instant history

As Jonathan Zittrain blogs, the iPhone 3G still leaves free (as in speech) software lovers a lot to worry about, but the App Store implementation in particular gives me hope that the Ubuntu (really, Debian) model of centralized repositories has legs.

I've been a happy Ubuntu user now since the first Warty Warthog release, but strangely enough one of the things some people have the hardest time getting used to is Synaptic, which is the program that Ubuntu uses to download and install most applications.

Unlike Windows or Mac, for example, in Ubuntu you rarely download an application from your web browser or buy a program on a CD. Instead you open up Synaptic, which lets you browse thousands of programs all hosted on a central, often university-run server, with backups distributed across the globe at other volunteer servers.

You can just check off all the applications you might want -- say, word processor AbiWord and paint program GIMP -- and then Ubuntu downloads and installs the programs, occasionally prompting you for administrator access rights to make sure you want to install it and it's not spyware, as well as to get any configuration information it might need.

Courtesy of Apple

It's a big shift from what we're used to: Hundreds of different, unvetted online sources and a few expensive boxed applications are all traded for a single online storefront, where nothing is charged for. That store then handles any future patches and upgrades, checking occasionally to see what's new and what you need to keep your system safe.

And now, Apple is bringing this centralized repository system to the masses with the iPhone App Store. Apple strikes a good balance of providing great free content (Pandora, Remote) alongside easily paid for commercial content. Could this be a model for the future of Ubuntu and other Debian repositories?

While many in the Open Source Community abhor closed-source software, many more are fine with it, and giving repository maintainers a cut gives them more incentive to properly maintain their software archives. And that proper maintenance isn't an entirely academic discussion: As University of Arizona researchers discovered, it's very easy to seed these volunteer repositories with malware one way or another (more related discussion on Slashdot.

Even without closed source software, a package manager tightly integrated with a simply payment scheme could be huge boon to Canonical and their various repository hosting partners. Imagine, logging into Synaptic and not only see downloadable software but also the option to buy support in 15 minute increments straight from Ubuntu-maintainer Canonical or licensed third parties.

Canonical has a way to make money off fickle home users, while non-geeks get an easy way to work through their setup problems. That concept could be expanded into a wide array of services, which give greater or lesser access to the host computer depending on what needs to be done or trained.

Ubuntu's had tremendous success in the free software world, and the iPhone App Store validates much of the package management techniques Canonical uses. Now it's time to polish that a little bit and give Ubuntu some real competitive edge.

So just finished deleting the last of the some 1,500 spam comments, installed a new comment filter, and re-enabled comments. If you have trouble commenting, feel free to e-mail me at lastname at gmail dot com.

Nothing fancy, but the cutaways are still too abrupt and the background noise is horrible. The first could have been mitigated, I think, by better coaching the subjects before the video: Take a good second pause between responding to one another. I think I'd need better sound editing software, or a more secluded location, to deal with the background noise.

Also, for the second half of the video it looks like a metal pole is sticking out of Ron's head. Ouch!

A few summers ago, I was guest editing a blog that covered a few topics I had only loosely tracked before. Since my job was to find and post the most interesting overlooked bits, I gave Yahoo! Pipes a look as a way to create a “news scanner,” and I was really happy with the result, dubbed IvyTrack ... when it worked.

Unfortunately, RSS feeds had a knack for not loading, but today I’m giving it another go with a guide on how to set up your own news topic tracker, including ways to get instant alerts through AOL IM or GChat when news on your beat breaks. Today, it’s all about speed, and Yahoo! Pipes can be a great tool on getting the heads up. Read on for the full guide ...

I've held out for years, but after foregoing a new phone, I finally caved and bought an iPod to console myself. An iPod Touch, no less! After a lifetime of dealing with third-tier MP3 players, I finally have the Cadillac of personal digital media. It plays movies! Music! And it's an Internet Communications Device!

But seriously, I've wanted exactly that slim Internet tablet-y action for a while now, and since the Nokia N800 is, well, less than consumer ready and even less ready to be taken out for a jog, I guess the locked-down Touch will have to do.

Working on a business plan to monetize your content? Kevin Kelly has some words of advice. He has posted an essay on making money from copyable content, particularly in finding differentiators that can't be copied. In bullet forms, his main suggestions:

• Immediacy
• Personalization
• Interpretation
• Authenticity
• Accessibility
• Embodiment
• Patronage
• Findability

I think his core lesson is more important though, and could be summarized What works today, won't work tomorrow. What works tomorrow, won't work the day after. While the media half life was hundreds of years for print, decades for radio and television, it's going to get much, much shorter. Economic models will change as fast as the medium, and so trying to come up with "one strategy" is going to get you left behind.

Kevin Kelly has a blog, The Technium, that's now in my Bloglines.

Just when I made it big enough to get comment spam, I've decided to close up shop. Working 50 hours a week as Managing Editor plus being a full-time student, investigative reporter and aspiring job applicant just leaves no time for this pursuit.

If I ever get a free couple of days, I'll redo this so it's more of a resume/clip book site, with maybe some interesting links scrolling around. Til then, enjoy the scant archives and feel free to leave advertisments for Cialis.

One last link however: In a year's time, something along these lines is what I hope to be doing.

Best,
Michael

No less startling, the majority of those real estate advertisers who are shifting their ad dollars online are not spending them on newspaper web sites. Those dollars are going to independent sites dedicated to snatching home buyers and sellers.

From Media Life. A recent study also stated that realtors are switching simply because they feel that print classifieds are simply not effective when homebuyers themselves are switching to sortable, searchable database solutions.

Without cable for three weeks, postings will be cut back. Regular service will resume Sept. 1.

Chris Anderson's Long Tail has an analysis of how various mass media are faring -- and it doesn't look good.

How much of print journalism's current woes stem from Long Tail economics is up for debate, but a tendency towards concentrating on local over national stories in local media suggests that editors and publishers are responding to the trends.

Anderson's post also suggests that papers are not alone in their struggles to retain customers in the internet age. TV, radio, music and DVDs are all "down."

Steve Lovelady, CJR Daily managing editor and Bryan Keefer, CJR Daily assistant managing editor, have resigned after their budget was slashed in half. In the New York Times article on the resignations, Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia Journalism School, says that cuts were necessary in order to boost print subscriptions:

Mr. Lemann said he was faced with the same quandary confronting most news organizations today — how to finance an online staff while the Web site is free to readers. ... He said he had been “out fundraising every day” but had not scraped together enough to finance the Web site at full strength.

As a result, he said, he has decided that a concerted campaign to gain subscribers for the print magazine, while expensive, will result in more income, which will help maintain an online staff that he said would still be bigger than those of most other magazines.

I have previously written on Bryan Keefer and what he thought was a "Messy Time' for Media".

In the article, Lemann says he plans to roll CJR Daily into the Columbia Journalism Review's main site and boost overall revenue with the sale of advertising and archival material.

MediaPost reports that a consortium of eight major advertisers have created a standard for auditing online ad clicks ... and intend to enforce it.

From the article:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau in 2004 issued ad measurement guidelines setting specific rules for when and how an ad impression is counted, as well as procedures for the auditing and certification process. Last spring, the IAB also announced guidelines for broadband video commercials, stating that a video ad should not be counted as displayed until its buffered stream has begun.

Newspapers, especially those that try to handle their own advertising, should take note, says one exec:

Kimberly-Clark's Santeler noted that smaller online publishers need to be on board too. "We can get pretty vertical with our branding, so major publishers may not be the sites we choose to use," he said.

"Take the solution to the waste
not the waste to the solution"
--Xethanol

Sharesleuth has launched. The site actually launched a while ago, but its first official investigative piece came out only a few days ago on August 7.

Mark Cuban responds to critics (again), and also writes a full-disclosure afterward on the first piece, which takes on Xethanol Corp. for not producing "signifigant" quantities of ethanol and for what it sees as questionable management:

Stanley C. Brooks, chairman of Brookstreet Securities Corp. in Irvine, Calif. Brooks has a long history of fines and disciplinary actions by the NASD and state regulators.

In January, he settled compliance-related charges the NASD brought against him and an affiliated brokerage, First Securities USA Inc. Brooks did not admit or deny guilt, but agreed to a two-year ban on serving in any supervisory capacity with any member firm.

Xethanol filed a registration statement with the SEC last year listing Brookstreet with 100,000 shares. The filing said Brooks had voting and disposition power over the shares. Brooks’ personal website says he and his wife are the sole owners of Brookstreet.

--Sharesleuth.com

Since the story, Xethanol's stock has slipped from $6.95 to $5.31, giving Mark Cuban at least a minor payday:

So I am short 10,000 shares of Xethanol. I would like to short more, but I haven’t been able to borrow any more. I am currently in the money on the shares.

I am also short approximately 25,000 shares of UTEK because of its relationship to Xethanol. I have tried to short more, but have been unable to borrow the stock. I am currently underwater on this short.

-- From Cuban's afterword

Update July 7, 2008: After noticing this post was getting a large portion of my natural search hits, I investigated why. I'm guessing it's because I copied a rather large portion of ShareSleuth's story, and I can't imagine why. I have now greatly reduced the quoted text. It's a long story, and my quotation was still just a fraction of that, but I think it went overboard.

"Still, the Post's online ad revenues grew faster than some of its rivals. At The New York Times Co., for instance, online ad revenue for The New York Times Media Group, New England Media Group, and Regional Media Group grew 25 percent in the second quarter." -- article at Media Post.

By subtly weaving, rather than force-feading, multimedia elements into the story, Vanity Fair reconstructs the NORAD defense scramble after Sept. 11, Lost Remote notes. They call the piece "a simple and elegant integration."

They also note that it didn't require the creation of new material, just the selective use of original sources: more transparency and more immediacy for not a lot of extra effort.