Now that Google+ is open to the public (and you can add me to your circles here by the way,) some of the first people who have joined are the people eager for an alternative to Facebook. Obviously, the first few people on the network were the geeks and techies who wanted first access to assess it for features and usability so they would write about it, tell the world, and use it for themselves. I was more than happily one of those people – after all, it’s my duty to tell others about it, right?

Well, after that, the next few people to sign on were people who were desperately looking for an alternative to Facebook either because they have issues with Facebook and it’s privacy policies, dislike the way Facebook handles data, have had it up to here with Facebook’s design changes, or they dislike Facebook for some other reason. Naturally those people tend to be vocal about their dissent and departure. What’s been unexpected though in the past few weeks and months has been exactly how vocal Facebook users on the other hand have been defending their platform against anyone perceived as a threat. While Twitter users don’t seem to have much problem talking about Facebook or Google+, and Google+ users tend to look at Facebook with a little disdain but prefer to speak instead of the merits of Google+ as opposed to denigrating Facebook, Facebook users actively dislike any mention of Google+, and will go out of their way to be vocal about it, even if it’s mentioned in passing. What I don’t understand is why.

Part of writing for a site like Lifehacker is that I have the opportunity to see and cover a lot of these sites and services first-hand, before a lot of other people sign on. While much of the other media are obsessing over traffic numbers and who’s using Google+ this week versus who’s using Facebook this week, I have the privilege of writing for an outlet that discusses the best tools to manage and use those tools–without the ridiculous need to obsess over whose traffic numbers are up this week or how some new feature has impacted overall utilization. So whenever I’ve written about a new utility or tool that helps users make the most of Google+, and then posted that article to our Facebook page, I’ve seen the assault begin. Facebook users are incredibly hateful and spiteful of Google+.

I can understand rallying to your favorite platform’s defense when you feel it’s under attack by an outsider that you dislike, but this rises to a different level that I think we haven’t seen in a long time. To point, when I wrote Facebook Is Tracking Your Every Move on the Web; Here’s How to Stop It for Lifehacker, and subsequently posted the article to our Facebook page, the first series of comments were a bombardment of how some people “didn’t care about privacy” and instead chose to deflect the issue onto other companies with comments like “Yeah well Google does the same thing” (not true) and “I don’t mind targeted ads” (irrelevant to the topic of the article.)

It’s clear that – even without reading the piece to form a critical response to it – many people immediately saw their favorite or preferred social network under some kind of assault, and rallied to its defense. These same people take the same stance whenever a browser extension for Google+ is mentioned, or a utility that allows them to cross-post between Facebook and Google+. With no regard for the tool or the story, their commentary immediately shifts to the defensive, implying anyone would be a fool to use anything but Facebook, and heralding the demise of any opposition, like Google+. I noticed a similar response from people when Diaspora made its first appearance, but on a smaller scale. It’s likely that Google gets such a visceral response because it’s a larger company with name recognition and a number of products that already have their fingers in people’s lives.

Much of this may have to do with the notion that individuals often unfortunately conflate their preference in brand and brand choices with their own self-image and self-identity, a horrible side-effect of living in a consumer age. Ars Technica does a great job of reporting the study findings and what it means for the majority of us, who do have brand preferences. Personally, I wish everyone would take a step back and consider their brand preferences and consciously separate them from their personal identities (after all, it would mean the end of all iPhone versus Android flame wars on the internet,) but I doubt most people will ever do such a thing.

Unfortunately I don’t think the web in general – or most of its most vocal denizens at sites like Facebook – are mature enough to address issues on their real merits: as with any large commons, small groups are capable of intelligent, self-moderated discussions, while large groups eventually devolve into massive, unwieldy shouting matches where only the loudest and most arrogant voices are heard, and the softer, more temperate individuals choose to keep their mouths closed because they know they’ll either not be heard or they’ll be shouted down. Unfortunately, I think this, in and of itself, is one of Facebook’s core weaknesses – it’s gotten too big to be actually meaningful in any real way aside from the small communities that people assemble with their friends, and the platform’s approach to how people build those communities is so focused on adding more people and sharing more information that those conversations are devalued. I also think that’s what draws people so much to Google+, a service which puts prime consideration on those communities and the discussions they have with one another.

Still, Facebook’s platform is good – it wouldn’t have attracted over 800 million users otherwise. At the same time though, that doesn’t explain the aggressiveness of its users. The only thing I can think of is that Facebook – like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and virtually every other consumer technology brand – has grown to a name or product that people that people identify with so strongly that they’re willing to prize those brands over other human brings, and attack other people over those brands.

Most people would say that competition in a marketplace is generally a good thing, especially when they’re on the outside of a brand rivalry. Inside one of those rivalries, however, the rules seem to change drastically, and it’s worrysome.

So the blogs have been buzzing recently thanks to a report that for SpaceTime Studios, the developers of the popular mobile MMO Pocket Legends, has found that its Android version is simply more profitable than the iOS version of the same game.

SpaceTime runs Pocket Legends for both platforms, and since the game is an MMO, anyone on any platform can play with each other. But SpaceTime noted that they’re seeing more sales from its Android customers than from its iOS customers. Does this mean – as many tech news sites have jumped to the conclusion – that Android owners are somehow more willing to shell out for apps than iOS users? Does it mean that developers should all switch to building games for Android now?

Well, what exactly does it mean? I know – partially because unlike a number of people who have covered the story in a couple of places, I’ve actually played Pocket Legends (on my Android phone, no less,) understand SpaceTime’s business model, and get what they’re really trying to say here. Let’s dive in after the jump.

The first thing you need to understand is the kind of game that Pocket Legends is, and how SpaceTime Studios makes money. The game is free to download and play, but SpaceTime Studios sells “platinum,” an in-game currency that players can use to buy better items, customize their clothes and the items they already have, and to unlock certain zones and areas unaccessible by players who are playing the game for free. There are also ads, but this isn’t the primary thrust of the money-making engine in the game.

Platinum, of course, costs real money, and as Pocket Legends is unashamed of being a micro-transaction based MMO (which I don’t think it should be, don’t get me wrong) a lot of players are more than eager to really tweak and customize their characters if they can sink a few bucks into it. Also, there are some really great items available to players with some platinum in their accounts – and while you don’t need it to play the game, you’ll want it – especially when you get to zones that you can’t enter without it, or when you encounter foes that would be much less frustrating if you had some upgraded gear.

Here’s the lowdown, thanks to an article at ComputerWorld:

Here’s where things get interesting: Spacetime says its daily user activity on Android is more than double its level on iOS in practically every measure. On Android, the game is downloaded about 9,000 times a day, according to Spacetime; on iOS, daily downloads are in the 3,000 to 4,000 range. Perhaps even more significant, Android users who have the app use it about three times more than their Apple counterparts.

Altogether, that translates into a big difference in revenue: Spacetime, which is supported largely by in-app purchases, says its Android users generate 30 to 50 percent more revenue than its iOS users do. This is despite the fact that Apple has a seamless in-app purchasing interface, whereas Android’s built-in purchasing system isn’t set to debut until sometime this spring.

“We’ve just been blown away,” says Spacetime CEO Gary Gattis. “Android has become our primary interest.”

It doesn’t really end there though:

Pocket Legends also utilizes advertising to generate revenue, and Spacetime has seen the same effect there: Android users click ads about three times as much as iOS users, according to Spacetime’s measurements. What’s more, they end up making purchases as a result of ad clickthroughs twice as often as iOS users.

“This led us to stop advertising on Apple and throw all of our marketing dollars onto Android,” Gattis says. “It really just makes sense from a financial point of view.”

So you have the story, but here’s the clincher (one that Computerworld approaches, but falls short of defining clearly) – my suspicion is that Occam’s Razor comes into play at the core of the debate over development for iOS or Android. It’s not that the facts or numbers released by SpaceTime are in doubt – they’re really not. Everyone agrees that SpaceTime is raking it in with Pocket Legends for Android as opposed to iOS.

Why? It’s simple: There are more well-polished, high-quality, well-designed games for iOS than there are for Android.

The inverse is also true, and it’s a huge compliment to SpaceTime Studios: the gaming field for Android right now is so populated with ports, 2D games, and games without the same level of polish, design, and functionality that a game like Pocket Legends is a real gem: one that Android gamers are willing to sink some money into if they’re able to get some more play value and fun out of.

On iOS, someone can install Pocket Legends, play for a while, hit the paywall where they’re simply not effective anymore if they don’t buy platinum, or where they just can’t explore anything new if they don’t pony up, and they’ll just drop the game like a hot rock and move on to the next title in the iTunes App Store. There are more than enough high-quality, well-polished games for iOS that they don’t feel compelled to pay for the game just to have something good to play.

Over in the Android camp, those gamers (myself included) are hurting enough for high-quaity games to play that it’s easier to break out your wallet if you’ve already found something that’s a lot of fun and you know you can’t just hit the Android Market and find thousands of similar alternatives that are all also free.

In the end, Android gamers are willing to pay because they don’t have any many games of the same caliber as Pocket Legends. On the iOS side, SpaceTime Studios is simply suffering from overwhelming competition – which says nothing about their game, I found it a lot of fun when I reviewed it and I think it’s great, but it’s up against way more titles with the same or greater level of polish that are all fun to play – and, of course – they’re free – in the iTunes App Store.

So what have we learned? One, that the tech blogosphere really needs a solid dose of analysis (one that I’m happy to provide, hit me up if you need a writer with skills,) and two; that SpaceTime is doing the right thing by focusing on its Android user-base. They could very well cruise into the next era of Android gaming riding high – at least until the competition comes to their doorstep, and there’s no doubt that they’re already on their way.

Well, the moment we’ve all been waiting for is finally here. Verizon Wireless finally has the iPhone 4. But I’m not getting one, and I’m a very happy Verizon Wireless customer and have been for years: since my first cellular phone, in fact.

My decision has nothing to do with Verizon Wireless, or some misguided love for AT&T (I actually rather dislike them, but not because of the company, just because for my professional gigs I can’t get their PR folks to reply to my e-mail to save my life) or any disaffection I have for Apple (in fact, I’ve been frequently accused of being too much of an Apple fan, even though I pride myself on liking their products but being willing to call them out when appropriate) but instead my decision based on a couple of things: timing, technology, and trends.

As I said in the title – this is just me. If you’re eager and chomping at the bit to get an iPhone 4 next month as soon as they’re out, by all means more power to you – drop AT&T like a hot rock, especially if you live in an area with horrible service (service that AT&T knows about and yet refuses to improve, but is perfectly comfortable charging you massive Early Termination Fees to leave) and want to switch to a carrier that, you know, actually works. Me though, I’ll hang on to my Motorola Droid just a little longer.

Hit the jump, let me explain what I’m on about here.

Two years ago, the announcement of an iPhone 4 on Verizon would have been glorious to me – I would have heard angels singing, and I would have probably had a very difficult time not taking advantage of Verizon Wireless’ offer to existing customers to be the first to get their hands on the iPhone when it launches on their network in February.

Now however, the announcement rings a little holllow to me, and while I’m excited for the scores of people who have been underserved and overcharged by AT&T for years just so they can have one of the best smartphones on the market today, I don’t think I’ll be making the leap just yet. Here’s why.

Timing

The iPhone 4 on Verizon will launch in February. Apple historically announces new versions of the iPhone at the WorldWide Developers Conference (WWDC) that’s normally held around June, which means that almost certainly come summer there will be an “iPhone 5″ announced, and almost certainly that new device will be available on Verizon’s network.

I know it’s five months away, but for those of us who are current Verizon Wireless customers, it’s still inside of the year, and if you have an upgrade coming this year it’s worth waiting for. If you’re a current customer and not eligable for an upgrade anytime soon, it’s a moot point for you. If you’re an AT&T user with an iPhone 4 and looking to make the switch to Verizon, there are lots of great ways to do it, but having to break contract and pony up a massive early termination fee is definitely a bitter pill to swallow.

Combine that with the fact that inside of six months you’ll be looking at a new phone with presumably new features, and it’s probably worth waiting. Granted, the “iPhone 5″ may not come with any notable new features – maybe it’ll just be a speed improvement over the current model, like the iPhone 3GS was with the iPhone 3G, even so, I don’t think 5 months is too long to find out what the next iPhone will look like – it’s not like it’s 9 or 10 months away.

Technology

Considering the fact that phones like the incredible Motorola Atrix are about to hit AT&T and devices like the Droid Bionic and the LG Revolution and HTC Thunderbolt are all dual-core models with big screens and about to crash into Verizon Wireless like a ton of bricks, you have a tidal wave of new devices sporting impressive mobile tech that Apple simply can’t ignore.

Most of these phones will come out of the gate with features superior to the iPhone on paper: 8-megapixel cameras with 1-megapixel front-facing ones, 1GHz dual-core NVidia Tegra 2 processors under the hood, and tons of expandable storage for a lower price point than Apple’s iPhone: Apple is going to have to up the ante a bit to keep people’s attention on the iPhone when there are dual core phones on the market, much less phones that could be as transformational as the Atrix, which essentially docks and turns into a laptop.

Technology-wise, Apple has paved the way all this time, they’re going to have to do something to leapfrog the competition, or at least keep up, and odds are they’re giong to do it soon. If LG and Samsung can fit a dual-core processor and an LTE 4G radio in a phone, Apple’s likely already working on cramming a dual-core A9 processor and their own 4G radio into the iPhone. I don’t think I could live with myself if I bought a product this outdated already, given what we saw at CES just last week and knowing that Apple’s likely to announce an update in just a few months.

Trends

This one’s more personal, and may resonate with some people and won’t resonate with others: the trend in smartphones right now is simply away from iOS and heading quickly towards Android, and I’m riding that wave very happily. Android is seeing constant and frequent updates, is more flexible and customizable, and has a large and growing community around it of people who are passionate about the platform. There are simply so many more Android devices on the market that there’s a plethora of consumer choice, and while some people really do need a device to be “the best forever ever” so they don’t have to make a decision, I’m the opposite – I love looking at spec sheets and charts and getting hands on with multiple devices to determine which one will work for me.

As PC Mag Mobile Analyst Sascha Segan said, the Verizon iPhone isn’t the mobile messiah, even if we want it to be. Right now the development, both for hardware and software, is trending towards Android. It really is the technology frontier.

That’s not to say that iOS isn’t the preferred mobile OS for developers, especially developers looking for a cohesive store model they can use to make a living off of their development work. That also isn’t to say that iOS isn’t superior for gaming, or doesn’t have the better selection of mobile apps with real professional polish. If I weren’t the geek I am and if I didn’t enjoy being on the bleeding edge like I do, I would be much more tempted to switch.

It just appears that – as Android overtakes the iPhone in the US and abroad in sales and as the product of choice for new smartphone owners, Apple’s the stalwart of the category and Android is a bit more….interesting. That can all change in an instant, don’t get me wrong, but I find that iOS feels better these days on a tablet like the iPad than it would on my phone. (Yes, like I said before, this isn’t indicative of a disaffection with Apple – I definitely want an iPad, and even though I think the Xoom has promise, I would say the inverse if this article were about tablets. I think too many manufacturers are trying to shoehorn Android into a tablet form factor, where Apple has it absolutely right with iOS. Honeycomb could change that, but the previews I’m seeing look good, but not good enough.)

Again – personal opinion and completely subjective. I’ve strongly pondered getting my parents iPhones, mostly because my mother already has an iPod Touch and adores it. Still, I can’t help but think that Android is where the real, new, and exciting action really is.

I’m seeing similar sentiment appear on the Web, albeit for different reasons (there are some good ones in that piece) so I know I’m not crazy, at least.

Still, I think the topic is worth revisiting in a couple of months when the next iPhone is unveiled, and we see how Apple plans to compete with some of its newest challengers – not to mention how Verizon is dealing with the influx of customers.

When story broke a few days ago about researchers in Scotland managed to build a 1,000-core processor, I was amazed. As someone who’s actually spent some time in a CPU fab, I’m more than impressed at the skill and design that had to go into making a processor with so many cores in it – and before you whine, no, it’s more than just making a really big processor and dabbing lots of cores on the board – there’s more to it than that.

Even so, and even as impressed as I am, an old column by John C Dvorak called Why Isn’t the Desktop Moving Forward? popped to mind immediately. After all, as Mashable noted, this new thousand-core processor could speed up systems at least 20 times…so what would we do with all of that power? Do we need it?

Let’s discuss behind the jump.

Even smartphones are starting to get dual core processors, and the gaming computer I built at home has a quad-core in it and my Macbook Pro has a quad-core in it as well – but unfortunately very few of the games and apps I run on that system can really leverage all of the processing power available to them.

Don’t get me wrong – I know plenty of real-world applications for more processing technology. Supercomputers, research labs, government think-tanks and financial institutions, and even businesses like the one I spend most of my full-time work in do the kind of work that can always get faster if there were more resources in a given system to throw at the task.

It’s not that I think there aren’t applications for a thousand-core processor, but I do have to ask the Dvorak question: everyone seems to say “I want that in my desktop,” and I think we’re getting to a level of technology research and development where the tech is only useful in high-end applications that won’t make it to the desktop anywhere in the near term, and part of that is because application developers and software houses aren’t particularly interested in re-writing their applications or building new ones that can leverage high end technologies.

Even companies like Google are busy working on platforms like Android and their Chrome OS laptop, designed to run on minimal processing power that’s easily available, and Microsoft is considering a version of Windows that will run on ARM processors. Even game developers are happier building games that don’t leverage high end components because it broadens their potential user base. There’s so much more emphasis on re-using old code and building for lower-end platforms than for high-end ones.

There are cracks in that armor though – rumor has it that Microsoft has hinted that Windows 8 will emphasize PC gaming, so there may be hope for PC enthusiasts and lovers of high-end tech just yet.

Let me set the stage: a few months ago I got a semi-threatening e-mail claiming that someone – someone I didn’t know – knew my Web host’s security hardware and what’s installed on it, and that they knew how to exploit it. They implied they had already exploited it, and that it was my fault for not knowing or understanding “IT Security.” Now – I’ve worked in IT since I was an undergrad in college, so I know a thing or two – I’m no subject matter expert in security and intrusion prevention, but I know a thing or two. The e-mail came off a little ranty, and when they spammed all of my e-mail addresses with it, I just set up a mail rule to trash it before it hit my inbox and called it a day.

Then today, I got word from an anonymous tipper to my Gears and Widgets account (which isn’t really a secret, I’m phoenix@gearsandwidgets.com – drop me a line!) that someone was masquerading as me over at the ZDNet blogs, and that they just wanted to give me a heads up.

Sure enough, one Google search later, I found someone over there with the same name I was accused of having in that threatening e-mail (which my Web host, by the way, described as “pure fiction,”) and then someone else posting under my name, “Alan Henry,” with their own freshly registered account, where they were busily trolling other commenters. In their attempt to track down who the troll in their midst was, a few people there found my bio information at PC Mag, my LinkedIn profile, and deduced that their troll must be Alan Henry, the freelance writer, technology blogger, and author of sites like TechTV Forever, The Classy Geek, and of course, Gears and Widgets.

Sadly, they’re horribly mistaken, and in their fervor to take down their “Alan Henry,” made light at my experience, my blogs, my work, just about everything – so sure that I was who they hated. It hurt, a lot, and sure enough I both registered my own account to try and refute the claims and reclaim my identity, and submitted a ticket to ZDNet Support to take note of the issue and see what they could do.

Admittedly, I don’t have too much faith that they’ll be able to do anything although I hope they can. It’s difficult to try and moderate so closely any comments on the Internet, but it’s disheartening that this could happen. All I, the real Alan Henry, can do is sit back, hope it plays out, and hope that the issue doesn’t get worse or spread elsewhere.

Still, I make this post partially because I want to make it clear I’m not this person, but partially because I’m curious about other people’s opinions and experiences. This isn’t identity theft – nothing of tangible value is being taken from me – but it’s definitely annoying personally, and while professionally – as a writer – I don’t think it’s serious it does introduce some negative connotations of me on the Web that someone could find.

All I can do is wait for it to blow over, but what about you? Have you experienced anything like this – just having your name hijacked so someone can troll or comment on the Web either just because your name is convenient or because your name has some gravity behind it? How did you deal with it? Let me know what you think.

So Apple’s “Back to the Mac” event just concluded, and if you were a betting person and bet on some substantial new hardware today, you’d have lost some money. Don’t get me wrong, we got a brand new line of Mac netbooks in the form of the 13.3 and 11-inch MacBook Air, and we got some substantial improvements there that hopefully will make their way across the Mac lineup, but all in all the event was what most people predicted and the rumor mill expected: new Mac OS, new iLife, new MacBook Air.

Let’s hit the major points, shall we?

Facetime for the Mac

This is probably the most interesting announcement. Facetime and video calling have taken off now that the iPhone 4 has it and the new iPod Touch has it, and with Facetime for the Mac, you can place video calls to people who are mobile using your desktop or laptop Mac. Apple is even making a beta of the product available today to those people running Mac OS 10.6 “Snow Leopard” or later, and the feature will likely be integrated with 10.7 “Lion.”

Still, video calling has long been a priority for Apple, starting with iChat (which is now likely a dead product, or at least will be renamed and integrated with Facetime) and eventually making its way to mobile devices, where competitors have been scrambling to keep up by either introducing their own video chat apps or by modifying their apps to be more palatable to a modern audience looking for a service and utility like Facetime.

Watch for video calling to really take off from here though – this is the kind of sleeper technology that Apple is excellent at pioneering; they don’t have anything to lose by doing it – they have the tech, they have the code, they have everything to gain by marketing it and making it a highlight feature in their products, and their competitors will want to do the same since they – on the other hand – have something to lose. The future is now.

iLife 11 and GarageBand

Don’t get me wrong, the new iMovie and iPhoto look sweet, and facial recognition in iMovie is an excellent power feature that’s made its way down to the consumer product. The new iPhoto full-screen view and visual photo management tools are really slick as well – I just don’t think these are earth shattering for Apple. The people who use these products will love them, the people who are really wedded to Apple software as a platform will love them, but prosumers, techies, and cross-platform users will likely look for alternatives that still get the job done, or Web services that do the same.

Still, I think iMovie is rising in popularity as an incredibly easy to use and useful movie creation utility, to the point where some people look to a Mac just to make a quick home movie over other platforms. We’ll have to see.

Mac OS 10.8 “Lion”

When Steve Jobs started talking about “what would happen if an iPad and a MacBook hooked up,” I cringed. The iOS look and feel is great for a mobile device, but it’s horrible when you think about a primary computing platform. It’s wonderful for a device you’ll use even frequently with quick access to apps and features, but it’s not the type of interface I want for managing files, folders, utilities, and multiple applications that I want to switch between quickly.

I said as much on Twitter:

Facetime for the Mac = awesome. Lion somehow bridges iOS and Mac OS? This…could actually be horrible. Please don’t be horrible.

Thankfully, my wishes were granted. The new full-screen app display doesn’t totally mimic the iPad or iOS layout, but it does bring back some interesting things to Mac OS that make iOS so useful and well-designed, things like the ability to return directly to what you were doing in an app when you closed it (session or state saving,) full-screen support so you can single-task on the items at hand, and multi-touch gesture support for those folks (like me) with laptops using trackpads. I’m jazzed about all of those things, and it’s coming in Summer of 2011.

Then there’s the “App Store for the Mac.” It’s coming this winter, and it’s supposed to be a both Web-based and utility-based unified application market for MacOS. Okay…cool, a great way to discover and find new apps and read reviews from other people who have used them. A unified payment system for new apps? Sure – that will encourage development. Even so, you can tell I’m hedging my bets here, because Sascha Segan of PC Mag tweeted this gem that bears repeating:

Apple is in love with closed, unified, largely modal experiences … and Lion seems to be bringing that to the Mac.

The last thing I think Mac OS needs is what this could quickly become: an app store with a stringent approval process where Apple pulls the strings and defines what you can purchase through the store and what you can’t, what’s acceptable and what isn’t, and what can be shown to Mac owners in the store and what won’t be (adult titles, publishers Apple doesn’t get along with, etc.)

The slippery slope here is that eventually Apple will make it so that you have to jailbreak your own Mac to install software that you want to install and doesn’t necessarily come from the Mac App Store. If Apple ever gets to the point where you have to have an approval process to build everything from an IM app to a media player and they have final say over whether the app “duplicates existing functionality,” and decides to reject it, or they decide to reject apps arbitrarily based on content (adult or explicit content, for example,) it would be suicide for Apple, and it would guarantee that the more tech-savvy Apple users would defect from the product platform entirely.

Granted, this is all slippery-slope logic. We’re nowhere near that yet, and the Mac App Store could just be a way of highlighting developers and great apps that would otherwise have gone under the radar, and give developers and users a single place to view apps, review apps, publish their apps, update apps, and buy apps. It could be great for that – as long as app developers and Mac owners don’t have to trade their freedom in the process.

New 13.3 and 11-inch MacBook Air

Hey! Apple’s finally getting into the Netbook market! ….at the wrong price point, but that’s okay.

Seriously though, the rumor mill had all but sealed that Apple would announce a new MacBook Air today and refresh the 13.3 inch model, and they did just that. SSD only and instant-on all around, some of the iPad’s best features (things that I’d love in the MacBook Pro, for example,) bright LED backlighting on the screen and an incredibly tiny footprint that makes the MacBook Air even more portable than it already was.

Here’s the scoop from Gearlog:

The larger of the two measures 0.68 inches at its thickest point and 0.11 at its thinnest, weighing in at 2.9 pounds. It features a 13.3 inch LED backlit display, featuring 1440 x 900 pixels–more than you’ll get on the 15 inch MacBook.

There’s a Core 2 Duo processor and NVidia GeForce graphics inside, but no optical or hard drive–instead all of the storage is relegated to flash chips. The 13 inch version should give you up to seven hours of battery life

The smaller Air features an 11.6 inch display, five hours of battery life, and a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor.

The MacBook Airs start at $999 for the 64GB 11 version. There’s also a 128GB version available for $1,199. The 13-inch version comes in 128- and 256GB versions, which will run you $1,299 and $1,599, respectively.

My only disappointment here is with the processor: Core 2 Duo, Apple? Seriously? You guys couldn’t have crammed a Core i3 in there, at least? I would have expected a Core i5, but at least with an i3 I wouldn’t have been disappointed. Even with Sandy Bridge around the corner, Apple’s still got some really old Intel procs in some of their machines – it’s somewhat telling to how many of them they sell.

The price points aren’t bad for what Apple’s trying to sell: an ultra-portable, super fashionable, lightweight laptop with full Mac OS features. Will this make the MacBook Air suddenly one of Apple’s most popular models? No. Will it make more people interested in buying one? Not if they weren’t already interested, or torn between the Air and an iPad.

Still, it’s tiny, it’s swanky, and it looks really sharp. I’ll wait for the hands-on reviews to pass final judgement, but it looks like a solid upgrade.

I covered this story over at AppScout today, but I think not only does it bear repeating, but it just sparks some interesting thinking about the way the Web works and who’s really a customer of whom on the Web these days. It’s surprising how many common URL suffixes are actually owned by foreign powers who may or may not have their customer’s best interests at heart – and certainly may not have the same passion for free and open speech on the Internet as those companies – especially if they’re American or European – may have.

Here’s a lift from my story, for those folks who don’t want to click the link:

For example, co-founders of the vb.ly URL shortening service Ben Metcalfe and Violet Blue both posted warnings today that the vb.ly domain had been seized by the Libyan government for first being in violation of their terms of service agreement, but was later clarified to mean that the content of the vb.ly site, which featured Violet Blue herself holding a green glass bottle while wearing a sleeveless blouse, violated Libyan Sharia law.

Additionally, the Libyan officials that Metcalfe and Blue contacted about the issue responded that .ly domains shorter than four characters were now to be reserved for use by Libyan businesses and organizations.

Worth referencing, as I did in the story, is Brian Metcalfe’s post at his blog and Violet Blue’s post at TechYum about the incident, complete with records and exchanges from Libyan officials about the matter.

The critical thing to note here is that Libya is the owner of every domain that ends in “.ly,” and when you register and purchase a .ly domain you’re not so much getting ownership as you are signing an agreement to use the domain with the cooperation of the Libyan government, and their domain registration authority, NIC.ly. So that means services that are commonly used by lots of people (myself included) like the bit.ly URL shortener, the ow.ly URL shortener, and the ad.ly advertising URL shortener, are all subject to the whims of the Libyan government for their terms of service agreements.

Now, not to paint the Libyans in too bad a light here: the country is a Muslim country and they’re guided by Islamic/Sharia Law – meaning that a free and open internet for all subject matter isn’t exactly one of their core principles, and is pornography and adult content is expressly forbidden by their morality code. When they learned who Violet Blue – co-founder of the vb.ly URL shortener – was and likely did a little research, they jumped to shut the shortener down, regardless of the fact that the vb.ly page is anything but unsafe-for-work (shown above before it came down) and the content of the URLs shortened by the service were likely in part adult material but certainly weren’t exclusively adult material – no more so than ow.ly or bit.ly, I’m sure.

It’s not the adherence to Sharia Law that bothers me here, it’s the fact that the Libyan government has stated that they want all sub-four character .ly domains to be reserved for use by Libyan businesses and local organizations. That in itself doesn’t bother me, but it’s the application of both of these rules that’s the irritant, and that has such huge consequences for the rest of the Web – Libya’s information officials are essentially using Sharia Law as a scapegoat and a convenient excuse to shut down vb.ly, and are immediately reclaiming it in line with this new “locals only” policy. Essentially, two very weak excuses for action that’s far more aggressive than is warranted.

If Libya wants to reserve URLs for internal use, that’s their business – they own the .ly suffix. If they want content that passes through .ly suffixed domains to be compliant with Sharia Law, that’s also their business. The problem is when they strong-arm their want into a battle over values, freedoms, and speech on the Internet by bullying businesses and other parties instead of simply making their case and asking for a change.

If Libya had said they weren’t going to renew the registration to Ben Metcalfe and Violet Blue when it came up because of these two policies and rules, I doubt there would have ever been this controversy. As it stands however, it means that every company that deals with a foriegn power for its domain suffix – especially those using .ly – stand at risk to be shut down immediately and without notice should they enter the crosshairs of that nation’s government officials.

Today is Droid X Day, meaning that while it’s not as big a deal as a new iPhone or anything, the Droid X launches today on Verizon Wireless.

As much as Verizon Wireless has gotten a great deal of publication, love, and overall approval from smartphone lovers and geeks alike for the release of the Droid by Motorola and the subsequent releases of other powerful exclusive Android phones like the Droid Eris and Droid Incredible by HTC, prior to their releases, leaks, and announcements, Verizon Wireless was the carrier that people begrudgingly signed on to because the voice and data networks were robust and covered the majority of the country – business signed on so they could get their employees cheap BlackBerry phones, and if you wanted a smartphone your options were BlackBerry and Windows Mobile, all on horrible horrible devices – the rest of us either had to jump ship for another carrier that had good handsets and smartphones, or we had to deal with feature phones or simple handsets because we couldn’t give up the network.

I’m in that boat – I was ready to jump ship to AT&T at the end of my contract last year just because I wanted a smartphone and Verizon Wireleess’ selection was awful; and then something glorious happened. The Droid by Motorola was released, and to this day I consider it one of the best technology purchases I’ve ever made, and I haven’t considered leaving for AT&T, iPhone or no, since then. The combination of a solid Android phone that’s not loaded up with Verizon Wireless’ standard suite of bloatware that you find on their feature phones and their amazing network, and even though I still think the iPhone is a slightly better device than the Droid, the combination of the Droid and Verizon’s network simply overwhelm the combination of the iPhone and AT&T’s network.

The odd thing is that I don’t know that I’m not the only one here. So how did this happen? Google and Verizon Wireless are closer now than they’ve ever been, and both are dedicated and determined to working together on Android phones. So did Google ride to Verizon Wireless’ rescue and save their image from cementing as the stodgy, old carrier with cheap voice handsets but good call quality, bargain basement smartphones for individual users, and the only way to get any attention from them is to have a BlackBerry and be on a business plan? Here’s a hint: I think so, and let’s dive into why after the jump.

The first step to understanding what the world was like before there was a Droid on the market. There was a time when Verizon Wireless’ strongest smartphones were made by AudioVox, and if you wanted a smartphone your best bet for apps and features was to either get a BlackBerry and put your hopes in the hands of RIM (who, mind you, is still the number one smartphone manufacturer in the United States) or suffer through the experience of owning a Windows Mobile 6 device. Now, with RIM planning yet another major upgrade to the BlackBerry operating system (since the BlackBerry Storm and Storm 2 on Verizon Wireless were less than stellar successes although they’re both semi-solid devices) and Microsoft planning to get Windows Phone 7 onto the market at the end of the year, Verizon Wireless is poised to have a number of amazing devices on its network.

Still, back before the days of the Droid, people looking for smartphones had the choice of either springing for Blackberry or Windows Mobile, deciding to settle for a higher-end feature phone that would also play music like the LG Chocolate 2 or LG Envy. The only time Verizon Wireless was mentioned in the same breath as high-end, feature-rich smartphones was when people wished, hoped, and prayed for a CDMA-compatible iPhone to make its way to Verizon Wireless’ network (something that still persists to this day.)

Verizon Wireless was the carrier that everyone loved because of its network, not its technology, and technology writers and mobile phone fans alike hated on Verizon Wireless regularly for loading its devices up with bloatware, charging extra for services that are available on the Web for free like VZCast, and putting exorbitant prices on their music downloads — none of which I think has changed, honestly, but with the introduction of stronger handsets and a more hands-off approach, Verizon has managed to take the heat off of their higher-end users and the only folks who feel that burn anymore are VZW’s feature phone owners – primarily aimed at teens and pre-teens who either know better and will be upgrading soon or don’t know better and run up their parents’ phone bills.

The introduction of the iPhone and its exclusivity to AT&T changed everything though – we started to hear rumors that Verizon actually turned Apple away because they didn’t want to make the necessary changes to their network to support the iPhone and that AT&T was willing. Other, smaller carriers like Sprint and T-Mobile were agile enough to start releasing Android phones and Windows Mobile phones that could compete with the iPhone to some degree, even though none of them were remarkably successful in any way until the T-Mobile G1 running Android 1.6 was released. Verizon Wireless was stuck in the proverbial smartphone dark ages, unless you wanted a BlackBerry or you were in an enterprise that relied on BlackBerry devices. But even then, it was clear: the iPhone, the G1, and the Palm Pre’s respective successes, even as metered as they were, proved that we all wanted better phones.

Then we heard that the veneer of Verizon’s extremely lengthy and slow technology approval process was cracking, and Verizon Wireless was committing themselves to bringing new technology to their store shelves faster. Then we heard about a new touch-screen BlackBerry phone that would take on the iPhone: the BlackBerry Storm. Before it was released, people were calling it an “iPhone Killer,” and even after it was launched, the BlackBerry faithful called it as much, and defended its many flaws, claiming it could do everything an iPhone did and then some – the problem was that even though there were serious hardware flaws that you could overlook in a best case scanario, Apple had a leg up on what was most important with most smartphone users: apps and the ability to customize, tweak, and download tools to help you really make your phone your own and do with it what you chose. Between the lack of apps (still a problem with BlackBerry phones) and the hardware issues the Storm suffered from, it never got traction. Sadly, the Storm 2 – more recently released, suffered largely the same fate, but this time not because of hardware (the Storm 2 is actually a very strong handset) but because RIM simply hasn’t brought the apps to the table.

So here we were in 2008 and 2009, with one half-hearted attempt at taking on the iPhone and bringing a strong smartphone to Verizon Wireless. If you wanted a decent smartphone on Verizon Wireless, the Storm was your best bet, and it wasn’t a great bet at all if you wanted the same kind of experience you could get on a G1 over at T-Mobile, an HTC Hero over on Spring, or an iPhone on AT&T. Then Palm released the Palm Pre: a new phone with a new operating system from a company known for porting its devices to as many carriers as would take them. The Pre started on Sprint, but it wasn’t too long before everyone knew it was coming to Verizon Wireless.

Before that could happen though, Motorola and Google rode in to Verizon Wireless’ rescue with the announcement of the Droid by Motorola (and very quickly after, HTC rode in with the Droid Eris) and completely stole Palm’s thunder. Motorola hit the market first with the Droid, HTC hit the week afterward, and Palm’s release a month or so later fell flat. While sad for Palm (and eventually ended up with its $1.2 billion acquisition by HP) the waves that the launch of the Droid family of Android phones on Verizon Wireless was a huge deal for the carrier, and breathed a lot of new life into the smartphone section of its stores — life that it’s still feeling.

Considering Verizon Wireless’ history of lackluster smartphones and locked-down devices that never empowered its customers and users, and the almost 180-degree turn brought about by the release of the Android-powered Droid series of devices, you could very well say that Google’s Android and manufacturing partners like HTC and Motorola very well saved Verizon Wireless’ image, at the very least in the eyes of smartphone users, power users, the technocrati, and people looking for phones that did a bit more than just make calls.

Still, all of those people combined don’t make up the majority of the cell phone market, so while I don’t think it’s legitimate to say that Google or even the Google/Motorola/HTC triad actually out-and-out “saved” Verizon Wireless, it’s more than legitimate to say they certainly saved Verizon Wireless’s perception and image as a leading-edge and highly technological wireless carrier.

I had all but written off Gawker/Gizmodo’s exclusive This is Apple’s Next iPhone as an item that everyone and their mother has covered at least once – and while I admit that I was as intrigued as anyone else at the story and found it incredible and unbelievable as anyone else, I have to say that it probably is the biggest scoop pulled on Apple to date, and the biggest gaping hole in their veil of secrecy anyone’s ever found.

The poor guy who was field testing the next iPhone is likely out of work at the very least (although I hope Apple realizes he just made a mistake) and probably would like to find another job quickly at the very best (I wouldn’t want that rep to live down at work every day). Still, it was a pretty rookie mistake, but it’s not one that hasn’t been made by people at all levels of an organization in any company in the past.

This is why I was particularly interested when Anil Dash, a man for whom I have nothing but the utmost respect as a member of the technocrati, said this at Twitter earlier this week:

A simple case of human error shouldn’t be a big story. A company that treats such things as a firing offense is what’s worthy of criticism.

Now on the surface, I completely agree with Anil – he’s absolutely right. Every time someone in a company makes a mistake, it shouldn’t be some of the biggest news on the Net for the next several days, or if it keeps up like this, weeks. Additionally, I’d hate to be in his shoes, and hate to risk being fired or laid off because of a simple mistake – having a few too many beers at a bar and forgetting to pick up my phone.

Still, something about the statement nags at me a bit, and I wonder if Anil is being a little harsh because it’s clear we’re talking about Apple and the next iPhone here. Would he be as forgiving if, for example, a Microsoft engineer lost the next Zune HD prototype in a cab somewhere, and someone was smart enough to know what it was and sold it to Gawker for $5000? (the amount that Gawker paid – omitted from most of the articles about it – to get their hands on the prototype iPhone from their anonymous source)

Honestly, a Zune HD prototype found in the wild likely wouldn’t stir up quite so much media attention, but is that fact a good or bad thing? The reason why everyone’s busy covering this story – including mainstream media outlets like CNN – is because the iPhone is ridiculously popular in America and Apple has a long-held reputation for secrecy. Microsoft, for example, doesn’t have the popular product and doesn’t have the cone of silence over its labs. But when a 64GB version of the Zune HD was leaked on a couple of Web sites a few weeks back, tech blogs still covered it. Is that a bad thing, according to Anil?

What about a corporate employee or CEO who leaves a laptop on a plane or in a cab; a laptop that contains proprietary information about the company, or Personally Identifiable Information (PII) about their customers? Sure – it’s orders of magnitude of difference, but we’ve seen heavier media scrutiny when a government contractor leaves a hard drive in a cab than this kid leaving a prototype iPhone in a bar, and we summarily expect that contractor or CEO to be fired for their negligence.

Sure, sure – a laptop with personally identifiable data on it doesn’t just harm the company, it harms its customers and the people whose information has been compromised; the impact is much wider than a simple prototype cell phone, so the consequences have to be broader to match the transgression – but they’re both still simple cases of human error. If the government contractor or the bank that lost the personal data fires the employee who lost it, are they equally “worthy of scrutiny?”

I’m in the camp where I would sincerely hope that Apple doesn’t cut this poor kid loose – he’s obviously got talent and a history of trustworthiness or else he wouldn’t have gotten the prototype in the first place. Even so, I can’t deny that when a hard drive full of credit card numbers or social security numbers goes missing, we as the public expect someone to be held accountable – we’re not in quite the forgiving mood that Anil is in. It’s possible it’s just because one affects us directly and the other only affects people interested and even then in a tangential way.

Still – I have to wonder if Anil’s perspective is colored a bit. By what, I’m not certain. If he read this, he would probably take me to task for using the slippery slope argument too much, and acknowledge that 140 characters isn’t a lot of space to get into nuance, and I agree on both counts. Like I said at the beginning, I completely agree with him, I just wonder if we should be so forgiving in this case, or – more preferably – maybe we should be more forgiving in all such cases.

Last week’s launch of the Apple iPad was probably a bigger splash than I expected in any possible way. I mean, I expected the product to be successful – any Apple product generally is, and the first Apple product to pave the way into an entirely new market will do well because it’s the first; but as of today Apple’s passed the 500,000 mark when it comes to iPads sold, and they’ve only been available for over a week. If trends go strong, Apple could very well rack up over a million iPads sold in its first month.

A lot of people like the iPad, a lot of people hate it, and there are both valid and completely invalid reasons on both sides of that line (I’ve written about as much about irrational Apple hate lately as I have about irrational Apple love) but the one thing that’s caught my eye is the visible explosion of the app market with the launch of the iPad. Selling apps is nothing new – the App store is populated with free and paid apps available for your iPhone, Android phone, Blackberry, and more, and for as much as I disagree with the people who claim the iPad is just a glorified iPod Touch, they’ve been available for iPod Touch users as well.

What’s different though is that with the launch of the iPad, all of the apps launched have made use of the iPad as a platform – somewhere between buying software for a shiny new computer (as well as downloading freeware) and apps for a mobile phone. Clearly Apple’s model is closer to apps for a mobile phone than software for a computer, but with the announcement of iPhone OS 4.0, Apple’s portable devices and tablets are looking more and more like computers every day.

The point though is this: the app market has exploded and people are willing to do two things:

1. Buy apps by the bushel (but decline to pay for PC software)
2. Buy apps but demand Web content remain free (within reason)

Let’s dive into both of these below the jump.

First, let’s take a look at how willing people are to just buy apps, no matter what purpose they serve; whether they compliment free services or replace them, whether they’re worthwhile or not:

Buy apps by the bushel (but decline to pay for PC software)

The app market is doing really well, and part of the model is that people are more willing to pay for apps that they can take around with them on a mobile device than they are to buy software for a PC or laptop (unless they really need it or feel like they want it.) Part of it is portability, and part of it is affordability, since the ability to take a well made app with you on the go on your smartphone has value in and of itself, and most apps are relatively well priced and most popularly downloaded apps are around the $5 US mark or below.

The interesting phenomenon here is that the market for apps on mobile devices is pretty big, and even with the launch of the iPad the App Store saw thousands of downloads within the first weekend the iPad was on the market. The model has some issues; for example the iPad is a separate device from the iPod Touch or iPhone, so if you have a license for an app on one you can’t use it for the other – you’ll have to either download it again or download the version specifically for that device. Regardless, it’s amazing how willing people are to drop anywhere from $0.99 to $10 for an app to go on their iPad or their iPhone, but even a shareware license for a utility on their desktop or laptop for about $7 is too much.

I understand that part of this has to do with intrinsic value – if you believe the Scrabble app for the iPad has more value to you than your favorite FTP app for your PC, then that’s an easy choice. It’s still remarkable though that people are willing to shovel money at apps that don’t appear to have intrinsic value – like the iPhone fart app, for example. People are willing to pay for that, but some have difficulty paying for mp3 downloads from iTunes or Amazon.

This is an important fact, and while I can’t entirely explain it, it leads into the second point.

Buy apps but demand Web content remain free (within reason)

This part of the equation came from a not that Gary Vaynerchuk posted on Twitter; we’ve already made it clear that people are willing to drop money on apps more than they are on traditional software, but people are not only willing to spend money on apps that optimize and bring in Web content to their mobile device or their iPad but they don’t want to pay for that content.

For example, the New York Times has an iPad app that’s remarkably successful. People are willing to download and pay for it and get their news through it for a price. At the same time, the notion of moving to a more Wall Street Journal model where even the Web site requires a paid subscription is an idea that most people, even those who are willing to pay for the app, resist fiercely. The moral of the story is that most people still resist the idea that Web content should be anything but free, but when it comes to optimizing it and streaming it to my portable device or my specialized device, most people are willing to either pay for the optimization or the special features that come with something like an app for their device.

This is important as well – people have a sense of ownership when they pay for an app; they feel like they’re actually getting something tangible, something they feel that they really really own. That sense of tangible ownership is all the difference. When you feel like you’ve purchased something that’s designed to help you customize and personalize the content you absorb, that’s a good feeling. When you feel like you’re paying for a key to a wall that you really don’t think you should have to deal with because there’s nothing special about it (just another news site, for example) then people shy away and are more eager to investigate other options.

This is the reason why the New York Times is having trouble with the idea of making its main news site subscription-based, but has no qualms–or problems–making it’s iPad app and iPhone app subscription-based.

This leads us to the final point:

Can the iPad Save Content Production on the Web?

The short answer is “possibly, with enough help.” The trick is that the iPad itself won’t save content producers from themsevles; neither will Android mobile phones, or the iPhone, or any other smartphone. Neither will subscription models that drive customers away instead of bringing them into the content that a producer creates. What will save content producers is the ability to quickly and creatively provide paid content optimization and added features, not paid content itself.

People will be willing to pay $0.99 for your iPhone app if you give them a way to easily search, save, and watch all of the videos you’ve posted to your site, or if you give them a feature unavailable on your Web site, like tabs for categories of article, the ability to connect with other members of your site community directly, or something similar. The point is that buyers and people interested in your content need to feel as though your apps really offer something unique and special over the Web or mobile Web experience. In order for someone to spend money, they’ll need to feel like your app doesn’t just optimize your content for their device, but they’ll want to feel as though you’ve done something to improve their experience.

If more content producers could do that in more than just one way (I’ll bet different audiences would like different apps, as long as you don’t flood them with options and clones) or even offer the gateway to their content for free and then premium content for additional fees, the revenue from people looking to take their content and communities on the go with them could very well help pay for the operations required to investigate, produce, and build that content. Will it get the publishing industry and video or music providers back to where they were in their single-stream, owner-to-consumer heyday? Likely not, but it may be able to provide enough revenue to make some of those operations worthwhile, and get us back to things like investigative journalism and dedicated reporting.

It’s a hard road, and an uphill battle, but the sheer popularity of the iTunes App Store proves that it’s possible. There may be a light – however dim – at the end of the tunnel for content producers, and they can simultaneously give their consumers and customers what they want without being forced to restrict access to information in order to make money.