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Though lawmakers have historically been divided on requiring drivers to use hands-free devices when talking and driving, increased efforts to crack down on text messaging may give new momentum to bills to regulate traditional cell phone use.
January 2007 Archives
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Out of China this week came two telling news items. One is that Internet users hit 137 million, putting them on track to surpass their U.S. counterparts in a couple of years. The other is President Hu Jintao's plea that officials further regulate the Web
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The popularity of sites like YouTube and the widespread rollout of high-speed Internet connections have accelerated video's presence on the Web. Yet the sophistication of a search engine's ability to find video is reminiscent of the Web's early days, when
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Rabid video gamers could get some help keeping in touch with the outside world this weekend as Nintendo launches an online news service through its popular Wii console.
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A lawyer for the virtual world Second Life has responded to a parody with something that's quite different from the usual corporate cease-and-desist letter.
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An Internet startup is using Webcams to transmit prayers to and from holy sites such as the Western Wall — for a fee. But some religious leaders believe the technology has no business near such holy places.
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The Forbes.com Web Celeb 25 is a list of the biggest, brightest and most influential people on the Internet.
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Blogging is the latest trend in food writing. By some accounts, there are now at least 200,000 food blogs.
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Many Catholic convents around the country are dealing with an aging population, and finding difficulty recruiting new sisters. But one religious order in Detroit is boosting recruitment — particularly of young women — by finding them online.
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The BlackBerry has become ingrained in daily life, much like the cellphone and computer, resulting in a new demographic of obsessive users — everyone from stay-at-home parents to college students.
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Check this out - the ultimate time waster
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While you're watching a race live on TV, it tracks the cars within a few inches and replicates them in an animated, video-game-like display. Pick your favorite driver, listen to his in-car audio, watch his gauges, pick different camera angles and track
I want to give a little shout out to Jason Goldberg, the CEO of Jobster. (Full transparency, Jason is also a friend of mine - we used to work together).
Jason has become, with help from the mainstream media, the poster child for why CEOs should not blog. First the two local papers - the Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Jobster is HQ'd in Seattle) dinged Goldberg, presumably for not scooping them before releasing his comments to the blogosphere. Today, the New York Times gets into the act, reporting on Jason's blogging with the following lede:
Some executives, like Jonathan I. Schwartz of Sun Microsystems, pull it off with aplomb. Others, like Jason Goldberg of the online recruiting company Jobster, have had more difficulty.
The article isn't that bad - mostly straight reporting - but the examples that the reporter, Damon Darling, chose seem to imply Jason is struggling. He doesn't mention the countless posts where Jason talks about good hiring practices and shares his personal theories on business leadership. I don't see a lot of CEOs offering that information up for free on a blog - or even offering it up at all in most cases.
Jason deserves a lot of credit for using his blog to help explain some major changes at Jobster over the past few months - including the downsizing of nearly half the staff. Most CEOs would hide behind a press release, a spokesperson, or not say anything at all. Most CEOs wouldn't try to explain their actions, let alone submit to questioning from the general public.
At times Jason's blogging has been awkward – at first denying there was any trouble, only to later change tune. He explained that his obfuscation was a necessary measure designed to give the employees of Jobster first knowledge of the impending changes. That seems plausible to me, and at least he came up with a reason — not your typical CEO move.
Don't let them get you down, Jason. The press hasn't figured out yet how to report on CEOs who blog, and more importantly, tell the truth about what is happening in their companies. Other CEOs should take a page from your book.
Update: Jason sent me this 'Confessions of a CEO Blogger" video he put together. Good to see he's not taking all the criticism too seriously.
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In an age of accelerated connection, the buzz around every art form has intensified, but nowhere as much as in music.
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There is a growing number of diabetics — including celebrity endorsers, magazine publishers and an investment advisor — who are finding business opportunities in marketing to others with the chronic disease.
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Not long ago, an anonymous video on the Internet would have elicited little more than amusement from the candidate under attack. But the 2006 midterm campaign changed the rules
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Just as the documentary developed as a potent force within the film industry, designers who develop video games now focus and comment on the world's social and political ills.
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While every service imaginable seems to have found a way to thrive on the Web, health has always lagged. But things are heating up, as an Internet billionaire is about to launch a site of his own and an online-health pioneer is changing its services to me
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Bollywood studio has launched a video-on-demand website for Hindi films and other programs in the first attempt by the Indian film industry to use the Internet to tap the wealthy Indian diaspora.
I had this really long, eloquent post written about how all the candidates are using the web to launch their political campaigns. I hit the wrong button and the whole thing was lost. I won't try to reconstruct the entire thing, but let me try and summarize a couple of the key points.
John Edwards announced his campaign for the Presidency with a web video. Barack Obama used a web video a few weeks later to do the same. And now Hillary Clinton, who announced her intention to run for President on Saturday, has used a video on her Website to break the news. It seems you can't be a candidate for President - at least not a Democratic candidate - without launching your campaign on the web. (Memo to Joe Biden and Bill Richardson, who announced their candidacy's on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows — you might want to check to make sure your announcement registered at all, or consider posting the video of your appearance on YouTube to make sure people take it seriously).
Both the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post used Senator Clinton's announcement to analyze the role that the web will play in the upcoming campaign. The LA Times offers a brief history of the highs and lows of internet campaigns over the past decade, writing:
The Internet's power both to make and break politicians has been vividly demonstrated in recent years.
In 2004, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean jumped from political obscurity to grab the front-runner's position in the initial stages of the Democratic race largely on the strength of the interest and fundraising he generated online.
Last year, Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) watched his reelection campaign — and his hopes of emerging as a prime contender for the GOP presidential nomination — go down in flames after a video clip of him addressing a young man of Indian descent as "macaca" made the rounds on the Web.
Barely a factor in campaigning 11 years ago when Clinton's husband won reelection as president, the Internet has become an integral part of the political landscape, with every major candidate fielding a website and seeking to create a virtual community around his — or her — campaign.
But with the recent advent of YouTube and other video-sharing sites, analysts said the most intriguing aspect of the evolving use of the Web may be as part of an immense game of political "gotcha," in which campaigns seek to catch opposing candidates off-guard and off-message, as happened to Allen.
By contrast, the Washington Post took more of an editorial stance on what makes for good web video in Politics, offering this comparison Clinton, Obama, and Edwards:
Unlike other candidates (coughBarack Obamacough), whose videos might have been produced by a guy with a cellphone camera, Clinton's announcement was a veritable showpiece of Hollywood-style set design, lighting and cinematography. While Clinton, looking radiant in a red jacket and flattering makeup, affected the demeanor of a kaffe-klatching neighbor while speaking about the Iraq war, energy, Social Security and health care, the camera swung with pen dular subtlety between a background tableaux of framed family pictures and a fabulous table lamp exuding a warm glow. In fact, the background is so eye-catching, so crowded with totemic details, so bursting with semiotic potential, that I missed whole passages of Clinton's statement the first time around. (And yes, I do want that lamp.)
The effect was one of breathtaking political shrewdness and brilliant staging, like a mash-up between "The West Wing" and Diane Keaton's latest holiday heartwarmer. And for all its studied spontaneity, its air of having been pre-tested, choreographed, and managed to within a microfiber of Clinton's mascara, it worked, if only to provide a little eye candy within a grainy sea of canned speeches and awkward iChats. The aesthetic sophistication suited Clinton, who, as a former first lady and a U.S. senator, would look hopelessly out of place in most other contexts (rocking the mom jeans in the Ninth Ward? Uh-uh. Maybe an ornate Senate office, but where's the zazz in yet another wall of law books?), and the look and the script warmed up a woman portrayed as either an amoral ice queen or control-freaky dragon lady by her political opponents.
Three quick points: First, the novelty of launching a campaign on the web should have worn off a long time ago. The web is not even close to being the most dynamic vehicle for delivering information anymore, politics has just been slow to embrace what virtually every major consumer brand and entertainment company in the world has been doing for the past five years. A really nice website, a blog, or even a web video announcement is not enough. Its time you ran a fully funded, fully supported effort online to promote your campaign - and to engage the audience that chooses to get its information there instead of through traditional news or campaign events (which are still important as well). Second, announcing your campaign online sets all of our expectations very high that you, as a candidate, will remain committed to using the web. John Edwards, you have already created behind-the-scenes web videos about yourself, recorded podcast conversations about issues, and similar. Are you going to keep doing that when you are visiting four states a day - so we can see what really happens to a person when they don't sleep enough, eat healthy, or have complete control over their message? Hillary Clinton, you are taking your web efforts to the next level already, inviting the audience to create the first guest blog post to be published on your site and hosting a series of live video chats with the web audience over the coming week. Are you going to host live web-chats every week, about any topic? Are you going to take on the large and vocal segment of the online audience who questions your policies, challenges your positions, and even insults you personally — or will your web campaign, like your offline efforts, be so highly managed and controlled that it fails to really engage people? Finally, the media needs to find a better way to cover and express the value the web plays in this upcoming cycle than how they are currently doing it. We have all read, time and time again, what a big impact the web is playing and will continue to play in politics. Its time to assign a full time, daily reporter to cover each campaign's online efforts. It is time to hold the campaigns accountable for what they say will be an online, grassroots fueled effort and put the same scrutiny on their web efforts as you do on their fundraising, their television ads, their speeches, and — even in some cases, their clothing. Just as you have pushed increasing resources into covering traditional news through the online medium, now its time to recognize that the online efforts of a presidential campaign are also news and cover them accordingly.
It should be an exciting couple of years for those of us who live, work, and love the online medium. I will definitely be watching to see what happens. I hope the political world realizes the potential that it has to reach and engage the audience before and lives up to its end of the bargain.
Update: I wasn't totally fair to Bill Richardson. He has a very nice website (here) and has posted his announcement video to YouTube and other places. He has a MySpace page, a Facebook profile, etc. He's following the new media playbook pretty much to all the way. We will have to wait and see how that works for him.
I really want XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio to merge.
Why? I want to hear Dave Niehaus, the best color man in baseball, call Mariners games for me every night. I want live happily in Boston and know how my Seahawks and Sonics are playing without stalking the crawl on the bottom of ESPN2 each night. I want to follow NASCAR without having to sit in front of my television for six hours on a Sunday. Its not just about sports though, I want to hear what Oprah and her friends have to say about eating healthy and decorating my house. I want to get public radio coverage from around the country without having to sit by my computer and stream it. I could go on.
All that is available to me, of course, but only if I subscribe to both XM and Sirius. I have come close to choosing before. I received Sirius as a Christmas present two years ago and never activated it - mostly because because the football season was already winding down and I didn't want to wait until next season to start getting full value out of my subscription. I have gotten all the way to the checkout screen on the XM Satellite Radio website three times in the last few months, in anticipation of another exciting baseball season, only to bail out in hopes that the rumors of a merger will soon come true.
If XM and Sirius merged, I could buy one good piece of hardware and one subscription and get everything I wanted. I would pay good money for it. I would enjoy it thoroughly. I don't think I would be alone.
Simply put, I don't think my desire to hear a variety of different types of programming from one source is unreasonable. And I think it is well past time when the two satellite radio giants, and the government, got in line with my thinking.
Joe Nocera writes in the New York Times today (Times Select subscription required) about the possible merger between XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio. While most of his column is about the regulatory aspects of the proposed deal and whether the FCC would support the creation of a single satellite radio giant, he does get to the heart of the matter - and seems to be in agreement with me.
[The two companies] also compete, of course, for content. Most famously, Sirius has Howard Stern, who signed a $500 million five-year deal with the company and moved his shtick to satellite radio at the beginning of last year. (Last week, the company announced that Mr. Stern had earned an $82 million bonus, claiming that he brought in far more revenue than he cost the company.) XM has an Oprah Winfrey station. Sirius has professional football and has pried Nascar away from XM. XM has Major League Baseball — and took the National Hockey League away from Sirius. Both have loads of news and talk and music channels, but XM's channels tend to be more eclectic than Sirius's.
On the face of it, this all sounds terrific for consumers. "Choice is always a good thing," said Ryan Saghir, who blogs about satellite radio at Orbitcast.com — and opposes the idea of a merger. But it is not quite as terrific as it sounds. For one thing, what if you are a fan of both baseball and football? What kind of choice is it to have to decide between them? Or what if you like both Howard Stern and Oprah? (Well, O.K., that's not a good example.) It is hard to think of another technology that forces subscribers to make that kind of choice.
Joe Nocera wants to listen to baseball and football on the same device, and the same subscription, as well. His column sounds like a desperate plea from a radio junkie like me to make it happen. Hey, Sirius and XM... hey, FCC... if you won't listen to me, will you listen to Joe Nocera?
I can understand why the FCC might be nervous about giving the green light for a merger of this size. But with appropriate monitoring and regulation - to ensure that a merger betwen XM and Sirius wouldn't drive prices for consumers out of proporition with the market (something Nocera seems to argue isn't likely because of the continued influence of free radio) - the potential benefits to consumers far outweighs the risks. And I can understand why XM and Sirius are both believers in their product so much that they would rather compete to the death than cede control of their operation to their arch rival. But really, would you all think about the consumer for a moment?
Rather than forcing customers to choose betwen services (a fact that I believe is actually driving down interest in satellite radio, and probably radio in general), the FCC could bless the creation of something that would provide a far better radio product than what is available today. XM and Sirius could create the ultimate radio programming center, pitting their efforts against folks like Clear Channel who have sucked all the feeling out of radio in their quest to dominate the airwaves everywhere. The merger would force traditional radio stations to compete with better programming and an alternative business model (advertising instead of subscription — a mix which I think is totally possible if you do it right). And, best of all, I wouldn't have to live without access to the programming I want because I find it unreasonable to have to buy/subscribe to two services instead of one.
Please FCC? Please XM and Sirius? Do it for Joe Nocera! Do it for me!
