China Alarmed by Security Threat From Internet - NYTimes.com

Chaos, democracy – sometimes a fine line…

In the view of both political analysts and technology experts here and in the United States, China’s attempts to tighten its grip on Internet use are driven in part by the conviction that the West — and particularly the United States — is wielding communications innovations from malware to Twitter to weaken it militarily and to stir dissent internally.

“The United States has already done it, many times,” said Song Xiaojun, one of the authors of “Unhappy China,” a 2009 book advocating a muscular Chinese foreign policy, which the party’s propaganda department is said to promote. He cited the so-called color revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia as examples. “It is not really regime change, directly,” he said. “It is more like they use the Internet to sow chaos.”

China Alarmed by Security Threat From Internet - NYTimes.com

Google Buys Ask-Your-Friends Site - WSJ.com

Quite a busy week for Google

Google Inc., in a move that highlights its growing interest in social networking, said it had agreed to acquire Mechanical Zoo Inc., which operates a free question-and-answer Web service called Aardvark.

Aardvark's technology analyzes a user's question to determine what it is about and then searches through the questioner's network of friends to find the best person to answer via instant messenger or email.

[…]

Mechanical Zoo, which was founded in late 2007 by two former Google employees, is based in San Francisco and has raised about $7.5 million in venture capital.

Aardvark, whose Web site is vark.com, had about 90,000 users as of October.

Google Buys Ask-Your-Friends Site - WSJ.com

BBC News - Prisoner Facebook pages removed after victim taunts

A new twist for anti-social networking

Thirty Facebook pages have been taken down because prisoners were using them to taunt their victims, Justice Secretary Jack Straw has said.

Mr Straw was speaking after a meeting with victim campaigners to discuss prisoners using social networking sites to taunt families.

They will look at ways to stop inmates using smuggled mobile phones to access webpages and abuse their victims.

BBC News - Prisoner Facebook pages removed after victim taunts

Collaborative Thinking: Of Course You Want Opt-In As The Default, Of Course You Want Everything Public, Said The Nice Social Networking Site Operator... Trust Us.

See the full post for a timely Mike Gotta reality check

As I've said before - social networking providers, especially in the consumer space (Facebook, LinkedIn, and now Google), are in a dilemma. They need people to be open in order to create the type of network effects that support their agendas and business models. Only grudgingly will they be transparent when it comes to options available to manage privacy settings. They simply are not the trustworthy advocate for member privacy that they present themselves as when it comes to up-front disclosure, proactive notification and granular levels of consent (refer to Privacy & Social Network Sites: A Case Of Conflicting Agendas). 

No one should be surprised... disappointed, yes.

Collaborative Thinking: Of Course You Want Opt-In As The Default, Of Course You Want Everything Public, Said The Nice Social Networking Site Operator... Trust Us.

Bill Gates Joins the iPad's Army of Critics. Steve Jobs Couldn't Care Less. | Perspective | BNET

See the full article for more iP* analysis

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I asked Jobs’ longtime rival, Bill Gates, what he thought of the iPad. After all, Gates has been a proponent of tablet computers for years, and he was in awe of the iPhone when it first came out. But the iPad?  Gates told me he isn’t sold.

“You know, I’m a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard - in other words a netbook - will be the mainstream on that,” he said. “So, it’s not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, ‘Oh my God, Microsoft didn’t aim high enough.’  It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.’”

Bill Gates Joins the iPad's Army of Critics. Steve Jobs Couldn't Care Less. | Perspective | BNET

FT.com / Iran - Google faces crackdown in Iran

Sign of the times

Google said on Wednesday it had seen a “sharp drop” in traffic to its Gmail service from Iran, apparently as a result of censorship, amid signs of a stringent crackdown on the US internet group to coincide with the anniversary of the Iranian revolution.

Iranian officials have also said they will impose a permanent block on Gmail. This was a significant escalation of their normally sporadic attacks on the service, said Ronald Deibert, an associate professor at the University of Toronto and head of Citizen Lab, which monitors global internet censorship.

FT.com / Iran - Google faces crackdown in Iran

FT.com / Technology - Autonomy secures $1bn warchest for deals

My bet is on an Open Text acquisition – or an attempted Open Text acquisition that gets preempted by another vendor (e.g., Oracle)

The search software group raised the funds for the five-year issue, which will offer a semi-annual coupon of 3.25 per cent, in several hours in London on Wednesday. Combined with its gross cash of $242.5m, it gives Autonomy a warchest of more than $1bn. Shares in the group closed down 88p at £15.22.

Analysts said companies such as Canada’s Open Text, MicroStrategy and Fair Isaac were mentioned as potential deals, although they acknowledged that there had been little speculation surrounding previous Autonomy targets such as Interwoven a year ago and Zantaz in 2007.

FT.com / Technology - Autonomy secures $1bn warchest for deals

Report: Apple to test $1 TV downloads | Circuit Breaker - CNET News

After all, Apple can always subsidize its video business by profiteering on books and apps…

Apple will be offering U.S. TV shows for $1 each, according to the Financial Times. The offer will coincide with the release of the iPad--expected sometime in April--and is described by "people familiar with the discussions" as a "test" to see whether cheaper downloads will result in increased sales.

TV episodes are normally $1.99 for standard-definition and $2.99 for high-definition through iTunes. The Financial Times says that "some" television networks acceded to Apple's push for lower-priced episodes, but it's not clear which ones those are, and Apple isn't commenting.

Report: Apple to test $1 TV downloads | Circuit Breaker - CNET News

Google to Offer Superfast Net Service - NYTimes.com

Apparently Google’s proclamations are now actually subject to scrutiny

“This is mainly a P.R. stunt,” said Scott Cleland, chairman of Netcompetition.org, an organization that represents many telecommunications companies and their industry associations and opposes new regulations on the Internet. “With one hand Google is urging regulations that stifle broadband deployment, and with the other hand, they are saying that telecom companies should spend hundreds of billions” to give ultrafast service to all Americans, Mr. Cleland said.

Google has challenged the business models of established telecommunications companies before. In 2008, it bid more than $4 billion in a government auction of wireless spectrum merely to loosen the control that carriers would have over the use of the airwaves.

“Google, indeed, appears to be playing a chess game,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “If they can create an even mildly credible commitment to offer superfast broadband to the home, it could strike fear in the hearts of cable and telcos, stimulating an arms race of investment — just as they did in the auction for spectrum a few years ago.”

Google to Offer Superfast Net Service - NYTimes.com

The Cost of an E-Book Will Be Going Up - NYTimes.com

An interesting plot twist

Over the last year, the most voracious readers of e-books have shown a reflexive hostility to prices higher than the $9.99 set by Amazon.com and other online retailers for popular titles.

When digital editions have cost more, or have been delayed until after the release of hardcover versions, these raucous readers have organized impromptu boycotts and gone to the Web sites of Amazon and Barnes & Noble to leave one-star ratings and negative comments for those books and their authors.

The Cost of an E-Book Will Be Going Up - NYTimes.com

New iPad Puts Focus on Apple's Flash Feud - WSJ.com

The Flash-on-iP* debate continues

"The problem is that you are asking the world to go rebuild everything on a technology that isn't really proven yet," says Scott Stanfield, CEO of Vertigo Software Inc., which developed the video Web site for the Olympics among other projects.

Mr. Stanfield says he'll buy an iPad as soon as it becomes available. But he doesn't believe it will be the Internet-surfing hit that Mr. Jobs has proclaimed. "You can't tout yourself as the world's best Web experience when you are walling off half of it [by excluding] technologies like Flash," he says.

New iPad Puts Focus on Apple's Flash Feud - WSJ.com

Rejecting status quo, Google plans digital networks - The Boston Globe - end

To paraphrase: “I dare you…” 

In an e-mailed statement, Verizon spokesman Phil Santoro said: “Google’s expansion of its networks to enter the access market is another new paragraph in this exciting story.’’

Comcast declined to comment, but forwarded a statement from Brian Dietz, spokesman for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association:

“The cable industry has invested $161 billion over the past 13 years to build a nationwide broadband infrastructure that is available to 92 percent of U.S. homes. We will continue to invest billions more to continually improve the speed and performance of our networks.’’

Rejecting status quo, Google plans digital networks - The Boston Globe - end

Google Buzz Versus Google Wave - PCWorld

Check the full article for some observations and speculation; I think Google still has a lot of work to do, in terms of explaining how it’s all supposed to fit together

When Google announced Google Buzz, its new social sharing feature for Gmail, company representatives admitted Buzz was inspired by a similar product: Google Wave. In fact, some of the features of Buzz and Wave are so similar you might be wondering why there are two different products in the first place?

Both services are supposed to help you create conversations and give you a richer experience around Web-based media like videos, images ,and regular text. But while Buzz and Wave have a lot in common, there also some key differences that set each service apart.

Google Buzz Versus Google Wave - PCWorld

Official Google Blog: Think big with a gig: Our experimental fiber network

See the full post for more details.

We're planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. We'll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.
Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better and faster for everyone.

[…]

Like our WiFi network in Mountain View, the purpose of this project is to experiment and learn. Network providers are making real progress to expand and improve high-speed Internet access, but there's still more to be done. We don't think we have all the answers – but through our trial, we hope to make a meaningful contribution to the shared goal of delivering faster and better Internet for everyone.

Official Google Blog: Think big with a gig: Our experimental fiber network

Pattern Finder: Google Buzz: For Most Enterprises, Much Ado About Nothing

Check the full post for more impressions from Gartner/Burton Group’s Guy Creese

So while the media at large is blogging and writing about what this means for Facebook and Twitter, how about the bread-and-butter enterprise? What does it mean for an enterprise, trying to keep its e-mail up and make its information workers more productive? Not much.

Pattern Finder: Google Buzz: For Most Enterprises, Much Ado About Nothing

What's wrong with Google Buzz. (Scripting News)

Dave Winer: not a Buzz fan…

Bottom-line: There's no good reason why Buzz (terrible name, btw) should be integrated with Gmail. The company showed the worst judgment. It took what was the industry leading web mail product and turned it into a lab experiment. Once I turned it off (it's not hard, there's a switch at the bottom of the Gmail home page), Gmail went back to being Gmail, and not a nightmarish ad for Google's software design ineptness.

After all that, Kevin Rose's analysis is right on. He calls them feature requests -- clever -- but his concerns are so basic, it's another way of saying this should have been labeled pre-pre-beta and should have been opt-opt-opt-in with disclaimers and confirmation on confirmantion, instead of turned on by default for all Gmail users.

What's wrong with Google Buzz. (Scripting News)

On the cyber-threat from China - James Fallows

Another timely James Fallows reality check 

I have an article on this subject in the new issue of the Atlantic (subscribe!). I had done the reporting and writing for the story long before the Google-v-China controversy broke. We had a day or so to take note of that development before the issue went to press. Welcome to life in the monthly magazine business! I think that the analysis in the story actually stands up well in light of the Google episode -- including the insiders' estimate that China is a serious source of international cyber-attacks, but not the leading source and perhaps not even the second most important.

An excerpt from the full article:

But short of outright war, the main losses have come through economic espionage. “You could think of it as taking a shortcut on the ‘D’ of R&D,” research and development, one former government official said. “When you create a new product, a competitor can cherry-pick the good parts and introduce a competitive product much more rapidly than he could otherwise.” Another technology expert, who serves on government advisory boards, told me, when referring to the steady loss of technological advantage, “We should not forget that it was China where ‘death by a thousand cuts’ originated.” I heard of instances of Western corporate officials who arrived for negotiations in China and realized too late that their briefing books and internal numbers were already known by the other side.

On the cyber-threat from China - James Fallows

Wall Street Firms, Hedge Funds, Recruit CIA, Ex-Military Intelligence by Wall Street & Technology

OSINT stands for “open source intelligence” (there’s also The Open Source Intelligence Group); see the full story (via Dave Kellogg)

Wall Street firms and hedge funds are actively recruiting former CIA and military intelligence officers in a bid to boost their security and risk management practices by looking for expertise outside the corporate world.

Financial firms are particularly eager to recruit former Afghan and Iraq war vets with intelligence operations experience since they can bring new technology and techniques to research and analysis, according to Michael Bagley, founder and president of Washington D.C.-based financial intelligence firm, The OSINT Group.

Wall Street Firms, Hedge Funds, Recruit CIA, Ex-Military Intelligence by Wall Street & Technology

Shah Rukh signs off sexy body-scan printouts at Heathrow - Yahoo! India News

Sign of the times (via Slate)

London, Feb 6 (IANS) Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan isn't intimidated by the full body-scan machines that have been recently installed at London's airports - in fact, he's been signing off printouts of his X-rays.

Khan, appearing on 'Friday Night With Jonathan Ross' - one of British television's most popular weekend shows - revealed he's been turning the controversial security machines into a public relations opportunity at London's Heathrow airport.

Shah Rukh signs off sexy body-scan printouts at Heathrow - Yahoo! India News

An Annual Report on One Man’s Life - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

An intriguing data analysis scenario, with some compelling Information is Beautiful-styled graphics

Mr. Felton says that all the data he collects seems mundane to some people, but might become the norm in the future.

“Gradually there will be be more sensors everywhere,” he said. Technology like the FitBit Tracker and software on mobile phones will help people track and monitor health problems or other personal data.

Who knows, maybe one day we’ll all have our own annual reports.

An excerpt from the 2009 Annual Report:

An Annual Report on One Man’s Life - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Google's social side hopes to catch some Buzz | Relevant Results - CNET News

Fully buzzword-compliant

And on the mobile side of the world, where social media can be combined with location, Google wants to allow phone users to see a wealth of data about what's happening around them and get in on the location-aware services bandwagon.

Google Buzz for Mobile will essentially be a competitor to services like Foursquare and Gowalla, allowing users to "check in" by updating their Buzz status with a Google Maps link to their location. You'll be able to do this right from Google's mobile home page, and Google is also releasing a Web application for Google Buzz that will work on iPhones and Android phones.

And within Google Maps for Mobile, the company's improved mapping application, users will be able to see public Buzz content posted from mobile phones around their location, said Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering at Google. That includes quick reviews of restaurants in the area, updates on traffic snarls further along the route, or anything else imaginable.

Google's social side hopes to catch some Buzz | Relevant Results - CNET News

With Buzz, Google Takes On Social Networking Rivals - NYTimes.com

Interesting times

Still, Buzz faces a struggle against Facebook, which recently announced, on the occasion of its sixth birthday, that it had 400 million users. Buzz also risks further overwhelming people who are struggling with Web services that generate ever-increasing amounts of information.

But Google executives said that, on the contrary, Buzz would help tackle the problem of information overload, as Google would apply its algorithms to help people find the information most relevant to them.

“The stream of messages has become a torrent,” Bradley Horowitz, vice president for product development at Google, said in an interview. “We think this has become a Google-scale problem.”

With Buzz, Google Takes On Social Networking Rivals - NYTimes.com

Man Buried in Haiti Rubble Uses iPhone to Treat Wounds, Survive | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Sign of the times – check the full story for more details and Woolley’s user comment on iTunes

U.S. filmmaker Dan Woolley was shooting a video about poverty in Haiti when the earthquake struck. He could have died, but he ultimately survived with the help of an iPhone first-aid app that taught him to treat his wounds.

After being crushed by a pile of rubble, Woolley used his digital SLR to illuminate his surroundings and snap photos of the wreckage in search of a safe place to dwell. He took refuge in an elevator shaft, where he followed instructions from an iPhone first-aid app to fashion a bandage and tourniquet for his leg and to stop the bleeding from his head wound, according to an MSNBC story.

Man Buried in Haiti Rubble Uses iPhone to Treat Wounds, Survive | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

XML Aficionado: Google’s new Tower of Babel

Check the full post for more context-setting and results

But do not take my word for it. Or rather, please do take my word for it exactly as it is being processed by those two technologies. After drafting this little blog entry I decided to put Google to the test. As a Google Voice user I already get access to their famous speech recognition, so I called my own Google Voice number and recorded this script. I then took the transcription that Google provided and fed it through the Google Translate service twice: once translating it into German, and then translating it back to English for your enjoyment.

Do you now see what I mean… this is the stuff that can start wars…

XML Aficionado: Google’s new Tower of Babel

FT.com / Media - Google prepares Facebook assault

Another real-time run for Google – I wonder how the Google Wave team feels about this Gmail role expansion

The search company is preparing to announce new features for Gmail that would extend the capabilities of the internet-based e-mail service to mirror some aspects of the fast-growing social networking site, according to a person familiar with its plans.

However, earlier Google efforts to establish a presence in social networking have failed to gain much traction and analysts said that the company was still likely to find it difficult to turn the tables on Facebook with its latest plan.

[…]

According to a report on the tech website TechCrunch, Facebook is planning to upgrade this messaging service to compete directly with Gmail and other internet-based mail systems.

Google’s decision to exploit the heavily used Gmail service as the basis for its latest assault on the social networking business partly reflects the failure of earlier stand-alone efforts to enter the sector.

Its Orkut networking service, though launched before Facebook, has failed to gain a mass following in most parts of the world, despite success in Brazil, and its acquisition of Twitter rival Jaiku ended in failure after it scrapped development of the service.

FT.com / Media - Google prepares Facebook assault

Findings - People Share News Online That Inspires Awe, Researchers Find - NYTimes.com

Check the full article for a timely and encouraging reality check from the world of asynchronous communication

The results are surprising — well, to me, anyway. I would have hypothesized that there are two basic strategies for making the most-e-mailed list. One, which I’ve happily employed, is to write anything about sex. The other, which I’m still working on, is to write an article headlined: “How Your Pet’s Diet Threatens Your Marriage, and Why It’s Bush’s Fault.”

But it turns out that readers have more exalted tastes, according to the Penn researchers, Jonah Berger and Katherine A. Milkman. People preferred e-mailing articles with positive rather than negative themes, and they liked to send long articles on intellectually challenging topics.

Findings - People Share News Online That Inspires Awe, Researchers Find - NYTimes.com

Publishers Gain Leverage in E-Book Negotiations With Google - NYTimes.com

Supply-side suicide?

Google has been talking about entering the direct e-book market, through a program it calls Google Editions, for nearly a year. But in early discussions with publishers, Google had proposed giving them a 63 percent cut of the suggested retail price, and allowing consumers to print copies of the digital books and cut and paste segments. After Apple unveiled the iPad last month, publishers indicated that Apple would give them 70 percent of the consumer price, which publishers would set.

According to several publishers who have been talking to Google, the book companies had balked at what they saw as Google’s less generous terms, and basically viewed printing and cut-and-paste as deal breakers.

Now that both Apple and Amazon have agreed to terms more to the book companies’ liking, several publishers said that their conversations with Google have taken on a more flexible tone.

Publishers Gain Leverage in E-Book Negotiations With Google - NYTimes.com

Cellphone and Entertainment Fees Add Up for Families - NYTimes.com

Sign of the times

It used to be that a basic $25-a-month phone bill was your main telecommunications expense. But by 2004, the average American spent $770.95 annually on services like cable television, Internet connectivity and video games, according to data from the Census Bureau. By 2008, that number rose to $903, outstripping inflation. By the end of this year, it is expected to have grown to $997.07. Add another $1,000 or more for cellphone service and the average family is spending as much on entertainment over devices as they are on dining out or buying gasoline.

Cellphone and Entertainment Fees Add Up for Families - NYTimes.com

Super Bowl was the most-watched program in TV history - The Boston Globe

And probably 10 – 15 million did so with laptops in hand

The New Orleans Saints’ victory over Indianapolis in the Super Bowl was watched by more than 106 million people, surpassing the 1983 finale of “M*A*S*H’’ to become the most-watched program in US television history, the Nielsen Co. said yesterday.

Super Bowl was the most-watched program in TV history - The Boston Globe

Google “translator phone” to enable real-time misunderstandings | Good Morning Silicon Valley

Check the full article for an update on Google’s plans

We know from science fiction that some kind of universal translator gadget will be as essential a part of our future as it is now to screenwriters (if the folks on the Enterprise had to start each episode without any idea of what the aliens were saying, it would be slow going indeed). The most amusing, and ultimately devastating, of these devices is the Babel fish from Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” which “by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.”

Google “translator phone” to enable real-time misunderstandings | Good Morning Silicon Valley

Media Talk - E-Books by FT Press Slim Down to Quick Reads - NYTimes.com

More book business evolution

The publisher, through a new imprint named FT Press Delivers, has quietly begun selling what it is calling Elements and Shorts through the Kindle electronic bookstore on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble’s e-bookstore. The Elements, which the publisher has priced at $1.99, are stripped-down, 1,000- to 2,000-word versions of already-published books, while the Shorts are newly written essays of about 5,000 words, priced at $2.99.

Titles include “Reengineering the Rules of Management,” by James Champy, the co-author, with Michael Hammer, of “Reengineering the Corporation,” one of the biggest business best sellers of the 1990s, and “Keeping It Honest, From Kitchen to Coca-Cola,” by Seth Goldman, co-founder and chief of Honest Tea, the maker of organic drinks.

Media Talk - E-Books by FT Press Slim Down to Quick Reads - NYTimes.com

Oracle loses some MySQL mojo | The Open Road - CNET News

Surprised to see this

On Friday, Jacobs announced his resignation from Oracle to key members of the MySQL team via e-mail. Jacobs, a 28-year Oracle veteran and one of its first 20 hires, has been Oracle's liaison with the MySQL community for the past several years, ever since Oracle acquired the popular MySQL storage engine, InnoDB.

While Jacobs doesn't give an explicit reason for his departure, he does hint at disappointment that he was not selected to run MySQL's database business post-acquisition. "I imagine you all know that I will not be leading the MySQL GBU, as I had expected," he said.

Oracle loses some MySQL mojo | The Open Road - CNET News

The Media Equation - The Future of Content - Cheap and Plentiful - NYTimes.com

The future of Internet journalism?

Demand uses a three-part formula of search terms, potential ad results and what competitors are doing to feed an algorithm that, with a human assist, comes up with headlines that are full of clickable, salient language that serves as bait for readers and search ads. (News is expensive to produce and not really a part of the formula because the company is looking for durable content, so “How to avoid a tiger attack” will have more value than, say, “Tiger’s not out of the woods, yet.”)

The topic is then fed into a central database where freelance writers sign up for the assignment. The articles they write are run through an automated plagiarism checker, an actual copy editor and posted on one of the company’s sites like eHow or LiveStrong.

[…]

The average article pays $15 to $20 — videos pay about $30 — but the company has had no trouble signing up 7,000 steady contributors to bid for the work. (Copy editors make about $3.50 for editing a story.)

The Media Equation - The Future of Content - Cheap and Plentiful - NYTimes.com

Doonesbury@Slate - Daily Dose

Click here for the full strip

Doonesbury@Slate - Daily Dose

George F. Colony's Blog: The Counterintuitive CEO: Davos 2010

Check the full post for an insightful summary of Davos themes

This was my ninth visit to the World Economic Forum – the global cocktail party/speechathon that brings together a unique mix of CEOs, government leaders, artists, scientists, philanthropists, regulators, and non-profits in Davos Switzerland. Or, as one reporter noted, it was a meeting of the people who have screwed up the world in the last two years.

Here are my quick personal observations.

George F. Colony's Blog: The Counterintuitive CEO: Davos 2010

Digital Domain - Buy Now, Pay Later (Maybe With Your Allowance) - NYTimes.com

Disturbing in many ways – real money for virtual goods, targeted at children

At FooPets, users “adopt” lifelike digitally animated pets and then buy virtual goods for them, including food, beds and chew toys. The site’s core demographic is 12- to 14-year-old girls, said Scott Sorochak, a co-founder of FooMojo, which operates the site. The company says that FooPets has one million active members and that it is signing up 20,000 to 25,000 new members daily.

“Kwedit is the first payment system we’ve used that doesn’t require getting a parent involved,” Mr. Sorochak said.

Now an eighth grader, on her own, can use a Kwedit Promise to buy a virtual 40-pound bag of Purina Puppy Chow. The chow exists only as a photograph of a Purina package, but FooPets instructs its users that the care and feeding of the digital pets they’ve adopted should be regarded as a serious matter. “Your FooPet is a real creature that lives online,” the company’s Web site says.

Digital Domain - Buy Now, Pay Later (Maybe With Your Allowance) - NYTimes.com

Macmillan jabs Amazon with poison pen; Hachette piles on | Good Morning Silicon Valley

I have a hunch that, when the dust settles, it may just turn out that Apple, with its rush to proclaim iP* the next big thing for e-books, may have inadvertently done Amazon – and ultimately book authors and publishers – a big favor (in the sense that "sunlight is the best disinfectant"); check the full article for more details

Of the five publishers that lined up last week with Apple and its agency model for e-book sales on the new iPad, that leaves just Penguin and Simon & Schuster to be heard from, and the wait shouldn’t be long. But they and their peers may want to consider the warning from digital music veteran and VC David Pakman that when it comes to pricing, Amazon is more in touch with the market than the publishers.

Macmillan jabs Amazon with poison pen; Hachette piles on Good Morning Silicon Valley

A note on The New Yorker’s linking model

It is possible to override The New Yorker model for automatically block-formatting clips and appending links, using tools such as Windows Live Writer (one of the tools I’d miss most, if I were to become an iP* customer); e.g., I could have switched to the post source view, as in

 

… and hand-edited the HTML, but hey, it’s Saturday morning (lazy mode…), and I probably would have messed up the HTML anyway.

The Twitter Train: George Packer Responds - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

A timely and important debate

Ah, the reverberating beauty of the Internet.

David Carr, media critic at The New York Times, wrote about Twitter, and how it was here to stay. George Packer, a writer for The New Yorker, responded to Mr. Carr’s piece, saying that Twitter was his idea of “information hell.”

Mr. Packer’s piece touched a nerve with me for a number of reasons, so I wrote a response, trying to point out that there are many positive elements to Twitter.

On Thursday, Mr. Packer offered a rebuttal. In it, he elaborates on his reasons for avoiding Twitter and similar services, including his belief that they exact a “high price in available time, attention span, reading comprehension, and experience of the immediately surrounding world.”

Discussions like these are a healthy part of a democracy and our future — whether or not you use Twitter.

An excerpt from the rebuttal (with formatting blocked and URL added by The New Yorker site, upon copy/paste) :

It’s true that I hadn’t used Twitter (not consciously, anyway—my editors inform me that this blog has for some time had an automated Twitter feed). I haven’t used crack, either, but—as a Bilton reader pointed out—you don’t need to do the drug to understand the effects. One is the sight of adults walking into traffic with their eyes glued to their iPhones, or dividing their attention about evenly between their lunch partner and their BlackBerry. Here’s another: Marc Ambinder, The Atlantic’s very good politics blogger, was asked by Michael Kinsley to describe his typical day of information consumption, otherwise known as reading. Ambinder’s day begins and ends with Twitter, and there’s plenty of Twitter in between. No mention of books, except as vacation material via the Kindle.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2010/02/neither-luddite-nor-biltonite.html#ixzz0el4Ddk0c

The Twitter Train: George Packer Responds - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Macmillan Books Return to Amazon After Dispute - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

The next chapter in this story won’t be dull…

Other major book publishers, including Hachette and Harper Collins, have indicated they will also move to an agency model.

So what did Amazon hold out for? The company would not comment, but it is likely that Amazon demanded that no other e-book vendors, such as Apple, get preferential access to new titles, or any kind of pricing advantages. Amazon may also have negotiated terms into its agreement with the publisher that would allow users of Kindles or Kindle software to lend e-books to each other.

Macmillan Books Return to Amazon After Dispute - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Palin, Visible and Vocal, Is Positioned for a Variety of Roles - NYTimes.com

Behold the queen of cultural and political media/cyber-polarization…

Her growing cast of advisers and support system could be working in the service of any number of goals: a presidential run, a de facto role as the leader of the Tea Party movement, a lucrative career as a roving media entity — or all of the above. Ms. Palin represents a new breed of unelected public figure operating in an environment in which politics, news media and celebrity are fused as never before. Whether she ever runs for anything else, Ms. Palin has already achieved a status that has become an end in itself: access to an electronic bully pulpit, a staff to guide her, an enormous income and none of the bother or accountability of having to govern or campaign for office.

Sarah Palin Is Vocal and Ready {hellip} but for What? - NYTimes.com

Data and transparency: Of governments and geeks | The Economist

Another excellent and timely reality check from The Economist 

But whatever governments do, the presentation of endless facts can fall flat unless there are independent developers who know what to do with them. As Mr Torkington admits, failing to grasp this point led to disappointing results in New Zealand. In his enthusiasm for technology, he failed to think much about who would use the data he was posting, and why. A wad of facts was dumped in cyberspace, with no instructions or incentives to find good ways of using them. There they sit, unread by any machine. Even the geekiest types can be nonplussed when they are presented with data but no purpose.

Data and transparency: Of governments and geeks | The Economist

‘Don’t Be Evil,’ Meet ‘Spy on Everyone’: How the NSA Deal Could Kill Google | Danger Room | Wired.com

I suspect there’s a lot of speculation implicit in this article, but it’s a timely reality check on a potentially very risky (PR and otherwise) bet on Google’s part

But there’s a problem. The NSA and its predecessors also have a long history of spying on huge numbers of people, both at home and abroad. During the Cold War, the agency worked with companies like Western Union to intercept and read millions of telegrams. During the war on terror years, the NSA teamed up with the telecommunications companies to eavesdrop on customers’ phone calls and internet traffic right from the telcos’ switching stations. And even after the agency pledged to clean up its act — and was given wide new latitude to spy on whom they liked – the NSA was still caught “overcollecting” on U.S. citizens. According to The New York Times, the agency even “tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant.”

All of which makes the NSA a particularly untrustworthy partner for a company that is almost wholly reliant on its customers’ trust and goodwill. We all know that Google automatically reads our Gmail and scans our Google Calendars and dives into our Google searches, all in an attempt to put the most relevant ads in front of us. But we’ve tolerated the automated intrusions, because Google’s products are so good, and we believed that the company was sincere in its “don’t be evil” mantra.

(Read the full article)

‘Don’t Be Evil,’ Meet ‘Spy on Everyone’: How the NSA Deal Could Kill Google | Danger Room | Wired.com

In the World of Facebook - The New York Review of Books

When I’m done meditating about Steve Gillmor’s take on MLP, I’m going dedicate some time and attention to this New York Review of Books essay about Facebook and MySpace.

What is "social networking"? For all the vagueness of the term, which now seems to encompass everything we do with other people online, it is usually associated with three basic activities: the creation of a personal Web page, or "profile," that will serve as a surrogate home for the self; a trip to a kind of virtual agora, where, along with amusedly studying passersby, you can take a stroll through the ghost town of acquaintanceships past, looking up every person who's crossed your path and whose name you can remember; and finally, a chance to remove the digital barrier and reveal yourself to the unsuspecting subjects of your gaze by, as we have learned to put it with the Internet's peculiar eagerness for deforming our language, "friending" them, i.e., requesting that you be connected online in some way.

In the World of Facebook - The New York Review of Books

Here Goes the Sun [TechCrunchIT]

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to take the rest of the day off in order to ponder the deeply intertwingled memes captured in Steve Gillmor’s latest poetic post (I mean that as a compliment, Steve, seriously)

As the smoke clears from this epic consolidation, what’s left are the explosive pairing of Apple and Google in the new mobile architecture, predicted by Schwartz with his relelntless observation that devices go to free. With Oracle/Sun now positioned as the fuel for the virtualization layer of the cloud, the big freakin’ webtone switch of this era, the iPad Era launches a race to spread the gospel of the financial community infrastructure across the micromessage bus and its media partners.

Jonathan Schwartz was brought in to finesse the transition from the Good Old Days to the Good New Days, and he’ll deserve to harvest irreplaceable time with his young family. It will be interesting to see him return, because he has little need to reinvent himself given his early and prescient take on what is now transpiring.

Here Goes the Sun

The Official Microsoft Blog – News and Perspectives from Microsoft : Measuring Our Work by Its Broad Impact

A counterpoint to the oft-blogged NYT article referenced below; see the full response 

Former Microsoft employee Dick Brass has an op-ed in the NYT arguing that our better days are behind us, (“clumsy, uncompetitive innovator” . . . ouch!) and using examples from his tenure to make the point that the company can no longer compete or innovate. Obviously, we disagree. :) But his piece does represent a good opportunity to touch briefly on how we think about innovation.

The Official Microsoft Blog – News and Perspectives from Microsoft : Measuring Our Work by Its Broad Impact

A Personal Assistant on Your iPhone - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Check the full article for details on an audacious-positioning-of-the-week award candidate (e.g., “This is the first version of a computer assistance that understands language, has the ability to delegate tasks and learn”)

[…] Using GPS and speech-recognition technology powered by Nuance, the application translates the spoken command and uses a set of algorithms to search for the answer.

Mr. Kittlaus describes the application as the “mother of mash-ups” because the company has partnered with several companies, including OpenTable, MovieTickets, StubHub, CitySearch and TaxiMagic, to generate results.

Siri is a “do engine rather than a search engine,” said Mr. Kittlaus.

A Personal Assistant on Your iPhone - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Microsoft and the National Science Foundation Enable Research in the Cloud: Agreement will offer free access to new computational and collaborative services to accelerate scientific discovery for research communities.

Google + NSA, Microsoft + NSF – an interesting week

Microsoft Corp. and the National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced an agreement that will offer individual researchers and research groups selected through NSF’s merit review process free access to advanced cloud computing resources. By extending the capabilities of powerful, easy-to-use PC applications via Microsoft cloud services, the program is designed to help broaden researcher capabilities, foster collaborative research communities, and accelerate scientific discovery. Projects will be awarded and managed by NSF. More details about funding opportunities are available at http://www.nsf.gov/dir/index.jsp?org=CISE.

Microsoft and the National Science Foundation Enable Research in the Cloud: Agreement will offer free access to new computational and collaborative services to accelerate scientific discovery for research communities.

With A Final Tweet, Sun’s Schwartz Blames the Meltdown - Digits - WSJ

A timely Sun senior management reality check. 

It’s worth remembering that Sun had problems of its own making that predated the soured economy. Perhaps the biggest was jumping too late into the delivery of computers based on the Intel and Advanced Micro Devices chips that evolved from the PC industry, which kept delivering customers performance increases faster than Sun’s internally developed Sparc chips.

And some companies that are closely tied to the financial services industry managed to keep doing well right through the slump. […]

Former Chairman Scott McNealy, in a message to employees reported by sites such as CNET, in passing briefly acknowledged “a ton” of mistakes that were a factor in what happened to the company he co-founded. It’s harder to find such statements in Schwartz’s writings, but he noted in a blog post that “technology only gets more interesting,” hinting that he will eventually return on the scene. “I expect to do my part to keep things interesting.”

With A Final Tweet, Sun’s Schwartz Blames the Meltdown - Digits - WSJ

U.S. Voices Concerns on Google Book Settlement - WSJ.com

Not looking likely, at current course and speed

The department said Thursday that a "properly structured" agreement could offer important benefits to society, but it said that Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers were still trying to reach too broadly with their proposed class-action settlement.

The revised settlement "suffers from the same core problem as the original agreement: it is an attempt to use the class action mechanism to implement forward-looking business arrangements that go far beyond the dispute ... in this litigation," the department said.

U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin in New York, who must decide whether to approve the settlement, is scheduled to hold a Feb. 18 fairness hearing on the agreement.

U.S. Voices Concerns on Google Book Settlement - WSJ.com

Google-NSA pairing draws attention - The Boston Globe

Think different…

The collaboration between the world’s largest search engine company and the federal agency in charge of global electronic surveillance raises both civil liberties issues and new questions about how much Google knew about the electronic thefts it underwent when it stated last month that it might end its business operations in China, where it said the attacks originated. The agreement was first reported by The Washington Post.

By turning to the NSA, which has no statutory authority to investigate domestic criminal acts, instead of the Department of Homeland Security, which does have such authority, Google is seeking to avoid having its search engine, e-mail, and other Web services regulated as part of the nation’s “critical infrastructure.’’

Google-NSA pairing draws attention - The Boston Globe

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs : Announcing the My Little Pony Memorial Poetry Contest

Well, Schwartz did kind of ask for it; submit your entry here…  I expect there will be rather a lot of content submitted.  Also see this FSJ MLP post

In honor of Jonathan Schwartz, and in the spirit of peaceful haiku poetry by which he has informed the people of earth of his resignation, we are doing what any loving, supportive fan base does at a time like this — we’re having a poetry contest.

Can be in any form you want. Haiku, clerihew, limerick, sonnet, free verse. Only rule is the subject of the poem must be MLP or Sun.

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs : Announcing the My Little Pony Memorial Poetry Contest

Review: Palm touches up Pre, Pixi smart phones - Yahoo! News [smartphone as WiFi access point]

I hope this is the norm for smartphones in the future – at least the ones that have multitasking operating systems. You can do the same thing with a Windows 7 PC, BTW (although I haven’t explored or tried Connectify yet, so please don’t take this as an open-ended recommendation).

The coolest feature on both phones, however, is a mobile hotspot utility you can download from Palm's App Catalog. It lets up to five devices connect to Verizon's wireless network through the phone, acting as a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Once installed, the application was super easy to use. I just slid a little on-screen toggle to "on," set a password for devices to connect to my network and started connecting gadgets. In a few minutes, I was watching Hulu clips on my laptop and browsing news Web sites on another smart phone. I could also use the Palm phone at the same time.

Review: Palm touches up Pre, Pixi smart phones - Yahoo! News

Behold ‘The Amazon Effect’: Now Murdoch’s Gunning for the $10 E-Book | Epicenter | Wired.com

Future Darwin Award candidates?…

Smelling blood in the water after Amazon caved to Macmillan’s demand to stop selling e-books of their titles for only $10, News Corp Chief Rupert Murdoch says he, too, wants that deal.

Murdoch’s media empire includes HarperCollins books, which has had 20 titles on New York Times best-seller lists in the past three months, including Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue ($29) and the hot political tome Game Change ($28). Reuters reports Murdoch told analysts Tuesday that Amazon appears “ready to sit down with us again” and renegotiate the deal under which Amazon prices new e-book titles at $9.99. That’s even though the publisher still gets a wholesale payment based on a higher price and Amazon eats the loss itself.

Behold ‘The Amazon Effect’: Now Murdoch’s Gunning for the $10 E-Book | Epicenter | Wired.com

Sun’s Project Kenai Shutdown After Oracle Acquisition

Perhaps a leading indicator?…

One casualty of Oracle’s $7.4 billion deal to acquire Sun Microsystems, which was recently approved by the European Commission, is the closure of Project Kenai. Sun’s Project Kenai is a collaborative hosting site for free and open source projects.

Project Kenai allows developers to collaborate with each other and allows for free software project hosting.

Sun’s Project Kenai Shutdown After Oracle Acquisition

Sun’s Chief Executive Tweets His Resignation - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

His final rationalization as Sun CEO, in less than 140 characters…

Jonathan Schwartz, the last chief executive of Sun Microsystems, has become the first Fortune 200 boss to tweet his resignation.

Late Wednesday night, Mr. Schwartz used Twitter to publish a haiku about his exit from Oracle, which just completed its purchase of Sun last week.

“Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more,” Mr. Schwartz wrote.

Sun’s Chief Executive Tweets His Resignation - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Yahoo to sell HotJobs site for $225m - The Boston Globe

Yahoo lost less than 50% (not adjusting for inflation) on this acquisition – perhaps better than its average lately…

Yahoo Inc. plans to sell its HotJobs employment website to Monster Worldwide Inc. for $225 million in cash as it focuses on its traditional properties, including the home page.

As part of the sale, Monster will become the provider of career and job content on Yahoo’s home page in the United States and Canada for three years, Monster said yesterday.

[…]

Yahoo paid about $436 million for HotJobs in 2002.

Yahoo to sell HotJobs site for $225m - The Boston Globe

Blogs appeal less to young, study says - The Boston Globe

Sign of the times

Could it be that blogs have become online fodder for the - gasp! - more mature reader?

A study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project has found that young people are losing interest in long-form blogging, as their communication habits become increasingly brief and mobile.

Technology experts say that doesn’t mean blogging is going away. Rather, it has gone the way of the telephone and e-mail - still useful, just not sexy.

Blogs appeal less to young, study says - The Boston Globe

Will Apple's iPad kill Flash? - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine

More fun from One Infinite Loop

Apple has never publicly stated its reasons, but they're easy to guess. The company likely believes Flash is riddled with errors and not worthy of its newest machines. Indeed, the iPad's inability to play Flash wasn't much of a surprise—Flash is also absent from the iPhone and the iPod Touch. And because Apple hasn't allowed it access to key pathways in Mac OS X , Flash is much slower on the Mac than it is on Windows. John Gruber, the Apple-focused blogger who has written several influential posts about Apple's war with Flash, reports that Apple believes Flash is responsible for at least one-third of all the crashes on the Mac OS. At an all-hands meeting with Apple's employees last week, Jobs reportedly unloaded on Adobe, which owns Flash, calling the company lazy and its software ridiculously buggy. The iPad doesn't play Flash because soon no one will be using Flash, he allegedly declared.

Just like, in the reality distortion field, nobody reads anymore (thus dooming Kindle), perhaps…

Will Apple's iPad kill Flash? - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine

Amazon Is Said to Buy Touchco, a Touch-Screen Company - NYTimes.com

E-reader evolution is accelerating…

In a sign that Amazon wants to upgrade its Kindle e-reader to compete head-on with the Apple iPad, Amazon has acquired Touchco, a start-up based in New York that specializes in touch-screen technology, a person briefed on the deal said Wednesday.

Amazon will merge Touchco’s technology and staff members into its Kindle hardware division, Lab126, which is based in Cupertino, Calif., this person said.

Amazon Is Said to Buy Touchco, a Touch-Screen Company - NYTimes.com

Number of web addicts in China soars: survey - Yahoo! News

On a related note, check your local PBS Frontline schedule for Digital Nation (or watch it online), another stark reality check in this context

The number of young Internet addicts in China soared to 24 million last year as the world's largest web population exploded, according to a survey carried by state media Wednesday.

The number of young addicts almost doubled from 2005 and now accounts for one in seven young Internet users, according to the poll conducted by the China Youth Association for Network Development.

[…]

The definition of a web addict is vague, but online users fall into that category if school grades, careers or relationships are negatively impacted by their Internet activities.

Number of web addicts in China soars: survey - Yahoo! News

Rumor: Apple Has Another Tablet In The Works. More Like A Mac Than An iPhone.

I was worried there, for a few days, that the industry would run out of semi-arbitrary topics to which to devote ridiculous amounts of speculation time, during the doldrums before iPad 1.0 is released

Before the iPad was revealed last week, rumors circulated for a long time that Apple might be working on two different sizes for the screen of the device. Some had the device as small as 7″, others were saying it would go up to 10.6″. (The actual size of the iPad is 9.7″.) But the information we’re hearing is that Apple is thinking much larger for another version of the product, maybe all the way up to the 15.4″ size that it currently uses for one version of the MacBook Pro. If you think that would be way too big for an iPad, we’re also hearing that this other tablet would be quite a bit different from the one revealed last week. Namely, it could run a version of OS X much closer to the traditional version that runs on Macs.

Rumor: Apple Has Another Tablet In The Works. More Like A Mac Than An iPhone.

Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch Defends Flash, Warns HTML5 Will Throw The Web “Back To The Dark Ages Of Video”

Interesting times for Adobe; see the full post (via Steve Gillmor)

Adobe’s Flash technology has been taking a beating lately. Apple still won’t support it on its upcoming iPad or its iPhone. Steve Jobs calls it buggy and crash-prone and dismisses Adobe as being lazy. Adobe is trying to fight the negative vibes emanating from Cupertino and elsewhere. It has already pointed out that it will be easy to convert Flash apps into iPad apps, and now CTO Kevin Lynch is weighing in to defend Flash.

In a blog post today, Lynch addresses the two major threats to Flash: Apple’s refusal to support it on mobile touchscreen devices and the rise of HTML5 as a new, open standard which may one day replace Flash.

Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch Defends Flash, Warns HTML5 Will Throw The Web “Back To The Dark Ages Of Video”

Google Adds Multi-Touch Features to Nexus One Phone - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Also see Wanted at Google: Nexus One Phone Support 

On Tuesday, some Nexus One owners began receiving updates to their smartphones that will enable multi-touch for some applications, fix 3G problems and otherwise tweak the software on the Google devices.

The software update, which will take place over the air, facilitates multi-touch features, including pinch-to-zoom style navigation through different applications like Google Maps, the built-in Web browser and the photo gallery.

Google Adds Multi-Touch Features to Nexus One Phone - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Google shows off Chrome OS tablet ideas | Deep Tech - CNET News

Are we really supposed to believe this could have simply been coincidental timing? See Fake Steve’s take…

Who could resist the months of hype that paved the way for Apple's iPad debut last week? Apparently not Google, which has shown its interest in tablet computing with its browser-based Chrome OS.

On Monday, Glen Murphy, a user interface designer for Google's Chrome browser and the Chrome operating system based on it, pointed to image and video concepts of a Chrome OS-based tablet that went live two days before the iPad launch. Apparently nobody noticed initially, because only now did Murphy tweet, "Apparently our tablet mocks have been unearthed."

Google shows off Chrome OS tablet ideas | Deep Tech - CNET News

The iPad Manifesto: Time To Move Beyond the PC « Steve Wildstrom on Tech

A timely iPad domain reality check; read the full post 

Apple’s announcement of the iPod has revealed a striking fault line within the tech community. In a Guardian article, Bobble Johnson quoted traditionalists such as the Internet Archive’s Brewster Kahle describing the iPad as “chiling.”  Peter Kirn warns that the iPad “embodies the exact opposite of all the reasons I’ve invested so much time in computing for the last 25 years.”  These critics all mourn the replacement of the open, endlessly mutable personal computer with a system that does what its makers thinks it should do, no more, no less.

The iPad Manifesto: Time To Move Beyond the PC « Steve Wildstrom on Tech

Amazon.com Electronics Bestsellers: The most popular items on Amazon.com. Updated hourly.

Semi-random snapshot of the day – it’ll be interesting to revisit this list in ~90 days, assuming Apple ships both iPad models on schedule

Amazon.com Electronics Bestsellers: The most popular items on Amazon.com. Updated hourly.

Oracle Plans to Take on Microsoft Office -- Redmond Developer News

On the headlines-first, optional-facts-later theme, why do so many people in the press/analyst community rebroadcast vendor announcements without any scrutiny or supporting facts? Examples over the last couple weeks include Oracle Cloud Office and IBM Concord (“IBM Lotus Symphony for the Cloud,” which is not yet at an alpha/test release level).

A tangential note, for the author of the article below: Oracle Collaboration Suite died over a year ago; the latest suite of Oracle collaboration offerings, including Oracle Beehive, isn’t dead yet.

With its acquisition of Sun Microsystems complete, Oracle intends to go after Microsoft's lucrative Office franchise, the company revealed yesterday. While Oracle had been quiet about its intentions for supporting Sun OpenOffice, the company disclosed plans for a forthcoming upgrade called Oracle Cloud Office during a five-hour briefing at its Redwood Shores, Calif. headquarters.

Cloud Office will support the Open Document Format (ODF) and will offer Web-based creation of documents, spreadsheets and presentations and will link to the Oracle Collaboration Suite. The company did not say when it will release Cloud Office.

Oracle Plans to Take on Microsoft Office -- Redmond Developer News

Video: Prankster Jason Calacanis on His Apple iPad Twitter Hoax | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

“The rest of the story…” about last week’s speculation about dual-camera, solar-powered iPads. I’m afraid it will turn out to be more of a stark reality check than “an instructive moment” for journalism, however – i.e., I don’t think the current headlines-first, optional-facts-later news trend is going to go into reverse because of a few people highlighting the decline of traditional journalism.

But he followed up with a series of tweets on a myriad of features of the new iPad–one nuttier, pricier and heavier than the next, such as a built-in HDTV tuner, a solar recharging pad and more.

For example: “Yes, there are 2cameras: one in front and one in back (or it may be one with some double lens) so you record yourself and in front of u.”

The problem was that a few big media outfits, including CNNMoney.com and WSJ.com, posted reports on the tweets without much of a raised eyebrow or first checking on their veracity with Apple or with Calacanis.

While anyone can get caught in a prank–and this was a pretty elaborate one pulled by Calacanis, who claims he was just trying to point out how ridiculous Apple hype had become–it’s still an instructive moment for journalism.

Video: Prankster Jason Calacanis on His Apple iPad Twitter Hoax | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

In Amazon vs. Macmillan, Amazon Is The Winner | paidContent

Excerpts from a Forrester Research analyst perspective (via Richard Eckel); read the full article 

There are many variables being bandied about that are actually irrelevant: iPad, ePub, or piracy, to name just a few. None of these are really in a position to change the basics of the 1-2-3 punch I describe above. The iPad is not a particularly good e-reader, at least not in its current version, and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) will never have the power to shut off the sale of physical books to make a point the way Amazon just did.

[…]

One result of this riff: If publishers make less off of e-books (and Amazon makes more), even at $14.99, then publishers have less to give to authors, who are increasingly reconsidering their contracts (especially authors with big followings like Steven R. Covey and Paul Coelho) in light of new promises from Amazon to offer dramatically higher royalties for authors who work directly with Amazon. Hmm, smells like round two of this fight may also go to Amazon as well.

In Amazon vs. Macmillan, Amazon Is The Winner | paidContent

Google Planning Store for Business Apps - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

A timely Google reality check

Google Apps includes a variety of applications, including Gmail, a calendar function and software to create and edit text documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Google offers the programs free and sells the entire suite to businesses for $50 per user per year. While Google Apps has gained some important customers, it has failed to dent the business of Microsoft, the market leader in business productivity software. Google said that about 20 million people use Google Apps, but only hundreds of thousands of those are paying customers. By comparison, nearly 500 million people have bought Microsoft Office.

Google Planning Store for Business Apps - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

In the iPad, Apple Is Betting on Its Own Microchip - NYTimes.com

Think different…

The do-it-yourself approach gives Apple the chance to build faster, more battery-friendly products than rivals and helps the company to keep product development secret.

But designing its own processors burdens Apple with additional engineering costs and potential product delays. It also forces the company to hire — and retain — experienced chip designers. Several who joined the company in 2008 after an acquisition have already left for a secretive start-up.

In the iPad, Apple Is Betting on Its Own Microchip - NYTimes.com

Google Plans Store for Online Business Software - WSJ.com

Maybe they’ll think through the requirements (e.g., customer support) for this store first, unlike the Google phone store.

Google Inc. is preparing to launch a store selling online business software that integrates with its Web services, according to people briefed by the company, enlisting software developers in its battle against Microsoft Corp.

These people said the store will sell business software designed by outside developers to integrate and add capabilities to Google Apps, such as enhanced security features or the ability to import contacts. Google Apps provides Web-based email, word-processing and spreadsheet functions. Google could announce the new store—a revamped version of its Solutions Marketplace site that features third-party programs—as soon as March, they said.

Google Plans Store for Online Business Software - WSJ.com

Amazon, Apple and the book publishers: When elephants fight … | Good Morning Silicon Valley

More Apple-versus-Amazon analysis.  Apparently the book publishers have missed the part about Apple dictating terms to music publishers, among others.

The post goes on to say, “We don’t believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan,” but given Amazon’s rapid folding act, it’s hard to see why not. Five of publishing’s Big 6 are already on board with Apple’s agency plan, and if, for the sake of keeping control of prices, they want the same deal from Amazon, it looks like they’ll get it. Whether all this is a good thing depends on where along the publishing supply chain you and your sympathies may be, but right now, there’s one clear loser, and that’s the consumer.

Amazon, Apple and the book publishers: When elephants fight … | Good Morning Silicon Valley

WinInfo: Apple Entry into Market Means Higher eBook Prices

See the full post for details on how you can help increase book publisher and Apple profits by paying more for e-books (and publisher profits even if you have a Kindle rather than an iPad). 

Apple's entry into the eBook market with the iPad tablet device and its integrated iBooks eBook reader software has ruined this opportunity. Utilizing the tiered pricing model it provides for other content on the iTunes Store, Apple has presented the world's biggest publishers with a higher price range for eBooks than Amazon has. And hoping that Apple would be able to defeat Amazon in this market, virtually all these publishers have jumped on board.

The result is much higher prices to consumers. And these higher prices come across the board.

(See the full post – the higher prices include devices, wireless services, and books, from all of which you can be sure Apple will be profiting.)

WIN_WinInfo Daily Update New_:

Apple + iPad + Huxley = Orwellian nightmare | Technology | The Observer

Via Volker Weber – read the full article for some Neil Postman-inspired insights

Which is where I begin to think of Huxley and Soma, the hallucinogenic, hangover-free drug in Brave New World that makes users contented with their (subjugated) lot. If the iPad takes off as the iPhone did, then it will have as disruptive an impact on the computing and media industries as the Apple phone has already had on mobile telephony.

And if that happens then we will all have to take a long, hard look at the company that has made it possible.

For the implication of an iPad-crazed world – with its millions of delighted, infatuated users – is that a single US company renowned for control-freakery will have become the gatekeeper to the online world. The iPad – like the iPhone – is a closed, tightly controlled device: nothing gets on to it that has not been expressly approved by Apple. We will have arrived at an Orwellian end by Huxleian means. And be foolish enough to think that we've attained nirvana.

Apple + iPad + Huxley = Orwellian nightmare | Technology | The Observer

Platformonomics - Priceless Indeed

Classic Charles Fitzgerald analysis; read the full post 

The net is, at a $14.99 list price for a new ebook, Macmillan wants to actually increase the effective price of new books to end customers even as the cost of cutting down trees, making them into paper, putting ink on that paper, putting those books in trucks and shipping them all over the place to stores disappears from the equation.  The savings, needless to say, are not being passed on to you and me.  Macmillan evidently sees themselves as a lone exception to the deflationary pressure of the Internet.  We’ll see how that goes.

Platformonomics - Priceless Indeed

Business & Technology | Oracle's playbook for Sun Microsystems honed by series of acquisitions | Seattle Times Newspaper

New realities for Sun customers – apparently Oracle has ended Sun’s strategy of losing money on both hardware and software…

While executives say they're focused on building high-end computer systems that will improve the performance of customers' data centers, Oracle Chief Financial Officer Jeff Epstein minced no words as he described the financial strategy behind his company's $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun.

"Oracle is very good at saying no," Epstein told Wall Street analysts just hours after Wednesday's announcement that Oracle had completed its purchase of the financially struggling Santa Clara computer maker.

Oracle intends to shrink Sun's catalog — by trimming numerous variations of similar products and services — and halt Sun's practice of filling special orders for unprofitable systems with unusual features.

Some customers may not get what they want, Epstein acknowledged. "We don't want to sell products that we lose money on," he said.

Business & Technology | Oracle's playbook for Sun Microsystems honed by series of acquisitions | Seattle Times Newspaper

Obama to Field Questions Posted by YouTube Users - NYTimes.com

Obama’s sans-teleprompter media blitz continues

On Monday, President Obama is scheduled to sit down in the library of the White House residence for his first interview since his State of the Union address.

The interviewer? The United States of YouTube.

In a first-of-its-kind group interview, Mr. Obama will read and watch questions submitted by YouTube users and answer them in a live Webcast. “It’s a way to give people access to the president that feels more participatory,” said Macon Phillips, the Obama administration’s director of new media.

Obama to Field Questions Posted by YouTube Users - NYTimes.com

Complaints About the iPad’s Lack of Flash Support May Fade - NYTimes.com

Hmm…

Adobe, unsurprisingly, disagrees — and has its own theory about why Apple remains hostile to Flash. Adrian Ludwig, group manager for the Flash platform product at Adobe, said he believed Apple’s opposition was a way for the company to control its iTunes system. “I think it’s pretty clear that Apple wants to regain control of the content consumers see online and the content Apple offers for their devices,” Mr. Ludwig said.

But concerns over the lack of Flash in the iPad and iPhone may be short-lived. Many online video sites have been experimenting with a new video format, called HTML5. Unlike Flash, which is a downloaded piece of software that can interact with a computer’s operating system, HTML5 works directly in a Web browser. And although this new video format does not work in all browsers, it will allow iPhone and iPad users to enjoy more Web-based video content.

In addition, the patents surrounding HTML5 are owned by a group of companies; Apple is a part of that group.

Complaints About the iPad’s Lack of Flash Support May Fade - NYTimes.com

Amazon Accepts Macmillan’s Demand for Higher E-Book Prices - NYTimes.com

Not likely to be the final chapter in this story…

In a strongly worded message on its Web site on Sunday, Amazon said that while it disagreed with Macmillan’s stance, it would bow to the publisher’s plan.

“We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles,” Amazon said. “We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books.”

Amazon Accepts Macmillan’s Demand for Higher E-Book Prices - NYTimes.com

Macmillan Says Amazon Removes All Macmillan E-Books - WSJ.com

Tbd, from the publishers’ perspectives, which is the lesser evil

Amazon's flip-flop exposes how seriously Amazon is taking Apple's challenge to its position as the market leader in e-book sales. It is the first of what is expected to be a series of upheavals as Amazon and Apple square off over the digital future of book publishing and retailing.

The picture is likely to get more complicated when Google Inc., the search-engine company, later this year launches its own e-bookstore, Google Editions. Google says it intends to allow publishers to set their own prices—while reserving the right to discount at its own expense.

"The future of e-books, the future of publishers' control over their own destiny, and the future of retail pricing, is being forged right before our eyes," said Richard Curtis, a New York literary agent and e-book publisher.

Macmillan Says Amazon Removes All Macmillan E-Books - WSJ.com

Stephen Colbert shows off an iPad at the Grammy’s (video) | VentureBeat

It’d be interesting to know if Apple paid for the product plug

At the 52nd annual Grammy Awards tonight, Stephen Colbert whipped an iPad out of his coat pocket (must have been a big pocket!) while on stage giving an award for Song of the Year. He said, “Jay-Z, did you not get one of these in your gift bag? Am I cooler than you?”

Stephen Colbert shows off an iPad at the Grammy’s (video) | VentureBeat

iPad creates e-book plot hole - The Boston Globe

Think different…

Apple’s creation of a third choice is likely to further frustrate and confuse consumers if they accumulate e-books for one device, then try to go back to read them later on a different one. The effect could be akin to having to buy a new set of CDs every time you replace a stereo system. It could also keep people from buying new e-readers as better models come out if they aren’t compatible with the books they already have.

This could cool consumers’ enthusiasm for e-books, the way sales of digital music downloads were hampered by a variety of copy-protection schemes.

iPad creates e-book plot hole - The Boston Globe