Here's how this Netflix thing is going to shake out.  Hastings is going to split the two products in two so that it's easier for a tech/media company to but the streaming business.  The DVD business remains a cash cow that they can ride out until the last dollar shows up.  This all creates a milestone that allows him to mentally walk away in 2-4 years and change education (his stated post-Netflix gig).  Pretty simple.  The brand's new public perception is just accelerating that plan.  The stock price is now back to where it should have been in the first place.  If there's anything I would fault Hastings on it is not selling the company when he knew the company was over priced.  Hindsight.

What I find most interesting in this whole story is how many people have the energy to get worked up over spending $10 per month for an entertainment service.  If it's not working for you -- cancel it.  Yes, the $10 plan used to include streaming and one disc.  You used to get a steal.  Now you just get a bargain.

Bottom Line: If a customer is so price sensitive that you can't extract an additional $5 - $7 per month out of them -- make them leave.  You probably didn't want them in the first place.

You're looking real desperate right now.  This is some of the most blantant haterade I've ever seen in the tech space.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/09/verifone-calls-out-square-for-gaping-secur...

SlideShare may have just found a business model.

http://www.slideshare.net/zipcast

Running a service is hard.  One of the reasons I like building native mobile apps that integrate with existing cloud services is because I'm not on the hook to run operations.  We're exploring a SaaS offering for marketers at OnePlane.  The part we're stuck on is the ops piece -- not building the app.  That really is the hard part.  Tumblr went down last month.  That situation was interesting since they just recently started taking money.  Now there is a different expectation with their customers.  Bottom Line: Be ready before you sign up customers and take their money for your shiny new software service.  They'll expect it.

So the rumors were true and MySpace, MyBlank or whatever they're calling themselves this week, cut nearly fifty percent of their workforce.  There's not much humor in people losing their jobs, but the whole situation begs the questions.  Were any of those employees really surprised?  Did any of those folks really think MySpace would turn things around?  Hope not.  I hope the people who got laid off today have been spending their days on the Ladders and rolling out early to catch networking happy hours.  The morale in that place has to be awful.  Even just collecting a check in that type of environment has to be painful.

My recommendation to Newscorp: Send 450 more people to the house.  Leave 2 lawyers, 20 guys to run servers and 30 people to collect and cash whatever checks are still coming.  Then run that bad boy into the ground until the last dollar shows up.  They could even film the process and push it through Twentieth Century Fox to squeeze out a few extra bucks.  From there they can shut down the servers, auction off the domain, and shut the lights off.

http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-myspace-cuts-47-percent-of-its-workforce/

Update (via Mary): http://gawker.com/5731134/worked-like-dogs-then-laid-off

This could signal a tipping point in SaaS pricing models (at least for the SMB space).

FTA...

Basecamp never had a user limit. From the free plan to the most expensive Max plan, you could add an unlimited number of users to your Basecamp account. However, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire followed the industry-standard "charge per seat/user" model.

We've never particularly liked the charge per user model. We call it the participation tax. The more people involved, the more you pay. That’s not the best way to encourage collaboration.

So with the launch of the Suite, we've abolished user limits on all our apps. When you upgrade to the Suite you get unlimited users on Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire. Invite all your employees/collaborators to your account and get work done without having to think about cost-per-user.

http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2656-launch-the-37signals-suite

The Apache Software Foundation (ASP) is trying corral community support to block the next version of Java.  Their motivation is rooted in the belief that Oracle (post Sun acquisition) is not being a good steward of Java.  In this case it's less about source code transparency, and more about licensing drama.  The field-of-use limitation (which lets patent holders cripple licensee usage) is what ASP is most worked up about.  Regardless of the outcome, this highlights the challenges with being kind-of-open.  A similar soap opera is unfolding with Google and Android.  When a technology platform is open, but still controlled by a single company/organization we should not be surprised when that company uses the platform to serve their interests.  Java is open and for the most part, free of licensing fees.  But it's not free.  And by free I mean free from the commercial software business that so many open source advocates promote.  Oh, the irony.

By now you've probably heard that Google made a change to their terms of service that requires bi-directional access to Google Contacts.  More simply, companies can't suck out Google Contacts from a user account unless their service also exposes a similar export feature.  This is primarily a jab to Facebook.

Marissa Mayer has complained that too much data is being locked inside of Facebook.  I agree in principle with her assertion.  It's a fair position.  If you take data from us you need to also provide the option for us to take it from you.  Google should just say that instead of pretending this is about data liberation and openess.  This is key since the missing part of the discussion is the the fact that this data should really belong to the people.  We give away a lot rights to our data (text, images, video) when we publish/share it on "free" services like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc...  Still, it is people - not Google or Facebook - that create and own that content.

Power to the people and our data.

Update: The drama continues...
http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/09/facebook-slaps-google-openness-doesnt-mean-b...