Posts tagged Garden
Apple’s Walled Garden Is Still Censorship With A Human Face
Apr 10th
Every geek worth his or her salt knows that Wednesday is new comic day, a happy day for exploring their local comics store and getting their pick lists filled with glorious four-color adventures. For some, this means purchasing electronic copies of their favorite books online, to be read on their computer, tablet or even smartphones.
But today’s experience will be marred for fans of Brian K. Vaughan’s Saga: the creator of the series from Image Comics has released a statement indicating that Apple would be banning sales of Saga #12 in the popular ComiXology app and any other third-party comic app due to depicted sexual scenes.
“Unfortunately, because of two postage stamp-sized images of gay sex, Apple is banning tomorrow’s SAGA #12 from being sold through any iOS apps,” Vaughan said in a statement posted at Image.
If you’re not familiar with Vaughan’s work, either on Saga or the award-winning series Y: The Last Man, then you would know that when Vaughan writes a series meant for mature readers, then it’s definitely going to be mature. Already in Saga, for instance, there have been scenes and depictions that I would definitely not want my younger kids reading.
That’s what makes this decision by Apple to prevent the sale of Saga #12 all the more odd. If they were being consistent, then they would have blocked the sale of Saga altogether. The only thing different about this particular issue’s scene? It is explicitly depicting sex between multiple male partners.
This is not the only thing that’s odd with Apple’s decision: while the company has not been shy about banning apps in their App Store that have content or activities that could be construed as violent or sexual in nature, this may be the first time they have curated independent content sold through an app (and, by extension, Apple, since they take a cut from everything bought in iOS). But, according to the App Store Review Guidelines, independent content, such as books or music, is not supposed to be curated.
“We view Apps different than books or songs, which we do not curate. If you want to criticize a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or a song, or create a medical App. It can get complicated, but we have decided to not allow certain kinds of content in the App Store.”
This hasn’t stopped Apple from blocking the sale of Saga #12 within ComiXology, even though this issue falls squarely under the definition of a book.
It gets even weirder: according to Vaughan, you can buy the very same issue directly from Apple itself.
“If all else fails, you might be able to find SAGA #12 in Apple’s iBookstore, which apparently sometimes allows more adult material to be sold than through its apps. Crazy, right?,” Vaughan wrote.
At the end of the day, from a practical point of view, Apple’s decision does nothing to actually prevent readers from reading this issue on their iOS device. You can still purchase the issue on ComiXology’s website and have it synchronize to your iPad or iPhone. This is what I do every week anyway, because it’s faster to make one big purchase on the site rather than tap “Purchase” and “Buy” 15 or 20 times.
Or, as Vaughan said, you can just get the comic right inside the iBook app. Which I would not recommend, because this is usually a sub-optimal user experience (code for: “sucks”). And then there’s the hard copy available at you local comic retailer.
Or (and here’s a wild thought) don’t buy the issue. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples’ use of graphic imagery is not what this book is about, but rather elements of a larger story. Still, it is certainly the right of any consumer to choose to not purchase something if they find it offensive. Or return it and ask for a refund.
What Apple has done here, however, is taken that choice away from the consumer. They are not letting them discover new content and deciding for themselves if it’s good or bad. They are not letting consumers choose to impose Restrictions on apps that might display content that some would find objectionable for their children.
I have my own thoughts on Vaughan’s use of language and imagery in his works. I am personally uncomfortable with any explicit depictions of sex and violence but I also recognize that sometimes as a reader I’m supposed to have my perceptions and opinions challenged. That’s true for written works, music or art. If I consume literature that only makes me comfortable, what do I learn? How am I challenged?
But if I consume literature that only someone else finds comfortable, that’s even worse.
Apple’s values are not always mine or yours, and it’s past time to start noticing the walls of the garden in which Apple holds iOS users.
Image courtesy of Image Comics.
View full post on ReadWrite
Apple’s Walled Garden Is Still Pleasant Censorship
Apr 10th
Every geek worth his or her salt knows that Wednesday is new comic day, a happy day for exploring their local comics store and getting their pick lists filled with glorious four-color adventures. For some, this means purchasing electronic copies of their favorite books online, to be read on their computer, tablet or even smartphones.
But today’s experience will be marred for fans of Brian K. Vaughan’s Saga: the creator of the series from Image Comics has released a statement indicating that Apple would be banning sales of Saga #12 in the popular ComiXology app and any other third-party comic app due to depicted sexual scenes.
“Unfortunately, because of two postage stamp-sized images of gay sex, Apple is banning tomorrow’s SAGA #12 from being sold through any iOS apps,” Vaughan said in a statement posted at Image.
If you’re not familiar with Vaughan’s work, either on Saga or the award-winning series Y: The Last Man, then you would know that when Vaughan writes a series meant for mature readers, then it’s definitely going to be mature. Already in Saga, for instance, there have been scenes and depictions that I would definitely not want my younger kids reading.
That’s what makes this decision by Apple to prevent the sale of Saga #12 all the more odd. If they were being consistent, then they would have blocked the sale of Saga altogether. The only thing different about this particular issue’s scene? It is explicitly depicting sex between multiple male partners.
This is not the only thing that’s odd with Apple’s decision: while the company has not been shy about banning apps in their App Store that have content or activities that could be construed as violent or sexual in nature, this may be the first time they have curated independent content sold through an app (and, by extension, Apple, since they take a cut from everything bought in iOS). But, according to the App Store Review Guidelines, independent content, such as books or music, is not supposed to be curated.
“We view Apps different than books or songs, which we do not curate. If you want to criticize a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or a song, or create a medical App. It can get complicated, but we have decided to not allow certain kinds of content in the App Store.”
This hasn’t stopped Apple from blocking the sale of Saga #12 within ComiXology, even though this issue falls squarely under the definition of a book.
It gets even weirder: according to Vaughan, you can buy the very same issue directly from Apple itself.
“If all else fails, you might be able to find SAGA #12 in Apple’s iBookstore, which apparently sometimes allows more adult material to be sold than through its apps. Crazy, right?,” Vaughan wrote.
At the end of the day, from a practical point of view, Apple’s decision does nothing to actually prevent readers from reading this issue on their iOS device. You can still purchase the issue on ComiXology’s website and have it synchronize to your iPad or iPhone. This is what I do every week anyway, because it’s faster to make one big purchase on the site rather than tap “Purchase” and “Buy” 15 or 20 times.
Or, as Vaughan said, you can just get the comic right inside the iBook app. Which I would not recommend, because this is usually a sub-optimal user experience (code for: “sucks”). And then there’s the hard copy available at you local comic retailer.
Or (and here’s a wild thought) don’t buy the issue. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples’ use of graphic imagery is not what this book is about, but rather elements of a larger story. Still, it is certainly the right of any consumer to choose to not purchase something if they find it offensive. Or return it and ask for a refund.
What Apple has done here, however, is taken that choice away from the consumer. They are not letting them discover new content and deciding for themselves if it’s good or bad. They are not letting consumers choose to impose Restrictions on apps that might display content that some would find objectionable for their children.
I have my own thoughts on Vaughan’s use of language and imagery in his works. I am personally uncomfortable with any explicit depictions of sex and violence but I also recognize that sometimes as a reader I’m supposed to have my perceptions and opinions challenged. That’s true for written works, music or art. If I consume literature that only makes me comfortable, what do I learn? How am I challenged?
But if I consume literature that only someone else finds comfortable, that’s even worse.
Apple’s values are not always mine or yours, and it’s past time to start noticing the walls of the garden in which Apple holds iOS users.
Image courtesy of Image Comics.
View full post on ReadWrite
Google Search Results Show Some Facebook User Posts Leaking Out Of Walled Garden
Aug 22nd
Facebook has earned its reputation as an AOL-like walled garden by keeping most of the content generated within Facebook hidden from those who haven’t logged in. Not only does a login screen stop general Internet users from viewing Facebook content without logging in, it also impedes search…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
How Green Does Your AdWords Garden Grow?
Jun 13th
Once your account reveals the existence of a high-volume keyword, it’s time to become a keyword ecologist, exploring the habits, habitat, potential, and life cycle of the keyword. These insights can enrich your account and nurture leads and sales.
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
SEO Positive Partner with Leading Garden Product Firm – PR Web (press release)
May 9th
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SEO Positive Partner with Leading Garden Product Firm
PR Web (press release) The online marketing experts at SEO Positive are pleased to announce the acquisition of a new contract with the UK's leading garden furniture and water feature supplier, Westbury Products. Westbury Products specialise in providing a wide range of … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
St Peter’s C of E School in Harborne opens prayer garden in memory of pupil … – Birmingham Mail
Apr 2nd
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St Peter's C of E School in Harborne opens prayer garden in memory of pupil …
Birmingham Mail Seo Jin Kim, aged seven, came to Birmingham from South Korea and had only been in the country for a couple of months when she died in a swimming pool in Wales. A prayer garden was unveiled at St Peter's Church of England Junior School in Harborne … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
Bites Nearby: Seo in Garden Katsuno – Patch.com
Sep 6th
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Bites Nearby: Seo in Garden Katsuno
Patch.com Chef Katsyuki Seo and his wife already operate the world-renowned Seo Restaurant on Manhattan's 49 th Street. Manhattan comes to Forest Hills these days, not the other way around. High on the appetizer list is Hijiki Seaweed ($5), which grows naturally … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
Knocking Down Apple’s Walled Garden: HTML5 vs. iOS Apps
Aug 10th
Today Amazon launched an HTML5 browser version of its market leading eReader application, Kindle. Called Kindle Cloud Reader, it’s a direct response to the 30% cut of sales that Apple’s App Store now takes from in-app purchases and subscriptions made from within iOS apps. The 30% Apple toll hits businesses like Amazon hard, because the margins on book sales are slim enough as it is.
The HTML5 Kindle site appears to be optimized for the iPad. It’s accessed from the Safari browser in the iPad, so it routes around Apple’s App Store. That means Amazon doesn’t need to give Apple 30% of an eBook sale. Because the HTML5 site is very close to functionality of the iPad Kindle app, this is going to have huge ramifications for Apple. Yes, Apple’s walled garden has just been structurally weakened. I’d go as far as to say that it’s a matter of months, not years, before Amazon pulls its iOS Kindle app from the App Store.
Sponsor
In order to understand why Apple’s walled garden is probably going to go the way of AOL’s walled garden in the dot com era, we first need to acknowledge the sophistication and promise of HTML5.
HTML5 is an increasingly popular way to deliver interactive experiences in browsers across devices: PCs, smartphones, tablets and more. We named HTML5 one of our leading trends of the first half of 2011, because of the impact it is having on the App ecosystem.
Apple’s iOS (for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) has the most apps. But Android is fast catching up – indeed, Amazon itself runs an Android app store. Apple’s App Store is a classic walled garden. It controls what apps are approved, just as AOL used to control what content its users could access on the Internet.
Earlier this year Apple took what it probably thought of as the next logical commercial step in its walled garden strategy: take a healthy slice of the action of in-app purchases and subscriptions. After it, Apple likely reasoned, companies are using the iOS platform to make a lot of money – why not take a commission from that?
Apple’s 30% toll may turn out to be a huge mistake, because it looks like it underestimated just how good HTML5 sites can be.
How Good is Kindle Cloud Reader?
After taking the Kindle Cloud Reader for a spin, it’s very close to the functionality of the iPad app version. The main issue with Kindle Cloud Reader is that you cannot make new notes and highlights from the site – which is going to affect many readers (myself included, I tend to highlight a lot within eBooks). Jacqui Cheng from Ars Technica did a thorough review and noted some other pros and cons, but they are mostly minor things.
A side-by-side comparison; Kindle iPad app is on the left, Kindle Cloud Reader on the right.
The bottom line is that while the Kindle Cloud Reader isn’t quite as good as the iPad Kindle app yet, it soon will be. The addition of notes and highlights can’t be that difficult. When it does become on a par with the iPad app, I’m willing to bet that Amazon will pull it from the App Store.
Some of you may protest that Amazon wants to keep as many options open as possible, because ultimately it just wants people to use Kindle and buy books. But for many users – and I include myself in this – it doesn’t matter what form the Kindle takes on the iPad. As long as it works at least as well as the iPad app version. If Amazon suddenly added the ability for me to create new notes and highlights from the HTML5 version, then pulled the iPad app from the App Store, I’d simply switch to the HTML5 version without blinking.
Most Kindle users on the iPad would do the same. They won’t care about the iPad app disappearing, so long as they have just as good a user experience on the HTML5 version. Judging by the high quality of Kindle Cloud Reader, which certainly surprised me, that day isn’t far away.
Should Apple be concerned about that? You bet. It’s a going to end up being a very large hole in its wall, caused by companies wielding HTML5 sledgehammers. Amazon has struck one of the first blows. Other media companies are actively experimenting too, such as Financial Times and Fortune magazine.
Let us know in the comments if you think Kindle Cloud Reader will soon replace the iOS Kindle app, or do you think the two will continue to exist together?
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Instructure Aims to Knock Down the Learning Management System Walled Garden
Apr 14th
When I first heard of the new learning management system Instructure, I confess, I was unimpressed. Even though I try to be supremely supportive of education technology startups – particularly those taking on giants in the industry – I just couldn’t get excited about yet another LMS.
To be sure, there are a lot of problems with many of the current options on the market. Blackboard, the dominant player in the higher ed LMS sector, is not well-loved by any of the students or professors I know. It’s a monster to implement, to upgrade, to use – and an expensive one at that.
Instructure promises an LMS that addresses those key pain points, and its software, Canvas, is open source as well. But then again, all the LMS competitors promise ease-of-use and simple migration, and there are a number of open source offerings on the market already, including Moodle and Sakai. So my first reaction to Instructure, despite a lot of buzz in the tech world, was that it was really no big deal.
Sponsor
But I’m willing to admit that my first reaction was wrong.
Instructure’s Investment
The company announces today that it’s raised $8 million in Series B funding from OpenView Venture Partners, Epic Ventures, Tomorrow Ventures, and Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurveston. But investors’ interest in the product isn’t what has made me change my mind.
It was the simple sentence the Instructure team uttered when they gave me a tour of the product: “We want to get rid of the walled garden.”
That walled garden approach to learning management systems means that whatever content students and instructors upload – whether it’s handouts, homework assignments, discussions, tests, syllabi – is all trapped within a particular course. If you aren’t registered for a class, you can’t view it. When a course is over, you can’t view it. When you graduate, you can’t view it. As having a strong online portfolio is rapidly becoming far more important than a resume, that’s no good for students. It’s no good for education either, which despite the rising cost of tuition, should be about sharing, not restricting knowledge.
Instructure’s Features
The Canvas LMS is a browser-based, cloud-based tool. It’s offered as software-as-a-service rather than as a piece of software that schools download and manage. Its interface is clean and simple, with a look and feel of a contemporary Web app. In other words, we’re talking social streams here. There are no radio buttons. It doesn’t look like Windows 3.1, or worse yet, a BBS. Canvas has all the features you’d expect in an LMS: a gradebook, assessment tools, chat, discussion rooms.
It also has some other nifty features, including its SpeedGrader, an iPad app that will reduce the amount of time instructors spend grading assignments. Everything is connected to other Web services too, including Google Docs, Facebook and Twitter, and changes to a course’s content – whether that’s the deadline for an assignment or a grade that’s posyed – students can get notifications via email, Facebook message, or text. And students and teachers both have data portability – schoolwork isn’t trapped in that walled garden.
The Promise of Open
Moving a school to a new learning management system is no easy task – in terms of technology or in terms of contracts and licensing. But that hasn’t stopped Instructure from piquing the interest of a lot of schools since the startup launched in February – something that really is a testament to the problems with the other options on the market.
Canvas is offered free as an open source tool or as a paid version with enterprise support. Even though that open source option might be what’s touted in some of Instructure’s materials, most schools are unlikely to go that path and will probably opt to buy the commercial version.
Some 4000 schools have already expressed an interest in Canvas, and the round of funding will help scale the startup’s operations.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Spring Search Fever: How Users Look Up Garden Center Products & Services
Apr 8th
It’s spring, and garden centers everywhere are getting ready to service the needs of home gardeners and small landscaping services. Garden center search traffic is similar to Christmas retail search traffic in that the majority of the searches occur during three or four months of the year,…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
