Image: Bob Al-Greene/Mashable

I want to begin by sharing a picture I saw earlier today that was very clever and very succinctly represented how major players such as Facebook for all intents and purposes steal novel ideas from smaller startups and by doing so effectively undercutting them which often leads to their demise while the monopoly of intrusion and innovation of even more ways to self-serve their interests.

In this case, the target of Facebook’s idea grab recently is Snapchat; where they have gutted its features to bolster their other properties (like Instagram or WhatsApp where innovation is pretty much over since Facebook took over and the only goal is monitization at any cost – including outright theft of ideas – after all why not, it is cheaper than innovating it yourself).

Personally, I don’t use Snapchat, I find the idea to be frivolous, promoting bad behavior and generally contributing to the demise of the quality of our younger generation, as if Facebook and all the other time sucks weren’t bad enough where the vitriol outweighs any benefit of social interaction. That being said, I am neither judge, nor jury and I don’t ever presume to substitute my feelings for what other’s should do. If for nothing else than that, I find the act of stealing intellectual property to be wrong, no matter who it is done to and how I might feel about them.

Fact is that I find Facebook as much a useless waste of time and a contributor to the decline of our collective intelligence and integrity; but that is an issue for another time. If this continues any further though, we might as well begin referring to Facebook (and its surrogates of Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger) as FaceSnap, InstaSnap, WhatsSnap or Snapenger, since they are practically wholesale ripping them off. I guess greed and ego passes for innovation nowadays.

Over the past three weeks, we have been gathering data on what technologies and form factors people spend most of their time. By no means is this a scientific process or intended to claim any conclusion. However, what we observed is very consistent with market trends and so we are encouraged with the credibility of the findings.

So here is what we have found out so far:

• Proportionately most people are on Mobile (either majorly or entirely) with the personal computers running Windows coming in a close second (no surprise there given the penetration of the reach of the technology over many decades)
  
  Majority of people are on a Windows operating system, with Apple and Linux systems following suit (again not a huge surprise since Windows a business machine that permeates an extensive portion of our business world)


• For the mobile platforms, most are on Android systems (while not entirely surprising, not too long ago iOS had visible dominance) followed almost entirely by iOS (again not surprising given the introduction of iPhone and the ecosystem that Apple built to keep people in it and force them to keep buying new hardware, ultimately that self-serving and greedy system without a significant enough payoff was the reason Android was seen as a better option, the freedom to be you and not have your actions dictated to you by the company monetizing you)


• Now the part that came as a personal disappointment to me, but not surprising given the state of our world in general; most of the internet activity is consumption. Just a couple of decades ago, there was more emphasis on creating and innovating; but that seems to the minority today. Could explain the shift from the educated public versus the masses who chase the next new fad and shiny object – no matter the jeopardy it put their

My goal is to try and cover the following topics as part of the first series of tutorials each Thursday and we can build up on it organically as needs come up that I can address. This list is by no means exhaustive and the order is not set in stone.

• Rooting Android
• Securing Windows
• Privacy Solutions
• Strong Passwords
• and tons more to come …