Monday, May 30, 2005

Royal Blogger Takes on the World. King Sihanouk, former ruler of Cambodia once ousted in a U.S.-backed coup, takes heat for his blog. The pugnacious ex-king posts on topics from gay marriage and environmental rape to Hollywood cowboys and Cambodian politics. [Wired News] 4:41:04 PM    comment []

From stuff for on your Web site: The bitty browser allows you to include websites or RSS feeds in your webpage in a familiar browser interface. Basically it uses a simple iframe but the effect is stunning. So e.g. you can include your favorite RSS feeds as seperate iframe bitty browsers as a side panel but you could also promote your own website by sharing the bitty browser with your rss feed to other websites. 8:51:37 AM    comment []

Copyright prevented transmission of Beatles music to aliens Lucas sez, "I'm reading Murmurs of Earth, Carl Sagan's account of the how and why of the musical selections included on the golden phonograph records that went into space on the Voyager spacecraft. What really floored me was this little admission from page 19:" We wanted to send "Here Comes The Sun" by the Beatles, and all four Beatles gave their approval. But the Beatles did not own the copyright, and the legal status of the piece seemed too murky to risk. Link (Thanks, Lucas!) [bOing bOing] 8:41:13 AM    comment []

Tense Relations. David Harris discusses the significance of the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. And Michael Sledge examines the history of how the American military has buried and honored dead soldiers. [WNYC New York Public Radio] 8:38:17 AM    comment []

Iran Crushes Blog Spring. Journalist Hossein Derakhshan creates a way to blog in Persian and reach an Iranian audience from Canada. But bloggers are harassed in Iran, some even jailed. By Jeff Howe from Wired magazine. [Wired News] 8:38:06 AM    comment []

R.I.P., Arnold Morton: Steakhouse Founder, Dies at 83. Arnold Morton founded the chain of steakhouses that bear his name and helped start the first Playboy Club and the Taste of Chicago food festival. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. [NYT > Business] 8:37:34 AM    comment []

Seth has an A-List Analysis Collected Notes. "The A-list'ers are different from you and me" - T. Echnorati "Yes, they have more links" - P. O. Werlaw Some weekend fodder: Jon Garfunkel has a follow-up piece to "The New Gatekeepers" series: "Reactions" - "Ultimately, I wonder, will the essay spread because of those gatekeeper-less technologies, or by the grace of the influential gatekeepers?" I also must note his definition elsewhere: Long Tail - The part of the power curve away from the power. Bob Cox makes some remarks about the success of the "Huffington Post": "I was on Truth Laid Bare earlier today and noticed that is took all of a week for Ariana to jump to #11 on their "link ranking" with 2,472 with links.". Note one of the FAQ's (Frequently Asserted Querulousness) to understanding gatekeepers is that an A-list changes over time. And it does! Anyone who is a rich syndicated columnist, and knows many celebrities, can come out of nowhere and leap right to the top of the charts. When compared before and after celebrities and syndicated columnists took an interest, top rankings would be different, you betcha! (note these last remarks aren't meant to apply to Bob Cox, who knows all about A-list marketing) "The Vision Thing" has more linking analysis . . . [Infothought] 8:37:18 AM    comment []

Platinum record sonograms compared This site has turned the tracks off dozens of platinum albums into sonograms, then analyzed the sonogram similarities between different hits, trying to peg the mathematics of a hit.  . . . Link (via MeFi) [bOing bOing] 8:35:43 AM    comment []

How Apple will change everything about Podcasting, #2 -- How much could Howard Stern make podcasting via iTunes vs. broadcasting via Sirius?. Songs I Heard on The Nashville Nobody Knows Podcast The link above goes to an iMix I made of a few songs I've heard on the wonderful podcast, "The Nashville Nobody Knows," produced and hosted by Candace Corrigan. The ability to create an iMix (and to link to the URL of any iMix) is one of those subtle features already found in iTunes. In this demo, the link goes to a URL that will credit the  iTunes affiliate store I've set up for this demo. Candace could easily set up such an affiliate program and do some of the things I describe in this article. As for the "iMix lists," fast forward to when iTunes includes podcasts. Then, you'll be able to create, in grandest K-tel fashion, any iMix of podcasts you want . . . .   . . . (Note: This is #2 in a series of posts I'll be making during the next few days regarding the impact -- positive and negative -- of iTunes embracing -- the iTunification -- of podcasting. Here is a link to a page displaying all of the posts. Also, here is an RSS feed of posts in this series.) What if Howard Stern had chosen iTunes as his distribution channel rather than Sirius? Could he have generated the $100 million annually he is reportedly receiving from the satellite radio network? In a minute, we'll ponder the math of the Stern deal vs. a hypothetical iTunes one. But first, let's consider some easy arithmetic. In the quaint old days, ten years ago, MIT Media Lab's Nicholas Negroponte put forth a theory in a Wired column that suggested (it was merely a theory, remember) that NY Times technology writer John Markoff could make $1 million a year if a small percentage of internet users (and this was in 1995) paid him 5¢ each for each story they read.  . . . . Fortunately, for all involved, Markoff continued to write for the Times and has not, as far as I can determine, hired Negroponte for financial advisory services. Micropayments weren't going to work for a long, long time. Indeed, it can be argued that it was not until Apple iTunes cracked the micropayment conundrum, that someone showed that Negroponte's  theory that a vending-machine "byte" media business model could work. (Ringtones are another micropayment success story, as well.) . . . . At least in this context, Negroponte was correct, except for the John Markoff part.   . . . . Only a few people will get to play in the big leagues of this type of podcast economy. (I doubt John Markoff is one.) Fortunately, there will be lots of smaller opportunities for the rest of us. Take, for instance, the demonstration I've set up as a sidebar to the left. In it, I display how the podcast The Nashville Nobody Knows and Candace Corrigan, the host and producer of the show (who pays ASCAP & BMI fees to do so, "legally" plays the songs of the musicians she loves) could generate a 5% commission on any iTunes download of those songs she may generate from her listeners. (She has such an arrangement with Amazon.com already, but I doubt she even knows she can do this via iTunes.)  . . .  . . . . Sirius is paying Stern $100 million a year based on the belief that a certain percentage of his 8 million listeners will purchase the hardware necessary and then pay 58¢ per show ($142 per year/250 weekdays = 58¢ per show).  . . . . A survey in February reveals the challenge Sirius is facing, as only a small percentage of his listeners seem ready to step up to the plate when they learn of the hardware investment plus $142 per year they'll be required to spend. Now, let's consider the following: What percentage of Sterns 8 million listeners (18-34 year old males) have iPods or would rather purchase an iPod than purchase hardware to listen to Sirius? How many of them would think it's a better deal to spend $25 per year (10¢ per program) to get their daily Stern fix than the $142 per year (58¢ per program) they'll be paying Sirius?  . . . . [rexblog: Rex Hammock's Weblog] 8:29:49 AM    comment []

A Ring Tone of a Moped Outsells a Hit Song. A mobile phone ring tone based on an imitation of the sound of a Swedish moped is expected to become the leading music single in Britain. By THOMAS CRAMPTON International Herald Tribune. [NYT > Technology] 8:23:19 AM    comment []

Vietnam Pledges Not to Pursue Human Vaccine for Bird Flu on Its Own [Washington Post: Top News] 8:23:11 AM    comment []

Identity Thief Teaches Colleges About Fraud. The former identity thief assumed more than 50 aliases to collect about $316,000 in federal student grants and loans. By KRISTEN A. LEE. [NYT > Education] 8:17:57 AM    comment []

IBM unveils new privacy technology. Claiming a technology breakthrough in privacy and security, IBM last week introduced software that allows corporate users to share information with each other and government agencies without having to reveal private details. [InfoWorld: Top News] From the story: The technology, called DB2 Anonymous Resolution, has the potential to address the broad range of security problems involved in handling personal information in markets such as health care, financial services, and national security. Everyone needs to share data, but the more it is shared, the higher the chances it will get out of your control. Lots of people with information would like to know when they have two records in common, for instance, but they don’t want to share all their information just to discover that, said the technology’s inventor, Jeff Jonas, chief scientist of Entity Analytics and a Distinguished IBM Engineer. The technology is an extension of IBM’s analytics software, which uses irreversible "digital signatures" and other techniques for correlating the data while it remains in an "anonymized" form. This contributes to enhancing privacy but it also prevents data from being observed in its original form. Offering one example of how the technology works, Jonas said banks who want to market services to their own customers typically turn to a company with large databases such as LexisNexis to obtain more specific information about those customers, such as what magazines they might subscribe to or how many children they have. Banks, however, are often reluctant to disclose their customers’ names. Jonas said his approach is the first where each party encrypts its own data using advanced correlation and cryptographic data. 8:13:49 AM    comment []