Should Google Fear Ad Blocker for Chrome?

Firefox users have long enjoyed the option of eliminating a large amount of web advertising, especially banner ads, using an extension called AdBlocker.

Now comes word that Google’s new web browser, Chrome, will also give users the option of an ad-blocking extension but not thanks to Google.  The extension is called AdSweep:

Yes, this extension has been around for a couple of months, but extensions aren’t yet officially supported by Chrome and there’s no easy way to install it. This will change, as Google has recently opened up an API for third party developers, with plans to start officially supporting extensions soon.  LINK

Since Google makes, as far as I can tell, nearly all of it’s money via advertising, should it be a big concern that people will easily be able to block out the most common sorts of ads online?

Well, people can skip through TV commercials with DVR but many still end up watching them anyhow.  While people can block online ads, it is likely most will not do so.  If they do, the change will likely force advertisers on the web to do much more integrated marketing approaches that are tougher to “block.”

Much has been made over the slow failing of banner ads and one has to wonder if the combination of lower click-throughs and more blocking will not only change the way advertisers reach consumers online but force a radical rethink for Google’s business plan.

In Google Versus Bing It Might Come Down to Trust

Everybody loves a good “David and Goliath” style battle, which is why it might seem like fun to root for Bing, a new search engine hoping to take some singificant market-share away from search-giant (TM?) Google.  That is until you realize that Bing is just Microsoft’s refresh of the failed LiveSearch. Then it is more like a Goliath versus Goliath battle in which rooting seems irrelevant.

While Microsoft claims that many people, while almost exclusively using Google for their search needs, are not always satisfied with the results.  This is where they see an opportunity to offer something better.

Early reports say that visually and even thematically Bing might really be on to something but the following comment fom PaidContent might just be the nail in the coffin for Bing:

But if I’m going to use one search engine more than another (i.e. make it the default in my browser), I want to be confident that I’m not missing out on results that I might find via another search engine. And after my week-long trial, I don’t have that confidence with Bing.

And that’s what everyone cares about in the end – not that their search is simple but that it is exhaustive.  Sure, any old search engine will give you movie times and trivia answers but when it comes to using a search engine for genuine research, whether for a school project or a honeymoon getaway, users want to be confident that they are not missing out.

As long as Google returns a more exhaustive set of results than their competitors they will remain securely atop the search standings.

Rick “Rickroll” Astley Thanks 4chan’s moot

There is something supremely webby about the title of this post but that’s not the point.  The point is that Rick Astley thanks 4Chan’s moot in Time Magazine.

Through either a huge get-out-the-vote campaign or click-fraud moot was voted Time’s most influential person in the world, something Rick Astley thought was great.  See, 4Chan and thus moot, were integral into setting off the fire that was Rickrolling.

As Rick Astley himself says:

Back in the ’80s, I was known for being reclusive, often shying away from media attention. It’s perhaps ironic that the Internet phenomenon of Rickrolling should bring my video for “Never Gonna Give You Up” to a new generation. But that’s one of the great things about the Internet. Young people now have easy access to material that they ordinarily wouldn’t have been exposed to.

This is in stark contrast to the reaction of the songwriter responssible for “Never Gonna Give You Up,” Pete Waterman, who argued that YouTube had ripped him off of possibly millions of dollars in unpaid royalties.  Forget the fact that nobody under the age of 25 had ever heard of him or his song prior to the viral sensation of Rickrolling.

It is great to see more musicians embracing the value of being heard and shared instead threatening to sue everytime a fan gets super excited about their work and wants to spread the word.

LINK

RIAA Will Have To Sue Them All – Who’s Next?

If the recent court decision against The Pirate Bay is any indication, it looks as though groups like RIAA and MPAA are going to be able to sucessfully sue anyone who provides links to copyrighted content, especially if providing that access is the key purpose of the site.

I’ve already discussed how this, theoretically, opens Google up to a big ol’ lawsuit, but what about the thousands of other sites out there.

For instance, I recently read about a site called Just Hear It:

Enter a song title or artist’s name, and Just Hear It returns a list of possible matches–including not only audio tracks, but also YouTube videos.

Gee, that sounds great, and highly suit-worthy.  Now, the CNet article notes:

According to the “About” page, the site is legal–it pays for licenses from the three major organizations, BMI, ASCAP, and CESAC, and it apparently pays publishers royalties based on the number of plays they receive. But although paying publishing rights is sufficient for traditional (“terrestrial”) radio, Internet radio stations must also pay performance royalties, which are owned and managed by a completely different group of bodies.

Wow, that is pretty complicated.  So many hoops to jump through, licenses to obtain and organizations to pay just for helping people find music they want to hear.  Even if Just Hear It believed it was doing something “legal” there are still plenty of grounds for challenging that legality.

That’s why even CNet seems to think the site won’t be around for long.  Of course, another clone will pop up quickly since it turns out people like being about to listen to a specific song without paying $1.29 for the privilege.

This is the endless goose-chase that groups like RIAA will be on until they finally realize that they will never win this battle in the courts and begin to truly innovate – or just DIAF.

LINK

“The Google Bay” Shows Google Just Another Pirate Bay

Following last week’s guilty verdict against the four founders of The Pirate Bay, many have been wondering what makes TPB all that different from any other search engine. Like, say Google?

Well, someone has built a simple site that uses only Google to provide anyone interested with links to torrents ready for download.

I tried it out myself and here are the first few results for a search for “Wolverine”

Not only doesn’t The Pirate Bay come up in the first few hits, but shows just how many sites do exactly what The Pirate Bay does – and Google does it better.

While it is clear that P2P sharing of copyrighted works is a challenge it doesn’t seem like anyone will be successful in suing it out of existence.  Time for a new plan, gang.

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Music Industry “Caves” to Chinese Pirates

The New York Times has an interesting article about a plan from Google and the Major Record Labels to distribute their music for free in China and make their money solely through advertising.

Why would the labels just cave in like that in China while their still dragging American’s into court for downloading a pirated Jay-Z track?  This pretty much sums it up:

According to the International Federation of Phonographic Industries, which represents the global record makers, 99 percent of the music downloaded in China violates copyrights.

Lawsuits by major music labels and promises by the Chinese government to crack down on Internet piracy have failed to deter the practices.

Gee, this sounds oddly prophetic when you think about the state of the music industry in the US and Europe.  So, this revelation that you can’t sell songs for a profit and need a new business model that offers the music for free must be a sign of what’s to come here, right?  Well, not according to the industry execs:

…they say the China deal is not a model for the rest of the world. They say different regions call for different approaches — some that charge for downloads, some that stream music for a single subscription price and some that are supported by advertising.In China, they decided an advertising-supported model was best.

Exactly what makes these execs think that they can quarantine segments of the internet from region to region?  Yet more pie-in-the-sky dreaming or total misunderstanding of how the internet works?

It is difficult to see how this decision in China will not basically force the music industry’s hand worldwide.  The truth is, they’ve been losing on all fronts simply because they refuse to let go of a dead business model.

LINK

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PirateBay On Facebook Forces the Issue

Like so many other sites have done, The Pirate Bay is no providing on-click links that allow its users to post directly to their Facebook streams.

As Mashable puts it:

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 150 to 200 million people signed up already. It’s one of the best ways to share links, blog posts, and content. Many websites, including our own, have links for easily sharing content to Facebook. So it makes sense as to why The Pirate Bay would want to encourage people to share torrent links on Facebook. But because many of these files are illegal to download, it also makes sense that copyright infringement organizations are not very happy.

Since Facebook is likely to want to avoid major legal action by the friends folks at the RIAA and MPAA it seems almost definite that Facebook will move to block this feature.

The question is, do they have any real legal reason to do this and are they really helping anyone by blocking their users from posting the links?  For one thing, The Pirate Bay does not actual store or transmit any copyrighted content, they simply provide links to other places that do.  This is, in effect, no different than what Google does, just that The Pirate Bay (and hundreds of other torrent-tracker sites out there) specializes in searching only for torrent links.

While the MPAA et. al. might not like that links to freely available copies of their copyrighted content are being made all-the-more public on Facebook via The Pirate Bay feature, neither of these parties are the reason that piracy exists or that it flourishes in the face of broken business models that treat fans as criminals.

We’ll have to see if Facebook does, in fact, act against The Pirate Bay but you can be certain they’re being asked to do it.

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A Few Thoughts on The PirateBay Trial

For those who don’t know, one of the largest BitTorrent tracker sites on the internet, The Pirate Bay, is on trial right now in Sweden facing a slew of charges that basically claim that the creators of the site are guilty of facilitating massive copyright violations.

A number of issues are being raised, including the always sticky question of whether or not it is a crime to simply provide a link to potentially copyrighted material.  This is basically all that Piratebay does and they are far from alone.  In fact, Google is a great resource for locating links to copyrighted material.

Go ahead and search, say, “stream dark knight free” in Google.  I just did it myself and within three clicks (one) I was (two) watching The Dark Knight (link).  Not only that, but the video I watched began with a pre-roll ad from Nestle Crisp!  Which of these sites should the studios go after next?  Or should they be going after me?  I mean, I am the one now watching The Dark Knight for free from the comfort of my desk.

My point is that trying to sue The Piratebay is simply a supreme waste of public resources.  Even if the Piratebay loses the case, it will do nothing to curb the current situation online in regards to the easy availability of copyrighted content.

Instead of focusing on a single entity, it is time for the big industries to accept the writing on the wall and devise some new business models before they are wiped out complete, not by pirates but by progress.

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Fear of a Google Planet

The New York Times uses a painfully bad metaphore comparing Google’s Book Search program to Daniel Day Lewis in “There Will Be Blood.”

IN 2002, Google began to drink the milkshakes of the book world.

Back then, according to the company’s official history, it began a “secret ‘books’ project.” Today, that project is known as Google Book Search and, aided by a recent class-action settlement, it promises to transform the way information is collected: who controls the most books; who gets access to those books; how access will be sold and attained. There will be blood, in other words.

The article lays out the fears of some that Google is going to create some sort of evil book monopoly by scanning and indexing the collection of America’s (and maybe the world’s) libraries:

Robert Darnton, the head of the Harvard library system, writes about the Google class-action agreement with the passion of a Progressive Era muckraker.

“Google will enjoy what can only be called a monopoly — a monopoly of a new kind, not of railroads or steel but of access to information,” Mr. Darnton writes. “Google has no serious competitors.”

He adds, “Google alone has the wealth to digitize on a massive scale. And having settled with the authors and publishers, it can exploit its financial power from within a protective legal barrier; for the class action suit covers the entire class of authors and publishers.”

While the article does go on offer a number of solid counter-arguments, it is disturbing that the lead voice is that of, well, a scared Luddite.

Simply because Google is the only company willing and/or able to take on such a massive program is no reason to fear the amazing potential the program will have.  To be able to search and access the collections of any library from anywhere in the world is just not a bad thing.  In fact, it is a glorious thing to spread information and knowledge.

Will Google suddenly control all the information in the world by scanning and indexing it?  I don’t see that happening.  It certainly won’t be harder to access material via Google than it would be to walk in off the street to Harvard’s library and borrow whatever you want.  Try that one and see how far you get.

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HarperCollins Poised for FAIL with Jeff Jarvis Along for the Ride

While I realize that the publishing industry is struggling in this digital age I just don’t see how HarperCollins is hoping to make things better with what they are calling “VBooks” or Video Books.

Basically, this entails an author sitting in front of a white wall giving one samples and highlights from their actual book.

A few problems I foresee:

1) This is not a promotional device.  Their first offering, a Vbook by Jeff Jarvis, costs ten bucks and it isn’t even the whole book being read.

2) This format does not add anything of value to the actual book.  Not only is there less information provided but it is impossible to notate, link, copy & paste or do any of the other things with like to do with books and E-books.

3) Few authors are truly compelling enough in this sort of setting to be much more than a cure for insomnia.

4) Maybe it’s just the combo of Jeff Jarvis and the white background but I keep thinking, while watching the sample, that this is just a big ad for E-Harmony.

All-in-all, I rate this as a big old waste of time and resources.

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