"Everyone gets a free terabyte."

What a great statement.  And I hope it causes other online photo databases to respond the same way that email providers did when Google provided 1 gigabyte of email storage which at the time was unheard of online.

Flickr has always been one of those sites that I had tried and thought it was o.k.  It didn't have the exact tools I wanted and I slept better at night knowing my photos were safe on my computer.  The other main reason was that online storage limits for photos was nowhere near the capacity I wanted without having to pay a monthly fee.

This move by Flickr makes them relevant again in my opinion.  This is a big, bold move and if this is any indication of how Yahoo! is going to go after competitors in their spaces, I'm looking forward to what Yahoo! has planned.

I've never really gotten into the Picasa / Google photos services enough to make it something I use all the time but I'm close to wanting to just put all my stuff in the cloud and photo storage and sharing will be the next thing I am going to focus on.

Flickr is back in the discussion because they took away a barrier that won't matter in a few years.  Storage is always getting cheaper and to jump to 1 terabyte for me is a big deal but for Yahoo!, I'm guessing it's not that big of a deal.

Nice move by Flickr / Yahoo!  Innovation doesn't always have to be shiny or new.  It can sometimes just be "more".

Movie people are getting on board the Netflix original content bandwagon and I think this is the beginning of a major shift in how content is produced or even packaged for consumers.

Netflix announced today that it will be bringing 10 episode season one of the series Sense8 to Netflix in late 2014.  This marks the first time the Wachowskis, the people behind The Matrix triology, V for Vendetta, and other movies, will work in television.  Or does it?

Is Netflix really television?  The lines between television, movie, internet, and even mobile are starting to get blurred to the point that it really doesn't matter anymore.  You can watch a movie on your cell phone and then switch to your TV when you get home.  So is that television or mobile or does it matter?  If you are Nielson, it matters.  If you are Comcast, it matters.  But if you are the consumer, it doesn't matter.

With House of Cards and Sense8 going directly to Netflix, it confuses the definition.  I've never watch the television series Louis "live" on FX but I've watched it via Netflix on my AppleTV on my television.  And when I watched it, i've watched a few episodes in a row.  But what is an episode?  30 minutes or really 22 minutes due to time for commercials?  60 minutes or whatever it is with commercials?  

If you consider that a television season is 12 episodes at 22 minutes each, you are really talking about a little more than 4 and a half hours of content.  But what if you started to take away the conventions of the standard television show and time constraints and gave the creator control over time?  Maybe some seasons will be 20 episodes while others are 10 but with longer segments.  Would ABC's Lost series been scripted differently?  Would we get better story telling and character development?  Could you do different character arcs or even although the view to pursue their own development?

Netflix knows something we don't which is what everybody is watching and what everybody wants.  They are potentially the Google of visual media.  Remember when Google filed their IPO and it seemed very risky?  I think television and movies will be changing a lot over the next 5 years and we'll remember how television is today the same way we remember television before there were DVRs.

There are a lot of different websites or apps that get released into private beta or "invite only" and the process for these new sites or apps is pretty basic:  Sign up and then wait to get an email. 

The new Mailbox app from Orchestra, Inc. is showing a different way to run a beta of it's product and it's actually a lot of fun with complete transparency!

When you download the app, it reserves you place in line. I'm guessing most sites that are in beta do the same thing but to me what is different about this is that they actually display your place in line with the number of people in front of you and the number of people behind you.

Opening the app will count down from the last number you saw to your current place in line.  I've seen it move only a few hundred spots to moving over 10,000.  The incredible thing is that I check the app every few days just to see where I am in line.

I am guessing there are other apps or sites that have done similar things however this is my first experience with this sort of process in an app and it's nice.

I'll write up a summary of Mailbox after I get it installed but I already have had a positive experience with what I should expect from the app based on the user experience so far.

To me, this is the future.  It's a little scary but it's incredible.  

Google Now has changed how I view my email and search.  I'm actually wanting to give it more information so that Google provides me with more of everything.

Let me step back for a minute and explain Google Now.

From Google's site:
Google Now gets you just the right information at just the right time.

It tells you today’s weather before you start your day, how much traffic to expect before you leave for work, when the next train will arrive as you’re standing on the platform, or your favorite team's score while they’re playing. And the best part? All of this happens automatically. Cards appear throughout the day at the moment you need them.

I bought a Nexus 4 just so I could have this functionality.  It tells me when UPS has delivered a package to my home, it tells me when I should leave for an appointment and factors in traffic.  It's the future we were promised when Palm launched the PRE.

This is a huge differentiator between Apple and Google.  Siri can't compete with this because this displays relevant information without me asking it.  Consider Google Now "pre-search".  

Google has done an excellent job with Google Now.  This is the future, now.