We Want A Dead Simple Web Tablet. Help Us Build It.

Who cares? Do you think people writing about Twitter sucking actually makes them improve things? If this were so, then automated phone response systems would be history. So would off-shore call centers, and so on.

Bad Twitter stability will get fixed if and when it translates into lost revenue and/or market share. From what I have been reading, it already is (apparently to FriendFeed if I remember correctly. I am not at all into the Twitter thing, so please correct me if I'm wrong).

These are businesses. Profits, market share, revenues, that kind of thing matters. Everything else matters only when it translates into something that matters.

Arrington reminds me a lot of the character of Anton Ego in Ratatouille. A vicious critic. This speech (by Ego) in particular comes to mind:

[POTENTIAL SPOILER WARNING]

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talents, new creations. The new needs friends."

Generally not, but with a $65,000 price tag, it might be reasonably raging.

"Nik Cubrilovic (koo-bree-low-vick) is an Australian-born entrepreneur, technologist, software developer and blogger. Nik is the founder and CEO of Omnidrive, a web content and storage platform. Nik was also the founder of Solutionstap, a technology solutions and software development company. Prior to Solutionstap, Nik was a freelance developer, project manager and security specialist in Australia, the UK, South Africa and throughout Europe. Nik has contributed to a large number of open source projects and published a number of security vulnerabilities for various platforms and applications since 1996. In 2007, Nik was named in The Bulletin magazine as one of Australia’s “Smart 100.”

Nik has been a contributor and advisor to Techcrunch since 2005. In 1998 Nik was a founding member of the 2600 chapter in Australia, and in 2005 was a founding member of 2web, a loose-knit group of Australian technology entrepreneurs. Nik has advised, or is a current advisor to a range of companies and startups based in both Australia and the USA."

-As per his bio

I will be amazed (and applaud them) if they can pull this off as fast as he anticipates. I am no expert on hardware design, but I did manage the development of a touch-enabled control panel and electrical system for a home appliance, and it required a hell-load of work from a few dedicated staff over 3-4 months (and that was just to get a decent prototype -- refinements took additional months).

Mind you, we had a couple of things going against us -- (1) a brand new cross-cultural team, which meant learning curves and inefficient communication; (2) we did it in China, where something as simple as renting an apartment can turn into a full-time job for two weeks due to their culture of distrust and inefficiency... (doing it in the U.S. must make things a lot smoother), (3) we didn't have the benefit of being able to take advantage of a lot of existing software, so as to avoid doing a lot of custom coding, and (4) we had trouble finding proper parts which could both do the job right & pass electrical inspections for european/US markets, whereas I'd imagine that their supply chain company should be able to find good parts quickly and easily.

Maybe all of their advantages will result in a stellar timeline. Or maybe not. (When we began, we also thought we could get it done in a month or two.)