Making friends at Seoul's Gimpo airport.

I’m back after a couple of great weeks in South Korea and Japan. More about those trips over the coming weeks. But in the meantime, here’s a stab at some of the biggest stories I missed while I was gone.

1. Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson fired — busted with fake computer science degree in bio. This is both funny and sad, but the reality is that even if Thompson actually didn’t know he had a fake degree in his bio, he shouldn’t be CEO anyway. If you can’t pay attention to detail in your own bio, what does that say about the business you’ll run or the products you’ll ship? Many writers — myself included — saw Thompson’s supposed computer science background as his main selling point; a chance to rebuild Yahoo’s status as a Silicon Valley technology company. Now that it’s clear that was bullshit all along, he’s no longer welcome. (In a twist, Thompson also disclosed he has just been diagnosed with cancer. All the best in treatment and recovery, of course.) New Yahoo CEO Ross Levinsohn — also not an engineer — seems popular, and should help Yahoo regain some face after the latest embarrassments. But there’s still a lot to fix there. Meanwhile, as I had tweeted, Jerry Yang has got to be loving this.
2. Microsoft invests in the Nook. Fascinating, and a lot of ways to look at this: Microsoft building out its content ecosystem to compete with Apple and Amazon. Microsoft buying a cheap hedge on its Nokia bet. (Hey, the Nook isn’t too shabby a device. Why couldn’t they eventually make phones?) Microsoft buying market share for Windows 8, giving developers another potential reason to build apps for it. Microsoft buying into B&N without the messy job of winding down a retail operation. Reminder: The most impressive thing about the Nook Tablet is that it exists.
3. Why might Apple do a 7-inch iPad? China. More reports that Apple is preparing a smaller iPad. I have no doubt that Apple has tested many iPad sizes, and that eventually it could sell a larger or smaller iPad. (I recently had a dream where Steve Jobs scolded me for a question I asked him about a new, 20-inch iPad.) One thing that comes to mind is that China is now Apple’s second-biggest market, is growing like crazy, and that a smaller tablet might be more important there. Hand size for one — actually only slightly smaller, according to this random website — but also gadget fashion. I haven’t been to China recently, but the Samsung Galaxy Note seems to be doing well in Asia, and maybe there’s more interest in mid-sized devices there. Would love your thoughts on this.
4. Apple preparing new Maps app for iOS 6. This is an obvious change — it always made sense for Apple to eventually control the back-end for one of its most important apps, and not rely on Google — and I’m excited about it. I hope it doesn’t mean losing some Google-driven features, such as public transit directions — those are incredibly helpful, and saved me a lot of time and stress in Asia this month. Anyway, I’ve long wondered about the future of another Apple/Google app mashup: YouTube, which has been built into iOS devices since the first iPhone, and is another instance of Apple building and controlling the app but Google owning the back-end. At some point, you’d think that Google might want to own the entire thing. But being a rare built-in app probably drives usage that Google wouldn’t get otherwise. So it’s an interesting set of tradeoffs. (Also, from John Gruber: iOS Low-Hanging Fruit.)
5. Guy in suit poops on Mark Zuckerberg for wearing a hoodie to IPO roadshow. I don’t know Michael Pachter, the Wall Street analyst who apparently said Zuckerberg’s outfit was a “mark of immaturity”. Maybe he was just talking on TV and said something he didn’t mean; that’s easy to do. Maybe he’s an ageist jerk who really thinks Zuck’s outfit matters. Or maybe he has a point. Back in my rowdy blog days of 2008, I wore a hoodie on TV and Valleywag made fun of me for it. That was awesome! Then I wore the same hoodie to a fancy Akamai party at the IAC building and felt pretty dumb talking to people who were nicely dressed. Anyway, I don’t know what Mark Zuckerberg was thinking that morning: The one time I met with him at Facebook HQ, I’m pretty sure he was wearing a tie and was dressed nicer than I was. Clearly the guy sometimes suffers from (or has previously suffered from) acute anxiety; maybe the hoodie comforts him. (I’ve been there. It’s no fun.) What I’d love to be the case is if he had bet Sheryl Sandberg $100 that morning that some stiff in a suit would make fun of his outfit on TV that day. Either way, Zuckerberg’s amazing history building Facebook speaks for itself, and people shouldn’t worry about his wardrobe. And if the question is whether he sees his new shareholders as chumps who are just lucky to be along for the ride… why shouldn’t he feel that way?
6. iOS 5.1.1 update released… and ruins my phone. I had previously been one of the lucky few to have a flawless experience with iMessage, Apple’s brilliant-in-theory messaging service. Now it is a disaster. Messages I send say they’re not delivered, even when they are. Messages people send me say they’re not delivered, even when they are. Duplicates are then sent. Money is wasted on text messages. And there doesn’t seem to be a reliable solution. (It seems to be worst on wi-fi.) I feel lost, and for the first time in a long time, am angry at my iPhone. Not good, Apple.
7. For American Airlines passengers, the division of wealth widens. American — my airline of choice — recently made some announcements about the future layout of its widebody planes, used mostly for long-haul, international flights: That its business-class cabins would be more luxurious, including lie-flat seats and direct aisle access for everyone. And that in the 777 coach cabin, it would stuff an extra seat in each row: 10 seats across, up from today’s 9. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. (Except for devoted, elite-status fliers, like me, who can select premium-economy seats — 9-across with more legroom — for free.) Why is this happening? Economics. As Brian “The Points Guy” Kelly tweeted from American’s press event, its premium fliers — though a small percent of its passengers — represent a staggering percent of its business: “24% of @AmericanAir customers generate 70% of revenue and even more profit.” The same way smartphones are crucial to Nokia’s recovery, premium fliers are crucial to American’s recovery after bankruptcy. So expect things to get nicer “up front” and worse for the cattle in the back.
8. The real reason why websites publish slideshows: To make money. At the Atlantic, Alexis Madrigal pokes the slideshow bear, reminding the media world that breaking an article into 25 “slides” is a crappy user experience, and that, in theory, it’s crappier for advertisers, too. But he seems to miss the point of why web publishers do this. It isn’t even to juke their traffic stats or to create more ad inventory. It’s because pageviews are money, and slideshows are an easy and reliable way to dramatically multiply a reader’s pageviews and ad impressions per visit. Therefore, slideshows are revenue multipliers. (Assuming a high sell-through of ad inventory, which any good publisher with a competent sales team or ad network should be able to accomplish.) Don’t the advertisers complain or revolt? Everyone I’ve ever asked about this says that no, they don’t: Either they don’t know what’s going on or they don’t care. Relative to their overall marketing budget, one site’s little ad buy doesn’t mean much. Shouldn’t media companies be moving beyond per-impression banner ads, anyway? Perhaps. But it’s still the way that most big “brand” advertisers — the types of companies whose logos you want on your site — buy ads. So why not exploit it? What about the user experience? Yeah, what about it? That’s some high-minded thinking there, and you should be applauded for it. But the reality is that people are simple creatures and when something attracts them, they click. And click. And click. And even if you lose a few readers to frustration, there are billions more new ones out there.
9. “Nobody seems to understand what Jeff Bezos is doing. Does he?” Another fun essay from Farhad Manjoo, this time for PandoDaily. It’s easy to gaze lovingly at the way Apple makes an absurd profit every quarter with a very simple business model while Amazon runs closer to break-even with an often-confusing business model. Some people, especially in the Apple sphere, even seem to turn their nose at Amazon’s model. To me, that’s stupid. Speaking as a frequent customer, Amazon is one of the greatest services in the world. If it were profit-obsessed, it probably wouldn’t be nearly as great. I’m very happy to have Jeff Bezos running around, trying all sorts of different stuff, giving away the razors one day and the razorblades the next. As long as it’s making enough money to keep funding Amazon’s growth and experimentation, that’s all I’d ever ask for. This is hardly a mature industry — e-commerce is still less than 5% of overall retail sales. I’d hate to see Amazon slow down.
10. “Draw Something” has been losing users after getting acquired by Zynga. Uh, yeah. I don’t think anyone should be surprised by this. OMGPOP timed its sale perfectly, as activity peaked. But it’s still a wildly popular game and the no. 12 highest grossing app in the App Store. It’s obviously not “Angry Birds”, but did anyone think it was?
11. Bonus! The Chicago Bulls crash and burn in the NBA playoffs. This is sad, and as we say every year in Chicago, “wait til next year”. But remind me to write a post complaining in detail about the NBA’s terrible game-TV streaming service. For something that MLB makes so easy, so magical, and seem like such a great value, the NBA does so poorly that I’ll never be tricked into that ripoff again.

When I saw AppBaseball in the store here in Tokyo, my eyes lit up.

I spent many hours as a kid playing lo-fi handheld baseball videogames: First the baseball half of the Tiger Electronics Bo Jackson baseball/football hybrid game, then Roger Clemens MVP Baseball for my Gameboy. (Chicago Swords!)

For a moment, I thought I might have found a neat way to play some baseball on my iPhone, with an old-school kick. Not quite, it turns out.

As these box shots show, AppBaseball is a plastic iPhone case with an analog bat control. Buy the gadget for ~¥3,200 — around $40 — and download the app for free. Then play baseball and pretend you’re 8 years old again.

Inside the box, there are yellow plastic holders for three devices: The iPhone 4/S, iPhone 3G/S, and iPod touch. There is also a sheet of stickers and some instructions.

The main controls are a switch on the back to choose the type of pitch, a button to release the ball, and the bat, which is spring-loaded. (The idea is that two people can play at once, one pitching and one batting.) There’s an on-off switch on the bottom, and the device takes a cell-type battery.

The way it seems to work is interesting. AppBaseball doesn’t hook into your iPhone dock connector or headphone jack, and doesn’t seem to be very sophisticated or computerized at all.

The device actually beams lights of different color and position — right into the iPhone camera — depending on what the analog switches are doing. The AppBaseball game reads the light beams with the iPhone camera, I’m assuming, and uses them to control the game.

I say “I’m assuming” because I don’t really know… because I can’t actually download the AppBaseball game and play. Because it’s only in the Japan iPhone App Store. Or at least it’s not in the U.S. App Store. So I can’t play on my U.S. iPhone.

I hope the creator, Wiz Co, flips the right switch in iTunes so I can download it eventually. Though the demo video on this site seems to suggest the game itself isn’t very good, anyway. (And my guess is that using the camera during the whole game — if that’s what happens — runs down the battery very quickly.)

In the meantime, I have a new, expensive plastic stand for my iPhone, and a fun story. Kind of a bummer, though.

Five years ago I visited Tokyo and the coolest things I saw were a dancing Sony alarm clock and a humping-dog USB toy. Now I’m here again, and all you see anywhere are iPhone cases, headphone jack toys, iPad stands, and all kinds of crazy accessories.

Here are some of the more interesting ones I saw today at two stores, Loft and Tokyu Hands in the Shibuya area. Some of these, I assume, you’ll eventually find in the gadget zone at your local Urban Outfitters, if they aren’t there already. There’s one more thing — something much more elaborate, which I actually bought — but I’m saving it for another day. I want to try it out first.

Apologies for the crappy photos. I was sneaking quick iPhone pics in bad lighting.

I’m in Seoul and Incheon, Korea, this week, on assignment for ReadWriteWeb. So, as you’ve noticed, posting will be limited. (And next week, when I’ll be in Tokyo.)

I might have some free time this Friday in Seoul, so if you’re around and want to meet up, get in touch.

I’ve obviously seen a lot of Samsung gear in use and on sale here — Galaxy Notes, Galaxy S IIs, one Galaxy Tab, etc. But I’m also a bit surprised how much Apple stuff I’ve seen, especially iPhones and window promotions for the new iPad in carrier stores. Oh, and this thing. (Update: Apparently an Internet café.)

In a Bloomberg article today, Square drops a new money stat: It is now processing payments at a $5 billion annualized rate. Square has been revealing these stats, with increasing payment volume, for more than a year — see last month’s post, “Square’s Sexy Growth Curve”.

I’ve updated my chart with the latest stats, and it looks as if Square’s payment processing rate continues to accelerate. (It’s hard to know exactly, as the data is based on PR opportunities and not a direct feed of Square’s stats. But that’s what I have to work with.)

This is, of course, what the company and its investors are betting on, so it shouldn’t be seen as anything but the plan. But still, good to see — it should be accelerating.

Assuming Square’s published 2.75% commission, Square’s gross revenue run rate on $5 billion of annual payments is about $140 million. Square does make a margin from its commission, COO Keith Rabois told me last month.

But the company is far from profitable — on purpose, of course. Much of the commission goes to pay the credit card companies, which Square won’t be able to design out of the picture for a while. And with a staff of ~250, aiming to double to 500 this year, Square is spending tens of millions per year on employees.

There’s a lot of talk that Square could become bigger than Twitter, the other famous company founded by Square CEO Jack Dorsey. I need to learn more about the payments business before I can comfortably agree. But it’s cool to watch this company grow. I’m a fan.

Previously: Square’s Sexy Growth Curve

Hey, look at that. WordPress is becoming a decent business. But it’s still passing up an important segment of the market — sites like this one.

Here’s All Things D’s Liz Gannes on Automattic, the WordPress parent company:

The company is profitable, and expects to bring in $45 million in revenue this year, according to CEO Toni Schneider and founder Matt Mullenweg.

The majority of Automattic revenue comes from premium subscription services, and that’s supplemented by a “VIP” enterprise publisher business — in total, there are half a million paying customers — as well as a recently launched advertising revenue-sharing network.

That’s pretty solid growth from a couple of years ago, when WordPress was supposedly only doing about $10 million in sales. So, bravo to the WordPress team.

But here’s my problem with WordPress. I want to pay Automattic a nice amount of money every month to host my “pro” site(s) on real, official WordPress infrastructure. But they won’t let me.

I’ve been using WordPress blogging software for almost a year now for SplatF, and for about 7 years for other sites. It’s a pretty solid content management system, though it hasn’t really evolved very much over the years, and there are some features it could do much better. But whatever, no big deal. It gets the job done.

The problem is that there’s no middle ground in WordPress’s hosting business for sites like SplatF: “Pro” sites that aim to be commercial enterprises, but aren’t run by big companies with money to spend on “VIP”-level service.

Today, I could host SplatF on WordPress’s own “WordPress.Com” infrastructure for free, plus about $100 per year in premium add-ons. But then I couldn’t run ads on it, or make money off it, unless I used WordPress’s very limited ad-rev-share program. That’s a non-starter.

But WordPress “VIP” — which would allow me to run ads, and currently powers sites like TechCrunch and GigaOM — starts at $3,750 per month(!). That’s crazy! Even in a few years, I wouldn’t want to spend that much per month on hosting. Not for a simple site like this one.

There’s no middle ground with WordPress. This means the only option is to host elsewhere.

Today, I spend about $50-$100 per month to host SplatF at Dreamhost. (I’m also spending $15/month for WordPress’s “VaultPress” backup system, $10/month for a new caching service called CloudFlare, and $5/month for Amazon’s CloudFront CDN service.)

This is okay, not great. There has been some downtime at Dreamhost; a lot, recently. It could be much faster. I’ve had security problems in the past. It’s just not solid enough. I’m considering switching to WP Engine, which seems to be faster and more reliable, but will be a bit more expensive and has drawbacks.

But what I’d really like to do is pay WordPress-the-company that $80-$130 per month to host SplatF and let me run my own ads on it. I don’t want VIP phone support or white-glove treatment. I just want to pay WordPress a reasonable amount of money for a reasonable level of commercial service. And it makes me sad that I can’t.

Now, maybe there’s a good reason for this. Maybe WordPress thinks/knows that $1,000-$1,500 per year in revenue isn’t enough per customer to make a profit, when infrastructure and support costs are figured in. Maybe it’s trying to keep its paid-hosting customer base low and focus on VIP clients that can spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Maybe my slice of the market is smaller than I think it is. Or maybe WordPress just hasn’t gotten around to designing a mid-range product.

But whatever the reason, I’m still forced to spend my money elsewhere. And that’s too bad.

Earlier: Adventures In Self-Publishing: SplatF’s Six-Month Checkup

Few technology markets have exploded over the past few years like the smartphone industry. This has made a fortune for Apple, where the iPhone business should pass $100 billion in sales this year. And it has been great for Google, the smartphone market leader. Think about it: Last decade’s web search engine is now one of the world’s leading platform companies.

The smartphone market has been less kind to Microsoft, which was last century’s leading platform company on PCs, but is struggling to catch up to Apple and Google on mobile devices. So yesterday, I published a post on ReadWriteWeb arguing that Microsoft’s mobile comeback is “looking terrible,” based on continued declines in smartphone market share, despite a solid new mobile platform, Windows Phone 7: