Author: John

Congratulations to Dropbox & Akoha!

Dropbox and Akoha, which I have been using and enjoying, have both been selected as finalists at TechCrunch50 Conference.  

I wrote about Akoha about a week and a half ago after I went to their party.  I’ve been trying it out since then and I’m impressed.  I still can’t really say much more though.

DropBox is a dead-simple file synchronization service.  There’s a small client program that runs in the background and keeps your “Dropbox” – a folder you designate, synced with other computers linked to your account.  You can also share synced folders within your Dropbox with other people, making a super easy way for everyone in a team to have the latest version of everything.

I highly recommend checking out the presentations by both Akoha and DropBox this week.  DropBox is tomorrow, sometime between 3:45 and 5:00 PM, (I think they’re last in the session), and Akoha is Wednesday, sometime between 10:30 and 11:45 AM, (it looks like they’re second).  All times Pacific.

Akoha seems really cool

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the Akoha sneak preview event here in Montréal.  I can’t say much now, but Akoha seems pretty cool, and is something I want to use.

The Akoha folks really know how to put on a party and get a group of people excited about their product.  I’m excited.

I will write more later, when I’m allowed, and have used it for a while.  For now, pay attention, and if you have the opportunity to try it out for yourself then give it a shot.

Banned iPhone advertisement highlights regulators’ (mis)understanding of the internet

If you haven’t heard, the Advertising Standards Authority, (the UK’s advertising watchdog), has banned this ad in response to 2 viewer complaints:

The judgement states the ad was banned because the statement that “all the parts of the internet are on the iPhone” was deemed misleading because the iPhone does “not support Flash or Java, both integral to many web pages.”

This judgement hightlights the fact that regulators don’t often truly understand the internet, even if they are sometimes required to regulate it.  If we take the ASA‘s ruling at face value then nobody can advertise any computer as being able to access “all the parts of the internet” since most computers ship without Flash or Java plugins installed.   To take that arguement even further, since most computers that are sold run Windows, and windows comes with Internet Explorer, and IE, in it’s current form, is not 100% standards-compliant, so all of the Internet is not available computers either, at least not out of the box.

Granted, the iPhone is much more difficult to add a Flash or Java plugin to, (I believe it is impossible right now), but governments and regulators seem to pass strange, mis-informed judgements sometimes.  On the other hand, we’re really wanting some regulation when it comes to net neutrality.