links for 2010-01-27

"Let's pretend for a minute that Apple isn't a company with just five per cent of the global mobile phone market and a similar share of the home PC market, and let's pretend the fact they're probably about to launch a hybrid tablet PC/Kindle-type gadget which we may or may not really want *is* big news". Indeed.

Sometimes game-like interfaces not only help you understand the news, they help you to understand the future financing of news.

In fairness, I'm genuinely grateful that no debate in the UK about paywalls has come down to user comments saying to the news industry it is your own fault because you didn't advocate more guns... "It's now 2010 and American citizens increasingly realize why law abiding gun owners were concerned by those who advocated 'sensible first-step gun control - because the next step invariably is that of separating citizens from their liberty and posessions. Publishers blame 'the internet'. The answer is more close at hand - their own words"

"Yes this is counterintuitive, and when I've advised publishers to consider it they often first react with some of the same objections now filling the blogosphere". Utterly fascinating post from Nico.

"It could seem crazy at the moment to give away your taxonomy for free but it would have been a similarly difficult argument to convincing an organisation to have a web presence ten or fifteen years ago."