August 30, 2003
How Arnold's indiscretions made news
LA Observed has the back story of how Arnold Schwarzennger's indiscretions when he was 29, detailed in Oui magazine, bubbled up to the mainsteam media
John Garside said:
Matt Welch has cast bunches of aspersions on this: http://www.mattwelch.com/warblog.html
August 29, 2003
The South hasn't plugged into the Net
MSNBC.com: When it comes to U.S. Internet use, the East Coast and West Coast dominate, while fewer than half of all Southerners go online, says a new study of online habits.
Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
UncleBob said:
It might be worthwhile to filter those study results according to the number of people below the official poverty level in each of those regions. My guess is that there are a lot more poor people in the South than in either of the coastal regions. If true, that means it's not a cut-and-dried choice that southernors don't venture online as frequently as the others, but that they are less able to afford the cost.
Just a thought.
Bill O'Reilly wants you to shut up
My friend Jack Shafer has a new piece up in Slate: Bill O'Reilly wants you to shut up. In which Shafter tallies up many of Bill O'Reilly's quotes telling people to shut up.
Tom McMahon said:
But that's one of his most endearing qualities!
Google News gaining ratings respect
Mark Glaser in OJR: Google News draws more than 3 million unique visitors a month, but Nielsen and Media Metrix have excluded them from news site rankings. Now both say they are looking into ranking them with the other top news outlets.
Google News is not ranked in Nielsen//NetRatings' Current Events category along with other top media sites, such as CNN.com and MSNBC.com, and it isn't in comScore Media Metrix's General News category for July 2003. A recent Reuters report on aggregators noted Google News' omission but posited that it was because Google News doesn't have an original reporting staff -- something missing at Yahoo News and AOL News, too, though they are in both rankings. ...
I'm all for adding Google News to the net ratings services, but let's point out that Yahoo News and AOL News both have editors and editorial staffs, while Google News does not.
the head lemur said:
Tracking Google would be a slap in the face for the guys who buy these reports that you can get elsewhere(i.e. Netcraft,etc.) and a big hit in the pocketbook of Nielson/Media Metrix as they are not buying ratings to compare with other news outlets.
The fact that they are considering it is a positive for the web overall. It also points to news sites having to confront the connected nature of the web, hopefully as you point out, the staffs of writers and editors actually producing content rather than paraphrasing feeds from AP or Reuters.
The fact of Google's not having editors makes it a goldmine of direction in consideration of news, bias and paraphrasers in delivery of content.
Note that all one's personal biases apply.
Mark Glaser said:
JD, to clarify: The Reuters report said that Google News wasn't included in the ratings because they "don't have reporters producing stories." I would say the same about Yahoo and AOL. They have editors and producers but no reporters that I know of. But both have been in the ratings forever.
And the real reason Google News wasn't in the ratings was that both services didn't classify them as being a news site. It's a very arbitrary system, with input from clients and the media (for some reason).
The funny thing is I had no idea that Google News' traffic was such a deep secret. Both ratings companies gave me their traffic numbers with no qualms.
Mark
Freedom's dark side
Bruce Sterling in Wired mag: The iron fist, the invisible hand, and the battle for the soul of open source. On cybercapitalism and free information.
August 28, 2003
Push to talk: instant messaging for voice
In today's San Jose Merc, Mike Langberg looks at the hot new thing in telecom: Push-to-talk service, a sort of instant messaging for voice. This could be a potent weapon in Buzz's hands.
A television network with a PC at its heart
NY Times: An improvised television network is reaching students over the Internet.
Small webcasters sue RIAA
CNET News.com: A group of Webcasters has filed a suit against the Recording Industry Association of America, alleging that the association tried to push independent music stations offline. Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
The BBC's digital revelation
Guardian UK: The BBC's director-general announced plans this week to embrace Napster-style file sharing to make its archives free for license payers.
Pombo won't support inquiry on missing weapons in Iraq
In response to a recent letter I sent to my alleged congressional "representative," Richard Pombo, asking for an independent inquiry into the missing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Pombo takes the sleight-of-hand position that just because we haven't found them doesn't mean they weren't there. Here's his full email response:
Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns regarding the search for Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq. I appreciate hearing from you and having the benefit of your views.
As you may be aware, the House Intelligence Committee is investigating the quality of intelligence that was received prior to the war in Iraq. Congress is exercising its oversight authority and has set in place procedures to review comprehensively, and on a bipartisan basis, the intelligence surrounding Iraq prior to the outbreak of war. This will take account of any dissident views on the Iraqi threat within the intelligence community.
The U.S. armed forces are still trying to pacify sectors of Iraq and to deal with daily attacks on U.S. soldiers west and north of Baghdad. People who have lived in a police state with no freedom of speech are unlikely to volunteer information until stability and security are achieved in Iraq.
All the evidence suggests that Saddam Hussein was indeed developing WMD. Those who believe Iraq did not possess WMD should ask themselves some important questions about Iraq's action leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
If Hussein did not have a WMD program, why did he kick out U.N. weapons inspectors when they requested access to the presidential palaces and other suspect sites in Iraq in 1998 - in direct violation of the cease-fire conditions Iraq had accepted under United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 of 1991?
If Hussein did not have a WMD program, why didn't he comply with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 to allow U.N. weapons inspectors to have unfettered access to all sites in Iraq, thus providing him the opportunity to show the world he did not possess WMD? Instead of cooperating, Saddam Hussein continued to hide information from the inspectors and refused to allow Iraqi scientists to be interviewed.
If Hussein did not have WMD, why did U.S. troops find large amounts of biological and chemical protective gear and antidotes (such as atropine syringes) in Iraqi army bunkers?
Progress is already being made in the search for weapons of mass destruction. On May 9, 2003, Coalition forces found an Iraqi mobile biological weapons production facility. While no traces of biological weapons have been found in the trailer, it is precisely the kind of mobile lab that Secretary of State Colin Powell described in his speech to the United Nations earlier this year. U.S. and U.K. experts concluded the facility does not appear to have any function "beyond production of biological weapons."
Saddam Hussein admitted to possessing WMD in the past but never accounted for what happened to them and refused to provide any evidence of their destruction. Many critics of the Bush administration had endless patience for UN inspectors trying to find WMD facilities in a country the size of California. We should now be patient as coalition forces continue to search for these weapons.
Please know I will share your concerns with my colleagues and will remember your thoughts on this issue should it come before me in the Congress. Again, thank you for contacting me. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome.
Spyware: ads that snoop
The Wall Street Journal looks at spyware: A New Battleground In Web Privacy War -- Ads That Can Snoop. For non-subscribers, the article is available here.
August 27, 2003
'Stop the blogging madness'
Jimmy Guterman (a friend who, as far as I know, doesn't blog) writes in his latest Media Notes column for Business 2.0: Stop the Blogging Madness. It only seems as if everyone is doing it. A new survey suggests that blogging may always be more for fun than for profit.
The merits of his argument aside -- and I disagree with his premise; new forms of corporate blogging are just now being formulated -- isn't it a bit odd that Jimmy's Web-only columns can be accessed only if you subscribe to the print magazine?
Mike Masnick said:
Jimmy actually does have a blog:
http://www.guterman.com/blogger.html
On it, he only just recently announced that he was no longer blogging about blogging. I think he became convinced that it was just a little too self-referential.
Also, I have proof that his assertions about blogging are wrong, because I've been making a living blogging for three years already, and (worse!) I told Jimmy this in April via email(though, apparently he forgot/ignored it).
For more info on how my company makes money blogging head on over to Techdirt Corporate Intelligence. Not trying to use your board to promote my own service, but it is evidence that there is a space for corporate blogging. We've been doing it successfully for three years, so I find it amusing when people say it can't be done.
Oh well.
Also... (okay, this is getting long now...) as for the whole Business 2.0 "pay to read" thing, Techdirt was one of the first to complain about that move here, and as a reward we were contacted by a PR person who told us that all articles could be accessed via the following code: 079751240X and that we were encouraged to tell everyone about it.
Why lock up your content and then hand out the key to someone who is told to spread it far and wide? I have no clue... But, that's what they did.
Mike
Yahoo dips its toes in the blogging waters
InfoWorld: Yahoo dips its toes in the blogging waters -- in South Korea.
'Liberal talk radio' to debut in January
New York Post: A still-unnamed, all-liberal talk radio network that promises to be the antidote to conservative powerhouses like Rush Limbaugh is planning to launch in January.
Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
Paul Allen looking to sell TechTV
Reuters: Paul Allen's people have approached Viacom and Sony about buying TechTV, the tech-related cable channel, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
Business journalists trade on their credibility
Mark Glaser in OJR asks: When can reporters buy stocks in companies they cover? News organizations continue to struggle to establish fair and appropriate conflict-of-interest guidelines.
CNN.com expands e-mail services
OK, I don't get this. CNET's News.com carried a story about CNN.com offering a new suite of e-mail alerts, and E-Media Tidbits today says that CNN.com's new service "allows people to pick news by subject and choose how frequently they receive the alerts." But the only subject e-mails I see on that page are weekly e-mails by topic, and those can't truly be called alerts.
John Garside said:
Tara's got some stuff on this: http://www.researchbuzz.com/news/2003/aug28sep303.shtml
RSS offers alternative to e-mail
Steve Outing in E&P: E-mail -- long touted as the "killer app" of the Internet and the best online channel for publishers -- is rapidly being decimated by spammers and virus writers. It's time to move on to something that's spam-proof: RSS.
'They can dish it out, but they can't take it'
Today in Salon (subscription or one-day pass required): Al Franken talks about his big victory over the Fox News bullies, why Bush can be thrown out in 2004, and comedy as a political weapon.
Back online
My website and blog have been down all morning and just came back online. This is the second time this has happened in the past three months. I haven't had other problems with DreamHost, my ISP, but I'll have to consider switching to a more reliable provider if these interruptions continue.
Dean and Clark making waves
Loads of interesting stuff on PoliticalWire today, chief among them:
• Howard Dean "has surged into a wide lead" of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire, according to a new Zogby poll. Some 38 percent supported Dean, "giving him a substantial lead" over Sen. John Kerry at 17 percent.
• Gen. Wesley Clark says the White House tried to get him fired as a commentator on CNN. Meantime, he's expected to announce his candidacy in the next month.
August 26, 2003
Howard Dean for president
So I caught Howard Dean's speech to his supporters tonight in New York, on CSPAN2. That's it. I'm officially on board.
I've been wavering between Dean and some of the other candidates (chiefly Kerry) because I wasn't sure about Dean's electability. I'm now prepared to write that off as misguided Big Media conventional wisdom. I wanted to see evidence of my friends David Weinberger and Mitch Ratcliffe's claim that Dean will bring more people to the polls by speaking from the heart rather than the double talk of conventional politicians. Tonight, I saw it. I wish everybody can see this guy.
Things may change -- New Hampshire is still five months away -- but New Media Musings is officially endorsing Howard Dean for president and Gen. Wesley Clark for VP.
Flypaper said:
Great information on Wesley Clark's potential candidacy at Political Wire today.
jj said:
CounterPunch
August 9, 2003
Mean, Mean Howard Dean
He's Regressive, Not Progressive
By JOSH FRANK
Media pundits have been rattling their cages over Howard Dean's so-called progressive agenda, but how wrong they've been. Dean's back seat criticism of the Bush Administration's case for war should enlighten us to the fact that this ex-Vermont Governor's leadership skills are lacking. Prior to the dubious war on Iraq, Dean exclaimed he supported a multi-lateral invasion, but hardly questioned the disinformation spewed from the White House about Iraq's threat to our national security. And to top it off, Dean may well be a Zionist. His unwavering support for the Sharon regime in Israel calls into question his quest for peace in the Middle East. Dean's alignment with the pro-Sharon lobbying firm, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is a stark indicator that this Presidential hopeful's vision for the Arab world is glaringly similar to that of team Bush.
Some Democrats have even been comparing Dean to George McGovern--who back in 1972 lost the Presidential race by a landslide to incumbent Richard Nixon. McGovern was a true liberal Democrat, and many claim that his progressive policies cost him the election.
But what progressive policies could cost Dean the 2004 election? Could it be his support for the death penalty? Maybe it will be his praise of the outlandish Welfare Reform program Clinton and Gore mustered through Congress. Or perhaps it'll have to do with his recent remarks that Iraq simply needs more troops for the ongoing occupation. He sounds a lot like some prominent Republican spinsters on that one. Someone should ask Howard Dean if he remembers a little country called Vietnam.
How in the heck did he get labeled a progressive anyway? What radical changes is he proposing? His rhetoric is simplistic, and his populist mantra is reminiscent of Gore in 2000--passionate, but toothless. For example, he'll say he's for 'grassroots democracy,' but won't support campaign finance reform. He will also beat his chest over 'universal healthcare,' but he won't back any 'sweeping reforms.' How can we have universal healthcare without drastically changing our for-profit medical industry? Who is he kidding?
As for his Israel position, his own website exclaims that the United States should 'maintain its historic special relationship with the state of Israel, providing a guarantee of its long-term defense and security.' Not only has this centrist politician forgotten the Vietnam monstrosity, he blatantly ignores the thousands of Palestinians that have perished at the hands of the brutal Israeli military machine.
Dean is also a neoliberal. He states that he knows 'what it takes to generate economic growth,' and that he 'will work tirelessly to put the American economy back on the road to prosperity.' What Dean really means is that he is willing to disregard environmental safeguards and worker's rights, as long as the wheels of economic capital start churning.
No wonder then that Dean supports the expansion of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). But you won't find much information about this in his campaign propaganda. He wants the progressive vote, so his conformist stances are blatantly spiced up in hopes his supporters will follow blindly. He calls for structural change, but being a centrist, Dean won't endorse repealing any of these repressive agreements.
In the first unofficial Democratic primary, Dean won MoveOn.Org's online poll, garnering 44% of total vote count--this coming from an activist organization. Seems that Howard Dean fooled these lefties into believing he's one of them.
So as he leads the pack of Democratic contenders, keep in mind that Dean is no progressive. He just wants your vote. And like most politicians he'll say what he needs in order to get what he wants. Supporting Civil Unions back in Vermont is one of his only plus marks, but that shouldn't entitle him to outright ownership of your vote. Don't let him fool you into thinking he's anything more than regressive. He's simply not.
JD said:
Gee whiz, looks like the Ralph Nader crowd (or whoever you're supporting) still hasn't learned its lesson yet. I suppose you'd prefer four more years of Bush. Give me a moderate Democrat over the hard-right policies of the current administration any day.
Clark bests Bush in blind-bio match-up
Interesting new national poll results out today. DraftWesleyClark.com commissioned John Zogby, one of the nation's most respected pollsters, to conduct a poll to assess the viability of a Clark candidacy. The poll included several "blind bio" questions, in which subjects polled were given biographical descriptions of the candidates, rather than just names. (Zogby used this technique in the last election, to predict the rise of John McCain well before it happened.) Key findings:
• "Clark vs. other Dems" -- Clark comes in first in a blind-bio match-up versus six key Democratic candidates (Dean, Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, Gephardt, Edwards, and Graham);
• "Clark vs. Bush" -- Clark wins 49.4% to 40.2% in a blind-bio match-up versus President Bush among a national poll of likely voters.
For details, see here.
Students set up a storytelling site
Bruce Joy, a self-described resident mad professor in Melbourne, Australia, emails to say he discovered my article last fall on digital storytelling and that he and some university students have opened a community storytelling website called BotWot.com. (BotWot stands for "Best of times, Worst of times.")
He invites creative people to send along stories, poems, or other material. Writes Joy: "It's free and we're keen to develop this to be something more than most writing sites as it creates a fictitious tropical island known as BotWot off the Eastern coast of Australia. Castaways are welcome to take up residence!"
An RSS feed for bloggers on the campaign trail
I had meant to blog this yesterday: Dave Winer has created an RSS feed to make it easier for bloggers to cover candidates on the presidential campaign trail, right up through the New Hampshire primary in late January.
Google, the search engine that could
USA Today takes a look at Google, which celebrates its fifth anniversary Sept. 7. The search engine is expanding to embrace news and blogs, and is expected to produce up to $800 million in revenue this year. Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
The Onion is no joke
Business 2.0 investigates how the jokemeisters at the Onion have managed to build a serious business with its combination of sardonic, topical humor and diversified media model. Thanks to a management philosophy which owes more to its cheapskate alt-weekly roots than to go-go dotcom thinking, the Onionís annual revenues are now $7 million. Subscription or registration required to access the article.
Mix, Burn & R.I.P.
Janko R–ttgers has a new book out, Mix, Burn & R.I.P.: Das Ende der Musikindustrie (The End of the Music Industry). It's available only in Germany, alas.
Dean readies ad blitz more than year ahead of election
Update: Tonight marks the end of Howard Dean's Sleepless Summer Tour. A Dean rally in New York will be broadcast live on C-SPAN2 at 10 pm Eastern, and may be rebroadcast at 11 pm on C-SPAN.
Howard Dean's campaign is getting hard to resist. From today's NY Times:
Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont whose long-shot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination has surged to the top of several recent polls, plans to broadcast a new television commercial in six states beginning Friday and expects to raise $10.3 million during the second quarter, his campaign announced today.
Incidentally, you'll notice that I'm including very few New York Times articles in the subject archives at the right (a few may have slipped in accidentally). This one, for example, won't be listed in the Politics archive. That's because the Times' links go dark after a week.
Searching for legal news
SearchEngineWatch.com carries an article today about how to search out legal news on the Web. Featured sites include FindLaw, Law.com, Tech Law Advisor and LawMeme.
Maybe Californians arenít the wacky ones
A columnist for the Santa Cruz Sentinel looks at East Coast media and concludes: Maybe Californians arenít the wacky ones.
August 25, 2003
Arianna's TV spot
Arianna Huffington's campaign has just come out with a TV spot, which you can view here.
All about flash mobs
Slate's Rob Walker looks at flash mobs in yesterday's Sunday New York Times. Cheesebikini claims to be a flash mob central for the movement.
Archiving by subject in MovableType
When I moved from Manila to MovableType back in February, I didnít fully appreciate the power of MT's categories function, and thus didnít give much thought to assigning stories to a particular bucket, or grouping postings in a thoughtful way.
Well, I just spent the weekend doubling back and assigning categories to many of the postings Iíve made over the past 6 months. I owe a debt of thanks to MT programming wiz Damien Newman, who smoothed out the kinks I encountered in setting this up.
When I look at my referral logs, I see a lot of people coming in from Google and other search engines. And I have a growing sense that bloggers who post frequently will soon be doing more of the sort of thing that new media publications have done for years: structuring their archives, organizing material, pulling out and highlighting popular and useful postings -- all necessary steps when serving up content to time-challenged users who may not be stopping by day after day.
I've tested out the subjects archive on the PC and the Mac with a couple of different browsers, but let me know if you see anything funky. And let me know if you want to learn the trick of setting up Category headings on those archive-by-subject pages.
Mildly impressed by eMusic
I just signed up for EMusic. Unlike the iTunes Music Store, which costs 99 cents per download, this service offers a $10/month all-you-can-eat subscription buffet -- with MP3s that have no copy restrictions, as far as I can tell. They're offering 50 free downloads to new subscribers.
I'm mildly impressed so far. But it's still a far cry from the universal jukebox (a la Napster) that this space requires. My searches for artist after artist come up empty, thanks to the music labels' refusal to sign on. They did have lots of Poncho Sanchez, Bill Evans and Thelonious Monk. But:
No Dave Alvin, Blasters or the Knitters. No the Cure, Robert Miles, Louise Goffin or Sergio Mendes. I tried Ben Folds and eMusic suggested Beck instead. No Morcheeba (would I like to try Air?). No Barenaked Ladies (how about the Goo Goo Dolls?). No Lucinda Williams (maybe Tom Waits?). No Dido (how about Moby instead?).
The record labels need to get their digital distribution act together.
Joe said:
I use eMusic a ton... but I have really strange tastes that tend to the more independent labels... it is a veritable utopia for the likes of me. Hopefully services will be able to make everyone happy... eventually...
the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow said:
the best thing EMusic is good for is mining undiscovered gems, i.e. music you are not familer with. once you find something you like, if you post message on their message board, other users will chime in with "for more like this, see this".
if you want to be spoon fed from the majors and what you know from the radio station play lists, emusic then is not likely for you.
if you want to discover music from indedpendent lables you don't know about then emusic is for you. but the operatate word is "dig" and "discover".
if you spend the time there on your own or interacting with emusic's active message board community in The Process you'll be Richly Rewarded.
i have,
geoff
Ex-LA Times journalist shines in the blogosphere
David Shaw in the Los Angeles Times profiles Kevin Roderick, a former LA Times editor and reporter who runs the media/political weblog LAObserved, which has long had a place of honor in my blogroll.
Zero tolerance for ethics transgressions
The Sacramento Bee (where I was an editor for 11 years) has fired one of its sports writers for covering a game by watching television and sprinkiling old quotes from past articles into his story. The Bee's ombudsman wrote about it yesterday: Zero tolerance at The Bee for ethics transgressions.
Lee Hinde said:
What do you think of zero tolerance? The guy had been there 34 years!
I think this is different than the things that went on at the Times.
JD said:
I remember the story of a San Francisco newspaper critic who filed a review of a theatrical show that lambasted the performance of one of the actresses -- except he didn't attend the show and neither did the actress. He was fired. This seems to fall short of that, in that Jim was supposed to cover an event and chose to do it via television.
I left the Bee in '97 so can't speak to the current state of affairs there. I didn't know Jim that well, but I don't think he had a history of journalistic transgressions, and I don't know of what mitigating circumstances went into the decision.
When a former TV columnist plagiarized material for one of his columns, he was suspended for the first offense and fired for the second offense. I'd put this somewhere in the same class.
BBC opening its archives to public
This is pretty interesting, and goes against the trend of subscriptions, walled-off archives and for-pay services: The BBC plans to open its full content archives -- television and radio, not just online -- to the public for free. PaidContent.org has the item here, as well as the full text of the speech Sunday by BBC director general Greg Dyke, who said, "I believe that we are about to move into a second phase of the digital revolution, a phase which will be more about public than private value; about free, not pay services; about inclusivity, not exclusion."
The BBC can afford to stake out that turf, as a public-funded entity, but other media outlets should take note. E-Media Tidbits weighs in as well.
BBC posts reader photos sent by MMS
Emily Turrettini of Picturephoning.com sends word that BBC offered a two-way MMS service (Multimedia Messaging System, the successor to SMS) at the Notting Hill carnival -- one of Europe's largest events -- this weekend in the United Kingdom and posted a slideshow of the best shots from participants' mobile phones.
Microsoft's growing role on campus
Washington Post: Microsoft's Big Role on Campus. Donations Fund Research, Build Long-Term Connections.
Court rules in DVD-copying free speech case
Well, I'm not sure who's right here, so I'll post these two apparently contrary takes on today's court ruling:
• From CNET's News.com:
DVD-copying code loses free speech shield
The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that a Web publisher could be barred from posting DVD-copying code online without infringing on his free speech rights.The state's high court overturned an earlier decision that said blocking Web publishers from posting the controversial piece of software called DeCSS, which can be used to help decrypt and copy DVDs, would violate their First Amendment rights. An industry technology coalition called the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) had sued dozens of people in California courts, contending that posting the software online violated its trade secrets rights. ...
• From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
California Supreme Court Upholds Free Speech in DVD Case, Sets High Standard for Publishing DVD Decoding Information
San Francisco - The California Supreme Court ruled today that publication of information regarding the decoding of DVDs merits a strong level of protection as free speech and sent a key case back to a lower court for a decision on whether a court can prevent Andrew Bunner from publishing this information, whether on the Internet, on a T-shirt, or elsewhere. ...
The ruling itself can be found here.
A reader on Dave Farber's mailing list says the News.com article offers the wrong slant. The ruling says that IF the code is trade secret, then the First Amendment does not give anyone the right to post it online. They make it clear that they are assuming as fact that the code is trade secret and that their opinion is tailored to be very narrow.
From the opinion:
Our decision today is quite limited. We merely hold that the preliminary injunction does not violate the free speech clauses of the United States and California Constitutions, assuming the trial court properly issued the injunction under California's trade secret law. On remand, the Court of Appeal should determine the validity of this assumption.
End of an era for file-sharing chic?
Declan McCullagh in News.com: End of an era for file-sharing chic?
Music giants learning to protect copyright on the Net
The Scotsman, UK: Music giants learning to protect copyright on the Net.
THE long-running Napster case may be over, but controversial file-sharing websites continue to hit the headlines. As debates rage over whether downloading of copyright material from the internet damages sales of CDs and DVDs, it has been reported that Disney and Microsoft have joined forces with a group of US scientists to make the internet 6,000 times faster. ...
Group wants search engines freed from policing copyrights
San Jose Business Journal via MSNBC:
Advocates for freedom of expression on the Internet issued a call this week to change a federal law that requires search engines to remove search results suspected of infringing on someone's copyright.The federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the law that lets record companies go after music fans for sharing copyrighted songs online that they haven't paid for, also holds search engine companies liable for other copyright violations. If a Web page violates a copyright, a search engine can be forced to remove that page from its list of search results. ...
The unpatriotic Patriot Act
A New York Times editorial today dissects the unpatriotic USA Patriot Act.
Internet catches a wider segment of public views
The Florida News-Press: Local talk radio was once the public forum of choice, but many listeners are now turning to websites to express their opinions and exchange ideas. Excerpt:
Southwest Florida residents who used to air their grievances against local government on the radio airwaves have moved their forum to the Internet.Local talk radio used to be the forum of choice, but former listeners and some civic activists say Web sites provide a more democratic forum to express their frustrations and exchange ideas.
Two Web sites launched this summer with the intent to provide local residents that forum with even greater anonymity than radio.
SpeakOutSWFLA.com launched three weeks ago. FloridaSOUNDOFF.com launched in June. ...
Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
Google's ads can be too relevant
Today's San Jose Merc carries a business article about the major Internet companies battling for online search dollars, and last week's search engines conference in San Jose. Fun little factoid:
One of Google's new services offers ads that match the content of articles appearing on news Web sites. Recently, the New York Post ran an article about a murder in which the victim's body parts were packed in a suitcase. Google put a suitcase ad beside the online version of the Post article. ...
Ken Auletta, Fox News, and the New Yorker
The LA Times Magazine piece notes that the New Yorker's wonderful media writer, Ken Auletta, recently spent four months investigating the Fox Network's newsl practices. Unforunately, I can't find the article online anywhere.
Here's a short Q&A in the New Yorker in May on the subject. Memes.org reprints the Q&A here in a much more readable format. Neither site links to the article, and the New Yorker, pitifully, offers neither a search button nor archived editions. (Google's search of the New Yorker site came up empty.)
In other words, the New Yorker has no relevance online. Guess we'll never know what Auletta found out.
Journalism gets no respect
Why has the journalism profession lost the confidence of the public? Jayson Blair, Matt Drudge, Bill O'Reilly and Katie Couric may be to blame, writes Michael D'Antonio in the Los Angeles Times Magazine. Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
Another word that's off-limits: entrepreneur
More insanity from the courts and the Trademark Office: A court rules against a PR professional, saying that Entrepreneur magazine has trademarked the word "entrepreneur" and so he can't use it in the name of his publication.
Drudge on Internet news' credibility
IWantMedia has a new feature, One Question, in which a single question is posed to a media person. Today, Matt Drudge responds -- sort of -- to the question:
Do Internet sites such as Drudge Report contribute to a loss of public confidence in journalism?
August 24, 2003
The Wine Wars
NY Times: A look at the insane quilt of regulations and laws that makes direct shipment of wine to consumers a felony in more than half the states. Among the issues: state's rights, free trade and how in the heck Kenneth Starr, of all people, has become a spokesperson for the wine retailers.
The surveillance camera watch
Carnegie Mellon's Data Privacy Lab has launched SOS Camera Watch. Snippets of video surveillance are listed in New York, Washington and Pittsburgh. One participants writes on the Interesting People list:
The Camera Watch project is part of our new Surveillance of Surveillances ( SOS) effort. We are constructing a repository of links to publicly available on-line webcams, where the webcams of interest are those that observe the public in public spaces. At present, we estimate there are about 10,000 such cameras displaying public places in the United States. Our goals are to assess the number and nature of such cameras, explore potential uses, and analyze and propose related policies and best practices.blockquote>
The blogger on the bus
Looks like my bud David Weinberger has become the first blogger ever to travel in a presidential candidate's press bus. Check out David's dispatches from Howard Dean's Sleepless Summer tour.
Visit Machu Picchu virtually
I don't buy many CD-ROMs, but I'm tempted to get this one:
Today's Mercury News has a review of Digital Technology Frontier's The Ancient City of Machu Picchu, part of their Virtual Vacations series.
File sharing, copyright, and compromise
From today's MIT The Tech:
To all new students: Welcome to MIT. When you move into your new rooms and set up your computers, make sure your lawyer is on speed dial. ...There can be only one true solution to the widespread problem of copyright violation: a compromise that respects the rights of artists to their work and of consumers not to be raked with bloated costs. ...
Cruz leading Arnold
In a Los Angeles Times poll released today on the California recall, Cruz Bustamante leads Arnold Schwarzenegger 35-22 percent, with no one else close.
Former dot-commers adjust, painfully
NY Times: Chapter 2 of the Great Dot-Com Bust of 2000 has begun, the part in which former employees of Internet start-ups try to re-acclimate to the corporate world. While they were gone, they tasted what it was like to introduce products without multilayered approvals, to set their own hours, to party hard as well as work hard, and often, to own a sizable stake in the company. And they have seen what the Internet can and cannot do.
August 22, 2003
Arianna begins a blog
Arianna Huffington has a new campaign weblog, and today discusses the departure of her campaign manager.
We'll see if Arianna can start gaining traction over the next 30 days. As much as I like Arianna (I even donated to her campaign), it appears that the only one with a chance of toppling Arnold is Cruz Bustamante. He's picking up endorsements from labor unions and education associations left and right.
Top news sites and directories
Rich Gordon pulled together data from Nielsen/NetRatings to create this chart of the top news sites and directories/local guides. He explains what he did in today's E-Media Tidbits.