Category: Twitter

In Other News, Swallowing An iPad Makes You Choke

Today’s stupid post comes from The Wall Street Journal in the article Video Speed Trap Lurks in New iPad by Anton Troianovski.

This article reveals how some users are using up the cellular data on their iPads faster than they expected. Guess it was a slow news day down at the ol’ Journal.

They start off with the best example, in terms of laugh-worthiness:

Two hours of college basketball—-which he viewed mounted to his car dashboard and live at tournament games-—had burned through his monthly wireless data allotment of two gigabytes.

This dude, who is so brilliant he watches basketball while driving, managed to use up his data by watching two hours of video. What more can you say? Clearly life sucks.

Mr. Troianovski searches for something, anything, to say on this topic, and comes up with this:

The iPad’s new high-resolution screen and fast connection are specifically designed to spur greater use of online video.

I’m not buying this. I think it the new iPad’s design was done so Apple could stay in the lead with its hardware. There are many uses for a high-resolution screen and fast connection. Admittedly, watching online video is one of them, but I hardly think it was the main goal.

The Wells Family was interviewed for the article, and they clearly didn’t put a lot of thought into their use of the cellular data network. First the son complains that the hours he spent watching YouTube at the coffee shop really burned through his data plan. No kidding? Huh. Then Dad has his own problems:

Mr. Wells’s father, Steve Wells, also hit his data limit on Saturday. While he was at the basketball game with his son, his wife was using his iPad as a video baby monitor for his granddaughter while she napped in another room. By the time the two were back from the game, the app had burned through his two gigabyte plan.

His wife, presumably in their home, used the iPad with a cell network to monitor a baby for a few hours? Where in the world did this reporter find these people? So, no wifi network in the house? No way to simply listen? Wouldn’t they have had the same problem in this case on a 3G cellular data network? I’m actually quite surprised that this paragraph didn’t end with, “and they found that the iPad’s battery was down to only 63%. It was astonishing how using the iPad would eat up the battery like that.”

At some point in this article it might have been a good idea to point out that none of these people ran into extra charges for going over their limit, the data stream just stopped. That’s a big difference from data plans on your phone. Also, there are bigger data plans available if these people want to continue such nonsense. Verizon offers a 10 GB plan. Plus, with any of these plans you can always simply pay again once your allotment is up. You know, in case you want to monitor the paint drying in the kitchen next. Your iPad does not have to be a disconnected slab of glass for the next 29 days because you went nuts streaming video. I suppose giving information like this would make it even more clear what a waste this article was, so it’s good that Mr. Troianovski left it out.

Dad concludes with this gem:

“All the advantages of the iPad device are completely neutralized by the two gigabyte data limit,” said Steve Wells, 56.

Yes, ALL the advantages. I’m returning my stupid useless iPad ASAP.

Twitter Commercials?


Today Twitter announced “Promoted Tweets on mobile: more options, starting today“.

Promoted tweets are advertisements in tweet form in your timeline. Previously, these tweets would only be shown only if you followed the advertiser. This seemed like a pretty limited option to me. Why would you follow, for example, Verizon Wireless? Isn’t that like tuning your TV to the Coca Cola channel? I really didn’t think advertisers would buy into that too heavily.

In today’s announcement we see the next step:

Starting today, we are expanding this test, enabling brands to target Promoted Tweets to mobile users that share similar interests with their existing followers.

So, if I read this right, this means Twitter is going to analyze everyone’s tweets and swizzle them together to determine in some way who has similar interests, and then use that information to distribute advertising in the timelines.

I’m not sure if I’m okay with this or not. Tweets aren’t private, so there’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to do this. (I’m assuming, perhaps wrongly, that Twitter won’t analyze private timelines this way.) They need to pay for the service, so they have to do something. I think what I’d really like to see is an advertising-free subscription option. Sign up for $2/month and you won’t ever see ads. I’d do that.

For now let’s just hope that the advertising doesn’t get too egregious.

Apple TV 1080p Not Too Shabby

This is a scene from The Amazing Race, purchased through the Apple TV. We have a 30 Mbps Internet connection and it started streaming immediately.

Full Screen 1080p Apple TV
Close-Up Detail 1080p Apple TV

Controlling My Own Destiny

Exhibit A on why I want to control as much as possible when it comes to web services: Posterous is Joining the Flock at Twitter

I used to use Posterous as my main blogging tool, primarily because it was so great at distributing content to the latest social media services. (My relatives are hip to different things, so I have to do the scatter shot.) I was always uncomfortable with that since Posterous had no clear means of generating revenue and could disappear at any time.

Now Twitter has acquired them and they could easily go the way of Gowalla and disappear with little notice. I’m much happier being in control of my own destiny and feeling relatively confident that the things I publish now (like this blog entry) will not go away unless I want them to. Even if it is more work.

For the same reason, I collect my tweets on this site. I’m not particularly thrilled with having them integrated here, but this way I solve two problems:

  • If Twitter should ever shuffle off, I’ve got a record of all that I wrote there (at least since I started collecting them).
  • There are those who have some interest in what I post to Twitter, but they’re not Twitter users.

Facebook? I never post directly on Facebook. Bleh.

Having A Clinic & Pharmacy On Campus Is Terrific

Cerner Pharmacy IM Conversation

When was the last time your pharmacy did an instant message conversation with you to ask where you’d like your prescription delivered?

Not only are the doctors at our clinic both very convenient and very good, but there’s nothing like having a pharmacy where:

  • they’re very friendly and greet me by name.
  • there’s usually no wait, and never a wait longer than 5 minutes.
  • the prescriptions are cheaper than anywhere else.