Word: platforms
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...read to succeed, however, media companies will need a trustworthy, easy-to-use payment platform. Common online payment methods like credit cards aren't feasible because processing fees can exceed the value of such tiny transactions. In the gaming world, the typical micropayment system allows consumers to transfer money (usually via credit or debit cards) into electronic accounts, or e-wallets, where hard cash is converted into digital currency for online purchases. There are already several companies providing micropayment services to gaming websites; Santa Clara, Calif. - based PlaySpan offers its service in 80 countries. Micropayments are also migrating to mobile...
...Amazon takes a loss on these books, since it buys them from publishers at the price of a regular hardcover. The company considers it an investment in getting the Kindle established as a platform. But eventually - soon - it's going to want publishers to start sharing the pain. This may seem a nitpicky issue, but once e-books become a significant part of the market, the price of a Kindle edition could mean the difference between the red and the black for some publishers. "That's the detonation point," says Dennis Johnson, publisher of the prominent small press Melville House...
Third-party hardware support. Apple is extending the iPhone platform to hardware makers so that they can attach all manner of things - from glucose and heart monitors to GPS mounts that plug your phone into your car's stereo...
Some argue that Twitter is a form of digital narcissism, the toy of the moment for an attention-deficit-disordered culture. But as Johnson notes, the Twitter platform is ultimately about an accretion of tweets, the way hundreds of thousands of pixels form a detailed and complex digital image. Twitter underscores Marshall McLuhan's famous aphorism that the medium is the message--the idea that technological form shapes and determines the culture. McLuhan challenged the traditional notion that content--whether in print, in film or on television--is automatically more significant than the medium through which it is delivered. What...
...cohort in all walks of life, he's taking over an institution just as it has become diminished. Network TV, newspapers, Social Security, American hegemony - all seem to have stuck around just long enough to crap out on the post-boomers. The Tonight Show is still a lucrative platform, but it's not the singular cultural voice it was when Jay took over. Conan competes for attention with Jimmy Kimmel, David Letterman, Stephen Colbert and more - plus whatever happens to be on TiVo, Xbox or the Internet. (See pictures of the life and times of Jay Leno...