Primates,
Though we've only recently finished up Q1 of 2012, changes in the tech sector have been abundant -- from HP's corporate restructuring to the recent $1B purchase of Instagram. Based on the last few months, if you're a techie, 2012 is sure to _not_ disappoint.
But if you're not a techie, and you haven't been doing due diligence to keep up with what's going on in that far away land known as Northern California, I came across a great article earlier today that discusses the big players in 2012's tech wars on FastCompany. The players are, unsurprisingly, Google, Facebook, Apple, and Spotify. Also unsurprisingly, the relationship among these guys is a lot more incestuous than may meet the eye on first glance.
Today Google revealed it's completely made-over its young social network Google+, as part of a push to make a "simpler, more beautiful Google." Those among you who've long thought Google's 1990's-era design habits needed a serious overhaul will be pleased at the effort made to streamline the look and feel of G+, to make better use of icons and whitespace, make navigation by users more effortless, brush up the way photos look and bump their size, and highlight the impressive Hangouts facility.
But seriously though, I have never in my life used Google Plus, with the exception of getting rid of those annoying red boxes that pop up in my GMail when another random person who I probably don't know adds me.
I agree with FastCompany's assessment of the layout though -- it is sweet in its simplicity and ability to be customized, but I think these are boons in the short-term and detriments in the long-term. Everyone I know that uses Google+ _really_ likes Google, and by "really likes Google" I mean they interned in the BOLD program, wear a Google shirt every day like it's cool, and love CompSci. But these people don't fall into the general social networking demographics, and I'm not sure how higher quality pictures and the inclusion of different apps on the side bar gives them a competitive advantage over Facebook, especially now that Facebook's photo integration capabilities are going to improve dramatically. What do you guys make of this move by Google? It looks as though GOOG is comfortable investing vast amount of money into G+, but while it seems to be moving in a better direction, it's still hard to imagine a large-scale diaspora from Facebook.
Meanwhile Spotify, a fiercely independant little disruptive entity in the online music game, just launched its "play" button that is quite definitely a play, sorry, in the game to beat Apple's iTunes-and-iDevices system.
This, on the other hand, seems totally sweet. We're moving into an era of truly expanded internet capabilities for users who don't have programming or server administration experience, and allowing music to be integrated into blog sites and other template-based sites is something we really haven't seen implemented well up to this point. Spotify irritates me when my friends play terrible music and Facebook tells me about it, but otherwise, I think the service is excellent and this looks like a great move for them.
In news that are less interesting, Apple is being sued by the Department of Justice for price-fixing with respect to ebook prices for its new iPad. But the DOJ's argument, if nothing else, is pretty funny, sourced from Jobs' biography:
The DOJ pointed to Steve Jobs' biography to argue Apple knew that the scheme would result in higher costs for consumers and would remove pricing competition from Amazon."We'll go to [an] agency model where you set the price, and we get our 30%, and, yes, the customer pays a little more, but that's what you want anyway," biographer Walter Isaacson quoted Steve Jobs as saying.
And finally, Google is hoping to enter the tablet market, a move that makes a lot of sense considering people like the unbloated Android OS far more than Amazon's rather...distasteful approach to Android through the Fire. Advanced users root Android devices and install unmolested Android anyway, but I've definitely had friends complain about the bloated and slow nature of the Fire's Android back-end. There is definitely a market for a tablet with both the Google name _and_ clean Android (granted, smaller companies already provide such a product, but they are just that -- smaller).
And there you have it. This is what's up in the tech world these days, and it looks to get more interesting as the iPhone 5 is in production and more companies enter the tablet computer market.
Thanks for reading.
And FWIW, I still use my HP TouchPad that I got for $99 and I
