His application package

1. Grades: Ranked 65 out of a class of 110, with barely passing to mediocre grades (no A’s — which, by the kindest transcript translation would require an “Honors Grade” of >80)

2. Personal Statement: Why do you wish to come to Harvard?

The reasons that I have for writing to go to Harvard are several. I felt that Harvard can give me a better background and a better liberal education than any other university. I have always wanted to go there, as I have felt that it is not just another college, but is a university with something definite to offer. Then too, I would like to go to the same college as my father. To be a “Harvard man” is an enviable distinction, and one that I sincerely hope I shall attain. (What a horrible, if honest, essay!)

3. Recommendation Letters (one of them)

Jack has rather superior mental ability without the deep interest in his studies or the mature viewpoint that demands of him his best effort all the time. He can be relied upon to do enough to pass. We have been and are working our hardest to develop Jack’s own self-interest, great enough in social life, to the point that will assure him a record in college more worthy his natural gifts of intelligence, likableness, and popularity. Jack is Business Manger [sic] of the Brief. Part of Jack’s lack of intellectual drive is doubtless due to a severe illness suffered in the winter of his Fifth Form year. Though he has recovered, his vitality has been below par, he has not been allowed to enter into any very vigorous athletics, and has not, probably, been able to work under full pressure. There is no reason to suppose, however, that Jack will not come up to par soon. (Such glowing words these are…)

At first I wasn’t too impressed with the technology. In terms of conception, popping up content on a page isn’t too much different from what people naturally do by opening tabs or what designers do in more laboriously manual fashion. Sure it looks nicer and saves work, but is that really going to revolutionize the web? Does that befit the ridiculous moniker web 3.0? Of course not. If that’s all there is, it’s a flash in the pan and stupid. But when I realized that server-side embedding is really what they’re doing, I recognized the Trojan potential in this, and I must say it’s a brilliant business move and sets up for potentially much more exciting technologies once they get around to implementing them.

Everybody is trying to sell platform these days, and they do this by taking over your browser and making it merely a passive window, like a television set. If Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, or Facebook can just get you to surrender your browser to them by installing one of their “platform” tools, then they’re set. They can leisurely figure out on their end what they can deliver to you, which is: whatever they want. What happens on the server side they can control.

So apture can figure out what they want later. What they need is to hook you to them now, and each company hooks you with something useful, be it search, video, socializing, games, page presentation, or something else. Although I must say if you look at the situation this way, then in this race, the most compelling platforms remain Google and Facebook, whose hooks rise to some level of indispensability.