Will Steve Jobs' final vendetta tarnish his legacy and hurt Apple?

After not copying anything from Xerox PARC for the Macintosh, was Jobs right to start a vendetta against the creators of Android, the most open and developer-friendly cell phone operating system? NDTV quotes Jobs as saying "I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong."

Uh oh. It sounds like Jobs was willing to violate his fiduciary to Apple shareholders, since Apple's $40 billion of cash is company and shareholder money, not Job's.

In the long term, purveyors of closed systems, such as Apple's, must innovate continuously, relentlessly, and for the benefit of their future buyers if they want to stay ahead of obsolescence. It is a very tough job, and history shows that eventually even the best will slip up. Look at Microsoft: Its proprietary Windows platform is no longer innovating fast enough to present a compelling value over Linux. Windows evolution plateaued with Windows XP, and although there are a few technical innovations in Windows 7, most of the changes are internal, where end users can't see them.

And trees don't grow to the sky. Market penetration of the iPhone and iPod is already quite deep. Are there any compelling reasons to buy shares of AAPL now? I can't see any, but the downside risk of a flat market and richly-priced stock shows that there may be reasons to take some money off the table, if you do own AAPL. You might keep some for sentimental reasons.

Social Media Websites are Designed to Spill

And when they spill, what they spill is their users. As in, dumped on the sidewalk, dumped in the street. Because what people really want from a social network is dirt on other people. And who better to supply than the individual to be dirted upon?

Now, Facebook and Google+ realize that if you believe that your dirt will be publicized, then you might hold back your dirt. So they go to some length to make you believe that your information is in control. Yes! You control your information! Just move the magic slider or click the magic button, and your dirt will be carefully contained where only your friends and acquaintances out to two degrees of separation will see it.

Ah, so when I spotted this item, I knew I had to make the point here at Vorpal Trade that social media is a complex beast and that it will burn a great many people, such as those who develop it.

Whoops. Google Engineer Accidentally Makes His 'Plus Sucks' Rant Public.

If a Google engineer can't keep his settings straight, then why would all the rest of us be able to?

Software is complex. Unlike physical reality, the landscape in a software application, and especially web-based applications that Google prefers, changes at the whim of the developer. A "user" of the physical world gets used to things: gravity, light, physical obstacles, the need to eat. Adults are experts at knowing how things work. They aren't surprised when rocks are heavy, trees block your view, or wood rots when exposed to water.

But place mortal humans inside the shifting landscape of a social medium, and they aren't quite so capable. And since it is a matter of competitive advantage to continually evolve the social media applications, to add to them and rewrite them to make them more capable, more complex, richer, better, happier and cleverer, it is unlikely that their users will be able to stay on top of the settings changes and small rules they need to master to keep their dirt in the places they last put it.

Even if Facebook and Google+ really do intent to help you keep your dirt straight, the deck is stacked against them. And since they really don't have any incentive to keep your dirt straight, the probability is zero that it will be.

There are defenses against dirt-spilling social media sites. That is a topic for another post later.

Zuckerberg's Rights to the Privacy of Chinese Activists

Facebook's Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebooks_zuckerberg_says_the_age_of_privacy_is_ov.php

Is Privacy Already Dead?
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=120500

Facebook Does Not Understand the Meaning of Privacy
http://business.theatlantic.com/2010/01/facebook_does_not_understand_the_meaning_of_privacy.php

FaceBook’s Mark Zuckerberg: The Age Of Online Privacy Is Dead, And We Killed It
http://myhosting.com/blog/2010/01/facebooks-mark-zuckerberg-the-age-of-online-privacy-is-dead-and-we-killed-it/

Google threatens to leave China after attacks on activists' e-mail
The company said it has evidence to suggest that "a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/13/AR2010011300359.html

More on Google's Rights to Your Privacy

Perhaps the best article I've seen pointing out the intellectual deficiencies of Eric Schmidt's views on private information is "Eric Schmidt's privacy policy is one scary philosophy -- Offhand comments by Schmidt about privacy hints that Google is spying, critics say" by Julie Bort and posted on networkworld.com. I'll quote just one of over a dozen of Julie's stinging points:

"...If you don't want to share with people what you've eaten for lunch, maybe you shouldn't eat it..."

One thing that is good about this tempest that started December 8th: The subject is hot, and the ferment will almost certainly result in multiple academic papers that prove beyond any doubt that Schmidt's position is false, destructive, misleading, self-serving, or all of the above. Just in researching this short article I encountered a multitude of well-stated, rational arguments that rapidly lay the foundation for such a paper.

Commentators on this posting should post their addresses, home phone numbers, and most recent sexual liason's name in their posting, please.