The challenge of intellectual property enforcement

For thousands of years, people have created things. But over the last several hundred years, it has become progressively easier and easier to take things that people have created and make your own copies of them. You could use a printing press, a photocopying machine, a floppy disk, a website, or a variety of other tools to make these copies.

However, at the same time most countries have some form of ownership of created materials, whether they are physical or virtual.

The tools themselves are neutral, not good or bad. The question is how the tools are used. So people with an interest in the topic - law enforcement, Lars Ulrich, whoever - mount legal and public relations efforts to make sure that the tools are not used in an improper way.

On an episode (#212) of TWiT, Leo Laporte and others were discussing one of these efforts. They had previously been talking about the difference in video quality between someone who has the skills and talents to present effectively, and someone else who just points the camera at something and figures that's enough.

Then they discussed another topic.

Leo Laporte You know who needs some help with talent?

Ryan Block New York Times?

Leo Laporte The Software – what is it? The Software Industries Association, the people who fight the piracy, have you seen…

Ryan Block Yeah.

Leo Laporte This god awful video that they did. This is a [video presentation] (21:43). That’s – this is – ha, ha, ha, these guys are in college, right, and they are freshmen. And then over here is the Asian guy who is writing – copying floppies, right. I am just going to fast forward here.

Jason Calacanis It’s always the Asian guy.

Leo Laporte It’s the Asian guy.

Loren Feldman Always.

Leo Laporte Always.

Loren Feldman Sneaky, sneaky guys.

Jason Calacanis Report came out, 87% of copyright infringement, it’s Asian people.

Leo Laporte Geez. Thank you.

Jason Calacanis It’s Asian people.

Ryan Block Thank-you, this was TWiT live

Leo Laporte Thank-you, this was TWiT.

Jason Calacanis I’m mean, it’s not racist, it’s unbelievable. You see those Asians with the [ph] shopping cans (22:26) that’s the problem.

Leo Laporte Stop it. Stop it. It is though. I mean look at this guy. Well, first of all, it’s a very multicultural room.

Loren Feldman Yeah, they make sure to get everybody in there.

Leo Laporte Yeah, they got everybody in there.

Ryan Block No race.

Loren Feldman Look at that nose. But who’s the guy? Who’s the Jew?

Leo Laporte Yeah, Jew, we got Jew, we got a black guy, we got a token girl. There’s no girls in these rooms I can tell you right now.

Jason Calacanis She really wants to be hanging out in that dorm room.

Leo Laporte He’s got a [ph] Sharp (22:45). He’s burning disks.

Loren Feldman And I’ve seen dorm rooms that look exactly like that, yeah, nice and clean.

Leo Laporte And then he gets transported up and DP is going to give him – he’s going to school him [Video presentation] (22:53) Oh, this is so bad. Somebody said this is so bad it makes me want to steal software. Big budget.

Loren Feldman Big budget.

Loren Feldman [Indiscernible] (23:22) who don’t even own computer [indiscernible] ().

Leo Laporte Yes, that’s [indiscernible] (23:12) like this. Oh, I like that. By the way, Jason is the name of the Asian guy. He’s got Jason’s lair. Oh, yeah, he does go to jail. He does. Look, towards the end of the thing, he’s…

Loren Feldman Oh there’s a Klingon.

Ryan Block The Klingons make an appearance?

Leo Laporte For some reason...

Jason Calacanis It’s always the Klingons and the Asians.

The discussion continued; go here to see the whole thing.

I had never seen this video before, but it sounded like (if I may borrow a twentieth-century phrase) must see TV. So I found the video.



Frankly, the two best parts of the video are the female rapper and the actual person who was in prison for copying. I could do without the Klingons - unless, of course, Klingons had more advanced copyright law than the Federation.

The video came from the Software & Information Industry Association. And I guess it's appropriate to mention that I am employed in the software industry. But the Klingons don't represent me.

(empo-tuulwey) For my next trick, I will crank up my car.

I recently discovered that DEFCON 5 is NOT the highest level of readiness; it's actually DEFCON 1.

Now one would expect that I'd use fancy tools like Google+ to discuss this. But I didn't.

The fanciest tool that I used was Wikipedia. But I used two other tools - a hallway conversation, and electronic mail.

If you're someone who thinks that Google+ is so much last week's news because of the release of Spotify, let me define these two tools for you.

A HALLWAY CONVERSATION is, as its name implies, a discussion that takes place at a single location (usually with a lot of traffic). This requires that all parties be physically present. If you have forgotten how to be physically present with other people, just think of it as a meetup or as a group Foursquare check-in. For the record, this is where I heard two people talking about DEFCON levels.

After I left the hallway, went to a computer, and looked up the information on Wikipedia, I wanted to share this information with the other two individuals. At the time, neither of these people were on Google+, nor did I have the information necessary to send them an SMS message. I am not a Second Life member, so I couldn't enter my virtual world and go up to them and impart the information to them. We all have Microsoft Office Communicator, but I chose not to use that tool. And I didn't want to use Skype or whatever to contact them, since I would need a paid version of Skype to talk to both of them at once.

So I used a tool known as ELECTRONIC MAIL, or email for short. Because this tool was invented decades ago, you may not be familiar with it. It is a system in which you can type a message (even a message that exceeds 140 characters!), add some "addresses" to the message (e.g. sam@company.com, mitch@company.com), and then "send" the message to the recipients (in this case, two recipients). The recipients then use an app (in this case, a Windows app called "Outlook") to receive notification of message arrival, and then they can read the message.

Now the recipients can't +1 or like the message. And the only way in which they can comment on the message is to send another message.

Regardless of its non-trendiness, electronic mail can sometimes be used as a valuable communications tool. Sarah Palin has been known to use electronic mail (although, after David Kernell's conviction and sentencing, she may have moved to Facebook-only communications).

Now if someone hacked into Obama's Blackberry, the country might go to DEFCON 5. Whoops, I mean DEFCON 1.

(For the record, the U.S. has never been at DEFCON 1, although the Strategic Air Command was at DEFCON 2 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And we've only been at DEFCON 3 three times: during the aforementioned Cuban Missile Crisis, during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and on 9/11. Richard Reid did not merit a DEFCON 3 response.)

And what if the security loophole is closed?

People in the United States live in a relatively free society, although some of those freedoms have been limited after September 11, 2001. Because the 9/11 terrorist attacks used planes, our response has primarily been to change the way we do things on planes. Fewer and fewer of us remember the time when we could meet arriving passengers directly at the gate; nowadays, the gate is behind multiple layers of security.

Yet I can still head down the street and board a local bus without getting an X-rated photo of myself.

Well, I can do that now. Matt Munson quotes from a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) message, produced in conjunction with my local bus provider Omnitrans, that indicates some changes are afoot.

Omnitrans already regularly cooperates with local law enforcement and first responders to enhance the safety and security of our system. Soon we
will begin partnering with TSA and the Department of Homeland Security.

A program known as VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) will deploy teams of government law enforcement officers at Omnitrans transit centers. VIPR teams will conduct random searches at transit centers including at passenger waiting areas and on board Omnitrans vehicles. Some officers will be in uniform and others will not. In some cases bomb-sniffing dogs may be used. The VIPR program will help detect and deter potential threats to our customers, our employees and our community.

Munson, a Republican with libertarian leanings, opposes this, as does Mother Jones:

As part of the TSA's request for FY 2012 funding, TSA Administrator John Pistole told Congress last week that the TSA conducts 8,000 unannounced security screenings every year. These screenings, conducted with local law enforcement agencies as well as immigration, can be as simple as checking out cargo at a busy seaport. But more and more, they seem to involve giving airport-style pat-downs and screenings of unsuspecting passengers at bus terminals, ferries, and even subways.

Now I have a beef with the Mother Jones writer - why was the word "unsuspecting" used in the last sentence above? Frankly, if I'm being patted down, I'm going to notice.

And Paul Joseph Watson, an associate of Alex Jones, doesn't like the fact that VIPR is being extended to freight trucks:

Up until now, commercial trucks and other vehicles only were subject to warrantless searches and radiation scans at specially designated “state-owned inspection stations” traditionally set up at rest stops next to highways. These internal checkpoints, run by Homeland Security, the Department of Transportation, and the TSA, involve trucks being scanned with backscatter x-ray devices in the name of “safety” and “counter terrorism”.

These inspection stations are now being expanded to normal roads and highways, unleashing an army of TSA agents who will be given a free hand to litter America with internal checkpoints in a chilling throwback to Soviet-style levels of control over the population.

Somehow I get the feeling that Watson opposes this move.

Not that VIPR is new; TSA was issuing statements about VIPR back in 2007, talking about efforts going back to 2005:

Following the Madrid train bombings, TSA stepped up its efforts to enhance security on rail and mass transit systems nationwide by creating and deploying Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams. Comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosives detection canine teams, VIPR teams over the past two years have augmented security at key transportation facilities in urban areas around the country, including New York City, Buffalo and Syracuse, N.Y., Los Angeles, Boston and Providence, R.I.

Of course, any mention of the Madrid train bombings reminds us that our law enforcement efforts are not always perfect. I work in the biometrics industry, and the name "Brandon Mayfield" is bandied about a lot in my industry.

Now VIPR and the TSA didn't have anything to do with Mayfield, but there is a school of thought that claims that if these TSA security efforts are not 100% accurate, why expand them?

However, bear in mind that you're probably not going to run into a VIPR team any time soon. The dreaded expansion that has everyone up in arms is the TSA's request to increase the number of VIPR teams from 25 to 37.

And it also illustrates a profound misunderstanding of our government. People concentrate on what national police agencies do, while forgetting that the vast majority of law enforcement is not conducted by the TSA or the FBI, but by local police agencies. So while we're waiting for VIPR to hit the Montclair (California) Transcenter, other police actions are possibly more important:

The claim [against the city of Upland, California] ... was sent ... in January 2010 by Dieter Dammeier, police union attorney, on behalf of Upland police Sgt. John Moore....

The claim alleges [police chief Steve] Adams, [former mayor JP] Pomierski and [former city manager Robb] Quincey “went to great lengths to conceal, cover up and hide possible criminal activity” by the city manager, who was fired Wednesday night....

Moore’s accusations stem from a domestic dispute he and another Upland officer investigated on July 27, 2008, involving Quincey and an ex-fiancee....

Following the incident, Moore alleges in the claim, Adams, Quincey and others asked Moore to destroy the report.

And you're worried about some VIPR teams roaming the country?

More on the Gould Citizens Advisory Council

A follow-up to a previous post about an attempt to ban - yes, ban - the Gould Citizens Advisory Council.

Needless to say, advisory council people like other advisory council people, and they probably get together and have long conversations about advising. The Arkansas Citizens First Congress has talked about the Gould Citizens Advisory Council, and while the page doesn't talk about the most recent City Council actions, it does discuss what the GCAC has accomplished. This is probably what got the City Council's ire:

GCAC is confronting the city council’s declaration of bankruptcy by bringing in experts to help them create an alternative plan to bankruptcy and loss of city services. GCAC has also taken on the city’s water issues. The distribution of water, the quality of the water and the waste water removal are all below standard because of a water system that is 60% deteriorated. After studying their options, GCAC persuaded city council members to reverse a recent decision and raise the water rates to invest in new infrastructure.

So, how many people suddenly want to join the Gould Citizens Advisory Council?

Now Gawker has talked about this, but some people don't trust Gawker.

And Fox has talked about it - twice - but some people don't trust Fox.

Well, perhaps people will listen to Rick Fahr, who has posted a proposed ordinance from the City of Gould, Arkansas. Ordinance No. 062011-5, if enacted, would ban the Gould Citizens Advisory Council from doing business in the city of Gould.

Well, is the Gould Citizens Advisory Council a Mafia front? Are they robbing banks? Dealing drugs?

No. According to the ordinance, they are causing...discourse.

Which is why the local Fox outlet, the national Fox outlet, Gawker, and everyone else is attracted to this story. You see, Gould, Arkansas is located within the United States of America, and in this country, it is legal for the people "to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

The mayor vetoed the ordinance, but it could come up again in August. According to Fox 16, the city's lawyer informed the council of problems with the law - and the council tried to fire him.

And the Gould Citizens Advisory Council has fired off a press release:

City of Gould Threatened by City Council Action

(Gould, ARK, July 13, 2011) — Members of the Gould Citizens Advisory Council (GCAC) believe the City of Gould is under threat. Last night Gould City Council members voted four to one to override the veto of an unconstitutional City ordinance passed June 28 that disallows the Gould Citizens Advisory Council from existing within the city limits of Gould and another that requires all organizations to get city permission before using facilities for their meetings.

“The Gould City Council has banned our group from meeting or existing within the city and declared it an emergency to stop the people from voicing their opinion and holding the public officials accountable for their actions,” said Curtis Mangrum, GCAC Chair. “We believe that action is in direct conflict with that the right of citizens to assemble in their communities as protected by the U.S Constitution’s First Amendment and Arkansas Constitution, Article 2, Section 4.”

For many years, Gould citizens believed their elected officials practiced good government and made the right decisions for the whole community, according to Mangrum. However, because of a sizable IRS debt, bankruptcy and many years of legal problems for the City, Gould citizens felt it was time to get more involved.

GCAC has been a force for positive change in Gould for the past eight years. It is a grassroots organization made up of citizens who want the City of Gould to thrive through unity and progress. The organization was formed to ensure that citizens provide a voice in the decision- making process at all levels of government and hold their public officials accountable. Working together, GCAC members:

* Identified and helped elect candidates who wanted to move the city forward.
* Sponsored City Council retreats to develop a strategic planning process for Gould.
* Preserved the Gould School District archives when it was consolidated and made sure Gould’s trophies were displayed at the students’ new school.
* Identified abandoned housing and submitted a list to City officials for action.
* Sponsored a youth summit attended by 50 young citizens.
* Produced a documentary on the history of Gould.
* Hosted citywide cleanup campaigns.
* Helped raise $11,000 earlier this summer through the Gould Tax Relief Fund to keep the IRS from seizing and liquidating City property.

Last year Simmons Bank donated its building to the City of Gould in partnership with GCAC to be used as a Community Resource Center. Programs planned include a computer lab, workforce center, youth cultural activities and Neighborhood Watch. In addition, the Public Library, Tobacco Coalition and a quilting club would be housed in the building.

In other action last night, the City Council members voted four to one to evict GCAC from the Resource Center and stated they would change the locks on the doors. Their justification is that the City cannot afford to pay the utilities.

“The problem with this explanation is that they did not have a prior discussion with the tenants of the building to try to make an honest effort to work with them,” said Norvell Dixon, GCAC Vice-Chair. “This same group raised $11,000 to pay back taxes for the City, surely they could raise enough money to pay the utilities for the building. This is just an excuse to stifle the voice of the people.”

The City Council also argued that the group would not release the lease and the deed. The City Council has not officially requested a copy of the lease and deed from the group. “In addition, it is our understanding that the City has a copy of these documents and this should be taken up with the Mayor, not the tenants,” Dixon said.

GCAC is also concerned about three City Council members voting against accepting an $800,000 grant to repair the city’s leaking sewer system at a June City Council meeting. “We don’t understand why our City Council members would vote to disallow this money to come into our city to help replace and upgrade our sewer system. We are worried about City Council actions like this,” said Dixon. “Gould is my home and I want it to be a forward-moving city. The council’s actions seem to be having the opposite effect.”

GCAC supports the right of the citizens to participate in government through peaceful, organized assembly of concerned citizens. Dixon said GCAC members want to work with public officials who practice good government by making decisions based on analysis, citizen input and sound fiscal management. “We want public officials who are working constructively to solve our city’s problems and build a better future for our children,” he said.

“GCAC will continue to fight for the rights of the citizens to assemble, provide input into our government and insist that our public officials do the right thing for the whole community — not just for a chosen few,” said Mangrum.

[8:00 PM - SEE FOLLOW-UP POST.]

A changing of the guard in African business?

In a previous post, I listed a group of ten African countries that had attracted significant foreign investment in the past, and noting that three of the countries (Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya) were presently unstable politically.

Two of the ten countries that WERE stable were South Africa and Nigeria. Nigeria has the largest population - 125 million in this undated estimate, compared to 44 million for South Africa. However, South Africa is the clear leader in GDP, according to this undated estimate - South Africa tops the continent with a GDP of $456,700,000,000, while Nigeria is fifth at $114,800,000,000.

Now I'll admit that when I think of "Nigerian business," I often think of the brother-in-law of a deceased government minister who needs a little favor. But that isn't necessarily an accurate picture of the country's business climate. Robyn Curnow notes:

[A] new Morgan Stanley report ... predicts Nigeria’s economy will overtake South Africa’s as Africa’s largest by 2025.

Now predictions are just that, and there are many factors that could alter this timetable. The fact that 80% of Nigeria's gross domestic product depends upon oil introduces a potential for huge volatility in future growth.

But if Nigeria can diversify its economy, who knows?

Well, Michael Lee Johnson didn't have his Google account yanked, but...

(follow-up to this post)

Well, Michael Lee Johnson didn't have his Google account yanked, but apparently Logical Extremes did.

Google just cut off my access to my Google account, probably because of my use of a non-real-sounding pseudonym on Google+ :(

(empo-utoobd) Before condemning Facebook's terms of service...

At the moment, this post from Michael Lee Johnson is being shared all over Google+. It begins as follows:

LOL: I recently ran a Google+ advertisement on Facebook that got all of my campaigns suspended. - Great.

Johnson reproduced the ad that he ran, which encouraged Facebook users with Google+ accounts to add him, and he also reproduced the message that he purported to have received from Facebook.

Your account has been disabled. All of your adverts have been stopped and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances. Generally, we disable an account if too many of its adverts violate our Terms of Use or Advertising guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use and Advertising guidelines if you have any further questions.

Inasmuch as Johnson shared this on Google+, and since a vocal minority of Google+ users think that Facebook is about to go out of business because of the First Coming of Google+, it's not surprising that a lot of the comments are along the lines of "fACEBuK sUx d00d." Actually they're written in proper English, but the sentiment is certainly there.

But when I read the message that came from Facebook, I flashed back to another message - one that I had received a couple of years ago. Here's part of it:

We are unable to provide specific detail regarding your account suspension .... For more information on our what we consider inappropriate content or conduct ... please visit our Community Guidelines and Tips ....

Yes, it's remarkably similar. The service permanently disabled my account and didn't bother to tell me why.

And which service did this? YouTube - a Google property.

So before you start chanting "Google rules, Facebook drools," just bear in mind that a similar thing could happen to you. I haven't specifically read Google+'s Terms of Service, but if it has the same Terms of Service as other Google properties, there's a possibility that Johnson could have his Google account yanked also, without warning.

Think about it.

P.S. Johnson's ad paid off despite the suspension. A number of people, including myself, added him.

[9:40 PM - SEE FOLLOW-UP POST.]

Why Foursquare needs to dig into its metrics a little more...

Every company captures metrics. Even if people raise such a "privacy" stink that the company is prohibited from capturing all of the metrics that it wants, it still captures something.

Foursquare obviously has a lot of data about me. They recently sent me and email, and the third paragraph of the email read as follows:

First off, thanks for believing in our little startup as we try to build an awesome service for you. You were one of the first hundred thousand members of our community (to be exact, you're member #46,304)! You can tell your grandkids that you were a 21st century trendsetter! They'll look at you in amazement as they cruise by on their hoverboards.

Of course, this was the third paragraph, which (for those who have mastered their kindergarten skills) is preceded by the second paragraph.

Make sure to get the latest hotness! DOWNLOAD the latest version of foursquare for your phone.

And if you've read this blog over the last few months, you know that's the rub. And if you haven't, read my posts from June 1 and January 15. (In short, since Foursquare only allows people with GPS-equipped smartphones to earn mayorships, I have no incentive to use Foursquare on my dumb phone or my netbook.)

The surprising thing is that Foursquare has a bunch of metrics that should indicate that there's a problem. They don't have to read a blog to figure this out. Foursquare's metrics should tell them that I have lost all of my mayorships (as an early adopter, I held down more than ten mayorships at one point). In fact, Foursquare's metrics should tell them that I haven't checked in for several months now.

When I stop using other services for even a few weeks, the service starts sending me "we miss you!" messages. (BranchOut is one service that comes to mind in this regard.) But Foursquare has not made the re-energization of inactive members a part of its strategy.

Now I will grant that I'm not part of Foursquare's target market - if you don't pay $2000 for your phone and your phone service, you're not attractive to Foursquare's customers (the businesses that advertise on the service). But you'd think that Foursquare would be trying to re-engage the people who have the SuperAndroid or the iPhone 6 or whatever, and would be sending them messages to get them to check-in again.

Or perhaps Foursquare, like Twitter (and some other services - I should talk about Starfleet Commander in a different post), doesn't really care about the number of ACTIVE users of the service. They only care about the TOTAL number of users, including the ones who use the service once and never touch it again.

After all, the total user count is a more impressive number than the active user count.

Casey Anthony is already a financial success

Wow:

Supporters ... have sent money to Casey Anthony's jailhouse commissary account since she was acquitted of killing her 2-year-old daughter.

How much money has Anthony received? According to the Las Cruces Sun-News, over $200.

Wonder if she has to split this with an agent. And I wonder if Vivid pays more. Not that it matters; as the update shows, even Vivid doesn't want to hire Anthony.

When you can't go to the original sources

For better or worse, I am the product of a Reed College education. And Reed consistently urges its students to refer to original sources. Rather than read a textbook that talks about Plato, Reed would prefer that its students read Plato.

But what if the original sources changed?

This could very easily happen. As a Christian, I constantly encounter people who wonder about the "real" words of Jesus, before the editors supposedly changed all of them. Yet these same people accept the words of Plato as...um, gospel - despite the fact that half of Plato's Dialogues are derived from a manuscript from 895 AD, over one thousand years after Plato existed. If Plato's disciples didn't invent him, of course.

There are modern, secular examples of this. Just last month Louis Gray noted that Zillow changed its home pricing metrics and wiped out all of its old data. If you rely on Zillow's data, your home value may have increased or decreased significantly in a single day - not that Zillow displays any record of the old price.

Which is why I believe that all modifications to original data should be disclosed.

Carmageddongate?

I don't live or work in Los Angeles County, but the radio airwaves are filled with discussions about

CARMAGEDDON

which is the term being used to describe this weekend's closure of a portion of Interstate 405.

Southern California is dominated by vehicular traffic. In my area, Interstate 10 is bad at certain times of the day, and not so bad at other times. From my observations, Interstate 405 is always bad, and will presumably be worse when

CARMAGEDDON

closes access from the San Fernando Valley to the main portion of Los Angeles.

The term itself is a play upon the word "armageddon," which is used in Christianity and other religions to refer to end-of-world events. In this particular case, rather than having the forces of good and evil battle on the Plains of Megiddo, CalTrans workers will battle asphalt on the Pass of Sepulveda.

Businesses are taking advantage of the closure for marketing purposes - since everyone is talking about

CARMAGEDDON

businesses can latch on to the trendiness for publicity purposes. My favorite so far - JetBlue is offering a special short-distance airplane flight from Long Beach to Burbank which roughly parallels Interstate 405, and allows travelers to avoid the closed area.

Now I'm sure that some people, especially in the circles in which I...um...travel, are decrying the misuse of the term "Armageddon" to refer to a relatively inconsequential secular event that will be forgotten a week from now. Of course, the term may be misused in the future. Will an effort to raise the drinking age to 25 be referred to as "Barmageddon"? Will a shortage of toilet paper be called "Charmageddon"? Will renewed moves to apply political correctness to comedy clubs be referred to as "Har-de-har-harmageddon"?

But the misuse of this term is nothing like the misuse of another term - a misuse that has been going on since June 1972. In that month, people connected to Nixon Administration officials broke in to an office in a complex in Washington, DC known as the Watergate. This burglary led to the resignation of a President, so it obviously attracted a lot of attention. Ever since then, many scandals (and many non-scandals) have been referred to with words ending in the suffix "-gate." When item XXX happens, you can rest assured that there will be reports on XXXgate very soon afterwards.

My favorite?

"Willgate," as reported by Paul Boller in his book Presidential Campaigns, in which it was revealed--admitted by--George Will, conservative columnist, that he acted as a debate coach for Reagan while supposedly being a "neutral" reporter....

The big concern, as noted by Boller, was that Will praised Reagan's performance in the debate. While this was certainly a lapse in ethics (Louis Gray's ethics disclosure images did not exist at that time), it wasn't necessarily...um...the end of the world. It didn't even materially influence the presidential election of 1980 - if Will had disclosed his service as a debate coach, would tons of votes have swung to Carter? Not likely.

My fear, as expressed in the title of this post, is that this weekend will result in some sort of scandal. If this happens, the scandal will be called Carmageddongate, or perhaps Geddongate for short.

And if Ashton Kutcher or Justin Bieber tweet about it, this would truly be a sign of the end times.

Know your international law, or face consequences you don't expect

Because the Internet traverses (almost) everywhere, we often make assumptions that everyone is just like us, and every culture is just like our culture.

But these assumptions can go awry. For example, Google+ has a feature called "Incoming." Most of us wouldn't give that feature a second thought. But what if you were a war veteran suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? (This was mentioned in Google+, but I can no longer find the comment that mentioned it.)

But some assumptions have more serious consequences. What if you were to write the following in a restaurant review?

The woman, identified by her last name only, complained of cockroach infestation, parking chaos and salty food...

Now the restaurant owner obviously wasn't happy. One would expect that the restaurant owner would take the reviewer to civil court and slap her with a huge lawsuit. But things are apparently a little different in Taiwan:

The Taichung District Court originally concluded that Liu’s review “exceeded reasonable bounds,” and handed down the 30 day sentence.

Yes, a 30 day sentence. As in jail sentence.

It's unclear whether the reviewer served any time in jail, but she did have to pay a hefty fine. For one, a health inspector apparently didn't find any cockroaches. But there was another reason for the fine:

The court opined that characterizing the restaurant’s food as “salty” was unreasonable as Liu only sampled one dish...

Yes, that's right. A restaurant reviewer was fined for referring to a restaurant's food as salty.

I bet that a lot of restaurant owners are thinking about moving to Taiwan right now.

Oh, there's one more thing - the restaurant reviewer was a blogger.

For some people, that justifies the jail sentence, I guess...

The differences between order tracking and order tracking

For over a century, people have been ordering goods via mail order, and that practice isn't going to disappear any time soon. In the 21st century, those of us who order goods often track the progress of our order online.

In some cases, the order tracking can be very detailed. Via the use of bar code technology, you can find out when the package left the point of origin, when it arrived at a local processing center, when it arrived at a major processing facility (for example, when FedEx packages arrived in Memphis, Tennessee), when it reached the destination city, when it got loaded onto a destination truck, and when it actually arrived at the destination (and who signed for the package).

In some cases, the order tracking is less detailed.

On Sunday, I went to a major department store to get some shoes. I won't reveal the name of the department store, which was founded by James Cash Penney. The store didn't have my preferred size and color in stock (actually, their computer said it was in stock, but it wasn't), so I requested a "ship to store" option. When I received my receipt, the receipt told me how to track my order.

This excited me, because I love to track these types of things. When we have international visitors, I track their flights ("they're over Quebec now!"). And I track packages.

So Sunday night, I went to the shipment tracking site - not that I was expecting much. According to the site, the shipment is pending.

Today, Wednesday afternoon, I went back to the site, which now says that the shipment is pending, and also says that it's shipped. And it doesn't say much else.

Order Information
JOHN BREDEHOFT
Order Number: xxxxxxx
Order Date: 7/10/2011
Invoice Number: xxxxxxx
Status: Pending Shipment
Method: Ship To Store
Routing: STORE DELIVERY
Date Shipped: 7/11/2011

So I have no idea where the shipment originated, no idea where my package is, and no idea when it will arrive at my local store. All that I know is that it shipped from somewhere on Monday.

One can argue that the department store should NOT disclose the whereabouts of the item, because that could potentially reveal information that is valuable to competitors.

But this all goes to show you that "order tracking" can mean different things, depending upon who is doing the tracking.

On Agritourism

My father-in-law grew up on a farm, and is obviously used to rural life. A few years ago, he ended up shaking his head when his son-in-law (me) and his daughter (my wife) spent a lot of time on a cross-country trip taking pictures of hay bales.

I wonder what he'd think about agritourism.

I had never heard the term until I saw Sheila Scarborough use it, so I had to check it out. A little over a year ago, Scarborough commented on this Sally Berry post, and I checked out what Berry said.

Agritourism has been loosely defined as any activity or agriculturally based operation that brings a visitor to a farm or ranch. People are realizing that they have been disconnected from their food sources and the opportunity to spend some time in a rural setting and watch and learn how their food is grown has growing appeal.

Anyone who has actually worked on a farm for a living probably thinks the idea is ridiculous:

My two adult sons spent one summer helping a local farmer with his hay operation and they would laugh if they knew that there are people out there looking for a chance to work 14 hour days in the July heat stacking 50 pound bales of hay to the top of a barn! Nonetheless, people are looking for vacations that connect them back to the land and their food.

After all, what is a vacation? A change in routine. And for a suburban or urban person, a stint on a farm would certainly be a change in routine.

In her Facebook feed, Scarborough mentioned two initiatives (although there are certainly many more): the Arkansas Agritourism Initiative (Facebook page here) and Oklahoma Agritourism (Facebook page here).

(empo-tuulwey) When the new tool isn't as good as the old

The Catalina Restaurant Group owns both Carrows Restaurants and Coco's Restaurant and Bakery. Both chains offer sit-down dinners, leaning toward comfort foods, along with desserts.

And both have recently introduced a new tool for use by the restaurant staff.

A little over a week ago, we visited one restaurant in one of the chains, and our waitress came to take our dessert order. We had noticed other waitresses were using small tablet computers to take the orders. Our waitress didn't, explaining that it was difficult to input desserts into the tablets, so she was going to hand-write our order for now and enter it into the computer later.

Last weekend, we visited another restaurant in one of the chains, and the waitress took our order using the tablets. After she entered the order, I asked her whether she was getting the hang of the tablets, and mentioned that the waitress at the other restaurant was having trouble with it.

Our new waitress said that the tablets weren't hard to use, but that it took a long time to enter stuff into them. She said that she could hand-write orders a lot faster, but that "we're not allowed to do that."

So how long before restaurants move to the next step? Some already have, according to Mashable. Two companies, E La Carte and Tabletop Media, provide tablets that allow customers to enter their orders without giving them to a waiter or waitress.

Why the interest in providing every table with their own touch-screen tablet? For starters, people buy more food when they can do so instantly, without waiting for service. In the six restaurants that ran a pilot scheme, according to CEO Rajat Suri, customers at E la Carte tables spent 10% to 12% more than those at other tables.

But I don't see this trend as being universal. As you can probably guess from the descriptions of the restaurants, both Carrows and Coco's cater to a slightly older clientele. And many of these people would prefer to give their orders to a nice person, rather than punch buttons on a TV.

And what about the wait staff at Catalina Restaurant Group? Presumably they shifted to these devices to improve efficiency, to ensure that orders are input correctly, and to capture metrics. All well and fine, but if your software users are complaining that your software is not useful, then you may have a problem.

I'll grant that it's early in the process, and perhaps a month or two from now both waitresses will be zipping through the tablet menus rapidly. But in the meantime, I wouldn't rely on the metrics being captured at the moment - in some cases, the meals might be entered into the tablets just before the bill comes.

More Google+ and LinkedIn comparisons

As short-term link-following readers of this blog know, The Next Web posted a piece that claimed that LinkedIn was threatened by Google+. I disagree in this Empoprise-BI post. But there are others talking about Google+ and LinkedIn:

• A Business Insider podcast asks why Google didn't just buy LinkedIn.


• This is a follow-up to another BusinessInsider article, posted way back on May 3.


• From a company perspective, the Huffington Post compared the IPOs of the two companies. (Uh...)

(empo-tuulwey) No, Google+ did not just kill LinkedIn

When a shiny new toy comes along, many people initially get excited about the shiny new toy. Even if the S.N.T. doesn't immediately offer everything that you want, the S.N.T. obviously has potential, and that new electric car is bound to include a bacon fryer Real Soon Now.

And the shiny new toy does not only promise to obliterate its immediate competition, but it creates a PARADIGM SHIFT that renders everything else obsolete. Take, for example, the way in which all of the major media companies immediately filed for bankruptcy after mp3.com version 1.0 gave power to music-making individuals (like Ontario Emperor). Once mp3.com appeared, the EMIs and BMGs of the world all disappeared, and no one even remembers them today...what, they didn't die? Oops, my bad.

Which brings us to Google+. There is a vocal minority of people that believe that Mark Zuckerberg should close up shop right now. After all, even Facebook's newly introduced video features don't allow you to have ten people in a chat. Google+ is therefore five times better than Facebook, which means that it will have five times 750 million users within months, and will increase its user base exponentially after that. Once Google+ reaches 50 billion users, can Facebook even compete?

Yes, that is the type of thinking that you can find in some circles.

Wait, it gets better. Google+ has not only doomed Facebook, but has also doomed LinkedIn:

It seems to me that Google+, from my initial tinkerings, may actually lend itself better to the professional social world than to the consumer one. For that reason, I’m going to posit that LinkedIn may well be quivering in its little post-IPO boots.

And why should LinkedIn be quivering? Because they have not advanced their platform at any meaningful level.

How do we know that LinkedIn has not advanced at any meaningful level? Look at Google+!

LinkedIn doesn’t have any integrated real-time chat facility, something that’s surely vital these days for any social network? Facebook and Google are both striving to make all social activity take place within the platform, with LinkedIn there’s still too much third-party platforms required to properly network.

There's an issue here - you can't do everything you want in LinkedIn - and one big assumption - that LinkedIn is a social network like any other social network.

Wrong.

Remember that there are business and consumer users of products. Just like certain web browsers are better for business use while others are better for consumer use, you can say the same thing about social networks.

• Facebook is primary for consumer use, although there are obviously some consumer-business interactions taking place on Facebook also. However, there are very few business-business communications on Facebook, although they conceivably could happen for small companies (IBM is not about to adopt Facebook for inter-office communication).


• Google+ is still in its infancy, but once it rolls out business support, Google+ has the potential for offering all types of communication - consumer, consumer-to-business, and business. Google+ is pretty much a general-purpose toolkit - not the best tool for every job, but a pretty good tool for a lot of jobs.


• Unlike the other two networks listed above, LinkedIn is a business network. The end. I'm not going to go to the Procter & Gamble page on LinkedIn to get grocery store coupons.

No, LinkedIn does not have real-time chat. And LinkedIn does not have any built-in videoconferencing - I'll grant that videoconferencing might be a good way to expand. But LinkedIn does have my resume. A Google profile isn't really suited to contain a resume, and on Facebook I have to use the third-party service BranchOut to include my resume.

LinkedIn does not do everything, but it is very good at what it does - keep my resume, maintain business references, and maintain business contacts. Google+ can be tweaked to do some of this stuff, but using a Google+ profile for a resume is substandard, and using a Google+ profile for references is not recommended.

Now for all I know, Google may be working on "Google Resume" in its labs, and once that gets rolled out, it can be integrated with Google+ and Google Voice and everything else to provide you with a stellar business application.

But before assuming that Google Resume (if it exists) will put LinkedIn out of business, remember that everything that Google touches does not turn to gold. In fact, in the same way that you have a vocal minority loudly proclaiming that Google+ renders the entire universe obsolete, you have another vocal minority that is loudly proclaiming that Google+ will be a failure, just like several Google social media attempts before it.

So I'm not trashing my LinkedIn profile just yet.

Then again, consider the source - I haven't trashed my MySpace profile either.

When there are multiple security programs, is there any security program?

[DISCLAIMER: I AM EMPLOYED IN THE BIOMETRICS INDUSTRY. THE REASON FOR THIS DISCLAIMER WILL BECOME OBVIOUS AS YOU READ THIS POST.]

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reprinted a Chicago Tribune article (and yes, it's from this year) that was originally written by Jon Hilkevitch. The Star-Tribune's article title is "Pilot screening test raises security fears." Hilkevitch contacted a number of organizations regarding the "KnownCrew" test at O'Hare and Miami International Airports. Among the organizations contacted by Hilkevitch were the Reason Foundation, the Air Transport Association, Congressman Bennie Thompson, and the Airports Council International.

I was curious about the Reason Foundation's stand on the KnownCrew program. In the article, the Reason Foundation's Robert Poole decried the lack of biometric verification of KnownCrew participants. (KnownCrew relies on visual examination of a photo ID, coupled with textual information on the person gathered from employment records.)

But when I went to the Reason Foundation's own website, Poole painted a picture of a system that goes well beyond whether or not it uses biometrics. Actually, I shouldn't say "system" - I should say "systems." But first, let's start by looking at the need for a separate system for airline personnel.

It ought to be a no-brainer: provide a simple way to enable cockpit and cabin crew to bypass TSA’s one-size-fits-all screening checkpoints. After all, cockpit crews have control of a potentially lethal guided missile. Some are authorized to carry guns, and all have access to a large rescue axe in the cockpit; surely we don’t need to check them for box-cutters.

So a system was approved for test.

CrewPass .. has been in airport testing (at Pittsburgh, Columbia, and Baltimore) since June 2008. It meets the basic requirements set forth by TSA in June 2009 (real-time verification of employment, biometric confirmation of identity, and capable of handling both cockpit and cabin crew). It uses ARINC’s Cockpit Access Security System (CASS), but many airlines don’t want to pay ARINC to gain access to their own data employee data for this purpose. And CrewPass is intended to be domestic-only, which limits its appeal to many airlines with extensive international routes.

So a second system emerged.

Southwest proposed a test of a different system, which TSA allowed to be implemented for a two-month pilot program at BWI in autumn 2008, jointly sponsored by Southwest, its pilot union, the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations (CAPA), and Priva Technologies (which developed the biometric verification technology). That test was considered a success. Last November, American Airlines proposed an improved version of that system to be implemented first at its DFW hub. Called SecureCrew, it has been endorsed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as the proposed international system, with KLM designated as the first international participant.

The request for KLM participation was denied by TSA, by the way.

Now the third system, KnownCrew, has emerged:

The Air Transport Association (ATA) and pilots’ union ALPA have received TSA approval to test their KnownCrew system at Miami and Chicago O’Hare, beginning as early as the end of June. ATA will provide laptop computers for TSA checkpoints at MIA and ORD, which will tap directly into airline personnel databases to verify employment status (bypassing ARINC’s CASS). It will apparently not include a biometric verification—both SecureCrew and CrewPass use fingerprints for this purpose—which means it does not comply with all of TSA’s June 2009 specifications.

So there are three...um...pilot systems, none of which has been approved. Poole blames TSA for the current impasse:

It needs to move speedily to a decision and get the selected system into widespread U.S. airport use.

Now however one might feel about biometrics, or however one might feel about airlines having to pay someone else to access their own data, the fact remains that for whatever reason, there are now three competing security systems. And while competition is certainly good in the economy, the use of three differing security systems causes big security loopholes, since a potential security threat can pick and choose his/her entry into the system based upon the security technology that will let him/her through the security gate.

Multiple security programs result in no security program at all.

Granted that this is a pilot, but based upon the way that government works, who knows how long it will take to resolve the differences between the various systems.

(And I repeat my common assertion: for those who fear that Big Brother will result in a bunch of agencies working together to gang up on you, this is yet another example of how a single agency is unable to work with itself. If the TSA can't agree on something, then how are the TSA and Mossad and the Rockefellers going to work together?)

Shannon Stone and catastrophic events

The mission of the Brownwood Fire Department is to minimize the loss of life and damage to property and the environment resulting from fires, medical emergencies, rescues, and disasters through fire suppression, medical services, prevention, education, and other related emergency and non-emergency activities.

We will actively participate in our community, serve as role models, and strive to effectively and efficiently utilize all of the resources at our command to provide a service deemed excellent by our citizens.

Sadly, the Brownwood Fire Department suffered its own loss of life Thursday evening:

Brownwood Fire Marshal Buddy Preston confirmed that a Brownwood Firefighter died Thursday after he took a fall at a Texas Rangers baseball game in Arlington. Officials state that he is a husband and father.

The firefighter died after taking a head-first fall out of the outfield stands during Thursday night’s game between the Rangers and the Athletics.
The accident happened during the second inning as Josh Hamilton picked up a foul ball and tossed it into the stands for a fan.

Subsequently, the fan was publicly identified as Shannon Stone, who had been with the Brownwood Fire Department for 18 years.

Arguments could probably be made that this tragedy, like the Sundance Resources tragedy that I talked about earlier, could have been prevented. But it's impossible to prevent against any tragedy - the only way to prevent the death of Robert Seamans would have been to eliminate stairway railings, an act which would have resulted in more deaths. And even today I heard a radio caller declaring that he did NOT want any additional barriers between fans and players.

There is a certain level of danger in everyday living, and there is always the risk that something unfortunate could happen. I drive on southern California freeways and roads every day - on one of those days, back in 1991, my car was hit by another vehicle, and my car ended up flipping over.

I'm an advocate of seat belts now, but sometimes there isn't a "seat belt" to protect you.

On false positives (the antivirus kind)

The phrase "false positive" refers to something that is judged as true when it is actually false. For example, if an AFIS (not from my company or any of my esteemed competitors) said that my fingerprints were identical to those of Charles Manson, then that would be considered a false positive. (I was in Illinois at the time. I have witnesses.)

The same phrase can be applied to anti-virus software. Dave Winer is getting infuriated that McAfee claims scripting.com is dangerous. Winer states that:

The files they [McAfee] claim are trojans are actually archives of back-issues of this site. Snapshots taken on the 10th anniverary, in 2007. They're lying when they say they looked inside these files. They couldn't possibly have. All they contain are text files.

But Winer at least has a platform that is read by influential members of the tech community. Others do not. NirSoft:

Unfortunately, most Antivirus companies goes too far with their Virus/Trojan protection, and in many times they classify completely legit software as Virus/Trojan infection.

One good example for that is my own password recovery tools: Most people need these tools to recover their own lost password. These password tools, like many other utilities out there, can also be used by hackers for bad purposes.

The attitude of many Antivirus companies is very tough in this subject -

If it's a tool that can be used by bad guys, it's classified as Trojan or Virus, even when most users need it and use it for good purposes. Antivirus companies don't care that they block their own customers that want to recover their own passwords, and they don't care that they may cause their customer to think that I'm a Virus distributer.

I must say that some Antivirus companies are a little more gentle, and classify these tools as "Security Threat" or "Riskware" which is much better than classifying them as Virus or Trojan, but they still prevent the user from running them - by deleting them or by putting them in quarantine.

And some detection companies admit their mistakes:

A Slovenian language directory for Windows Live is causing us considerable headaches this morning, and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

A Network World article has alleged Samsung laptops of having a keylogger. Unfortunately (and to our dismay), the evidence was based off of a false positive by VIPRE for the StarLogger keylogger.

The detection was based off of a rarely-used and aggressive VIPRE detection method, using folder paths as a heuristic....

The directory in question was C:\WINDOWS\SL, and is the Slovenian language directory for Windows Live. This same directory path is used by the StarLogger keylogger.

GFI Labs apologized, and added the following comment:

False positives do happen, it’s inevitable and like all antivirus companies, we continually strive to improve our detections, while reducing any chance of a false positive. This one (admittedly, an incredibly embarrassing one) made it through our processes, and I have met with the senior managers in the area this morning to handle what happened and to continue to improve our processes.

Let's compare how McAfee - the company that marks Dave Winer's scripting.com as a red site - apologized in the wake of a recent issue. Compare the opening of the GFI Labs statement with the statement below:

In the past 24 hours, McAfee identified a new threat that impacts Windows PCs. Our researchers worked to address this threat that attacks critical Windows system executables and buries itself deep into a computer’s memory.

The research team created detection and removal to address this threat. The remediation passed our quality testing and was released with the 5958 virus definition file at 2.00 PM GMT+1 (6am Pacific Time) on Wednesday, April 21.

McAfee is aware that a number of customers have incurred a false positive error due to this release. We believe that this incident has impacted a small percentage of our enterprise accounts globally and a fraction of our consumer base–home users of products such as McAfee VirusScan Plus, McAfee Internet Security Suite and McAfee Total Protection. That said, if you’re one of those impacted, this is a significant event for you, we understand that and we’re very sorry.

Yes, McAfee admitted its mistake. In the third paragraph.

The chances of a profuse apology to Dave Winer are somewhat remote.

Although some of the people who see McAfee's reporting on scripting.com may conclude that the site is dangerous after all. McAfee reports that scripting.com includes links to sites such as harvard.edu and nytimes.com. In some of the circles in which I travel, that's just about as bad as having a Kenyan national as President.

So red is green? (Oracle's ads)

One of Oracle's blogs includes the post Save the planet, dump your Teradata. Excerpt:

Softbank Mobile Corporation, a fast growing mobile telecommunications provider based in Tokyo, Japan, has gained eight times the data warehouse processing capacity while replacing 36 Teradata racks with just three Oracle Exadata racks.

Unfortunately, neither the blog post nor the associated case study (PDF) stated the model number or the age of the Teradata system that was being replaced.

I'm sure that Teradata can counter that one of their new systems can replace a boatload of old Sun hardware.

So which operating system is becoming more popular? We don't know.

I've previously talked about the fact that no one uses Windows any more - except for well over 80% of the population. But I recently saw some statistics that were surprising.

I use Google Analytics to track macro data about all of the wonderful people who visit this blog, and therefore I received a newsletter from the Google Analytics folks. For all of the pages that Google Analytics is tracking, Google provided some statistical comparisons for two periods - 11/1/2009 through 2/1/2010, and 11/1/2010 through 2/1/2011.

During this period, the number of Windows users continued to decline - from 89.9% to 84.8%.

One would think that the gains might occur in the Mac world. But Mac usage only went up from 4.5% to 5.2%.

Ah, you say, it's Linux that's trouncing them both! Not exactly. Linux went up from 0.6% to 0.7%.

So who gained? All of the other operating systems. The report says that "Other" went up from 5% to 9.3%.

Unfortunately, Google didn't provide additional detail on this category, but it's obvious that the number of different operating systems used by people is proliferating. I don't know whether these are primarily mobile operating systems, or whether the PICK brigade is staging a comeback. It does, however, show that a strategy that only includes two or three operating systems will alienate some users.

Of course, some will ask the question - does the operating system even matter any more? Perhaps not for some applications, but it clearly matters for others.

Lies, damned lies, and @aplusk and @bjmendelson

I came rather late to this tempest in a teapot, but it appears that Ashton Kutcher and the Village Voice have had a little spat.

It all began Kutcher was quoted as saying

It's between 100,000 and 300,000 child sex slaves in the United States today.

The Village Voice responded with an article entitled "Real Men Get Their Facts Straight" - a play on the name of Kutcher's and Demi Moore's campaign, "Real Men Don't Buy Girls." The point of the piece? The Village Voice could find no support for the numbers quoted by Kutcher above.

Kutcher did not take kindly to the piece, and tweeted (in case you haven't heard, Kutcher is a Twitter user) that the Village Voice has soiled hands in the matter, since they accept ads from escort services and don't check the ages of the escorts.

Reactions to the tempest have varied, ranging from the "this proves so-called social media experts are nothing but" types of criticisms, to the "who cares about the accuracy of numbers? one enslaved child is one too many" types of criticisms of the critics.

Of course, if the end justifies the means, then Kutcher is a failure because he hasn't done enough.

Imagine the good that Kutcher could do if he tweeted that there were 5 million child slaves in the U.S. today. That would get people to do something.

Or better still, what if Kutcher claimed that Twitter could help rescue 3 million sex slaves? Sounds like a win-win for everyone.

But Kutcher already has an ally:

The That 70s Show actor tweeted messages to American Airlines, Columbia University, Disney and Domino's on Friday asking "are you aware that you are advertising on a site (the Village Voice site) that supports the Sale of Human Beings (slavery)?"

Kutcher's tweets prompted a quick response from American Airlines, who wrote, "Thank you! will do! RT @AmericanAir @aplusk We will address this IMMEDIATELY. Can you please DM us detail of the site, including a link?"

See the @AmericanAir tweet here.

On Friday afternoon, Kutcher posted an update about the airline's business with the paper's parent company, Village Voice Media, indicating that they were pulling advertising dollars, "Thank you! Via dm @AmericanAir --> Heads up: Ads should be down w/in the hour. Blank ads are being served for now."

Unfortunately, this didn't make @AmericanAir a hero in the eyes of everyone. @KevinMRyan:

Love how @AmericanAir reponds to Kutcher's twitter accusations but not people who actually fly the airline

And people like Brandon Mendelson maintain that the child sex statistics aren't the only things that are false:

The Asshole Based Economy consists of people who package and sell lies for their own gain. On the Web, that's usually Cyber Hipsters, marketers, and other stakeholders in the myth of social media like analysts, advertising agencies, and corporations heavily invested in the myth.

And what do these people do when they are criticized?

Misdirection: The issue is quickly changed to something that's more favorable to the Asshole Based Economy Member. "Don't pay attention to the fact that I got my shit wrong, let's look at this other awful thing. Isn't that just awful?"

And in the age of transparency, in which we are all supposed to disclose everything that could possibly influence us (which reminds me that I have to disclose that I don't watch much TV, so therefore may be negatively biased toward TV actors), Mendelson wonders if Kutcher's motives should be a little more explicitly disclosed:

[T]he tactics Kutcher is encouraging people to utilize to fight the sex slave trade don't really solve the problem at all as much as they line the pockets of large not-for-profits, and if you think large not-for-profits are less greedy, evil, and shitty than large multinational corporations, you got another thing coming: They're worse....

So Kutcher does this thing, lines his pockets, lines his friends pockets, gives out bad information, and pretends to care about an "important" issue.

Question - would Mendelson have written such a post about Kutcher if Kutcher had responded to the Village Voice article in a different way?

Answer - probably not.

Oh, another disclosure - Mendelson is writing a book that will not necessarily praise social media practitioners, so his post above helps to promote his book and provide him with immense wealth and fame and maybe a guest spot on "Two and a Half Men." Or maybe not.

Why today is not a holiday

Some bloggers are taking a break on July 4 because it's a holiday.

Of course, it's only a holiday in the United States.

And while my blog primarily gets its traffic from the United States, there's a good reason for U.S. business bloggers to write posts on July 4.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are over 311 million people in the United States.

However, there are over 6.946 billion people in the world, according to those same estimates.

So while some of us may not be working, it's just another work day to 95% of the world's population.

Something to think about.

Brand Power!

This is a response to a Steven Hodson post entitled Brand Power? (with a question mark). Hodson is fond of pointing out the silliness that sometimes passes for wisdom in social media circles, and in this post he raises some objections to the current obsession with protecting one's personal brand.

After sharing the definitions of the words "brand," "person," and "individual," Hodson states the following:

At no point does person or individual ever equate to being a brand, just as a brand doesn’t equal being a person or individual. Yet in our modern Internet world we are constantly told, especially when it comes to social media, that we need to protect our brand, that we need to get our brand out there.

Hodson then states:

Brands are not human, they are an intangible concept at their best and a pure marketing mechanism at their worst. Persons, or individuals, are human and as such have a much greater inherent worth to them so why are we placing so much value on something that is for the most part dead and has a worth that is purely transient.

Read the rest of Hodson's post here.

While thinking about this, I began thinking of a few exceptions, and then thought of one very big basic exception to this:

Colonel Harland Sanders.

I've written about him before, most significantly in this post. But I never really looked at his entire life story.

Harland Sanders was born back in 1890, and held down a number of different jobs, including farmer, streetcar conductor, railroad fireman, insurance salesman, and service station operator.

At age 40, Sanders was running a service station in Kentucky where he would also feed hungry travelers. He eventually moved his operation to a restaurant across the street, and featured a fried chicken so notable that Sanders was named a Kentucky Colonel in 1935 by Governor Ruby Laffoon.

That was the beginning of the brand - he became so-well known as "Colonel Sanders" that people like me ended up misspelling his first name because we didn't know it.

In 1952 he closed the restaurant. End of story? No, because that's when he began to build up a franchising business, in which he franchised his restaurants all over the country. In the process, Colonel Sanders became the brand of the company, Kentucky Fried Chicken.

In 1964 he sold the company. End of story? No, because the new owners realized that they needed Colonel Sanders the brand to continue to sell Kentucky Fried Chicken. Even after he began to suffer from the effects of old age, he was still the brand of Kentucky Fried Chicken - a brand that the bean-counters who ran the company needed.

In 1980 he died. End of story? No, because even when the outlets changed and became KFC, a Colonel cartoon character continued to hawk the chicken.

Now Colonel Sanders was a living breathing person - well, at least until 1980 - but he was also a brand. An important brand.

What would have happened to Kentucky Fried Chicken if Harland Sanders had married a black woman in 1955?

What would have happened to Kentucky Fried Chicken if Harland Sanders had become a vegetarian Buddhist in 1965?

What would have happened to Kentucky Fried Chicken if Ray Kroc had hired Harland Sanders in 1975?

Now I realize that there are many people like Steven Hodson who pooh-pooh the idea of personal branding, and I also realize that there are job counselors and resume writers who think that EVERYONE needs to engage in personal branding.

But it's fascinating to look at people like Harland Sanders - and, to a slightly lesser extent, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates - who have in essence become brands.

Although Steven Hodson has already responded to an earlier version of my thoughts:

Even with your example of Colonel Sanders he wasn’t the brand – that was KFC and it has changed many hands over the years yet it is the person we remember.

Put your hat back on - Head & Shoulders #HatsOffNYY and #HatsOffLOS

Do you listen to sports talk radio?

Did you hear all of the sports talk hosts gabbing incessantly about the Head & Shoulders "hats off" promotion - where you can tweet about the "hats off" moments of your favorite MLB team (with the winning team getting a charity donation)?

Presumably the Head & Shoulders people thought that baseball fans would get engaged, and that when player X made a great play, they'd all rush out and tweet #HatsOffXXX (where "XXX" is the appropriate designation for your team, as found on the Head & Shoulders for Men Facebook page.

Now I, who live in southern California, had a different idea. I thought that perhaps this would be a wonderful vehicle to vent my feelings about the current owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Frank McCourt.

So, beginning on the first day of the competition, June 30, I started venting. Here are a couple of samples:

Amazing play - FrankMcCourt did NOT rob a bank this morning (at least with a gun) #HatsOffLOS

Frank McCourt is only having a two-martini lunch today. #HatsOffLOS

Yeah, stupid stuff I know, but it beats talking about Google+ 24/7.

But as I did some searches to see how my tweets were influencing the traffic for #HatsOffLOS, I found that my tweets WERE influencing the contest.

In fact, they were dominating the contest.

In fact, they were the only tweets for that hashtag.

Well, I thought to myself, the Dodgers are in last place, so it's understandable that no one is tweeting about them.

Then I found out what Steve Allan said about a team that is actually in contention:

I searched for #HatsoffNYY. You would think with a fan base as large as the Yankees’ there would be at least ONE tweet. Nope. Three strikes and yer out.

Allan explains why:

[T]he keys to a successful Social Media contest are value and simplicity. Neither applies here. Now, I’m not saying that a $50K donation is a bad thing. But, what is my motivation as a contest participant to do this? In other words – what’s in it for me?!

Think about it. I’m watching the Yankees play the Mets and Curtis Granderson makes an amazing catch. What’s the first thing I’m going to do? Why, tweet this “hats off moment” to my followers. Woo-hoo.

I’m not going to explore how a “hats off moment” relates to dandruff prevention. It seems I wear a hat when my dandruff is bad. But, I leave that logic to their advertising agency.

Read the rest here.

It doesn't help that, as of the morning of July 2 - the third day of the contest - the Head & Shoulders page still shows a string of goose eggs, even though we all know that the Dodgers hashtag is getting some traffic (and, after this post hits Twitter, the Yankees hashtag will get traffic also). In other words, Head & Shoulders isn't bothering to update the statistics.

Perhaps they're too embarrassed.

Or perhaps they're just not executing their strategy. There is a Twitter account associated with the promotion - @hsformen. As I write this, the account has tweeted twice - both times on June 30.

In other words, I'm tweeting about the Head & Shoulders promotion more than Head & Shoulders is.

In fact, I'm not sure if I've heard any of those ads on sports talk radio lately. It almost seems like Head & Shoulders and its advertising agency did a bunch of promotion before the start date of June 30, and then just figured that things would happen magically. Or perhaps that Robert Scoble or someone would write about the promotion, causing thousands upon thousands of baseball fans to participate.

Well, unfortunately for Head & Shoulders, only Steve Allan and I have written about the promotion so far.

Oh, I take that back. Seeking Alpha has blogged about the promotion. As has The Street. Unfortunately, all that they did is re-run a Procter & Gamble press release, without comment. (Par for the course for today's journalism.)

My conclusion? The whole contest is pretty flaky in execution, and when you look at it you'll want to quickly turn away. At least until Wisk launches its "ring around the bases" promotion.

A little more on Loren Feldman's redirection

In a previous post, I mentioned that I visited Loren Feldman's professional website, and was redirected to another website. I subsequently discovered that Feldman abandoned some other online properties as well. Brian Tannebaum wrote about it in January:

When I searched for Loren's twitterfeed, it was gone. This was obviously an issue with my computer, as Loren was an active and entertaining voice on twitter. So I checked again. Gone. This was surprising to me, and I know shocking to others whose entire existence revolves around the twitter bird.

Tannebaum linked to a Feldman post that explained, in detail, why he was withdrawing from some areas of the social media universe. Here are a couple of excerpts:

I just could not believe that nobody else felt the way I did. How is it that nobody else ever spoke up? How is that a two bit comedian, and amateur puppeteer had to be the one? I gave so much more than I got. What I got was my ass handed to me. So much money lost, so much time, so much of myself. Wasted. For what? Nothing, that’s what....

When me and my dear friend Jason Calacanis first met years ago ... [h]e said something to me that I never forgot. “You really care don’t you?” Yeah I did, and then I stopped. I had to.

However, it appears to be inaccurate to say, as Tannebaum did, that Feldman "[said] good bye to social media." Not only does Feldman continue to advise his clients on social media, but he also continues to use it himself. Or should I say herself?

No, that's another Loren Feldman. (Although I'm sure that MISTER Feldman could eventually adjust to Virginia Beach.)

The 1938 Creative guy is still posting videos (here is one of a recent gay pride parade in New York) and is still tweeting. He's just refocusing himself rather than withdrawing entirely.

As the former Ontario Emperor, I can relate.

Google wants yo momma on Google+. Google's customers demand it

As I noted in my Thursday morning post, I received an invite to Google+ courtesy Mark Trapp. As can be expected in any beta environment, many of the Google+ participants are early adopter types.

And that suits Robert Scoble just fine:

Come on now, we geeks and early adopters and social media gurus need a place to talk free of folks who think Justin Bieber is the second coming of Christ. That’s what we have in Google+ right now. Do we really want to mess that up?

Let me clue you in on a little secret - those of us in the Google+ invite aren't exclusively talking about the merits of various development processes. Scoble's own post title (and my own) alludes to a slew of Google+ themed "yo momma" jokes that are bouncing around (jokes that include words like "huddle"). FriendFeed users have already seen a rather infamous poster of a large Asian man whose nipples are being licked by other Asian men.

But - and perhaps you should sit down before you read the rest of this sentence - this is not where Google wants Google+ to be.

While Google admittedly creates some properties for geekier types, Google's customers demand that services such as Google+ become compelling destinations for a much wider audience. Google's customers want yo momma, and yo grandmomma, to get with the service.

You just have to remember who Google+'s customers are. And they're not Robert Scoble, or his wife, or my daughter (referenced in my first comment to Scoble's post).

Google's customers are its advertisers.

Google wants to attract people away from Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo so that they're looking at Google ads twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And Google wants as many people as possible to view those ads.

So today Google+ has video chat, but Google realizes that this is not enough to get eyeballs on those ads. And the present level of integration probably isn't enough either. (Picasa is not the game-changer here. I have tons of pictures in Picasa because of my Blogger blogs, and I still haven't visited Picasa yet.)

Expect Google to incrementally add features to Google+ that will draw more eyeballs to Google. That's how Google will keep its true customers happy.

Incidentally, my second comment addresses the "yo momma" comment that Robert Scoble (and I) used in our post titles, and how the very use of that title reinforces Scoble's view of the Google+ community - basically, the Justin Bieber-loving masses who did not score Google+ invites presumably never saw all the Google+ "yo momma" jokes, and therefore "don't get it."

(empo-tuulwey) Enterprise and individual users are different, even when they're the same

My brain has been pondering this for a while, and I still don't see a solution.

Jake Kuramoto linked to a Peter Bright post in Ars Technica that looked at, among other things, the contrasting needs of enterprise users and individual users (primarily techies).

An individual techie user isn't really going to worry if there's only a three-month difference between Firefox 4 and Firefox 5.

For an enterprise user - or, more accurately, the enterprise user's IT department - that's a big worry (although Bright argues that it really isn't).

In a comment on Kuramoto's post, I noted that the issue extends beyond web browsers. Take a look at Adobe Acrobat, for example - some people are urging that enterprises prohibit its use - and I know of one company that has actually implemented such a prohibition. Several years ago, any attempt to use an iPhone for business was controversial - a repeat of similar arguments that were made several decades ago when people wanted to use a Macintosh at work.

Essentially, corporations have to balance two competing facts. On the one hand, allowing the use of product X in the company can offer improved productivity, higher employee morale, better employee retention and recruiting, lower stress levels, higher profits, and Jamie McCourt-like wealth for the approving executives. On the other hand, allowing the use of product X in the company can result in additional compatibility testing, increased risk of bad things happening, and a possible trip to the unemployment line for the approving executives.

What complicates matters is that the users themselves wear two hats. During the day, they use various tools to achieve corporate objectives. At other times (or maybe during the same time) they use various tools to achieve personal objectives.

For example, I'm typing this post at home (no, I'm not typing it on June 30 at 5:00 am) using a web browser that is not approved for use at my company, using an operating system that is not fully approved for use at my company. Frankly, to write this post it doesn't really matter what browser and OS I'm using, but the experience that I'm collecting on this browser and OS is not necessarily applicable to my job - and vice versa.

Despite the reputed convergence between our work selves and our non-work selves, is it possible that we will see a divergence between the two? Will we use Ubuntu and Firefox at home, and then go to work and use Windows and Internet Explorer?

And if so, what are the ramifications of this?

Amazon vs. California - the battle lines are drawn

Often you hear comments along the lines of "If the California government does X, then businesses will move out of state."

Well, one business has partially moved out of California, effective tonight yesterday (Blogger was having problems).

Many of you might not read Inland Utopia, but earlier today Matt Munson posted about the email that he received from Amazon Associates, saying that they might terminate his account, and the accounts of all Californians, should the state pass AB 153 to force online companies with no physical presence in California to charge California taxes.

I am an Amazon Associates member, although I haven't hawked anything on my blogs lately, so I also received that email.

This Yesterday evening I received a second email:

Hello,

Unfortunately, Governor Brown has signed into law the bill that we emailed you about earlier today. As a result of this, contracts with all California residents participating in the Amazon Associates Program are terminated effective today, June 29, 2011. Those California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned before today will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.

You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here. And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program.

To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect your ability to purchase from Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com.

We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. As mentioned before, we are continuing to work on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available.

Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team

Now we'll see what happens...

For some, Google Minus

Johnny was in the living room, playing the Facebook game Gardens of Time on his netbook, when his cousin-in-law Renee walked in the door. Normally Renee would spend the evening watching HD episodes of the Gilmoor Gang, but tonight she decided to visit Johnny.

"What'cha doing?" asked Renee.

"Playing a Facebook game," replied Johnny.

Renee appeared to get agitated over this. "You make me want to throw up," she retorted. "Why aren't you using Google Plus?"

"Why?" Johnny asked.

"WHY? WHY?" replied Renee. "Don't you know that Google Plus is the most revolutionary achievement in computing history? Once the invites get out, people will leave Facebook in droves!"

"Why?" Johnny asked.

"WHY? WHY?" replied Renee. "Because Facebook is just Facebook, and Google Plus is ALL of Google. A complete integrated experience, with a common toolbar, accessing a breadth of information across all of the Google properties."

Johnny watched Renee wax dramatic. "So what are you doing with Google Plus?"

Renee paused for a moment. "Um, nothing yet. I don't have an invite. But Jesse Stay has access, and wrote about the ramifications. Yeah, Jesse Stay, the Facebook author - and even he's thinking that Facebook has fallen behind."

"And after all," Renee continued, "you're the one who purposely targeted your Empoprises so-called empire to use Google products. You use Blogger, you use Google Reader, you use all of the important Google products."

"Not YouTube," Johnny interjected.

"Well, besides that," Renee acknowledged. "I think that you'd be all over this and ready to quit Facebook in a heartbeat!"

"OK," Johnny replied, "I have put in a request for an invite, and I'll certainly try it out, and I'm definitely not as negative on Google Plus as Dave Winer is. But even if Google Plus turns out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, there are hundreds of millions of Facebook users out there. And I have hundreds of friends who don't care about Google Buzz, and who don't know Jesse Stay from Jesse Ventura, and who don't know Robert Scoble from Alex Scoble. And you're telling me that I'm supposed to go to these people and say, 'Sorry, but if you want to talk to me in the future, you're going to have to quit Facebook and join this Google service that is used by a lot of techie people who think that a byte of Java is NOT a condemnation of rock-hard coffee."

Renee shook her head. "Do you really think that all of those people are going to stay on Facebook? And if you really think that Facebook is so wonderful, why don't you just go and hang out on that $35 million dollar service MySpace?"

Now it was Johnny's turn to be agitated? "MySpace? MYSPACE? Who would want to go on that service? That service is only used by welfare cheats and starving musicians. Or perhaps I'm being redundant here-"

"You see?" trumpeted Renee in triumph. "A few years ago MySpace was the king of the mountain, displacing Friendster, which displaced AOL, and now its user base is relatively miniscule. So don't assume that Facebook will always remain on top. Google has a breadth of services that will take Facebook to the cleaners."

"Just one thing," asked Johnny.

"What?" asked Renee.

"Does Zynga have CafeWorld on Google Plus yet?"

P.S. I wrote this post early Wednesday evening. Within the hour, I had received a Google+ invite courtesy Mark Trapp. Not quite ready for a review yet.