November 28th, 2007 by Fred
A few months ago, Democrats were grilled by the people in a CNN debate with questions provided by YouTube. Now the Republicans finally have their chance, as tonight they go before a crowd in Florida with the second YouTube presidential debate.
The debates are almost two months overdue, with an originally scheduled date of September 24th, but after some hiccups getting all the candidates on board it now appears that the wide berth of Republican contenders are ready to declare their social media savviness and take part in this unconventional debate.
The debates ought to prove interesting not only because of the likelihood of some cheeky questions and fiery debate, but also due to the general heat that’s increased in the presidential race over the past few months. With Iowa only five weeks away, and New Hampshire, Michigan and dozens of other states following quickly, this presidential debate is a critical appearance.
While it must be a chagrin to traditional media-philes, there’s no way to understate the importance of the web on the campaign trail. With over 75 million American voters taking up the way in their search for political news and information on candidates, and paid search, Facebook, viral campaigns and now YouTube all playing a key part in how electable candidates appear, the age of the Elections 2.0 is thoroughly here.
October 25th, 2007 by Fred
While it’s no $6 billion deal, the $240 million stake Microsoft has just purchase in FaceBook puts an astonishing $15 billion valuation on what was until very recently little more than a college hang-out. However, Microsoft is ready to bet big money on the future of internet advertising, and where innovation is limited, they have big money to spend.
Online ads are a big part of the deal, with Microsoft becoming exclusive provider of all advertising through the site, and while it’s unlikely that their $240 million will return a profit through the site, it does firmly ensconce Microsoft in the Web 2.0 world and clearly shows that these sites aren’t just a “fad” anymore.
Obviously, the big players are interested in getting involved in the big money at stake in online ads and Microsoft is not willing to be left behind. The question now is how worthwhile this online advertising will be in the long run and how many ad systems will be tested and broken, and budgets spent, before the online ad machine is as well-oiled as those in other media.
October 16th, 2007 by Fred
The New York Times reports this morning that Google has unveiled a system to automatically prevent copyrighted videos being uploaded to YouTube. This system looks to be an olive branch in what’s turned into a bitter battle between Google and major media companies, including everyone from Disney, CBS, NBC to Viacom and Time Warner.
The system uses a fingerprinting technology, where media creators would upload content to Google’s servers. Google’s software, in turn, creates a fingerprint which is checked against any files that a user attempts to upload. If the file too closely matches the fingerprint, the upload is blocked.
The opinions of media representatives about the technology range from the lukewarm to the dubious, and for good reason. While from a copyright-owner perspective it’s nice to see Google taking a serious move towards blocking free uploads of copyrighted video clips, their position has long been that their position as a sharing-service is protected by the 1998 DMCA. Google is happy to remove copyrighted clips when alerted to their presence, but the lack of a cohesive, thorough means of blocking these uploads has frustrated media companies and lead to accusations of Google’s profiting off this copyrighted material (by having a service that is more popular because of the unauthorized content).
While the record-companies continue to wage war against file-sharing even as the future of DRM grows more and more dubious, it’s clear that the copyright battle is just beginning for video media. And Google, as much as they can within legal limits, is standing on the side of more open sharing and proliferation than the media companies that risk losing a lot more with this emerging technology.
August 31st, 2007 by Fred
An interesting article appeared in the New York Times last week concerning people who appeared in news stories that were wrong or incomplete coming back to haunt them later in life. The story points out the stories of several people for whom articles with inaccuracies appear at the top of Google — things like mismatched credentials, charges that were dropped later, stories phrased from one point of view without a counterpoint. While in the offline world these articles are long buried in stocks of microfilm no one will care to review, the supreme authority of nytimes.com keeps them at the top of Google ad infinitum.
It’s a very particular problem and I applaud the Times for taking it on, though the solution to the problem is a rather muddy one. Who’s to blame — SEO or Google? To what extent is an entity responsible for removing articles that may be inaccurate? And who polices all this information?
Of course, this is just one example of the bigger issue of what people can find about you on the ‘net determining the outcome of your job opportunities, reputation, and even criminal record — what with Facebook commonly scrutinized by job recruiters, MySpace pictures leading to criminal charges and the possibly damning result of Googling: “Insert your name here.” To some extent, this is the same question posed by the controversy around Google street view — how much privacy can you reasonably expect in our technology heavy times?
The glaring obvious answer is, of course, don’t say anything stupid on the internet, but it’s a fairly insufficient one. After all, while you may hope that no one sees comment #143 on an obscure message board or blog out there in cyberspace, the New York Times brings an inherent trust that is good enough for Google, and good enough for the person checking out your good name.
