Skype, Wikipedia and a world of ignorance
Seems like I'll never get to my Christmas ranting, but I promise it's on its way.
Hello from Finland! Just arrived last night and after a cold beer, sauna and some traditional Finnish food (tacos) I got to bed and spent a lot of time watching the good ol' Superman (the Gene Hackman-bad-hairdo-version) and damn it was boring. Anyways, after a well-slept night I saw the morning paper's weekend extra (Nyt) having Skype as its cover story. Somehow the life of a nerd doesn't feel so far away.
The article was the basic non-tech-person-writing-about-the-second- coming-of-Jesus-Christ-that-is-called-Skype, but there are two things that bugs me when people are writing about Skype - they make it sound like Skype invented audio conferences over the net - which they didn't, even MSN Messenger offered audio conferencing before Skype was a mere glimpse in the Swedes' eyes. True, Skype managed to do two things well: Market themselves as first movers and - this is second point that bugs me - market Skype as being free.
Free. Skype is not free as in free beer or as in free speech. First of all the technology is proprietary, meaning that
the chat function cannot be used through multi-account IM clients and basically people can't develop it freely - so much for free. Same thing with the calls, it's not free to call to a phone somewhere and you always have costs from your broadband etc. It's the same thing as if a mobile carrier would advertise that "EVERYBODY CALLS FOR FREE! (You just need to pay for those calls which are not toll-free numbers.)"
But in general, Skype is doing a lot of good things for the industry as a whole and who am I kidding here, marketing is all about hypocrisy.
I was approached by a mate from Sweden regarding the credibility on Wikipedia and he did this just before Nature magazine's article on the topic came out. Seems like Wikipedia is almost as reliable as the stalwart that is Encyclopaedia Britannica (sic), with Wikipedia having 4 factual errors per 3 errors of EB - but we have to take note that Wikipedias articles are way longer, so that should give Wikipedia some serious credibility. It's the only encyclopedia I use these days and I suggest you do the same and bring your effort to improve it.
The fun thing has been that the Wikipedia issue has been in many magazines and news portals, so it seems like the free encyclopedia is gaining some serious credibility even from the press.
You know what's creepy? Your mom sending you funny pictures through internet :|
Hello from Finland! Just arrived last night and after a cold beer, sauna and some traditional Finnish food (tacos) I got to bed and spent a lot of time watching the good ol' Superman (the Gene Hackman-bad-hairdo-version) and damn it was boring. Anyways, after a well-slept night I saw the morning paper's weekend extra (Nyt) having Skype as its cover story. Somehow the life of a nerd doesn't feel so far away.
The article was the basic non-tech-person-writing-about-the-second- coming-of-Jesus-Christ-that-is-called-Skype, but there are two things that bugs me when people are writing about Skype - they make it sound like Skype invented audio conferences over the net - which they didn't, even MSN Messenger offered audio conferencing before Skype was a mere glimpse in the Swedes' eyes. True, Skype managed to do two things well: Market themselves as first movers and - this is second point that bugs me - market Skype as being free.
Free. Skype is not free as in free beer or as in free speech. First of all the technology is proprietary, meaning that
the chat function cannot be used through multi-account IM clients and basically people can't develop it freely - so much for free. Same thing with the calls, it's not free to call to a phone somewhere and you always have costs from your broadband etc. It's the same thing as if a mobile carrier would advertise that "EVERYBODY CALLS FOR FREE! (You just need to pay for those calls which are not toll-free numbers.)"
But in general, Skype is doing a lot of good things for the industry as a whole and who am I kidding here, marketing is all about hypocrisy.
I was approached by a mate from Sweden regarding the credibility on Wikipedia and he did this just before Nature magazine's article on the topic came out. Seems like Wikipedia is almost as reliable as the stalwart that is Encyclopaedia Britannica (sic), with Wikipedia having 4 factual errors per 3 errors of EB - but we have to take note that Wikipedias articles are way longer, so that should give Wikipedia some serious credibility. It's the only encyclopedia I use these days and I suggest you do the same and bring your effort to improve it.
The fun thing has been that the Wikipedia issue has been in many magazines and news portals, so it seems like the free encyclopedia is gaining some serious credibility even from the press.
You know what's creepy? Your mom sending you funny pictures through internet :|
posted by Unknown at 11:33 am
5 Comments:
banton GREAT title Skype, Wikipedia and a world of ignorance. I am actually looking for horse games for kids related information to give my customers on my website. I paused at the title and ran out of time to read, but will book mark you and come back latter to check you out some more. I am off to find some other horse games for kids related blogs. Thank you.
Hey banton GREAT title Skype, Wikipedia and a world of ignorance. Thats what actually caught my eye. I was surfing blogs to try and help my customers and visitors with information on my website about ##Keyword## and paused to read but ran out of time. I will book mark it and come back to read later. This isn't really what I was looking for what I really need is information about http://www.horse-lover-gift-ideas-central.com related subjects but thank you and I shall return. I wish you well.
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