The world according to Andrew

Spotify freemium to premium

andrew — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 09:12:14 +0000

I heard an interesting anecdote this morning about Spotify and the multi grammy award winning singer Adele. It turns out that Adele’s album is not available on Spotify (noticed a while ago by my Wife) not because Adele didn’t want it to be but because of the Spotify freemium business model. Adele it seems was more than happy to have her music on the service but wanted to restrict access to paying subscribers only. Understandable as she didn’t want to give her music away for free. However the Spotify business model works by attracting subscribers through a single catalogue and converting them to the service by removing ads, adding access through mobile etc. Not by giving them access to previously unaccessible content. Rdio and others apparently do have tiered catalogues (and Adele’s music) so it seems that not all streaming services are created equally.

I was pretty annoyed about this for about 10 minutes, as a paying subscriber I want access to as much artist content as possible. I’ve been converted, i’ve paid my money and it got me wondering how many other artists and labels are excluded because of this (the amount of content being removed from Spotify seems to be accelerating). On the other hand you have to admire Spotify for their commitment to their business model. They sacrificed the year’s best selling album to stick to their principals. Perhaps they’re mad or perhaps their dedication to the freemium model will see them succeed in converting subscribers where they’re competitors fail.

That said, I have a certain amount of scepticism with the detail of this whole story. Spotify definitely have the ability to limit content to their paying subscribers and frequently promote Spotify exclusives for paying subscribers giving them access to content for a period of time before it appears in the freemium catalogue. Perhaps the timescales were not long enough for Adele or perhaps she wanted a permanent exclusion, we’ll never know the detail. That said as a paying subscriber I expect Spotify to put me first and if their dedication to free, funded by my subscription is penalising me in terms of available content they’ll lose out when I evaluate the service against their competitors.

The Clear value of effective PR

andrew — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 08:25:09 +0000

There’s a new to-do list in the iPhone store that’s creating quite a lot of chatter on the web. It’s called Clear and has been crafted by the small British development studio Realmac Software (i’m proud of any British software success). So what makes this to-do app different from all the other’s out there. Well if i’m honest not a lot. To-do apps are pretty simple at the best of times and Clear is a ‘simple’ to-do app which basically means it’s a way of creating lists and that’s it. No recurring items, no alarms, no nagging, no nothing. Just a way to create lists of things you have to do – i do this in my notebook everyday. Where it is different is in the interface, it’s simple, colourful and designed for touch and it completly breaks from the Apple HIG (Human Interface guidelines). It makes great use of sound too with Nintendo-esque pings and beeps eminating from each successful (and unsuccessful) interaction. That said at the end of the day it’s a Todo app and I think the 69p price tag shows that the developers acknowledge this.

I found myself asking why is it that out of all the excellent software that Realmac have produced (they have a Panic like attention to detail) an app as simple as Clear has created the kind of buzz it has. Unsuprisingly the answer I think is simple, it’s not really the app, it’s great PR and Marketing. In the background they have partnered with some pretty influentual people in the world of Mac development, namely Phill Ryu (behind Macheist) and David Lanham (previously of Icon Factory). These names alone will get articles on most Tech blogs out there. Not that i’m complaining, I just want to see British Software Engineering success, it just reminds me of the influence (deservedly) a small group of PR savvy people can have on an industry.

realmacsoftware.com/clear

We are the Plumbers

andrew — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:55:29 +0000

Chief evangelist for Yahoo Christian Heilmann has written an interesting post on a topic that has been rattling around in my mind now for some time – why it is most of the people who build the web don’t make that much money from it and how it is that people who don’t understand the nuts and bolts are able to see the opportunities that it provides perhaps much more clearly. In many ways the answer is obvious – business minds have unique properties that can identify opportunities that many can’t and simply being clever is not enough. However, I think the arrogance angle that Christian identifies is accurate. Success often comes from bending the rules to one’s own ends and that is a very foreign concept to the logical mind of the technologist. That’s why the porn sites, WordPress theme sites and ringtone sites exist and make their owners very wealthy. As developers we need to get better at looking for the glitch in the matrix.

Taking control of my information

andrew — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:36:19 +0000

I have a confession to make. As a technologist, I hate digitised music and video. It has nothing to do with quality, not having the box etc – the usual arguments that are put forward for not using digital content. For me it’s the fear of loss of content through my own poor file management and backup processes that puts me off. Also for some reason I seem to notice my changing tastes more with my digitised media collection. Most of it by today’s standards, is utter rubbish.

To be clear i’m talking about content that I rip and manage myself, that I have full responsibility over. In contrast, I have no problem with paying for a service like Spotify where they manage looking after my stuff and getting me new stuff. This is definitely the future of media consumption I think. The problem lies with me and this is why I hesitate when buying content from the iTunes store. Sure I have access to it and can download it and have pay for it etc etc. But then i’m on my own. I have to remember I have it, when I shift between computers, reindex it. I have to authorise it on whatever current machine i’m working on (often I work across more than 5 machines) and then back the damn stuff up.

In all honesty my distrust in my own ability to manage my content isn’t just limited to music and video – previous tax returns, bills, bank statements etc are all spread across my hard disk, unordered and all over the place. I rely on my bank to hold and present me the info when I need it, the HMRC to archive my Tax returns for me and my utility companies to make my bills up for me from imaginary meter readings.

I guess the point is that over time I have offloaded self organisation onto third parties with whom I have built infinite trust, perhaps and most likely completely misplaced. I don’t think i’m alone in this by a long shot but this year i’ve made a vow to myself to take control of all this information, move it to one place and manage it like an adult. Conversely perhaps this is just a sign of progress and I should just embrace the fact that while I am able to conduct this symphony of services, like an Orchestra I can never fully control every moving part.

Starbucks iPhone app quick review

andrew — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:38:58 +0000

I downloaded the new (to the UK) Starbucks iPhone app yesterday and thought i’d write up a few thoughts. The app itself is fairly slick with the main feature being that you can reload your My Starbucks loyalty card (via your credit card) and pay for your coffee in-store. This is achieved by presenting the app and having an on-screen barcode scanned at the till. It’s a fairly frictionless experience but with the rise of NFC card transactions it won’t be a novelty for long.

Apart from the ability to pay the apps features are pretty limited. You can check your account balance and view your card. I got the impression that the card was supposed to represent the design of the card you picked up in store but in my case this wasn’t case and I got a generic one. You can also do the usual things like find your nearest stores. Quite a large proportion of the app is devoted to designing your own drink which is strange as you can’t really do anything with it once you’ve come up with your concoction and besides I only drink Latte’s so it wasn’t really relevant for me. You can also find out about what food Starbucks offers.

Some features i’d like to see would be the ability to check my Starbucks card stars balance (you do get a free drink every 15 drinks) and a representation of the fact i’m a gold member. I’d also like to see things like if there’s Wi-Fi and how many people are connected to it. Finally i’d also like to see a bit more integration with the iTunes offers that run in-store. The ability to see what’s on offer and with a single touch download it to my iPhone would be really handy.

All in all an ok app but with many missed opportunities.

So much for restarting the UK manufacturing industry!

andrew — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:44:41 +0000

It looks as though I may actually be able to get my hands on a Rasperry Pi device in the very near future. The team announced today that they’ve started manufacture of the device. initially, as a UK charity, they wanted to make the device in the UK and support local business but like many other people I’ve spoken to sadly the cost of local production is just too high when compared to what’s on offer in the far east (I recall reading an article by Simon Mottram of Rapha saying the same thing and complaining about quality too).

However it was this paragraph that left me stunned:

“I’d like to draw attention to one cost in particular that really created problems for us in Britain. Simply put, if we build the Raspberry Pi in Britain, we have to pay a lot more tax. If a British company imports components, it has to pay tax on those (and most components are not made in the UK). If, however, a completed device is made abroad and imported into the UK – with all of those components soldered onto it – it does not attract any import duty at all. This means that it’s really, really tax inefficient for an electronics company to do its manufacturing in Britain, and it’s one of the reasons that so much of our manufacturing goes overseas. Right now, the way things stand means that a company doing its manufacturing abroad, depriving the UK economy, gets a tax break. It’s an absolutely mad way for the Inland Revenue to be running things, and it’s an issue we’ve taken up with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.”

I think this just about sums up a lot of the problems that technologists have in the UK at the moment and the disconnect between Government policy and the real world. For all the focus on the Tech Hubs and the upcoming digital revolution there are still huge barriers to entry for UK companies to be competitive on the global marketplace. Having just filed my Tax return I probably shouldn’t be too critical of HMRC but it seems to me that the Government and the Revenue service have some aligning to do. For the UK technology sector to flourish it can’t all happen through browser based web services – we need more Raspberry Pis in this country.

The ICT in schools debate continues…

andrew — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:23:04 +0000

There’s been a lot of talk today about the future of computing in schools. As I’ve written previously it seems that technology and in particular programming are the education topics of the moment. The UK Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove got up on stage at the BETT conference this morning and in his speech branded ICT as currently taught in UK schools as boring and dull. Learning how to create spreadsheets or create a word document does not equip young minds for the future. Interestingly he’s opened things up and told schools to teach ICT as they see fit and to perhaps explore partnerships with Microsoft or Google. As it is, it seems that I’m not the only one interested in this topic and there has been a raging debate going on in the comments of the Guardian story covering the event all day. I highly recommend taking some time to read them (Incidentally the Guardian is running a great series of articles as part of their digital literacy campaign on all kinds of topics related to ICT in schools). For all the ill informed nonsense in the comments there are some very interesting points made along with a noticeable absence of ICT teachers. I suppose they were all in class. What worries me though is that this free form enterprise driven approach to ICT will only add to the confusion and push corporate messaging onto kids too early. Microsoft for example may not install the virtues of Open Source technology on their eager audience and I suspect Google see a future where every child in the playground has an Android device in their pocket. Personally, what I’d like to see is schools become more responsive to offers of help from interested people from industry no matter the company size or brand value along with a strict code of conduct on self promotion. My experience shows that schools are woefully inactive in this area having made several offers of help myself. Perhaps this announcement will change things. Only time will tell.

If a song is shared on Facebook and nobody listens to it, does it make a sound?

andrew — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:54:06 +0000

I’ve just finished reading an interesting post by Mike Loukides on the O’Reilly Radar titled “The End Of Social”. Quite an interesting piece that questions the value of the amount of automated data that is broadcast to us across social channels every day (Spotify, Foursquare etc, etc). The basic premiss is that information broadcast to us is just annoying noise, yet information shared directly with us is, by the fact the creator took time to send it direct is more valuable and, as your social network expands, the amount of this useless noise increases and the number of curated interactions diminishes as you get lost in the crowd.

All sounds very obvious but something to keep in mind while we’re developing a more connected, data powered internet of things.

Some existential thoughts on the current state of the world

andrew — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:31:56 +0000

It’s occurred to me that it may be entirely possible, that if we’re all living in a simulation as some suggest. The current poor state of the world economy, weather, recent natural disasters etc may entirely be down to my long running poor frame of mind.

2011 has been an extremely stressful time, moving house, jobs and loads of other problems – as the Queen once put it; an annus horribillis (or if coding really is the new latin: 01100001 01101110 01101110 01110101 01110011 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110010 01110010 01101001 01100010 01101001 01101100 01101001 0111001). Perhaps if I alter my state of mind to be a bit happier the world may become a better place. Or at the very least it might just start to look like a bit more hopeful.

WebOS is open sourced, RIP WebOS

andrew — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:17:56 +0000

Well we didn’t see this coming did we? HP have announced that they are going to be (retiring) releasing the Palm WebOS into the Open Source community. The detail of this announcement however is still unclear, for example, how will the patents be managed, what bit’s will be included in the open source package and which won’t? It’s all a little vague.

I really liked WebOS. On the whole it was clean and architecturally a reasonable departure from the norm. It had some nice UI touches too. Problem was nobody made anything for the 7 or so Palm WebOS users. Oh and the handsets were slow and ugly to boot.

I don’t really see things changing much with this announcement. Open Source projects rarely flourish when it comes to coherent design and normally suffer badly from design by committee. If you open your house to everyone it won’t take long for some idiot to trash it and I fear this is the way WebOS is heading. At the end of the day when you open source a mobile operating system you don’t end up with a world class Apple beating mobile operating system. You end up with an open source operating system – or even worse 100 slightly different but mostly the same (fragmented) operating systems. No vendor in their right mind would select that!