Friday, February 01, 2002

SiliconValley.Internet.Com TiVo Targets Super Bowl Sunday

"For purposes of in-house research, TiVo will do an analysis of 10,000 TiVo-enabled households on Super Bowl Sunday to measure exactly how they use DVR technology and the frequency with which digital set-box features such as rewind, pause, and slow motion are used during programming."

"Representatives for TiVo will issue the results of their analysis on Feb. 4 for consumers, advertisers, and networks to better understand what this segment of TiVo subscribers liked and disliked about Super Bowl programming, and how, if at all, the use of DVR technology is changing the way America watches television."

redux [12.12.01]
Wired News MS TV: It'll Be Watching You

"Microsoft announced on Tuesday it will be using Predictive Networks' technology to track the viewing habits of people who use Microsoft TV interactive television products."

""I don't want my TV taking notes on what I'm watching. I don't want my kid's game console tracking what he's playing. I don't want my CD player collecting data on my music collection," said Kelley Consco, who was shopping for holiday gifts at Radio Shack. "It's just too creepy.""

redux [06.25.01]
MSNBC Is your TV set watching you?

"Are you watching your television set or is it watching you? The same technologies that are threatening privacy on the Internet - including consumer data collection, profiling and targeted advertising - are now being adopted by the U.S. television industry, according a report to be released Tuesday."

"To advertisers, the development of a technology that combines the Web's interactivity with television?s element of dedicated spectatorship is a dream come true for they will now have access to a new breed of couch potato, one that both enjoys the warm glow of the tube and craves the personal touch of the Internet, the report finds."

redux [09.11.00]
Salon When Big Brother knows you watch "Big Brother"

"Even if you've always wanted to be a Nielsen family, ensuring that your television watching habits help shape programming, would you really want a company to know each and every time you flip to "Felicity?"

TiVo's CEO Mike Ramsay wants to use that information to sell targeted advertising and aggregate data to the networks about TV viewing habits. Sure, you'll get some benefits when you buy TiVo's set-top box ($399), and sign up for the monthly service ($10) -- like the chance to search for programs you want, save up to 30 hours of programming and even fast-forward through the commercials. But don't forget: While you're watching your favorite programs, the TiVo is watching you, recording every channel click and timing how long you spend watching "Family Feud" and noting every Pampers ad you skip."

The New York Times Magazine Boom Box
[requires 'free' registration]

"The TiVo and Replay boxes represent the greatest leap of all. They accumulate, in atomic detail, a record of who watched what and when they watched it. Put the box in all 102 million American homes, and you get a pointillist portrait of the entire American television audience. And that raises the second and more disturbing question to which the TV industry must respond: what do you do when you actually know who is watching and why? Already, TiVo and Replay know what each of their users does every second, though both companies make a point of saying that they don't actually dig into the data to find out who did what, that they only use it in the aggregate. Whatever. They know."

First Monday Economics of Personal Information Exchange

"Personal information has become the new currency of online commerce. Decentralized Internet protocols have made computing resources increasingly pervasive, empowering individuals with an unprecedented amount of control. One result is that very few Internet consumers actually pay for network content, instead offering up personal information as they go. Content providers then collect, buy, and sell this information. To bring the Internet economy into its next stage of development, complementary software and legal architectures must be created in which personal information is regarded as a commercial property right, and accorded corresponding monetary value."

Thursday, January 31, 2002

Salon When should we fight?

"You already know, if you want to know, what the pundits have to say about the war on terrorism, whether the United States should expand the battlefront to other countries and to what extent America should engage in nation-building in Afghanistan and elsewhere. And polls will tell you that Americans overwhelmingly support the war in Afghanistan, and are in favor of extending it to other countries by slightly smaller but still substantial majorities.

But as the Bush administration sets its sights on other military targets -- including the regimes of Iraq, Iran and North Korea that the president directly threatened in his State of the Union speech -- Salon has ventured behind the poll numbers and TV sound bites to talk directly with Americans about the role that the world's only superpower should play today."

The New York Times: Opinion The Limits of Power
[requires 'free' registration]

"Mr. Bush appears to be developing an assertive new military doctrine that includes the threat of armed intervention against nations that are developing weapons that may put the United States in peril. The evolving Bush Doctrine implies a pre-emptive use of conventional force to take out missile launchers, industrial enterprises and facilities that appear to be involved in the fabrication of unconventional weapons. This is a radical departure from what went before. Traditionally, the United States has employed its military forces in retaliation for an attack rather than striking first itself. That should not preclude other options when there is a clear and present danger of attack, but firing first is not a step to be taken lightly.

The apparent success of the Afghan campaign should not encourage Mr. Bush to overreach."

redux [09.14.01]
Red Rock Eater Imagining the Next War: Infrastructural Warfare and the Conditions of Democracy

"War in the old conception was temporary: the idea was explicitly that the state of war would end, and that the normal rules of democracy would resume once their conditions had been reestablished. Civil liberties and the institutions of democratic government are not entirely eliminated during wartime; rather, they are reduced in their scope while retaining their same overall form. Even in conditions of total war mobilization, clear boundaries between the military and civilian sides of society are maintained. But war, we are told, no longer works that way. No such boundaries are possible. It follows, therefore, that "war" in the new sense -- war with no beginning or end, no front and rear, and no distinction between military and civilian -- is incompatible with democracy, and not just in practice, not just temporarily, but permanently and conceptually. If we conceptualize war the way the defense intellectuals suggest, then to declare war is to destroy the conditions of democracy. War, in this new sense, can never be justified."

"The danger of "total war" against the spectre named Osama bin Laden, then, is that it will reinforce the worst tendencies in our society, and that far from preserving the conditions of democracy it will undermine the cultural and institutional foundations upon which democracy rests. It will be war without end, without boundaries, without even a coherent conception of itself save as the expression of an impulse to vengeance."

Wednesday, January 30, 2002

HBS Working Knowledge Read All About It! Newspapers Lose Web War

"This paradox can be summarized: absent a sense of threat, response to disruptive opportunities is inadequate; but with threat, the fully funded response is too rigid.

We also found that a de-coupling mechanism could allow firms to capture the benefits of being motivated by the threat to their core business, without being bound by its rigidity-producing effects. By separating those who were running the business from the core organization, newspaper sites became much more innovative and received much higher market penetration. In our large sample study, sites that separate their online organizations from the newspaper were more than twice as innovative than sites that remained integrated into the newspaper. More importantly, these sites gained 60 percent higher market penetration! Thus, all else equal (similar market sites, launch date, and number of employees) separated sites were much more likely to innovate and gain traction in the market."

redux [10.19.01]
The Christian Science Monitor Is the Internet now our most serious communications medium?

"As the days and the weeks pass after the attacks of Sept. 11, an interesting development is taking place: American media is being beaten, and beaten solidly, by foreign competitors in the hunt for the stories of the new war against terrorism. This is particularly true of electronic media, whose shortcomings -- especially in terms of international coverage -- are on view for all to see. While American media seems fixated on the anthrax threat, the rest of the world is receiving better information about the larger, more complex issues."

"The limitations of other media -- time, space and depth, in particular, in various quantities -- mean that the Internet is becoming the one medium where Americans who are interested in getting the 'real facts' of the story can go to find them. Even most American media also recognize this -- witness the regular exhortations to audiences and readers to 'go to the Web to get more on this story.'"

ABCNews.Com Internet Grows as News Source

"A new ABCNEWS poll finds that nearly half of Americans now get news over the Internet, up by 11 points - perhaps 22 million individuals - since mid-1999. And just over a third of Internet news consumers say they've been going online for news more often since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."

redux [02.02.00]
First Monday Interactive Features of Online Papers

"According to McAdams, who helped create the Washington Post's online service, "A journalist with little online experience tends to think in terms of stories, news value, public service and things that are good to read, but a person with a lot of online experience thinks more about connection, organization, movement within and among sets of information and communication among different people". Journalists today must choose. As gatekeepers they can transfer lots of information, or they can make users a smarter, more active and questioning audience for news events and issues. Making users smarter means involving them in a collaborative experience; i.e. interaction ”

DotComScoop Interview with Rusty Foster of Kuro5hin.org

"First, we're already seeing the most wired reporters discovering the power of the blog, and rapidly becoming addicted to the kind of instant feedback and massively expanded informational networks they can provide. Watching a reporter start to blog is like watching a sugar addict stumble into Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Most of them immediately "get it" as soon as they open themselves up to the people they had always previously been talking at. I think this will continue, because I think reporters are just like that. The good ones will never pass up an opportunity to increase their reach."

redux [12.20.01]
Online Journalism Review Independents Day

"Everybody knows about the 800-pound gorillas of online news — nytimes.com, CNN.com, MSNBC — but there's another group that's contributing mightily to the craft of Web journalism: the solo, lone-wolf operation.

These outfits, each created and operated largely by one person, show that you don't need a large staff and venture-capital seed money to do news on the Net."

First Monday Online Journalism: Modelling the First Generation of News Media on the World Wide Web

"The Internet and specifically its graphic interface the World Wide Web is reaching a level of saturation and widespread adoption throughout the world. Specifically for journalism practiced online - in the discipline of computer-assisted reporting (CAR) and a specific kind of journalism: online journalism - we can now identify and theorize about the impacts the global system of networked computers has had on journalism. This paper signals four particular journalisms online as these have emerged in the 'first generation' of newsmedia on the World Wide Web (1993-2001), discusses the key characteristics - cf. hypertextuality, interactivity, multimediality - which determine the 'added value' of these journalisms, and provides three specific strategies journalists may use to further enhance the potential of journalism online: annotative reporting, open source journalism and hyperadaptive news sites."

Tuesday, January 29, 2002

MarketingProfs.Com Your Personal Brand: Don't Expect to Lead Without It

"Leaders need to have having a strong personal brand through good times and bad. Defining yours and bringing it to life through consistency in action is something that today's best business leaders instinctively recognize, whether they articulate it or not. And the ability to build and demonstrate a compelling personal brand will continue to be a critical career success factor, whether you're starting, changing or optimizing your career.

How does one go about building a personal brand? The underlying principles are the same as those applied to the branding of a soft drink, an automobile, or a technological service. Recognize your personal strengths and gifts, think about how you best connect with people, consider what your target audience needs and wants, identify the value you deliver to meet those needs and wants, and communicate in a way that reaches your constituents in their hearts and minds and via the channels that work best for you."

John Robb K-Logs and Personal Branding

"There has been a discussion of the issue of personal branding as it relates to K-Logs. While it may seem amorphous and slightly shallow, I can vouch that it actually works. The benefits of running a high traffic K-Log within a company or on a publicly available server (for CEOs in particular) are many. They include:

1) The ability to showcase your thinking. Well reasoned posts showcase your ability to think. If you are a knowledge worker, as most of us increasingly are, this is a must. You need to demonstrate your ability to solve problems and to reason through alternatives in order to gain stature. Want competition for your services? This is the way to generate it.

2) The potential your K-Log will become an important corporate resource. IF your K-Log is a constant source of insight that many co-workers refer to, it enhances your position and makes you a corporate asset.

3) A chance to demonstrate your vision and leadership. This is particularly important for managerial K-Logs for both internal and external audiences. Externally, a personal K-Log provides a CEO the opportunity to demonstrate vision (hopefully with clarity) to a wider audience (how often do most people talk to the CEO of their company or the CEO of the company they buy lots of product/services from?). This allows the company to talk to customers and internal audiences in a way that rises above the marketing hype surrounding most corporate communications. If there was ever a vehicle for clue train status, this is it."

redux [08.14.00]
The New York Times Magazine Me, My Brand and I
[requires 'free' registration]

"There is something, I think, about the Internet -- with its microtargeted discussion groups and virtual celebrities who are famous to 15 people -- that ramps up the possibilities of personal hype. The padded résumé is probably as old as the résumé itself, but with one's own Web site, it is easy to showcase not just your padded resume but also complimentary blurbs from friends and colleagues, thoughtful sound bites, photographs of you with friends, etc. These little self-marketing monuments exist now by the thousands. Two years ago, it was rare for a serious author to have such a site, but now even New Yorker writers have them, successfully creating viral marketing campaigns that were not possible in, say, J.D. Salinger's time. Of course, the strategy isn't limited to published authors. I recently stumbled across a Web site that advised chat-room denizens on how to establish their personal on-screen brand. For starters: "Develop a catch phrase."

It is all part of the "Brand Called You," a sort of life-as-company philosophy articulated by the management guru Tom Peters -- and long since swallowed whole by the career-advice wing of the business press."

Monday, January 28, 2002

The Atlantic Online Losing the Code War

"Within days of the September 11 attacks U.S. intelligence agencies were being blamed in many quarters for their failure to detect the terrorists' plans in advance. Mistakes in the formulation and execution of intelligence policy were no doubt made. Yet there is no one to blame for what is probably by far the greatest setback in recent years to American capabilities for keeping tabs on terrorists: the fact that it is now virtually impossible to break the encrypted communication systems that PCs and the Internet have made available to everyone—including, apparently, al Qaeda. The real culprits behind this intelligence failing are the advance of technology and the laws of mathematics."

MIT Technology Review Cryptographic Abundance

"What do cryptographers today believe about cryptography? Generally, they believe what they have learned through experience: that cryptography is hard to understand, hard to implement correctly and computationally expensive."

"But this view of cryptography is at least a quarter-century out of date. Moore’s Law—the rule of thumb that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18 months—has delivered a 100,000-fold increase in computational power in the past 25 years. We are therefore rapidly approaching the time when cryptographic operations will be cheap and easy, commonplace and unremarkable. Instead of avoiding or conserving cryptographic operations, designers should now be using them freely."

redux [04.30.00]
The New York Times Magazine The Eroded Self
[requires 'free' registration]

"A liberal state should respect the distinction between public and private speech because it recognizes that the ability to expose in some contexts aspects of our identity that we conceal in other contexts is indispensable to freedom, friendship, even love. Friendship and romantic love can't be achieved without intimacy, and intimacy, in turn, depends upon the selective and voluntary disclosure of personal information that we don't share with everyone else. Moreover...privacy is also necessary for the development of human individuality. Any writer will understand the importance of reflective solitude in refining arguments and making unexpected connections: in an odd but widely shared experience, many of us seem to have our best ideas when we are in the shower. Indeed, studies of creativity show that it's during periods of daydreaming and seclusion that the most creative thought takes place, as individuals allow ideas and impressions to run freely through their minds without fear that their untested thoughts will be exposed and taken out of context."

"We are trained in this country to think of all concealment as a form of hypocrisy. But perhaps we are about to learn how much may be lost in a culture of transparency -- the capacity for creativity and eccentricity, for the development of self and soul, for understanding, friendship and even love. There is nothing inevitable about the erosion of privacy in cyberspace, just as there is nothing inevitable about its reconstruction. We have the ability to rebuild some of the private spaces we have lost. What we need now is the will."

Salon Twilight of the crypto-geeks

"Neal Stephenson, a writer with a cultlike following among the technologically minded and author of the classic "Snowcrash," has given an over-long, hugely digressive -- and brilliant -- speech. After many, many turns and a deep stack of points and stories, Stephenson gets around to saying that the best defense for one's privacy and personal integrity turns out to be not cryptography but, what do you know, "social structures." He is not explicit about the exact nature of these structures, but from the slides that follow, we get a sense of every sort of social relationship from neighborly friendliness to political parties. The slides show drawings of small circles representing areas of social trust. The circles widen and merge, to create a field of autonomy, a trusted space.

Stephenson is making a point about code: Without a sociopolitical context, cryptography is not going to protect you. He singles out PGP for criticism, saying that relying on the encryption scheme is like trying to protect your house with a fence consisting of a single, very tall picket. A slide shows the lone picket rising into the sky, a bird considering it with bulging eyes."

redux [02.15.01]
The Atlantic Online The Reinvention of Privacy

"The debate over these questions illustrates one irreducible truth: privacy is not so much a legal or technical concept as a social one. "The dominant feature of the current privacy debate," Fred Cate told me when I asked him to try to sum things up, "is its irrationality. The drivers are emotional." I think he's right. The crucial question about privacy today is the same it has always been?namely, whom should you trust?

A lot of people instinctively don't trust technology, especially in the hands of businesses, to protect privacy. But, as Robert Ellis Smith and others have pointed out, contemporary notions of privacy have in many cases evolved not despite new technology but because of it. "Privacy," the influential journalist and editor E. L. Godkin famously wrote, in Scribner's magazine in 1890, "is a distinctly modern product, one of the luxuries of civilization." Phil Agre made a related point to me, a bit more bluntly. "The idea that technology and privacy are intrinsically opposed," he said, "is false.""