"Google and Facebook, two companies that hold more user data and do more with it than almost any other consumer service on the market..."
and
"These are two of the most important companies in recent history"
TWO? No. Not even close. Google sure -- they have lots of user data and are surely important in the recent history of the Web. But Facebook isn't even the biggest in its own field. Love it or hate it, Myspace still has many, many more users and much more influence. They may still be drowning in OMG Ponies!!!1! glitter, but they have the backing of one of the worlds biggest (and scariest) media empires.
Facebook is in all likelihood little more than a fad. They're not ground breaking, nor especially innovative, they are not leaders in their field (unless, maybe, you could user protest and rebellion figures).
Thus, my conclusion is that this "article" was brought to you (at least indirectly) by the Marketing Droids over at Facebook.
That said, the principle of portable data and removal of proprietary walled gardens is certainly a good thing.
Wikia is a project of Wikia, Inc. So you're WAY off in your throwing stones at Wikipedia over Wikia's search... the two have nothing to do with each other, other than the fact that Wikia search will almost certainly index Wikipedia and Wikipedia will almost certainly have an entry for Wikia search.
Oh stop this nonsense! This has been brought up here many times. Yes, yes, we all know the legal / fiscal entities are claimed as being separate. I suspect this warrants detailed tax auditing. But aside from this semantic dodge, in reality there is enough connections to make this the same organization. There's certainly enough connection to warrant suspicion as to the fiscal dealings of Wikipedia and Wikia, and to exactly what is done with Wikipedia content.
If nothing else, the oft criticized, and of dubious history, Jimbo Wales is firmly at the helm of both. He is very much in control of both. So stop pleading the "everything so separate" marketing-droid spiel. It is not, and most people here know it.
This is a very early prototype, and should be treated as such. I think people's expectations are quite high because of how large and complex Wikipedia currently is. They forget what Wikipedia looked like when it first launched!
NO! NO! NO! Exactly the OPPOSITE! People have very low expectations because of the nightmare dystopia that Wikipedia has become.
What percentage of voters are affected by Social Networking sites? What percentage of the MySpace, Facebook and YouTube audience are old enough to actually vote? My guess is the answer to both these questions are relatively low numbers.
I'm thinking is that this is a one-time phenomenon. By the time of the next election MySpace and Facebook will probably be oh-so-yesterday. Though I understand the candidates need to appear new-fangled and not miss out on new channels -- especially free ones.
The average Fox News viewer isn't affected by this at all -- though (sadly) they sure can affect the vote.
I'm also thinking that the Paultards rabid activities are actually counteractive. They are much worse than spammers. There's even on average five or so Paultard spamvert articles in the/. firehose on any given day. Mercifully, they don't usually make the front page.
The very fact that this article links to the Wikiality version of "Range Voting" is proof alone of how dysfunctional Wikipedia is. Go to that Wikipedia entry, note the fascist orange box at the top of the page (there's at least one fascist box at the top of most Wikipedia pages).
There are many detailed pages on Range Voting. They are written by experts and sourced. However, this Wikipedia page is none of these things. Admittedly the wikinazis agree with this, hence the orange box.
And yet, I guarantee you that if you search Google for "Range Voting" this pile of crap Wikipedia entry will be highly ranked. That is just plain wrong. Wikipedia is a good idea run by bad people, and the result is dilution and distortion of Truth. The lazy and the uneducated don't always know that Wikipedia is deeply flawed. The Wikinazis know this well, and exploit this to their own ends. It's not "open" and it's not a "source".
The question of data ownership is an interesting one, especially in the light of the Facebook thing. (not entirely understanding why Facebook is so popular with most on/.)
However... what does this have to do with Jumbo Wales? Is he just doing his usual self-promotion and getting his name onto everything this week to promote his new Volkssearchmachine? Seems like a little virally timed to me... he is somewhat expert in viral promotions...
Come to think on it though, he does sell off chunks of other people's Wikipedia contributions to commercial sites. That certainly does raise a data ownership issue he should be questioned about...
If it's really like Google, then no doubt the Wikipedia page on Tuberculosis will also be gamed up higher in the rankings than any real scientific paper or expert description of the bacteria.
The Wikipedia page will probably be no more than a few paragraphs. There will be at least 3 flagging boxes (declaring it to be a stub, not citing sources, containing trivia and that trivia is Verboten and punishable by death!) There will be at least one link to an article about a band you've never heard of who once wrote a song about tuberculosis. The talk page will be 10 times longer than the article itself and have at least one sentence praising Ayn Rand.
I dislike MS as much as most here. However, I do very much welcome any competition for Adobe.
I'd like to think that the consumer will be the winner in this -- although MS and Adobe are probably the two least customer-centered large software firms out there.
The world seriously needs something better than Flash. Sadly, I doubt that Silverlight is going to be better, although it is likely to be relatively successful. Big content providers like mlb.com are already testing it. It must be very DRM friendly.
We've needed a Flash solution for a decade. It's lame that MS is the only company to make any effort in this field.
P.S. Flashblock plugin developers, I'm going to be needing a silverlightblock plugin too, I do hope your working on one.
You need to look up "Sassenachs" in a dictionary. And then note carefully the geographical location of the city of Edinburgh.
You might, too, want to note that the University of Edinburgh has a very low percentage of Scots-born students and staff.
It wouldn't hurt you to also note that "Scotland" is a figment of your imagination. It's a collective delusion without any legal status or basis in current fact. While it was 400 years ago, today it's not a country, not a nation, not a state, -- merely a convenient way of defining a geographical area where certain local laws apply. It has very little autonomy - and far less than any German, Spanish or US state does.
Do you seriously think that Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth or Dundee have ANYTHING in common? Glasgow has far more in common with Liverpool, Manchester or Newcastle than anywhere in "Scotland". The parliament is just a new way of scamming more local government funds without any true representation. In this, it replaces the Regional Councils and takes their scams up one notch higher.
Sorry, but despite being born in Edinburgh, I'm seriously tired of small-minded, chip-on-the-shoulder Scottish-Nazism.
Despite being pretty much a Macfan boy I have one MAJOR irk with Apple -- the stuff they make all their cable out of. It has to be the most knottable substance known to mankind.
Every single time I pick up the earphones from my iPod they are knotted. I am very careful to wrap them in a way I think they will stay unknotted, but every time, every time, they are knotted again.
Competition. That's the only solution to this. Adobe has become a very arrogant and supply-side centric company over the past few years. Or rather, an even more arrogant company than it always was.
It has almost no competition in most markets it trades in. Where it did have competition, it bought it out with the Macromedia purchase. That's a problem. It's not just this privacy/lying issue, it's price fixing, it's bloated features, it's the product delays (the universal binary versions), it's the (a la Microsoft) packaged versions that make it hard to get standalone versions.
I use Adobe Software every day (always firmly controlled by Little Snitch from install I may add). I don't like using it, it is not the best they can do, but it is the best available. I use it, but I will jump ship tomorrow.
I really, really, really want to use products from a better company. Surely there MUST be developers out there who can make better products than Adobe.
Yeah, that's a really unnecessary comment in the summary. There's no reason to mention Leopard. Mod article "troll". Couldn't you have edited that out Zonk?
Avoid any auctions that don't allow a well-known escrow service.
That one doesn't work outside of the US. Escrow is primarily a US phenomenon, there are few well known Escrow companies domestically in most countries, and even fewer that operate internationally.
In addition, it's porn. Individual end users cannot protest very much without either A: Admitting they pay for porn online or B: being the subject of askance glances and the occasional, "Methinks he doth protest too much." Some folks won't care, but the kind of people who actually have influence in the real world can't afford that kind of tarnish.
You're looking at this from an English speaking World perspective. Note that in countries such as Holland or Germany, where most of the adult/sex industry is completely legal, consumers of adult products have as much rights as any other consumer. There's also not the stigma attached to such things as there is in the UK or the US. People there would sue, and would sue openly.
All in all, in countries like Germany there's a much healthier attitude to sex and the adult industry. Both consumers and providers are much better protected there.
It seems to me that in the UK in particular (which is a semi-fascist state at best anyway) the repression and legislation of the adult industry is increasing, from what was already a very repressed and intolerant level. This is not healthy, this simply makes it easier for organized crime, and incidents like this one to occur.
I agree wholeheartedly. Craigslist is not the answer, it's just an electronic version of the old model. Less than the old model in fact. At least with a newspaper there's news or comics or some reason to view it every day. There's no reason to visit Craigslist unless you are looking for something.
However, the fundamental problem with Craigslist is the scams, and their flagging system. I find it curious to see this article talk about how they are expanding into Europe. Craigslist has had sites in EU countries for along time, however they are worthless due to the failure of the flagging system. Lots of scams listed -> not enough site visitors to remove the scams -> more scams -> less site visitors -- as all anyone sees are the scams and have no reason to hang around.
In some cases there might be language issues. However, Craigslist UK doesn't have that issue. While it does have 1,000s of listings, almost all of them are scams. Thus no-one is using the site. There's no risk to UK newspapers from Craigslist. None at all.
It's been said here before, and it needs said again until search improves, the ONLY reason sites like Criagslist and eBay etc etc exist is because search is still failing to deliver quality results on a local level. Google, please take note. Google's competitors, work harder -- much harder. There's been no significant advances in search technology for 10 years. That is not good. Not good enough.
In a part of the world where government corruption is hideously rampant, I think this is a wonderful sign. I suggests that China's national government and many citizens want to reduce corruption. This program might not take down highly connected corrupted officials (only a free press can do that, I think), but I bet it could make lots of people's lives better.
Yes, but why is this restricted to China? I am 100% for-sure-certain that if a similar website was put up for the UK exactly the same thing would happen.
And in the UK, were such a thing to happen the Government would make promises to tackle the issue. They'd appoint some sort of quasi-governmental commission that was essentially accountable to no-one and "investigate". They'd then generate large and frequent reports that hid problems in obscure language deep into the report to ensure no-one ever read them, and occasionally set targets that no-one would ever reach. No-one would be held accountable or punished for those charges not being reached. This, despite vast amounts of tax payers money being used in the whole fiasco. The logo for the new commission alone would cost a few million just to start with.
The "free" press (the government owned) BBC and the more than 50% that's owned by New Corps International wouldn't report much as usual.
No, this is not unique to China -- but on the bright side, in China the people don't have 5 million security cameras following their every move.
Slashdot Mirror
TWO? No. Not even close. Google sure -- they have lots of user data and are surely important in the recent history of the Web. But Facebook isn't even the biggest in its own field. Love it or hate it, Myspace still has many, many more users and much more influence. They may still be drowning in OMG Ponies!!!1! glitter, but they have the backing of one of the worlds biggest (and scariest) media empires.
Facebook is in all likelihood little more than a fad. They're not ground breaking, nor especially innovative, they are not leaders in their field (unless, maybe, you could user protest and rebellion figures).
Thus, my conclusion is that this "article" was brought to you (at least indirectly) by the Marketing Droids over at Facebook.
That said, the principle of portable data and removal of proprietary walled gardens is certainly a good thing.
If nothing else, the oft criticized, and of dubious history, Jimbo Wales is firmly at the helm of both. He is very much in control of both. So stop pleading the "everything so separate" marketing-droid spiel. It is not, and most people here know it.
But for better quality results:
1) www.google.com
2) (your search term here) -wikipedia
3) go
Presto.
What percentage of voters are affected by Social Networking sites? What percentage of the MySpace, Facebook and YouTube audience are old enough to actually vote? My guess is the answer to both these questions are relatively low numbers.
/. firehose on any given day. Mercifully, they don't usually make the front page.
I'm thinking is that this is a one-time phenomenon. By the time of the next election MySpace and Facebook will probably be oh-so-yesterday. Though I understand the candidates need to appear new-fangled and not miss out on new channels -- especially free ones.
The average Fox News viewer isn't affected by this at all -- though (sadly) they sure can affect the vote.
I'm also thinking that the Paultards rabid activities are actually counteractive. They are much worse than spammers. There's even on average five or so Paultard spamvert articles in the
There are many detailed pages on Range Voting. They are written by experts and sourced. However, this Wikipedia page is none of these things. Admittedly the wikinazis agree with this, hence the orange box.
And yet, I guarantee you that if you search Google for "Range Voting" this pile of crap Wikipedia entry will be highly ranked. That is just plain wrong. Wikipedia is a good idea run by bad people, and the result is dilution and distortion of Truth. The lazy and the uneducated don't always know that Wikipedia is deeply flawed. The Wikinazis know this well, and exploit this to their own ends. It's not "open" and it's not a "source".
The question of data ownership is an interesting one, especially in the light of the Facebook thing. (not entirely understanding why Facebook is so popular with most on /.)
However... what does this have to do with Jumbo Wales? Is he just doing his usual self-promotion and getting his name onto everything this week to promote his new Volkssearchmachine? Seems like a little virally timed to me... he is somewhat expert in viral promotions...
Come to think on it though, he does sell off chunks of other people's Wikipedia contributions to commercial sites. That certainly does raise a data ownership issue he should be questioned about...
If it's really like Google, then no doubt the Wikipedia page on Tuberculosis will also be gamed up higher in the rankings than any real scientific paper or expert description of the bacteria.
The Wikipedia page will probably be no more than a few paragraphs. There will be at least 3 flagging boxes (declaring it to be a stub, not citing sources, containing trivia and that trivia is Verboten and punishable by death!) There will be at least one link to an article about a band you've never heard of who once wrote a song about tuberculosis. The talk page will be 10 times longer than the article itself and have at least one sentence praising Ayn Rand.
Dinosaurs? Bloodsucking Insects?
Is this another Music Industry article?
I dislike MS as much as most here. However, I do very much welcome any competition for Adobe.
I'd like to think that the consumer will be the winner in this -- although MS and Adobe are probably the two least customer-centered large software firms out there.
The world seriously needs something better than Flash. Sadly, I doubt that Silverlight is going to be better, although it is likely to be relatively successful. Big content providers like mlb.com are already testing it. It must be very DRM friendly.
We've needed a Flash solution for a decade. It's lame that MS is the only company to make any effort in this field.
P.S. Flashblock plugin developers, I'm going to be needing a silverlightblock plugin too, I do hope your working on one.
You need to look up "Sassenachs" in a dictionary. And then note carefully the geographical location of the city of Edinburgh.
You might, too, want to note that the University of Edinburgh has a very low percentage of Scots-born students and staff.
It wouldn't hurt you to also note that "Scotland" is a figment of your imagination. It's a collective delusion without any legal status or basis in current fact. While it was 400 years ago, today it's not a country, not a nation, not a state, -- merely a convenient way of defining a geographical area where certain local laws apply. It has very little autonomy - and far less than any German, Spanish or US state does.
Do you seriously think that Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth or Dundee have ANYTHING in common? Glasgow has far more in common with Liverpool, Manchester or Newcastle than anywhere in "Scotland". The parliament is just a new way of scamming more local government funds without any true representation. In this, it replaces the Regional Councils and takes their scams up one notch higher.
Sorry, but despite being born in Edinburgh, I'm seriously tired of small-minded, chip-on-the-shoulder Scottish-Nazism.
Despite being pretty much a Macfan boy I have one MAJOR irk with Apple -- the stuff they make all their cable out of. It has to be the most knottable substance known to mankind.
Every single time I pick up the earphones from my iPod they are knotted. I am very careful to wrap them in a way I think they will stay unknotted, but every time, every time, they are knotted again.
Drives me nuts.
Competition. That's the only solution to this. Adobe has become a very arrogant and supply-side centric company over the past few years. Or rather, an even more arrogant company than it always was.
It has almost no competition in most markets it trades in. Where it did have competition, it bought it out with the Macromedia purchase. That's a problem. It's not just this privacy/lying issue, it's price fixing, it's bloated features, it's the product delays (the universal binary versions), it's the (a la Microsoft) packaged versions that make it hard to get standalone versions.
I use Adobe Software every day (always firmly controlled by Little Snitch from install I may add). I don't like using it, it is not the best they can do, but it is the best available. I use it, but I will jump ship tomorrow.
I really, really, really want to use products from a better company. Surely there MUST be developers out there who can make better products than Adobe.
Yeah, that's a really unnecessary comment in the summary. There's no reason to mention Leopard. Mod article "troll". Couldn't you have edited that out Zonk?
Sorry Zonk, you must have had a great Christmas because in the middle of your blackout you missed that this is a DUPE.
All in all, in countries like Germany there's a much healthier attitude to sex and the adult industry. Both consumers and providers are much better protected there.
It seems to me that in the UK in particular (which is a semi-fascist state at best anyway) the repression and legislation of the adult industry is increasing, from what was already a very repressed and intolerant level. This is not healthy, this simply makes it easier for organized crime, and incidents like this one to occur.
I, for one, welcome our new Skynet overlords...
And... do the robots run Linux?
Mod parent insightful. Great post.
I agree wholeheartedly. Craigslist is not the answer, it's just an electronic version of the old model. Less than the old model in fact. At least with a newspaper there's news or comics or some reason to view it every day. There's no reason to visit Craigslist unless you are looking for something.
However, the fundamental problem with Craigslist is the scams, and their flagging system. I find it curious to see this article talk about how they are expanding into Europe. Craigslist has had sites in EU countries for along time, however they are worthless due to the failure of the flagging system. Lots of scams listed -> not enough site visitors to remove the scams -> more scams -> less site visitors -- as all anyone sees are the scams and have no reason to hang around.
In some cases there might be language issues. However, Craigslist UK doesn't have that issue. While it does have 1,000s of listings, almost all of them are scams. Thus no-one is using the site. There's no risk to UK newspapers from Craigslist. None at all.
It's been said here before, and it needs said again until search improves, the ONLY reason sites like Criagslist and eBay etc etc exist is because search is still failing to deliver quality results on a local level. Google, please take note. Google's competitors, work harder -- much harder. There's been no significant advances in search technology for 10 years. That is not good. Not good enough.
And in the UK, were such a thing to happen the Government would make promises to tackle the issue. They'd appoint some sort of quasi-governmental commission that was essentially accountable to no-one and "investigate". They'd then generate large and frequent reports that hid problems in obscure language deep into the report to ensure no-one ever read them, and occasionally set targets that no-one would ever reach. No-one would be held accountable or punished for those charges not being reached. This, despite vast amounts of tax payers money being used in the whole fiasco. The logo for the new commission alone would cost a few million just to start with.
The "free" press (the government owned) BBC and the more than 50% that's owned by New Corps International wouldn't report much as usual.
No, this is not unique to China -- but on the bright side, in China the people don't have 5 million security cameras following their every move.
In case I forgot to mention also... JJ Abrams.