April 2010
28 posts
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Editors Shrewdly Handled Gizmodo-iPhone Drama Act...
The toughest challenge for any newsroom is being the story. How should editors report about the news when they’re it, particularly if there are legal matters? That’s exactly Gizmodo’s situation, following a Friday night police raid of editor Jason Chen’s home. Gizmodo waited until Monday to post about the search and seizure of items from Jason’s home, which included...
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Shield Laws Protect Sources
There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding among many bloggers, journalists and the general public about the purpose of shield laws. They are not meant to protect journalists. The laws exist to protect journalists’ sources. The shield extends to journalists so they can’t be forced to reveal confidential sources or to have information about their sources forcibly seized.
This...
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WatchIf you can view the video clip above, Vimeo has not been compelled to take it down. Gulp, yet. The clip, using new subtitles, is from “Der Untergang“—”The Downfall: Hitler and the End of the Third Reich”. I rented the captivating German film from Nextflix in August 2005. In the original scene, Hilter learns that he has lost the war. Its revision is one of the most...
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Gizmodo Made the 'Next iPhone' a Great Story
I have deeply mixed feelings about siding with Apple and not Gizmodo regarding the iPhone prototype the Weblog paid to acquire. After all, as a seasoned journalist, I should strongly advocate no-questions-asked free speech. Instead, last night I blogged for Betanews: “Apple should sue Gizmodo over stolen iPhone prototype”. I had planned to write something at Oddly Together, but...
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“Did you really need to publicly shame the poor guy with his full name and photo?...”
– —Tumblr lead developer Marco Arment in post “Damn, Gizmodo”.
Marco responded to Gizmodo post “How Apple Lost the Next iPhone”, which identifies the developer who accidentally left the device on a bar tool. Gizmodo paid the finder—I say thief—for the iPhone prototype.
Do you...
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Next Task for Health-Care Reform: Abolish Gene...
As a science geek, college biology major (decades ago) and pragmatist, I am appalled that any person or company is granted patents over genes. It’s simply unconscionable to grant ownership over laws of nature, which allowance defies centuries of sound legal prudence. If the Obama Administration and 111th Congress want to do some more meaningful health-care reform, abolishing gene patents...
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“For the old-line moguls atop companies like Dow Jones, New York Times Company,...”
– Ryan Tate, Valleywag analysis “The Dark Side of Steve Jobs”.
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Leave Your Sleep, and Let Your Copyrights Go
On New Music Tuesday, Natalie Merchant returned, with album “Leave Your Sleep”; her first in seven years. The amazing, 26-song collection indirectly comments on the value of public domain.
In the introduction from the liner notes:
This collection of songs represents parts of a long conversation I’ve had with my daughter during the first six years of her life. It documents our...
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“World leaders arriving in Washington for President Obama’s Nuclear...”
– —Dan Milbank, in Washington Post commentary “Obama’s disregard for media reaches new heights at nuclear summit”.
I’ll blog about this sorry state of the news media and the Obama Administration in the future. But for now: There are striking similarities in the marketing...
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BunnyBows: An Easter Story
On Easter Sunday, I won back at domain auction bunnybows.com, which I lost in early 2008. There’s something appropriate to winning the bunny domain on Easter. I would have blogged then, but bunnybows.com wasn’t officially released to me until today.
Oddly Together is supposed to be about storytelling, so here is a bunny tail, eh, tale. In mid-November 2006, I was testing...
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Barack Obama's Three Mistakes
I voted for Barack Obama and still have much hope for his presidency. But from my humble perspective, his priorities were out of order coming into office. Healthcare should have been second to financial reform. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearings now underway started more than a year too late.
I see that the Obama Administration made three fundamental mistakes during its nearly...
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The Price You Pay Google for Paywalls
Have you heard of Reid Reviews? Until this week I hadn’t either. The quality photography review site is nearly invisible to Google search. Paywall is almost certainly the major reason. Photographer Sean Reid charges a yearly subscription of $32.95. The price he charges readers carries a hidden cost: Google search visibility.
In August 2009, I asked: “Can You Charge For News? Ask...
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OMG, They Cloned Fake Steve Jobs
Earlier this week, I set up a Google Alert for “Joe Wilcox”. Hey, I’m not being egotistical. The alert is to see where my posts are being aggregated. I’m deeply conflicted about aggregation, but that’s a separate blog topic. The very second alert contained post “Too Stupid to Own an iPad” from the Fake Steve Jobs blog. It was pure nastiness.
This piece of...
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I was gouged by the Macalope and Lived
I’m not the most popular journalist among the so-called Mac faithful. I’ve written some tough stuff about Apple over the years, and most of my analyses proved right long after my public lynchings. One of my posts from summer 2009 set off John Gruber, aka “Daring Fireball.” The blog post was a personal challenge to Apple chief executive Steve Jobs to return to work and do...
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A Mashable Postmortem
Yesterday, I raked Mashable’s Ben Parr for his assertion that Apple’s then yet unannounced mobile advertising platform posed a credible threat to Google. Now that Apple has announced iAd, and seeing how Ben’s rumor reporting was right about it coming, I am circling back for a postmortem. Simply stated: I stand by my assertion that his sourcing was weak and that he didn’t...
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Mashable's Apple Ad Platform Claims are Mush
Who spiked Ben Parr’s coffee with Apple “reality distortion field” Kool-Aid? The Mashable co-editor is gushing about Apple’s rumored mobile advertising platform and how it poses a credible threat to Google. Based on what? Among his other talents, Ben writes science fiction. Perhaps he confuses fact with fiction? Did he have a flashforward, another scifi concept, and see...
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Did '24' Help Elect a President?
It’s a question I’ve pondered for some time, and I’m inclined to answer affirmative. The subliminal cultural impact of television is too easily overlooked, although the New York Times took a politically charged look in March 26 story “For ‘24,’ Terror Fight (and Series) Nears End”. The Times’ perspective is different than one I present here, but worth noting for...
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“Do you ever get the impression your wallet is being relentlessly sucked dry? Or...”
– —Carmi Levy, “A bill too far: With iPad, AT&T attempts a triple-dip” at Betanews.
Do you have a subscription service story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.
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Gossipers of the InterWeb
Am I the only one to see the irony?
March 31st New York Times post “The Rising Stars of Gossip Blogs” begins with a story about “a 25-year-old Village Voice gossip blogger and University of Utah dropout named Foster Kamer” breaking a big scoop about Business Insider: Fallen dot-com Wall Street analyst and risen dot-com media mogul Henry Blodget had fired John Carney,...
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“I think that the press has been all over the iPad because Apple puts on a good...”
– —Cory Doctorow in BoingBoing post: “Why I won’t buy an iPad (and think you shouldn’t, either)”.
I agree, big media is betting too much on iPad. See my posts:
“Of course media bias favors iPad”
“Be smart, don’t buy into iPad hype”
“What...
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Robert Reich: No Jobs Recovery →
The US economy added 162,000 jobs in March. Great news until you look more closely. In March, the federal government began hiring census takers big time. These are six-month temp jobs, and they tell us nothing about underlying trends in the labor market. It’s hard to gauge precisely how many were—probably between 100,000 and 140,000. A million will need to be hired over the next few months....
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The Most Natural User Interface is You
It’s April Fools’ Day, and I’m not joking. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun, by comparing and contrasting Apple old with Apple new. :) Last night I posted to Betanews: “What 1984 Macintosh marketing reveals about iPad,” which is based in part on my April 2006 post “When Magazines Mattered,” about Apple buying all the ad pages—39...