Open Source: From Software to "Underware"

Before you know it we'll all be wearing our 'Underware' in public. I know I will!

A little further down the Tail of Open Source Software, the fruits of its hard labor begin to flourish. By playing its part in successfully shaping an Economics of Affordability (...or Affability perhaps), more and more things are available at less and less of a cost, and at no cost. It seems counterintuitive to your mainstream economist but it works for making money, and it is the future.

The open source model is no longer a term reserved only for software. It extends to services and, to a rapidly growing extent, hard goods. Radiohead and others are proving it with music: http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/19870/ And if it can work there, where can you really draw the line on where it cannot?

Free Nikes ("chip sneakers") that track all user data: can output a customized fit based on wear and stress data, available for $100. if you decide you like the model. That silver Tailwind model with the dark blue swish from the 80's? Yours: custom-designed Throwback Edition with optimized footbed and GPS/wifi for $200.

...but that first test model, the white ones with the red swoosh: "You're wearing 'underware' dude! Anyone who does that deserves it for free."

Underware: as in software, hardware, underwear, whateverware - underwritten by the label: as in "My underwear is underware!"

Then, even a bit further down the tail, it crosses over: and the techs and dotcoms will start wearing underware themselves as companies release versions of software programs all of their own customized for their user's experience before, during and after the sale...

I'm waiting for my free Barnes & Noble version of Word with book (and e-) publishing and purchasing options (software dictionary, anyone?) built into the interface. Believe me, it won't take much to write a program with a user interface that blows away Word for ease of use, and I'm still amazed Apple hasn't released a competing WP product, and wonder what kind of behind-the-scenes agreement took place there... We don't have to reinvent the wheel here, but I think we could do to reinvent the "Word".

And you thought those stadium names sounded funny...

I Have Seen The Future of Web Advertising, And It's Good Video

Great to see changes taking place every day and more on the way in the world of web advertising and web use! The success of the $200. laptop heralds the cusp of a long-awaited point in internet history called "critical mass". Before you can blink your LCD pixels we'll all be sporting ultra-thin wi-fi displays used either in tandem with a computer unit or with chips built-in for plug-and-play techno-transitional ease for aging boomers who can at least click a remote.

I use a video content source called Voxant, and besides the fact that its search feature blows, I like it better than AdSense-YouTube because I can choose exactly what content to embed - and it's an ad revenue-based model as well. I'm not seeming to have this flexibility within YouTube because Google is not treating the content in the same way. I can embed specific videos direct-to-blog from YouTube but these selections are not earning me any affiliate revenue I believe - which can only be done through the streaming "players" I set up where content control is quite limited to the point of questionable usefulness. Please correct me here if I am mistaken on the revenue options.

Going from Adsense to Youtube and carrying over the affiliate connect into its "Share" feature sounds to me like *at least* another couple hundred a "share" stock increase implementation! Really, it's huge. This solves the whole puzzle practically: "Who's gonna want to watch a bunch of someone else's crappy videos?" Friends, relatives. Simple math: the world is made up of billions of groups of 10. And the means to appeal to each of them individually is now available. The funnel has been flipped.

"Load up the grandkids and watch grandma start clicking on those Xbox ads, Jed!"

If the user agreement is now allowing streamed vids to attach ads, this should be workable, as would be any micropayment compensation system for the vid creators. Google provides the distribution network; advertisers provide the revenue for Google and the affiliates; advertisers get their messages back in front of the eyes of their beloved demographic that is nowadays sprinkling shrimp brine into the top of their old Magnavoxes. End result: the producers meet the consumers - except they're advertising in your home video these days, not on some obsolete formulaic adfotainment network. So what if ten people saw your grandkid sled into a snowman! That's ten people seeing an ad for Kidswear, multiplied by 10 million families communicating through original video streamed over the net. Advertisers are buying millions of views, in millions of non-overlapping circles instead of one big circle with one message beaming from essentially one tower.