LA Times: “One affiliate, Ken Rockwell of San Diego, the owner of a 12-year-old photography website, said he planned to move out of state.
“Will it be Las Vegas or Scottsdale or Ensenada?” he said. “It’s a question of where, not if.””
A question of when, not if. Let’s see how many folks flee California. It’s a beautiful place to live, unmatched by any other state, but it’s also the most unfriendly state to business.
If you have an Amazon Associates account, and you live in California, you probably got a ‘Dear John’ letter similar to this one.
Notice of Termination due to New California Law
Hello,
Unfortunately, Governor Brown has signed into law the bill that we emailed you about earlier today. As a result of this, contracts with all California residents participating in the Amazon Associates Program are terminated effective today, June 29, 2011. Those California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned before today will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.
You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here. And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program.
To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect your ability to purchase from Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com.
We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. As mentioned before, we are continuing to work on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available.
Regards,
The Amazon Associates Team
How many people have built part of their business on this program? That’s gonna leave a mark.
ZDNet [hat tip Cass McNutt]: “In the ongoing state-by-state battle over tax collection on affiliate website sales, this afternoon Amazon warned thousands of affiliates their revenue streams would be shut off if a tax bill would be signed into law. Mere hours later, Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill, signifying tough times ahead for many online business owners.”
CNN: “Today marks the 100th birthday of IBM, which was founded on June 16, 1911, in New York City as the awkwardly named Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. (It was renamed International Business Machines in 1924.)”
Happy 100th Birthday Big Blue.
Wired: “They were told that all their experience, all their knowledge and every program they have written in the past would be useless on Windows 8.”
I think there’s been a lot of undue FUD surrounding the little demo of the new Windows 8 shell Microsoft released. I saw the demo and my first reaction was, “Hey, they’re learning from their mobile experience.” Then I instantly thought, “Wait, is this a shell on top of a shell? Is this Microsoft Bob all over again? Reminds me of Active Desktop.” Yes, those thoughts crossed my mind. I hope this isn’t a shell on top of a shell. I hope they find a way, like Apple, to meld it into the desktop experience. I can’t imagine it would be a shell on a shell. That just doesn’t make a lick of sense and would be confusing to users. I say Microsoft will do the right thing and make it work for both novices and experts alike, it will be a part of the shell. Steven Sinofsky is a smart guy.
The other thing I call BS on is developers believing Microsoft is going to abandon .Net or FORCE them to create applications in HTML. Do you think Visio, Word, Excel, or even Visual Studio will be rewritten in HTML? I think not. I’ve heard Microsoft is making a push back into C and C++. Bravo. Embrace the computer I say. In the last 10 years Microsoft has made great strides on .Net, I can’t see them abandoning that. It’s basically a development path for the masses as well as a way for Professional Developers to accelerate time to market. Microsoft has always been very good about maintaining backward compatibility. I don’t think developers should worry too much.
I’d reserve judgement of Windows 8 until we see Release Candidate bits. If the new shell is still a shell within a shell, then I’d worry a bit.
EFF : “The licensing fee Lodsys claims to be seeking – 0.575% – may seem low, and, in many instances, will come out to less than the cost of defending a lawsuit: that’s how the troll business model works. But paying the fee, especially in these circumstances, looks a lot like paying a tax on innovation. What is worse, for some developers it will be enough to make their business unsustainable.”
Patents are bad for innovation.
Before naming Apple Core Labs I struggled to come up with a name. Kim and I tossed around a bunch of different names, I wish I still had the list.
I’ve actually thought about renaming Apple Core Labs. Why? Well, a friend asked a couple years back if Apple had a problem with the company name when I submitted RxCalc. No, they didn’t say a word. After all Apple Core Labs is a zero in the world of business.
Anywho, I’ve been kicking around names, and thought about sharing them here, but that’s for another day.
Lodsys: “We stand firm and restate our previous position that it is the 3rd party Developers that are responsible for the infringement of Lodsys’ patents and they are responsible for securing the rights for their applications. Developers relying on Apple’s letter do so to their own detriment and are strongly urged to review Apple’s own developer agreements to determine the true extent of Apple’s responsibilities to them.”
Special place in Hell for lawyers. Yep.
Who was sued? Glad you asked.
Something to note, Iconfactory’s Twitterrific for Mac was called out, as well as Illusion Labs Labyrinth for Android. So this extends beyond iOS. Who’s next? Is Windows Update covered by this? What about all the apps that do automagic update?
FOSS Patents: “Unfortunately, I was right. Today — on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 — Lodsys filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (the place in which I predicted that it would do so) against seven little iOS app developers. Lodsys asserts two of its four patents: U.S. Patent No. 7,620,565 (“the ‘565 patent”) on a “customer-based design module” and U.S. Patent No. 7,222,078 (“the ‘078 patent”) on “Methods and Systems for Gathering Information from Units of a Commodity Across a Network.” Note that Lodsys so far emphasized the ‘078 patent, although Lodsys always mentioned its other patents as well.”
Twitter Blog: “TweetDeck is a great example of a third-party developer that designed tools for the incredibly important audience of Twitter power-users and, in turn, created value for the network as a whole.”
From TweetDeck’s website:
TweetDeck is your personal real-time browser, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Google Buzz and more.
Revised version:
TweetDeck is your personal real-time browser, connecting you to
you with your contacts acrossTwitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Google Buzz and more.
There, that looks better.
CNN Money: “NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Twitter has acquired TweetDeck, an application for organizing the display of tweets, for more than $40 million in a mix of cash and stock, according to sources close to the deal.”
I’m not so sure I’d have taken stock as part of that deal, unless it was a very small percentage. 80/20 maybe.
Dan Benjamin [via Twitter]:
Twitter’s strategy: buy the good 3rd party clients while diminishing other 3rd party client user experience until only Twitter remains
That hold water after recent changes that affect how clients access Twitter. Twitter’s own clients do not have to abide by the rules, thus, the user gets a better experience.
All you TweetDeck fans say bye-bye to Facebook, and other, service integration.
The Loop: “Thus the technology that is targeted in your notice letters is technology that Apple is expressly licensed under the Lodsys patents to offer to Apple’s App Makers,†wrote Sewell. “These licensed products and services enable Apple’s App Makers to communicate with end users through the use of Apple’s own licensed hardware, software, APIs, memory, servers, and interfaces, including Apple’s App Store. Because Apple is licensed under Lodsys’ patents to offer such technology to its App Makers, the App Makers are entitled to use this technology free from any infringement claims by Lodsys.â€
Lodsys, say hello to The Train that is Apple.
Apple, thank you!
UPDATE: Full text of Apple telling Lodsys to stick it.