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Bookmarks for 9 Feb 2009

Clay Shirky: Why Small Payments Won’t Save Publishers
"Because small payment systems are always discussed in conversations by and for publishers, readers are assigned no independent role. In every micropayments fantasy, there is a sentence or section asserting that what the publishers want will be just fine with us, and, critically, that we will be possessed of no desires of our own that would interfere with that fantasy. Meanwhile, back in the real world [...]" (media economics publishing micropayments )
Updated: And then there was one – Shiny Media cuts staff and co-founder departs
"Of the three main founders only one now remains, Chris Price. Katie Lee leaves today, as do staff on several of their blog titles." (business economy blogs recession )
Understanding Web Operations Culture – the Graph & Data Obsession – O'Reilly Radar
"Here’s an example of a traffic drop seen both by Flickr & by Last.FM that coincided with President Obama’s inauguration." (barak_obama visualization flickr Stats )
Posterous – The place to post everything. Just email us. Dead simple blog by email.
It's almost *too* easy to use. And such a clever way for them to get your e-mail address! (file_sharing sharing social_media )
Windows 7 SKUs announced: your worst nightmare has come to pass – Engadget
"Remember that screenshot we saw of all those different Windows 7 versions (pictured above)? Well guess what? It's worse than you could have possibly imagined." (marketing microsoft windows )

MC

Comment by MC | 2009/02/10 at 18:38:32

Micropayments – something that’s been talked about for years and I realised yesterday that one form of them works quite well. The Apple App Store – while I would hesistate to spend £40-50 on a game, I find I’m quite happy to spend 59p or even £1.59 even if I later get bored of it and delete it. So with a much higher uptake rate, and, critically, a unified store so that everything is one place, searchable and pre-approved, low priced applications become realistic.
Nik

Comment by Nik | 2009/02/11 at 13:33:56

Yes, micropayments were once touted as important but regarded as near-impossible (despite many attempted solutions). And here they are in the App Store, and elsewhere, happening. I’m not sure what changed in between. Or perhaps nothing changed, and micropayments were always assumed to be sub-penny payments (I forget), which are still impossible.