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The Weekly Round-Up: 14.03.08
When boy 1.0 meets girl 2.0...

By silicon.com

Published: Friday 14 March 2008

It's difficult to know what to make of AOL these days.

The 1990s internet fireball responsible for millions of annoying CDs tucked inside newspapers has been trying to reinvent itself in recent years.

This reinvention has been done mostly through acquisitions – around $1bn was spent last year trying to consolidate its position in the market but frankly the Round-Up was none the wiser.

Its most recent acquisition has certainly raised a few eyebrows (although these guys are probably too cold to even do that).

It's only gone and bought social networking website Bebo in an $850m cash deal, hasn't it? Didn’t see that one coming? Don’t be disheartened, neither did anyone else.

The impressively monikered chairman and CEO of AOL, Randy Falco, said in a statement: "Rock me, Amadeus."

No he didn't, he was far more sensible and explained: "What drew us to Bebo was its substantial and fast-growing worldwide user-base, its vision of a truly social web and the monetisation opportunities."

Social networking and advertising is big business these days, just look at Microsoft's $250m investment in the $15bn-valued Facebook. A lot of money invested into nascent businesses without a proven and sustainable revenue model. What could possibly go wrong?

The Bebo deal also represents a rather pleasing marriage of old new media and new new media where 1.0 meets 2.0. After all, at its heart it's the classic boy meets girl story, isn’t it?

In the 1990s, web 1.0 boy is the new kid on the block, popular with loads of buddies and has a great time filling the planet with free CDs. Then he gets hitched to a grand old lady of the old media in a very expensive wedding but it didn't work out.

Web 1.0 guy, now older and wiser, kicks about for a couple of years worrying about his image and all his so-called friends and decides to get back in the game and flashes his impressive wodge at young and sprightly web 2.0 girl.

Not the prettiest girl in the web 2.0 school admittedly, a bit plain and frumpy, but still pretty enough to make web 1.0 boy look less dated and more down with the kids, and it all comes with the blessing of the old lady who has since decided that the old ones are the best ones.

How many times have we seen it happen? Classic...

Hooray! iPhone and iPod Touch fans are in for a third-party app bonanza after Apple announced more than 100,000 downloads of the Software Development Kit (SDK) in record time.

The SDK allows developers to create applications for the formerly closed platform, so expect the usual mix of useful, productivity apps and complete and utter toot (see photos of the launch).

Until now, developers have had to be satisfied producing web apps that operate in the devices' Safari web browser to peddle their wares. Even with this fob-off, there are to date hundreds of apps available for download from the Apple website.

While Apple had to assure some crazed developers that their inability to get hold of the SDK over the weekend was actually because of high server demand, dozens of companies have already made commitments about developing for the platform.

The move will put further pressure on the traditional handset manufacturers to keep up with the pace of innovation that Apple and Android are likely to set, which can only be a good thing for consumers. ‘Hooray!’ again...

In related news, the bad news for Apple and Google is that the laptop is the new mobile phone, which means they're concentrating their marketing and engineering efforts in completely the wrong direction.

That at least is the view of the influential CEO and founder of Carphone Warehouse, Charles Dunstone, a man with a proven track record of knowing what the kids want.

And what do the kids want? Alcopops and sex, obviously. But other than sugary alcohol drinks and free love, what do kids really want? You guessed it. Laptops! (Although the Round-Up had already told you.)

Dunstone didn't get where he is today without knowing how to open up new markets for new customers in new and groovy ways despite the increasingly anachronistic nature of his company's name.

He told delegates at the Retail Week Conference this week that the retail industry is facing challenging times but that there are still opportunities.

Dunstone said that the key demographic for his business is children and teenagers, who through pester-power can drive mobile phone upgrades in the family - which is a cheering thought for all cash-strapped parents as the global economy hurtles towards a possible recession.

Abject poverty or endless nagging from the kids? Why, the next 12 months are going to be an absolute hoot.

He said: "Laptops are becoming desirable for kids because they want access to social networks. They love mobile phones because they get privacy from their parents through them. Laptops provide the same screen."

Kids want to bankrupt their parents so they can have laptops and then use them in isolation in their rooms. Brave new world, eh?

Dunstone, who clearly spends a lot of worrying time hunched over a calculator, also said he had worked out - after rents, staff wages and other costs are taken into account - that his stores do not start going into profit until 4:50 in the afternoon. And that's with 8:30 opening times, too.

He added: "So the challenge for us was, how can we make money when we are asleep?"

Other than enrolling in some kind of university research programme monitoring sleep patterns or keeping his stores open overnight and allowing customers to pick up mobile phones and drop some cash in a donation box on the counter, the Round-Up is stumped.

Luckily, Dunstone has it covered: "I get comfort from knowing five million customers are paying by direct debit [for phone services] a month."

Bless, now the Round-Up can sleep tight at night, although it won't be making any money from direct debits...

But to hell with everything else in the newsletter this week: the most important technological development in history is here: an X-ray camera capable of looking under people's clothes!

What do you mean it can’t reveal physical body details? What's the point? Airport security? Pah!

Microsoft took the wraps off a new operating system this week, built from the ground up with the specific goals of being secure and reliable. Don't get too excited, it's not Vista Service Pack 2, it's Singularity, Microsoft's other operating system.

Check out the background on Singularity from an old Round-Up.

Another week, another data security breach from the government. This is rapidly descending from outrage to boredom. Read the article and seethe or snooze. Your call, no pressure.

Until two weeks' time - yes, the Round-Up has a week off given that next Friday is a bank holiday - gorge yourself on chocolate eggs and check out the Weekly Round-Up podcast and pit your wits against fellow silicon.com readers in the caption competition.