A useful analysis of why Facebook's advertising platform can sometimes prove superior to Google's, and why Facebook will not kill Google but will limit Google's potential advertising revenues grab:

For while Google allows you to narrow down the geographic territory in which your ad will appear, Facebook allows you to pick the type of person who will see your ad. And that is why I think of Facebook as the Cable TV of the Internet.

But the magic of Facebook’s targeting doesn’t stop with countries or education.  If I wanted to, I could advertise to all 10,141,480 Facebook users with birthdays that happen in a week or less.

 Think about that.

 And if you really want your head to spin, think about this: according to a friend in retailing, the average Facebook woman updates her relationship status to “Engaged” within two hours of the guy actually proposing…so Facebook sells that relationship status information to retailers who have bridal registries.

 As my pal told me, “We’ve been looking for this for fifty years.”

The LA Times thinks that Apple could soon sell as many iPhones in China as it sells in the rest of the world. 

Apple sold 72 million iPhones in its fiscal 2011, a staggering number that required all the muscle of the world's most valuable technology company, as well as a network of Asian factories pumping out the devices at a breakneck pace. The sales came from more than 100 countries.

Now Chinese consumers may want to buy nearly that many iPhones all by themselves.

That may well happen, says Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, who in a note to investors guessed that Apple may soon be selling 57 million iPhones annually in China, capturing 60% of the projected market for smartphone buyers there. That would be a sixfold increase from the 10 million iPhones Chinese consumers bought in 2011. 

The pent-up demand for the iPhone in China is hard to overestimate. The nation's leading carrier, China Mobile, has 650 million mobile subscribers, according to Huberty (compared with about 200 million for second-place China Unicom, which offers the iPhone). China Mobile does not technically support the iPhone because its network isn't compatible. But that hasn't stopped 10 million of its customers from finding ways to use the device anyway.

I wonder if Apple will soon need to build "Foxconn's" in every region of the world where it sells more than, say, 10 million iPhones? One in Mexico, one in Brazil, one in, let's say, Portugal.

Not sure there are enough Chinese to go around. Or if Apple wants to become so utterly dependent on one company, one country, one government.

Good piece in the New York Times on the obsession many film buffs -- and others -- have with everyone's favorite horror film to hate and quote, The Shining:

But that’s not the only kind of symbolic moment “Shining” buffs are interested in; they have much bigger themes in mind. To one of the subjects of “Room 237,” Geoffrey Cocks, a history professor at Albion College in Michigan and author of “The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History, and the Holocaust,” the film is full of references, some subtle, some less so, to the Final Solution. There are the film’s many references to 1942, the year the Nazis began their extermination of Jews at Auschwitz: a 42 appears on a shirt worn by Danny; “Summer of ’42” is playing on the Torrances’ television; Wendy takes 42 swings with a bat at Jack. And then there’s that gusher of blood. “That’s as good a visual metonym for the horror of the 20th century that has ever been filmed,” Mr. Cocks said in an interview.

When Bill Blakemore, a veteran ABC News correspondent and another “Shining” theorist in the documentary, noticed cans of Calumet baking powder emblazoned with an Indian chief logo in “The Shining,” he knew immediately what Kubrick had in mind. “I told my friends, ‘That movie was about the genocide of the American Indians.’ ”

The documentary’s biggest leap of faith comes with Jay Weidner, who posits that Mr. Kubrick helped NASA fake the Apollo Moon landings, then used “The Shining” to both confess his involvement — and brag about it. 

Another Steve Jobs post...

Jobs had a profound impact on the American economy, on Silicon Valley, was part of the birth of the personal computing industry, which has changed the world, and was CEO of what is now the world's biggest tech company.

Though I suspect I post this stuff for the same reason others post this stuff -- not only for the page views but because Jobs is not someone we will ever understand.

According to MIC Gadget:

On the 30th of January, thousands of hopefuls stood for hours outside a labour agency located in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou. The lines stretched more than 200 meters along the road, and the people who were waiting in line with their applications just hope to get a job at Foxconn as the electronics contracting giant ramps up hiring for its iPhone plant at Zhengzhou.

Foxconn is working with the city of Zhengzhou to double the size of the workforce at its facility there, recruiting an additional 100,000 employees. 

The salary at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory is CNY 1650 (basic salary), and the salary would be increased to CNY 2400 – 3200 after the appraisal. What’s more, workers do not need to pay additional money for dormitory and food. Foxconn incorporates the food and housing allowance into the basic salary. 

Facebook is social. Google+ is business. Right now, that means far more money for Google. Say what you will about them, Google does not leave their monopoly profits to whither on the vine. They use them to crush upstarts, innovation and competitors. For the benefit of users.

It's just that, for Google+, the users are businesses and the new platform is for their beneift.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just that despite all their examples, I'm not terribly interested in interacting -- on a social level -- with the various businesses I transact with. No matter how hipster cool and, you know, personal they tell me they are. And no matter how much they believe they have a mission "to inspire" when really their mission is to sell flour.

Share it fairly 

But don't take a slice of my pie 
- Pink Floyd

Square and Team Obama, along with Team Romney, were eager to tell the world:

President Obama’s re-election campaign announced that it would immediately begin using Square, a mobile payments start-up company based in San Francisco, with campaign staffers and some approved volunteers. “Squares are being sent to our campaign offices across the country,” said Katie Hogan, a spokeswoman for Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign.

The announcement is just the first part of the strategy the Obama campaign plans to employ for mobile donations over the coming months.

“Eventually we want to make a version of the Obama Square application available to everyone from within the App Store,” Ms. Hogan said, referring to Apple’s iTunes store for apps. “Someone who is a supporter of the campaign can then download the app, get a Square attachment and can go around collecting donations.” The application would automatically send donation money directly to the Obama campaign.

Ms. Hogan said the Obama campaign has worked with Square to develop a unique mobile application that allows people to make mobile donations that are compliant with the Federal Election Commission’s rules.

An F.E.C. spokeswomen said the Square application would need to collect the name, address, city, state and ZIP code, and occupation and employer of the donor on a smartphone. All of this information, along with the date of the contribution, would be collected from a Square-enabled smartphone application.

Which is awesome!

Smartphones, mobile money, crowdsourcing.

What's not to like?

Nothing. Except for all the other stuff.

Look, I'm a believer. I realize that smartphones can connect us all. They are the most personal computing devices ever and offer creative and economic liberation potential.

But let's not kid ourselves about the US presidential election this year. The driving force behind Obama's campaign stops and relentless advertising and the various "issue" infomercials, will come primarily from big money donors.

Not from little $5 and $10 donations. Which, admittedly, make for a nice feel-good story but aren't the real story.

I always chuckle at the Apple haters who insist -- vociferously -- that Apple is a "marketing company" and that people buy Apple products because they are weak and are marketed to, nothing more.

This is not merely a lie. It is stupid.

And if you actually watch/view any Apple advertisement, the focus is on the product and its benefits -- to you.

On virtually any (open source!) (free!) Android product, by contrast, it's always focused on the 'coolness' and hipness and design and the fetishization of the device.

So much so that it's so patently obvious to all that only the Android fanboys with the most severe case of Apple Derangement Syndrome refuse to accept the truth.

Which is why I am not at all surprised that Samsung's head of marketing doesn't want us to think about Samsung products but instead, wants us to "feel" various, well, feelings about Samsung products.

This is not surprising. Samsung has attempted to wholesale copy Apple in device design, branding and distribution. They beliee, apparently, that there's a market for people that (secretly) want Apple but can't bring themselves to admit it.

And Samsung has been damn successful with this 'we are Apple but not really Apple' strategy, dominating the Android market.

Now, Samsung wants to copy what they *think* Apple's marketing strategy is: all about feelings...

As a user of Apple products, I can say my feelings toward my device are derived, first and foremost, by their clearly superior usability, build quality and functionality.

If Samsung wants repeat touchy-feely Android fanboy business, they better bring the quality as much as they bring the marketing.

From Samsung's head of marketing, whom, I confess I did not know this and am surprised to learn this, is a woman:

Samsung marketing executive Younghee Lee wants consumers to stop thinking about her company.

Instead, Lee wants consumers to start feeling something about Samsung and its products.

As head of marketing for the Korean electronics maker, Lee said she wants to figure out “how I can engage with consumers from the bottom of their heart, and not just be a big and functional and rational and reasonable brand.”

Lee, who worked for cosmetics brands L’Oreal and Lancome before joining Samsung four and a half years ago, said she wants consumers to love Samsung, to be obsessed with the company and its products.

Nowhere is that more clear than in the company’s current U.S. ad campaign, where the Korean company positions its products as the cooler alternative to the iPhone, despite the cultlike atmosphere that surrounds Apple.

Next time you hear a mindless Android fanboy/Apple hater talk about "marketing", just remind them that the biggest, baddest maker of ANdroid, is a copycat brand that relies heavily on marketing of the kind perfected by a make-up company.

I have written very few posts about Yahoo because Yahoo is simply not very relevant. What I have written about this once relevant "web" company is that until they exist on the smartphone, until they are relevant on the smartphone, than they won't be worth a fraction of what a mad Steve Ballmer might pay for them.

It appears new CEO has gotten the message.

In fact, considering the latest Yahoo statement and the use of the "times they are a'changin" headline, I bet my readers inside Yahoo have even loftier positions that I suspected:

We’re moving forward with a “mobile first” mindset. You can expect to see more new Yahoo! mobile products in 2012, especially in areas ripe for innovation that build on Yahoo!’s strengths, such as companion experiences for TV like IntoNow, new ways to experience personalized media like Livestand, and some of our most popular and useful mobile apps like Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, Sportacular and Flickr, which are already being used by millions of people around the world. And we’ll be building these experiences with disruptive technology that’s going to change the mobile game well beyond Yahoo!.

Let's hope.

Though I do not. Yahoo is so dysfunctional, so far behind the curve, so wedded to a 20th century web business model, that I suspect their only path toward survival is being acquired by someone with far more money. Like Microsoft.

Having said that, I must admit that locked deep inside Yahoo, there is value to be had:

With more than 700 million users around the world, we’ve got a huge and growing audience. We’re going to bring them the Yahoo! they love on every device in their life.

AppleInsider writes the headline that launched a thousand fanboy taunts:

Wisconsin uses Microsoft settlement funds to buy iPads for schools

The story, which is almost as good, if you're a lover of all things Apple is as apocryphal as you want it to be:

The capital of Wisconsin is buying 600 iPads this spring and plans to buy another 800 this fall, all paid for using funds from the state's settlement with Microsoft related to consumer lawsuits claiming the company overcharged customers for its software. 

Bill Smojver, Madison's director of technical services for the school district, told the Wisconsin State Journal that the tablets are cheaper, more portable and easier to use than conventional computers.

Smojver added that the new iPads will enable students to wirelessly share their work and enable schools to replace textbooks with digital apps or ebooks.