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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Sue me, I said 'app store'

The New York Times had an interesting piece on the legal squabbles of tech companies when involved in the use of daily language and everyday words. Microsoft sues Apple and Apple sues Amazon for the use of the words "app store".

Suing over app store is not only an Apple privilege. Facebook has tried to trademark words like 'like' or 'poke' and also 'wall' and 'face' and 'book' ... And Windows is no stranger to trying to play at the same game, trademarking words like 'windows', 'office' or 'word'.

The New York Times cites a Web branding expert, Christopher Johnson, saying there is 'a land grab going on'. Apparently the US Patent and Trademark Office lags about 5 years behind in allowing companies to claim generic words. An basically, the giants can fool around all they want, it's the small companies that get hurt (like Placebook that changed it's name when lawyers came calling).

As always, it's the lawyers who benefit from these very expensive and lenghty trademark proceedings ...

When I try to explain what a personalised citizens' portal, containing government services, could be like, I use the term 'app store' instead of portal. Because portal is the wrong word whichever way you turn it. And because everybody understands "app store" Am I going to be sued now too?

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

better together, indeed

Last week, the 20 year old son of a well known and very much respected advertising professional, died in a stupid-stupid-stupid accident during a party with fellow students. The kind of thing that scares the shit out of you when you have teenage kids and the always present 'so-much-can-happen-to-them' fear pops up, again.

His friends have started a remembrance website where people not only can leave their condolences but where friends can upload pictures, video's, even songs.

The very thoughtfull thing about this very simple site is that it's really meant for the family. Apparantly thousands have already uploaded a personal note but except for the occasional quote on the homepage, you cannot browse them. Not like on other condolences-sites where you sometimes get the feeling that they are meant as public platforms ('see what I wrote? And how eloquently too?'). The upload function for songs and video's has been deactivated, probably due to too many uploads. If there are any, they are not for the public eye. And the small selection of images suggests that there's probably much more but that these are gifts to the family who lost a son.

This is actually what a condolence site should be about.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

this is actually a good idea




Old people's mobile phones we already know: these strange looking devices with Big Buttons and without all the trendy and hype-y functionalities old people are never-ever going to use anyway.

Make way for the Internet Buttons!

When I look at it from an e-gov point of view, this is actually a good idea:make the Web more accessible for those users not used to it. Granted, the idea is not new but this initiative is fairly recent. Especially as I read somewhere last week that 1 million Flemish citizens are not online yet (which is like 15% of the population). Internet Buttons allows users to create simple personalised pages that contain clear links to sites or apps or services that they use or like.