What are you smoking? The people who are actually buying Android phones have no clue about "open source." You call yourself a geek? What are you doing here? You need to realize the 99% of the non-geek population of this planet never heard of "open source." You need to go out more, socialize, get to know the rest of the world ;) You can't make money on Android and assume nobody else can. But the trend is changing, even here where I live. Blackberry is still very strong, but the growing upper-middle class idolized Apple for years. This trend has been changing for the at least a year now. There are no subsidized prices here, people pay $400-700 for a smartphone. These are not "cheap" people as you seem to assume. Google Play has been getting better and better (though more buggy at the same time, QC Google please!) and now paying through your gmail account became so easy... I bought about 18 apps myself. Samsung has a very heavy presence, lots of marketing and it works. I see more and more people with high-end android smart phones and tablets. Hell, my model at the shooting (I'm a photographer) asked me about the Nexus 10! Have you heard of it? she said. And she is most definitely not a geek ;) I saw a women wielding a Galaxy Note the other day.

How the hell did you come up with that idea? How does the parent advocate Cuba, China or Lybia "kind of democracy." He said "governments that represent the public interest should rule the world." Sounds a bit pompous, yeah, but he's right. Dictatorships never represent the public interest.

I second that. Korean national pride borders on racism sometimes. You know what happened when KT (Korea Telecom) came out with the Nexus One opening the gates for the first series of really usable (Froyo) Samsung, LG, etc. Android based smartphones? The iOS market collapsed within one year! iOS went from 60% marketshare to just 3-5. In the first three months after the Nexus launch iOS marketshare fell a whopping 40% - in three months!!! People actually sold their iShinys to buy smartphones from Korean manufacturers because they were good enough. Koreans buy Korean products. Check the numbers for yourself.

Bonch, stop trolling. You confuse quality control with preventing users do whatever they want with their phones. Your tirade is about the former, and I think you're alone in seeing that as a bad thing. HTC's announcement is about the latter - something Google has been pushing with their Nexus line since the Nexus One. Get yourself some brains please.

Spot on. What's more, photographers are leaving Flickr in droves for G+ for much of the same reasons - more engagement with like-minded people. And you know what? I find myself less and less interested in Slashdot. Can't have a discussion without shills, or someone riding the GOOGLE IS WATCHING YOU OMG horse, etc. It's boooring.

That was exactly my experience on G+ - following interesting people, mostly photographers (I'm an enthusiastic beginner), participating in discussions, etc. proved to be far more engaging than Facebook ever was. I spend more time on G+ than I ever did on Facebook, though that doesn't say much since I never found facebook interesting enough to play with. G+ is definitely different. I learned more about photography, for example, in just the past few weeks then in the preceding months! And I don't see it as a Facebook killer either. Yeah, I also quit facebook almost completely. My blog posts still show up there, and like once a week I spend about 5 minutes replying to someone, but that's all. On the other hand, I post better content myself than I used to, and so do G+ users in general in my opinion. Perhaps the follow/be followed and the whole circles/private/public concept gives more incentive for people to think before their post, or at least don't broadcast to everyone what you had for dinner, because people will just uncircle you if you are too noisy. Yes, like minded people easily find each other - G+ is lightyears ahead in this respect - and also provides the same facilities (keep in touch with classmates, people you already know). I just see no reason to use Facebook anymore.

You know, I'm tired of hearing this facebook vs. google+ story. When will you realize that it's not a battle. Google doesn't consider it a battle. Google+ is a new and innovative product that combines some of the features seen on almost all sites that allow connecting and sharing with people. Google attracts twitter users, because on G+ you can follow and be followed - just like on twitter. G+ will attract some facebook users, because it may be more useful, cleaner, more attractive, whatever the reason. And G+ will kill Flickr, in fact, some of the best photographers in the world have already left Flickr for G+. Probably has something to do with so many google guys having photography as their hobby. Check out Thomas Hawks's blog for details (yeah, the number of photographers devoted to google+ reached the tipping point already. From Trey Ratcliff to the excellent Klaus Hermann or Lisa Bettany - they are there, switching.

G+ attracts users from a variety of sources, probably even some people that never joined any of these networks. G+ is not a Facebook killer. It's not a Twitter killer either (no anonymity) - and that's actually a good thing! Why should G+ kill any other service to be successful? Yeah, it can surely weaken their position, but I do think it can coexist with these. To me, it seems Facebook is just panicking - because how else can you interpret these "messages" from Facebook? If G+ is truly no danger or insignificant, why obsess with declaring this every week? Facebook seems to be overreacting a little bit.

What I meant to say is that "In God We Trust" reflects popular sentiment. Does "get prosecuted if you hurt someone's feelings" reflect popular sentiment? Or just simple ignorance? Neither case is very desirable from my point of view. It makes critical thinking rather impossible. Now I don't know what the guy involved in this lawsuit really said. He might have been an asshole (and probably was, why harass religious groups if they pose no danger? I mean the "cult" in question is not exactly scientology). That said, the law is just too damn broad, and this "creative" use is alarming. I may be wrong is this, but it seems to me that as far as free speech is concerned, we get 5 bad news for every good one recently.

True, but "In God We Trust" is just a sign of the lack of evolution (pun intended) - and I don't see it changing any time soon. The people who don't believe in God are a tiny minority, and that minority is not growing. This law, however is a clear regression. Admittedly, this might be just false nostalgia, but I don't think in the 80s and 90s passing such a law would have been feasible. Not even bringing the idea up publicly. Since then, we (I'm not a U.S. citizen, but it can be felt globally) patriot acts, DMCAs, etc. to soften us up. Very visible systems of control to make us used to it (TSA comes to mind, which serves this purpose as well as generates large profits for the manufacturers and their friends). And now, this law wont even rise a "meh." in the media (and through them, to the general public). Oh, did I mention the media? When was the last time we had real investigative and independent journalism? Watergate? What wikileaks did put to shame all traditional medias - this should have been their job, no? I'm pessimistic about the direction we are heading.

Let's hope so. Although at this rate, it's going to be passed sooner or later (I give it 10 years). Yes, that's the direction we are heading. The simple thought that proposing this law is possible is worrying enough. That's where we are now - politicians proposing laws such as this without flinching... that's normal today. They don't think there's an issue. They don't think anyone important would think there's an issue. That's quite tragic.

Short answer: Yes and No. The twitter as it exists today will be gone. There are already people abandoning Twitter to G+ (Trey Ratcliff, for example). Twitter existed because it's different from facebook. On facebook, every relationship is mutual. You are "friends" with everybody. On twitter, you can follow or be followed. G+ is a combination of the two. G+ is more of a danger (short term) to twitter than to facebook. However, I don't think Google is out to bulldozer twitter. I believe that they are truly trying to build something different. And I do support their insistence on real names, for a variety of reasons. Facebook allowed a niche for twitter by being less effective at one to many communication. That's why journalists and the media is on Twitter. Google does that, and more - but it also leaves a niche for twitter: anonymity. I think Twitter has a chance of survival as long as Google insists on real names on G+. Most people who comment here are looking at the picture as it is right now. Yeah, twitter is big, but G+ does everything twitter does and more! You don't have to be "friends" with everybody just to get the word out. You can push out info to "followers" - but if a follower decides to comment on your info, all his friends will be able to see it. Twitter has no such mechanism.

I completely agree with everything you wrote - group management is a nightmare on Facebook. It is easy to choose "friends" or "friend of friends" as a default option for your posts. However, there is an additional layer on top of that: Facebook's own algorithm that selects whose stream your post will appear in. This is not transparent to the user at. Even if you don't want to segregate your contacts into different groups, you have no control over who sees what you say. We don't know how the algorithm works (there are plenty of educated guesses though). In fact, they can add a simple filter to prevent any post mentioning Google+ appearing in your friends stream - and we wouldn't even know about it! A lot has been said against Facebook (changing TOS, privacy settings, allowing 3rd parties to get users's information, etc.). In my opinion, however, this is the worst thing about Facebook: you have no control over who sees the things you share by posting. Everything about facebook is about control. They control who sees your post, they control how much you can post (420 characters!), they control whose posts you see in your stream. On G+ you are in control of all of that.

So yes, precisely as you said, they have a rudimentary system for contact segregation that is a nightmare to use. But even if you are not concerned with that, you just your contacts to see what you post, that's not possible. Of course, they see what you post on their walls. But when you write a Note, how many of your contacts will see it in their stream? Nobody knows.

Maybe you're not, but artists and journalists are flocking to Google+. Let me give you just one example of the former: read what Trey Ratcliff wrote. 40.000+ followers on G+ and half as many on his Facebook fanpage. As to journalists - countless examples. This video might explain why: Google Plus on Rocketboom.. Pay attention to the twitter part, or to what Ratcliff says in the interview. Communication is simiply more fun on G+ - and far more effective. On facebook, you can't chose who among your 300 "friends" sees what you want to say. Facebook "filters" (well, censors) your post to a select people based on various past indicators. You have no control over this process whatsoever. On Google+ you are in control. And thanks to control over what you see (direct links to circle streams, the ability to "mute" discussions) you don't have to listen to the flood of stupidity that is overwhelming on Facebook. That also makes it easier to follow others, share content, etc. - as you can see in Ratcliff's example.

Don't forget another Apple factor: Apple likes being first. They don't like entering markets, they like creating new ones. That no longer may seem possible. What else is there now that they opened up the tablets market? (I personally would like to see them try something with watches ;) Anyway, people underestimate this Apple sentiment, but it is at the core of what they communicate to customers and what they believe in. This sense of exclusivity is responsible for generating the kind of deep emotional bond you see in Apple fanboys online, or people sleeping in front of their stores on launch date, waiting in lines for 6-8 hours to get their hands on the latest. No other company is successful in generating that kind of devotion. At a very strong component of that is that... they are special. They are different. They are first. Look at their patent lawsuits recently. The message is clear: we were first. They are copying us. Only geeks know that this is not true - innovation depends on the free flow of information.

I'm personally glad that iOS finally got a good notification system by copying Android. Of course, no fanboy would ever admit that Apple copied anything, another evidence how genetic being first is to Apple. There is a problem with NFC. Android was first. Not only that, but it was the Nexus S - THE Google phone. I know this sounds a bit of a stretch, but then, people (especially geeks) always underestimate the role of emotions in our choices. See Simon Sinek's video on the subject.

Funny - I see this phenomenon in Saigon, Vietnam. They don't go as far as copying the t-shirts. However, they do sell Apple stuff (imported). For some reason, cheap Apple knock-offs are not very popular in Vietnam. Yeah, you can find them if you look hard enough, but people avoid them.