but rather the way newspaper executives responded to those forces: “The lack of investment, the greed, incompetence, corruption, hypocrisy and downright arrogance of people who put their interests ahead of the public’s are responsible for the state of the newspaper industry today.” Strong stuff, but Mr. O’Shea can back it up.
[ nytimes ]
We’ve spent the past 40 years putting technology inside the enterprise and we’re going to spend the next 20 years ripping it out. That is a fundamental shift. There is no reason whatsoever for any business with 100 employees or less to have any infrastructure on their premises other than end units. It doesn’t make sense.
—
Bill Gurley
On matters of Internet freedom, the Western world can’t even begin to make up its mind, and its two biggest transnational institutions may soon fall into a complex, ideological struggle over people’s rights to digital expression. Last Friday, the United Nations declared an audacious new right to the Internet in a long report, as The Atlantic’s Nicholas Jackson chronicled. In the wake of Middle Eastern revolutions of the Arab Spring, the UN states that the Internet acts as a catalyst for a variety of other human rights, for free expression and the democratic exchange of ideas. This expression can “offend, shock or disturb” as well as attack governments and high-profile figures, but people must be able to raise their voices online.
[ theatlantic.com ]
Lest you think the recent high-profile info leak cases are unique, new research finds that many popular websites leak your information to third parties — often on purpose.
And, while each website might be leaking only a small portion of your information, the powerful tracking tools that receive it are able to patch all those small tidbits together into a pretty clear picture of who you are and what you are interested in. That’s the finding of a study of more than 100 popular websites used by tens of millions of people that found three-quarters directly leak either private information or users’ unique identifiers to third-party tracking sites, according to research co-author Craig Wills, professor of computer science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).
and ad networks would all have cut off access to foreign “rogue sites”—and such court orders would not be limited to the government. Private rightsholders could go to court and target foreign domains, too.
Experts have for years pointed to the potential problem of Internet access during a severe pandemic, which would be a unique kind of emergency. It would be global, affecting many areas at once, and would last for weeks or months, unlike a disaster such as a hurricane or earthquake.
"Such network congestion could prevent staff from broker-dealers and other securities market participants from teleworking during a pandemic," reads the GAO report.
"Because the key securities exchanges and clearing organizations generally use proprietary networks that bypass the public Internet, their ability to execute and process trades should not be affected by any congestion."
It has become commonplace to call Britain a “surveillance society,” a place where security cameras lurk at every corner, giant databases keep track of intimate personal details and the government has extraordinary powers to intrude into citizens’ lives.
A report in 2007 by the lobbying group Privacy International placed Britain in the bottom five countries for its record on privacy and surveillance, on a par with Singapore.
But the intrusions visited on Jenny Paton, a 40-year-old mother of three, were startling just the same. Suspecting Ms. Paton of falsifying her address to get her daughter into the neighborhood school, local officials here began a covert surveillance operation. They obtained her telephone billing records. And for more than three weeks in 2008, an officer from the Poole education department secretly followed her, noting on a log the movements of the “female and three children” and the “target vehicle” (that would be Ms. Paton, her daughters and their car).
» NY Times [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
U.S. communications regulators voted unanimously Thursday to support an open Internet rule that would prevent telecom network operators from barring or blocking content based on the revenue it generates.
» Reuters [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
The leaves are just beginning to change color, but e-commerce companies are already starting to think about Christmas. So far, it looks like a dreary one. Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore, the Web analytics firm that tracks e-commerce spending, predicted that online sales this holiday season might be flat. “I’d be delighted if the growth was around 5 percent, but I am worried that we’ll see it continue to go sideways for a while,” he said.
» NY Times [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
Advertisers, celebrity endorsers and even some internet bloggers will be held liable for false statements they make about products as part of a crackdown by US regulators on deceptive advertising practices.
The new rules on the use of testimonials in advertising, released by the Federal Trade Commission on Monday, also say that anyone who endorses a product, including celebrities and bloggers, must make explicit the compensation received from companies. In an effort to hold companies and endorsers accountable, the FTC guidelines state that businesses and reviewers will be liable for any false statements made about a product. If a blogger receives a free sample of skin cream and untruthfully claims it cures eczema, for example, the company and the blogger could be held liable for false advertising.
» FTC GOV - FT [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
The U.S. government plans to propose broad new rules Monday that would force Internet providers to treat all Web traffic equally, seeking to give consumers greater freedom to use their computers or cellphones to enjoy videos, music and other legal services that hog bandwidth.
The move would make good on a campaign promise to Silicon Valley supporters like Google Inc. from President Barack Obama, but will trigger a battle with phone and cable companies like AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp., which don't want the government telling them how to run their networks.
Treating Web traffic equally means carriers couldn't block or slow access to legal services or sites that are a drain on their networks or offered by rivals.
» Reuters [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
» Wall Street Journal
» Washington Post
In a recent essay in the New York Review of Books, Michael Massing articulates a point made so often about the Web that it's nearly catechismal. Blogs, he says, have torn down the power structure of old media. "Decentralization and democratization" are the law of the land, offering “a podium to Americans of all ages and backgrounds to contribute.” This is a notion that bloggers and web gurus have been touting for years. In his 2006 book, An Army of Davids, for example, “Instapundit” blogger Glenn Reynolds argued that “markets and technology” empowered “ordinary people to beat big media.” And this June, internet sage Clay Shirky assured an audience at a TED event that the old model, where “professionals broadcast messages to amateurs,” is “slipping away.”
» The Atlantic [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
Just about everyone, from the general public to news executives, has an opinion about the future of journalism. Now, the Federal Trade Commission is stepping into the debate.
The commission is planning two days of workshops in December — titled “From Town Criers to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?” — to examine the state of the news industry.
More often, the F.T.C. tends to organize workshops related to consumer protection issues like mortgage fraud. But Jon Leibowitz, the F.T.C. chairman, says the agency has taken a look at other industries, through workshops on hospital competition, food marketing and the patent system. Journalism’s future falls in the agency’s purview, he said.
» NY Times - FTC [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
The reSTART Internet Addiction Recovery Program is specifically oriented towards launching tech dependent youth and adults back into the real world. Our individually tailored program is designed to assist participants with an internet and/or computer based behavioral addiction to break the cycle of dependency. Our 45-day abstinence based recovery program exposes participants to a variety of activities and everyday life skills which are often avoided or underdeveloped as a result of ongoing computer, video game play and internet abuse.
» reSTART [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
The U.S. government is covertly testing technology in China and Iran that lets residents break through screens set up by their governments to limit access to news on the Internet.
The "feed over email" (FOE) system delivers news, podcasts and data via technology that evades web-screening protocols of restrictive regimes, said Ken Berman, head of IT at the U.S. government's Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is testing the system.
» Reuters [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
Computing and communicating through the Web makes it virtually impossible to leave the past behind. College Facebook posts or pictures can resurface during a job interview; a lost or stolen laptop can expose personal photos or messages; or a legal investigation can subpoena the entire contents of a home or work computer, uncovering incriminating or just embarrassing details from the past.
Vanish is a research system designed to give users control over the lifetime of personal data stored on the web or in the cloud. Specifically, all copies of Vanish encrypted data — even archived or cached copies — will become permanently unreadable at a specific time, without any action on the part of the user or any third party or centralized service.
For example, using the Firefox Vanish plugin, a user can create an email, a Google Doc document, a Facebook message, or a blog comment — specifying that the document or message should "vanish" in 8 hours. Before that 8-hour timeout expires, anyone who has access to the data can read it; however after that timer expires, nobody can read that web content — not the user, not Google, not Facebook, not a hacker who breaks into the cloud service, and not even someone who obtains a warrant for that data. That data — regardless of where stored or archived prior to the timeout — simply self-destructs and becomes permanently unreadable.
» Vanish / Washington edu [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google's web search. It's the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits "under the hood" of Google's search engine, which means that most users won't notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we're opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback.
Some parts of this system aren't completely finished yet, so we'd welcome feedback on any issues you see. We invite you to visit the web developer preview of Google's new infrastructure at http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ and try searches there.
Right now, we only want feedback on the differences between Google's current search results and our new system. We're also interested in higher-level feedback ("These types of sites seem to rank better or worse in the new system") in addition to "This specific site should or shouldn't rank for this query." Engineers will be reading the feedback, but we won't have the cycles to send replies.
Here's how to give us feedback: Do a search at http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ and look on the search results page for a link at the bottom of the page that says "Dissatisfied? Help us improve." Click on that link, type your feedback in the text box and then include the word caffeine somewhere in the text box. Thanks in advance for your feedback!
» Google [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
Blogging has gone beyond the snip-it-and-comment approach that riffs on the journalism of others while doing no conventional reporting of their own in the sense of gathering, presentation, and delivery of news. The commentary has broadened into a concern with subjects that newspapers are no longer interested in.
» Public Opinion [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
A US student has been ordered to pay $675,000 (£404,000) to four record labels for breaking copyright laws after sharing music online.
On the stand, Mr Tenenbaum admitted that he had downloaded more than 800 songs since 1999 and that he had lied in pre-trial proceedings when he suggested that other family members of friends may have been responsible for downloading songs to his computer.
» BBC [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
“Did you see what Nikki just wrote?” That would be Nikki Finke, a well-traveled newspaper reporter who has found her moment as a digital-age Walter Winchell.
In the three years since she started Deadline Hollywood Daily, a daily blog about the entertainment business, her combination of old-school skills — she is a relentless reporter — and new-media immediacy has made her a must-click look into the ragingly insecure id of Hollywood.
“I really don’t see covering Hollywood as all that different from covering the Kremlin or the federal government,” she said. “I’m always fascinated by closed societies that don’t want prying eyes.”
» New York Times [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
Apple is justifiably revered in the worlds of technology and culture for creating one of the most powerful brands in the world based on the combination of some key elements: Great user experience and design, and an extraordinary secrecy punctuated by surprising reveals. But the element of secrecy that's been required to maintain Apple's mystique has incurred an increasingly costly price. Apple must transform itself and leave its history of secrecy behind, not just to continue being innovative and to protect the fundamentals of its business, but because the cost of keeping these secrets has become morally and ethically untenable.
» Anil Dash [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
Google Books engineering director Dan Clancy spelled out the vision at a talk at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Clancy stressed the importance of making it possible to buy the digital books in traditional bricks-and-mortar bookstores, as well as online.
"Right now the physical bookstores are a critical part of our book ecosystem," he said. "A huge amount of books are bought because people go into a physical bookstore and say, hey I want this, I want that. It's a mistake if we think of our future digital world as digital means online and physical means offline. Because if that happens and 10 percent of the world goes digital, that's going to be really hard for all the bookstores to sustain their business model."
Dan Clancy comments:
People look at the settlement [with the Authors Guild and the AAP] and think that that is Google's vision for what the future looks like for books. And in fact the settlement is what we figured out for these predominantly out-of-print books, so it's more about the past. And in fact we've done a lot of thinking about what is the role we want to play going forward in a digital book world, for new books.
There are [three] things we put as requirements.
One is I believe people want their books stored in the cloud.... For most people, your library is something that you don't pull books off all that often, but when you need it, you want it to be there. That's where a cloud really works. You're not going to actively manage it, but you want to make sure that five years from now, [it's there].
Number two, I think it's critical that there's diversity of choices in terms of retailers that you work with.
Now one of the things with the cloud is that the consumer needs to trust that the person who's providing the cloud will be there. So you don't trust the cloud to some new startup that you've never heard of, or some small local bookstore, that you love to go to.
But right now the physical bookstores are a critical part of our book ecosystem. And in fact a huge amount of books are bought because people go into a physical bookstore and say, hey I want this, I want that. And I think it's a mistake if we think of our future digital world as digital means online and physical means offline. Because if that happens and 10 percent of the world goes digital, that's going to be really hard for all the bookstores to sustain their business model.
So part of our model is to figure out we're going to syndicate for our partner program all of the books we sell that are new, so that any bookstore can sell a Google edition and find a way that people can buy them in bricks and mortar stores as well.
And then finally, our model is you should be able to read on any device.... Our model is some people will read [our books] on a laptop, some will read them on the phone, some people will read on their netbook, and some people will read on their e-reader. And we'll work with any reader provider that wants to make it so they can get their books from the Google cloud....
So the principles of our future world is trying to build this world where there's lots of retail players, read on any device, but it's still stored in the cloud. And as we talk with publishers and booksellers, I think this is the right model, because we're trying to make what would be an open model that encourages competition
» Blog2 [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
Although the venture capital industry is having a hard time convincing endowments, pension funds and other limited partners to invest new capital in the asset class, the majority of venture firms still plan to raise a new fund in the next 12 months - if a new survey from Pepperdeine University is to be believed.
» WSJ [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
While the computer scientists agreed that we are a long way from Hal, they said there was legitimate concern that technological progress would transform the work force by destroying a widening range of jobs, as well as force humans to learn to live with machines that increasingly copy human behaviors.
» NYT [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
Focus is on how technology companies, content creators and other institutions can thrive in the recession, and help lead the way to a new era of global prosperity.
The agenda is based on 4 content pillars:
Renewal and Recovery
Technology must strengthen the global economy, renew confidence and speed a recovery that establishes new business traditions.
Technology and Social Transformation
We believe that the transformational power of software, the Internet and technology is often underplayed in thinking about social issues.
The 21st Century Consumer
It’s a mobile, downloaded, Twitter world, and the way people are using technology in their every day lives has huge implications for the biggest media and technology companies on the planet.
Business Innovation
Great innovations and business practice always have emerged from chaotic times, and the smartest companies are already thinking about what they will look like when order is restored.
» Time Inc./Fortune July 22-24, 2009 [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
He helped break the old equation of PR + Journalists = Consensus Of Wisdom and that, in the final analysis, has probably been a good thing.
On the importance of corporate blogging. "I feel stronger about it now than ever. If you look at the Net, many, many companies use blogs. Even Apple Computer has soemthing similar. The best blogging is done when you're under pressure. You win customers over when you have to bite your lip [and admit to failings].
On the next web era. "Web 2.0 is almost eight years ago and the 2010 Web, New Web or Now Web will be about the real-time web."
» CIO UK [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
The idea for Revenue Bootcamp held on the Microsoft campus in Mountain View, Calif., developed earlier this year after some people realized that upcoming conferences focused only on "social media . . . basically gathering eyeballs, but nobody was talking about monetizing people . . .," Guy Kawasaki explained in his opening remarks.
» Revenue Bootcamp
» Building43 [ Contribute: submit link / submit article ]
