If they figure all that stuff out, then the possibility exists for Google to make some big bucks serving as the distribution platform for mainstream video content. But that sounds like Yahoo's model, not Google's.

Far easier, given the kinds of businesses Google runs today, is one that taps into the Long Tail. If Google is hosting terabytes of video content created by amateur documentarians, Aunt Sallies and the like, the asking price for content might well be zero. In that scenario, Google can apply what it knows how to do best and allow advertisers to place ads in certain kinds of content or to target certain viewerships. Aggregating vast amounts of content for auction-based ad placements is what Google is all about. Jennifer concedes, "I could see advertising at some point but there are no plans for that right now. ... Like all of our products, there are a huge amount of queries that would happen in the tail."

Indeed the uploading license agreement explicitly states, "Google reserves the right to display advertisements in connection with any display of Your Authorized Content."

Ultimately, video search, discovery and playback could be a key piece of the core Google product. As Larry said at the analysts' conference call last week, "Many of our products are integrated into the main search product. These products improve our core products and the core products enhance our ability to monetize the other products."

In other words, even if, as may prove to be the case with news, Google doesn't monetize video as a discrete business, the value to the core search product and the businesses that hang off of it make video an intriguing "experiment."

To upload your content, visit Google's upload.video.google site

BTW, Jennifer Feikin just happens to be my cousin, which I discovered when I read her interview on SearchEngineWatch.)

April 27, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Google [GOOG]
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Google is testing ad placements for RSS feeds

By Richard MacManus for SiliconValleyWatcher
In a delicious piece of Web irony, a Microsoft Longhorn blog is the first site to trial Google's Adsense in its RSS feed. Robert McLaws of LonghornBlogs.com says that it's a pilot program and "may disappear for a while, or be discontinued altogether."

RSS feed management company Feedburner, which has been running an RSS advertising service from Overture since late 2004, was quick to announce its piggy-back support of Google's RSS Adsense. Feedburner promises "additional flexibility in determining frequency of ads, ability to prevent ads on short posts and other ad control mechanisms for your feed."

Update, by Richard MacManus: CNET reports that Google has confirmed the test. Also Jason Calacanis from Weblogs Inc, one of the biggest commercial blog networks, has confirmed his company is testing Google adverts in its RSS feeds.

Note also that Robert McLaws from LonghornBlogs.com, the first reported tester, left a comment here on Silicon Valley Watcher questioning whether Feedburner's announcement of support "is legit". My understanding of Feedburner's announcement is that Feedburner will help their users to implement the Google Adsense service into their Feedburner-powered RSS feeds - as well as provide additional flexibility.

Bill Flitter of Pheedo told Silicon Valley Watcher that "Google putting ads in RSS validates further the work we've been doing at Pheedo for the last 18 months. RSS advertising works."

It's no surprise to Bill that Google has entered the market. He remarked that "it will only help our business as advertisers will see it as a serious medium."

While the news is still unconfirmed by Google, it seems apparent that RSS advertising is about to go mainstream. It will be interesting to see how bloggers react to adverts in RSS. Uber-blogger Dave Winer wants a bit of romance in his RSS ads. Others may react negatively to advertising within an 'opt-in' medium such as RSS.

One side benefit for writers and readers alike is that we may see many more full-text RSS feeds in future, because content providers will not see as much need to drive eyeballs to their websites.

Richard Koman Note: Indeed, the focus on web page impressions will likely fade as RSS develops its own metrics models, auditing services and techniques for verifying that feeds have actually been read and not just automatically downloaded.

Update, by Richard MacManus: CNET reports that Google has confirmed the test. Also Jason Calacanis from Weblogs Inc, one of the biggest commercial blog networks, has confirmed his company is testing Google adverts in its RSS feeds.

Note also that Robert McLaws from LonghornBlogs.com, the first reported tester, left a comment here on Silicon Valley Watcher questioning whether Feedburner's announcement of support "is legit". My understanding of Feedburner's announcement is that Feedburner will help their users to implement the Google Adsense service into their Feedburner-powered RSS feeds - as well as provide additional flexibility.

April 27, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: RSS Watch
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April 26, 2005

Notes from Software 2005: Lunch with the Swami of the enterprise software sector...

I saw MR in his element on Tuesday, when I dropped into Software 2005, the second annual enterprise software conference organised by MR and his team at the Sand Hill Group. And judging by the Silicon Valley hack pack and top exec and VC turnout at the VIP lunch, MR’s hustling and bustling has been rewarded.

I spent an interesting afternoon at Software 2005, which surprised me because I have found the enterprise software space much less interesting now that consolidation has reduced the sector to a few giants and many smaller software-as-a-feature companies :-)

I sat with MR at lunch, (he is a big SiliconValleyWatcher fan BTW). Here are some notes from my chat with the “swami of the software sector”. (MR, I hope it’s not offensive to call you swami; I did wikipedia it…!)

M.R. Rangaswami:

[On consolidation trend and valuation of startups…] Yes, the big players do control valuations; and I think that is going to lead to VC funds delivering much lower returns to their limited partners. It’ll probably drop to about 12.5 percent return, rather than the 25 percent that we’ve gotten used to.

[On trends at the show…] The software-as-a-service sessions have been jam packed; that wasn’t the case last year. This makes me wonder if we’ve seen the last of the $1bn software company, whether any software company will ever again reach that level of revenues.

[On stacks and platforms…] SAP’s Netweaver is certainly going to be an important stack and platform because of the user base. If you look at everybody’s stacks, it’s interesting to see that Microsoft and IBM don’t have any applications at the top of their stacks; and I think that is going to be a challenge for IBM. They should probably have gone after PeopleSoft.

[On startups…] Greg Gianforte’s session on how to bootstrap your company was packed. Next door, the venture funding session was packed too! That is so very typical of Silicon Valley. About 50 percent of the people here at the conference are from startups.

Sand Hill's web site has become a very good software enterprise magazine,take a look here: http://www.sandhill.com/index.php

April 26, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: VC Watch
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Businessweek cover story on blogs...nothing new and no mention of trackback!

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

I didn't see anything I haven't seen a million times in a million articles, in the Businessweek blogging cover story. And it featured all the usual suspects, Dan, etc, etc.

Also, the cover story didn't mention trackback once! It was all about publishing, nothing about the two-way media technology that blogging represents.I have to ask if Businessweek gets it. I guess Businessweek got half the story. BTW, Businessweek, the backlash to blogging started around about Easter time.

Businessweek: Blogs Will Change Your Business

April 26, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Media Watch
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Public video-on-demand service launched by Internet pioneers...

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

Open Media Network (OMN) launched this Tuesday an interesting public service project founded by Mike Homer, the man who co-founded Netscape with Marc Andreessen. Mr. Andreessen is also involved in this new venture, which is based on video-on-demand technology from Kontiki, where Mr. Homer is chairman.

“When we founded Netscape, we always had the goal of helping people easily publish on the Internet. That took a while; and now, with blogging and technologies such as RSS, we are finally there,” Mr. Homer said last week in a pre-briefing about the launch.

OMN allows anybody to upload video and share it. Kontiki uses a type of peer-to-peer distribution mechanism, while at the same time containing strong digital rights management technologies.

Will we see Flickriscious-like groups forming on OMN? Maybe, if it gets enough users. It'll be interssting to see how it is used.

From the press release...

Internet pioneers form OMN (www.omn.org) to let users easily access movies, music, video blogs, podcasts and public television and radio programming.

Open Media Network (OMN) was founded by Internet pioneer and Netscape veteran Mike Homer and includes Marc Andreessen as an advisor and board member.

The service offers users a broad selection of free public programs with a simple TV-style program guide and automatic background deliveries of favorite scheduled programming. Content producers can easily add their programming to the network, with unlimited free delivery of their shows and with digital rights protection.

Through the service, consumers can view the content on multiple devices, including PCs and iPods today and televisions and cell phones by this summer.

Open Media Network is powered by grid delivery technology from Kontiki, which already provides secure delivery of content libraries for a range of companies such as Ernst & Young, Verizon, AOL and the BBC. Kontiki’s grid delivery technology speeds the distribution of video and music files by allowing participants to share unused bandwidth on their computers and servers. There are already over 20 million users of Kontiki’s technology today.

The programs on OMN are authorized for public use by the producers and most are licensed under Creative Commons.

The Open Media Foundation is a private, non-profit foundation founded in 2005 by Internet and media pioneers who believe Internet users deserve a better, simpler and free way to get video and music programs that are authorized by their producers for Internet distribution. It is powered by grid delivery technology from Kontiki. More information can be found at www.omn.org.

April 26, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Tech Watch
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April 25, 2005

Are bloggers journalists? This is one of the most important cultural questions facing society today....

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

Here is a version of an entry I wrote for New Communications Forum, in which I postulated that one of the most important cultural questions facing society is: Are bloggers journalists?

It is an important question; because the media is part of the trusted channels of communication that society uses to think, distribute ideas, and exercise its right to free speech.

It's an important question; because the answer carries with it considerable responsibility. If bloggers are indeed journalists, then they deal in the same currency of ideas and influence as the established media.

But this fragmentation of the mediasphere, into millions of blogs, upsets society's trusted ways of distributing its ideas and free speech; and, in the process, journalism is being transformed in many ways. Print journalism, the most dominant form, is under economic threat from online media, with its lower cost business models. And the profession of journalism is under society's microscope, as millions of bloggers challenge the accepted notions of what journalism is, and who can, or should be allowed to, practice it.

The Internet is a disruptive media technology

This transformation of journalism is best understood if the Internet is understood as a disruptive force, not of the technology sector, but of the media sector. The Internet is a collection of disruptive media technologies; and blogging, RSS, wikis, podcasts, etc., are part of a second wave of powerful media technologies that are accelerating this disruptive process.

The first wave of Internet media technology was the flood of web browser technologies that enabled anyone to read a web page, regardless of the computer or operating system. Similarly, blogging allows anyone to easily publish a web page, regardless of the computer or operating system.

But blogging is more than a web browser; it is more like an "asynchronous" media technology, Geek speak for "can move both ways." And this is reflected in how the early pioneers understand this Internet 2.0 or Web 2.0 emerging phase of the Internet.

Richard MacManus, one of my new colleagues on SiliconValleyWatcher, (and ionRSS.com coming soon!), has a web site called ReadWriteWeb.com. Joe Kraus, co-founder of JotSpot, developer of a corporate wiki platform, said he'd considered using Escher's drawing of a hand drawing a hand for the logo of his company.

This two-way web concept is just emerging into the mainstream culture, having been closeted in the Geek community for the past few years. But the concept of a two-way media is more than just a handy way of describing the blogging phenomenon. It is leveling the "free speech" playing field of journalism between established and new media.

In a nutshell, bloggers can now publish their free speech, their ideas, their influence, and reach 4/5ths of the world's population for virtually nothing. I'm not saying that 4/5ths of the world's population would read the bloggers; but the reach is there, and essentially for free. It costs less than $10 per month to host a blog; and the online network of bloggers can carry the content far and wide for free.

Anyone can have a powerful web publishing platform that is near completely automated. And that upsets the channels of influence in our society, which were protected from competition because of the high cost of publishing high quality content.

In Part II: Apple's hunt for leaksters threatens to muzzle the press...
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April 25, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Media Watch
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Podcasts from Ad Tech conference...

The Ad Tech conference is in San Francisco Monday and Tuesday and Eric Schwartzman of ipressroom.com says there will be podcasts of one-on-one interviews with keynote speakers, session moderators and panelists "so if you're interested in what some of the biggest advertisers and their ad agencies think about where the media business is headed, subscribe to our RSS news feed or register to stream the interviews on-demand at: http://www.ipressroom.com/

Here are the Monday and Tuesday lineups:

Monday
o John Costello, EVP, Home Depot
o Bambi Francisco, reporter, CBS Marketwatch
o Taddy Hall, chief strategy officer, Advertising Reach Foundation
o Mike Shields, senior reporter, MediaWeek
o Carolyn Tang, Orbitz.com
o Peter Figueredo, CEO, NetExponent
o Michael Tchong, CEO, Trendscape

Tuesday
o Dr. Jeffrey I. Cole, director, Center for the Digital Future, Annenberg, USC
o Rebecca Lieb, executive editor, ClickZ Network
o Dr. Roger D. Blackwell, professor of marketing, Ohio State University
o Kris Oser, reporter, Advertising Age
o Mitch Oscar, executive vice president, Carat Digital
o Jeff Lanctot, vice president, Avenue A / Razorfish

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April 25, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Tech Watch
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April 22, 2005

[thoughtleaders] Doc Searls on blogging made easy….

[thoughtleaders is part of a new series consisting of vignettes of advice and observation]

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

It was a pleasure to meet Doc Searls recently. Doc is what I call a "big link" in the online world: one of the early bloggers, a pioneer of online marketing concepts, co-author of the popular 1999 book "ClueTrain Manifesto," and senior editor at Linux Journal.

Doc said several interesting things during his presentation at a recent Bite Communications sponsored seminar. Doc: "I blog about an hour a day; and I find it easy."

This is an excellent observation on blogging. Doc is right, blogging should be easy. It should be as easy as writing an email to a colleague or buddy. It's not so easy breaking stories, writing news, interviews, analysis and features --the type of journalism that we also have on SiliconValleyWatcher; but the blogging part, like this entry, should be easy. This is my "blog voice," and it is very similar to my "email voice." My blog voice, however, does change according to mood, and how late I stay up blogging (!)

If any one of you is hesitating about writing/starting a blog because you are not yet "ready," I suggest you jump in anyway. It is a forgiving environment; few will read you initially anyway, which means you can experiment with the format and build your readers one by one. And you will understand what this blogging fuss is all about :-)
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April 22, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Thoughtleaders
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Can this man save the Net? Verisign's chief security officer has his work cut out for him

By Deb Radcliff for SiliconValleyWatcher

Just a few days before the presses started rolling on the announcement of Ken Silva as VeriSign's first-ever chief security officer, I was dining with the man over filet mignon and crab at the trendy Tonno Rosso's near San Francisco's wharf, barraging him with questions about the very serious issues faced by internet infrastructure and in particular the DNS system.

VeriSign is the world's largest digital certificate authority, and is steward of the A and J root servers (two of the 13 computers representing the top of the Internet's hierarchy). With 40 percent of North American e-commerce payments going through its gateways, 100 percent of .com registrars running 15 billion queries a day through its system, and 50 percent of North American cellular roamings going through its servers, VeriSign has a significant role in seeing that the Internet infrastructure runs securely.

Over the years, the root DNS servers have proven vulnerable to domain name spoofing (through a technique called DNS cache poisoning), and Distributed Denial of Service attacks (the latter of which came to light during a concerted effort to take down the DNS root servers in 2002). Not to mention the search query redirect debacle in 2003, in which VeriSign took advantage of its position as DNS manager, and forcibly rerouted all unresolved search queries to a paid-for advertising site created by a dubious spammer. This forced redirect broke a lot of DNS servers, and raised such a ruckus that VeriSign shut down the service barely a week after it went live.

In the past three years, VeriSign has hardened its own DNS servers, so that they're not vulnerable to the DNS poisoning attacks that phishers are starting to use to reroute legitimate addresses typed into browsers. DNS servers hosted by large ISPs and other busy Internet hubs are increasingly being exploited to send large blocks of users to fake Web addresses, where phishers get them to type in their personal information. The trend was reported in January, when the Anti-Phishing Working Group reported that DNS poisoning was used to redirect Google and Amazon users to a phony pharmacy site.

So I asked Silva how he, as VeriSign's first CSO, would help other DNS owners lock down their servers so that users weren't vulnerable to being sent to a spoofed Web site. At which he crossed his hands patiently, and explained his vision for a safer Internet.

"We can't be responsible for the millions of DNS servers on the Internet; but we can certainly do more in the form of education," he says. "A year and a half ago, VeriSign published a white paper with CERT on how to lock down DNS servers so they're not vulnerable to cache poisoning and hijacking. And we've been actively involved in the DNS SEC standard, which would require DNS servers to validate the routing path. But the standard would require a change be made to all DNS servers; and it's being held up in the IETF."

Education is strong on Silva's agenda, which he describes as taking a more holistic approach to security by working with all of VeriSign's business units and platforms to provide stronger authentication at the browser, through the ISPs and at Web sites, so that users can surf the Web, send secure e-mail, make purchases, and transact businesses seamlessly without having to spend so much time on their own personal security.

"Users are the weakest link in all of this. They can't understand what they need to know about intrusion detection, firewalls, anti-virus, spyware and DNS hijacking. And it's technically difficult for users to look at Web site certificates to validate that they're at a legitimate Web site," he says. "Users should be protected by their ISPs; and those e-commerce companies where they do business should do more to validate their legitimacy to users."

As such, VeriSign is committed to a number of standards groups for open authentication platforms, certificate management and DNS Security. But whether or not Silva can impact such change remains to be seen.

Silva spent 10 years at the National Security Agency working in signals intelligence before becoming a C-level executive in technology. He came to VeriSign in 2000 as its senior VP of internal technology and networking security. He serves on the board of directors for the Information Technology Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IT-ISAC, which is under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security), and is an adviser/participant in the National Infrastructure Protection Center, the White House ISP Security Panel, the ICANN DNS Security Panel, the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council, and the National Security Telecommunications Advisory.

If pedigree means anything, he certainly stands a fighting chance.
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April 22, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Security Watch
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April 21, 2005

Google execs look ahead and see even more more from their powerful business model

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

I've transcribed my notes from the analyst conference call Google held today to discuss their earnings. It was a pretty interesting conversation, I must say. I believe they really care about providing great user experiences. Ultimately, I think they're mostly interested in the improvements that also allow a rich stream of data to flow back to Google, from which they can figure out better ways to sell advertising and targeted marketing. I don't think it's any more nefarious than that; but I do think it's the basis of their ability to monetize user patterns as brilliantly as they do.

OK, here's the conversation, at least the part that I managed to take notes on.

Q: Can you talk about monetizing some of the non-search products, such as Google News and Froogle?

A: We don't think about it that way. Many of our products are integrated into the main search product. These products improve our core products and the core products enhance our ability to monetize the other products.

Q: Are you going to extend the advertising content to support graphical ads/more brand-oriented ads?

A: There are a number of efforts to make advertising more graphical which will be rolled out in coming months. We're also working on doing more targeting, which is pretty minimal right now.

Q: Can you explain the increased capital expenditures (which went from $86m to $142m)?

A: We invest in technology needed to provice services at the level we do. We build very sophisticated hardware platforms to do that. Not all of that money is in computer equipment but most of it is.

Q: I know you've said you're not building a browser, but are you thinking about products that let users get at content without having to go through IE or Firefox?

A: Well, you can already do that through Google Desktop. But our goal is to solve very large user problems. You can see amazing things are going to be possible inside the browser if you look at Google Maps.

Q: [Some question about Adsense]

A: We're looking at a number of ways to extend the advertising network. We're already shipping image ads and testing targeting techniques.

Q: MSN is running on 64-bit architecture. Do you think you'll also switch to 64-bit?

A: I think architecture is invisible to users, so it's not really a competitive factor.

Q: Talk about how you'll monetize video?

A: Right now we're just collecting video, we're not distributing although we want to. We're not sure what the details are.

Q: Enhancements to advertiser support?

A: [Eric Schmidt:] For large advertisers, we have support teams and people we call maximizers, who make sure the creative really works well. We have automatic tools to submit, rank and change your advertising, so they can change what they're doing every week, day, hour, minute.

[Sergey Brin:] The system is really optimized for the middle. We do special solutions for larger advertisers. We need to achieve greater simplicity for new and smaller advertisers.

Q: Is there some intention to monetize the new Search History function (which recently came out in beta]?

A: The only intent is to deal with a real user issue. It's a great research tool. I don't think anyone has thought about advertising with respect to Search History.

Q: Any plans to institue a stock buyback plan?

A: We're focused on accumulating cash right now, so no.

Q: Have you thought about extending Google's approach and brand into offline media?

A: The way we look at questions like that is, what is the end user benefit? Our advertising model is a beautiful thing and we're certainly going to extend it as far as we can.

Q: Comment on the French news service AFP's suit against Google News?

A: We've got a number of situations where we've become an important distribution channel. Our strategy is to work with copyright holders; our goal is to make all information available and accessible while respecting the rights and needs of copyright owners.

Final comment from Sergey: We are very busy here at Google.

We're focused on end users. We're focused on making better products for end users and advertising will flow into that. This is a very powerful model.
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April 21, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Google [GOOG]
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Advertising booms for Google, as they report earnings of $1.29 a share

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

With cofounder Sergey Brin proclaiming their advertising model, "very powerful," Google announced the results of a successful first quarter today. Net income was $369m or $1.29 per share, compared to $64m or 24 cents per share a year ago. The search giant had net revenues of $1.2 billion, a whopping 93 percent improvement over a year ago.

"Our advertising model is a beautiful thing; and we're certainly going to extend it as far as we can," Brin said in the quarterly conference call.

While the numbers were stronger for Google's own properties (which made $657 million in revenues, a 166% boost over year-ago numbers), the AdSense numbers ($584 million, a 75% increase over last year) are nothing to sneeze out.

The wild card of profitability in the network model is the "traffic acquisition costs," or TAC, as Google calls it, which is the amount of money paid out to publishers on the network, as well as larger partnership deals. The TAC number was $462 million, which brings total revenues down to $794 million before other operating expenses.

One big piece of the TAC was Google's relationship with AOL Europe, which enabled Google to increase international revenues from 35% to 39%. In the quarterly conference call with analysts, CEO Eric Schmidt said, "Unlike overall GDP growth in Europe, internet adoption is growing very fast. We're looking for very strong growth in Europe."

TAC (Traffic Acquisition Costs), the portion of revenues shared with Google’s partners, increased to $462 million. This compares to total payments to partners of $271 million in the first quarter of 2004.

The quarter's traffic acquisition costs amounted to 79% of revenues, up from 77% last quarter; but Larry Page emphasized that these costs fluctuate substantially from quarter to quarter. In any case, he said, TAC was very low as a percentage of revenue in Q4 because revenue grew so rapidly that quarter.

Google's leaders also emphasized that the advertising business is historically strong in the first and fourth quarters, and weak during the summer quarters; and that analysts should expect Google's business to follow that trend.
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April 21, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Google [GOOG]
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Sony clarifies online strategy and "iTunes for Hollywood" position and video mashups....

[From Steve Banfield, senior vice president at Sony Connect, the online music store in response to our recent story about Sony not seeking an iTunes for Hollywood. Previously, there had been reports about Sony exec Mike Arrieta's comments at the Digital Hollywood Conference that Sony would seek such a strategy.]

Sony Pictures Digital, of which Mike Arrieta is senior vice president, is engaged in the sales, licensing and distribution of Sony Pictures Entertainment in the digital marketplace, including casual games, mobile products, and movies.

Sony Pictures Digital is not building an aggregated service. Rather it is committed to making its content and digital products available to a number of emerging distribution outlets and platforms in this developing market.

Comments made and reported at the Digital Hollywood Conference were intended to state Sony Pictures continuing commitment to developing this market by embracing new technologies, understanding consumer interest and demand, and serving these interest through innovative business models.

Sony Pictures has historically demonstrated leadership in the digital Media world and the comments were intended to suggest that the company would continue to be a pioneer in these efforts. The report also contained a reference to establishing pricing, distribution and usage models.

The more accurate comment is that in these early days of these emerging markets, we across the digital industry have the opportunity to participate in such decisions rather than have others decide for us.

Regarding Connect, as we have said before, video is a logical progression of our strategy, but no specifics have been announced. Sony has not yet agreed to allow it's video clips to be repurposed or reused in mash up formats, but in response to the audience question I was trying to illustrate that it has been done with content owner support in audio and I would expect that video content owners might allow this in the future. I was not making a commitment on future Sony policy.

April 21, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Media Watch
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April 20, 2005

Google Browser? Maybe Not

By Nick Aster for SiliconValleyWatcher

There's a reason I'm an MT expert and not a stats analyst. Avid readers have pointed out that the fine print dosn't add up to what the browser stats displayed. Alas, I knew it was too good to be true.

After digging manually through the log files, it seems that the stats program was interpreting "GGLD:2005-09" as Google, which is correct in the sense that it's probably either the googlebot scanning the page or something funny going on with someone's Google toolbar, but most likely this is NOT a Google browser.

It was exciting for a few hours, but ultimately proof that information that gets posted will quickly be fact checked by people who might know more than you do. Score one more point for the wisdom of crowds.

April 20, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Google [GOOG]
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Scoop! Is this a sighting of the Google browser?

By Nick Aster for SiliconValleyWatcher

Speculation has swirled for months that Google was working on a browser. The company has hired browser engineers from Microsoft and Firefox. The BBC reported last year that the search giant owns the domain name gbrowser.com. None of that ultimately proves anything, though.

Checking out SiliconValleyWatcher's browser stats this morning, however, I noticed that, oddly, a few visitors are using a browser identified as "Google 0.X".

We know our readers are on the cutting edge, but this is too cool. Drum roll please? Is anyone else seeing this in their logs?

April 20, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Google [GOOG]
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April 19, 2005

RSS may generate 25% or more of NY Times total website traffic within 3 years

By Richard MacManus for SiliconValleyWatcher

Alex Barnett did the math on the NY Times RSS growth trends highlighted in Silicon Valley Watcher yesterday. Alex estimates that if current growth rates continue, in 3 years RSS click-throughs will represent 27% of total page views for the NY Times website!

I wouldn't be surprised if the NY Times' RSS growth rate increases in comparison to total site growth over the next few years, given that only an estimated 12% of the population use an RSS Reader at this time. If RSS reader take-up increases (which I expect it to) we may well see RSS feeds driving 33% or more of the NY Times's total website traffic by 2008. I suspect that's a conservative estimate.

Makes you realise how strategically important RSS feeds are for news media companies, most of which are scrambling to figure out how best to deliver news online.

April 19, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: RSS Watch
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"Carders" can put fraudulent info on swiped cards - a "very serious threat" to smartcard security - Visa won't say what if any action they will take

By Deb Radcliff for SiliconValleyWatcher

I never really thought about the magnetic strip on the back of my credit card until Dan Clement recently sent me a tutorial on how to hack the mag strip to change the information contained inside it. Clement copied the tutorial off a “carder” Web site, where he spends a lot of time looking for stolen cards and information he can use to protect clients subscribing to his Malibu-based credit card protection service, CardCops.

The tutorial explains in great detail how to buy a $725 machine called an msr206 which, along with some expensive software, can be used to "dump" new data into track one and track two of the magnetic strip to change the cardholder name and credit limit.

"Merchants who swipe the cards don’t look to see if the data printed out by the mag strip reader on the sales slip matches the data on the front of the card," says Clement. "So you can put fraudulent information in the magnetic strip and it will go through."

The tutorial tells how to do this anonymously by purchasing $25 prepaid credit cards and gift cards out of vending machines and from merchants requiring no identification, then "dumping" the false information into the tracks. The dumps come from other carders with "clean" sources of phony and stolen credit information that won’t alert fraud detection systems at the issuing banks.

After reading the tutorial, which Clement has found at multiple carder sites over the past six months, I contacted Don Davis, editor of Card Technology Magazine. Davis says his biggest concern is how this type of fraud will affect the security on bank-issued smart cards, which are now rolling out in Europe and have the potential to become big in the U.S. The problem, he says, is what happens during the transition from magnetic strip reading point of sale terminals to smart card chip reading terminals.

During the transition, he says, terminals read the magnetic strip, which indicates what kind of card they’re dealing with.

"The carders could take off the mag strip data that says, this is a smart card, and the terminal doesn’t know to ask for the chip and the user’s PIN. This could be a very serious threat," Davis says.

Clement agrees that this poses a serious problem for the adoption of chip-based smart credit cards.

"I talked to Visa," Clement said. "And they say it’s a growing problem. But they won’t tell me what they’re doing about it."

When I called Visa, I got the same runaround. The spokesman there said that yes, the problem is growing, but was unable to get me anyone at Visa who could advise issuing banks to protect against this type of fraud. This has happened before when I’ve contacted Visa to help with stories about credit system problems for which they have no answer.

For example, last year when I wrote a sweeping report on how "phishers" were using brand-impersonating e-mails and Web sites to separate people from their financial accounts and passwords, Visa’s response was pretty much, "We did our bit. We educated our consumers. Now go away."

But now that a host of anti-phishing consortiums and organizations have sprung up and invited Visa to join them, Visa was all over me to include them in my one-year update on phishing that was published on Monday.

So I gave Visa a chance to redeem itself by offering some answers to this mag strip hacking problem. And all I got was a two-week runaround.

Sometimes it scares me how security-clueless our e-commerce leaders really are.

April 19, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Security Watch
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How we know that multitasking is out of control

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Yahoo and Mediaedge:cia are releasing a study today about the "media meshing" trend they discovered in a study of broadband Internet users. The real story, however, is not the impact for major media but this stunning piece of social anthropology, which we flushed out by reading to the bottom of the press release.

... A surprising 21 percent use their wireless access in the bathroom. No matter the location, study participants agree that this freedom of choice is resulting in even more integrated experiences.

Now that the truth is out, let's have a little poll. Have you ever gone online on the throne? Post a comment here. (I'll be the first to admit it.)

In other findings, the Internet is becoming a sort of media glue, the study found.

More than half of broadband users are using the net and offline media together -- often at the same time. People are in front of the computer, while watching TV, reading the paper or listening to radio.

The study terms this trend "media meshing," and it suggests that old media don't necessarily have to fear uptake of the Internet. Rather they should find ways to exploit consumers' willingness to go online to supplement their offline experiences.

The "It's a Broadband Life" study found that 64 percent of broadband users also use some form of traditional media while actively online, compared to 57 percent of dial-up users. The number jumps to 71 percent for wireless broadband users.
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April 19, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Media Watch
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April 18, 2005

Scoop! Sony has no plans for an iTunes for Hollywood says senior exec

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

UPDATE: [Please see Sony clarifies online strategy]

A top executive at Sony America told SiliconValleyWatcher.com that it has no plans to create an "iTunes for Hollywood" saying that a senior Sony Pictures executive misspoke at a recent conference.

Steve Banfield, senior vice president at Sony Connect, the online music store, said that it had no plans to produce an online movie download store modeled along the lines of Apple Computer's iTunes digital music download store and software. He said that the Sony executive making the claim was not speaking about any Sony project in the works.

Less than three weeks ago, Michael Arrieta, senior vice president of Sony Pictures, said at the Digital Hollywood Conference that Sony had big plans for online movie sales. From the Cnet News.com story: Hollywood seeks iTunes for film.

"We want to set business models, pricing models, distribution models like (Apple Computer CEO Steve) Jobs did for music, but for the film industry," Michael Arrieta, senior vice president of Sony Pictures, said at the Digital Hollywood conference here. "I'm trying to create the new 'anti-Napster,'" he added.To that end, Arrieta said, his group plans to digitize Sony Pictures' top 500 films and make them available for the first time in various digital environments within the next year. He said the distribution for films like "Spider-Man 2" will go beyond just Movielink, the video-on-demand joint venture of Sony Pictures and several other major studios, which to date has hosted a limited library of Sony's movies.

Mr Banfield said Sony was digitizing its movies, and it would also allow some clips of its digital video to be used royalty-free for video mashup projects, in which music and video footage is remixed, sometimes in live performance.

But Sony was not concerned about creating an iTunes for Hollywood. He said that it did not matter to Sony, or other movie producers, who would sell digital movies online, and that it already had its own store, Sony Connect. He also said that Sony understood the online music market very well from its involvement in several high profile online music sites.

April 18, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Media Watch
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Not much Fear or Loathing on the road to NAB2005...

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

I wanted do a parody/homage on Hunter S. Thomson’s seminal book “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” But, my co-driver Jochen Siegle from Der Spiegel, pulled out at the last minute.

The plan was to drive a convertible to Las Vegas for the National Association of Broadcasters show (world’s largest electronic media show!), where I was speaking Monday, as part of a panel of top media execs from Sony, Electronic Arts, CinemaNow, Disney Interactive, moderated by Cisco Systems’ head of M&A, Dan Scheinman.

I tried to get a replacement co-driver but it was too late. I resolved to drive anyway, it would be about 8 or 9 hours and I’d been hankering for a road trip for some time. I picked up a blue Mitsubishi Spyder from Fox Rentals, almost brand new, just 66 miles on it, and headed south. But I was late getting out of the house, I was finishing up a piece on the future of journalism, for Jennifer McClure at New Communications Forum until about midnight Saturday. Then I fell asleep on the couch and didn’t leave for Las Vegas until 5.30am Sunday.

I did find a co-driver along the way, and the day was pleasantly spent playing music loudly, and stopping at greasy spoons for snacks. Not much more to report than that. Blogo-journalism is clearly not quite so exciting as Hunter’s Gonzo-journalism :-)

April 18, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Tom Watch
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Technology Review looking for those young geniuses

Nominations are now open for the TR35, Technology Review’s selection of 35 top young innovators whose contributions to emerging technologies will shape the world. Nominees can work in any area of technology, including computing, biotechnology, nanotechnology, energy, medicine, telecommunications, and transportation.

Nominees must be under 35 as of October 1, 2005. Technology Review will showcase all 35 in a special October 2005 issue and recognize them at a gala awards ceremony at the Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT on September 28-29.

The deadline for nominations is April 30, 2005.

April 18, 2005 | Permalink | Tag:
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RSS becoming a key driver of traffic for NY Times - Feed-related traffic up more than 300%

By Richard MacManus for SiliconValleyWatcher

The NY Times issued a press release today that claims a massive 342% annual increase in RSS click-throughs. RSS-generated click-throughs totalled 5.9m pageviews in March, representing a 39% increase from February's 4.3 million, the press release said, noting that the Washington and Business feeds were most popular.

The Times offers a variety of RSS feeds - one of the first major newspapers to do so. They publish excerpted RSS feeds, so users have to click through to view the whole story.

It's interesting to look at how the RSS click-throughs for March 2005 compares to the total traffic for that month. The Times reported 5.9 million pageviews from RSS and there were a total of 555 million pageviews for the whole website. So that equates to a little over 1% of the whole site's traffic. A drop in the ocean, in terms of bare figures.

But when you consider that traffic for the whole website only grew by 17% over the past year, whereas the RSS click-throughs grew by 342% in that same period... well you begin to see how RSS is going to be a key driver in growth for the NY Times. Strategically, that's how the NY Times will view this.

I'm sure they're also hoping that in time the volume will increase - which it will, once RSS becomes mainstream.

April 18, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: RSS Watch
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Of course, you know what RSS is ... so here's an article for your clueless boss

By Nick Aster for SiliconValleyWatcher

Even among the readers of tech publications like SVW there are a lot of people that don't really know what RSS is all about (or at least they won't admit it). Even if you do know all about RSS, no doubt there's someone in your organization is bluffing their way through conversations about it. If so, quietly slip them this article and help them get up to speed.

RSS variously stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. As a reader, all you need to know is that it's a way for you to keep track of new content on numerous websites without having to go view each individual site (such a chore!). Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble claims to consume 500 or more information sources on a daily basis, something no human could do without using an RSS reader.

For publishers and bloggers, RSS allows you to provide a constant stream of content to your readers, without having to send out email alerts, with all of the maintenance and spam filtering that involves. Indeed, Scoble famously asserted, "if you don't have an RSS feed, you should be fired."

RSS is especially associated with blogs because just about every blogging service generates RSS (or the similar Atom format) feeds. RSS existed for several years before blogging really took off, so it's not to much to say that blogs made RSS what it is.

RSS is so great because it frees you from having to deal with slow-performing websites, flashing ads, poor site navigation and other hazards. You can have content sent to you instead, like a well-organized piece of email. Because an RSS reader can alert you to new entries, it's great for following the news or finding out when your competitor has posted something new on their website.

The only hard part is that you need an RSS reader (like a browser for RSS) - or "aggregator" (because the software pulls together various feeds). There are a bunch of different ones out there, but the easiest ones to use are the ones that attach to your email client (like Outlook or Thunderbird). This means that your email client includes a special set of folders for RSS. Each folder will be filled with relevant news that you've specifically tailored for your needs.

I highly recommend Mozilla's Thunderbird for both your email and RSS needs. If you are married to Outlook on Windows, there are both commercial and open source plugins to RSS-ify Outlook. NewsGator is probably the leading commercial product; for something free, check out rsspopper. Mac Users probably have something similar, but I'm afraid you'll have to google around for it.

You can also use web-based readers like Bloglines and My Yahoo, which have their advantages; but I much prefer Thunderbird because I can download everything at once and go.

Once you have your RSS reader set up, you're ready to start subscribing. In an ideal world, the reader would automatically find the feed and you could subscribe to it with a single click. The Firefox browser does actually identify RSS automatically, so if youre' content to read RSS in the context of browser bookmarks, you're all set. That's really too clunky for more than a few feeds, though. (Firefox's Sage bookmarks extension does improve matters somewhat.)

If you use My Yahoo, you may want to install the Yahoo toolbar, which gives you a one-click option to subscribe to RSS.

In other clients, though, you may have to manually find and paste the RSS URL into the app. On SiliconValleyWatcher, scroll about half way down to the Syndicate section in the left sidebar. We actually have several feeds available. To subscribe, click on the link you're interested in, copy the URL and paste that into your reader. Our main feed is at http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/index.xml.

Many websites feature little orange buttons that say "XML" (RSS is a form of XML) or "RSS." Click on those to find the URL. Other sites have aggregator-specific buttons. If you click on an "Add to My Yahoo" button, for instance, a browser window will open that will allow you to add the RSS to your My Yahoo page.

Major publications may offer dozens of different feeds. The New York Times offers a whole page of these babies. So does Moreover. If you're looking for corporate news, check out the Nooked directory.

All it takes is an hour or so before you'll have a long list of RSS feeds ready to go inside your reader. If all went well, you'll be getting what you want delivered to you like a hot pizza. Give it a try!
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April 18, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: RSS Watch
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Can't beat them? Buy them. Adobe to take over Macromedia in $3.4b deal

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

It was just a month ago that Adobe wowed stockholders with fantastic Q1 results - 23 percent year-over-year growth in net income, 12 percent in revenue. Adobe has been hitting on all cylinders - consumer photo, pro design and Adobe products, but they had basically ceded pro web design to Macromedia with their Dreamweaver and Flash lines. In a March interview with BusinessWeek, Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen took aim at Macromedia:

"I'm not willing to stand up and say we're going to beat them tomorrow or the next day. It'll take a long time, but we're going to get more aggressive, especially on alternative platforms like mobile and devices connected to HDTV.

Well, if you can't beat them, buy them. Adobe announced this morning that they are buying the company for $3.4 billion. Macromedia shareholders will get .69 shares of Adobe stock for each share of Macromedia stock.

Technology gadfly Marc Canter is happily singing the praises of the deal, to the tune of "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead." The creator of Director, Canter sold the company that started it long ago and has been singularly unimpressed with the management of the company that pretty much abandoned his product when it started up Flash. He suggests he would be willing to return, a la Steve Jobs, now that MACR is in new hands, but if he thinks he's going to find in Adobe a company that doesn't sell software in a box, design for single users, or depend on patent protection, I really don't know what he's been smoking.

Over at the Macromedia user forums, dedicated Macromedia developers are definitely depressed - the forums are filled with words like shock, disappointment and sadness.

So Adobe will add Dreamweaver to its list of aging dominators and make more money. But where are the real synergies? It's hard to see synergies between the companies' two platforms: Flash is light-weight and strongly server-oriented. Acrobat is heavyweight and download-focused; they've had great success in data-centric industries like finance.

Over at Jupiter, David Schatsky notes:

[The CEOs] alluded to the importance of mobile applications and cited Macromedia's greater presence there as an advantage to the combined company that can help pull Adobe's technology onto a new platform.

He also hints, "Let's also see what sounds come out of Redmond."

Flash is the right app for mobile, especially with all the server-side stuff that Macromedia has added over the years. Perhaps they have some ideas for combining Acrobat and Flash; but it's hard for me to see. My suspicion is that Dreamweaver and Flash take them where they want to go; and and after years of acquiring the wrong companies, Adobe just decided to snatch up the real deal.
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April 18, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Promo 3
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April 15, 2005

[Friday Watch 3] Ingenio does AOL ... Pissed off journalist looking for love ... Fear and loathing at NAB

Fear and Loathing on the trail to NAB in Las Vegas…

Jochen Siegle and I are off to the desert oasis town of Las Vegas this weekend. Jochen is covering stories for Der Spiegel, and I will be on a panel at the National Association of Broadcasters show - "the world's largest electronic media show."

And my fellow panelists are of a considerable pedigree (how I got into such august company, God knows…!) Senior execs from Sony, Electronic Arts, Disney Interactive, CinemaNow and ... SiliconValleyWatcher! Moderated by Dan Scheinman, head of M&A at Cisco. (See panel details)

In an homage to St. Hunter (S. Thompson), the patron saint of bloggers, we will be renting a convertible and filling up the trunk with plenty of digital devices. We did consider also filling up with the stuff Hunter kept on hand, but we decided it would be rather challenging to source most of them … unless our good readers can help :-)

So, it’s road trip week in the Watcher for the next few days … filing from greasy spoons along the way… Is this the launch of bloggo journalism?

Ingenio is set to announce prime AOL partnership

Ingenio, which has pioneered the pay per call business model concept, will announce next week that AOL will feature its search for local merchant listings search box in a very prominent location.

Mystery journalist looks for love...

Thanks to Craig's List publicist Susan Mactavish Best for this one...

...from a recent Best Of posting on craigslist.

Hi. I'm a journalist. Or a reporter. Whatever word pisses you off more, I'm part of the mainstream media, the liberal media, the so-called liberal media. I am the epitome of all that is wrong with contemporary journalism.

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April 15, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Friday Watch
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[Friday Watch 2] You can’t get there from here… on blogs and journalists

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

I’m listening to a conversation between editors at two large established news organizations; and they are asking each other how they deal with blogs and news. What do you call a news story, and what goes in the blog? Do you have editors for the blog items? Do you get involved in the comments? Is it extra work? Can you write in your voice, or is it still the “house” voice?


All great questions; but I’m beginning to realize that “you can’t get there from here.”

You can't get there not only from news organizations, but also from PR firms, ad agencies, or in-house communication departments. You probably have to leave those houses behind, and start anew with what we call the NewRules enterprise, free from legacy cultural baggage.

Established news organizations, no matter how new, if they didn’t start with the blogging format/culture first, will find it nearly impossible to fully embrace blogs. The journalists working at these places are already way overworked; they are in already under-staffed offices, cut even tighter from natural attrition, layoffs, and the lure of greener pastures. Blogging is even more work, and they hate it.

Also, they cannot develop their blog “voice” in such an environment. Blogs at established media organizations are more like a column, and a place to dump second-class news items that couldn’t make it into the newspaper or the main online news section. One friend who has left the ranks of the news media for a place in the blogosphere tells stories of editors rewriting her blogs for "style."

Plus, the “are bloggers journalists” debate has strange applications at a media organization where writers blog. Are its journalists no longer journalists when they blog and thus their work is less trustworthy? (The first decision in the Apple v. Does case certainly didn't help matters here.)

You also can't get there from here by thinking and reading about blogs; and I have serious doubts that PR firms and corporate communication departments will be able to effectively integrate blog culture into existing operations. Some kind of skunk works (a la the IBM group that developed the PC far from White Plains) is probably necessary.

I keep telling people, "Start blogging, start small, start quietly, start simply, just start. You’ll find out what it is." It is like Tivo. You read all about Tivo; but you didn't get it until you've got one. Once you start blogging, you'll get it; and you'll get that it is the key to understanding the power of these asynchronous media technologies, like blogs, RSS, wikis ...

Some thoughts on Internet 2.0. . .

It seems that the survivors of Internet 1.0 are: technology-enabled media companies such as Yahoo, Google, EBay, AOL and Microsoft.

I think that the survivors of this next phase, Internet 2.0 will be: media technology-enabled companies; but we don't yet know who they are.
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April 15, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Friday Watch
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As Become.com leaves beta, Michael Yang speaks up on their spam-proof algorithms

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

The Become.com shopping search site has come out of beta and has gone beyond 10,000 registered users. No registration is now required to use the site. Company cofounder Michael Yang recently clarified for me some of the anti-spam measures that Become.com has in place around its AIR (Affinity Index Ranking) technology, which is a different approach than Google’s PageRank method.

While it is true that AIR technology is superior to Google's PageRank for preventing spammed pages from showing up on the search result (and in theory it is spam-proof) we can not completely eliminate spams 100% in implementation. Also on the issue of patents for anticipated spam techniques … our patent lawyer recommended that we do [file] but we have not filed yet because we have not identified any spam techniques that would work against AIR.

April 15, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Search Watch
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[Friday Watch 1] What does it take to be Flickricious? Sony might find out

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

The other night, dinner discussions centered on platforms and communities — and the spontaneous nature of community formation. Companies these days would kill for communities of users of the unusual sort that arise on Flickr and Del.icio.us. Yet there is no way to create Flickrlicious communities - they have to arise by themselves by interacting with open and open-ended technology. You can prepare the ground; but you are at the mercy of random events and factors.

We laughed at the memory of Friendster, which about two years ago tried to ban “fakesters,” a large community of users that were using fictitious names and acting out outlandish personas, such as a guy called Pure Evil.

That's right, stamping out a spontaneously formed, growing, community of users because they were not doing what they were supposed to do as a Friendster user. That wouldn’t happen today, I would think. Now, it’s the online communities that set the rules of what is acceptable and doable.

Aberrant behaviors…

I was wondering how large of a population is needed before a community starts exhibiting spontaneous, unpredictable, aggregate behaviors. Is it 500 people, 15,000? Dalton Caldwell, chief technology officer at Imeem, a personal network software company, figures it is probably about 10 to 15,000. He said he noticed that on Dogster, the Friendster for pet owners, a group of users talking in the voices of their dogs started up at around that population number.

What about the PSP?
Richard's take: Speaking of which, what will Sony do about the outpouring of creativity around the PSP? They could take measures to shut down the hackers, possibly by delivering a firmware update that blocked the hacks. They could be determined to maintain control of the device. But they would be well-served by letting the thousand hacks bloom and see what kind of community forms. Indeed, they should foster the hack community by taking a page from Flickr and provide an open API for developers to write PSP programs. It was Sony, after all, whose name is on the Supreme Court decision that allowed the past 20 years of technological creativity to flourish. Could the PSP be the next Betamax, the next way that Hollywood actually makes money despite best efforts not to? That might be difficult if the Court overturns Sony Betamax this summer in the Grokster case.
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April 15, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Friday Watch
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April 14, 2005

Weber wins BEA…

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

The headline means more to some of our community of readers than it does to me. However, all I need to know is that it means the right thing :-)

I stopped in on BEA’s web site, wow. It just zips along, superfast loading of pages, and is easy to navigate. If that’s a showcase for the BEA platform, then let there be more companies using it; I’m fed up with my molasses-dunked Internet/PC experience.

Is anyone going to buy BEA? For the last three years, that has been the question, and I wish it would be answered. Larry is the obvious buyer; the patient praying mantis just needs to finish digesting a bit. Then he can take his time, talk down BEA valuation a while; after all, who could play white knight and rescue the middleware maiden?

Here’s my suggestion, and the obvious dream team: Sun-HP-BEA-MySQL-EDS. Plus a big business consultancy. That’s a lot of work; and IBM is already there ...but isn’t there room for three large companies in each market, as some studies have indicated?!
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April 14, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: PR Watch
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[Sponsor Watch] Not just for blogs anymore, RSS is looking like the media technology of the near future

Leading RSS-istas converging on New York City in mid-May for Syndicate conference

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

I’m not sure how many leading lights there are around RSS but it’s not many. It’s early days yet but RSS is very likely going to be the next important application, rivaling email and the web. We definitely want to be in this conversation, and you will see us expanding our coverage to key emerging media technologies, including RSS.

We're also pleased to sign on as a media sponsor for the Syndicate conference, May 17-18 in New York. Produced by IDG, the conference is an indication of how far RSS has come in the past year.

Case in point: ING Groep, a global provider of information services, recently started using RSS to broadcast information to employees using KnowNow technology. ING found that spam filters make email an unreliable medium for corporate communication.

It certainly looks like the media sector is rapidly shifting towards dominance by technology-empowered media companies. RSS can enable new types of media business models, and it can even do IT data messaging. And so far, it’s the most secure communications channel available, being spam- and spoof-proof, or at least tough to spoof.

I’ll be moderating a panel at Syndicate on the topic of "Enterprise Syndication with RSS." On that panel are Ross Mayfield, who has been selling wikis for several years at SocialText; Michael Terner, CEO of KnowKnow (which is sponsoring the panel); David Schatsky from Jupiter Research; and Paul Kedrosky of UC San Diego.

I hope to see some of you there.

April 14, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Tech Watch
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April 13, 2005

Searching for riches through short text message searches

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

Google this week announced a cell phone based search service using short text messaging, also known as SMS. UpSnap, privately held, is also in this space, offers a free directory assistance (411) mobile SMS service, and says that Google's entry has helped to validate the SMS market, but that only UpSnap! has a working business model.

Tony Philipp, chief executive of UpSnap, said that SMS is growing fast, especially among the 18- to 30-year-old demographic. He also points out that UpSnap has a business model already in place, in which merchants pay for listings and use a free phone call feature, based on UpSnap's VOIP infrastructure, to talk with customers.

Google is famous for keeping services in beta or undeveloped for long periods, so it could be a while before it gets around to monetizing search queries through SMS.

UpSnap says it has done the ground work and established many of the relationships that are needed. I would think that search on phones through SMS should be less brand-driven than on the web, simply because the cell phone user interface is cramped, and it’s difficult to click away to another search service.

UpSnap's business model depends upon the growth of text messaging in the U.S. Text messaging here in the States is a tiny application as compared to its usage in Europe; but it can only get better. It is becoming part of the communications culture among school and college students, growing faster than any other current communications medium. SMS messages have jumped from 2.1 bn messages a month to about 4 bn messages per month over a six- month period, according to trade figures.

SMS doesn’t need a web browser, so it is a lot quicker to fire up and send a local search query. And the UpSnap service is free, which is good, because I've become leery of trying some of these services, having already been bitten by huge connection charges for being experimental. A lot of people know how cell phone companies can nickel and dime them for additional services, and create a big monthly bill. UpSnap should emphasise the word "free" as large as possible.

I would think that specialist search companies such as UpSnap should be able to keep ahead of the large, generic search companies like Google. It'll be interesting to see if large, technology enabled media companies can do as well as smaller, focused teams. I hope it's the latter...
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April 13, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Search Watch
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Adware company ready to tell all to publishers

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Now that Redwood City-based spyware company Claria has managed to infect 40 million PCs with software that turns them into advertising displays, the company is ready to clue publishers, as well as marketers, into information about how consumers surf, shop and buy. Claria's software has previously been known as GAIN and Gator and is one of the most pernicious spywares because it is so difficult to remove from infected machines.

According to MediaPost, Claria will report on how many pages consumers viewed before making a purchase, the length of sessions, and whether someone will comparison shop or be loyal to a given shopping site. They'll also tell marketers what conclusions can be drawn about consumers -- such as what you're shopping for or if you're a new parent.

Claria can also tell precisely which Web sites customers visited before buying and what percentage of people visited competitors.

A web search for Claria reveals deep consumer anger at Claria. "By far the widest spread form of adware. Claria is known by a number of names such as GAIN and Gator. Claria is the latest name change for a company that is very widely hated," says I Am Not a Geek, which offers specific removal instructions for Claria/GAIN/Gator.

In 2003, the company settled suits brought against it by the New York Post, The New York Times, Dow Jones and other media companies. The Washington Post, L.L. Bean and Extended Stay America also sued the company. Claria countersued L.L. Bean in 2004.

Claria was also in the news in February when their chief privacy officer D. Reed Freeman Jr. was appointed to the Dept. of Homeland Security's data privacy committee.

April 13, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Tech Watch
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Tedious Salesforce presentation forced escape to MOMA

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

I was late for the Salesforce event, a big launch of something, and Outcast PR had been hammering away at my inbox for weeks. It’s at the Four Seasons and Ulysses King from Outcast greets me in the near empty corridor and I get my badge.

But, there are what seems to be hundreds of badges unclaimed, and outside the conference room there are a dozen mini-trade booths. I soon realize that this is also a “customer” event. Not good, however; it is lunchtime and I missed breakfast.

I follow Ulysses into a packed conference room with about a dozen large round dining tables and I slip into a chair at a table near the front.

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, is on stage and selling software. Marc is always selling; whether it is through his spirituality or through his larger than life persona, Marc is always selling.

Pain in the neck

I am sitting with my back towards Marc. It was a bit of a strain to twist my back and neck and look at Marc selling; but I found that if I didn’t, I was quite comfortable. I could hear Marc selling of course; but I didn’t need the visual of Marc up on the podium, as usual looking awkward in a suit and tie.

I ate lunch, sipped a coffee, looked around. Andreas from the Economist was shoulder-tapping distance away, so I tapped and we smiled and nodded. Helene from FT Deutschland caught my eye from three tables away and waved. And the indefatigable Dan Farber, editor in chief of ZDNet, was at the adjoining table, laptop on his lap as usual.

The Salesforce presentation was tedious, tedious, tedious, which is the case every time I am invited to company sales events. Media and customers are different audiences requiring different methods of communication.

I looked at the clock and my heart sank; because there was likely about another hour of Marc selling. I walked outside to feed the parking meter but the day was so nice that I couldn’t face returning. I figured Dan or someone else will very likely file a good piece about the event; no sense in my reinventing the wheel, I’ll just blog it. Thus, I managed to fit in a pleasant walk in the sun and browsed the MOMA store for 20 minutes.

I really, really like this blogging journalism thing!

Here is News.com's Alorie Gilbert on Salesforce.com lifts curtain on new release
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April 13, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Media Watch
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Transcript of Grokster oral arguments

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Groklaw has a transcript of the oral arguments before the Supreme Court in the Grokster case. That case, you remember, focuses on whether a service with lots of copyright-ignoring users is off the hook under the Sony Betamax rule of "substantial noninfringing uses," or whether the Court will come up with a new orthodoxy.

April 13, 2005 | Permalink | Tag:
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April 12, 2005

Yahoo appoints datamining pioneer to lead expansion of Research Labs

Yahoo's chief data officer, Dr. Usama Fayyad, has been appointed to head up a major expansion of Yahoo Research Labs, the company announced today. "We want to lay the foundation for establishing the new science that will define the future of the web and its essential role in everyday life," Fayyad was quoted in a press release.

Yahoo labs will particularly focus on the design of the algorithms Yahoo will depend on in the future. "Yahoo! Research Labs will develop the underlying scientific foundation to address complex challenges in areas including search and information navigation, social media, community, personalization, and mobility," Yahoo said in a press release.

Fayyad has serious datamining chops, having datamined for NASA's Joint Propulsion Lab through massive scientific datasets. He worked as a researcher at Microsoft Labs, and founded DMX Group, a data strategy and datamining company.

April 12, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Yahoo [YHOO]
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[publisher’s note] SiliconValleyWatcher joins amicus brief in Apple case

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

The big California newspapers filed their amicus brief late last week, but if they hadn’t, the bloggers and journalist organizations have signed onto one of their own.

The Amicus brief mentions SiliconValleyWatcher's recent scoop on a story related to Apple's choice of a UK-designed chip to be used in a possible portable multimedia device, maybe the much anticipated video iPod. [ijusthopeitdoesnotattracttoomuchattentioniamnothomeand travellingforthenextthreeyears]

Here's what the brief says about SVW:

... Since the Superior Court’s decision, [SiliconValleyWatcher has] had to rethink how they cover certain stories. For example, SVW obtained information from sources outside of Apple that the company had signed an agreement to purchase a substantial amount of chips. This information was important because of the products that could be built using these chips. SVW delayed running this story for several days because they were concerned, given the Superior Court's ruling, that they would be compelled to reveal their source or would themselves be accused of disseminating a trade secret. After consulting pro bono counsel, they published the story several days later than they ordinarily would have. However, they chose to change its treatment in the headline and lead paragraphs to focus on the British chip design firm rather than Apple. They changed the story to avoid having to litigate to protect their source. As journalists publishing on the Web, they are concerned the Superior Court's ruling gives them less protection under the Federal privilege and the California Shield than that enjoyed by their print and broadcast peers– and thus weakens the public's interest in a dynamic and diverse media landscape.

Steve Jobs' current pursuit of the three Mac news web sites is unprecedented. In the more than 20 years I’ve covered Silicon Valley as a reporter, Apple has always tried to stop the leaks and consistently failed. One year it tried to give different names to the same project to track the leaks; but that didn’t work. It’s impossible to muzzle the hundreds and probably thousands of people that see or know about an Apple product before its launch.

Apple has never been able to stop the leaks; and there is no good reason to stop the leaks, because a buzz is built six months before the Apple product is released. You can’t buy better marketing.

And it’s not the hardware that makes Apple special. Anybody could use the same components and make the hardware for an iPod or iMac, that's not its trade secrets. Its crown jewels are the user interface, the software applications, and the business services layered on top.

Here are the many familiar names of the blogosphere in the Amicus Brief: Jack M. Balkin, The Center for Individual Freedom, Julian Dibbell, Feedster, The First Amendment Project, A. Michael Froomkin, Gawker Media, Gothamist, Groklaw, Happy Mutants, Ben Hammersley, Joichi Ito, Joel Johnson, Kimberly A. Kralowec, LawMeme, Rebecca MacKinnon, Joshua Micah Marshall, The Media Bloggers Association, Markos Moulitsas, Reporters Without Borders, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Peter Rojas, Jay Rosen, Scott Rosenberg, Doc Searls, Silicon Valley Watcher, Kevin Sites and Eugene Volokh.
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April 12, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag:
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April 11, 2005

Apple says it will go after websites in trade secrets theft case

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Apple will seek "full legal redress" against PowerPage and AppleInsider -- two of the websites that published purloined documents in the Apple v Does trade secret case -- the company insinuated in court documents filed last week.

"Apple seeks full legal redress against not only those persons who originally stole the trade secrets ... but against those individuals who wrongfully disseminated this information," the filing said.

At another point, the brief notes that the websites "have not yet
(italics added) been named as defendants." But they "may, in fact, be
one or more of the Doe Defendants named in the complaint."

In a separate case, Apple has filed suit against ThinkSmart for violating trade secret law. ThinkSmart filed an anti-SLAPP motion in that case.

ThinkSmart, PowerPage and AppleInsider posted technical drawings of an unreleased Apple product, code-named Asteroid, and Apple is seeking to discover the identities of whoever leaked the documents. Because they haven't yet been able to identify whom it should accuse of the theft, the defendants are simply identified as John Does.

Because the case is in the "discovery" phase, litigation has so far focused on whether Apple has the right to subpoena email information from the sites' service provider, or whether PowerPage and AppleInsider have the standing to claim the reporter's privilege to refuse to reveal confidential sources.

However, Apple's filing in the appeal clearly states that they consider the sites that published the documents also guilty of a crime. Thus, if the courts ultimately decide that Apple can't subpoena the email records from Nfox, it might not be the end of the road. If no other defendants can be identified, Apple might be willing to simply name the online journalists as the Does and proceed with prosecution of a trade secrets violation case.

This could be blustering on the part of Apple, however. The claim is made in a legal argument asserting that the websites shouldn't be able to claim the reporter's privilege. "Apple's brief is full of insinuations, but in the end it has no basis to hold the journalists liable for trade secret misappropriation," told SiliconValleyWatcher in an email. "Indeed, its opposition papers in the Superior Court, Apple conceded that it cannot establish a case against the journalists at this time."

The defendants will file a reponse to Apple's arguments on April 22.
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April 11, 2005 | Permalink | Tag:
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Who is a journalist? Who is a blogger? We have the answer...

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

The Apple trade secrets case has hit squarely on one of the most vexing questions that our society currently ponders: who is a journalist? It is an answer that established media might prefer to print on page 92, if they had the pages.

The French Revolution defined the press as the fourth estate, as important as the monarchy, church and government. That’s quite a responsibility, yet this is a private sector that has no legal requirement to act as society’s guardian.

However, most journalists, and most readers, believe that there is an underlying responsibility of a high order, which shapes their work. There is a sense of contributing to a common good.

Defining who is a journalist is easy; here is my definition:

Anyone that can publish some text, and have someone else read it. There is no Hippocratic oath for journalists, no training required for a license, no regulations at all. Nothing special about journalists; anyone can be one. If you can string a sentence together, that's fine. In fact, if you can write an email, you can be a "blogger."

Definition of a blogger: a type of journalist that is called a blogger.

But will just anyone be considered by others a journalist?

Being a journalist in today’s society is usually understood as reporting news and related stories for sizeable populations of readers. And making a living from the profession--if you can make a living from doing it you must be doing it right. Right…?

US citizens are all journalists because they all have free speech rights. But did the founding fathers think of free speech as protecting the right to stand on a soapbox in the town square, or reaching millions over the internet? Did they factor in the digital media formats and the comms? I doubt it.

Will this result in hostile elements to the media forcing free speech rights to be restricted to a zone that is defined by the range of a loud speech, unamplified? Nope. It would be fun to see, though.
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April 11, 2005 | Permalink | Tag:
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Consumer electronics chip markets don't favor the small...

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

Wireless networked handheld multimedia devices are clearly in our future, and our scoop last week about Apple choosing Broadcom’s Alphamosaic chip highlighted an issue that faces smaller chip companies--independence.

Alphamosaic, based in the United Kingdom, was acquired by US communications chip giant Broadcom in September for about $125m. Alphamosaic had raised $9m in a round just five months prior to the sale. That was a nice turnaround of capital for the VCs but it was also likely that Alphamosaic did not have much of a choice.

That’s because companies need a lot of intelectual property (IP), in the form of chip functions, to play in the digital consumer electronics market. As more and more functions get integrated onto a chip, the cheaper the consumer product. In the consumer digital space that means you need as much wireless, video, image, audio processing, as you can fit on the chip. Then you need cellular, and room for other, future functions too.

The Alphamosaic chips packs a lot, but probably not enough for a large electronics manufacturer such as Apple. But, by being part of Broadcom, which has all the communications IP, etc, the future offers possibilities of further integration. This brings up the question of whether smaller chip companies can compete long-term in consumer electronics markets by remaining independent. The first ones to land larger dance partners will be in a better position than those without, I would think.

Convergence below, divergence above

Interestingly, as more convergence occurs on the chip—there is increasing divergence occurring in the consumer devices. A PC is used to play a DVD, play games, play music, and view photos. Now each activity has its own product device available, and now some are becoming portable and wirelessly connected.

And with more wirelss conectivity, it’s all moving towards less of a PC centric model than ever before, less need for a PC or Mac in order to use these devices.

Is this the future personal computing platform? Fragmented into applications married to devices, and sharing a common communications platform--instead of the same hardware/software platform.

Related stories

• Scoop! Brit chip designers score coup as Apple picks chips for next gen mobile multimedia device...the m-Pod? [Read]

• Could a multimedia iPod allow Apple to dominate movie and TV online sales? [Read]

• PSP-Pod? Could Sony's latest mobile gaming system beat out Apple's forthcoming multimedia "mPod"? [Read]
  

April 11, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Tech Watch
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April 10, 2005

Gmail baits phishing spam, demonstrating there is a public good in email scanning

Google has been testing phishing detection in Gmail. I just noticed it tonight but SVW reader Eric Pederson comments below that he first saw it a few months ago. In their battle of one-upmanship with Yahoo Mail, phishing detection is a huge advantage.

Presumably they can do this because they're scanning the contents of your mail. While this drives privacy advocates nuts [The Register], that fact provides them a lot of power to deliver features that users need. Email providers have a moral responsibility to try to protect their users, and now that Google has shown a way to identify phishing, could other providers have a legal responsibility to offer similar protections?

April 10, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Tech Watch
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April 8, 2005

Watcher "offices," via Google Maps

April 8, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Google [GOOG]
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Wire services, newspapers and media conglomerates side with bloggers in appeal of Apple decision

LA Times, AP, Merc, Chron, SPJ and publishers groups file amici briefs attacking judge's ruling

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

The old bloggers vs journalists debate was turned on its head Saturday when major media corporations and publishers' associations
filed an amicus brief [PDF] with the Court of Appeals in the Apple v Does case. In their filing, the media companies consistently refer to the websites as "journalists," drawing no distinction between traditonal media and online reporters.

An amicus brief was also filed by associations of Internet service providers.

Signing on to the brief were the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times Communications, San Jose Mercury News, Hearst Corp., (publishers of the San Francisco Chronicle), Copley Press (publishers of the San Diego Union-Tribune), McClatchy Co. (publishers of the Sacramento Bee), and Freedom Communications (publishers of the Orange County Register).

Also involved were professional journalists' and publishers' organizations including the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Associated Press, the California First Amendment Coalition, California Newspaper Publishers Association, Society for Professional Journalists and Student Press Law Center.

The brief argues that: "the First Amendment protects journalists from liability for publishing even illegally obtained information on matters of public interest and importance where the journalists did not participate in the illegality, and ... allegations of illegality do not permit a court to ignore the protections ..."

The filing states that the Superior Court judge inappropriately decided that trade law trumps journalists' protections under the First Amendment and the California Shield law. The filing argues:

• Publication of trade secrets by journalists who did not violate the law in obtaining them is protected by the First Amendment.
• The mere allegation of illegality is insufficient to breach the reporter’s privilege.

April 8, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Legal Watch
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[Sponsor Watch] InfineonWatch tries to draw internal and external audiences in a novel approach to corporate communications

Infineon Technologies, a founding sponsor of SiliconValley Watcher, is doing some interesting things at InfineonWatch.com. Today, it began to promote the site internally, hoping to involve its employees in discussions and debates.

Since the web site is also public, anybody else can read and involve themselves in the community that develops around InfineonWatch.com. This is unusual since internal web sites are almost always separated from the public Internet. And I haven't heard of anyone else doing something like this; so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Infineon's innovative approach is something that other companies might consider as well. Christoph Liedtke, of the media relations team in the US, first spoke with me about some of these ideas last summer; he and his boss, Gerhard Zimmermann, helped develop them further. Mansi Agarwal, Christoph's assistant, has taken to the project with enthusiasm; and our media tech guru, Nick Aster, has been helping out on the infrastructure of the site. InfineonWatch.com will be a work in progress; and its success might establish a new type of communications platform/web site.

Infineon also realizes that it has an opportunity to provide our community of readers with something of value. Through its sponsorship, it has a "window" that is seen by our community. In that window, it has been publishing links to stories from publications around the world, about subjects that matter to it the most. Subjects such as automotive electronics in hybrid cars, RFID, smart cards and homeland security, and memory chip markets. This provides value, in that it highlights the best articles on those subjects; and readers can see what Infineon is watching. That communicates a lot about the culture of a company.

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April 8, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Tech Watch
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April 7, 2005

PSP-Pod? Could Sony's latest mobile gaming system beat out Apple's forthcoming multimedia "mPod"?

. . .communities of users are hacking into the PSP and creating a platform device

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher
The big question about our story on Apple's "mPod" (our pet name for it) is, what exactly would it be capable of? In his analysis, Tom argues that just as they did with music, Apple could convince Hollywood studios and production companies to entrust Apple's DRM with their precious content -- an enormous coup for Steve Jobs.

The Broadcom Alphamosaic chip that Apple has ordered is capable of video, wireless and 3D gaming. Which makes it seem an awful lot like the Sony PSP. So folks at Apple might well be looking at what's happening with the PSP these days.

The PSP contains a movie player, game system, music player, a JPG image viewer -- and most importantly, a Wifi receiver. Hmm, Wifi and video on the same device? Can you say BitTorrent? Sites like PSPCrazy, PSP 411, and 8Bit Joystick have dozens of links to tutorials on hacking the PSP.

Check out How to get iTunes DRM-protected music onto the PSP, How to read RSS on the PSP, and How to convert video for PSP viewing.

Dave Weinberger wonders how long until Sony tries to shut down this outpouring of creativity. Well, they might be unpleased to realize that Sony films are being pirated onto their very own device, but it's hard to see how one shoves the cat back in the bag.

I was particularly fascinated with the
tutorial on PSPcasting, where I learned about ANT, a video enclosure RSS reader for Mac.

When you think about podcasting, you realize that this is a totally unexpected side effect of trends not in Apple's control. The iPod became a hardware platform for network application -- without itself being a networked device. Imagine the possibilities of a networked, video-playing iPod directly running ANT. What hackers are doing right now, with difficulty, on PSP, Apple could make available to the masses.

Imagine further a development platform for the mPod. As Jake from 8Bit Joystick says:

It would be slick if Sony would allow other developers to make mini applications or plugins for the PSP via a Firmware update and a SDK. I am sure that there are plenty of software hackers that would love to put together an RSS reader, and web browser for the PSP.

To do so would not, I think, run in opposition to their coalitions with Hollywood. I still don't think that a 3.5in screen is a great way to watch feature films (although I'm impressed with the fact that the PSP screen perfectly fits the letterbox format). But consider MTV's announcement of a Web-based channel for videos and interviews. That is the perfect content for PSP/mPod.

It would be in perfect step with the "rip, mix, burn" philosophy that the Macintosh line is built on. In his ETech keynote, Larry Lessig talked about "kids writing in video," meaning the digital manipulation of media content for self-expression. Portable networked media devices are the perfect platform for that expression.

The major meme of the recent ETech conference was "remix," and Rael Dornfest pointed out that hacking is quickly moving down the food chain to average (young) consumers.

More than ever, if manufacturers do not provide the tools for self-expression, which includes sharing, the hackers will step in.

Foremski's Take: Richard has highlighted a potentially tremendous competitive advantage for Sony, should it want to take it. Our advice to Sony is leave the PSP hackers alone, let them use the device in any way they want. By the time the mPod comes out, (probably early 2006) there will be a large number of "open source" hacks and the Sony PSP community could have an unassailable momentum.

It used to be that Apple was the upstart, the iconoclast, but that image has changed a lot in recent years as the company has sought to make it very difficult to copy and "remix" protected digital content. Clearly, this has been done to assure the recording industry that Apple offers a secure DRM platform. And this will have to be the same philosophy applied to the mPod, making it far less hackable, to show Hollywood that their content will be safe.

Also, Sony has games, Apple doesn't. Microsoft has games....ah, maybe mPod could be Microsoft Pod? Microsoft won't get any DRM business because it can't safeguard its operating systems, let alone a DRM, so an alliance with Apple might make sense.

And doesn't the new Xbox use an IBM Power microprocessor? Apple Macs are Power based, and IBM has embedded Power chips available...it all starts getting very interesting.

April 7, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Analysis
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Do blogs and online forums make it easier, not harder, for companies to influence “market conversations”?

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

The blogosphere with its millions of blogs and bloggers prides itself on its iconoclastic and anti-establishment views and activities. This fragmentation of media into millions of blogs is deemed a good thing, and I agree.

But the blogosphere might not be as resistant to influence as people might believe. In fact, I could argue that the rise of blogging has made it easier than ever for corporations to target/influence people.

I came to this idea following a meeting with Doc Searls on Wednesday. We were on a panel and talking about, well, I think you can guess what we were talking about. . .

Doc is a huge name in the blogosphere because of his blog, and because he is co-author of the seminal 1999 book, Cluetrain Manifesto. Doc has a gentle humility about him and never tires to talk about the central thesis of his book, that “markets are conversations.” People talk to each other about products, services and companies, and these comprise “market conversations.”

This might seem strikingly obvious today, but Doc says that that was not the case about ten years ago, when he formulated his ideas, and when blogs were just beginning to be seen.

Yet how could anyone find out where the many millions of market conversations occur each day and what was said, in the time of Doc's blog-free world?

Now, thanks to massive amounts of blogging, many of the market conversations that were private and offline, are now on public blog sites and in the public domain and they are being tracked by a multitude of tools.

Companies can see what is being said about them and their products in the online communities, and they know where it is being said, on which sites.

And although there are more than 50m blogs, the ones that count are very few in number and they have become regular meeting places for discussions.

Therefore, it must be easier than ever for organisations to attempt to influence those now very public “market conversations” because they are grouped together, rather than fragmented into the normal daily noise of society.

April 7, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Media Watch
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April 6, 2005

[news analysis] Could a multimedia iPod allow Apple to dominate movie and TV online sales?

...Microsoft and Sony move to block Apple's ambitions

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

>Apple’s next moves in the consumer digital space are strikingly obvious—build out its iPod family and add high-end models that can display video and offer wireless connectivity of various types.

Apple’s forthcoming multimedia iPod (let’s call it mPod for now) will be based, we understand, on the latest Broadcom Alphamosaic chip. But the specifications of the device itself are far less interesting than what could be done with it from the user perspective, and from the business models Apple can build around it.

In the same way that iTunes, Apple’s online music store, provided a large selection of paid-for music content, Apple now has the opportunity, and formidable task, of persuading movie and TV studios to allow Apple to sell their digital content through online stores.

If Steve Jobs succeeds, Apple will own the keys to the digital entertainment kingdom; because the company that has the dominant digital rights management (DRM) technology becomes an extremely important gatekeeper.

The DRM is pivotal, because this is what protects content, sets permissions, tracks usage, and is the payment mechanism for digital content of all kinds.

You can see the blocking moves in the market.

Last week, Sony said it would create an “iTunes for Hollywood.” And Microsoft launched a service to download and play TV shows on portable devices.

Bill Gates has been gunning for that sweet spot in DRM for years. But Hollywood won’t let it happen; it won’t let a company that has been found guilty of monopolistic business activities own the DRM. It won’t happen.

Will the movie industry allow Apple to establish the dominant DRM?

It might not have a choice if Jobs can sign up enough studios and TV production companies, and if he is making money for them. And you can only view/access the content through Apple products. Sweet, very sweet.
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April 6, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag:
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April 5, 2005

Scoop! Brit chip designers score coup as Apple picks chips for next gen mobile multimedia device...the m-Pod?

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

A British team of chip designers has won one of the most coveted of customers in the chip industry--Apple Computer. SiliconValleyWatcher has learned that Apple has contracted to use the powerful video, image, and music chips designed by Alphamosaic, in Cambridge, UK, in a future multimedia mobile device.

While the kudos goes to the Alphamosaic teams, the money from the deal goes to Broadcom, the US communication chips leader. Broadcom acquired the 57 person Alphamosaic for about $125m in September 2004.

v-Pod or m-Pod?

The branding for the Apple multimedia product is not yet known. Looking at the public specifications describing the Alphamosaic chips, it is clear that Apple could use it to build a family of mobile hand-held digital devices equipped with wireless communications that would be far more advanced than its current iPod family.

From press release dated September 20, 2004:

Building on the success of the VC01, Alphamosaic is now sampling VC02, the world's most advanced mobile multimedia processor. The VC02 can display video on 3.5 inch color LCDs and capture 8 megapixel images, making it ideal for watching TV, making videos or taking studio-quality photos on a cellphone.

The Apple device could be ready in volume quantities by the end of 2005 or early January 2006 if Apple gets the ball rolling now. CEO Steve Jobs often debuts important new products at the MacWorld show in San Francisco in early January.

Broadcom says the chip uses very small amounts of battery power and "excels in high-quality 3D graphics performance with the capability to support pixel shading and volumetric lighting with low power consumption, making it ideal for use in mobile gaming applications and comparable in performance to home consoles."

Plus it can be integrated with cell phone chips from Broadcom.

Apple could use the chips to produce a multimedia iPod that is also a gaming platform, 8 megapixel digital camera, digital video recorder, and cell phone (with Bluetooth and wireless Ethernet). But that is unlikely because of the interface complexity of a multi-function digital device.

Instead, Apple could use Alphamosaic chips as the common core of a family of iPod devices that could include camera, gaming and wireless connectivity products/features. This would provide a common development platform for applications that run across the family of Alphamosaic-based iPods.
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April 5, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Tech Watch
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The emperor has no clothes, just a box of cookies

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

A few weeks back, Jupiter Research released a study that found, shockingly, that users are deleting cookies at such high levels that web measurement is in danger of being a pointless exercise. The report, "Measuring Unique Visitors: Addressing the Dramatic Decline in Accuracy of Cookie-Based Measurement" by Eric Peterson, was met with howls of derision and disbelief. Now, Peterson writes on his blog, Nielsen/NetRatings has corraborating research.

The Jupiter report found that:

• 17 percent of consumers delete cookies weekly, 12 percent monthly, and 10 percent daily -- behavior that "cripples sites’ ability to track users and make critical marketing measurements."
  
• 58 percent of users run antispyware software (which deletes cookies), 56% clear cache (which contains cookies), and 52% manually delete cookies -- making for a "grim outlook" for technology that uses cookies to track behavior.
  

Nielsen/NetTracker found that cookie deletion rates vary from 7% to 50%, according to site; and that deletions of cookies from Google come in at 25%. Operating from the assumption that more technically sophisticated users would be more able and likely to delete cookies, he writes:

If Google, a site used by a fairly generic audience based on their over 40% reach and overall popularity, suffers from cookie deletion at a rate of 25%, what might be going on at a site more geared towards technical sophisticates like PCWorld.com, Financial Times or the CNET family of sites?

The Nielsen study used a direct reporting mechanism by running software on subject's PCs, rather than survey sampling.
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April 5, 2005 | Permalink | Tag:
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April 4, 2005

Google wants your video

At the big cable conference in SF today, Google cofounder Larry Page said the search company plans to put out a call for personal video clips. "We're going to start taking video submissions from people," Reuters quoted Page as saying in his speech. This would be a part of Google Video, a search service that displays stills and closed caption text from broadcast video.

The announcement comes on the heels of the launch of OurMedia.org, cofounded by Marc Canter and JD Lasica, a nonprofit organization dedicated to allowing individuals to create, distribute and market their original content. So will OurMedia gain traction if Google is ready to become the free video hosting and search archive?

April 4, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Tech Watch
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Are bloggers journalists? San Francisco Says Yes

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

San Francisco will tomorrow become the first jurisdiction in the country to declare that bloggers should be treated no differently than traditional media. That's what the San Francisco City Attorney will state at a meeting of the city's Board of Supervisors. The Board is considering an amendment to the city ordinance that would require full disclosure of who is paying for political messages.

The proposed language exempts "news stories, commentaries or editorials distributed through any newspaper, radio station, television station or other recognized news medium" unless the medium is "owned or controlled" by a candidate, political party or committee.

So are blogs a "recognized news medium?" Yes, the City Attorney will say at the Supervisors' meeting tomorrow. What's not clear is whether independent individuals who are paid to do partisan blogging would fall under the press exemption. For instance, would a campaign consultant be able to blog without disclosure? What if he or she were not being paid directly by a campaign, party or committe? What if someone were being paid for technical consulting and was "volunteering" to publish dirt on the opposition? I couldn't reach the City Attorney's office for comment.

The question of whether blogs are media erupted recently in the case of Apple v Does, in which Cupertino-based Apple is trying to compel online news sites to reveal their sources for reporting that revealed technical data about unreleased products. In a preliminary ruling, the judge in the case cast doubt on whether the blogs in question had standing as legitimate news sources.

While the final ruling in that case applied to all media, it's still unclear what standing bloggers have. San Francisco's statement could impact media-related court cases adjudicated in the city.

This story first came to our attention (via the Blog Herald) from a post on Personal Democracy Forum by Michael Bassik, vice president for Internet advertising at Malchow Schlackman Hoppey & Cooper, the self-described "leading political direct mail and online advertising firm in America.

In his post Bassik claimed that the proposed amendment would require "local bloggers to register with the city Ethics Commission and report all blog-related costs that exceed $1,000 in the aggregate."

"Blogs that mention candidates for local office that receive more than 500 hits will be forced to pay a registration fee and will be subject to website traffic audits," he wrote, citing Chad Jacobs, a lawyer in the City Attorney's office.

That's simply wrong, said Greg Asay, legislative assistant to Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, who sponosred the amendment. He suggested this is a "red herring" being spread by anti-disclosure sources.

Bassik, whom I reached by cell phone in New York, said that the city attorney's announcement represents a "huge victory. Before this, it was not clear whether they were going to include blogs in the press exemption."

Bassik emphasized that while the San Francisco announcement is a first, the public should pay close attention to rules proposed by the FEC on March 24 on when blogs should be considered press, volunteers, or paid consultants. There 60-day comment period on the proposed rules, dating from March 24.

April 4, 2005 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Media Watch
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April 1, 2005

Podcast of Urchin interview

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Here is the podcast of my interview with Eric Peterson of Jupiter about Google's purchase of Urchin.

April 1, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Web Analytics
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Mark Jen, fired Google blogger, helps Plaxo draft a blogging policy

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher
Bloggers with jobs were all a twitter when Mark Jen, the "Google blogger," was fired from his job because he posted some complaints about Google's compensation package, compared to his previous employer Microsoft. Mark has landed at Plaxo, a privately held company that offers electronic address book updating services.

Mark is taking the lead on drafting a blogging policy for Plaxo, the current draft of which has been released for public comment. "We want community comment," Mark told me in a phone call. "One of the draws of blogging is to connect directly to the community and open lines of communication. If companies want to use our policy or modify it, that's great."

Plaxo's policy supports blogging but takes clear steps to protect the company against communication that might cast the company in a bad light. For instance, the policy says, "We expect and insist that such communication does not substantively demean our environment. This means that constructive criticism — both privately and publicly — is welcome, but harsh or continuous disparagement is frowned upon."

Mark says that he and Plaxo management both realized the need for a formal policy, something he learned the hard way at Google. "After the incident I became aware of the issues involved in blogging in a corporate setting. You need sensitivity to corporate culture and climate."

In the blogosphere, Mark said, information travels in a "very interesting way" -- it can move extremely quickly or be completely forgotten. "Personally, I treat my writing as if my identity is blended into my employer's. I try to remember that it's known who I work for," Mark said. "Even if people don't disclose who they work for, that information isn't hard to come by."

Companies shouldn't be afraid of blogging, though, Mark cautions. It's an extremely powerful way of connecting with customers and partners. "Businesses can aggregate information across blogs and learn what customers are thinking."

April 1, 2005 | Permalink | Tag: Mediasphere
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SPONSORWATCH TIBCO TIBCO's First Hardware Delivers Quantum Leap Performance – Changing the Game for Enterprise IT TIBCO Positioned as a Leader for SOA Governance in 2009 Magic Quadrant TIBCO Contributes General Interface to the Open Source Community Comments Ike on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing Allow me to (uninvited) clarify a piece of Tom's thesis. Conversations are interactive for the participants, and are held solely for the participants. A conversation that is held for the benefit of a non-participating audience becomes *something else*. People don't talk with each other in front of an audience the same way they would if they were alone. If you advertised that Tom Foremski, Robert Scoble and Andrew Keen were going to have a conversation about online inte Tom Foremski on 10 Basic Digital Publishing Skills Journalists/Anyone Should Know... Yes, you can change the video size to whatever you'd like. Just take a look at the embedd code. Cog on 10 Basic Digital Publishing Skills Journalists/Anyone Should Know... I think I would pass almost all of them, but how do you resize a youtube or other embedded video to fit a web page's size? I know you have to keep the dimensions proportional, but can you just change the height and width, or is there something else you have to follow? Mike on Startups In LA... Building The West Coast Corridor Of Innovation - 1400 miles Long There is no place like the West Coast for innovation Sandy Kotch on Startups In LA... Building The West Coast Corridor Of Innovation - 1400 miles Long I love the feeling of innovation for 1400 miles- that is the West Coast! Having moved from San Francisco to Santa Monica in the late 90s and being in start-up modes with companies for a majority of that time, it is great to confirm my true feelings all along - that we are in the innovative crux: California! Couldn't agree more that the creative energy in LA is bound to drive the technology here, it is a great place to be - although often expensive to do business! Tom Foremski on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing David: I don't think the problem is finding a new term for a stilted conversation, but that 'conversation' is misleading when applied to social media because it's about something that is much more exciting and amazing. Conversation is a red herring when it comes to understanding this next phase of the Internet... David Shantz on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing I beleive that the nomenclatures may be what's failing us. None of our current lexicon really fits exactly: A CONVERSATION is really an exchange of ideas, with each response being dependant on the other and with the overall context... A DISCOURSE is more of a formal debate. PUBLICATION is as you say, to make content available publicly (but seems not to have enough emphasis on exhange) Perhaps we need a new word. "Publicly sharing an idea that is Doug Millison on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing I enjoyed reading this. McLuhan is worth re-reading, especially his book THE MECHANICAL BRIDE. Digital media are bringing us back to something like the manuscript era, where readers were usually writers who compiled their own books. Now we're creating & compiling our own "books" -- sometimes we call them "blogs" -- by mixing text & image & sound/music online. My "prose+comics scrapbook" format makes this explicit & ushers in a new, interactive scribal epoque, as we let readers become co-cr Bud Gibson on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing I agree with your bounds on what constitutes non-conversation, but somewhere in between is conversation. Ten to fifteen comments is often quite interactive. There are also side conversations that can happen in those large comment streams you mention. I've particularly seen this in some buzz threads. Another small point of contention: you're using a term, publishing, which is increasingly becoming archaic. I tend to think of it as having been replaced by three distinct activities: Seth Grimes on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing Personally, I think "conversation" works quite nicely, but I'd guess I'd define "conversation" more expansively than you do. Actually, I kind of like the WordNet definition: "the use of speech for informal exchange of views or ideas or information etc." (http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=conversation), which fits what we're doing on/with social media. In any case, I wouldn't get hung up on conversation/publication. Isn't the point that social media supports both back-and-f Dave Kellogg on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing I love the McLuhan quote. If you read the comment streams on blogs, it's usually not a conversation. It's usually what an old boss of mine used to call "parallel independent conversations" which is very much in line with the notion of two-way publishing. Chris Dymond on Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing Question for me is: is it sufficient and to the greatest benefit for legal frameworks to simply consider social media as publishing, or should they adapt to consider a new category - something like a 'permanent conversation'? In other words should it hold people accountable in the same way it does when the act of publishing and hence the motivations of the publisher are clear? Seems to me that the normative effect of maintaining that legal stance will be to force a change in behaviou Andrew on Farmville valued $1B More Than Twitter By The Smart Money The Microsoft deal with Facebook included an advertising deal--the $240M was for a share of the company and for the ad deal. Thus, saying they bought at a valuation of $15B is significantly inaccurate. Tom Foremski on Tech Giants Struggle With Copy And Paste... George, sarcasm sometimes gets lost in translation, my apologies. Daphne on Analysis: Could $GOOG Face Problems Outside Of China For Its Opposition To Chinese Government? The Chinese governement has this stigma attached to it, basically don't mess with them. If google is mad enough to take them on, I wouldn't put it past them buying google and sacking the moron who made the decision. George on Tech Giants Struggle With Copy And Paste... And that significant lead will result from...adding something Apple has already added? And that make sense to you? Steve "@PodcastSteve" Lubetkin on Dirty Little Secrets: Social Media Is Terrible At Promoting Products Tom, you and I are of the same mind on this. I am so tired of reading blogs or listening to podcasts or watching video embeds about social media people using social media to talk about social media. I really want to hear about specific business uses of social media. As I've said frequently, we need to remember that these tools are just communications channels, and we'll all be better off when we reach that day when it will sound really silly to hear a news headline like "Tom Foremski used Twi Tom Nocera on Analysis: Financial Times Says GOOG Has Detailed Plans To Close China Search An excellent analysis, Tom Foremski. I think there could be a great long term benefit for Google by its foray into China. By the timing of its very prominent presence there, coming during the great boom in Internet usage and awareness, Google's retreat, may become a kind of catalyst in the long term memories of tech savvy Chinese...the leaders of tomorrow. I forecast a triumphant return for Google one day, and it will be without the curse of censorship which only helps governments to contro Jonathan Mendez on Why Ad Networks And Exchanges Will Never Help Publishers Great post. I believe publishers can have advertising supported businesses. In fact I don't think that's debatable. First though they need better tools to leverage their audience data and their own ad matching systems. Essentially they need to build a new improved display channel. New pub controlled networks could then emerge that would crush the performance of what exists today. Then all the margin eating middle men would vanish and both ends of the transaction get yet more value from the m Tom Foremski on Is the Future Of News Dependent On The Generosity Of Billionaire Philanthropists? Eric, What's wrong with making a reasonable profit as a news organization? I agree with you that there is a race to the bottom going on because the econopmics of online news continue to worsen. At some point, we have to figure out how to reward news organizations doing a good job otherwise we are in serious trouble as a society. That's what I would like to see Mr Hellman's money go towards -- figuring out a solution to one of the most difficult problems we have. There's not SVW RSS Feed - One daily update by email - Subscribe to SVW Rooster Newsletter! Also: Keep up with breaking Silicon Valley and US tech news with our RSS pre-loaded SVWatcher News Toolbar. It's fast, easy on or off, and it saves a lot of clicks: SVWatcher Newsbar Silicon Valley Watcher--reporting on the business and culture of innovation. Sponsored by Tibco Software, Intel and Edelman © Silicon Valley Watcher 2004, 2005, 2006. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-noDerivs 2.5.Details of license.