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Last year Qualcomm came up with the term smartbook for things between and smartphone and a netbook. Great word, we thought (maybe not such a good concept; the iPhone might break the mould but Webpads and UMPCs and MIDs haven't made much of a dent in the market). I hadn't heard the term often from anyone but Qualcomm until HP's Phil McKinney used it at CES to describe the Android netbook he was showing off, and I haven't heard it since. The little note that I just spotted on the bottom of that interview might explain why smartbook isn't part of geek vocabulary (along with the lack of actual smartbooks on the market): "Smartbook is a registered trademark of Smartbook AG, but in this interview McKinney uses smartbook as a generic term for a device which falls between smartphone and netbook." It's not like Qualcomm to miss a trademark, even if it doesn't cover the US; in much of Europe, Korea, Russia, Australia and Singapore, smartbook means an Atom smartbook from Smartbook AG. And OSNews amusingly speculates about why Smartbook is asking news sites not to use smartbook as a generic term.
Glenn Beck gets the traffic for Fox, but not the ads: according to the Washington Post over 200 companies (including Apple) have boycotted the slots around Beck's show - and Apple isn't running ads on the network at all. The same column has some interesting stats around Web news usage; it doesn't say but I assume is for the US and PEJ is behind http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2010/media-ownership/sector_online.php, which might have these stats in.
The WP says "Eighty percent of the traffic for news and information is vacuumed up by the top 7 percent of such sites, says an annual survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. These, according to Nielsen figures, are led by aggregator sites: Yahoo (No. 1, with 40.8 million unique monthly visitors), AOL (No. 3) and Google News (No. 6). The television news sites are also strong: MSNBC (2), CNN (4), Fox News (7) and ABC News (8). And three newspapers make the list: the New York Times (5), Washington Post (9) and USA Today (10, with 9.3 million unique visitors).
The WP says "Eighty percent of the traffic for news and information is vacuumed up by the top 7 percent of such sites, says an annual survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. These, according to Nielsen figures, are led by aggregator sites: Yahoo (No. 1, with 40.8 million unique monthly visitors), AOL (No. 3) and Google News (No. 6). The television news sites are also strong: MSNBC (2), CNN (4), Fox News (7) and ABC News (8). And three newspapers make the list: the New York Times (5), Washington Post (9) and USA Today (10, with 9.3 million unique visitors).
But all Web destinations are not created equal. Consumers spend more than twice as much time on cable TV sites (23 1/2 minutes a month) as on newspaper sites (10 minutes a month). Online-only sites fared only slightly better (12 1/2 minutes a month). Two political sites stand out: the right-leaning Drudge Report (nearly an hour each month) and the liberal Daily Kos (48 minutes). "
And the State of the News Media 2010 study has an excellent study of the relationship between bloggers and tweeters and the mainstream media sites they're referencing
Comments between two social networks I don't use; not that interesting. A standard that would allow cross comments between arbitrary services I do use so the conversation isn't fragmented by who chose what: priceless.
http://networkedblogs.com/p30435259
http://networkedblogs.com/p30435259
I'm sure this isn't a widely held view. That won't work, I hear people saying; information wants to be free.
That's a good example of why un-fact checked, un-edited community reporting isn't always the best way to get your information. The quote is actually "On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other." The tension rather than the cost is the point of the quote - and Brand talked about the cost of getting it out - not the cost of creating, checking and curating it in the first place.
This isn't just about The Times going behind a paywall (which, by the way, has worked very well for the FT). A few weeks ago Ars Technica pointed out that it couldn't stay in business if everyone blocked the ads that pay for the site. And then there's the forest of Google-ad-funded third party sites that grab content from primary sites and republish it, which many people seem to think is fine and dandy. Speaking as someone who makes their living from writing, it puzzles me that like downloading music and video, republishing content without paying is seen as a victimless crime. While the publishing and music industries have acted like cretinous dinosaurs and by refusing to offer affordable downloads in usable formats and have instead turned their users into thieves by treating them as if they already were, I'd also rather like to get paid for the work I do. I'd like it to be a living wage rather than pocket change - because if you pay so little that the only people who can afford to write are the ones with an independent income from elsewhere, you're going to get rather short of full-time, specialist writers who aren't backed by someone with an interest in what they write. And if you think that enthusiasts never have an axe to grind, why have there been mommybloggers turning out to be getting paid by suppliers to review their products?
What we need is a decent micropayments system and a decent identity system behind it so payments aren't onerous to deal with and then publishers can choose their business model (and readers can choose whether they want to spend money, attention or rely on the BBC surviving the re-org). There is no such thing as a free lunch.
That's a good example of why un-fact checked, un-edited community reporting isn't always the best way to get your information. The quote is actually "On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other." The tension rather than the cost is the point of the quote - and Brand talked about the cost of getting it out - not the cost of creating, checking and curating it in the first place.
This isn't just about The Times going behind a paywall (which, by the way, has worked very well for the FT). A few weeks ago Ars Technica pointed out that it couldn't stay in business if everyone blocked the ads that pay for the site. And then there's the forest of Google-ad-funded third party sites that grab content from primary sites and republish it, which many people seem to think is fine and dandy. Speaking as someone who makes their living from writing, it puzzles me that like downloading music and video, republishing content without paying is seen as a victimless crime. While the publishing and music industries have acted like cretinous dinosaurs and by refusing to offer affordable downloads in usable formats and have instead turned their users into thieves by treating them as if they already were, I'd also rather like to get paid for the work I do. I'd like it to be a living wage rather than pocket change - because if you pay so little that the only people who can afford to write are the ones with an independent income from elsewhere, you're going to get rather short of full-time, specialist writers who aren't backed by someone with an interest in what they write. And if you think that enthusiasts never have an axe to grind, why have there been mommybloggers turning out to be getting paid by suppliers to review their products?
What we need is a decent micropayments system and a decent identity system behind it so payments aren't onerous to deal with and then publishers can choose their business model (and readers can choose whether they want to spend money, attention or rely on the BBC surviving the re-org). There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Yay - my insurance claim is settled. Yay - I got the news by email!
I lost my watch in a hotel in LA last autumn and the old fashioned ways of doing things didn't help as much as the new customer service trends did.
I phoned the Omni hotel and got a not helpful response; I mentioned this and the loss in the survey the hotel sent me - and got a personal email from the head of loss prevention, who did everything possible to look for it (and found the toothbrush charger I'd left in the room and sent it on).
We went to the gallery where I bought the watch - and it was now a trendy cake shop. We went to several galleries and couldn't find the artist; but Simon searched for them and found them in Sausalito and I mailed them and they had the watch and gave me a price.
While I was thinking about it, I thought 'hang on, we have this travel insurance I'm always banging on about' and phoned Amex. They said if I hadn't claimed in 30 days it might be too late but to phone Axa. I dithered on that for ages, because I hate disappointments ;-) Eventually I phoned, they were really helpful and scheduled a telephone claim appointment at a specific time the next day, asked some basic questions and told me what information I'd need. I retrieved most of it from my Outlook and OneNote via Windows Search, but getting the date I bought the watch involved some detective work looking through Simon's photos (I don't take many pictures of myself) for one where I was wearing the watch (and we found photos of the place the gallery used to be on the previous day). That meant when Axa phoned (on time) I had all the details, from the eticket number of the flight to the phone number of the head of loss prevention to the address of the gallery to the current price to the explanation of how I knew the date I bought the watch even though I didn't have a receipt, which sounds a lot more impressive than 'I bought in San Francisco but I can't remember when'. The claims assessor said she was happy and would phone within 24 hours if she had questions; instead I got an email saying the claim gets paid (less the usual 20%) and quoting the Xe.com site as the source of the exchange rate. Digital history and digital customer service for the win!
I lost my watch in a hotel in LA last autumn and the old fashioned ways of doing things didn't help as much as the new customer service trends did.
I phoned the Omni hotel and got a not helpful response; I mentioned this and the loss in the survey the hotel sent me - and got a personal email from the head of loss prevention, who did everything possible to look for it (and found the toothbrush charger I'd left in the room and sent it on).
We went to the gallery where I bought the watch - and it was now a trendy cake shop. We went to several galleries and couldn't find the artist; but Simon searched for them and found them in Sausalito and I mailed them and they had the watch and gave me a price.
While I was thinking about it, I thought 'hang on, we have this travel insurance I'm always banging on about' and phoned Amex. They said if I hadn't claimed in 30 days it might be too late but to phone Axa. I dithered on that for ages, because I hate disappointments ;-) Eventually I phoned, they were really helpful and scheduled a telephone claim appointment at a specific time the next day, asked some basic questions and told me what information I'd need. I retrieved most of it from my Outlook and OneNote via Windows Search, but getting the date I bought the watch involved some detective work looking through Simon's photos (I don't take many pictures of myself) for one where I was wearing the watch (and we found photos of the place the gallery used to be on the previous day). That meant when Axa phoned (on time) I had all the details, from the eticket number of the flight to the phone number of the head of loss prevention to the address of the gallery to the current price to the explanation of how I knew the date I bought the watch even though I didn't have a receipt, which sounds a lot more impressive than 'I bought in San Francisco but I can't remember when'. The claims assessor said she was happy and would phone within 24 hours if she had questions; instead I got an email saying the claim gets paid (less the usual 20%) and quoting the Xe.com site as the source of the exchange rate. Digital history and digital customer service for the win!
Stephen Carter, minister for Communications, Technology & Broadcasting Sector, author of the Digital Britain Report and the Digital Economy Bill that is currently reducing photographers rights and promising the recording industry power by statutory instrument has a new job. In April he'll become Chief Marketing, Strategy and Communication officer at Alcatel-Lucent. Is this a gamekeeper driven out of the preserve by Mandelson's changes to the DEB post consultation or a poacher starting the poaching while they're still a gamekeeper?
When you switch jobs in industry it's common for there to a be a 6 month gap before moving from one company to a competitor; wouldn't it be nice if there was some kind of gap to make sure that those involved in legislation didn't move to somewhere they might be felt to taking advantage of the same legislation for buisness so quickly that it raises eyebrows? After all, Alcatel-Lucent has a lot of interests in various forms of digital distribution which must be affected by the legislation...
Danah Boyd on surfing streams of content
Feb. 9th, 2010 08:47 pmVery much after the fact, I found a link to Danah Boyd's talk at Web 2.0 last year in New York about the tension between the stream (flood?) of content online vs the fixed amount of attention any of us have. The really interesting commetns for me are about the second-order issues that result.
"With Facebook, you can turn your closest friends into celebrities, characters you gawk at and obsess over without actually gaining the benefits of social intimacy and bonding."
I call this Friendship Lite (or Friendship 2.0); yes, online support and connection can be hugely valuable but it can also supplant real connection and engagement.
"Finally, we need to rethink our business plans. I doubt this cultural shift will be paid for by better advertising models... But when the information being shared is social in nature, advertising is fundamentally a disruption. Figuring out how to monetize sociality is a problem. And not one new to the Internet. Think about how we monetize sociality in physical spaces. Typically, it involves second-order consumption of calories. Venues provide a space for social interaction to occur and we are expected to consume to pay rent. Restaurants, bars, cafes… they all survive on this model. But we have yet to find the digital equivalent of alcohol."
EDIT
link - http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/Web2Expo.html
restatement
I call this Friendship Lite (or Friendship 2.0); yes, online support and connection can be hugely valuable but it can also supplant real connection and engagement if it's broad and shallow interactions rather than actual conversations through whatever medium. If I can find out details about what matters to you simply by browsing rather than learning them through a conversation that requires both of us to invest time and thought and attention, do I actually know you as well? I'd say no.
"With Facebook, you can turn your closest friends into celebrities, characters you gawk at and obsess over without actually gaining the benefits of social intimacy and bonding."
I call this Friendship Lite (or Friendship 2.0); yes, online support and connection can be hugely valuable but it can also supplant real connection and engagement.
"Finally, we need to rethink our business plans. I doubt this cultural shift will be paid for by better advertising models... But when the information being shared is social in nature, advertising is fundamentally a disruption. Figuring out how to monetize sociality is a problem. And not one new to the Internet. Think about how we monetize sociality in physical spaces. Typically, it involves second-order consumption of calories. Venues provide a space for social interaction to occur and we are expected to consume to pay rent. Restaurants, bars, cafes… they all survive on this model. But we have yet to find the digital equivalent of alcohol."
EDIT
link - http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/Web2Expo.html
restatement
I call this Friendship Lite (or Friendship 2.0); yes, online support and connection can be hugely valuable but it can also supplant real connection and engagement if it's broad and shallow interactions rather than actual conversations through whatever medium. If I can find out details about what matters to you simply by browsing rather than learning them through a conversation that requires both of us to invest time and thought and attention, do I actually know you as well? I'd say no.
I followed the arguments about the TechCrunch intern who asked for (note - not was offered but asked for) a MacBook Air in return for covering a company with interest: between the FTC demanding that bloggers declare when they get gifts relevant to their blogging, the site that collected the name of everyone loaned a laptop to test the M3 build of Windows 7 so it could declare all their coverage biased and the US paper that sacked a writer who accepted travel expenses for a piece in another title, there's plenty of debate on what are the ethical limits for journalists. The US rules - at least for 'main stream media' - have long been: no gifts, expenses paid by the title. We have a slightly different approach in the UK; don't be biased.
With freelance rates that haven't really gone up since the late 1980s and no expense payments to speak of, many writers can't afford to pay their own way to important events that are outside London; if they invite a journalist, companies typically offer to cover expenses for events. Don't think all-expenses-paid; think, they'll probably cover Internet access costs and buy you a drink... I've never met a company that expected paying for a train ticket or lending an item for review to be rewarded with anything more an honest writeup. And yes, maybe after a long loan for comparison with other products that you review, maybe with the journalist saying how much they'll miss it - but sooner or later, the kit goes back. We don't expect anything else.
Editors (should) make the point clearly when they start working with someone; don't expect freebies and don't allow any freebies to influence your judgement. That's what management and mentoring is for; that's what discussing the meeting and the angle of the story is for; that's why editors should go to events with new in-house writers for a while, to make sure everything is on track. With a 17-year old intern, that should apply in spades - but the pile-em-high-and-sell-em-cheap approach to online journalism doesn't seem to have time, funds or sometimes even the desire to do that.
The apology from the intern mentioned the Teens in Tech conference; I picked up a recent copy of Fast Company this morning and spotted it in their diary for the month, with this gushing write-up: "Any parent seeking to make a kid feel inadequate need only point to 17-year-old Daniel Brusilovsky. The Californian is founder and CEO of Teens in Tech Networks (for young media producers), a TechCrunch writer, and a marketing manager for mobile-video startup Qik. The whiz kid, who's cochairing this San Francisco conference, says his generation has the power to lead technological innovation, citing Facebook as inspiration. Does he hope to be the next Mark Zuckerberg? "I'm the kind of person who doesn't look far ahead -- I live in the moment," he says, channeling his inner adult. "But if I wasn't doing what I loved, I wouldn't be doing it." And then he put down his iPhone to go network at a conference. In Rome. Where he was a featured panelist. Again, he's 17."
Living in the moment, with minimal editorial mentoring; that's not the way to do journalism. I have no personal animus towards Daniel and I think he was badly let down by the people who should have been teaching him (he was an intern, not a journalist), but I'll worry about our industry if he just goes charging ahead, speaking at all those conferences, without some serious re-evaluation. It's called adult supervision for a reason...
With freelance rates that haven't really gone up since the late 1980s and no expense payments to speak of, many writers can't afford to pay their own way to important events that are outside London; if they invite a journalist, companies typically offer to cover expenses for events. Don't think all-expenses-paid; think, they'll probably cover Internet access costs and buy you a drink... I've never met a company that expected paying for a train ticket or lending an item for review to be rewarded with anything more an honest writeup. And yes, maybe after a long loan for comparison with other products that you review, maybe with the journalist saying how much they'll miss it - but sooner or later, the kit goes back. We don't expect anything else.
Editors (should) make the point clearly when they start working with someone; don't expect freebies and don't allow any freebies to influence your judgement. That's what management and mentoring is for; that's what discussing the meeting and the angle of the story is for; that's why editors should go to events with new in-house writers for a while, to make sure everything is on track. With a 17-year old intern, that should apply in spades - but the pile-em-high-and-sell-em-cheap approach to online journalism doesn't seem to have time, funds or sometimes even the desire to do that.
The apology from the intern mentioned the Teens in Tech conference; I picked up a recent copy of Fast Company this morning and spotted it in their diary for the month, with this gushing write-up: "Any parent seeking to make a kid feel inadequate need only point to 17-year-old Daniel Brusilovsky. The Californian is founder and CEO of Teens in Tech Networks (for young media producers), a TechCrunch writer, and a marketing manager for mobile-video startup Qik. The whiz kid, who's cochairing this San Francisco conference, says his generation has the power to lead technological innovation, citing Facebook as inspiration. Does he hope to be the next Mark Zuckerberg? "I'm the kind of person who doesn't look far ahead -- I live in the moment," he says, channeling his inner adult. "But if I wasn't doing what I loved, I wouldn't be doing it." And then he put down his iPhone to go network at a conference. In Rome. Where he was a featured panelist. Again, he's 17."
Living in the moment, with minimal editorial mentoring; that's not the way to do journalism. I have no personal animus towards Daniel and I think he was badly let down by the people who should have been teaching him (he was an intern, not a journalist), but I'll worry about our industry if he just goes charging ahead, speaking at all those conferences, without some serious re-evaluation. It's called adult supervision for a reason...
Early adopter: check. (Well, I think it's more fostering, given that I don't keep most of the tech I try out; journalists - fostering today the tech you'll want to adopt tomorrow?)
Shop at Walmart: sometimes. Their clothing line has some nice stuff sometimes, but I'm more of a Trader Joes/Whole Foods gal.
Am I more a Google searcher? Target and Amazon? Well, I bought a dinner set at Target and dragged it back from Cincinnati... certainly not a Yahoo users and my views on AT&T are, well, frank... (capex down in almost direct proportion to increasing revenue? file under shortsighted)
AdAge has some fascinting demographics from a study by Wunderman ,BrandAsset Consulting, Zaaz and Compete: I'm not sure about the search engine users but they are *spot on* about the AOL demographic; that chip on the shoulder, 'I'm comfortable here and I'm staying but shouldn't there be more' attitude - they have always been the core AOL audience. They were often obscured by the transient wave of people using AOL as training wheels to get online, check out the walled garden and hike out into the wild Internet. Part of me is thinking I'd never want to build a brand on that demographic, but if you can pitch them, keep them and sell to them - why not? The problem for AOL is that it's a market that isn't sexy, doesn't look good in headlines and somewhere along the line tech and online services have become all about what looks good in the headlines...
What Your Choice of Search Engine Says About You
"What does your search engine say about you? Well, if it's Bing, you're probably an early adopter, but you also visit, shop and ultimately make purchases from Walmart more than other search-engine users. Google searchers, on the other hand, are partial to Target and Amazon, and Yahoo searchers have a strong preference for wireless service from AT&T and Sprint.
Google users are more likely to book a flight online at JetBlue or make a reservation on Hotwire. They are also more likely to do research on a Lexus, while Bing users tend more toward Toyota.
For instance, AOL customers feel less intellectual than their peers, are 55 and older, spend their money more responsibly, want to blend in to the crowd, feel like they've gotten a raw deal out of life, expect less from their future and, believe it or not, still use dial-up modems. Bing users are middle-aged, highly educated tech-savvy individuals who consider themselves to be average and spend more than 10 hours a week online.
Googlers tend to be the average internet Joe, according to the study. The search leader's loyalists are conventional people yet open to trying new things, believe in following rules and don't consider themselves any smarter or less intelligent than the person next to them. Yahoo users tend to be 55-plus, reserved and a less-independent group with little faith in imagination. They feel they have little control over their future and are skeptical and cautious of new or untried ideas."
One of the reasons I'm in the 'plague on both your houses' camp on Amacmill-fail is that they're quibbling about which of them gets most of the money form ebooks and who gets to decide how much to charge for them before they inevitably fall to the $4.99 price the mass market will accept for them in a rather deckchairs on the Titanic way. Neither of them has a solution for getting mid-list writers the mix of editing support, marketing support and income stream they need. Take one of my favourite writers, T A Pratt. His four Marla Mason books are fantastic (magic plus snark plus PUNCHING); you can get the first one as a free ebook but that didn't make the rest of them sell well enough for book to get picked up. That's bad for any fan; worse when book 4 ends on a cliffhanger. Pratt wrote a near-novel-length novella prequel that he put on his Web site and solicited donations for; it did better than he expected but he told me he didn't want to get into the self-publishing game; as both a writer and editor myself I completely understand that. Good editors make good books better; good publishers make good books sell better. This is the quandary neither Amazon nor Macmillan (nor Apple nor Barnes and Noble....) is really addressing. So, I was really excited to see him say this today:
"I'm debating whether or not to write Broken Mirrors -- the fifth full-length Marla Mason novel, which will resolve the cliffhanger in Spell Games -- this spring, to be published online as a reader-funded serial in the summer or fall... I suspect I'll use this model: I'll put up the first chapter, and post subsequent chapters as soon as I receive a certain amount in donations for each chapter (probably between $200-$300 depending on how many chapters there are), not to exceed one chapter per week... If I get a pretty healthy response to this call for interest, I'll do it. If I only get a handful of responses, well... I probably won't."
So, if you wouldn't mind wandering over to http://tim-pratt.livejournal.com/105839.html or mailing tapratt@marlamason.net to say Make Mine More Marla, I'd be very grateful...
"I'm debating whether or not to write Broken Mirrors -- the fifth full-length Marla Mason novel, which will resolve the cliffhanger in Spell Games -- this spring, to be published online as a reader-funded serial in the summer or fall... I suspect I'll use this model: I'll put up the first chapter, and post subsequent chapters as soon as I receive a certain amount in donations for each chapter (probably between $200-$300 depending on how many chapters there are), not to exceed one chapter per week... If I get a pretty healthy response to this call for interest, I'll do it. If I only get a handful of responses, well... I probably won't."
So, if you wouldn't mind wandering over to http://tim-pratt.livejournal.com/105839.html or mailing tapratt@marlamason.net to say Make Mine More Marla, I'd be very grateful...
I've been noticing that Facebook, particularly Facebook Lite, is struggling under the load these days. At least for me, Facebook often doesn't load (it will be the only one of my home page tabs that's missing in action). Now I don't know if that's going to get fixed by what might be an update to the PHP runtime or (more likely) a compiler, but if more than one in three of the Americans who are online start updating their status at least once a week (the latest stat I saw) I wonder if Facebook will need more fundamental architectural changes to cope...
You don't send hugely personal information on postcards; you put it in an envelope. Sure your email is that personal - and that protected? Surely the ISP doesn't read your email and won't just hand it over to someone without telling you? No, no, maybe, yes. In the UK RIPA and other orders say the police can get your email when they want and you'll never know (it's possible but unclear that it might even be an offence for your ISP to tell you they've handed it over). And in the US, an Oregon judge quoted in the WSJ Law blog http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/10/29/on-gmail-and-the-constitution/) says no, the Fourth Amendment doesn't keep your email private. The Fourth protects the privacy of your home, but the Internet is not your home and the inbox on your computer is - especially for Webmail like Gmail - actually the server at some other company. By putting email there, you have given up your reasonable expectation of privacy. Obviously, most people don't know this and would probably disagree with it - but it's the law.
Money quote; "Most of the reluctance to apply traditional notions of third party disclosure to the e-mail context seems to stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of the lack of privacy we all have in our e-mails. Some people seem to think that they are as private as letters, phone calls, or journal entries. The blunt fact is, they are not."
So - could we all start encrypting our emails please? It's legal, it's not expensive, it's probably not even that difficult any more - but for some reason we just all can't be bothered. I guess if we're going to flaunt it all on Facebook, email privacy is so 1990s...
Money quote; "Most of the reluctance to apply traditional notions of third party disclosure to the e-mail context seems to stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of the lack of privacy we all have in our e-mails. Some people seem to think that they are as private as letters, phone calls, or journal entries. The blunt fact is, they are not."
So - could we all start encrypting our emails please? It's legal, it's not expensive, it's probably not even that difficult any more - but for some reason we just all can't be bothered. I guess if we're going to flaunt it all on Facebook, email privacy is so 1990s...
When I signed the 38 degrees petition asking Mandy not to force through disconnection sanctions by secondary legislation that MPs will never vote on, I duly posted the link to facebook saying 'but to make any difference, respond to the consultation'. Is there a consultation to respond to yet? Yes there is, and thanks to the new emphasis on 'cutting them off, it's the only language they understand' the consultation has been extended until 29th September so get your reasoned arguments in now.
you can read the consultation document here: http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file51703.pdf - the questions to give your answers to - better than a free-form rant - are on page 30. Email: mike.klym@bis.gsi.gov.uk or adrian.brazier@bis.gsi.gov.uk with your reply (if you want to call or fax, the details are on page 5 of the document).
The questions are also dotted through the document so you can understand the context so you want to read as much of the document as you can so you're not just repeating an argument they've already addressed.
You do want to read the report anyway. It's full of gems like the admission that the burden on ISPs will make Internet access more expensive: "ISPs excluded from the legal obligation would be able to offer a lower subscription price to customers than larger ISPs since they wouldn’t need to bear the costs of implementing the legislation." How much will it cost?
One-off Capital cost to ISPs £35m
Annual average costs Cost of notification £7.5-24.5m
Annual average costs Cost of running a call centre £60k
Annual average costs Cost to consumers £2-9m
Annual average costs Capital and operating cost to mobile network operators £19m
Annual average costs Operating cost to ISPs - apparently that's free as the entry is blank; they can do it in their copious spare time.
"Following our assumption that annual costs to ISPs increase by £6-£20 million per year and that this cost is fully transferred to consumer prices, broadband retail prices would increase between £0.40 and £1.40 per year. This represents an increase of the annual price between 0.2% and 0.6%." You know, I don't think it will work like that. We'll all be subbing ten-yea costs admitted at £190 million - without counting what it will cost the taxpayer to set up the rights agency the industry wants and assuming that all ISPs will set up a call centre to answer questions jointly, and very amusingly assmuing that a call or email in query will take up only ten minutes of the ISP employees time. And it's apparently OK if the higher prices put people off and ISPs make between £2 and £9 million a year less because of this, as long as the rights holders get their day in the sun.
How much are the record industries suffering? Ooh, lots. Any numbers? "Estimates of sales displacement range from 0% to 20% of total revenues since figures are very sensitive to the methodology used and the country and industry analysed". So, er, it depends on how you count it but it might be lots. It might be... But only one 5-year-old study says 20% and three say 0. None of these surveys are recent enough to take into account the impact of legal streaming options like Spotify and Hulu. "And the consultation does include what we all know; file sharing isn't necessarily bad for business. "Even though some
file-sharers will have substituted legal purchases for illegal downloads, there are positive spillover effects from file-sharing that may increase sales of the creative content industries. These positive spillovers would be lost when implementing legislation." And, er: "According to the BBC within 10 days of the game's launch, more than half a million people had downloaded a pirated version of the game using P2P technology. In comparison legitimate sales of Spore have passed the
2m mark."
Apparently, the 'legislation' (I'm loathe to refer to a secondary instrument from the civil service as if it were a law debated by parliament) will have no impact on "Legal Aid, Sustainable Development, Carbon Assessment, Other Environment, Health Impact Assessment, Race Equality, Disability Equality, Gender Equality, Human Rights and Rural Proofing". So more expensive Internet connections won't affect rural areas that are hard to connect disproportionately? The assumption of guilt (how do you distinguish legal and illegal file sharing at the packet level?) won;t affect human rights, nor will bypassing EU human rights legislation, nor will disconnecting people from what's considered to be a vital service. The scanning systems won't use any electricity it seems; hence no impact on sustainability and carbon levels. And no-one can be wrongly accused when it was a child in the family or someone using an unsecured Wi-Fi link, so they won't turn to legal aid for defence. Yeah, right.
There's also an admission that, well, we don't need the sanction of disconnection. "Results from the Digital Entertainment Survey (2008) indicate that 70% of unlawful P2P filesharers would stop downloading digital products if they received a call or letter from their Internet Service Provider."
you can read the consultation document here: http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file51703.pdf - the questions to give your answers to - better than a free-form rant - are on page 30. Email: mike.klym@bis.gsi.gov.uk or adrian.brazier@bis.gsi.gov.uk with your reply (if you want to call or fax, the details are on page 5 of the document).
The questions are also dotted through the document so you can understand the context so you want to read as much of the document as you can so you're not just repeating an argument they've already addressed.
You do want to read the report anyway. It's full of gems like the admission that the burden on ISPs will make Internet access more expensive: "ISPs excluded from the legal obligation would be able to offer a lower subscription price to customers than larger ISPs since they wouldn’t need to bear the costs of implementing the legislation." How much will it cost?
One-off Capital cost to ISPs £35m
Annual average costs Cost of notification £7.5-24.5m
Annual average costs Cost of running a call centre £60k
Annual average costs Cost to consumers £2-9m
Annual average costs Capital and operating cost to mobile network operators £19m
Annual average costs Operating cost to ISPs - apparently that's free as the entry is blank; they can do it in their copious spare time.
"Following our assumption that annual costs to ISPs increase by £6-£20 million per year and that this cost is fully transferred to consumer prices, broadband retail prices would increase between £0.40 and £1.40 per year. This represents an increase of the annual price between 0.2% and 0.6%." You know, I don't think it will work like that. We'll all be subbing ten-yea costs admitted at £190 million - without counting what it will cost the taxpayer to set up the rights agency the industry wants and assuming that all ISPs will set up a call centre to answer questions jointly, and very amusingly assmuing that a call or email in query will take up only ten minutes of the ISP employees time. And it's apparently OK if the higher prices put people off and ISPs make between £2 and £9 million a year less because of this, as long as the rights holders get their day in the sun.
How much are the record industries suffering? Ooh, lots. Any numbers? "Estimates of sales displacement range from 0% to 20% of total revenues since figures are very sensitive to the methodology used and the country and industry analysed". So, er, it depends on how you count it but it might be lots. It might be... But only one 5-year-old study says 20% and three say 0. None of these surveys are recent enough to take into account the impact of legal streaming options like Spotify and Hulu. "And the consultation does include what we all know; file sharing isn't necessarily bad for business. "Even though some
file-sharers will have substituted legal purchases for illegal downloads, there are positive spillover effects from file-sharing that may increase sales of the creative content industries. These positive spillovers would be lost when implementing legislation." And, er: "According to the BBC within 10 days of the game's launch, more than half a million people had downloaded a pirated version of the game using P2P technology. In comparison legitimate sales of Spore have passed the
2m mark."
Apparently, the 'legislation' (I'm loathe to refer to a secondary instrument from the civil service as if it were a law debated by parliament) will have no impact on "Legal Aid, Sustainable Development, Carbon Assessment, Other Environment, Health Impact Assessment, Race Equality, Disability Equality, Gender Equality, Human Rights and Rural Proofing". So more expensive Internet connections won't affect rural areas that are hard to connect disproportionately? The assumption of guilt (how do you distinguish legal and illegal file sharing at the packet level?) won;t affect human rights, nor will bypassing EU human rights legislation, nor will disconnecting people from what's considered to be a vital service. The scanning systems won't use any electricity it seems; hence no impact on sustainability and carbon levels. And no-one can be wrongly accused when it was a child in the family or someone using an unsecured Wi-Fi link, so they won't turn to legal aid for defence. Yeah, right.
There's also an admission that, well, we don't need the sanction of disconnection. "Results from the Digital Entertainment Survey (2008) indicate that 70% of unlawful P2P filesharers would stop downloading digital products if they received a call or letter from their Internet Service Provider."
I just finished reading Juniper, Gentian and Rosemary (Pamela Dean) and until I can nag ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sbisson into reading it I have no-one to talk about it with (obsession, absorption, friendship, meetings and clashing of minds, the origins of misogyny, the collocation of subtle hints that are either very clear or very funny in retrospect) so I'm left picking the quotations out of my teeth. My first thought was to sit down and hunt down all the quotations I didn't recognise. My second was that someone must have already done it. I think they have - by the name of Felix Strates - but the site doesn't load and only shows up in secondary references, not as a result on Google so I can't even look for a cache. Oh InterWebs! You fail me!
sbisson into reading it I have no-one to talk about it with (obsession, absorption, friendship, meetings and clashing of minds, the origins of misogyny, the collocation of subtle hints that are either very clear or very funny in retrospect) so I'm left picking the quotations out of my teeth. My first thought was to sit down and hunt down all the quotations I didn't recognise. My second was that someone must have already done it. I think they have - by the name of Felix Strates - but the site doesn't load and only shows up in secondary references, not as a result on Google so I can't even look for a cache. Oh InterWebs! You fail me!There's a theory that because we can just look things up so easily on the Web now, there's the temptation to stop trying to remember them - or even to work them out for ourselves or analyse and test what we read. I don't bother remembering URLs any more; if I have most of a URL in my head, my browser will fix it up. Add the temptation to believe the first result and you'd think the Storm had vibrotactile haptic feedback instead of a screen that physically moves and Jim Balsillie had stepped down as co-CEO of RIM in February (last night Wikipedia stated that as fact even though the RIM site lists him as co-CEO and talks about the OSC agreement as only requiring him to leave the board for 12 months - which leads to some musings about the role of option grants and the confusion over how to legally get the best from them as one of the engines of the credit debacle, and the personal opinion that if Steve Jobs can stay at Apple after an options investigation, Balsillie can stay at RIM, given that RIM started the investigation itself).
There's what I can only call an 'odd' humorous video from Microsoft called Remembering stuff about the Internet that's a mix of unfunny, hysterically funny and perceptive (like all humour, the bits you find funny will doubtless be different from what I find funny - after all someone likes the rubbish Radio 4 had in the late comedy slot last night which I found puerile and offensive). Partway through (3:18) Janeane Garofalo chracterises social networking as "you don't have to do the hard work or the heavy lifting to be a friend; you just say you are". An online social network can be hugely supportive and worthwhile (I'm utterly grateful for the times mine has been). I'm glad I can leave a comment on our friend Peter's blog when he talks about the difference between a comment you can take a couple of minutes to type in compared to having a real-world physical experience - but I'd rather sit down and actually talk about that and a hundred other things with a friend. And if the interaction is throwing sheep or giving electronic flowers or any other Facebook-style app, I think it's a shallow interaction that may not provide much real engagement.
And while 140 characters is great for a status update, it doesn't give you the space for a rambling, discursive thoughtout opinion - yes, haiku can be very expressive, as can Zen koans, but even leaving out all the 'I'm emptying the dishwasher' tweets the format encourages off-the-cuff responses. And a lot of off-the-cuff responses and summaries don't automatically add up to deep and thoughtful analysis.... (I'll see your wisdom of clouds and raise you collectivism and the squeaky wheel).
Put that all together with the natural tendency to assign to conspiracy what is actually down to cockup and the fear of repression and censorship that seems all too likely (think recent headlines from Google and Phorm seen as undermining privacy to the New Zealand blackout to the ludicrous 'manga are criminal pr0n' laws), add in a business whose PR team proably don't understand the technology in use and an architecture decision I personally think of as an accident waiting to happen (many small pieces developed and maintained independantly, with universal database access and *the same people* developing and administering the systems)... and it's no wonder that when a coder at Amazon made a mistake the Interwebs assumed it was censorship rather than damage, deliberate attack rather than dumb mistake and began instantly lighting the pitchforks, sharpening the torches and assigning the #amazonfail tag.
The Internet makes things fast and widely distributed. That includes mistakes.
There's what I can only call an 'odd' humorous video from Microsoft called Remembering stuff about the Internet that's a mix of unfunny, hysterically funny and perceptive (like all humour, the bits you find funny will doubtless be different from what I find funny - after all someone likes the rubbish Radio 4 had in the late comedy slot last night which I found puerile and offensive). Partway through (3:18) Janeane Garofalo chracterises social networking as "you don't have to do the hard work or the heavy lifting to be a friend; you just say you are". An online social network can be hugely supportive and worthwhile (I'm utterly grateful for the times mine has been). I'm glad I can leave a comment on our friend Peter's blog when he talks about the difference between a comment you can take a couple of minutes to type in compared to having a real-world physical experience - but I'd rather sit down and actually talk about that and a hundred other things with a friend. And if the interaction is throwing sheep or giving electronic flowers or any other Facebook-style app, I think it's a shallow interaction that may not provide much real engagement.
And while 140 characters is great for a status update, it doesn't give you the space for a rambling, discursive thoughtout opinion - yes, haiku can be very expressive, as can Zen koans, but even leaving out all the 'I'm emptying the dishwasher' tweets the format encourages off-the-cuff responses. And a lot of off-the-cuff responses and summaries don't automatically add up to deep and thoughtful analysis.... (I'll see your wisdom of clouds and raise you collectivism and the squeaky wheel).
Put that all together with the natural tendency to assign to conspiracy what is actually down to cockup and the fear of repression and censorship that seems all too likely (think recent headlines from Google and Phorm seen as undermining privacy to the New Zealand blackout to the ludicrous 'manga are criminal pr0n' laws), add in a business whose PR team proably don't understand the technology in use and an architecture decision I personally think of as an accident waiting to happen (many small pieces developed and maintained independantly, with universal database access and *the same people* developing and administering the systems)... and it's no wonder that when a coder at Amazon made a mistake the Interwebs assumed it was censorship rather than damage, deliberate attack rather than dumb mistake and began instantly lighting the pitchforks, sharpening the torches and assigning the #amazonfail tag.
The Internet makes things fast and widely distributed. That includes mistakes.
Reply from my Green MEP
Jul. 17th, 2008 06:01 pmRather an advert for the Green party, but some encouraging comments, and welcome detail on the process involved. Seems to come from her assistant, hence the third party references to Jean.
The Greens tabled an amendment requiring ISPs to ensure that subscribers can send and receive any form of content. We do recognise that in some extreme circumstances it might be necessary for ISPs to take action to preserve the integrity and security of the networks, but argue that this provision must relate only to network management, i.e. restrictions intended to avoid degradation or slowing of traffic in networks.
The compromise legislative text does state that ISPs do not have the right to monitor or block traffic on the internet. However, elsewhere it is made clear that the public should be informed about any activities that are unlawful. Jean has serious concerns about the way this aspect of the legislation could be interpreted. She does not believe that this dichotomy of lawful and unlawful activity fully takes account of issues such as purpose and proportionality. To elaborate, Jean does not agree with tarnishing all users with the same stroke, if some are sharing files with peers and whereas others are contributing to the production and distribution of pirated material for profit. Moreover, the proportionality issue here is similar, in that the volume of unlawful activity is not considered and all users accused of copyright infringement may be subject to penalties through the 'Three Strikes Out' system. Out of principle, Jean does not agree with this system, as it assigns fixed punishments to those accused on an automatic basis without considering individual aspects of each case. She strongly believes that this development can be dangerous and result in abuse of power by ISPs, as they would be able to deny internet access to users by means of monitoring their activities and thereby invading users' privacy. Thus, as you can see, Jean is concerned that the proposed text requires clarification through the removal of the vague and dangerous concept of "lawful", as it does not belong in the Telecoms package, and that ISPs are not allocated too much power in order to maintain real net neutrality.
Jean's Green colleague, Caroline Lucas, sits on the International Trade Committee, which has debated issues such as file sharing and the fact that stealing a television, for example, is very different to ‘stealing’ a film from the internet, because the latter does not deprive others in the same way. She believes that alternative ways to support artists, writers and so forth must be developed alongside a far more open policy of sharing music, film, software etc via the internet. This has relevance to the Telecom vote and the Green Group will be urgently discussing whether to support the Directive when it comes to plenary after the summer recess.
The Greens submitted successful amendments that require ISPs to provide annual information to subscribers about more competitive tariffs and that promote an overall maximum contract period of 24 months, with a 12 month maximum always offered. The main thrust of the Directive is to open the telecommunications market to competition and Greens have supported measures to separate the ownership of telecoms infrastructure and service provision, as we argue this is the only way to guarantee any benefit to customers.
Regarding due process, Jean is confident that this Directive has been, and will continue to be, subject to proper scrutiny. Green MEPs have been actively following its progress since the Commission’s proposals were first published in 2007 and the text has been the subject of focused work in committee since April of this year. It is now likely to come before plenary in September after the parliamentary recess.
Please be assured that when some members of the Culture and Education Committee sought to give ISPs a policing role in previous legislation, these efforts were rigorously and successfully resisted by Green MEPs. We were also at the forefront of the campaign to oppose software patenting and won support from the Parliament – see http://www.greens-efa.org/cms/topics/dokbin/102/102955.save_our_software@en.pdf
Green views on the Telecom Directive do vary but are in favour of the maximum free flow of information and ideas on the internet and against any indiscriminate restriction of the use of the web.
Once again, thank you for raising this issue with Jean and please rest assured that she will use every available opportunity to promote net neutrality and the protection of privacy and data.
Yours sincerely,
A reply from my MEP on the EU amendments
Jul. 17th, 2008 05:07 pmI was glad to receive this in my email this afternoon, from Syed Kamall. I appreciate his arguments, but my feeling is still that the amendments would allow for a wider interpretation than he had intended. Any comments from anyone who'd been following this?
Dear Mary
I believe that you may be referring to two sets of amendments by me and by my Conservative colleague Malcolm Harbour. My amendments were simply intended to allow traffic data to be processed to ensure the security of electronic communications networks, services and equipment. It was not my intention with my amendments, for "the security of an electronic communication equipment" to be interpreted as "the security of DRM preventing, detecting, or intercepting IP infringements" as suggested by some. However, I asked for legal clarification on whether a possible unintended consequence of my amendment would be to allow DRM and interception of IP infringements. Since I did not receive a satisfactory answer I asked to withdraw the amendment in order to re-introduce it at plenary with a clarification on the definition of "security". I was unable to withdraw it, so recommended a vote against. In the event, IMCO committee did not vote on my amendment.
Malcolm Harbour is very clear that his amendments are not designed to start a "three strikes and you are out" law. I certainly would not support ISPs being forced to do the work of law enforcement agencies.
Also, I do not believe in collective punishment where because one family member has been judged to download illegal material the whole household loses its connection to essential services such as shopping, banking, communications etc. Malcolm tells me that "as opposed to the text proposed by the Commission, his amendments shift the burden of explaining the law from the ISPs to the appropriate national authorities. It also broadens the concept so that any type of unlawful activities are covered, not only copyright infringement. Such other activities could be for example child pornography. This public interest information would be prepared by the relevant national authority and then simply distributed by the ISP to all their customers. It involves no monitoring of individual customer usage of the internet."
Malcolm Harbour totally rejects the claims that these amendments are intended to reduce consumer choice and undermine individual freedom. In particular, the Directive contains no provisions on Copyright Law enforcement, not does it refer, in any way, to the French Government's proposed enforcement agreement.
Thank you again for taking the time to write to me.
Regards
Syed
SYED KAMALL
Conservative MEP for London
www.syedkamall.com
