plane, I left the iPad at home because it just wasn’t worth the extra weight and bulk. At 14.6 ounces, the Kindle Fire is only 7 ounces lighter than the iPad 2. But when you travel, every ounce counts, which is why I carry a 2.38-pound, 11-inch MacBook Air instead of the more ample 13-inch model that weighs another 9 ounces.
The Kindle Fire is also priced and sized better for kids. Although I don’t want to see Amazon dominate the school textbook market, I do look forward to the day when kids can carry around a small electronic device instead of a backpack stuffed with 40 pounds of books. Devices like the Kindle Fire are not only lighter; they have the potential of making the books cheaper. In fact, they even have the potential of disrupting the publishing industry, making it more practical for teachers to develop their own materials by eliminating the cost of publishing, printing and distribution and facilitating the use of video and other media.
Even the $199 Kindle Fire is too expensive for widespread use in schools, but it’s a step in the right direction. India’s Education Ministry is said to be developing a $50 Internet-ready tablet, and when I was in Kenya in September, I was shown a $60 Chinese Android tablet that’s being considered for use in their schools.
Parents looking for information about video game suitability for their kids have a new tool from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB.org).
The ESRB Search App lets you use you speak the name of the game or take a picture of its cover and provides you with the game’s rating plus a description.
In her NetFamilyNews blog, my ConnectSafely.org co-director Anne Collier suggests that parents “get details from the game-rating source on the spot, pretending you got a text message (feigning disinterest so s/he’ll be surprised later).”
Listen to Larry Magid’s 1-minute CBS News Tech Talk segment about the app.
Video description of ESRB Search App
This post first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News
by Larry Magid
Last week was big for online music. Apple finally got around to launching its long-awaited iTunes Match service and Google Music graduated from beta test to an almost full-fledged online and mobile music platform.
Although they have a very different look and feel, both services do pretty much the same thing: manage music on your computer and mobile devices, store music for you in the cloud and make it easier to access music on different devices, even if the music files aren’t on those devices.
Both services work with PCs and Macs but, as you’d expect, the Google service is optimized for Android gear while Apple’s works best with Apple’s iOS devices — iPhones, iPads, Apple TV and iPod touch. You can, however, play Google Music on an iPhone from the Google Music website.
My experience with both is so far pretty good. But when it comes to ease of use, Apple is mostly ahead of Google, with one major exception that I’ll get to later.
To use iTunes Match you must first download the latest version of iTunes to your PC or Mac and pay $24.99 for an annual subscription. You then make sure that the folders on your hard disk that contain music are added to the iTunes library and tell iTunes to start matching.
iTunes gathers information about what’s in your library and attempts to match your files with music from the iTunes Store. If it finds a match, it’s done. Since the file already exists on iTunes there is no need to upload anything from your computer. Whether you bought it from another music service, ripped it from a CD or stole it via a peer-to-peer file sharing service, Apple simply verifies that you have a copy of the song and allows you to play it via the cloud or download it to any PC or Mac with iTunes or any iOS device. You can’t use iTunes Match on Android or any other non-Apple smartphone or tablet.
If it finds files that aren’t in iTunes, it uploads them from your disk, which can take a while. Not only does it do this with music, but with any audio files. That’s great for me, because I store podcasts and my recorded CBS News broadcasts on my computer and now I have an automatic backup of them in the cloud.
When you configure a portable iOS device to use Match, you are warned that it will delete all the music files on the device itself and replace that music with pointers to the music that’s stored on iCloud. Of course, you have the option to download songs or playlists. But until you do, you can only access them while connected via Wi-Fi or a fast enough cellular connection.
The only way you can tell if a song is on your device is to look for a cloud icon next to the title. If the cloud is there, it’s not on the device. On an iOS device, the only way to limit your options to music that’s on your device (which is all you’ll care about if you’re offline), is to exit the music app, go to Settings, scroll down to Music, and turn off “Show All Music.” Google thoughtfully placed an “offline music only” menu option in its Android music player. Apple could have made this a lot easier and more intuitive.
Google Music lets you store up to 20,000 songs in the cloud for free but, unlike Apple’s Match service, you have to upload all of them, which can take a very long time if you have a lot of music. Once uploaded, you can easily play them on a Mac or PC or Android device.
To my pleasant surprise, the service works great on iOS devices by going to music.google.com from the Safari browser. If you put a bookmark to that page on your desktop, you can easily access it from then on. Although Match’s $24.99 a year is a fair price to access all your songs, Google’s free is even better, so I expect even a lot of iOS users to take advantage of the service.
In a direct challenge to Apple’s iTunes Store, Google now lets you purchase music from the Android Market from an Android device or a personal computer. Google has deals with three of the four major record labels and many independent labels. But Apple has it beat because it also has a deal with Warner Music. For the time being at least, Google is giving away a lot of free music, so it’s worth a visit to see what they’re giving away.
Google has also integrated its music service into Google+, giving members the ability to share music with their friends, who can listen to their songs at least once for free.
So in addition to competing phones and tablets, Google and Apple are now competing head-to-head on music services. I wonder what it would cost Apple to purchase the iSearch.com domain from its current owner and start offering Web search, as a way of getting even with Google.
Consumers would rather Santa bring them a tablet than a laptop
TabTimes reported on a survey from PriceGrabber that indicates consumers — in large numbers — would prefer a tablet this holiday over a laptop.
According to the survey, 79% of consumers would rather get a tablet and 83% of them want an iPad or an iPad 2. The survey was taken before Amazon released its $199 Kindle Fire tablet what’s expected to do well this holiday season.
In an interview, TabTimes News Editor David Needle told CBS News “most of the reasons had to do with lightness and portability and thing like that but I think there’s a hidden message here which is that you look at a notebook computer – it’s kind of like giving someone a power drill or a vacuum cleaner. It’s practical, but it’s not the new thing.”
Listen to Larry Magid’s CBS News/CNET Tech Talk segment about the survey.
Bustin Jieber app from 12-year-old programmer (Credit Thomas Suarez via Apple App Store)
In January I wondered outloud if the iPad will make us less creative. I pointed out that there was a time when schools taught kids how to program computers but lamented that the vast majority of today’s kids are only learning to use tech devices rather than program them.
I still have this concern but after watching a Ted Talk by 12 year-old Thomas Suarez, I’m a bit more optimistic.
At the October 22 TED conference in Manhattan Beach, California, Suarez talked about a couple of iOS apps that he’s written including one called Bustin Jieber, which has become a popular wack-o-mole game for kids who are less than enthusiastic about the popular star. He also suggested that schools need to be teaching kids not just to use technology but to help create it.
He pointed out that kids who want to learn soccer can find a team and those who want to play violin can easily find a teacher, but “not many kids know where to go to find out how to make a program.” Suarez, who already had programming experience, got his hands on Apple’s iPhone software development kit and started programming. To get his first app published he had to persuade his parents to pay the $99 to put the app on the app store.
The video is only 4 minutes long and well worth watching.
Kindle Fire's home page (Credit: Amazon.com)
by Larry Magid
Amazon’s new Kindle Fire tablet isn’t an iPad killer, but it could be an iPad wounder. Yes, there are plenty of things I prefer about the $499 iPad 2 over the $199 Kindle Fire but — aside from being $300 cheaper — the Kindle’s smaller form factor has its advantages.
The Kindle Fire, as you might expect, is an excellent book reader. It’s considerably smaller and almost seven ounces lighter than an iPad 2 (14.6 vs. 21.3 ounces) which is actually an advantage while reading. And its back-lit screen means it can work well in dark places, like a bedroom where one partner wants to read while the other one is sleeping.
Kindle Fire works with Netflix and Amazon streaming video (Credit: Amazon.com)
Music and video
The Kindle is also good for listening to music, as long as you have your music stored on Amazon’s cloud service. Amazon gives everyone five gigabytes of free storage which isn’t nearly as much as you get from Google’s free music service but $20 a year gives you unlimited music storage plus 20 gigabytes for other content — all easily accessible form the Kindle Fire.
If you subscribe to the $79 Amazon Prime service (that also includes free two-day shipping on Amazon orders) you get access to thousands of free videos. The library is a lot smaller than what’s on Netflix but it’s hard to argue about the price. You can also rent or purchase newer movies and TV shows from Amazon that you can view on the Kindle Fire and other devices, including PCs and Macs.
To Amazon’s credit, they loaded the device with a Netflix app which enables Netflix subscribers to immediately access movies and TV shows. Watching a video on the seven inch screen is fine for one person and may even be OK for two people who don’t mind sitting or lying very close to each other.
Uninspiring physical design, not-so-great battery life & missing camera and mic
In terms of its physical design, the Kindle Fire is uninspiring. It’s boxy and downright boring, especialy when compared to an iPad 2 that looks great and feels good in your hands.
The Kindle Fire also lacks a physical home button (or any other buttons) and the on-off switch is incredibly small, though you will get used to it quickly. I hate that there are no dedicated volume controls. To adjust the volume you have to press a tiny settings icon and then slide the volume control.
There is no way to expand the paltry 8 gigabyte memory nor is there Bluetooth, a USB data connector or a 3G cellular option. It’s all about WiFi. If you want connectivity on the go, you can purchase a WiFi hotspot device like the MiFi or see if your cell phone has a WiFi tethering option (in both cases you’ll pay a monthly fee to your cell carrier).
The device’s small stereo speakers are pretty good and, for most content, loud enough, though with one Netflix movie I watched, I couldn’t get it loud enough. There is a standard headphone jack but the device doesn’t ship with a headphone.
Amazon claims “up to 8 hours of continuous reading or 7.5 hours of video playback, with wireless off,” which is pretty bad, especially since you will need wireless on if you’re streaming video content. Apple claims up to 10 hours with Wi-Fi on.
Unlike the iPad 2 or even the newest iPod Touch, the Kindle Fire also lacks a camera, a GPS and a microphone.
Size matters but small can be big
The fact that the Kindle is smaller than an iPad cuts both ways. On the down side, the iPad’s additional screen real estate means a bigger screen for video and a magazine-size page for reading. But the smaller Kindle is easier to carry around and actually (but barely) fits into my pants front pockets — at least the pants that I’m wearing today.
In some ways, the Kindle Fire is a cross between an iPod Touch and an iPad but priced the same as an iPod Touch. The iPod Touch has the advantage of running virtually all of the apps for the iPhone but the Kindle Fire’s larger screen gives it a more tablet-like feel which is a big advantage over the Touch.
Priced and sized for kids & maybe even schools
I have a feeling that a lot of parents will consider getting a Kindle Fire for their kids. $199 may not be cheap enough for a lot of parents, but there are plenty who have spent that much or more on an iPod Touch for their kids. Unlike the iPod Touch, the Kindle Fire is a serious book reader and a decent media player which could come in very handy if schools ever get around to issuing e-books instead of those heavy and expensive text-books. Still, I don’t want to see Amazon dominating the school text-book market so I’d prefer school books be published in a format that can be used on any device, including the Kindle Fire.
What it might inspire
By pricing the Kindle Fire at $199, Amazon has set a price threshold that will have an an impact on the entire industry. While I don’t expect Apple to be lowering iPad prices any time soon, it is certainly paying attention and will consider Amazon’s impact when it prices its iPad 3. Other companies, without the market domination of Apple, will have to take this price extremely seriously Frankly, I’ve never thought it worthwhile to spend $500 or more on a tablet other an an iPad and now I’m not sure there’s much of a reason to spend more than $200.
But the the problem — for anyone but Apple, Amazon and Google and perhaps the mobile carriers — is that to make any money at this price point, there needs to be an ongoing revenue source. It could be book, music and video sales or even the sale of physical goods as Amazon no doubt hopes the Kindle Fire will stimulate. Or it could be the old-fashioned cellular subsidy model that works so well for phones in the U.S.
Whatever business models emerge, Amazon truly has lit a “fire” that’s sure to heat up the competition.
Will dent iPad market
Given the price difference, I can envision a lot of budget minded shoppers opting for the Kindle Fire over the iPad. It won’t satisfy everyone but enough people will be happy enough with the Kindle Fire to make it a serious competitor.
by Larry Magid
Teachers need to think about how technology affects their relationships with students (Credit: Symantec)
A study from Symantec found that 21% of teachers had either been cyberbaited or knew a teacher who had.
Cyberbaiting, according to Symantec’s Internet safety advocate, Marian Merritt, is when students deliberately provoke a teacher into doing something stupid, then video it and post it online. ”This of course has the net effect of embarrassing the teacher, taking a momentary lapse of judgement in a classroom and embedding it onto the web.”
As per that 21%, remember it includes teachers who know someone it happened to. Only 4% said it happened to them. Still, it’s one more thing for teachers to think about.
The study — which included interviews from kids and parents in 24 countries including the United States — also found that 62% of kids reported that they have had a negative experience online. It also found that 95% of parents know what their kids are looking at online.
Visit my CNET Blog for a more complete report on the study and a podcast interview with Marian Merritt.
Listen to 1 minute segment
One 1-minute CBS News/CNET Tech Talk segment which includes a sound bite from Marian Merritt.
