Reilly Grant

This Friday I discovered an unexpected package from Netflix in my mailbox, their new Instant Streaming Disc for the PS3.  The lack of Netflix support was actually the only thing I regretted about choosing the PS3 over the Xbox 360.  No more!  Using the Instant Streaming Disc you can watch any of Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” titles on your television.  Unfortunately the selection of such titles is a little sparse.  It consists of an eclectic combination of hit new releases, TV shows and B movies from the 80’s.  Nevertheless this has definitely brought even more value to the Netflix service.  (Hear that cable company?  I don’t need you for my entertainment!)

Those who know me are familiar with my general dislike for Facebook.  The same reasoning applies to Twitter as well.  The fundamental problem with social networking sites is that they are closed communities.  Sure, almost everybody is in them, but that doesn’t change the fact that you have to have an account with a particular provider to participate.  This isn’t a problem when there is a monopoly, but what if there are two popular services? (continue reading…)

Lately I’ve found myself spending more and more time on Facebook. Probably in an attempt to keep in touch with the people I wish I were seeing more often in real life (or meatspace as some would call it). It makes me feel like a bit of a hypocrite since I’m always talking about how much I hate Facebook and here I am actually updating my status more than once a day. I must admit that it is a good diversion and a way to keep in touch with people, but it won’t replace an actual conversation. Preferably one face to face.

So, if you’re my friend (sorry, I’m not looking for new ones) send me an email, give me a call. If you’re around town, maybe we can hang out. Get me off Facebook and into real life!

If you haven’t been, you should watch the keynotes from the, currently in progress, Google I/O conference. Keynote 1 covered a lot of features that have been added in HTML 5 and allow much more dynamic and interactive web applications. In keeping with it’s motto, Google has done an excellent job pushing browser makers to adopt these features as standards which are also being implemented by the other major browser manufacturers.

In keynote 2 the key announcement is Google Wave, the next generation of email.  Those who know me know that I hate Facebook and social networking/forum sites in general because they tie you into a particular site for all your communication and since you use more than one, it just becomes inefficient.  I prefer established standards for email and messaging like SMTP and XMPP (Jabber).  Not only are the capabilities of Wave amazing, just watch the demo, but this new system will be open and vendor-neutral.  So, I can run my own open-source Wave server and communicate with all the other Wave users out there.  FANTASTIC!  How do they do this?  Not only is Wave a Google Apps webapp, it is also an API for embedding content in other sites and a protocol for communication between Wave systems (based on XMPP).

So, big round of applause for Google.  Update: And there’s a command line client, woot!