Slashdot Mirror

Make a Bonfire of Your Reputations
http://www.goingware.com/reputation/

When I was asked to make this address I wondered what I had to say to you boys who are graduating. And I think I have one thing to say. If you wish to be useful, never take a course that will silence you. Refuse to learn anything that implies collusion, whether it be a clerkship or a curacy, a legal fee or a post in a university. Retain the power of speech no matter what other power you may lose. If you can take this course, and in so far as you take it, you will bless this country. In so far as you depart from this course, you become dampers, mutes, and hooded executioners.

As a practical matter, a mere failure to speak out upon occassions where no statement is asked or expect from you, and when the utterance of an uncalled for suspicion is odious, will often hold you to a concurrence in palpable iniquity. Try to raise a voice that will be heard from here to Albany and watch what comes forward to shut off the sound. It is not a German sergeant, nor a Russian officer of the precinct. It is a note from a friend of your father's, offering you a place at his office. This is your warning from the secret police. Why, if you any of young gentleman have a mind to make himself heard a mile off, you must make a bonfire of your reputations, and a close enemy of most men who would wish you well.

I have seen ten years of young men who rush out into the world with their messages, and when they find how deaf the world is, they think they must save their strength and wait. They believe that after a while they will be able to get up on some little eminence from which they can make themselves heard. "In a few years," reasons one of them, "I shall have gained a standing, and then I shall use my powers for good." Next year comes and with it a strange discovery. The man has lost his horizon of thought, his ambition has evaporated; he has nothing to say. I give you this one rule of conduct. Do what you will, but speak out always. Be shunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, be in doubt, but don't be gagged. The time of trial is always. Now is the appointed time.

John J. Chapman
Commencement Address to the Graduating Class of Hobart College, 1900

It's not easy to speak out about what you believe in, but if more people did, the world would be a better place.

Yeah, I wonder if these guys have been reading The Cluetrain Manifesto.

This is somewhat offtopic, but you ever notice how some people's brows are permanently furrowed--especially news anchors? They've etched the "looking busy" or "I'm a serious mofo" expression onto their face and probably consider it an asset... but all I can think is, "lighten up man!"

--

Er, not my take on it. It was a dollop of common-sense wrapped in trendy packaging. The reason it spread is because at the time common-sense was in short supply. It tried to shake corporations out of the "build it and they will come" attitude, that with the speed information spreads on the net they can't get away with brochureware as a smokescreen because no-one will know any better. If you read it you'll find a lot of it still applicable today. In fact, most of it is not about "current business practices and processes", it's about having decent customer service.

Phillip.

• The Cluetrain Manifesto

lash stopped being just a news/discussion web app and started being a web service when they proffered xml so that automated agents can query & filter stories so that by the time it gets to the human, the experience is easily customized according to your rules and does what you need it. That's what a web service is.

So 'web services' are only of any use to developers? (I'm assuming that that a user who is capable of scripting some sort of RDF parser to pop up the latest /. headlines on their desktop comes under the heading 'developer'.) Users of such applets are still just Users. And let's face it, you don't need a fancy XML framework to enable a script to go grab the latest /. stories: that's what LWP::Simple and regular expressions are for ;)

WRT the 'time spent sifting HTTP data' argument... hmmm. Personally, I find that the process of sifting is what the Web experience is all about. Intermediaries such as Slashdot aggregate others' content and provide links and commentary; I trust some more than others, but I don't read every /. story (by any means). I'm more than happy for skilled human editors *cough* to play the part of intermediaries; Slashdot of course allows anyone to submit a story and become an editor themelves. /THAT/ is what the web experience is all about: many to many, via an arbitary subset of mediators. I'm sure there's an apposite quotation from The Cluetrain Manifesto at this point, but I don't have the book with me right now...

Get a clue guys, the interent is not about money, it's about communication http://www.cluetrain.com

"This incident went completely unsupported."

Apparently it bears pointing out once again that this is a key issue for companies doing business with the internet community. Someone at MS hasn't read the Cluetrain Manifesto yet! Some particular points from it:

11. People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.

12. There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.

25. Companies need to come down from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships.

28. Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what's really going on inside the company.

30. Brand loyalty is the corporate version of going steady, but the breakup is inevitable and coming fast. Because they are networked, smart markets are able to renegotiate relationships with blinding speed.

There are many more they would do well to take into account as well, particularly down around #82...

LEXX

Why not just ask me?

why not? cause they don't have a clue.

By the fact that you read /. and constructed a succinct, well written counter point, I assume intelligence on your part.

You thus represent a very appealing target market. Let's call this market the "geek" market for the time being. We have many challenges addressing this market, since I know that the geek market often opts out of ads. I also am aware that they often turn ads off. But nonetheless, you represent an intelligent consumer group that is the target of a lot of advertising. It's not just for "mindless people". Take a look at the ads at the top of this page, unless you've blocked them. The nice thing about these ads is that they are relevant to the /. community.

I discovered thinkgeek from a banner ad on slashdot, and now go there regularly to peruse the handheld gps units, among other items. This was useful and relatively unobtrusive, and aimed at an intelligent community. I think this is a great example of positive advertising.

In summary, not all advertising is manipulation. David Ogilvy once made a famous (if not somewhat sexist by today's standards) quote: "The consumer isn't a moron. She is your wife." His sincere point was that you should treat the consumer with respect.

The cluetrain manifesto lists a lot of advertisers as signatories. Not all advertisers disrespect consumers. I am both an advertiser and a consumer. I try to create advertising that I wouldn't mind seeing.

And finally, keep in mind that overt manipulation via the click through isn't the only goal. Branding is as much a goal as traffic for many advertisers.

The mistake Jon Katz (and Salon, Suck, etc) makes is the thinking "new media" will look similar to old media. New media is different. Just as print media is different from broadcast media.

It is pretty ironic for this Jon Katz spiel to be posted to a true "New Media" site like Slashdot, which couldn't exist in traditional medias, yet seems to continue without too much worry AFAIK of running out of money.

It would silly to wonder why a radio station that only updated their news once a day, like newspapers did, why they would be driven out of business; they are working within a different system with different capabilities and their competitors will embrace those advantages.

Join the Cluetrain.

Patents are granted monopolies in exchange for full declaration the invention.

Those holding patents often realise that there is more money to be made licensing the patent to other companies as this tends to make their technocology wider used and a small peice of a huge pie is better than all of a tiny one. This is why Dolby are so successful, for a fee and a balanced royalty anyone can play with their stuff and thus, many do.

There is No Legal Reason why any company holding software patents cannot license them to anyone they like for or without a fee and for this precise reason Bruce Perens et al are trying to get IBM and HP to set a 'social precident' for software companies to not sue free software developers for patent infringement.

IPIX are doing themselves no favours here, if they had the foresight their monotonous press releases suggest ("IPIX, the world leader in..." play another record!), they'd allow free software folk to improve their ideas (they still own the patent underneigth and can make a killing licensing the whole shebang to camera producers).

If you have more to gain by co-operating, and less to lose by calming the legal dept down, do it! Otherwise you'll just find many of those you most want to embrace IPIX stuff won't touch it with a barge pole. They already seem to prefer the other method of stitching images together to get panoramas.

Cluetrain anyone?

GPhoto - Free Digital Camera Software

I disagree. The average person these days can tell when he's being talked to openly and honestly by a real person, and when he's being bullshitted by the slick PR professionals. If the OpenSource guys come across as real people with valid points, and Microsoft ends up looking like a bunch of slick used car salesmen, so much the better for us. For further thoughts along these lines, read the Cluetrain Manifesto.

Or just look at which candidate won the recent US presidential election....

There may well be a predisposition to CTS, but anyone can get it if they don't take care of themselves. I know. I have CTS. A very mild case, which was diagnosed by the Workers' Comp specialist I was sent to. Yes, it cost the State of Georgia a couple three hundred. But we caught it early. I use an ergo keyboard (bought myself, didn't trust the state), a gel mouse rest (ditto), and Alleve occasionally. MUCH cheaper than surgery or even acupuncture, and I got to keep the ergo goodies when I left.

Point is, it behooves the employers to take care of its people, instead of sorting them like so many sheep, lest the good ones vote with their feet, and the trains not run on time. Your best workers are grown, not picked up off the street like a new ethernet card.

-- Read the Cluetrain Manifesto

1) This transition has been occuring slowly but steadily over the last two decades or so.

2) This transition will continue to accelerate, driven in part by the new opportunities and threats created by the internet.

The discussion of this effect was not by any means the central point of the book -- it was an honest-to-gods marketing textbook, not a sociological rant. But sometimes it sounded erriely like the Cluetrain Manifesto.

The book in question is "A Framework for Marketing Management" by Kostler, for what it's worth.

But what if you could make in two screw-the-customer projects what you make in twenty honest contracts?

A quirk of customer relations is that although a good experience with a company is expected, if a customer has a bad experience with a company, they will tell at least 10 people about it very quickly. After that they may bring it up again and again, as an example of crappy service.

For every person they tell, there's a chance that person will tell others, again and again.

Personal recommendations have a LOT to do with consumer choice.

Get a clue.

The Internet is like that - in that information spreads effectively instantaneously throughout its body, and it helps a great deal with ethical problems with business (as well as failures in things like customer service) and is discussed extensively by The Cluetrain Manifesto.

To make the most effective use of the Cluetrain, we must be willing to speak out in public fora on the Internet, and the book version of the Cluetrain quotes a profound speech made a hundred years ago that urges us to Make a Bonfire of Your Reputations - that is, when you have something important to say, say it, and don't let fear of others' scorn stop you.

Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc

from the article: when was the last time you saw an ad banner you WANTED to click on to find out more information?
this is one of the biggest problems on the web. with or without demographics, you should have a general idea of what your clients are like. if they're computer savvy, it's pretty stupid trying to trick them with the "catch the monkey" mentality...

from post#143: What does advertising give us?
Advertising CAN support otherwise free services on the web. Not all services make money, some of them DO pay for it out of their own pocket. But some don't have anything in their own pockets. And that's not counting all the people employed to work with all the advertising stuff, including those IT folks who write scripts for trackers. What advertising gives you might not be something you want, but it DOES give you something.

from post#38: /. kind of has it right as most of the ads are very targeted
I have to agree with that, as in fact the last I saw that I *did* want to click on, was right here at Slashdot. Banners that get to the point, and are even on occasion funny...

many people filter ads, with programs, or just turning images off in their browser. this is your right as a consumer, and also in the best interests of the seller, as if you don't want the ads, you're hardly going to click on them.

from post#56 (a guy with several clues): Part of the problem lies with the complete saturation of our lives with advertising.
A very large part of consumer apathy when it comes to advertising of all kinds.

from post#23: Today's ads don't just inform us of a product's existence; they also prey on our minds with flashing text, glitzy graphics, buzzwords by the dozen, and little white lies.
Today's consumer is not waiting to be impressed, they're waiting for information. true information. they can certainly do without the sirens and blinding lights, they know you're there, if they're ignoring you, there's probably a reason.

from post#27: Anywhere else except on the web, if a company wants to get money by annoying people, and those people blatantly ignore the company, it's the company's fault.
generally speaking, it's very stupid to annoy a potential customer, a seller wants them to do them a favour by buying from them... so putting them in a negative mood is against their own best interests... but there's plenty of stupid to go around... just look at all the spam... (and funnily enough, living in Australia I have no use for your $10 off doctors appointments in the USA... learn how to target your market people!)

from post#29: Why do they even HAVE to advertise on the Internet?
advertisers don't HAVE to, but there's always someone out there short of money, who'll rent their portion of cyberspace... supply and demand are important...

from post #32: Macromedia is trying to promote shockwave to make adverts more compelling.
more compelling? or slower to load? big mistake. I'm sick enough of all the flash-only entries on websites already, I see one flash ad and I'll be closing that window quicker than ya can say "annoyed". I speed read, I speed scroll, but I can't speed flash up, and I won't wait for it.

from post#78: The real change of how ads work on the internet will come when a third party non-computer related company begins to take market share away from the market leader through effective web ads
We're still waiting on effective web ads, so we may be waiting awhile for this one. But if it happens, it will make a huge change. The biggest problem with all advertising is the ROI (Return on Investment)... are they really worth the money you pay? and according to the figures, no. A click-through ad is relying on you stopping what you are doing right now, and to pay some attention to something that wants you to give it money.

from post#86: how are all these little sites going to survive?
all little businesses go through this. if you're not a business, maybe you could look around for free hosting, there's a lot of it around on the web, even for small commerical ventures. you don't sound like you want to make money, just get free hosting, maybe you can find a so-inclined ISP who'll host you for free in exchange for making your site part of their "internet resources" area. or find a company that's willing to flat out sponsor you, with no other ads, just like a sports team. be creative and you'll find a solution. One free hosting service asks their users to click on the banners or the hosting service will not survive, and their community responds. Including to the point where they had to buy new servers, and asked people to "pledge" money so they could upgrade the system. They got a hell of a lot of money that way, a lot more than I thought they'd get.

from post#92: I for one will be freakin happy when animated gifs go away - and the same guys who make those funny commercials on TV get involved with the online phenomenon.
Advertisers take note, this guy is giving you a clue, so pay attention! He wants something more entertaining than "catch the monkey".
from post#147: And please ... stop thos friggin' ads that look like system notifications, and pop-up windows. That's what's souring net users on Ads. yet another clue for those smart enough to use it.

from post#101: If people see a banner more then one time chances are high that they'll remember the name/site and may even tell others (who may need a place to buy a product) about it.
Most of the banners I see never actually show a site address or name, which is totally useless for recognition, yet another waste of resources.

from post#121: it is just a matter of time before the government cracks down on all this illegal software that blocks web ads.
Governments (plural!) should be very careful about what they term legal or not with the net. If blocking is illegal, so is NetNanny and the porn filter in the workplace. Blocking content can't be both ways.

from post#147: Advertisers don't get to charge the TV station per "click-through", so why should the net change that? Click-through should be treated like commission.
Advertisers CAN'T use the click-through method with TV stations, believe me if they could, they sure would! Click-through tracking does give a bit more of an idea on ROI (Return On Investment) for ads. The net is very easy to track, unless print media or television.
(still same post) If you're not getting click-through, it doesn't mean that the web host isn't doing their job ... they shouldn't have to BEG for clicks just to pay the bills. It means your AD isn't doing it's job this is a very good point, low clickthoughs are NOT just the responsibility of the host, take a good hard and objective look at your own ads.

from post#154: Advertising has been "found out" by the internet.
*laughing* this i so true it's almost not funny.

from post#158: Forgot to mention that all the search engines would be gone too.
This tweaked my curiosity, exactly where does the funding come from for Google? (my favourite for it's accurate results, and lack of ads - hence, fast loading)

and this person who wrote post#169 has some great tips for those looking for good ad networks.

this guy (post#170) has a great idea: Just click on a gap dancer to by her jeans. this is totally doable right now. None of this banner nonsense... paid links for static images, not a random banner, something that's relevant to the content!

from post#34: People have complained about advertising since the dawn of electronic media.
(please excuse any marketing jargon in the following... a consumer IS a person, I am using it for convenience)
business evolves over time, and advertising will never again have the hold it had during the 1950s...
business evolution so far:

industrialisation --} advertising --} marketing --} future?

now industrialisation brought us mass production (you can have any colour, as long as it's black... thanks Mr Ford), and advertising brought us post-war information on new products (new products were very important as credit appeared, houses were mortgaged, whitegoods were purchased, credit became the middle-class way of life), marketing has more recently has given us targeting by demographics... consumer feedback (of a kind) and shown us that advertising is merely one piece of the promotion puzzle... and business puzzle come to think of it.

So what's the next step in business evolution? I believe it will be social marketing. Companies (in addition to their business work) will have to give something back to the community to get the attention or goodwill of their consumers. Whether it's good work conditions for employees, respect for the environment, working for the greater good of mankind, or simply sponsoring the local little league team.

Consumers are the only reason companies exist, without them they will sell nothing. As consumers come to realise this, they will begin to ask for more. What they will ask for is anyone's guess, but if you don't listen, you won't hear it.

This won't happen next week, or the week after, but a shift will slowly take hold, and if you don't get a clue about what your consumer wants, you'll be out of business.

this is really quite long enough as it is, rant stops here...

from the article: when was the last time you saw an ad banner you WANTED to click on to find out more information?
this is one of the biggest problems on the web. with or without demographics, you should have a general idea of what your clients are like. if they're computer savvy, it's pretty stupid trying to trick them with the "catch the monkey" mentality...

from post#143: What does advertising give us?
Advertising CAN support otherwise free services on the web. Not all services make money, some of them DO pay for it out of their own pocket. But some don't have anything in their own pockets. And that's not counting all the people employed to work with all the advertising stuff, including those IT folks who write scripts for trackers. What advertising gives you might not be something you want, but it DOES give you something.

from post#38: /. kind of has it right as most of the ads are very targeted
I have to agree with that, as in fact the last I saw that I *did* want to click on, was right here at Slashdot. Banners that get to the point, and are even on occasion funny...

many people filter ads, with programs, or just turning images off in their browser. this is your right as a consumer, and also in the best interests of the seller, as if you don't want the ads, you're hardly going to click on them.

from post#56 (a guy with several clues): Part of the problem lies with the complete saturation of our lives with advertising.
A very large part of consumer apathy when it comes to advertising of all kinds.

from post#23: Today's ads don't just inform us of a product's existence; they also prey on our minds with flashing text, glitzy graphics, buzzwords by the dozen, and little white lies.
Today's consumer is not waiting to be impressed, they're waiting for information. true information. they can certainly do without the sirens and blinding lights, they know you're there, if they're ignoring you, there's probably a reason.

from post#27: Anywhere else except on the web, if a company wants to get money by annoying people, and those people blatantly ignore the company, it's the company's fault.
generally speaking, it's very stupid to annoy a potential customer, a seller wants them to do them a favour by buying from them... so putting them in a negative mood is against their own best interests... but there's plenty of stupid to go around... just look at all the spam... (and funnily enough, living in Australia I have no use for your $10 off doctors appointments in the USA... learn how to target your market people!)

from post#29: Why do they even HAVE to advertise on the Internet?
advertisers don't HAVE to, but there's always someone out there short of money, who'll rent their portion of cyberspace... supply and demand are important...

from post #32: Macromedia is trying to promote shockwave to make adverts more compelling.
more compelling? or slower to load? big mistake. I'm sick enough of all the flash-only entries on websites already, I see one flash ad and I'll be closing that window quicker than ya can say "annoyed". I speed read, I speed scroll, but I can't speed flash up, and I won't wait for it.

from post#78: The real change of how ads work on the internet will come when a third party non-computer related company begins to take market share away from the market leader through effective web ads
We're still waiting on effective web ads, so we may be waiting awhile for this one. But if it happens, it will make a huge change. The biggest problem with all advertising is the ROI (Return on Investment)... are they really worth the money you pay? and according to the figures, no. A click-through ad is relying on you stopping what you are doing right now, and to pay some attention to something that wants you to give it money.

from post#86: how are all these little sites going to survive?
all little businesses go through this. if you're not a business, maybe you could look around for free hosting, there's a lot of it around on the web, even for small commerical ventures. you don't sound like you want to make money, just get free hosting, maybe you can find a so-inclined ISP who'll host you for free in exchange for making your site part of their "internet resources" area. or find a company that's willing to flat out sponsor you, with no other ads, just like a sports team. be creative and you'll find a solution. One free hosting service asks their users to click on the banners or the hosting service will not survive, and their community responds. Including to the point where they had to buy new servers, and asked people to "pledge" money so they could upgrade the system. They got a hell of a lot of money that way, a lot more than I thought they'd get.

from post#92: I for one will be freakin happy when animated gifs go away - and the same guys who make those funny commercials on TV get involved with the online phenomenon.
Advertisers take note, this guy is giving you a clue, so pay attention! He wants something more entertaining than "catch the monkey".
from post#147: And please ... stop thos friggin' ads that look like system notifications, and pop-up windows. That's what's souring net users on Ads. yet another clue for those smart enough to use it.

from post#101: If people see a banner more then one time chances are high that they'll remember the name/site and may even tell others (who may need a place to buy a product) about it.
Most of the banners I see never actually show a site address or name, which is totally useless for recognition, yet another waste of resources.

from post#121: it is just a matter of time before the government cracks down on all this illegal software that blocks web ads.
Governments (plural!) should be very careful about what they term legal or not with the net. If blocking is illegal, so is NetNanny and the porn filter in the workplace. Blocking content can't be both ways.

from post#147: Advertisers don't get to charge the TV station per "click-through", so why should the net change that? Click-through should be treated like commission.
Advertisers CAN'T use the click-through method with TV stations, believe me if they could, they sure would! Click-through tracking does give a bit more of an idea on ROI (Return On Investment) for ads. The net is very easy to track, unless print media or television.
(still same post) If you're not getting click-through, it doesn't mean that the web host isn't doing their job ... they shouldn't have to BEG for clicks just to pay the bills. It means your AD isn't doing it's job this is a very good point, low clickthoughs are NOT just the responsibility of the host, take a good hard and objective look at your own ads.

from post#154: Advertising has been "found out" by the internet.
*laughing* this i so true it's almost not funny.

from post#158: Forgot to mention that all the search engines would be gone too.
This tweaked my curiosity, exactly where does the funding come from for Google? (my favourite for it's accurate results, and lack of ads - hence, fast loading)

and this person who wrote post#169 has some great tips for those looking for good ad networks.

this guy (post#170) has a great idea: Just click on a gap dancer to by her jeans. this is totally doable right now. None of this banner nonsense... paid links for static images, not a random banner, something that's relevant to the content!

from post#34: People have complained about advertising since the dawn of electronic media.
(please excuse any marketing jargon in the following... a consumer IS a person, I am using it for convenience)
business evolves over time, and advertising will never again have the hold it had during the 1950s...
business evolution so far:

industrialisation --} advertising --} marketing --} future?

now industrialisation brought us mass production (you can have any colour, as long as it's black... thanks Mr Ford), and advertising brought us post-war information on new products (new products were very important as credit appeared, houses were mortgaged, whitegoods were purchased, credit became the middle-class way of life), marketing has more recently has given us targeting by demographics... consumer feedback (of a kind) and shown us that advertising is merely one piece of the promotion puzzle... and business puzzle come to think of it.

So what's the next step in business evolution? I believe it will be social marketing. Companies (in addition to their business work) will have to give something back to the community to get the attention or goodwill of their consumers. Whether it's good work conditions for employees, respect for the environment, working for the greater good of mankind, or simply sponsoring the local little league team.

Consumers are the only reason companies exist, without them they will sell nothing. As consumers come to realise this, they will begin to ask for more. What they will ask for is anyone's guess, but if you don't listen, you won't hear it.

This won't happen next week, or the week after, but a shift will slowly take hold, and if you don't get a clue about what your consumer wants, you'll be out of business.

this is really quite long enough as it is, rant stops here...

from the article: when was the last time you saw an ad banner you WANTED to click on to find out more information?
this is one of the biggest problems on the web. with or without demographics, you should have a general idea of what your clients are like. if they're computer savvy, it's pretty stupid trying to trick them with the "catch the monkey" mentality...

from post#143: What does advertising give us?
Advertising CAN support otherwise free services on the web. Not all services make money, some of them DO pay for it out of their own pocket. But some don't have anything in their own pockets. And that's not counting all the people employed to work with all the advertising stuff, including those IT folks who write scripts for trackers. What advertising gives you might not be something you want, but it DOES give you something.

from post#38: /. kind of has it right as most of the ads are very targeted
I have to agree with that, as in fact the last I saw that I *did* want to click on, was right here at Slashdot. Banners that get to the point, and are even on occasion funny...

many people filter ads, with programs, or just turning images off in their browser. this is your right as a consumer, and also in the best interests of the seller, as if you don't want the ads, you're hardly going to click on them.

from post#56 (a guy with several clues): Part of the problem lies with the complete saturation of our lives with advertising.
A very large part of consumer apathy when it comes to advertising of all kinds.

from post#23: Today's ads don't just inform us of a product's existence; they also prey on our minds with flashing text, glitzy graphics, buzzwords by the dozen, and little white lies.
Today's consumer is not waiting to be impressed, they're waiting for information. true information. they can certainly do without the sirens and blinding lights, they know you're there, if they're ignoring you, there's probably a reason.

from post#27: Anywhere else except on the web, if a company wants to get money by annoying people, and those people blatantly ignore the company, it's the company's fault.
generally speaking, it's very stupid to annoy a potential customer, a seller wants them to do them a favour by buying from them... so putting them in a negative mood is against their own best interests... but there's plenty of stupid to go around... just look at all the spam... (and funnily enough, living in Australia I have no use for your $10 off doctors appointments in the USA... learn how to target your market people!)

from post#29: Why do they even HAVE to advertise on the Internet?
advertisers don't HAVE to, but there's always someone out there short of money, who'll rent their portion of cyberspace... supply and demand are important...

from post #32: Macromedia is trying to promote shockwave to make adverts more compelling.
more compelling? or slower to load? big mistake. I'm sick enough of all the flash-only entries on websites already, I see one flash ad and I'll be closing that window quicker than ya can say "annoyed". I speed read, I speed scroll, but I can't speed flash up, and I won't wait for it.

from post#78: The real change of how ads work on the internet will come when a third party non-computer related company begins to take market share away from the market leader through effective web ads
We're still waiting on effective web ads, so we may be waiting awhile for this one. But if it happens, it will make a huge change. The biggest problem with all advertising is the ROI (Return on Investment)... are they really worth the money you pay? and according to the figures, no. A click-through ad is relying on you stopping what you are doing right now, and to pay some attention to something that wants you to give it money.

from post#86: how are all these little sites going to survive?
all little businesses go through this. if you're not a business, maybe you could look around for free hosting, there's a lot of it around on the web, even for small commerical ventures. you don't sound like you want to make money, just get free hosting, maybe you can find a so-inclined ISP who'll host you for free in exchange for making your site part of their "internet resources" area. or find a company that's willing to flat out sponsor you, with no other ads, just like a sports team. be creative and you'll find a solution. One free hosting service asks their users to click on the banners or the hosting service will not survive, and their community responds. Including to the point where they had to buy new servers, and asked people to "pledge" money so they could upgrade the system. They got a hell of a lot of money that way, a lot more than I thought they'd get.

from post#92: I for one will be freakin happy when animated gifs go away - and the same guys who make those funny commercials on TV get involved with the online phenomenon.
Advertisers take note, this guy is giving you a clue, so pay attention! He wants something more entertaining than "catch the monkey".
from post#147: And please ... stop thos friggin' ads that look like system notifications, and pop-up windows. That's what's souring net users on Ads. yet another clue for those smart enough to use it.

from post#101: If people see a banner more then one time chances are high that they'll remember the name/site and may even tell others (who may need a place to buy a product) about it.
Most of the banners I see never actually show a site address or name, which is totally useless for recognition, yet another waste of resources.

from post#121: it is just a matter of time before the government cracks down on all this illegal software that blocks web ads.
Governments (plural!) should be very careful about what they term legal or not with the net. If blocking is illegal, so is NetNanny and the porn filter in the workplace. Blocking content can't be both ways.

from post#147: Advertisers don't get to charge the TV station per "click-through", so why should the net change that? Click-through should be treated like commission.
Advertisers CAN'T use the click-through method with TV stations, believe me if they could, they sure would! Click-through tracking does give a bit more of an idea on ROI (Return On Investment) for ads. The net is very easy to track, unless print media or television.
(still same post) If you're not getting click-through, it doesn't mean that the web host isn't doing their job ... they shouldn't have to BEG for clicks just to pay the bills. It means your AD isn't doing it's job this is a very good point, low clickthoughs are NOT just the responsibility of the host, take a good hard and objective look at your own ads.

from post#154: Advertising has been "found out" by the internet.
*laughing* this i so true it's almost not funny.

from post#158: Forgot to mention that all the search engines would be gone too.
This tweaked my curiosity, exactly where does the funding come from for Google? (my favourite for it's accurate results, and lack of ads - hence, fast loading)

and this person who wrote post#169 has some great tips for those looking for good ad networks.

this guy (post#170) has a great idea: Just click on a gap dancer to by her jeans. this is totally doable right now. None of this banner nonsense... paid links for static images, not a random banner, something that's relevant to the content!

from post#34: People have complained about advertising since the dawn of electronic media.
(please excuse any marketing jargon in the following... a consumer IS a person, I am using it for convenience)
business evolves over time, and advertising will never again have the hold it had during the 1950s...
business evolution so far:

industrialisation --} advertising --} marketing --} future?

now industrialisation brought us mass production (you can have any colour, as long as it's black... thanks Mr Ford), and advertising brought us post-war information on new products (new products were very important as credit appeared, houses were mortgaged, whitegoods were purchased, credit became the middle-class way of life), marketing has more recently has given us targeting by demographics... consumer feedback (of a kind) and shown us that advertising is merely one piece of the promotion puzzle... and business puzzle come to think of it.

So what's the next step in business evolution? I believe it will be social marketing. Companies (in addition to their business work) will have to give something back to the community to get the attention or goodwill of their consumers. Whether it's good work conditions for employees, respect for the environment, working for the greater good of mankind, or simply sponsoring the local little league team.

Consumers are the only reason companies exist, without them they will sell nothing. As consumers come to realise this, they will begin to ask for more. What they will ask for is anyone's guess, but if you don't listen, you won't hear it.

This won't happen next week, or the week after, but a shift will slowly take hold, and if you don't get a clue about what your consumer wants, you'll be out of business.

this is really quite long enough as it is, rant stops here...

That's precisely how I came to part with $30 for The Cluetrain Manifesto. Great book, by the way.

--
All men are great
before declaring war

No other form of culture is ascending as rapidly. Compared to gaming, traditional kinds of culture -- some elements of book publishing, opera and classical music, dance, appear declining and endangered.

These are not cultures, these are forms of entertainment. Do Gamers avoid every other type of entertainment there is? I don't think so. Even the rise of better music in games is proof that they have other interests.

Culture is more than what you do for fun, especially more than one exact thing. It's beliefs, lifestyle, social behaviour, environment and more...

Ya can try and box people as much as you like Katz, but people are people, with multiple facets, moods and beliefs...

I'm young, I like games, classical music, books, dance, opera, alternative music, technology, philosophy, ethics and psychology.

Sorry, I don't fit in your box...
Get a clue

Check out The Cluetrain Manifesto.

If anyone from the MPAA (or another likeminded organization) is seeing this, please.. read this book. Or, at least, the first chapter; it's online, and readable for free.

First I'd like to suggest that some big motorola customers get together and visit an attorney and have them write up a contract. This contract will state that, in return for purchasing products from a Motorola dealer, the dealer agrees to hold the customer's demographic information confidential, and forbid it to be shared with any third party - specifically name Motorola, but also say any third party.

If the dealer won't sign, ask them if they carry any of Motorola's competitors' products, and buy those instead. Alternatively, shop around for Motorola dealers willing to sign.

Rememeber, your information is your information, and while there may be no law to protect you, if the dealer signs such a contract, then you have civil law to protect you.

When such a contract has been drafted, put it on a web page and distribute the URL widely so that all Motorola customers may benefit.

Secondly, keep in mind that Motorola is a huge company. They have interests around the globe. Interested in buying a Mac? Print out the ZDNet article and bring it with you to the Apple dealer. Tell them you want to look inside the case of the Mac you're considering purchasing. Tell them you'd be happy to make the purchase if the PowerPC chip was manufactured by IBM, but you won't consider purchasing a Mac containing a Motorola brand PowerPC - the chip was jointly designed by Apple, IBM and Motorola and is actually manufactured by IBM and Motorola (multiply sourced). Second sourcing means you as a consumer have a choice.

Also look around you and think about what products you use that are made by Motorola. Do you do MacOS, BeOS, or QNX development? How about embedded or game consoles? Perhaps then you use Metrowerks Codewarrior for your development system (compiles for Windows too - I vastly prefer it to Visual C++ or Borland). Metrowerks is now a Motorola subsidiary. If so, drop a line to any contacts you may have at Metrowerks, give the URL to the ZDNet article, and ask them to let the folks they know at Motorola that this practice is unacceptible.

Do you actually design embedded hardware? Consider alternatives to Motorola products - again, IBM has some altnernatives - and let your rep at Motorola know that you're not going to be needing his services anymore - and tell him why.

Some links for you:

• The Electronic Privacy Information Center
• The Center for Democracy and Technology
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation
• JunkBusters

The key point in the AOL suit is that AOL's reliance on volunteers was essentially a substitute for hiring paid employees.

Here is a more detailed list of pertinent criteria from the plaintiffs' site. If you look at it, you'll see that Open Source projects match all 4 of the listed criteria.

I can see how this could derail many open source projects which have a company's backing., especially when the company employs one or more of the project leaders, as is the case with GNOME, MySQL, PHP, Abiword and dozens of others.

So while this may be a concern for outfits like RedHat or Andover, it's a non-issue for non-profits and real volunteers.

Should it matter if someone else wants to volunteer for a profit-making entity? Should there even be such a distinction?

I'm reminded of the Cluetrain Manifesto, which urges companies to get closer to their customers, understand them, and get involved with them. One way a company can do this is by forming a community around its product, which some enthusiastic users might volunteer to be involved with (just like we are with Slashdot).

The Cluetrain Manifesto tells us to 'tear down the walls'. I think that's a damn fine idea. Unfortunately it sounds like we're already busy erecting new ones.

The basic thesis of the cluetrain manifesto is that carefully controlled corporate communications are basically hopeless in the age of the internet, because information is readily available to anyone and anyone can publish it.

For an example of this, see my own cluetraining on the subject of high-tech headhunters at GoingWare's Policy on Recruiters and Headhunters.

Another (old) example is an ironically named one about why I chose not to develop macintosh software anymore after being dicked around too many times by Apple Computer:

I'm worried about my future. That's why I'm a Be developer.

(For those of you who don't know, Be's history has been to screw its developers even harder than Apple.)

Vast numbers of people have their own web pages where they speak out about companies and business practices that they don't like. Do you have any examples? (let's not forget Mr. Sorehands).

Tilting at Windmills for a Better Tomorrow

• Your super-secret proprietary technology probably isn't as special as you think it is. Companies tend to exaggerate the value of their information. As the Cluetrain clue says, "Most of the secrets you keep no one would bother reading even if you delivered them with the morning newspaper.".
• If your competitors care about your super-secret proprietary technology, they're already reverse engineering your Windows drivers. Reverse engineering is surprisingly effective--how much of an additional benefit would source code give them?
• If your competitors are busy duplicating your last-generation technology, they're exactly where you want them--in the rear-view mirror! If they're following your tracks, you can turn it into major tactical and strategic (not to mention PR) advantages. This depends strongly on the particulars of your industry and product, however.

• Your super-secret proprietary technology probably isn't as special as you think it is. Companies tend to exaggerate the value of their information. As the Cluetrain clue says, "Most of the secrets you keep no one would bother reading even if you delivered them with the morning newspaper.".
• If your competitors care about your super-secret proprietary technology, they're already reverse engineering your Windows drivers. Reverse engineering is surprisingly effective--how much of an additional benefit would source code give them?
• If your competitors are busy duplicating your last-generation technology, they're exactly where you want them--in the rear-view mirror! If they're following your tracks, you can turn it into major tactical and strategic (not to mention PR) advantages. This depends strongly on the particulars of your industry and product, however.

Consider that when my former employer Live Picture announced that it was moving from scenic, rural Scotts Valley, California to Silicon Valley, the first thing I did (three hours after the announcement) was type up a page-long resignation with a detailed discussion of why I thought it was a miserable idea - and email it to each person in the heirarchy up in the company from my project manager to the Chief Executive Officer. I understand our expensive new CEO that was hand-picked by John Sculley was pretty furious about it (she got fired about a year later).

Consider further that I could then use the Altavista advanced search for boolean expressions like employment and programming and 95060 (repeated for each of the Santa Cruz County zip codes) allowed me to write the original form of this page:

The Santa Cruz County Computer Industry Index

whose URL I then emailed around the company to help my coworkers find new local jobs so they wouldn't have to commute over the hill.

Individual action has existed throughout history. What the Internet has done is made it much more effective.

Anyone can speak out, and their speech can be accessed by anyone else almost instantly. Companies can try to carefully control communication between themselves and the market (or their vendors) but individual actions such as the one I took when my employer announced a really annoying policy design can make their efforts futile.

Consider that Microsoft is working hard to win over the court of public opinion to prevent its breakup.

How effective is that actually, today? How much more effective would that have been 15 years ago when Microsoft could have controlled the industry media and folks like us couldn't have spoken out effectively.

There's a discussion of what happened to the four day work week below with the consensus that it never came about because of corporatism.

As long as people just stay in their jobs and do what the boss expects of you, the boss can keep turning up the speed on the machine and you have to keep up.

Not all of you are in the position to do what I do, but you could do something appropriate to yourself.

I became a consultant

It is still the case that I work long hours, but usually this is because I choose to. When I take time off is almost always under my control. I work at home, and I could work in the nude if I wanted to (I find office dress in the home office makes me more productive though).

Note that this is different from telecommuting. I used to telecommute too, but it really didn't serve my needs. It invited the corporate master into my home.

It is also different from being a contract programmer for a body shop. Read about my decision not to work with recruiters or agencies and why they are bad for both employers and employees.

There are a few aspects of the digital revolution that made this all possible:

• I find customers almost entirely through the web. I explain how in Market Yourself - Tips for High Tech Consultants

• Laptops are suffiently powerful that I can use a laptop as my primary development machine for commercial programming on a variety of operating systems. Read about my laptop here. This allows me to travel or live anywhere and have my development system at-hand.

• With good phone service and a high-speed internet connection and online shopping I can operate my business from St. John's Newfoundland and live in a much nicer place than Silicon Valley.

Many geeks are shy people who are easily taken advantage of by those with more social skills - such as managers at high-tech companies, salemen and the like. The first step in taking control of your life will come when you can say "no" to your boss.

I learned to say no to a difficult boss and my life at the company got better. I stopped working all nighters. And not too long after that I learned to stop feeling loyalty to a company that didn't care about me and went looking for a new job. Between one friday and the following monday my pay doubled.

Read The Cluetrain Manifesto for more information on how the Internet is restoring personal power to the individual and taking it away from the corporation.

Tilting at Windmills for a Better Tomorrow

The key to a successful open source project is getting people involved:

• Keep the browsers coming back. Update your project's Web site frequently. Make a what's new page and keep it current. Submit your site to the search engines so that even if someone's not looking specifically for an open-source replacement for an existing system, they'll find your project. It's an evil marketing term, but mindshare is important to any open-source project. People who are just browsing one day might turn into users the next.
• Give users something to use. Release early, release often. Put up screen shots so users get hooked. But it's best to underpromise and overdeliver. Don't put up a code baseline unless it compiles and (mostly) runs. Make it easy for users to try it out. Provide binaries for common platforms. Write some doc -- it won't kill you. Start a FAQ on day #1. Users are your best source of bug reports and suggestions for future releases; make them feel part of the process and grow them into coders who submit patches.
• Remove road blocks for contributors. Avoid Inner Circle Syndrome by letting anyone submit patches and feel like they're actually considered for the codebase. Talk about issues in a public discussion forum. Don't hide what you're working on or where you want to end up -- remember the Cluetrain! Put up a roadmap so someone new to the code has a chance to figure out how it all works. Ask for volunteers where you need them.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out that my company is building an infrastructure to do all this on the Web. Next week, we'll be releasing Web-based submissions management and version control to take down even more road blocks.

Bob Arnson, OpenAvenue Content Sheik

Make a Bonfire of Your Reputations

When I was asked to make this address I wondered what I had to say to you boys who are graduating. And I think I have one thing to say. If you wish to be useful, never take a course that will silence you. Refuse to learn anything that implies collusion, whether it be a clerkship or a curacy, a legal fee or a post in a university. Retain the power of speech no matter what other power you may lose. If you can take this course, and in so far as you take it, you will bless this country. In so far as you depart from this course, you become dampers, mutes, and hooded executioners.

As a practical matter, a mere failure to speak out upon occassions where no statement is asked or expect from you, and when the utterance of an uncalled for suspicion is odious, will often hold you to a concurrence in palpable iniquity. Try to raise a voice that will be heard from here to Albany and watch what comes forward to shut off the sound. It is not a German sergeant, nor a Russian officer of the precinct. It is a note from a friend of your father's, offering you a place at his office. This is your warning from the secret police. Why, if you any of young gentleman have a mind to make himself heard a mile off, you must make a bonfire of your reputations, and a close enemy of most men who would wish you well.

I have seen ten years of young men who rush out into the world with their messages, and when they find how deaf the world is, they think they must save their strength and wait. They believe that after a while they will be able to get up on some little eminence from which they can make themselves heard. "In a few years," reasons one of them, "I shall have gained a standing, and then I shall use my powers for good." Next year comes and with it a strange discovery. The man has lost his horizon of thought, his ambition has evaporated; he has nothing to say. I give you this one rule of conduct. Do what you will, but speak out always. Be shunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, be in doubt, but don't be gagged. The time of trial is always. Now is the appointed time.

John J. Chapman Commencement Address to the Graduating Class of Hobart College, 1900

If you'd like to drop them a line, here's their email addresses and here are their fax and phone numbers.

Tell them the hardcopy edition of the cluetrain is well worth buying.

It will be helpful for their 21st Century Project:

Beaver City has chosen a 21st Centruy Project which centers around the "Electronic Highway" with a goal of becoming an electronic "Smart Communities" as an emphasis. Some of the action steps Beaver City will accomplish in this effort are:

• Organizing a "Smart Communities" Committee
• Completing a Beaver City Home Page
• Continue to develop links to information and resources related to the Beaver City area.

I provide a link to the page from my homepage named "words I live by".

When I was asked to make this address I wondered what I had to say to you boys who are graduating. And I think I have one thing to say. If you wish to be useful, never take a course that will silence you. Refuse to learn anything that implies collusion, whether it be a clerkship or a curacy, a legal fee or a post in a university. Retain the power of speech no matter what other power you may lose. If you can take this course, and in so far as you take it, you will bless this country. In so far as you depart from this course, you become dampers, mutes, and hooded executioners.

As a practical matter, a mere failure to speak out upon occassions where no statement is asked or expect from you, and when the utterance of an uncalled for suspicion is odious, will often hold you to a concurrence in palpable iniquity. Try to raise a voice that will be heard from here to Albany and watch what comes forward to shut off the sound. It is not a German sergeant, nor a Russian officer of the precinct. It is a note from a friend of your father's, offering you a place at his office. This is your warning from the secret police. Why, if you any of young gentleman have a mind to make himself heard a mile off, you must make a bonfire of your reputations, and a close enemy of most men who would wish you well.

I have seen ten years of young men who rush out into the world with their messages, and when they find how deaf the world is, they think they must save their strength and wait. They believe that after a while they will be able to get up on some little eminence from which they can make themselves heard. "In a few years," reasons one of them, "I shall have gained a standing, and then I shall use my powers for good." Next year comes and with it a strange discovery. The man has lost his horizon of thought, his ambition has evaporated; he has nothing to say. I give you this one rule of conduct. Do what you will, but speak out always. Be shunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, be in doubt, but don't be gagged. The time of trial is always. Now is the appointed time.

John J. Chapman
Commencement Address to the Graduating Class of Hobart College, 1900

Thanks for the response Otter, loved you in the "Funniest college movie before Road Trip!" ;)

A few things...(quotes from the link you gave me, or your own reply)

Richard doesn't believe in ownership of intellectual property.

I do believe in intellectual property, but only when it crosses into the real world. That is, I believe in the protection of the implementation rather than the idea itself. There is also a fundamental difference between what I, personally, am advocating, and what *we* (the /. collective) are advocating (which I dare you to pin down, there's a lot of people screaming around here ;)

One must also keep the conversation in the correct context, that is "Cyberspace", where, as a fundamental point of my argument, scarcity does not exist.

The important part is finding the right balance between the rights of the copyright holder and the good of the general public.

Which, in all of the cases we are discussing, is between *we* the people of the U.S.(i.e. general public) and "they" (the copyright holders, the RIAA/MPAA, in the current situation). I think this balance of rights, given our current context, is way out of whack. So I think we should whack it back. With a big cluestick. (the clue being that we are, in fact, people out here and we do, in fact, have opinions on how your business is run, and yes, we can tell the whole world about it from the comfort of our bedrooms.)

Many of us percieve the corrupt nature of the music industry: they do have a lock on the business of distributing music, and the artist is often taken advantage of by the mega-corporation.
But the Internet will solve this problem, because it lets the artists distribute directly to their patrons. Those artists still need to be able to be compensated for their work. Widespread bootlegging deprives them of that compensation, whether or not the mega-corporations of the music industry are involved.

I disagree with Bruce here. I think widespread "bootlegging" or "sharing" as I prefer, will replace what the RIAA sees as the most expensive, and thereforce valuable, part of the music industry....marketing. I feel quite strongly about this. Read the link from my .sig for a bit more extended defense of my theory.

Bruce goes on to talk about a 1984(ish) scenario that I can see too. But unlike him, I think the battle has already been joined. Raising awarness of these issues NOW, is the biggest concern. Getting people online to research before making an opinion has been my biggest goal, it's what I tell people on the street (if the subject comes up). Once enough people know and DO SOMETHING about it. the danger may be averted. Either that or in 10 years $19 of the $20 a CD costs will be to make sure they still cost that much.

And from the Free Software/Free Music angle. I think they are different forms of IP and should be treated as such. But that is a whole 'nuther discussion.

And think before you believe!

I'm a big believer in thinking. And logic. Unless I get some new sources of information that totally contradict pretty much everything I think I know now, my position won't change. And yes, I am the(a) cynical one.:)
--

I'd say less the bubble bursting and more a case of just a really bad site. The thing was too slow, too difficult to use and far too clever for it's own good. Thats aside from the fact that up until a while ago you wouldn't have made any savings buying from them as opposed to going down the high street. They could have done with reading The Cluetrain Manifesto

G.

Be cheeful for a day or so. :)

I'm just looking for some good conversations.

--

One look at the "research" done by venture-capital driven enonymous would have been enough to figure out that this "story" didn't merit a post, not even in the comment-free void of the "second" pages. The marketing drivel would be funny if it weren't so depressing

enonymous is very, very interested in selling data that you might consider private to other companies-- they're obviously collecting things like age and gender, but if you read between the lines, you can see that they're trying to make money collecting other things-- like your web browsing profile, and, especially, your online purchasing history. Your name won't be sent back to enonymous along with the profiling data. That's nice, but what if your employer is a client of enonymous, and you find their "browser assistant" software preinstalled on your computer? The data that enonymous designates as "private" won't be transmitted back to enonymous, but it will certainly be available to your employer (minus the credit card number-- they can figure it out because they know your name, your social security number, and your IP number). And they can do whatever the hell they want to with it. Or how about your ISP? Did the enonymous software install itself as part of your ISP's bloated mass of "setup" software?

Any company that buys enonymous' service will deserve to be flattened by the cluetrain, if it ever arrives.

Frankly, I think privacy is dead (in the US, at least). The sooner I get over it, the better.

It's hard to swallow the idea in the opening comment that Slashdoot was a high hoop for Asynchrony. The tone of the letter is advertising AND THERE IS EVEN USE OF CAPS. And the token "we love open source" sounded... token.

As I said it must be difficult to juggle the personal tone and represent the company as well. Maybe some training would be helpful.

I used to be all "kill amazon.com" and "patents are stupid" until i read Jeff Beezos' answer to all the patent gunk going around.

Jeff explained how the amazon.com patent was not just "one click shopping", but rather it was a patent of the whole look and feel of amazon's website (which i have to admit, B&N was copying rather closely).

In addition, Jeff did say that he felt internet patents should carry different weight than "regular" patents - and be of much shorter length - he sugested 1-2 years, if i remember correctly, which is enough time for a company to establish themselves as the sole user of this software and to get their name associated with whatever it is they patent. And then considering the growth of the internet (3000% on the www from 92-96) 1-2 years is plenty of time for the patent, when it runs out, its fair game. Jeff noted that this fair game scenario is what has kept the internet growth what it is.

Jeff also (much to my delight) endorsed the cluetrain manifesto, which is something all business should get a hold of and read.

All this is to say that this USC thing is a move in the right direction, and probably has the support of the "enemy" in the case - amazon.com.

Completely unrelated - sign up with W.A.V.E. america and get a free mail.waveamerica.com email address - here
and sorry - i already took trenchcoatmafia@waveamerica.com
~zero
God what a stupid login name - i should get a new one, but it'll be 6 months till I moderate again.

..community reputation, as far as I'm concerned. Their lawyering folk got a little miffed that someone had ported Magic to the Internet.

What followed was a quick lawsuit, and tremendous outrage from the online community. Eventually WoTC capitulated and decided to play nice. They are on, as it were, the cluetrain. Let's hope they stay there. I've got a page about it somewhere...


--

Some day big corporations will hop on the cluetrain and offer this kind of product information. So I think (I hope) commercials will live on, but only in a form that is useful to consumers.

This is an issue for the folks at NVIDIA, and not really one for mass arbitration. They created the video card, and they created the drivers, and they should be able to control the licensing.

Maybe you should read Cluetrain.
It definitely is important to discuss this. A lot of people (me included) have far more say over nvidia than their management. That is, we are the customer and we can stop buying their lousy solutions.

Tril

20 Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.

26 Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets.

28 Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what's really going on inside the company.

And one that seems written just for the RIAA:

29 Elvis said it best: "We can't go on together with suspicious minds."

- The Cluetrain Manifesto

Bad Religion put it nicely: We all pitch in to help it die.

The true power of this "information revolution" is not for the consumer, but for the worker. Why do you need a manager if you can easily communicate with other workers and coordinate your tasks. Aren't you the one writing the code? Then who's a more competent judge of your progress, you and your peers, or some 50 year old MBA in dacron socks? I think the answer is obvious.

I can't beleive it! The best question (the last one) in the world got completely blown off!

Algore2000 is a good site.
Well, that's a good start. I like this guy already.
Why does algore2000.com seem to think I'm a fool?
Hmmmmm. Sounds like he changed his mind. Uh-oh.
Nearly all the "content" of algore2000.com is fluff.
I disagree.

That's IT? Gee, the webmaster doesn't like a critique of his site, and came off as a condesending fool to boot. I'm shocked.

Mr. Green, I would refer you to UseIT's "Alertbox" section. Among those essays, you'll find a recurring theme; people want to be able to find all of the information they can handle.

You might also want to check out the cluetrain as well; even though it's more aimed at businesses, I think the moral is the same; we're not "demographics", we're not "lobbies", we're not "PACs" or "special interests"; we're your neighbors, the parents of the kids your kids go to school with, the people who bag your groceries, the tellers at your bank.

Sure, you can target the "average American", but what you (or the candidate you work for, at any rate) and the other politicians forget is that a good portion of web surfers and internet users are more intelligent, inquisitive, and interested in politics than the "average American".

Why did Jesse Ventura win the gubenatorial election using a 'net-based campaign? Because, from the accounts I've seen, he used his web site and his mailing list to actually talk to the people that ended up putting him into office. Mr. Ventura (or his 'net handler, at any rate) made sure that people who were interested in him and wanted to help out got the information they wanted -- not what Mr. Ventura or his PR flacks or spin doctors thought they wanted -- when they needed it.

Algore2000.com is, in essence, a bigger, better, multimedia-enabled campaign pamphlet; nothing more, nothing less. And Americans (this one, at any rate) are getting tired of all of the rhetoric, the "business as usual" -- even if the BAU is served over a modem rather than stuck in my mailbox or blasted through a 30-second spot during "Frazier".

When Mr.Gore or Mr. Bradley or Mr. McCain or Mr. Bush or Mr. Third Party has something to say to me as opposed to "the average American", I'll be listening. But I won't be holding my breath.

Jay (=

I doubt that these companies and individuals realize that they are making a really bad name for themselves. They are hurting themselves by the bad publicity that these dumb stunts earn them. Did they ask their techs and admins about this before they even tried it? Problaby not. They would have been laughed at.

The thing is, when it came out to us, it was not a little bit funny. When a telemarketer calls me up I ask what company they represent and what they are trying to sell me. I let them know that I will hold that against the company in the future as bad judgment upon their part. Then I let them talk to the carpet. I will do the same with stupid moves by individuals representing a corporate entity. Spam earns you a bad name. Being stupid earns you a bad name. Dumb companies in the future will just not survive, I hope.

Jump the cluetrain, on NPR last week!

Okay, this article begs for a link to Cluetrain. Some points from that site that the MPAA should heed:

20. Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.

26. Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets.

69. Maybe you're impressing your investors. Maybe you're impressing Wall Street. You're not impressing us.

70. If you don't impress us, your investors are going to take a bath. Don't they understand this? If they did, they wouldn't let you talk that way.

72. We like this new marketplace much better. In fact, we are creating it.

is it like the cluetrain?

The one time I decide not to preview...

It should read:

They need to get a clue, cluetrain style:

http://www.cluetrain.com/

I don't see how consumers would ever switch to RIAA crap like SDMI. Even if MP3.com gets shut down, it will make *absolutely no dent* in illegal mp3 trading.

They need to get a clue, cluetrain style:


I don't see how consumers would ever switch to RIAA crap like SDMI. Even if MP3.com gets shut down, it will make *absolutely no dent* in illegal mp3 trading.

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auntfloyd