Was Francis Gurry right? (Patenting the Internet)

Cory Doctorow has shared a statement that was made in June 2011 by Francis Gurry, who heads the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Doctorow places Gurry's statement in context:

Last June, the Swiss Press Club held a launch for the Global Innovation Index at which various speakers were invited to talk about innovation. After the head of CERN and the CEO of the Internet Society spoke about how important it was that the Web's underlying technology hadn't been patented, Francis Gurry, the Director General of the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), took the mic to object.

This is what he said. This is what Francis Gurry said. [1]

Intellectual property is a very flexible instrument. So, for example, had the world wide web been able to be patented, and I think that is a question in itself, perhaps the amount of investment that has gone into or would be able to go into basic science would be different. If you had found a very flexible licensing model, in which the burden for the innovation of the world wide web had been shared across the whole user community in a very fair and reasonable manner, with a modest contribution for everyone for this wonderful innovation, it would have enabled enormous investment in turn in further basic research. And that is the sort of flexibility that is built into the intellectual property system. It is not a rigid system...

You can imagine how this statement went over with the Boing Boing folks, and with the Google+ folks who shared Doctorow's post. Doctorow applied the label "stupid" to the post. When John Hardy shared the post on Google+, one commenter wrote:

The sooner these geezers die off and are replaced by young generation the better. But I'm afraid the geezers will cause unrepairable damage before they are dead.

I wonder if some of this is knee-jerk reaction, similar to cases in which people get all bent out of shape when someone claims that the late Steve Jobs was not the perfect human being. So let's take a step back and see what would have happened if the Internet had been patented.

First off, you can't just talk about the patenting of the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web itself was built upon an array of earlier technologies. I've previously talked about the fact that I was on an early version of Usenet in the early 1980s. And Usenet, of course, took advantage of a network communication model that had been built previously. Specifically (although I am simplifying things here), the original technologies that underlie the Internet were developed by a variety of (mostly) public entities, including the Advanced Research Projects Agency within the U.S. Department of Defense, the University of California at Los Angeles, and other institutions. Xerox PARC got involved some time in there, and while they could certainly patent stuff, both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates demonstrated that Xerox didn't do anything to guard their intellectual property. (Which raises a whole separate question - what if the original graphical user interface concepts had been patented, and the patents had been enforced? How would that have affected the fortunes of Apple, Microsoft, and other companies that liberally "borrowed" the concepts of others?)

But back to the Internet. Let's assume that some entity - for argument's sake, let's say that it was Xerox [2] - managed to get around the U.S. Department of Defense, the universities, and everyone else, and secure a patent for some of the underlying technologies that facilitated online communications.

Let's return to Gurry's statement from last June:

...perhaps the amount of investment that has gone into or would be able to go into basic science would be different. If you had found a very flexible licensing model, in which the burden for the innovation of the world wide web had been shared across the whole user community in a very fair and reasonable manner, with a modest contribution for everyone for this wonderful innovation, it would have enabled enormous investment in turn in further basic research.

One thing about patents - the patent holder's prime concern isn't the whole user community, or sharing things in a fair and reasonable manner. The patent holder's prime concern is making money off the patent. I don't know if WIPO existed in the mid 1970s, but my guess is that if some forward-thinking person from WIPO would have gone to Xerox to talk about a fair revenue model, Xerox would have told WIPO to go pound sand.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet that Xerox wouldn't really care about Internet users at all - at least in the way that we understand the term. Xerox, after all, was in the business of producing machines like photocopiers. In fact, one of Xerox's primary business concerns is to ensure that the term "Xerox" is not genericized. [3]

So if Xerox owned all of these technologies, I think that their first thought would be as follows:

How can we use our patent to make our photocopiers work better?

The best option would have been the development of an ability to transmit document images between distant photocopiers. This technology, which would have competed with both Exxon's fax machine and AT&T's plain old telephone service, could potentially be sold to large corporations that bought large amounts of Xerox photocopiers. For example, RCA's NBC subsidiary could use the technology to send important documents between its New York and Los Angeles offices.

By 1980, Xerox's competitors would try to set up their own networks to allow transmission of documents. However, they would have been blocked from duplicating Xerox's method because of Xerox's patent. This would have forced them to develop some workarounds, but for the moment let's argue that Xerox's communication technology continues to be the dominant one.

Tools are often used in ways which the toolmaker never envisioned. After most of the NBC employees had gone home for the day, a few renegade employees (perhaps they were writers for "Saturday Night Live") would have sat on the Xerox photocopiers, revealing a part of their bodies that is normally not revealed in public, and used the Xerox technology to send these images to others - the NBC brass in Los Angeles, people at competing networks (Howard Cosell: "I am perturbed by the juvenile antics of certain individuals at the National Broadcasting Corporation who continue to transmit electronic representations of their posteriors to yours truly"), perhaps the Ayatollah, and others. The "electronic butts" fad would then reach the attention of a variety of officials, including a young Australian legal academic named Francis Gurry, and a young Congressman named Albert Gore Jr. Gurry would worry about the legal ramifications of the trend, and who would ultimately be responsible for any criminal activity that would result from the misuse of the technology - the individuals? their employer? technology developer Xerox?

Gore, on the other hand, would have the power to do something about it. Perhaps legislation may not be the answer, but public pressure on business could certain help. His (then) wife Tipper would agree with him, and would set up an organization called the Parents Image Resource Council, an organization that would ask corporations to voluntarily apply ratings to the images that were transferred by their machines. For example, if NBC agreed to PIRC's rating system, then the next time that Al Franken sat on a photocopier to tell Fred Silverman what he thought of him, the transmission would need to be tagged as "MA" (mature audiences). Of course, if Xerox didn't agree to voluntarily implement such a technology, Tipper could just talk to her husband Al and Congress could mandate the technology.

While all of this controversy was going on, some weirdo pinko commies in the colleges were beginning to wonder if this technology could be used to allow humans - rather than machines - to talk to each other. Around 1983, some physics students at Reed College [4] successfully transmitted a text message [5] from a Xerox within Eliot Hall to a Xerox at UC Berkeley. This spread like wildfire, and within a year people at universities all over the United States were sending text messages to each other via Xerox machines. Some students were even claiming that the technology could be used to hook computers all over the country together - or perhaps even all over the world.

Then things became REALLY controversial.

Francis Gurry, who by now was working for the United Nations, would lament the fact that the students were misappropriating patent technology. Congressman (later Senator) Gore would become so identified with patent protection legislation that he would eventually be known as "the father of patent protection" and would speak of a "patent superhighway" that would allow corporations to quickly prosecute those who violated patents.

And Xerox would take advantage of this added protection. A number of the students would be prosecuted and a number of the colleges and universities would be used. Professor Richard Crandall would end up in prison, despite the fact that no one could tie him to what his students were doing. (NeXT chairman Steve Jobs would refer to Crandall [6] as "the biggest bozo in the US.")

Some middle manager at Xerox would suggest that Xerox develop the technology itself to allow people to communicate with each other, but by then no one at Xerox wanted a part of it. Xerox CEO David T. Kearns sent a memorandum to all offices that forcefully stated Xerox's vision:

There are those outside the company who believe that Xerox technology could be used to link individuals. While this is theoretically possible, Xerox is primarily dedicated to producing enterprise products, not consumer products. Our technology is designed to link businesses together. The consumer business should be left to companies like Procter & Gamble. Xerox serves the enterprise.

So Xerox, by protecting its patent portfolio, ensured that the communication technologies initially developed in the 1960s and 1970s were NOT used to create an "internet" or a "world wide web." So what was the result?

• Individuals could continue to communicate with each other, under the auspices of Compuserve, America Online, and GEnie. Of course, they couldn't create their own content.
• Jimmy Wales became a low-level editor for Encyclopedia Britannica.
• The United Nations, which produced mountains of paper every year, was criticized by Al Gore and others for contributing to global warming. As a result, the UN (and other information-disseminating organizations) paid tons of money to Compuserve, AOL, and the others to host their documents online. Because documents had to be placed on multiple services, rather than being hosted at a single location accessible by everybody, the hosting of documents became very costly. People at the UN and elsewhere were not happy that all of this was entirely in the control of (mostly) American firms.
• In 2005, TIME Magazine (a tiny subsidiary of the giant America Online) ran a story about Silicon Valley people who would write messages, photocopy them on Xerox machines, and post them all over the city. The magazine included an interview with one of these people, a technologist named Dave Winer. Winer and his counterparts as "weed blockers" (later shortened to just "blockers") because their prose would block the view of the weeds in the vacant lots where they posted their essays.

Footnotes (yeah, this post had footnotes):

[1] No, I didn't rip off Aaron Copland's patent. I ripped off his copyright. There's a difference.
[2] I considered using (the old) AT&T as the patent holder in my example, but AT&T's future branding as a monopoly would have complicated the example.
[3] OK, now I've shifted to a discussion of trademarks, rather than patents. Oh well.
[4] Their professor, Richard Crandall, had absolutely no idea what the students were doing. Wink wink.
[5] "Hello world."
[6] In reality, Steve Jobs had a high regard for Richard Crandall. Crandall's thoughts upon the passing of Jobs can be found here.

(empo-tymshft) Nine

[NOTE: I like to pride myself on taking the most tangential story and using it to expound on a business lesson. I'm not going to attempt that with this post, although I believe that there are business lessons to be learned here. This is a story that has been bouncing around in my head for...well, it's been bouncing around for a long time. Hope you like it.]

ONE

No one would ever describe the Forever Bar as snooty. It was located in the east side of town, in an older section of the city. The bar itself was a little shabby, but it wasn't dirty. For those who liked such places, it was downright comforting.

On this Tuesday morning the bar was mostly empty. There were just four people in the bar. The bartender was unpacking the day's deliveries. A nondescript blond man in the back left corner of the bar was nursing a dark drink. At the front of the bar, two old friends were talking baseball. From where they sat, they could see the baseball stadium, a couple of blocks away.

"I don't know about this season," said one of the men.

"They did well in spring training."

"Yeah, but Old Man Cobb passed away. He's been here forever."

"That was a shock. I saw him downtown a couple of months ago. He looked healthy."

"And I thought that Junior Cobb would get the general manager job, but this new owner had other ideas."

TWO

Later that day, two men in suits and ties got out of a Mercedes in front of an office building just a block from the Forever Bar. The older man, Frick, was the new general manager of the baseball team. The younger man, Maris, was his assistant.

After they entered the front door of the team offices, they immediately ran into an awkward situation. As Frick and Maris were entering the building, Cobb Junior was carrying the last of his belongings out the door.

"Good afternoon," said Maris. Frick remained silent.

"Your offices are upstairs," replied Cobb. "Uh, before I go, I need to speak to you privately. There are a couple of important things that I needed to, um, pass on about the team. Just to keep things smooth."

Frick, who had been quiet, spoke. "I appreciate your willingness to help," he said, "but I've been charged to take a look at the team with a new set of eyes. Start with a clean slate, as it were."

"It would just take a minute," pleaded Cobb.

"Sorry," Frick replied. "I have a job to do. Come, let's go," he said to Maris, heading up the stairs.

THREE

Two days later, Maris was in Frick's office, going over some papers.

"I can't believe how shoddily this team has been run!" exclaimed Frick. "Money bleeding all over the place. Look at how much we're paying these groundskeepers. Just to cut grass! I'll fire 'em tomorrow, and we'll get a service in here. The season doesn't start for another few days; they should be up to speed in time."

"Where are we going to find a groundskeeping service?" asked Maris.

"We'll use the grass crew that maintains the Frick Company facilities. They've done great work for the last two years!"

Maris typed a note on his laptop: "New groundskeeping service - get name from Betty."

Frick stood up. "Well, I'm about ready for lunch. Did we finish going over the 40 man roster?"

"Not completely," replied Maris. "We still have one more player to review."

"Oh yeah, that Dave guy. Hardly ever plays up here. Comes to spring training, gets sent down to the minors, and then comes up in September."

Maris consulted his notes. "We're only paying him the minimum."

"Yeah, but is he producing?" Frick exclaimed. "It's one thing to cut costs. It's another thing entirely to have cheap labor. If he were producing, I'd keep him, but he's a drag on the organization. We have to win this year, and we're not going to win if we're carrying perpetual minor leaguers."

"Do you want to fire him?" asked Maris.

"No," replied Frick. "I want you to fire him. I don't have time. I have to make sure the opening day promotion is getting onto the website."

Frick walked out the door. "Take care of it today."

FOUR

On Thursday afternoon, down in the stadium clubhouse, everyone was preparing for tonight's game. It was only an exhibition game, but the team had just returned to town from spring training. While the groundskeepers (who didn't know what was going to happen to them the next day) were bustling to get the infield ready, and while the ticket and food vendors were running about, the clubhouse was mostly silent - not typical for the first home exhibition game of the season. The only animation came from Maris, who was talking to a TV crew.

"We believe that we had an excellent spring training, and we're excited to be back here at the stadium," said Maris to the camera. "Mr. Frick, myself, and the entire team are committed to making this season a winning season."

As the TV cameras shut off, Maris happened to see Dave, his bags packed, heading over to the manager. Even in the quiet of the clubhouse, Maris couldn't hear what Dave was saying. But he did hear the manager's reply. "Sure, kid."

The manager then spoke up. "Team meeting! All press and everyone else clear out!"

Maris stood for a moment, not sure if "everyone" included him. He started to walk toward the manager.

The manager grunted in his direction. "Dave wants to say good bye to the team."

"Should I stay?" asked Maris.

"Since you're the guy who canned him," replied the manager, "it's probably best if you leave."

Maris filed out of the door with the others, and shut the door on his way out.

FIVE

A couple of weeks later, the two friends were getting an afternoon drink at the Forever Bar. And they were glum.

"Oh and 10," muttered one of them.

"Unbelievable," said the other, staring at his beer.

"What's into them? The team is playing like they got blocks on their feet, and the manager's managing like he's got a block in his head."

"Did you hear Jim Rome? He was calling us the Cleveland Spiders."

"The who?"

"The Cleveland Spiders. They lost like a hundred games or something back in the 1800s."

"Well, that means that they won about 54. I'm not sure if our team can win that many."

"Well, at least they won't lose today."

"Yeah, it's an off day. They're traveling back home."

"Um...you know, I don't think I'm gonna go to the game tomorrow night."

"I was thinking the same thing. It's depressing."

"The whole town's depressing. Look at this bar! It's late afternoon, and we're the only two here. Normally this place is packed, even when the team's away."

"It's like the team is cursed or something."

"Completely."

SIX

Two nights later, Maris was in his office after the game. Two more losses to add to the total.

The front office was as despondent as the fans. Frick was looking at declining attendance figures - the two guys in the Forever Bar weren't the only two who were skipping this home stand.

Maris, while concerned about the receipts, was also concerned about the team. Maris truly loved the game of baseball, and he was at a complete loss as to what had gone wrong. The manager and players weren't obviously doing anything bad, but for some reason they just weren't winning.

A folder with last year's records was sitting open on Maris' desk. ("Paper records?" exclaimed the tech-savvy Frick when he found out that the team wasn't computerized.) Maris was looking through the files, searching for any clue that could suggest how to set things right. Last year's season was a losing season, but nothing like this.

He was staring at last year's spring training photo, and happened to notice Dave in the back of the crowd, in the upper left corner. Dave's last spring training photo, Maris thought. (He had been in this year's photo, but Frick had Dave airbrushed out after Dave left the team.) At least we're better off than him today, mused Maris. There was Dave in the picture, just a year ago, smiling as if he didn't have a care in the world. He'd been trying to get to the major leagues for a few years, and would stay up for a few games here and there, but never could stick. Now his dreams were dashed, Maris thought.

About a half hour later, Maris was looking at the folder from two years ago and glanced at the team photo. There was Dave, in the upper left corner, smiling again. There wasn't a personnel file on Dave - Old Man Cobb never seemed to keep a file on Dave, probably because he was never part of the 25 man roster - so Maris didn't know how long he had been with the team. How many years had Dave been trying to stick with the team? Maris wondered.

On an impulse, Maris found the folder from three years ago and immediately searched for the spring training picture. There was Dave, smiling in the back as usual.

Maris went through more and more of the folders. Six years ago - the last winning season - Dave was there. Ten years ago - the team's playoff run - there was Dave, in the upper left corner, looking about the same as he did when Maris fired him.

Maris continued to go through the files, like a man possessed.

SEVEN

Early the next morning, the janitor - another man who previously worked for the Frick Company - found Maris at his desk, appearing to be fast asleep.

A folder with the label "1927" lay open before him, and Maris' finger was resting in the corner of a picture of the team.

Maris' face was dead white.

EIGHT

The two friends didn't come to the Forever Bar any more. Hardly anyone did. The bartender had cut back his deliveries, so it didn't take long to stock everything up.

Early one morning, the nondescript man with blond hair walked into the bar, but instead of heading to his usual seat in the back left corner, he headed to a barstool next to the bartender.

"Welcome back!" said the bartender with a smile on his face. "You've been away for a while."

"Yeah," said the man. "I had to leave for a while. I'll have the usual,:" he said, getting out his wallet.

"No, you're not paying for this," said the bartender. "I don't charge people after they've lost their job."

"No, I'm OK, Sam," said the man. "That cash register looks empty; I oughta put something into it."

"I appreciate that, Dave," replied the bartender. "But if you ever need anything, I'll take care of you. You've taken care of me and my family all these years."

"Well, you're a good man," replied Dave. "And your father was a good man, and your grandfather was a good man. And your great-grandfather"

"Dave," asked the bartender. "How are you taking it?"

"Well, it's rough," replied Dave, "but this isn't the first time I ever lost a job."

"Yeah, I know," reflected the bartender. "I heard how my great-grandfather bought the bar in 1925, when the previous owner had to sell after two years of losses. I heard that at one point you were the only guy coming in the bar. Spending all evenings here, since you weren't working"

"Yeah, I remember," said Dave. "But not every everning. Once I went to a game. Nobody recognized me, and I left after an inning. It just was too painful to watch. Hey, I think I'll have another."

"You're having a second?" asked the bartender. "But you gotta - oh, wait. You don't. But this one's on me. I insist."

"Thanks." Dave smiled and drank his second round, pretending not to notice that the bartender was staring at him.

"Dave," asked the bartender. "Do you think you'll make it back to the team and break the curse? I don't think I can handle two years of this," looking at the nearly empty bar, thinking about the nearly empty stadium, and wondering about the nearly empty city

"Well, Sam," replied Dave, "I've seen a lot of team owners in my day. And this one is pretty impatient. He's gonna demand results now, and if he doesn't get them in a couple of weeks - and he won't - that new general manager will be out on the street, same as me. And then the owner will bring in a new general manager, and the same thing will happen again. Finally - probably sooner rather than later - the owner will swallow his pride and ask to have a meeting with Cobb Junior. And then Cobb will tell him the story. The owner won't believe it at first, but by that time he won't have anything to lose. I'll be added to the roster, and things will be back to normal."

"You sure about that?" asked the bartender.

"I'm sure," said Dave confidently.

Dave hated to lie to the bartender, but he didn't have the heart to tell the bartender the truth. The truth was that Dave had been let go from the team three times - once in 1899, once in 1925, and then this spring.

And as every baseball fan knows, three strikes and you're out.

NINE

Update on FTC actions concerning blog post disclosures

Jeannine Schafer's and Louis Gray's FTC disclosure graphics live on.

Most recently, they surfaced in a Sara Hawkins post entitled "Are You Disclosing?" Hawkins not only covers the FTC regulations themselves, but also covers the reasons behind the regulations - as well as what has happened since the regulations went into effect.

Hawkins links to an April 20, 2010 letter from the FTC (File No. 102-3147), addressed to a lawyer for Ann Taylor Stores Inc. (The letter is also available at the FTC website.) In this case, "bloggers who attended a preview on January 26, 2010 failed to disclosre that they received gifts for posting blog content about that event." However, the FTC noted several things regarding this event:

• There was a sign at the preview telling bloggers to disclose gifts, although it was not clear how many bloggers actually sold the sign.
• In their blog posts, several of the bloggers did voluntarily disclose the gifts.
• In February 2010, a written policy was adopted "stating that LOFT will not issue any gift to any blogger without first telling the blogger that the blogger must disclosre the gift in his or her blog."

Under the circumstances, it is understandable why the FTC did not pursue enforcement action. Ann Taylor may have made mistakes, but it appears that Ann Taylor did not intend to have bloggers mislead their readers.

That was not the case with Legacy Learning Systems, also mentioned by Hawkins. Here are excerpts of the 3/15/2011 FTC news release on its $250,000 fine levied against Legacy Learning Systems:

The Learn and Master Guitar program promoted by Legacy Learning and Smith is sold as a way to learn the guitar at home using DVDs and written materials. According to the FTC’s complaint, Legacy Learning advertised using an online affiliate program, through which it recruited “Review Ad” affiliates to promote its courses through endorsements in articles, blog posts, and other online editorial material, with the endorsements appearing close to hyperlinks to Legacy’s website. Affiliates received in exchange for substantial commissions on the sale of each product resulting from referrals. According to the FTC, such endorsements generated more than $5 million in sales of Legacy’s courses.

The FTC charged that Legacy Learning and Smith disseminated deceptive advertisements by representing that online endorsements written by affiliates reflected the views of ordinary consumers or “independent” reviewers, without clearly disclosing that the affiliates were paid for every sale they generated.

Hawkins notes that in both cases, the FTC chose to go after the promoting companies, not the bloggers. However, there's obviously no guarantee that bloggers will get off scot-free in the future.

These two cases serve as a reminder that the FTC is taking its new regulations with some degree of seriousness, and that bloggers should do the same.

Thoughts on Steve Jobs

I don't have any great profound thoughts on Steve Jobs. I never met the man, but my first job out of college was with a software company that eventually developed and sold an educational software package for the Macintosh. Backk then, moving from my UNIX and THEOS background to using a Macintosh computer was an immense change. (Nowadays the two are much closer together.) By the way the company actually released its Macintosh product, Jobs had left Apple.


I've written about Jobs here and there, most recently after he resigned as CEO of Apple, when thoughts naturally turned to the third part of his Stanford University address - the one where he talked about death. And I've written about what I see as the flaws in his vision - see my post When Steve Jobs tried to buy a Helocar.

Personally, I haven't owned an Apple product in about a decade, although members of my family own a variety of Apple products.

But Jobs' flaws, and the odd combination of Jobs' low market share in computers and large market share in personal devices, and the heady competition from the Windows and Linux folks, doesn't detract from Jobs' greatness.

Probably Jobs' greatest contribution to us wasn't his company, or any particular product. Steve Jobs' greatest contribution to us was his vision. John Sculley has compared Jobs to Henry Ford, noting that both were innovators who had grand visions. Sometimes their visions had flaws, but they stuck to their visions. Jobs (and Ford) not only changed their respective industries, but they also changed the world.

And I'm sure that people such as Bill Gates would be the first to state that Steve Jobs changed the world.

It's too bad that he won't be around to continue to change it.

The danger in accepting the status quo (Dan Shechtman, Linus Pauling, and Johns Hopkins)

[10/15/2011 9:45 - SEE MY FOLLOW-UP POST ON UNREALITY.]

If you look at the biography of Dan Shechtman, recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, his time at Johns Hopkins University is described as follows:

In 1981-l983 he was on Sabbatical at the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied rapidly solidified aluminum transition metal alloys (joint program with NBS). During this study he discovered the Icosahedral Phase which opened the new field of quasiperiodic crystals.

And because science is always open to new discoveries, his work was immediately praised...not.

The scientific community is just like any other bureaucratic community. Although Shechtman glosses over it in his official biography, his discovery while at Johns Hopkins caused some controversy:

"People just laughed at me," Shechtman recalled in an interview this year with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, noting how Linus Pauling, a colossus of science and double Nobel laureate, mounted a frightening "crusade" against him, saying: "There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists."

After telling Shechtman to go back and read the textbook, the head of his research group asked him to leave for "bringing disgrace" on the team. "I felt rejected," Shachtman remembered.

It took years for Shechtman's discovery to be accepted by the scientific community. Well, most of the scientific community.

Double Nobel winner Linus Pauling was among those who never accepted the findings.

Johns Hopkins, which has issued several news releases congratulating Nobel Physics winner Adam Riess, has to my knowledge not congratulated Shechtman on his win.

(empo-plaaybizz) Two and a Half Faces

I have previously tried to make biometrics cool, but it's an uphill struggle. For many people - whoops, I forgot the disclaimer:

[DISCLAIMER: I AM EMPLOYED IN THE BIOMETRICS INDUSTRY.]

For many people, biometrics conjures up the idea that every fingerprint scan and every police picture is automatically shared with every police agency in the entire world, plus selected really bad police agencies in other galaxies. This, despite the science fiction element, is considered to be extremely uncool.

But last January, I was trying to think about ways to make biometrics like cool and stuff.

Assuming for the moment that casual use of a technology can increase the acceptance of its use in law enforcement, perhaps this same practice can be applied to other technologies.

Such as the body scanners used by the TSA.

How come the trendiest clubs haven't bought some of these body scanners to install inside their party zones?

Imagine - it's one o'clock in the morning, the star deejay is in the middle of her set, the lights are flashing...and a guy in a police uniform rushes out to the applause of everyone.

"OK," yells the pseudo-cop, "who wants to get scanned?"

After some pushing and shoving around, a few young women and a few young men move toward the pseudo-cop, and The Machine is unveiled, along with a large monitor. One by one, the participants go through the body scanner, and the crowd cheers or jeers depending upon the results of the scan. Winners are selected, and participants will get the option to purchase photos of their scans.

Now I'm sure that some people would charge that this would violate pornography laws, but the nightclub owner will claim that these are just standard Federal Government practices.

Well, I hit upon another idea - why not use Ashton Kutcher to promote biometrics in some way? He's on a hit TV show, he's pals with Robert Scoble, and he's highly regarded as reliable source - well, maybe not. But there is a significant segment of the population - over 7.8 million people - that would listen to Kutcher before listening to Janet Napolitano.

And he's already associated with cameras - see ashton.nikonusa.com.

So why not extend this association and give him superbiometric powers?

Now I have never watched Two and a Half Men, but I understand that most of network TV is really really successful when it has a laugh track. So if you crank the laugh track up really loud, you can sell anything.

Instead of educating TSA inspectors, DHS could just buy the entire advertising block of Two and a Half Men, with the option of introducing things into the scripts.

Such as letting Ashton's character (whatever he's called) wear some super biometric glasses that tie to a DHS database and allow him to immediately know the first names of hot babes his character encounters.

THE DORKY CHARACTER: Hey, who's that hot woman over there?

ASHTON: Hey, kid, get me my glasses!

KID: Here they are.

(ASHTON puts on glasses. Lights on glasses blink.)

ASHTON: Hey, Sara!

(loud laugh track)

Of course, you have to have Ashton's character go through all the biometric modalities. Using a mobile fingerprint scanner to find out who was playing his video game. Looking deep into someone's eyes - deep enough to see the iris detail. Gazing at a woman's wrist, a vein recognition reader close at hand. And, of course, voice recognition.

KID: Telephone! ... Hello?

THE DORKY CHARACTER: Is it for me?

KID: No way!

(loud laugh track)

ASHTON: Hello, who is this?

VOICE: You don't recognize me?

(ASHTON applies a device to the phone receiver. Lights on device blink.)

ASHTON: Demi?!?

(loud laugh track)

Network executives will love it!

#oow11 or #oww11? When the message gets crowded out

Oracle OpenWorld 2011 was scheduled over a year in advance of its actual date, with the hope that news from the conference would be all over the tech press during the week of the gathering.

However, no one can control what actually happens during the week of the event.

Or can they?

I'm not in San Francisco, but I have a sneaking suspicion that attendees were somewhat distracted on Tuesday morning. And Oracle really couldn't do anything about it - how could Oracle have known that Apple would schedule a major announcement on that day?

But there will be a distraction on Wednesday morning - and this distraction is entirely of Oracle's own making. All Things D:

The quietly simmering feud between Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and the former employee he once invested in, Saleforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, has just erupted into a new public spat.

Benioff tweeted ... that he’s been bounced from the speaker’s roster at the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco, and he’s blaming the decision directly on Ellison.

If anyone thought that Benioff would slink away quietly, they were wrong.

Oracle Cancels Salesforce.com Keynote at Oracle OpenWorld 2011
Join Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff at the Ame Restaurant in San Francisco to experience the power of the cloud

SAN FRANCISCO – Oct. 4, 2011 – Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM], the enterprise cloud computing (http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/) company, today announced that Oracle cancelled salesforce.com’s keynote at Oracle OpenWorld 2011. Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff will now speak on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011 at 10:30 a.m. PT at Ame Restaurant in the St. Regis Hotel, San Francisco, CA. Immediately following Benioff’s talk, at approximately 12:00 p.m. PT, he will host a press Q&A. Both events will be streamed live on salesforce.com's website at www.salesforce.com/live.

“Oracle just cancelled my keynote tomorrow. But the show must go on! Everyone is welcome to join me at Ame Restaurant tomorrow to hear about the social enterprise. Sorry Larry, the cloud can't be stopped,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com.

Additional Resources
• To watch Benioff’s session and the press Q&A live, go to http://www.salesforce.com/live.
• A live audiocast of Benioff’s session and the press Q&A will be available at http://www.salesforce.com/company/investor/.
• Follow @salesforce on Twitter.
• Become a fan of salesforce.com on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Salesforce.
About Salesforce.com
With 100,000+ customers, salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company that is leading the shift to the social enterprise. Social enterprises leverage social, mobile and open cloud technologies to put customers at the heart of their business. Based on salesforce.com's real-time, multitenant architecture, the company's platform and application services include:

Salesforce Chatter, a private social network for your business
Salesforce Sales Cloud, for sales force automation and contact management
Salesforce Service Cloud, for customer service and support solutions
Salesforce Radian6, for social media monitoring and engagement
Salesforce Data.com, the most complete source of accurate business data
AppExchange, the leading marketplace for enterprise cloud computing applications
Force.com, for custom application development
Heroku, for building social and mobile apps in Ruby
Database.com, the world’s first enterprise cloud database


Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM.” For more information please visit http://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.
###
Copyright (c) 2011 salesforce.com, inc. All rights reserved. Salesforce.com, Salesforce, Chatter, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Radian6, Data.com, AppExchange, Force.com, Heroku, and all associated logos are trademarks of salesforce.com, inc. in the United States and other countries. Other names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Negative news always triumphs over positive news, and this turn of events brings unwanted attention to Oracle OpenWorld. Loic LeMeur summed it up as follows:

Benioff vs Ellison: 1 - 0

It's one thing when your message gets muddied because of non-existent product announcements. But it's another thing entirely when you shoot yourself in the foot.

And no, the #oww11 hashtag is not original with me. Here's what Mike McGrath tweeted:

Putting the ouch into #oww11 Marc Benioff tossed from Oracle World keynote. http://bit.ly/phTiCG #wtf

And no, McGrath was not referring to the Wisconsin Tourism Federation.

Don't envy me (emerging shut-off issues with my LG env3 phone)

[UPDATE 10/17: POSSIBLE SOLUTION.]

I used to own a smartphone - the initial version of the Motorola Q smartphone. In fact, one of my most popular posts in one of my old blogs was a November 11, 2006 post that described how to fix a sound issue on that phone.

A couple of years ago, I left the smartphone world and switched to a dumb phone - in my case, the LG env3. Although Foursquare doesn't want me as a customer any more, the phone has worked well for me - until recently.

LG env3 phones have a reputation for shutting themselves off. In some cases, people would notice the problem immediately, take it back to Verizon, and get a replacement.

In my case, I have had the phone for nearly two years and never had a problem until recently.

I couldn't really find any definitive solution, but this post from bartosch gave me an idea:

My env3 was shutting itself randomly. I went online and saw that this is a common problem. I found a solution online that worked for me. I was told that I could force the shutdown by turning the phone face down and pressing with my thumbs at the top and bottom end of the battery cover. Sure enough, it shut down my phone every time I tried.

The proposed solution was to cut a piece of paper into a 3" x 3" square. Fold it in half and then in half again so you have a 1.5" x 1.5" square that is four pieces of paper thick. Put that between the battery and the battery cover.

That solution solved my problem instantly. I'd suggest that you give that a try.

Well, I tried bartosch's test - the dumbphone version of the iPhone death grip, I guess - and could not reproduce the results. The phone still stayed on.

But a couple of days ago, I happened to set the phone down on a counter and it immediately shut off on me. I couldn't reproduce this, but I'm wondering if (at least in my case) the issue has to do with the connection between the battery and the phone.

If so, could I solve the problem by getting a new battery? Or would that have no effect?

Are you going to the #oow11 blogger meetup?

I'm not - I'm several hundred miles away from Moscone - but the annual Oracle OpenWorld 2011 blogger meetup will take place tomorrow (Wednesday, October 5) at 5:00 pm. Thanks to Pythian and Alex Gorbachev for sponsoring this (and presumably the Oracle Technology Network will also help sponsor the festivities).

If you are blogging about Oracle, I encourage you to read the details here.

And note that this is open to ALL who blog on any aspect of Oracle's many business operations.

Yes, the government influences movie companies - I mean shoe companies

Even the most doctrinaire libertarian is forced to admit that the government, due to its sheer size, has a huge impact on the economy. Of course, this is exacerbated by the government's ability to make laws.

And before you condemn those danged funny-haired people in Washington (although Jack Kemp and Ted Kennedy are gone), remember that a lot of laws are made at the local level.

But if you understand those laws, you can not only get around them, but excel.

Now I Know tell us the story of how Kenneth Cole Productions became Kenneth Cole Productions.

You see, Kenneth Cole wanted to sell shoes at Market Week, but he couldn't rent a suite to sell his shoes, and he couldn't park a truck on the street to sell his shoes - the city refused to provide him with the necessary permit.

Enter Kenneth Cole, movie producer:

The permits were only granted to two types of companies: utility companies, so that they could perform maintenance and build out their infrastructure; and production studios, so that they could film television shows and movies. So Mr. Cole decided to do just that — shoot a movie. He filed for a permit to shoot “The Birth of a Shoe Company"...

Read the rest here. Also see Immature Business.

STeve Ballmer makes - and earns - more than one dollar

Last week, I blogged about the empty symbolism of the one dollar salary. Meanwhile, Bloomberg has written about Steve Ballmer's annual salary, based upon a recent SEC filing.

First, it should be noted that Ballmer is the CEO of Microsoft, but is not the Chairman - the Chairman is some guy named Gates. At Microsoft, the roles of Chairman and CEO have been separate for years.

Ballmer's compensation is set by independent members of the Board of Directors. Here, for all of us to read, is their performance review.

Performance Review Process for Mr. Ballmer

The independent members of our Board of Directors conduct Mr. Ballmer’s performance review. This review includes an evaluation of Mr. Ballmer’s performance based on:

• Mr. Ballmer’s self-evaluation of his performance over the past fiscal year and over a multi-year period;

• a summary of Microsoft’s performance for the just-completed fiscal year using a wide range of quantitative and qualitative financial, operational, and strategic measures, which includes key measures that were developed by management and reviewed with our Board of Directors at the beginning of the fiscal year as part of Microsoft’s annual business planning process; and

• the results of in-depth interviews conducted by the independent members of our Board of Directors with Mr. Ballmer’s direct reports.

After the Board completes its assessment of Mr. Ballmer’s performance, the Committee recommends Mr. Ballmer’s Incentive Plan award for the just completed fiscal year and any base salary adjustment. The Committee, which meets in executive session to develop its recommendations, does not apply a formula to determine these amounts. Instead, the Committee exercises its business judgment in making its recommendations, taking into consideration the evaluation of Mr. Ballmer’s performance, the amounts that are being awarded to the other executive officers for their performance for the same period and the advice of the Committee’s compensation consultant.

Fiscal Year 2011 Awards for Mr. Ballmer . For fiscal year 2011, the Compensation Committee recommended and the independent members of our Board of Directors approved an Incentive Plan award of $682,500, which was 100% of his target award. The award was based on his performance successful product launches including Kinect for Xbox and Office 365, enhancements to Windows Azure and Bing; continued progress positioning the company as a leader in the cloud and cloud-based infrastructure; key partnerships with Facebook and Nokia; significant progress in development of the next generation of Windows; work toward the successful acquisition of Skype; lower than expected initial sales of Windows Phone 7; the 2% decline in revenue for the Windows and Windows Live Division; the need for further progress in new form factors; and an overall strong financial year in which Microsoft reported record revenue of $69.9 billion, record operating income of $27.1 billion, and record earnings per share of $2.69 representing 12%, 13%, and 28% growth, respectively.

So why did Ballmer get 100% of his target award when there were problems with Windows Phone 7, et al? Because, as Bloomberg notes, he was eligible for a 200% award - and didn't get it.

#oow11 Keeping the Exas straight

#oow11 Felt asleep in the middle of the presentation,so whats new besides more storage and faster machines? #oow11
@KnowlMando

Oracle started introducing its "Exa-" product lines at about the same time that I changed jobs and stopping going to Oracle OpenWorld. Because of this, I haven't necessarily been keeping up with all of the Exas.

Now that there are three of them - Exadata, Exalogic, and Exalytics - my brain needs to keep all of them straight. Since I assume that other people have the same problem, I was searching for some succinct descriptions of the differences between the Exas.

Here's how Scott Tiazkun of Pierre Audoin Consultants sorted them out, in a post written before Ellison's Sunday night announcement:

To keep all their “Ex’s” in perspective, Exadata is actually a Sun /Oracle appliance that configures storage server hardware, software and an enterprise database. Exalogic is a bundled hardware/software device that features either x86 or SPARC compute nodes, an open standard grid architecture, Oracle middleware and Sun storage and networking capabilities. Now with Exalytics, Oracle is looking to provide an analytics solution to those companies that want analytics capabilities in their everyday business processes.

More here.

Mark Fontecchio also clarifies:

The Oracle Exalytics Business Intelligence Machine is a server that runs the company’s own TimesTen in-memory technology and Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation Suite. It includes 1 TB of DRAM memory and 40 Intel Xeon processor cores. The company said it ties into Oracle Exadata or Exalogic using InfiniBand technology it also allows organizations to connect to existing data center hardware via a built-in Ethernet connection.

More here.

You will note that these succinct explanations came from third parties. They did not come from Larry Ellison, as Ovum's Carter Lusher noted:

[T]he crowd in attendance was subjected to mind numbing technical specifications about Oracle’s Exadata and Exalogic appliances. This recitation of specs was a missed opportunity.

And even if Ellison had clearly and succinctly stated which Exa was which, Lusher also noted that this is meaningless without compelling customer stories. I'm not sure how Lusher defines compelling, since Oracle has trotted out various customers praising all three of the Exas, but perhaps Lusher feels that even the customer stories are too tech-weenie.

It's a common danger in tech, in which you are so busy admiring the trees that you forget to take a step back and look at the forest.

[PICTURE SOURCE, LICENSE]

Incidentally, perhaps a better concise explanation is out there, and I just didn't find it. If so, please mention it in the comments.

#oow11 A really big joke from @dbmoore with a sorta big joke from me

For some time now, Oracle has been using the prefix "Exa-" for just about every hardware product imaginable. Why? Because "Exa-" products are big (10 to the 18th power, vs. a mere 10 to the 9th power for giga), and Oracle wants to convey the notion of bigness to its technical audience.

But Dennis Moore wasn't impressed:

I'm introducing my new Zettalytics cloud in a box. It is 1000x better than #Oracle Exalytics. Next week:Yottalytics. #oow11 #EnSW

I replied:

@dbmoore i'm waiting for your release of Sortalytics hurricane season in a toothpick. #oow11

P.S. If you're not familiar with zetta, yotta, and sorta, see my prior prefix post.

Whitelisting vs. blacklisting in our non-tech environments

I was recently searching for a comparison of whitelisting vs. blacklisting, and ran across Bruce Schneier's January 28 post on the topic. Schneier chose to illustrate the concepts with examples from the real world.

Physical security works generally on a whitelist model: if you have a key, you can open the door; if you know the combination, you can open the lock.

And

To find blacklists in the real world, you have to start looking at environments where almost everyone is allowed. Casinos are a good example: everyone can come in and gamble except those few specifically listed in the casino's black book or the more general Griffin book.

And some are a mixture of the two:

Marcus [Ranum] is correct to point to passport control as a system with both a whitelist and a blacklist. There are people who are allowed in with minimal fuss, people who are summarily arrested with as minimal a fuss as possible, and people in the middle who receive some amount of fussing. Airport security works the same way: the no-fly list is a blacklist, and people with redress numbers are on the whitelist.

Schneier notes that his post is excerpted from a point-counterpoint between himself and Ranum. It appears that Schneier thought that society would move toward whitelist model, and Ranum thought the opposite. However, I couldn't tell, because to read the entire point-counterpoint, a login and password are required.

Score one for the whitelist.

Yes, #oow11 will go on without me

Last year, during Oracle OpenWorld 2010, I wrote this:

It's strange how your priorities change when you're not in the midst of the firehose.

I had every intention of listening to the Sunday evening keynote online. I wanted to hear what both Oracle and HP had to say (and not just for the soap opera reasons). Oracle was sharing the keynote online at http://www.oracle.com/us/openworld/index.htm, so I would be able to hear it, even though I'm not in San Francisco. (Actually, one year when I WAS in San Francisco, I went back to my hotel room to listen to the Sunday keynote online; I wasn't feeling well that evening and didn't feel like braving Moscone.)

And I did listen to the keynote - for about five minutes.

You see, my wife and I wanted to go to dinner, and we had to do some shopping for the daughter, and I had to do some shopping for "Project Joe," and this, and that...

Fast forward to this year, and the keynotes will start in about 2 1/2 hours. And my wife and I have to do some shopping, and I need gas for the Ford, and bla bla bla.

Pity, because it sounds like there will be some interesting stuff - if not tonight, then by midweek for sure. You see, the Oracle ACE Directors all went to the Bay Area on Thursday for some super-secret meetings with Oracle staff. (As an aside, do you know the REAL reason why Oracle OpenWorld doesn't relocate to Las Vegas? If they did, then all of the Oracle ACEs and Oracle ACE Directors would be mistaken for blackjack dealers.) Anyway, the Oracle ACE Directors are under strict non-disclosure, and since I'm not under non-disclosure at this point, even my own company's ACE Director can't share stuff with me. And stuff is definitely happening - so much that the ACE Directors adopted their own hashtag. One of them, Lonneke Dikmans, tweeted the following on September 29:

Impressed with the view of Oracle (Mark Townsend) on NoSQL and SQL #aced

So I asked:

@lonnekedikmans Will Mark Townsend share his thoughts on NoSQL during a public presentation, or was this just for #ACED only? #oow11

She responded:

@empoprises this will be a topic during #oow11, just be patient ;)

Mark and Larry, your ACE Directors are doing their job. Lonnke ain't tellin' me NOTHIN'.

Of course, any database news from Oracle is only going to be part of the story over the next week. As we all know, Larry has a large stack stack stack stack stack stack stack, and I'm sure that there will be news across the board.

So if you're not shopping with your wife at 5:30 Pacific time this afternoon, go over to http://www.youtube.com/oracle to catch the Sunday night keynotes from Larry Ellison, Safra Catz, and Mark Hurd.

By the way, Ann Livermore is now on HP's Board of Directors. I don't know if she's on the executive compensation committee.

[3:30 PM - Oracle ACE Director Eddie Awad didn't say nothin' either.]

(empo-tymshft) Looking like your potential supporters in 2011 - and 1968

I will confess that I haven't paid a great deal of attention to "Occupy Wall Street" - I've been much too busy on a personal level, trying to decide what to do if my bank starts charging debit card use fees. But this little unsolicited suggestion has gone viral. Here's how it begins:

Guys, listen. Here's the deal.

I love you guys with every shred of my hard-left leaning heart. But I think you might be doing something wrong. Here is one thing that can help you.

Tomorrow, wear a polo and khakis

Seriously. polos and khakis. Every time you guys DO finally get some [EXPLETIVE DELETED] press, it's a scrawny dude with dreads in a ratty t-shirt. You're going big here, dress it. Tomorrow, Polo shirt and Khakis.

Why? Because you need to get the right-leaning equivalent of me on your side.

Read the rest here. (This is the Reddit thread, by the way, which has a wealth of comments.)

When I first read this, I flashed back to another "change your dress" episode from many, many years ago. Perhaps you've heard the phrase Clean for Gene?

Many young people were drifting in 1968. Some found a new sense of hope and purpose through the candidacy of Eugene McCarthy....

McCarthy's Wisconsin campaign office in Milwaukee was packed with college students and recent graduates like Susan Speer. They were eager to help prepare for that state's primary on April 2....

College students from throughout the country showed up in large numbers to work for McCarthy in New Hampshire and Wisconsin. They cut their hair and shaved their beards, inspiring the slogan "Get Clean for Gene."

Now here's the part where I extrapolate whatever I'm writing about to the business world. And yes, it extrapolates well. Some businesses - Ben & Jerry's comes to mind - take great pains to make sure that their corporations appear attractive to their potential customers.

Sometimes it seems like other businesses, such as the aforementioned banks and the similarly-nickel-and-diming airlines, couldn't care less.

Here's how to REALLY cause worldwide ecoomic disruption

Some people think that you can cause worldwide economic disruption by doubling the price of oil, or having a war in a gold-producing area.

But disruptions caused by these items, although painful, are relatively minor.

CNN reveals how you can REALLY cause disruption.

About one of every two people in the world relies on rice as a staple food, according to the Manila-based International Rice Research Institute.

The Institute also notes that rice prices have risen 7.2% over the past six months.

Why?

Because there is one country that produces one-third of the world's rice. That country is Thailand, and this week's government in Thailand is fulfilling a campaign promise to raise the price of rice.

Meanwhile, another source of rice is Japan, and some of that country's rice-growing areas are kinda sorta radioactive at the moment. This means that Japan may have to look to other countries for rice.

So those of us who are used to pricing barrels of oil may want to start pricing metric tons of rice. As of August, the price was US$570.

More here.

The empty symbolism of the one dollar annual salary

[10/15/2011 9:45 - SEE MY FOLLOW-UP POST ON UNREALITY.]

It's happened again.

We have another chief executive officer - this time, HP's new CEO Meg Whitman - who has accepted a one dollar annual salary.

And not a penny more - except, of course, for all of the stock options that she was granted as part of the deal.

On one hand, I can appreciate the sentiment. The CEO's job is tied to the performance of the company, and what better way to do so than to tie compensation to the stock price? The theory, of course, is that if the stock does well, the CEO gets a lot of money. If the stock doesn't do well, then - at least theoretically - the CEO has to split up that dollar so that it lasts the entire year. ("Don't buy that bubble gum! You'll blow your monthly budget!")

Of course, it never works out that way. Just ask HP's predecessor, Léo Apotheker. The guy was kicked to the curb, and the company spoke poorly of him after he left. And he got a severance package of $13 million. Now that's nothing like the $140 million that Michael Ovitz got when he left Disney, but it's a pretty good chunk of change nonetheless.

And Apotheker's severance package was, according to experts, par for the course:

Experts said Mr. Apotheker had what amounts these days to a fairly standard termination agreement for a chief executive. In the event he was terminated for “cause,” his contract, a summary of which HP filed as an exhibit to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, provided a cash payment of twice his base pay (of $1.2 million, or $2.4 million); his earned but unpaid bonus (his “target” bonus was $2.4 million per year); any accrued but unused vacation — and “no further compensation.” That would add up to a maximum of about $4.8 million. But he wasn’t fired for cause.

(And it doesn't seem that Mark Hurd was fired for cause, either. Neither was Carly Fiorina, my prediction for the next CEO at eBay.)

Of course, in most cases when a company is looking for a CEO, the company is desperate to get one. (That certainly applies to the last three CEO searches conducted by HP.) And when you're desperate, you don't necessarily attract people by saying "By the way, if you leave, you WON'T get millions of dollars to walk out the door."

So despite today's momentary outrage, don't expect any changes in executive compensation any time soon.

Things managers should not say

The Riverside Press-Enterprise recently published a reminder of five things managers should not say. Basically, the advice suggests that people should tread carefully, since even certain innocuous comments could result in major corporate trouble.

Here are two of the things that managers should not say:

You look nice in that outfit.

What are you doing this weekend?

Read the other three, and the reasons not to say these things, here.

To infinity and beyond...in your browser!

I got involved in a Google+ discussion about infinite scrolling in Google+. For those not familiar with the term "infinite scrolling," here's a definition:

By definition, infinite scroll, means that there are no pages to switch to and from, everything is in one long page.

The concept has been adapted by many sites that feature a content stream, such as the news feeds in Facebook or Twitter, or, indeed, search results.

In its favor, infinite scrolling (usually) reduces clicks, since the additional information appears without you having to do anything except scroll downwards.

However, some people (including Patricia, the person who initiated the Google+ thread cited above) would rather have a finite thread, thank you very much. Or, at a minimum, the option to choose whether you have an infinite thread or a finite thread.

Such discussions occur all the time, especially (as Patricia noted) for free services where we aren't paying anything to use them. Whether you're talking about infinite scrolling, real-time feeds, ads, automatic sharing of information, or what have you, there are people who want the option to turn "feature X" off.

But, in truth, the majority of people couldn't care less. "If [service] wants to turn [feature X] on and not allow me to turn it off, fine. Just as long as they don't implement that monthly user fee that all my friends are talking about."

More techie people usually understand this attitude, even if they personally don't agree with it. But the more elitist of the techie people can't stand it.

What the elitists forget, however, is that the vast majority of people don't want an infinite "settings" page in which you can customize a service to your specific likings. While Facebook has implemented detailed settings in response to critics, I wouldn't be surprised if 95% of all Facebook users have never touched those settings. If they wanted to spend time setting every thing imaginable, then they'd go ahead and get a computer science degree instead of having a real life (or, in the case of games addicts, a virtual life).

Call it the anti-MySpace, but it seems that a lot of services are moving toward more standard offerings. such as Stumbleupon's future black and white pages. Or a device (take your pick) that only lets you buy applications from a single source.

Are we moving toward an online world with fewer options? Or will there be a rebellion in which a large number of people (rather than just a limited few) demand a wide variety of options and settings?

[IMAGE SOURCE, LICENSE]

Matisse Enzer's Glossary of Internet Terms in 2008 and 1994

If you go to http://matisse.net/files/glossary.html, you can see a "Glossary of Internet Terms" assembled by Matisse Enzer. The version that I read online today was last updated on December 25, 2008.

However, I was going through an old notebook and found a hardcopy verison of this glossary from 1994.

Times have definitely changed.

Back in 1994, Enzer included a definition for a "56K Line," an "Ethernet" that could handle "about 10,000,000 bits-per-second," and a "T-1" line that "is still not fast enough for full-screen, full-motion video." The "Bandwidth" definition notes that "Full-motion full-screen video would require roughly 10,000,000 bits-per-second" (emphasis mine); at the time Enzer hadn't experienced full-motion video.

Well, the 2008 version doesn't even include a "56K Line" definition any more, and the "Ethernet" definition has been updated to mention 100-BaseT.

The 1994 edition mentioned things such as the WELL (Enzer worked for the WELL at the time) and the Mosaic browser. The entry for "BBS" notes that "the line between a BBS and a system like CompuServe gets crossed at some point."

The 2008 edition includes terms that Enzer may not have even conceived of in 1994, such as Applet, Blog (Weblog), Broadband, Cookie, IPv6, and other terms. The 1994 edition didn't define anything beyond a megabyte, while the 2008 edition includes gigabyte and terabyte. (No petabyte, though.)

And there's one item in the 2008 version that wasn't seen in the 1994 edition, even though it clearly existed in the 20th century:

CATP -- (Caffeine Access Transport Protocol)
Common method of moving caffeine across Wide Area Networks such as the Internet
CATP was first used at the Binary Cafe in Cybertown and quickly spread world-wide.

There are reported problems with short-circuits and rust and decaffinated beverages were not supported until version 1.5.3

Despite all of these changes, there is a lot of commonality between the 1994 and 2008 editions. Despite some changes (such as IPv6), much of the backbone of the Internet spans the entire fourteen-year period, and in fact in some instances goes back to the decades before 1994. And the 2008 edition continues to mention some technologies that are no longer used much if at all, such as Archie, BITNET, and Finger.

I'm sure that Enzer's glossary has helped many over the years, and I hope that he continues to maintain it for years to come, so that people can learn what a sortabyte is.

Going for the mass market

Another goodie from way back in my reader feeds. This August post from Everything, Everywhere talks about some recent changes to the Travel Chanel. Excerpt:

Outside of Anthony Bourdain, who is really a food guy when you get right down to it, Travel Channel basically has nothing to do with travel anymore....

What I don’t get is that the lesson they [the Travel Channel] seem to have taken from No Reservations is to create more food shows, not more shows showing interesting people traveling. Travel being the raison d’être for the entire network of course.

After listing the various non-travel shows on the Travel Channel today, Gary Arndt proceeds to look at what the Travel Channel is doing with online properties.

Several years ago they purchased WorldHum.com which is one of the best travel writing sites on the internet. What did they do with this amazing asset? Did they integrate it into their website or promote it on TV? Nope. They basically killed it and currently the founders of World Hum are trying to keep it afloat without any real assistance from the part of the Travel Channel.

So much for synergy. Arndt's conclusion:

The travel channel is now just another cable channel that just happens to have Anthony Borudain....If they can’t get back to their travel roots then they should be upfront and honest about it and just change their name to the Paranormal Food Network.

Or maybe they'll just change their name to TC. A lot of cable and satellite channels end up changing their name when they change their focus. Case in point:

Looking for Court TV's shows based on exciting, real-life stories? Go to truTV.com.

In a way, this makes sense. Back when Court TV was founded in 1991, you had interest in court cases such as the Menendez brothers and O. J. Simpson. But presumably the audience for these cases declined, or people preferred to watch Nancy Grace instead, so Court TV became truTV and expanded its programming.

The one problem, as Arndt notes, is that eventually all of the channels look the same as they all chase the next big trend. Eventually every cable channel will have its own Kardashian sister (and Wayans brother), at least until the next big thing comes.

I'm seeing the same thing in gaming. You'd thing that if you wanted to farm, you'd go to Zynga's FarmVille game, and if you wanted to build cities, you'd go to CityVille. Well, I don't play FarmVille, but I still do a lot of farming. And for all I know you can probably build cities in FarmVille.

And can anyone tell me the major differences between smartphones today? They all have apps, and you go to an app store to buy them. And they probably all have Angry Birds, and your Facebook app, and your Twitter app, and what have you.

Sounds like the mall that I visited in Pentagon City several years ago, that had pretty much the same stores as our malls here in California. (The audioblogs, which have since disappeared, consisted of me reading the names of the stores. They'll sound familiar to everyone in the USA, and probably in Canada and Europe also.)

Now certainly there are arguments for going for the general audience - my business blog is more popular than my Inland Empire and NTN Buzztime blogs (although there are other reasons for this). But sometimes it's nice to go on the path less traveled.

Changing the rules to get the sale

Companies often try to change the rules in their favor to get the sale.

Decades ago, I was involved in a car accident that was the fault of the other person. That person's insurance company required me to get two estimates for the work that needed to be done. I walked into one repair shop, and was greeted by big signs that pretty much said, "You don't need to get two estimates! Give us the job and we'll work things out with the insurance company!" The person that greeted me was equally hard sell - so hard sell that I walked out.

High Probability Selling tells a story with a happier ending. A customer had set up a six person task force, and the vendor asked to set up a meeting with the decision maker. The vendor arrived at the meeting with the decision maker, and got a surprise:

When we arrived, we were unexpectedly shown into a conference room next to the VP's office where all of the members of the team were waiting for us. On one wall there was a 5'X 8' white board which was being used as a decision matrix. It had the names of our leading competitors on the left, with the model numbers of their equipment and their specifications. Our company was listed on the left side at the bottom of the chart - we were the last one in - and there was room for our equipment and specifications to be listed. Across the top of the chart, a physical or performance specification and a "Factor of Importance" rating number headed each column for that spec. They asked us for the specifications of each model of machine we had....

For those who don't know, this is clearly NOT high probability selling.

So what did the vendor do?

I said that we understood we were to meet with the VP to discuss their plans and we weren't prepared to provide all of the machine specifications they required at this meeting. I said that we wanted to meet with each of them separately and learn what their most important concerns were, and that we would follow up with all of our physical and performance specifications within a few days. They agreed to meet with us separately, for about 40 minutes each.

The vendor did as promised, meeting with the task force members and THEN providing the data. And guess what?

[W]e noticed that our machines had the highest ratings on their decision matrix. We also noticed that the Factors of Importance rating numbers for the physical and performance specifications had been changed to favor our machines.

The customer then proceeded to make the "rational" decision to buy machines from that vendor.

No, this is not necessarily logical. But as Jake Kuramoto says, inconsistency rules, deal with it. (Kuramoto's example concerns open source advocates who own iPhones. See his 2008 post on the topic.)

Red Sox and other fans, games (and seasons) are won or lost at the beginning, not the end

In sports, there are too many sports about teams winning or losing games in the final seconds. There is even a strong current of thinking that points scored in the final seconds, when "the game is on the line," are more important than points scored at other times. Similarly, winning the last game of the season, when "the season is on the line," supposedly proves the mettle of the team.

Bull.

Take the Boston Red Sox. As I write this, the baseball team from Boston is trying to get into the post season. A month ago, Boston and Tampa Bay were something like ten games apart in the standings. But Tampa Bay has made up ground, or Boston has lost it, depending upon your way of thinking. Either way, Boston and Tampa Bay currently have identical win-loss records.

So it all boils down to tonight, or possibly tomorrow. If Boston wins and Tampa Bay loses tonight, they're in. If they lose and Tampa Bay wins tonight, they're out. If both Boston and Tampa Bay have the same result (win or lose), there will be a one-game playoff.

Now if Boston loses tonight, or loses tomorrow, there are going to be a ton of people who will loudly claim that Boston "choked" in September, when "the season is on the line."

All of these people are concentrating on Boston's performance in September.

But they're all missing one thing.

Boston played over 100 games before we even entered September. And those games counted just as much as the ones in September.

Yes, Boston played over 100 games. Including the six games that they lost to start the season. If Boston had won even one of those six games in the spring, Tampa Bay would be on the outside looking in right now.

Oh, and there's another oddity about this whole thing. When Boston beat the New York Yankees on April 8, they were no longer tied for the worst record in the U.S.-Canadian major leagues. Who was the other team with an 0-6 record? Tampa Bay. So if Boston wins and Tampa Bay loses today, Tampa Bay can look back at ITS first six games to find out what went wrong.

Why am I writing about this in my business blog? Two reasons:

• I like baseball.
• In the sales and pre-sales world, the moves that you make at the beginning of the sales cycle are just as important as the moves that you make at the end of the sales cycle. In a competitive environment, you would prefer that your customers sign sole-source deals with you, rather than going out to bid. You would also prefer that your competitor's customers go out to bid, rather than signing sole-source deals with your competitors. Now I'll admit that there are times when a customer HAS to go out to bid...but there are also times when this is not the case. If the customer likes you enough to give you the business at the beginning - or, conversely, if the customer's relationship with your competitor has deteriorated so much that they go out to bid to get a new vendor - then that's the equivalent of winning on opening day - in a one-game season.

On anti-marketing

I'm catching up with my feeds, and this gem from August 10 is still relevant. It discusses anti-marketing, or the phenomenon in which people who see your advertisements are less likely to buy than people who don't see your advertisements.

In Empoprises terms, it means that my readership metrics would increase if I didn't post. Luckily that hasn't happened - yet.

So how to you practice anti-marketing? Here are some ways:

1. By sending me stuff that is irrelevant and no possible interest to me.

2. By constantly pitching me. I want value from my relationships and not constant “buy me” messages. Yes there has to be a balance because if you don’t make an offer, then you won’t get much action.

More here.

How "real names" creates the unreal me

[10/15/2011 9:45 - SEE MY FOLLOW-UP POST ON UNREALITY.]

After reading Robert Scoble's post on the Washington Post Social Reader application for Facebook, I decided to give the application a try. In addition to trying to figure out how to actually customize the feed to my interests (currently there are no "Lutheran biometric Redskins online games featuring Depeche Mode" stories in my feed, and my friends aren't helping), I was made keenly aware that I was on a stage of sorts.

Everything that I read via the app would be seen by my friends. Both Robert Scoble and Don Graham noted that you don't want to use this to watch porn, and you don't want to use this to read about a company before you begin a hostile takeover of the company. Therefore, when you're using the app, you begin to think about things, such as "Do I want to read this story now, or do I want to wait and read it somewhere else, where Robert Scoble, Jesse Stay, Susan Beebe, et al won't see that I'm reading it?"

This is just one example of how "real names" results in unreal behavior.

While some people don't care, other people are going to be very conscious about the persona that they display online. This has been a concern since Paddy O'Furniture jokes were bouncing around on Usenet 30 years ago, but it's more of a concern now as family, friends, people from church, co-workers, customers, competitors, and others can potentially monitor everything that I do.

Because these "real name" services are becoming more and more common, many people will naturally have two selves. The private self may be off-line, or it may be online via services that don't have a real name requirement. "How can I trust him? He's on Twitter."

Tristowne, who for all I know spends his/her offline time watching Larry the Cable Guy over and over, put it best:

It should be a very key concept in writing studies that writing online means creating a version of yourself that will ultimately reflect on your reputation. Most social media users probably wouldn’t think of themselves as writer, when, in fact, that is what they are. We are creators of internet versions of ourselves, which can be both empowering and detrimental at once.

A different Foursquare application (or, not everyone is a techno geek)

The beauty of Facebook is that because of its appeal to many different types of people, you can find all sorts of people on Facebook. "Yo momma" is probably on Facebook...and yo grandmomma is probably on Facebook also.

However, this can sometimes lead to confusion.

One of my Facebook friends happens to be a technologically-oriented person who is known for advising people on the best ways to use social media. She is also a committed Christian. And she has a life outside of social media, and freely admits it.

On Friday night I was having a wall-based conversation with this person on Facebook. She was wondering about the privacy implications of Facebook's new timeline, and had shared a link to the post The Facebook Timeline is the nearest thing I’ve seen to a digital identity (and it’s creepy as hell). I made some comments about the Facebook timeline and privacy.

And then I brought Foursquare into the conversation.

One thing shared by Foursquare and Facebook's new timeline - and by a lot of other services - is that when you reveal information about yourself, you may be revealing information about others. I blogged about this at length back in August 2010, in a post that discussed this issue from several angles:

• My reluctance, even today, to publicly post about my August 2010 trip to "Deer University," because that would violate the privacy of someone that I know.
• How a tweet that discussed my presence at the El Toro restaurant in Tacoma, Washington could reveal a lot to those who know a little bit about my employer. As I said in the post, "even though my employer never joined Foursquare ... they're part of the Foursquare exonetwork."
• How the things that we share about our infant children could come back to haunt them later. (A 2011 update: think before posting those baby pictures of your kids in your Facebook timeline.)
• The story of Kunur Patel, who was out dining in New York one night, checked her entire party in via the then-new Facebook Places...and then incurred the wrath of her friends - her technically-savvy friends - when she revealed the check-in, thus revealing the whereabouts of all four individuals.

I didn't get into all of this in the Facebook wall conversation, but there were three of us on the Facebook wall who were talking about Foursquare and "checkins" and "GPS" and things like that.

And then a fourth person chimed in, and...um...confessed to an initial impression that the three of us were talking about checking in at Foursquare churches. For those who don't know, there is a large group (I don't know if they'd appreciate the term "denomination") called the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, commonly known as the Foursquare Church. The church, which was started in the 1920s by Aimee Semple McPherson, is still popular in the United States today, and is very popular in other parts of the world.

So when a bunch of techno geeks talk about "Foursquare" around a bunch of religious geeks, there's always the possibility of confusion.

And to add to the confusion, I subsequently found this "Foursquare app" in the Android Market. Its description?

Locate Foursquare churches close to your current location via GPS, read official headlines and tweets.

No word on whether the app allows you to earn badges.

So now I'm wondering if there are other terms that techno geeks use that can cause confusion with non techno geeks. I'm sure there are a bunch of them; what are your favorites?

Returning to the Mobil gas station in West Covina, and Daniel Choi and/or Mohamed Khidr

Back in February, I wrote a post about a gas station in West Covina that was charging $4.69 a gallon for gas. One of my sources for my post was a Pasadena Star News article, which stated the following:

clerk at the Mobil station referred questions about prices to the owner, Mohamed R. Khidr, who couldn't be reached Thursday.

Well, I apparently missed this bit of news from June, but it sounds like the owner of that gas station may be a man named Daniel Choi.

Now some people think that Choi, or Khidr, or whoever should be thrown in jail and strung up simply because of the high gas prices charged at the station. I disagree; if someone wants to charge a high price for gas, they have the freedom to do so.

But according to the June article, Daniel Choi is accused of something that IS fraudulent:

The Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner/Weights & Measures department has charged Choi with nine counts of false advertising. He allegedly would take numbers off his sign, put them on the ground and tell people they fell off.

"He was given a warning initially a year ago, which generally people comply with and for some reason he didn't," said Larry Godwin of the Department of Weights & Measures.

Choi paid a fine of $3,000 last year.

And according to this June article, Choi had other problems:

Choi told Superior Court Judge Victor D. Martinez he was having financial difficulties partly because former employees had embezzled and extorted him.

He did not provide details at the time, and I couldn't find any accounts of what happened after June. But Choi, or Khidr, or someone, was still charging $4.89/gallon earlier this week, according to losangelesgasprices.com.

Perhaps Paul Kedrosky has some thoughts on the matter.

P.S. Here's the Manta listing for Daniel's Auto.

Is increased access to medical information a good thing, or a bad thing?

Steven Hodson wrote a post in the Inquisitr about the website adverseevents.com. This is what the website is about:

AdverseEvents, Inc. (AEI) is the first service provider to deliver accurate, real-time information on adverse drug events reported to the FDA. AEI utilizes a unique data sourcing method called RxFilter™, a proprietary 17-step data refinement process that standardizes and normalizes the data from the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) into a user-friendly, fully searchable, database of over 4,000 approved medications. Over 500,000 medication adverse events are reported yearly to the FDA; estimated to be only 10% of all actual adverse events. As a leading resource for the pharmaceutical industry, AEI supports companies with competitive intelligence and data to inform drug marketing decisions and business development strategies. With AEI, the healthcare industry is able to quantify the benefit-risk assessments of FDA approved drugs to fully understand the scope of safety issues, based on accurate rates of side effects from such medications.

But while AdverseEvents supplies this information to companies and the healthcare industry, Hodson notes that there is another beneficiary:

Of course the big pharma companies only let you know what side effects a drug might have under duress and public pressure; because we all know the government and the FDA wouldn’t do squat about the problem without that pressure; and even when they let you know it is the barest details that are hidden away in the small print.

When it comes to the drugs that we are told that we need in order to stop our legs from shaking or our scalp to stop itching we have no easy way to know what they are, what side effects they have, or how prevalent the danger of those drugs are.

Well, a new start-up in California called AdverseEvents is looking to change that and in the process they are going to cause many a drug company executive some sleepless nights.

Now this is just the latest example of something that has been going on for years. Back when Steven Hodson and I were little kids, there were two sources of medical information - your doctor, and the kids on the street. The latter source may not have always been reliable, but we always knew that the doctor, who was well-trained, was a reliable source of information.

As time passed, patients began to get information from sources other than their doctors. I'm not familiar with the situation in Hodson's home country of Canada, but on this side of the border we began to get information from laypersons' medical books, from the drug companies themselves, and increasingly from the Internet.

And in the process we learned that doctors were not perfect. Some doctors had been hauled before disciplinary boards, and we were able to learn about it. Some doctors were unduly influenced by pharmaceutical companies to prescribe their drugs, and we were able to learn about it. Some doctors and medical associations, and the United States Food and Drug Administration itself, rejected certain types of treatments, and we were able to learn about it.

Now instead of one source, we could get our medical information from a dizzying variety of sources. We'd open up our favorite magazine and read an advertisement about Drug X - along with a page of fine print about possible side effects. Or we'd read or hear about some other type of treatment, along with a statement that said treatment had not been evaluated by the FDA. (Or, in Canada, the FD Eh.) And then you had a bunch of groups forming for this or that or the other thing, some telling the FDA to approve Drug X sooner, while others were telling the FDA that Drug X should never be approved.

And now we have AdverseEffects. I happened to look up one medication on the website that was used to treat a particular illness, and it listed 83 reports of cases in which this medication was the primary one used to treat the illness in question. Of those 83 reports, 10 were reports of deaths. (One of the reported effects of this medication was an increase in suicidal thoughts.)

While Hodson believes that the information provides a valuable service, I sounded a word of caution ina comment to Hodson's post.

While the site appears to be a valuable resource, its reports should not be misinterpreted.

For example, I was reviewing a report for condition X for drug Y in which there were 83 reports, and 10 of those reports resulted in death (in this case suicide). This does not necessarily mean that you have a 10% chance of dying if you take drug Y, since (as we know) those who report such things tend to be those who have had a bad experience.

In addition, one has to consider whether, even with the side effects, you're better off taking the drug than not taking it at all. While I'll admit that there are cases in which some drugs (e.g. Ritalin) are prescribed when they shouldn't be, on the other hand there are cases in which the drugs are necessary.

And no, I'm not a doctor, but I do know patients who has to deal with various issues.

However, I have a more basic concern - not just with AdverseEffects, but with all of the information available to us today. Do laypeople have the knowledge to make intelligent decisions based upon the information available? Or do we even have enough information to make an intelligent decision? For example, did the 10 people who died from the drug above die because they abused the drug? Did they fail to see a doctor? Did they fail to disclose their complete medical history to their doctors?

There is always a danger of making medical decisions based upon sound bites. These could be either positive or negative sound bites - "Paul stuck tea leaves up his nose, and his cancer was cured!" or "Peter stuck tea leaves up his nose, and he suffocated and died!"

So do we listen to Jason Vale, or do we listen to Jenny McCarthy, or do we listen to someone else?

P.S. No, the Canadian equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is NOT called the FD Eh. It's actually called Health Canada/Santé Canada.

(empo-tymshft) Breaker breaker - what's your hashtag? #70scbflashback

C. W. McCall had been taking it easy for the last several decades. No, he hadn't been listening to weirdo electronic music that sounds like a danged parade. And no, he hadn't been doing advertising or some such. The real C. W. McCall had taken his earnings and bought himself a cabin out West, and pretty much stayed there (except when he went into town), talking to people on his beloved CB radio. Not that there were many people talking on the CB radio any more (C. W. didn't know it, but the FCC hadn't updated its CB web page since 2003), but C. W. still liked to chat a bit.

Then one day C. W. lingered in town a little bit, and he got to talking to some kid who was playing with a calculator. Or at least it looked like a calculator.

"Ell oh ell!" said the kid.

"What's that you got in your hand, son?" asked C. W.

"It's an eye phone," said the kid. "I'm on Twitter right now."

"You're a twitter?" asked C. W. "Or is a twitter a thing?"

The kid showed the device to C. W. Once the kid figured out that C. W. wasn't all that knowledgeable about smartphones, or even computers, the kid explained the nature of Twitter. Strangely enough, the kid realized that the old guy was very familiar with communication services that allowed people to talk publicly with each other - even if C. W. kept on worrying about the text entry input ("Won't that force you to take your eyes off the road?" he kept on muttering).

C. W. was impressed that Twitter allowed you to talk with people thousands of miles away (rather than just the one to five miles supported by C. W.'s current service), and was impressed with the number of people on the "channel" (the kid happened to be following about 2,000 people, so his feed was pretty active). And C. W. was impressed with the evolution of acronyms that allowed concepts to be communicated quickly. In fact, the new service even dispensed with the need to ask "What's your 20?" since the location could automatically be published (unless you didn't want the smokeys to know where you were).

But the part that really impressed C. W. was the concept of hashtags.

"So," asked C. W., "if a few friends want to publicize something, all that they have to do is agree to use the pound sign and a certain word, and then anyone can find out about the thing?"

"Sure," replied the kid, who showed C. W. a search for #oow11.

[NOTE: IF YOU'RE READING THIS POST TEN YEARS AFTER I WROTE IT, THIS PARTICULAR HASHTAG REFERRED TO ORACLE OPENWORLD 2011, A CONFERENCE SPONSORED BY THE ORACLE CORPORATION IN SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA. CALIFORNIA IS A STATE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. SO IF CALIFORNIA HAS FALLEN INTO THE OCEAN BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, THAT'S WAS I'M TALKING ABOUT.]

"Hmm," said C. W. who then scrawled this word on a piece of paper.

#70scbflashback

P.S. Obviously I am not the first person to place Twitter in a timeline with citizens band radio. For example, James Poniewozik of TIME wrote a piece on this earlier this year. Here's an excerpt:

For critics of Twitter et al., the CB comparison is meant to diminish social media as a fad with little actual value. But the analogy is unfair — to CB radio. Sure, for most polyester-clad hobbyists with CBs in their living rooms, the radios were essentially electronic pet rocks. But for truckers in the pre-GPS, pre-cell-phone era, CB was very useful: it was an ad hoc micro-news network. Drivers on a stretch of highway could share word about gas availability during the energy crisis or speed traps in the days of the 55 m.p.h. (about 90 km/h) limit. No one made them do it; there was no payoff except karma and the feeling of connectedness on a lonely job. And as each traveler went his or her separate way, this news network would dissolve and new ones would form along another stretch of road.