I don’t link to Daring Fireball often, because nearly all of you subscribe, but this deserves it. Gruber is absolutely right—Daring Fireball: Twitter’s new OAuth policy for third-party applications is a shit sandwich:

I can’t think of any reason why Twitter would force native apps through OAuth other than to create a hurdle that steers users toward Twitter’s own official native clients. Because Twitter’s official clients aren’t going to force users to jump through OAuth to authenticate — they’re still going to simply ask for your username and password in a simple native dialog box.

I love Twitter as a service, but what’s becoming clear is management doesn’t have a clear idea for what Twitter is and where they’re heading. As a result, they’re stepping on third-party developers’ toes for no good reason.

The only good explanation for this that I can see is Twitter wants all of their users using first-party applications, like Twitter’s iPhone application, so they can begin advertising to them like a normal web service. Too bad; there’s serious potential for making money using other, less annoying options.

They either don’t know how to make decent revenue by taking advantage of Twitter as a communications utility, or simply don’t think it’s possible. Either way, that’s disappointing.

MG Siegler, commenting on the Amazon tablet:

Google has succeeded in building a massive platform that doesn’t fully rely on them. That’s awesome on paper. But it can work both ways. If others start to realize that they don’t need Google, what does Google do? Just sit there and take it?

Amazon will use Google’s own rules against them. Google allows people to use Android however they would like, but can only get access to the latest Android releases, Google’s app market and Google applications if they follow Google’s instructions.

Rather than try to be an “Android compatible” vendor, so their tablet can be a part of the Android platform, Amazon is going to create an entirely new platform built on top of Android, with their own app store and applications that Google’s Android platform will not have access to. Ouch.

The battle is going to be over developers. Amazon is, as MG points out, getting exclusive rights to certain applications. Will Google try to do the same thing? Will they offer deals to developers who promise to continue developing for the Android platform?

Things are going to get interesting.

Seth Godin:

The opportunity, though, is the biggest of our generation (or the last one, for that matter). The opportunity is there for anyone (with or without a job) smart enough to take it–to develop a best in class skill, to tell a story, to spread the word, to be in demand, to satisfy real needs, to run from the mediocre middle and to change everything.

Don’t talk about doing something. Do it. Don’t let yourself be in the position in a few months or years where you tell someone, “I had that idea. But I was too afraid of failing.”

It’s easy to think of reasons why you shouldn’t, or why it won’t work. And it might not.

Or you might succeed more than you knew possible.

Arvin Dang:

Flipboard can quickly become the distributing model of choice. Consider its already great UI, and connectivity with Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader and RSS.

Content creation is already outsourced, why not create an open marketplace for users to view aggregated content previews and pay per article, or per subscription?

I think there’s a lot of potential here. I wrote about this last week:

Perhaps we need new intermediaries, like Flipboard and Instapaper, that can aggregate content from different sources and charge users, then pay the content creators for their work. This takes care of the central issues: one, it gives users access to a multitude of news sources in well-designed user experiences and two it creates paying users.

Large news organizations are understandably hesitant to give up their “relationship” with their readers, both because they lose control of the reader’s personal information and because they are putting their survival in the hands of others, but I don’t think they have much choice. If they would like to be paid directly for their content, rather than just through advertisements, they’re going to need intermediaries like Flipboard and Instapaper. People want to read a variety of content sources, not a single one or a few, and intermediaries allow content from all kinds of sources to be combined, read and paid for together in a great reading experience.

Here’s Engadget’s coverage of Google I/O.

The highlights are the Music beta, which is basically what was rumored; a home automation framework for Android devices, so they can control household appliances (very neat); a “made for iPod”-like program for third-party peripherals to work with Android devices over USB; and Android 3.1, which integrates all of Android’s different supported devices onto a single OS release.

Android 3.1 is interesting, because of how many devices it supports. What is Google doing with Chrome OS? These OSes are very different conceptually and at some point they’re going to have to choose one to run with.

Microsoft is apparently purchasing Skype.

What’s the business case for this? Integrate it into their business tools? Integrate into Windows Phone 7? That’s all nice, but there doesn’t seem to be an overwhelming reason for purchasing them, besides keeping it out of Google and Facebook’s hands.

Google’s new service may actually launch tomorrow, in beta of course. Here’s the details:

As with Amazon Cloud Drive, Google’s music service will work by uploading your music library to servers, then streaming that music to whatever PC or Android device you’d like, giving you instant access to your library whenever you have an Internet connection. Uploads will be handled by a small downloadable client available for both PC and Mac. There will be a Flash-based web player (which will work with ChromeOS), and the music service is baked into the Music application on Android versions 2.2 and higher, which can also store songs locally.

Not much different than Amazon’s music service, then, with a further limitation: because you cannot purchase music through Google, you must purchase it elsewhere and leave Google’s upload utility running so it will upload your new music for you to the service.

Oh, joy.

It’s certainly an improvement on Android’s current music arrangement, but Apple’s (rumored) set up sounds much, much better. Apple is apparently working out agreements with music labels so they can store one actual file on their servers and stream it to you if you own it. No need to upload any music files.

Oliver Reichenstein speculates about a “business class” for online news—a paid-for version where ads are stripped and the page is re-designed for a better reading experience. Users could still use the ad-filled, subpar experience for free.

That’s effectively what reading news on the iPad should offer, but there’s still a problem. News is a commodity. It didn’t used to be; before the web, reading the newspaper or watching network news was the main source for news and nearly everyone did so, and people tended to stick to a single source. It wasn’t that people wouldn’t watch a different channel or read a different newspaper, but many trusted one over the others.

That loyalty doesn’t exist anymore. People read news on the web anywhere they can find it. This means that only a small subset of readers—the dedicated few who really care about news—will pay for a better experience, and they will only do so for certain news organizations they find particularly good. This isn’t a viable business model on its own for the industry, or even a significant number of organizations.

The main issue here is newspapers never derived most of their revenue from subscriptions—they made most of their revenue from advertising, and ad rates on the web are nothing like what they are in print. So now they are trying to push readers to pay for their news—but people are now used to reading news for free and are unlikely to do so.

Perhaps we need new intermediaries, like Flipboard and Instapaper, that can aggregate content from different sources and charge users, then pay the content creators for their work. This takes care of the central issues: one, it gives users access to a multitude of news sources in well-designed user experiences and it creates paying users.

News organizations, and content creators generally, might need to subordinate themselves to survive.

Patrick Rhone wrote a book. Yes, a book. I’ve had the privilege of reading it over the past few days, and it is very good.

It’s called Keeping It Straight. Here’s one small excerpt I particularly liked:

Therefore, treat it as what it is—the most precious thing in existence. Don’t squander a single second. Perhaps, even more importantly, don’t waste time regretting the time you do squander or lose. Instead, look to how you are going to use this very moment to do something… Anything. Enjoy a simple breath, or make a memorable mark. Don’t worry about the next until the next thing comes along. This moment is far too important.

Patrick’s a great writer and a great guy. What I love about his writing is he’s looking for greater meaning in things. He isn’t just writing about some new application or service or something; he’s writing about how to live a better life, and he does it really, really well.

Keeping It Straight is available as one of those antiquated book things, and also on the Kindle store.

Shawn Blanc makes his MobileMe predictions:

Software development is no longer a contained relationship between a single piece of hardware and the software installed on it. Just as people who are serious about software should make their own hardware, people who are serious about mobile software should make their own cloud.

Shawn nails it.

Marco Arment explains why he isn’t likely to make a free version of Instapaper available again:

It’s important to reiterate how few people have noticed the Free app’s absence in the nearly two months that it’s been off the App Store. And almost nobody ever asked me for a free version on iPad, even though that’s half of my business.

When there’s no free option, and the only way to try an appealing app is to pay a small amount of money, people do. Not everyone will, but enough will.

If you build a good product and respect it enough to charge a price it’s worth, other people will, too. Don’t undervalue your work.

Andy Rubin, founder of Android, explains how Google’s business works:

“We don’t monetize the things we create,” Andy Rubin says. “We monetize the people that use it. The more people that use our products, the more opportunity we have to advertise to them.”

That’s from Steven Levy’s In the Plex.

Sounds a little like something I wrote in January.

Google’s Android strategy is to get as many Android devices in use so they can both advertise to their users and so they can define mobile devices for their benefit—free, cloud services-based. If web-backed services become the norm for mobile devices, that’s great for Google; odds are they will be their services, running their ads, and collecting even more user data for Google to mine. It will add to Google’s already overwhelming advantage; they will have the majority of people’s search data, browsing habits, and mobile use habits, as well. What we search, what we look at on the web, what we do on our mobile devices, and if they want, where we go.

With Google, we aren’t the customer. Their advertisers are. We are the product.

Ben Brooks:

My Twitter feed is anything BUT a curation of anything I want to read. What links people post on Twitter aren’t always read by me and are certainly not liked by me universally — same with every other Twitter user, we tend to follow more people than we actually care to follow. That’s where these apps fail for me every time.

Shawn’s right, I do want to see what my friends are reading — more importantly I want to see what they are reading AND liking. That’s why linked lists are important to me and that’s why Instapaper’s ‘Like’ sharing is so damned sweet.

I couldn’t agree more. Even if my taste in articles lined up precisely with the people I follow on Twitter, people don’t always link to articles they enjoyed reading—in many cases, they’re news event articles, or to something random that they enjoyed but doesn’t particularly have a lot of value.

Instapaper, though, has three filters: first, I can follow only the users on Instapaper that I know have similar taste in reading; second, they added the article to their Instapaper queue, which people tend not to do unless it’s of some value; and they certainly wouldn’t “like” it if it wasn’t worth reading for some reason.

“Social” news is certainly a trend right now, but I’m not that interested in what my friends are reading. What I’m more interested in is creating a very specific group of people I respect and following what they’ve enjoyed reading, because if they found it worth reading, it’s likely I’ll benefit from it, too. The value isn’t in seeing what my friends are reading. The value is in finding more things worth reading.

Jorge Quinteros took photos of Tweetbot, and wow—they’re beautiful shots. Jorge is a great photographer.

Mandy Brown, on the news:

I want long essays on the events at Fukushima and the consequences for nuclear power going forward, not shrieking dispatches of each new fire or setback. I want a history of American engagement in Libya, putting the events of the past few weeks in context. I want twenty thousand words on the recession and its effects on the middle class, not another lone statistic about the unemployment rate. I want thoughtful, investigative journalism that exposes the ways in which our government is failing us, so that we can make it better.

And I am willing to pay for it.

That’s what we need more of—journalists who don’t think their responsibility is merely to report what’s happening accurately and in a timely manner, but rather to provide meaning to what’s happening or what’s happened. To point out things that aren’t working as well as they should, and how they could work better, so others can see that and act on it.

We don’t need a lot of organizations wholly dedicated to reporting what’s happening. What we need is a lot of people who take the responsibility to say, “This is happening, this is important, this is why, and here’s what we can do about it“—people who will analyze things, find meaning in them.