Reading blogs #17
Please let me know if you find this useful!
“Lessons from Amazon’s 1984 Moment” – Some follow up thoughts on the Amazon Fail 2.0. I am not sure I agree with the author. On the other hand Jonathan Zittrain is making a more comprehensive argument linking this Amazon accident to questions about cloud computing as a concept. Here is also Jeff Bezos’ apology. Finally, to follow up, JZ has published a post reflecting on the discussion about his op ed and the definitions of “cloud” – great read.
On a different note, AP decided to introduce soft-DRM for its content, which led to criticism of it pushing it too far and neglecting any fair use arguments, as well as to suggestions of alternative ways of making money out of content (originally via OJB). Ars-technica published a rather detailed analysis of AP’s suggestion and here are a couple of other opinions published by a fellow Berktern and Doc Searls. Finally, here is a grassroots response to the AP’s announcement:
Interesting reports, numbers, and visualizations
“The Internet and the Recession” – I think the title is mostly for marketing purposes (apparently recession sells these days :), but the interesting numbers in the report are concerned with information sources of the American public.
“Number of Social Networking Users Has Doubled Since 2007” – Some numbers on the use of social networking sites in the US.
“In Study, Texting Lifts Crash Risk by Large Margin” – Some numbers to support some common sense and a an attempt to address it by the US legislators – “Bill Seeks to Ban Texting By Drivers“.
And as usual, some regional stats:
- Asia Pacific – Mobile market
- Brazil – Mobile users
- China – Internet users
- Iran – Mobile market
- Israel – Wireless broadband
- Kenya – Rural ICT investment
- Latin America – Internet and broadband
- OECD – Mobile broadband
- Sri Lanka – Wireless vs. Wireline
- UK – Mobile market (decline)
- USA – Preferences of broadband vs. HDTV
- USA – Mobile market
- USA – Social media use
- USA – Wireless internet
- World – Mobile broadband
- World – Wireless broadband
Interesting thoughts, ideas, opinions, and discussions
“A partial marvel” (via Thoughts About K4D) – I have not followed it too closely, but it seems that as empirical data about micro-financing starts mounting up, the emerging picture is more complex than a simple believe that small loans will save the world. More on the subject – “The Other Shoe Drops: 2nd Randomized Microcredit Study”
“Your country needs you connected” (via Andrew Chadwick) – Another face of the digital divide of which I think we will start seeing more and more – people who choose not to be online.
“Low-cost computing devices and initiatives for the developing world” (via Information Policy) – InfoDev’s database of projects tackling the challenges of creating information technology for developing world.
“Up-and-Comers Who Are Breaking Down a Digital Divide” – A WP article about women who made it in the technology world in Washington, DC (awful title though).
“East Africa gets high-speed web” – Some infrastructure developments in Africa. More on this topic from Sam and on the reaction of African bloggers from Rebekah. At the same time, “Damaged cable causes Internet blackout in four West African countries” – what a shame.
“What’s Chinese for .limitedgovernment?” – Things are starting to warm up towards the September 30th deadline of ICANN’s MOU with the US Department of Commerce – let the battle of narratives of Internet Governance begin! Also see – “ICANN, Civil Society, and Free Speech” – more on the subject from one of the interviewees in the original WSJ article.
And while Skype is being used as an example for what the telcos worldwide are fighting for, the product itself is now subject to dispute – “EBay Building Software to Replace Skype Technology“.
More on the subject – “The FCC is asking Apple and AT&T all the right questions” – A CNN Money piece trying to summarize the “case” of Apple/AT&T vs. Google (originally via @eszter).
“Iran internet law sparks suspicion” – Another example of how the language of policymaking matters and can be abused.
“Content Filtering Ineffective, Harmful According to Public Knowledge Study” – Interesting observations in light of the growing number of cases where filtering is implemented.
And this is what it looks like when media-related policy making process goes wrong:
“More than 1,000 Publishers Join Fair Syndication Consortium” – The newspapers in the US regroup to make sure they monetize on their content.
“Profits, recession, and discovery” – Robert Picard analyzes recent quarterly reports of some major US newspapers. He concludes that it is too soon to write the newspapers off.
“BBC strikes web video-sharing deal” – I think this is an interesting example of what can be viewed as public-private partnership in trying “to get” the “new” media.
“Microsoft Yahoo deal finally complete, but not the merger it once was” – Old news by now, but thought worth mentioning for archival purposes. More interesting is that “Bing + Yahoo! Now Equals 26% of Search Market“.
Inspired by the news above – “The next Google?” and “Rise of Google, 1999-2001” – A couple of interesting blog posts tracing historical media attention to Google.
“12% of Americans Bought Virtual Goods in Past 12 Months: Survey” – I was always curious who buys those virtual gifts on Facebook, apparently quite a lot of people.
“As Print Newspapers Decline, How Does Digital Fill the Void?“ – Steve Dennen of comScore plays with some numbers of online and print news sources readership.
“How US traffic is vital for UK newspaper sites” – Some June numbers about the proportion of US readers of UK online newspapers.
“Newspapers on Twitter – the charts” – Some nice charts of what newspapers Twitt, follow, and what topics lead the way (can you guess?).
“White House Video – Going Global“ – The world is listening to Obama (and there are nice maps to demonstrate that).
“Congress speaks” (via FlowingData) – An interesting visualization tool of how much and what about do the congressmen talk; fun to play with.
“Template Twitter strategy for Government Departments” – The UK government is trying to gett online.
“Russia pledges $5bn to develop national information society“ - Russian government (federal and local) is going online.
Simply Interesting, Fun, and Coll Stuff
“Students From Around The World Learn Through SMS” (via Information Policy) – Intriguing initiative, but I find it difficult to imagine how it actually works.
“Gauging Your Distraction” (via Flowing Data) – Another take on texting – A NYT game simulating texting while driving. I tried once and couldn’t make it to the end of the game.
And here is an interesting talk by Alain de Botton at TED about success and how we may think about it:
