The Ballad of George and Sony

“Christ you know it ain’t easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going
They’re gonna crucify me.”

John Lennon, The Ballad of John and Yoko

George Francis Hotz is a highly regarded 21 year-old who first came onto the scene by jailbreaking iPhones, causing a great deal of hullaballoo amongst the population. 

In the end of 2009, Hotz announced his efforts to hack the Sony PlayStation 3, a console widely regarded as being the only fully locked and secure system of the seventh generation era. He blogged about his progress, announcing that he had successfully hacked the machine by enabling himself read and write access to the machine’s system memory and having hypervisor level access to the machine’s processor. Sony announced firmware updates; Hotz then announced plans of a custom firmware, similar to the custom firmware for the PlayStation Portable, to enable Linux and OtherOS support, while still retaining the features of newer firmwares.

I will take a step back here to say at this point, Hotz was simply a home-brew hacker showing off all this gee-whiz stuff to the public. This was not anything major, nor should it have been.  In fact, the pool of those people who would actually do such a thing within the entire pool of PS3 users could fill an auditorium.  A small auditorium.  Given the fact that this population is mainly dedicated enthusiasts, what happened next is a lesson in how not to run a business.

On January 2, 2011, George Hotz posted the root keys of the PlayStation 3 on his website. Sony immediately filed a lawsuit and demanded social media sites, including YouTube to hand over IP addresses of people who visited Geohot’s social pages/videos. Paypal granted access to Sony for them to view Geohot’s PayPal account. The judge of the case has given permission to Sony to view the IP addresses of everyone who visited geohot.com (George’s website).  Two things here.  Yes, Hotz was wrong to post the keys on his website.  But Sony forgot the one law of the internet: once it’s out there, it’s out there. Better to contact George and, I don’t know, hire the kid in order to make a better product.  After all, he’s doing more for the product than their engineers at that point. 

People were outraged over the heavy handedness of Sony’s lawsuit and contributed to George’s legal defense.  Then Anonymous (that band of merry internet pranksters, God love ‘em) got into the act, pronouncing

"Your corrupt business practices are indicative of a corporate philosophy that would deny consumers the right to use products they have paid for and rightfully own, in the manner of their choosing," continues the pronouncement. "Perhaps you should alert your customers to the fact that they are apparently only renting your products? In light of this assault on both rights and free expression, Anonymous, the notoriously handsome rulers of the internet, would like to inform you that you have only been ‘renting’ your web domains. Having trodden upon Anonymous’ rights, you must now be trodden on."

And then, as they say, it was on.  It really looked like this was going to be a real fight.  Add then this article from Ars Technica this morning:

“The legal action between Sony and George Hotz has come to a close, with both sides seemingly happy with the results. Sony has Hotz agreeing not to do bad things to its hardware, and Hotz gets to be left alone and continue with his life. Neither side has admitted any liability in the matter…”

What happened?  Two things.  This was going to be a legal Battle Royale. Could you see the next five to ten years of your life being consumed by this?  I can’t.  If you’re Sony, even though you have a room full of lawyers, you have just take a massive hit publicity-wise, right when you really did not need it.  Are you willing to throw what little reputation you have left on the altar over some smart kid showing you up?  Doubtful.  Is it better that both sides take a step back, and take a breath?

Yes and no. 

The fact is, while George can now go back to his life, some of the legal questions that needed answering will not be answered.  The fact is there are lawsuits of this nature every day. The non-fight only goes to show the world that Sony will spare no expense in suing anyone over their product.  But it points to a larger problem.

I still think the worst part of this is that the copyright owners come down on relatively law abiding citizens like a ton of bricks, while the real criminals remain free to pursue their criminal enterprises. Regardless of whether you think George’s actions were right or wrong, he’s basically a regular citizen – works, goes to school, pays taxes, etc. He was there for Sony to sue, operating under his real name and with real contact information available, and not living on the proceeds of illegal activity.

On the other hand, the guys who run illegal factories turning out millions of counterfeit games, DVDs, or whatever generally go free. What is worse is that these people are known to officials who claim to be protecting copyright.  Sony is pursuing regular people like Hotz, who almost surely lost money on this whole venture, while seemingly not even attempting to pursue the acutal criminal violators who are driving around in Bentleys.

That is the real criminal act here.

i! True Hollywood Story – Steve Jobs

A few years ago, there was a really great made for TV movie titled “The Pirates of Silicon Valley” starring Noah Wylie as Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates.  The movie was based on the book Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine.  Very good book, by the way. 

Anyway, I bring this up as there were rumors when both the book and the movie came out that Mr. Jobs was not very happy with his portrayal in either.  Although Woz states that the movie portrayal was honest, the rumor was that Steve did not like being presented as a Type A tyrant whose drive to be the alpha male in the computer world could be seen as somewhat sociopathic at times. 

So, after years of prodding, Steve will have the chance to put to rest those rumors.  According to the Associated Press, Simon & Schuster announced Sunday that Walter Isaacson’s "iSteve: The Book of Jobs" will be published in early 2012. Just in time for the apocalypse. Isaacson has been working on the long-rumored biography since 2009 and has interviewed Jobs, members of his family, colleagues at Apple and competitors. 

Now I think we all know by now what the difference is between an “authorized” biography and one that is not.  It means authoritative access to those people around the biographical person of interest as well as the center of attraction.  It means getting to the bottom of matters, to find out exactly what it is that drives a person to do the things that person has done.  It means finding the truth.

I’m sorry; actually it doesn’t mean anything like that.  Lately, it means airbrushing a person until it looks nothing like them.  In his defense, few biographers are better connected than Isaacson, a former top executive at CNN and Time magazine who has written best-sellers about Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. But we’ve seen a few unauthorized biographies on Jobs to realize that if this comes out as a gee-whiz, boy genius True Hollywood Story, that the unauthorized bios are probably true.

Where’s Kitty Kelly when you need her? 

Epsilon Data Fail

Last week I received a message from my usual grocery store. I have an affiliation card with them, you know one that allows you a few cents off products in return for them getting information from you concerning your buying habits. The message was letting me know that it was possible that my email address had been taken from them. An e-mail hack, I thought.  Great.  Something else to watch out for.  At least that was all it was, I thought.  Then came the same message from another affiliation card.  Then another card.  Then the bank that I have a credit card with.  Then the phone company.

That is when I started to be very concerned, which is a nice way of saying I was on the phone asking questions and trying to keep from yelling at the harried but polite voices on the other end of the line.  Apparently, I was not the only one. You see, I am part of what appears to be the largest breach of data in US history.  And now I am going to be watching my e-mail very carefully over the next few months, because I am now at a high risk for phishing and other scams.

OK, here are the particulars.  When a company gets your e-mail address as part of an affiliation card or customer account, they do not just sit on it.  They use it to contact you concerning any offers they have pending or any type of general information.  But they do not do this in-house.  They use an outside company to do that, like a company called Epsilon.  So if someone should hack into a company like Epsilon, they are able to get information about a lot of customers over a range of companies, not just about people who shop at Kroger, for instance. 

That is exactly what happened.  Epsilon, which provides marketing services via email to about 2,500 companies, put a warning on its website on Friday stating that its systems had been “exposed by an unauthorized entry” into its email system.  It is not yet known who perpetrated the attack, which US law enforcement agencies have begun investigating.

“The information that was obtained was limited to email addresses and/or customer names only,” Epsilon said in its statement. “A rigorous assessment determined that no other personal identifiable information associated with those names was at risk. A full investigation is currently underway.” Other information, such as passwords or credit card details, are not thought to have been exposed, but never the less, this is a huge hack. 

How many people are affected?  Given the number and names of the companies that use Epsilon (Kroger, Marriott Rewards, US Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, Citi, Walgreens for starters), it could be millions.  And out of those millions, it only takes a handful of people to fall for a phising expedition to make money for criminals. 

What to do in the interim?  Double check your emails and do not just click onto a link, especially if it is a company that is a part of this breach.  You may also want to change your current account e-mails to another address for these companies.  A pain in the neck, certainly, but it beats dealing with the aftermath of being scammed.

Fifty Million Dollars For This?

If I were a member of the Board of Directors for the New York Times, I would not be happy right now.  You see, according to Bloomberg, The NYT has spent up to that amount in building their digital subscription package that involves a paywall. 

But much to the Times‘ chagrin, it only took four lines of Javascript to get around the paywall.  Four lines of code, people.  That’s not a wall. That’s not even a speedbump.

The paywall is currently being used in Canada and is supposed to work by limiting readers to just 20 articles per month. Once that limit is reached, attempting to click on a story will generate a graphical overlay that covers up the text and solicits a subscription.

But as demonstrated by the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, simply right clicking the page behind the overlay and selecting “inspect element” in their web browser will reveal the story’s text.  Leave it to a smart developer to create NYTClean, as a lunchtime project, that show the contents as usual without the cruft. The Times has already taken action against a Twitter account that’s been using an exploit to freely share their stories on social media. And no word yet if they will follow suit here. The Times told Forbes blogger Jeff Bercovici yesterday,

“As we have said previously, as with any paid product, we expect that there will be some percentage of people who will find ways around our digital subscriptions. We will continue to monitor the situation but plan no changes to the programming or paywall structure in advance of our global launch on March 28th.”

Don’t expect to hear any news if the Times has fired their programmers over this.

Building On A House of Cards?

Netflix, apparently is no longer content to simply stream and rent out other people’s content. According to Deadline Hollywood, Netflix outbid several major cable networks, including HBO and AMC for the rights to the political drama “House of Cards”.  The show not only has a pedigree, but will be directed by David Fincher (the Social Network) and starring Kevin Spacey (Yes, that Kevin Spacey).  The price talked about is 100 million dollars for 26 episodes, and the show would be streamed exclusively on Netflix.

This is a bold move, but not really unexpected.  Netflix is being squeezed on both ends by the studios and by the telecoms.  Studios ask a high price for first release rights to new content and that is something Netflix has not joined in on.  The telecoms want to charge more for carrying the data.  What is Netflix to do?  Since it is more difficult for Netflix to become a telecom, the answer lies in becoming a studio.  Allow exclsive streaming of good shows and suddenly you’re the net version of HBO. 

But as HBO knows, you have to have the shows that everyone wants to watch.  For every Sopranos there is a John From Cincinnati.  And in order for this to work for Netflix, this first show will need to be perfect, right out of the box.  If it does work, expect studios to start to become very nervous, due to the disruption this could cause.

It’s Called “Search” For A Reason

I have a question.  I have been trying to research this question for the last two hours with little or no headway, and I blame Google.  And Bing.  And every other search engine out there, because search engines no longer do what they are supposed to do, at least in my mind. I mean, I have a question, I go to Google, Bing, etc…, I type in my parameters and a list of sites come up that should have relevant information to what I am searching for.

Silly me. You see, I thought that sarch was supposed to bring me the answers I need.  It used to, but not anymore.  Now it tells me to go to sites that someone else wants me to go to, whether that site is appropriate for my needs or not. 

You see, I was told by my doctor that I should be taking a magnesium supplement, and that I should buy magnesum bis-glycinate, as it is a version of magnesium that is easily absorbed and does not upset the stomach. 

Easy, you would think.  Go to a vitamin store and pick up a bottle.  Only there is a slight problem.  The place where I usually shop does not carry it.  The manufacturer my store works with was having problems with their magnesium supply.  There are plenty of other types of magnesium supplements on the shelf, but none of them are of the bis-glycinate variety.  OK, I tell myself.  I’ll just head home, and check it out and see what I can find on-line, where I can buy it, and problem solved.  The internet saves the day again.

Two hours later, I have set aside my search and decided to write about this, because it is a better alternative to relieving my frustration than setting my laptop on fire.   

I check Google and type “Magnesium bis-glycinate”.  The first page of sites are for the manufacturer that is having supply problems, and therefore useless.  It also does not help that this company appear to be the only manufacturer of magnesium bis-glycinate.  But, there is a listing for a magnesium glycinate.  So now I have a new question: What is the difference between magnesium bis-glycinate and magnesium glycinate?  Because if there is no difference, there are stores nearby where I can go and buy and not have to worry about shipping or waiting. 

I know what is coming though.  That question is going to send me to the farm.  As in Content Farm.  No matter how you slice it, you know you’re going there.  And because it is a subtle difference between the two key phrases, this is going to be a death march through the worst the internet has to offer.  With advertisements everywhere telling me where I can buy anything but magnesium bis-glycinate. 

Two hours laster, and I now know more about magnesium than I ever cared to know.  I know that muscles depend on it and that it appears to help people with Tourette’s syndrome in relieving the physical tics accompanying the condition.  I now know that epsom salt baths work, because the magnesium is absorbed into the body by the skin, allowing muscles to relax.  That magnesium supplements can cause diarreah.  I know all these things, except the difference, if any, between magnesium glycinate and bis-glycinate.  My own understanding of basic chemistry tells me that the difference is probably that instead of bonding with a single glycine amino acid, the bis-glycinate formula has magnesium bonding to two glycines instead.  But the question remains: Is this difference critical?  Will my doctor look down her nose and over her glasses and say with a sigh, “You realize there is a difference between them, don’t you?”

I know at this juncture that calling my doctor is what I have to do in order to get the answer to what I think is a very simple question.  But the point is that if search engines focused more upon question results than SEO content, life could be easier for users. In their defense, Google has been working on the SEO/content farm problem. 

Sometimes though, a simple answer is really the best result of all.

Welcome to the Disruption, Publishing Edition

It has been a few years since Amazon introduced the Kindle and the promise of publishing houses being disrupted is finally being realized.  Books are going Indie, and the first real Indie Star is twenty-six year old Amanda Hocking.  Hocking does not have a book contract; she sell her books direct on Amazon and averages about 100,000 books per month.  Granted, the books are priced between ninety nine cents to three dollars per copy, but the genius is that she keeps seventy percent of the sales, because she has no publisher, no agent, no overhead, just the Amazon cut.  Let that sink in.  If all her sales are at ninety nine cents, she is still making about seventy thousand dollars per month. Who needs a publisher? Especially since no publisher could offer her a better deal than what she has. 

Hocking is not alone. Out of the top 25 Indie authors from the monthly sales figures taken from the December 2010 listings on the Kindle store, only six have had a previous publishing deal. While they are not selling 100,000 books per month, they are selling enough to make writing a profitable venture. 

Publishers have a right to be nervous, as this turns the publishing model on its head.  Stop and think. A writer uses their blog to draft a novel serially, allowing others to see the process and generate buzz.  When the finalized novel is going to be published, the website become the launching site, directing readers to the e-book.  Having read the drafts, the public can decide if they want the finalized ebook or not. After the ebook reaches a critical mass, then one can make the decision to publish a physical version of the book.  Completely cost effective. And still no mention of agent or major publishing house. Best seller lists would need to be re-examined, but it isn’t like the best seller list is accurate anyway.

Of course, you will have to cue the hipsters at that point. “I was reading her blog, long before she printed the book”.  Then again, I could deal with that.

My [Collapse]

Interesting chart in the Business Insider today detailing the fall of the house of MySpace.  The number of unique visitors has declined from 70 million in January 2010 to under 45 million in January 2011.  While 45 million uniques is an amount most anyone else out there would kill for, MySpace used to be one of the top ten stops on the internet.  It no longer is.  And it is the reason why News Corp is trying to sell it like yesterday’s sushi.

Today’s value is at between $50-200 million, according to MySpace’s own wiki page.  With a trend like the chart’s, look at the lower end.  Somewhere, Tom Freston is doing the “I Told You So” dance.  Freston was fired from Viacom for being outbid by News Corp for MySpace in the summer of 2005. Freston bid $506 million.  Murdoch bid $580 million.  The value at the time: an estimated $1.5 billion.  After MySpace was bought, mergers-and-acquisitions expert Tom Aulli of Soleil-Media Metrix said, “This is probably one of the best acquisitions ever.”

Sumner Redstone passed on buying Facebook a few weeks later, commenting, “We looked at it. The price is too high”

Sometimes the jokes write themselves.  But I digress.

Just why has MySpace imploded?  There are a number of reasons.  As I have said, when you base your business model on the tastes of those between twelve and twenty, you better be prepared to move fast or die.  This was MySpace back in 2005.  It was young and hip, like that party that you sometimes find yourself at where everyone is talking about bands you never heard of and looking at you like you’re from 1890 when you ask a question.  There were very few, if any, older adults using it.  It is something that Facebook overcame, as today, whole families use the Facebook to stay in touch with everyone and each other.  Facebook realized that being hip is signing your death warrant.

Design and user experience is another reason.  People complained.  MySpace looked the other way.  When they finally came up with a redesign, it was too little, too late.  As Richard Dunlop-Walters points out:

“Employing tricks like needless pagination, auto-refreshing (see Salon.com), misleading headlines, and the like is cheating. You didn’t earn those pageviews, you tricked people into giving them to you. And then you look at shit like popups, popunders, double underlined links, Snap previews, Tynt scripts, and so on, and it’s pretty clear how hostile it all is. It’s nothing but money-grabbing. If you’ve got it set up so bad that your readers are employing things like ad blockers and Safari’s Reader, you f*cked up. You did something wrong. You overestimated how much your readers are willing to tolerate.”

Which brings us down to the real reason why MySpace has fallen apart:  pure, unadulterated greed.  After the acquisition by News Corp, things became different at MySpace as the focus for its new owner was no longer on growth and improving the website. Instead, it became about News Corp proving that the acquisition had been profitable. The new focus of the company was on getting advertising (its sole revenue generator). And to an extent, it did work as MySpace inked a deal with Google where it was guaranteed $900 million for advertising exclusivity. After the Google deal was inked, came all the fun with advertising and the generally annoying BS on the site.  Rupert decided that the golden egg was more important than the goose that had laid it.

And now the train wreck can be yours for far less than $580 million.  Hey Sumner, wanna buy a Web 2.0 company?

The New “Journalism”

I was going to title this entry “Lady Gaga Hits Steve Jobs Using  iPhone ”. Why?   Because, Lady Gaga, Steve Jobs and iPhone is currently trending and if I wanted my entry to be seen via SEO (Search Engine Optimization), I should be writing something about Lady Gaga, Steve Jobs and the iPhone in order to move my way to the top of the list of articles about either Lady Gaga, Steve Jobs or the iPhone.  I decided against it because the article really has nothing to do with Lady Gaga, Steve Jobs or the iPhone.  In fact the title would be misleading and possibly libelous. 

If anything, if I could write an article about Lady Gaga, Steve Jobs and the iPhone, and do it fairly quick, then I might be able to find a place on AOL’s staff of journalists, or as I call them “hacks”.  You see, AOL just recently came out with a fifty eight page memo, called “The AOL Way”, which breaks it down like this:

• Each article should be profitable and generate at least 7k PVs/story
• By March: SEO checker to be used on 95% of stories
• Decide What Topics To Cover based on:

1. Traffic Potential
2. Revenue/Profit
3. Turnaround Time
4. Editorial Integrity

• Use freelancers sparingly unless paid for by advertiser
• Carefully craft headlines to grab users’ interest by incorporating in-demand terms and entice them to click onto the article [e.g.] ‘Lady Gaga Goes Pantsless in Paris’.
• Use editorial judgment & insight to determine production. Ex: “Macaulay Culkin” & “Mila Kunis” are trending because they broke up -> write story about Macaulay Culkin and Mila Kunis.
• In-house AOL staffers are expected to write five to 10 stories per day. (Apparently writing differing versions of Lady Gaga going pantsless and Macauly Culkin and Mila Kunis breaking up in about 45 minutes to an hour and a half per story per day, because, really how much trend change is there within the course of the day.)

And this, dear readers is only the tip of the iceberg.  Please note that “Editorial Integrity” lags behind everything. If you get through the memo without wanting to punch a certain CEO in the face (Not Steve Jobs though.  And certainly not with an iPhone.  And certainly not allowing Lady Gaga to do it for you), it becomes clear that content is the least of what AOL really wants.  They want Carnival barkers to get the eyeballs on the next click-through.  The more insane the headline, the better.

Lady Gaga Hits Steve Jobs Using  iPhone  

I know you got bills to pay, AOL. You used to be known as where innovation goes to die.  Must you carry professional journalism along with it?  Why not just lay it on the line:  AOL is going to become the Weekly World News of the internet, regardless of how much you try to burnish you image by buying up groups like Tech Crunch and the Huff-Po. 

Hopefully, real journalism will eventually win out.  After all, there are stories out there that need to be told that the populace does not know about.  When you see a “breaking” story, that means it wasn’t trending to begin with.  And there are a lot of people out there who do not care about Lady Gaga, Steve Jobs or the  iPhone. But this idea of following what everyone else is following does no service to anyone.  Certainly, it does no service to Steve Jobs, Lady Gaga or the iPhone.

Maybe I should write a story about Steve Jobs never having met Lady Gaga next.  I could title it “Steve Jobs Uses iPhone  to Meet Hit Maker Lady Gaga”.  Two stories with the same SEO tags.  Hey, I can play this game too.

UPDATE 2/22/11:  As of today, if you go to Google and Type “Lady Gaga”, “Steve Jobs” and “iPhone”, this story is the first one up.  Just saying, AOL. 

One Man’s Hobby is Another Man’s Business

It is well known that Steve Jobs considers Apple TV his “hobby”.  This is one reason why the overall development for Apple TV has proceeded at a relatively glacial pace compared to other items in the Apple ensemble.  Well, I hate to tell you Steve, but you might want to step it up if you want to stay in the game. 

Google unveiled a new standalone portal for its upcoming Google TV platform today and by all looks, this is not a hobby.  This is a full fledged business, which launches this month.  Google TV will be shipping with at least the following applications: Netflix, Twitter, CNBC, Pandora, Napster, NBA Game Time, Amazon Video On Demand and Gallery. Google says that it’s “been overwhelmed by interest” from third parties for future additions to the lineup.  When those third parties are TNT, NBC Universal and HBO for starters, you can imagine what it can look like in the very near future. 

Google said that the Google TV is easy to set up and will work with your current TV, satellite, cable, and internet. It will come in two versions, a full smart TV or a box that can be used with your current television.  And since they want the internet/television experience to be seamless, it even allows you to browse the net and watch TV at the same time. For example you could run a small display of the latest football match in the corner while you look up the league tables online.  Or Tweeting real time to political debates. 

There are some missing pieces at the moment.  Google is talking with Hulu but nothing has been confirmed for sure.  There is also the question of price.  My guess is that anything above $150 and America tunes out faster than you can say “Windows XP Media Center Edition”.  But if the price comes in at an Apple TV $99, then the rumble is on. 

Now,  having said all that, I do have a jaundiced eye concerning the chocolate/peanut butter entanglement of the web and TV.  There’s nothing revolutionary about this concept. It was called WebTV and it failed.  Just because there is now more content does not mean this is a slam dunk.  Many computers have HDMI outs now, but I don’t see a rush to connect them to the fifty two inch screen in the living room.  Why?  Have you seen YouTube on a fifty two inch screen?  Not pretty. 

If anything, this definitely heats up the race between Google, Apple, Roku and Boxxee.  Eventually, this will become a standard thing for your home.  But since I watch so little TV, I’ll wait and see if the hobby or the business wins out. 

WordPress Tags: Media, TV, Gadgets, Apple TV, Apple, Big Tech, Google TV, Google, Android, Pandora

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