I'm a D.C.-based journalist who writes about (and is often frustrated by) computers, gadgets and other things that beep. More info at http://robpegoraro.com.
... the subtext of many of the questions today was this idea that there is such a thing, as Sen. Lee said, of "natural, algorithmic" search--like it's something available from the local farmer's market. I got the sense that he'd never heard of black-hat SEO, content farming, Google-bombing and all of the other tricks that require any decent search engine to make constant tweaks to its algorithm. He might want to talk to whoever who ran his campaign's online marketing about those things.
(That said, if Google really did threaten Yelp and TripAdvisor with removal from its general search listings when each asked to be left out of Google Places listings, it's got some serious explaining to do.)
I can forgive the band for wanting to forget that hideously awful business decision. (Here's Microsoft's press release, and here's my review from the time... please forgive the too-charitable assessment.)
That organization launched its opt-out site, yellowpagesoptout.com, back in August of 2009. I used it myself not long after and haven't been stuck with a phone book since.
Probably a mistake to write that "news outfits leak internal emails"--in my experience, newspapers don't order up controlled leaks the way companies and government offices do. These things happen on their own; a reporter finds a memo interesting/annoying/confusing enough and forwards it to somebody who can publicize it.
No, I didn't leak this memo. I do, however, wonder why newspapers don't recognize that newsroom-wide memos will inevitably leak and post them on their own sites first, instead of letting Romenesko et al. run up traffic by reposting them elsewhere.
It's extraordinary how Apple can stay clammed up in the face of bad PR--I didn't get any sort of response from the company to my own intemperate screed.
Don't take this post to be any sort of statement by management; they're not paying me nearly enough to take on that role. That said, I'll make two points:
1) Yes, you have to register to comment. We had a massive spam problem until we adopted that. And even requiring a login hasn't ended comment spam... because you can lie when you set up an account. We have no way of checking that, the same way that TechDirt can't prove that it's really Rob Pegoraro, the Post tech columnist, writing this comment. (It is. Honest!)
2) Some of my favorite commenters don't post under their real names--"wiredog," "54Stratocaster," "tbva," for instance. Something like half of my comments come from people who don't use their real names, and on some blogs (Nationals Journal comes to mind) it's more than half. Yet we have great conversations there.
The same is not true on some of our political blogs. Not even close. Why that happens would be fascinating subject for a sociological dissertation. Meanwhile, I myself have no problem with anonymous user input and wouldn't want any new commenting system to close off that option.
The site's Twitter feed and blog also have yet to address this issue. Perhaps Hulu is not particularly proud of what its owners have directed it to do?
Frank's one of the better writers--make that, prose engineers--in the Post newsroom.
FWIW, I also saw his post as evidence that it's healthy for journalists to have an academic background in something besides journalism. But maybe that's just me trying to rationalize my failure to make much real-world use of an international-relations degree...
This was a fun panel discussion to run, and I'm glad you found it "entertaining and enlightening." I still can't believe we didn't even get into the "graduated response" issue in an hour and a half of chatter, though. (Does that suggest what a hairball ACTA is becoming?)
BTW, to address the sentiment of the first two comments: A lot of these discussions do seem to assume that the right legal and technological framework will let copyright owners regain control of their work's distribution, but I don't think that's quite possible. So in my closing statement, I noted how I only had to paste a few strings of text into the command line to enable DVD playback in Ubuntu, DMCA or not.
After writing a piece taking the entertainment industry for task for things like forcing useless DRM on their customers, I sometimes get a response along the lines of "How can you possibly tell a movie studio or a record label how to do its job? You've never made a movie or recorded an album!"
And when that happens, I have a hard time resisting the temptation to send this reply: "How can you possibly tell a newspaper writer how to do his job? You've never reported a story for a daily paper!"
To expand on my tweet...
... the subtext of many of the questions today was this idea that there is such a thing, as Sen. Lee said, of "natural, algorithmic" search--like it's something available from the local farmer's market. I got the sense that he'd never heard of black-hat SEO, content farming, Google-bombing and all of the other tricks that require any decent search engine to make constant tweaks to its algorithm. He might want to talk to whoever who ran his campaign's online marketing about those things.
(That said, if Google really did threaten Yelp and TripAdvisor with removal from its general search listings when each asked to be left out of Google Places listings, it's got some serious explaining to do.)
- RP
FYI, AC/DC sold their songs as downloads on MSN Music
I can forgive the band for wanting to forget that hideously awful business decision. (Here's Microsoft's press release, and here's my review from the time... please forgive the too-charitable assessment.)
- RP
Re: Re: Thanks for the link!
You're welcome! In case you were curious about the exact date involved, Price told me that they conducted that BitTorrent survey on Dec. 12.
Thanks for the link!
If anybody has questions about that post, I can answer them here.
- RP
Somebody at YPA is confused
That organization launched its opt-out site, yellowpagesoptout.com, back in August of 2009. I used it myself not long after and haven't been stuck with a phone book since.
- RP
What or who leaks
Probably a mistake to write that "news outfits leak internal emails"--in my experience, newspapers don't order up controlled leaks the way companies and government offices do. These things happen on their own; a reporter finds a memo interesting/annoying/confusing enough and forwards it to somebody who can publicize it.
No, I didn't leak this memo. I do, however, wonder why newspapers don't recognize that newsroom-wide memos will inevitably leak and post them on their own sites first, instead of letting Romenesko et al. run up traffic by reposting them elsewhere.
Apple's no-comment policy
It's extraordinary how Apple can stay clammed up in the face of bad PR--I didn't get any sort of response from the company to my own intemperate screed.
- RP
Context from a Postie who appreciates anonymous comments
Don't take this post to be any sort of statement by management; they're not paying me nearly enough to take on that role. That said, I'll make two points:
1) Yes, you have to register to comment. We had a massive spam problem until we adopted that. And even requiring a login hasn't ended comment spam... because you can lie when you set up an account. We have no way of checking that, the same way that TechDirt can't prove that it's really Rob Pegoraro, the Post tech columnist, writing this comment. (It is. Honest!)
2) Some of my favorite commenters don't post under their real names--"wiredog," "54Stratocaster," "tbva," for instance. Something like half of my comments come from people who don't use their real names, and on some blogs (Nationals Journal comes to mind) it's more than half. Yet we have great conversations there.
The same is not true on some of our political blogs. Not even close. Why that happens would be fascinating subject for a sociological dissertation. Meanwhile, I myself have no problem with anonymous user input and wouldn't want any new commenting system to close off that option.
- RP
FWIW, I still haven't heard from Hulu on this
The site's Twitter feed and blog also have yet to address this issue. Perhaps Hulu is not particularly proud of what its owners have directed it to do?
- R
Good point about secondary markets...
... and the MPAA's earlier attempts to extinguish them. Wish I'd thought to note that issue in my own post!
- RP
Glad you noticed my colleague's work
Frank's one of the better writers--make that, prose engineers--in the Post newsroom.
FWIW, I also saw his post as evidence that it's healthy for journalists to have an academic background in something besides journalism. But maybe that's just me trying to rationalize my failure to make much real-world use of an international-relations degree...
- RP
From the moderator: thanks for the writeup
This was a fun panel discussion to run, and I'm glad you found it "entertaining and enlightening." I still can't believe we didn't even get into the "graduated response" issue in an hour and a half of chatter, though. (Does that suggest what a hairball ACTA is becoming?)
BTW, to address the sentiment of the first two comments: A lot of these discussions do seem to assume that the right legal and technological framework will let copyright owners regain control of their work's distribution, but I don't think that's quite possible. So in my closing statement, I noted how I only had to paste a few strings of text into the command line to enable DVD playback in Ubuntu, DMCA or not.
- RP
From a journalist who sometimes criticizes Hollywood biz models
After writing a piece taking the entertainment industry for task for things like forcing useless DRM on their customers, I sometimes get a response along the lines of "How can you possibly tell a movie studio or a record label how to do its job? You've never made a movie or recorded an album!"
And when that happens, I have a hard time resisting the temptation to send this reply: "How can you possibly tell a newspaper writer how to do his job? You've never reported a story for a daily paper!"