Today, we're proud to announce that we've struck a deal with Facebook. What this means is that Facebook has bought most of drop.io's technology and assets, and Sam Lessin is moving to Facebook.

I mean no frickin' way!
Drop.io was a favourite service of mine. I had been exploring different ways I could use it over the last twelve months with the intention of subscribing in the New Year. So much for that idea.
Now don't get Drop.io confused with Dropbox. I have a Dropbox account as well (shameless plug - sign up with my referral and we both get 250MB bonus!) which is super convenient for automatic online synchronisation of files or folders. You can share folders with other Dropbox users and even have a public Dropbox but it's personal first and collaborative second. Drop.io is the opposite. It doesn't synchronise but is a great tool for sharing files of all types. You could upload via web, email, Firefox extension, Facebook (Grrr!) and output through a webpage, RSS, iTunes or even fax. Super useful for hosting and distributing your own media files (bugger iTunesU!), collaborating with small groups or working with a class.
It's disappointing but what would have really sucked is if it had happened this time next year. I wonder how many people Drop.io have been "dropped in it" by the acquisition? I guess that's why they charge by the month.
Roll on Plan B.

Twitter and Facebook cannot change the real world, says Malcolm Gladwell | Books | The Observer

"Look, technology is going to solve the energy problem. I'm convinced of it. But technology does not and cannot change the underlying dynamics of 'human' problems: it does not make it easier to love or to motivate or to dream or convince."

Tipping Point Author Malcolm Gladwell Says Facebook, Twitter Won't Lead to Social Change

For those that only skim headlines, the article and the accompanying analysis makes for a nice tweet: "Gladwell gets it wrong (link)." But to those who still read longer articles like Gladwell's essay (or heck, this blog post summarizing), there's definitely food for thought here.

The Audible app for iPhone promised much. The ability to download books directly to the device, tracking of everything you read and little badges you can earn and post to "BookFace" if that's your thing. The feature I was most looking forward to were the swipe interface player controls followed closely by "bookmarking". The swipe controls allow you to skip forward 30 seconds as well as back 30 seconds which is just gold for zooming through the introductions and pre-roll. Every now and then the iPod player decides to "forget" where you were in the book (usually after a sync with iTunes) and while the manual scrub bar helps it's not great for fine tuning. Swipe controls can come to the rescue but bookmarking, used judiciously, means it doesn't have to. Bookmarking is also great for tagging reference points in nonfiction books you may wish to share or come back to later. Handy.

Now wait for it. You know it's coming...

BUT...

Unfortunately Audible for iPhone falls short for me in one area and it's a dealbreaker. There is no playback speed adjustment tool. An absolute killer. On the iPod I listen to almost all spoken content at 2x speed. It means I can plow through more content and I have become so used to doing so if I switch back to 1x it's intolerable. One or two quicker speaking podcast hosts don't get the hurry up treatment but all Audible narrators and the TWiT network do.

If you like slow talkers the Audible app provides tremendous control over your listening experience. Until I can speed those bad boys up though, I'm stuck with the iPod.

Stay tuned. But don't hold your breath...

Firstly, I wanted to stream more video so was chasing a goodly amount of data and as snappy a speed as I could get. Unfortunately ADSL2+ just isn't cutting it in my location at the minute (too far away from the exchange). It's definitely acceptable, averaging around 5mbps, but not really where you need it for streaming HD video (NBA League Pass Broadband to be precise!) I also push a fair amount of media to the web to share with family etc and the upstream is where ADSL really bites the big one. It's just not good. Improving the upstream provides the added possibility of online backup for some essential data files (still too expensive to do complete online backups in Australia more's the pity) which was just wasn't going to scale on the current connection. So, the envelope please!......

Telstra Bigpond Ulitmate Cable was the choice. (This is now quite difficult to find on the Telstra website. See here for more details about Telstra cable plans and some speculation on the situation) Looks pretty expensive right? Well yes and no. I had an existing Foxtel connection which I was forking out $80 per month for. Add the $50 per month ADSL2+ plan and you're well on the way to the $169 total for ultimate cable. Throw in unlimited local and national calls, free line rental and I'm breaking even. Oh did I mention that it's a 100mbps connection? Location, location, location.

Thought that might sway you.

But to address perhaps the more important point about whether the ABC should be there in the first place indulge me for a sentence or two. There is a reason why you don't get charged to join Facebook in the same way you don't get charged extra to get a rewards card at the supermarket. They want you to use the product but neither are free. You pay with your privacy. The coin is information about you, what you do, what you buy and when you buy it. Who are you connected to, what do you read and what are you interested in? Facebook connect is a convenient service but it effectively sends part of your browsing history back to the mother ship. You may decide you're getting a good deal and that's fine. That's called an informed decision which I believe are the best kind.

For the ABC to promote their Facebook page which requires membership and then claim they are not endorsing the company in any way is naive at best. Their presence endorses the brand and the average user has little idea how much it has really cost them. Given Facebook's sketchy privacy record that could almost be called irresponsible.

So most of it was predicted already. Some was not. I'll let others cover that, let's push on.

HD video recording is a nice addition for sure but along with that comes iMovie for iPhone. Now before you get too excited you'll have buy it from the App store for $5. Reel Director from Nexvio, which I'm guessing is the  competition (talked about it here), has just dropped its price from $9.99 to $4.99 in response. Now iMovie does everything Reel Director does with the addition of themes, automatic "audio ducking" and in HD quality so Nexvio have their work cut out for them but they're sticking with it. It remains to be seen if iMovie for iPhone will work on the iPad. Reel Director does and doesn't cost you anything more. Nice.