Monthly Archives: March 2010

U.S. Patent Office Awards Amazon 1-Click Patent

In 1997, Amazon filed for the infamous “1-Click Patent,” a “Method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications network” using a single click.

Now, many companies other than Amazon use that exact same paradigm, some of them may have even been using it before Amazon. ITunes, for instance, stores your credit information so you can instantly buy songs with a single click, and a confirmation dialog, rather than wasting your time with a virtual “shopping cart.”

The U.S. Patent Office, in 2006, started an inquiry into the questionable nature of the filing. Unfortunately, that has ended. The patent has been confirmed, and is set to expire in 2017.

…the 1-Click patent, after Amazon’s amendments, is “a slightly narrower version but essentially the same version.” He added: “This case may be a public relations boon for supporters of patent reform that have been calling for an overhaul of the reexamination system.”

What does this mean for online business? The one-click model is fairly commonplace in online commerce, particularly with services selling entertainment media.

Amazon.com’s 1-Click patent confirmed following re-exam [TechFlash]

One of the Better New WordPress Theme Roundups

InstantShift has published a roundup of 60 new free WordPress themes. It’s one of the better roundup posts I’ve seen lately. The themes are split into categories, making it easy to find the type of design you’re looking for. Clean, “Artistic and Fancey,” magazine-style,…

Automatic Amazon S3 Backups on Ubuntu/Debian

If you manage your own web server, as you do with a VPS, one thing you need to look into is a backup strategy. It wouldn’t be pleasant for your files to vanish into the ether in the event of some sort of catastrophic…

BlogBuzz March 13, 2010

Ars Technica’s Ken Fisher on Ad Blocking

I’ve written at length before on the subject of ad blocking and how it hurts your favorite websites. My diatribes have been a little strongly worded in the past, which may blunt the effect I intended them to evoke. Fortunately, a much larger site…

Envato Redesigns Tuts+ Sites Again

Once again, Envato has redesigned their Tuts+ blogs. The changes are primarily evolutionary, though there is a big difference. The new layout features a wider content area and a stronger focus on larger screen sizes. One of the first things I noticed was that…

Dayta: The One Week App

Developer Sahil Lavingia built a high-quality iPhone app in only one week, and blogged about it on the One Week App blog. The resulting application is called Dayta. Dayta is designed to help you log any sort of data set that you wish to…

Google hreview Rich Snippets in WordPress

Have you ever noticed that some product review results in Google display a little 5-star rating under the title? What you’re seeing is something that Google calls a “Rich Snippet” — some metadata pulled from a microformat embedded on the page the result links…

BlogBuzz March 6, 2010

MacHeist nanoBundle 2 is Here

Mac users: do you want to get over $260 worth of software for less than twenty dollars? The second Macheist nanoBundle is here, and it’s worth a close look, at least. The applications included aren’t necessarily as impressive as those from previous bundles, but…