Southwest Virginia Blogs

As an author, I was highly skeptical when Google announced a year ago that it would start scanning books and making them available for search. Along with many other groups and organizations, it seemed like an obvious violation of copyright. The main problem is that Google, of course, places ads on every scanned page that someone sees, and authors get no share of that ad income.

But a new report suggests that the Google "service" might be increasing book sales. That is good news for authors, if it applies across most scanned books.

What we will never know is how much money Google makes from the ads. Selling a few more books (and the relatively small royalties authors receive) might be much, much less than the ad income Google makes. And unless Google is willing to openly share ad data and/or share income with authors, it is still stealing.

As an author, I was highly skeptical when Google announced a year ago that it would start scanning books and making them available for search. Along with many other groups and organizations, it seemed like an obvious violation of copyright. The main problem is that Google, of course, places ads on every scanned page that someone sees, and authors get no share of that ad income.

But a new report suggests that the Google "service" might be increasing book sales. That is good news for authors, if it applies across most scanned books.

What we will never know is how much money Google makes from the ads. Selling a few more books (and the relatively small royalties authors receive) might be much, much less than the ad income Google makes. And unless Google is willing to openly share ad data and/or share income with authors, it is still stealing.

Just as the cellphone companies are about to start marketing Web sites with the .mobi domain name, ESPN announces that they are dumping their mobile phone service, which came bundled with lots of sports content. It turns out that few people are interested in watching sports on a two inch screen. That's the problem with cellphones; they are phones, not televisions, and just taking content that works with other devices and shrinking the picture does not always work. And it begs the question: What on earth are the cellphone companies thinking with the .mobi domain? Don't they read the news?

Just as the cellphone companies are about to start marketing Web sites with the .mobi domain name, ESPN announces that they are dumping their mobile phone service, which came bundled with lots of sports content. It turns out that few people are interested in watching sports on a two inch screen. That's the problem with cellphones; they are phones, not televisions, and just taking content that works with other devices and shrinking the picture does not always work. And it begs the question: What on earth are the cellphone companies thinking with the .mobi domain? Don't they read the news?

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that anyone can create an entry for, now has a cousin: Citizendium. Citizendium (most easily pronounced 'City-zendium') differs from Wikipedia in the way that content will be developed. Citizendium will not allow anonymous entries, and there will be some form of expert review and editorial oversight to help avoid Wikipedia's issues with slanderous material, outright fabrication, and distortion of facts.

A long term structural weakness of many Internet services has been lack of authentication, or to put it another way, too much anonymity. Anonymity is appropriate and important for certain kinds of things and services, but for popular online resources like an encyclopedia, it just doesn't work. We'll see more and more services offered that require some knowledge and identification of the author of the material, because not to do so creates too many problems.

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that anyone can create an entry for, now has a cousin: Citizendium. Citizendium (most easily pronounced 'City-zendium') differs from Wikipedia in the way that content will be developed. Citizendium will not allow anonymous entries, and there will be some form of expert review and editorial oversight to help avoid Wikipedia's issues with slanderous material, outright fabrication, and distortion of facts.

A long term structural weakness of many Internet services has been lack of authentication, or to put it another way, too much anonymity. Anonymity is appropriate and important for certain kinds of things and services, but for popular online resources like an encyclopedia, it just doesn't work. We'll see more and more services offered that require some knowledge and identification of the author of the material, because not to do so creates too many problems.

AlGore's Current TV, a cable channel with limited distribution, has announced a partnership with Yahoo to create four new broadband channels.

More than half of U.S. Internet users now have broadband connections, so the marketplace is big enough to support investments in broadband video programming. But my prediction is that IP TV ventures of various kinds will become the new dot-com bubble, with thousands of get-rich-quick video producers coming up with a million programming schemes, all predicated on the shaky notion that they are going to siphon off 1% of Google's ad revenue.

Like the original dot-com bubble, if you have ten thousand schemers all claiming to be going after 1% of the market, the math does not add up. A great strength of the Internet is the low barrier to entry if you have a neat idea. A great weakness of the Internet is a low barrier to entry if you have a neat idea and otherwise poorly-conceived plans and financing. We're going to see hundreds and hundreds of announcements of new broadband "channels," and most of them will die a quick death. In the long run, quality always wins, if you can stay in the race long enough to let the weak drop by the wayside.

AlGore's Current TV, a cable channel with limited distribution, has announced a partnership with Yahoo to create four new broadband channels.

More than half of U.S. Internet users now have broadband connections, so the marketplace is big enough to support investments in broadband video programming. But my prediction is that IP TV ventures of various kinds will become the new dot-com bubble, with thousands of get-rich-quick video producers coming up with a million programming schemes, all predicated on the shaky notion that they are going to siphon off 1% of Google's ad revenue.

Like the original dot-com bubble, if you have ten thousand schemers all claiming to be going after 1% of the market, the math does not add up. A great strength of the Internet is the low barrier to entry if you have a neat idea. A great weakness of the Internet is a low barrier to entry if you have a neat idea and otherwise poorly-conceived plans and financing. We're going to see hundreds and hundreds of announcements of new broadband "channels," and most of them will die a quick death. In the long run, quality always wins, if you can stay in the race long enough to let the weak drop by the wayside.

One of the great things about the Internet is that it truly is creating all sorts of new economic and business activity that we never imagined just a few years ago. Amazon is one of those "new economy" businesses, and it is a good example of why the U.S. economy keeps humming along, despite a heavy loss of manufacturing jobs.

Amazon did not exist ten years ago, but now employs thousands of people, in an online enterprise, rather than a manufacturing enterprise. As more and more manufacturing plants close, companies like Amazon keep growing and hiring more people. The challenge for a lot of communities is to ensure that young people leave high school with the right motivation and training to join the Knowledge Economy, as well as to help displaced workers enter the Knowledge Economy. Neither is an easy task, but both need to be done.

What does this have to do with "building your own bookstore?" Via Jakob Nielsen's great usability newsletter, he notes that Amazon now has a new feature that lets anyone create their own bookstore, as Nielsen has done. Amazon handles all the technology, you put your name on the bookstore, and you get a small commission for every book sold via your "bookstore."

It is a really neat idea, and as Nielsen notes, it gets rid of the really awful clutter of most Amazon Web pages, filled with a million distractions. And it is another example of how the Knowledge Economy is transforming business. Are the workers in your community ready to take advantage of these opportunities?

One of the great things about the Internet is that it truly is creating all sorts of new economic and business activity that we never imagined just a few years ago. Amazon is one of those "new economy" businesses, and it is a good example of why the U.S. economy keeps humming along, despite a heavy loss of manufacturing jobs.

Amazon did not exist ten years ago, but now employs thousands of people, in an online enterprise, rather than a manufacturing enterprise. As more and more manufacturing plants close, companies like Amazon keep growing and hiring more people. The challenge for a lot of communities is to ensure that young people leave high school with the right motivation and training to join the Knowledge Economy, as well as to help displaced workers enter the Knowledge Economy. Neither is an easy task, but both need to be done.

What does this have to do with "building your own bookstore?" Via Jakob Nielsen's great usability newsletter, he notes that Amazon now has a new feature that lets anyone create their own bookstore, as Nielsen has done. Amazon handles all the technology, you put your name on the bookstore, and you get a small commission for every book sold via your "bookstore."

It is a really neat idea, and as Nielsen notes, it gets rid of the really awful clutter of most Amazon Web pages, filled with a million distractions. And it is another example of how the Knowledge Economy is transforming business. Are the workers in your community ready to take advantage of these opportunities?

One of the great things about the Internet is that it truly is creating all sorts of new economic and business activity that we never imagined just a few years ago. Amazon is one of those "new economy" businesses, and it is a good example of why the U.S. economy keeps humming along, despite a heavy loss of manufacturing jobs.

Amazon did not exist ten years ago, but now employs thousands of people, in an online enterprise, rather than a manufacturing enterprise. As more and more manufacturing plants close, companies like Amazon keep growing and hiring more people. The challenge for a lot of communities is to ensure that young people leave high school with the right motivation and training to join the Knowledge Economy, as well as to help displaced workers enter the Knowledge Economy. Neither is an easy task, but both need to be done.

What does this have to do with "building your own bookstore?" Via Jakob Nielsen's great usability newsletter, he notes that Amazon now has a new feature that lets anyone create their own bookstore, as Nielsen has done. Amazon handles all the technology, you put your name on the bookstore, and you get a small commission for every book sold via your "bookstore."

It is a really neat idea, and as Nielsen notes, it gets rid of the really awful clutter of most Amazon Web pages, filled with a million distractions. And it is another example of how the Knowledge Economy is transforming business. Are the workers in your community ready to take advantage of these opportunities?

Glenn Harlan Reynolds has an article about problems with Amazon's brand new Unbox video download service, which serves as a contrast to Apple's new video service. The Unbox system only works on Windows (iTunes works on Windows and Macs), just for starters. But the gripes are apparently about a "phone home" feature (sometimes called spyware) of Unbox that seems to constantly want to connect to the Internet so that your computer can talk to Amazon's computers. Harlan writes about the experiences of another Tech Central Station columnist, who flatly recommends against using the service because of the difficulty installing, uninstalling, and the "phone home" spyware.

Most amusing is a quote from the Unbox documentation that a reader posted in the Comments section:

"If your device is Plays for Sure compliant it may work, but we cannot guarantee performance on untested devices"

So "Plays for Sure" apparently means "Plays Maybe."

Apple unveiled its iTunes movie download service yesterday, which is very nicely done from a customer experience perspective. But many people are likely to be frustrated with download speeds. Apple talks about 30 minutes to download a feature length movie, but the company noted that is if you have a 5-6 megabit cable modem connection. About 60% of broadband users have cable modem connections, and many of them are supposed to be three megabits/second or more, but few actually deliver that. The cable companies coyly use the phrase "speeds UP TO 6 megabits," meaning snowballs in heck will likely freeze solid first.

My home is on an Adelphia system now owned by Cox, and I rarely see speeds of much more than 1 megabit/second. Sometimes I see more, but last night, as an example, I was barely getting 500kilobits/second. The problem with cable and wireless systems that promise huge speeds is that you share that bandwidth with other local users, so the theoretical maximum the marketing people love to tout is just that--theoretical--as in, if you are the only person on the Internet in your local area. Which almost never happens unless you work the night shift and tend to be up at 4 AM.

We observed this phenomenon many years ago when I was still running the Blacksburg Electronic Village. In the afternoon and evenings, people go home and get online, and do so much more now than then. So if everyone pushes back from the dinner table about 6:30 PM on Friday night and decides to download a movie instead of going to the video rental store, you won't be getting that movie in anything like 30 minutes. It will more likely be a couple of hours, or even longer. Dedicated download enthusiasts will start downloads the night before and go to bed while pulling the movie down.

This is why cable and phone company promises of 5, 10, or even 30 megabit speeds are grossly inadequate. Apple's highly compressed movie offerings don't even match current DVD quality; they had to do this to make it possible to download them at all over current broadband systems. But as more and more people demand to watch movies in HD format, the current copper-based "broadband" network in the U.S. (i.e. cable modem and DSL) is simply not up to it. A high quality HD video stream requires 18-20 megabits/second for a single movie, and if you two of you in the household want to watch different movies at the same time, you are right up to around 40 megabits/second, just to watch a TV show or movie.

And despite promises of 54 megabit and 108 megabit wireless systems, those are the theoretical maximums, not the real world average throughput. For any wireless system with multiple users (almost all neighborhood systems), a simple rule of thumb is to divide the maximum throughput by 10 to get the likely "good" bandwidth you will see most of the time. So a 54 megabit wireless system might be able to deliver 5 meg/second when usage is moderate. On Friday nights, you might be lucky to get 1 megabit consistently.

Communities need fiber, for business and for entertainment, and to make the system pay, you need both kinds of content. As Design Nine helps more and more communities design true Open Service Provider Networks (OSPNs), our financial models consistently show that you can't just build out to business or just to residential neighborhoods and make the network pay for itself. You need to bring both market segments into an integrated business plan.

Apple unveiled its iTunes movie download service yesterday, which is very nicely done from a customer experience perspective. But many people are likely to be frustrated with download speeds. Apple talks about 30 minutes to download a feature length movie, but the company noted that is if you have a 5-6 megabit cable modem connection. About 60% of broadband users have cable modem connections, and many of them are supposed to be three megabits/second or more, but few actually deliver that. The cable companies coyly use the phrase "speeds UP TO 6 megabits," meaning snowballs in heck will likely freeze solid first.

My home is on an Adelphia system now owned by Cox, and I rarely see speeds of much more than 1 megabit/second. Sometimes I see more, but last night, as an example, I was barely getting 500kilobits/second. The problem with cable and wireless systems that promise huge speeds is that you share that bandwidth with other local users, so the theoretical maximum the marketing people love to tout is just that--theoretical--as in, if you are the only person on the Internet in your local area. Which almost never happens unless you work the night shift and tend to be up at 4 AM.

We observed this phenomenon many years ago when I was still running the Blacksburg Electronic Village. In the afternoon and evenings, people go home and get online, and do so much more now than then. So if everyone pushes back from the dinner table about 6:30 PM on Friday night and decides to download a movie instead of going to the video rental store, you won't be getting that movie in anything like 30 minutes. It will more likely be a couple of hours, or even longer. Dedicated download enthusiasts will start downloads the night before and go to bed while pulling the movie down.

This is why cable and phone company promises of 5, 10, or even 30 megabit speeds are grossly inadequate. Apple's highly compressed movie offerings don't even match current DVD quality; they had to do this to make it possible to download them at all over current broadband systems. But as more and more people demand to watch movies in HD format, the current copper-based "broadband" network in the U.S. (i.e. cable modem and DSL) is simply not up to it. A high quality HD video stream requires 18-20 megabits/second for a single movie, and if you two of you in the household want to watch different movies at the same time, you are right up to around 40 megabits/second, just to watch a TV show or movie.

And despite promises of 54 megabit and 108 megabit wireless systems, those are the theoretical maximums, not the real world average throughput. For any wireless system with multiple users (almost all neighborhood systems), a simple rule of thumb is to divide the maximum throughput by 10 to get the likely "good" bandwidth you will see most of the time. So a 54 megabit wireless system might be able to deliver 5 meg/second when usage is moderate. On Friday nights, you might be lucky to get 1 megabit consistently.

Communities need fiber, for business and for entertainment, and to make the system pay, you need both kinds of content. As Design Nine helps more and more communities design true Open Service Provider Networks (OSPNs), our financial models consistently show that you can't just build out to business or just to residential neighborhoods and make the network pay for itself. You need to bring both market segments into an integrated business plan.

Apple announced a slew of new and upgraded products yesterday that disappointed some Apple fans who had hoped for an iPod phone. Pundits have begun yet another "Apple is becoming obsolete" mantra, but beating up on Apple is nothing new, and for nearly thirty years, the pundits have almost always been wrong about Apple. With cellphones challenging the iPod as a music player and Microsoft's new music player about to be released, it is easy to see why you might think Apple's best music days are behind it.

But yesterday will likely prove the pundits wrong again. While no new "gotta have it" devices were announced yesterday, the fullness of Apple's multimedia strategy has emerged, in many small ways, mostly with Apple's superb design leading the way.

The iPod Shuffle, the smallest iPod, was long overdue for an upgrade, and Apple made the diminutive player even smaller; it is now no bigger than an oversize postage stamp, and instead of somewhat cheap-looking plastic, it is housed in a beautiful brushed aluminum case with a built in clip--perfect for people who want to carry music but don't want another big gadget to lug around. This new Shuffle is also likely to be popular with sports enthusiasts.

The iPod nano, which has been wildly popular but heavily criticized for its easily scratchable case, has been redesigned in durable aluminum and now comes in five colors, along with more capacity and longer battery life.

The full size iPod has a 60% brighter screen, longer battery life, lower prices, and increased capacity for better handling of movies. Apple also rolled out a revamped iTunes Store that now sells music, audio books, podcasts, TV shows, and full length movies. This was no surprise, but Apple's design efforts for the store are stunning. You use the new iTunes software to access the store and shop for content, and the two work together extraordinarily well. Among the additions to iTunes is the ability to capture cover art for both music and videos, and a new cover art browsing feature is really impossible to describe in words--I did not pay much attention to it as I read about it, but when I saw it working on my computer, I was awestruck, and with more than 30 years of technology use under my belt, that's pretty hard to do.

Apple has labored for years to slowly integrate media as part of the "computer," and the work is beginning to pay off. The seamless integration of hardware, software, and content can't really be appreciated until it is experienced, and if Apple wins the media wars, it will not be because of any single product or service, but because of an end to end commitment to detail and design that bigger companies like HP and Microsoft have never mastered.

Apple also previewed a $299 box that connects to your TV, stereo, or HD flat panel television; the device has both cabled Ethernet and wireless network access so you can stream music, TV shows, or movies from your computer to your TV. This is where Apple is diverging from the rest of the industry. Microsoft's media vision is that the computer becomes the TV, which means you end up with the computer NEXT to the TV, which is not where most people want to use the computer for other tasks like email, the Web, and work. Apple's vision is that the computer can be anywhere in the home, and you can effortlessly pull your music and video to wherever you want to use it.

Community economic development check: In just about every rural community I have ever been in, leaders talk about the need to attract and retain young people. But when I ask for a show of hands to see how many of these leaders have iPods or have used iTunes, it is ordinary for none of them to have an iPod or to be familiar with how these devices are used. But virtually everyone under thirty has a music player, and nearly 80% of those have an iPod. If you want to attract and retain young people in your community, you need to know what interests them and why. Step One of a revamped economic development plan: Buy each of your key leaders an iPod and install iTunes on their computer (yes, it runs on Windows).

Apple announced a slew of new and upgraded products yesterday that disappointed some Apple fans who had hoped for an iPod phone. Pundits have begun yet another "Apple is becoming obsolete" mantra, but beating up on Apple is nothing new, and for nearly thirty years, the pundits have almost always been wrong about Apple. With cellphones challenging the iPod as a music player and Microsoft's new music player about to be released, it is easy to see why you might think Apple's best music days are behind it.

But yesterday will likely prove the pundits wrong again. While no new "gotta have it" devices were announced yesterday, the fullness of Apple's multimedia strategy has emerged, in many small ways, mostly with Apple's superb design leading the way.

The iPod Shuffle, the smallest iPod, was long overdue for an upgrade, and Apple made the diminutive player even smaller; it is now no bigger than an oversize postage stamp, and instead of somewhat cheap-looking plastic, it is housed in a beautiful brushed aluminum case with a built in clip--perfect for people who want to carry music but don't want another big gadget to lug around. This new Shuffle is also likely to be popular with sports enthusiasts.

The iPod nano, which has been wildly popular but heavily criticized for its easily scratchable case, has been redesigned in durable aluminum and now comes in five colors, along with more capacity and longer battery life.

The full size iPod has a 60% brighter screen, longer battery life, lower prices, and increased capacity for better handling of movies. Apple also rolled out a revamped iTunes Store that now sells music, audio books, podcasts, TV shows, and full length movies. This was no surprise, but Apple's design efforts for the store are stunning. You use the new iTunes software to access the store and shop for content, and the two work together extraordinarily well. Among the additions to iTunes is the ability to capture cover art for both music and videos, and a new cover art browsing feature is really impossible to describe in words--I did not pay much attention to it as I read about it, but when I saw it working on my computer, I was awestruck, and with more than 30 years of technology use under my belt, that's pretty hard to do.

Apple has labored for years to slowly integrate media as part of the "computer," and the work is beginning to pay off. The seamless integration of hardware, software, and content can't really be appreciated until it is experienced, and if Apple wins the media wars, it will not be because of any single product or service, but because of an end to end commitment to detail and design that bigger companies like HP and Microsoft have never mastered.

Apple also previewed a $299 box that connects to your TV, stereo, or HD flat panel television; the device has both cabled Ethernet and wireless network access so you can stream music, TV shows, or movies from your computer to your TV. This is where Apple is diverging from the rest of the industry. Microsoft's media vision is that the computer becomes the TV, which means you end up with the computer NEXT to the TV, which is not where most people want to use the computer for other tasks like email, the Web, and work. Apple's vision is that the computer can be anywhere in the home, and you can effortlessly pull your music and video to wherever you want to use it.

Community economic development check: In just about every rural community I have ever been in, leaders talk about the need to attract and retain young people. But when I ask for a show of hands to see how many of these leaders have iPods or have used iTunes, it is ordinary for none of them to have an iPod or to be familiar with how these devices are used. But virtually everyone under thirty has a music player, and nearly 80% of those have an iPod. If you want to attract and retain young people in your community, you need to know what interests them and why. Step One of a revamped economic development plan: Buy each of your key leaders an iPod and install iTunes on their computer (yes, it runs on Windows).

The owner of 26 Massachusetts and Rhode Island papers is thinking about selling the whole lot and simply publishing on the Web, where he says ad revenues are higher. It's about time somebody in the newspaper business acknowledged that putting gobs of ink on dead trees and tossing the finished product onto people's driveways is not the best way to do things anymore.

The Web is a nearly perfect news distribution medium--virtually zero distribution costs and the potential for nearly unlimited content. All that is needed is thoughtful editing, which is still dreadfully short on the Web. As I've been saying since 1993, it could be the Golden Age for newspapers, if they fire everybody, get some people that have a clue, and toss their printing presses away.

The owner of 26 Massachusetts and Rhode Island papers is thinking about selling the whole lot and simply publishing on the Web, where he says ad revenues are higher. It's about time somebody in the newspaper business acknowledged that putting gobs of ink on dead trees and tossing the finished product onto people's driveways is not the best way to do things anymore.

The Web is a nearly perfect news distribution medium--virtually zero distribution costs and the potential for nearly unlimited content. All that is needed is thoughtful editing, which is still dreadfully short on the Web. As I've been saying since 1993, it could be the Golden Age for newspapers, if they fire everybody, get some people that have a clue, and toss their printing presses away.

YouTube is beginning to change politics, as the rising new Internet service is making it easy for anyone to make video available. Short video clips with political messages are chipping away at another Old Media monopoly, the political ad. Back in the old days, as far back as a year ago, you had to have a big budget to produce and air a political ad. Limited time spots for such ads on broadcast and cable TV made them expensive. But like other upstarts like online auctions and blogging, cheap video distribution is rewriting the rules. Industry old-timers are criticizing this new competition; while it is true it is easy to put a false and/or misleading political video on YouTube, that is hardly a new phenomenon. It's easy to find Old Media examples of wretched excess in political ads dating back a hundred years or more. Politics in the 1800s was a bare knuckles fist fight compared to the relatively sedate mudslinging that goes on today. When the powerbrokers who have the most to lose start shooting the messenger (YouTube and its innumerable imitators), you know there is something to it.

YouTube is beginning to change politics, as the rising new Internet service is making it easy for anyone to make video available. Short video clips with political messages are chipping away at another Old Media monopoly, the political ad. Back in the old days, as far back as a year ago, you had to have a big budget to produce and air a political ad. Limited time spots for such ads on broadcast and cable TV made them expensive. But like other upstarts like online auctions and blogging, cheap video distribution is rewriting the rules. Industry old-timers are criticizing this new competition; while it is true it is easy to put a false and/or misleading political video on YouTube, that is hardly a new phenomenon. It's easy to find Old Media examples of wretched excess in political ads dating back a hundred years or more. Politics in the 1800s was a bare knuckles fist fight compared to the relatively sedate mudslinging that goes on today. When the powerbrokers who have the most to lose start shooting the messenger (YouTube and its innumerable imitators), you know there is something to it.