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I used to think of blogging's reactive nature as a flaw in the medium. I've changed my mind, though. I've come to believe that being a literary parasite is no bad thing. I'd argue, in fact, that parasitism is blogging's most distinctive and probably its most valuable feature.

Bloggers blog for a host of reasons, but what sets blogging apart as a literary form is that it offers a writer an easy way to document his or her responses to their day-to-day reading.

As we adapt to the internet, we may just learn to forget that an algorithm, no matter how elegantly conceived, is no substitute for a person, and that a crowd, no matter how full of "wisdom," is no substitute for an editor.

But I hope we don't.

I think there will be three sources of apps: (1) the basics that you mention, which will be supplied and served up by Google-Apple; various consumer apps, including games and web 2.0 stuff, that will be served up over the net as they are today (ad-supported or for fee); and specialized, pro apps that will be designed by developers to run on the Google-Apple platform (incorporating app-cacheing techniques to ensure the necessary speed and responsiveness) and that you'll either license for a fee, as you do today, or subscribe to for a monthly fee (with consolidated billing from Google-Apple).

Nick

Posted by: Charles

the centrally controlled system will be able to make use of local computing power and storage capacity to optimize the user experience (without shifting maintenance and other crap onto the user). It's all one system.

Nick

Posted by: Nick Carr at October 17, 2007 04:55 PM

"It will be cheap."

When's the last time Apple shipped anything cheap (in the low price sense of the word)? Its entire line is overpriced and a modest iPod Nano is $149-199. Even if the purchase price is subsidized by advertising or a monthly fee -- and don't forget that iPods and iPhones are subsidized by iTunes and phone bills -- a $99 price point is hard to believe.

"It will be flexible."

How flexible or universal will it be if Apple stays true to form: the software and content only run on Apple devices; Apple limits or prevents third-party application development while selling many apps itself; and there are platform lock-in problems?