The new Reddit thumbnail previews seems to be having a few issues...
Reminds me a certain cuil new application that failed epicly a while ago!
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Obama Becomes Pilot!.... or Reddit fails...
Friday, October 5, 2007
Music Industry vs Technology : can both sides win?
OK, Let's get 2 things straight.
1. Technology isn't going away anytime soon.
2. Music isn't going away anytime soon.
Any solution must embrace both sides of the equation.
As an artist, the moment you play a song in front of someone, you run the risk that they have recorded it on a mobile phone or other device, and then have started sharing it. The more times you play that song, the more chance you have that someone will release it onto the net.
The question here is, is this beneficial to the artist? On one side of the coin, the increase in exposure via the internet is extremely valuable in marketing dollars, 100K views on youtube can be worth thousands of dollars in real world advertising dollars.
But on the flip side, has the artist lost money by allowing people to experience their music without payout for it? Unfortunately, this is not a question the artist can ask anymore, as technology guarantees this will happen.
To stay sane, and survive through these changes in the industry, the artist must accept that technology will cause people to not pay for the experience of their music, so they must gain benefits other ways, by utilising that advertising exposure to either : play bigger and more frequent gigs, or produce and sell merchandise using that exposure.. or both.
It is unfortunate that this goes against the cliche music motivations of just wanting to play and express. It means the artists have to become part of the 'business', or at the very least change the way that they usually progress through the industry in the past.
Technology on the other hand, there is not a question if it is winning from this. So much money is now being passed through sites like iTunes, rather than through a record companies hands. The percentage of online sales will only increase over time as more devices like the iPod continue to go down in price.
I personally am a huge fan of live music, and technology. If the increase in online exposure means more advertising push to get bigger live shows and more gigs (where the artist can really make their living) then I am all for it!
Wall-E (Pixars new film) domain hijacked for drive-by attack!! Or is it viral marketing?
While looking around for some more information about Pixars new film Wall-e, I tried heading over to http://wall-e.net (Do not go here until someone can confirm if this is a actually safe)
It loaded what appeared to be Google home page, but some things were not right..
<HTML><HEAD><title>Movies Coming Soon - New Releases!</title>
<style>
table { border: 0px outset; }
td { border: 0px; }
</style>
</HEAD>
<!-- BODY background="../images/movie2.gif"><center -->
<frameset border=0 rows=100%,*>
<frame name=frame src="http://www.drivingwhileinfatuated.com">
</frameset>
</html>
There are a few interesting things here. Firstly, the title of the 'google' page has been changed to "Movies Coming Soon - New Releases!". Which would at least indicate the domain has been registered to be associated with the upcoming movie.
Secondly, the domain in the frameset http://www.drivingwhileinfatuated.com. When going to this domain directly, it seems to redirect straight to YouTube.com. I tried disabling Javascript to see if I could catch what happens on that page, but it appears to be a straight redirect (can anyone provide more info on this?).
I deciced to find some more info about the domains. Firstly as who is lookup on the first domain wall-e.net came back with an actual person (all details here):
Whois Record
Contact: +626.5551212
Domain Name: WALL-E.NET
Registrant:
R
Pete Gilchrist ()
4401 Fourth Ave.
Brooklyn
NY,11220
US
Tel. +718.777777777
Creation Date: 21-Nov-2006
Expiration Date: 21-Nov-2007
Now for the oddly named "DrivingWhileInfatuated" domain. You can see the whois results here
There are a couple of strange things about these results. The Page Title is Google, yet the thumbnail preview for the domain is a screener of youtube?
The detailed whois info is below, although I cannot see anything of great interest other than it seems to be anonymously registered (let me know if there is anything of interest in here)
Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: DRIVINGWHILEINFATUATED.COM
Created on: 26-Sep-04
Expires on: 26-Sep-08
Last Updated on: 31-Aug-07
Administrative Contact:
Private, Registration
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2599
Please post in the comments your thoughts on what is going on. Is google parking the domain, is it a new viral marketing campaign planned by Pixar? Are google and Pixar working together on this one? Is it a drive-by scammer?
** UPDATE : I have emailed Pixar about this, and will let you know of any responses.
4 Positive Reasons to blog
While always being heavily involved with the internet, through work, play and learning; I have never felt a need to 'blog'.This is all changed over the weekend, my world got turned upside down by a large unexpected debt.
It took me back to the drawing board of life, time to make a new game plan! Lets have a look at the reasons I have chosen to make a blog, with my first post being about how it can have a positive effect on my life...
- Learn from your mistakes
- Express yourself!
- Clear your Mind
- Build Networks
Throughout my life, I often reach a hurdle or low point, where I realise my life is not heading in the direction I want, and I finally stop and take stock of things. It is only then that I take the time to sit down and review my past behaviour, attitudes and actions that led me to this current situation.
These are important points in my life, often where I make a decision that puts me back on the right track, and sometimes not. I can honestly say, at everyone of these points, I've wished I had kept a diary.
A diary or journal allows us to reflect on past habits and patterns of behaviour in a more analytical manner, which is how I try and problem solve the situation I am in, by calling on past experiences. This is where the blog comes in, its like a diary on steroids! You can search, get feedback, discuss your own experiences and thoughts, and at anytime, put down whats on your mind.
What is life without expression? A crucial part of being a human being, is having the ability to express ourselves. Every person deserves the right, and should be encouraged, to outwardly communicate.
I believe one of the most important ideaologies behind the internet is the persistance of freedom of speech in a world of constantly growing restrictions and percieved fears.
There's a good reason in therapy, it is suggested you write down your issues as a way of relieving yourself of past griefs or issues. It's a very cleansing process. (Although often you are then told to destroy the paper it was written on)
Writing a blog is another form of this, although it remains on the web for as long as sites like Google maintain it within a cache. Despite this, it can still be a therapuetic process, by forcing you to finalise in your mind where you stand on issues as you type them.
One of the most valuable improvements the internet has made on society, is the ability for people with common goals and aspirations to communicate, collaborate and apply those benefits in the real world.
By writing your blog, you build a place where people with whom you share common goals can communicate, and often find in solace in the fact that they are not alone in this world.
If you enjoyed this article, please show some love by using one of the promote links at the top of the article.
Why Facebook is the real web 3.0
Something strange is happening on the web lately... Facebook seems to be replacing large web 2.0 sites, with its own internal applications, for free! I daresay, facebook IS the Web 3.0 everyone is trying to define.
Could they have a better business model? They have harnessed the good parts of open source development, allowing everyday developers to write a simple application, and publish to millions of very active users, for nothing! Facebook gains the traffic and added functionality from the apps, while the developers have a real chance to make money through a recent funding project, and by integrating advertising and information gathering into their applications for personal profit. Its a win-win, something very rare in the business world.
Consider some of the problems with the current 'internets', and how facebook solves them:
1. The Digg of Applications : find the good in the bad
The internet offers huge choice for a consumer, as new sites and applications appear daily. The problem being with so many choices, the quality of applications varies greatly. As a new internet user, how can you tell good from bad?
With the recent rush of facebook applications being built, the community becomes the digg of web applications, with popularity ratings, suggestions, and by its sharing nature, guided suggestions of whats the next big application.
The advantage of this, you can send a new internet user to facebook, and they can gain 90% of the good parts of the recent 10 years of web development, in one single place. A one stop shop for socialising, games, blogging, trading, news and more. The advantage is, the consumer gets the advantages of the fast open source development, with the safety of a managed environment, which leads me to..
2. More secured and managable environment : The internet is inherently insecure, especially with the recent increase in drive-by infections, and the constant battle between browser builders and the phishing, scamming and hacking world.
While I have no doubt there will be a facebook worm/hack that effects the community, the ability to control the response is far greater by the environment being managed.
Also, given the nature of the langugage used for developing facebook apps, the API offers the good parts of the environment, while restricting other less secure areas.
3. The one stop shop, you means there's another internet?
An amazing amount of new web users think that Google (insert default homepage search portal) is 'the internet', entering URLs in the search box, and generally being lost if the browser they start doesnt show what they are used to. Given the extremely fast uptake of facebook lately, I think we will see an increase in people who do not need to leave the facebook environment, to gain what they need from the technology.
Everyday it seems a new application is launched that provided the same functionality some websites have been investing in and building for years. Being a developer, I like seeing new websites, ideas and technologies, but a majority on not so tech-savvy users, do not care about this. They want functionality, and they know they can get it very easily at facebook.
The future.?
I think we are about to see an explosion in the usefulness of the internet. Finally there is a secure, useful place to get the best from the technology, in a consistent environment. Whats more, all of your non-tech friends are actually happy to use, and see the benefit in, being part of this online community. MySpace was the first of these, but I think 2 major differences in facebook that will set it apart are the consistent interface, and the secured environment/API. Interesting times ahead :)
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Digg for freedom in Burma (it's more important than iPhones!)
If you really want to make a change in Burma in the next 5 seconds, make this post the most dugg item ever, forever keeping it in Digg history, and creating an awareness for all to come.
I will update this post with links to relevant Burmese blogs, news reports and other important posts shortly, but wanted to get this idea out now!
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