conflux
Online Journalism Review
Preparing for the Coming Era of Participatory News
"As an interconnected society moves toward participating in the news, the Brotherhood of News seeks to protect its values and exert its control. Just as zero changed the equation shaping humanity's vision of the universe, accessible media changes the equation that shapes news and informs society. Everyone is a journalist in the age of access. But for most news organizations, collaboration with their audience is an irrational concept, a dangerous idea."
redux [03.06.02]
"So how does the Internet fit into the financial survival of journalism? Right now, some people think it looks more like the kiss of death than potential salvation. The Internet forces us to produce news in all media types—text, photos, audio, video—and to do so twenty-four hours a day, with technology that requires high-priced maintenance and regular upgrading. And almost no one in the audience is paying a penny for it. There’s a business model straight out of Alice in Wonderland: let’s push costs through the ceiling and drop prices to zero!
But that’s going to change."
redux [10.19.01]
"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.'"
redux [02.02.00]
"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 ”
redux [01.30.02]
"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]
"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."
"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."
9:40 PM 0 comments
The New York Times
As the Web Matures, Fun Is Hard to Find
[requires 'free' registration]
"We lost our sense of wonder," he said. "The Web is old hat."
Just 11 years after it was born and about 6 years after it became popular, the Web has lost its luster. Many who once raved about surfing from address to address on the Web now lump site-seeing with other online chores, like checking the In box."
9:44 PM 0 comments
Salon
Pretty geeky privacy
"When programmer Phil Zimmermann dubbed his pet encryption software "Pretty Good Privacy" it was a master stroke of subtle understatement. PGP's mathematical heart is so complex that it defies any meaningful lay description. The result of using it, however, is easily grasped: data so jumbled that, according to its developers and some cryptography experts, our sun would burn out before all computers now in existence, working together, would have time to find the correct key for a single message."
redux [02.15.01]
"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.""
9:01 AM 0 comments
The New York Times
Law Limiting Internet in Libraries Challenged
[requires 'free' registration]
"This morning in a Philadelphia courtroom, a coalition of libraries, Web sites and library patrons will begin nine days of hearings in which they will ask three federal judges to help decide a seemingly simple question: What is a library for?"
"They argue that a law passed by Congress in December 2000 requiring schools and libraries to use Internet filtering software changes the nature of libraries from being places that provide information to places that unconstitutionally restrict it."
"And who, you might be wondering, is giving Schroeder and her publishers such a fright?
Librarians, of course.
No joke. Of all the dangerous and dot-complex problems that American publishers face in the near future -- economic downturns, competition for leisure time, piracy -- perhaps the most explosive one could be libraries. Publishers and librarians are squaring off for a battle royal over the way electronic books and journals are lent out from libraries and over what constitutes fair use of written material."
redux [08.23.01]
[requires 'free' registration]
""It's time for us to work on advocating for libraries to change the image," said one of the "21st Century Librarians," Veronda Pitchford, an African-American librarian in Chicago who wears dreadlocks, enjoys in-line skating, practices yoga and listens to eclectic music. "I want little kids to know that this is an option. I want little girls to see me."
Ms. Pitchford, 30, said that even in an age when computers may be leading children to forget the human touch of a librarian, there is no substitute.
"When I say that we're the ultimate search engine," she said, "I'm not joking.""
redux [07.12.01]
"Gone are the days when a librarian's worst offense was hushing patrons one too many times."
In this digital age, the custodians of published works are at the center of a global copyright controversy that casts them as villains simply for doing their job: letting people borrow books for free."
redux [01.18.01]
"The American Library Association has decided to file a lawsuit challenging a new federal law that would require filtering in public schools and libraries."
"The ALA has been vocal and active about free speech issues. Five years ago, it joined a successful challenge to the Communications Decency Act, which would have regulated Web content deemed harmful to minors had the Supreme Court not declared it unconstitutional. And most recently, it filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Napster case, arguing that shutting down the service could have chilling consequences for any entity that catalogs information for others to use, including libraries and search engines.""
redux [04.09.00]
"HEROES OF FREEDOM: They are champions of some vital principles, "the unsung heroes of the fight for free expression, intellectual freedom and access to the Internet"
"Librarians help us find things. They help us read. They help us learn. And lately they've been fighting the good fight for their patrons' right to have access to the unfiltered resources of the newest information resource -- the Internet."
redux [11.24.00]
""The public focus has swiveled to the Internet and away from libraries," said Donna Dinberg of the National Library of Canada. While interest in the library help desk is declining, free commercial Web help services such as Ask Jeeves, Webhelp.com and Yahoo are thriving."
With all these commercial online reference services, will librarians become obsolete? Dinberg wants to shift the info-power back to her domain."
redux [06.29.00]
"Intelligent software agents promise to traverse and organize information spaces for us, alert us, remind us, call for a refrigerator repair-person, communicate with each other ... to fundamentally alter how we accomplish many of our daily tasks. These red-hot and revolutionary software critters have a lot to learn from their closest human peers: librarians. As I read and think about how intelligent systems reason, search, classify, and filter information, I'm struck repeatedly with how librarians do exactly these same tasks. Both act as information mediators for the end user: both negotiate information spaces and retrieve information relevant to a particular user or goal. Librarians have been efficiently accomplishing many of the tasks at which the artificial intelligence community is now working to make software agents competent. Therefore, the development of software agents can be informed by a look at how human information agents do their work.
This paper will examine the characteristics of agency, the work of librarians as information mediators, the differences between human and software agents, the possible tasks for software agents in libraries, and speculate on the future of human and software agency."
8:47 PM 0 comments
Wired News
Anti-Copy Bill Slams Coders
"America's programmers, engineers and sundry bit-heads have not yet figured out how much a new copyright bill will affect their livelihood.
When they do, watch for an angry Million Geek March to storm Capitol Hill."
"Senator Fritz Hollings has introduced a modified version of the SSSCA, called the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, which will do just what it says: convert our rich innovative technosphere into a one-way medium run by coked-up Hollyweird fatcats who thought that the VCR was a bad idea but that Police Academy n -1 was just dandy.
The CBDTPA (let's call it the Anti-Mammal Dinosaur Protection Act and have done with it) requires technologists to arrive at a trumped-up "consensus" with Hollywood Political Officers before they can bring any new products to market. This "consensus," reached at lawyerpoint, establishes what features every product that can store, trasnmit, display or manipulate digital files must have and which files it must not have: everything not mandatory is verboten."
"When elephants dance, it’s best to get out of the way. That’s exactly what’s happening now as the entertainment industry—the recording, publishing, and motion picture industries, mainly—attempts a worldwide intellectual property power grab with two distinct targets. Think of it: a coup and a lock on all published content in the same year, amazing isn’t it?"
"As security and cryptography expert Bruce Schneier explains it to Mike Godwin: “If you think about it, the entertainment industry does not want people to have computers; they’re too powerful, too flexible, and too extensible. They want people to have Internet Entertainment Platforms: televisions, VCRs, game consoles, etc.”"
"While industries are at odds as to how to solve these critical content protection problems, the legislation we introduce today provides us with the tools to break the logjam. Specifically, the legislation requires the content, consumer electronics, and information technology industries to come together with representatives of consumer groups to develop standards, technologies, and encoding rules to safeguard digital content so that it will be made more readily available to consumers without being subject to piracy. The affected parties would have one year to reach agreement. The technologies would then be incorporated into all digital media devices to ensure universal protection for digital content and universal access to such content for consumers. The deadline on industry would work in the following fashion: if they come together to solve these problems in private sector talks, we will empower government enforcement so that all consumer devices comply. If they don't, the government, in consultation with the private sector, will have to step in."
"Today, Senator Hollings introduced the alarming Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA), which will give Hollywood plutocrats the power to stall new digital media technologies for a year, negotiating a phony "consensus" at lawyer-point with technologists. This "consensus" will receive the force of law, prescribing which user-hostile features are mandatory and which innovative features are forbidden. CBDTPA is derived from the draft SSSCA (Security Systems & Standards Certification Act), the subject of our last alert.
Both the House and the Senate have called for comments on the future of digital music, an issue that is deeply entwined with technology mandates.
This is YOUR chance to voice your opposition to laws that make all digital media technology mandatory or forbidden."
"If this bill becomes law, nearly every form of digital technology we use today will be completely at the mercy of a handful of large content providers. Our computers, operating systems, networking protocols, and all other aspects of digital communication will have to change drastically to accomodate the whims of these profit-driven industry groups. This will hurt competition and innovation among hardware and software manufacturers by artificially restricting the functionality they can provide. New technologies will suffer the scrutiny of those whose interest is best served by the status quo before being allowed to market."
redux [10.23.01]
"A PC industry executive said a range of copy-protection technologies are available to prevent video piracy and that a single solution will not work and won't be embraced by consumers. "It's a myth to say that there is a magic bullet out there" to protect all content, said Jeffrey Lawrence, an Intel Corp. executive and member of the Copy Protection Technology Working Group, a cross-industry group working on copy-protection standards.
The Hollings bill is "an unwarranted intrusion by the government into the marketplace" that would mean a "snap-shot approach" to digital rights management, added Ken Kay, executive director of the Computer Systems Policy Project, a PC industry group based here. "It will freeze technologies in place.""
redux [10.09.01]
"Copy protection, like poor environment and chemical instability before it for books and works of art, looks to be a major impediment to preserving our cultural heritage. Works that are copy protected are less likely to survive into the future. The formal and informal world of archivists and preservers will be unable to do their job of moving what they keep from one media to another newer one, nor will they be able to ensure survival and appreciation through wide dissemination, even when it is legal to do so."
redux [09.04.01]
"In this paper, the author reviews the history and application of copyright and concludes that, although promoted as being in the interests of authors, it is designed in such a way as to be primarily a right which benefits distributors and publishers. The author identifies a number of difficulties faced by distributors and publishers in enforcing their rights in an age where the various sources of "friction" which once limited infringement are being constantly reduced. In particular, in the emerging frictionless world the typical targets of the holder of a copyright monopoly (distributors pirating for profit) are being overtaken by a new breed of target (individuals with a cost reduction motive) and it is uneconomical for a holder of a copyright monopoly to pursue this new breed. The author argues that recent extensions to copyright monopolies add little to the illegality of the infringing acts nor any stigma to the performance of those acts. Instead, they exacerbate one of the main causes of infringement - consumer cynicism as to the benefits to society of the copyright monopoly. The author argues further that, rather than driving further cynicism through more expansive rhetoric relating to rights, holders of a copyright monopoly should instead seek to mollify consumer sentiment and encourage compliance by emphasizing a rhetoric of responsibility in the exercise of those rights. The author proposes three possible principles of responsibility that copyright monopoly holders might evaluate and endorse."
redux [06.08.01]
"Interestingly, with the onslaught of technology and promises of greater opportunity to share and communicate, copyright is now a hindrance to these ideals, serving only the moneyed interests of owners."
"Historically, copyright protections were afforded to promote expressive discourse fundamental to a democratic society. Today, the very notion of intellectual property serves to commoditize expressive ideas, rather than fostering their dissemination. Whereas initially the provision of an economic benefit was secondary to the promotion of original works, modern copyright inverts this ideal in a continuing effort to establish a marketplace for ideas."
redux [01.23.01]
"Converting the whole world to operate without scarcity is a huge task. Such a large economic shift would take decades to spread through the entire world economy, making billions of new winners and new losers. We will be extremely lucky if by 2030 we are prepared to end scarcity without massive social turmoil, including riots, civil unrest, and world war. If we are to find a peaceful path to an era of plenty, we should be starting HERE AND NOW, transforming the industries we have already eliminated scarcity in -- text, audio, and video. Companies that can't adjust should disappear and be replaced by those who can. As these whole industries learn how to exist and thrive without creating artificial scarcity, they will provide models and expertise for other industries, which will need to change when their own inefficient production is replaced by efficient duplication ten or fifteen years from now. Relying on copy-protection now would send us in exactly the wrong direction! Copy protection pretends that the law and some fancy footwork with industrial cartels can maintain our current economic structures, in the face of a hurricane of positive technological change that is picking them up and sending them whirling like so many autumn leaves."
redux [12.17.00]
"Today's received ideas about intellectual property can be distilled into two major threads: technology killed copyright, and copyright is anachronistic in networked culture. Both of these notions are simplistic and ahistorical, and I'll try to argue that they're shortsighted. What we really ought to be talking about is access to works. Access is related to copyright, but is really more fundamental to our freedom to think and experience. I'd like to propose an expanded access scheme and offer an example of small steps that are being taken in that direction."
6:18 PM 0 comments
Salon
Will the Net save China?
"Mao once said, "Political power grows from the barrel of a gun." The entrepreneurs in China Dawn seem to want to change the last phrase to "ISP access."
But their enthusiasm betrays a streak of naiveté. As Tiananmen so amply demonstrated, in China today, political power still grows from the barrel of a gun. And the prediction that the rise of the Internet will liberate Chinese from authoritarian rule is far from certain."
"One notable loophole in the content watch list are weblogs. Weblogs are content websites maintained by ordinary users that can act as introspective online diaries, soapboxes to rant opinions, and a vehicle guide the horde of Internet users to swarm to other obscure links to be found on the net. They are easy to update, cheap to maintain, and difficult to block because so many new ones appear each day. They utilize a client relationship with a server and can be updated with a simple browser."
The bureaucrats and censors in China who block and monitor websites will be hard pressed to try and control the future flow of weblogs both in and out of China due to the number and diversity of this new information platform. Having met actual Internet content censors from China, they are decent people but come from a different time and different place in terms of technology. They don’t really get it yet since weblogs remain a concept difficult for them to understand for now."
redux [08.08.01]
"It is widely believed that the Internet poses an insurmountable threat to authoritarian rule. But political science scholarship has provided little support for this conventional wisdom, and a number of case studies from around the world show that authoritarian regimes are finding ways to control and counter the political impact of Internet use. While the long-term political impact of the Internet remains an open question, we argue that these strategies for control may continue to be viable in the short to medium term."
"In this paper we illustrate how two authoritarian regimes, China and Cuba, are maintainng control over the Internet's political impact through different combinations of reactive and proactive strategies. These cases illustrate that, contrary to assumptions, different types of authoritarian regimes may be able to control and profit from the Internet. Examining the experiences of these two countries may help to shed light on other authoritarian regimes' strategies for Internet development, as well as help to develop generalizable conclusions about the impact of the Internet on authoritarian rule."
redux [06.19.01]
"Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister has warned the internet threatens democracy and people's sense of patriotism.
Lee Hsien Loong says governments must find new ways to build a consensus on national issues and strengthen national identities."
"The internet "opens up societies and helps individuals link up with like-minded souls anywhere in cyberspace," he said.
But it "may weaken the bonds of place and circumstance that have always tied citizens to their home and nation," he added."
redux [10.26.00]
"The world is changing fundamentally. Images and information respect neither time nor borders. Hierarchy is giving way to networking. Openness is crowding out secrecy and exclusivity. Ideas and capital move swiftly and unimpeded across a global network of governments, corporations, and nongovernmental organizations. In this world of instantaneous information, traditional diplomacy struggles to sustain its relevance."
"Nations once connected by foreign ministries and traders are now linked through millions of individuals by fiber optics, satellite, wireless, and cable in a complex network without central control. The Internet, with 100 million users today, will reach one billion people by 2005 and will be available to half the world's population by 2010. The network will become the central nervous system of international relations."
redux [10.10.00]
"Metaphors, symbols and sayings are mighty mind-setters. They captivate our minds and focus our attention to one main point, effectively excluding others. Putin used the burning of the Ostankino television tower, once hailed as a symbol of Soviet supremacy, as a metaphor for the desperate economic need of Russia. The global media played along with this tune, once again showcasing images of Russia's decay. But there is another largely untold story to be extracted from Putin's metaphor: TV towers are more than symbols - indeed they are very concrete centers of mind control, distributing the flow of information and entertainment."
"Who chose the crumbling Berlin Wall as the icon and metaphor for the breakdown of communism and the end of the Cold War? Wouldn't a TV tower in flames be more accurate? It wasn't about the free flow of capital. It was about the free flow of information."
8:02 PM 0 comments
Wired News
Furrybot to Watch Over You
""While children often form emotional attachments to teddy bears, stuffed animals, blankets and other objects, senior citizens generally do not."
But Matsushita said residents have no problem interacting with the pets. Women who participated in a trial wanted to keep their newfound friends, Kadota said.
"I see no reason why, with the appropriate feedback, that reasonable bonding could not be achieved between a robot pet and its human owner," said Martin King, a research fellow at the University of Salford's Center for Robotics and Automation. The center is currently designing a robotic gorilla to interact with children."
redux [02.04.02]
[requires 'free' registration]
""A game it might have been, but if you'll forgive the staggering lack of modesty this implies, Creatures was probably the closest thing there has been to a new form of life on this planet in four billion years," Mr. Grand writes. "These creatures probably still represent the state of the art in synthetic life forms.""
""Steve Grand is the creator of what I think is the nearest approach to artificial life so far," Mr. Dawkins has said. Speaking of Mr. Grand's latest endeavor, what is known as the Lucy project, he told The Sunday Times: "With his record, if anyone could pull off such a spectacular coup, it would be him.""
redux [11.07.01]
"A.I. is of course fantasy, but Japan today is testing the plotline for real. Using interactive toys programmed to behave as obsequiously as the average lapdog, health care workers are trying to add companionship and emotional sustenance that may be missing from the lives of hospitalized children and elderly shut-ins. Researchers hope that one day, armies of sharing, caring machines will shore up a medical system that is hard-pressed to meet the demands of a rapidly aging society. Robots might even serve as surrogate family members, providing contact and affection for patients who have no immediate relatives nearby."
redux [08.01.01]
"A new toy doll which it makers claim has realistic skin, senses and reflexes has gone on sale in the UK.
Miracle Baby smiles when she's fed, frowns when she's tired and develops her own feeding, playing and sleeping patterns over time.
Her makers, Mattel, have used similar technology to that used by the manufacturers of robot dogs which led to a worldwide craze for the artificial pets."
redux [05.11.01]
"Robert Siegel talks with Sherry Turkle, professor of the sociology of science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Turkle has studied people's relationships with computational objects for the past 20 years. She says recently some computers have been designed to ask humans to "nurture" them and humans respond. Turkle says that the attachment of AIBO owners to their robot dogs raises questions about what it means to love an object that doesn't know you're there."
redux [05.25.00]
[requires 'free' registration]
"What do children think about what it means to be alive? And at what ages can children distinguish mechanical objects from real animals or people? Research into these questions is still in its earliest stages. There was a flurry of interest in children's reactions when Tamagotchis, virtual pets from Japan, first appeared a few years ago and then started dying on their young owners. But the topic is attracting more attention now as seemingly intelligent toys and other robots appear on the market in increasing variety and numbers. "
"Again and again... researchers have asked the children: "Is it alive? Is it like a real pet? Does it know you?"
"Strikingly," Ms. Audley said, "often the answer they settled on was, "It's not alive in a human or animal kind of way, but in a Furby kind of way.""
redux [04.21.00]
"I have studied the effects of computational objects on human developmental psychology for over twenty years, documenting the ways that computation and its metaphors have influenced our thinking about such matters as how the mind works, what it means to be intelligent, and what is special about being human. Now, I believe that a new kind of computational object - the relational artifact - is provoking striking new changes in the narrative of human development, especially in the way people think about life, and about what kind of relationships it is appropriate to have with a machine. Relational artifacts are computational objects designed to recognize and respond to the affective states of human beings - and indeed, to present themselves as having "affective" states of their own. They include children's playthings (such as Furbies and Tamagotchis), digital dolls that double as health monitoring systems for the homebound elderly (Matsushita's forthcoming Tama), sentient robots whose knowledge and personalities change through their interactions with humans, as well as software that responds to its users' emotional states and responds with "emotional states" of their own."
"By accepting a new category of relationship, with entities that they recognize as "sort-of-alive", or "alive in a different, but legitimate way," today's children will redefine the scope and shape of the playing field for social relations in the future."
redux [09.88.00]
""When kids play, they create an entire world that's alive, and it never objects to them. A kid's imagination is a completely open architecture, and there are no bounds to what a toy can do," he explains.
"That's the future of toys. Technology's role is to become transparent. If you give the cues of autonomy, the imagination fills in the blanks, because that's what it's meant to do."
As processing power and sensors improve, the difference between simulated autonomy and actual autonomy will blur. Already it's difficult to relate to these new technological creatures without imputing to them the sorts of feelings we routinely discover in, say, our pets. And when you throw in realistic human behavior, not to mention silky skin, things become rather surreal.
"These are not toys anymore," says Chung as the screwy signal scrambles his face again. "These are way beyond toys."
"So what are they?" I ask. For once, Chung pauses. "They are the next iteration of our attempt to re-create life.""
10:14 PM 0 comments
Wired News
Pay for Content? Ha, Say Users
"To online publishing and entertainment firms looking to start charging for their content, there was a simple message from today's Jupiter Media Forum: Don't hold your breath."
"Seventy percent of online adults surveyed by Jupiter, he said, can't understand why anyone would pay for any online content.
"If anything, people are less willing to pay than they were 18 months ago," he said."
"As some of you will be aware, I'm a major critic of 'negative' subscription models. Time and time again we have witnessed websites introduce subscription services that represent nothing more than a closure of existing content.
There are a few exceptions - one being the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) whose subscription model is to my mind flawless. They kept their exist proposition entirely unchanged and brought in a high quality advanced option designed perfectly to cater for a specific sector of their audience. Furthermore they have undertaken to continuously improve the subscriber experience, aggressively seeking user feedback.
IMDB and others have demonstrated that you can introduce a subscription service in a positive manner, and succeed, so why don't more websites follow their example?"
redux [01.15.01]
"As Microsoft, along with everyone else, wrestles with the challenge of how to make money on the Internet, you cannot help but wonder if Bill Gates & Co. regret a pivotal decision in the evolution of the Web.
When Microsoft decided in 1995 to make Internet Explorer and fold it into Windows, the action more than any other may have cemented the concept of “free” on the Internet."
"Microsoft won the browser wars but in so doing indelibly emblazoned in users’ minds the conviction that nothing on the Internet should cost money."
"Back when I did direct marketing, we were well-aware that people were irrational about pricing. The only way to really find out the right price for a product -- especially an information-based product, for which prices can be so arbitrarily set -- was to test a few, by sending different offers to random samplings, and see which resulted in more profit. Actually, it would be unusual if more than one (or any) of the prices produced any profit at all. And the results were all over the map. A higher price could sometimes bring in not just more money, but more orders, because of the increased perceived value. Then again, a price 20% lower could increase sales by 100%. You could guess but never know, and you were often surprised.”
redux [11.23.01]
"While the concept of e-publishing (as most people think of the term; in the strictest sense, everything on the Web could qualify as e-publishing) hasn't exactly set the world on fire, it is still the 'early days.' And like so many things on the Web, is still sorting out its proper place and 'mode of delivery.' The following sites reveal four different approaches to e-publishing - and whether through odd coincidence or 'environmental compulsion,' each one parallels a familiar method of software distribution."
"I've been listening to online-news people talk about it with much interest ever since I was laid off 6 months ago as the managing editor of a regional news site for an Internet Industry portal. Most of the old pros say it won't work. The consultants say about the same thing. The Suits? Well, they just don't say.
Yet, people have paid for print newspapers for ages and they don't seem to mind. So what's so different about online-news?
At this point, I think that online-news users have to pay, it's as simple as that."
"The Web's great free-for-all is coming to a sudden, sharp end. Under today's market conditions, Web companies can no longer expect to sustain themselves by losing ever-larger sums of money to gain ever-larger slices of market share. As more traditional business yardsticks take hold, many companies face the difficult decision to charge for some of their online content and services—and users have begun to accept that they can no longer get everything they want or love for free.
Sure, the Web continues to offer a vast, unprecedented array of gratismaterial. But professionally produced sites need to pay their bills, and relying on advertising alone is a risky proposition in an economic slump. As senior vice president of editorial operations for Salon.com , I've become very familiar with these realities. For content sites like Salon.com, charging for subscriptions—once considered anathema on the Web—is now an essential move for survival."
10:03 PM 0 comments
BBC
Discord over digital music
""The sense of music needing to be tied to a physical artefact, whether that be a CD or a cassette, is coming to an end," explains Simon Hopkins, head of BBC Music Online."
""The minute music went virtual in the 1990s, when it was available as ones and zeros over the internet, music was no longer a fixed commodity, no longer something the artist handed over to the audience," he says."
[requires 'free' registration]
"Technology is changing music. But then again, it always has. The invention of the piano 300 years ago centered Western music on the keyboard. Electricity's arrival in the late 19th century enabled the duplication of performances and, later, the amplification of instruments. With digitization, the pace of upheaval has further accelerated. Digital file-sharing technologies -- Napster and its offspring -- are now undermining the established economics of music. And everything we know about digital technologies suggests that Napster is only the beginning."
"Everyone with a computer I know uses them, rips them from their CDs, and shares them with others. Napster (and later on, Kazaa) built massive worldwide networks based on the sharing of these files, spreading terabytes of files to millions of users. And yet, you can't walk into a store anywhere in America and buy a physical form of media embedded with mp3s."
"Given the ubiquity of mp3s among consumers, the continued rise in popularity of the format despite anything that's been put in place to stop them, and the millions of dollars being spent on mp3 encoding/decoding software and hardware, I no longer think the RIAA operates solely on fear. At this point, they're simply running on stupidity."
redux [12.18.01]
"Indeed, the pointless attempt to control copyrighted data every step of the way from musician's voice to listener's ear is the biggest roadblock to success for online music. Just as HBO doesn't try to stop you from taping its movies, so music sellers need to let go and trust their customers. Remove the incentives for people to steal, rather than imposing more technology that treats customers as would-be shoplifters. Even former BMG head Strauss Zelnick, who says he has no problem throwing big-time bootleggers in jail, agrees the industry's challenge is to come up with an attractive alternative to Aimster and its ilk. "We need to give consumers a service they want, at a price they're willing to pay," he told me in an interview this summer. "People don't like to think of themselves as criminals." But ironically, the more anti-theft hurdles crammed into the legal products, the more attractive the pirate alternatives become."
redux [12.11.01]
"The major record labels have rolled out their much-anticipated subscription music services -- the ones that are supposed to be legitimate alternatives to the free file sharing services spawned by Napster. MusicNet went online last week. Details of the upcoming PressPlay service were officially unveiled today. But they come at a moment when more people than ever -- even more than in Napster's heyday -- are using FREE services."
redux [09.21.01]
"As the major record labels prepare to roll out online subscription services, a new report suggests young people are not yet ready to pay to download music from the internet.
Researchers found that 62% would continue to access MP3 music files for free and had no plans to stop."
redux [07.24.01]
""In some respects, this brings the labels back to square one," Mooradian said.
One label executive agreed, saying, "I fear we're getting into a game of whack-a-mole, where we sue Napster, then we sue Aimster and so on and so on."
"If (the labels) killed Napster -- and that's 'if,'" said Johnny Deep, CEO of Aimster, "they killed their only chance of a viable online strategy. Napster was easy enough to use, and there was loyalty and confidence in the brand. That's something the labels can't recreate, even if they spend a hundred million.""
"It didn't have to be this way, of course. The music industry has had the opportunity for several years now to begin offering reasonably priced access to comprehensive catalogs of digital music across the Internet, sweetened with special premium additions for fans willing to pay even more. Such a service could satisfy the hunger of millions of people for ready access to new and old music while preserving a reasonable income for the artists who make that music. Fear has stayed the industry's hand -- fear that today's unconscionably high CD prices can't be sustained; fear that the many layers of middlemen in today's industry might find themselves out of jobs; fear that the superstar system couldn't survive such a change; fear of the unknown.
The industry's paralysis is a tragedy for anyone who believes that artists should be compensated for their work as well as for anyone who loves music, period. But it's clear that the record labels would rather sue than find a sensible rapprochement with the new world of digital distribution."
redux [05.02.00]
""The Recording Industry Association of America wants to educate consumers with the message, "Artists deserve to be compensated -- artists won't make music if they can't make money." I can only imagine the public service announcements with multimillionaire artists pleading for their right to a seventh Porsche in the driveway.
There's no rationalization for piracy; it is what it is. However, rampant music piracy online indicates that the music industry's distribution and pricing model is out of whack with what people want. The problem isn't the piracy; the problem is unhappy customers.
And the music industry had better do something about it. This is a dinosaur moment -- with the big rock looming overhead -- where the music industry needs to ask itself how it will adapt."
8:49 PM 0 comments
MSNBC
Welcome to your future Internet
"Have you ever checked your e-mail over a high-speed Internet connection, while waiting at a bus stop? Have you ever chatted with your pals on the Net, using high-definition television? How about hooking your car up to the Internet so that someone knows where you are at all times? These feats are no half-baked visions of the future. Somewhere in the world, they’re being done right now.
THE SAME KINDS of people who brought you the Internet three decades ago — academics and military types, corporate gurus and pony-tailed geeks — are doing it again."
"What he's trying to prove is that wireless broadband Internet access can work, and work affordably, even in a place like this. Across most of Hawaii, DSLs and cable modems are rumors, leaving dial-up Web access -- to Wiecking, suffocatingly limited -- as the only alternative. Yet here among the volcanoes, Wiecking is firing off e-mails and pulling in National Public Radio over the Net at lightning speed on the laptop in his truck. His mind, Ph.D.-trained in physiology, seems to need a constant flow of information the way a fish's gills need a constant flow of water. "This is the only way I can stay sane," Wiecking says. His info fixes are made possible by a do-it-yourself wireless network he has pieced together to cover more than 300 square miles of the Big Island."
redux [03.04.02]"A growing number of localities have already decided to sidestep emerging third-generation cellular technology in favor of making creative use of wireless LANs.
Greg Anderson, director of IT for the city and county of Broomfield, Colo., said he plans to cut off his Cellular Digital Packet Data service from Redmond, Wash.-based AT&T Wireless Services Inc. because it's too costly and the data rates are too slow. And he said he has no intention of using the more advanced 3G cellular once he completes his industry-standard 802.11 wireless LAN, or Wi-Fi, installation countywide later this year."
[requires 'free' registration]
"Mr. Pozar, a radio engineer, is a member of the Bay Area Wireless Users Group, an active band of hobbyists who have been building free networks in communities through the region. Mr. Pozar and some of his friends have quietly begun obtaining the rights to place $2,000 wireless network access stations on the mountains and hilltops that encircle San Francisco Bay. If he succeeds, the network will be a starting point for a wireless data network that could eventually spread all over the Bay Area.
Significantly, what will set Mr. Pozar's planned Sunset Network and those like it apart from the commercial cellular networks now being constructed at great expense is that they will "self assemble" — expanding from one neighborhood to the next as individuals and businesses join by buying their own cheap antennas that either attach to the wired Internet or pass a signal on to another wireless node."
[requires 'free' registration]
"One of the site's supporters, a nonprofit group called nycwireless.org, recently persuaded the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation to jettison a plan to provide Internet cables in a small area of the park, in Midtown Manhattan. Instead, the restoration group will finance the installation of an 802.11 network designed to bathe the entire park in bandwidth this summer.
"We thought it would make people want to stay in the park," said Daniel A. Biederman, executive director of the restoration group, a private organization that oversees the park."
""The goal is to facilitate the free exchange of information," said Shand. But since fast internet access is a powerful draw for many people, the idea of free high-speed access from anywhere is what gets most people interested. "Democratizing broadband," as Shand puts it, is a good way to facilitate the free exchange of information.
The obvious questions, though, are "Is it legal?" and "Won't the ISPs get mad?""
"According to the second annual Hot Spots Report, Internet users in the San Francisco Bay Area can tap wireless connections at 257 public access points, including restaurants, hotels, cafes and airports. Seattle-area residents have 154 public access points. New Yorkers have 107 places, and people in the greater Dallas area have 105 places."
"The survey did not include Wi-Fi access provided by neighborhood renegades or unwitting corporations."
"Despite the buzz over unplugged coffeehouses, free community networks and war driving, jacking in to the wireless Net is still next to impossible. Even in cities like New York, Seattle and San Francisco where public wireless projects are prevalent, working access points are rare. Technology writer Mark Durham, currently in the process of mapping all available Wi-Fi nodes in San Francisco, says you're better off looking for a pay phone. "I've got about 105 listed," he says. "But that includes Starbucks."
If there's one technology that doesn't need evangelizing, it's wireless Net access. But while there are some start-ups out there, such as EarthLink founder Sky Dayton's Boingo, that may succeed in leading us to the promised wireless land, there are also plenty of prominent failures."
"An effort by Boingo Wireless Inc., the Santa Monica, Calif.-based start-up wireless Internet service provider (WISP), to include the free access nodes of public Wi-Fi networks is drawing sharp criticism from the individual members of the community groups that operate those access points. And the ensuing firestorm has even caused Boingo Founder and CEO Sky Dayton to chime into the discussions."
redux [02.12.02]
"NPR's John McChesney visits Aspen, Colorado, where entrepreneur Jim Selby has set up a wireless network that gives residents quick access to the Internet. Selby has put directional wireless antennas on about 40 homes in the hills surrounding Aspen, so nearly the whole town can receive signals that provide his free wireless Web connection. To form the network, he uses a WiFi (why-fy) transmitter. A new company called "Boingo" makes software that would enables wireless access to WiFi service providers across the country. (6:11)"
"If wireless carriers are slow-moving bureaucratic governments of the wireless world, then Wi-Fi technology is its guerrilla movement. The technology is relatively cheap, anyone can install it and, at 11 megabits a second, it's fast.
It has also suddenly surfaced on everyone's radar, including VoiceStream Wireless and other wireless carriers that have started investing in the business. Initially dismissive, wireless carriers now look like they want to embrace and extend Wi-Fi and make sure Wi-Fi revenue doesn't escape its reach."
redux [12.19.01]
"Sean Berry shares his broadband Internet connection with three neighbors - - including one across the street -- but doesn't have any wires running out of his windows or doors.
And in return, his neighbors sometimes pitch in to help pay the monthly $80 DSL service fee."
redux [11.27.01]
"It’s an increasingly common scene: a telecommuter perched on a park bench, pecking away at a laptop. But a peek over her shoulder reveals a more startling sight: she’s surfing the Web, outdoors and cable free.
Anywhere, anytime Internet access is gaining ground across the United States as wireless networks owned and run by their users spring up in more cities each month—25 at last count."
"Imagine the scenario: you get together with the occupants of your block (be it a block of flats or group of homes). You decide to buy one Internet connection for the entire block. You hook a broadband cable or ADSL modem up to a Wi-Fi access point, and presto: everybody within 100 metres of the access point has high-speed Internet access for virtually nothing. You can split the cost of the Internet access - divided among 20 or 30 people the cost is negligible, maybe a few dollars per person per month. What's more, you can communicate within this community quickly and easily. You could even set up community network printers and scanners and the like.
It may sound far-fetched, but in fact with Wi-Fi it is very easy to do. The difficult part would be maintaining access control so only the people who paid could access the Net connection."
"Wireless hotspots using public access local area networks in airports, hotels and even on Japanese trains may face temporary problems like the rest of the telecoms industry. But the mid-term predictions are for massive growth. And as Clive Couldwell point outs, they will not only be an increasing threat to mobile operators but also provide plenty of opportunity for fixed-line operators and isps to add some mobile services cheaply."
"Mobile operators should certainly be worried. The combination of no licence fees - because they operate in the unlicenced 2.4 ghz band - relatively cheap and easy installation, a wide and growing potential customer base and high-speed connectivity - offering data rates of up to 11 mbps to wireless-enabled laptops or handhelds within 50 metres of any access point - means that these wireless hotspots will spread ever faster across the world."
"Fast Internet access over small wireless networks in restaurants, hotels and airports will soon start hurting telecommunications operators, a new survey found Monday.
More than 20 million Europeans will use some 90,000 open Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) by 2006, market research group Analysys said. Today there are up to 20,000 WLAN users, most in the United States."
redux [08.26.01]
"AN UNDERGROUND MOVEMENT to deploy free wireless access zones in metropolitan areas is taking hold. If it turns out to be successful, wireless network operators may be fighting against a grounds-up movement that could undermine their multibillion-dollar campaign to offer next-generation 3G (third-generation) wireless services in major metro areas.
The movement, called by some the "parasitic grid" and by others more simply the "free metro wireless data network," has already installed itself in New York; San Francisco; Seattle; Aspen, Colo., Portland, Ore., British Columbia; and London."
redux [04.14.01]
"Permit me to throw a stick of dynamite in the room: Third generation, or 3G , wireless is dead before it was even born. And after billions wasted on 3G, it's going to be replaced by free wireless local area networks, or LANs.
A technology that the cell-phone industry is spending untold billions on, 3G promises to deliver high-speed data precisely where you don't need it -- on your phone. On the other hand, homes, offices, coffee shops, airports and hotels are building out cheap and grass-roots wireless local area networks that deliver even higher-speed access where you do need it -- your personal digital assistant and your laptop."
redux [09.09.01]
"Burton subscribes to the term "Open Network Access Point," believing the scale that could be achieved by widespread adoption of wireless access point would be amazing.
But as with many stories, there is a dark side. Both Burton and Pozer agree individual providers of these access points, which can cost as little as $150, must be aware of the legal implications."
""The Internet has always been revolutionary," Burton said. "What you're seeing now is the old school revolting.""
"That was funny. I laughed and laughed. It doesn't feel very parasitic every month when I pay my DSL bill. There's nothing parasitic about a community network. The bandwidth is paid for. People are taking their existing connections and letting other people share it. There's nothing new.
I think what has people scared is that, as I know and others know, bandwidth is significantly oversold. If everybody wanted to request their 384 kilobits or their 1.5 Mbps at the same time, you'd have the same thing happening that you had in the twenties with the run on the banks. The infrastructure can't support it, even though it's sold as such. I think that's where the fear is coming from on the telco side."
redux [08.15.01]
""This is why I love New York," says Anthony Townsend, standing in the middle of Washington Square Park, holding his laptop computer like a butler's tray and scanning the adult playground the place becomes on hot summer evenings. Where else, he asks, can you walk around with a computer, surf the Web, and go utterly unnoticed?
As if to prove his invisibility, or perhaps to demonstrate that he belongs, he hoists his machine like some digital prayerbook and begins chanting: "Jesus! Jesus! Thank you!"
No one - not the guy playing the Ramones on acoustic guitar, not the tonguing teenage lovers - notices this modern miracle worker or the cybernet he has cast around them. Along with some 30 other volunteers in a group called NYCwireless, Townsend's on a crusade to set up wireless Internet access zones: small areas, often called free networks, where people can tap into high-speed connections, without cables or phone lines, at no cost"