Ruined business model

In reference to my business being ruined:

I had a business which was obliterated by WordPress including it’s functionality in core (it was menus). My plugin became mostly irrelevant overnight, as the implementation in core was much better than I had in my own plugin.

I saw that as more of a failing on my part than anything else though. If my plugin was good enough, then I would have gotten a lot of kudos and advertising purely from having that functionality bundled into core. I would have been the goto person for menu stuff in core. As it stood, I was that guy who made a half-baked plugin that sort of did what people wanted, but not quite, then core got menus and my plugin and services became irrelevant.

My point being … if your plugin is good enough, then I think there are benefits to having your stuff rolled into core.

If your plugin is not good enough, and core implements something better, then you just become a sheep who got squashed during the process of WordPress improving itself. Everyone benefits (well, apart from you perhaps, but you are just one person in a sea of millions).

New Google Maps “Digital Timeline”

Comment by yours truly:

I think this will be very fascinating in 40 years time. It will be fascinating to look back on where I currently live, even if it is bulldozed and upgraded in the in the mean time.

It could be particularly fascinating to look back on your neighbourhood from when you were a child. I’m too old for that now, but I would love to Google street view my old neighbourhood. Everything would be just as I remember it as a child, which would be really nice to see. It’d be like looking through an old photo album, but one in which you could cruise around and see all the details you might like to go be nosey at.

SmartSpy RC aircraft

Some of you may have heard that I bought a new Radio Control aircraft the other day. It came with an onboard video camera and even included an SD card. As far as I was aware, this aircraft was “made in Germany”. My German skills must be worse than I thought, as I can’t understand a single word of what these folks are saying from when they tested out the camera on the factory line.

http://youtu.be/HDTp6Cw-SUU

At least I know they have good quality control though, since they tested the camera and all