Looks Like Google Is Out Of China - Senior Official Says It Must Obey The Law
Joe McDonald with the Associated Press, today reported:China's top Internet regulator insisted Friday that Google must obey its laws or "pay the consequences," giving no sign of a possible compromise in their dispute over censorship and hacking. Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Today, 11:33am
The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #533: March 11, 2010
The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #533: March 11, 2010 Read more...
a shel of my former self, Yesterday, 10:31pm
Google Must Change Acquisition Strategy As FTC Likely To Block Deals
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) appears to be stepping up its scrutiny of Google and anti-trust issues related to its business. Bloomberg reports that the FTC is asking for sworn statements from competitors and advertisers.This action usually precedes the filing of a lawsuit seeking to block the $750 million AdMob purchase announced in November.Agency officials typically collect declarations “when they think there is some significant chance” the agency will ask a court to block a merger, or seek to modify a deal, said Stephen Calkins, a former general... Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Yesterday, 8:21pm
You Can't Get There From Here - Why Andreessen Is Wrong
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Yesterday, 4:42pm
Intel Opens Up Its Intel Labs At Berkeley - Reveals Research Projects
Intel hosted an open house this afternoon at its Intel Labs Berkeley. The lab has been in existence since November 2001.Some of the projects revealed: Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 10, 6:24pm
Is the Future Of News Dependent On The Generosity Of Billionaire Philanthropists?
James Rainey, at the The Los Angeles Times, reports on the "Bay Area News Project" financed with $5 million by Warren Hellman, a local philanthropist.
The project has a CEO with a $400,000 salary and its editor, Jonathan Weber, used to run the Industry Standard, a popular magazine during the dotcom era.
Bay Area News Project has high hopes, few employees - latimes.com Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 10, 2:52pm
GOOG's Chief Economist Hal Varian Has No Solution For Newspapers
The Federal Trade Commission held a second session today on the future of the newspaper industry and Hal Varian, Google's chief economist made a presentation.
His talk, "Newspaper Economics, Online and Offline," was full of very interesting numbers, related to traffic, revenue, type of news stories that people read, how much time they spend reading news online, and lots more.
With his access to detailed traffic stats from Google News plus detailed numbers on ad revenues, etc, Mr Varian is in an excellent position to know what works, and what doesn't work in online media. He has access to more information than any single newspaper publisher and thus can provide important insights into the newspaper business.
What did Mr Varian advise newspapers to do? " Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 9, 7:45pm
Techmeme's Gabe Rivera Is More Editor Than Aggregator...
Gabe Rivera's Techmeme is the news reader of choice for much of the Silicon Valley tech-setters -- more so than Techcrunch because it has a much wider selection of articles.I often see Gabe at press events, he has a press pass like other journalists. But is he a journalist? After all, he doesn't write any of the stories that appear on Techmeme.It seems that the Austin based conference South By South-West (SXSW) doesn't think he's a journalist because it refused to give Gabe a press pass. Does SXSW think that Gabe's Techmeme is a simple news aggregator and therefore not media?Probably. But Gabe is not just a software engineer with a news algorithm and a server. He's better viewed as the editor-in-chief of Techmeme with a large staff of editors. Techmeme does use an algorithm to try and surface news that is interesting but that's... Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 9, 4:52pm
Every Person Is A Media Company: UK Advertising Watchdog To Regulate People's Personal Blogs And Facebook Pages
This is astounding: ClickZ in the UK reports: U.K. to Regulate Social Network Marketing - ClickZMarketers and brands using social networks will soon find their activities in those spaces regulated by the U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority, following recommendations submitted by the Advertising Association this week. Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 9, 2:14am
How To Behave In An Internet Forum
How To Behave In An Internet Forum
How To Behave On A Forum - video powered by Metacafe
Technorati Tags:
online, forums Read more...
Phil's Blogservations, Mar 9, 1:16am
2009: Hoping For Audacity, Believing We Can Change
2009: Hoping For Audacity, Believing We Can Change
From the Edelman Digital blog:
The first few years of my PR career in Silicon Valley were marked by a singular frustration most PR professionals did not aspire to be, nor were they particularly expected to be, as driven to innovate in their own field as their clients were in theirs.
"Just get into the Journal," seemed the dictum. "Everything else is secondary."
For a number of reasons so tangential to this story as to be distracting, the advent of social media is what kept me in public relations at a point in 2001 when I asked myself "Is this all that there is?" Years later, I'm glad to see there's a lot more. A hell of a lot more.
For what it's worth, 2009 will be the year when real innovation starts to come back into PR not in the relatively... Read more...
Phil's Blogservations, Mar 9, 1:16am
The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #532: March 8, 2010
The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #532: March 8, 2010 Read more...
a shel of my former self, Mar 9, 12:27am
Why Ad Networks And Exchanges Will Never Help Publishers
I often meet with ad networks and ad exchanges for various stories I'm writing. And because I'm a publisher, they give me the pitch about how publishers make more money with their solution. The pitch they give advertisers is how much money they can save them.Clearly, both can't be right. The money has to come out of one pocket or the other. Guess which one it comes out of?Over on Poynter Online, Dorian Benkoil wrote an article headlined: Can Ad Networks & Exchanges Help Increase Ad Prices (Instead of Driving Them Down)? Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 8, 11:03pm
SDForum Helps Dutch Set Up Silicon Valley Incubator
I'm a fan of the work of SDForum, which organizes conferences and events related to SIlicon Valley innovation. The organization also has a Global Gateways initiative that seeks to build connections with technology centers around the world.As part of that initiative, SDFroum has teamed up with the Dutch government to host an incubator for Dutch companies. I spoke with Susan Lucas-Conwell, CEO of SDForum."This is a first for us and also the Dutch government. We have room for about ten companies in the incubator with each one staying for between 3 and 6 months. The companies will have office space and a services package that gives them access to our events and to service providers." SDForum runs about 20 events per month and has about 12,000 members in SIlicon Valley. Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 8, 6:35pm
Mediagazer - Recognizing The Intersection Of Technology And Media
Gabe Rivera, well known for Techmeme, has unveiled a new news aggregator site: Mediagazer (media grazer might be a better name :).Megan McCarthy is the site's editor (yes, Gabe uses human-enhanced news search algorithms). Introducing Mediagazer «The media business is in tumult: from the production side to the distribution side, new technologies are upending the industry. What do news organizations need to do to survive? Will books become extinct? When will an audience pay for content? Can video bring television and the internet together? Will the iPad save us all? Keeping up with these changes is time-consuming, as essential media coverage is scattered across numerous web sites at any given moment.The... Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 8, 2:43pm
Google Keeps Your Data Forever - Unlocking The Future Transparency Of Your Past
Wayne Rosing, when he was VP of Engineering at Google, once told me that Google saves every bit of data from people's searches and puts it onto tapes and ship it off to a storage facility. Why does Google collect all that data I asked? We don't know, but we collect it all, he said.These days Google has a better answer but it continues to save all that data. Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 8, 5:23am
Blaming The Victim
An exchange today, reacting to a press release about a topic that I have never been even remotely interested in:
Sammy Spamalot: [Insert spray-and-pray release here.]
Phil: Please take me off of your list
Sammy: Use the unsubscribe link in the email please
Phil: Way to blame the victim, dude.
Sammy: Thanks Phil, it would just take me ages to find your addres in our database.
Phil: Probably no more time than it took for me to fish your note out of the trash and find the link, I'd imagine.
Almost as good as the time the PR person told me that she was blameless and advised that I call the company that sold them their media list. Read more...
Phil's Blogservations, Mar 6, 1:12pm
Quick Update
Quick Update
So, I spent some time here:
Met this way-cool guy: Read more...
Phil's Blogservations, Mar 6, 1:13am
PearlTrees - A Way To Curate Your Web
I first met Patrice Lamothe, co-founder of PearlTrees in November and became fascinated with the PearlTrees service because of the many ways it can be used, and because it is an example of a media technology that is closely integrated into the way people are using the web.Since then, I've played around with PearlTrees and I can see lots of interesting uses for this technology, and its potential in creating a giant, curated web, one which goes beyond simple search, and beyond social tagging as in Delicious.And I'm excited now to be working with PearlTrees, as an advisor, in helping this startup grow to... Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 5, 7:57pm
Disruptive Technologies Disrupt
People like to talk about disruption but sometimes some people misunderstand the power of disruptive technologies.I've had companies tell me: "Yes, we know we are in danger of disruption but we see it, we can adapt, we can change and take advantage of it."Good luck. Even when you can see the train wreck ahead. You will likely slam right into it. Disruptive technologies disrupt. Technologies are not called "disruptive" just for the sake of it. Niki Scevak, a serial entrepreneur, writing over at Bronte Media, has a nice analysis of AOL versus Yahoo. He says that AOL, under Tim Armstrong and his team, has a more realistic understanding of the advertising markets, and where things are headed.Carol Bartz, who I am sure is an excellent manager of large... Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 5, 4:27pm
NYT Profile On Jolie's Media Management Shows Profession Has A Long Way To Go
NYT Profile On Jolie's Media Management Shows PR Profession Has A Long Way To Go
I'm still not sure whether The New York Times was repulsed or intrigued by the fact that that Angelina Jolie exhibits greater media savvy than the average Hollywood type, taking more than 1,500 words to tell its very literate readership what it already intuitively (or explicitly) knows about celebrity PR.
Where The Old Gray Lady sees a "carefully orchestrated image", I see a very smart woman who has a greater level of media savvy than the average actor or actress. Like Princess Di, Jolie also knows that she can channel interest in her celebrity life to bring attention to the topics and world issues she cares about.
Putting aside for the... Read more...
Phil's Blogservations, Mar 5, 1:17am
Coming Up - Panel On Media Use Of Social Media...
I'm on a panel with my good friend Tom Abate, senior business reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle, and Jen McClure, founder of the Society for New Communications Research - March 15 at the SAP Briefing Center in Palo Alto.We'll be discussing the recent Middleberg/SNCR Survey of Media in the Wired World. I wrote about the study recently:Middleberg/SNCR Survey: Nearly One-Third Of Journalists Still *Not ... Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 4, 8:00pm
There's A TED Conference Near You... TEDxSF Is On April 27
If you couldn't make it into the very recent and very exclusive TED conference, you might be able to get into one of many local TEDx events around the world. My local TEDxSF event is coming up on April 27. It will be at the gorgeous California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate park, with the theme of Courage and Resilience. Christine Mason McCaull, one of the organizers, tells me that there are "some really great speakers coming- from Captain Paul Watson of the Cove and Whale Wars and the Sea Shephard, to Dave Shenk, the epigenetics author doing work on Genius. Will keep... Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 4, 7:26pm
Were Google Hackers Amateurs Or Chinese Cyber Commandos?
When Google discovered it had been hacked it quickly pointed the finger at sophisticated hackers acting on behalf of the Chinese government and vowed to hit back by stopping censoring its search results in China. Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 4, 6:54pm
Chaos is not a strategy
Being strategic means being coordinated. Organic social media is not enough for anyone who wants to achieve business goals. Read more...
a shel of my former self, Mar 4, 4:37pm
The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #531: March 4, 2010
The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #531: March 4, 2010 Read more...
a shel of my former self, Mar 4, 4:26pm
The Dead Horse Business Model...
A man is driving through the countryside and he comes across a horse farm. He stops, and is captivated, he ends up buying a horse for $1,000. He tells the farmer he'll be back next week to pick up the horse. But when he arrives, the horse is dead.The farmer refuses to give him back his money. The man drives off with a dead horse in his trailer.Several months later, the farmer spots the man. He is surprised when the man runs over to greet him, and pumps his hand, and thanks him for the horse. "I made a lot of money from selling that horse," he tells the farmer. "I created a lottery for people to win a horse. I sold 2,000 tickets for $2 each.""But weren't people upset when they found out they had won a dead horse?""Well, yes. One guy was upset, but I gave him his money... Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 4, 4:34am
Farmville valued $1B More Than Twitter In Private Markets
Facebook, Twitter, Zynga are hot companies and one day they will make hot IPOs. But what's their value?It's often difficult to put a value on private companies because their financial data is private. But you can get some sense of their value by tracking the buying and selling of private company shares, and that's what SharesPost does. The company announced its first value index today comprised of seven leading venture backed private companies.The private market is where VC and other rich individuals can trade shares in venture-backed companies. You could call it the "smart money."But you might be in for a surprise as to what the smart money values. - Zynga, the maker of the Facebook game Farmville, has a $2.61 billion valuation. Twitter has a $1.44 billion valuation.... Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 3, 10:10pm
FIR Interview: Tod Maffin on Case Studies Online
FIR Interview: Tod Maffin on Case Studies Online Read more...
a shel of my former self, Mar 3, 7:57pm
The "Heinz 57" Media Business Model
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 3, 4:13pm
The Need To Teach Bootstrapping In Business Schools
Sramana Mitra discusses a very important topic in her column on Forbes.com: Why B-Schools Set Up Entrepreneurs To Fail Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 3, 12:40pm
The Dirty Little Secret About Marketing...
Marketing sucks. Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 3, 2:33am
The Trouble With Smart-Ass Marketing - Easy To Spot
I loved this image as I was whizzing past in a cab in downtown San Francisco - 12 foot tall: Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 3, 12:52am
Criminal Penalties Coming For US Internet Companies That Don't Protect Human Rights Abroad
Excellent article at the Washington Post by Cecilia Kang about today's Senate Judiciary hearing "Global Internet Freedom and the Rule of Law." Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 2, 8:03pm
IBM Researchers Help Cure Blogger Writers' Block
Many bloggers complain about not being able to come up with relevant topics to write about (my problem is I have too many ideas). Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 2, 5:58pm
Be Careful Of "Dark Territorial Atavism" When Making Changes To Your Web Site
Sometimes some people hate change and the most trivial changes can set them off in ways unimagined. Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 2, 2:22pm
Interesting: Intel's #2 Exec Suffers A Stroke And Techmeme's News Algorithm Misses The Story
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 2, 2:03am
Intel Number 2 Suffers Stroke...
Sean Maloney, an Intel senior executive, tipped by most Intel observers as the eventual successor to Paul Otellini, CEO, suffered a stroke over the weekend and will take a medical leave of absence. Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 1, 9:43pm
Shakeup At Financial Times...
The Guardian reports that Chrystia Freeland, the US managing editor of the Financial Times ,is leaving to join Thomson Reuters. Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 1, 5:03pm
UK Computer Pioneer Finds Computers And Email "Annoying"
Techeye.net reports: Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 1, 4:16pm
Anita Borg Institute - Women Of Vision Winners Announced
The Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology has announced its 2010 Women of Vision award winners: Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 1, 3:37pm
Hitwise Uncovers Puzzling Difference Between Sharing News And Consuming It
Heather Hopkins is senior online analyst at Hitwise, which monitors traffic to web sites for Experian. She writes that "Facebook Users Prefer Broadcast Media." Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 1, 2:31pm
The Latest Pew Report Reveals Very Sophisiticated News Consumers
There are lots and lots of statistics in the latest Pew report: Understanding the Participatory News Consumer. Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 1, 2:06pm
The Hobson and Holtz Report - Podcast #530: March 1, 2010
The Hobson and Holtz Report - Podcast #530: March 1, 2010 Read more...
a shel of my former self, Mar 1, 1:12pm
Disasters Are A Boon To Malware...
Whenever there is a disaster people rush to the Internet to find the latest news. But that can sometimes lead them into trouble because malware distributors will quickly put up web pages related to that disaster, but containing malicious code. Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Mar 1, 12:08pm
Twitter Is The Black Hole Of The Twitterverse...
I've long said that creating Twitter clients is a lot of work for a very short market window because Twitter itself will eventually get into that business. And other Twitter related businesses too. Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Feb 28, 8:09pm
Announcing FIR for iPhone and Android
If it’s all about the apps, then FIR is there. Read more...
a shel of my former self, Feb 28, 2:05pm
Read This And Earn 500 Points: The Reverse Virtual Reality World Of The Future...
I don't pay much attention to games. I used to play games as a kid, and I used to play Halo as an adult. But that was years ago. Read more...
Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media, Feb 27, 8:28pm