Google Apps SLA pays out 15 days
I received an email from Google Apps notifying us that we are getting a 15 day subscription extension on our Apps Premier account basis outages in August. We didn’t actually experience much of an outage outage at Saasu. Very commendable of Google and it totally maintains my trust in their brand and the SaaS model as a whole.
The One – elements of the Gaia Hypothesis
Kevin Kelly presented at TED on The One. It’s about the new Internet, the semantic web. Watching it, I couldn’t but help think Kevin Kelly was very aligned to the Gaia Hypothesis without realising it. Maybe he is, and just doesn’t mention it in his speech.
Since reading Peter Russells “The Awakening Earth” back in the late 80′s I have been aligned to the Gaia hypothesis that Earth is a living organism that operates beyond what we can comprehend with our limited language and observation capability.
I relate to earth as an entity. Too complex for us to understand, like cells in a body ignorant to the totality of their greater being. Another example is fleas on the elephant who don’t know the elephant exists because it’s too big for them to see (they don’t have the means to see or measure it – the science). More importantly to complex for them to comprehend (they don’t have the language or maths to describe it).
Another example used to explain Gaia visually is to cram the billions of years of earths life into a 100 year movie. When watched it would look like a writhing, changing, living organism. Clearly alive when time frames are equalised between the earths and ours.
So when the web came along in the 90′s I wondered if it was another step in earths evolution. Are we humans the foot soldiers building it. Cells in the body, the genetic intelligence amongst all the other species. A brain built by earths genetic agents, intelligent humans.
The net is dependent on people. Much like a nervous system can’t function without the body and vice-versa. If Gaia is an organism then the net can be seen to be an extension or evolution of a nervous system. I don’t think it’s the only one, I think the earth is developing and evolving multiple sensory and messaging mechanisms which we are helping to create. Memes for example operate through the language construct rather than silicon chips and broadband cables. Despite this Memes are also stored on them. Not to dissimilar to having data in cache plus on the hard-drive memory.
Iran. Nothing For The World Food Programme
Here’s the 2008 list of what countries have given in AID to the World Food Programme.
What is amazing is that Iran isn’t on the list. Iran had an earthquake in 1962 which was one of the founding reasons behind the establishment of the WFP. Iran is making mega bucks out of oil at the moment.
| USA | 1,158,338,019 |
| Saudi Arabia | 500,000,000 |
| Canada | 192,297,494 |
| European Commission | 192,226,580 |
| Japan | 137,975,429 |
| United Kingdom | 112,072,721 |
| Italy | 98,932,657 |
| Australia | 74,008,669 |
| Sweden | 73,731,717 |
| Netherlands | 71,459,378 |
| Germany | 68,169,187 |
| Denmark | 53,407,627 |
| Norway | 47,440,475 |
| Iraq | 40,000,000 |
| Switzerland | 33,671,110 |
| Ireland | 32,092,594 |
| Spain | 30,809,855 |
| France | 21,798,345 |
| Finland | 20,329,039 |
| Luxembourg | 14,070,000 |
Benjamin Christie – Chefben
I was reading through celebrity chef Benjamin Christies website tonight and found this post on How to Cook the Perfect Steak. Well I was hungry in just a nano-second after reading this marinating idea…
dry marinate using sea salt, black pepper and macadamia nut oil
Macadamia nut oil ! My friends and I have spent many hours with beers and our grill-ego’s warming over a blue flame. We would talk about the perfect steak, the tricks, the secrets, the art form. I thought I had it pretty much worked it out, at least a really good 7 out of 10. Obviously I have much more to learn.
You can catch chefben on twitter also.
Unshapely iPhone plans
We are about to see the start of unshaped iPhone plan disasters reported in the Australia press and blogs over coming weeks. 
Shaping is when your Telco service provider cuts down the speed of your internet connection on your mobile or computer device. It’s an alternative to paying high excess usage charges on a per Megabyte basis above your plan allowance.
The problem is that all the iPhone plans I have seen aren’t shaped so there is potential for overunning your data allowance and racking up a large bill if you’re not the vigilant personality type.
Another risk is that application you have permissioned to silently drink your data in the background while you enjoy your iPhone party?
At 35 cents per Megabyte with Optus as just one example it does make me think there might just be a few high profile accidents waiting to happen.
To find out what you have used so far in your iPhone go to Settings > General > Usage > Received.
Free wireless hotspots and light native applications will help but the reality is that until Telco plans are generous or protective in their design for consumers, accidents may happen. I hope I’m wrong.
Photo: Storem
iPhone Drawcard Applications
There are many business models emerging amongst iPhone developers. Many remind me of Google using Search (the drawcard) to pump their Adwords product (the money engine).
Since learning that business model lesson back in the late 90′s I’ve always thought about what I call drawcards, and specifically in the tech space, drawcard applications. Browser widgets are another good example.
Some iPhone developers will sell their apps, some will provide them free and monetise the user base down the track and the smart ones in my opinion will create drawcard applications to their existing businesses. They might even build them and sell them to other businesses who can apply them like thick sweet icing to their existing applications used by large customer bases.
Remember the Milk did the drawcard thing just that recently with their iPhone personal task management app which incidentally won Apples Design Award for the best iPhone app of 2008.
Google, Flickr and many others believe in building free drawcard applications and widgets for their paid ‘PRO’ service offerings. Even Remember the Milk did this, you need to be a paying customer to use their iPhone app. So the issue for those who don’t sell of the back of other business revenue streams is that you have an immediate disadvantage.
Those iPhone developers that survive as a stand alone will do so because they have managed to build a problem killer that outspreads competing applications quickly and unequivocally.
As an aside…
You have to amazed by Apple brand being a drawcard in it’s own right. Just look at the CBD David Jones wall of Apple Branding I snapped this morning on the way into the Saasu.com offices. Incidentally I took the photo with my Blackberry and uploaded it directly into my Flickr account with an app Flickr provides that is free. So the strategy works on me as a consumer. You can see my pics at flickr.com/photos/marclehmann/
