| Disney Gets a Piece of Da Action |
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Disney has purchased a stake in up-and-coming YouTube challenger Hulu. According to the Washington Post, NBC, News Corp., and Disney will each own 27% of the site. (Wired pegs it at 30%.) Anyway, shows from ABC (and Disney) will soon join those from Fox and NBC on Hulu. I believe it is now your move, Google. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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Comments (0)| Claude Shannon Would Have Been 93 Today |
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Wired has a “This Day in Tech” post about Claude Shannon’s birthday today. Shannon is one of the biggies — if not *the* biggie — in the field of information theory. I started reading his masterpiece, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, a couple of years back. I got up to page 3 before he lost me. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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April 29, 2009
| Boy, Ya Gotta Jump Through a Lotta Hoops To Become a Monopoly [UPDATED] |
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The proposed Google-Authors Guild settlement is back in the news again. The DoJ, which has decided it really doesn’t care for Google’s attitude, thank you very much, has notified everyone that they have decided to look into various and sundry antitrust issues related to the settlement. At the same time, Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. Federal District Court in New York has given authors and other interested parties 4 more months to opt out of the settlement and/or file briefs about it. This means that the approval process for the deal will drag into at least October, one year after the settlement was announced. UPDATE, 4/30: The response on Google’s own Public Policy Blog. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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| It’s Just So Obvious — They Never Leveraged the Synergies |
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The Washington Post reports today that Time Warner would really, really, really love to spin off the red-headed stepchild they got stuck with, AOL: “The Company continues to review its strategic alternatives with respect to AOL. Although the Company’s Board of Directors has not made any decision, the Company currently anticipates that it would initiate a process to spin off one or more parts of the businesses of AOL to Time Warner’s stockholders, in one or a series of transactions. Based on the results of the Company’s review, future market conditions or the availability of more favorable strategic opportunities that may arise before a transaction is completed, the Company may decide to pursue an alternative other than a spin-off with respect to either or both of AOL’s businesses.” This nugget can be gleaned from TW’s 10-Q SEC filing (see the second paragraph on page 5). Show of hands: anybody out there think that AOL-TIme Warner made any kinda sense? In the back, are you raising your hand? No? OK … |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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| How Much Love Does Google Have To Give Newspapers? |
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Earlier this month I wrote about how newspaper publishers were threatening action against Google for “stealing” their copyrighted stuff. Danny Sullivan wrote a long rant titled “Google’s Love For Newspapers & How Little They Appreciate It” that’s a great read. And a great indictment of how newspaper publishers just don’t get how their business model has to change. Anyway, today I read a short post on Search Engine Land about how Google’s now Tweeting stories from Google News. Think about it: Google’s posting stories that they take the time and effort to index onto the world’s most popular Web property, and they’re providing links back to the publishers’ Websites to boot. They are driving users to those sites. Googlenews has (as of now) 2,965 followers. After 8 days. Do these newspaper publishers get any of this? |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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| Twitter’s Retention Rate Is 40%. Should They Be Concerned? |
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NielsenWire reports that 60% of new Twitter users do not return to the site: “Twitter has enjoyed a nice ride over the last few months, but it will not be able to sustain its meteoric rise without establishing a higher level of user loyalty. Frankly, if Oprah can’t accomplish that, I’m not sure who can.” The Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog follows up with the question, “So what does it all mean –- and does it even matter?” Well lemmee jump in here and say this: you don’t actually have to visit Twitter.com once you set up your account. You can send Tweets from your phone, for example. I use Twitterfeed to dump (and “dump” is a totally appropriate word wrt the commentary I produce on a daily basis) my blog posts to my Twitter stream. I don’t go to Twitter to read ‘em again. Nielsen didn’t acknowledge any of this in their post (although one commenter did.) So as far as I’m concerned, we still don’t know what Twitter’s retention rate is. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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April 28, 2009
| Read This |
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Read this article. All I can add is “amen”. Amen amen amen. (Now the fact that he calls out 2 of my favorite whipping boys, Microsoft and Facebook, has nothing to do with why I think this article is great.) |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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April 27, 2009
| Don’t Follow Me, I’m Lost |
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I’d wanted to post something about swine flu and the Web, but these guys beat me to the punch. That’s the price I (gladly) pay for not blogging on the weekends. Anyway, I want to examine how people are using the only Internet sites anybody really cares about anymore — Google, Facebook, and Twitter — to find out more about swine flu.
I’ll leave you with the following quote from one of those guys who blogs on Saturday: “I think it’s only a matter of time before that the next generation of cyber-terrorists — those who are smart about social media, are familiar with modern information flows, and are knowledgeable about human networks — take advantage of the escalating fears over the next epidemic and pollute the networked public sphere with scares that would essentially paralyze the global economy. Often, such tactics would bring much more destruction than the much-feared cyberwar and attacks on physical — rather than human — networks.” |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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| iPhone on Verizon? Really? |
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It’s just a rumor, but USA Today is reporting that “Verizon (VZ) and Apple (AAPL) are discussing the possible development of an iPhone for Verizon, with the goal of introducing it next year, people familiar with the situation say.” Repeat after me, “It’s just a rumor.” Having said that, we know that AT&T has the iPhone locked up until 2010. They’ve been talking to Apple about extending that until 2011. But having the iPhone available on the 2 biggest wireless networks in America must look reeeeeeeeal good to Apple right now. If/when this happens — one more time: “It’s just a rumor.” — you won’t be able to simply switch networks with your existing iPhone. AT&T’s GSM network is different than Verizon’s CDMA, so you’ll have to buy a Verizon-based iPhone. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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| The Law of Obscenity and Pornography |
 By Margaret C JasperThe law of obscenity has evolved considerably since the first cases appeared in the courts. Most of these legal changes are the direct result of shifts in industry and cultural standards. The advent of the computer has presented new and novel issues to be addressed, as it is a difficult medium to monitor and control. In this legal almanac, Margaret C. Jasper explores all of the laws surrounding obscenity and pornography. Library Record • Borrow it • Buy it • More Titles |
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Submitted by: Malgorzata Pawska, Digital Content Coordinator
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