Rules for sites

Brent Simmons on a roll:

When has a publication gone underlooked and then was saved by great SEO? Never. Just forget it - it’s beneath you.




Pummeled by web pages

Brent Simmons:

I made the mistake of going to a website today. It’s understandable, of course - everybody does it, from time to time - and I’m sure I’ll forgive myself, eventually.

They’re filled with ads and social-media sharing buttons - and more ads. And Google plus-onesies and Facebook likeys. And also more ads. Plus tweet-this-es. Plus ads. (And, under-the-hood, a whole cruise-ship-full of analytics.)

His points are the main reason I also love Instapaper, Google Reader, and the tiny Reader icon in iOS Safari.




$5 chess game, best-of-three, Zuccotti Park

David Hill for McSweeney’s:

Zugzwang is a term used in chess to refer to a position where every move you have is a bad one. Once you’re in zugzwang, things like having more pieces than your opponent doesn’t matter anymore. If you can’t use them to attack you may as well not have them at all. Often players who find themselves in zugzwang simply resign.

A growing number of people in America know what it feels like to be in zugzwang. For some of them their whole life has been one long zugzwang, they can’t remember ever having any good options.




Google music comment-ocalypse

A friend commented on the Google Music post below, only he commented over at Google+. Then someone replied to his comment, also on G+.

I can’t see that he commented. And I can’t respond to his comment on G+ because I’m not a member. He can’t comment here because he’s not registered.

Dud.

In any case, the comment on the comment was:

Don’t look at Google - look at the dinosaur music companies who set down the policies on where their music may be purchased and played.

My comment on the comment made on his comment: I do look at Google here. To make it work, you just have to fork out enough dosh. Apple have done it1. Google can too.

Amazon are also guilty here - one of the strengths of their (otherwise apparently pretty average) Fire is apparently video playback. Full video functionality comes with being a member of Amazon Prime2. And Amazon Prime is, you guessed it: US only.


  1. Mind you their iTunes Match service is US only for now too. But the store is global. ↩︎

  2. Which sounds suspiciously like joining the Borg collective. ↩︎




Google Music: American Pie

Google Music launched this morning to much fanfare and kerfluffle. Top!

But: “we’re sorry. Google Music is currently only available in the United States.”

Even if you hate Apple, you have to give them points for making their content deals globally.