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Software Developers: Are you selling logic or infrastructure?

If we have a look at software in the "age of the cloud", where software-as-a-service is delivered from a server to our browsers, software developers have to take care of both logic (features and user experience) and infrastructure (storage, bandwidth and computation) - or decide to sell only logic.

Traditional desktop software developers are in the business of selling logic. You buy their software on a CD or as a digital download, pay once and run it on your computer. Mobile software developers can also sell their apps for a one time fee in app stores and let Apple and Google handle the distribution. For software running on servers (or mobile/desktop software with a heavy server backend), though, developers have to make the decision.

Providing infrastructure seems to be a tough task, since developers have to take care of things like availability, reliability and scalability in addition to their logic. Independent developers often shy away from this. Shaun Inman, creator of the RSS reader Fever (which I'm using for more than a year and blogged about here), sells his software for a one-time fee and asks customers to provide their own webspace with PHP and MySQL. That's certainly easier for him and I'd think most of his customers prefer this, however it's a bit technical and also I think he would earn more when selling a hosted version with a monthly subscription.

Selling infrastructure can be much more lucrative compared to selling logic, because developers can charge recurring fees instead of a one-time price and the customer's willingness to pay is often higher, because a) the monthly charge looks less, b) the customer saves time (for setup) and own infrastructure charges and c) there is no direct competition with free/open source software.

I don't want to argue for only one model or the other, since there are many constraints and effects to consider, e.g. "prosumers" prefer providing own infrastructure for a sense of control. (Also, I love choice.)

In his article "Clouds for People, or the Consumerization of the Cloud", blogger Anil Dash suggested that there should be app stores for hosted services similar to those on mobile devices, where consumers can purchase a bundle of logic and infrastructure and set it up easily with a few clicks: "There's no reason the experience can't be as seamless and easy to buy an EC2-hosted web app on a Kindle Fire as it is to buy Words with Friends or the Foursquare app."

I think this can model can bring both sides to the table, consumers wanting to have a simple experience and developers not wanting to care about infrastructure but still benefitting from a monthly revenue share. So I'm sure we will see more of that soon. What do you think?!

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#MusicMonday: "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore, Ryan Lewis and Wanz is already played on heavy rotation, but I'm featuring this song because I want to say three things about it:

I like the rap's message in contrast to many song that praise expensive luxuries above everything else.

Macklemore is a white rapper. Skin color shouldn't matter, but before seeing the video I was 100% sure that he is black. Call me prejudiced.

As I just found out, this is just the second time in the history of the US billboard charts that the number one hit is from an independent label and not from one of the majors.

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The Phone number is alive

Martin Weigert, who's a writer on the German tech blog netzwertig.com, proclaimed on his personal, English-language blog: "The Phone number is dead." The article made me think quite a bit about his statement, so I decided to write a reply and explain why I disagree with it - at least for now.

His proclamation comes from the fact that he stayed in Japan for three months, put a Data-only SIM in his smartphone and didn't miss a thing, since "99 percent of [his] digital communication is done via email & messaging anyway". While this might be true for him, I think nothing can replace a good old voice call. Speaking is so much faster than typing texts and mails and some points, especially when emotions play a role, come across much better if you can listen to the tone of the voice of your conversational partner. Of course voice calls can be made without phone numbers, for example through VoIP software such as Skype, however I think on a mobile network they are not yet a satisfying replacement in terms of call quality and reliability. The regular "dialer app" is still an important part of a smartphone.

Martin also says that "being not in the need of a phone number is the final liberation of customers from the dependency of their telecommunication operators". That is true if we replace phone numbers with EMail addresses, XMPP identifiers or SIP URIs. However if we use messaging tools such as Twitter DMs, Facebook chat, Moped, or App.net channels, we put ourselves in the walled garden of that particular network and all our friends have to use the same software or we have to install and sign up for dozens of these networks. Phone numbers are at least portable between carriers within the same geographical location and you can call any number from any carrier. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should completely stay away from walled gardens, because they are often the best solution for a certain situation and they "just work", however I wouldn't want to rely exclusively on them at and least have one widely accepted federated identifier with me. And that is the traditional phone number.

We all have a legacy of phone numbers in our phones and we still exchange them with new acquintances. But what's maybe even more important than this is that phone numbers are now the preferred means of signup for mobile apps and discovery of contacts, not just for over-the-top messaging apps like yuilop, WhatsApp or Viber, but also other network-based apps such as Kicksend or Instabridge. These apps basically replace email addresses, which are typically required to sign up for services in a desktop browser, with phone numbers, and import contacts from our phone address books instead of our email accounts.

In my opinion and with some irony, it will be those latest and shiniest mobile apps that will ensure the phone number stays with us as a personal identifier for a long time to come. Maybe longer than EMail.

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#FunFriday: Don't let the preview image confuse you! This is a short music action clip recorded like a real life first-person shooter game! A brilliant concept. Happy Weekend :)

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#FunFriday: Imagine a new beverage would launch into market like a new Apple product! Somersby Cider made a commercial out of that imagination. Great idea. Happy Weekend :)

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simquadrat: A German SIM with landline number

If you happen to live in North America, every phone has a 10 digit number with an area code, whether it is mobile or landline. There is no difference in how the number looks and how much you are charged for the call. If you happen to live in Asia or Africa, you can propably tell the difference between a mobile and a landline number but your wallet won't notice. In Europe, especially in Germany, things are different. There are often huge differences in costs between calling a mobile phone or a landline, especially when calling from a landline, where one is free and the other has a high per-minute rate.

Enter simquadrat. This is a new product from sipgate, a German-based company known for their free VoIP accounts offered in the UK, Austria and, obviously, Germany, who's recently venturing into the mobile business. Now, an additional landline number on a mobile phone is available from most German carriers (though typically only on expensive post-paid contracts, whereas simquadrat is a free pre-paid card), but simquadrat is unique in offering only the landline number, so this is also the number shown as the Caller ID. The only downside is that there are some limitations with texting (SMS), but who texts much anyway in the age of email, Facebook and WhatsApp?! Their data plan with 1 GB for 9.95 EUR/month is also not bad.

Since I'm mentioning a German-only product on an English language blog with an international audience, I would also like to add that in my opinion this SIM card is awesome for everyone who has a lot of friends and family abroad or who is a foreigner staying in Germany, e.g. a visiting student or expatriate. Why? Well, on one hand the rates for international calls on simquadrat are among the lowest that I've seen in the German market (12.9 cent/minute for most destinations, other carriers charge up to 99 cent, international texts cost the same 9 cent as national texts). And on the other hand, your friends and family calling from abroad also pay much less to call you!

And no, I'm not paid by sipgate to endorse their product, I just like this company and their products, that's all!

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Planet Earth as seen from space

If you want to see beautiful pictures of our blue planet earth, you should follow Chris Hadfield on Twitter, Facebook or Google+. Chris is one of the crew members of the International Space Station (ISS) and he's updating his news feeds regularly with pictures of various places taken from above.

An astronaut updating social media from the earth's orbit ... I think the future has finally arrived!

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More EDM on #MusicMonday, this time with a musical tribute to The Legend of Zelda (not the only tribute I've shared here) by German-Russian producer Zedd.

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Filterfunk, an EDM project from Dutch producer Sander van Doorn, made a cover version of Message in a Bottle, one of my favorite songs from Sting/The Police. This remix is my recommendation for this #MusicMonday!

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I'm on App.net now

I mentioned App.net, Dalton Caldweld's "ad-free Twitter clone" (though it's more than that), on my blog shortly after it's announcement. Now I finally managed to create a test account for myself to try the service. If anybody of you is on app.net and wants to interact with me, my username is lukasros (as usual).

(Also, I set up an IFTTT recipe to share blog posts from Tumblr to app.net, so if this entry appears there, it worked! :-))

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I've posted acoustic covers before on Music Monday, but I never expected to share one of Gangnam Style. But here it is! Enjoy!

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This video should need no further comment to get the message across.

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Remember the viral advertisement from television channel TNT where they placed an "Push to Add Drama" button on a quiet square and enacted a dramatic scene in front of a non-expecting audience?! (If not, watch it here.) Now they made a sequel and took things up one level with even more drama and involving their spectators. Happy Weekend everybody :)

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In October, I already featured the Piano Guys on a MusicMonday. Now Steven Sharp Nelson is back with a tribute to Beethoven's famous Sonata No. 14 ("Moonlight Sonata" / "Mondscheinsonate"), simply called Moonlight and played on an electric cello (amongst other instruments).

After watching this version, be sure to check out its Dubstep/Dubhouse Remix  (Spotify | YouTube) as well

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Like or reblog if you do, too. Happy Weekend :)

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To keep up with the tradition from 2011 and 2012, the first Music Monday of 2013 has to reserved for United State of Pop, DJ Earworm's yearly mashup of the greatest hits of the last year. So here you go!

The audio is also available for download on SoundCloud.

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I like snails, so I obviously have to reblog this!