TechCrunch’s Alex Wilhelm:

By November 22, Zune’s Marketplace will stop selling and renting content, and won’t allow users to browse TV content.

I guess it’s done killing the iPod.

There certainly was no folly in trying to compete against the iPod. The folly was committed by those who declared it would kill it before it even shipped.

Long-time Windows user Adrian Kingsley-Hughes gives a pretty thorough and heart-felt explanation as to why Windows just isn’t appealing to him anymore:

I’ve lost count of the number of notebooks I’ve owned over the years, but this MacBook Pro is, by far, the most reliable system I’ve owned, and I put part of that down to the fact that it doesn’t run Windows.

The broad applicability of Kingsley-Hughes’s experience come from two points: 1) the increasing relevance of mobile platforms where Windows isn’t competitive and 2) the decreasing importance of operating systems in general. As more and more of our work and life is on the web, the cost to switch desktop platforms is lowered. Windows, as the desktop platform with the largest market share, is more at risk because of this and the Mac, Linux, Chrome and mobile platforms benefit.

My thanks to Lootback for sponsoring the Very Nice Web Site RSS feed this week.

According to recent research, the average small business owner can expect to pay somewhere between $100 and $200 for stock images for their website. Of course, for the owner going through a professional designer, this is just part of a larger number. If you’re a designer, you should always be looking for ways to bring down the final cost of a website. Outbidding the competition isn’t the only factor when it comes to success, but cutting costs where possible certainly won’t hurt.

If you’ve been looking for a way to bring down your stock image costs and increase your bottom line, a new website may be able to help. It’s called Lootback.com, and it functions as a stock image search engine. The site partners with some of the biggest names in the stock photo industry, including iStock, ShutterStock, Graphicriver, Themeforest, and more. The premise is simple: they get a commission on every photo you buy through their site and then split that commission with you.

Lootback provides users with a compilation image search engine. You type in whichever keywords fit your needs and it will come back with results from their industry partners. Helpfully, once you’ve created an account, Lootback will tell you right away how much you will save on a particular image once you’ve clicked on it. Rebates are paid into your account within 12 hours. That said, Lootback only pays out 4 times a year, so don’t expect cash back right away. Still, if you’re a designer who buys hundreds of images a year, the savings could prove substantial.

There are a lot of websites out there that promise to save the average shopper some money, but very few are dedicated to helping out web designers. Lootback aims to save designers time and money and they do a pretty good job of it. If you’ve been in search of a way to bring down your costs, Lootback is a good place to start.

Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

Charles Arthur takes a comprehensive look at why market share might not necessarily be a good gauge for the breadth of penetration of a platform. It’s good for the companies that keep selling devices, but if they’re being stuck in drawers or thrown in a landfill it doesn’t do the platform any good.

The resale value of iOS devices is a pretty good indicator of the value of the platform.

(Via Daring Fireball)

CIRP polled 400 people who had activated iPhones between September 20 and October 20. Two-thirds of them had upgraded to the iPhone. Based on questions asked to this sample of 267 U.S. residents, CNet concludes:

“iPhone 5S, 5C lure fewer upgraders, report says”

Which isn’t even what the survey results say, if you can believe a survey with such a small sample size. The survey results say a lower percentage upgraded from the immediately preceding generation of iPhone than last year and a larger percentage upgraded from other iPhones. It’s probably too much to expect CNet to understand the results when CIRP doesn’t understand their own results. They ran with the headline (PDF):

“iPhone Launch Shows Slowing Ecosystem Growth”

There’s no way you can tell that unless you know the total number of people who activated iPhones, something their survey doesn’t purport to show.

I just don’t even know what to do with this stuff.

I traded in our beloved original iPad for a $200 gift card. Sure, you have to spend it in Target, but a first generation iPad is not worth $200. So, if you’ve got one lying around that still powers on, go. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Target actually sells iPads. So, you could get a first generation mini for $100. Or you could get $100 of Legos and $100 of boxer briefs. I don’t know, they sell practically everything.

They will need the model number, so you should wipe it but you’ll have to start the setup process to get that which you can do in the store.

I lived in Japan for about a year and a half and this still seems weird to me.

Imagine the marketing meeting where Steve Ballmer reviewed the sketch of Silverlight girl. And now you cannot un-imagine that.

TUAW’s Mike Wehner finds an amusing set of survey results:

According to a press release published today from digital magazine company Catalog Spree, 66 percent of consumers will use a tablet to shop for holiday gifts this year. If that figure strikes you as odd, that’s probably because it’s not even close to accurate.

You can click through to see the logical fallacy but two thirds seems a little unlikely when only about a third actually own tablets.

Watts Martin makes the case for Stephen Elop as Microsoft’s next CEO.

…Elop understands the importance of user experience. Bill Gates is a brilliant guy but he never had any interest in being a tastemaker, and on a good day Steve Ballmer has the taste of a Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Taco.

I don’t know who would be a good pick. Elop does seem better than a lot of the other choices, but there are so many ways Microsoft could screw this up that I continue to find it baffling that Microsoft investors merrily continue to tick the stock up.

Nothing but blue skies and kittens!

From there it’s just a hop skip and a jump to overtaking Android by the end of the year.

No, you stop bringing that report up.