This shouldn’t surprise anyone anymore than the price increase did.  NetFlix appears to be a fabulous service that remains heads and shoulders ahead of all others.  I can’t vouch for it myself as I’m not a subscriber, but it seems everyone I know has it and loves it.  The previous business model and pricing were clearly unsustainable as the content providers realize how much audience there is.  NetFlix isn’t negotiating as a “new online thing that might be used”, it is now the big dog in what is clearly a strong market with lots of room for growth.

Those that left realized they didn’t really have any alternatives with the same breadth and depth of offerings and now they’re back.  Until Amazon or Hulu or who-knows cranks up their game, where else they going to go?

I have nothing to add, other than to get to those classics I have on my Kindle that I keep putting off for “someday”.

Thought this might be of interest given my post last week on why I prefer Android over iOS.

Jason has a lot right in this article, primarily around the idea that Android tablets need to quit competing against each other and focus on competing against the iPad.  Most of the current Android tablets are already more technically powerful than the iPad.  I upgraded from my iPad to my Motorola Xoom and consider it to have been and continue to be a big upgrade.  How can that be when the Xoom isn’t as powerful as the latest Android tablets and is probably barely on par with the iPad 2, particularly if actual weight comes into play?

• Expandable storage.  My Xoom allows for expandable and swappable storage. Fixed storage is a huge disadvantage and I don’t intend to be locked into such a situation until wireless connectivity is as fast and reliable as my home wifi, and reliable 24×7 and free everywhere.  What can I say? I don’t want to watch stuttery, blurry videos on the plane and pay usurious rates to do so.
• No bloody iTunes.  In case you didn’t know, I abhor iTunes.  I bought one album on it and have not purchased anything through it since.  I connect my iPod to it for podcasts only and increasingly I don’t do that as my podcast listening is migrating to my phone.  I was astonished and dismayed at having to attach my iPod to iTunes to get quite a few things done.  Many of the apps I most used had to be attached to iTunes to load the files I wanted to use with those apps.  Granted, my wife hadn’t attached her iPad to iTunes ever and perhaps she’s more of a “mass market user” than I am.  However, we were both confused that she had to attach her iPad to iTunes to get the latest updates and iTunes screwed up a bunch of her apps, bookmarks and other settings.  Pile onto this the continuing lack of Flash and needless to say, my wife’s next tablet will be an Android.
• Apples purposeful gimping of all other services driving everyone through their store. It cracks me up that Applistas still think of Microsoft as the fascistic, big brother while they toil away in the shadow of Lenin’s, whoops, I mean Steve Jobs memorial proclaiming their superior liberalism.  Jason points out that services is the key and he’s right about that, but I’d argue that the platform that gives me more freedom to use those services of my choice in the way I want is better than being locked into one.  Android provides me access to Google’s Market and services as well as Amazon’s Market and services.  Additionally, I get the best experience that other app / service providers can give me without them being hamstrung by Apple’s “no store but ours” policy.

Nice tool to test out your current passwords for strength.  Note how merely adding a repetitive character to a “weaker” password makes it exponentially stronger.  For instance, “dumbp@swd” survives 1.02 days of Offline Fast Attack, but add a single “.” to the end of it and this increases to 1.98 months.  Make it “dumbp@swd..” and now you’re talking about 9.75 years!

I’m going to be upgrading a few of my most important passwords taking this kind of thing into account.  I already ensure that all my passwords for online sites are generated to be at least 10 characters mixed case, with at least one special character and one numeral.  Running a couple test cases from my LastPass password generator indicates that these are safe from Offline Fast Attack for multiple years of cracking.  I don’t have enough of anything to make that worth an attacker’s time <grin>.

Not too much to quibble with here except for #2, “Train Users in Best Practices”.  Why?  Why what?, you may ask.  Why is this in the top 5 and certainly if it is a top 5 item, why is it #2?

How much training do users need to be safe on the internet?  Other studies have shown that high percentages of IT professionals and even IT Security professionals get hacked.  Are they not going to be the trainers of the less savvy?  If they are vulnerable are they qualified to be trainers?

How many articles, local and national news broadcasts, radio discussions and gazillions of online articles do users have to see to know:

1. They should change their password
2. They shouldn’t use the same password everywhere
3. They shouldn’t open attachments at all or at least not from anyone they don’t know and expect an attachment from
4. Clicking links in emails is baaaaad
5. etc., etc., blah, blah…  I can’t type out anymore I’m nodding off thinking through all the “common-sense” items

Well worth reading and definitely lays out many of my thoughts and rationale for being against “real names”.  I’ve held this position since day 1 on the internet and am glad that this gent, Alexis was able to work through all the politically correct hype and come to his own rationale.

What do you think?

Interesting to note that the reason Peter and company were able to grab this space for themselves was precisely because the existing payment companies (one of which I worked for at the time) did know what was involved and purposely stayed on the sidelines.  I was hugely critical of my employer’s decision to sit out and even pass on purchasing PayPal when they had the opportunity.  Seems to me that 1.5 billion would cover a fair amount of pain.

I also think it is interesting to hear that Peter thinks that Facebook is a place where people use their real identities is hysterical.  I have lost track of the number of Facebook pages I have and only one has my actual name on it and is the one I used least.  PayPal has a much stronger claim to know real identities than Facebook.  To use PayPal you have to provide some type of payment account and prove control of that account.  Perfect? No.  Fraud ridden? Yes, and Peter and Max would know.  Better than making up a name and getting a free email account to tie it to?  Absolutely!

Given this, I never understood why PayPal never tried to turn their accounts into an online identity play.  Tie PayPal payment instrument identity to eBay reputation and you’ve got a huge leg up on anyone else out there in terms of reach and utility in facilitating transactions and that elusive element on the web… trust.

Google Identity Toolkit (GITkit) and Janrain Login Helper links included for more information on their play in this space.

Enterprise IT integration is a completely different world than Web 1.0 / 2.0 / Social Web.  One is built from the viewpoint of being behind high, guarded walls to serve a closed community that is provided windows to the outside world as needed.  Moving to the cloud means blasting the windows open to being full two-way roads to the outside world.  At that point, the walls are effectively down and now the pain is how to integrate the inside and outside  the former wall items.  Which “standards” do I pick as my standard?  Which standards am I going to be forced to use because they are used by the services I must support?  What middle-ware / middle-service is available to help me integrate / interface what exists today and help me continue to migrate / evolve into the future?