May 30, 2006 | In Law, Technology | No Comments
A court ruling last week in California has established that bloggers and web reporters have the same rights to privacy and confidentiality of sources as any other journalists.
The case was brought forward by Apple Computer in 2004 after blogger, Jason O’Grady, published confidential information about an unreleased Apple product.
When O’Grady refused to tell Apple where he got the information, the company issued a subpoena against his email provider, in an effort to identify the source of the leak. The court has now overturned a previous ruling, however, and asserted that online journalists have the same rights as traditional news media when it comes to not spilling the beans about their sources.
“Today’s decision is a victory for the rights of journalists, whether online or offline, and for the public at large,” said Kurt Opsahl, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who argued the appeal for this case. “The court has upheld the strong protections for the free flow of information to the press, and from the press to the public.”
May 28, 2006 | In Law, Technology | 1 Comment
A committee from the U.S. House of Representatives has given its approval to a piece of legislation that seeks to prevent ISPs from controlling internet traffic and forcing content providers to pay “network access” bribes.
The House Judiciary Committee voted 20-to-13 in favor of the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act, designed to protect the principle of net neutrality, and keep network providers like AT&T and Verizon from establishing a dictatorship over internet content and web-based services.
The Committee’s Republican chairman, James Sensenbrenner, along with several other Republicans and the majority of Democrats voted in favor of the bill.
It is comforting to see that most representatives of the people are willing to think of the common internet user on issues like this. If startup companies are to offer innovative and competitively priced services over the web, they must be given the freedom to do so without paying bribes to a demanding and self-centered authority.
Such a system would take away freedom from the internet, and freedom is what the internet is all about.
The Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act still has a long way to go before becoming law, but the fact that net neutrality is being seen as an important, mainstream issue is an encouraging sign indeed.
May 24, 2006 | In Business, Technology | No Comments
Internet giant, Google Inc., revealed earlier this week that it is planning to move into a new form of internet media, by launching an online video advertising service.
Internet video has become more and more popular as broadband penetration has increased, and Google is determined to evolve right along with it. This is just one of the Mountain View company’s moves to expand outwards from its text advertising roots, and find more diversified sources of revenue.
Google will not integrate video with its own search results, but rather distribute the ads over its huge network of content-based partner sites.
“There are certain segments of advertisers who need a richer experience, like movie studios that want to show movie trailers,” noted Google project manager, Gokul Rajaram. “It’s more compelling.”
Although video ads aren’t a new invention, broadband is only now reaching levels that make online video accessible to the majority of mainstream consumers. Demand for such advertising will skyrocket in the next two years, according to eMarketer, with revenue expected to hit $225 million this year, and $640 million in 2007.
The new advertising service will use a similar PPC bidding system to the existing Adwords offering, with clicks expected to cost about three times those of text ads. Advertisers will be able to upload commercials of up to 2 minutes in length, and pay whenever visitors click on a play button.
Combining the PPC business model with video advertising could be a truly brilliant move for Google, boosting revenues far beyond previous levels. And the search giant’s plan of using its content partners to distribute ads definitely gives it a unique edge over other video advertising brokers like Yahoo and AOL.
If Google plays their cards right, they could easily duplicate their dominance in PPC search, and rocket to the top of video advertising as well.
Published via TeleClick.ca.
May 20, 2006 | In Business, Technology | No Comments
Internet search giants, Google, MSN, and Yahoo, are beginning to focus more of their efforts on capturing the attention of mobile phone users.
These companies are doing their best to forge partnerships with cell phone carriers, to make their mobile search offerings easily accessible on popular handsets. As internet-ready handsets become cheaper and more advanced, demand for them is expected to increase considerably.
That’s why staking out space on the so called “third screen” is integral to the business models of so many internet search, advertising, and content providers. Getting a piece of the mobile advertising pie will allow the big internet players to further integrate their services with the everyday lives of users.
Published via TeleClick.ca.
May 15, 2006 | In Politics, Technology | No Comments
Chinese internet giant, Baidu.com, is trying to break into the user-edited online reference business with its very own rip off of the Wikipedia project.
The new site, “Baidupedia,” however, enforces a strict moderation process to make sure that nothing gets published that could offend China’s communist government.
Baidupedia’s FAQ page orders users to maintain a positive attitude about the country’s current government, avoid portraying a “negative view of life.”
In short, the Baidu encyclopedia uses the Wikipedia model as a propaganda generator and government ass-kissing machine. I suppose they have a market, since the real Wikipedia has been banned in China since last year, but I don’t think Baidupedia will be very appealing to anyone with an independent brain.
May 12, 2006 | In Technology | No Comments
Yahoo CEO, Terry Semel, recently rejected an attempt from Microsoft to buy a share of the company’s search business.
Semel didn’t say exactly what form the offer took, but did confirm that Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft had expressed an interest in buying part of Yahoo’s search engine enterprise.
Predictably enough, the world’s #2 search giant rejected the offer saying that it made no sense to sell out at this point, but the fact that Microsoft even posed such a request suggests that it is frustrated with the progress of its in-house MSN Search solution.
MSN still ranks a distant third in the internet search market, behind Google and Yahoo. Microsoft originally had lofty ambitions for its search technology, but MSN has ultimately fallen short of the gold standard set by Google, and demanded by web surfers.
With no other major competitors to buy out, the old trick of throwing money around won’t work in this case. The only way MSN can ever rival Google, or even Yahoo, is to make great strides with the quality and accuracy of its search results, while gradually appealing to users to build sustainable market share.
Semel of Yahoo has expressed serious doubts about Microsoft’s ability to make it on its own in the search market. “My impartial advice to Microsoft is that you have no chance. The search business has been formed,” he commented.
Ultimately there is little question that the Redmond giant has a long a difficult road ahead to become more than an afterthought for web searchers. But with a well established brand name behind it, there’s always a chance that MSN could surprise us all and force the Yahoo CEO to eat his words.
May 8, 2006 | In Technology | No Comments
Video gaming portal, IGN, announced last week that it is doing away with banner ads on its website, in favor of more advanced and tech-savvy advertising formats.
The leading gaming website, which was acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. late last year for a hefty $650 million, will keep working with its largely ad-supported revenue model, but hopes to work more with high-tech custom ads, including huge site-wide sponsorship deals.
“These consumers are more and more savvy, we can’t offer a cookie-cutter solution to reaching users, it’s not effective,” said IGN’s head of marketing David Tokheim, in a recent interview. “That’s why we work loosely with advertisers to create unique ads and custom-made components.”
This is just one more nail in the coffin of the already ailing banner ad business. As other forms of online advertising have experienced runaway success, the classic GIF banner has seen lower and lower click through rates, and now fails to catch the attention of the vast majority of internet users.
May 6, 2006 | In Technology | No Comments
The issue of anonymous blogging was a popular point of discussion at the recent Computers, Freedom & Privacy Conference, with several (formerly) anonymous bloggers speaking at the event.
The speakers described the liberating feeling associated with the practice, but also explained that it can be a double edged sword. The lack of a real name attached to any work of writing can inspire distrust among readers, forcing the writer to work much harder to gain confidence and respect for his work.
May 5, 2006 | In Law, Technology | 1 Comment
Apple Computer has used its lawsuit-happy business strategy to get itself in a tricky and potentially embarrassing situation.
The computer manufacturer is suing popular online humor community, Something Awful, after the owner of the site linked to one of Apple’s service manuals. Apple has demanded that the link be removed, despite the fact that it appears as part of an informed discussion about the MacBook Pro on the Something Awful web forum.
“The Service Source manual for the MacBook Pro is Apple’s intellectual property and is protected by US copyright law. Linking to the manual on your website is an infringement of Apple’s copyrights,” reads the request from Apple. “We therefore must insist that you immediately take all necessary steps to remove the Service Source manual and any other Apple copyrighted material from your site and to prevent further unauthorized use or distribution of Apple intellectual property.”
Something Awful founder, Richard Kyanka, however, insists that the link doesn’t violate any laws.
“I replied to Apple and told them basically to screw off because I’m not doing anything illegal,” Kyanka explained. “NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING is even hosted on SA. All we have is a link going to somebody else’s webspace. I guess Apple has no clue how the internet even works; they should be threatening to sue the ISP hosting the horribly illegal service manual, not some guy who runs a forum where his forum members are TRYING TO HELP people fix issues with their faulty Apple computers.”
In this case, he is almost certainly in the clear, due to previous court rulings determining that deep linking from one website to another is not in violation of the Copyright Act.
In the end, Apple’s insistence to pursue this issue will only serve to spread the bad reputation of its MacBook Pro laptop computer.
