Category Archives: Web 2.0

Media Bloggers Association – Who ARE those guys?

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As a blogger of important, exciting, and provocative *breaking, real time tech news* as well as broken and static personal rants, as well as (formerly) AP material with my own brand of questionable commentary, I’m really interested in the firestorm of controversy surrounding AP’s odd decision to crack down on a single, relatively obscure blog Drudgeretort.com ( not to be confused with the the much larger Drudge Report.). Their crime? Users had posted small parts of AP stories without permission or using AP’s new online payment system at 12.50 for five words.

Major blogs jumped to action, calling for an AP Boycott, while another heretofore obscure group calling itself the “Media Bloggers Association” has agreed to meet with AP.   Based on some of the coverage I assumed this group had considerable standing in the blog community, and I was just ignorant about their existence.   I’m still checking, but based on their own website information it’s not clear to me exactly what role the MBA plays with respect to the media, let alone blogging.

I’ll reserve judgement on them until I know more, but I do object to the idea that “news bloggers” like me are going to be represented by a group I don’t even know about.   Rather than the “corporate meeting” format  maybe the AP should meet with … everybody via an online environment where we can get widespread participation across the board, especially from … bloggers.

Philadelphia Wireless Resurrection and the Philly Cheesesteak Connection

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The largest city wireless project in the USA (and the world?) is in Philly, and was just revived by an investment consortium after being nearly abandoned by Earthlink due to poor signal quality and only 6000 subscriber signups (despite the zero cost where profits will come from advertising).    Google’s Mountain View project never took off the way people thought it might.  

Attribution for story idea goes to Reuters.   Hey, wait, I don’t have to give attribution for a story *idea*, but I’m trying to provide extra attribution in line with my concerns that the AP boycott is distracting bloggers from their responsibility to stop doing so much leeching of stories from AP, Reuters, and other mainstream legacy media outlets not to mention other bloggers. 

So, I’m linking AGAIN to Reuters and AGAIN!  BAM!     BAM!   
HA!    AP – NO LINKS FOR YOU! 

My gut take on citywide WIFI is that a good quality signal with good bandwidth is the key, along with a *single* really good advertising salesperson who is also an internet evangelist.   Once local businesses wake up to how much most of them are missing the boat on the internet marketing (preferrring to squander too much on yellow page and other print ads), city WIFI ads should practically sell themselves. 

 People don’t mind advertising all that much – look for example at pretty much all internet, all broadcast TV, and much of Cable TV right now.    PBS doesn’t have advertising?   Nonsense!   Those interminable and lame pledge breaks and increasingly aggressive “not advertising” sponsor bits are the equivalent of advertising to anybody but the most nitpicking PBS volunteer.     Not to mention that the specials shown during the pledge sessions are often specifically designed to get more pledges. 

Citywide WIFI?   Free.   Advertising Philly Cheesesteaks on Philadelphia’s Citywide WIFI?    Priceless.

 

 

 

AP News Boycott is the News

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There is a huge story brewing that covers the intersection of mainstream news and blogging. Associated Press (AP) decided to crack down on what they felt were copyright violations by blogs quoting AP stories. Spoof site “The Drudge Retort” is under legal fire from AP, and this has prompted action by other blogs that coudld become one of the most interesting developments in the history of blogging and news. AP has backed off somewhat from its initial reaction and is now offering guidelines for blogs using their stories, but this is too little too late in the eyes of many prominent bloggers.

The world’s top tech blog, TechCrunch, has called for support of the boycott of AP stories – telling bloggers to stop linking to AP stories until they change the new policy and stop threatening to sue blogs.

Here’s a somewhat different perspective from Jeff Jarvis who probably did more to get the ball rolling on this than anybody.   His concerns seem to be more that AP is hypocritical and opportunistic about copyright and linking.  I do like Jeff’s idea that the key metric for compliance with good practices in blogging and journalism should be a *link* to the original material along with reasonable other attribution.

Although the story is interesting from the perspective of the changing interpretations of fair use and copyright legalities, this also represents what I think is the first large scale test of the influence of blogging on mainstream news outlets. If the boycott catches on the effect on AP will be very interesting to watch, and probably costly enough for AP in terms of stunting traffic and incoming links that they will revise the policy very quickly. The big winner here will probably be Reuters which will see a huge swell in links from high authority blogs. This has the potential to have a very positive long term affect for Reuters, especially with respect to Google rankings for very valuable technology news terms but also for the Reuters site in general.

It will also be interesting to watch how AP covers the story of its own decisions. I need to read up more before forming an opinion on this but I’m guessing AP’s guidelines are not all that excessive or unreasonable, rather AP is just missing the point that the benefits to AP from new media news and blogs far outweigh the challenges they will face from copyright violations.

As usual the blogging community is quick to attack attackers without giving enough thought to their reasonable concerns about flagrant copyright violations with no attribution to original authors or sources. It would be nice if in conjunction with the AP story boycott bloggers would work *twice as hard* to give MORE attribution to original sources. I’ve found myself in disagreement about this with other blogs but I continue to think the solution is to make it standard form to provide a link to original material you reference in your blog. This was standard practice in the early days, but as links became the key currency of the web people stopped using them as much, and started using them more strategically.

Why O’Reilly’s wrong about Arrington being wrong about Yahoo being wrong about Microsoft

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What did the normally very insightful Tim O’Reilly and Fred Wilson have for lunch, some free hallucinogenic deserts over at Google?

Both are criticizing Mike Arrington for stating the obvious – Yahoo’s not acting in the best interest of shareholders or Yahoo or anybody except Google, who clearly is the big winner in Yahoo’s squandered megadeal with Microsoft.

Fred very correctly notes that Yahoo’s has faced leadership challenges for a long time, but he says he likes the one option that keeps the current Yahoo board intact and very much on track for much more of the same company crushing behavior. Yes, a clean house is needed and that is certainly less likely to happen *now*.

It seems to me there are two issues and they have it wrong on both counts where Arrington’s got it right.

First, Yahoo’s Google move proved that in terms of shareholder obligations it should have sold to MS. Yahoo cannot reasonably make a case that they will come out of the monetization hole using core values while immediately outsourcing their most potentially lucrative biz to Google. Sure this will make more than Yahoo alone, but nothing like what the MS deal would have offered Yahoo in terms of ad cash plus money to develop the search biz. MS offered a shot at glory. Yahoo took Google’s money so they could keep sitting back and watching the really big search money pass them by.

Is Fred saying there is a Googley path back to $34+ per share? Even if yes, it is nonsense to think it’ll happen fast enough to justify turning down MS’s offer of $34 and their subsequent offer of $35 for 1 in 6 of Yahoo’s outstanding shares.

Second, this just gives Google even more of a near monopoly on monetization. As Mike suggests competiton is lacking and needed in the search space. This is a big step in the wrong direction.

Disclosure: Long on YHOO

Google on SEO

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Search Engine Optimization is at the same time a simple concept (help the search engines find and rank your pages) and a very complex one (proper use of redirection when changing domain names, Google downranking, duplicate content and hundreds more topics that are covered online in many places and also at conferences like the SES Conference Series, Webmasterworld PubCon, or the SMX Conferences.  

Arguably the best source for basic SEO information is Matt Cutts’ blog, and he always has great summaries of the conferences at which he gives talks.    Here’s a great post from Matt today after Danny Sullivan’s SMX Seattle Conference.   Google has added some information to their famous (and infamous) webmaster Guidelines, which should be read by every webmaster as they are the best *basic* information about how to structure a site to be ranked properly.   You’ll also want to read Matt’s SEO posts which offer a lot more specifics and technical advice.  

Although several years ago you would *also* have been well advised to read up on some of the tricks of the trade such as various schemes for keyword optimization, I would argue that for most webmasters tricks are more likely to be counterproductive than productive.   This is a really rich topic because there remain many techniques that fall into a sort of gray area of optimization where ranks are affected, but crossing the Google draws between acceptable techniques and unacceptable can lead to severe penalties.   Since Google does not draw a clear objective line we have the ongoing gray area of optimization. 

Many SEO techniques relate to *linking* strategies and *keyword optimization*.     It is an area where I believe Google has in many ways fueled the rise of the very content they hate by making the rules too vague and (more importantly) allowed adsense advertising on pages that don’t meet reasonable web quality standards.   Early in the game I was often frustrated when I would improve on a bad page only to have it drop in ranks due to algorithmic quirks.   I soon decided to leave crappy but high ranked pages alone, fearing they’d be downranked if I changed them.  This in turn caused problems as Google tightened up quality standards. Google is great about transparency in several areas, but algorithmic search penalties are not one of them.

I should also say there are some exceptionally good SEO folks out there who always have amazing advice when I bump into them at conferences.    David Naylor and Aaron Wall, and Todd Malicoat all have remarkable insight into the complexities of Google ranking as does Vanessa Fox who used to work for Google and Danny Sullivan who runs the SMX series of SEO Conferences.    My general advice about SEO is to do it yourself or in-house, but there are a handful of people like this who know the game so well that the normal rules about avoiding SEO folks do not apply.

Online Abuse Part II: Pownce TOS Violations

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Ariel Waldman is a prominent tech blogger and also the community manager at Pownce.  She has ignited a huge online debate about Twitter failing to police a harassing commenter at Twitter, comments that appear to have come from a person who had been harassing her for some time. 

I’ve really been leaning to her point of view though I’d like to see the dialog and I’d like to see the community working harder to make sure this type of abuse is dealt with more harshly.    Ariel seems to think Pownce does a great job here.

However, at Ariel’s own Pownce page commenters are calling Sarah Lacy the C** word, with only a small admonishment from Ariel and no removal of the comment.     Ariel can correctly say that ongoing harassment is a lot more serious than a “one off” insult, but the use of th c**  word plays heavily in her critique of Twitter’s response to her harassment.

The point here is NOT that Ariel is wrong here or that she should be banning everybody at Pownce that uses the c* word, though maybe that is a good idea as you can hardly make a case this noun can’t be replaced with less objectionable material to get any point across.   Ariel presumably has the power to ban comments and/or users as the community manager at Pownce.  

The point is that the community standards *including Ariel’s* are far too low.   Twitter is only a small part of the problem here.   The problem is … all of us, and only all of us can fix this.

 

Online Abuse and Harassment: Where are the Rules?

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I’m reposting from my WebGuild post about the Ariel Waldman case where she is accusing Twitter of failing to enforce their Terms of Service over a what Ariel says was a case of very bad harassment and abuse on Twitter:

Are there appropriate standards of conduct for social network communication or does anything go in the wild west of social networks, twitter, and blogging?

Ariel Waldman was the target of an online “stalker” who posted abusive comments about her via Twitter. She’s understandably upset about the harrassment and posted a long note about getting no satisfaction from Twitter despite responses including a call with the Twitter CEO, who seemed to feel the case fell outside of Twitter’s responsibility.

I’m trying to get Twitter’s response to Ariel because I have a feeling there actions may hinge on a couple of twists that complicate what at first appears to be a clear cut case of putting free speech – which should be protected at great cost, above threat speech – which is a plague on the online world and should be harshly policed by the online and offline community including law enforcement.

The first issue is that Ariel blogs about some very “emotionally charged” topics with sexually charged language (though I saw no sign of what I would call abusive language in a quick scan of her blogs). However Twitter may be thinking that to censor comments about her or her topics while keeping Ariel’s own stuff online would not be in keeping with some sort of fairness standard (I agree this would be a weak argument based on Ariel’s description of the abuse).

The more relevant twist is that Ariel is the community manager of Pownce, a social microblogging site that is very much in direct competition with Twitter. Unless Ariel is certain that Pownce would handle this situation very differently from how Twitter is handling it she really needs to explain why this is calling out Twitter so powerfully rather than making more general statements about how the very lax online abuse standard are threatening the online social fabric.

This problem very powerfully emerged last year when Kathy Sierra, a prominent and excellent blogger, quit blogging entirely after several death threats against her. Although most of the community expressed outrage an alarming number of prominent bloggers suggested that free speech issues trumped the death threats, and came irresponsibly close to supporting what they seemed to see as the right of harrassers to threaten violence against others.

So it is important to make clear here that my personal view (which is not necessarily that of WebGuild) is that Twitter is wrong as are any social networks that allow harassment of community members. Whatever tiny advantages we might gain in free speech from an “anything goes” policy are washed away as debate is stifled under the threat of the virtual violence turning into real violence.

Update: Twitter Replies to Ariel

In their reply at GetSatisfaction, a customer resolution website, Twitter suggests that this case might be viewed differently by people if the comment stream was available. Presumably both Ariel and Twitter have a copy, so it should be published in the interests of fairness to everybody concerned.

Update 2:  Ariel’s Mom Checks in at her blog:

Mom Says:
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:31 pm

Yes, this is Ariel’s real mother. Those of you who are easily manipulated by media driven celebrity conspiracy theories or actually believe there is no such thing as integrity any longer will ignore this post. Too bad for you.

I am not here to comment on twitter, TOS, freedom of speech, the “sexiness” of ShakeWellBeforeUse or if Ariel is a c—. If I said she wasn’t, you wouldn’t believe me anyway.

I CAN attest to one thing. It IS a fact Ariel’s stalker has been after her for over 3 years beginning in her home town—before she had a high profile on the web. I have seen the physical evidence and know it to be threatening. Ariel did nothing to initiate this situation, the person in question is mentally unbalanced and deeply insecure. The person found out where she lived and made it known to her. Ariel has done everything within her power (talking to the person and friends of the person, police, legal advice, adjustment of lifestyle) to defuse the situation all to no avail. I had thought when she moved to the city, these attacks would end, but they have not. There is more than mere name calling going on. There is a history of vindictive harrassment. Whatever else you think about how she is handling it is your opinion, but she did NOT make this up.

Since I have known Ariel all her life I can tell you one thing. She plays by the rules. She does not manipulate people or situations for her own gain. And she is too smart to screw up her own reputation as a consultant in social media to try and play competing services against each other. All speculation on that account is ridiculous.

And Mom to Ariel: you could have told me you were going to blog this rather than let me randomly find out about it on my own.

MicroHooBook rumors are very probably false. A test of the non-Emergency Blogcasting System?

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I thought I’d coined “MicroHooBook” but Matt   had done that  a full hour before.

Just a moment, just a moment…. looks like The 463 had it before Matt.   Originality sure isn’t what it used to be…

Microsoft is certainly working with Yahoo now to try to buy a piece of the company rather than the whole – Microsoft announced that over the weekend.     Most think they want to buy the search component of Yahoo and that Yahoo may sell because if they don’t Carl Icahn will be forcing a proxy fight that he will probably win, having already bought or lined up about 30% of the votes/shares in his favor.     

But John Furrier “broke” the rumor that as soon as they had Yahoo search MS would snap up Facebook for 15-20 billion.    I think this rumor is speculation and nothing more and I’m even thinking this was something of a test of the non-emergency blogcasting system, which generally delivers misleading information even faster than the truth. 

John Furrier and Robert Scoble are both clever guys, which is why I’m a bit suspicious they have cooked up the MicroHooBook rumor to test TechMeme and how the blogosphere reacts to unfounded rumors.

As usual, the blogOsphere loves unfounded and unverified rumors and this is the key tech blog story for Monday May 19. 

I think Sarah Lacy has this right, and she’s got more of an inside track to Facebook than most reporters.

Breaking News or Broken News?

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This silly Reuters article suggests that a recent Twitter episode suggests that Twitter has  attained some significance as a news mechanism.     I’m a huge fan of Twitter and use it regularly and think it’s representative of a lot of interesting online social trends, but (unlike normal blogging)  Twitter microblogging is hardly a threat to journalism and probably will never be a threat.

The scoop was that Dave Winer asked on Twitter about an “Explosion” in Virginia and the chatter stream (aka Tweets), eventually led to the correct answer – a tiny earthquake in Falls Church VA.     More important than the fact this tiny event was hardly “breaking news”, it was very broken news and probably worried a lot of people until the “explosion” became a tiny rumble.

Again, Twitter is great, but let’s not go stupid here and start thinking Twitter represents a radical restructuring of our information universe.  

 

Internet Ironies

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I thought it was kind of funny when the head architect of social site Twitter, hugely under fire for failing to scale up the application properly as it grew, was giving a talk at the ongoing Web 2.0 Conference about scaling up big websites.

But today’s news that Jeff Pulver of PulverMedia has resigned…..from PulverMedia, has got to be one of the best examples of the crazily ironic internet world.    It’s also annoying that prominent bloggers are now often kept from writing about their own stories by complex contractual obligations they take on when going big time.   It’s enough to make you abandon all those silly A list bloggers for …. good old fashioned regular guy and gal bloggers.

I wonder if he’ll start up a new company and if so what you gonna call it?    NotPulverMedia.com?