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?
