> The browser is a wonderful invention—for browsing the Web. It’s a terrible replacement for a well-written standalone application. Great read about everything that’s wrong with Google Docs. While some of the interface stuff is obviously Google’s fault (designed by engineers with PhDs, as opposed to designers), the bigger issue is the premise of building an application to run in a browser in the first place. It’s great to be able to get your email or edit a doc when in a fix, but ultimately, a true desktop app is going to beat any web app every time. Even Apple’s web apps for Mobile Me, which are infinitely better than Google’s in the interface and design department, are weak in feature comparison and ease of use.

The Internet is about the information. The data. Google puts far too much emphasis on the browser itself, which I believe will continue to be de-emphasized as time goes on by small, targeted applications built for a very specific purpose on newer, more portable devices.

> My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content. It can also put sites into a real advertising death spin. As ad revenues go down, many sites are lured into running advertising of a truly questionable nature. We’ve all seen it happen. I am very proud of the fact that we routinely talk to you guys in our feedback forum about the quality of our ads. I have proven over 12 years that we will fight on the behalf of readers whenever we can. Does that mean that there are the occasional intrusive ads, expanding this way and that? Yes, sometimes we have to accept those ads. But any of you reading this site for any significant period of time know that these are few and far between. We turn down offers every month for advertising like that out of respect for you guys. We simply ask that you return the favor and not block ads. Man, does Ars completely miss the boat in this article. Their argument is basically that people who use ad blockers are effectively stealing food out of their kids’ mouths. What their little experiment SHOULD have taught them instead is that they need to find a better way to fund their content.

If a user turns on an ad blocker, that is a clear gesture that he or she is not interested in devoting his or her attention to an ad. It’s like screening marketing phone calls with an answering machine, or turning on a spam filter in an email program. “I am not interested.”

Rather than listening to that clear message, Ars is instead trying to guilt trip its users into caring about something they don’t care about. And they are trying to scam revenue out of their advertisers for ads that are obviously not getting anyone’s attention.

Begging people to turn off their ad blockers is actually immoral on Ars’ part, because they are asking us to help them lie to their advertisers.

I understand fully that content is not free; people who create great content deserve to be paid for that content. So make that argument. Apple does this very effectively with the iTunes store. I gladly pay $2.00 for an episode of the Daily Show with no ads. Other people prefer to watch it on Hulu for no payment, but with ads. Each of us is making a separate statement. Each of is willing to pay, one with money, the other with attention.

It’s not about free vs. paid. It’s about gaining your users’ trust.

Now, read this excellent post from Shawn Blanc "Shawn Blanc"), as well as the other posts linked in his post. (http://shawnblanc.net/2010/03/attention-trust-and-advertising/)) This is a perfect demonstration of how to respect your reader’s gestures, and how to make money by listening to your users in a way that is honest to your readers, yourself, and your advertisers.

If all this talk of ads sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve been through this before. Remember the first dot com bubble? It burst because at long last few companies had figured out a way to make money on the Web. They had all bet the farm on Internet Ads, and eventually, companies figured out that Internet ads were essentially worthless. Well, guess what? Nothing has changed in the decade that has passed since. Ads are still essentially worthless. They’re actually worth even less than before, because ads are now cheaper, which means we need to have a lot more of them, which drives the price of each one down, and so on. It’s a vicious circle, spiraling toward failure.

What does this all mean? A second dot com bubble? You bet.

If there’s one company that should be worried right now about this, it should be Google. No one wants to say it, but Google is essentially a one-trick pony. It has bet the farm on ads to a larger degree than any of the original dot com era companies. When the eventual bottom drops out of the ad business online for the second time, what exactly is Google going to do? Start charging for GMail? Wave? Buzz?

Good luck with that.

You simply can’t give something away for free for a time, and then start charging for it later and expect people not to feel betrayed by that. Offer your content for a fair price in the first place, and users will either gladly pay, or go elsewhere. You’ll never grab the whole world that way, but the people who you do get will follow you into the gates of hell, because they will trust you and respect you.

> Steve Jobs appears to have fired off a tersely worded email reply to a user in Sweeden who asked whether the WiFi-only iPad could be tethered to the iPhone: “No. Anyone who says he’s surprised by this simply isn’t paying attention.

Why would AT&T, which doesn’t allow tethering at all from iPhones, despite the fact that Apple put that capability into the iPhone OS almost a year ago, suddenly allow Apple to let people tether their iPads to the iPhone? Who would pay the extra $130, plus $30 a month for the 3G iPad at that point?

I’m not saying it’s right; I’m just saying it’s not a shock.

> The second report in a week claiming Apple has experienced iPad production delays surfaced Thursday, with the latest suggesting the company is currently able to produce between 200,000 and 250,000 devices per month. Here we go again. Didn’t make enough money on the first phony report of iPad production delays, so they go for another one. This time, the delays will only be temporary and minor, as to make them more believable.