links for 2008-09-30
by Martin Belam, 30 September 2008
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"Microsoft did it, and so did Yahoo. Now Wal-Mart is giving its customers an object lesson in the downside of digital rights management. The store sold MP3s heavily laden with DRM. The multibillion-dollar business has given up the DRM ghost and is moving to MP3s, so it is warning previous customers that they should burn their songs onto CDs and then re-import them to get around the DRM markings".
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Great (and lengthy) essay from Danny on the birthday of Google. Reminds us that they one promised never to do "finance or chat", and in some places sounds extraordinarily reminescent of any article about new media in the UK that talked about "The BBC's tanks being parked on our lawn".
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"The aspect I would like to see changed the most is to hold fewer 'white men with PowerPoint' presentations and more, smaller, CHI-like workshops. Some of the best ideas are in development and would be better experienced as a workgroup of peers rather than a lecture."
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Thayer talks sense, but then there is a worrying comment from someone who keeps TWO Twitter accounts going in order to manage their "volume". Eh?
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"Of the younger, hard-to-reach consumers (ages 18-34), one-third believe companies should actively market to them via social networks, and the same is true of the wealthiest households".
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I was in Austria during the 2006 election, and the gains that the far right made then were seen as a surprise externally, let alone this level of support. Fortunately, like most extremist groups, the two factions seem to hate each other more than anything else. "Splitter!"
I actually know one person who would used to buy his music from Walmart (this was a few years ago, not sure if he smarted up). Looks like if he decides to buy a new computer anytime soon he's in for a rude awakening. I remember even back them him complaining about the DRM, though he didn't know the technical name for it. He said he couldn't transfer the songs he bought from his computer to a CD. Ridiculous
Actually, I have 3 ;-)
One for "me"/normal account, one that was covering the birth of my baby (didn't want to spam ppl about my sprog that weren't interested) and one set up for commentry on conferences, again - didn't want to spam ppl that weren't interested.
It wasn't my volume that's the issue (if you want to follow me, you'll see I'm not a big volume poster, especially right now with the new baby!) it's was more about not wanting to pollute my "normal" stream with too many posts about things I assume most of my followers wouldn't want to hear about.
Ta for the link! :)