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Thursday, July 28, 2011

The Risks Of Using Google (Or Any Single Service Provider) For Everything (GOOG)

Black Hole

New York artist Dylan Marcheschi uses Google services for just about everything -- e-mail, blogging, photos, calendar entries, and even reading news stories.

So when Google mysteriously terminated his account on July 15, he was put in a tough spot.

As Infoworld reports, it turns out that a robot detected an image that it thought was child pornography on his Picasa Web account, so it terminated his account.

But Marcheschi wasn't able to reach a real human until he wrote a long nastygram on TwitLonger and promoted it through his Twitter account, @ThomasHollywood.

Once he actually talked to a real Google employee, the company turned his account back on -- minus the supposedly offensive image.

All's well that ends well, right?

Except the story shows how risky it is trusting your online life with one provider.

It's one thing if Facebook suspends your account -- at least you'll still be able to send email and use your mobile phone.

But Google is almost unique because it offers so many services under the umbrella of a single account. If you use Android and your account is suspended, you can lose all the contacts and stored data on your phone as well.

With the addition of Google+, rules for profiles have gotten more confusing -- the company has suspended some celebrity profiles that it thought were fake, and has also cut some business profiles from the service.

The one bright spot in all this is that Google has a service called Takeout that makes it easy for you to take your data out of its services and create a backup -- or switch to another provider completely. That's more than Microsoft, Yahoo, and other big providers offer.

The lesson: use it before you need it. Or better yet, spread your online life among multiple providers.

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The Risks Of Using Google (Or Any Single Service Provider) For Everything (GOOG)

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Friday, July 15, 2011

Here's Everything We Know About Amazon's Secret Tablet So Far (AMZN)

superman bezos

Jeff Bezos and company are doing a good job keeping the details on Amazon's new tablet, expected later this year, under the tightest of wraps.

Very, very little is out there about it right now, but we've gathered what we can for you here.

Bezos even plays games with the press when they ask him about it.

"Stay tuned," he says.

It's all but confirmed that it will run on the Android operating system.

There will be two tablets available -- a smaller one called Coyote and a larger one called Hollywood.

The smaller one will likely replace the Kindle and the larger one will compete with the iPad 2.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Here's Everything We Know About Amazon's Secret Tablet So Far (AMZN)

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Thursday, July 14, 2011

Hands On With Spotify: Here's Everything You Need To Know

spotify drummer

At last! Spotify has officially landed in the U.S.

Spotify is a European startup that offers streaming music from a library of 15 million songs.

The basic service is free, but paid users get unlimited, ad-free streaming and access to mobile apps for iPhone and Android.

The mobile apps also allow you to download songs to your phone so you can listen offline.

So what does the U.S. launch mean for you? It means you can finally take advantage of the hottest and most-hyped online services around.

If you have an invite, that is.

To request one head over to Spotify's home page. In the meantime, we'll whet your appetite with our full tour of the music service.

We've been using Spotify for a few months now, and still think it's one of -- if not THE -- best streaming music service around.

Click below to see what all the fuss is about.

When you download the desktop app, you have to log in with your Spotify account

Make sure you agree to the Terms of Service before you continue

You can listen to music stored on your computer or search Spotify's library of streaming music

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Hands On With Spotify: Here's Everything You Need To Know

Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/eZ3v_e8i9OI/spotify-2011-7

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Amazon Will Do Everything It Takes To Kill California's New Sales Tax Law (AMZN)

jeff bezos

Amazon is backing a referendum to overturn California's sales tax law, the New York Times reports.

Here's what's going on: states -- deep in the hole these days -- want e-tailers, and in particular Amazon, to collect sales tax on their affiliates. Amazon and others say, correctly, that they don't have to if they don't have a presence in the state. This debate has been going on for a while but has new urgency given the budgetary troubles of most states.

Affiliate marketing is one of the big ways Amazon generates incremental sales, so it's a big deal for them.

Recently California demanded the sales tax from Amazon. In response, Amazon shut off its affiliates. California then said, in essence, too bad, you still owe us all the sales tax from before you shut them off. And then Amazon gave them the one-finger salute.

So here we are.

Now Amazon is fighting back with the tools it has, a referendum to change the law in California.

A couple things are worth noting here.

Amazon is in the right here. The law and constitutional jurisprudence say it doesn't have to collect sales tax in states where it doesn't have nexus.

Amazon supports a federal-level solution which is backed by 40 states called the Streamlined Sales Tax Initiative.

Efforts to make Amazon pay tax are backed by huge bricks-and-mortar competitors like Wal-Mart, so it's not like the big bad corporations are all on one side.