AP Accelerating It’s Own Demise with Misguided Plans

Today’s blogs are all afire writing about the latest twist in the AP’s comical and borderline pathetic attempts to shore up its broken and obsolete business model: charging outrageous fees to anyone looking to quote FIVE WORDS OR MORE from an AP article.

Should you read an AP article and want to quote it in a blog post you are asked to click on a “copyright use” link that leads you to this:

Now, I don’t want to guess what the AP thinks it can charge me for using this image.  The fact is, just because they charge doesn’t change the principle of “fair use” and this image is being used so that I can critique it’s absurdity.

The bigger problem, if you are the AP, is that everything about this policy is counter to the way information is consumed and shared in the modern, digital age.  The AP can bitch and moan all they want to about the “good old days” but that doesn’t make time move backwards.

As the ability for people to  both gather and distribute news around the globe grows, the question is not what will the AP do in some misguided attempt to protect its work from being shared but why do we really need the AP at all.  If the AP disappeared tomorrow news would continue to be reported and most people wouldn’t notice anything had happened.

That’s not a good sign for the AP.

Related articles by Zemanta

• I for one welcome AP’s war on links and fair use (inquisitr.com)
• By The AP’s Own Logic, The AP Ripped Off Obama (techdirt.com)
• Quote 5 Words From the Associated Press? That’ll Be $12.50 (mashable.com)

Twitter Hacker Breaks Law and Blogs Just Abet

I’m absolutely not a legal scholar but once again I am struck by a certain weird lack of ethics especially among a number of major blogs including Mashable, Download Squad and scores of others.

In short, somebody hacked into a number of Twitter-owned accounts and made off with a zip file containing everything from internal emails to floor plans.  While nothing so far looks terribly damning it is strange that so many bloggers seem to have no qualms republishing the stolen documents.

In court, if evidence is acquired in an illegal manner it is no longer able to admitted as evidence.  Now, there was no question that the screencaps being published were stolen and there was really no way, until confirmed by Ev Williams at Twitter, that the documents were even legit.

Any way you cut it, there is something clearly unsavory and unethical about published stolen documents.  It might not be illegal but it doesn’t feel right.

Blogs on Kindle a Failure or Just Overpriced?

Piers Fawkes of PSFK has not been a fan of the Kindle and I can’t blame him.

Recently, their rather popular blog became available on the Kindle with a 14-day free trial and then the standard Kindle blog subscription rate of $1.99/month.  Here’s what happened:

During the first two week period of sales we added a button advertising the service to all our newsletters, website pages and RSS feeds – approximately 250,000 impressions. As some of you may remember, I penned the opinion piece ‘Kindle’s Not Working‘ last week and these sales figures surely prove statistically that Amazon’s technology is a failure when it comes to blog publishing and readership. It’s crazy to read that the tech media continues to be deluded about Kindle’s success when even with a 14 day free trial and massive awareness among our readership we can’t muster more than one $1.99 a month subscription.    LINK

Now, it isn’t really all that surprising that so few people decided to subscribe to the PSFK blog but I wonder if it has more to do with the $1.99/month pricetag combined Kindle’s failure as a rich media device – and it is a failure with no pictures, no video, etc.

Think about it.  If you are anything like me, you read a fair number of blogs.  In fact, I would say that I currently have over 50 blogs subscribed to in my GoogleReader.  If I wanted to even come close to replicating that experience on the Kindle it would cost me around $100/month or $1200/year just to read blogs that completely free online or via my iPhone.  On top of that, the Kindle is a completely inferior blog reader due to the aforementioned lack of rich media capabilities (or color, for that matter!).

So, while I am sad to hear that the Kindle will not be a revenue-generator for blogs, I think it was foolish for anyone to think otherwise given the overall picture.

The Motrin Mess, Twitter and FAIL

The blogs are all afire over this internet ad posted by the makers of Motrin:

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.747861&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

The first wave of revolt seems to have been largely driven by users of Twitter – you can view a real-time stream of comments here.

If you ever wanted to cite an example of how the internet has shifted the power away from the advertiser look no further.  Not only has Motrin been pounded by everyone for making a stupid and potentially insulting ad, but it all happened literally within hours of the video being posted.

Sure, Motrin immediately took the ad off their site but as well all know, once you post something online there really is no way to get it back – it’s like trying to stir the cream out of your coffee.  Not gonna happen.

That means that all the bad press about Motrin will remain online as will everyone’s ability to go check out the offending ad – whether Motrin likes it or not.
And check out this sampling from around the web:

• “Motrin moms,” a-Twitter over ad, take on Big Pharma–And win
• Flash flood: Mom bloggers and Motrin
• Social Media Storm Erupts as Motrin Brand Campaign implodes, needs to be run by someone who knows the Brand well and Social Media, well
• More Outrage as #MotrinMoms Reaches #2 On Twitter
• Motrin learns about Twitter
• The Motrin Moms Backlash by the Numbers
• Motrin Bows to Social Media Pressure From Moms – Removes Controversial Ad
• Motrin Faces Twitter Headache Over New Video Campaign
• Motrin MANIA!

• Motrin Bows to Social Media Pressure From Moms – Removes Controversial Ad
• Motrin Faces Twitter Headache Over New Video Campaign
• Motrin MANIA!

Cute Girl In T-Shirt Will Shill For Dollars

TechCrunch pointed me to GirlInYourShirt, a site that offers up the promotional services on one cute young woman who, for $75, will spend the day in your company t-shirt, posting vlogs, blogs and tweets all about you and your services.

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.745683&w=425&h=350&fv=flashVarText%3Dfake%3D1%26pvrn%3D99602%26key%3D49675c62%26viewToken%3D9cf6d736%26dark%3D1%26activecolor%3D%23969696%26hovercolor%3D%23b5b5b5%26inactivecolor%3D%23e5e5e5%26inactivepluscolor%3D%239e0200%26hoverpluscolor%3D%2302b800%26activepluscolor%3D%23017000%26barcolor%3D%23000000%26timelineplay%3D%23ffffff%26timelineload%3D%2389bdff%26timelineback%3D%239e9e9e%26enablestripes%3D1]

Is this the next wave of DIY PR?  Perhaps.  I guess the question is whether or not she has that much of an audience to begin with.  If not, it is unlikely to get much interest from promoters around the globe.

The Rise of the Curator

I wrote some (here, here) about the rising prominence of digital curators and how they are becoming a major force in driving web traffic.

I guess the term came up a bunch at this week’s PSFK conference, enough so that Grant McCracken brought it up in his blog a couple of days ago:

“Having been a curator once, my ears always perk up at the mention of the term  I am pleased that the term has taken on new meanings and new currency, that it has escaped the dusty corners of a museum and gallery world.  It and me, both.  Still, I wonder what this term is now being asked to mean, and why we should now find it now so compelling and fashionable.”

He makes some very interesting points and his perspective as a classic curator is great.

Antiques Roadshow and a Missed Opportunity

I came across a great post that looked at the phenomenon that is PBS’s Antiques Roadshow.  As the blog points out:

“The Antiques Roadshow gets 10 – 11 million viewers a week.  This makes it the pride of the PBS fleet. Just to put this is proportion, let’s point out that network TV thinks 8 million viewers is a great showing.  Cable is impressed with 4 million.  Eleven million on education TV? Astonishing.”

Now, I am a big fan of the show myself.  I even remember there was an episode of Will&Grace that had the Roadshow obsession as a subplot.  So, this is not a new thing.

I could take some time to explore why AR is so successful but that’s not what interests me.  Instead, I went and looked at their website.  While it does allow one to watch virtually any item every appraised on the show it fails to do anything else.

Here is some free advice to PBS:

1) Make your appraisal videos embeddable.  How much fun would it be to be able to put your favorite appraisal in your blog or send it to a friend who has a similar item?

2) Syndicate the most popular appraisals on YouTube and other video sharing sites.  Let them serve as an introduction to everything else PBS does.  It will build viewers and, more importantly to a publicly supported network, givers.

3) One thing people love about the show is guessing what an item is worth. Offer some sort of way for us to guess on an item’s value before we see the final reveal.  Heck, this could easily be a contest run daily on the site.

If AR is PBS’s most valuable commodity, it’s time for them to get their money’s worth.  If anyone knows folks at PBS give them my number!  I want to help!