Posts with tag "techdirt"

From the Pipeline – 3.7.08

  • Category: Odds & Ends
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  • Posted 1902 days ago

Beside the fact that a friend of mine just reminded me that we are due for 25 to 30cm of snow over night (thanks a lot Larry) the rest of my day has done no better but I think I’m beginning to see the upside coming my way in the distance. I the meantime here’s a few things I managed to snag from the pipeline when I wasn’t thinking about cowering in a corner somewhere.

Digg CEO To TechCrunch Editor: Rumors Are “Completely Inaccurate” :: Allen Stern – here’s how the story breaks down – TechCrunch reports Digg.com pimping itself for the sum of $200 million which is suppose to have Google and Microsoft sniffing around Rose’s butt. Digg comes back with yer all nuts Digg isn’t for sale. TechCrunch lobs back with the ol’ “Let’s see how this plays out” … In other words it’s Friday and everyone utters a big *YAWN*

louisgray.com: A Brief History of the Site :: Louis Gray – Louis is one of my favorite bloggers even if he does have a weak spot for Apple products. In a post today he gives a brief synopsis of how his blog has grown over the last couple of years. It was nice to see my name be mixed in with some of who I consider some of the best bloggers around – Thanks bud.

Transparency Isn’t A Substitute For Privacy :: Techdirt – an excellent post by Timothy Lee that succinctly leaves a gaping rip in the supposition that transparency is our greatest protection and suggests instead that this in fact leads the average citizen wide open to abuse.

[Retro FriendFeed] Check out AltaVista.com, a new hypertext search engine, this beats Yahoo!! :: Paul Buchheit via FriendFeed – first it was Ask.com going all girlie on us now it’s AltaVista bringing simplicity back to the search engine.

Calacanis Fires People Who Have A Life :: TechCrunch – nothing like making Jason Calacanis look like the Internet version of Scrooge.

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Being free doesn’t make crap any better

It's just another way to make money The tidal wave is forming and at its head are bands like Radiohead, Oasis and The Charlatan’s are riding the crest waves of music that can now be freely downloaded without fear of RIAA storm troopers breaking down your door.

As is being pointed out by folks like Mike Masnick at Techdirt this free music is only a part of the larger experience that these front runner bands have figured out how to make the money from. Bands like Radiohead have figured out that while the euphoria of free music will bring the people to the door – so to speak – it is the packaging of the band experience via special CDs, concerts and anything else that can be merchandised to enhance the music’s popularity.

The problem is that there seems to be this thought that the failure of the music business – aka music labels – was a reluctance to jump on the free music bandwagon when in fact this was a by-product of a larger problem. Which was for the longest time the music industry has been pumping out and charging ridiculous prices for crap music.

When I first started collecting music back in the days of vinyl it was commonly accepted that at least one; two at the most, tracks on the LP would be crap and usually stuffed onto the B-side of the LP. Over the years this ratio has slowly changed to the point that the majority of the time you are lucky if even half the songs are worth listening to. We became nothing but cash cows for the music industry as we lined up obediently with every big release and plunked over our hard earned money because we had no alternatives.

Then came the Internet and suddenly we had a way to thumb our noses at the industry that had been bleeding us dry and get only the songs we felt were worth listening to. The days of the 45 single had returned albeit in electronic form.

The smart bands have recognized this and to their credit have also realized that they are going to have to be able to provide more than just a couple of songs in order to maintain their positions as leaders in this new music industry that is forming.

Contrary to how people like Chris Messina may think this is the new Open Web Media and all the warm and fuzzy feeling it might imply the truth is that it is just a new way to make the same old thing – money. Only this time around we aren’t having to pay for crap.

BTW: don’t forget about the WinExtra contest to win a copy of Stardock’s WindowBlinds newest version


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Net Neutrality is out of our hands

  • Category: Technology
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  • Posted 2084 days ago

Net Neutrality - a losing shouting match The last couple of days have seen some heavy guns coming out against net neutrality – chief amongst them is the Department of Justice. Now I can see the reasoning behind the greed machines like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T hunkering up to the pig trough to get their fill of the double dipping feeding frenzy but WTF does the DoJ have to do with this whole thing.

As Mike Masnick at Techdirt points out one of the more bizarre statements made in the DoJ filing is that without breaking network neutrality broadband providers will never make enough money to upgrade their networks.

What!?

From MarketWatch:

Spurred by that growth, Verizon reported net income of $1.68 billion, or 58 cents a share, compared with $1.61 billion, or 55 cents, earned in the year-earlier period.

Revenue rose 6.3% to $23.27 billion, including a 17.1% increase in wireless sales.

How many damn billions does a company need to make in order to upgrade their systems; which if I am not mistaken are a corporate write-off. What this does show though is that with the entry of the DoJ into the so-called discussion the whole process has passed the time when we as consumers might have had a chance at stopping a two tier system.

Politicians might mouth how much they believe in net neutrality but it is becoming blatantly obvious that the pork barrels have been delivered and no matter how many banners are flown on blogs or web sites the chances of net neutrality surviving is slim to none.

Even in Canada it is slowly becoming a thing of the past with the three major – well the only real broadband providers – players in the market are already moving to implement; or already have implemented some form of traffic shaping.

So now instead of broadband providers double dipping; by being paid by us the consumers for mediocre speed when compared to the rest of the world and being paid by content providers, they [broadband providers] want to double up their profits by making all parties involved pay additional fees for so-called untethered speeds.

To add insult to injury these self same providers have us by the balls because it is becoming more and more obvious that the governments involved are more interested in seeing their retirement funds increased by slush fund transfers than they are in seeing North America regain its position as number one in the technology fields which it can’t do without true net neutrality.

Some additional points from Dan Dodge that are well worth reading


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Off the Cuff: iBricks, MS pushpins & stuff

Get your iBrick here Well today was the big day for geekdom; not to mention bottled water sales, as the iPhone finally hit – and left – the shelves as Apple stores across the US.  Now not being a hardcore geek type; nor a US citizen, I find this whole thing about lining up for a chunk of plastic that chances are you’re not going to be able to use right away just a tad on the silly side. Or in the words of Steve Rubel on Twitter:

steverubel said
So to recap today’s events: 10 hours on line, $600 and an iBrick. Priceless.
at 11:02:08 PM

pushpin Advertising campaigns can be a lot of fun especially when they creative in the process. It appears that Microsoft is out there with a new publicity stunt to promote a new feature to be found on Microsoft Live Search Maps.

I don’t know about you but I know I sure would have a good laugh if I was walking down the street and saw a big pushpin coming out of the side of a building. :) [via Raw Feed ... plus the graphic is 'borrowed' from there .. hope you don't mind Mike]

Prince Okay so shoot me .. I like Prince (the musician not the dog :) ) but I like him even more that he is pissin’ off the music retailers because he plans on giving away his latest album. As being reported in The Guardian Prince will be giving away a CD with each of the national Sunday newspaper.

I have to agree with Mike from TechDirt that this is a very smart business move both on Prince’s side and the newspaper’s. They both benefit immensely from the publicity of the give-away. The only one’s upset about this is the music retailers who can’t admit that their current business model is becoming increasingly obsolete. [via TechDirt]

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Google Monopoly Isn’t So Frail

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  • Posted 2169 days ago

Google There has been an experiment going on by a few bloggers about trying to live without Google which in itself might prove to be interesting but that isn’t what this post is about. No – what I’m more interested in was Joe Weisenthal’s post on TechDirt which used this experiment as a jump off point to his opinion that contrary to popular belief Google’s supposed growing monopoly is a lot frailer than one might think

These Google-free experiments should hearten anyone that fears the company’s power or thinks we’ve just traded one monopoly for another. When a superior alternative does arise, it won’t be hard for anyone to switch.

On the surface Joe’s point seems to be valid; after all we are fickle bunch generally and will run to be first in line to use some new cool web service, but if one takes a few minutes and really looks at the breadth of Google’s penetration into both our computing life and our personal life I believe that Joe’s argument is flawed.

He suggests that if a superior web service comes along we will willingly and very quickly switch over to using it instead of a related Google product. If he believes this then I’m afraid Joe doesn’t understand the depth that people have come to rely on GMail, Google Reader or even Google Doc’s & Spreadsheets.

Sure in the initial flush of a new service people will talk about switching over but what about when the time comes to move years worth of emails, or having to redo all their RSS feed setting. I know with RSS feeds it’s as simple as exporting and importing OPML files but the real lynchpin of Google’s growing monopoly has to be GMail with its unlimited storage and search ability of your email history.

Google also knows that once they have a foothold in a personal email life as well as your searching habits it will be a simple step to integrate the rest of their services as well. It doesn’t matter what happens on the web everything in the end is compared against Google and that is where the monopoly begins.

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Another case of – Just because we can – should we

Well we thought it was safe. Stolen ID Search was first announced yesterday on TechCrunch in a post where Michael Arrington pretty endorsed the site and its ability to protect the data you enter there; which is then used to search the web for any places where your social security number and/or credit card numbers is found.

This was followed up today by TechDirt where they took the opposite viewpoint of Mr. Arrington where they question the entire concept itself:

This seems problematic for several reasons. As some are pointing out, it seems dangerous to get internet users into the habit of submitting their personal data on the internet to anyone but the most trusted sites. Even if this particular site is completely legitimate, its mere existence will probably spawn shadier imitators. Furthermore, because the site also offers anti-identity theft solutions, that require the user to enter in more personal information, its own database is likely to be a juicy target for attackers.

Myself I tend to fall on the side of TechDirt’s point of view. In my mind this is another case of – just because we can do something should we?

The web is an inherent dangerous place that has scammers, hijackers and phishers circling around like sharks looking for fresh chum to feed upon. In my mind something like Stolen ID Search will be nothing more than fresh chum for their feeding frenzy; and you can be assured that these cybersharks are smart enough to find the weak point in any new system.

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Call me old but this is stupid

Yo homie .. let's do lunch I might be an old curmudgeon but I have never agreed with the idea of giving any child that cannot afford to pay for the bill themselves a cell phone. Besides the horror stories of bills out of control the fact that a child feels they need a cell phone to be cool and fit in makes a sad statement about our society.

The problem is that regardless of the fact that parents may actually feel the same they are fighting an uphill battle against marketers with millions of dollars in advertising being targeted directly to our kids. Besides the fact that this style of advertising is unconscionable in my opinion it appears that they aren’t satisfied with just the pre-teen market anymore.

According to a post on TechDirt:

Combined with the increase in kid-friendly content and games, the age at which junior gets his first clamshell keeps dropping. A new study from the NPD Group suggests that 15% of 2- to 5-year-olds — and 62% of 11- to 14-year-olds — now use cell phones

Just WTF does a 2 year old need with a cell phone? Can anyone explain to me the justification for that other than parental one-up-manship.

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