Category: Media

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Finally, a Sensible Story sets the Chromebook Record Straight

Gregg Keizer corrects the record regarding Chromebook sales. Somebody had to. Gregg is consistently a thorough reporter who actually reports rather than hypes or falls into The Echo Chamber.

NPD’s press release clearly states U.S. “commercial channels” not all retail sales, as has been widely misreported. That 21 percent number isn’t the whole pie but a much smaller portion of it. This misreading, misunderstanding, or misreporting (take your pick) fostered an echo chamber of stories predicting 2014 as the year of the Chromebook. In your dreams.

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Chromebook Matters

My fourth ebook, Chromebook Matters, published over the holiday, and this one is available from Kindle Store, Google Play, and Smashwords. I’m done with Amazon exclusives.

Chromebook Matters is not a how-to book. It’s all “why” and “what”—why Chromebook matters and what it can do for you. I write an introduction for anyone—businesses, consumers, government agencies, or schools—considering buying Chromebook. I also address anti-Chromebook propaganda. Some claims are valid. Most are not.

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All This Googlism disturbs Me

Today, Ian Betteridge posts: “One thing that is impossible not to notice on Google+: There’s a very distinct skew towards big Google fans in commenting. It doesn’t matter which tech site’s page you look at, the (in my view, tedious) ‘fanboy’ mentality is hotter here than on any other social network”.

I commented on his post but want to draw more attention to Ian’s observation, to which I concur. I am rethinking my social service presence because of pervasive Googlism. While now immersed in the Google lifestyle, I am not a Google fanboy. But the leanings here are quite strong now, and tipping more all the time. Also, there is increasingly less tolerance for non-Google tech posts and more criticism of those regarding competitors like Apple.

Gladwell Makes Me Sad

One of my pet themes is what I call “David Thinking“, and until today I worked on an ebook espousing the concept as a lifestyle philosophy. Now that’s on hold, and it’s not a choice easily made.

I first wrote about David Thinking here in May 2009 post “Why Apple Succeeds and Always Will“. Writer Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article “How David Beats Goliath: When underdogs break the rules” inspired the concept. He used Ivan Arreguín-Toft‘s research about so-called Davids beating Goliaths as basis for the story. I took the political scientist’s concepts someplace Gladwell didn’t, applying them as a way of thinking differently. I have written about David Thinking often, in posts here and elsewhere.