Techdirt. Stories filed under "salon" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "salon"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:18:12 PDT What You'll Be Missing If You Don't Attend Our Dinner Salon On Privacy Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110426/02220814035/what-youll-be-missing-if-you-dont-attend-our-dinner-salon-privacy.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110426/02220814035/what-youll-be-missing-if-you-dont-attend-our-dinner-salon-privacy.shtml announced that we're hosting an Insight Dinner salon in Santa Clara, in partnership with the Privacy Identity Innovation 2011 conference (pii2011). The idea behind the dinner is to get a lot of smart people in the room and discuss some important topics in a manner that everyone can learn from each other. The specific topic for this dinner will be about how companies need to deal with privacy issues when their "customers" are also their "product." As we've seen that creates some very different and unique challenges.

We're thrilled to announce the first group of facilitators who will be part of the discussion. First up is Esther Dyson -- who you hopefully already know about. If not, she's one of the most perceptive and insightful observers, commentators and investors in modern technology. Then we have Tara Hunt, the author of The Whuffie Factor and CEO of Buyosphere, and someone well known in the internet world for her contributions to understanding marketing, social capital and business in the digital age. Next up, we've got Berin Szoka, the founder and President of TechFreedom, a recently launched tech policy think tank that is doing some really excellent work on the intersection of technology and freedom. Szoka recently put out the book the Next Digital Decade, with insightful essays on where the tech world is heading.

That's only the first batch of facilitators. We'll name the second batch as we get a little closer to the event. However, it really is going to be a great evening with tons of insightful and knowledgeable attendees. The event is doubling as the speakers dinner for pii2011, so we'll have a bunch of the speakers from that event attending and participating in the discussions as well. If privacy issues are important to you, it's an event not to be missed. While we'll certainly provide some sort of writeup/coverage of the event, the point of this is the participation and the discussion. We hope you can join us. We do have limited spaces left at this point, so don't wait too long in booking a ticket.

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]]> join-us http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110426/02220814035 Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:14:44 PDT Announcing: Our First Insight Dinner Salon Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110414/02244413889/announcing-our-first-insight-dinner-salon.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110414/02244413889/announcing-our-first-insight-dinner-salon.shtml Privacy Identity Innovation 2011 conference (pii2011), put on by the same team that produces the excellent Tech Policy Summit conference. The Insight Dinner is, not surprisingly, a companion to the pii2011 conference, which is running May 19th and 20th. Seating for the Insight Dinner salon is (very) limited and you can purchase tickets now.

A bunch of the speakers from the pii2011 event will be attending the dinner, and we'll have a lineup of really topnotch discussion facilitators as well. Along with a lovely dinner, there will be a salon-style discussion around Privacy in a Data-driven Economy: When Your Customers Are Your Product. Obviously, there's a ton of interest in privacy issues these days, especially given the new privacy bill introduced in Congress. For this discussion, though, we're looking to move away from the policy side of the debate to the practical realities for those working in the space: how do you deal with privacy issues these days? Some believe that there's a constant "war" with customers over privacy, but if you're violating customer privacy, do you risk losing those customers? We've lined up a bunch of great, knowledgeable (and, at times, outspoken and controversial) expert facilitators who will help us introduce the discussion, lead table-top discussions and get everyone involved in a fascinating discussion on a hot topic.

It should be a great time, so please come and join us.

While you can attend just the Insight Dinner salon, if privacy is a topic of interest to you, you really should consider attending the whole conference (I'll also be leading one of the panels at the conference). The conference takes place at the Santa Clara Mariott, and there are over 50 great speakers already confirmed, including Esther Dyson, Jeff Jarvis, Tara Hunt, along with execs from Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Intuit, and representatives from the FTC and Commerce Department. The focus of the event is on where innovation is heading and how to best protect sensitive information while enabling emerging technologies and biz models.

Also, there will be a startup showcase, called the Innovator Spotlight, to show off some innovative new products and services in the privacy space that shouldn't be missed. Finally, the day after, on May 21st, there will be a separate, but related, open PrivacyCamp, which you can attend with a ticket to pii2011. For Techdirt readers, we're offering a 20% discount on tickets to pii2011, if you enter "4techdirt" as the discount code when you register for pii2011.

So... just to summarize: on May 18th come join us for our very first Insight Dinner salon; on the 19th and 20th, there's pii2011; and on the 21st, there's PrivacyCamp. You can purchase tickets for all of these, or pick and choose the parts you want to go to on the registration page. Attending pii2011 gets you in to PrivacyCamp, but Insight Dinner salon tickets need to be purchased separately, since we have limited space for that.

We look forward to seeing a bunch of you there!



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]]> come-and-join-us http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110414/02244413889 Fri, 4 Dec 2009 02:32:22 PST If You Make A Mistake With A Paywall, It Can Linger For A Long Time Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091203/0906067178.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091203/0906067178.shtml Salon's experience with a paywall back at the beginning of the decade, highlighting how the damage from a paywall can be a lot more troubling than many people take into account. He points out that Salon's various paywall experiments did bring in some revenue, but they then limited Salon's growth potential, first by confusing users on how they could get access to Salon content, and then with the psychological belief that Salon couldn't be read without paying:
More important, by this point the public was, understandably, thoroughly confused about how to get to read Salon content. It took many years for our traffic to begin to grow again. Paywalls are psychological as much as navigational, and it's a lot easier to put them up than to take them down. Once web users get it in their head that your site is "closed" to them, if you ever change your mind and want them to come back, it's extremely difficult to get that word out.
Indeed. As an early reader of Salon, I used to read it all the time -- and link to it. But as I got more and more confused over whether or not anyone reading Techdirt could read the links, I was less and less inclined to ever write about Salon stories -- and eventually that resulted in me dropping Salon as a source I read as well.

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]]> psychological,-not-navigational http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091203/0906067178