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Marco Arment (developer of the much beloved iOS app Instapaper and co-host of the 5by5 podcast Build and Analyze) discussed his business model on NPR’s Planet Money:

Apple already had everyone’s billing information from iTunes … you could buy things just by typing in your password … That, for the first time, brought very, very easy payment to the modern software world. That, more than anything, is why there is a business for paid apps… you charge a small amount of money … and that’s it, you’re done. You don’t need to go seek venture capital money, you don’t need to sell out your users’ privacy. They’re not even your users, they’re your customers — for the first time in a decade. It’s great.

Good interview, but it would have been nice if the Planet Money guys had thrown Marco a bone and used Phish covering Funky Bitch as the intro/outro music.

Jesse Thorn has a great interview with Bill Carter on the The Tonight Show Saga II: Jay Leno Vs. Conan O’Brien.

Great illustration. I love Merlin’s mouth full of apple galette. Mmm mm mm.

You’re listening to Back to Work, right?

On NPR’s Fresh Air, political scientist Greg Koger explains the politics involving the Senate’s filibuster rule and how maybe possibly potentially (and probably why not) it could be changed (via The Monkey Cage).

on Planet Money podcast.

It’s a good interview that gives a taste of Ostrom’s sense of humor and the persnicketiness that her research requires.

But the best part (by far) is when her husband Vincent interrupts her conversation and phone call with the Planet Money folks so that she can catch a glimpse of a deer in their yard. Unintentional comedy is art my friends.