Apple’s Influence Increasing Beyond Belief: A Leader Despite a Follower’s Marketshare

/in /by

The more I think about it, the more amazing Apple’s success is. Eat your heart out, Bill Gates. It’s Apple that is setting the pace now, making the best software and the best hardware, and “owning” the digital music/media business that every media business covets (iTunes is has something like an 84% marketshare.)

I won’t rant on. Suffice it to say that I am amazed and delighted. Perhaps this piece by FORTURE senior editor, Peter Lewis, “Tiny Apple has oversized influence” from CNNMoney.com says it all. With subheads like: “Setting standards” and “Tiny marketshare, big influence,” you get the idea. Who woulda thunk it, but I agree with Lewis’ assessment that “once again Apple appears to be setting the standards for the rest of the PC and consumer electronics industries.” Congrats! Keep up the good work, Apple.

Steve Jobs MacWorld Keynote Video: Watch It Now

/in /by

The video of the Steve Jobs keynote is now up on Apple’s website. The quality is quite good, and if you’ve never seen Jobs do one of these presentations, I think it’s not to be missed. If you’ve seen one, you know. Thank God, they are finally getting this video up to watchable quality.

And thank goodness, Apple is doing so well. Mr. Jobs reports record revenue, record iPod sales (14 million last quarter, 42 million total), new videos for sale via the iTunes store, demos of all the new iLife applications (including iMovie with podcasting), and the announcement of the new Intel Macs six months ahead of schedule.

Go, Steve!

Podcasting eBook

/in /by

Looks like a good, cost effective ($9.95) resource for those looking for a podcasting manual: Learn more about the 93-page podcasting ebook.

Ka-ching: Holiday Retail Sales Up 25-30% over 2004

/in /by

Some think that the Net is just hitting its stride. I think that it’s growth is still under-estimated. There’s lotz of room for growth. Even though online selling is still only something like 6% of all retail in the US, one-third of families are doing it. According to this summary of two research reports in the NY Times and this PDF press release from NetRatings some types of products, such as computer hardware/peripherals and consumer electronics, sold more than twice the volume online during the Holidays 2005 vs 2004 (over a 100% increase.)

Happy New Year to everyone working to earn their living on the Web.

The Best Podcasts of 2005

/in /by

This is what I get for following my own links! A nice thing about the two links below which provide links to cool Web 2.0 web services/sites is that they are a kind of demonstration of where things, hopefully, are going online. A great example is digg, which is on both lists. Digg led me to The Top 10 Podcast Episodes of 2005 which is illuminating, if for no other reason, because it illuminates how cool and diverse (from Stanford University to the Catholic Insider to a Zencast with Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh, just to name three) the podcast universe has already become. Great list.

More Best of the Web 2.0: link from neat techie video podcast

/in /by

I decided to browse some of the video podcasts on iTunes and sure enuf found a tech video program that was actually chock full of useful information and especially web links. commandN‘s holiday episode included a link that complements the one below, “Top 10 Innovative Web 2.0 Applications of 2005.” And I also appreciated the link to LibriVox.org for free audiobook downloads! Thanks, Amber, Mike, Jeff & Brian. Good show. Keep up the good work.

Awesome Free Online Applications

/in , /by

The Open Source movement is alive and well and if you’re not aware of all the great online software that’s out there for free, here’s a great Christmas/Holiday present for you: This page has reviews and links to some of the best online “Web 2.0” applications. From free network disk storage (eat your heart out .mac) to collaboration tools, the great to-do list manager mentioned below, online word processors that let you share and collaborate on online docs, online calendars, and more. Honestly, this is great software and all you need is a web browser (Mac folks, Firefox is highly recommended!) and an Internet connection. Enjoy! (And thanks to Jim Pringle for this great link.)

Brightcove (+ AOL + Barry Diller): Illuminating More Online Video Distribution (Great Flash too)

/in /by

No time to write this up this AM, but my “video-video” juices are flowing… (FYI, I produced two videos about the desktop video revolution in the ’90’s). The announcement today of AOL and Barry Diller’s deals with a start up called Brightcove of Cambridge, MA, lead me to their site and their excellent Flash presentation on why online distribution of video is the next wave. It’s EXCELLENT and highly recommended. From what I can tell, these guys very much have it together. Check it out at Brightcove.com.

Tivo Makes a Convergence Connection with iPods and Sony PSP to Play Video

/in /by

The promise of digital video providing a convergence of all kinds of video sources has remained mostly that, a promise. But, finally, with Tivo’s announcement today that it will be providing customers with the ability to playback programs recorded on it’s devices on Apple iPod and Sony PSP portable video players, maybe we’re finally starting to see real video convergence… Stay tuned.

Another Google Disruption: Free Site Statistics

/in /by

A visit to one of the top website traffic statistic packages, Urchin and urchin.com, now delivers this logo, “Google Analytics” and an auto-forward to http://www.google.com/analytics/. Further, to make their acquisition of Urchin even more disruptive, Google is now offering this top package (which we use at ComBridges) for that magic Internet four-letter word: FREE.

Read the Information Week story, “Google Offers Web Analytics for Free”