Tech Round Up: Apple Boycott, Internet Piracy and Facebook IPO and Timeline

As a content producer it’s important to keep a close eye on new developments in your field of expertise. It’s great to write evergreen content when you can but there is always a need for topical articles. As a tech writer I read a lot of tech news every week and it generates new ideas so I thought I’d do a regular blog post on hot topics. Some topics will run and run, others pop up and then vanish again within days.

Should you boycott Apple? Well they just announced a record profit of over $13 billion in the last quarter. They are the most valuable company in the world with enough cash reserves to buy whatever or whoever they like. The problem is it seems these profits are partly built upon horrible conditions for the Chinese workers who manufacture their products. Explosions, ridiculously long working hours and exposure to toxic chemicals have all been reported. Surely they can afford to share a little of that profit with the people who actually make their products? They should at least be able to guarantee their followers that the products they are buying were produced ethically. There are already two online petitions to that effect and the first is closing in on 200,000 signatures.

The Internet piracy debate has been raging for years now but it was catapulted back into the limelight by the SOPA and PIPA bills and the up-swell of organized resistance on the web. Some websites, most notably Wikipedia, shut down for the day and supporters of the bills were attacked via social media until they relented and withdrew support. Despite the defeat this issue will run and run because the music, movie and software industries are not going to give up, even if they do have a falsely skewed idea of how much revenue they are losing through piracy (let’s face it there’s no way everyone who pirates something would buy it if they couldn’t download.)

So Facebook is hoping to raise $5 billion in its IPO. What’s Facebook really worth? We’re about to find out. The debate on this is just starting to gear up. Facebook’s profits over the last few years make for interesting reading and they look pretty reliant on advertising for most of it, interestingly Zynga games make up 12% of their revenue.

The approach of Facebook timeline is another topic that seems to be getting a lot of attention. With more than 800 million users Facebook is never out of the news but the switch from the traditional user profile to a timeline display is the main discussion point right now.

• Does it create more privacy issues? (not really)
• Does it look better than the old profile? (yeah I think so)
• How do I create a great timeline? (there are lots of ways)

A widely touted survey of 4,000 users is reporting that only 8% of them like the changes and 51% are worried about them. I think if people look past the scaremongering that fear should evaporate. If anything the new timeline gives you more control over what is shared and with whom. In any case no one is forcing you to post all your personal information online in the first place. If you’re really concerned about privacy then don’t use Facebook.

I’ll be back with another round up next week.