We are here again. Another company wants to rule the Internet. This time it is Apple with iTunes.

In the nineties it was Microsoft wanting to control the Internet but such small ambitions pass and companies settle down to middle age aspirations such as fast cars and curing malaria.

Apple’s youth, however, has been late in coming as they spent the nineties being way too cool to want to change the world.

Age catches us all and so it is their turn to be railing against the world. They know there is better way than all these scrappy attempts at usability and technology led by the high priests of Intel.

Standards and open source may have started the connected world but the push to mass market adoption has only ever been the result of more authoritarian mechanisms. Such as the blatant exploitation of power and position. Microsoft may not have had the purest of motives or the best of browsers back in the day, but they had a dream of a time when we would be too slack-jawed dumb in the face of shiny new products we only had to blink at in order to own.

Microsoft ‘failed’ of course. After the genie had been released to set up shop selling fake lamps. They still own the most used browser but they were damaged by lack of two things: innovation and standards.

Arguably they wouldn’t have reached the position they are at today if they’d waited for standards; ten years to get to HTML 5 has had Adobe teaching us about experiential usage of the net.

And don’t think Apple haven’t been watching all of this and learning.

They, more than most, understand the power of shiny. Their business model may screech about usability but really it’s about shiny.

Jonathan Ives brought them a whole lot of attention with shiny and only after that did he pave the way for today by stripping out the tech from MP3 players to give us something plainly usable. And shiny.

iTunes made all this possible of course. Hearing the frustrated screams of a billion consumers shouting “I just want to listen to music” Apple took the pain of ripping, levelling, organising and synching out of the fledgling digital music market to enable us all to just listen. Like we used to with the CD and cassette.

The trouble with standards, you see, is that they are a consensus achievement. And everybody involved has something they feel passionate about. This feature, they argue, will be beneficial.

They are probably right too. The trouble is that a consensus takes time to be reached. By the time we all agree some smart arse visionary has seized control of the country and forced us all to eat our greens.

And this is what standards has to contend with. It must deal with the fact that people want functionality and they want it as soon as someone is visionary enough to offer to it them. The majority of people don’t think about the issues behind monopolies. They just want to do the things they’ve been promised. Internet Explorer offered a simple way of getting on the internet. People jumped at it. I’ve had arguments with people about why what they did was wrong but the fact remains that nearly everybody I have argued with just doesn’t care. They should. But they don’t. They’d hand over the keys to their house if it meant a simpler, more fun-filled life.

The push for an open Web is a struggle against what people want most – for things to just work. Whilst others talk standards, the likes of Apple (and Adobe) are seducing us with cool. Microsoft would be alongside them, in front of them even, if it weren’t for their lack of innovation.

Many publishers are looking to Apple to help them out of the hole they’ve made in the Internet. The Cult of the Free hasn’t had as big an impact upon society as it one day could but its impact has still been sufficient to threaten high streets, the music industry and print media. If Apple can provide a gadget that people feel comfortable to buy stuff through again, well… there go the keys.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

I like whisky. I wouldn’t call myself an expert but I know my highlands from my islays, my single casks from my single malts. Every week or so I sit down, shut off the computer and pour myself a wee dram. The sensation of whisky is like no other drink. It’s not something you use to get drunk (although of course you can) but rather something to savour. And often it’s something to talk about. Think “wine” but a bit more boring.

Several years ago I was staying in a hotel with my future wife. It was the weekend I’d planned to to propose marriage. Now, before we get into this let me just say that there is no connection between drinking whisky and proposing marriage. I’ll grant that you may see a pattern emerge here but try to keep an open mind.

We were in the bar. I knew even less about whisky then than I do now but I had a taste for it and so I thought to order a glass. With my limited knowledge I knew enough to ask the barman. A barman in Scotland (at a hotel which specialises in whisky) MUST know enough to recommend a good drink.

So I asked. And back came all the right questions: have you tried this one or that one; have you heard of Islay or Speyside; do you like it mellow or peaty? The sort of questions that do two things: 1) they help refine the choice of drink and 2) they help build confidence in the barman and by extension, the establishment.

I placed an order, enjoyed the drink and then popped the question.

Skip forward a year and I was on my honeymoon for my second time (that’s second time ordering a whisky, not second honeymoon). I was in Ireland so I should be calling this “whiskey”. So if I knew anything about what I liked in Scotland, it wasn’t going to help me choose over in Ireland. I needed help again.

The barman looked the part. It was a quality hotel so I went in with the expectation that they hired experienced people. The process was similar to the first time and I was handed a good Irish whiskey – from Connemara if I remember correctly.

The thing is, I didn’t, until recently, give it a second thought. Not until I asked for advice somewhere else – again in Scotland. Only half way through the questioning did it occur to me that none of the people whose advice I’d ought might, actually, know much about whisky at all. They could, for all I knew, been asking me some pretty vague and standard questions. My ignorance, and more importantly probably, my desire not to appear too ignorant, would have filled in the gaps in what they were asking. After all I’d probably buy the Emperor’s new clothes from him given half the chance.

Speaking with authority is key in any presentation but being aware that the person might not, actually, have any authority is key to establishing an equal relationship conducive to a collaborative work process. And if this most recent barman hadn’t been six years old I might never have thought of it. Pesky kids.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.