In July, 2005, Apple introduced a new option for users of their DotMac (.Mac) online service. For an extra $50/year, DotMac users can increase the standard DotMac storage from 250 megabytes to 1024 megabytes, and increase the monthly allowed bandwidth from 3 gigabytes to 10 gigabytes.
This option opens up the doorway for "user deserved bandwidth upgrades" (UDBUD). A user-deserved bandwidth upgrade occurs when Apple decides that a particular user of its DotMac service has created sufficient value in the materials they've posted to their DotMac site to deserve a free upgrade.
Now a user deserved bandwidth upgrade is not given out willy-nilly to anyone who has posted stunningly creative materials to their DotMac web site. Stunningly creative is par for course for the majority of Mac users. The materials posted must not only be stunningly creative, but exemplary in other ways as well.
Right off the bat I can think of a couple of DotMac users who might be in line for a user deserved bandwidth upgrade. Kirk Krueger is a QuickTime guru who generously assists other DotMac users and freely shares many fascinating QuickTimes he has made. On top of that, he has written an ebook, QuickTimePro: Explained that he sells for $12 (a very reasonable fee for all the info contained in the book.)
If there is anyone who ought to be line for a user deserved bandwidth upgrade, Kirk Krueger should be right in front of the line.
Standing immediately behind Kirk Krueger is Robert Grimes, who teaches multimedia in the Houston area. Whatever your political leanings, your jaw will drop open when you see the QuickTime he created of President Bush reciting the lines to John Lennon's song Imagine. While watching this QuickTime, my mind kept telling me, "But this isn't possible." Robert Grimes made it possible. While working on this project, he must have said to himself: "Today, I think I'll make the impossible possible." His resulting QuickTime is as imaginative as anything created by JibJab.
You haven't seen creativity, though, until you've viewed the QuickTime, Please Don't Cry for Me, by Azul Adnan. This QuickTime is an animated painting accompanied by an original a cappella song composed by Azul. Breathtaking is the only way to describe it. I've watched this QuickTime more than 15 times, and each time I experience something new watching it. By creating this QuickTime, Azul has opened up the doorway to an entire genre of multimedia expressive art. And the reason Azul deserves a DotMac bandwidth upgrade is that at the end of the QuickTime he lists which software programs he used to make it.
While it would be neat and tidy to list 3 persons in line for user deserved bandwidth upgrades, in truth there are a few more people in line. 4th in line is August Trometer, the hard working and visionary creator of the DotMac.info web site. Created without any compensation, DotMac.info has brought huge value to the worldwide Macintosh community. This article would not have be written without the existence of DotMac.info.
In typical Mac user fashion, August Trometer didn't stop at creating DotMac.info. He is also the co-creator of the popular iPodderX software for subscribing to podcasts. I once suggested a feature for the DotMac web site on a Sunday evening. August Trometer had the feature implemented 3 days later. That kind of openess to user suggestions earns August Trometer a user deserved bandwidth upgrade -- and far more.
There's another group of people who might be deserving of a user deserved bandwidth upgrade on DotMac: Devoted leaders of Macintosh user groups. Some of these people work 10 to 20 hours each month running Macintosh user groups -- creating learning environments where thousands and thousands of Mac users teach and learn from each other. Economically speaking, Macintosh user groups have created billions of dollars in value for Apple. It might be appropriate to single out a handful of user group leaders to receive user deserved bandwidth upgrades. It's the doctrine of giving back. As Confucius noted so long ago, "To those who give a lot, much bandwidth must be given."
The author is an independent Macintosh consultant and writer in the Washington DC-area. He is reachable at pshapiro@his.com and on his blog.
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