There's this thing called Google.... maybe you've heard of it (but of course, we can't assume that you have)...

This was my reaction too (steepled fingers, "well played, Mr. Zuckerberg. Well played."). A bit of G+ chatter / press went to Zuckerberg being the most followed on G+. He gets some attention. Then throws his hands up and goes "never-mind how I said that the age of privacy is over... G+ is too scary!"

Or it shows that lumbering bureaucracies have fundamental disadvantages that can not be overcome by bolting on additional layers of bureaucracy (read: compliance).

Unless it gets "lost" in another fire or other misfortune.

No - there's a 3rd option. It is recovered and placed back in public stewardship where it belongs.

Media companies always live in the past. There is always a business model that transforms the industry until it becomes outdated yet held on to even as it drags the industry down in to near collapse. Then someone finally adapts to reality by implementing a new business model and the survivors all jump ship. Reality often involves disruptive technology. You can see this in the history of Hollywood (studio system, television) and music (radio).

Of course - that history also shows a grudgingly slow adaptation to change. But change does eventually happen.

You probably also believe the urban myth that the KFC brand change was because they can't legally call the meat that they serve "chicken".

Don't be stupid, be a smarty...

Only if we're having a made-up caption contest.

Depends on how that integration works out. As long as all the pieces remain modular, there might be no down side to better integrating various products. For example, when I create a gmail account I also have access to docs and calendars. I can safely ignore either if I never want to use those features even if they're one click away. Never touching a Calendar will not expose anything from gmail.

Note that this is different from when Google released Buzz which exposed information from other services (namely gmail). Hopefully they've learned from that mistake.

The problem with Buzz was that everyone was immediately integrated in to Buzz which exposed some aspects of one's other Google service accounts that wasn't otherwise previously available to others.

Not at all. Tablets have been around well before the iPad.

You're missing a more subtle point. It doesn't replace the laptop for general purpose computing. But it might replace the laptop where a laptop is being used for a specific subset of tasks.

Right now, my phone trades off as my main communications interface. I do more email and IM than phonecalls. And I trade off between my laptop and my phone depending on what I'm doing and how involved the communications are. In most cases, I could get away with just the smartphone until the task got involved enough to warrant breaking out the laptop... in situations when said laptop wasn't already running. The point here is the right interface for the task at hand. Not all platforms work well in all situations.

For you maybe. I'm in the market for an inexpensive Android tablet. But I wouldn't dream of tossing out my laptop for one. And as interesting as netbooks were, I'm more interested in a tablet.

I'd suggest you're missing things yourself in your zeal to put "fanbois" in their place.

Take your blinders off - you're seeing fanbois where there are none. I am no Apple fanboi.

Go back and re-read what I wrote. I'm not saying that the iPad is a good replacement for a laptop. What I'm saying is that it fits a particular niche. It's a good platform to consume media; watching video, reading, etc. That means it could replace a more general purpose device only if you don't care about anything beyond media consumption. Why would someone give up functionality? Because they don't care about that additional functionality (or at least, don't perceive that they care - people CAN be short sighted).

Just as you're mis-labeling fanbois, you're also mis-labeling the argument. The fanbois have always claimed that the iPad is a revolution in general computing, not a niche platform for specific tasks.

I think you've got that wrong. The Apple fanbois were claiming that iPads were the new wave and were a replacement for laptops, netbooks, and even quite possibly desktops. The concept was that iPads would drastically alter the very face of computing.

I would think it's a much more reasonable to look at tablets as a different interface for specific tasks. That is - tablets are ideal interfaces for consumption of media. If your use of a laptop is largely watching videos and updating your social messaging service of choice, then sure... a tablet could probably take the place of your laptop.

So the best Android tablet is an iOS tablet. Wonderful bit of logic you've got going there.

A "red herring" and "wag the dog" can have very similar meanings. But they're not exclusive. The concept of a secondary part controlling the whole is what gives "wag the dog" meaning. But focusing on that is missing the significance of the concept. To "wag the dog" does, in fact, mean to create an event to distract from another event. The concept differs somewhat form a red herring in so far as it implies action while a red herring could be misinformation or undue attention to a minor detail.

As it is, this story about the RIAA might be better described as a red herring; they're focusing attention on social deviants rather than the issue of copyright enforcement. If the RIAA were wagging the dog, they would be hiring someone to pose as social deviants to generate some news with the intent of drawing media attention away from stories that the RIAA's data on the impact of copyright infringement is largely manufactured.