Today we’re reading about Kevin Rose’s (of Digg fame) tips to save time dealing with email. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill stuff (“Type “Sent from iPhone” under your short responses. People don’t expect long responses when you’re on your phone. Don’t forget to mispell a few words”).
Also, in what will probably pick up steam, British author Ray Connolly has announced that his next book will no longer be sold via a publishing house, but as an ebook, via Amazon (“Amazon now sells almost twice as many digital books as hardbacks in the US, it’s clear that publishing is changing. And if publishers can sell their books online, why can’t writers?”). Better-known Seth Godin, the (radical) marketer, writer and blogger announced much the same thing, making this powerful argument (“publishers… help authors reach unknown readers, using a stable technology (books) and an antique and expensive distribution system. The thing is–now I know who my readers are. Adding layers of faux scarcity doesn’t help me or you.”)
Finally, Slate’s Farhad Manjoo takes a good look at the new call-any-phone-for-free feature in Gmail, and imagines where this is taking us (“We can even begin to imagine the end of phone numbers. The phone service of the future might allow you to call a friend’s Facebook profile or his e-mail address rather than an arbitrary string of digits; he’ll see your Facebook profile on his Caller ID”).
In non-tech, we read – finally – an article in the ‘Western’ media about why the success or failure of the Afghan war depends on Pakistan’s obsession with India, (“the main point is that no deal can be made without Pakistan’s involvement—and no stable, peaceful deal can be made without some sort of détente between Pakistan and India”).
Also, Saubhik Chakrabarti laments how in the race-to-the-bottom world of English news channels, there is no longer any room for anything other than highly polarized positions on any issue (“… is Niyamgiri about corporates who violate laws for big profits or does it demonstrate the environment ministry is anti-progress? Hold on! Can’t it be neither, can’t it be about, say, regulation and project implementation? Nope. No middle ground, you see”)
Finally, Rediff.com has a slide show on Vladimir Putin’s he-man heroics. No kidding.