Our Analyst Understands Bug Labs!

Well, thank goodness.  Our gadget analyst, Dan Frommer, says he thinks he understands what Bug Labs is up to (As reported, despite a demo with wooden blocks, the company's emerging-from-stealth dinner last night is befuddling the blogosphere: please see "Bug Labs Mystery Deepens: It's not like the iPhone.  It's more like Ning.")

Dan says he thinks The Bug, the company's forthcoming product, will be similar to those build-your-own-radio kits that Radio Shack used to sell.  Dan seems really excited about it, especially if the wireless world finally goes open access.  Alas, although this clarification finally gave us a visual picture of The Bug, it dampens our enthusiasm to near-zero.  Those build-your-own-radio kits, we dimly recall, weren't exactly a chart-topper.

Dan adds, however, that the commercial appeal will really be about other companies using The Bug to create their own products: "sort of like open-source software."  That's helpful.  And nice for all those other companies.  Don't recall offhand too many open-source software providers minting profits these days, but we'll worry about that later.