This article from the BBC News contains a nugget of contrition from Sony BMG’s President Thomas Hesse over the rootkit/SunnComm DRM security fiasco which has left potentially millions of computers users with bum PCs and huge security holes. While the article is headlined “Sony BMG Repents Over CD Debacle,” a closer reading of the piece clearly suggests that Sony is most sorry about the negative publicity.
Speaking to the BBC News website, Thomas Hesse, president of Sony BMG’s global digital business, said all the bad publicity had made it think hard [emphasis added] about its approach to stopping people making illegal copies.
Later Hesse emphasizes that the scales weren’t lifted from Sony’s eyes until the press furor hit the fan.
“But this whole story has led us to look at the approach we have to take going forward,” Mr Hesse said. The furore about the XCP software had lead Sony BMG to “diligently re-evaluate” how it protects music on CDs.
Herr Hesse, sagen Sie einfach, dass es Ihnen Leid tut. Das ist alles.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:23 PM | Print | Comments (0)
Google is quickly becoming the company everybody loves to hate…Exhibit one is this article in USA Today, which runs through the usual litany of complaints competitors and privacy advocates lodge against the search titan.
But my favorite is Dave Winer’s rant entitled “Google Sucks. There I said it.” His main complaint is about Google’s announcement of its web clips application.
First, why can’t they call it RSS. That’s what it’s called. Not good enough for Google. Gotta make it sound all weak and watery. Web clips. WTF is that? I don’t know. And I don’t want to know.
Winer’s let-it-all-hang-out opinion is what makes the blogosphere different from traditional media. I might not agree with his opinion, but I certainly love reading it.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 3:46 PM | Print | Comments (2)
Yahoo made a big announcement for a Friday — the company has acquired tagging pioneer del.icio.us. As the folks at del.icio.us note, the company will be joining tagging fraternal twin flickr as a Yahoo property, putting the Internet giant straight into the thick of community networking. As Michael Arrington notes
Competition is such a wonderful thing. Yahoo, in addition to launching a flurry of new products in the last few months (and the pace seems to be accelerating), now owns the two most important tagging properties on the web - flickr and del.icio.us.
Given the flickr purchase, it seems natural for Yahoo to go after del.icio.us. As Yahoo search team member and the key blogger at Yahoo’s search blog Jeremy Zawodny noted in a recent comment on Dave Taylor’s blog
Delicious is a service for saving and sharing bookmarks. It’s popular in the blog world because a lot of bloggers are information hounds that collect hundreds of links to interesting web sites. Delicious makes it easy to put them all in once place. Bloggers also like to publish links for their friends and readers to see, so there are a lot of tools for making that easy too.
With Yahoo backing it, del.icio.us (and let’s hope the official name becomes delicious) might make it to the mainstream, much the way flickr is poking through to the mass market. On the other hand, the notoriously cranky blogging community — and del.icio.us is really a blogger’s tool — might take a few swipes at the mass marketization of del.icio.us the way they have taken a few potshots at flickr. A core of die-hard flickr fans even formed a “flick-off” blog in protest of Yahoo’s acquisition of the photo-sharing site.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 3:23 PM | Print | Comments (0)
Courtesy of J.D. Lasica, David Dunkley Gyimah, a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster in the UK, has created Solojos (solo journalists). According to Gyimah’s site, the goal is to help traditional print journalists gain the “skills of videojournalism and becoming a broadbandcaster.” Steve Outing at PoynterOnline says that Gyimah is doing this as part of a UK Press Association’s project to help convert many regional newspaper journalists into video-journalists.
It’s hard to keep up with the daily crush of announcements dealing with traditional TV programs that migrate to the web. One worth flagging is NBC’s announcement that “Meet the Press” will start webcasting this Sunday. The number one Sunday morning public affairs program (remember when that counted?) will become available free-of-charge each Sunday at 1 pm at www.mtp.msnbc.com. The move follows NBC’s decision last month to make “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” a free webcast. (Tip of the hat to Lost Remote.)
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