Tynan on Tech

I hate to be constantly beating a dead browser, but news about Internet Explorer 8 keeps coming up, kind of like a day-old fish taco at Earl’s House of Chowder.

It seems Microsoft will stop at nothing to get people to try IE8. First, they published a “get the facts” comparison chart showing how — surprise! — IE8 bests Firefox and Chrome in virtually every way. (Note: Whenever anyone from Microsoft says “get the facts,” the first thing you should get is your hip boots and waders, because it’s going to pile up deep and fast.) I’m still scratching my head over the “Peformance” blurb in that chart:

Knowing the top speed of a car doesn’t tell you how fast you can drive in rush hour. To actually see the difference in page loads between all three browsers, you need slow-motion video. This one’s also a tie.

Right. If anyone out there can explain that one to me, please send me a note. 

But that’s not all. They’re dangling $10K cash prizes to Aussies willing to go spelunking down undah using only their browser. They’ve offered to donate eight (count ‘em, meals to a food bank for every download of IE8. And they’ve launched a series of “funny” video ads starring Superman-turned-pitchman Dean Cain.

This is where things get dicey.

As first noted by The Technologizer’s Harry McCracken (and quickly followed up by virtually everybody else with a blog), there’s one ad in particular that’s gotten a fair amount of attention. It involves an ordinary looking housewife who borrows her husband’s laptop, looks at his browser history, and suddenly starts spewing projectile vomit all over the kitchen in full living technicolor, like Ozzie Osbourne after three days of nothing but beer and bat heads.

The pitch? If only he’d been using IE8’s InPrivate browsing feature, dear old wifey would never know the dark evil puke-inducing Web sites he’d been visiting.

(What exactly was hubby looking at that so fully engaged the gossamer-thin gag reflex of his loving wife? I have one guess, and it’s four words long: Two girls, one cup. Google that, if you dare. But don’t blame me if you toss your cookies after.)

After a lot virtual retching across the blogosphere, Microsoft pulled the ad. (If you must watch it, a copy is still available on YouTube as I write this.) No matter; it achieved its purpose. People are talking about it. For Microsoft, that qualifies as victory.

The weird part is that this ad, along with the others, is/was part of the Browser For The Better food-bank campaign. So is Microsoft bringing food to America’s hungry, or just food poisoning?

From these various moves one could easily draw the conclusion that IE8 is for the gullible, the greedy, the charitably inclined, and the easily gagged.  Another obvious conclusion: Microsoft must be pretty damned worried about losing more ground to Firefox, Chrome, and  any other browser that wanders down the road — worried enough to gross out half the Web with an ad even the most adolescent of dot coms would not have dared run.

The question is why? If the destination is what matters, why does Microsoft care what browser people use to get there? Maybe this: Unless Bing is the browser’s default search engine, no one will go there after the novelty wears off. That’s probably enough to make anyone at Microsoft lose their lunch.

What’s up, chuck? Who or what turns your stomach? Post your dyspeptic thoughts below or email me: dan@dantynan.com.

This post originally appeared on InfoWorld’s Notes From the Field blog.

Tags: earl, hurl, IE8, internet explorer, Microsoft, puke, spew, superman, technicolor yawn, upchuck, urp, vomit

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Want to know exactly where all those ducats you reluctantly turned over to our Uncle in Washington are going? Things just got a little clearer today, at least in terms of our tech taxes.

Today at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City, Federal tech czar Vivek Kundra un unveiled the new IT Dashboard at USAspending.gov, which shows you exactly where all those sawbucks are flowing, in dollar amounts that could make you dizzy.

Even if you don’t care a whit about tech or government, it’s a damned impressive tool. You see not only how much of our annual $74 billion IT budget is flowing to each agency, but which projects it’s flowing to, which contractors are raking in the most of it, which projects are on track, and which ones are swirling down the toilet. (You can watch a video demo of it here.)

In true Web 2.0 fashion, the site lets you embed the charts in your own blog, or post them to Twitter, Facebook, or Delicious. Next week it plans to launch a blog where ordinary citizens can comment. Approximately two seconds after that, the first flame war between the Obamanistas and the Obama-haters will erupt.

Web 2.0 papa Tim O’Reilly immediately tagged the move “radical transparency.” He writes:

The dashboards are an incredibly ambitious undertaking. In the first place, there has never been a government-wide view like this of all IT spending, and the progress of projects. What’s even more remarkable, though, is that the dashboards are being shared with the public. It’s a bit like having your performance review posted on the company bulletin board for all to see.

For example: O’Reilly notes that of the Veteran’s Administration’s $2.6 billion worth of 2009 projects, nearly half are behind schedule, and 63 percent have “significant concerns.” It’s the kind of information bound to make any IT manager feel a little better about his own budgets, and every taxpayer more than a little queasy.

In a culture like DC where turf wars are everything and secrecy is standard operating procedure, not everybody wants to play out in the open. Per the Washington Post:

Launching a site that makes spending practices open to the public met some opposition from the agencies’ chief information officers and government contractors, some of whom were nervous about letting citizens who aren’t familiar with the contracting process and technology needs of the government judge the spending decisions. Kundra said he met with every agency and dozens of company executives over the past six weeks.

“I talked to the CIO Council and saw the data change overnight,” Kundra said. “It was cleaned up immediately when people realized it was going to be made public.”

So far, only four percent of the 26 agency CIOs have evaluated 100 percent of their projects, according to the site. But this train has left the station, so the agencies have 30 days to either jump on board or get left behind.

The hope, of course, is that the IT dashboard proves so successful in a) casting sunlight on the spending process and b) making agencies clean up their act, that it gets extended to all government spending. So for the first time in our nation’s 233-year history, we might truly be able to see our tax dollars at work. That’s a nice wish for a 4th of July weekend.

Is the federal IT dashboard a giant leap forward or just a gimmick? Post your thoughts below or email me direct: dan@dantynan.com. 

This post originally appeared on Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.

Screen capture originally appeared on O’Reilly Radar blog.

Tags: federal, government, IT budgets, IT dashboard, Obama, politics, spending, tax dollars

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At Crazy Cringely’s House of Windows Upgrades, we’re slashin’ prices to the bone. Are you jonesin’ to upgrade from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Home Premium? It won’t cost you $129. Not $127, or even $124. Just $119.99 — a savings of nearly 8 percent over the cost of upgrading from XP to Vista! Can you believe it?

Hey, I told you we were crazy. But wait, there’s more.

For a Limited Time Only, you can upgrade to Windows 7 for just $49.99! That’s right. For less than the cost of a dinner and a movie, you can preorder your copy of Win7 and have it shipped to you next October. (Offer only available from participating retailers in participating markets, ends July 11, void where prohibited by law.)

But the deals don’t end there. We’re selling the full version of Windows 7 Home Premium for just $199.99 — a full $40 off the price of Vista Home Premium! That’s two Andrew Jacksons you slip right back into you pocket — or, better yet, put them toward those support calls you’ll be making to Microsoft two days after the warranty runs out. 

But you’re a power user, I can tell. You want the Full Monty, all that Windows has to offer. And that means Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Ultimate. And you can get them too, for $199.99 and $219.99 (upgrade) or $299.99 and $319.99 (full versions). That’s a discount off current Vista prices of exactly, well, zero.

Now I know what you’re saying. You’re saying “Times are tough, Cringe. We can barely put food on the table, let alone drop $200 or $300 on what could turn out to be yet another disappointing Microsoft operating system.” Well, we have a deal for you. You can upgrade to Windows 7 ABSOLUTELY FREE.

Yes, that’s right. For no money down and no money later, you can have the latest, greatest, most whiz-bangiest Windows system ever made (at least, until the next version comes out) and it won’t cost you a plug nickel.

All you need to do is buy a new Vista machine today. That’s it. It’s that simple. Buy a new Vista Home Premium Machine, and we’ll upgrade you to Windows 7 Home Premium AT NO CHARGE. Buy a PC with Windows Vista Ultimate, and you’ll get discs for Windows 7 Vista Ultimate — again, at NO CHARGE.

(Disclaimer: Offers vary by manufacturer; “free” offers may still involve some nominal cost to buyer. Offer available from June 26 through January 31, 2010, but may also vary by manufacturer. Upgrade limited to 25 PCs per buyer, so large enterprises can suck eggs. Buyers must provide DNA samples and swear loyalty oath to Microsoft. Yes, I just made that last bit up.)

You heard right. If you’re willing to suffer through just three months of Vista frustration, you can experience the wonders of Windows 7 right in the comfort of your own home for NO ADDITIONAL FEE (except for the additional fees noted above). Better yet, we’ll throw in free access to the Windows online support forums, where Microsoft fanboys will taunt you for having problems because clearly you must be doing something wrong, as we all know Windows products are generally flawless.

Even if you’re still clinging to XP years after it debuted, you too can receive these benefits, as long as you’re willing to wipe your disc and do a clean install. Same deal if you live in Europe. Hey paisan, that’s what you get for your piddly little anti-trust concerns.

Order yours today!

Has Cringely gone completely off the deep end? If not, why is he talking about himself in the third person? Post your thoughts below or email him: dan@dantynan.com.

This post originally appeared on Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.

Tags: Crazy Eddie, discounts, free, Microsoft, upgrades, vista, windows, windows 7, xp

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Have you heard the news? Steve Jobs is back.

Well, we think it was Jobs. It might have been some other skinny middle-aged guy skulking about Apple’s Cupertino campus wearing jeans and a black turtleneck. But Apple really truly deeply wants us to believe that, in yet another miracle, St. Steven is back on the ball, just a few weeks after upgrading his internal organs.

Last week’s Wall Street Journal story about Jobs undergoing a liver transplant in April was followed immediately by a) a bland statement in a press release allegedly made by Jobs and b) a few suspiciously convenient sightings of the Apple icon at the company’s HQ.

Hey, if Steve really does feel well enough to return to work just weeks after swapping out one of his more important organs, then more power to him. Let’s hope he remains on top of the Apple pile for another 10 years. But I smell the fetid stench of yet another PR move designed to hide the real story about the man and his health. And that ain’t right.

So far, the story has gone from “Steve’s fine and it’s none of your beeswax why he’s so damned skinny,” to “Steve’s just taking a break to deal with this little hormone imbalance, nothing to see here,” then “Liver transplant, what liver transplant?” and finally “Hey, Steve’s back — you may all now return to worshipping him as the Man-God he is.”

Normally, I think someone’s personal health condition should be just that — personal. But Steve Jobs isn’t just a person any more. He’s an institution. He’s the straw that stirs the drink, the cold crisp taste that quenches our thirst for groovy gadgetry yet still leaves us wanting more.

Jobs has quite deliberately made himself the public face of his company. His products don’t speak for themselves, he speaks for them. And though thousands of talented people are involved in creating and marketing those products, Jobs is virtually the only one anybody sees.

The difference between Apple with Jobs and Apple without Jobs is the difference between The Beatles and Beatlemania. They are not the same company. And while that may not be evident over the last six months, it will become quite clear over the longer haul.

The Mercury News’ Chris O’Brien says Apple fans, employees, and shareholders have a right to feel used and misled:

To not level with this legion of fans, who have invested emotionally in buying and praising the company and its products, strikes me as a betrayal of a special relationship. The folks who line up overnight for the iPhone, who blog about their devotion to Apple, who help spread that veneer of cool, deserve better. By not being straight with these fans, Apple risks breaking that bond of trust.

The New York Times’ Joe Nocera notes that Jobs’s state of well being is just the beginning of the questions Apple should answer, but probably won’t:

If Mr. Jobs had retired from Apple — or had taken an open-ended leave — then I would say yes, it’s his business and not his investors’. But he didn’t do that. He took a six-month leave, which ends on Monday. Already, he is reportedly back at work. But what does that mean? Is he fully back in the saddle? Is he part time? Is he involved only in big strategic decisions? Is he back to his old micro-managing self? Have we now reached the point, in other words, where his health is impinging on his ability to run Apple? That’s the real question, isn’t it? Are Mr. Jobs’s health problems affecting his work?

Apple PR wouldn’t say “manure” if they had a mouthful of it, and that’s the way Jobs wants it. But that’s not the way it should be.

When you’re CEO of — let’s just say it, the top consumer electronics brand on the planet — you can’t be both a public figure and a private person. Jobs’s situation is different than that of say, Madonna or A-Rod. Thousands of employees and billions of dollars are riding on the man’s health. Even the mighty Saint Steven can’t just draw the veil and say go away.

But knowing Jobs, it’s almost certain he’ll continue to try.

What’s your prognosis: Is Jobs’s health a purely private matter, or should he and Apple come clean? Post your thoughts below or email me: dan@dantynan.com.

This post originally appeared on Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.

Image of Steve Jobs holding his old liver stitched together using parts from here and here.

Tags: Apple, health, iPhone, liver transplants, Steve Jobs, The Beatles

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but: Illegally downloading music files is probably not a good idea. And if you don’t believe me, there’s a 32-year-old Minnesota mom who might convince you otherwise.

Last week, a second jury convicted Jammie Thomas-Rasset of using her Kazaa account to illegally download 24 songs. The actual number of songs she allegedly snagged is roughly around 1700, but she got sued for just these 24 little ditties.

The first jury found her guilty and assessed a fine of $222,000, or roughly $9K per tune. Jury #2 decided jury #1 simply didn’t appreciate Vanessa Williams or Journey enough, and upped the ante to nearly $2 million, making those songs worth $80,000 a pop.

I admit, “Don’t Stop Believing” does sound better if you haven’t heard it for a while, but is it $71,000 better? That’s kind of hard to swallow. Reactions from the blogosphere ranged from “insane” to “friggin’ insane” to words I am not allowed to repeat here because there might be children present.

First, let us stipulate for the record that the defendant is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. She’s more like a spoon, or maybe a plastic spork.

Judging by what I’ve read of her defense (Ars Technica has served up a lovely summary of the case), Thomas-Rasset’s attorneys didn’t deny music files were downloaded to her computer, they simply tried to claim the ex-boyfriend did it, or maybe the ex-husband, or maybe gremlins snuck into her house in the middle of the night and logged on to Kazaa using the same online handle she’s used for 15 years.

The human-to-computer connection is almost impossible to prove without eyewitnesses or videotape. Trouble is, the RIAA didn’t have to prove Thomas-Rasset actually swapped files. They just had to convince a jury of that. The fact that Jammie appears to have tried to fool the RIAA by submitting the wrong hard drive to them during the first trial’s original discovery period probably didn’t help her case. Just a hunch.

The file-swappin’ Minnesota mom says she’s broke, so I guess the record companies will have to send their goons over to her house to collect her furniture and sell it on eBay. Maybe she can work off the debt by agreeing to wash RIAA chief Mitch Bainwol’s cars.

However, PCWorld’s JR Raphael points out the excessive size of the award could play to Thomas-Rasset’s favor:

The Supreme Court has previously indicated that “grossly excessive” punitive damage awards are a violation of the U.S. Constitution. An award can be considered “grossly excessive” if there’s too big of a gap between the actual harm done and the amount of money being named. Courts can also consider the “degree of reprehensibility” of the defendant’s actions, along with how the penalty compares to similar ones issued in the past.

So it’s remotely possible some good may come from this case by revisiting the insane financial penalties tacked onto copyright infringement (up to $150K per violation). It won’t let Jammie Thomas-Rasset off the hook (at least, not entirely), but it might help other folks who get squashed by bloodless corporate cartels.

If the record companies were hoping this trial would make them look less like Snidely Whiplash tying poor Nell Fenwick to the railroad tracks, they are mistaken. But it seems they don’t really care what people of them.

Over the last five years (and some 35,000 law suits) the RIAA has been using the same tactics employed by terrorists: isolate and attack vulnerable individuals to intimidate the general populous. But over the past year even they have had to accept that this strategy isn’t working. Now they’re trying to get ISPs to play bad cop. Same evil doers, different tactics.

And now for the usual disclaimer: Nobody here is saying artists shouldn’t get paid. They should. The question is by whom and how much. What are the odds of any of the artists whose songs got shared seeing a dime of that $1.92 million judgment? Not bloody likely.

The more important case to watch is unfolding in Rhode Island right now, as Joel Tenenbaum and a team of Harvard legal eagles are trying to put the RIAA and its terrorist tactics on trial. The attorneys in that case and Thomas-Rasset’s are also teaming up to cook up a class action suit against the RIAA. (Let’s hope Joel’s attorneys are driving that bus, not Jammie’s.)

Like Vanessa Williams sings, “Save the Best for Last.”

What do you think is a fair penalty for illegal file sharing? Post your thoughts below or email me: dan@dantynan.com.

This post originally appeared in/on Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.

TV res image of Snidely, Dudley, and some damsel (but apparently not Nell) found here.

Tags: file sharing, illegal downloads, Jammie Thomas, Journey, kazaa, law suits, mpaa, p2p, riaa, Vanessa Williams

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I find it’s best to live by a few simple rules. I don’t micturate into the wind. I don’t mix tequila with red wine (not any more, anyway). I never get into arm-wrestling matches with fat guys named “Tiny.”

Here’s another rule to live by: When you’re the biggest PC software company in the known universe and you have to bribe and/or force people to use your products, they’re probably not very good.

Which brings us to today’s screed about Internet Explorer 8.

As The Register snarkily informs us, Microsoft’s Australian branch is offering a $10,000 prize for users to switch to IE8.  Actually, anyone can enter the Ten Grand is Buried Here contest, but the Web site where the loot is “buried” is only visible if you’re using IE8.

Hey, if you want to make your browser choice based on an infinitesimal chance of winning 10 large, good on ya, mate. But many users are having IE8 foist upon them unawares, and with crappy consequences.

For example: One day last month Cringester D. L. discovered when he logged onto the Net, he couldn’t get to his email or view Web pages. He then enjoyed several quality hours on the phone with Dell tech support, which determined the cause: His daughter had clicked a button and updated the browser to IE8 without telling him. The support tech logged onto his computer remotely and downgraded it to IE7. Problems solved.

Windows Secrets’ Dennis O’Reilly also notes that IE causes big problems on some PCs. He quotes a letter from a tech-savvy reader:

“I have a computer repair business. In the last two weeks, I’ve had to fix three XP laptops after the installation of IE 8 made them inoperable. In each case, after the update, the desktop on each of these computers was blank except for the desktop wallpaper.

“It didn’t matter whether you started the system in normal or safe mode, all desktop items — including the taskbar — were missing. The only way I could get them back was by using one of my bootable utilities that would allow me access to the restore points….

“Bottom line: There are big issues in Internet Explorer 8 land.”

Computerworld blogger Barbara Krasnoff writes that after Microsoft’s latest forced IE8 update, some users reported they could no longer access YouTube or other Flash-based sites. Of course, the solution was upgrading to a new version of Flash, as any moderately experienced user would know. But why, she asks, should Joe and Jane Consumer have to know this stuff? She adds:

…think about how most of us live with our automobiles. We’re capable of filling the gas tank, and checking the air pressure and oil. But when you hear a mysterious noise, most drivers have no way of knowing whether they simply need new brake pads or whether the transmission is about to give up the ghost. Unless you’re a home (or professional) mechanic, spending five hours trying to figure it out isn’t really a useful option.

Microsoft, apparently, feels that it is. After convincing thousands of users that the company knows what’s best for them, and that they should therefore accept the weekly updates that come their way, it pushed through an update that effectively interrupted the usefulness of their systems.

Couldn’t have put it better myself. OK, I might have been a tad more sarcastic. But otherwise, she’s spot on.

For months now, Windows Update has been nagging me to install a “high priority update,” without which my computer may be in serious peril of being pwned by Eastern European cybergoons. (Of course, to even find that out I must run IE.) At the top of the update list: IE8 for XP. As if.

Admittedly, I did install IE8 on my Vista test machine, but only because I was willing to take one for the team. So far, no problems. Then again, I hardly ever use it. Because although IE8 is probably more secure than any other version of IE ever produced, it’s even more secure to not use IE at all.

These days, when there’s a plethora of browser choices available and seemingly a new one every other week, why should anyone use Internet Explorer when they don’t have to? It’s like what I told Tiny the other day: That’s my forearm and I’ll do what I want with it, thank you very much.

Did you switch to IE8? Had any problems? Post your tales of woe below or email me: dan@dantynan.com.

This post originally appeared in Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.

Photo of fat/naked guys arm wrestling… you don’t want to know.

Tags: browsers, IE8, internet explorer, Microsoft, Redmond, Windows Updates

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In the future, we won’t have to make any decisions on our own. All we’ll need is a browser and a lot of time on our hands. That’s where things seem to be headed, at least.

First, of course, there is Bing, which if nothing else has stuffed the term “decision engine” down our gullets whether we wanted it there or not. Now comes Hunch.com. Built by Flickr’s Caterina Fake and a bunch of computer geeks from MIT, Hunch apparently exists to help us figure out what we already know, even if we don’t know we know it yet. From the site’s description:

It’s a cruel world out there. Coin-flipping, I Ching consultation, closing your eyes and jumping, postponing the inevitable, Rock-Paper-Scissors, and asking your sister are all time-honored means of coming to a decision — and yet we think there’s room for one more: Hunch.

In 10 questions or less, Hunch will offer you a great solution to your problem, concern or dilemma, on hundreds of topics. Hunch’s answers are based on the collective knowledge of the entire Hunch community, narrowed down to people like you, or just enough like you that you might be mistaken for each other in a dark room. Hunch is designed so that every time it’s used, it learns something new. That means Hunch’s hunches are always getting better.

OK, I thought, I’ll bite.

Hunch starts by asking an endless series of nosy questions trying to find out more about you. (I got through 238 of them before I gave up, exhausted.) The questions range from the mundane (Do you live in a city? Do you rent or own your home?) to the bizarre (Do you sing in the shower? Have you ever used a fake ID?) to the truly bizarre (Do you believe in alien abductions? Do you find clowns scary?)

For the record: Of course I believe in alien abductions, and I think anyone who doesn’t find clowns scary is either a) related to Ronald McDonald, or b) scary. As for the rest, well, it’s none of your beeswax.

For all this hard work, Hunch tells me I’ve earned 559 Banjos. And no, I do not have one friggin’ clue what that means, so please don’t ask.

Apparently Hunch uses this information to group you with other folks who answered the same way. Later, when you ask Hunch a question (like, Should I marry this person? Should I eat Chinese food for lunch? Why are we born to suffer and die?) it will weight responses from this group higher, assuming they also asked these questions.

Does your head hurt yet? Because mine does. Reading the site’s FAQ is only slightly more illuminating. Ultimately it all comes down to ‘Trust us, we’re from MIT and a lot smarter than you.’

In actual practice, though, Hunch isn’t really all that smart. In fact, in some cases it seems to have gotten hit upside the head with a stupid stick.

Ask Hunch “Should I get a divorce,” for example, and the first thing Hunch will ask you is “Are you married?” Answer “No,” and it continues on with another question. (Houston, I think we have a problem.) Answer “Yes,” and it will run through another 7 or 8 questions, then provide you with an answer, as well as the percentage of like-minded people who answered the same way. Ask it what you should have for lunch, and it will guide you through a similar series of questions, then provide you with four options.

When the answer involves a product (like, say, What running shoes should I buy?) Hunch might link you to an external site selling that product, which is how it makes its money.

The problems? The answers aren’t exactly rocket science. Unless you have zero friends, you’re likely to get as good (and probably better) advice from an actual human. Worse, you can’t just type any question into Hunch and get an answer. You either have to pick from questions someone has already has submitted, or create a new one from scratch — tediously, step by step, question by question. And if you already know the answer…. you don’t need to ask the question in the first place, do you?

The other problem is what Hunch could do with all that bizarre-yet-highly-personal information it has gathered about users’ alien abduction theories and clown preferences. They say they won’t share this info with any other humans, and I believe them. But if in a year or two Hunch goes down the toilet, that data may be its only real tangible asset. The temptation to sell it could be overwhelming. And then? The next thing you know Kang and Kodos will be knocking on your door, looking to run a few tests.

If enough people ever use it, Hunch might one day provide moderately useful insight into the (alleged) wisdom of crowds around a particular topic. At this point in time, though, Hunch is really more of a massive experiment in machine learning — and we’re the guinea pigs. 

Meanwhile, it’s lunch time. Gee, I wonder what there is to eat….

Would you rely on a Web site to help you make big (or even little) decisions? Post your thoughts below or email me: dan@dantynan.com.

This post originally appeared on Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.

Tags: Bing, decision engine, Hunch, Kang & Kodos

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It isn’t quite up to the New York Post’s gold standard — “Headless Man Found in Topless Bar” — but the NYP’s “Fear Grips Google” story over the weekend certainly got some attention, if only for its over- the-top headline.

According to “insider sources” the Post conveniently declines to describe, let alone identify…

Sergey Brin is so rattled by the launch of Microsoft’s rival search engine that he has assembled a team of top engineers to work on urgent upgrades to his Web service, The Post has learned.

Well, duh. If Google weren’t paying attention to Bing, it wouldn’t be Google. But “rattled”? Please. When you own 60 to 80 percent of the search market, depending on who’s counting, I don’t think a two point percentage gain by a distant third-place competitor is worth pulling the covers up over your head at night. 

(Though I have to admit that Hannibal Lecterish graphic the Post ran of Ballmer is kind of frightening. He looks like he’s about to bite Larry Page on the face. I’m gripped with fear just looking at it.)

SearchEngineLand’s Greg Sterling has a somewhat less adrenaline-fueled take on what’s likely happening over at the Googleplex:

Bing is probably better than Google anticipated and early indications are favorable in terms of user adoption; however not on any scale to threaten Google’s position. I wouldn’t be surprised if Google is taking Bing seriously and trying to carefully assess its algorithm.

My take: This is Rupert Murdoch’s way of jabbing his poison pen into Google, which newspaper publishers have loudly (though somewhat inaccurately) blamed for the demise of their industry. Or maybe he sees it as a competitor to MySpace, or maybe it’s just cuz Al Gore is on their board, and we all know how Rupe feels about green pinkos (or is that pink greenos?). In any case, it’s a hit piece, and it’s not the first one the Murdochians have aimed at Google.

Like, for example, “Google Strokes Porn Guy” (April 2007), “Google Scares Senate” (September 2007), and “Google Glitch Causes Surfers to Reap Pages of Fear” (February 2009). Thank you, Google’s Matt Cutts, for digging up those gems.

As Download Squad’s Lee Michael opines, “Oh God, please get the New York Post out of my tech news.”

FYI, There is no truth to the rumor that Sergey Brin has locked himself in a conference room with explosives and half a dozen of his top coders, vowing to either out ‘Bing’ Bing or blow himself up. Remember: If you saw it on the Web (or in the New York Post), there’s a good chance it’s not really true (unless, of course, you read it at www.infoworld.com, where we publish the truth, whole and nothing but).

What strikes fear into your hearts? (I bet it’s not a search engine.) Post your thoughts below or email me: dan@dantynan.com.

This post originally appeared at Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.

Scary graphic from the New York Post, natch.

Tags: Bing, fear mongering, Google, hyperbole, Microsoft, New York Post, Rupert Murdoch

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Ah, those wacky Europeans.  They think nothing of stripping down and jumping into the Mediterranean in the altogether, or at most those skimpy mansacks they call swim suits.

Now Microsoft has announced it’s going European. Next fall, copies of Windows will be bumming around the continent without their browsers. If the company has its way, users across the pond will be treated to Windows 7 E — with the E standing for Excluding Explorer, or possibly just “Eff You, you cheese-loving snobs.”

As Microsoft veep Dave Heiner puts in his lawyerly way:

We’re committed to making Windows 7 available in Europe at the same time that it launches in the rest of the world, but we also must comply with European competition law as we launch the product.  Given the pending legal proceeding, we’ve decided that instead of including Internet Explorer in Windows 7 in Europe, we will offer it separately and on an easy-to-install basis to both computer manufacturers and users.  This means that computer manufacturers and users will be free to install Internet Explorer on Windows 7, or not, as they prefer. Of course, they will also be free, as they are today, to install other Web browsers.

(Remember the mid-90s when Microsoft “crushed” Netscape by bundling IE with Win 95? Back then Microsoft told the DOJ’s anti-trust folks it wasn’t possible to separate the browser from the OS. Apparently they managed to fix that problem. Are these guys innovators or what?)

The problem? Nobody asked Microsoft to decouple IE from Windows. They went ahead and decided to do this all on their lonesome, those big-hearted galoots.

The European Commission wanted computer buyers to be able to choose which browser to install off a menu (with, presumably, Opera, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari listed as main courses alongside IE). So it is clearly not amused. The EC posted a response to Microsoft’s announcement on its Web site:

…the Commission had suggested to Microsoft that consumers be provided with a choice of web browsers. Instead Microsoft has apparently decided to supply retail consumers with a version of Windows without a web browser at all. Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less.

Critics of the move (in particular, Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner) are calling this a repeat of 2004, when Microsoft responded to one of the EC’s anti-trust rulings by cleverly/sneakily offering two versions of Windows XP for sale — one with Windows Media Player tucked inside, one without — for the same not-so-low price. Guess which version sold more?

This latest maneuver clearly is Microsoft’s way of saying up yours to the EC, which has so far levied around $2.6 billion in fines on the company for being, well, Microsoft. Next, they’ll be offering to pay the fines in Monopoly money.

Unfortunately, the problem here isn’t a lack of consumer choice, it’s a lack of consumer motivation. Most people are just too damned lazy to go out and find a better browser. That’s why Opera and the EC want to impose the choice upon them, and why Microsoft wants to make that process as painful as possible. If that means installing a browser from (gasp) a disc, well, that would suit Redmond just fine.

Another, bigger problem? Sites that will only work with IE, or work poorly without it. Personally, I only use IE at gunpoint — which means whenever I visit my bank’s Web site, use QuickBooks online, watch a movie instantly on Netflix, or  update Windows (of course). You want to fix the IE monopoly, that might be a good place to start.

In the meantime, I’ll just continue using Chrome, Firefox, etc., and wait for the rest of the world (and my bank) to wise up.

Would you buy a browserless copy of Windows? Post your thoughts below or email me: dan@dantynan.com.

This post originally appeared on Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.

Image of Borat (or Borat impersonator) in mankini found, heck, just about everywhere, including Nerve.com.

Tags: anti trust, browsers, cheese, EC, Europe, firefox, google chrome, IE, internet explorer, Opera, safari, windows 7

1 Comment »

Tick, tick, tick, tick.

Two days, 13 hours, and 58 seconds, as I write this. That’s how much time you have left before you can claim your own personalized Facebook URL. 

On June 13, at one minute past midnight eastern time, Facebook will unveil a “username” service that lets you assign the name your parents gave you to your Facebook home page.

In other words, instead of facebook.com/profile.php?id=666572545, I can be facebook.com/robertxcringely — but only if I get there first. (Otherwise that other guy might snag it. Shhh, don’t tell him.)

This news comes via a Facebook Blog post from someone called Blaise DiPersia (like that’s a real name), and judging by the giddy reaction from the blogosphere, you’d think it was raining donuts on Christmas morning. Yes, those of us with mostly virtual lives do get excited over stupid things.

This is a first-come first-served, take-no-prisoners/get-your-low-latency-lines-installed-now kind of deal. I predict a small tsunami of HTTP calls that will look a heckovalot like a dDOS attack over at Facebook.com right around 12:02 am.

The problem, of course, comes when your name is Robert Smith. There can only be one. And there are only so many variations of Bob, Bobby, Rob, Robbo, Smitty, etc., until you just say the hell with the vanity URL and go back to id=666784098.

What exactly is the point of having a nom de Facebook? In the future, when everything converges and there is only one social network (let’s call it FaceTwitSpace Live!) it will make life slightly easier if all your identities converge under your actual name. And, of course, it’s really helpful for stalkers. Aside from that, it’s just more digital narcissism. (Which doesn’t mean I won’t be in there with everybody else, desperately trying to tear off my own little corner of Facebook.)

On a related note, Twitter has announcing vague plans to verify the identities of celebrities, politicians, and other notables on the site, so we can finally know it’s really Lindsay Lohan tweeting about her life and not some other insane 20-something rehab refugee. Exact details on how “Verified Accounts” would actually get verified appear to exist only inside Biz Stone’s head, at the moment.

I’m not sure I can get entirely behind all this truthiness. The very fabric of the Net could be torn asunder. The next thing you know, actresses might be forced to verify that nude photos of themselves on the Net feature their actual (fake) breasts and not some other actress’s actual (fake) breasts. Where’s the fun in that?

Oops, now there’s only 2 days, 12 hours, 3 minutes and 57 seconds left before the Facebook Narcissism Fest. What am I going to do for the next 60 hours? The suspense is killing me.

Are you planning to sign up for a vanity URL on Facebook? If not, can you sign me up so I get to bed early for once? Post your thoughts below or email me: dan@dantynan.com.

This post originally appeared on Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.

Image of Carrie Prejean (pre and post boob job) found on Spike.com.

Tags: biz stone, Facebook, Lindsay Lohan, Twitter, usernames, vanity URLs

2 Comments »

Memo to Tom Cruise: You’re outta here, dude.

John Travolta? Take a hike, Barbarino. Kirstie Alley? Shut up and get your fat **** back on that exercycle.

The island of misfit geeks otherwise known as the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee has unceremoniously uninvited the Church of Scientology from contributing to ‘the peoples’ almanac.’ Wikipedia is now the encyclopedia anyone can edit, except those who believe Xenu will one day return in his DC8 rocket ship to vanquish the church’s enemies and free the Thetans.

The WAC is quoted in the UK’s Telegraph:

“All IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates, broadly interpreted, are to be blocked as if they were open proxies….Anyone who logs on with these IP addresses will be “prohibited from editing articles related to Scientology or Scientologists, broadly defined.”

The reason? Oh, the usual — a massive organized effort to make the CoS look good and/or counter the relentless public criticism that has shadowed the organization since the earliest days of the Net.

(What? You mean people are editing Wikipedia entries for their own nefarious ends? I am shocked, simply shocked. Wait a second while I spruce up my own entry with an account of that wild weekend last fall with Lindsay Lohan and the Cirque du Soleil acrobats. OK, I’m done now.)

To be fair, the whacky WAC also takes issue with the critics of Scientology, who’ve been having their own way with various entries. So far, though, they haven’t banned 4chan or “Anonymous,” though I bet they would if they could just figure out how.

Wikipedia has certainly banned individuals before, and once apparently put the kibosh on an entire mountain in Utah (per The Register). In terms of targeting abusers by their IP address, its accuracy is probably only slightly better than the RIAA’s. But this is the first time Wikipedia decided to permanently oust an entire organization, and I suspect it won’t be the last.

Wal-Mart, Exxon, Diebold, several US Congressfolks, the Department of Justice and the CIA have all been caught with their hands in the wiki jar, juicing their own entries. Sure, sometimes it’s to correct inaccuracies, but most of the time it’s to make themselves look better. Naughty, naughty, you soulless government and corporate entities. No more cookies for you.

I’m all for a more accurate Wikipedia, especially now that it appears to be the primary source for a few billion student papers each year. But… determining what constitutes a neutral point of view for all of humanity? Good luck with that.

As the Wikipedia self-referentially notes:

Critics of Wikipedia accuse it of systemic bias and inconsistencies, and target its policy of favoring consensus over credentials in its editorial process. Wikipedia’s reliability and accuracy are also an issue. Other criticisms are centered on its susceptibility to vandalism and the addition of spurious or unverified information, though scholarly work suggests that vandalism is generally short-lived.

(I removed the six footnotes from that blurb, but if you absolutely must know the sources you can find them here.)

In their own way, the Wikipedians are as cultish and protective of their public image as the group they just banned. And if you don’t believe that, ask AndroidCat, GoodDamon, FloNight, BravehartBear, and all the other Wiki high priests who weighed in on the seven-month arbitration hearing on whether to ban the L.Rons.

(I also understand that in the Great Wiki-wakening, the almighty and surpreme Jimmy Walu will ride down from heaven in a carriage pulled by a team of perky supermodels to smite the sockpuppets, soapboxers, trolls, griefers, vandals, etc., and bestow a righteous and true edit upon the heads of the chosen. Then again, I think I read that on Wikipedia, so Lord knows if it’s true. )

Of course, if you don’t like Wikipedia, there are a few dozen other encyclopedias catering to whatever belief systems you prefer. There’s the Conservapedia for people who believe in conservative Christianity, the Citizendium for people who believe that expertise is spelled “Ph.D,”  the CreationWiki for people who believe the Earth is just 6,000 years young, and the Unclyclopedia for people who don’t believe in encyclopedias.

Your own personal truth, served up just the way you like it. Isn’t that why Al Gore invented the Internet in the first place?

Should Wikipedia ban entire groups? If so, who should be next on their list? Post your thoughts below or email me: dan@dantynan.com.

Tags: al gore, censorship, churches, CIA, cults, Dianetics, DOJ, Exxon, Fat Actress, Jimmy Wales, Kirstie Allie, L. Ron Hubbard, propaganda, Scientologists, scientology, tom cruise, Travolta, wal-mart, wikipedia, Wikipedians, Xenu

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When it comes to search, Microsoft has been like The Tidy Bowl Man, stuck in a leaky rowboat with the Smurf-blue waters rising on all sides. It’s desperately hoping that Bing, the newly reincarnated version of Live Search unveiled by Steve “The Mad” Ballmer at this week’s All Things D confab, will toss them a lifeline. 

Yeah, well, maybe. But before we get into that, let’s get a few things straight.

First, it’s not a search engine, it’s a “decision engine.” Got it? Good. That distinction is apparently important. Why, I’m not exactly sure.

Also: Your fingers aren’t actually fingers, they’re individualized keyboard activators. And your eyes? Binocular sensory input devices.

By and large, the cynical journos on hand for Ballmer’s dog and pony show seem to be giving Bing a tentative thumbs up (or, if you will, northerly directed opposable digits).  Then again, most of those people are basing their thumbage entirely on the demo.

Note: All Microsoft products look good in the demo, except when they crash in the middle of one.

Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling, one of a handful of tech-journos allowed to put his grimy fingers on the actual search decision engine, performed an extensive side by side comparison between Bing and Google.

His first test? To search for “Bing,” of course. Google dutifully served up news results about its putative rival, whereas Bing seemed more interested in the singer Crosby and basketball-legend- turned-mayor Dave Bing. Otherwise, though, Bing handled itself well and even surpassed Google in Sterling’s estimation, especially when it came to searches for travel, food, and films. He writes:

Bing… has performed well and I’ve been satisfied with the results. There haven’t been any significant deficiencies or missing links (so to speak). While there have been a few occasions where I’ve found Google results to be better, the substantial gap that existed between Google and Live Search is largely gone with Bing.

On the other hand, Sterling says he’s not about to ditch Google any time soon. But he says he may actually use Bing without holding his nose (unlike Live Search, which was like trying to defuse a stink bomb).  

Wired’s Ryan Singel and CNet’s Rafe Needleman, neither one of whom is known to get giddy over tech, also gave Bing a qualified seal of approval. Like Sterling, Singel says Bing is a lot better than Live Search but not exactly a Google replacement.

But the service is far from perfect. Beautiful data mash-ups coexist side-by-side with perplexing interface choices that make it hard to find the best features. Meanwhile, actual search results were inaccurate in some cases, and disappointing overall in the local search category, one of the areas Microsoft hopes to make its biggest splash.

Rafe’s overall conclusion? “Much better than expected.”

See, this is what happens when you spend 25 years lowering peoples’ expectations. Something that merely works as advertised is considered a breakthrough. Yet another brilliant marketing ploy by those renegades from Redmond.

I know what you’re thinking. What’s the catch? Well, this may be the catch. As PC World’s Tom Spring notes, Bing’s Quick Tabs feature

… often steered me to Microsoft services such as Bing Shopping, Bing Travel, MSN Autos, and Bing health information. It may be that those Bing sites offer the best content, but I get suspicious of any search engine that habitually gives its own links precedence over others’.

Hey listen. I’m looking forward to giving Bing a spin myself, once they get around to letting second-class citizens like me in the door (that’s supposed to happen next Wednesday, June 3). I’d be happy to add a new search decision tool to my quiver of Web arrows, even if it comes with an MSFT logo.

Just remember, it’s not a Google Killer, it’s a Google loofah sponge — designed to gently exfoliate while enhancing your online decision making. Just don’t use it in the shower.

Does Bing sing? I’m interested to hear what you think once the service opens its doors to the rabble. Post your thoughts below or email me: dan@dantynan.com.

Tags: ballmer, Bing, Dead Search, Google, Kumo, Live Search, Microsoft, Redmond, search

1 Comment »

This is it. The end of days. The Last Mile.  The Final Enchillada. Some rude beast is slouching toward Bethlehem, and it’s not just Oprah in a mu-mu.

They’re turning Twitter into a reality TV series.

Let me say that again, in case you missed it: They’re turning Twitter into a reality TV series.

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but 140 characters of pure drivel.

For reasons that are only clear if your brain has been overexposed to cathode rays, two Hollywood production companies are cooking up an unscripted show built around the micro blog. Per Variety:

The San Francisco-based web phenom has partnered with Reveille and Brillstein Entertainment to develop an unscripted TV skein described as “putting ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format.”

Goodbye talk shows; hello stalk shows.

Top Twit Biz Stone played down the hype in his blog, declaring “There is no official Twitter TV show… We have a lightweight, non-exclusive, agreement with the producers which helps them move forward more freely.” 

To Brillstein et al., it’s the next Big Brother. To Stone, it’s more like a hospital gown.

Reactions across blogville have ranged from mild derision to extreme derision.

Here’s the truly horrifying thing: If the series goes through as planned, Ashton Kutcher (aka @aplusk) has threatened to stop tweeting, depriving his 2 million followers of such bon mots as “I am so beyond excited for a three day weekend. I may go off line for a couple days just to ground out” and “I’m here by retiring the names ‘tool’, ‘tool box’, ‘I’m unfollowing you tool’, and ‘aplusk, why are you such a tool?’”

Uber-cougar Demi Moore has threatened to take her 1 million+ twitfans and follow her tool — I mean, man — off into a tweetfree existence. If so, she may have to start taking her clothes off again to get any attention.

So far, all Brillstein et al have done is issue a press release, and they’ve already got folks organizing a posse and gathering pitchforks and torches. I’d call that a resounding success.

Personally, I think it’s a brilliant idea. Do the math: 99 percent of TV is pablum for the synaptically challenged; 99 percent of tweets make “Hee Haw Honeys” look like Masterpiece Theater. Put them together, you get 198 percent pure honey-flavored pablum — a perfect dish for our ADD age.

To paraphrase the late Herbert Morrison, “Oh, the inanity.”

Who wouid you cast in your Twitter TV show? (David Hasselhoff? Erik Estrada?) Post your thoughts below or email me: dan@dantynan.com.

This post first appeared on Infoworld’s Notes From the field blog.

Twitter TV image from a mystery site to be unveiled at a later date.

Tags: Ashton Kutcher, biz stone, Demi Moore, Hee Haw, Hindenberg, TV, Twitter, Variety

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In a day or two, Steve Ballmer will be unveiling Microsoft Live Search’s latest attempt to climb out of the dung heap of second-rate search engines and raise its head high enough to see the dust left behind by Google.

Even Ballmer has had to admit that, with a market share under 9 percent and sliding, Live Search is officially Dead Search. With the hopes of a hookup with Yahoo scuttled, at least until Carol Bartz is in a more conducive mood, Microsoft has had to go to Plan B: start over.

Microsoft’s code name for its new Dead Live Search is Kumo, which is Japanese for “spider” or “cloud,” depending on which Kanji characters are employed. (Its Native American name would probably be “spider who drifts like cloud,” or possibly “cloud that scuttles like spider.”) But according to reports that first surfaced on Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Land last week and have been echoed by Ad Age and other mainstream pubs, Microsoft’s new, improved, slightly-less-sucky search engine will be called “Bing.” 

Why Bing? A fondness for old Crosby tunes maybe. Or ex-Pistons hall of famer (and current Detroit mayor-elect) Dave Bing. Or because it rhymes with “bling.” At least they’re not planning to call it Windows Live Search Ultimate Multimedia Edition 2009 version 1.0a.

Ad Age reports that Microsoft plans to drop an $80 to $100 million marketing campaign on our heads, trying to convince us Google causes cancer (or something), so picking the right name is at least mildly important. And it appears that name may well be Bing. In March, Microsoft trademarked Bing; that also appears to be around the time it purchased the Bing.com domain. 

Interestingly, it turns out Microsoft never gained control over the domain LiveSearch.com. As paidContent blogger Joseph Tartakoff points out, that domain is owned by one Tyler Tullock of Bothell, Washington, who seems quite pleased about telling Microsoft (or its proxies) to put its offers for the domain where the sun shines even less often than in Seattle.

[Tullock] says he has rejected several offers for the site. “I’ve had many offers—they’ve always been really stealthy—saying ‘I represent a client blah blah blah,’” Tullock told us. He says that the most recent offer came about six months ago, when an entity offered him $40,000 for LiveSearch.com. Tullock asked for $800,000. They countered with $200,000, but Tullock had to answer within a day. He says he passed.

Maybe Tullock got tipped off when the buyer insisted on meeting him in an underground parking garage wearing a Groucho nose and glasses.

Microsoft won’t confirm or deny trying to buy the domain from Tullock. Please. Who else would be interested? A domain name dealer who wanted to flip it for a profit, maybe. But why would they hide their identity? And what other corporate entity besides Microsoft would have any interest? 

The point: It seems Microsoft believed LiveSearch.com was worth at most $200K, but really closer to $40K. That tells you everything you need to know right there.

How much do you suppose the domain ‘Google.com’ is worth? I don’t think I can write a number that big without sending out for more digits from the Zeroes Factory.

Tullock couldn’t resist sticking the knife in and twisting, just a bit:

Nowadays, Tullock runs a chain of seven music schools in the Seattle area, and parks Google ads on LiveSearch.com. “It makes me plenty of money sending all that Microsoft business to Google,” he says.

Ouch.

According to the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine, in at least one of its previous incarnations Bing.com was a Web service that aimed to “deliver snail mail at Internet speeds.” Yes, that’s right — it was designed to speed up postal mail delivery. According to the BingMail brochure [PDF], instead of printing out a doc, putting it in an envelope, licking the envelope, adding a stamp and dropping it in the mailbox, you’d send it to Bing.com, and they would print out the doc, put it in an envelope, lick it, add a stamp, and drop it in the mailbox.

Hmm, I wonder why that never caught on.

So maybe this is why Microsoft chose “Bing.” It plans to make real-time search as fast and efficient as dropping letters in the mail. And to spend $100 million beating us over the head with ads that tell us how good the envelopes taste.

Do you think Microsoft can pull off a search service that’s actually worth using? Post your thoughts below or email me direct: dan@dantynan.com.

This post originally appeared on Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.

Image of Hope & Crosby found on Unshredded Nostalgia.

Tags: ad age, All Things D, ballmer, Bing Crosby, bling, Dave Bing, Google, Kumo, Microsoft, snail mail, Uncle Walt, WayBack Machine

2 Comments »

I don’t know about you, but I’m finding the whole showdown between craigslist and the state attorneys general over online sex ads endlessly entertaining. In case you’ve been paying attention to actual news and somehow missed it, here’s the story so far.

First, craigslist caved in to the outcry over the alleged ‘craigslist killer’ and offered to make nominal changes to its racier listings, swapping “adult” for “escort” in the title and promising to do a better job of keeping out the $2 whores.

No matter. South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster still threatened to bring criminal charges against craigslist if it didn’t shut down all adult-oriented advertising in SC.

That prompted craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster to fire back with a blistering blog post, which included helpful links to 11 other sources of ads for not-exactly-legal prostitution in the Palmetto State, followed two days later by a law suit requesting a restraining order against McMaster.

(And if the whole McMaster/Buckmaster name similarity has you flummoxed, you’re not alone. From now on I’ll just refer to them as Masters of their Domains, #1 and #2.)

In response to the suit, MOD#1 declares “a victory for law enforcement and for the people of South Carolina” [PDF]. Right. Just like the South declared victory at Appomattox in 1865.

Meanwhile, New York AG Andrew Cuomo is jumping feet first into this ho-down. State prosecutors just arrested seven people in Queens, accusing them of using craigslist to advertise prostitution services and falsifying their records “to make payments for sex appear to be for clowns and balloons,” according to the New York Times.

Hey Johnny, we’ve got an extra special treat for your birthday party this year: Suki and Carmelita are going to tie balloon animals with their tongues.

Personally, hookers don’t bother me so much. But clowns? They totally creep me out. So Cuomo’s crackdown on faux Bozos is a good thing, I think.

Meanwhile, Charleston’s WCBD-TV news team dug up the owner of a low-country “adult companionship” service who advertises on craigslist and goes by the name of “Jane.” She denies being involved in anything illegal:

“Jane” says that her agency is not a prostitution ring and that she is licensed for entertainment by Charleston County like a strip club. She thinks all the ladies in the adult services section of Craigslist should be forced to get licenses. If they get arrested for misbehavior, she wants those licenses revoked. “Jane” says that her employees are typically in their early twenties and college students trying to make ends meet.

And if you’d like to your end to meet with theirs, it’ll cost you another $200. [ba-dum-bump!]

Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Please remember to tip your waitresses.

Let’s hope all parties involved in this silly fandango continue to find new ways of making themselves look like tools. Because, like “Jane” and her colleagues, this story is the gift that keeps on giving — provided you’ve got enough cash.

Are you as amused by the craigslist controversy as I am? Post your thoughts below or email me: dan@tynanwood.com.

This post originally appeared on Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.

Strangely perfect photo of clown/bride courtesy of LouPiote.com.

Tags: adult, balloon animals, Bozo, Buckmaster, CEO, craigslist, Cuomo, escorts, ho's, hookers, McMaster, prostitution, SC, South Carolina, whores

1 Comment »

It starts out as a convenience, becomes a habit, then a necessity, and finally an addiction. Then suddenly one day it disappears for a few hours and you forget how you ever survived without it. You find yourself on the floor of your bathroom with the dry heaves, clawing at the porcelain and jonesin’ for another taste.

Even worse: You start to consider using Yahoo again.

Of course, the Google outage last week didn’t affect everyone like that — just 14 percent of the Google faithful or approximately 5 percent of Net traffic as a whole — who were forced to do without Adsense, Apps, Blogger, Calendar, Gmail, Maps, News, and other Google services for more than an hour. My God, how did we all survive?

Immediately the conspiracy theory arm of the Net went to Defcon 1. Some were convinced it was AT&T’s fault. Others said it had to be the work of hackers, or possibly Chinese cyber spies doubt seeking revenge for Google’s quasi-repudiation of The Great Firewall.

Turns out some person or bot flicked the wrong switch, directing too much Web traffic through Asia, according to The Official Google Blog last Thursday:

Imagine if you were trying to fly from New York to San Francisco, but your plane was routed through an airport in Asia. And a bunch of other planes were sent that way too, so your flight was backed up and your journey took much longer than expected. That’s basically what happened to some of our users today for about an hour, starting at 7:48 am Pacific time.

Well, on Monday Google had another outage — though this time just affected Google News. We’re still waiting for Google to come up with another bad plane metaphor for that one. But more and more, Google is looking like the digital equivalent of La Guardia Airport. And that ain’t good.

PC World’s David Coursey says this is yet more proof that the sky is falling — or at least, some of its clouds. To wit:

The Google outage confirms what everyone should already know: If it seems too good to be true, watch out! Google’s failure is a lesson for everyone who is putting too many eggs in one basket, whether the basket is cloud computing or those who’ve ditched wired telephones for a wireless-only world.

Meanwhile, PCW’s JR Raphael sees the silver lining; in an age where many big tech companies feel beholden to no one but themselves (yes, I’m talking to you, Apple and Amazon), Google promised to tell us what went wrong, and actually did:

Google screwed up. No question about it. My morning was a mess because of its error, and countless other people were equally peeved. But the company actually communicated with us. They told us what was going on. They apologized and promised they were taking action. (Whether that action ends up being effective, to be fair, is yet to be seen — but it’s a start.) … Google is far from a model of perfection. But its steps this week moved in the right direction, and for a company shrouded in mystery, that’s something I’m happy to see.

Now they get to do it all over again today. And maybe tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that… I love corporate transparency, rare as it is, but I like reliability even better.

The danger with any mono-culture is that one single point of failure can take everybody down; it’s why security vulnerabilities in Windows and/or Internet Explorer are so much worse than those in the Mac OS (yes, Apple fanboyz, OSX has flaws too) and Firefox etc. Because so many more people use them, the effects are much worse.

Now when Google catches the Asian flu, we all have to wear surgical masks. Has Google gotten too big or too dominant? Is it time to break up the company in order to save the Net?

What do you Gthink? Post your Gthoughts or Gmail me direct: dan@dantynan.com. 

This post originally appeared on Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.

That extremely cool (if oversized) graphic by Tyler Jordan won Google Blogoscoped’s Google Logo redesign contest in 2008.

Tags: airplanes, AT&T, Chinese cyberspies, cloud computing, conspiracy theories, fail, gmail, Google, sky falling

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Voyij is a new search engine that lets you find you the best travel deals. Is it really better than Priceline, Kayak, and all the rest?

Two things you need to know about me. One, I really don’t give a damn about clothes, furniture, shoes, or stuff in general (as the lovely wife will unhappily confirm). But I would happily blow all my money on travel. I love going new places, especially exotic locales.

The second thing: I hate blowing my money. Tightwad, cheapstake, skinflint — I’ve heard them all. Fact is, I think everything is overpriced. So I’m constantly hunting for great deals on flights, hotels, rental cars, etc.  And that’s where the Net has been my savior.

For example, I’m a proud member of the Church of William Shatner (aka, Priceline). We’ve gotten some really sweet deals on hotel rooms using Priceline — like $45 a night for a swank room in Boston or Atlanta, or $50 for a pool side suite at the Hilton in Myrtle Beach. We’ve used it extensively for family vacations, and almost always have been pleasantly surprised. Priceline has also been sweet for rental cars. I just secured an economy car for a week in Southern California at $16 a day. The lovely wife (TLW) has done even better — she once snagged a car for $11.

Now I don’t use Priceline for flights. Did that exactly once in my life and ended up having to fly out at 5 am and change planes in Kentucky and Minneapolis en route from NYC to SFO. Not going there again. But I do have my Travelocity alerts set up to ping me whenever deals to my 10 favorite locations spring up. And I love using Kayak to look at competing fares and manage my flight choices. (Its matrix view is particularly useful; the best airfares almost always fall on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, fyi).

There’s certainly no dearth of travel sites on the Web. In fact, a new one just popped up yesterday: Voyij (pronounced “voyage,” I assume). Voyij’s deal is, well, deals. It’s a search engine that lets you find the best travel deals at any one time. Name the airport you want to depart from, pick your dates (or keep them flexible), click the “Find Sales” button, and see what you get. You’ll see results showing flights, hotels, and vacation packages. From there you can refine the results to view just the places you actually want to go. To brag about the great deal you just got to your peeps, just click the Tweet button.

One of the few places where Priceline’s hotel search has failed us is New York City. It’s nearly impossible to find a place to sleep in the city that never sleeps — at least, one that won’t break the bank. So I thought I’d scan Voyij to see if I could do better. Turns out I can stay in a four-star hotel in New York City for just $99 a night.

I can hear you thinking: What’s the catch? Well, here’s the catch.

That “four star” hotel is the DoubleTree on East 51st and Lex — a great location for business travel, just a few blocks from some magazines I write for. But it’s only for a specific night (Monday, May 25). Other nights cost from $159 to $239.

Still, $99 isn’t bad. Priceline lists the same room (at its “special Priceline rate”) for $129. But it also considers the DoubleTree a 3.5-star hotel. (Even that is generous, I suspect.) Kayak calls the DoubleTree a 4-star venue but offers an even better deal for that room — $91 if I use Easyclicktravel.com to book it. Odds are I’d probably pay the extra $8 and book via a company I’ve done business with in the past. In either case, Voyij isn’t really getting me anything I can’t get elsewhere.

Click the “Voyij Price Challenge” link under any price, and the site promises an even better discount that it’s negotiated exclusively with the vendor. The best extra discount I saw for a room in NYC was $25; most of them were in the single digits or nothing at all.

When I looked at airfares from SFO to NYC, Voyij found me a deal at $218 round trip. But that’s the same deal I could find on my own using Kayak.

Of course, these were really targeted searches. I suspect Voyij is really best for the serendipitous traveler — the kind of person who decides he or she really needs to get away, right now, and is willing to take a flyer (literally) on whatever happens to be cheap at the moment. Someday when the kids are off to college and TLW is willing, I hope to be that kind of traveler. In the meantime, I’ll keep Voyij bookmarked for the next time I’m feeling a little wanderlust.

Tags: airfare, booking, cheapskate, flights, hotels, kayak, priceline, travel, travelocity, vacation, voyage, voyij

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So craigslist bowed to intense pressure and kicked its controversial “Erotic Services” ad category to the curb this week. Instead, it’s unveiling a new ad category called “Adult Services” to take its place.

Why “Adult Services”? Because calling it “Hookers & Blow” might send the wrong message.

Over the last few weeks, even as more and more state attorneys general sharpened their knives, sensing an nice juicy turkey to carve up and serve to voters, craigslist doggedly clung to its Erotic Services category, declaring it a free speech issue. Per the craigslist FAQ:

Illegal activity is absolutely not welcome, and will not be tolerated. However, when it comes to legal conduct between consenting adults, we feel it is important to err on the side of respecting free speech and privacy rights, and to leave moral judgements to the greater wisdom of the craigslist community, who are empowered through our flagging system…. For those who believe such ads should be banned by law, experts tell us that is a constitutional question which could be addressed by seeking an amendment to restrict free speech.

This may be the first time getting your candlesticks polished has been equated to free speech. I, for one, demand my First Amendment rights — right now. And if you could make it a redhead with green eyes, even better.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge fan of that and many other amendments. Without free speech, I’d probably be cleaning toilets in some gulag. But as a non-governmental institution, craigslist is not actually bound by the First Amendment. Like Facebook and any other private corporation, it can and does establish limits on what is acceptable content. And what it ultimately decided to do was change the name of the service and toss a few rules at it, in the hopes that all those angry AGs will go away.

So what exactly is the difference between Erotic Services and Adult? Good question.

For one thing, craigslist plans to charge $10 for the first instance of each ad, $5 for a second go-round. (That’ll scare off all those $2 ho’s). That’s twice the cost of phone verification fees the service was charging for Erotic Services listings. Another difference: These dollars will go directly into craigslist’s pockets, not to charity.

CEO Jim Buckmaster says he will hire a team to review all Adult Service ads before they post to ensure they don’t violate craigslist’s terms of service, which forbid depictions of sex with an amusing degree of specificity (see Section 7b of the Terms of Use) as well as “illegal prostitution.” So in other words, just legal prostitution — licensed escort and massage services that appear in the Yellow Pages, for example — will be allowed. Professionals only please, amateurs need not apply.

(Interestingly, the site’s Terms of Use still says “craigslist does not pre-screen or approve Content”). Maybe they need to hire a team to review the TOU.)

I don’t consider myself a prude. If people want to spend their money on personal gratification of the hubba-hubba variety I think that’s their business. But the number of sites where people offer to trade sex for some consideration in kind is almost endless. (Adult Friend Finder anyone?) IMHO, craigslist is merely a convenient high-profile scapegoat.

This whole controversy hit the front burners thanks to Philip Markoff — the alleged “Craigslist Killer” who’s accused of hiring three masseuses off craigslist ads, robbing two of them and murdering the other one. Despite the actual services the women were providing, I’d be surprised if their ads violated craigslist’s TOU. Even $3000-an-hour escort services don’t promise happy endings, as I’m sure Eliot Spitzer could tell you.

If someone can explain to me how reviewing ad copy and charging $10 is going to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, I’m all ears.

New York State AG Andrew Cuomo called craigslist’s response “half baked.” I’m inclined to agree with him.

I predict there won’t be a happy ending for anyone in this mess.

What a week. Holocaust deniers, closeted conservatives, blue-nosed censors, and online prostitutes. Got opinions on any or all of the above? Post your thoughts below or email me: dan@dantynan.com.

This post originally appeared on Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.

Doctored picture of ‘craigslist hookers’ borrowed temporarily from The Deli, a purveyor of meaty celebrity gossip.

Tags: adult, attorneys general, blow, Buckmaster, classified ads, craigslist, erotic, escort, hookers, prostitution, spitzer

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The new documentary “Outrage” has provoked a small bit of outrage itself, after editors at NPR.org censored a review of the film, which aspires to “out” conservative politicians who are allegedly closeted gays.

Yes, that NPR.  The home of Terry Gross, Click and Clack, and “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me.” The cherished radio respite of all croissant-munching, Volvo-driving, double-soy-mocha-latte lovers everywhere.

It’s like finding out Mr. Rogers strangled puppies, or that Oprah is really a man.

Film maker Kirby Dick’s “Outrage” aims to point out the hypocrisy of politicians who consistently vote against gay rights legislation and funding for AIDS research while secretly enjoying the forbidden fruit, so to speak. The film names several allegedly gay politicians, and so did NPR film reviewer Nathan Lee — until his editors neutered it, removing the references to all not-solidly-confirmed-as-homosexual politicos featured in the film.

Strangely, however, the review continues to feature the mug shot of Senator Larry Craig (above), esteemed Republican from the great state of Idaho and the third bathroom stall on the left in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, even after excising his name from the story.

Lee asked that his name be removed from the piece, which the editors did. He then posted a comment to the review explaining why he asked his name be removed, in which he again names the three politicians who got cut out. NPR sent his comment into the ether as well (but not before IndieWire captures a barely legible screenshot of it).

There is enough irony here for everyone to get a second helping. For example, here’s how the edited review handles this dicey subject:

Although Outrage tries to be mindful of the right to privacy, one of Dick’s main objectives is to expose the queasy reluctance of the mainstream media when it comes to investigating, reporting on or simply acknowledging the homosexuality of prominent figures who haven’t declared themselves. (I’m proscribed from naming names right now, for example, by longstanding NPR policy on the subject.)

The “I’m” in that sentence isn’t Lee, by the way, it’s whatever editor made those changes. Queasy reluctance, anyone?

So who did Lee name? Let’s see if you can guess.

According to the review, one is “the former mayor of a major U.S. city — a Democrat whose homosexuality has long been an open secret in his metropolis.”

Another is a “major swing-state governor … with aspirations to be the 2012 Republican presidential candidate.”

(Thus giving new meaning to the phrase, “swing state governor.”)

Here’s a hint: He just announced he’s running for the US Senate. Got it yet?

The third, of course, is that toe-tapping frequent flier who put the ‘ho’ in Idaho.

NPR exec Dick Meyer responded to IndieWire, which broke the story earlier this week:

“NPR has a long-held policy of trying to respect the privacy of public figures and of not airing or publishing rumors, allegations and reports about their private lives unless there is a compelling reason to do so.”

Unlike many politicians in DC, I believe someone’s personal sexual preferences are just that — personal. On the other hand, exposing political hypocrisy is one of the things good documentaries (and news gathering organizations like NPR) are supposed to do. Whether you consider that “compelling” depends on your perspective, I suppose.

What NPR really does is prove filmmaker Kirby Dick’s point about the media. It’s apparently fine to repeat allegations that someone is criminal or even a murderer; just don’t say he swings from both sides of the plate. For example: An NPR review of the docu-drama Il Divo, about former Italian prime minister Giulo Andreotti, has no problems linking the politician to several murders, the Mafia, the Vatican, and “a notorious Masonic lodge that caters to unrepentant fascists.“

Good thing nobody said Andreotti was gay.

Maybe NPR should change the name of “All Things Considered” to “All Things Considered, Unless They’re Still in the Closet.”

Do you care if politicians are gay? Do privacy issues trump the public’s right to know, and if so, where should we draw the line? Post your thoughts below or email me: dan@dantynan.com.

This post originally appeared on InfoWorld’s Notes From the Field blog.

Tags: bathrooms, censorship, Charlie Crist, Ed Koch, film, gay, Larry Craig, movie, npr, privates on parade, Reviews

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It turns out when you run the world’s biggest social network, you inherit the world’s biggest social problems. And so it goes with Facebook, which is now under fire for its implicit support of groups that deny the Holocaust ever happened. (And what a lovely group of people they are.)

Brian Cuban, brother of high-tech entrepreneur/sports franchise owner/twinkle-toed Mark Cuban, is trying to shame Facebook into taking them down. And he’s got some high-powered pals like Michael Arrington in his camp. As Captain Crunch unsubtly notes, Facebook has already banned photos of lactating moms:

Pictures of breast feeding babies are indecent, so they’re a no go…. But Holocaust denial is totally cool because it fosters open discussion…. why is Facebook so willing to take a stand when it comes to hungry babies, but won’t do a damn thing when it comes to the Holocaust. Because they’re cowards.

First, I’d like to go on record as being unequivocally pro-breast, lactating or otherwise. As for the other question, it’s not quite so black and white. Facebook now has the option of stepping out of the frying pan and into a white hot fire or a bubbling caldron of grease. Either way, it won’t be pretty.

If it caves and bans the Holocaust deniers, it’s suppressing the free exchange of ideas, even if they are stupid or hateful. If it stays the course, it aligns itself with the flat earthers and those who believe Adolf Hitler was simply a misunderstood house painter with a bad haircut.

Holocaust deniers aren’t impacted very much either way. Banning them from Facebook will do nothing. They will always find new rocks to crawl under.

The problem is not so much that Facebook has banned breast-feeding moms (though that is a bit dicey), it’s that it has already banned pro-KKK, Nazis, and other hate groups. So it drew a line in the sand a while ago. The question is whether Facebook should scrub out that line and redraw it slightly to the left of the anti-Semites.  And then redraw it again when somebody else with a megaphone complains about the next batch of lunatics and haters who’ve camped out on Facebook’s lawn. And so on, ad infinitum.

Any service that becomes an arbiter of appropriate content finds itself in the same bubbling grease pit. Amazon discovered this last month when it attempted to hide “adult” content from its sales ranking and search engine, only to end up inadvertently shoving gay and lesbian books into the closet. It’s only going to get worse.

Beliefnet blogger Padmini Mangunta notes that, as a private company, Facebook is not legally bound by the First Amendment. It can regulate speech as it pleases. But she says it has an ethical obligation to allow unfettered speech from groups that, unlike the KKK or the Nazis, do not promote physical harm.

So the question isn’t if Facebook has a legal obligation to remove these groups, but if they have an ethical obligation. After thinking on it a bit, I have to say no. In fact, I would say that under the ideals many of us live by, they have an ethical obligation not to remove these groups, provided they do not cause or advocate harm.

Me, I think the best response to nonsensical or hateful ideas is to demonstrate how nonsensical and hateful they are. You’ll never convince the true believers (or nonbelievers, in this case) but you might sway those who are easily suckered by zealots. If you’re not allowed to talk about it, though, you won’t get the chance to change anyone’s mind.

Should Facebook ban anti-Holocausters and other borderline groups? Where would you draw the line? Weigh in below or email me: dan@dantynan.com.

This post originally appeared on Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.

Tags: arrington, cuban, deniers, Facebook, first amendment, free speech, hate speech, Holocaust, KKK, Nazi, techcrunch

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