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October 2006 Archives

October 31, 2006

Tuesday Newswatch: Microsoft meets PHP, Cisco slammed at net forum, new frontiers for women in tech

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Microsoft, Zend hook up for PHP

Microsoft has committed to a long-term partnership with Zend, a commercial developer of PHP products, Reuters reports. The deal is intended to improve PHP's performance on Windows servers.

"PHP has always worked on Windows. The problem is that it never performed very well," Andi Gutmans, Zend's co-founder and chief technology officer, said. The deal will result in technical improvements to PHP, which will be offered to open source developers in early 2007.

The move shows that open source has won the battle for web scripting. The real battle is over the operating system. Rather than demanding that customers use all Microsoft products, Redmond is signaling that it can accommodate customers' needs. If shops can get PHP running as well on Windows as Linux, why take on the hassle of running multiple operating systems? "Microsoft is giving corporate software developers one more reason not to choose Linux," said Gartner Inc. analyst Mark Driver.

RSF accuses Cisco of colluding with China

Addressing the World Internet Forum in Athens, Reporters Sans Frontieres accused Internet companies of participating in China's repression of free speech. Cisco especially was singled out for providing routers that allow the Chinese government to monitor and shut off traffic, Reuters reports.

"We sold the same equipment we sell in any country around the world," Art Reilly, Cisco's Senior Director for Strategic Technology Policy said at the forum. "We are selling the same product everywhere. We are not colluding with any government."
He said Cisco technology sold to China would allow a secure information flow. "It is essential that there has to be security..to provide security to allow the freeflow of information. It is the same technology for libraries for example".

RSF's Julien Paine called for a ban on "the sale of communication surveillance equipment to repressive countries."

Women in Technology is back in the Valley

In the aftermath of dot-bomb, Women in Technology International went $1 million in debt, lost thousands of members and even closed its SiliconValley branch. As it meets in Santa Clara this week, though, WITI is back - though with a more focused mission, the Mercury News reports.

``WITI has shifted from the issue of diversity and human resources to things that are important to business executives,'' said Cheemin Bo-Linn, IBM's director of worldwide marketing. ``It's getting more focused on how it can help corporations grow.''

But for some at the conference, it was more like Women without Technology, as there was no wireless access in the meeting halls. If they want to reach out to young women, that's a awfully stupid oversight.

Google buys JotSpot

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Google has acquired JotSpot, the Wiki-based groupware company founded by former Excite CEO Joe Kraus. On his blog, Kraus gushes that Google and Jot share a vision of "groups of people creating, managing and sharing information online."

when we had conversations with people at Google we found ourselves completing each other's sentences. Joining Google allows us to plug into the resources that only a company of Google's scale can offer, like a huge audience, access to world-class data centers and a team of incredibly smart people.

SVW hooked up with Kraus back in February 2005, when he had this comment: "Google reminds me a lot of Microsoft in 1987, everybody is trying to second-guess where Google is heading and trying to keep out of the way." So Joe won't have to second-guess anymore but he's probably smiling more.

October 30, 2006

Kultur Shock: Hello! ween Part 2

By Maria Mouk for Silicon Valley Watcher

Halloween has yet to arrive, but Tuesday(October 31st) will be costume number 3 for many. I do feel an extended vacation in the air and am only glad to prolong liberating moments such as these... costumes, parties, and more costumes.

If you're hoping to avoid the crowds of Halloween in the Castro, head over to see BatBoy the Musical, at the School of the Arts Theater. It'll having you smiling at worst. :)

Seems like mischievious Halloween spirits spread far and wide... even to the art world where pranksters have "decorated", (no serious damage, I'd say) Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito’s “Passage” sculpture on San Francisco’s Embarcadero at Pier 14. This incident follows another recent “bong & lighter prank”.

If 10 tons of steel can get seasonally adorned, you can find inspiration enough to attend one of the happenings on Hallow's eve.

The Extra Action Marching Band has returned to perform (after an extended hiatus:( ) at their big “Scary Halloween Bash" (12 Galaxies in San Francisco). They will be performing Black Sabbath’s First Album which is sure to get you roaring. Sour Mash Hug Band and Live Human open the show.

Alternately, hit the DNA Lounge, for their Halloween Extravaganza, with the musical talents of Rosin Coven, burlesquin of Creepshow Peepshow, Living Dead Girlz, a ton of DJ's, and a $1000 costume contest.

I also suggest stopping by the Manifesto Gathering fundraiser at Obscura Digital for local flavor with an extended cause. El Papachango, Shawna, Adam Ohana, Boreta, Kitty-D, Abai, Freek Factory's Haj, and Mozaic will be repping with promised surprises. The event is a fundraiser for an intended gathering December 5th thru December 12th on the Finca Otra Vista Farm, on the Nicoya Peninsula, in MalPais, Costa Rica. (sigh) Heaven.

Raise the bar on what you'd normally do. We are human. Engage the exploration of our potential. Happy frollicking!

[diggrz refers to the nomadic lifestyle offered by mobile digital technologies and gadgets - creating a "nomadig" culture. The diggrz name is also a tip-of-the-hat to some of the ideas of the Diggers, a democratic group that arose in 1649, out of the English revolution .

The Diggers were a radical group that cultivated and protected common lands, and sought to create egalitarian, self-sustaining communities. The Diggers would have found kindred spirits in today's software engineer culture, and the focus on creating commonly owned technologies through egalitarian open source community projects. - Tom Foremski]

Tag: diggrz

Monday Newswatch: Brightcove ad network, Seagate encryption drive, Monitor 110 raises $11mn

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Brightcove Network

Brightcove launched video content and advertsing networks, offering websites a range of tools to create "channels" while taking a 50% cut of advertising that runs. (press release and News.com story.

Web sites select the services they want--ad placement in videos, a virtual video store, etc.--from a click menu on the Internet Protocol TV specialist's network. For example, a news site on extreme sports could get a feed on foreign surf competitions from an established news agency like Reuters, resell or syndicate its own clips to online outdoor-clothing merchants, and put ads in the videos it produces.

Monitor110 raises $11mn

Monitor 110, the web buzz service for the financial industry has raised $11mn in Series C funding led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. TechCrunch reports that the company has been working with just 10 hedge funds but will increase to 20 in January.

Self-encypting hard drive

Seagate Technology has developed a hard drive with built-in encryption, which it will start selling in early 2007, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The heart of the new hardware-based system is a special chip. That chip, built into the drive, will serve to encode and decode all data traveling to or from the disk, he said.
This encrypted drive will be installed in the laptop by the manufacturer. Once the user takes possession of the machine, the user or a system administrator will have to create a password in order to use the computer.

Despicable behavior by Yahoo management - Shi Tao gets ten years

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

From the London-based The Independent:

CHINA
Published state secrets
Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison after "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities."
His crime was to have emailed details of the Chinese government's plans to handle news coverage of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 2004. Yahoo! provided crucial information in the case, linking the message and email account with Shi 's computer. Reporters Without Borders accused Yahoo! of acting as a "police informant."

This kind of behavior will not fly. Yahoo management made a serious error in judgement and so has that of Google, which also hands over such information to Chinese and other government authorities. Both companies could "launder" their data before they receive it, and thus have nothing to turn over.

Both companies always assure us that any data collected is not identifiable and that they are only interested in aggregated behavioral data. It's time to prove it.

The revolt will come from within Yahoo's and Google's own ranks. How does it feel to work for a "police informant" for the Chinese government?

The revolt from the rank and file is already happening. Watch this space for more details.

And how long before users of Yahoo or Google services switch to more ethical service providers? On the Internet, other services are just a click away...

Social causes are becoming extremely important in recruiting and retaining people. As competition for key staff rises, the determining factor will not be money or stock options, it will be ethics.

What use is money and stock options if you work for a company that does not act in a socially responsible way? Yahoo and Google can have their cake and eat it. They can comply with police authorities in other countries and make sure that they do not enable repression, oppression, or supression of political dissent.

They have the technology and the means to collect user data without identifiable data. It's as simple as that.

October 29, 2006

Part 2: A passage to India . . . the stately New Delhi

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher in New Delhi.

[This is an account of my first trip to India, traveling as a guest of Tibco Software, an SVW sponsor. Vivek Ranadive, CEO of Tibco, is launching his business IT strategy book, "The Power to Predict," in India and he invited me to come along as he meets with politicians and some of India's top business and technology leaders. Part 1 is here.]

New Delhi is a government city, at least for now. Broad boulevards and grand government buildings seem to be everywhere. And civil servants sit outside in circles having lunch on the expansive lawns. It is a city of 14mn people but I have no idea where they live, clearly not in the British colonial palaces in the part of the city where I am staying.

Humayun Tomb inspired Taj Mahal - World Heritage site - photo T. Foremski

I take a guided tour of the city's sights during the day. The weather is warm and humid but not oppressively hot. I'm told by my guide that this is a good time of the year to visit India.

Delhi and Rome share the distinction of being the only two cities that have been inhabited for more than 2,000 years.

Qutb Minar site of first Moslem Mosque in India - World Heritage site photo: T. Foremski

Delhi is moving away from its dominance by government agencies and is building a large IT business park in its suburbs. Already, there are many US IT companies represented in India's capital city and more are expected. Bangalore, the well known Indian high-tech center is about a two-hour flight south of Delhi, closer to Mumbai (Bombay).

In the evening we head out to the Sheraton hotel, about 15 minutes away, where Vivek Ranadive, the CEO of Tibco, is due to give a keynote speech at the Dataquest India IT awards reception and dinner.

The Sheraton is teaming with men in suits as we walk along the corridor and into a cavernous, dark room and sit and watch the stage. Various awards are given for achievements in IT.

Mr Ranadive gets up and gives his speech. He talks about how he started life as a hardware engineer but got fed up with software continually lagging hardware. He spoke about how he started his first software company, making a presentation to Goldman Sachs and winning his first customer.

He explains how IT has been database-driven for many years and how this led to an "architecture of extortion" because it requires expensive consultants and processes to manage. And now the future of IT needs to be services-driven, through a services oriented architecture (SOA) as a way to escape the "extortion" of the old IT order.

With SOA, corporations can move beyond real-time processing of business data and tap into historical analysis to predict strains on their IT systems, to predict which customers need services that will keep them customers. The historical data can trigger business processes in real-time. It's all part of his predictive enterprise concept that is explained in his book, "The Power to Predict."

There is lots of applause and then the rest of the awards ceremony continues. It is soon over and we skip the dinner and head back to our hotel.

Next: Part 3: Private jet to teeming Mumbai as Vivek Ranadive returns to his home town, and a CIO magazine dinner with CIOs from India's largest corporations - India Inc. Part 1 is here.

October 27, 2006

Google's nonexistent YouTube problem

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Law professor Tim Wu explains on Slate why all that copyright material on YouTube is really no problem at all for Google, deep pockets or no. It's simply not a problem because of the "safe harbor" provision of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which protects online providers from liability for user-posted infringements.

Under the DMCA, so long as a provider responds to notice of an infringement from the copyright holder, there is no liability - unless the provider was already aware the infringing content was there. Wu explains:

Companies are now protected by a "notice and take down" system when they host user content. That means that if Jon Stewart notices an infringing copy of The Daily Show on YouTube, Comedy Central can write a letter to YouTube and demand it be taken down. Then, so long as YouTube acts "expeditiously" and so long as YouTube wasn't already aware that the material was there, YouTube is in the clear. In legal jargon, YouTube is in a "safe harbor." Earlier this week, when YouTube took down 30,000 files after requests from a Japanese authors' group, that was §512(c) in action.

This "safe harbor" provision came into being in the early 90s when the headlines were filled with promised of the "Information Superhighway." Hollywood's Jack Valenti was pushing for a law that would make providers fully liable for any copyright violation, whether they knew about it or not. That spurned the Baby Bells into action and the safe harbor clause (§512(c) of the DMCA) is the result.

But Wu's most interesting point is that Hollywood is not furiously lobbying to get rid of the provision; Hollywood actually loves safe harbor.

The notice-and-takedown system gives content owners the twin advantages of exposure and control. When stuff is on YouTube, the owners have an option. They can leave it posted there, if they want people to see it, and build buzz. But they can also snap their fingers and bring it all down. And for someone who is juggling her desire for publicity against her need for control, that's ultimately a nice arrangement.

YouTube's strategy is actually designed to take advantage of Hollywood's hatred for piracy in any form and its love of free publicity. By cutting deals to allow companies to advertise on their own content posted by users, they get to ride on the viral marketing of YouTube's post-and-share culture while monetizing the eyeballs. (I wrote about this shift in attitudes towards copyright violation here).

But in reaching out to Hollywood, YouTube has trumpeted a new program that allows them to search and identify copyrighted content. The plan is to alert the copyright holders to the content and allow them to request its removal or play ball and find a way to exploit its presence on the site. By running a program that tells YouTube about infringing content it is limiting its own safe harbor claims. And since YouTube can build it, the expectation will be that anyone can build it. Thus, there is no excuse for not knowing about infringing content and the safe harbor defense may be whittled away.

At least that's one way it could go. Since Google is so interested in pushing the envelope on copyright law, they should watch out that they don't push away their own interests in the current law. Technology really is a double-edged sword.

October 26, 2006

Liberal bloggers drop a Google bomb

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

In a "fascinatingly evil" plot - as one conservative blogger puts it - liberal blogger Chris Bowers has hatched a plot to "Google bomb" 50 Republican candidates by mounting a concerted effort to link to negative articles about them, thus driving those articles to the top of Google's search results.

For example, Googling "Clay Shaw" - a Florida Republican House member - returns in the #7 spot US News article on the representative's difficulties in light of the Mark Foley scandal. (It would be ranked higher if you ignored links to the other Clay Shaw, who was tried for the assassination of JFK.)

That's because bloggers at MyDD.com have been intentionally pointing to that article in their blogs in a concerted effort to play Google's ranking system. It appears to be working. On a ranking page posted today, Bowers reports on how the effort is going. It's not a total success but it's definitely having an impact on the search results.

The New York Times covered the story today, so Bowers' pages are getting a traffic boost of their own, which might inspire even more bloggers to join the effort.

The project was originally aimed at 70 Republican candidates but was scaled back to roughly 50 because Chris Bowers, who conceived it, thought some of the negative articles too partisan.
The articles to be used “had to come from news sources that would be widely trusted in the given district,” said Mr. Bowers, a contributor at MyDD.com (Direct Democracy), a liberal group blog. “We wanted actual news reports so it would be clear that we weren’t making anything up.”

Bowers also conceived of launching an AdWords campaign to promote those articles, but that part of the campaign will likely not happen due to time constraints.

The Times points out that it would be much harder to pull this off on, say, John McCain, because so many articles reference him. But for more obscure candidates like Shaw or Arizona's "other senator" Jon Kyl, the Google Bomb effect may be potent. Here's Bowers' advice to his coconspirators:

We've got to have the candidate's name in the title.
Probably, we should google the name in the first place and choose something that comes up in the first 15-20 pages.
We should choose articles with local resonance. The articles can also have national focus, but they absolutely should be local.
We need to be conscious of shared/common names. Charles Taylor and Peter King are names shared by lots of noteworthy people, all the more reason to find a preexistingly popular article.
If we do this again in 2008, we should start early, expand the field, and introduce articles on a rolling basis before dropping the complete list a few weeks ahead of the election.

October 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Part 1: A Passage to India . . . My Travels with Tibco

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher in New Delhi.

[This is an account of my first trip to India,  traveling as a guest of Tibco Software, an SVW sponsor. Vivek Ranadive, the CEO of Tibco is launching his business IT strategy book "The Power to Predict" in India, and he invited me to come along as he meets with politicians and some of India's top business and technology leaders.]

We're about to land in New Delhi when suddenly the engines of the huge American Airlines 777 rise to a roar and I'm pushed back into my seat as we gain speed and altitude.

The captain's voice is calm, "We decided to abort the landing to get out of a bad situation. We'll be taking the approach again and we'll be landing in about ten minutes."

This time the landing proceeds smoothly and I walk out of the high-tech transport and into a dowdy, provincial looking airport with threadbare carpets and walls covered with a patina of neglect. It reminds me of Warsaw airport circa 1977, before the economic changes that transformed Poland into a modern country.

Even the roads leading from the airport are similar to pre-capitalist Warsaw, with small, ancient looking cars, traveling over narrow roads with broken paving.

The analogy with Poland is an apt one but clearly on a much different scale. Poland's programmers routinely win top international competitions and India's programmers are helping to win big outsourcing contracts for the domestic IT companies--all part of a transformation of a country from a planned economy to the wild, wild west of a capitalist economy.

And while India's infrastructure is lagging its tech prowess, its IT companies are not laggards in terms of their ambitions to make their mark on a global scale. Infosys and Wipro are India's largest and best known IT companies but these are just a tip of an iceberg that I hope to find out more about on this trip.

As our driver patiently negotiates through traffic that considers lane markings as a suggestion--rather than a rule--I can see the night-time air is filled with a smoke-like haze. I'm told it is from all the two-stroke engines that are popular in many parts of Asia. I think to myself that the smog is probably good for slowing global warming by reflecting sunlight back into space but at what cost to human lungs?

It takes about 30 minutes to reach The Oberoi Hotel, a luxury resort with its own golf course close to the center of New Delhi. We pass through a security checkpoint that inspects the underside of the car, and there are security guards stationed all along the driveway that leads to the lobby entrance.

Check-in is quick and the receptionist and a porter and a butler, form an entourage that escorts me to my room. I take a quick shower and head back down to the lobby to meet with my Tibco hosts at an Italian restaurant inside the hotel.

It's interesting that we are eating Italian rather than Indian food but I'm not complaining about the quality, which is excellent. I hear a bit more about the schedule for the week-long trip. This includes a big IT awards dinner organized by Dataquest India, a flight to Bombay, a visit to the massive Infosys campus with 15,000 staff, and a visit to Tibco's India HQ in Pune, plus interviews with TV, radio, and newspapers.

Ram Menon, executive Vice President, Worldwide Marketing for Tibco meets us for dinner while Vivek skips the food so that he can work out in the gym. Ram lives in Silicon Valley with his American wife and five year old son and is very American.

Ram was raised in India in a British colonial tradition. His family owns a plantation and he was  sent to boarding school when he was just 5 1/2 years old, and educated in India's top private schools. He knows many of India's business leaders because of his old school tie connections.

He tells me about all the changes he's seen in India, and the booming real estate and business markets of the past few years. He says that more recently, Indian companies have been teaming up with large private equity firms, which has fueled an M&A boom enabling them to acquire large foreign companies.

He says it all reminds him of the 1999 era dotcom boom days, and that the newspapers and the rest of India's media, are covering the trend with an uncritical eye--similar to our dotcom boom period.

It was interesting hearing about the private equity funds. On the flight over I had read the excellent BusinessWeek cover story on the corporate "gluttony" of US private equity firms and the potential problems they are causing.

The BusinessWeek article noted that it used to take five or more years for private equity firms to turn around companies and then IPO them. Now, some of them are flipping companies in less than a year. Plus, they make the companies take on massive debt so that they can award themselves huge dividends--and large consulting/management fees.

BusinessWeek said the companies are leaner and meaner, but are saddled with large debt loads that will make it more difficult for some of them to survive periods of market weakness--with shareholders and employees the ones that ultimately suffer.

When I awoke the next morning, the lead story in India's top financial newspaper, The Economic Times, announced that US private equity funds were behind plans to IPO Genpact, a large Indian BPO (business process outsourcing) company.

The deal could raise more than $1bn which would become "India's biggest listing in the US." The newspaper said that the private equity firms are likely to earn five times their initial investment made just two years ago.

It made me wonder if the booming Indian IT/BPO sector could be harmed in the future, if private equity firms were to engage in the types of excesses described in the BusinessWeek article. A slowdown in US and European outsourcing could be disastrous for some Indian companies carrying large debts because of their M&A and IPO financing.

Indian companies tend to be large conglomerates, active in several very different industries, not just tech. While this can be seen as offering a protective effect by spreading risk, it could also lead to a knock-on effect that could impact India's non-tech sectors in the event of a tech melt-down.

The Indian media would do well to take notice of our dotcom dotbomb experience and offer a critical analysis of big deals, especially those involving large private equity firms.

October 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Sponsor Watch
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Thursday Newswatch: Ellison trying to crush RedHat? NewsCorp cash hard to Digg up.

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher.com

Digging for sell-out cash

Digg has been trying to dig up some gold from News Corp and several other suitors, TechCrunch says. But while there's been interest, none of it has reached the level that the Diggers think it's worth, about $150mn. Thus the SF company will probably opt for $5mn or so in second round money from Greylock Partners, already a Digg investor.
Ellison plays hardball with Redhat
At OracleWorld yesterday, Larry Ellison said it would undercut RedHat at its own game - offering maintenance services to RedHat customers for less than the Linux vendor charges, AP reports.
And not undercut a little bit. Undercut as in 50 percent discounts. RedHat's stock plunged on the news. At this writing, RedHat stock is down 26 percent from yesterday's close. Now the question is: Is RedHat ripe for a takeover? Not Oracle's intention, Ellison deadpanned:
"I don't think this will kill Red Hat. This is capitalism. We are competing."

Analyst Trip Chowdhry says IBM is a more likely suitor than Oracle. Ellison's move could cut RedHat's revenue by $40 million to $50 million annually. With total revenue of $278mn last year, no way Red Hat can swallow that loss. Still, RedHat CEO Matthew Szulik spun furiously:
"There are always concerns, but keep in mind that Oracle ... acknowledged that Red Hat is the technical leader in the market," Szulik said. "We still have a rich product pipeline. We will compete."

Apparently RedHat's purchase of JBoss for $350mn and talk about software as commodity pissed Ellison off. Said consultant Josh Greenbaum: "Larry plays a hardball game. This shows he hasn't lost his touch for savvy moves or drama."
October 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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BT buys Schneier's Counterpane

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Counterpane Internet Security - computer security and encryption expert Bruce Schneier's firm - has been acquired by British Telecom for an undisclosed sum, according to the BBC. Counterpane currently monitors 550 networks worldwide for multinational and Fortune 100 customers.
"As security threats get more sophisticated, a larger number of companies are outsourcing the management of their security infrastructure to specialised security service providers and Counterpane is a leader in this space," BT's Andy Green said.

But bloggers are saying the acquisition was more of a firesale. Alan Shimel:
I was not surprised. I had heard rumors of tight money there for some time and thought we would be seeing something happening. This though on top of the less than top dollar paid by McAfee for Citadel and Preventsys could be a trend. IBM did not really overpay for ISS either.

On the other hand, VNUnet reports that speculation puts the price as high as $40mn.
In any case, Schneier will remain an outspoken presence on the blogosphere. He blogged: "They know I am an independent security commentator. "They're not looking for me to become a corporate shill."
October 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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October 25, 2006

Kultur Shock: Hello! Ween...

[diggrz: an SVW tag for arts, culture, trends, and events in and around Silicon Valley- new from SVW]

By Maria Mouk for Silicon Valley Watcher
Twas the weekend of costumes and all through the city, techs and geeks went parading through the bars, talking witty. Fearing Vista (for windows) more than Castro with riot, armed with Silicon Valley Kultur Watch in their mind.

And much to do, indeed! If you're even half as enthused as I am about the closest thing to fall the Bay area grants, then throw on your garb (or your "this is my costume" t-shirt) and go do "social" this weekend.

Friday Annie Leibovitz, a portrait photographer with a 10 year history at RollingStone magazine and Vanity Fair, has a book signing and talk at the Jewish Community Center, 3200 California Street, SF. Her new book, 'A Photographer's Life: 1990 - 2005', is well worth buying.

Afterward, gear up for the Critical Mass costumed bike ride and ride into the Castro Theatre's Halloween Horror Film Festival, playing triple feature old school horror classics for only 10 bucks.

If you're feeling extravagant, the Old federal Reserve Bank Bulding(301 Battery St) presents its 1st annual Spider Ball, with performances by Om Records' Collette, Dj Smoove, Tamo, and Cherry Bomb. This event will include a hosted bar, fortune tellers, and a voodoo lounge. VIP table with bottle service is optional.

Friday also brings forward the infamous Exotic/Erotic Ball (in its 27th year) at the Cow Palace. Think DJ's, porn stars, go go dancers, and wild wild costuming (or lack thereof). Definitely not for the faint of heart.

Saturday start the night out with Berkeley's Mobile Movie Mob (much like Flashmob). Their weekend mission entails creating a true Guerilla Drive-in experience. The mob forms around a vechicle with a projector and an FM transmitter, projecting movies onto a specified warehouse wall. Participants drive up and tune in. This weekend screens "The House on Haunted Hill"at 7 and "Nosferatu (1922)" at 8:45PM. Visit the site for directions.

Mighty(at 119 Utah) celebrates Halloween weekend with well known dj/producer Bassnectar headlining along with the Bassbin Twins.

I'm headed south to Santa Cruz on Saturday for the Freakers Ball, an epic evening of costumes and musical performance. This year hosts too many musical talents to mention, but a quick glance points to Freq Nasty, Bassnectar (before his set in SF), SPORQUE (Ooah and ZILLA), Random Rab, Lil John, and Brother. Circus freaks, aerial performances, live drumming and costume contests all included.

And if you're determined to impress with your costume but haven't even thought of what to pull together, call the A.C.T (American Conservatory Theatre). They have beautiful costume theatre apparrel for rent, with accessories and a fitting for $125.
A Glorious weekend to you!

Tag: diggrz

[diggrz refers to the nomadic lifestyle offered by mobile digital technologies and gadgets - creating a "nomadig" culture. The diggrz name is also a tip-of-the-hat to some of the ideas of the Diggers, a democratic group that arose in 1649, out of the English revolution .

The Diggers were a radical group that cultivated and protected common lands, and sought to create egalitarian, self-sustaining communities. The Diggers would have found kindred spirits in today's software engineer culture,  and the focus on creating commonly owned technologies through egalitarian open source community projects. - Tom Foremski]

Tag: diggrz

October 25, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: diggrz
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Wednesday Newswatch: Amazon cuts back, Adobe invests for Apollo, data centers are in the money, Bush checks out 'the Google'

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Amazon cuts back

Amazon.com says it will cut back on technology spending and hiring as it tries to transform technology into profitable services. “We expect our year-over-year increase in technology spending to decline during the fourth quarter,” Tom Szkutak, Amazon’s chief finance officer, said in a conference call with analysts. In the third quarter, Amazon tech spending increased 42% to $171mn, while sales increased to $2.31bn, compared to $1.81bn a year ago. Profits, however, slipped 37% compared to the year-ago quarter. And Amazon says the fourth quarter looks good, projecting 22-33% improvements over last year's critical holiday season. (NYT
Data centers are back in the black

Want a sign that Silicon Valley is back? During the dot-com bust, there was over a million square feet of unused data center space. Now, there are more customers than space, the Times reports.
Equinix of Foster City is opening a brand new center in Chicago at a cost of $165 million. Before its opening next year, it's already 95% occupied and will consume 30 megawatts of power.
The cost of power is a huge issue for the technology industry. Data centers are now jamming servers into racks and the power demands have jumped from three to 15 kilowatts per rack. “The first thing we look at is power,” Equinix's Margie Backaus said. “Getting generators today is the No. 1 thing that will drive your construction schedules.”
Consider now, Google's investment in a 1.4 megawatt solar installation. Save the planet? Yeah, sure. But something like that goes right to the bottom line.
Working the Google

Chron blogger Jessica Guynn takes note of a Maria Bartiromo interview with el Presidente and bloggers' piling on of abuse for the slightest of slips. The exchange:

Bartiromo: I'm curious, have you ever googled anybody? Do you use Google?
Bush: Occasionally. One of the things I've used on the Google is to pull up maps. It's very interesting to see. I've forgot the name of the program. But you get the satellite, and you can, like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It remind me of where I wanna be sometimes.

The video is here. Using the Google's blogsearch tool, we come up with a starting point for the abuse.
Adobe will spend $100mn to seed Apollo developers
Adobe plans to fund third-party startups to the tune of $100 million to promote its sofware development apps, especially Apollo - Adobe's breakthrough for running Web apps without a browser. in venture funding to promote its software development platforms, with a particular focus on Apollo, which allows people to run Web applications without a browser.
Apollo is like Flash, except it runs outside of the browser, and apps can be written in Ajax, Flash or Flex Builder, Adobe's app for authoring complex Flash-based apps. (News.com)

October 25, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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October 24, 2006

DVD Jon says he has cracked Apple DRM

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

'DVD Jon' - Jon Lech Johansen, the guy who cracked DVD copy protection with DeCSS - says he's managed to unlock Apple's technology that block playback of music bought on iTunes on non-iPod players, AP says.

Johansen said he has developed a way to get around those restrictions by creating code that mimics Apple's copy-protection system. But unlike his previous work, which he usually posts for free, the Norway native plans to capitalize on his efforts through his Redwood Shores-based DoubleTwist Ventures, said the company's only other employee, managing director Monique Farantzos.

It's a slam-dunk that Jon will see Apple in court, all the more so because he's not giving his crack away this time - he's turned entrepreneurial.
DoubleTwist says they have an unnamed client that will use the technology so its copy-protected content will be playable on iPods.

"There's a certain amount of trouble that Apple can give us, but not enough to stop this," Farantzos said Tuesday. "We believe we're on good legal ground, and our attorneys have given us the green light on this."

But that might be a little optimistic. "There is a lot of untested legal ground surrounding reverse engineering," EFF's Fred von Lohmann said.

October 24, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Tuesday Newswatch: Customized search, Wi-Fi cells, more Sony recalls

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Customized search from Google

Google has launched a customizable search engine for websites. Google Co-Op lets you define the sites you want to search and define typical keywords. The results can merely be weighted towards those sites or completely limited to just those sites. And the search engine is meant to be a collaboration with public users, or just those you invite, able to add more sites to index. Allowing all users to contribute seems like a recipe for spammers.
Custom Search also has the Google Marker tool, which allows sites to be immediately added or restricted from the search index. This tool can be set to allow only the site's publisher to exercise this option while surfing the Web, or invite a few people, an entire community or random visitors to do the same. (News.com)

OK, I set up a basic search engine for SVW. To try it out, search in the box below. Results are set to open a Google page, although you can have the system create a results page on your site.

The future of mobile phones
In Seattle, T-Mobile is now selling phones that work both over their cell network and Wi-Fi connections, the NYT reports. The phones cost about $50 with a two-year service plan and there's another $20 in service fees. Yes, that's less than the $25 bucks you were spending on Vonage and you can use the same phone for home and mobile. It's a bit unclear from the story, though, whether you can use any Wi-Fi hotspot or just T-Mobile hotspots. The latter would really detract from its attractiveness. It's also unclear whether you have to replace your home wireless router with one from the company.
Customers also need a wireless router, which is free with a rebate. The router is then connected to any available broadband line for home or office use. The phones connect not just to the wireless router, but also at any of 7,000 Wi-Fi hot spots that T-Mobile operates at Starbucks coffee shops, Hyatt Hotels and other public locations.

Sign up at www.theonlyphoneyouneed.com
Sony recalls more batteries

You knew this was coming. Sony voluntarily recalled 3.5 million more batteries, the company made in an announcement with the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The batteries being recalled were sold in Sony, Toshiba, Fujitsu and Gateway laptops. USAToday has a list of the affected batteries and notes that consumer uptake of the free replacement offer is amazingly low - if Lenovo's experience is indicative, less than 2%. People just don't mind hot laptops - until they explode, I guess.
October 24, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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October 23, 2006

I'm off to India . . !

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

Tuesday morning I'll be flying to India, my first visit, and I'm excited. I'll be travelling with Tibco (an SVW sponsor) as Vivek Ranadive, CEO of Tibco, launches his book over there - "The Predicitve Enterprise." I'll be a fly on the wall as Mr. Ranadive meets with the local captains of industry and many others.

I'll be back November 3rd and will post as I can. I hear India has a pretty good Internet connection :-)
October 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Tom Watch
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Events week-let

[diggrz: an SVW tag for arts, culture, trends, and events in and around Silicon Valley- new from SVW]
By Maria Mouk for Silicon Valley Watcher
It's the week before Halloween and never too early to get your freak on... or your tech on.

Tuesday evening starts off with a series of free public film screenings at San Francisco Art Institute, in conjunction with the exhibition Sarkis: Alive and After.
Sarkis: Alive and After is the first major US exhibition to examine the new work of Paris-based artist Sarkis, whose works are focused on humanity, and, in the words of Hou Hanru, “unfold a personal universe from the contrasts between light and darkness, green and red, material and immaterial, appearance and disappearance . . .”.
The screenings, selected by Sarkis, as having influenced his work; begin with Tarkovsky’s USSR 1979 film, Stalker, where two disenchanted intellectuals wish to explore the Zone, a mysterious region with a room at the center, said to offer knowledge of one’s most secret desires.
The weeks to follow also offer Sympathy for the Devil by Jean-Luc Godard (October 31); Tie Xi Qu: West of Tracks (Saturday & Sunday, November 4 & 5, 11am-2pm, 2:30pm-5:30pm, 7pm-10pm); and The Seasons by Artavazd Pelechian.
Once you tire of sitting, head over to Mighty on Wednesday for Man Vs. Machine: bass-heavy glitchy Slop and diamond Cut noise-hop served by L.A and Yay area favorites OOAH, Kraddy, Boreta, and the Luxury Tax. Free beer from 9-10, though I cannot vouch for the quality of free hops.
With the seemingly sunny weather, one may forget that snowboarding season is months away, so the is nigh to head over to the Sports Basement in the Presidio for the SnowPal.org mixer on Thursday eve. You'll have an opportunity to meet snow sports activity partners in your area, for trips to Tahoe, and to connect for rideshares and lodging shares (beyond the discounted season passes).

A week perfectly blended to keep you going until the next, even if Halloween in the Castro seems to be a no show blow.
oh, yea, and a lil' dancing code if you need a quick fix.

Tag: diggrz

[diggrz refers to the nomadic lifestyle offered by mobile digital technologies and gadgets - creating a "nomadig" culture. The diggrz name is also a tip-of-the-hat to some of the ideas of the Diggers, a democratic group that arose in 1649, out of the English revolution .

The Diggers were a radical group that cultivated and protected common lands, and sought to create egalitarian, self-sustaining communities. The Diggers would have found kindred spirits in today's software engineer culture,  and the focus on creating commonly owned technologies through egalitarian open source community projects. - Tom Foremski]

Tag: diggrz

October 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: diggrz
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Monday Newswatch: Amazon patent trouble, Chinese bloggers use real names, BitTorrent does hardware

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

IBM says Amazon infringed patents
Software critical to Amazon's web operations, including customer recommendations, advertising and data storage, infringes on IBM patents, Big Blue said in a suit filed today. IBM says it offered to license the patent to Amazon many times but “Amazon.com has refused every time.” In a press release IBM said: “We filed this case for a very simple reason. IBM’s property is being knowingly and unfairly exploited. ”
"We believe that Amazon's entire business model is built upon these patents and that damages could be substantial," said IBM spokesman Scott Brooks.

Reuters: IBM Sues Amazon over Web patents

China to insist on real names for bloggers

It's hard to persecute free speech when the only name you have to go is 'Freedom Blogger.' So China has signaled it will insist that would-be bloggers turn over their real names to the state.
"A real name system will be an unavoidable choice if China wants to standardize and develop its blog industry," the official Xinhua news agency quoted the Internet Society's secretary general, Huang Chengqing, as saying.

Bloggers anonymously disseminating untrue information on the Internet bring about ... wait for it ... a negative influence. Isn't that the point? Under the proposed rule, users would be required to register under their real name to open a blog but would still be allowed to write under a pseudonym.
BitTorrent cuts hardware deals

BitTorrent took another step towards respectability in cutting deals for the software to run on network routers and storage devices by Asus, Planex and QNap. The Asus devices can download files via BitTorrent without a PC. (News.com)
"These are the places where people will store their media in the future," said Ashwin Navin, BitTorrent's co-founder. "People don't want files to clutter their home PCs. Our technology working with these devices allows an entire family to share a jukebox."

Deals like these push forward the idea of the digital living room. Imagine a home entertainment center running not off a DVD player or even a TiVO but a media server, wirelessly distributing huge media files to an HDTV or stereo. But proof of concept was to be a video-on-demand store selling digital version of Warner Bros. movies. That's been delayed and now BitTorrent says it won't debut until early 2007.
October 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Google pushes the boundaries of copyright laws

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

The conventional wisdom is that in acquiring YouTube, Google is exposing itself to untold litigation for the reams of copyright material that exist on the site. For instance, last week YouTube deleted 30,000 clips identified as copyrighted Japanese TV and movie content. Here's Mark Cuban on the prospects:
If Google gets nailed one single time for copyright violation, there are going to be more shareholder lawsuits than Doans has pills to go with the pile on copyright suits that follow.

And YouTube is just one of the several major legal issues Google's 100 in-house lawyers and outside law firms are dealing with. Google Books, Google News, Adsense and even the search index are the subjects are lawsuits challenging every major aspect of Google's business
Google's reaction: Bring it on.
According to Katie Hafner's article in the Times this morning, Google uniquely among giant corporations is trying to re-define the law.
“I think Google is wanting to push the boundaries,” said Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University.
“The Internet ethos of the 90’s, the expansionist ethos, was, ‘Just do it, make it cool, make it great and we’ll cut the rough edges off later,’ ” Professor Zittrain said. “They’re really trying to preserve a culture that says, ‘Just do it, and consult with the lawyers as you go so you don’t do anything flagrantly ill-advised.’ ”

First and foremost is copyright. For instance, Does Google have the right to create thumbnail versions of copyright owners' images? A porn site, Perfect10, won a federal injunction against Google doing just that. Perfect10 claimed Google interfered with their ability to sell porn images to cell users. Google is appealing and the Ninth Circuit will hear oral arguments next month.
And European news agencies are suing to stop Google from reproducing their headlines, photos and story fragments. "From our perspective, these are simple issues that were decided a long time ago,” said Alex Macgillivray, Google's senior product counsel.
This is the crucial copyright question: Does Google have the right to process other people's content in ways that don't directly infringe on a strict interpretation of copyright? With Google Books, Google insists on the right to digitize copyright books so they can provide full-text searches, even though they only serve up snippets.
To my way of thinking, courts should interpret this question according to the rationale of the Constitution - "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" - and thus where Google's services detract in no way from the copyright holder's ability to control and sell its product, Google should be able to provide a service that improves access to users' ability to use the product.
In the case of books, search access should increase sales, since people will be able to discover the value of books no longer being actively promoted. In the case of news, it clearly drives traffic to newspapers' sites.
I think Google will lose the Perfect 10 case since the porn producer can show a direct interference with its own business models. That's distinguished from the book and news cases, where there is no actual damage.
If that's so, companies will need to do more than complain and sue - they will need to develop their own innovative business models. In a battle between innovators, Google is by no means guaranteed victory. In a battle between innovation and the resistance of dinosaurs, the dinosaurs will lose eventually, both in the market and in the courtroom.
October 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Top AOL execs escape prosecution

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

It look like top AOL executives will escape prosecution for their accounting tricks at the time of merger with Time Warner, The Washington Post reports.

Apparently, federal investigators have run into the five-year statute of limitations before they were able to file charges against top execs. Two mid-level managers are on trial for accounting irregularities, though: Kent Wakefield and John Tuli operated "far from the company's highest ranks."
For the companies that participated in the scam with AOL, though, it's a different story. PurchasePro allegedly worked with AOL to artificially drive up the Internet provider's earnings. In the "round trip accounting" scheme, each company claimed to have paid the other for advertising and other services.
Purchase Pro founder Charles Johnson is on trial in federal court on charges he lied to auditors and shareholders. Half a dozen former employees are expected to testify against him.
The problem at AOL seems to come down to the fact that prosecutors were unable to dig up high-level managers ready to testify against their bosses. "Such assistance was crucial to breaking open complex white-collar investigations of such companies as Enron Corp., WorldCom Inc. and Adelphia Communications Corp.," the Post notes.

October 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Cisco teleprescence is key to driving network upgrades

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

Cisco is betting heavily on corporate video as the killer application that will drive network equipment sales. That's why video is the prime focus of its research and development efforts.

Today Cisco unveiled its next-generation videoconferencing system. For $300K Cisco's technicians will install three 65-inch Cisco high-definition flat panel displays and a camera system, plus tables and lighting to create "Teleprescence" - a life-like meeting experience. It all plugs into existing networks and there are no monthly service fees.

What you get for $300,000 is one end of a teleprescence portal that makes it seem as if everyone is seated at the same table. I popped into briefings last week at Cisco and met with journalists sitting in New York. The effect felt very real, in that it felt that I had met and spoken with someone.

Cisco is eating its own dog food and is installing 100 teleprescence rooms across its entire global operations. It expects to save $100 million in travel costs, about 9 percent of its travel budget. That should enable an ROI in just 9 months.

The technology works well, and it communicates a real meeting experience--but it wasn't easy getting there.

"We did a lot of human factors studies, from the shape of the table to how far away from the screen you should sit, plus camera angles and lighting," said Randy Harrell, director of product marketing for the Teleprescence line.

He said the system was two years in development and it involved a lot of complexity in order to reproduce the simple experience of sitting at conference table with colleagues or customers that could be thousands of miles away.

"The experience is so realistic at times that we've had people totally forget, and try to pass papers through the screen to each other," said Mr Harrell.

The teleprescence system comes out of Cisco's emerging markets group, headed by Martin De Beer, general manager of the group. Cisco is developing this technology in-house rather than acquiring it from outside. The emerging markets group at Cisco is very video -oriented, and for good reason. "We think video in the corporate space will spur network upgrades," said Mr. De Beer.

Cisco hopes it has developed a killer application that will spur corporations to renew their entire network. You only need a 10 Mbit line to connect two of Cisco's teleprescence rooms, which most companies already have. However, the combination of high definition video plus daily network traffic would require many companies to install new networks. "If your network is more than four or five years old you would probably need to upgrade it to use teleprescence," said De Beer.

My experience of the Cisco Teleprescence room was very positive; it is easy to forget there is a glass screen separating two sides of the same oval conference table.

The only problem was that I had to fight through two hours of traffic to get from San Francisco to Cisco's HQ in Silicon Valley. I would have been a heck of a lot more impressed if I could have experienced it from Cisco's San Francisco office.

October 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Cisco [CSCO]
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October 20, 2006

Friday Newswatch: YouTube pulls vids, PC work causes cancer, Vista security spat

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Snarling and sniping erupted into a full-blown spat today as Microsoft and McAfee are getting into it over when MS is going to deliver Vista code security vendors need for their products. Microsoft is claiming that McAfee and Symantec don't need access to Vista's kernel because Vista so much better protects the kernel. Yesterday, Redmond promised to provide more complete APIs to the security companies. But McAfee was disappointed, saying there was "little indication that Microsoft intends to live up to its promises made last week." Today, Microsoft returned fire: "inaccurate and inflammatory statements." (The Register)
How bad for your health is building computers? Bad. Here's categorical proof. IBM turned over 31,000 health records of manufacturing work to an epidemiologist at Boston University School of Public Health. As published in Environmental Health, the results are a much higher incidence of cancer than the general population. Compared to a baseline of 100 score of for you and me, PC workers had:

Proportional cancer mortality ratios (PCMR) were 166 for cancers affecting the brain and central nervous system, 162 for kidney cancer, 179 for melanoma and 126 for pancreatic cancer. In women, PCMRs were 212 for kidney cancer and 163 for cancer of all lymphatic and hematopoietic tissue. (

YouTube deleted some 30,000 clips lifted from Japanese TV and movies after a Japanese trade group complained. The Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, found 29,549 video clips such as television shows, music videos and movies posted on YouTube's site without permission. Google-owned YouTube agreed to deploy an audio screening technology that could spot low-quality copy of a licensed clip. YouTube would have to substitute an approved version or remove the material automatically.

October 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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With Website Optimizer, Google to help turn click-throughs into conversions

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Google's purchase of web analytics firm Urchin 18 months ago is paying off for website operators today as Google unveiled (a beta version of) Google Website Optimizer at the eMetrics summit in Washington.

The free analytics product is designed to address the other side of Google's web advertising business. Google's made a huge amount of money selling advertising to drive users to advertisers' sites. Google's role had ended at the click-through. You pay for the clicks and once they click through, it's your job to conver 'em.
GWO helps website operators do the conversion by setting up several different variations of landing pages, having Google rotate the different combinations and generating reports on how the different combinations performed. A conversion, of course, doesn't have to be a sale. More likely, for a small e-commerce site, it's signing up for email or providing contact information.
For small business websites, this is invaluable information that there has really been no way to get at. They will gobble it up. I'm no web analytics expert but I suspect that most any business that is spending money on AdSense will need to be using GWO to constantly tweak their ad messages and landing page content.
But there is a catch. With GWO, Google actually serves as middleware. You put code on your pages that as far as I can understand alerts Google that it should intercept the serving of the page and offer up one of several variations instead. That means that not only do you know more about what works - Google does too. And for a huge number of sites.
But perhaps someone else can post about exactly why that's problematic.
October 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Viva la opera de vagabond vidcast!

[diggrz: an SVW tag for arts, culture, trends, and events in and around Silicon Valley- new from SVW] -

Story by lucaso, vidcast by ladyQi, for Silicon Valley Watcher

Last weekend the diggrz hit the accordian apocalypse repair shop for a dance with the Vagabond Opera, a talented group of musicians from Portland, OR. The music ranged from klezmer to jazz; from slavic traditional to energetic gypsy swing. Whiskey flasks wrapped in brown paper bags were passed between dancing new millenium gypsies. Here is a two min diggrz wrap up vid:

October 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: diggrz
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October 19, 2006

WSJ's Tam: HP went through my garbage

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

How fun to be a reporter on the HP beat. The Journal's Pui-Wing Tam reports on what she learned about HP's violations of her privacy. (WSJ article, sub required.)

H-P's investigators tried at least five times, he said, to get access to my home-phone, cellphone and office-phone records. In several instances, they succeeded: H-P now has lists of calls I made to people such as my editors, my husband, my insurance company and a reporting source employed by one H-P rival.
H-P's agents had my photo and reviewed videotaped footage of me, said Mr. Schultz, of the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. They conducted "surveillance" by looking for me at certain events to see if I would show up to meet an H-P director. (I didn't.) They also carried out "pre-trash inspections" at my suburban home early this year, Mr. Schultz said.

The always edgy Inquirer has this oh so British take:

HP dug out details about her and her husband but might have got their hands dirty by digging in her bins, she said.
If HP's investigators dug too deep into her bins, they might have got their hands soiled by contact with her kid's nappies. Poo!

For an alternative view, Peter Cohan sees HP's investigations as "investigative reporting by other means":
Patricia Dunn must have felt a similar fear when she realized that someone on HP's board was leaking to the media. I'm not defending what HP did; I think it's a 1984-like invasion of privacy for which HP will suffer significant consequences.
With deference to Prussian General Von Clausewitz -- who famously said war is "a continuation of politics by other means" -- I see HP's tactics as investigative reporting by other means.

October 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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GOOG: Profit up 92%, revenue 70% - Feel the power

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Google reported unbelievable growth in the third quarter, with revenue up 70 percent to $2.69 billion and profits up 92% over the year-ago quarter. (Financial Times). Net income more than doubled, from $381.2 million to $733.4 million.

Virtually all of Google's income comes from advertising, either on its own sites - revenues up 84% - or on its ad networks - revenues up 54% but representing a flat piece of the pie.
Contrast this with Yahoo's lousy numbers and falling advertising shares and the writing is on the wall. Yahoo cannot compete. It's new advertising engine changes nothing.
Marshall Kirkpatrick at TechCrunch notes:
Nielsen//NetRatings came out with new numbers today finding that Google’s market share in search has grown 24% over the last year to 50% of the total market. Yahoo! grew 12% to 23% market share and MSN/Live dropped 8% to a 6% market share.

Fifty percent? Those are near-iPod numbers for market dominance. Think IE7's hard-wiring of search to Microsoft's search engine is going to make a dent? Forget it. Google rules search-based advertising. Can you imagine a world in which virtually all advertising dollars flow to Google?
Yes - it will be like dollars flowing to Microsoft in the PC era. Except that Microsoft dominance allowed an ecosystem in which applications developers and hardware makers also made tons of money. Google will have to create as rich an ecosystem, in which content providers are really partners and not just fodder for Mountain View's currency printing press.
From TechCrunch:
Sergey Brin started his discussion with the addition of historical archives in Google News, video search, Google Apps for Your Domain, and Google Docs. Brin said in response to questions that integration, or “Features not Products” is an important direction the company wants to move in for the future. Which is it? Diversity is our strenght or product overload? Maybe that just means we’ll see fewer new Google products, but they are glad they have as many as they do.
Larry Page said Google has the greatest diversity of advertisers in the world because it’s easy to get involved in search, video and soon audio advertising. Page also highlighted the addition of coupons to Google Maps.
The future remains some what unclear with an office strategy that could succeed or fail, a video strategy that will face legal challenges and the first big competition in contextual advertising ramping up - but Google is looking well prepared for dealing with all of those challenges. While the rest of the big tech companies are experiencing relatively turbulent times, Google put the numbers on the table today to prove that they are going strong.

Hmm, from where I sit, GOOG owns text-based advertising, they own the single biggest video content site, they putting together the pieces of a Microsoft-free computing environment. The major danger, as Tom said yesterday, is that they will put their own (willing or unwilling) partners out of business.
October 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Thursday Newswatch: IE7 innovations, 9.6 exploding batteries, NYT woes

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Oct. 19, 2006, 9:46 am (PST)

Microsoft has a version of IE7 for download (link to MS download page). It features tabbed browsing and a phishing warning system. But it wouldn't be a Microsoft browser without controversy, so here it is: the browser's built-in search field was only going to connect to Microsoft's search engine. At the last minute Redmond relented and added the ability to change search engines. (BBC) A final release candidate of Firefox 2.0 is online today, as well. (link to Firefox download)
And - oh! - there's already a security hole in No. 7. Danish security firm Secunia says a flaw inherited from IE6 could allow a phishing attack that exploits this flaw to allow a hacker to read information from a separate, secure site that the user is logged onto (like a banking site). It's hard enough to pull off that Secunia ranks it a low-priority threat. (PCWorld)
Sony's battery recall will hit 9.6 million, the company said in a financial filing. The recall will hit Sony with more than $400 million in costs for Q3 and the company conceded that lawsuits are in the offing. Some have estimated the total cost to Sony at over $1bn. Sony cut its Q3 earnings estimate some 38% from 130bn yen to just 80bn yen. (AP).

Revenue at the New York Times fell 2.4% in Q3, reflecting softness in the print advertising market. The Times' attempts to monetize the Web haven't yet offset the declining dead-tree business. "Our third-quarter results reflect the continued weakness in the print advertising marketplace," Chief Executive Janet Robinson said in a statement. It's not just the Times; the Times-owned Globe is creating a real drag on the company.

Some analysts say it's time for the Times to cut loose the Globe and move out of mass-market pubs entirely (except for the flagship, of course.) "If I were the New York Times, what I would do is invest in niche publications," journalism prof Philip Meyer said. "The trend is against mass media and toward specialized media."

October 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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October 18, 2006

weekend kultur shock

[diggrz: an SVW tag for arts, culture, trends, and events in and around Silicon Valley- new from SVW] -

By Maria Mouk for Silicon Valley Watcher
If your work week has left you grounded and attached to fonts, unload and unwind with the possibilities in this weekend's inter-action.
Friday night, the Red Vic Movie House,on Haight, screens: 'Waking Life'. If you've never seen it, the movie follows the protagonist's wandering in philosophical discussions that weave together issues like appearance and reality, free will, our relationships with others, existentialism,and posthumanism. A great lift off point for thought.
After you've gotten your fill of mind stretch, and its your legs that need to move, head over to the Supperclub on Friday night, for the "Return of the Serpent Mother"; an evening celebration of the Flaming Girls amazing structure at this year' s Burningman. Included will be a photo exhibit and silent auction. Performances will include La Salle Neige, M3, Majitope, Laird, Goldilox, and SISTERSF.
Saturday follows with a massive fundraiser for Africa Burns , at Oakland's welding art space, Nimby (1649 28th St). Artfagmafia is working towards enabling "4 Artists from the United States to travel to South Africa to conduct workshops and showcase their art at Africa Burns" and to help fund a sculpture entitled the '12 Key'. Expect live music, drumming, aerial/fire performances, and bolts of lightning.
If you're looking for something a little less flammable, head to the The Dark Room's Attaboy’s 2nd Annual Art Sale, for some eclectic Bay art by Attaboy himself, or check out Lap-Pop 3.0 at Space 180 for blogging, vlogging, performance art collaboration.
This weekend is your opportunity to catch the Fourth Annual Studio Nocturne; showcasing night photography at its finest--and the options that exist with late exposure, shutter speed, or aperture adjustments. Displays on Saturday and Sunday 11-6pm at Fort Mason center.
Also this weekend; is the Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, with 3,400 "biological pioneers" and visionaries attending from throughout the world to share tales of leading social and scientific relevance--in attempts to find practical solutions for restoring the Earth and its peoples. High goals.
Saturday night also brings the new Ambiotica 1.2 salon; hosted by independent record label Cyberset and well known Bay local event organizer Anon Salon. The night plans to be one of many; in an ongoing experiment of a social and cultural stimulation. Inspiration includes speakers, artists, DJ's, film presentations, interactive art, and refreshments via the new Smart Bar (body/mind tonics with kava, maca, and other natural catalysts – and introducing the powerful Zavita for those desiring overdrive shift).This week's guests feature: up and coming artist Welder, Alex Theory, Rob Brezsny, and Ralph Metzner to name a few. Elegant dress is encouraged.
Sunday; spend the day (11-6) at the CAPSULE Street Festival for Design in Hayes Park, between Fell and Hayes on Octavia. Over 115 designers will be representing and selling innovative and much original clothing, accessories, prints, and products.
And, this weekend, remember to step away from all thoughts and habits that drive you mad as human. Take a break to watch the passing sky and breathe in the Indian summer with the back of your ribs. Life is for the living. Make the most of your experience, and don't make Monday mundane!
Tag: diggrz

[diggrz refers to the nomadic lifestyle offered by mobile digital technologies and gadgets - creating a "nomadig" culture. The diggrz name is also a tip-of-the-hat to some of the ideas of the Diggers, a democratic group that arose in 1649, out of the English revolution .

The Diggers were a radical group that cultivated and protected common lands, and sought to create egalitarian, self-sustaining communities. The Diggers would have found kindred spirits in today's software engineer culture,  and the focus on creating commonly owned technologies through egalitarian open source community projects. - Tom Foremski]

Tag: diggrz

October 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: diggrz
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Victory for Web in libel case

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

In the offline world, there's a statute of limitations for libel cases. The length of the term depends on the jurisdiction but it's relatively easy to figure out when the statute starts running - it starts upon publication.
But online, a defaming publication easily lives forever. Even if the original publisher removes the article from her site, a juicy libelous piece will be copied by others, archived in Google News, republished via RSS, etc. Do any or all of these online republications restart the statute of limitations timer?
Nope, a Texas judge ruled today; the statute of limitations starts on initial publication. USA Today reports:
In dismissing the suit against The Dallas Morning News, personal finance columnist Scott Burns and parent company Belo, Godbey wrote that he "sees no rational reason for distinguishing between the Internet and other forms of traditional mass media."

That's good news for publishers but doesn't the plaintiff have a decent point?
Nationwide is considering an appeal. Its attorney said the one-year statue doesn't take into account how Internet search engines can make an article written several years ago easily available today.
"It's not sitting in a library — it's staying on the Internet," said Barbara Bison Jacobson, Nationwide's lawyer. "How do we as a society deal with that?"

I don't think so. This is an issue of statute of limitations - how quickly you have to sue. It doesn't address the remedies for removing defamation from the net - an infinitely harder task.
October 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Apple wows with 3Q numbers

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Apple reported some awesome numbers for its third quarter after the bell today - earnings of $61 million, or 16 cents a share, more than tripling revenues of a year ago, $19 million, or 5 cents a share.
So where's the growth? A mass migration from PC to Mac? Mac sales were actually quite healthy, at 19 percent growth from 2005, but, if you haven't gotten the message yet, Apple is a consumer music company. iPod sales increased 35 percent and total music sales increased 162 percent from a year ago. Jobs crowed:
"It was an outstanding quarter — our highest third-quarter revenue in eight years."

Apple's only problem - well, not the only, there's still that nasty options business to worry about - is that they still can't fully deliver on the demand they've built up. USA Today reports that Apple hasn't been able to get enough Hitachi one-inch drives to meet the demand for Mini iPods.
"The demand for the Mini far exceeds the supply," says Apple Executive Vice President Timothy Cook. "Internationally, the order stream has just opened up, and the numbers are just unprecedented."

Continued problems with getting chips from IBM also hurt iMac sales. Apple's received 80,000 orders for its new AirPort Express, which streams music from computer to stereo.

October 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Bursting the myth of contextual ads! BlueLithium shares proprietary data...

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

The conventional wisdom, as proposed by Google et al, is that placing advertising on a web page in its context gets the best results. Mortgage ads on mortgage pages, etc. In fact, Google recommends to its AdSense partners that Google ads should blend into the page, same colors etc.

BlueLithium, the online ad network, says that this isn't true when it comes to serving ads based on users' behavior. Its BL Labs research division found that out-of-context ads perform better: (BlueLithiumClick here for BlueLithium press release)

BL Labs analyzed over 400 million impressions across numerous sites, evaluating click-through rates (CTR) and conversion, or action-through rates (ATR), across several pre-determined behavioral and contextual categories. It also analyzed nine behavioral categories containing over 10 million impressions for patterns across various contextual categories. Analysts discovered that ads shown in the same context as behavior had a higher CTR in seven of the nine categories while ads shown in a different context had a higher ATR in five of the categories.

The "shoppers" category showed the highest CTR from ads on career sites and the highest ATR on female-oriented sites. "Travelers" had the highest CTR on food sites and highest ATR on career sites.

These types of findings will help to support online publishers because online advertising will be more effective and better able to support a greater diversity of content. Otherwise the subject matter of content will be designed for the ads, which you can see this happening already.

October 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Advertising Watch
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New Apple breakthrough: Virus iPod

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Apple shipped some video iPods with a computer virus, the company said on its tech support site, Reuters reports.

Less than one percent of Video iPods were carrying the RavMonE.exe virus, which attacks Windows. While Apple wouldn't name the contractor responsible for the slip-up, the company didn't miss an opportunity to take a shot at Microsoft.
"As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it," Apple said on its Web site.

Apparently there is some murmurings that Apple intentionally infected customers in order to make Microsoft look bad. That's ridiculous, of course. But the incident comes on the heels of an infection of 10,000 non-Apple MP3 players that McDonald's gave away last week in a promotion, Bithika Khargarhia notes. Is nothing sacred?
October 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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The GOOG back/slash builds . . . is the end (/>) to free content in sight?

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

I've been saying Google is a media company for a couple of years now. I put it this way: Google is a media business because it publishes pages of content with advertising around it. Now, more of the media is figuring it out.

Over at the excellent Poynter.org journalism site, there are an increasing number of articles and discussions about Google. And that's because more of the media is noticing that that Google is indeed a media company, or as I like to put it, "a technology-enabled media company."

For example, Vincent J. Maher over at Poynter, wrote this short article: We're Facing a Monster: Will Someone Please Step Up and Say It?

Maher notes that Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp is considering banning YouTube videos from MySpace. And he says that every media company should place Google on its hitlist.

As a veritable superpower in information gathering and publishing, we should remember that Google has used its power to censor the Internet in China, and to help itself win court cases through exclusive access to its Gmail spam filter data. And in Belgium, Google scoffed at legitimate copyright claims.
The cultural impact of such power is to stifle competition and innovation -- the very things Google says it stands for.
Can someone please step up and say we're facing a monster?
Link to Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits

I'll step up and say it, I'll even shout it: WE ARE FACING A MOSTER.

GOOG is a monster media company that seeks to collect and distribute every digital bit and byte worth publishing--over a global distribution network that is unmatched in its efficiency and scale.

The monster is fed by massive amounts of free content harvested from the web, and then redistributed within an advertising wrapper. All automated. (Including the laughing-all-the-way-to-the-bank... :-)

- - -

I predict Google Free Zones on the Internet will arise and I humbly offer this designation:

</GOOG>

(

For those who don't speak Geek, it's a play on </DIV> - the closing tag for applying CSS style sheets, which is used to control the look and feel of nearly everything published on the web.

October 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Google [GOOG]
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Wednesday headlines: Google up, Firefox out, Universal sues

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Google's numbers are looking even better, Mozilla 2.0 nears release with better security, and Universal files suit against video sharing sites.

When Google reports its earnings on Thursday, it will demonstrate unchallenged dominance of the online advertising business - $4bn of the $16bn sector, according to a report from eMarketer. Yesterday, Yahoo said its third quarter profits were down 38% from 2005, with fourth quarter numbers projected to be down as well. Will rumors of a takeover of Yahoo bump up now?
Mozilla has released what may be the final version of Firefox 2.0, Newsfactor.com says, and based on this release the new browser will make major advances in security. It fights phishing by checking websites against a list of known scam sites. It also features improvements in handling JavaScript, tabbing and, crucially, RSS feeds.

Universal is suing Sony's Grouper.com and Bolt.com for actively encouraging copyright violations on their sites, AP says. The sites feature some Universal-owned music videos. This just a week after cutting a deal with YouTube to allow users to play mashup with some of their music video content. Meanwhile, The Washington Post says, the London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry is suing some 8,000 people in 17 countries in Europe and South America. The federation is going after uploaders on a variety of P2P networks.

October 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Intel's desktop chief talks with PodTech about Quad Core technology

Quad Core is key to Intel's bid to revive profits and growth. PodTech's Jason Lopez interviewed Stephen Smith, head of Intel's desktop and platform operations:

http://www.podtech.net/home/technology/1139/idf-preview-quad-core-microprocessors

October 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Sponsor Watch
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October 17, 2006

Sony recalls batteries, computer makers may seek damages

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

How bad are Sony batteries? Bad enough for Sony itself to recall 90,000 Vaio-branded batteries from Japan and China. And Sony may wind up recalling some 300,000 batteries, says a Japanese trade weekly. (Sony dismissed the story as mere speculation.)
In any case, Gizmodo UK says, Sony's headaches are multiplying as Toshiba and Fujitsu are making noises about collecting compensation from Sony not just for the recall but for the damage to their laptop sales. Quoting Fujitsu:
"We recognize we are recalling the products on the request by Sony so we will ask them to shoulder the cost. But we would only consider seeking more compensation for missed sales opportunities and a damaged brand image if retail outlets start returning products or consumers start no-buy campaigns."

This could be an even bigger mess for Sony, because if it has to pay big bucks to Fujitsu and Toshiba, all those other companies with Sony battery trouble such as Apple, Dell, Lenovo and Hitachi will line up for their pound of flesh. For Sony, that might feel more like a ton of bricks.

And take another look at this Japanese news story from earlier this month, which says that Sony engaged in willful blindness, having been made aware of the problem with a Dell laptop but declining to investigate further, since "no accidents had been reported in other computers," as the AFP report on the report puts it.
October 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Bloggers win attorneys' fees in baseless suit

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

A lawsuit is a powerful weapon. Regardless of the merits of the suit, it's expensive to defend. When the defendants are extremely shallow-pocketed bloggers, the potential is high for a lawsuit to scare the defendants into silence. One of the few tools the system has against such abuses is the ability to assign attorneys' fees.
EFF reports that the California court used that tool against one Mordecai Tendler, a former rabbi whom anonymous bloggers had accused of sexual misconduct.
Rabbi Tendler was expelled from the Rabbinical Council of America in March 2005 after several women that he professionally counseled accused him of sexual abuse and harassment. One of his accusers sued him in December 2005, and his congregation dismissed him from his post earlier this year.

Both the mainstream media and blogs picked up the story. In an effort to silence his critics, Tendler filed a lawsuit in Ohio (though he lives in New York) to identify several anonymous bloggers, alleging false and defamatory accusations. Tendler then filed a case in San Jose, Calif., to obtain subpoenas compelling Google to disclose information identifying four bloggers.

After the bloggers struck back with a motion to dismiss the suit as baseless, Tendler backed off, withdrawing the subpoenas and moving to dismiss the suit. But that's not the end of the story
Last week, the court awarded the bloggers attorneys fees - essentially punishing Tendler for pursuing a meritless suit. Says EFF: "Frivolous filers take heed: California courts like free speech, and they don’t like to waste time on meritless lawsuits designed to chill that speech."
October 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Yahoo numbers down 38% from a year ago

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Yahoo's third quarter year-over-year numbers fell a whopping 38%, the company announced after the bell today. Yahoo earned $158.5mn, or 11 cents per share, compared with $253.8 million, or 17 cents per share, in the same period last year.

But an announcement that Sunnyvale is ready to ship a long-delayed upgrade to its advertising network sent Yahoo shares climbing again. Terry Semel said Yahoo would begin selling ads on the new system in early 2007. Still the overall attitude is sour on Yahoo's ability to compete with Google.
"I am not satisfied with our current financial performance, and we intend to improve it," Semel told analysts during a conference call Tuesday with analysts. "We are not exploiting our considerable strengths as well as we should be."

And the make-or-break holiday fourth quarter? Not much better.
AP: Yahoo forecast its fourth-quarter revenue will range from $1.15 billion to $1.27 billion. The average analyst estimate had been $1.30 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

Wall Street is worried that Yahoo is increasingly unable to compete with Google in online advertising, and Google's acquisition of superpopular YouTube leaves Yahoo on the losing end of the next big moneymaker - selling ads into video content.
Thus Yahoo announced today two advertising-based acquisitions - the outright purchase of Adinterax, "a provider of rich media advertising solutions," according to the press release and a 20% stake in Right Media (press release), which runs an online marketplace for Yahoo advertising.

October 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Intel numbers just beat expectations

Intel beat expectations for its third quarter ended Sept. 30 with revenue of $8.7bn and net income of $1.3bn, it announced after the bell today. Analysts had been expecting $8.6bn in revenues.
News.com: The higher-than-expected revenue and profit numbers are still far away from the numbers Intel posted during 2005. Revenue was down 12 percent compared to the third quarter of 2005, and net income was down 35 percent. But Intel started to get new products into the marketplace during the third quarter. It launched new Xeon server processor in June and rolled out new Core 2 Duo desktop processors in July.

- Richard Koman
October 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Oct. 17 headlines: Google solar, Edelman sorry, Sanger cleaning the stables

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Here's what's catching out interest Tuesday morning, Oct. 17:

Google will deploy the largest corporate installation of corporate power, supplying 1.6 megawatts of power. Google will still be buying 70% of its power from the grid. (USA Today)
Six months into the CEO job and Jonathon Schwartz is really thinking outside the box - or in the box. Sun is introducing a Danny Hillis-designed datacenter in a shipping container. For a mere $500K, you can drop a datacenter anywhere there's Internet, cooled water and power, like, say, a parking lot. With "cyclonic cooling," this datacenter is five times more compact than your average datacenter. (NYT)

Blog network Sugar Publishing has raised $5mn from Sequoia Capital. (TechCrunch)

Dick Edelman apologizes for creating fake pro-Walmart bloggers in his firm's Working Families for Walmart campaign. See also Steve Rubel's post - for the trackbacks/comments, not Rubel's repetition of Edelman's apology.

Following a report that Apple is readying two iPhones for Macworld, Apple has registered iPhone as a trademark. (AppleInsider)

Larry Sanger, a cocreator of Wikipedia, is launching a competitor, Citizendium (horrible name), which will require editors to have a modicum of expertise. Fighting words: Citizendium will start by copying Wikipedia's entries and having experts edit them into shape, which, Sanger says, is "a clean-out of the Augean stables.” Don't know what that means? See the Wikipedia page.

October 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Getting the CSS Internet 2.0 religion . . . . . . . . . (don't mention the sin of tables)

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher
The past few days I've been working on my CSS skills--the media technology that lies at the heart of this next phase of the Internet. I don't mind learning some Geek, in fact I speak a little Geek, I used to be a software engineer for a very short time a long time ago.

I'm of the opinion that these days, I should be a "technology enabled" journalist and I encourage my media colleagues to do the same. I should know how these technologies such as CSS, RSS, XML, HTML, PHP, JavaScript, (not PERL) Ruby on Rails, do what they do.

I don't need to be proficient in these computer languages, but I should know enougth to be able to do basic things with these tools, because there is an opportunity for journalists to become "media engineers." By knowing something about these technologies--which are all essentially publishing technologies--journalists can craft new types of media, and CSS is a key enabling technology.

When I worked as a mainstream journalist, we didn't have to learn an alphabet soup of new skills all the time. Software engineers and web site developers have to constantly update their personal bag of skills.

Our main requirement as journalists was to meet deadlines, we didn't need exotic skills such as typing or spelling. Most of us type fairly fast using just two fingers.

Being good at spelling is nice but not a deal breaker, the spell checker catches most spelling mistakes, and the subs (sub-editors) catch the rest. (The little known secret of the newspaper world is that the sub-editors make the news stories look great... Journalism is about team work and not about "standalone journalism" as blogger journalism is sometimes called.)

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) can deconstruct the media world on the fly... CSS manages to separate content from its form and function, while at the same time providing great control over each one of those elements.

CSS makes visible Marshall McLuhan's famous and confusing insight: "The medium is the message" plain to see.

For those unfamiliar with CSS, it is a style sheet for the web. It tells a web browser how to display text, where to place an image, what color to make the headings, etc.

The beauty of CSS is that by making one change in the style sheet, you can change the look of hundreds of thousands of pages on a web site. Otherwise, you'd have to change each web page by hand or by batch tools.

CSS has become somewhat of a "religion" in the sense that there is a large community of web site developers that strives for a pure, "validated" CSS way to do things. And if your web site doesn't validate, that's not good--(and don't tell anybody that you use html tables on your site!)

October 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Culture Watch
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lil events week-let - things to do

[diggrz: an SVW tag for arts, culture, trends, and events in and around Silicon Valley- new from SVW] -

By Maria Mouk for Silicon Valley Watcher
Instead of heading to L.A. this past weekend, I stayed in town and caught up with some local Bay area flava. First stop was a show at the Apocolypse Accordion Repair Shop, where Vagabond Opera rekindled a many's;Balkan music love.
Vocal cords, accordions, saxaphones, and cellos- all singing out minor melodies-- swept me into the nostalgia of Moscow past.
This week offers more opportunities to get an earful, with Matmos performing at the Great American Music Hall on Wednesday eve. Matmos has long toyed around with using experimental sound to create a unique, sampled orchestra. Sounds have included: pages of bibles turning, kisses, water hitting copper plates, the runout grooves of a vinyl record, liposuction surgery, violins, rat cages, field recordings of conversations in hot tubs, electrical interference generated by laser eye surgery, and latex fetish clothing. Enough to keep you interested and the imagination stirring, to say the least.

Wednesday eve starting at 8PM, the San Francisco Late Night Coalition hosts a fundraiser at the Supperclub. After your 6 course dinner, lying amonst white pillows and ambient lighting, enjoy the walking masseuse options and A-list DJ's. (This Wed night includes Michael Anthony, M3, Ellen Ferrato, Laird, Late Night Sneaky, Adnan, Kepi and Kat, Smoove, and JT Donaldson.)
This gig goes till 2am for the late-nighters as SFLNC's goal is to "protect, preserve and promote San Francisco's late-night culture and to make significant contributions to the economy and artistic diversity of this city."

Hopefully you've long reserved your tickets for San Francisco's Free Theatre Night 2006, going on this Thursday the 19th. Free tickets for over 100 performances! If you didnt book early on; tixbayarea is still a wonderful place to find discounted and half price tickets for most major productions.

Thursday shifts into Web 2.0 as our understanding of internet possibilities and capabilities are redefined, again. Aloft, a virtual futuristic hotel loft, debuts in Second Lifewith a launch party from 7 to 9pm with a special appearance by Ben Folds Five. Brought to you by the owner of the Westin, Sheraton, and W chain; Ben Folds will give people a chance to be the first to hear new tracks off of his upcoming album-supersunnyspeedgraphic.To attend the launch party, send an e-mail to frontdesk@virtualaloft.com. Read more about real money in virtual worlds on this businessweek article.

Tech-tock continues as Thursday eve also offers Beta's Web 2.0 monthly mixer at Dada. Only second month in and this mixer is attracting founders, entrepreneurs, developers, bloggers, investors, journalists, and revolutionaries.This is a great networking event and this week brings Haiku Pitches from seven of the Bay Area's hottest companies including: 1. Meetro (Vinnie Lauria / VP), 2. CivicEvolution (Brian Sullivan / Founder), 3. Rooftop Comedy (Will Rogers / Co-Founder), 4. ShopCastTV (Eric Swan / Founder), 5. The Forbin Group (Cindy Phung / Worker Bee),6. BuzzShout (James Yu / Co-Founder), and 7. Diigo (Maggie Tsai / Co-Founder). Be there at 7pm and please RSVP.<

Some astrologists and tarot workers have predicted an event of Ultra Violet ray significance today--where all energies will be heightened as a "force" collides with the earth. Being of a scientific nature and a skeptic, I'm not sure how much I buy into it. But I still recon its a good enough reason to manifest and project my positive desires.
Be it an alien invasion or not, its still an opportunity to do a bit of positive work on the self. Being driven as a group unmasses great results. And as the law of attraction says: " Think it- See it- and you already Have it."

Tag: diggrz

[diggrz refers to the nomadic lifestyle offered by mobile digital technologies and gadgets - creating a "nomadig" culture. The diggrz name is also a tip-of-the-hat to some of the ideas of the Diggers, a democratic group that arose in 1649, out of the English revolution .

The Diggers were a radical group that cultivated and protected common lands, and sought to create egalitarian, self-sustaining communities. The Diggers would have found kindred spirits in today's software engineer culture,  and the focus on creating commonly owned technologies through egalitarian open source community projects. - Tom Foremski]

Tag: diggrz

October 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: diggrz
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October 16, 2006

iPhones on the way

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Prudential Equity Group analyst thinks Apple is preparing two MP3-playing cellphones for January's Macworld, RedHerring notes.
“Based upon our early checks, we expect Apple to unveil two models of its widely anticipated cell phones,” Prudential Equity Group analyst Jesse Tortora said in a research note Monday. “We believe the company could introduce the phones at its MacWorld Conference in January.”
Mr. Tortora had more details. The analyst said that one of the phones would be a smart phone featuring an integrated keyboard, video, and music capabilities. The other will be a slimmer phone with music capabilities. Also, at least one of them will feature Wi-Fi, he wrote.

You knew Apple was working on these - any device that everyone carries and is loaded with personal style, Apple must have a part of. There are concerns though: Will people want a cellphone to be an iPod/video player/smart phone? I think yes. And will all these features drive the battery life down to nothing? Maybe.
October 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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CBS, Warner video deals: Not much there

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

In the aftermath of the YouTube deal, several minor developments shed a bit of light on the video shakedown.
CBS cuts a deal with Yahoo to provide local TV content from its 16 owned-and-operated stations. Programming starts tomorrow.
Warner Music cuts a deal with muvee to encourage users to remix label-owned music video, concert footage, etc. muvee's technology lets users pick a music video style and apply it to their mashup creation.

TechCrunch reports that MySpace has amped up the placement of video on user profiles, apparently an effort to establish MySpace as a video destination on a par with YouTube.

The CBS/Yahoo deal is a yawn. It's a classic Yahoo deal with the top of the entertainment industry. It adds a feature to Yahoo News that might mean some eyeballs stick around a little longer but that's about it. From the TV side of things, Terry Heaton, a TV branding consultant, thinks its bad business for local news:
This is a precedent-setting deal and will likely spawn all kinds of others, but there's a real danger here that I call the "on-demand trap." While I agree that stations need to unbundle their content (hell, I'm the guy who first called it that), the reality is that this deal exposes these 16 markets to further encroachment by Yahoo (or any of the other portals) as THE local go-to media entity for those markets and assigns the CBS affiliates to a purely content-creation (read: expensive) role in the media value chain.

In other words - and this is not the first time the news industry has followed this path - they keep creating the editorial but they give the business model away to someone else.
<rant>That's fine with me. The days of sitting through inane banter to see what's happening in the world have long since passed. TV news exists for one and only purpose: to see footage of fires and other natural disasters. In all other matters it is vastly inferior to other forms.</rant> At some point, TV news will have to morph into something like a Web interface, where I can learn more - and get access to source materials - about certain stories and skip over others.
muvee is just a weird thing - software (that you buy!) that lets you mashup photos and movie clips into a video with a certain style. I mean, that might be nice to give a little polish to home videos that I don't have the time or skill to make well. The Warner deal lets people use Warner video content as raw material for their muvee movies. I'm not sure who exactly wants to do that - what people want is to be able to use songs as soundtracks.
Beyond that, reading about muvee suggests what's right about YouTube. Standard formats, freely sharable, no software to download (that was one of Google Video's problems, too), put anyone's videos on any webpage. If muvee is a self-contained world, where you can only share with other muvee users, the whole deal is a major snore.
Speaking of mashups, why not mashup these two newsbytes. What creators need is free access to TV news content that can be edited into parody or patriotism. Many people I think could apply the Jon Stewart treatment if they had access to the newsmaker video.

October 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Josh Wolf, still in jail and not going anywhere

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

The case of Josh Wolf, spending his 57th day in prison for refusing to turn over his video of an SF protest to a federal grand jury, raises some thorny issues and it's not as simple as censorship on one hand or rule of law on the other.
Demian Bulwa considers the issues in today's SF Chronicle: Is Wolf a journalist or an activist? Are federal authorities pulling an endrun around California's shield law? Should there be a federal shield law and is this really the case that proves it?
Wolf's lawyer, Martin Garbus, revealed some details of what's on the tape that Wolf refuses to show in court - it doesn't show the attack but does include interviews with 10 protesters who took off their masks to talk to Wolf's camera.
"They expected he would safeguard them, which is what he is doing," Garbus said. "When they take off the masks and talk to this guy, they're assuming it will not be shown in a hostile place," such as a grand jury room. Earlier, I wrote that it didn't seem that Wolf was actually protecting sources. If there are people he's protecting that improves his claim a bit. But note that Garbus says, "they're assuming," but journalists don't go to jail over assumptions - only when they make promises. Journalists need to stand by their promises and be willing to go to jail to keep them. Doesn't this smack of something else - not a promise but an oath from one activist to another?
And then Wolf offers this rationale in a phone call from prison:
If he screened the video for the grand jury, he said, "They would say, 'Do you know this person, or this person, or this person?' They would then take all those people and call them into the grand jury, the same way the House Un-American Activities Committee did to create a list of Communists."

Give me a break: Only one thing stands between modern American democracy and a return to McCarthyism - Josh Wolf? One is tempted to say he has delusions of grandeur, but what actually makes sense is that he is protecting fellow activists, while wearing the cloak of journalism? Is that too harsh?

October 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Headlines for Monday, Oct. 15

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Here are some stories we're tracking this morning. Hit the site at 4 pm (Pacific) to catch full coverage.

Herring: As SolarPower con comes to San Jose, green tech shaping up as SV's hottest new industry
WSJ: Behind Apple's ascendancy, COO Tim Cook is the 'story behind the story'
CBS to provide local news video to Yahoo
TR: Researchers make advances in 'spintronic' transistors
Herring: Warner cuts music video deal with muvee
Microsoft ready to give data to security firms
FT: A year after Samsung confesses to DRAM price-fixing, US investigating three companies for SRAM pricing
TechCrunch: MySpace emphasizing video now

October 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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October 13, 2006

How users behave, not their passwords, is key to new wave of database security

By Richard Koman for

The law of evidence assumes that if people have regular habits - she always speeds past Candlestick Park - or businesses have regular customs - incoming mail is always stamped within 2 hours of receipt - they will always act in that way, unless some unusual occurrence causes a break in the habit.
That's kind of the idea behind a new class of database security tools that figure out what when hacking is occurring by looking for aberrations in usual behavior. Rather than depending on the sanctity of passwords or berating users into good behavior - like regularly changing passwords - these systems learn what users' habits and customs are. When there's a change, it's a red flag.
Writing in MIT Technology Review, David Talbott notes that Symantec has unveiled a "learning database" product after a year in a pilot program. The approach is ideal for fingering malicious insiders.
"Organizations have traditionally relied on access controls to meet confidentiality needs," says Sushil Jajodia, director of the center for secure information systems at George Mason University. "Security products typically focus on outsider attacks...but do not protect an organization from malicious insiders. This is one of the first products to address the insider threat."

But it also has applications for e-commerce sites trying to stop outside hackers, Symantec chief architect Carey Nachenberg says.
most online shopping sites have fields that allow users to search for products. But if just the right queries and characters--such as quotes or asterisks--are put in the right places in a search field, a harmless search for books or videos can become a successful theft of credit-card numbers in the company's database. "This is a common attack, and many websites are vulnerable," says Nachenberg. "In order to catch such a thing, I need to identify that a different query is being sent than what is normal."

Symantec Database Security is the first product from the company's Advanced Concept Groups, which has been given leave to act like a startup. That's important because the burden of rolling out a new product is so high for big companies.
The challenge for any large company is to build an entirely new product and bring it to market," says Steve Trilling, vice president of research & advanced development at Symantec. "When you are shipping to millions of customers, there is an expectation that we will ship on 10 platforms, in 10 languages, with lots of documentation and a sales and marketing program. So I think there was some value in building something from the ground up using a different model."

October 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Hurd hires his old right-hand man

By Richard Koman for

AP reports that HP has hired Jon Hoak as VP and chief ethics and compliance officer. Hoak was formerly general counsel at NCR, where Mark Hurd served as CEO before joining HP.

Hoak and Hurd go back to Hurd's time at NCR. According to a September BusinessWeek article, it was Hoak who served as chief investigator and plumber when NCR was best by leaks and employees going postal. Hurd turned to Hoak to deal with these situations, but insisted everything be above board - at least as Hoak recalls it.
During Mark V. Hurd's 25-year career at NCR, the company had plenty of good reasons to launch internal investigations. There was the time 10 years ago when an angry, laid-off worker, after getting into a tussle with Hurd in a pickup basketball game, made repeated death threats against him and his family. Years later, during a painful round of cost-cutting for the 120-year-old cash register and computer maker, Hurd and other top executives had their tires slashed in the executive parking lot. NCR installed a security system in Hurd's house and hired a guard. And several times employees posted sensitive financial data on Yahoo! message boards.

In each investigation, Hurd, an executive who normally delves into the most minute details of daily operations, relied on his former chief counsel, Jon Hoak, to run the show. Hoak, who has since left NCR, vividly recalls Hurd's peering over his rimless reading glasses after one Yahoo leak and telling him: "We can't have this, so you go out and do what you have to. Just make sure everything we do is legal and above board."

Hoak will develop business practice guidelines and work with outside counsel to assess the company's investigative practices.
October 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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October 12, 2006

weekend kultur shock: Living Liberally

[diggrz: an SVW tag for arts, culture, trends, and events in and around Silicon Valley- new from SVW] -

By Maria Mouk for Silicon Valley Watcher
Diggrz weekend kultur shock.

Classics, anniversaries, clowns, and creative contemporary

Did you catch the Dresden Dolls at Bimbo's? If not... they're performing again tonight, Friday the 13th at 8pm! Cabaret theatre at its finest.

This weekend also marks the official 1 year anniversary of the re-opening of the de Young. To celebrate the integration of art and architecture(or slow departure of a construction zone), and over 1.6 million visitors later, the First Anniversary Bash has been planned. 5 bucks gets you in. Five to midnight, with an array of music, dance and spoken word. There is a also a community-wide Free Day on Saturday, October 14.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, if you dig indie-rock, voted Best Band of 2005. They're performing on Friday at the Warfield (982 Market Street). Along with Melbourne hailing, Architecture in Helsinki and Takka Takka.

If you're reading from the right side(think New York), I recommend taking full advantage of the 10th annual DUMBO Arts Festival, going all weekend long in Brooklyn (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass). Gallery openings, simultaneous projections, interactive art, water art, designers, architects, and an opportunity to explore New York's most fertile art ground(makes me wish I was inhaling car fumes all over again).

Back in the Bay there's more burlesque and Balkan performance to catch. Portland's Vagabond Opera plays Saturday at the Accordion Apocalypse Repair Shop, and Sunday at Amnesia. Full of Eastern-Euro French Cabaret; stilt walking, accordionists, acrobalancers, and fire artisans, its sure to light and delight your evening.
Also on Saturday,CELLspace joins the anniversary rounds with their 10 year Anniversary Gala. CELLspace currently houses nine visual arts studios, a 10,000 square foot performance space, adult arts education programming, a visual arts gallery, a metal shop, woodshop, and a community flea and farmers market. It's well worth dropping $20 at the door to support this ambitious space.

Ladytron

Take Sunday to relax because Monday at the Filmore hails(my personal favorite) electro legend; Ladytron. And if you're in the mood for something a bit more intellectually stirring, UC Berkeley Center for New Media hosts "Recent Experiments in Modern Composition, Software and Stand-Up Comedy" with Cory Arcangel as part of their "Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium" at 7:30pm.

I will be in L.A. for their version of Burningman Decompression. I call it: necessary tra-vel-ution and dissemination of ideas! :)

Tag: diggrz
[diggrz refers to the nomadic lifestyle offered by mobile digital technologies and gadgets - creating a "nomadig" culture. The diggrz name is also a tip-of-the-hat to some of the ideas of the Diggers, a democratic group that arose in 1649, out of the English revolution .
The Diggers were a radical group that cultivated and protected common lands, and sought to create egalitarian, self-sustaining communities. The Diggers would have found kindred spirits in today's software engineer culture,  and the focus on creating commonly owned technologies through egalitarian open source community projects. - Tom Foremski]
Tag: diggrz

October 12, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: diggrz
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Jawed Who? Meet YouTube's silent partner

By Richard Koman for

The story of YouTube's founding is rapidly approaching a level in the Valley's mythology approaching Steve Jobs' garage and "the letter" Bill Gates wrote to the Homebrew Computing Club. Essentially, that the founders were shooting video at a party and discovered there was no easy way - even for geeks - to exchange video online, thus was born YouTube.
When one says "the founders," everyone has seen Chad Hurley's surfer-boy good looks and Steve Chen is somewhat less well-known. But who knew that there was a third founder, Jawed Karim, who worked with Hurley and Chen at PayPal and, perhaps, came up with the original notion of a video-sharing site?
He made a couple mil at PayPal but is considerably more loaded this week, even at substantially lower levels than Hurley and Chen. That's because he made the unusual Valley choice of staying in graduate school rather than devoting himself day and night to building a start-up.
The New York Times' Miguel Helft spent a little time with Karim on the Stanford campus, where he is pursuing his master's in computer science.
On Wednesday, during a walk across campus and a visit to his dorm room and the computer sciences building where he takes classes, Mr. Karim described himself as a nerd who gets excited about learning. Nothing in his understated demeanor suggests he is anything other than an ordinary graduate student, and he attracted little attention on campus in jeans, a blue polo shirt, a tan jacket and black Puma sneakers.
Mr. Karim said he might keep a hand in entrepreneurship, and he dreams of having an impact on the way people use the Internet — something he has already done. Philanthropy may have some appeal, down the road. But mostly he just wants to be a professor. He said he simply hopes to follow in the footsteps of other Stanford academics who struck it rich in Silicon Valley and went back to teaching.

By February 2005 he knew he didn't want to leave school and the three partners negotiated a deal where he would take a vastly smaller share of the company in exchange for serving as a consultant.
oelof Botha, the Sequoia partner who led the investment in YouTube, said he would have preferred if Mr. Karim had stayed.
“I wish we could have kept him as part of the company,” Mr. Botha said. “He was very, very creative. We were doing everything we could to convince him to defer.”

Karim showed Helft some videos he shot of Chen and Hurley back in April 05. In one Chen says he is “getting pretty depressed” because there were only 50 or 60 videos on the site.
Presumably, Chen is no longer depressed and Karim has reason to be happy, too, although he's pretty laid back it all.
Asked what he thought of the acquisition price, Mr. Karim said: “It sounded good to me.” When a reporter looked puzzled, he raised his eyebrows and added: “I was amazed.”

October 12, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Koman: Why copyright violations don't matter

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

In the aftermath of Napster, it seemed there was a war between copyright holders and technologists. Technologists would come up with what was possible and Hollywood would say that is a crime. In the Napster years there was something legitimate about the Hollywood argument - people are simply taking goods that are intended for sale.
But Hollywood wanted to stop more than just downloading, they wanted to stop any unapproved use of copyright material. That's the battle Larry Lessig has been fighting - the right to mashup. Here's what he said in an interview I did with him in 2005.
If you think about the ways kids under 15 using digital technology think about writing--you know, writing with text is just one way to write, and not even the most interesting way to write. The more interesting ways are increasingly to use images and sound and video to express ideas. Well, all of those ways of writing under the law as it's understood right now are basically illegal unless you secure permission from the author up front. So the same act of creativity in some sense, you know, taking, creating, mixing out of what other people do, is legal in the text world and illegal in the digital media world. And the struggle is to get people to recognize that there's no good reason for the rules to be so radically different between the two contexts, and that we ought to be encouraging a wider range of creativity using digital media--both because there are many people who would be extraordinarily talented in exploiting those types of creativity, and also because it would really spur growth in collective literacy about how media itself functions and how it has its effect.

The legal battle, however, has been a loser. The Eldred challenge to copyright extension laws lost in the Supreme Court. Grokster lost in the Supreme Court. Legally speaking, copyright owners have every right to protect their government-granted monopolies. Third parties have no right to share, distribute, download or otherwise traffic in others' intellectual property.
Fast forward to YouTube and the Google deal. There's a lot of commentary about Google exposing itself to a rash of copyright troubles because YouTube is allegedly rife with other people's content. Here's Mark Cuban today, for instance:
I still think Google Lawyers will be a busy, busy bunch. I dont think you can sue Google into oblivion, but as others have mentioned, if Google gets nailed one single time for copyright violation, there are going to be more shareholder lawsuits than doans has pills to go with the pile on copyright suits that follow. Think maybe how Google discloses what they perceive the copyright risk to be in the SEC filings might be an interesting read ?

Here's the thing. Nailing copyright violators is a game of whack-a-mole. Digital technology from cellphones to TiVO to YouTube make it far too easy to capture and share digital content for the copyright police to stop it from happening. And there's no reason to do so - users who upload copyright content from TV are engaging in the large-scale, free viral marketing for this content.
So the YouTube deals with CBS, Warners, Universal and Sony are notable for two aspects:

The labels are permitting users to perform mashups on copyright music video content.
CBS may decline to force removal of its copyright content and simply place advertising on it.

Every marketer needs to know what consumers are interested in. Social networking sites are amazing engines for tracking exactly that. If you can get marketers running the show instead of lawyers and accountants, the world looks incredibly different.
The marketers in fact have already figured this out. I lost the article, but I saw a quote from a Sony marketing VP that said, "Users are interacting with our artists and product on YouTube and we need to be part of the conversation."
This all goes back to Doc Searls' "conversation" meme: Blogging is a conversation, news is a conversation, and music, movies and TV are also conversations.
Where lawsuits have failed, new technology and business models will succeed. Media companies will find a way to continue to prosper, I think, because they will enable consumers to morph into commentators and creators and back to consumers - and, most importantly, they will be able to make money in the process.
I don't see an obvious way for newspapers to do the same. Reporters can become bloggers, but it's not obvious to me how bloggers can enter the news organization and how the business model can be transformed to monetize the change-over. Perhaps technology will provide an answer there, too, but I can't see from here.
October 12, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Top Stories
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No need for a "pod" UpSnap offers free access to podcasts via cell phones

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

There is no need to own an iPod or an MP3 player to listen to podcasts if you use UpSnap's free mobile phone based service.

I recently met with UpSnap, the free 411 SMS messaging service which has added a large entertainment service. Through a simple interface users can create a playlist of subscribed podcasts and listen to them through their cell phones.

It's a very large potential user base, there are about 210m SMS capable cell phones in the US. In addition, there is no software download or installation required.

"Podcasts have proved to be very popular, but they have one problem, you need an iPod," said Tony Philipp, CEO of UpSnap. "We've extended the reach of this popular media so that anyone can access podcasts anywhere at anytime using any mobile phone."

The service is free except for a small number of premium podcasts. It is based on a streaming voice technology called SWInG (Streaming Wireless Internet Gateway)from XSVoice - a company it acquired in January 2006. The revenues come from merchants that pay UpSnap on an SMS text-to-call model. A short advert after each podcast enables listeners to connect to merchants.

Once a user has selected their podcasts and they are ready to listen, they text a short one word message to the service which then queues up their podcasts and starts streaming the content.

"The service is for media junkies who want branded content from ESPN, NASCAR, as well as access to niche music, they can have it all on demand on their mobile phone," said Mr Philipp.

It's a clever use of text messaging combined with mobile phone technologies to provide a large library of podcast content, ranging from hip-hop, to technology, to Sunday church sermons. And it frees podcasts from the "pod" and the PC. It essentially transforms a cell phone into a pocket media server.

The UpSnap entertainment service makes use of the spare capacity of the voice networks of the carriers, of which there is a relative abundance compared with their data networks. Since most users have free calling plans at weekends and evenings they don't have to pay a penny to access thousands of podcasts.

Another cool feature of the service is that it allows listeners to send a voicemail to the podcaster--it turns a podcast into a two-way medium.

Web sites with podcasts display a small RSS button that show that their content is available through cell phones. I'd like to try it out next time I'm at SFMOMA, which offers podcasts that guide visitors through its exhibitions.

October 12, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Mobile Watch
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October 11, 2006

Thoughts on Google and YouTube...

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

Google's acquisition of YouTube for $1.65bn stunned many in Silicon Valley.

Some thought it was way too much to pay for a startup with hardly anything in revenues and it indicates a bubble mentality.

While others took it as good news because it would boost the valuation of other startups in the same or related markets.

Those opinions would be true if this was 1999, but it's not.  In 1999 we didn't have these massive computing platforms, such as Google, Yahoo, AOL, EBay, Amazon, etc.

One way to look at this deal is to say that YouTube acquired the most efficient and powerful computing platform on the planet. GOOG can offer YouTube instant economies of scale that would have taken it years to build.

In addition, Google has a business model that can monetize YouTube much better, and more quickly than anybody else. If YouTube had an IPO today, it would take it a long time to become a large thriving business, fighting off many similar competitors along the way.

GOOG can monetize YouTube far better and far more quickly than anybody else. Therefore YouTube's valuation is likely on the low side considering the revenues Google can make from this acquisition.

This also means that the valuations of similar businesses are not boosted by this deal, because suddenly, there is an 8,000 lb guerilla in the room. And it is taking all the oxygen out of the room.

In 1999, the Internet was still a level playing field, all the big Internet players were still relatively small, you could build competing businesses and take on the leaders and win. In 2006 this is not the case.

So what if you have a better search technology today? Google can monetize it better than you can, you would partner with it or sell out to it.

What the Google/YouTube deal represents is the bet that scale on the Internet will win every time. That if you can aggregate the largest number of users, the largest number of applications, the largest number of advertisers, you will win each time.

And today, there really is no "rule of three" in the market, the notion that the "big three" as in car mackers, and in other industries, become the dominant monetizers and everyone else grabs the scraps.

The Internet is all about scale, where scale is rewarded. There is no reason for anyone but the largest, most efficient Internet company to dominate Internet markets.

Google is essentially building a proprietary Internet with efficiencies that the current Internet cannot hope to match. The Internet is a patchwork quilt of old and new systems and networks.

The "GooGnet" is a modern network made from the most cost efficient and effective systems and networks ever built.

Google's engineers are already influencing and changing the architecture of computer systems at Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard, of microprocessor designs at Intel, and influencing similar developments at hundreds of other companies.

Google is spending hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter and it will soon become the world's largest computer systems buyer as it builds out its platform.

And the more the GooGnet is loaded with massive applications such as YouTube, the faster Google can scale and dominate.

Over time, there will not be a number two, or a number three competitor in Google's markets. There will be many small companies living off the margins, in niche markets - making decent livings but nothing blockbuster.

That's why Google has its motto - "Do no evil" because with such scale it could do tremendous harm.

But will it be doing good? It doesn't need to "do"  anything, it will be essentially neutral, just as the Internet itself is a neutral entity in any ethical and moral sense.

- - -

So what about things like copyright problems on YouTube? It's not a problem because Google will sort it out in the same way its news aggregator Google News sorts it out: if you don't want to be in Google News, tell the company and it will remove you. And it will also remove any traffic that Google is sending to you.

With Google News, the news sites have become dependent on nearly half of their traffic coming from Google. It has become a distribution platform for them and they could not survive without it.

That's what will happen with "YouTube powered by Google," it becomes the distribution platform for the emerging world of IP TV.

I had an interesting chat recently with William Jolitz, a Silicon Valley veteran about this topic. He notes that it costs about $1 per minute to deliver TV content to a viewer as compared with 5 cents per minute via a service such as YouTube.

Those are powerful numbers, a 20 to 1 cost advantage is huge. It's a huge competitive advantage. And Mr Jolitz knows the value of a broadband driven business model, see: "The Google Test" on VentureBeat.

October 11, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Google [GOOG]
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Google takes a baby step on the way to Google Office

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Last night I thought it odd that Writely was prominently displaeadying a planned outage notice. This morning, I found that www.writely.com redirects to Google's new Docs and Spreadsheets page. What gives?
Basically, just a sensible, if modest, integration of two online office services - Writely's word processing and Google's homegrown spreadsheet app - just in time for the Office 2.0 conference. (Where are the branding people at Google, though? Docs and Spreadsheets? And when Google adds the next piece of Office, what will they call it? Docs, spreadsheets and slideshows? Please.)
Michael Arrington notes:
Google is straightforward in its goal to excel in collaboration and sharing of documents, while agreeing that desktop office applications will continue to offer superior editing features for the foreseeable future. Still, the ability to import and collaborate on a document, and then publish it to the web or take it back to the desktop, is a powerful feature not available to Microsoft Office users outside of Office Live or Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server. And use of Google’s online office applications is free.

Juveniles who use guns in crimes will get stricter monitoring from more tracking devices and more probation officers, both funded by a new state anti-crime grant.

The plan was announced Friday by Gov. Phil Bredesen and Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton at a gathering at the Neighborhood Christian Center at 785 Jackson.

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The grant of approximately $500,000 aims to more closely supervise juveniles who have first-time weapons-related charges that, for example, involve simple possession.

Those charged with more serious gun offenses, such as homicide or robbery, normally are detained by Juvenile Court.

"It will allow us to supervise individuals who we think are most at risk of committing another crime while they are out," said Wharton. "We're trying to get them back on track. I heard a police sergeant say last week that the most volatile mix you can get is teenagers and guns. This (grant) comes at a really critical time."

He said 17 children have died by homicide this year and that, in all, there have been more than 100 gun-related homicides, with juveniles facing charges in 19 of those cases.

Bredesen said there is no reason Memphis, with its reputation for barbecue and blues, should be ranked second in the nation in violent crimes, as an FBI annual report recently showed.

"We're not going to let evil triumph," the governor said.

Officials said the grant will increase probation officers and case managers to seven from the present five and will give Juvenile Court the ability to track the whereabouts of up to 300 juveniles a year with global-positioning ankle bracelets.

Such juveniles traditionally are monitored with less restrictive measures, including release on appearance bonds to parents or guardians.

More than 1,000 juveniles are on some form of home confinement through Juvenile Court, officials said.

Wharton said that wherever he goes now people first want to know what is being done to reduce violent crime.

"Everywhere I go -- the grocery store, dry cleaners, barber shop, church, golf course -- they want to talk about safety and security," he said. "We've got to give people hope out there and let them know we hear what they're saying."

Wharton said the proposal for the grant is part of an overall effort by area law enforcement and elected officials involved in an ongoing anti-crime initiative called Operation Safe Community.

October 11, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Stock options take down two more execs: Cnet, McAfee CEOs quit

By Richard Koman for

Cnet chairman and CEO Shelby Bonnie and McAfee boss George Samenuk resigned today, both victims of the stock options backdating scandal that is roiling the Valley. McAfee president Kevin Weiss was flat-out fired, the company said.
Both companies recently completed internal investigations of backdating from 1996 to 2003, The Washington Post reports.
"I apologize for the option-related problems that happened under my leadership," said Bonnie. Samenuk said he was retiring "in the best interests of the company, its shareholders and employees. I regret that some of the stock option problems . . . occurred on my watch."

Meanwhile the Times' Laurie Flynn writes that Apple's Fred Anderson may have lost his place at Apple to save Steve Jobs'. Anderson left after an Apple investigation found options problems from 1997-2003, a time when he served as CFO.
“I would say that Jobs and the Apple board threw Fred under the bus to keep it from hitting them,” said Lynn E. Turner, a former chief accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission and a managing director at Glass, Lewis & Company, which advises institutional investors on corporate governance.

Apple's disclosures left the financial community (and certainly the SEC) dissatisfied, Brian Foley, an independent compensation consultant, said.
“You don’t know what the scope of the problem really is. They told you the number of grant dates, but not the number of grants. They told you that (Jobs) was in the know on a few instances, but those could be a huge number of shares.
...Mr. Foley questioned why the company had not yet quantified the potential impact for investors. “After three months, you don’t know what the number is,” he said. “Come on.”

And Reuters reports that Andrew McKelvey resigned as chairman and CEO of Monster Worldwide, the parent of Monster.com, saying he could “no longer dedicate the number of hours required” for the company’s review of its stock option grants.
“At this stage in my life, I simply can no longer dedicate the number of hours required by Monster’s rapid global growth and the additional demands of time associated with the ongoing historical stock option grant review."

The options review will prevent Monster from stating comparative quarterly results for the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2005.

October 11, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Here comes Office 2.0 . . .

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher
This is an interesting conference put on by Ismael Ghalimi at the swank St Regis. I popped into the Tuesday evening reception at SF MOMA.

Conference goers got their badges, and their digital schedules on a flash drive - an Apple iPod Nano - very classy.

I got to catch up with Steve Gilmor, my fellow ZDNet blogger, David Tebbutt, and also, Robert Scoble's boss, John Furrier, founder of PodTech was there.

Plus a bunch of pals made it, Chris Heuer, Jeremy Pepper, Brian Solis, Uwe Maurer, and I met many others. This type of event is good because you can get to chat and get to know people.

Office 2.0 is a space that holds much more promise than "Web 2.0" because Office 2.0 is displacing a business model. Much of the Web 2.0 applications out there are not displacing anything, they are seeking new(ish) business models.

Office 2.0 is about offering business productivity as a service rather than as a download. Will corporations allow such activities outside of their firewalls?

They probably don't have any choice about it. I heard one story Tuesday evening about a company that had finished a long SAP installation but their internal departments and other users, refused to switch from Salesforce. So they dumped SAP.

Today's model for growing software sales is: make the software development cheap enough so that departments can pay for it out of their budgets, without having to beg their colleagues in IT.

Individuals can expense it and it is that kind of viral marketing that works great.

More on that tomorrow...

October 11, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: New Rules
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October 10, 2006

Ready to IPO? Valley companies take AIM at London

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Silicon Valley companies considering going public are increasingly looking to London's AIM exchange, rather than Nasdaq, the Financial Times reports. Why? First and foremost, Sarbanes Oxley.
More than 100 US companies are thinking about listing on AIM instead of Nasdaq, the paper says. The interest started about six months ago and grows daily, said Gary Benton of the Palo Alto law firm of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. "We get a phone call from an interested company almost every day at the moment.”
Venture capitalists have reached a breaking of frustration with the high costs of launching companies. Tim Draper says it now takes 10-12 years, instead of 5-7 years, to go from startup to IPO.
A lot of the entrepreneurs I’ve talked to who have very successful companies…are going to take them public on the London exchange or the Singapore exchange or the Hong Kong exchange.

The first Valley company to list on AIM is OCZ, a maker of memory technologies. They raised $9.4 million on AIM when they listed in June. And SOX was the main reason they chose AIM instead of Nasdaq.
“Sox is a big impediment for companies of our size, with bills of $2m to $4m to raise the money and then get a first-year sign-off [of accounts by auditors]," said CFO Arthur Knapp.
October 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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Smalltown and GrayBoxx: Two approaches to local search and two approaches to tapping the Yellow Pages gold mine

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

Local search and local online commerce are the next battlegrounds for the giants such as Google and Yahoo, but also for many startup companies. The lure is the billions of dollars spent on Yellow Pages advertising by local businesses.

We have Yahoo Local and Google Local, plus Max Levchin's Yelp, CitySearch, Ingenio, plus local newspapers and other companies--all trying to grab a piece of the local search and local commerce ad spend.

But tapping into the local businesses market through online services is hard. The same factors that make scaling a global online service easy on the Internet become reversed when applied to local businesses.

For example, a local pizza parlor gets nearly all its business from within two miles of where it operates. Reaching China or even a neighborhood five miles away is something the Internet does well for many companies. But it doesn't make much sense for a local pizza parlour, and the same is true for most local businesses--they all nned to reach customers in their neighborhoods.

I recently spoke with two startups, Smalltown and Grayboxx, with two different approaches.

Smalltown targets neighborhoods and small communities

I was very impressed with Smalltown's approach to local search because of the elegant design and simplicity of the site. Simplicity is not easy to do but it is extremely vital in the online space.

Last week I spoke with Smalltown CEO Hal Rucker. "To succeed in local markets we belive that you have to be local," said Mr Rucker. "So we've created 'webcards' which are a type of virtual index cards with their own web address that can be created by anyone local, by a business or an individual."

An example of a webcard:

Webcards can be attached to each other, and also sent to people. They provide an easy to use template that allows busy, small business owners to create a web page about their business without having to have a website.

And the process is simple enough that any customer of a local business can create a webcard that acts as a recommendation, or a warning, by filling in text and adding photos.

"With webcards we are helping to build what we call the 'local web.' And it creates 'social advertising,'" said Mr Rucker.

The roll out of Smalltown will be town by town. The first two are San Mateo and Burlingame, in the heart of Silicon Valley.

If they can get the formula right, then they can reproduce it in other small towns and city neighborhoods.

Each Smalltown would have a local person/agent to help evangelize the service and also aid local businesses and people to produce webcards. Smalltown is =offering cash bounties to people of $5 per five webcards, a smart way to create a large inventory of webcards, which creates a potentially useful library of local content.

SVW's take: Smalltown has a great user interface and I love the concept of webcards, each with their own web address, each discoverable through the search engines, as well as the local Smalltown portal.

What I'd like to see with such approaches is a compelling front end, by which I mean a reason to go to the site even if I'm not actively searching for something local. What would draw me to it if I did not have a need to find something? I've got a couple of ideas...

Coming up next in SVW: Interview with Bob Chandra, founder and CEO of Grayboxx (still in stealth mode). This local search startup taps unseen databases to create ranked lists of top local businesses favored by their communities. . .

October 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Search Watch
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October 9, 2006

Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion

Google is officially the proud new owner of YouTube. It's a $1.65 billon, stock-for-stock deal. According to the Google press release, "When the acquisition is complete, YouTube will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Google’s own fast-growing video business. " The deal has been approved by both corporations and is expected to close in Q4.
I just got off of the conference call on this deal, so here the notes I was able to take. You can listen to the full call at 888-203-1112, confirmation code 2260624.
Eric Schmidt: The music deals of this morning show the growing value copyright holders place on video. YT is one of many investments Google will be making in video. YT is a social phenomenon that I've never seen before. The thing that tipped us over was their vision. YT/Google will create a new and very interesting platform.
Chad: We're in the midst of a shift in control of entertainment. We'll sharpen our focus on this vision and Google's revolutionary ad platform has inspired us to create a revolutionary new video platform.
Sergey: Video is a very important part of the world's information. When you think about search, oftentimes when you want a true explanation of something what better way to get it then to see a video of it. Video is a great medium for advertising. I expect YT will be a great channel for advertising. It's hard for me to imagine a better fit - technically and culturally. YT reminds me of Google just a few short years ago.
Q: Why did Google need to buy YT? Why stock, not cash? YT cost structures?
Eric: When we looked at our mission, Video Google was doing very well. There were lots of interesting content and partnerships. The marketplace showed a clear winner in social networking in video.
David Drummond (Google's corporate development VP): We did a stock deal it order to make it tax-free for the YT shareholders. It's a good deal for them and it made it cheaper for us, as well. We're pleased YT shareholders wanted to be Google shareholders.
Q: YT's new ID architecture?
Steve (YT's chief of engineering): We've been hard at work at identifying users and partners can ID their content such as fingerprinting, audio fingerprinting, keyword searches. We're on track to launch within the month.
Schmidt: In the short time the engineering teams have had to work together, they're come up with 20-30 ways that the two companies can extend each other's technologies. We don't lack for a set of ideas. Most people believe this is just the beginning of a video revolution.
Drummond: The price was modeled on a synergistic model. "We arrived at a price that's very fair and reflects great value that YouTube has created."
Sergey: "We care very much about search and to increase the comprehensiveness of search. We're also working on the advertising side of video - but there's more experimentation to be done there."
Schmidt: Google Video will not go away. "It's a very important part of the Google user experience and it's going to be more even more integrated with Google overall."
Sergey: "The general sense we've taken from MySpace, there's a new class of site that have dev very quickly are very successful and are very attractive to users - it's a next generation of sites and companies. We're excited to work with them in all sorts of ways."
October 9, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Google [GOOG]
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YouTube cuts three content deals

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

YouTube announced three major deals to include TV and music content on the site, allow users to incorporate music videos in their own mashups, and test software to seek out copyright violations on the site. AP reports that YouTube has locked up deals with CBS, Universal Vivendi and Sony BMG.
The music deals mirror a deal YT cut with Warner a month ago - the label provides music videos and allows users to legitimately include the content in their own creations. Universal and its artists will be "compensated not just for the official videos, but also for user-generated content that incorporates Universal's music," AP reports.
Sony BMG also said Monday it will make video content available on YouTube — and will also let YouTube users include some catalog songs in their own amateur video uploads.
Sony BMG said it will share advertising revenue with YouTube for all music videos that incorporate audio or video works from the Sony BMG library.

The CBS deal includes the network providing some short-form content to YT, mostly excerpts from shows and previews. The CBS deal, like the others, includes testing of YT's copyright searching tech, but includes the option to get the last laugh on violators by placing advertising on their own content and splitting revenues with YouTube.
The deals are promising as they show copyright holders are somewhat willing to allow users to play with their content and get paid on the back end. YouTube is certainly racking up more video deals than Steve Jobs, so if Google buys up YouTube, doesn't that put them in direct competition with Apple? And does that put Google CEO Eric Schmidt in any sort of conflict of interest, given that he is Apple's newest board member?
October 9, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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WSJ: GooTube deal could come today

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

What was Chad Hurley doing over the weekend? Unlike Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, it seems that Hurley is willing to spend a beautiful couple of days talking to lawyers. The Wall Street Journal reports today that a deal to buy the company for $1.65 billion could be announced today.
The deal would allow YouTube to keep its name, office and staff - a "smart move by Google," notes Cynthia Brumfield at IP Democracy .
At Hitwise, LeeAnn Prescott takes a look at the numbers and sees just how lamely Google Video has performed, compared to YouTube: Last month YT received four times as many visits as Google Video. And until the August placement of Video on the Google homepage, Google was sending more traffic to YT than to GV.
Oddly, she concludes that Google needn't spend this money on YouTube, since their brilliant engineers could replicate any and all features that YT offers. It's not a question of engineering, though; it's question of "mindshare." YouTube has it - and it's enabling them to cut the big deals with Hollywood. If Google can't make those deals - and Schmidt has never delivered a big Hollywood deal; indeed copyright owners (in the form of publishers and European news agencies) hate Google - it will have to buy into them. (More on YT's deals shortly.)
Finally, the deal is so obsessing the Valley that strange rumors are flying about, as Michael Arrington, who broke the rumor, notes:
Whether its happening or not, this seems to be THE topic of conversation in Silicon Valley right now.
We don’t have any additional verified information, other than a bizarre story Marshall Kirkpatrick was tracking and that developed on Friday and Saturday. We got word that a lawyer representing Google may have told at least one person that the “deal has officially gone through.” The person who was supposedly told this then sent an email out to a number of people summarizing the conversation, which we got wind of. I spoke to the attorney, who denied having “any knowledge of the deal” or making that statement. I also spoke to the person who wrote the email, who backtracked and stated that he exaggerated the lawyer’s statements, and that, in short, the email he wrote wasn’t true. At that point Marshall and I decided to drop it. But I will say this - the fact that the lawyer repeately told me that he had no knowledge of a deal instead of “no comment” means he was either lying (unlikely), that a deal is happening and he doesn’t know about it (unlikely), or that there is no deal. We’ll see.

October 9, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Google [GOOG]
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60 Minutes talked with Dunn and Fiorina while Perkins went sailing on his very large boat

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

Sunday evening "60 Minutes" devoted almost 30 minutes of the program to separate interviews with Patricia Dunn, the former chairman of Hewlett-Packard, and Carly Fiorina the former CEO.

It was all mildly fascinating in terms of new information. What was interesting was that "60 Minutes" took the approach that here were two very powerful women, and both had run into trouble from a very male HP board.

Ms Dunn started by saying she did not know about the illegal nature of the investigation into boardroom leaks until fairly recently, September 6, 2006.

And she said that the reason that she was indicted last week on four felony charges was the work of Tom Perkins, a former fellow board member, and one of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley.

She said Mr Perkins wanted her out because she refused to keep private the source of the boardroom leaks. She said he told her he felt betrayed by her actions.

He then took his complaint to the SEC, FTC, Justice Department, and the California Attorney General. This was verified by a representative of Mr Perkins' said "60 Minutes."

Mr Perkins was not available for an interview because he was sailing his boat, the "Maltese Falcon," which at at 289 feet is one of the world's largest. So whenever his name was mentioned "60 Minutes" would cut to one of many video clips of a lone Mr Perkins on his massive boat.

I bet he wished he was in the studio able to comment on Ms Dunn's account. That was not good timing to go off and play with his toys.

Ms Fiorina was also on the show, which was explained as a "quirk" because her book had just been published. Ms Fiorina also attested to strange boardroom behavior, and leaks.

Ms Fiorina said she was fired for no given reason. She said no one on the board spoke to her about her dismissal, there were no impropriety, no ethical issues. She said that it was personal, but she did not identify who might be behind it.

Ms Fiorina took the opportunity to claim  credit for HP's turnaround. She said her five years at the helm had transformed a "laggard" HP into one of the world's top tech leaders.

She has a very good point there, although I wonder what Mark Hurd, HP's CEO would say about that? Wall Street has handed Mr Hurd the credit for HP's recovery.
UPDATE: Watch the interviews on Yahoo:

The Troubles at HP

Lesley Stahl's exclusive interviews with former Hewlett-Packard Chairman Patricia Dunn and Carly Fiorina, the former HP CEO.

- - -

Learn more about Mr Perkins giant yacht and also his racy, sexy novel:

http://www.yachtingmagazine.com/yachting/boatreviews/article/0,24579,1155296,00.html

A legendary investor aims to be a racy novelist with his new book 'Sex and the Single Zillionaire.'

October 9, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: News Watch
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October 6, 2006

Rumor Mill: Google to buy YouTube for $1.6bn?

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Google is in the final stages of talks to buy YouTube for about $1.6 billion, according to inside sources. The deal was first reported by Michael Arrington on TechCrunch as "completely unsubstantiated rumor" but moments ago The Wall Street Journal confirmed that the talks are real.
The Journal's Kevin Delaney reports:
Google Inc. is in talks to acquire popular video-sharing site YouTube Inc. for roughly $1.6 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. The discussions are still at a sensitive stage and could well break off, this person says.

Arrington said early this morning that:
A quick phone call to a VC confirmed that the rumor is circulating (he also confirmed the price), but that is far from confirmation that this deal is happening. I’m digging for more but the source on this one is very good.
We know that YouTube has had informal talks with a number of companies about acquisition in the $1.5 - $2 billion range. And I suspect Google won’t be daunted by the prospect of dealing with a ton of pissed off copyright holders.
Based on experience with these sort of rumors, I’d put this at 40% likely to be at least partially true.

Such a deal would be "damn cheap," Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research, told the Journal. "YouTube's brand identity is no less than Google's and is no less than Coke's.''
While YouTube is the brand name in user-created video services, Google Video is one of dozens of also-rans. As the conventional wisdom is that video will be very, very big very soon - and Google has of course the content-based advertising market wrapped up, such a move sounds sensible. But it's definitely a sea change for Google, which is in the habit of buying lots of very small, beneath-the-radar companies, not brand-name companies.
For YouTube's founders, who have been moving to monetize their golden goose as quickly as possible - unfortunately with deals to promote Paris Hilton and reality TV - the big pay-off must look a lot more attractive than negotiating the copyright abuse waters and the long road to profits.
Update:

From Andrew Lipsman, senior analyst at comScore Networks

TRAFFIC DATA

Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)

Select Sites Aug-06
---------------- ------
Yahoo! Video      21,141
MySpace Videos 19,406
YouTube        19,089
MSN Video                   15,414
Google Video Search    11,891

STREAMING VIDEO DATA
Select Video Properties
July 2006
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore Video Metrix

Select Unique U.S. Streams Initiated
Properties            Streamers (000) by U.S. Users (MM)
---------- --------------- ------------------
Total Internet (U.S.) 106,534 7,182
Yahoo! Sites         37,934 812
MySpace          37,422 1,459
YouTube           30,538 649
Microsoft Sites         16,227 156
Google Sites           7,520           60

Select Share of
Properties           Streams Initiated
---------- -----------------
Total Internet (U.S.) 100.0%

Yahoo! Sites      11.3%
MySpace      20.3%
YouTube       9.0%
Microsoft Sites           2.2%
Google Sites     0.8%

Tom Foremski: Interestingly, CNET's News.com still has nothing on this story more than 8 hours after the news broke.

October 6, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Web 2.0
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weekend kultur shok

[diggrz: an SVW tag for arts, culture, trends, and events in and around Silicon Valley- new from SVW] -
By Maria Mouk for Silicon Valley Watcher
The Weekend is here- and for most living in the Bay Area, Friday signals cultural and social opportunities. This weekend promises a halt to the seemingly close winter rains. So scroll through the possibilities, catch some sun, and make sure you see some art-- whether its dancing to beats, visiting the opera house, or whatever speaks to your flavor this weekend.
Starting on Friday (Fri: 3-7pm / Sat-Sun: 11am-7pm) and lasting through Sunday, is the 6th annual free Hardly Strictly Blue Grass Festival at Golden Gate Park-:Speedway Meadow, featuring legends like Elvis Costello, T Bone Burnett, Hot Tuna , Gillian Welch, Steve Earle, and Emmylou Harris(to name a few)- making this the highest meet and dance of bluegrass, roots, and even jug bands.
After your fill of banjo music, keep local inspiration going at the Oakland Arts Crash From 7-10pm at the Malonga Casquelourd Center Theater, the OAC showcases live music, dance, and visual arts by local Oakland artists. Proceeds from this Oakland arts adventure will benefit youth dance progams in Oakland. Don't miss this rare opportunity to see a collaboration between the primer-black-moto riders of the East Bay Rats and the Carnaval-hued Brazilian dance troupe Fogo Na Roupa.
If something requiring a little more dress and composure seems more your flavor, grab your beloved and head over to the Oakland Metro Operahouse for the final installment of Philip Glass' trilogy, Les Enfants Terribles. The theatre pieces are based on the work of French writer/filmaker Jean Cocteau and combine opera and dance to explore the darker side of love. If you miss it now, make sure to attend before its closing date on Oct 22nd.
Closing out the weekend on Sunday, Potrero Hill (Indiana St. bet. Mariposa and 22nd) will be overtaken by thousands celebrating and reminiscing about their recent BurningMan experience at the 7th annual BurningMan Decompression Party. The party starts at 12pm and goes until midnight, with after hours soirees for those with no Monday work agendas. Consuming 6 city blocks and featuring hundreds of artists, performers, musicians, mutant vehicles, theme camps, and costumes- this is a party not to be missed(Unless you fear feathers, faux fur, or stilts ;) $10 suggested donation in Black Rock couture; $20 in streetwear.
Break out, live the life you live, and make Monday happy- by taking advantage of the culturally diverse city we live in.
Month ahead:
Capsule: A Street Festival for Design. Sunday, October 22, 2006 Hayes Valley hosts 115 clothing and accessory designers, lifestyle product designers and graphic artists.
Freakers Ball- Halloween Sat October 28th 2006 12th Annual FREAKER'S BALL in beautiful Santa Cruz. Circus freaks, Arial Dance, Drummers, Dancers, and musicians Featuring: Freq Nasty, Bassnectar (lorin), Jeno, Brother, Little John,Glitch Mob, Sporque, Welder, Random Rab, Mozaic, Haj, Bigga Happiness Sound sys, Mr.Projectile, Adam Ohanna, Dave Jolley, Strydah, Digital Honey Patricio, OOAh, Edit, Kraddy, Da-Vid, Rob Monroy, Satsi, Kamm and more.
And, of course, if Bevan Dufty doesn't cancel Halloween in the Castro. Oct 31st- 2006, it's a must go.
Photo credit: Cameragirl

Tag: diggrz

[diggrz refers to the nomadic lifestyle offered by mobile digital technologies and gadgets - creating a "nomadig" culture. The diggrz name is also a tip-of-the-hat to some of the ideas of the Diggers, a democratic group that arose in 1649, out of the English revolution .

The Diggers were a radical group that cultivated and protected common lands, and sought to create egalitarian, self-sustaining communities. The Diggers would have found kindred spirits in today's software engineer culture,  and the focus on creating commonly owned technologies through egalitarian open source community projects. - Tom Foremski]

Tag: diggrz

October 6, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: diggrz
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SVW events: First Friday with Foremski moves to 2nd Friday (because of Rigoletto!); My pals at Social Media Club; Be square or be there at New Comms in Boston

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

. . . First Friday with Foremski this month has been moved to second Friday of the month because I'm going to Rigoletto(!)

But please come down to the wonderful de Young Museum on a Friday evening anyway (6.30 to 8.30pm for music and cocktails). Also, Elvis Costello is playing in the park just around the corner that evening.

It's all part of three days of Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco.  Isn't this a great place to be?!

. . . My pals Kristie Wells and Chris Heuer are organizing a half day conference about social media and corporate comms. It's going to be time well spent and my good friend Giovanni Rodriguez, ex-Eastwick and now head of Hubbub will be one of the presenters; and Lisa Stone of BlogHer will be there too.

. . . Coming up the Society of New Communications Research conference.

This is another don't miss event...

Inaugural Society for New Communications Research Symposium & Awards Gala, November 1 - 2 at the Colonnade Hotel in Boston, Mass. Be the first to hear the results of our 2006 research initiatives and winning case studies from around the globe. Receive a copy of the first Journal of New Communications Research. Help us determine our 2007 research agenda and hear about developing standards for social media initiatives.

View the program and session descriptions.

October 6, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: SVW recommends . . .
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October 5, 2006

vidcast: the master of scratch, DJ Qbert, sits down with diggrz

[diggrz: an SVW tag for arts, culture, trends, and events in and around Silicon Valley- new from SVW] -
By Lucaso for Silicon Valley Watcher
Last week at the San Francisco Summer Music Conference, the diggrz team caught up with DJ Qbert.
Q stretched the sound check into an early bird set and the club was a buzz as industry folks mingled through the sound of the monitor mix.
Qbert is one of the top scratch DJs, or turntablists, in the world. He has won the world champion of disc mixing four times and is a member of the DJ Hall of Fame.
We caught up with him between sets and asked about a few of his upcoming projects including Q-quest, an "American Idol" for scratch DJs.
Lucaso interviews DJ Qbert for Diggrz

Tag: diggrz

[diggrz refers to the nomadic lifestyle offered by mobile digital technologies and gadgets - creating a "nomadig" culture. The diggrz name is also a tip-of-the-hat to some of the ideas of the Diggers, a democratic group that arose in 1649, out of the English revolution .

The Diggers were a radical group that cultivated and protected common lands, and sought to create egalitarian, self-sustaining communities. The Diggers would have found kindred spirits in today's software engineer culture,  and the focus on creating commonly owned technologies through egalitarian open source community projects. - Tom Foremski]

Tag: diggrz

October 5, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: diggrz
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Dunn surrenders to authorities

Patricia Dunn is due to be in court Thursday afternoon to surrender to authorities and set an arraignment date. CA Attorney General Bill Locker charged her and four others on invasion of privacy and conspiracy charges yesterday. (See SVW: Charged! Dunn, Hunsaker indicted)
The hearing at Santa Clara Superior Court was due to start at 2 pm today.
At a news conference this morning, Lockyer said the investigation was ongoing and that more charges could be filed. All defendants other than Matthew DePante agreed to surrender, the AP reports.
These charges are being brought against the wrong person at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons," Dunn's lawyer, James Brosnahan, said.

Ron DeLia read the AP a statement:
"I am innocent of these charges," DeLia said. "I've been a professional private investigator for more than 30 years. I respect the law and I did not break the law in the HP investigation."

October 5, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: HP [HPQ]
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John Mark Karr case dismissed

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Appropo of nothing particularly technology related - other than the fact that his kiddy porn was allegedly on a computer - John Mark Karr - the guy who claimed to have killed JonBenet Ramsey - is a free man today, as the Sonoma County District Attorney dropped all charges just moments ago, a well-informed source informs SiliconValleyWatcher.
The case was pretty much of a mess since the Sheriff's Department lost the hard drive it had confiscated when they originally arrested him on child porn charges back in 2003. The DA later claimed it had hundreds of porn images on a zip drive.
"There was not enough evidence to proceed - it would be difficult to prove whether computer had the porn on it when it was in Georgia & he moved with it, having deleted it, or whether it was deleted in CA," the source said. "That and the fact that empaneling a decent (i.e., non-tainted) jury pool would be damn-near impossible."
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat was the only media attending the hearing today, so it will be fun to watch the networks scramble for the story.
October 5, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag:
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Carly ordered first probe into board leaks

Carly Fiorina started HP down the road into covert investigations against board members, ordering probes in January 2005 into whom on the board was leaking to the press, she reveals in her book "Tough Choices," due for release on Tuesday, The New York Times reports.

Larry Sonsini, chairman of Wilson Sonsini, the company's outside law firm, conducted the probe by personally investigating every HP director after an article in The Wall Street Journal revealed an impending reorg. That probe identified Tom Perkins as the source of the article.
She doesn't mention pretexting and the California attorney general's office refused comment on whether it is looking into her actions.
Sonsini told Fiorina that Perkins had been "honest enough to admit" that he had spoken to the Journal.
Ms. Fiorina added, however, that she was deeply suspicious of another board member, George A. Keyworth II, also known as Jay, because of his behavior at a board meeting and during a related board conference call.

In a board conference call in which Sonsini revealed the results of his research, Fiorina writes, all but one board member - Keyworth - spoke up.
Ms. Fiorina asserts that when the Hewlett-Packard board began to turn against her leadership, she was blindsided.

“I was mystified by the board’s recent behavior,” she wrote. “I was suspicious of Jay’s heated denial when the leak first occurred and then his complete silence on our last call.”

Keyworth was central to Fiorina's firing. He, Dunn and Richard Hackborn confronted her in January 2005 and ordered her, on behalf of the board, to launch a massive reorg of the company and essentially abandon her strategic plan. She says she didn't believe they could order her to follow their demands and resisted.
A month later she was unceremoniously dismissed.
Ms. Fiorina describes being asked to leave what would be a final February meeting in Chicago while board members discussed her fate. She reveals particular bitterness about her firing.

After being asked to wait for three hours, none of the board members remained in the room when she returned to it, she wrote. She was greeted by Ms. Dunn, the new board chairwoman and the head of the board’s governance committee, who asked her to announce publicly that the decision to step down had been her own. Ms. Fiorina wrote that she refused.

October 5, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: HP [HPQ]
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Apple clears Jobs, Anderson leaves board without explanation

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Apple has completed its internal investigation of stock-options improprieties and concluded that Steve Jobs knew about backdating of options but that he didn't knowingly receive any backdated options and didn't understand the accounting repercussions.

But the company also said that two former officers' dealings "raised serious concerns" and Fred P. Anderson, Apple's CFO during the backdating period, abruptly resigned from Apple's board without explanation. He said it was in Apple's "best interest" that he leave the board.
The Times reports, though, that spokesman Steve Downling said there may have been some "irregularities" in stock options granted to Jobs, but he wouldn't elaborate.
In its official statement, Apple listed the investigation's key findings:

No misconduct by any member of Apple's current management team. But "the investigation raised serious concerns regarding the actions of two former officers in connection with the accounting, recording and reporting of stock option grants. The company will provide all details regarding their actions to the SEC. " Would that include Anderson?
The most recent problematic stock grant occurred in January 2002. grant. But to whom?

There were 15 backdated stock option grants between 1997 and 2002.

In a few instances, Jobs was aware of backdating but he did not receive or benefit from these.

In the statement, Jobs says:
I apologize to Apple's shareholders and employees for these problems, which happened on my watch. They are completely out of character for Apple. We will now work to resolve the remaining issues as quickly as possible and to put the proper remedial measures in place to ensure that this never happens again.
October 5, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Apple [AAPL]
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SVW CEO chat: Sharpcast has Web 2.0 ambitions way beyond photo sharing

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

Wednesday, I had the pleasure of interviewing Gibu Thomas, the CEO of Sharpcast, an online photo sharing site (or is it . . ?). He's a sharp guy with a good grasp of where the Web 2.0 trend is heading.

At first, and even second glance, Sharpcast might seem like an online photo sharing site but it is potentially more than that. It could become a web services integration platform/framework that could transform consumer PC applications into sturdy and lucrative consumer online services.

"The photo sharing application is a demonstration of what our technology can do," said Mr Thomas. "Our goal is to work with application developers, ISPs, mobile carriers, and offer them a way to turn applications into web services and generate revenues."

Sharpcast has developed a "Sharpcast server" similar to a Microsoft Exchange server but more web savvy and scalable. A key element of the technology is its syncing capabilities because Sharpcast's philosophy is that consumer applications should be available to a user even in the absence of an Internet connection.

"It shouldn't matter if you are connected or not, you still have access to your data, " said Mr Thomas. I whole heartedly agree (please see: Walkabout Wiki)

For example, users of Sharpcast's photo application can editor photos and tag them even if they are offline. And they can access their photos from any Internet connected PC, and through a mobile device such as a Palm Treo.

Intelligent syncing is a very important element of Sharpcast's technology, especially since several people could be editing the same photo.

The same approach can be applied to documents and collaborative editing, and also to other applications. That's where Sharpcast would love to introduce its platform/framework for other developers to use.

It's clear that other developers will require the same capabilities for their web services, and so why reinvent the wheel? Why not use the Sharpcast server and get into your markets that much faster?

"We've been working on this technology for three years and yes, others could try and do it themselves, but it is not easy. We are on our third version of our server technology," said Mr Thomas.

SVW's take: Sharpcast's challenge is in its brand management: it is currently seen as an online photo sharing service yet it wants to be an infrastructure software vendor--two different markets and two separate businesses. Reaching the consumer market is very expensive and online business models are still developing. Marketing to the the enterprise market isn't cheap either--but at least there are established business models here.

Also, other online services companies have been developing their own Web 2.0 platforms/frameworks so that they can power their own web services. What's to stop them from selling licenses to their technologies to others, in the same way Sharpcast is selling the technology that powers its photosharing site?

There will likely will be many dozens of potential competitors offering similar infrastructure software to that of Sharpcast. I don't know if Sharpcast has superior technology to that of others, but the rising noise level will make it harder and more expensive, to be heard. Still, an early start does wonders for grabbing mind space, and Zimbra, the Ajax apps company is a great example.

Interestingly, I met with Mr Thomas just an hour after I had interviewed IBM's Chief Technology Officer on Emerging Technologies. And we spoke at length on this very subject, creating a common platform for Web 2.0 applications.

Please see:

SVW chat: IBM's CTO of Emerging Technologies talks about Web 2.0 and trust Oct 4 - 2006
AJAX, AJAX, AJAX...it's on everyone's lips and so is Zimbra Oct 17 - 2005
I want a portable wiki -- a WalkAbout Wiki (with TagAbout GPS technology...) July 6 - 2005

October 5, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Web 2.0
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SVW chat: IBM's CTO of Emerging Technologies talks about Web 2.0 and trust

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher
David Boloker CTO of Emerging Technologies at IBM came into town to speak at Ajax World. I caught up with him Wednesday morning and we talked about Ajax and Web 2.0, and a new early alpha initiative IBM calls QEDwiki that can provide the framework for integrating information and applications within enterprises:

David Boloker is very interested in Ajax and very interested in making sure that there aren't dozens of nuances of Ajax. He and Scott Dietzen, CTO at Zimbra, one of the earliest Ajax apps companies, founded the Open Ajax Alliance.

"Every Ajax toolset was following its own nuance of Ajax and the problem was that each toolset wanted to 'own' the whole page. This created many conflicts and made it difficult to pull together different components," said Mr Boloker. "We did not want to create a standards body but to create agreement on some basic things such as naming JavaScript objects."

Is an Ajax application the same as a Web 2.0 application? "No, a Web 2.0 application has to include the social dimension, how it implements tagging, for example, and sharing, and all the other community oriented aspects that are important," said Mr Boloker.

For IBM, Ajax and Web 2.0 represent new generations of applications that use the web as a platform. And they have characteristics that enable users to create their own "my web" experience by mashing/pulling together Ajax components from many different sources.

A key to that approach is to be able to provide the framework that enables that type of integration. And that is the OpenAjax Hub an open source project.

But with everyone having access to this framework, where is the value-add? Mr Boloker says it will be in two places. One is in the value of the data or content. The databases of content will have value to organizations and users, such as Reuters feeds, or databases of chemical data for example.

The second place will be in the Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) layer which is all about services. And IBM is a services oriented company.

"The focus for us is on the business professional, not the IT department. All you need to do is operate a mouse and know how to drag and drop."

That's the basis for IBM's alpha project called QEDwiki (Quickly and Easily Done wiki), which is being tested by 20 large corporations. This is IBM's version of what Jotspot, SocialText, and others are offering, a way to enable business people to mashup sources, feeds and applications, by what I call drag and drop share or not (DADSON), depending on user access rights.

But mashing up feeds and data means trust in the source. I pointed out that Google News recently was carrying a news headline that had been hacked, it carried an anti-US anti-Israel message. In that case, Google had not verified the content, it was corrupted, and that corrupted trust in Google.

In the brave new world of web applications and mashups, verifying that content comes from where it says it does will be absolutely critical. But how will that be done?

Mr Boloker said that feeds could be signed with security certificates but he also acknowledged that even Microsoft has had problems with security certificates.

Trust will come from long standing relations, contracts, and also using security technologies, said Mr Boloker. "It will come from your relationships with your vendors and an established history of trust. You will assign different levels of trust to a feed. And trust will be offered as yet another service."

- - -

Additional resources and links:

SVW related stories:
AJAX, AJAX, AJAX...it's on everyone's lips and so is Zimbra
Pre-mashed online suites knock the "P" out of PC

We badly need a way to verify sources of online content - we need a "trust trackback"

UPDATE: Google distributes hacked newspaper site with anti-Israel/US message...

About: OpenAjax Alliance

In late 2005, thanks largely to the globetrotting of David Boloker, IBM’s CTO of Emerging Internet Technologies, a small number of leading companies brainstormed about how to ensure that Ajax fulfills its potential as the industry standard rich application platform based on open technologies. These early discussions came to a climax on Feb. 1, 2006, with the announcement of the "OpenAjax Initiative", whose 15 original companies included BEA, Borland, the Dojo Foundation, Eclipse Foundation, Google, IBM, Laszlo Systems, Mozilla Corporation, Novell, Openwave Systems, Oracle, Red Hat, Yahoo, Zend and Zimbra. (See press release on launch of OpenAjax with 15 original companies.)
Between February 1 and May 15, another 15 organizations joined "OpenAjax", and the (then) 30 companies held a two-day kickoff meeting in San Francisco to lay out the blue-print for the initiative moving forward. At the meeting, the group decided to establish the OpenAjax Alliance, defined its mission, agreed on an interim organizational process, and established its initial activities. Today, over 50 companies have participated in the OpenAjax Initiative (see article on first OpenAjax meeting) and are at various stages of joining the OpenAjax Alliance.
About: OpenAjax Hub

The OpenAjax Hub is a set of standard JavaScript functionality defined by the OpenAjax Alliance, with strong focus on being small and fast, that addresses key interoperability issues that arise when multiple Ajax libraries are used within the same web page.
The OpenAjax Hub represents a key part of the technical work of the OpenAjax Alliance.
The Alliance is managing the development of an open source reference implementation of the OpenAjax Hub at SourceForge.

From IBM:

IBM EXPANDS OPEN SOURCE CONTRIBUTIONS TO FURTHER ENABLE WEB 2.0 ADOPTION
IBM Sees Everyday Web Applications as Driver for Business Collaboration and Success

Santa Clara, CA - AjaxWorld Conference, October 4, 2006 – In a keynote speech to leading technology executives, David Boloker, IBM's chief technology officer for emerging Internet technologies, said that the combination of Web 2.0 tools and open source communities are creating a "perfect storm" to enable new kinds of collaborations among businesses and their constituents.
Mr. Boloker also announced that IBM would make new technology contributions to the open source community to speed the adoption and growth of Web 2.0 technologies among enterprises.
Included in IBM’s newest contributions to the open source community are additional enhancements to the Eclipse Foundation’s Ajax Technology Framework (ATF) and the Mozilla Foundation. IBM plans to generate Ajax as part of the JSF Tools in the next release of IBM Rational Application Developer, which is slated to be available later this year.
For more information, please visit: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/ajax.

October 5, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Thoughtleaders
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October 4, 2006

Charged! California to indict Dunn, Hunsaker, private eyes

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

California will indict HP's Patricia Dunn and Kevin Hunsaker, as well as three outside contractors, in criminal charges stemming from the HP spying scandal, The New York Times reports.
In addition to the two executives, California attorney general Bill Lockyer will indict Ronald L. DeLia, who worked directly with Hunsaker, Joseph DePante, owner of Action Research Group and Bryan Wagner, who worked for DePante.
The charges, all felonies:

using of false or fraudulent pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility
unauthorized access to computer data
identity theft
conspiracy to commit each of those crimes.

The US Attorney's office for Northern California may also file charges.
Emails released
BusinessWeek has some juicy emails from and to Hunsaker during the pretexting campaign. They were released by the House committee on Monday. Check Memo #2 especially.
Reporters reassigned CNET and AP have moved off the HP beat reporters who were pretexted, AP reports.
CNET's move involves not only Dawn Kawamoto, who was at the center of the scandal, but also Tom Krazit and Steve Shankland, who is married to AP reporter Rachel Konrad, who was also on the HP beat and was pretexted by the company.
The New York Times has barred John Markoff from covering the scandal directly but he may report on the company as part of his overall tech beat.
The rationale is to do away with conflicts of interest, as reporters whose privacy has been violated may be seen to have an axe to grind. Reporters and their companies may also have legal rights against the company that could be compromised.
But some outlets are keeping top writers with deep knowledge of the company on the beat. BusinessWeek's Peter Burrows has written a book and covered the company over many years. The move has already paid off, as Burrows scored the first interview with Hurd after Dunn was ushered out the door.
Burrows "has a deep knowledge of the company that serves BusinessWeek readers well," said Stephen J. Adler, the magazine's editor-in-chief. "He has always hewed to the highest ethical standards in his coverage of HP, and will continue to do so."

Dunn starting chemotherapy

It's been a really, really bad week for Dunn, a breast cancer survivor. Her doctor advised her to start a six-month program of chemo for advanced ovarian cancer, a source told the LA Times. She will be treated at UC San Francisco Comprehensive Cancer Center.
October 4, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: HP [HPQ]
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Google Literacy Project: Little more than a home page

The wire services gave Google due credit for launching The Literacy Project - an effort with LitCam and UNESCO to promote literacy around the world - at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The press release version is represented in this BBC article:
The Literacy Project enables teachers, organisations, and those interested in literacy to use the internet to search for and share literacy information. .... Users can search for information in digitised books and academic articles, and share information through blogs, videos and groups.

Cool. But take a look at the so-called portal and you realize that the so-called development is little more than a landing page and some predefined searches. The portal features links to Google Books, Video, Blogger, etc. You might as well bookmark it for whatever you want to search on Google, because there's absolutely nothing specific to literacy about it.
The portal doesn't feature a subset of books available on Google, such that every search is going to come up with on-target hits of interest to literacy advocates. Indeed, searching from the Literacy Project simply queries the entire Books index. Search Books for "africa literacy" and you get a hodge-podge of titles with those words; the top hit is from an encyclopedia of library science referencing South Africa.
This is a job for the AOLs of the world, which are going to put an army of actual people on the task to preselect the best, most relevant materials. Google's effort is development via press release, essentially a half-day school project for a web design student.
October 4, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Google [GOOG]
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How much should you be making? PayScale reveals SV salary data

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

I recently met with PayScale, the Seattle-based aggregator of salary information. The company says that it can provide users with an accurate, assessment of salaries for specific jobs in regions around the world.

That sounds like a chance for snooping on colleagues and bosses, and thus wonderfully enticing. But Joe Giordano, the founder and VP of product development, and Mike Metzger, the CEO said that they protect people's privacy so it is difficult to check a specific person's salary although you can probably get a good approximation.

Here is some fresh jobs data on Silicon Valley salaries (not including bonuses). You can view the rest of the spreadsheet here.

The power of the site is in the real-time salary survey data that users put into the system. And that is done by following a set of questions that tie salary to education, location, experience and type of job.

But how does PayScale ensure the quality of its data? "By following the line of questions we can eliminate false salary data, because we already know how much someone would be making. And there is not much incentive for people to lie because they want accurate information themselves," explained Mr Giordano.

Mr Metzger said that there are 20 tests that are designed to check for validity. Any data that falls out of the statistical norm is rejected. As much as 50 percent of profiles are rejected by the system.

Individuals can use the service for free in exchange for filling out a salary survey. The money is made on services sold to human resource departments in large companies. And that's the future for the company, rolling out business services based on its data while allowing individuals free access to the data to evaluate job offers.

With more than one million users, PayScale claims it has the most accurate salary database of anyone, including government statistics. "Government data takes months to collect and publish and it is very broad. For example, Our data can distinguish a nurse's salary according to the size of the hospital, its location, and several other factors," said Mr Giordano.

The company was just awarded a top ten HR product of the year by Human Resource Executive magazine, so it must be heading in the right business direction.

SVW's take: PayScale's database could provide it with some additional opportunities to partner with other online services such as job boards. And it could become a place where individuals could return time and again for personalised career planning, advice, career development and jobs wanted.

The company has raised VC money and is building out its infrastructure. The challenge will be in making sure the quality of its data is fresh and relevant. That means it has to have a large number of profiles spanning many regions. HR departments are reticent about sharing their data because of potential lawsuit problems so attracting individuals to volunteer their information, and to do it on a regular basis, is key.

- - -
Additional Info:

Company overview: http://www.payscale.com/about.asp?pg=about&sub=overview
Managment bios: http://www.payscale.com/about.asp?pg=mgmt&sub=exec
HR Exec press release: http://payscale.com/about.asp?pg=news&sub=pr&pr=101

October 4, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Jobs Watch
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October 3, 2006

Wilson Sonsini report: RAND expert advised pretexting

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

The HP scandal widened its poisonous reach today with a story in the New York Times that anti-terrorism expert Brian Jenkins advised HP to pretext board members.
The Times' Damon Darlin writes that Wilson Sonsini's report to HP on the leaks included the line:
“Jenkins specifically recommended that they conduct pretexting to get information if they had not already done so.”

Jenkins was consulting with HP as a security expert when he was asked about the leak situation.
The report said that the company’s general counsel, Ann O. Baskins, called Mr. Jenkins on Jan. 30. Kevin Hunsaker, a senior counsel working for Ms. Baskins, also told the lawyers at Wilson Sonsini that he spoke with Mr. Jenkins. The lawyer’s report said that Ms. Baskins told Patricia C. Dunn, the company’s chairwoman at the time, that “Jenkins agreed with their techniques.”

The report also seems to exonerate CEO Mark Hurd of any knowledge of the pretexting plans.
Pretexting appears to first come to HP execs' attention in June 05, in a meeting attended by Ann Baskins and Pattie Dunn. Baskins' handwritten notes from that meeting include the word "pretexting." Hurd was then informed about pretexting in a July 22 meeting, although he seems not to have appreciated its import.
According to the report, Mr. Hurd did recall hearing at a meeting on July 22, 2005, that phone record information was obtained off the Web. He told the lawyers that he “remembered thinking that must be a Web site with such information.”

Mr. Hurd told [Wilson Sonsini] that he “recalled thinking at one point that the people at the meeting did not know what they were talking about — that they had theories with ‘nothing behind them.’ ” The law firm’s report also said Mr. Hurd recalled “being under whelmed by the details.”

October 3, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag:
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Search startup Powerset says it can knock off Google

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Matt Marshall at VentureBeat reports on Powerset, a new startup which has been boldly telling VC firms that it has search technology that will beat the pants off Google.
The company's website proclaims:
Our unique innovations in search are rooted in breakthrough technologies that take advantage of the structure and nuances of natural language. Using these advanced techniques, Powerset is building a large-scale search engine that breaks the confines of keyword search. By making search more natural and intuitive, Powerset is fundamentally changing how we search the web, and delivering higher quality results.

Powerset is led by Barney Pell, an AI expert who has worked for NASA and VC firm Mayfield. The company is expecting a super-high valuation for its first round, Marshall says.

We’ve heard Powerset is on the verge of raising $10 million, and has been asking to be valued at $20 million before the investment. In other words, if it gets the $10 million, the company is valued after the deal at $30 million ($20M + $10M). That gives venture capitalists a third of the company ownership in return for their investment.
Powerset has reportedly been hiring like crazy, poaching from Yahoo in particular — on the promise that it is about to raise the round.

That last statement is born out by a post on Pell's blog about a mid-summer party celebrating the landing of angel funding.
We thought about having a contest for people to guess what Powerset is up to, since it's unusual to throw a party while a company is still "semi-stealth", but then we decided it might be getting too easy by now and there was no need to tempt fate. Fortnately we did have NDAs and job applications available, in classic silicon valley party style.

I was shocked by Marshall's statement that "search has largely been solved by Google and others, at least for the average person. Yes, there are many incremental improvements that should be made, but is there anything new that Google’s thousand-odd engineers (or Yahoo’s for that matter) can’t figure out and copy within a few months?"
Yes. Search actually is quite broken in that you can't do anything with the results except click on them. You can't analyze the results to come up with answers to the underlying questions that are behind every search query. You can't understand whether the hit results are blogs or About.com pages or spam sites or newspaper articles. There's no system for authority or authenticity of pages or content. And the whole system of valuing pointed-to pages is loaded with vulnerability to spam sites and SEO actions. If I post an article that Google is about to buy Apple, that's going to get a whole lot of googlejuice, regardless of the fact that it is completely and utterly false.
So, no, I wouldn't say search is solved. On a simpler note, Jonathan Grubb comments on the VentureBeat article:
If you search for “I want some pizza” in Google there are no results that take me closer to eating a pizza. “How much is powerset worth” doesn’t give me any good information either. “Who writes venturebeat” doesn’t bring up your name. “How much does an ipod nano cost” doesn’t work, you have to type “ipod nano 1gb price.”

Having said that, it's a long way from NDA parties to the top of the Google mountain, but the maturity of the present search market - invented by Google way back in the late 90s - suggests that there is a new breakthrough coming in search technology. Google is a huge company and huge companies cannot easily discard the technical underpinnings of their empires. Even though Google has maintained an admirable openness to new ideas both internally and through acquisitions, often new ideas require new companies.
I remember being in a meeting with Brewster Kahle (now of Internet Archive) and John Warnock (then CEO of Adobe) in the early 90s, when Brewster had just started WAIS and Adobe had just rolled out Acrobat. He told Warnock, "I hate starting companies but sometimes it's the right thing to do." I think the statement was disingenous (apparently he loves to start new things) but it goes to the point that there are some things big - even smart, even counterculture - companies can't do. In that meeting, for example, Warnock couldn't see how Internet search would have anything to do with Adobe Acrobat.

October 3, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag:
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Tilting at the windmills of Web 2.0: A Spanish delegation visits Silicon Valley

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher

I had a fascinating conversation a couple of Sundays ago with a visiting delegation of Spanish business and technology leaders from the region of Asturias, in Northern Spain.

I was very flattered and honored that in their very busy three-day tour of Silicon Valley's top companies, universities, and research institutes, they wanted to meet with me. This is one of the wonderful pleasures of my job, finding out that I have readers in places that I didn't know I had readers...!

Asturias is a former coal and iron mining region with about one million inhabitants and it is the fourth fourth fastest growing IT region in the European Union. It has a rich, wonderful history, especially its role in the defense of the republic during the Spanish civil war (please see additional info at the end of this post).

The delegation included Jose Manuel Alonso, Spain's head of the W3 Council, which is the only Hispanic country that hosts the web standards body, and thus handles *all* Latin American duties. There were also representatives from the CTIC Foundation, the local university, and a representative of Arcelor, the world's largest steel company, with more than 350,000 workers.

All of the six delegates, and their translator, Andreu Veà, a postgraduate at Stanford university, were born and raised in Asturias and spoke of region's beauty. Their goal is to develop Asturias into a healthy, diverse economic region that includes a significant high-tech prowess. A key part of that goal is to be able to build a collaborative infrastructure that can pull together university, government, and private industry, into developing important services for their communities.

They came into town to meet with Google, Yahoo, Mozilla, Intel, Stanford University, SRI, and other companies, to talk about collaboration and to show off some of their technologies.

The Spanish delegation said they had asked to meet with me because they appreciated that I did not write about technology, but about the broader story of how technologies are used, and their social and cultural impact.

Community is a big focus for this group. It came up in our conversation time and again. They were interested in how to use technologies in creating new services for all of their community, from grandmothers to shepards. To them, technology should be invisible, and it should be highly useful, and I couldn't agree more.

We spoke for many hours and although I don't speak Spanish, we did speak in a common language. We spoke about how to use technologies to make life better for people, and not technology for technology's sake.

The wonderful thing about such meetings with outsiders, is that it provides a fresh perspective on what is going on in Silicon Valley. Often, it is too easy for us insiders, the companies, the people, and the investors here, to get caught up in our small world, breathing our own exhaust. It is always good to get an outsider's perspective on things.

Here are a few subjects and questions that we discussed:

What is all the fuss about Web 2.0 companies? What are these companies offering? I had to agree, this Spanish delegation can smell hype and BS from 6,000 miles away!

Why are Silicon Valley startups and investors not taking risks? This one took me by surprise, but I quickly realized that they were right.

Investments in Silicon Valley move in a herd-like fashion. There is very little risk-taking from the investment community, in terms of running large pilot programs to test out technologies, markets, or researching users and their online behaviors. The VCs make many bets hoping that a small number of them will succeed. It is a wasteful method but one that does produce results--eventually.

Surely Silicon Valley will go away or become much less important? My view is that Silicon Valley has been written off many times since I arrived in 1984. And each time, Silicon Valley has come back stronger than before.

Silicon Valley enjoys a perfect storm of capital, culture, colleges, and skills. It sucks-in the smartest, brightest and the most talented people from everywhere. And it is very difficult to recreate such an environment anywhere else.

The delegation met with Mozilla. They were told to wait while the Mozilla Director of Giving (handing out grants) came over to join them.

But the Spanish delegation were not looking for a handout They wanted to set up collaborative partnerships. In fact, they showed off a web browser tool bar that they had developed, and that very much impressed their hosts at Mozilla, and also at Yahoo.

They also spoke about Mozilla as potentially providing a brand. They saw a lot of value in engaging developers in Asturias, in Europe, and in the US, within a "brand" that celebrates open source software and collaborative development.

I think this is a great idea, the creation of a brand that encompasses the best qualities of the open source movement. It would motivate a lot of people in ways that money does not. But they said that this concept was not readily understood by Mozilla.

Why is cell phone reception so bad and why are US cell phone models a couple of years behind what is available in Asturias? A great question. I said it had to do with density of population but I couldn't figure out why cell phone reception in Silicon Valley continues to be so bad. I keep running into the same black spots time and again, year after year after year. The carriers have done nothing to correct these black spots which indicates their arrogant attitude towards their users, IMHO.

What about WiMAX? Why aren't there many pilot projects? One of the delegates said WiMAX was like an unicorn, many people speak of it but no one has seen one :-). Again, I had to agree, WiMAX is supposed to be the next really important technology, but where is it? Does it really work?

This delegation really wants to be able to partner with Silicon Valley companies, research groups, and universities. And they have a lot to offer, a smart, IT savvy community, and a keen awareness of technology and its applications for ordinary people. We need more of that kind of thinking around here.

- - -
Contact: Andreu Veà, PhD andreu@stanford.edu http://www.veabaro.info/default-e.htm

At the meeting:

Pablo Priesca Balbín Director General CTIC
Antonio Manuel Campos López Director de I+D+i
Carlos de la Fuente García Director de Tecnología
Nicolás de Abajo Martínez Knowledge Information Research Center Arcelor
Jose Manuel Alonso Cienfuegos Resp Oficina Española W3C
Marta Tamargo Valdes Directora Financiera

Additional reference:

This is from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asturias

The Industrial Revolution came to Asturias with the discovery and systematic exploitation of coal and iron resources. At the same time there was significant migration to the Americas; those who succeeded overseas often returned to their native land much wealthier. These entrepreneurs were known collectively as 'Indianos', for having visited and made their fortunes in the West Indies and beyond. The heritage of these wealthy families can still be seen in Asturias today: many large 'modernista' villas are dotted across the region, as well as cultural institutions such as free schools and public libraries.
Like all Spain, Asturias played its part in the events that led up to and including the Spanish Civil War. In 1934, the left-wing workers' movement fought the right-wing government of the Second Spanish Republic in the so-called 'Revolution of Asturias'. Troops under the command of Francisco Franco were brought from the North African colonies to put down the rebellion and a ferocious oppression followed. As a result, Asturias remained loyal to the democratic republican government during the war, and was the scene of an extraordinary defence in extreme terrain, the Battle of El Mazuco. With Franco eventually gaining control of all Spain, Asturias — traditionally linked to the Spanish crown — was known merely as the 'Province of Oviedo' from 1936 until Franco's death in 1975. The province's name was restored fully after the return of democracy to Spain, in 1977.

In 1982 Asturias became an Autonomous Community within the decentralized territorial structure established by the Constitution of 1978. The Asturian regional government holds comprehensive competencies in important areas such as health, education and protection of the environment.

October 3, 2006 | Permalink | Comment on this post | Tag: Asturias
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October 2, 2006

Bloggers, press expose lying Hill staffer

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

Until last week, Mike Caulfield toiled on his Democratic blog, NH-02, in relative anonymity. He is part of a movement in political blogging - superlocal blogs that focus on incumbent Republicans - and he worked hard to expose the positions of incumbent New Hampshire Republican Rep. Charlie Bass.

Then RollCall exposed the fact that Bass' No. 2 staffer, Tad Furtado, had been posting on NH-02 and another Democratic blog, BlueGranite, pretending to be a supporter of Bass' challenger Paul Hodes who saw the virtues of Bass's positions. For instance, writing as IndieNH, Furtado wrote in response to Caulfield's post on Bass's position on stem cell research:

I hate to look like I am pimping for Bass (this is the 2nd post on this and related sites that I've done this), but I want Hodes and my party to hit Bass where it will hurt.
Stem cells ain't it. To his credit, Bass was a key supporter of the bill and was part of a small handful of D & R members who made it happen.

When it all came out, Furtado was gone - a powerful political staffer brought down by bloggers. At a press conference a week ago, Bass told how it went down: "He came right out and said to me, 'I'm sorry. I'll do whatever you say I should do.' Although this is a rather severe way of resolving the problem, in my mind it's the only way to do it."
But that was last week's story. I offer Caulfield's inside version of events below, but what I'm really interested in is why Furtado thought this was a useful thing to do and how blogs and traditional media worked together - even at arm's length - to expose the story.

"There's this gap in political coverage between what the Republicans are doing and what your congressman is doing," Caulfield says. "The way blogs work, you have this wonderful style where you can say in three paragraphs, 'This is what Charlie has done and just link to the source documents.' You won't find that anywhere else because the press focuses on national issues."
"We spend three hours going through source documents and writing blog entries with links to sources. It's a package that's ready made for a reporter or an interested citizen."
Because newspaper articles go behind a pay-wall after seven days, blogs tend to rise to the top of Google searches. So, blogs are not only loaded with links to valuable source documents, they are easy to find.
"Tonight I will see searches for 'bass and torture' and people will hit a post I did a month ago. He votes on that bill and they see this. If they search on 'bass and gitmo, my site will among the top hits, and they will see when he went to Gitmo in 2003 his one quote was, 'I think gitmo is being run well.'
"So why was this guy commenting on my site? It's about connecting the dots and preserving history. His comment makes its look like even an ardent Democrat is not so sure about this story. 'I'm a real big supporter of Hodes but ...' He's trying to angle the story so it doesn't get pushed into the mainstream media or if it does he's able to tweak the angle."
Caulfield may never have thousands of readers, but he's not reaching for thousands, just a core audience of activists, campaign volunteers - and reporters. "We spend three hours going through source documents and writing blog entries with links to sources. Its a package that ready-made for a reporter or interested citizen. It only takes that one perfectly packaged the story hit by one reporter at the right time. When the conditions are right, it doesn't have to be 20 reporters, sometimes its one reporter who sees one thing and asks one right question. His (Furtado's) worry is in the wrong circumstance, that reporter might hit me once.
Ultimately, the distinction between journalists and bloggers is ephemeral. They are both part of a reporting continuum. Reporters are certainly learning to use blogs and bloggers may eventually find that they can connect with the media, too.
"People are working hard, doing research. This is real reporting. If journalism is the first draft of history, blogs are the outline, the notebooks of history."

Here's the blow by blow:
"I'd been up maybe 14 days and someone comes on as IndyNH and made a post I thought was strange. I had written about a press conference where Bass was explaining that a stem cell research bill would actually be good for Republicans."

Here's IndieNH's comment:
I hate to look like I am pimping for Bass (this is the 2nd post on this and related sites that I've done this), but I want Hodes and my party to hit Bass where it will hurt.
Stem cells ain't it. To his credit, Bass was a key supporter of the bill and was part of a small handful of D & R members who made it happen.
I think the poll and press event this blog aims at was designed by the patient advocacy groups (i.e. cancer, aids, etc.) to convince other GOP members of Congress. So it was very helpful that Bass the others assured them that the base was so split. I assume Bass' support is bassed on the science and his own views regarding stem cells, but in this case he was pitching to other members who might have their fingers in the wind.
So comeone everyone, let's find the silver bullet on Bass and not play to his dance card, OK?

"Two days later, I wrote something on minimum wage - Bass hadn't approved the increase. Another comment:
'I just checked on the vote record from this week (July 29) and Bass voted to increase the minimum wage to $7.25. Looks like our voices had an impact.'

"That was odd, that someone would be so sophisticated to look up congressional logs, so so naive to not realize what has behind that vote."
The first time Caulfield checked IndieNH's IP address, it showed him as coming from New Jersey. When he checked it again, it came up as a House address. "I pasted it into Google and it came back housegate-10 - a proxy server that a large amount of house traffic flows through.
"I couldn't see anything more but googling him on the web, he only made pro-Bass statements. He kept coming back from the House at regular intervals. There was something systematic in the way he was hitting the blogs. He was also commenting at BlueGranite and it was also coming up House for her. Some guy was doing this systematically."
As for another site - Yankee Doodler - Furtado was visiting regularly but never left a comment. "To this day he wonders why he was left out."
"We didn't know who it was, but we had logged a dozen messages from this person, they were all pro-Bass. We didn't have any evidence but just recently a staffer for NJ Gov. Tom Kean had done the same thing to a blog called BlueJersey.
"We didn't know exactly who this was but any reasonable person would conclude it's someone in Bass' office. We put it on DailyKos as an individual diary. The next day it was posted on the front page of the DailyKos. Someone connected to the Hodes campaign (Bass's Democratic challenger) called RollCall. They called Bass' office, which has already been alerted, and they admitted it was true."

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October 1, 2006

How badly has Larry Sonsini been hurt?

By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher

It must have been an amazing thing for some of Silicon Valley's CEOs to watch Larry Sonsini hauled before Congress and forced to listen to speech after speech about the failure of ethics at HP.

The question of the day - as the San Francisco Chronicle has it - is how badly tarnished is Sonsini's reputation now?
"This is his Clark Clifford moment," said corporate watchdog Nell Minnow, referring to the lawyer who, after advising four presidents over the span of a half a century, faced criminal charges in the biggest banking scandal in history, the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Before his death, Clifford lamented that, in responding to the charges, he had a choice between seeming venal or stupid, an embarrassing predicament for a lawyer thought of as neither.

"It's no better to be a schnook than a crook," Minnow said. "Someone who has been very highly respected can find out that it can all come down like a house of cards with one sloppy decision."

Among the questions being thrown around now is whether the firm - which is estimated to have half of the valley's business - and Sonsini himself have too many clients to be able to avoid conflicts of interest. Many people interviewed in the Chronicle story said the potential for conflict is actually proof of Sonsini's high standards.
One of the things he is faulted for is that he is counsel to half the companies out there," said telecommunications pioneer Kenneth Oshman, chairman and CEO of Echelon Corp.
"In and of itself, that is enormous proof of his integrity. After all, no one makes a company use Larry. If companies had any questions about his integrity, they wouldn't hire him. He is so extraordinarily principled and extraordinarily honest that companies waive their conflicts of interest and let him represent another company that may compete with them. The CEOs and general counsels of Silicon Valley and the world are quite frankly voting with their feet that he's an honest guy."

The conflicts aren't limited to appearances, though. The firm created WS Investments, an arm of the firm that funnels money into promising startups. The fund is in a way at attempt to formally deal with the fact that Wilson Sonsini lawyers are frequently offered investment opportunities in startups. And until 2003, many WS partners and lawyers and Sonsini himself sat on multiple boards.
"You can't be a director, an investor and a lawyer for the same people at the same time," Minnow said. Silicon Valley is "a culture that has benefited tremendously from a willingness to break the rules or to ignore the rules. That's a strategy that works really well for a short period of time. But you have to know when to stop, and that is when you are responsible for other people's money."

Even so, given the fierce loyalty long-timers have for him and the dominant position the firm holds in the valley, don't count on seeing Larry Sonsini fade away.
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Comments

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
Tom Foremski on Techmeme's Gabe Rivera Is More Editor Than Aggregator...

Gabe: You should get a press pass and if you don't, you should ban SXSW stories from Techmeme. (SXSW gets very noisy, you'd be doing us all a big favor :)

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