Symbiosis in action

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Nice MediaGuardian column by Jeff Jarvis

Bloggers don’t think they’ll replace reporters, they want to work in symbiotic bliss, amateur alongside professional, complementing each other’s skills to expand the reach of the news. I call this networked journalism and I am seeing more examples of the two tribes coming together not to clash but to conspire.

For example, when a Reuters lensman faked up photos from Lebanon, blogger Charles Johnson at littlegreenfootballs.com demonstrated just how Photoshopping had oomphed up the action. Johnson was the same blogger who showed how the documents underlying former CBS anchor Dan Rather’s investigation of George Bush’s military service had been faked. But big media’s reaction this time was different. CBS stonewalled for 11 days. Reuters responded by suspending, then firing the photographer. They also gave Johnson credit, which is to say that Reuters saw they were on the same side – the side of honesty.

Similarly, when AOL released millions of web searches, thinking the information was anonymous, it was bloggers, like techcrunch.com’s Michael Arrington, who realised searches can reveal our identity. The New York Times reported a magnificent story tracking down searcher “no. 4417749” as an old lady in Georgia who’d sought “women’s underwear” and “dog who urinates on everything”. The Times, like the Washington Post, gave nods to bloggers for doing the legwork…

Home Solar as User Generated Content

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Like many people, I’ve been brooding on my domestic energy use and wondering what to do about it. I’m fascinated by what Peter Armstrong has been doing to reduce the carbon footprint of his family (and keep warm while saving money). Likewise, I’m intrigued by the potential of small wind turbines (and if I lived in Ireland I would certainly have one already). But this post by Tim O’Reilly suggests another way of looking at home generation.

In a conversation the other day, Ed Kummer of Disney made a really thought-provoking observation: the spread of solar energy units to homes and businesses is an analog to other forms of user-generated content, and the overall trend towards a two-way network. While it’s possible to set up a solar system completely off the grid, most of the new customers feed power into the grid during sunlight hours, and draw from it when the daylight wanes. If we move to a solar power economy, it will be much more distributed and cooperative than the current one-way model…

Video satire

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I’ve been looking at some of the hilarious video satires that increasingly pop up on YouTube and Google Video. here, for example, is a Bush ‘State of the Union’ Address ingeniously doctored. And here is a German video showing that Dubya is in fact a remotely-controlled robot.

On the other hand, here is Dubya doing an hilarious double act with comedian Steve Bridges at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Can’t censor the internet? Tell that to your compliant ISP

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This morning’s Observer column…

Dr Godfrey sued for defamation and, in 1997, won. Demon appealed but then unexpectedly decided to settle, paying Godfrey damages and costs. As a result, a chilling legal precedent was set which essentially undermines Gilmore’s blithe confidence in the ability of the net to overcome censorship. Godfrey v. Demon Internet established the principle that if you complain to an ISP about something hosted on its servers and the ISP does nothing about it, it can be held liable in subsequent proceedings.

Every since then, censoring the web has been child’s play, at least in the UK and Europe. Here’s how it works. If you don’t like something someone says about you on a website, get a lawyer to write a ‘notice and takedown’ (snotty, in other words) letter to the ISP that hosts the site. Seven times out of 10, the ISP will pull the plug on the site without further ado – and certainly without considering whether your complaint has any merit.

You think I jest?

Shrinking-Vacation Syndrome

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From a New York Times report…

The Conference Board, a private research group, found that at the start of the summer, 40 percent of consumers had no plans to take a vacation over the next six months — the lowest percentage recorded by the group in 28 years. A survey by the Gallup Organization in May based on telephone interviews with a national sample of 1,003 adults found that 43 percent of respondents had no summer vacation plans.

About 25 percent of American workers in the private sector do not get any paid vacation time, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. Another 33 percent will take only a seven-day vacation, including a weekend.“

The idea of somebody going away for two weeks is really becoming a thing of the past,” said Mike Pina, a spokesman for AAA, which has nearly 50 million members in North America. “It’s kind of sad, really, that people can’t seem to leave their jobs anymore.”

Shrinking-vacation syndrome has gotten so bad that at least one major American company, the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, has taken to shutting down its entire national operation twice a year to ensure that people stop working — for about 10 days over Christmas, and 5 days or so around the Fourth of July.

“We aren’t doing this to push people out the door,” said Barbara Kraft, a partner at the firm in the human resources office. “But we wanted to create an environment where people could walk away and not worry about missing a meeting, a conference call or 300 e-mails.”

Ye Gods! What a country. I have a friend who’s a senior executive in a major US corporation. He gets two weeks of holiday a year, and reports that his colleagues get annoyed by his refusal to take a laptop away with him.

In-flight wi-fi

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Apropos my post about Boeing’s decision to drop in-flight wi-fi, James Cridland, who’s a serious earner of air miles, has an interesting view about the service.

As someone who’s used Connexions (the brand it went under) twice, there’s very little wrong with the service. The $20 for a flight’s worth of internet – nearly nine hours – seemed quite reasonable; it was reliable enough to make VoIP calls from while in the air; and it made a long flight much more bearable. If making flights like that in future, I’d make my choice based, to a large part, on whether the flight had internet access.

The problems with the service were pretty simple: power sockets. Wifi saps your battery, and without the business class power socket, you’re paying $20 for about an hour of use. That’s clearly not great value. If there were more power sockets in planes, and it was promoted more heavily to passengers before getting on the plane, then it would be onto a winner. I do hope the service is bought; it’s an excellent thing and a real boredom stopper.

Britain leads the shift to internet advertising, says Sorrell

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The internet has had a greater impact on advertising in Britain than elsewhere, according to Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, the world’s second largest advertising and marketing company. WPP’s media planning and buying arm, GroupM, recently forecast that by November the internet would account for 14% of advertising spending in Britain, overtaking the share for national newspapers.This contrasts with a global average in mid single figures and with some markets, such as Spain where only 2% of all ad spending goes online, Sir Martin said. Advertising spending online still lags behind the usage of online media by consumers.

[Source]

The war on toiletries

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Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s chief executive, issued an ultimatum to the government yesterday to restore “normal” security procedures at Britain’s airports within a week or face legal action.At a press conference where he sat in front of a union flag with the words Keep Britain flying and beside a Winston Churchill lookalike, Mr O’Leary said he had asked the transport secretary, Douglas Alexander, to restore the pre-August 10 security measures, which include fewer body searches and fewer restrictions on carry-on bags.

If things did not return to normal by Thursday, Mr O’Leary said he would ask for an unspecified amount in compensation from the government, which he said airlines were entitled to under the Transport Act. The government says the measures were taken under the Aviation Security Act and there are no grounds for compensation.

Mr O’Leary also offered his views on the “war on terror”. “The way to defeat terrorism is, one, to arrest the bloody terrorists, and, two, keep the system working normally,” he said.

By keeping in place the emergency measures Mr O’Leary said Britain had handed the terrorists a victory. “They must be rolling around the caves in Pakistan laughing,” he said.

He said the measures were “completely insane and ineffective” and the product of “a committee of Keystone cops”.

Come, come, Michael. That’s a bit hard on the Keystone boys.

[Source]

Money for jam

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From Guardian Unlimited…

The high rewards on offer in the exclusive world of Britain’s boardrooms and City dealing rooms were exposed yesterday by figures showing a jump of 16% in bonus payments this year to a record £19bn.That is equivalent to the country’s entire annual transport budget. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) released its annual estimate of the scale of bonuses showing they rose by £2.5bn this year, following a £1.5bn rise last year, meaning they have leapt by a quarter in two years….