Amid all the rumours that Steve Jobs is getting sicker comes what I think is a much more interesting rumour: that Apple will launch a larger-format iPod Touch. Not that I don’t care about Steve-O and his health, of course — I do. But when it comes to Apple products, I’m really interested in the idea of a kind of wireless mini-tablet with the multi-touch interface (something Chris Messina and others have mused about in the past).
Journos vs. bloggers and other straw men
While I was doing my best to remain peaceful during the Christmas holidays, I couldn’t help but feel the blood rising after I read Paul Mulshine’s recent piece in the Wall Street Journal about bloggers and the future of journalism, which I found via a Twitter link from my friend Jay Rosen (who was responding to one from Salon founder Scott Rosenberg about the piece). As I read it, I had that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, the kind you get when you realize that an argument you thought had been settled years ago — and not just an argument, but a distorted and ultimately futile and unhelpful viewpoint — is still very much alive.
Mulshine’s piece (which is here) has the troll-ish headline “All I Wanted For Christmas Was A Newspaper,” and segues from a heart-warming anecdote about old-style reporters throwing copy out the window of the campaign bus into a discussion of how the Internet is “killing old-fashioned newspapers.” The passive-aggressive tone of the piece is somewhat understandable when you realize that Mulshine is an opinion columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger, a paper that recently laid off almost 50 per cent of its editorial staff. As a fellow journalist, I can sympathize with the writer’s desire to find a villain somewhere — but as Jay and a number of others have noted quite well since the piece appeared, focusing on the Web and bloggers is not only wrong, but dumb.
A Christmas interlude
I’m taking a bit of a personal break over the holidays, to spend some time with friends and family. In place of my usual insightful commentary, I offer you instead these peaceful images of the countryside around Buckhorn in rural Ontario, about two hours northeast of Toronto.
GateHouse: O hai, internetz — we r fail
With David Carr’s argument that newspapers should ignore the Web only a few days old — not to mention Joel Brinkley’s suggestion that anti-trust violations are a viable business model — I thought the market for stupid newspaper-related activity was pretty well saturated. But apparently I was wrong. It seems that GateHouse Media, which owns a number of regional papers in the U.S., is suing the New York Times for linking to its content. Yes, you read that correctly — it is suing to stop the NYT from linking.
The RIAA switches tactics
The Recording Industry Association of America has been waging war against copyright infringement — in the form of illegal downloads — since the file-sharing app known as Napster first appeared on the scene a decade ago. For much of that time, the RIAA’s preferred form of attack has been the lawsuit, with the record-industry body filing claims against hundreds of thousands of individuals for financial damages, including several high-profile cases that have targeted single mothers, war veterans, and teenagers for sharing as few as a dozen songs. Now, the RIAA has apparently decided to switch tactics, according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, and will no longer sue individual downloaders.
Instead, the agency plans to strike deals with Internet service providers that will see the ISPs agree to contact individual file-sharers when notified by the RIAA that illegal activity is occurring. After two warnings about their behaviour, the RIAA is hoping that ISPs will agree to shut off their customers’ access to the Internet.
What this means is that the record-industry group is trading a head-on assault for a back-room negotiation with Internet providers, in the hope that it can do an end-run around the problems its previous strategy produced. Not only was the lawsuit approach a magnet for negative publicity, but it also ran into repeated legal roadblocks as well. In one of the latest, for example, a U.S. court ruled that the RIAA would have to show that songs had actually been downloaded before it could prove infringement. Unfortunately for the RIAA, however, its new strategy could cause some legal headaches as well, since the “three strikes” approach is almost certain to be challenged in court.
One of the biggest issues with such an approach is that it assumes the RIAA has correctly identified a) specific songs that are being infringed, and b) the individual doing the infringing. If it makes a mistake in any one of the three steps, an innocent user has their Internet access cut off without any recourse. And over the years that the record industry has been pursuing its legal strategy, there has been plenty of evidence to show that its ability to do either a) or b) is far from perfect. The agency has repeatedly mis-identified not only the individuals doing the sharing — who in many cases are distinct from the customers the Internet account belongs to — but has also mis-identified songs as infringing when they have been legally acquired.
The “three strikes” approach is not a new one. The French government has proposed new legislation that would require ISPs to cut off the access of users who repeatedly infringe on copyright, although the legislation has yet to become law. An amendment by the European Parliament earlier this year strongly urged France and other European Union countries not to adopt this kind of legislation, but it was later overturned by the EU Council of Ministers, and according to the most recent reports France is going ahead with it. Britain’s record-industry lobby group managed to convince several ISPs to warn their users when notified by the agency, but they have stopped short of actually cutting off their users’ Internet access after a third “strike.”
The RIAA may think that it has come up with a clever way around its earlier legal hassles, but it could find that trying to make ISPs into copyright police faces just as many hurdles, if not more.
Ignore the Web? Good luck with that
David Carr, a writer for the New York Times, is a pretty interesting guy — he kicked a cocaine habit and went on to become a respected journalist at one of the country’s top newspapers, something he just finished writing a book about. That’s the good news. The bad news is that a piece he wrote on Monday perpetuates all kinds of myths about the so-called competition between the Web and the printed newspaper business. For a guy who is supposed to be the Times media columnist, that’s not a great calling card — unless the only media you like to write about is the kind that lines the bird cage or is used to wrap fish and chips.
Facebook and the journalistic impulse
I came across a post in my news feeds on Friday, and didn’t think much of it at first. It was a post by a guy who writes about education at a blog called Square Peg, and it was about Facebook. I was in a hurry, so I moved on and figured I would go back to it. When I re-read it on the weekend, I thought it was fascinating — not so much because of what it’s about (a marketing group that hijacked some university Facebook groups) but because of how it has evolved over the past few days.
RIAA switches to “three strikes” approach
The Recording Industry Association of America, which has spent the past five years suing tens of thousands of individual file-sharers for copyright infringement, has apparently decided to change tactics, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal (hopefully this one is a little more reliable than the recent story about Google’s views on net neutrality). The good news is that they are going to stop suing 13-year-olds and retired war veterans and single mothers for downloading music. The bad news is that their new plan involves cutting sneaky backroom deals with Internet service providers to take a so-called “three strikes” approach: They let the ISP know when they think you’ve been sharing copyrighted material, and the provider agrees to send you an email warning; the second time, you get a letter; do it again and your Internet access gets cut off.
(read the rest of this post at GigaOm)
The Ingrams Christmas Letter for 2008
We started the year as we often do: by scraping the snow from the pond at our friends’ place near Buckhorn so we could skate and play “snow bocce” or “Javex curling,” which involves sliding old Javex bottles full of frozen water across the pond at a target. Soon to be an Olympic sport! We also did a fair bit of snowshoeing, played some pool, and ate a ton of great food — including my favourite, caviar pie (which is really just egg salad with caviar on top, with a fancy design). And then it was off on our annual trip to Ottawa for some skating on the canal and Beaver Tails and poutine and a nice soak in the hot tub.
Before too long it was time to head south — to Becky’s parents’ place near Venice, Florida where we swam in the pools and played on the beach and played some shuffleboard and enjoyed the sunsets on the beautiful white beach on Siesta Key, which is reportedly one of the best beaches in North America. We also took the kids to Busch Gardens up in Sarasota so they could see some animals and go on some rollercoasters and the carousel and see the birds in the bird sanctuary. Zoe also had a dual birthday with part of it in Florida at her grandparents’ place and part in our basement in Scarborough.
Continue reading “The Ingrams Christmas Letter for 2008”The TTC does the right thing
When I first heard about the YouTube rap video “I Get On The TTC,” which a couple of Toronto rappers recorded recently about the venerable — and much criticized — Toronto Transit Commission, I was really hoping that the TTC wouldn’t blow it by either ignoring or somehow trying to de-legitimize the video. I thought the fact that TTC commissioner Adam Giambrone is (as far as I can tell) about 19 years old might help them get with the “user-generated content” program, and for whatever reason it looks like that is in fact the case. According to a post at Torontoist, the duo got a call from Toronto officials, and wound up being honoured by Mayor David Miller and Giambrone, who played the video and even danced along, and then gave the two a free January Metropass. And some props are also due to Mayor Miller for the shout-out to “Spadina Bus,” the 1980s hit from The Shuffle Demons.
How the WSJ failed the Web 2.0 test
Traditional media outlets like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have begun to use some of the tools of social media — blogs, Facebook pages, even Twitter accounts. But they seem a lot less eager to adopt some of social media’s core principles, including a commitment to the two-way nature of the medium and all that it represents. This means a lot more than just talking about “the conversation” and how great it is to get links or comments. It’s about taking those comments seriously, responding to them regardless of whether they are positive or negative, and incorporating that approach into the way you do your job. It’s about looking at “journalism,” broadly-speaking, as a process rather than an artifact.
MSFT to Apple: Yes, your phone is better
As a number of people have already noted, Microsoft’s release of Seadragon for the iPhone — an image-viewing app based on the deep-zoom technology behind the software giant’s Photosynth project — doesn’t just seem like an admission that the iPhone is better than any other mobile out there: Microsoft product manager Alex Daley comes right out and says as much in an interview with Todd Bishop of the blog Tech Flash:
“The iPhone is the most widely distributed phone with a (graphics processing unit),” Daley explained. “Most phones out today don’t have accelerated graphics in them The iPhone does and so it enabled us to do something that has been previously difficult to do. I couldn’t just pick up a Blackberry or a Nokia off the shelf and build Seadragon for it.”
Mike Arrington stars in The Ugly American
It’s been awhile since we had a good “bitchmeme” flare up on Techmeme, so now is as good a time as any, I suppose. In this case, it’s a cross-cultural, multi-continent event involving Mike Arrington of TechCrunch, LeWeb organizer (and TechCrunch partner) Loic LeMeur of Seesmic, and a cast of thousands — or possibly hundreds. The main attraction was apparently a panel discussion at LeWeb in which Mike talked about how all most of the successful Web companies are located in Silicon Valley because they want to win at all costs, while Europeans like to take long lunches and relax (the fun starts at about 17:00). The comment thread on Mike’s post alone is worth the price of admission. Loic LeMeur’s somewhat defensive response is here.
Update: In round two of this match, Mike has responded to Loic’s poll on whether he should be allowed back to LeWeb, calling it “censorship,” and Loic has responded to Mike’s response, saying that he thought of him as a friend “until now,” because Mike threatened not to send anyone to LeWeb next year, and posted a comment about starting his own European conference.
Not surprisingly, Mike is accused of being a stereotypical “ugly American,” who thinks that only American companies can succeed, and that all Europeans are lazy. He in turn points out that he never said Europeans were lazy, only that they have a cultural approach to business that isn’t as hard-nosed as the typical American entrepreneurial approach — and that while there are plenty of entrepreneurial European companies (Skype, etc.), they tend to either move to the U.S. so they can be part of that culture or get acquired by American companies. Like many stereotypes, there is a grain of truth in what Mike says, which is probably why it generates such an emotional response. It’s also possible that Mike likes to get attention 🙂
As someone who has spent the majority of my life in Canada (although I was born in Germany and have visited Europe many times), I can’t claim any kind of real expertise in this debate. In my experience, however, American companies do tend to be more aggressive, and U.S. entrepreneurs tend to be more driven than those from other countries, including Canada — which, as many people know, is an odd sort of mix of British, French and American influences (we’re like the UN up here). But that aggression and drive can also produce companies that flame out spectacularly, and/or wind up pushing the envelope of the law. For what it’s worth, I am also on record as favouring long lunches, so I guess I am a little European in spirit.
Update:
Some thoughts from my friend Ethan Kaplan of blackrimglasses.
Do brands belong on Twitter? Yes and no
Guest poster Mark Drapeau has a piece up on Mashable that looks at what — for the social-media sphere at least — has become an age-old question: should companies and brands be on Twitter? He comes to the conclusion they should not, for a whole bunch of what are very good reasons, including that company names “reduce authenticity and transparency,” and that “brand names and logos, as opposed to full names and user images, are not in the spirit of the Twitterverse.” As he puts it:
“Does anyone really want to talk to @DunkinDonuts? Or would they rather talk to Bill Rosenberg, the founder of Dunkin Donuts of Canton, MA, or perhaps the local franchise owner on Capitol Hill, or a disgruntled but funny summer employee punching in at 4am? People connect with people, and so I think the latter.”
There’s no question that the post raises some good points. But as someone who has been spending a lot of time in my new role at the Globe and Mail thinking about social media and how (or whether) we should be using it, I’m not sure he is completely right. I agree that one of the appealing things about Twitter is the personal aspect, and the ability to connect with someone, even on a somewhat trivial level. But I don’t think that means companies — or brands — can’t use it, just that they have to approach it in the right way.
Obviously, throwing an account like @DunkinDonuts up there and hoping to attract thousands of followers is pretty dumb, just as creating Facebook accounts for the Burger King mascot was kind of dumb (even if it was trumpeted as a huge success). As a number of people have pointed out, no one really wants to interact with Dunkin Donuts on a personal level, apart from the actual process of buying a donut. But what about an account like @Comcastcares? Hundreds of people have interacted with the person (or people) behind that account and been pretty amazed by the response. That’s a good thing, no?
Inside Google’s Canadian HQ
I noticed that Andrew Noyes of Tech Daily Dose wrote about the opening of a Google office in Reston, Va. and provided some pics, so I thought I might do the same and write a post about my recent trip to Google’s Canadian HQ in Toronto. The search giant has had a small office in Toronto for awhile now, but recently moved into new and fancier digs just north of Dundas Square, and I got a tour — and some free lunch — from Tamara Micner a few days ago. After signing in with a touchscreen, I got a stick-on name badge printed out from a small machine and then entered the inner sanctum.