gBox 2
Apple’s iTunes may be about to get knocked from its pedestal. Check out “gBox,” the creation of a collaboration between Universal and Google. What might put gBox on top? The fact that at least SOME of it’s music is sans copyright protection (meaning you don’t have to have an iPod or any other proprietary/overpriced player to listen to the music you purchase.
The odd thing about gBox is that it is being marketed not as much as a store to buy music but rather as a wish list program allowing other people to buy music for you (gBox = “gift Box”). I think the goal is to fill MySpace/Facebook/blogs/etc. with the wishlists thereby providing free advertising for gBox. May well be something that works out for them in the end.
2 Responses to “gBox”
Scrub… 0
I’m sure the windows of my office building need cleaning, but it’s disconcerting to look over and see some strange version of Spiderman with a squeejee, hanging on the other side of the glass.
Feline Friday 7
The three “whiskateers.”
=^..^=
7 Responses to “Feline Friday”
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Diamond says hi…
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Friday Ark #152
We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….? Visit all the …
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hey the look like the’re plotting up something…
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[...] Hot(M)BC 26. Kitty Cat Cast 27. Mosaic Cats - Bianca’s Special Gift! 28. dolphin 29. Kellie The Orange Cat - Frustrating Friday 30. Finny & Buddy - Impawtent FSA (Feline Svc. [...]
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Ut oh it looks like a standoff. Don’t come down or yur gonna be in truble wif da gang.
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Feline Friday has a nice ring to it. I just call it Cat Blog Friday
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BTW I have 3 whiskateers too.
Cube of Many Colors 0
“We have this giant, powerful supercomputer lying around. What should we do with it?”
“I know, let’s use it to solve the Rubik’s Cube!“
Thoughts on a Shooting Star 1
Who else watched the Perseid meteor shower this weekend? I caught it on Saturday night though it was scheduled to peak Sunday after midnight (too late for me when I have to work the next day). Fairly decent show this year. For me it brought back childhood memories as I used to regularly watch them growing up, but hadn’t for quite awhile in more recent years. In addition to those memories, another thought occurred to me as I watched those lights streak across the sky.
The meteoroids that had become those meteors had been floating around space for at least 2000 years (probably much longer), yet apart from an astronomer or a geologist here and there, most of us are oblivious to their presence. Surely most of us are aware that there is debris floating through space, it’s just not something we think about. That is of course until the chance to watch this debris be vaporized in our Earth’s atmosphere comes around, then people turn out in droves. This probably makes sense in the case of a meteoroid. A meteoroid has minimal value to offer non-scientists. For the lay person, the only benefit we can get directly from the meteoroid in the sometimes brilliant and exciting light-show of the meteor which just happens to coincide with the meteoroid’s “death.”
Yet, there are too many other things in life that we find ourselves equally oblivious to, right up until the point where the thing vanishes from existence. It’s often only when we are watching a loved one pass, a dropped sentimental item shatter on the floor, a good friend move away, the government steal some precious freedom or the death of some other part of our lives, that we are actually able to see just how much value that object/person/relationship/idea contained. The problem with only recognizing the true value of something as it blinks from existence is that it’s generally too late at that point to pull from it the full value that you can then see so clearly. To use the analogy of the meteor, all to often one is looking at one area of sky only to notice a meteor falling in some other area. By the time you can turn your head, it’s gone and you were able to catch only a glimpse of the show. If we could recognize the full value of the meteor on a given meteoroid, we might follow the path of that meteoroid (assuming we had the technology to easily track a single meteoroid accurately) while it is still just lump of rock and therefore know exactly where to be looking to see the full effect of the meteor.
I think it’s important to take the time every so often to examine that which is important to us and attempt to see and appreciate the true value in those things. It’s a regrettable circumstance to only understand the potential of something in your life as you’re faced with the rapidly fading path it left as it streaked out of your life.
One Response to “Thoughts on a Shooting Star”
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Whoa…. good stuff. Nothing I can add.
Bye Rove 0
Color me not surprised. He says his resignation wasn’t forced, and I believe him. The Bush ship has sailed, both in terms of term-length and popularity. For any number of roles in the Bush administration, the best career move is to jump over board and hope another boat comes along before you sink into obscurity.
Can iMac Too? 0
Interesting that the day after I start seriously considering an iMac, Apple goes and releases a new (and in my opinion much prettier, and I care about that sorta thing :-)) iMac. It must mean one of two things. Either it’s just not meant to be for me to have an iMac because as soon as I start looking, the old models are replaced with new and more costly models, OR, I’m absolutely meant to have an iMac because as soon as I start looking the new top of the line model is released that will allow me to use it sans upgrade (which is a major part of what has kept me away from Mac in the past) for the longest period of time.
My PC is working again (though it will be awhile before I get it back where I had it), so I’m in no rush, but for better or worse my inner-geek and get my inner-accountant’s ass any day of the week, so I’m opting for the latter interpretation of the meaning behind Apple’s release of the new iMac. That said, my inner-accountant put up a good fight and so I’m holding off until I actually have a good portion of the money to buy it with. I had all but stopped freelancing while I got settled into my new job, but a week or so ago, I was contacted and met with a local design firm (not in competition with my current company, which is not a design firm) about doing some freelancing for them (another clue that I’m meant to have the iMac), and agreed to have them contact me as work came up. In the meantime, anybody out there in the blogosphere want to hire me to do a new custom template?? Or, outside of your blogging world, do you need any flyers, business cards, etc.? Let me know!
Happy Birthday 0
Here’s wishing a happy birthday to my ‘little’ sister. Geez, it’s her first birthday after having graduated from college and entering “the real world,” and that is making me feel old.
Tragic 0
I wonder how those who like to claim we have no effect on our environment will explain away this tragedy.
Did BE Die? 0
Anybody know what happened to Blog Explosion? I thought I might try and get back some readers with it, but when I switched the blog address in my old account over there, it got sent for administrator’s approval. That about a month ago and it’s still waiting…
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August 22nd, 2007
Aren’t there better companies positionned to offer wish lists on social networks? Amazon, iTunes, Wal-Mart, and the social networks themselves.
Offering music without copyright protection is not a long term competitive differentiator. So I’m not sure how gBox will be able to survive.
Although collaborating with gBox, I suspect that Univeral and Google are partnering with others and that this is not an exclusive arrangement.
I wish gBox the best. But it sure looks like an uphill battle.
August 22nd, 2007
I think the question isn’t whether another company COULD do it better. I think the question is whether any other company IS doing it better. Thus far, I’ve not heard of anyone else promoting themselves via wish lists on social networking sites. Amazon does have their wishlists that can be posted though they don’t seem to promote doing so. Plus since gBox music can be purchased through Amazon, the Amazon Wish List, may just end up as another way of promoting gBox (or at the very least a source of revenue for gBox).
I’m not certain that lack of copyright protection ISN’T a long term competitive differentiator, provided they can market it correctly. There are plenty of folks out there who would love to use that $100+ MP3 player they bought only to find it wouldn’t play their iTunes downloads (if you doubt it, just google to see how many work-arounds people have come up with to strip the copy protection off of their music.
I think the biggest thing that will hurt gBox right now is the fact that their website seems a bit clunky. iTunes is fast and easy (especially being integrated directly into the player) whereas I found gBox to be fairly ugly, a little slow, and not super intuitive. Still, selling music (instead of selling the license to listen to music) could bring customers in droves, if it’s presented properly.