{"id":409229,"date":"2010-03-09T20:00:43","date_gmt":"2010-03-10T01:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=103348"},"modified":"2010-03-09T20:00:43","modified_gmt":"2010-03-10T01:00:43","slug":"a-belated-new-year%e2%80%99s-resolution-no-walled-gardens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/409229","title":{"rendered":"A Belated New Year\u2019s Resolution: No Walled Gardens!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The recent Comedy Central-Hulu announcement<\/a> made me recall my New Year\u2019s resolution, one that I wanted to share publicly, and encourage you to embrace as well. It is simple in its concept, but epic in scope.\u00a0 It involves eliminating something from your routine, something unhealthy \u2013- not for your body, however, but for your wallet, and the world at large. In short, I\u2019m asking you to join me in giving up Walled Gardens.<\/p>\n

What does that mean?\u00a0 Well basically it means to eschew controlled environments, whatever the cost , and to embrace open platforms with all your heart. In practice, here\u2019s what you\u2019ll have to give up:<\/p>\n

iPhone and iPad: <\/strong> This first stipulation is a doozy.\u00a0 Resolve to give up your iPhone, and walk past the iPad display without ponying up.\u00a0 Why do this?\u00a0 Well despite Apple’s claims of embracing everyone, the iPhone and iPad are huge walled gardens.\u00a0 You can\u2019t just load any app -\u2013 no, you\u2019re forced to load just those programs that some soulless corporate drone on Infinity Loop deems \u201cappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, that means T&A from Sports Illustrated, but not from many other similarly legitimate sources.\u00a0\u00a0Want your iPhone to quack like a duck?\u00a0 Sorry.\u00a0 Google Voice, Groovy Sharks — nope, can’t use ‘em, says Apple — and the list just goes on and on.<\/p>\n

And the iPad looks to be even worse.\u00a0Heck you can\u2019t even watch Flash on the darned thing, which tends to obviate much of the most interesting content on the web.\u00a0 Luckily, there are many other awesome alternatives, including the Motorola Backflip, Nexus One, and other great Android phones.\u00a0 And expect everyone else\u2019s pad — from the sexy U1 Hybrid from Lenovo to Dell\u2019s new super-small slate — to deliver more functionality.<\/p>\n

These pads will deliver an open, anything-goes platform, for less money, probably.\u00a0 I know it\u2019ll be hard, but this year, vow to embrace an open marketplace of apps, video, web sites and books, rather than a locked down, overpriced, shiny gewgaw.<\/p>\n

Kindle: <\/strong> Speaking of books, are you thinking of a Kindle?\u00a0 That\u2019s also a walled garden. Want to buy a book?\u00a0 You have to go through Amazon.\u00a0Sure you can load your own stuff onto the Kindle, but only via a few formats, and you even have to pay for that privilege.\u00a0 Many other types of e-books simply don\u2019t convert well at all.\u00a0 The Kindle lacks good support for tables and monospaced fonts, has lousy PDF rendering, and worst of all, doesn\u2019t even support the open ePub format.<\/p>\n

The lack of ePub means you can\u2019t borrow e-books from your library and read them on the Kindle.\u00a0It\u2019s as if Jeff Bezos is declaring war on the local library!\u00a0But even worse, the Kindle is the roach motel of e-books:\u00a0 Books go in, but they never come out.<\/p>\n

Luckily there are other options.\u00a0f you must have an e-reader today, opt for Sony\u2019s latest touch version.\u00a0 But if you can wait, do.\u00a0There were zillions of e-readers on display at CES, and by this fall we should see an explosion of low-cost E Ink-based alternatives that support open standards and a wide variety of off-the-shelf books.<\/p>\n

Hulu:<\/strong> And that leads me to Hulu.\u00a0 Although web-based, Hulu is another walled garden, locking you into its platform.\u00a0 Want to see it on Boxee?\u00a0 Sorry<\/a>.\u00a0 Oh, well, maybe you can now,<\/a> but probably not tomorrow.\u00a0 What about other over the top services?\u00a0 Not likely.\u00a0 Hulu is designed for PC viewing only, even though any 15-year-old can easily figure out how to connect a PC to the big screen.\u00a0 And now Hulu\u2019s been out-gardened by Comedy Central, which is pulling its programs, among them “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” viewable only at\u00a0 ComedyCentral.com \u2013- another walled garden!<\/p>\n

NBC\u2019s Olympics coverage was yet another ridiculous approach to walling off viewership and screwing consumers<\/a>.\u00a0 And don\u2019t even get me started on TV Everywhere, the misguided attempt to transmogrify the ultimate walled garden \u2013- cable TV<\/a> \u2013- into a narrowly protected online universe.\u00a0 It just isn\u2019t going to work, guys.\u00a0 Instead, embrace open video platforms like YouTube \u2013- which you can embed and watch everywhere — along with Boxee, Roku, Popcorn Hour, Play On and other wide open services and providers (including Revision3, where I work).<\/p>\n

Why?\u00a0 Because these walled gardens are not only expensive, they lock you in to a never-ending merry-go-round of price hikes, poor customer service and reduced choice.\u00a0 In the end they will turn the Internet into a monolithic series of silos, accessible only to those with the money, influence or power.\u00a0 The promise of a democratic medium that lets you reach the entire world with your voice, your vision and your creativity will be gone forever, locked behind corporate palaces that will turn us all into nameless, faceless drones.<\/p>\n

Well, maybe it won\u2019t be that bad.\u00a0 But still, I\u2019m staying away from the iPhone, the iPad, the Kindle and Hulu this year.\u00a0 And you should, too.<\/p>\n

Jim Louderback is CEO of Revision3.<\/a> He was previously vice president of Ziff Davis Media and Editor-in-Chief of PC Magazine and PCMag.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The recent Comedy Central-Hulu announcement made me recall my New Year\u2019s resolution, one that I wanted to share publicly, and encourage you to embrace as well. It is simple in its concept, but epic in scope.\u00a0 It involves eliminating something from your routine, something unhealthy \u2013- not for your body, however, but for your wallet, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5755,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-409229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5755"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}