Thord D. Hedengren

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  • The advertising bubble

    Hard words about the online advertising bubble, from Maciej Ceglowski:

    The prognosis for publishers is grim. Repent! Find a way out of the adtech racket before it collapses around you. Ditch your tracking, show dumb ads that you sell directly (not through a thicket of intermediaries), and beg your readers for mercy. Respect their privacy, bandwidth, and intelligence, flatter their vanity, and maybe they’ll subscribe to something.

    This route is not wrong, it would even make it easier to manage content blockers since the ads wouldn’t be laden with third party spy scripts. However, it does require a sales organization capable of reaching not only ad buyers, but premium ones at that. That costs a lot of money, which has to be earned by even more ads. It’s never as easy as it sounds, is it?

  • Taking the iPad on the road

    There’s no doubt it my mind that the iPad is enough for most people, and it has been for quite some time. Updates to iOS, especially the introduction of extensions in iOS 8, and the Split View/Side View updates in iOS 9, has made being productive with an iPad easier. That, and the apps, which are getting better and better all the time. With the iPad Pro, which I’m using to type this, eyes are once again on the iPad as a potential alternative for the traditional PCs, or at least as a laptop replacement. I’ve got a lot to say on the matter, but for now, I urge you to read Thaddeus Hunt’s three part blog post series on how he took an iPad Air 2 on the road, while still performing his duties as a freelance web designer: Part 1, part 2, and part 3.

    Oh, and some shameless promotion while I’m at it. I’ll have some initial thoughts on the iPad Pro in the next issue of my newsletter, RE:THORD. It’ll be out soon, so if you’re not subscribing, now’s the time.

  • This generation knows magic glass

    Ben Bajarin, writing about the iPad Pro, but also touchscreen devices in general:

    There is truly something happening with this generation growing up spending the bulk, if not all, of their computing time using mobile operating systems and doing new things with new tools. Being the techie that I am, I was a bit disheartened that my twelve-year-old was getting more out of the iPad Pro and pushing it further limits than I was. But she is a part of the mobile generation after all. For them, the future will look quite different and the tools they use to make that future might look quite similar to the iPad Pro.

    This is a good point, and something to take to heart if you’re among those who believe that there’s a place among the mainstream for traditional personal computers in the future. No matter if they’re iPads or iPhones or Androids – it’s all magic glass.

  • Instagram, the blogging platform

    Kyle Chayka, making the argument for Instagram as an alternative blogging platform, in the New Yorker:

    Instagram, a minimalist, mobile-focused app for sharing photos, might seem like a strange place to keep a public diary. Facebook, which aggressively positions itself as an ongoing digital record of your life, comes across as a more natural place to share updates and idle musings. But the Rock’s not alone: People are increasingly turning toward Instagram not just as a place to post filtered photos, but to spill their lives and thoughts into the captions as well.

    The term “blogging” is as broken as even. Sure, a photo and a few words can definitely be blogging, but it might just as well be an elaborate photo caption. We used to talk about photo blogging way back, that’s a more suitable term to what’s described in the afore linked article. It matters little, what’s interesting is how we use the services available for our publishing needs.

  • Chromecast Audio, överfallslarm, handkontroller, och Lego-ställ

    Nu har jag testat saker igen.

    Dessutom är mitt handkontrollstest uppdaterat med detaljer om hur handkontrollerna fungerar med nya Apple TV.

  • The problem with GPG

    Speaking of security and hacks, Moxie Marlinspike pretty much nails the problem with GPG:

    Looking forward, however, I think of GPG as a glorious experiment that has run its course. The journalists who depend on it struggle with it and often mess up (“I send you the private key to communicate privately, right?”), the activists who use it do so relatively sparingly (“wait, this thing wants my finger print?”), and no other sane person is willing to use it by default. Even the projects that attempt to use it as a dependency struggle.

    This is true for PGP too.

    (GPG is for encrypting email using keys, basically an open alternative to PGP. All email should be encrypted, but in reality, it’s just too much of a hassle for most people, me included.)

  • Anti-ad blocker hacked

    Ars Technica, reporting on the hack of analytics firm PageFair:

    The compromise started in the last few minutes of Halloween with a spearphishing e-mail that ultimately gave the attackers access to PageFair’s content distribution network account. The attacker then reset the password and replaced the JavaScript code PageFair normally had execute on subscriber websites. For almost 90 minutes after that, people who visited 501 unnamed sites received popup windows telling them their version of Adobe Flash was out-of-date and prompting them to install malware disguised as an official update.

    One of those sites were the Economist, as is widely reported. Third party scripts and services is a forgotten security hazard today. Probably more so than ever, since PageFair is an anti-content blocker. From their about page:

    We started PageFair because we personally experienced the damage adblocking can do to a website. While we recognize that visitors need to defend themselves from distracting, intrusive, inappropriate, disingenuous or malicious advertising, the rise of adblocking is now leading to the death of quality free websites.

    Add PageFair to a service you should block, for your own safety.

  • WordPress powers a quarter of the web

    25% of the web, every fourth site, is now powered by WordPress, according to W3Tech. Usability and open source in a nutshell. Nearest competitor is Joomla (under 3%), then Drupal (barely over 2%). Just over 57% of the sites have no obvious CMS at all though. That’s where the growth is, says WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg. There’s still a lot to do for open source, and democratic, online publishing.

  • Ashen Sky launches this Wednesday

    Ashen Sky launches this Wednesday

    I’m happy to announce that Ashen Sky, my post-apocalyptic novella in three parts, is launching this Wednesday (November 11, 2015). Ashen Sky is $2.99 (or your local equivalent), with your country’s VAT added. Don’t get me started on international VAT and the clusterfuck that is, that’s a topic for another time.

    Back to Ashen Sky! From the (purely fictional) digital book jacket:

    The gray sky looms over the broken remains of our world. Life is hard for Dirk, who’s stumbling through the wasteland. Demon grass is cutting him, and acid rain is burning his skin. Out here, far from his family, Dirk makes acquaintances that lead him upon a path he didn’t know he yearned for.

    Ashen Sky is a novella in three parts, set in a post-apocalyptic world where the low-ceilinged gray sky blocks out the sun and the stars.

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  • Nu kan du förhandsboka Ashen Sky

    Amazon har släppt ut Ashen Sky, min kommande långnovell/kortroman, för förhandsbokning. $3,74 blir prislappen, eftersom Amazon lägger på svensk moms (25% på eböcker, galet nog eftersom det är 6% på tryckta), eller drygt 32 kr.

    Förhandsboka gärna!

    Jag visade omslaget för Ashen Sky tidigare, men mer (mest) information hittar du på min engelska sajt. Och ja, Ashen Sky är på engelska, om någon undrade.

  • Ashen Sky is now up for pre-order on Amazon

    That title says it all, doesn’t it? My novella, Ashen Sky, is up for pre-order on Amazon, for $2.99 (excluding VAT for your country). Want it for your Kindle, within Amazon’s ecosystem? Then that’s the link for you.

    You’ll be able to buy Ashen Sky from me on launch day. Subscribers to the RE:THORD newsletter should probably read RE:THORD 3, which came out earlier today, before clicking that Amazon buy-button…

    I can’t wait to unleash this puppy to the wild!

  • Suck Again

    Remember Suck.com? If you do, you’re old. Sorry. If you don’t you have your youth (or something), but you also missed out on a piece of internet history. Luckily you get a second chance (and old-timers get a dose of nostalgia, possibly), because a fellow called Mark MacDonald is republishing the Suck.com pieces in a newsletter called Suck Again. Ad free and blessed by the original editors, this one’s yet another notch in the newsletter is the new black belt.

  • Remembering the Nintendo Entertainment System

    Remembering the Nintendo Entertainment System

    October 18, 2015, was billed as the Nintendo Entertainment System’s (NES for short) 25th birthday. This is technically true, because although Nintendo’s 8-bit gaming console, that would go on to usher in a new era of gaming, was launched in Japan two years earlier, in July 1983, it wasn’t called NES. In Japan, the NES was the Famicom, short for Family Computer.

    In Europe, more precisely, in Sweden, it was the NES, just like in the Northern America. It would be another year until we’d see an European launch though. September 1st, 1986, is the official European launch date, but obviously it all depended on where you were in Europe at the time. Lots of countries, lots of distributors and partners, lots of different markets.

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  • On newsletters

    On newsletters

    I love newsletters. Once upon a time, I started my professional online publishing career with one. It was called TVspel.nu and was about video games. I did a whole bunch of issues, but it didn’t take long until a website launched, and that made more sense to focus on. This was in 1997, pre-dotcom. I made some money, but didn’t get rich. It was the basis of my first business, alongside running the official site for Sega Dreamcast in Scandinavia. It was a nice way to make a living as an 18 year old. Incidentally, TVspel.nu ended up being one of the biggest gaming websites in Sweden.

    My next serious newsletter was Kong. It had been a site before, but I canned it, probably because I was bored. There were 30+ issues of the newsletter Kong Magazine, before I had some money issues. Selling ads in newsletters has always been hard, and it still is. The Holiday season was approaching, and I launched a site for Kong, sold all the ads, and could live to eat another day. As with TVspel.nu, the site flourished, priding itself on having great content, an editorial vision (not very common with video game sites back then), and a shitload of visitors. It sparked other sites. It made money, post-dotcom. In the end I sold it, because I’ve had it with video games and the Swedish media landscape for the time being. That’s when I started at The Blog Herald, but that’s another story.

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  • IAB goes LEAN, still clueless

    IAB, writing from an admittedly high horse, about how they messed up online ads, and manhandled the trust of their visitors, launches Light, Encrypted, Ad choice supported, Non-invasive ads – L.E.A.N. for short. It’s all somewhat positive, up until this load of bullshit:

    L.E.A.N. Ads do not replace the current advertising standards many consumers still enjoy and engage with while consuming content on our sites across all IP enabled devices. Rather, these principles will guide an alternative set of standards that provide choice for marketers, content providers, and consumers.

    Trust me, there’s no one in the world who enjoy your bloated ads. You can’t first point a finger at adblockers, then launch an ad program to remedy your faults, and then claim there are none. IAB just doesn’t get it, a global problem in the ad-driven online industry.