Matt Buchanan
Fixing The Release Window System
It's borderline conventional wisdom that the release window system for movies and TV shows is archaic, but this is a nice little summary of how to fix it: "If a movie performs so well that people keep flocking to theaters, DVDs should wait. On the contrary, if the movie bombs, it should be given a chance to resurrect online, quickly, sustained by a cheaper but better targeted marketing campaign mostly powered by social networks."
Matt Buchanan
Black Friday Isn't Dying, It's Spreading
Oh boy: "Sales on the day after Thanksgiving fell from those a year earlier, according to one major tracker, the first decline since the recession of 2008, as stores started their 'doorbuster' promotions early in the week and opened for business on Thursday evening."
Matt Buchanan
One-A-Day Gift Guide: Monoprice 8320 Headphones
One gift that you absolutely cannot go wrong with, every day. Today, a cheap pair of headphones.
Matt Buchanan
How To Cyber Monday, If You Must
There are a million reasons to skip Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But if you do it, you should do it right.
Matt Buchanan
An Xbox, Minus The Games
Of Apple, Google and Microsoft, I think the latter has the best living room device around, even if you never play a single game on the Xbox 360. So it makes a lot of sense for Microsoft to do an Xbox that's simply a streaming device — though we'll have to wait till next year for it, according to The Verge. (The Xbox branding probably continues to make less and less sense as Microsoft strips it from its gaming roots and splashes it on anything that's remotely about entertainment, though.)
Matt Buchanan
Why You Hate The New Twitter
Because bigger isn't better. How and why Twitter has changed over the last couple years.
Matt Buchanan
The Other Maps App Besides Apple Maps And Google Maps
To be honest, my first impressions of Nokia's Here maps for the iPhone aren't very good: It looks very fuzzy in some places, and transit directions — something Nokia has been pushing hard, since Apple Maps don't have them — kept failing. But maybe it'll get better faster than Apple Maps. Or at least tide you over till Google Maps finally arrive for the iPhone.
Matt Buchanan
What Windows 8 Looked Like In The Beginning
By now, you've seen the totally radical redesign of the computer you've likely been using for years: Windows 8. But have you seen what Windows 8 originally looked like?
Matt Buchanan
Apple, Google And Twitter
I would ignore the part about Apple buying Twitter — I don't think it makes that much sense, and would likely be a flustercuck — but this nugget seems very true: "Google is getting better at design faster than Apple is getting better at web services."
Matt Buchanan
About That Apple Page-Turning Patent
You've probably been hearing scare reports that Apple "patented page turning." No, it didn't. Not exactly, anyway, as the lawyer bros at The Verge explain: It may be tempting to look at all of this as essential to emulating physical page turns on a device, but the patent simply isn't that broad."
Matt Buchanan
What The New Twitter Will Look Like
If you want to know what your Twitter timeline is going to look like, there's a preview already hidden in your Twitter app.
Matt Buchanan
You Too Can Give Gifts Now On Facebook
It's been in beta — meaning it's been available to few people with few retailers — but Facebook Gifts is now rolling out to "tens of millions" with greatly expanded number of products from the likes Starbucks, Warby Parker, Hulu Plus, Rdio, and 100 other retailers. But please please please don't buy anybody anything on Facebook. They won't love you for it. There are lines to be drawn, you know.
Matt Buchanan
Google Would Like To Remind You That Google Maps Are On The Way For iPhone
"Google has been putting the finishing touches on the app before submitting it for approval to the Apple iTunes store, this person said, though it's unclear exactly when that will happen." I see little reason to think that Apple won't approve the app. It might take a while, but it'll get approved. The question is how much feature parity it'll have with the Android version, which is still my favorite maps app on a phone.
Matt Buchanan
Google's Reality-Warping New Game
A new game from Google takes place in the real world. And there's something weird about that. (via)
Matt Buchanan
A Deep Dive On The Obama Campaign's Tech
Ars Technica had particularly good access to put together this piece on the Obama campaign's tech operation, through Ars alum Clint Ecker, a senior engineer for Obama for America. This is the nuts and bolts of it, explained.
Matt Buchanan
The Thin Red Terms Of Service
Do the Israel Defense Forces videos and photos of its assault on Hamas belong on social media? Sometimes the social media services themselves don't know.
Matt Buchanan
Facebook's Going To Look A Bit More Like Twitter For A Change
The "Share" button is coming to Facebook's mobile apps and website, allowing people to quickly repost stories and links from their newsfeed. At Josh Constine remarks, "Facebook has always been about personal updates, not blindly passing on links, but it could start looking a lot like Twitter soon" thanks to the new mobile share button. All look same.
Matt Buchanan
How To Wage War On The Internet
The Israel Defense Forces live tweet their assault on Hamas. This is something new.
Matt Buchanan
The Last Phone Of 2012
The Droid DNA is the pinnacle of phones. So far. This is what your next phone will look like, give or take.
Matt Buchanan
Another Alternative To Apple Maps
A thing you might not know about Nokia — it owns one of the big three mapping companies, Navteq, which powers a lot of the maps in the world. It's launching a new maps service called Here on both iPhone and Android, with turn-by-turn and public transit directions. It's probably going to be the best all-around replacement until Google Maps comes out.
Matt Buchanan
