Tag: Wired

Gear by Joe WilcoxAug 4, 20145:11 pm

Smartphones come of Age

Wired hits a homer with an incredible August issue on smartphones. As battery life and utility expand, so does my device’s use as secondary—and sometimes primary—device. Nokia Lumia Icon is all the digital device I carried to San Diego Comic-Con 2014. Snap. Edit. Share. And I took notes during the panels. It’s not a question if my smartphone replaces a PC but when.

Five years ago (this month) I asserted, perhaps a bit prematurely, that “Your Next PC is a Smartphone“. That was before the tablet craze sidelined attention, but I’m convinced the smartphone’s day is come—and so do Wired editors.

News Media by Joe WilcoxMar 19, 201410:20 am

Wired smartly curates ‘A Startling Simple Theory’

Someone at Wired deserves credit (and bonus pay) for curated news journalism well-done. Story “A Startlingly Simple Theory About the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet” is original content that provides fresh perspective about Flight 370. The tech news site plucks this gem from Google+, where aviator Chris Goodfellow posted five days earlier. Wired sources the original, acknowledging authorship and curation: “We’ve copyedited it with his permission”.

The Plus post shows social sharing’s strengths, where the interaction in comments extends the storytelling (as does the broader Reddit thread that captures Chris’ post and many others). It’s unfortunate Google+ limits comments to 500, cutting off the conversation.

Web by Joe WilcoxJul 22, 20093:25 pm

The Problem with Free

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMpwJn_4NtE]

Damn, I must read Chris Anderson’s book Free: The Past and Future of a Radical Price. Based on the WNYC video (below) and Q&A—”The Gift Economist”—in the July 19, 2009 the New York Times Magazine, I must disagree with Chris’ concept of free as applied to digital products. Free and the Internet go oddly together, and not necessarily well together.

Chris may be right, but for other reasons than he presents here. In the video above, Chris asserts that on the Internet “free really can be free.” Nobody has to pay. He presents his view, which does allow for combo free and paid models, by way of marketing and economic history and theory.