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.

Better Options, Not Legal Threats, Curb Music Piracy

A recent report is showing that the prevalence of P2P music file-sharing is on the decline but it turns out to have little to do with groups like the RIAA suing music fans:

The plethora of legal music options online has prompted Internet users in the UK to cut down on their P2P ways. According to an annual report from media and technology research firm The Leading Question, monthly file sharing has dropped among all users since the last national survey in 2007. The drop is particularly significant among teens, where file-sharing has declined by a third.     LINK

So where are teens going for their music?  To legal streaming sites like Last.FM, Pandora and Slacker.  See, as soon as there is a useful, accessible and easy option to P2P services, users are more than happy to make the switch.

Instead of spending all their time and energy suing music fans, the music industry needs to focus their resources on creating true competition to piracy. That is the only road to sustainability for the industry.  While this shift will mean a huge shake up in the current power-structure it beats losing everything to those dastardly pirates.

TweetMic Should Give RIAA Nightmares

There is a cool little iPhone App called TweetMic that I read about in Mashable earlier this week.  The App allows you to easily publish live recording to your Twitter followers:

The interface is simple: click on “record,” talk (you don’t really have to talk, you can play an instrument, a lute, for example), click “publish” and that’s it.

Cool, right?

What I really found interesting, however, was how the Mashable reviewer thought that he might use this handy application:

While I don’t record audio too often, I must admit that having the possibility to quickly record something and tweet it while you’re on the go is very interesting; being an avid concert goer, I might just start using TweetMic for those special “awww, they’re playing my favorite song” moments.

Now, a normal human being reading that might think, “Hey, what a neat idea,” because, hey, that’s a neat idea.

Of course, it probably never occurred to either the reviewer or our normal human being that this was just the sort of dangerous thinking that could DESTROY MUSIC FOREVER!

You see, if you were a lawyer for RIAA you would understand that giving a concert-goer the ability to immediately upload and broadcast their personal concert-going experience, why that’s simply stealing! By sharing how awesome the concert it with friends you are single-handedly murdering music! (don’t try to follow this logic – it is like religion, you just have to accept it and move on)

Interesting, isn’t it, that the reviewer never even considers that his idea is both illegal and likely to kill that which he loves? I wonder why that is…

Now, you have to ask yourself, do you want to side with the RIAA, who want to stop you from being able to share a one-of-a-kind awww moment and who’s longterm goal appears to be suing anyone claiming to be a fan of music or would you rather work to reform our outdated and misguided copyright laws?

Free Advice for Hulu: Play On

I just finished watching The Daily Show from last night on Hulu and happened to be in the middle of folding some clothes when the show ended.  After a brief ad, the screen went dead and offered up some static thumbnails of suggested viewing.

It dawned on me that Hulu was missing a great opportunity to either introduce me to new content or keep me viewing related content while increasing my potential time on the site – a big benefit when trying to sell advertisers.

So, Hulu, here is my free advice:

Once a program ends, if the viewer doesn’t intervene, just start streaming something else, just like you would do on TV.  Sure, I might not end up watching whatever it is…but I might.  Plus, you’ve lost nothing for trying.

Oh yeah, also, get your deal worked out with Boxee.  Installing these hacks is a pain in the butt and you’e not going to come out ahead by resisting.

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NPR’s “Roll Your Own” Podcast Misses Big Opportunity

I am a heavy NPR listener and was really excited when they created the DIY podcast builder that pulls specific NPR stories from all their shows based on your keywords and makes them into a handy daily podcast.  Awesome.

Now, I understand that they need to pay for this service and the news NPR provides so I can accept a certain amount of advertising but the current system is driving me nuts and might actually force me to stop using the service altogether.

Right now, before each story in my lineup, regardless of length of story, is preceeded by a 15-second ad for one of NPR’s sponsors.  So, even if all I have listened to is a 90-second quickie I still have to endure a 15-second ad.  Not only that, but it is the same ad EVERY time.

To put this in some perspective, I usually have about 20 stories in my daily NPR podcast with a total duration of about 90 minutes.  This means I am being bombarded with the same 15-second spot 20 times in an hour-and-a-half.

This is more advertising than I am exposed to on Hulu by far!

I am also surprised that NPR hasn’t figured out a way to serve ads more related to the keywords I use.  Even though most of the stories I listened to yesterday were about film and TV I was deafened by T Rowe Price 20 times.

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Seth McFarlane and YouTube are Back and It Feels So…Lame

Much has been made about the YouTube deal with Seth “Family Guy” McFarlane in which Seth creates VERY short, occassionally funny animated pieces and they are combined with a McFarlane-esque pre-roll ad (this time from Priceline) and distributed via Googles video ad network.

This seems to be working pretty well for them in terms of overall views but I find the presentation to be, well, a total ripoff.

As an example, check out this episode:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xI0OobsRh8&border=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

If you were paying attention you might have noticed that the pre-roll ad was about 20 seconds and the actual cartoon was also about 20 seconds.  That’s a pretty crappy ratio of sales to original content.  It doesn’t help that the original content is just kinda funny, if that.

I can’t imagine this is a format that will work for most online webseries.  While people do whatever they can to avoid ads on TV they are not going to put up with having to sit through an ad that is as long as the program they wanted to see in the first place online.

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Honeyshed Is Back – Act Fast, It Won’t Last

Image by danorbit. via Flickr

Honeyshed is a web-based QVC aimed at 20-somethings that had a soft beta lauch sometime last year and is now back with slick packaging and social media integration…and it is still proof that they don’t understand how to sell to young people at all.

Aside from the obvious problem that every product is sponsored, making it hard to trust the opinions of the lovely young hosts, who the hell is going to sit and watch this thing instead of just heading over to Google and doing a proper product search?

QVC is great for the homebound housewife with little else to do all day but why would anyone think the same basic approach would work on the fast-paced hipsters they are sadly courting?

They say they are “Home Shopping for the Digital Generation,” but that’s actually called the internet and today’s youngs don’t need Publicis showing them the way.

The Next Neilson

NewTeeVee is reporting about another entrant into the web video metrics game.  If web video is going to become a serious advertising venue than the metrics have to improve.

“…a raft of new companies like TubeMogul and Visible Measures have launched in the past few months, joining companies like Brightcove, which has been providing this with video delivery for several years, and Google Analytics, which recently unveiled an event model that tracks user actions such as interacting with a video player.

Now web analytics giant Omniture is getting into the game. The firm hopes that by tying video player interaction to visitor outcomes, it can give marketers back some of the visibility they’ve lost, helping them to better understand the effectiveness of online video.”

This is going to be a major part of the story when it comes to the business of web video.  Alongside search, aggregation and curating, metrics is gonna be huge.

William Morris Investing in Web

William Morris is one of the oldest talent agencies in the land so the fact that they’ve set up a multi-million-dollar fund to invest in online companies is a small sign that this isn’t another bubble.

According to the NYT:

“On Monday, the William Morris Agency, the Hollywood talent shop, will announce that it is teaming up with the Silicon Valley venture capital firms Accel Partners and Venrock to invest in digital media start-up companies based in Southern California. What makes the combination unusual, though, is the addition of AT&T as a limited partner.”

Though, as NewTeeVee points out:

“Don’t be looking for massive money: investments will range from $250,000 to millions of dollars. The total fund size is in the “tens of millions” so they’re not going to blow it all on one company.”

I think the big thing here is that mobile companies are seeking ways to get more video to their customers.  One hopes this will push the technology forward to a place that is at least close to the sort of coverage provided in many parts of Asia, where watching video on a mobile phone is commonplace.

America’s Pastime Goes Foul

LostRemote has a brief look on the latest restrictions the MLB is placing on websites in terms of what sorts of pro baseball footage they are allowed to distribute.

It sounds like an extremely rigid and mean-spirited set of guidelines that are meant to ensure people are forced to go to the official MLB site for anything worthwhile.

Well, we’ve all seen what happens when an organization tries to give the people a crap version of what they want – someone finds a way around it.

In general, this sort of policy seems to be counter to everything a National Pastime should be about.  It should be encouraged that we share, post and exchange our favorite moments from the game.  MLB should be supplying everything a fan could want to embed on their site or blog.

Let the MLB make its money through TV licenses, merchandise and ticket sales.  If they keep their fan base faithful by treating them like partners that shouldn’t be a problem.