August 04, 2003
Stopping the pop-swappers
BBC News: They used to say "home taping" was killing music, now it's meant to be internet downloaders. But the real pirates these days are crime bosses - and the rewards are plentiful.
In America and the rest of the world the biggest culprit in falling music sales is large-scale CD piracy by organised crime.
Thanks to Andy for the pointer.
Huffington, Camejo team up
I'm on the email list for the Run Arianna (Huffington) Run campaign for the California governorship. The folks behind the site say they expect her to announce her candidacy on Wednesday. (The deadline for filing is 5 pm Saturday.) They also say:
Arianna Huffington and Peter Camejo of the Green Party have agreed to work together to support each other in the recall election. Assuming that Huffington enters the race, the two will actively support each other in the first part of the two-month campaign period. In the second part, one of them will withdraw from the race and fully support whoever has the better chance of winning.
Interesting developments in this wacky recall thing. Even if they do team up, I'm not sure they can beat Richard Riordan, who has far greater name recognition in this time-compressed race. You can get more info here.
The Villager: The NYT is swiping our story ideas
Howie Kurtz in the Washington Post: The publisher of the Villager says the New York Times has been stealing story ideas from his small Greenwich Village paper. "At first we were flattered that the Times was picking up our stories," the publisher wrote a Times editor, "but that has long since turned to dismay and anger. . . . The weight of the evidence indicates lazy reporting."
Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
Hylton Jolliffe said:
I see this happening all the time with Corante - among our various audiences are a large number of industry journalists for whom Corante's targeted digests and blogs function as a useful way to track developing stories and what their competitors are up to as well as a way to keep their ear to the ground on emerging trends, story lines, etc. I don't want to overstate the extent to which it happens but it's not infrequent.
Also: I try not to let it bother me or resent it but would be nice if a citation or acknowledgement of an idea, article, comment and its origin could happen as frequently offline as it does online and particularly in the blogosphere (this too is at the core of what differentiates blogs from traditional media - they embrace the Internet, knowing that links build credibility, audience and more honest open debate whereas traditional media outlets, and their journalists, have business, competitive and personal interests to serve that make linking and the citation of competitors antithetical to their mission.)
JD Lasica said:
Just this morning I was reading an article on a British news site -- I think it was the Independent -- that reported on the security measures against anti-war activists (non-terrorists) being implemented at US airports. No credit to Salon, which broke the story July 25.
Survey: Support for First Amendment Up
Support for the First Amendment is on the rise and many Americans want more information about how the government is fighting the war on terrorism, a survey released Friday shows.The nationwide telephone poll of 1,000 adults found that 19 percent of respondents strongly agreed that the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees. That number was down sharply from the 41 percent found on last year's survey, conducted nine months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Nearly half of those questioned believed they had too little access to information about the government's war on terrorism, according to the annual survey commissioned by the Nashville-based First Amendment Center and American Journalism Review magazine.
A majority of respondents said the consolidation of media ownership decreases both the range and quality of information they receive. ...
Uncle Bob said:
As a fan of the Constituttion in general and the First Amendment in particular, I guess I ought to try to be happy about the percentage of those Americans opposed to First Amendment protections dropping.
However, try as I may I cannot help but wonder: What kind of Americans would oppose the First Amendment? This, folks, is the core of our freedom: The right to free speech, assemble, tell government types to fuck off, and freedom of religion. If the results of this poll could be extrapolated, it means one of every five people walking or driving around the country thinks there's just too damn much freedom going on here.
This kind of attitude is not patriotic. To me, it is the opposite of patriotism. And unfortunately, I suspect this unpatriotism is actively practiced by John Ashcroft, many fundamentalist "Christians" and most of the people surrounding President George Bush Jr.
Sometimes I'm afraid that if we don't make the effort to exercise our constitutional rights on a regular basis, the 19% crowd will walk off with them.
The Myth of 'Big Media'
Columnist Robert J. Samuelson in this week's Newsweek claims that the galaxy of choices available to consumers today means that nearly everyone will find something offensive in media -- and this hostility has latched on to the FCC's decision to relax media ownership rules.
Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.
Bay Area magazine scene 'flourishing'
Sunday's SF Chron carried a long feature about the San Francisco magazine scene.
The Bay Area magazine scene, post-dot-bomb, is flourishing, fulfilling its role as New York's cross-country creative counterpart, the place where the seeds of great magazines are planted. ...
I don't know that I'd use the word flourishing, given the state of the magazine industry everywhere. But the story does point to a few bright spots.
Dean campaign picks up steam
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Today, Howard Dean is on the covers of Time, Newsweek, and US News & World Report.On Sunday, the Des Moines Register Poll showed Howard Dean taking the lead in the important state of Iowa.
And as you read this, we are on the air with a new television spot in Texas-- an important primary state--inviting the people of Texas to join our grassroots campaign to defeat George W. Bush. ...
Trippi says 251,823 supporters nationwide have signed up to support the Dean campaign here, and they hope to hit a goal of 450,000 by Sept. 30.
The Dean folks have been amazing in their use of the Internet as a grassroots organizing tool. You can follow their progress -- and download the Texas ad -- at the blogforamerica weblog.
Joe said:
I got this email from Mr. Trippi, too... pretty neat! One other thing I noticed was the following:
<img src="[...]" height="1" width="1">
So what is this? A web bug. The original link was to: http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PixelServer?j=VqZc5-5RXk-o5DnivCNQ8g..
BlogTalk and principles of new media
Jose Luis Orihuela, a professor at the School of Communication at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, has published this page -- Blogging and the eCommunication Paradigms: 10 principles of the new media scenario -- which summarizes the results of a recent conference in Vienna called "BlogTalk: A European Weblog Conference -- Web-based publishing, communication and collaboration tools for professional and private use."
Targeted advertising gets a boost
Bob Tedeschi in today's NY Times:
Two Internet companies, Google and Overture, have made a brisk business of selling ads that appear alongside Web search results. But so far, the big customers for these ad services have been online merchants and operators of search sites. Now, though, online publishers are beginning to sense the possibilities of having Google or Overture serve ads to their audiences.Publishers, including The Washington Post's Web site, which is owned by The Washington Post Company, and the car-buyers advice site Edmunds.com, have turned to Google or Overture to sell ads pegged to the content that each visitor selects. When a visitor goes to the Book World page on WashingtonPost.com, for example, the person is likely to see a text ad for a self-publishing company or some other book-related advertisement, placed there by Google's advertising service.
"This is a very important trend, particularly for Web publishers who've had a hard time selling out their banner ads," said Jordan Rohan, an analyst with the Soundview Technology Group, an investment firm. "This is the bridge between Web content and search." ...
