(this is a cross post from my other blog - thesocialbookmarker.com - something I normally don't do, but wanted to share here also)
I had told myself that I was not going to write about the temporary Digg.com takeover and subsequent capitulation (since nearly THE ENTIRE BLOGESPHERE has pretty much already beaten it to death), but after having a nice phone conversation with a good friend of mine last night, I thought I would summarize some of my thoughts about it here.
Clearly, I'm all about the whole "wisdom of crowds" (even though it's often NOT wise) & this grand social experiment in news gathering, relevancy, and more. Furthermore, I am a big fan of the FSF, the GNU project, and the "creative disruption" that comes with technological advance and free information. You might think that I would've been one participating & cheering the whole thing on, or decrying Digg's initial actions, and finally as some are, criticizing them for "caving" only after their site had been overrun by its users. But I honestly don't feel that way at all and here's why:
Democracy =| Anarchy.
Digg.com is an awesome site that lets users generate, moderate, and determine what's on it's site - within their Terms of Service. (Ahhh, those pesky rules.) Now, You may not agree with them or their implementation - and that's fair game, but it is a *company* with employees, costs, and much more. It's their right to have a T.O.S -or- some rules in place for how they run their site and thus business.
That being said, here is my only constructive criticism /feedback: I don't think Digg.com can or should be held -or try to hold themselves- legally responsible for user-submitted links to any "Intellectual Property" - so long as it's not in the story description or headline. This is the distinction between them and say YouTube. YouTube is in trouble & being sued because they are hosting and serving copyrighted material. Digg.com is a site that displays links and descriptions to other sites - BIG DISTINCTION. The perception (and/or reality depending on your viewpoint) was that Digg was going a little too far in trying to "censor" what users were submitting -- when they could've handled it in a different way.
No court or judge could reasonably expect them to know and monitor all the content displayed on sites that their's links too!! They could be expected to make "reasonable best efforts" to prevent piracy, but basically that would just mean "No direct display of copyrighted material/ intellectual property" DIRECTLY on their site. They could've even explained this on their blog. Something like, "We can't control what you guys digg (link too), but don't be stupid and blatantly infringe copyrights in your headlines & descriptions, because it could get us shut down - so we'll ban you if you do!"
It's all a moot point now, since Kevin went ahead and posted the key to the Digg blog. Like Dr. Tiki, I think they deserve some credit for listening to their users. They could have easily pulled the plug on the site for a few hours, or day or two and posted and explanation that they were in risk of being shut down. The kids and pranksters who were just rebelling and joining the mob would have lost interest and moved on. The hardcore diggers and users of the site would've stayed - and there still would've been plenty of publicity that would've brought new users to the site. (In fact, I'm sure since this whole "mess" a lot of new people have been attracted to the site and registered)
It's more than easy for me and everyone else to armchair quarterback & hindsight is always 20/20, but I do think these guys really need to think through some of these thorny 21st century issues from both the corporate AND hacker perspective, so that when something like this happens again, (and it will) they a legally defensible compromise that their intelligent user base will be able to understand with a ;-) and most importantly- prevent the site from being sued or taken down.
That way too, they won't have to stumble through a PR morass or appear to "cave", or much worse -put themselves at a real legal risk to prove they "get it". I know they do, and did, and that's why I'm now digging on...
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Thursday, May 03, 2007
The Periodicals That Aren't (Quite) Dead Yet...To Me
So Print Media is Dead, right? Well maybe it's withering away to online media, but still... nothing beats actually holding a magazine or newspaper in your hands, especially when you're stuck at the Dr's Office or Airport, etc.
Having been tagged by Perkonis on this, here are list of the fine periodicals I still read:
Wired Mag
Wall Street Journal (Print Edition)
The Economist
Cat Fancy
(Hey, I needed a forth and it's always fun to have one that's thrown in just as a gag....I mean what Blogger reads...Wired??)
I've been away so long it appears everyone has already rode this train, but here goes:
iJustine
Jason Calacanis
JohnFTM
Tag, You're It.
Having been tagged by Perkonis on this, here are list of the fine periodicals I still read:
Wired Mag
Wall Street Journal (Print Edition)
The Economist
Cat Fancy
(Hey, I needed a forth and it's always fun to have one that's thrown in just as a gag....I mean what Blogger reads...Wired??)
I've been away so long it appears everyone has already rode this train, but here goes:
iJustine
Jason Calacanis
JohnFTM
Tag, You're It.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Our Internet Overlords...
Google is clamping down on paid Text-link ads (while they consolidate control over 85% of the online ad market through the DoubleClick acquisition)
Comcast is banning and kicking off "bandwidth hogs" (e.g. Joost & Video users) While they continue to very profitably grow HD & OnDemand video service AND take telephone phone subscribers from the Bell phone companies)
Why is it that 2 Net-Centric forward thinking and "creative disrupters" like Comcast and Google are staring to act, "evil" ?
Business x.0 is always just Business, I guess.
Comcast is banning and kicking off "bandwidth hogs" (e.g. Joost & Video users) While they continue to very profitably grow HD & OnDemand video service AND take telephone phone subscribers from the Bell phone companies)
Why is it that 2 Net-Centric forward thinking and "creative disrupters" like Comcast and Google are staring to act, "evil" ?
Business x.0 is always just Business, I guess.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
More on the Net, Neutrality, and it's finality.
The internet has been around since Sept. 2, 1969. That's when Leonard Kleinrock supervised the first exchange of data over ARPANET
Almost 40 years later, the Internet is carrying and supporting mindboggling amounts of information, and it is only increasing as more people get connected.
Some that have been there since the beginning, think it's crazy that it even works as well as it does (!)
It's not surprising that engineers want to re-tool the underlying infrastructure of the web, but increasingly researchers are calling for scrapping the entire thing! Many believe a "clean slate" approach is the only way to deal with the issues of mobility, security, and other challenges that have cropped up since Moore's Law started rolling down the global tack.
What is interesting to this blogger are some comments in the Yahoo/AP piece that were made by Google's "Colin Powell" of Net Public Relations, Mr. Vint Cerf. He wasn't quoted directly so his words may be tailored somewhat to make the authors point, but the inference is well...I'll just copy the quote and let you decide:
I'm not saying TCP/IP ain't great because it is (I don't think anyone thinks it should be scrapped), but here's my question...
...on a philosophical level, the expectation to treat each packet equally is strained when it's acknowledged that the network doesn't satisfy all needs, isn't it?
Just sayin'....
Digg the Story.
Almost 40 years later, the Internet is carrying and supporting mindboggling amounts of information, and it is only increasing as more people get connected.
Some that have been there since the beginning, think it's crazy that it even works as well as it does (!)
It's not surprising that engineers want to re-tool the underlying infrastructure of the web, but increasingly researchers are calling for scrapping the entire thing! Many believe a "clean slate" approach is the only way to deal with the issues of mobility, security, and other challenges that have cropped up since Moore's Law started rolling down the global tack.
What is interesting to this blogger are some comments in the Yahoo/AP piece that were made by Google's "Colin Powell" of Net Public Relations, Mr. Vint Cerf. He wasn't quoted directly so his words may be tailored somewhat to make the authors point, but the inference is well...I'll just copy the quote and let you decide:
Even Vinton Cerf, one of the Internet's founding fathers as co-developer of the key communications techniques, said the exercise was "generally healthy" because the current technology "does not satisfy all needs."
I'm not saying TCP/IP ain't great because it is (I don't think anyone thinks it should be scrapped), but here's my question...
...on a philosophical level, the expectation to treat each packet equally is strained when it's acknowledged that the network doesn't satisfy all needs, isn't it?
Just sayin'....
Digg the Story.
Friday, April 13, 2007
On why Net Neutrality is stillborn and there will be no funeral.
I've come to the conclusion that the impassioned "Net Neutrality" topic is not only mutual hubris (from both sides of the issue) but a dead horse.
My gut feeling was validated last night when Robert X Cringely dropped his latest column, "We Don't Need No Stinking Best Effort: Net neutrality may have been just a fantasy all along."
In a nutshell, ISP's already give priority to certain packets (DNS for example, as they should -- we all want our pages to load faster), the cable company has already configured their network to give priority to VoIP (as they should -- you don't have to buy VoIP from them to get Net access, or television.) Beside that, the ISP's have a number of other tricks up their sleeves to throttle bandwidth either way- even in a ways that might seem to enforce Net Neutrality, but in reality might make the web slower!
Before you think I've lost my mind and turned trust over to the telco's & ISPs let me back up and put the whole "argument" in perspective: There is NO Neutral Ground in this battle. The players aren't even speaking to the same issues half the time. At the end of the day...It's all about who pays. The Content Providers or the Users. The content providers don't want to pay. By wrapping the issue up in emotion (and even legislation) safeguards are added against efforts to make them pay. My question, since this has become an emotional & misunderstood issue for the public at large is, how concerned are they about us paying more?
Google and it's faithful got spooked to shit, when they heard that Ed Whitacre, the CEO of AT&T, wanted to make Google pay him for generating traffic that passed over his wires. This comment was pure success (revenue) envy - it's a big stretch for AT&T to try and extract money from Google just for being a destination of their customers! If Google or any other content providers are cause for network congestion on a carriers network, it stands to reason that the carriers customers (you know, the ones already paying for the service) are the ones generating that traffic - regardless of what kind of traffic it is!
Packet Prioritization will find a way be neutral enough for the corporate proponents of Net Neutrality as long as they don't have to pay for it. We will, and we always do.
That's just the way it goes.
My gut feeling was validated last night when Robert X Cringely dropped his latest column, "We Don't Need No Stinking Best Effort: Net neutrality may have been just a fantasy all along."
In a nutshell, ISP's already give priority to certain packets (DNS for example, as they should -- we all want our pages to load faster), the cable company has already configured their network to give priority to VoIP (as they should -- you don't have to buy VoIP from them to get Net access, or television.) Beside that, the ISP's have a number of other tricks up their sleeves to throttle bandwidth either way- even in a ways that might seem to enforce Net Neutrality, but in reality might make the web slower!
Before you think I've lost my mind and turned trust over to the telco's & ISPs let me back up and put the whole "argument" in perspective: There is NO Neutral Ground in this battle. The players aren't even speaking to the same issues half the time. At the end of the day...It's all about who pays. The Content Providers or the Users. The content providers don't want to pay. By wrapping the issue up in emotion (and even legislation) safeguards are added against efforts to make them pay. My question, since this has become an emotional & misunderstood issue for the public at large is, how concerned are they about us paying more?
Google and it's faithful got spooked to shit, when they heard that Ed Whitacre, the CEO of AT&T, wanted to make Google pay him for generating traffic that passed over his wires. This comment was pure success (revenue) envy - it's a big stretch for AT&T to try and extract money from Google just for being a destination of their customers! If Google or any other content providers are cause for network congestion on a carriers network, it stands to reason that the carriers customers (you know, the ones already paying for the service) are the ones generating that traffic - regardless of what kind of traffic it is!
Packet Prioritization will find a way be neutral enough for the corporate proponents of Net Neutrality as long as they don't have to pay for it. We will, and we always do.
That's just the way it goes.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Finding Prescience amidst old links
So I've installed and begun using my stumble-upon and WOW, what a cool surf toy. I could loose HOURS to it.
Sometimes though, I find the best stuff searching for exact phrases. Running with my "information wants to be free" thread I found the following story in Wired Magazine's online archives.
This article was written in 1994. There were no MP3's yet, let alone Internet Explorer, let alone widespread Internet adoption (Think 28K dial-up modems & like Prodigy or CompuServe with no images, baby) and he is essentially foretelling file sharing and DRM.
What's amazing about this piece is how on point John's vision was back then. It's mind blowing that this was 13 years ago already .
Its 16 pages long, but worth every word. Print it out and enjoy!
It's called: The Economy of Ideas
Sometimes though, I find the best stuff searching for exact phrases. Running with my "information wants to be free" thread I found the following story in Wired Magazine's online archives.
This article was written in 1994. There were no MP3's yet, let alone Internet Explorer, let alone widespread Internet adoption (Think 28K dial-up modems & like Prodigy or CompuServe with no images, baby) and he is essentially foretelling file sharing and DRM.
What's amazing about this piece is how on point John's vision was back then. It's mind blowing that this was 13 years ago already .
Its 16 pages long, but worth every word. Print it out and enjoy!
It's called: The Economy of Ideas
Information Wants To Be Free
The second law of thermodynamics (as phrased by Rudolf Cluasius) states that:
This applies to information science in the following way:
Therefore, on "the command line of the Internet," Information really doesn't need an "address" it only needs a name.
There's an interesting video of a lecture by the former Chief Scientist of Cisco Systems that you can watch and/or download to your desktop or ipod here. After giving an extremely informative overview of the history of the telephone network and internet, he connects the dots cleverly to conclude with aforementioned concept.
I'll go a step further and add my own piece: Public Information is free information. Let it breath - Let it move around. Art is meant to be enjoyed, It should be on display for the world to see. Music is meant to be heard, It should be played and shared freely. Things that make humanity better should be free. This doesn't mean people can't maintain ownership, or credit, or get paid, or that there can't be a price for someone's goods or services, but generally speaking...information should be "free"
Indeed As Stallman of the Free Software Foundation, likes to point out, When they (and I too, in this regard) mean "Free," it is meant:
"Free as in 'Free Speech' not (necessarily), Free as in 'Free Beer' "
The Entropy of the Universe tends to a maximum
This applies to information science in the following way:
once information has passed to a new location outside of the source's control there is no way of ensuring it is not propagated further and therefore will naturally tend towards a state where that information is widely distributed.
Therefore, on "the command line of the Internet," Information really doesn't need an "address" it only needs a name.
There's an interesting video of a lecture by the former Chief Scientist of Cisco Systems that you can watch and/or download to your desktop or ipod here. After giving an extremely informative overview of the history of the telephone network and internet, he connects the dots cleverly to conclude with aforementioned concept.
I'll go a step further and add my own piece: Public Information is free information. Let it breath - Let it move around. Art is meant to be enjoyed, It should be on display for the world to see. Music is meant to be heard, It should be played and shared freely. Things that make humanity better should be free. This doesn't mean people can't maintain ownership, or credit, or get paid, or that there can't be a price for someone's goods or services, but generally speaking...information should be "free"
"When information is generally useful, redistributing it makes humanity wealthier no matter who is distributing and no matter who is receiving".
Indeed As Stallman of the Free Software Foundation, likes to point out, When they (and I too, in this regard) mean "Free," it is meant:
"Free as in 'Free Speech' not (necessarily), Free as in 'Free Beer' "
Friday, April 06, 2007
The World Needs Open Source Mega-Search
Open Source, Mega - Search.
Proprietary Search Engines are just that, Proprietary. Calacanis highlights the issue with regard to Metasearch, asking if it's even legal or not. (it appears by many Big Search TOS's that MetaSearch is NOT legal, btw)
The famous Page Rank (tm) Algorithm is proprietary and still largely secret. Remembering that fact helps to put in perspective that the emphasis in, "Google's Index of All the World's Information" in reality is, "Google's Index of all the World's Information."
This comment goes even further:
Is anyone completely comfortable with closed & proprietary systems determining how information is accessed and what it means to us?
As the Network and the Computer converge, the concept of Open Source should scale to Search. The idea of "Open Source + Search" is a broad one. It's about Networks of Information & Content Aggregation sharing their Indexes and literally "what runs under the hood" with each other.
Powerful shared and distributed computing systems like Amazon's Elastic Cloud can be leveraged to deploy deep spidering applications, or Mega Crawlers, to instantaneously tease-out very tailored & specific information from the vastness of the entire web (by the web, for the web)
Further out, with the acceleration of Moore's Law combined with the adoption of "consumer information trapping" technologies, this distributed search index could integrate smaller nodes, end users, much like a P2P -or- BitTorrent Network.
Thus, in this hybrid network of networks and eventually peer-able grid, nodes will share & mine each others databases, normalize the collective results, and deliver massive amounts of relevant content to the public by way of an algorithmically open source search architecture under the GPL.
(and of course, the costs of this not-for-profit endeavor could be defrayed by monetizing the search engine results contextually with say...an Adsense account? ;-)
Proprietary Search Engines are just that, Proprietary. Calacanis highlights the issue with regard to Metasearch, asking if it's even legal or not. (it appears by many Big Search TOS's that MetaSearch is NOT legal, btw)
The famous Page Rank (tm) Algorithm is proprietary and still largely secret. Remembering that fact helps to put in perspective that the emphasis in, "Google's Index of All the World's Information" in reality is, "Google's Index of all the World's Information."
This comment goes even further:
"Why is it then that our current most modern Meaning Economy is a text box dictatorship? Why in such an advanced civilization have we become Knowledge Peasants whom are so easily placated by the black magic of our Goovernor? Am I the only one wondering why these commercial boxes own such an important social function: what everything means?"
Is anyone completely comfortable with closed & proprietary systems determining how information is accessed and what it means to us?
As the Network and the Computer converge, the concept of Open Source should scale to Search. The idea of "Open Source + Search" is a broad one. It's about Networks of Information & Content Aggregation sharing their Indexes and literally "what runs under the hood" with each other.
Powerful shared and distributed computing systems like Amazon's Elastic Cloud can be leveraged to deploy deep spidering applications, or Mega Crawlers, to instantaneously tease-out very tailored & specific information from the vastness of the entire web (by the web, for the web)
Further out, with the acceleration of Moore's Law combined with the adoption of "consumer information trapping" technologies, this distributed search index could integrate smaller nodes, end users, much like a P2P -or- BitTorrent Network.
Thus, in this hybrid network of networks and eventually peer-able grid, nodes will share & mine each others databases, normalize the collective results, and deliver massive amounts of relevant content to the public by way of an algorithmically open source search architecture under the GPL.
(and of course, the costs of this not-for-profit endeavor could be defrayed by monetizing the search engine results contextually with say...an Adsense account? ;-)
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Bringing together to best of YOUR web with RSS
"Yes, Virginia...your content does blend!"
Despite the lack of mainstream adoption, developers and web programmers continue to push the enevelope with feed-related technologies. (most widely on display with Yahoo's Pipes effort)
So what happens when you can aggregate your various favorite feeds in new and different ways? You can essentially make your own personal self-updating "information portal." My personal favorite tool for this is FeedBlendr. Combine it with Feedburner and you can come up with some pretty cool, and personalized "Blended Rivers of Information"
For example, Here's a little blend I made...It's a "Blend of Blends" actually, -- I call it the RSSpectMeme
If you are a regular or semi-regular visitor you may have noticed it's addition as a widget on the right-side...(pardon the meta reference)
It's comprised of Digg.com's Front Page Stories (-minus the votes & with direct links to the FA's), Del.icio.us Front Page Stories (+the descriptions), and Techmeme.com's homepage feed. Those are my three favorite sites and combining them into a single feed gives me (and anyone else who wants to view/subscribe to it) a single source for 3 barometers for what's "hot" right now.
Hold tight for blends that contain mixed media...
Despite the lack of mainstream adoption, developers and web programmers continue to push the enevelope with feed-related technologies. (most widely on display with Yahoo's Pipes effort)
So what happens when you can aggregate your various favorite feeds in new and different ways? You can essentially make your own personal self-updating "information portal." My personal favorite tool for this is FeedBlendr. Combine it with Feedburner and you can come up with some pretty cool, and personalized "Blended Rivers of Information"
For example, Here's a little blend I made...It's a "Blend of Blends" actually, -- I call it the RSSpectMeme
If you are a regular or semi-regular visitor you may have noticed it's addition as a widget on the right-side...(pardon the meta reference)
It's comprised of Digg.com's Front Page Stories (-minus the votes & with direct links to the FA's), Del.icio.us Front Page Stories (+the descriptions), and Techmeme.com's homepage feed. Those are my three favorite sites and combining them into a single feed gives me (and anyone else who wants to view/subscribe to it) a single source for 3 barometers for what's "hot" right now.
Hold tight for blends that contain mixed media...
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
dropping the .blogspot
Well, fresh on the news from that something like 75% of all blogspot domains are "spam-blogs" my better judgement forced me to head over to godaddy.com where I was lucky enough to pick up the shiny new domain, www.lifeonthegird.com ~ so you can drop the .blogspot ;-) A tip 'o the hat to parislemon for that advice.
Friday, March 23, 2007
and now for something less heady...
Ripping YouTube Movies to Your IPod - A howto*
I've been doing a bit a digging around on the subject of ripping YouTube clips to my hard drive/ipod, and I have found an AWESOME resource on the topic that covers it not only for the Windows platform, but for OS X and Open Source platforms as well. This is really cool. And a perfect indicator of why Goo-Tube, is probably now Sue-Tube, so only rip authorized & legal content, ya hear??
Yours Truly,
I've been doing a bit a digging around on the subject of ripping YouTube clips to my hard drive/ipod, and I have found an AWESOME resource on the topic that covers it not only for the Windows platform, but for OS X and Open Source platforms as well. This is really cool. And a perfect indicator of why Goo-Tube, is probably now Sue-Tube, so only rip authorized & legal content, ya hear??
Yours Truly,
Monday, March 19, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
Why Cisco really paid 3.2 Billion Dollars for WebEx
Moving a lot of video packets (which WebEx does) is good for the router business!!!
The Amazing Cringely, anecdotally drops this nugget in his $7 TV Network installment.
Cisco is ponying up $3.2 Billion for Web-Ex not only because they want to compete with Microsoft in the Enterprise Software arena...but because Web-Ex can sell a heck of a lot of packet intensive video services to corporations and beyond...most recently partnering with CNBC to bring live, interactive, viewer webcam feeds into their television programing.
Who knew it was a Technological Convergence play in addition to being an Enterprise Software deal?
The Amazing Cringely, anecdotally drops this nugget in his $7 TV Network installment.
Cisco is ponying up $3.2 Billion for Web-Ex not only because they want to compete with Microsoft in the Enterprise Software arena...but because Web-Ex can sell a heck of a lot of packet intensive video services to corporations and beyond...most recently partnering with CNBC to bring live, interactive, viewer webcam feeds into their television programing.
Who knew it was a Technological Convergence play in addition to being an Enterprise Software deal?
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Is Google pulling a Net Neutrality Head fake?
Drew Clark has a great piece today on GigaOm entitled: Is Google Changing Its Position on Net Neutrality?
Basically, Google's Senior Policy Counsel, Andrew McLaughlin, made some comments that he thought the FCC should be "cut out" of enforcing Net Neutrality regarding the Cable providers vs. the Telcos, and that it should be the domain of the FTC (!) This is a big deal, because both pieces of pending Net Neutrality legislation squarely place the FCC in charge of enforcing the issue. Evidentially, some at Google feel that it's OK to differentiate between charging for various different "services" (which could ultimately all be IP packets) as long as its charged to the end user and not to them.
These comments come from a Tech Summit held in San Jose and came on the heels of those made by Google's TV chief to cable operators in Europe about how the web and Google's infrastructure couldn't scale to support IPTV. Both comments are still reverberating across the web.
I must admit it's refreshing to see that I'm not the only one who sees a connection (or in this case, a dis-connection) between Google's Net Neutrality lobbying efforts and their new overtures to partner with Cable/Satellite television. The concern stems form the idea that in a converged, digital, world all data is ultimately the same ... already we've seen the erosion of distinction between a "TV service provider" and a "Phone service provider" - both are merely bringing "bit streams" and/or "packets" into your home. It's just the pipes, or delivery mechanisms, that differ
Perhaps there's no conspiracy or "head fake" fake here at all, but the perception lingers. Forgivably, Google is a big "for profit" institution with a lot smart & talented people driving it. Perhaps we're seeing an internal struggle play-out as their growth motives intersect and perhaps conflict with their idealistic, yet official Company position on the matter.
Basically, Google's Senior Policy Counsel, Andrew McLaughlin, made some comments that he thought the FCC should be "cut out" of enforcing Net Neutrality regarding the Cable providers vs. the Telcos, and that it should be the domain of the FTC (!) This is a big deal, because both pieces of pending Net Neutrality legislation squarely place the FCC in charge of enforcing the issue. Evidentially, some at Google feel that it's OK to differentiate between charging for various different "services" (which could ultimately all be IP packets) as long as its charged to the end user and not to them.
These comments come from a Tech Summit held in San Jose and came on the heels of those made by Google's TV chief to cable operators in Europe about how the web and Google's infrastructure couldn't scale to support IPTV. Both comments are still reverberating across the web.
I must admit it's refreshing to see that I'm not the only one who sees a connection (or in this case, a dis-connection) between Google's Net Neutrality lobbying efforts and their new overtures to partner with Cable/Satellite television. The concern stems form the idea that in a converged, digital, world all data is ultimately the same ... already we've seen the erosion of distinction between a "TV service provider" and a "Phone service provider" - both are merely bringing "bit streams" and/or "packets" into your home. It's just the pipes, or delivery mechanisms, that differ
Perhaps there's no conspiracy or "head fake" fake here at all, but the perception lingers. Forgivably, Google is a big "for profit" institution with a lot smart & talented people driving it. Perhaps we're seeing an internal struggle play-out as their growth motives intersect and perhaps conflict with their idealistic, yet official Company position on the matter.
Monday, March 12, 2007
A Moving Montage of Video -- "Perpetual Art Machine"
There is something very interesting going on over at PAM
Take your computer and digital video camera (or video-phone perhaps) , capture some art, edit it up a little and send it to them. It all goes into the pool of collected work from other artists. The installation interactively displaying this video-montage travels around the Globe while the video is fed to it through PAM's website/infrastructure ala her collective user base & community. It's all free. They're calling for more video for an upcoming project called "Video as Urban Condition"
Get Filming - or just capturing.
Take your computer and digital video camera (or video-phone perhaps) , capture some art, edit it up a little and send it to them. It all goes into the pool of collected work from other artists. The installation interactively displaying this video-montage travels around the Globe while the video is fed to it through PAM's website/infrastructure ala her collective user base & community. It's all free. They're calling for more video for an upcoming project called "Video as Urban Condition"
Get Filming - or just capturing.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
What would Einstein bookmark?
If the internet was around in Einstein's time, you could probably learn a lot from his web-surfing habits and what he thought was interesting and cool.
That's the premise of this blog piece titled (cleverly enough):
How To Use del.icio.us To Take Over The World
Even if you already or previously have used del.icio.us before, read this guys little "how-to" on setting up an account. It's a very interesting and instructive use of this great social-bookmarking tool, that I, for one, don't utilize enough. The aforementioned blog has inspired me to use it more.
You can digg this story here too, if you're into that sort of bookmarking ;-)
That's the premise of this blog piece titled (cleverly enough):
How To Use del.icio.us To Take Over The World
Even if you already or previously have used del.icio.us before, read this guys little "how-to" on setting up an account. It's a very interesting and instructive use of this great social-bookmarking tool, that I, for one, don't utilize enough. The aforementioned blog has inspired me to use it more.
You can digg this story here too, if you're into that sort of bookmarking ;-)
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
A Strange Intersection of Surveillance & DRM Technology
There was fascinating article in the NY Times about video/content recognition software - a utility typically used for video surveillance systems.
This article showcased an interesting twist on its use...Cracking Down on, and preventing Online Video Piracy (DRM) !
Essentially, this California company demonstrated its software running while viewing YouTube. One clip of an illegal movie upload, even while distorted, in black-and-white, and overdubbed from a video pirate, was immediately and correctly identified - by its exact scene.
Hearkening back to the Sony Root-Kit debacle, I shudder to think what a big media company wouldn't give to be able to distribute a root-level application to users that "watches and listens" to content to make sure it's been validated. If Vista checks up on your drivers a gazillion times a minute, it's certainly not too much to imagine it checking up on your media too.
This article showcased an interesting twist on its use...Cracking Down on, and preventing Online Video Piracy (DRM) !
Essentially, this California company demonstrated its software running while viewing YouTube. One clip of an illegal movie upload, even while distorted, in black-and-white, and overdubbed from a video pirate, was immediately and correctly identified - by its exact scene.
Hearkening back to the Sony Root-Kit debacle, I shudder to think what a big media company wouldn't give to be able to distribute a root-level application to users that "watches and listens" to content to make sure it's been validated. If Vista checks up on your drivers a gazillion times a minute, it's certainly not too much to imagine it checking up on your media too.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Google + Your Cable Company = advanced services for your TV
Whether or not the 'Net can currently withstand multi-cast IPTV delivery (and Google has changed it's tune and says that it CAN, despite what we heard earlier), the thought of the marriage of Google's indexing & targeted advertising with Cable/Satellite Television could be revolutionary not for TV over the Internet, but for TV over the TV Set
It could also be to the detriment of the Internet by not supporting IPTV though! IPTV is more "net-neutral" than CATV because the cable franchises differentiate between & charge seperately for the video and data services they deliver over the same pipe. In our idealized, digital world, isn't it all the same?
I know that with the depth of engineering talent in the telecosm, on Google's engineering bench, with it's world class cloud-network, and technological innovation, amazing things are possible. Before you say, "the internet wasn't designed for multi-cast TV" Remember, it wasn't designed for Streaming, VoIP, or Music downloading either. A lot of people lost a lot of money because there once was a bandwidth "glut"
Google may someday soon seek to index & monetize CATV, but the Cable companies can meter for these new advanced services as much as telecoms can for theirs. The $ is the real fear from the "Telecom Hegemony" by the Net Neutrality lobby on behalf of the end user, isn't it? They are looking out for "our" best interests, aren't they?
It could also be to the detriment of the Internet by not supporting IPTV though! IPTV is more "net-neutral" than CATV because the cable franchises differentiate between & charge seperately for the video and data services they deliver over the same pipe. In our idealized, digital world, isn't it all the same?
What if in 3-5 years (or sooner), it's not necessary to pay twice?
I know that with the depth of engineering talent in the telecosm, on Google's engineering bench, with it's world class cloud-network, and technological innovation, amazing things are possible. Before you say, "the internet wasn't designed for multi-cast TV" Remember, it wasn't designed for Streaming, VoIP, or Music downloading either. A lot of people lost a lot of money because there once was a bandwidth "glut"
Google may someday soon seek to index & monetize CATV, but the Cable companies can meter for these new advanced services as much as telecoms can for theirs. The $ is the real fear from the "Telecom Hegemony" by the Net Neutrality lobby on behalf of the end user, isn't it? They are looking out for "our" best interests, aren't they?
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Google throws a Hail Mary pass to the Cable companies!
As reported in Reuters, Vincent Dureau, Google's head of TV technology, spoke at the Cable Europe Congress. Some net-neutrality die-hards will undoubtedly feel betrayed by this Machiavellian business move, but it's smart business politics for Google.
According to Google's Dureau:
You read that right -- A Google Exec telling the world their infrastructure can't "scale" to the bandwidth needs of "TV over the Internet" (!)The Reuters story goes on:
Google is bluffing, folks. They have more fiber rights than some telcos. They don't want to become a telco and there's a big difference between net neutrality in principle and in application. Network operators should be able to tweak their networks for optimum delivery and QoS (Quality of Service) (without screwing the customer for it preferably)
It's puzzling that Google is speaking for themselves and Joost...According to the CTO of Joost, its delivery system is designed to accommodate relatively lower bandwidth & bit streams. In fact he's pretty bold about the advantages of Joost's delivery mechanism vs. YouTube and Google's:
It's ironic that Google throwing themselves under the bus, actively seeking the partnership of the Cable Companies as an internet "white knight." Could it be more of a desperate attempt to build an alliance with them? (preemptively against Joost) It has the added benefit giving them better leverage against the traditional network operators too.(e.g. AT&T, Verizon, BT, etc)
Business is Business...but, Don't be E***, Google
According to Google's Dureau:
"The Web infrastructure, and even Google's (infrastructure) doesn't scale. It's not going to offer the quality of service that consumers expect,"
You read that right -- A Google Exec telling the world their infrastructure can't "scale" to the bandwidth needs of "TV over the Internet" (!)The Reuters story goes on:
Google instead offered to work together with cable operators to combine its technology for searching for video and TV footage and its tailored advertising with the cable networks' high-quality delivery of shows...One cable chief executive, Duco Sickinghe from Belgian operator Telenet, said it was "the best news of the day" to hear that Google could not scale for video.
Google is bluffing, folks. They have more fiber rights than some telcos. They don't want to become a telco and there's a big difference between net neutrality in principle and in application. Network operators should be able to tweak their networks for optimum delivery and QoS (Quality of Service) (without screwing the customer for it preferably)
It's puzzling that Google is speaking for themselves and Joost...According to the CTO of Joost, its delivery system is designed to accommodate relatively lower bandwidth & bit streams. In fact he's pretty bold about the advantages of Joost's delivery mechanism vs. YouTube and Google's:
He's very clear about the economic folly of using big servers to mainline video to millions of desktops. "You can try to cut costs by allowing only crappy little images. You can limit the run times or make money selling hardware. But eventually the bandwidth bills will eat you alive. YouTube, iTunes, and the rest of them haven't got a chance. We just hope they take their time realizing it."
It's ironic that Google throwing themselves under the bus, actively seeking the partnership of the Cable Companies as an internet "white knight." Could it be more of a desperate attempt to build an alliance with them? (preemptively against Joost) It has the added benefit giving them better leverage against the traditional network operators too.(e.g. AT&T, Verizon, BT, etc)
Business is Business...but, Don't be E***, Google
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Snap your Screen Shots Now
Well, Kevin said it, and it will be done...The "Top User" list at Digg.com will be no more as of tomorrow! Capture your screen shots and caches now!
Digg Top Users
oh well, I made it to #216. Part of the fun & motivation for submitting stories over time was that as you got the occasional homepage story, your rank would move up a little.
It's a popularity contest of news, but what incentive will digg give its community of volunteer users who provide that news/content?? What's the new social currency or editorial standard, by which to judge a link/FA, etc?
Digg Top Users
oh well, I made it to #216. Part of the fun & motivation for submitting stories over time was that as you got the occasional homepage story, your rank would move up a little.
It's a popularity contest of news, but what incentive will digg give its community of volunteer users who provide that news/content?? What's the new social currency or editorial standard, by which to judge a link/FA, etc?
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