Webremix Articles

Unsettling Signs: Buzzwords, Politics and US Elections

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:36:01 GMT

By Ramzy Baroud

There are a few buzzwords that every American politician, aiming for high office must utilize, even if disingenuously, to have a reasonable chance at getting elected.

President-elect, Barak Obama’s constant use of terms like ‘hope’ and ‘change’ contributed greatly to the overwhelming support he has experienced by the American public. Many, admiringly so, have overcome a legacy of racial division and prejudice that has defined America for decades, if not centuries. In that regard, voting to office a bi-racial candidate is truly an historic event.

John McCain had an impossible disadvantage to overcome, and failed miserably. He was judged largely based on the many blunders of Republican President George W. Bush, and was evidently caught between a rock and a hard place: to distance himself completely from Bush’s legacy, he would risk losing a large margin of his conservative base; to embrace it completely, he would have no chance of broadening that already shrinking constituency. Thus, he too resorted to clichés and buzzwords, which eventually lost any relevance and merely constituted ample material for television comedians: ‘maverick’, ‘straight talker’, and, of course, ‘Joe the Plummer.’

His desperate and repeated attempts to breathe life into and push forward his under funded, unpopular campaign were of no use. However, his choice of Alaska’s governor Sarah Palin as his running mate might go down in history as his greatest blunder of them all.

The fact is, both candidates, McCain and Obama, had much more in common than they would care to admit, as they voted to fund the Iraq war, supported offshore drilling, backed the plan to bail out Wall Street, appealed to the ‘middle class’, never the many millions of poor Americans, and brazenly demonstrated their undying love for Israel, right or wrong. Any truly independent assessment would most likely show that commonalities between both candidates – especially towards the end of their campaigns – ran too deep that would render designations of them as ‘opponents’, engaged in constant ‘debates’, particularly puzzling.

Each candidate also exploited certain advantages over the other. Watching Hilary Clinton’s frenzied yet futile campaign to secure the Democratic Party nomination, McCain learned to be very vigilant while scorning his opponent. Any remark that could be misconstrued as a racial commentary was avoided at every turn. Aside from all sorts of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab remarks, actions and inactions, the McCain-Palin campaign steered clear of the issue of race. At one point, McCain assured an anxious supporter of him that Obama is not an Arab, but a “decent family man.”

Obama too would tirelessly acknowledge that his opponent was a great “American hero.” Not one mainstream news network, commentator or ‘expert’ failed to solemnly accept McCain’s heroism while serving as a Navy pilot in Vietnam, and for having his aircraft shot down in the fall of 1967 on a routine bombing mission in Hanoi. McCain’s heroic mission entailed the leveling of a power plant in a heavily populated area. Naturally, little is known about the Vietnamese victims of McCain’s ‘heroic’ missions, for whom the ‘straight talker’ had nothing but utter disdain. “I will hate them as long as I live,” he told reporters in 2000, while traveling in The Straight Talk Express campaign bus.

Both campaigns were generously supported by corporate money, but with Obama being the clear favorite, as his victory chances were palpably higher than McCain’s.

To a higher degree than McCain, Obama’s rhetoric was riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions. This is to be expected from any politician in US politics, but Obama again proved to be superior.

Both candidates accused the other of accepting funds from shady sources, including Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, whose failures contributed largely to the US financial crisis and subsequent economic recession. The Washington Post reported in August 27, 2008 that “two members of Mr. Obama's political circle, James A. Johnson and Franklin D. Raines, are former chief executives of Fannie Mae.” Raines, who was accused of shady dealings himself, which generated him more than $50 million (according to New York Times John Steele Gordon) just before the collapse of the company was, according to the Boston Globe, put in charge of finding Obama’s vice-president, the ardent pro-Israeli supporter, Joe Biden.

In fact, Obama’s picks for his future administration seem, thus far, consistent with the choices he made for his campaign advisors. Early news reports already speak about an Obama team consisting of Washington’s ‘experts” and “old guard.” An early ominous sign greeted hopeful Obama supporters just hours after he was declared a winner, when he chose Rahm Israel Emaneul as his White House Chief of Staff. Not only is Emaneul the opposite depiction of unity, hope and change, but one must also question his true commitment to the United States. “His volunteer service in Israel during the 1990s Gulf War is no fiction, with the Jewish press hailing Emanuel's ascension as a sign that Israel will have its own man in the Obama White House,” wrote Elana Schore in the British Guardian on November 6. In fact, theories are already rife regarding the relationship between Obama’s choices and the support he received from the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington during the campaign, despite his ‘irksome’ middle name and his unsettling ‘ties’ to world-renowned Palestinian intellectuals Edward Said and Rashid Khalidi.

It needs to be said, if Obama’s rise to power provides any positive indications at all, it is that the popular mood has been fundamentally altered in its perceptions regarding race and gender in politics. But the elections tell more about the American voters, than those for whom they voted. The fact that Obama is half African-American or that Biden supposedly grew up in harsh circumstances – or that Palin is a woman and McCain’s airplane was shot down – should be of no essence at all insofar as their policies, decisions and leaderships are concerned. That would be determined by time and experience, although the early signs are hardly promising.

-Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).

Is Aptana Really a Cloud?

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:15:00 GMT

The line between what is considered a cloud and what is paramount to hosting is a blurry line at the best of times. What qualifies a companies offering as a cloud based product offering? That is a question that is continually debated in the cloud circles and no one has really yet to offer a real concrete reason. Setting aside all the marketing buzzwords that will get thrown in "scalability" / "on-demand" / "deploy", a cloud offering has to deliver on its hype.

Ring! Ring! Hot News, 10th November 2008

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:11:34 GMT

In Today’s Issue: Your churning handset market; Apple beats RIM into third; horrible quarter in the Telco USSR; astonishingly trivial jailbreak for Gphones; iPhone emergency call only function lets you call any number; AT&T’s iPhone-as-router; cap watch; MobileMe sporked; some kind of election in US spikes SMS service; CEP is your new favourite TLA; Virgin Media struggles, Iliad soars; Rio gets really fast Internet service; Orange cans IPTV; DTAG feeling better now; Turkcell stars at Telco 2.0, boosts profits 50%; 900MHz 3G in Finland; Vodacom = Vodafone Africa; Nortel MetroEthernet sale off; C&W split forever delayed due to unexpected good news; YouTube eats the world

The handset market is churning frantically, as Samsung unexpectedly races into the lead in the US and elsewhere. Motorola is the biggest loser, even with last week’s good news from Sprint. Here’s more on the devices, especially the Omnia iPhone clone. Apple has overtaken RIM for smartphone shipments.

We said last week’s good news from Sprint; good news is a relative term. It’s been yet another sapping quarter for them. Unlike some other Kansan stories, this time there’s little prospect of waking up to find it’s all just a bad dream.

And those pesky kids have beaten the restrictions on the Google Android G1. The hack is alarmingly simple — it requires you to install a terminal client and telnet to the device’s own IP address from within your /bin/system/ directory. That’s a total of three commands to get full root access; cd /bin/system/, netstat (or ifconfig), telnet your.ip.address.here…and you’re done. Of course there’s a patch coming, but you really have to wonder about Android’s security if it’s that simple. Has anyone tried to telnet into it from another IP address? For geekier readers, the original XDADevel thread is here; it gets interesting when they start talking about running Jabberd and the curious fact that everything on a G1 runs in a hidden console as root…

Relatedly, it appears that the iPhone’s password lock allows thieves to call any number they like. There’s more on AT&T and the death of the iPhone-as-router app, too. AT&T is also apparently planning to cap heavy users, with a Comcast-like big bucket approach (150GB a month for the top speed bracket).

Apple’s been caught short of infrastructure to support its cloud activities before, and this week it happened again, with MobileMe going down for seven hours.

In the US, meanwhile, apparently there was some sort of election. Telephony Online reports that Barack Obama’s election spiked SMS traffic by around 10% (“She cannae hold it much longer, Cap’n!”). Worthy of note:

The power of the mobile phone was a prominent theme throughout Obama’s campaign, which included a dedicated mobile effort with the ability to download ringtones, wallpaper or receive text updates on the issues. The campaign reached across nearly every major social network and even called upon geographically and demographically targeted advertising messages over Quattro Wireless’ network to encourage voters in key states to vote early.

There’s more here.

Interesting new buzzword watch; Complex Event Processing. It looks like it ties into a lot of Telco 2.0 themes.

Meanwhile, a tale of two telcos. Virgin Media’s net loss doubles; Iliad sees profits rise by 30%. Even stripping out the effect of acquiring Alice France, they were still up 17%. It’s rather depressing that out of the three fundamental business strategies, the one that the UK ISP industry hasn’t tried is “operational excellence”. And come to think of it, “new product” has barely been touched in the general dash for price leadership.

In Rio de Janeiro, they’re trialling 60Mbits/s cable service. Dude, where’s my fibre? Orange UK, meanwhile, is cutting back on investment and canning its IPTV rollout; apparently it’s too similar to BT Vision. Or, for that matter, to all the other IPTV and cable TV operators in the world.

Deutsche Telekom peeked out of the hospital this week with unexpectedly good results. “Improved processes” were given as one of the reasons, which certainly sounds like an attempt at operational excellence to us. But one of the stars of Telco 2.0 last week, Turkcell, matched that with a 50% boost to profits.

900MHz spectrum refarming is coming: DNA in Finland announced a major deployment of 3G base stations in the old GSM band. Meanwhile, Vodafone took a controlling stake in Vodacom. It seems that Vodacom is now going to be developed as the centre for Vodafone’s activities in Africa, with the Ghanaian and Kenyan stakes rolled up in it.

Fixed-line voice is dying in Hungary. Everyone mourned Nortel’s announcement that it was selling its optical networks business; but this week it looks like that’s off - nobody can afford to buy it!.

Cable & Wireless isn’t going to divide itself in two after all, or at least not for a while, in a “things not so bad after all” storm.

And finally, this is interesting — a new study shows that Web video has overtaken P2P filesharing as a traffic generator. Come on, you’re not seriously proposing to block all web traffic too…

Exploring the internet on TV

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:08:28 GMT

IPTV, otherwise known as Internet Protocol TV, has been a buzzword on computers for the past year with the development of services such Joost, Hulu and the ABC's own iView application. Now experts sa...

Consumers rate automakers' bang for the buck

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:29:00 GMT

Filed under: Trends, Etc., Chevrolet, GM, HUMMER, Toyota

Consumers surveyed for the YouGovPolimetrix BrandIndex were asked to rate everything from cable channels to search engines in terms of bang for the buck. It's not so much a scientific study as it is an opinion poll, and among the department stores and search engines, automakers were also rated. Among the domestic carmakers, General Motors claims both the best and the worst, with HUMMER rated the worst bang for the buck while Chevrolet was rated positively. Toyota was among the top ten of all brands rated, demonstrating consumers ongoing love for their Camrys, but before we end up with a dogmatic flamewar in the comments, remember that this is just an opinion poll with an buzzword-tastic name.

[Source: AdAge]

Consumers rate automakers' bang for the buck originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A change of heart runs through the conservative American heartland

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:22:30 GMT

Yes, here in the American heartland, in the months, weeks and days before the most closely watched election since 1960, "change" was the buzzword. And the story, Barack Obama's story and his...

Lifting the Fog from Cloud Computing

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:59:55 GMT

Back in August 2008, at LinuxWorld in San Francisco, the big buzzword was "Cloud Computing". It's a neat concept, but after a week of hearing folks talk about "in the cloud", I was about at the end of my rope.

Crennel insists it was his decision to start Quinn

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 02:26:29 GMT

Brady Quinn entered to face a media semicircle in front of Anderson's stall. Quietly, the quarterbacking torch was passed. On a Tuesday in which change was the buzzword across the country, power shift...

The 451 Group to Present "SOA, Virtualization and Cloud Computing" Session in San Jose, California

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 02:30:00 GMT

CIOs don't really care about the cloud. They care about budgets, security and compliance. All the buzzwords in the world won't help innovative technology unless it maps directly onto CIO pain points. This session investigates what those pain points are, and where emerging products and vendors are successfully solving real-world problems for end users. A picture of the cloud emerges, not as an abstraction viewed from the outside, but as a set of closely related changes taking place within the world's IT infrastructure.

Economy cools global moves

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:23:11 GMT

Weekly: Showbiz reels as fiscal crisis hits everyone -- Up until a few weeks ago, the buzzword in Hollywood was "international." Overseas seemed to be the key to growth aspirations, with B.O. booming, studios cranking up local-language production, networks buying overseas TV formats, and key funding streaming in from India's Reliance (to DreamWorks), the Abu Dhabi Media Co. (Warner Bros.) and Dubai's Tatweer (Universal).

Cloud Computing, Part 1: Some Breaks in the Fog

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:00:00 GMT

Pity the Patent and Trademark Office examining attorney who gave Dell the green light propelling its trademark application for the term "cloud computing" toward the home stretch this summer. That particular individual was obviously unaware that the phrase had become, over the course of a year, one of the hottest buzzwords in the tech industry.

Voodoo's Rahul Sood continues to tease new product, calls it "forward-thinking"

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:07:00 GMT

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Oh Rahul, why must you tease us so? Over a month after you referenced that "some other thing," we're still left to wonder what exactly "that thing" is. In a recent video response (posted after the break) to a question surrounding the HP Blackbird 002 gaming PC, Voodoo's founder closes things out by informing viewers that a product "way ahead of its time" is sitting just behind him, but he confesses that he can't show it off just yet. Of course, he also threw in the "forward-thinking" buzzword and assured us that the industry would "absolutely embrace" it, but as of now, there's simply nothing there to wrap our retinas around besides that smile. The game's growing tired, Mr. Sood.

Continue reading Voodoo's Rahul Sood continues to tease new product, calls it "forward-thinking"

Voodoo's Rahul Sood continues to tease new product, calls it "forward-thinking" originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Long Tail - little value, says new research

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:08:25 GMT

Exclusive: Will Page, the music industry’s only dedicated economist, will be presenting at the Telco 2.0 event next week for the first time new research that suggests there is little value in the ‘Long Tail’.

The theory as developed by Chris Anderson back in 2004, and which has since become a widely accepted buzzword, doesn’t stand up to robust statistical analysis he says.

On stage next week, to support his argument, he will share analysis of itunes usage data gathered over 12 months from a catalogue of 13m songs. This is part of pioneering work with Harvard Business School and MBlox. At the event we will explore this analysis with the 250 senior execs gathered and try to agree what it means for current and future business models in the Telco-Media-Tech sector.

In the article below, written in partnership with Anita Elberse, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Will introduces some of the background and concepts behind his work:

PLACE YOUR BETS - PROFILE, TENSION & PROFITABILITY IN LONG TAIL MARKETS

Let’s start with a recent quotation from one of the most important people in the music industry:

“With a distribution that’s become more concentrated in shape, combined with a head that doesn’t hit like it used to and a tail that’s infinite in length, the question I need answered is this. Should I bet $5 million on Pharrell being a blockbuster hit, or spread my bets of $1 million on five different acts?” - Roger Faxon, CEO EMI Music Publishing, Autumn 2008

There is an old saying from the sport of kings, which goes something like this: ‘The jockey is only as good as the horse’. The point being that no matter how good the jockey is, their individual performance will be affected by the quality of the horse they have been paired with. Of course the market for jockeys and the market for horses are separate but intrinsically linked, coordinated even - but that still means that placing your bets solely on the performance of one, leaves your strategy exposed to the past form, preparation and most importantly on-the-day performance of the other.

As an aside, the great jockey Lester Piggott infamously broke rank with the conventional ‘works for hire’ practice, where the jockey was retained by the stable, and instead ‘cherry picked’ the horses that he wished to work with.

The same saying has implications for how new economic theories are presented and received, too. A jockey could instead be an ‘en vogue’ commentator, professor or business executive who’s concepts, analysis and theories have propelled their profile to ‘blockbuster’ status. But just like the jockey, those theories are only as good as the horse in which they came in on - the horse being the evidence available at the time.

In December 2004, a seminal article by Chris Anderson in Wired magazine, titled ‘The Long Tail’, propelled him and his theory to ‘blockbuster’ status, not just in terms of blog-prowess, but also in terms of book sales two years later. But it would be unwise to bet on this celebrated jockey’s theory, without a proper consideration for the quantity and quality of the evidence available at the time, and how both the availability of data and its behaviour have since changed.

Whilst the ‘theory of the long tail’ was intuitively impressive at the time, (as barriers to entry to media markets had fallen, inventory capacity increased and scarcity removed), there were some gaping errors which should have really been flagged up.

Firstly, this concept is not new - for example, the Performing Right Society (PRS), a membership-governed not-for-profit organisaton, has been the home of long tail data for individuals (niches) as opposed to firms (aggregators) since 1921. Yet, nowhere in the US-dominated ‘long tail’ literature can one find reference to our US counterparts of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. Was this an opportunity missed?

Secondly, the PRS collected �562 million in royalties on behalf of its members in 2007, yet the digital market (which the theory has been so focused upon) constitutes less than two percent. That’s not to be dismissed, but we must remember that this long tail ‘market’ has and will continue to revolve around far more revenue streams than just some long tail data from iTunes, Rhapsody and the like. The point being, the form book presented thus far does not encourage constructive betting.

But these gapping errors in the ‘theory of the long tail’ get worse, or become increasingly evident with the benefit of hindsight, when you start to consider the ‘value’ of the data, as opposed to just volumes of transactions. To date, nearly all of the arguments have been based on volume of transactions, with little understanding of the economic value which they represent - and to whom.

For the music business, this could be the striking lack of ‘value data’ in the United States, or the vacant looks when what one would presumably assume is a simple question of ‘who gets what from an iTune’ is left unanswered. Economists are usually first to point out that what’s needed is an understanding of marginal costs and marginal benefits, yet on this occasion - we’ve been caught sleeping. And songwriters, publishers, collecting societies, performers and record labels deserve better.

One reason why they deserve better is that no one has fully explained the effect of ‘displacement’ in markets that have been disrupted by the ‘long tail’. A simple example might be that a songwriter / artist celebrating ten-fold increase in the number transactions on iTunes compared to what would have happened in terms of physical album sales finds themselves net-net worse off once the value side of the equation has been considered.

The value of the album has been displaced, or unbundled, by the granular long tail market which offers flat priced tracks. But displacement is everywhere - and marginal costs and marginal benefits help illustrate this. Increasingly, the CEOs of media companies who invest in new talent are asking themselves the following question when licensing new ‘long tail’ markets: ‘are we giving up a cost-effective way of collecting ten for a cost ineffective collection of one’.

With a wealth of information leading to a poverty of attention, the cost of making a product stand out from the market grows - both in absolute and relative terms. For example, a dense release schedule for the all important fourth quarter presumably means that you have to market a band more than would otherwise be the case.

But costs increase relatively too, due to Baumol’s ‘cost disease’ - where the cost of advertising doesn’t fall in line with recorded music revenues, rather it increases with other booming media sectors like computer games. The less advertising, the less the demand - the bigger the gap, the more it’ll take to fill it.

Hence, we can take a leaf from the great Karl Popper, and the late great David Hume before him, and take the conjecture that the long tail is “creating unlimited demand” and consider that it is a supply side phenomenon, in that everyone can supply to the market, but tells us little about the demand that will result, never mind the knock on effects to existing markets.

I’ve always believed in conjectures and refutations, so as a starter for ten, let’s consider the conjecture that the market can be defined as having only a head and a tail. This obviously leads to the question ‘what about the body?’

Data mining for evidence based around only two market segments risks missing the natural distribution of the market, after all there used to be three price points in the Bricks & Mortar store: full, mid and budget. The point being that it wasn’t just two: there could be many other sub markets beyond this simple classification. Yet simplification of the market place presumably helps get the point across, or make the jockey look good, but it does little for those in the horse business.

Firstly, Andersen’s book does little to consider the profile of the long tail market - which in the case of the MCPS-PRS Alliance is �562 million in royalties, collected on behalf of over 50,000 individual songwriters and more than 5,000 publishers - along with an extensive international reciprocal network that connects us to over 132 sister societies worldwide.

Instead, it focused on some geographically limited data from a lesser known digital music provider called Rhapsody. Second, what the long tail means depends on where you sit in the value chain. Similar to what ‘advances’ means depends on where you are in your career, professionally and financially. The loud minority are heard more ‘whinging about major labels’ for more often than the silent majority who’ve built up a sustainable relationship with a firm whose willing to invest in risk capital on their behalf.

If it’s a business of risk, more than a business of hits subsidising misses, then endless choice is creating a tension in a market that depends upon and is driven by advances.

Third, and most importantly, there has been very little attention paid to profitability. This is not surprising, as the US music business has worked in a vacuum of any robust value data - partly due to commercial sensitivities, partly due to the ignorance of data. This leads jockeys to look at transactions in isolation, and that dilutes the relevance of economies of scale, which in many ways can characterise the whole ‘long tail’ debate to date.

It’s not, however, a case of value data, but marginal revenues and marginal costs. Put another way, at the margin, what’s the cost of entering a market and what can you expect to take home from each additional sale? One those funds have been divided up, who can expect to get what?

[Ed - If you’re interested in digging deeper into the issue, Helen Elberse’s <a href=”Harvard Business Review article is strongly recommended. Will Page, Chief Economist, MCPS PRS Alliance, London, UK, will be presenting a talk at next week’s Telco 2.0 event.]

Peter Bart stays ahead of the curve

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:09:09 GMT

Daily Variety 75th Anniversary: After 20 years, Variety's editor-in-chief looks to more change -- In this political year, the buzzword is "change." But that can mean many things. Some people thrive on new experiences, while many fear upheaval and prefer to embrace old habits.

PHP: How mysqlnd async queries help you with sharding!

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:05:30 GMT

Recipe for conference talks: add a buzzword like "sharding" and show how mysqlnd helps you with asynchronous queries. Only two PHP database extensions give you asynchronous queries: mysqlnd and Postgres. Slides (OpenOffice) from the International PHP Conference 2008 have the details about the asynchronous query API in ext/mysqli (using mysqlnd). Asynchronous, non-blocking IO is an old favourite. Although its an old idea, and it is a well known technology that is supported in many environments, it is still new for PHP database extensions. A year ago, I blogged about parallel and asynchronous queries in mysqlnd. Shortly after we had it implemented but never tested it and therefore never pushed it forward. Parallel queries, using a background thread in PHP, did not turn out to fly. But asynchronous queries have some potential. (...)Read the rest of PHP: How mysqlnd async queries help you with sharding! (331 words)

Integrated Design in Contemporary Architecture

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:36:33 GMT

Listen in on any conversation about architecture these days and you will almost certainly hear the buzzword of early 21st century building - sustainability.

Cloudworks CEO Mike Eaton to Present at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 02:00:00 GMT

Cloud Computing is the new buzzword in the technology industry. But even industry insiders don’t agree on exactly what the term means. We shouldn’t be surprised that mainstream business is approaching it with caution. Businesses have many concerns about moving their data to the cloud, some legitimate and some irrational. All these concerns need to be overcome in order for a widespread adoption of Cloud computing to occur. This session will discuss the obstacles to getting customers to embrace the concept of cloud computing and how to over come them. This session will cover topics such as the dangers of preaching to the converted, why “better” isn’t good enough when moving customers away from the familiar, and communicating the benefits without getting lost in the technical details.

Professor Lawrence Lessig to Keynote at SES Chicago

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:59:08 GMT

Lawrence Lessig, a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, will be giving the opening keynote at Search Engine Strategies Chicago on Monday, Dec. 8, 2008. The title of his keynote is “Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy.”

And, if you read the description of Professor Lessig’s keynote in the conference agenda, it says: “The content industry has convinced industry in general that extremism in copyright regulation is good for business and economic growth. That’s false. In this talk, Professor Lessig describes the creative and profitable future that culture and industry could realize, if only we gave up IP extremism.”

What is he getting at?

Well, “Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy” also happens to be the title of Professor Lessig’s new book, which just went on sale on Amazon.com.

And, according to the editorial reviews on Amazon.com, “The author of Free Culture shows how we harm our children -- and almost anyone who creates, enjoys, or sells any art form -- with a restrictive copyright system driven by corporate interests. Lessig reveals the solutions to this impasse offered by a collaborative yet profitable ‘hybrid economy’.”

It goes on to say that Professor Lessig, who is the reigning authority on intellectual property in the Internet age, “spotlights the newest and possibly the most harmful culture war -- a war waged against our kids and others who create and consume art.” It adds, “America’s copyright laws have ceased to perform their original, beneficial role: protecting artists’ creations while allowing them to build on previous creative works. In fact, our system now criminalizes those very actions.”

How does it do that? Well, Professor Lessig argues that “biting” riffs from films, videos, or songs shouldn’t be crimes. Why? It makes felons out of some of today’s most talented artists.

Professor Lessig argues that the way to end this war is to embrace what he calls the “read-write culture,” which allows its users to create art as readily as they consume it. And he can already see glimmers of a new hybrid economy that combines the profit motives of traditional business with the “sharing economy” evident in such websites as Wikipedia and YouTube.

Wow. That’s strong stuff. And, if we play buzzword bingo at SES Chicago 2008, then there are a couple arcane business concepts that we can use on our bingo cards.

But, this short blurb may not do justice to Professor Lessig. So, I emailed him some questions about the topic of his opening keynote. And he emailed me his answers -- quickly, I might add.

Here is our Q&A:

Q: Who benefits and who is harmed by extremism in copyright regulation?

A: Benefits: Lawyers (certainly). The record companies (maybe). Harmed: Artists, businesses, consumers — and a generation of (criminalized) kids.

Q: What are the “read-write culture” and the “hybrid economy”?

A: A RW culture is one where ordinary people are empowered to participate in the creation and recreation of their culture. Every culture in human history has been RW, save for a few dark years in the 20th century.

A hybrid is a commercial entity that tries to leverage value out of a sharing economy, or a sharing economy that tries to use a commercial entity to support it. Either way, two radically different cultures need to learn how to work together with each other.

Q: When will this war on our kids stop, the “read-write culture” be reborn, and the “hybrid economy” start to flourish?

A: When policy makers are woken up to the extraordinary cost this war is imposing.

Q: Where can we already see glimmers of a new “hybrid economy” that combines the profit motives of traditional business with the “sharing economy”?

A: I think everywhere around us. All of the interesting Internet businesses today are hybrid: Flickr, Second Life, Yelp!, even Amazon builds much of its business from the sharing activity of its customers.

Q: Why is IP extremism bad for business and economic growth?

A: Practice moderation. When the lawyers in the room start insisting that the licenses you create must impose perfect control over everything you have, ask them to prove it. Ask them to demonstrate that the business return from that relationship of antagonism is higher than its cost. Don't give over your business’ future to those who don’t think like a business man or woman. Keep focused on the only undeniable truth: IP is an asset. Like any business asset, it should be deployed to maximize the value of the corporation.

Let me add that I’ve watched the 19-minute-long video of Professor Lessig speaking at last year’s TED Conference as well as the 4-minute 35 second video from OpenSourceCinema which is embedded below. So, I am confident that he will rock the house at Search Engine Strategies Chicago.

Lessig Remix

Professor Lessig was also named one of Scientific American’s Top 50 Visionaries, for arguing “against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online.” He’s on the board of the Creative Commons project has served on the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He was also a columnist for Wired, Red Herring, and the Industry Standard.

In other words, he’s a speaker worth coming to SES Chicago to hear. And, yes, I do think I'll put some of his arcane business concepts on a buzzword bingo card.

IDC Takes First Hard Look at Virtualization Market

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 23:10:48 GMT

It's not just a buzzword: Enterprises are really deploying virtualized systems at explosive rates.

Free "Cloud Computing & AJAX" Session by Amazon's Jeff Barr on October 22, in San Jose, California

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Cloud Computing isn’t just another buzzword: this session will look at what the industry is up to, Amazon is up to, and especially how people are innovating in the cloud. Buzzwords aside, virtualized (cloud) computing is a disruptive game changer at both technical and business levels, as you'll learn. Amazon Senior Evangelist Jeff Barr will review Amazon's multi-year effort to provide software developers and entrepreneurs with the technical and business innovations which allow them to build cost-effective, highly-scalable web applications.

Free "Cloud Computing & AJAX" Session by Amazon's Jeff Barr on October 22, in San Jose, California

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:15:00 GMT

Using AJAX & Cloud Computing Platform to Build Cost-Effective, Highly-Scalable Web Apps

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:45:00 GMT

Lispjobs: Sr. Software Engineer (Sunnyvale, CA)

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 07:12:33 GMT

Watch out for the heavy flash marketing blob on this job listing for a senior software engineer. Java, C++, LISP experience required. While the position description is light, their company seems fully buzzword-compliant.

Using the Cloud to Build Cost-Effective, Highly-Scalable Web Apps

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 03:00:00 GMT

How Do You Qualify Something as Cloud Computing?

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 02:00:00 GMT

Practically every one with an online business model is now referring to their service as cloud computing - starting from your average Joe hosting firm all the way to the SaaS/S+S vendors, every wants to ride the next buzzword wave, and this distorts the cloud computing term all together. Part of the reason being that historically the term "cloud" loosely referred to anything that’s available online/on the Internet. Ask a bunch of geeks and you would get a different explanation of cloud computing from each person (if you ever asked a bunch of people what Web 2.0 is you know what I mean). So how can we qualify if a service is really leveraging the cloud computing model?

Using the Cloud to Build Cost-Effective, Highly-Scalable Web Apps

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:30:00 GMT

Big Blue shares cloudy thinking with developers+dog

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:25:21 GMT

If there was an index for how many times a vendor hops onto a new buzzword and tried to slap it on every product in their catalog, then it is probably safe to say that IBM would be the most actively traded ...

Sharp shows off 52-inch solar-powered LCD TV at CEATEC

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:01:00 GMT

Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

We've seen some fairly fascinating things at CEATEC this year, but this one could be the biggest game-changer of 'em all, if you'll allow us just one buzzword. The LED-backlit 52-incher you see above comes attached to a not-at-all convenient solar floor panel which presumably provides at least some of the energy required to power this thing. We've no clue how close the design is to being viable for the commercial realm, but we'd say Sharp's definitely headed in the right direction here.

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Finance is no longer a buzzword in B-schools

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 10:38:36 GMT

As banks and financial institutions across US and Europe continue to collapse like nine pins, finance is no longer the buzz word in B-school campuses.

Finance is no longer a buzzword in B-schools

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 22:40:42 GMT

As banks and financial institutions across US and Europe continue to collapse like nine pins, finance is no longer the buzz word in B-school campuses.

Companies unveil surprising ways to get antioxidants

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:22:28 GMT

They're the latest fad in food marketing, hotter than sugar-free, fat-free, high-protein or low-carb offerings. Today's buzzword: antioxidants.

What Happens When SOA and Virtualization Intersect?

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Virtualization is a buzzword that is living up to its hype as it takes hold in IT. It has spawned magazine covers, conferences, and analyst reports, and all with good reason. Virtualization allows applications to be deployed in a highly efficient manner. By taking the physical servers out of the equation, virtualization allows applications to be deployed across a number of servers, or for multiple operating systems to run simultaneously on one server.

Toshiba expands recycling program

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 04:26:00 GMT

Section: Audio, Accessories, Video, Accessories, Communications, Accessories, Cellphones, Computers, Gadgets / Other, Green, Gaming, Accessories

“Going Green” is certainly a very popular buzzword for many companies in the past few years. In an attempt to capitalize on that, many tech companies like Apple and Dell (and stores like Best Buy) have taken up recycling programs. In terms of the companies, however, it usually involves buying a product from them (and in Dell’s case, they’ll only take Dell branded items).

Toshiba is taking a different approach. Toshiba will accept any sort of electronics from cell phones to computer to video game systems, all without having to buy a single thing. Toshiba wants to recycle any sort of “e-waste” you might have regardless of where you buy electronics or what kind of electronics you buy. Toshiba will even pay you for recycling as a trade-in (which, admittedly Best Buy has offered before). For example, my two year old MacBook Pro would get me $325,, and a $25 Starbucks gift card. Not bad if I wanted to get rid of my computer.

With this move, Toshiba has made a goal for itself. The company hopes to recycle 12 million pounds of electronics by 2010, in the U.S. at least. To make it easy for consumers to recycle, Toshiba will allow you print out your own shipping label to ship it out on items with no trade-in value. Getting the word out might be a bit difficult. However, if a lot of laptops, computers and other electronics are bought straight from Toshiba, I would imagine they would promote the service that way. If word can be put out there for people to find it, 12 million pounds might not be all that unreasonable. There usually isn’t much word of these recycling programs after the initial announcement, but maybe this one can be different.

Read[Business Wire]

Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

Metropolitan Markets Crowded As 'Wanterr' Intensifies

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:06:17 GMT

In what is seen as a last minute rush for shopping, before the much-awaited feast of Koriteh, major metropolitan markets within the Greater Banjul Area are experiencing quite a surge in activities as shoppers descend on them. "Wanterr" is the buzzword in the next few days.

Call Center Agent at Home: Behind the Buzzword

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:38:24 GMT

"Agent at Home" is one of the more prevalent buzzwords in the contact center industry these days. While it may conjure up images of CSRs wearing bedroom slippers while taking calls, it is actually a useful option for call center managers to optimize their call center. The benefits of using "Agent at Home" technologies address almost all aspects of running an effective contact center, from human capital considerations to addressing economic conditions.

Let's explore how "Agent at Home" technologies positively impact contact centers:

Empowering the Knowledge Worker

The influential management consultant and self described "social ecologist," Peter Drucker, described employees that work with information or develop, convey and use knowledge as "Knowledge Workers." "Agent at Home" technologies underscore Drucker's notion by efficiently routing calls to the most appropriate person to handle it along with all of the technological infrastructure required to support the worker.

Maximizing the Efficiency of Outsourcing

Outsourcing plays an important role in contact center functions but it has not always maximized efficiency. By leveraging "Agent at Home" technologies contact centers can better route calls to offshore or near-shore facilities and even to the most appropriate person in the corporate office seamlessly. While many calls can be completely outsourced some are best handled by an internal technician or specialist that would not be in a contact center. Alternatively, work at home agents can also be used to staff seasonal or overflow work with minimal support required after the initial training period.

Managing Peak Volumes

Almost all contact centers experience peak volumes and have strategies for managing them. "Agent at Home" technologies are an excellent way to route calls along with the back-end systems to any position available to take the call be it in an outsourced overflow center, a secondary location or a non-CSR position assisting.

Disaster Recovery

Every business maintains a Business Continuity Plan to be...

Tables turned: Resilient Asia watches US in turmoil

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 08:12:10 GMT

Bailout is back as a buzzword 11 years after the Asian financial crisis, but this time the US is scrambling to rescue ailing banks. Biz Week in Pics | Weekend Platter

'Reconciliation' becomes buzzword as elections near

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:38:32 GMT

Politicians of every stripe have been tossing the word "reconciliation" around in the past week throughout Lebanon, but their motives relate more to fierce campaign positioning ahead of next year's planned elections and the unsettled regional dynamic than to a sincere drive to resolve their differences, a number of analysts told on Tuesday.

Financial Sectors' New Buzzword Is Deleverage

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:36:00 GMT

Leverage is a word heard frequently during the current financial crisis. It means borrowing heavily to maximize investment returns. The problem is that leverage was used to invest in mortgages that went bad. The new buzzword in the financial world is deleverage.

Using the Cloud to Build Cost-Effective, Highly-Scalable Rich Internet Applications

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:00:00 GMT