This far too scant-on-the-details piece from UK’s The Times claims that a new European directive makes posting glowing reviews online using a false identity a criminal offense across the continent.
Apparently, hotels, restaurants and online shops could face criminal prosecution next year if owners or employees (here I’m guessing because the article doesn’t exactly identify who gets covered by the directive) post positive information about their businesses using false identities. Businesses that write fake blogs, posting information that appears to be from consumers, are also covered.
The Times also claims that authors who praise their own books under a fake identity at online booksellers will likewise be subject to criminal charges.
I’m not sure what to make of this weird and probably unenforceable “directive.” What if a friend of a friend of a hotel owner posts a glowing review under a false name? Are they covered? What about all these bogus customer raves that appear on thousands of web sites (“I love your product! It took 20 years off of my face — Mary G.”) What if the site originates in the U.S., or the Grand Caymans?
Sounds like a toothless but earnest stab at trying to dampen the proliferation of false identities. But seriously, I need more information. (Hat tip to SmartMobs.)
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 4:20 PM | Print | Comments (0)Stanford journalism professor G. Pascal Zachary has this piece in today’s New York Times that reinforces a disheartening idea for those of us who don’t live in Silicon Valley: when it comes to technology innovation, the Northern California corridor is the place to be. Even when good ideas crop up elsewhere first (Zachary talks about a man he met seven years ago in Singapore who had developed a “breathtaking” device, an MP3 player that was ultimately eclipsed by the iPod), Silicon Valley-based companies still manage to come out on top.
That’s because the 50-mile area between San Jose and San Francisco is a magnet for money and ideas. Tech innovators flock to the region because, well, that’s where success seems to take place. It’s a reinforcing cycle — the Valley is known as a breeding grounds for success and therefore tends to attract the people who are likely to be successful.
“All that venture capital attracts a lot of ideas — and the people who are having those ideas,” said Stephen B. Adams, an assistant professor of management at the Franklin P. Perdue School of Business at Salisbury University in Maryland who has studied the rise of Silicon Valley.
Newcomers plug into an existing network of seasoned pros that “isn’t matched anywhere else in the world,” says AnnaLee Saxenian, dean of the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of “Regional Advantage,” a book about the competitive edge held by tech centers like Silicon Valley and the Route 128 suburbs near Boston. “That allows people to recombine technical ideas much more quickly here than anywhere else,” Professor Saxenian added.
Most people intuitively understand this magnetism about Silicon Valley. But what’s really interesting is that this tech region has, so far, recovered time and again from busts that could have easily allowed other high-tech areas of the globe to take the top spot. Zachary calls these serial renewals a “marvel.”
Americans naturally harbor many fears about losing their edge, especially with the nation mired in war, the dollar’s value sliding and the health care system strained. Rivals, notably in India and China, see Silicon Valley’s pre-eminent position as a prize that they will inevitably take. Yet they face an elusive foe. Every time Silicon Valley recovers from failure, it seems to grow more durable, almost in the same way a person becomes “immune” to a disease after a brush with it.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 11:27 AM | Print | Comments (0)
ZDNet’s Steve O’Hear flags for us this online social network set up by Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama. Called My.BarackObama.Com, it is seemingly the first dedicated social network mounted by any of the presidential candidates.
While virtually all of the campaigns have leveraged YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and other popular Web 2.0 destinations to get the word out and build support (particularly Obama’s campaign), My.BarackObama.com is a clever effort to organize supporters who visit the Obama site in order to foster local events and, of course, raise money. As O’Hear points out, when it comes to taking advantage of the range of new web technologies, the campaigns don’t have to pick and choose — they can and should be covering all their bases.
I think Obama (or his campaign team) are smart to build their own social network in addition to maintaining a strong presence across the main social destinations on the web. It’s certainly not one or the other. I’ll predict that whatever the take-up is, in terms of raw numbers, those that do join MyBarackObama.com will be highly active (both online and off-line) compared with those that simply add themselves to his Facebook group.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 10:47 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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