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Keen On… SOPA: Mob Rule or Direct Democracy? (TCTV)

vertical8 — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:15:38 +0000

My own views about SOPA and the need to protect online intellectual property are well-known . But even I acknowledge that SOPA was a flawed bill that didn’t represent a viable solution to policing the Internet against intellectual property theft. So is there life after SOPA? How can the technology and content communities carve out a compromise which will simultaneously protect innovation and the rights of the creative community? In the spirit of compromise, I invited Larry Downes , one of SOPA’s most articulate critics, into our San Francisco studio to talk about what comes next. Downes acknowledged that direct democracy on the Internet can sometimes degenerate into mob rule. He also agreed that there is a need for a new kind of dialogue, not only between the technology and entertainment industries, but also involving Internet users – members of communities like Twitter, Reddit and Tumblr – who, he said, needed to be much intimately involved in the political conversation. This third force, Downes told me, fundamentally alters the power equation and may well also change the legislative process in Washington DC. But Downes’ main point is a little depressing. Politics changes very slowly and technology changes really quickly, he reminded me. So in 18 months time, he predicted, nothing much will have changed in Washington DC. There still won’t be any legislative solution to the problem of online piracy and that promised dialogue between the two (or three) communities will not have materialized.

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Keen On… SOPA: Mob Rule or Direct Democracy? (TCTV)

Brands Scored 2X Facebook Likes By Posting About Super Bowl

blogger — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:50:49 +0000

Want to win some extra visibility for your brand on Facebook? Post about current events. Brands grabbed 99.7% higher engagement on their Page posts by talking about the Super Bowl yesterday, and 60% higher engagement over the past 6 weeks compared to the average post. The data from a Buddy Media study of 1,400 of the world’s largest brands indicates they should make sure to post about holidays, sporting events, breaking news, and other trending topics. Why does this work? Because Facebook’s news feed sorting algorithm EdgeRank shows posts to a wider audience if they get high levels of engagement (Likes, comments, and shares) from those who have already seen them. In this case, posts about the Super Bowl were inherently more eye-catching to users and got more engagement, and were therefore shown to more users, netting them more engagement… EdgeRank also gives more prominence to posts that contain the same keywords as other posts from a user’s network, generating “Brand X and 8 others posted about Super Bowl XLIV”. The feature can help brands posting about current events to reach the news feed, even if users do have to click to expand these aggregated mention stories . Tons of brands are missing out on this engagement bonanza, though. Just 30% of the brands Buddy Media analyzed posted about the Super Bowl. So tell anyone who handles social media marketing about this strategy so they can cash in on the upcoming Valentine’s Day, Presidents Day, and Canadian Junior Curling Championships. Well, maybe skip that last one.

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Brands Scored 2X Facebook Likes By Posting About Super Bowl

Tsavo Media To Pay Yahoo $4.8M For Sending ‘Low Quality Traffic’, President Quits

admin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:13:44 +0000

Tsavo Media , which operates a network of roughly 300 websites and blogs as an indirect subsidiary of Canadian online publishing and advertising company Cyberplex , is being retroactively charged $4.8 million “over a reasonable time period” by Yahoo for sending the latter company’s advertisers “low quality traffic” in 2011. To boot, Cyberplex president Ted Hastings (formerly Tsavo Media’s CEO), apparently jumped ship. It’s a curious story, to say the least. Tsavo Media, once led by former MySpace CEO and previously AOL SVP Mike Jones , was acquired by Cyberplex back in May 2010, for a reported $75 million . The company’s network of Internet publications includes crappy websites like LumaGardening.com , ThinkFashion , TechSerious , WealthyGeek , Twirlit , DiscoverFame and KidGlue . Now, according to a press statement released earlier today, a Special Committee of the Board of Directors of Cyberplex has been appointed to “review the status of Tsavo Media and strategic alternatives available to create shareholder value out of that division, which is currently heavily encumbered by debt under Tsavo Media’s credit facility with American Capital”. I bet this wasn’t what they had in mind when they acquired Tsavo Media. But then again, what good could have come out of buying a crappy content generation machine anyway? Cyberplex had this to say about the sticky Yahoo situation it now finds itself in: The Company reported today that Tsavo Media has been engaged in discussions with Yahoo! to address concerns regarding the quality of traffic provided to the Yahoo! advertising base, and Tsavo Media’s reliance on Yahoo!’s traffic quality reporting system. Tsavo Media has now been informed that it will be required to pay to Yahoo! approximately $4.8 million over a reasonable time period currently being discussed, notwithstanding prior information that indicated good quality traffic at that time. This amount may be partially offset by achieving certain performance incentives and anticipated improvements in average revenues per click, but the Company noted that there can be no assurance as to how much, if any, of this payment to Yahoo! would be offset through these incentives and improvements. Translation: unless a miracle happens, we’re going to have to cough up some serious dough, and we can only hope we don’t have to pay everything all at once and in the near future. The Company noted that Yahoo! provides bi-weekly quality reports to Tsavo Media, which are extremely important to Tsavo Media in the management of its systems, analysis, forecasting and ultimately its day-to-day business decisions. Yahoo! recently communicated to Tsavo Media that notwithstanding the good quality score reports that had been provided throughout most of 2011, Yahoo! would retroactively charge Tsavo for what Yahoo! is now saying was actually low quality traffic, ranging back over many months during 2011. While the Company and Yahoo! remain in discussions on this issue, the Company now expects that Yahoo! will enforce its decision to charge back this amount citing its right to do so pursuant to the terms of Tsavo Media’s agreement with Yahoo! Translation: first Yahoo says we did a good job last year, but now they say we did a bad job, and according to the deal we agreed upon they can actually retroactively charge us for it. “We are very frustrated by the timing of these events after spending almost one year rebuilding the Tsavo organization while negotiating a settlement with American Capital”, said Geoffrey Rotstein, CEO of Cyberplex. “These events are disappointing given all of the hard work the Tsavo employees have invested to rebuild the organization and because they continue to take away and distract from all of the other positive developments and momentum being created within both Tsavo and the other divisions of Cyberplex.” Translation: Oh FFF******CCCKKK.

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Tsavo Media To Pay Yahoo $4.8M For Sending ‘Low Quality Traffic’, President Quits

Apple Schooled Music Execs Then, Here Are The Lessons Online Video Should Learn Now

Administrator — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 02:21:21 +0000

Editor’s Note: This post is written by guest author Peter Csathy , who is President & CEO of online video enabler and transcoding company Sorenson Media . Previously, he served as President & COO of online music pioneer Musicmatch. Thus, the following is written from the perspective of a long-time media executive, and meant to be a conversation-starter. Csathy blogs at Digital Media Update . Apple’s all-in-one physical flat-screen iTV is coming , make no mistake. And, when it does, it will represent Apple’s attempt to reinvent the television experience in much the same way it did for music. But, while media execs were hopelessly naive in Apple’s presence back then, they feel they are ready this time. They are determined not to let Apple rule the premium online video world like they did (and still do) for online music. The question is, do they have the will? Apple will, of course, follow its established playbook, which most CE companies inexplicably still do not follow, and seamlessly marry its beautiful hardware (the iTV) with its underlying software and services (in this case, movies and television) in the same way it did with music via the iPod and iTunes. Apple’s goal is to be the center of the online movie and television universe for consumers (just like it is for music). Yes, content is king to Apple, but only because content serves as the Trojan Horse consumers ride into Apple’s kingdom of riches (initially Macs and iPods, and later iPhones, iPads and the inevitable iTV). Ay, but there’s the rub. The content king-makers — motion picture and television studio execs — now know this. They have seen this movie before, and this time they are determined to monetize content more directly for content sake – for themselves. Apple transformed itself into the #1 most valuable global company and juggernaut that we see today precisely because those media execs handed Apple the keys to unlock music value in the online world. Steve Jobs wooed them with his charms, pitched a great story, and established the rules of the online music licensing game. Apple’s massive growth in the past decade all started there with its iPod-iTunes 1-2 knockout punch. That, in turn, led to the resurgence of Macs, which led to the iPhone, then the iPad. Apple would be a very different company today if didn’t get the music it needed 10 years ago. And, how did Jobs’ playbook work out for the labels and musicians? Not so well. Online music sales (and royalties) were an asterisk next to iPod sales. Don’t get me wrong. Rampant piracy — and the music industry’s misplaced attack strategy — destroyed significant content value. Nevertheless, the music industry’s negotiations with Jobs one decade ago resulted in a massive transfer of value and wealth to Apple. So, what lessons have media executives learned from this past decade? Lesson #1 — Dictate the Rules of the Game, Rather Than Have Them Dictated to You. Music execs were on their heels reeling in fear when Jobs approached them a decade ago with the promise of iTunes. They had no real experience with the Internet. They certainly had no experience with technology (many still do not) – and how it could be used for both good and evil. Piracy was rampant. Napster ruled the day (the bad one, not the good one). Kazaa’s Niklas Zennstrom was public enemy #1 (now of course he is a media insider with Skype, Joost and others). The music industry was understandably panicked. Jobs promised a way out – under three conditions. First, Apple must be able to sell individual tracks unbundled from albums. Second, its price for those unbundled tracks must be $.99 each. Third, Apple must define and control the entire online music experience. The music industry capitulated, and these 3 commandments are fundamental rules of the game that still largely rule the day. Well, those rules haven’t worked out too well for music creators and owners. Lesson learned. So, one decade later, media execs are striving to proactively dictate the value of their content and support multiple online experiences and business models. But, even now, they frequently significantly under-value their content. More on that later. Lesson #2 — Never Again Put Too Much Power in the Hands of One Distributor. Prior to iTunes, piracy was rampant, and only relatively small players (including my former company, Musicmatch) played legitimately in the online music world. Amid this backdrop, media execs empowered Apple to be the first and only established online music source and experience. As a result, iTunes incredibly still commands 60-70% of all online music sales. That represents incredible power in the hands of one. It represents a downright monopoly. Media execs are determined not to allow that kind of power in the hands of any single player in the online video world. They instead are committed to fostering an eco-system of as many legitimate distributors as possible. They actively license their prized motion picture and television assets to all those willing to pay. That’s why we already have myriad established behemoths in the premium online video game. We have Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Google/YouTube, Comcast. The list goes on and on. Apple too is on that list, but it is behind the curve this time. Those same media execs who ceded control to Apple ten years ago have refused, thus far, to broadly license their crown jewels on Apple’s terms. But Apple — or more accurately, Apple’s massive hoards of cash – can be very persuasive. More on that later. Lesson #3 — License Broadly & Make the Licensing Landscape as Confusing and Opaque as Possible. Media execs aren’t panicked this time. They have a decade of learning under their belts. Yes, piracy continues to be rampant, but they now understand that it cannot simply be litigated into oblivion. The best defense truly is a better offense. Support better customer experiences, make your content available broadly to those legitimate distributors willing to pay, and experiment with business models and terms. That’s why we have over-the-top (OTT) “Internet TV” models in which content is monetized via paid downloads, subscriptions, and ads. We also have big cable’s “TV Everywhere” models in which consumers must continue to pay their monthly cable fees. And, coming soon, Google and others will become virtual cable operators that will also distribute live linear programming like ESPN. Apple too wants to be on that “virtual MSO” list, because that is the kind of premium content that ultimately moves mountains of consumers. Case in point: DirecTV’s “NFL Package.” This melange is great for the studios. No two content licensing deals are the same. Each negotiation takes place in a black box. No clarity. No certainty. Just the way media execs like it (I know, I have been there). Now THAT’s power! Right? Up to a point. More on that later. Lesson #4 — Be Audacious — After All, Content is King. Jobs ultimately taught music execs one fundamental truth – that content is THE key to unlock tremendous value online. The corollary to this is that without content, value is lost. That’s why all the deep-pocketed tech titans are lining up for a chance to play in the premium online video game. Just as it is for Apple, premium online video distribution is strategically central to their business. Apple? Sell its hardware. Amazon? Sell more goods and services. Google? Sell more ads. Comcast? Hold onto those cable subscriptions. Netflix? Survive! These players have inked a steady stream of significant licensing deals just in the past few months, the financial terms of which are almost never disclosed (remember, just the way the studios like it). But, one telling deal’s terms did slip out – Netflix agreed to shell out nearly $1 billion to stream shows from the CW Network. Think about that – if the CW can command those kind of numbers today, think about the price tag for real “premium” content like ESPN. And, we are still in the early innings of this premium online video game. Apple – with its head-spinning $100 billion war chest – is a lock to win (or at least be a massive winner in) the online video game, right? Most likely, the answer is yes. The inevitable iTVs will fly off the shelves. But, Apple isn’t alone this time. It is playing on a crowded field with other deep-pocketed and committed players (including CE guys like Samsung). Even more importantly, to really hit it out of the park, Apple’s coming iTV must be an experience. That means Apple must offer an extremely deep pool of compelling video content from the start (including sacred programming like ESPN). Otherwise, consumers will find holes, get frustrated, and look to fill those holes with programming offered by others. Each frustrated customer represents real significant loss, which is especially magnified in Apple’s case because of its closed product eco-system. For Apple, it’s not just about a single product sale (like an iTV). That sale, instead, marks the beginning or continuation of a long-term lucrative purchase relationship, which is the key driver of Apple’s stratospheric growth. That’s why Apple will be willing to strike very different content licensing deals with media execs this time around. Of course, Apple doesn’t control the content – the studios do. So, who really holds the cards here? Will the studios be as audacious as Steve Jobs was one decade earlier and demand terms that they believe reflect the true value their content creates for distributors over time? In Apple’s case, one truly audacious idea could be to seek a share of revenue for every iTV sold. Remember, not every license deal must be the same. Value means very different things to different players. If Apple, or any other online distributor, refuses to play, then they lose out. No soup for you! There are many others (including the studios themselves), but only one ESPN! Or, will media execs instead go for the quick-fix of easy money? After all it’s hard to say “no” to someone writing a big check. If they do go this instant gratification route (which is more consistent with their DNA), at least they should realize that their prized motion picture and television assets will be worth significantly more than they think in the online world over time. Avoid long-term deals! So, yes, media execs have learned their lessons well. Content is, in fact, king. Apple will continue to wear the crown, however, unless media companies have the will and creativity to take it back. After all, Apple made $46.3 billion this past quarter alone, a number that dwarfs global motion picture box office receipts for the entire year. Apple could buy Hollywood. But, will Hollywood let it? Excerpt image from SoulInTheMachine.com

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Apple Schooled Music Execs Then, Here Are The Lessons Online Video Should Learn Now

Facebook – Run from the Bulls?

blogger — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:28:58 +0000

Editor’s note : Guest author Keith Teare is General Partner at his incubator Archimedes Labs and CEO of newly funded just.me . He was a co-founder of TechCrunch. Much ink has been spilled these past few days on the Facebook IPO filing . Much of it analyses the details revealed in the S1 initial document . Some of it has focused on revenue and growth ; some of it on control and corporate governance , some on valuation and how reasonable or not it is likely to be, and a little on whether or not the IPO represents the end of Facebook’s growth cycle . So, should you be a bull, and buy? Or should you run as fast as you can away from the bulls? For guidance turn to the risk factors part of the filing. For me, the most interesting part of the document is that part focused on Facebook’s mobile strategy and associated risks, and what that tells us to be alert to in the future. Now, to be clear, Facebook and its employees have done the most wonderful job of riding the transformation of the Internet from a place where anonymous individuals surfed the web, consumed information and media and accessed services to discover relevant things into an Internet where named individuals publish information to each other and discover things from friends. Facebook dominates the modern Internet. Its APIs extend its reach outside of its garden into almost every website on the planet – this one included. It is awesome to behold and it generates significant revenues already, and even more significant profits. Hats off to all involved. This success shouldn’t blind us to the relative size of company we are talking about. Last week Apple reported profits of over $13 billion for a quarter, Google’s revenues were lower than that number, and Facebook’s revenues are lower than Google’s profits. Facebook is huge by startup standards, but not by Internet standards. There is much more in its future. But this article isn’t about that. It is about the context within which the human Facebook IPO is happening. The Facebook S1 is clear on that context. In the risk factors of its filing it states: Growth in use of Facebook through our mobile products, where we do not currently display ads, as a substitute for use on personal computers may negatively affect our revenue and financial results. We anticipate that the rate of growth in mobile users will continue to exceed the growth rate of our overall MAUs for the foreseeable future, in part due to our focus on developing mobile products to encourage mobile usage of Facebook. Although the substantial majority of our mobile users also access and engage with Facebook on personal computers where we display advertising, our users could decide to increasingly access our products primarily through mobile devices. We do not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven. Accordingly, if users continue to increasingly access Facebook mobile products as a substitute for access through personal computers, and if we are unable to successfully implement monetization strategies for our mobile users, our revenue and financial results may be negatively affected. Facebook initial S1 filing, 1 Feb 2012, page 13 The reason this risk factor jumps out of the page – for me – is that this trend to growing mobile use is inevitable. What is more, it will be both rapid and enormous. How do we know this? Well, human beings are flocking to mobile platforms in droves. This is happening to such an extent that Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker went on the record almost 1 year ago to say that we are now in the 5 th major technology cycle of the past half century (mainframe; mini-computer; desktop; internet and now mobile) and that mobile traffic will “grow 26 times over the next 5 years”. The presentation linked above is 56 slides long and is well worth a read. So the risk that “our users could decide to increasingly access our products primarily through mobile devices,” is not a risk. It is a certainty. When Google reported its financial results for the quarter 2 weeks ago it failed to meet a key metric – Cost Per Click advertising rates. This too was driven by the growth in the relative proportion of traffic derived from mobile. In mobile, ad clicks are fewer and ad rates are lower. Google’s present – and Facebook’s future – involves the painful fact that the very success of mobile platforms in helping human beings be productive, on the go, has a negative impact on the desktop-based advertising programs of the past 10 years. Mobile growth impacts web advertising revenues, except of course for Apple who make money from hardware and software and so benefits from these trends. The reason is simple. We do less ad-centric activities on mobile than we did on the web. And we are less likely to click away on an ad when we are focused on a specific goal on a largely single window device. The challenge faced by any content based mobile platform will be to try and figure out a revenue strategy that can monetize mobile use as mobile minutes cannibalize desktop minutes in the months and years ahead. There are many efforts to figure this out. From virtual goods in the context of games ( Zynga and others); to subscriptions for high quality content ( Wall Street Journal , The Economist ); to advertising and sponsorships in content (see Fotopedia’s “ Japan ” app); and Payment systems ( Square ). None of these are the solution – although all are valid and scalable. The billions spent on the web each year by advertisers will have to find a way to be effectively spent in the place consumers increasing will be – on smartphones. The mobile platform needs an innovation that fits it as closely as Google’s Adsense and Adwords were a fit for the desktop era. One thing we know for sure. Revolutions in computing are harsh on those who fail to adapt to what is new. Photo credit: Camilo Rueda López

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Facebook – Run from the Bulls?

Mark Zuckerberg’s 6 Ingredients For Success

Budowniczy425 — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:04:03 +0000

Editor’s note: Contributor Ashkan Karbasfrooshan is the founder and CEO of WatchMojo . Follow him @ashkan . Leadership guru Warren Bennis asked whether leaders are born or made. When asked if Wall Street would accept a young Mark Zuckerberg in his early 20s as CEO, Facebook investor Peter Thiel said: “Well, we’ll wait until he’s over 25 to file”. Wise move, considering that Mark’s title on his business cards read “I’m CEO, bitch”. This week Facebook filed its S-1 to go public. Mark is 27. How Mark managed to launch a social networking site after Friendster had crashed during MySpace’s zenith has been widely chronicled . What’s been less discussed is how Mark mastered the six requirements to succeed, namely Ambition, Vision, Determination, Execution, Luck and Timing. Ambition “The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the scythe”, Russian Proverb The foundation and building block of any successful person is Ambition, or the desire for personal achievement. People are driven by success, recognition, respect, money, power or fame. If you believe everything in The Social Network , Mark launched Facebook to level the playing field at Harvard and to succeed at getting girls. Success is relative, subjective and fluid ; over time Mark’s definition of success grew to match his brainchild’s imprint. Wearing your ambition on your sleeve will get you cut off at the knees, but ambition is required to succeed; the challenge is channeling it properly and managing your emotions around it. When the Winklevoss twins first hired Mark to build their social networking site, Mark never revealed his ambitions to build his own site. It was only later – far too late for the Winklevoss – that Mark revealed his true ambition. Vision A design glitch allowed MySpace users to customize their profiles. But that mixed blessing created a cacophonous environment which made users welcome Facebook’s clean interface. Facebook wasn’t visionary in any revolutionary sense of the word. Where Facebook deserves credit was that Mark et al. recognized the need for a real directory of people, not merely users. Before Facebook it was nearly impossible to actually find people, you could “google” them but finding the person you wanted within one search wasn’t a given. We now take it for granted, but that extension of people search and connecting them was certainly evolutionary , and it’s worth noting that most successes are not radically new but extensions and improvements of existing paradigms. The critics may note that Mark sometimes lacked charisma. In this context, charisma is a subset of vision: it allows you to convince others to buy into your vision, but charisma in and of itself is not a requirement to succeed, it’s an accelerant or amplifier. In Mark’s case, he has had the good fortune to let Facebook’s massive growth rates do the talking for him. Execution “Stay Focused, Keep Shipping” , Mark Zuckerberg When you look back to Facebook’s functionality when it launched, it was bare bones. Facebook has added features while scaling users, literally changing jet engines at 30,000 feet without missing a beat. It’s easy to laugh at missteps like Beacon or the privacy dossier and fail to appreciate the velocity at which Facebook has evolved and grown. Determination To quote President Calvin Coolidge: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” Back in 1995, Steve Jobs added: “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance”. Determination, drive, tenacity or persistence is the most important variable, demonstrated by Mark through his: relentless coding early on to launch Facebook to catch the Winklevoss brothers off guard; adding colleges; attacking MySpace; defending against the subsequent lawsuit from the twins; repeated encroaching into people’s privacy (which remains one of Mark’s Achilles heels). But, to his credit, he has repeatedly not cared or believed in himself enough to charge ahead no matter what. Mark is a constant reminder that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission . So those were the first four traits: largely innate, can be learned, and things you can control. But without the next two, you won’t succeed. Luck “A great fortune depends on luck, a small one on diligence”, Chinese Proverb In sports and in business, luck can be your best friend or your undoing. Let’s face it: Mark’s had a horseshoe up his butt. Luck made him run into Sean Parker, who introduced him to Peter Thiel, without whom as an ally and first outside investor it’s unlikely he would have remained CEO to this day. But you create your own luck, or when lady luck smiles down on you, you seize the opportunity. Timing Google wasn’t the first search engine, YouTube wasn’t the first video sharing site and Facebook certainly wasn’t the first social network. Geocities, Tripod, Friendster, Tribe Networks, MySpace are just some that come to mind. Mark’s managed the clock all along: slowing down the Winklevoss brothers; launching Facebook on Harvard first to then expand to other colleges; relocating to California; refusing Viacom and Yahoo!’s offers; closing his deal with Microsoft. While the comparisons to Google’s IPO are understandable , Google ushered a new Internet Bull run whereas Facebook’s is coming at the tail end of Zynga, Groupon, LinkedIn, Demand Media and Pandora’s – none of which have fared particularly well . However, much like Google’s IPO made it the Internet stock bellwether, Facebook will become the de facto stock pick of individual and institutional investors, pushing demand to justify the lofty price-to-earnings and price-to-sales multiples. There you have it: success = ambition + vision + execution + persistence + luck + timing; with the first four being things you can control and the last two being externalities that you cannot. While I’ve praised and criticized him and Facebook, as a fellow entrepreneur, Mark is someone all builders look up to and admire despite his obvious mistakes – reminding me of the Michael Jordan quote: “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

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Mark Zuckerberg’s 6 Ingredients For Success

The Wheel: What Is The Foxconn Debate Really About?

vertical8 — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:20:31 +0000

Thirty spokes meet at a nave; Because of the hole we may use the wheel. Clay is moulded into a vessel; Because of the hollow we may use the cup. Walls are built around a hearth; Because of the doors we may use the house. Thus tools come from what exists, But use from what does not. – Tao De Ching There’s a carousel in a small Cape Cod town that we visited this summer and the kids rode it a few times. The carousel is quite old and quite handsome and it makes a great diversion of an evening. I’m reminded now of trying to take pictures of the kids while they rode the carousel. For a while I’d wave and try to get their attention as they roared past, their laughter dopplering around the edge of the curve, and then, after four or five tries I’d give up and just watch. It’s a wheel, an endless circle, designed to delight and enthuse and distract. Reading the recent back and forth between Stephen Fry – an Apple apologist – and Mike Daisey – an Apple user/abuser – I’m reminded of that carousel. The gist is this: Mike Daisey woke up the NPR-listening world with his long piece of Foxconn for This American Life . It was a great piece – dramatic, educational, and eye-opening – but it’s definitely nothing we haven’t seen before. Some could say that it was The Jungle of Chinese manufacturing, a tell-all with just enough outrage to make us rethink a great horror. But the problem is this: Daisey is an actor and knows how to bring out the story, just as John Steinbeck was a writer and knew how to populate the Dust Bowl with Christ figures. That doesn’t make the story less effective – it makes it more so – but it does make the story less true. The problem is the endless circle of blame and apology. Daisey is correct in many of his assumptions, but offers a way forward that is currently unenforceable. But if you argue against Daisey’s points, you’re an apologist. But, as Paul Krugman writes : Such moral outrage is common among the opponents of globalization — of the transfer of technology and capital from high-wage to low-wage countries and the resulting growth of labor-intensive Third World exports. These critics take it as a given that anyone with a good word for this process is naive or corrupt and, in either case, a de facto agent of global capital in its oppression of workers here and abroad. We keep going over the same ground here. The argument can be delineated like this: Foxconn is an evil sweatshop. Apple is a huge Foxconn customer. They should change things. Two of those things are true, a third is false. To be clear, I’m with the crowd that says that Apple is, at best, ignorant of Foxconn’s problems and at worst ignoring them. I agree things must change and Apple is in a great position to do it. But I don’t agree with the first point. I’ve seen sweat shops and Foxconn is a factory. If many of the major brands (I recall that Ford was a customer at one factory I visited) knew that their promotional USB keys were made in a building that looked like a gulag, they’d be skewered. Here’s hoping they are, one day. However, Daisey’s Foxconn story – written outside of the factory – and my own research , written inside the factory – don’t jibe. His discoveries that people get sick or are injured in factories are naive and I suspect his sample size of employees who approached him is far smaller than we realize. To go into the Foxconn factory is to see a place staffed by college-age kids and engineers who work 10 or so hours a day building electronics. There is no great Dickensian work house nor are there sad-eyed madonnas of the assembly line chained to the soldering irons. This isn’t the mundanity of evil – this is just mundanity. Nor am I saying that Daisey’s interviewees are malingerers with an axe to grind. I’m sure their lives are ruined or much harder thanks to Foxconn. The value of Daisey’s efforts is his ability to give these people a voice in an environment that would normally quash that voice. He’s doing what artists must do – reflecting a time and place through his own lens. My own opinion is simple: Apple needs to do more for the people in its manufacturing chain. I will not pretend that Apple can simply wave a magic wand and make every Foxconn employee rich and happy, but it has the cash and the wherewithal to further disrupt the Chinese supply chain and improve the lot of Foxconn’s employees. But I also agree with what one Gawker commenter said : “I believe Tim Cook will do more good for those employees (and already has, in point of fact) than Mike Daisey ever will.” Apple on the aggregate couldn’t care less about our existence nor does it deserve our undying respect and admiration. On an personal level there are plenty of folks inside Apple working and worrying about worker’s rights in China, but as an entity we are talking supply chains and price management. Apple makes excellent tools for our digital age, that’s it. To defend or excoriate the company is like screaming into the wind. However, through their constant rejiggering and improvements, they have essentially created a Western, ISO-compliant factory environment in a corporate culture that used to force underperforming employees to stand outside wearing a sign that said “I am a bad worker.” What Daisey did is made us think. Did he do it the right way, using the right tools? Absolutely not. Will he improve the lot of the workers he interviewed? I doubt it. But will his efforts – and the efforts of many who came before him – help bring the Chinese worker out of penury? Sure, eventually. I opened this piece talking about a carousel in Cape Cod, a delightfully bourgeois setting for a piece on poverty wage labor practices. I get to go to Cape Cod and put my kids on a carousel because my job involves dicking around on the Internet all day (I suspect Daisey’s does too). My one wish is that every Foxconn employee, at some point in their lives, will be able to sit down to an unhurried meal, chat with family, and maybe ride a carousel. I think it’s in Foxconn’s best interests to ensure that that happens – and soon – and I think that we’re nearly there. Things will get better, I’m sure of it, and I also feel that they already have.

More here:
The Wheel: What Is The Foxconn Debate Really About?

Peter Thiel Invests (Again) In Xero’s $16.6M Round

admin — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:00:46 +0000

Online accounting software maker Xero has raised $16.6 million in new funding from existing investors — including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, whose most famous investment, Facebook, just filed for an IPO , Thiel first invested $3 million in New Zealand-founded Xero back in 2010, with the aim of fueling expansion in the United States. The company says that’s also the reason for the latest round. This time, Xero also notes that it recently doubled its US team, from three employees to six, and hired Jamie Sutherland (formerly vice president and general manager at Sage Software) as the president of US operations. Other investors in the round include Sam Morgan and MYOB co-founder Craig Winkler. The company says it has 60,000 paying customers and 240,000 users. It partners with Yodlee to bring automatic bank feeds into the service, with 5,000 feeds in the US. “Xero transforms the way small businesses handle their accounting,” Thiel said in the press release. “Where conventional accounting software is cluttered, slow, and anchored to a desktop, Xero’s cloud-based services and intuitive design simplify an impressive suite of financial tasks. We’re excited to see Xero grow throughout the U.S.”

The rest is here:
Peter Thiel Invests (Again) In Xero’s $16.6M Round

Keen On… Dane Jasper: Why High Speed Broadband Is The Key To US Innovation (TCTV)

Achilles — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:30:09 +0000

There are few more articulate supporters of high speed broadband access than Sonic.net CEO Dane Jasper . Not only does he think Americans should have the right to high quality broadband, but he also thinks that it is the key to innovation in the broader economy. Home video is, of course, increasingly dependent on broadband and so, Japser told me when he came into our San Francisco studio earlier this week, is innovation in our healthcare and education sectors. Jasper doesn’t see the actual cost of broadband as the problem. Internet access isn’t finite, like coal or water, he insists – and the cost of bandwidth is actually plummeting to zero. Indeed, a stunning 98% of his costs, he confessed to me, go on things outside the product. It’s staffing, he acknowledged, which suck up most of his costs – with investment in customer service being 20 times higher than his investment in product. For Jasper, innovation can solve all our problems. Even the seemingly endless issue of piracy, he told me, can be solved by rights-holders becoming more innovative in making their product readily available on the Internet. It’s that kind of innovation, Jaspers insists, rather than legislation such as SOPA, that will save the entertainment industry. This is the second of two interviews with the straight-talking Jasper. Yesterday, he told me why fiber is the future of wired connectivity.

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Keen On… Dane Jasper: Why High Speed Broadband Is The Key To US Innovation (TCTV)

The Revolution May Or May Not Be Branded

blogger — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 07:39:43 +0000

The Occupy movement, or rallying cry, or whatever you want to call it, is by its nature decentralized. By refusing to come together under one banner other than the word “Occupy,” they’ve both diluted their message and allowed it to spread more quickly. You don’t need an Occupy license to occupy a bank’s lobby in Kansas City, but at the same time there’s a natural question of whether one occupation is related to another. Political considerations aside, the point is that Occupy might benefit from a recognizable face. On this front, some faction of the movement has decided to do a little branding, but in keeping with the democratic, bottom-up nature of the organization (or rather dis organization), they’ve opted to run a contest and let the “official” logo be selected by popular vote. It’s a great application of web technology to an interesting problem, and will probably prove to be a memorable case study in an increasingly common phenomenon: the necessity of branding an emergent movement or pattern on the internet. It’s something that has already been faced by, for example, Anonymous. Like Occupy, Anonymous is necessarily decentralized and in a way leaderless — but there are obviously leaders and centers, like @anonops and a few other “official” sources. But then there’s the Guy Fawkes mask and the empty suit, both certainly symbols of Anonymous by common consent, though whether they emerged naturally or were simply in the right place at the right time (and whether there’s any difference between those two) isn’t clear. Or think about the SOPA/PIPA protests. While everyone seemed to figure out a good way to express the concept of censorship on their site or avatar, the lack of a single unifying phrase, graphic, or general “brand” (loosely speaking) was conspicuous, considering the extraordinary cross-cultural and cross-community agreement on the issue. Which brings us to Occupy. The logos being submitted are the usual mix of free fonts, corporate-looking nonsense, and the occasional good idea. For the record, I like the one at top left, and these: But I’m suspicious of the whole concept. The problem to me is not Occupy-specific. It’s simply that emergent phenomena don’t respond well to efforts to define them. The reason no single visual metaphor appeared for SOPA was because there was no naturally propagating icon around which people could gather. There was no burning monk, no Kent State photograph, no graphic or sketch or person that naturally expressed and associated itself with the movement. The closest thing was the censor bar or redacted text, which was sort of good enough but didn’t adequately encompass the ideas behind the opposition. With Occupy as well, I think that efforts to create an identity for it will fail, because identity only emerges from collective action. It happens naturally or it doesn’t happen at all. I think this will be demonstrated more frequently over the next few years as activism, social change, and more everyday things as well become memetic and emergent. A logo will be picked for @occupy and for use on “official” communiques, whatever that might mean to them. But what Occupy and Anonymous and STOP SOPA and all the rest need isn’t a logo, it’s a symbol . Those aren’t quite as easy to come by. [hat tip to GigaOm for setting me thinking]

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The Revolution May Or May Not Be Branded