TMO Background Mode Interview with Novelist and Freelance Tech Writer Dan Moren

Dan Moren is a novelist, freelance tech writer and prolific podcaster. He’s written for Tidbits, Fast Company, Popular Science, Yahoo Tech, and Tom’s Guide. He was a senior editor at Macworld for many years and continues to write the excellent Stay Foolish column there every Friday. Today he also writes for Six Colors and hosts severable popular podcasts, including Clockwise and Inconceivable! We chatted about his years before Macworld and how he launched his career by writing about Star Wars for a newspaper (most interesting) and later bumped into Jason Snell at a Macworld Expo. Dan told me the story about the development of his SciFi novel, his favorite Mac and his favorite writing tools for both fiction and tech. Finally, Dan briefed me on the many different podcasts he hosts.

Have We Reached Peak Smart Home?

Have we reached peaked smart home? Craig Lloyd writes that we have, and there are a couple of things holding the industry back, like competing standards, expensive devices, and problems with voice control.

There’s a problem with the smarthome industry—multiple problems, actually. And after experiencing a huge boom over the last few years, smarthome as a whole has reached a plateau of sorts.

Don’t get us wrong; smarthome technology is a really exciting market, and it’s become so popular that big players like Amazon and Google have dived head first into offering comprehensive smarthome product lines. The thing is, smarthome in general still has a long way to go.

Librarians Respond to Forbes About Amazon Replacing Libraries

Amazon replacing libraries? Pish posh. Panos Mourdoukoutas, a professor of economics at LIU Post in New York, suggested in a Forbes article that libraries should be permanently replaced with Amazon bookstores.

This is such as asinine suggestion in my opinion. Libraries aren’t just for books, they serve as community centers with public programs like helping kids read, computer classes for the elderly, etc. A librarian can do so much more than an Amazon clerk, as librarian Amanda Oliver says:

It’s librarians helping people fill out free housing forms and visa forms and all things related to basic human needs. It’s shelter when it’s freezing or raining or scorching hot. It’s access to free newspapers and conversation. It’s so much for so many.

Libraries actually provide something for everyone, no exclusions. Literally no one is excluded from access to the library! It’s for everyone. Prisoners, people with disabilities, elderly, the young, the rich, the poor, etc.

Keep that in mind the next time you try to hang out at a typical business and they ask you to buy something or leave.

You Should Delete Social Media Accounts

Jaron Lanier is a VR pioneer, musician and author and he’s been around Silicon Valley for most of his life. He has a new book called Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now and he takes a look at social media that was supposed to “connect humanity” but instead divides us. His argument is to delete social media accounts.

“If info-consumers see the world through agent’s eyes, then advertising will transform into the art of controlling agents, through bribing, hacking, whatever,” Lanier wrote, presciently. “You can imagine an arms race” between armor-plated agents and hacker-laden ad agencies. Lovely . . . An agent’s model of what you are interested in will be a cartoon model, and you will see a cartoon version of the world through the agent’s eyes.”

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Gary Vaynerchuck Blames Apple Marketing for Planet of the Apps Failure

Why did Planet of the Apps tank? It’s not because it wasn’t compelling or that it was poorly edited; it’s because Apple sucked at marketing the series. Or at least that’s what Gary Vaynerchuk says. Business Insider caught his comments from an Ask Gary Vee video. Vaynerchuk, who was one of the celebrity business mentors on the show, said,

I was on an Apple show, ‘Planet of the Apps,’ Gwyneth [Paltrow], Will[.i.am], Jessica Alba, and me. And Apple didn’t use me or Vayner to do the marketing, and did everything wrong. Apple!

He goes on to say he was frustrated during Apple’s marketing meetings, Apple did “everything wrong” with its marketing, and Jimmy Iovine should’ve been more involved. Considering how flat the show was, it’s hard to imagine any level of marketing would’ve helped make the show a success.