Google TV hasn’t exactly set the world on fire, and while we could argue all day about what exactly prevented it from achieving greatness, the expensive hardware has to at least be part of the discussion. Logitech bit the bullet two weeks ago and lowered the price of their Revue from $250 to $99 — and it seems Sony has decided they might take a bit of that medicine too.

Their Google TV-powered HDTVs, which debuted in October, are getting hefty price cuts. Sony also made clear that these are not being made cheaper because there are better ones coming out soon — they just want to capture more market. That’s code for “they were too expensive to begin with.”

Here’s the breakdown (according to Amazon, and confirmed by Sony), by display size:

24″: $600 $295
32″: $800 $498
40″: $1000 $723
46″: $1400 $961

The best savings are on the 24″ version — and while Google TV wasn’t exactly a big hit among the TV-watching public at large (they prefer just watching), an internet-powered display like this could be a hit in a dorm room or kitchen.

Google TV will probably be around for a while, so it’s not a bad investment (and not a bad price for a 24″ set anyway), and the platform should be getting an update in the next few months as well, so you could be doing yourself a favor picking one up now.

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The word is out, folks: HTC CEO Peter Chou has something big on the books for tomorrow. A live teleconference is scheduled for at 8:30 PT/11:30 ET, and while the email making the rounds offers no insight, you can rest easy knowing that people will be speculating the night away.

Given the email’s use of the word “major” and the fact that Chou himself is speaking, we expect the announcement will be more than, say, a new phone or tablet — perhaps something related to the ongoing patent dispute.

Our own Mobile Editor Greg Kumparak will be covering the event as it happens tomorrow morning, so tune in for the full scoop then.

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Researchers at Cornell University are hard at work on a project that sounds odd at first, but is in fact a perfectly natural extension of existing 3D and computing technology. They’re making an engine for producing the sounds of colliding objects by simulating the materials of the objects themselves in a virtual space, and then calculating the forces and vibrations that would be produced. Academically it’s a challenging proposition, but it has plenty of practical applications as well.

The simulation of noise propagation perhaps would be most easily applied in 3D games, which despite having nearly photorealistic models, textures, and lighting, still rely on a limited cache of pre-recorded sounds to play when, say, a table tips over. By simulating every object on the table and tracking the physical effects of collision with the floor, other objects, and the resulting reverberations, a more realistic and accurate sound can be created on the fly — or at least that’s the theory.

Right now the researchers acknowledge two obstacles. First, the physical world needs to be simplified greatly in some cases in order to provide a workable amount of data. A ball hitting the floor is one thing, with only a few factors to calculate, but what about a stack of dishes rattling against each other on a table that has been jostled? The number of contact points must be reduced so thousands or millions of different interactions don’t have to be tracked separately. At the same time, they must have enough to produce a realistic sound. It’s a balancing act governed by the amount and type of objects and the computing power they have at hand.

And it seems that not everything can be generated completely from scratch just yet. Their demo at SIGGRAPH has the stack of dishes mentioned above, but apparently soundtracking flames it isn’t so easy. The low-frequency part they’ve got, but for the rest had to base their models based on recorded fire sounds and then “paint” them onto the low end. That said, most common sounds are predictable in the same way physical interactions are predictable (being that they are themselves sums of physical reactions), and it’s just a matter of getting the tools to do so.

Parallel processing hardware (like graphics cards or many-core CPUs) will be necessary to make these calculations on in real time, though: simulating the fire noise takes hours just for a short clip. But the very idea is compelling to anyone who’s heard the same “glass breaking” or “ricochet” noises in games or even movies, where the catalog of sounds is limited.

Right now it’s still in the labs, but this is definitely the kind of thing that gets turned into a product and sold. A company like Nvidia or Havok would love to get their hands on this. Unfortunately there’s no video, but if one becomes available after it’s shown at SIGGRAPH, we’ll put it here.

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One thing in particular that has crossed my mind is how to handle certain situations. For example, we want to hide content on the page and then reveal it (or vice versa). In JavaScript, this is relatively straightforward: get an element, and apply a class or remove a class to change the state of the element. The CSS for that might look something like this:

div { display:block; }
div.hidden { display:none; }

In this case, I’ve used display:none to hide the content visually and from screenreaders, too.

Adding a visual effect

Now, if I want to add a visual effect, I might use JavaScript to alter a style property from value A to value B (eg. style.opacity) The script would run through the animation and apply the hidden class at the end of the animation.

What if we wanted to offset the visual effects over to CSS3 Animations?

@keyframes fade-out {
    0% { opacity: 1; }
    100% { opacity: 0; }
}

div { display:block; }
div.hidden { display:none; animation: fade-out .5s 1; }

Nice and easy! Or is it? For those that have actually tried this code might be surprised to discover that this doesn’t work. It’s because once the hidden class is applied to an element, it’s immediately hidden with display: none;.

The next thing you might think to do is apply display:block in the keyframes like so:

@keyframes fade-out {
    0% { display:block; opacity: 1; }
    100% { display:none; opacity: 0; }
}

The problem with this is that non-transitionable properties like display are ignored and have no effect.

A Proposition

I propose that the CSS3 Animation specification be changed to allow for this. Keyframes should act like classes being applied to an element. Therefore, the example above is display:block at 0% and becomes display:none at 100%. As a result, the page works as expected for this scenario.

Transitioning properties

I woke up this morning thinking about this further—and I’ll readily admit that this next idea complicates things a little bit. I additionally propose that an animation-transition-property property be added. This specifies which of the keyframe properties should actually transition.

@keyframes fade-out {
    0% { opacity: 1; }
    100% { opacity: 0; position: absolute; left: -999px; }
}

div.hidden {
    animation: fade-out .5s 1;
    animation-transition-property: opacity;
}

By setting the animation-transition-property, only the opacity will transition. At the end of the transition, the element is then placed offscreen using position and left properties. The default setting for animation-transition-property would be all which would allow keyframes to behave exactly as they do today. There would also be a value of none that would allow for no property to transition. This would allow for stepped animations to be created.

Reversing animations

My last proposal for CSS3 animations is the ability to reverse an animation. Right now, the spec has an alternate property that allows every odd iteration to animate in reverse but that’s not quite what we want. Again, allow me to demonstrate with an example:

@keyframes fade {
    0% { opacity: 0; }
    100% { opacity: 1; }
}

div {
    animation: fade .5s 1;
}

div.hidden {
    animation-direction: reverse;
}

In this example, I have a fade animation applied to the div. By default, it’ll fade to 100%. When the hidden class is applied, the direction of the animation is changed and the fade goes from 100% to 0%. This allows animations to be quickly and easily re-used.

Standards Process

Writing a specification is hard and I don’t envy those that have to work through these things. It’s a balance between making something powerful and making something complicated. I hope that my ideas fall more in the former category than the latter.

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• Mental model— how users think a system will work
• Conceptual model—how designers develop a system to work
• Interaction model—how people actually interact with a system

Mental Models

A mental model represents a persons thought process for how something works. It’s built through past experiences, incomplete facts, intuition, and the general understanding of how we think the world around us works.

We all use mental models to predict how systems work. They set a context that helps shape our behavior and actions with the system and they influence our visual perception by suggesting where we should look and what we pay attention to.

For example if you sit inside a car you have a mental model about how that car should work.

You expect to find an ignition, which you’ll likely turn on with a key. You expect a steering wheel that you’ll turn clockwise or counter-clockwise to turn the car right or left. You expect to find gas and brake pedals as well as many other things common to most cars.

Even though you’ve never been in that particular car it shouldn’t take you more than few seconds to figure out how to turn it on and drive it. You have a mental model for a car, which is easily transferred from one car to another.

Mental models are fluid. We create them quickly and modify them as new information comes in. We base them on

• Prior experiences
• Assumptions
• Observations

The first 2 allow us to form models quickly and the last allows us to modify them.

The main thing to understand is that we form mental models to help us make sense of world and interact with unfamiliar things. Our mental models influence our perceptions and our perceptions influence our mental models.

Conceptual Models

A conceptual model represents how something is designed to work. It’s the mental model of the designer put into action.

Consider again a car. There’s no reason we need to turn a key to start the ignition. A designer’s conceptual model of a car could suggest that a push button ignition and joystick controls are better ways to operate the car.

Push button and joystick break our mental model of a car. We do have mental models for what to do with buttons and joysticks in general and we can use them to figure out how to turn on and drive the cr.

Still it’s easy to see how some or even many would have trouble operating the push button and joystick car, because conceptual model and mental model disagree.

Every design decision creates either agreement or disagreement between mental model and conceptual model.

• Disagreement—leads to a system that’s harder to learn. It will typically create user frustration, more errors, and be less usable when first encoutnered.
• Agreement—leads to system that’s easier to learn. It will typically be highly usable and create less error and user frustration when first encountered. It will like be seen as more intuitive.

When mental and conceptual models agree little explanation is needed to use the system. When the models disagree an explanation is sometimes necessary.

Designing for Disagreement

While agreement makes a system easier to learn, it may not always be desired. Consider touch screen devices. When touch interfaces first appeared they broke the mental model for interacting with a computer.

Users typed using software instead of hardware. They swiped, tapped, and pinched without a mouse. While new and not part of anyone’s mental model at the time, all are still pretty easy to learn.

A good conceptual model allows people to predict the effects of an action. We expect to pull on a door handle. We assume things will move in the direction we swipe. A good conceptual model reveals itself through its interface.

2 principles we can use to help users predict how our designs work:

• Affordance—The physical characteristics of a design element suggest how to use it. A door handle suggests pulling. A door knob suggests turning. A button suggests pushing.
• Mapping—The relationship between design controls, their movements, and their effects on the element(s) they control. Moving a joystick to the left should result in something moving left.

We can also build in constraints to help prevent errors and generally build a forgiving design in order to encourage exploration.

Designing for Agreement

When developing a conceptual model we naturally consider our own mental model for how something should work, but as we’re designing for an audience we want to also consider the mental models they’ll likely bring to our design.

Usually we have different groups of people in our audience, each with different mental models. For example beginner, intermediate, and advanced users.

Someone very familiar with your subject or object is going to bring a very different mental model than a complete beginner. Mental models are also based on:

• goals
• motivation
• culture

We can use personas to see potential mental models for our audience and then design accordingly. We can also try usability testing and simple observation of people using our designs while we’re developing them.

Interaction Models

Interaction models are how people actually interact with a system. Communication between mental model and conceptual model occurs through the interface of the system.

Designers have complete and accurate conceptual models However designers have weak interaction models early on as we don’t know in advance how people expect our designs to function. We can use personas, etc. to predict mental models, but we won’t really know them.

Users start with an interaction model based on their mental model and then refine that model based on actual use. Through experience users can gain a complete and accurate interaction model.

A system’s interaction model could be completely different from either mental model or conceptual model, though in time users come to understand the interaction model through experience.

Optimal design occurs when we create an interface where interaction model and conceptual model meet. To do this we want to

• Use the system—To understand how a design works in practice we need to become a user of the design. However as designers we need to be aware that we aren’t typical users as we created the conceptual model. Using our own designs won’t always reveal problems in the interaction model.
• Observe others using the system—By watching others we again gain information about how our designs are used in practice. The advantage here is that we get to see how people unfamiliar with our conceptual model use our designs.

Designing with Conventions

Since an interaction model will begin as a user’s mental model, we can take advantage of standard mental models through design conventions.

Nothing says a link on a web page needs to be blue and underlined, but by making it blue and underlined we align conceptual, mental, and interaction models.

It’s a good idea to use conventions where possible because of this agreement between the 3 models.

However don’t force design into convention just to take advantage of the model. It’s better to have people learn to form a new mental model than require they use a mental model that doesn’t really fit the design.

Swiping pages on a touch device could have instead been a horizontal scroll bar that we tap, hold, and move, but aren’t you glad designers opted not to keep this model?

Contrast and Similarity

Consider the simple web page text link. The expectation (mental model) is clicking a link takes you to a new page. That’s at least the predominant model for a link.

The first time a link opened a new window or took you to a new place on the same page or triggered an ajax request it broke that predominant mental model.

Each of these different types of links is useful, but because they are different they should be designed differently to indicate in advance their different behavior.

Perhaps a different color for links that make ajax requests or an icon when a new window will open. The first time someone clicks those links they may still expect the default going to a new page, but by their second or third click they will have learned the different behavior.

The subtle change builds a new mental model and creates a new convention and trains our audience to use our design.

At the same time all these links share some characteristics. The standard link, new window link, and same page link all take you to a new location.

It makes sense therefore that each share some design characteristics. Maybe all 3 use a cool color and remain underlined.

Using contrast and similarity this way we can help people understand our conceptual models. Contrast with convention where there is disagreement in models and similarity with convention when there is agreement.

Summary

We all build mental models to help us predict how unfamiliar systems will work. We build them based on experience using similar systems, assumptions based on general knowledge, and observations of the new system.

Designers use their mental models to build things. Our mental model becomes the conceptual model of the thing we build.

When people use our designs they build an interaction model for how the design actually works. Over time they can develop an accurate and complete interaction model through experience with the system.

When conceptual model and mental model agree our designs are intuitive to use. When the models disagree the design needs to be learned.

We should do our best to understand the likely mental models our audience will bring to our designs. Where possible we should take advantage of conventional design patterns to indicate the model is correct. Where the model needs to be altered we should indicate that as well, by diverging from convention.

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• Mental model— how users think a system will work
• Conceptual model—how designers develop a system to work
• Interaction model—how people actually interact with a system

Mental Models

A mental model represents a persons thought process for how something works. It’s built through past experiences, incomplete facts, intuition, and the general understanding of how we think the world around us works.

We all use mental models to predict how systems work. They set a context that helps shape our behavior and actions with the system and they influence our visual perception by suggesting where we should look and what we pay attention to.

For example if you sit inside a car you have a mental model about how that car should work.

You expect to find an ignition, which you’ll likely turn on with a key. You expect a steering wheel that you’ll turn clockwise or counter-clockwise to turn the car right or left. You expect to find gas and brake pedals as well as many other things common to most cars.

Even though you’ve never been in that particular car it shouldn’t take you more than few seconds to figure out how to turn it on and drive it. You have a mental model for a car, which is easily transferred from one car to another.

Mental models are fluid. We create them quickly and modify them as new information comes in. We base them on

• Prior experiences
• Assumptions
• Observations

The first 2 allow us to form models quickly and the last allows us to modify them.

The main thing to understand is that we form mental models to help us make sense of world and interact with unfamiliar things. Our mental models influence our perceptions and our perceptions influence our mental models.

Conceptual Models

A conceptual model represents how something is designed to work. It’s the mental model of the designer put into action.

Consider again a car. There’s no reason we need to turn a key to start the ignition. A designer’s conceptual model of a car could suggest that a push button ignition and joystick controls are better ways to operate the car.

Push button and joystick break our mental model of a car. We do have mental models for what to do with buttons and joysticks in general and we can use them to figure out how to turn on and drive the cr.

Still it’s easy to see how some or even many would have trouble operating the push button and joystick car, because conceptual model and mental model disagree.

Every design decision creates either agreement or disagreement between mental model and conceptual model.

• Disagreement—leads to a system that’s harder to learn. It will typically create user frustration, more errors, and be less usable when first encoutnered.
• Agreement—leads to system that’s easier to learn. It will typically be highly usable and create less error and user frustration when first encountered. It will like be seen as more intuitive.

When mental and conceptual models agree little explanation is needed to use the system. When the models disagree an explanation is sometimes necessary.

Designing for Disagreement

While agreement makes a system easier to learn, it may not always be desired. Consider touch screen devices. When touch interfaces first appeared they broke the mental model for interacting with a computer.

Users typed using software instead of hardware. They swiped, tapped, and pinched without a mouse. While new and not part of anyone’s mental model at the time, all are still pretty easy to learn.

A good conceptual model allows people to predict the effects of an action. We expect to pull on a door handle. We assume things will move in the direction we swipe. A good conceptual model reveals itself through its interface.

2 principles we can use to help users predict how our designs work:

• Affordance—The physical characteristics of a design element suggest how to use it. A door handle suggests pulling. A door knob suggests turning. A button suggests pushing.
• Mapping—The relationship between design controls, their movements, and their effects on the element(s) they control. Moving a joystick to the left should result in something moving left.

We can also build in constraints to help prevent errors and generally build a forgiving design in order to encourage exploration.

Designing for Agreement

When developing a conceptual model we naturally consider our own mental model for how something should work, but as we’re designing for an audience we want to also consider the mental models they’ll likely bring to our design.

Usually we have different groups of people in our audience, each with different mental models. For example beginner, intermediate, and advanced users.

Someone very familiar with your subject or object is going to bring a very different mental model than a complete beginner. Mental models are also based on:

• goals
• motivation
• culture

We can use personas to see potential mental models for our audience and then design accordingly. We can also try usability testing and simple observation of people using our designs while we’re developing them.

Interaction Models

Interaction models are how people actually interact with a system. Communication between mental model and conceptual model occurs through the interface of the system.

Designers have complete and accurate conceptual models However designers have weak interaction models early on as we don’t know in advance how people expect our designs to function. We can use personas, etc. to predict mental models, but we won’t really know them.

Users start with an interaction model based on their mental model and then refine that model based on actual use. Through experience users can gain a complete and accurate interaction model.

A system’s interaction model could be completely different from either mental model or conceptual model, though in time users come to understand the interaction model through experience.

Optimal design occurs when we create an interface where interaction model and conceptual model meet. To do this we want to

• Use the system—To understand how a design works in practice we need to become a user of the design. However as designers we need to be aware that we aren’t typical users as we created the conceptual model. Using our own designs won’t always reveal problems in the interaction model.
• Observe others using the system—By watching others we again gain information about how our designs are used in practice. The advantage here is that we get to see how people unfamiliar with our conceptual model use our designs.

Designing with Conventions

Since an interaction model will begin as a user’s mental model, we can take advantage of standard mental models through design conventions.

Nothing says a link on a web page needs to be blue and underlined, but by making it blue and underlined we align conceptual, mental, and interaction models.

It’s a good idea to use conventions where possible because of this agreement between the 3 models.

However don’t force design into convention just to take advantage of the model. It’s better to have people learn to form a new mental model than require they use a mental model that doesn’t really fit the design.

Swiping pages on a touch device could have instead been a horizontal scroll bar that we tap, hold, and move, but aren’t you glad designers opted not to keep this model?

Contrast and Similarity

Consider the simple web page text link. The expectation (mental model) is clicking a link takes you to a new page. That’s at least the predominant model for a link.

The first time a link opened a new window or took you to a new place on the same page or triggered an ajax request it broke that predominant mental model.

Each of these different types of links is useful, but because they are different they should be designed differently to indicate in advance their different behavior.

Perhaps a different color for links that make ajax requests or an icon when a new window will open. The first time someone clicks those links they may still expect the default going to a new page, but by their second or third click they will have learned the different behavior.

The subtle change builds a new mental model and creates a new convention and trains our audience to use our design.

At the same time all these links share some characteristics. The standard link, new window link, and same page link all take you to a new location.

It makes sense therefore that each share some design characteristics. Maybe all 3 use a cool color and remain underlined.

Using contrast and similarity this way we can help people understand our conceptual models. Contrast with convention where there is disagreement in models and similarity with convention when there is agreement.

Summary

We all build mental models to help us predict how unfamiliar systems will work. We build them based on experience using similar systems, assumptions based on general knowledge, and observations of the new system.

Designers use their mental models to build things. Our mental model becomes the conceptual model of the thing we build.

When people use our designs they build an interaction model for how the design actually works. Over time they can develop an accurate and complete interaction model through experience with the system.

When conceptual model and mental model agree our designs are intuitive to use. When the models disagree the design needs to be learned.

We should do our best to understand the likely mental models our audience will bring to our designs. Where possible we should take advantage of conventional design patterns to indicate the model is correct. Where the model needs to be altered we should indicate that as well, by diverging from convention.

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It will certainly be interesting to see if Gawker can recover. Denton seems pretty intent on keeping the design around for a while, and he also mentioned that he won’t be selling out to a big corporation anytime soon. 

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Gawker Media founder Nick Denton revealed today that the company’s traffic is down by nearly a quarter as a result of the recent widely publicized redesign. 

The design, explained by Gawker here, took a fresh almost tablet-like navigation approach to serving up content – where articles are loaded onto the screen without actually leaving the page. 

Many thought the move would have a huge (and negative) impact on Gawker’s pageviews, which it seemingly has so far. There have also been plenty of complaints among readers, but that’s to be expected with any redesign. You can’t fault them too much for trying something different than the norm. 

Joe Pompeo at Yahoo News reports on an interview Felix Salmon did with Denton at the PaidContent event today:

"We’re probably down by about 25 percent," Denton told Reuters blogger Felix Salmon during a Q&A session. "I’m pretty confident we’re gonna be coming back."

As for revenues: "We set the targets flat on last year so the sales people wouldn’t be demoralized by the inevitable disruption," he said. "We knew this was going to be traumatic." Nevertheless, he notes that "our overlying business is pretty strong."

In a memo to Gawker staff (published by Business Insider), Denton said, "Obviously, the reduction in traffic from Google — as from most design changes — has been significant. It doesn’t affect readers of the site — but it does have a disproportionate effect on uniques. Search optimization of the new layout is a top priority."

Much of the memo also addressed performance issues, so it’s possible that could have played some role, even if minor, in the search traffic. Google, as you may know, counts site speed as a ranking factor now. 

Denton recently made a bet with Rex Sorgatz that Gawker’s pageviews will increase with the new design. Denton recently addressed this on Twitter:

It will certainly be interesting to see if Gawker can recover. Denton seems pretty intent on keeping the design around for a while, and he also mentioned that he won’t be selling out to a big corporation anytime soon. 

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With so many diverse infographics out there there’s always something aptly for everyone. A big shout out to all the artists, illustrators, designers, researchers and writers who made these educational wonderful infographics possible. Today we present to you a nice roundup of infographics — there should be one for all the different interests. Enjoy!

Educational Infographics

Social Media High School

How the Internet Can Help Chronic Disease Sufferers

How Internet Users Feel The Need To Belong

How Android Is Taking Over

The Future is Now

The Journey of Amazon

Social Media Brands

The Jazzy Rise of WordPress

Wikipedia Turns 10 — Happy Birthday!

What’s Next for WikiLeaks?

The Rise And Fall of Yahoo!

The Venturesome History of Web Search Engines

Media Wheel: Visualizing Daily Activities

Europe Trails The US In Productivity

When Social Goes Wrong

How Coffee Affects The Global

The Evolution of the Geek

Everything You Need To Know About The iPad2

Fastest Ways to Lose Customers

How Do Colors Affect Purchases?

How Do Small Businesses Waste Money?

The Vicious Cycle of Early Adoption

The Future of NASA

What Is the Easiest Way to Power a Lightbulb

The History of Coupons

Gunning For The Sun

The Growing E-Waste Situation

Where Will the Next Earthquake Hit?

Robots on the Rise

Our Connected World

Multiple Identities

http://www.noupe.com/graphics/infographics-to-enrich-your-knowledge.html – Infographics to Enrich Your Knowledge
Stunning Infographics and Data Visualization – http://www.noupe.com/inspiration/stunning-infographics-and-data-visualization.html

History of YouTube

The World of Pixar

So You Want to Lose Your Ears?

Analysis of Windows Phone 7

Evolution of The e-Mail

Anatomy of an Apple email

10 Hot Jobs for 2011

A Close Up of Zynga – Statistics

The State of the Internet: Summing Up 2010

Further Resources

(ik)

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As we looked at yesterday, it’s entirely possible that a ruling will come down on the side of fair use in some of these cases as well. According to the Las Vegas Sun (via Mike Masnick):

The appeal comes as Righthaven faces a second potential dismissal by another federal judge involving an entire Review-Journal story that was posted on the website of the Center for Intercultural Organizing in Portland, Ore.

The appeal also comes as four Righthaven defendants — two represented by attorneys for the online free speech group the Electronic Frontier Foundation — press counterclaims against Righthaven and Review-Journal owner Stephens Media LLC.

Righthaven has received a great deal of criticism as a company with a business model based on suing publishers and bloggers on behalf of newspaper clients like the Las Vegas Review-Journal, bringing lots of fair use questions into the forefront. 

For more context and background on this, read our articles "Fair Use Controversy: The Gift That Keeps On Giving," "Testing the Fair Use Balance" and "Could "Full Article-Copying Be Ruled as Fair Use?"

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Using the plugin, any given list of items can be filtered with show/hide effects and they can be re-ordered with slick animations.

The plugin's layout features are very powerful as well. With a simple function, items can be converted into horizontal/vertical layouts or arranged intelligently within a grid and much more. And, all with nice animations.

Isotope’s animation engine takes advantage of the best browser features when available — CSS transitions and transforms, GPU acceleration — but falls back to JavaScript animation when they are not available.

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

Advertisements:
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Psd to Xhtml
SSLmatic – Cheap SSL Certificates (from $19.99/year)

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This is the same subscription service that Apple recently launched with News Corp.’s “The Daily” app. Read the review here.

Publishers set the price and length of the subscription (weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly or yearly). Users choose the length of the subscription and are charged based on how long they subscribe.  Users can manage all of the subscriptions from their personal account page. Apple keeps 30 percent of the revenue from subscriptions, the same as it does for other in-app purchases.

“Our philosophy is simple — when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

“All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app.”

People who buy a subscription through the App Store will have the option of providing personal information based on the publisher’s privacy policy instead of Apple’s.
 

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