A Most Troubling Copyright Case

Australia is about to lead the pack in a technically (not rationally) argued legal case that will cause terrible repercussions.

David Neiger in APC Magazine reports today that the Australian Federation against Copyright Theft (“AFACT”) case against iiNet will be argued like this:

“iiNet infringed copyright by virtue of making copies of infringing material either in their cache or even by virtue of being stored temporarily in their routers.” Ian McDonald, the Senior Legal Officer at the Australian Copyright Council

Are you kidding me?!

And you know what? They might win because technically it is correct. But it is also technically correct that the postman temporarily stores illegal things in his bag sometimes without knowing it. Sure he could open all the mail in case bad things were inside, but we have decided as a society that this is very bad.

If they win this, there will be others that see opportunity in an ISP’s caches.

Where is Your iPhone Three?

I’d like to begin this post by saying I love Three (the mobile phone network).

I have always found their customer service to be excellent and their innovation in mobile products to be way ahead of Telstra, Vodafone and Optus.

I especially like their innovation in roaming bandwidth pricing. Did you know that when you roam to another country with a Three network, the prices are quite reasonable on their International 3 Like Home rates. Here’s my bill from a recent trip to the UK where I used the mobile web as usual – a very reasonable $8.10 for the trip.

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Such is my loyalty to Three that I resisted buying an iPhone from Telstra (always lame), Vodafone (blacklisted by me after appalling customer service) and Optus (silly animal ads). Eventually I emailed customer. If I had been told that they would be able to give me an iPhone in 6 months I would have waited.

Instead I got this:

Hi,

It looks like your asking about the Apple Iphone.

At this point in time, we do not have any information on future handsets that may be sold on 3. A handset designed for a 3G network does not ensure it will be available on 3 Australia. Due to differing technical features and configuration details, third party devices may not be completely compatible with our network.

We suggest you check our website regularly for the most up to date information and prices. Any new handset launches will be listed here or in “The Australian” newspaper.

Until then, thanks for being a customer with 3 – we’ll continue to make sure we bring you the best value and the services that you need from us. Thanks again for getting in touch.

Regards
3 Care

So I went with the people that have the silly animal ads. You lost me (and my few hundred dollars a month bill) Three.

A Future for TV: The Collaborative Crowd?

At Ross Dawson’s Future of Media 08, Mark Pesce described a future for TV which I loved.

He described a way of filming sport in which the crowd collaborates on filming the event. I imagined hundreds of good quality, wireless devices in the crowd, sending the stream through an aggregator (possibly human, possibly not) that put the whole experience together into something that made sense.

The exciting thing was, the future was (crudely) already present. At that moment I was streaming the event live to 30 people who could not make it in person. I was also chatting with that group of people in the Tangler powered Chaser space that Pollenizer manages. I arrived at the event a bit late so I had a bad seat for the picture, but Stilgherrian was near the front and I was able to use uStream’s co-host feature to aggregate his stream with mine. So we had 2 cameras collaborating on the event. The future was present.

It was… salient.

Here is a recorded verison of my stream for the archive. Unfortunately it did not record the other stream.

Podcast: The Startup Economy in Australia

Last week, Mark Jones invited me to be a part of a great discussion about some of the difficulties startups can face in the Australian economy. Mark, Mike Zimmerman (Technology Venture Partners) and Domenic Carosa (former Destra CEO) and myself had a chat about the The Australian Innovator’s Dillema on The Scoop. Here it is.

Can Everyone in Your Startup Answer These Questions?

Last week, Amir Suissa of Linqia sent me the following questions (published with permission):

What is the core question that we use to project against, to determine if we develop a specific product/feature or not?

What is the user looking for?

If [insert] is our core, how does that manifest to the user?

What is your vision of the path going forward to deliver a coherent user experience on [product] in terms of product priorities, timing, resources allocation (internal/external)?

What is your vision for path to create [company] as a sustainable company, taking in to account financing, product, engineering, business model, time frame (window of opportunity/ investors cash to run the company till proof of concept and revenue generation)?

Can you answer these questions in the context of your company? It took me 2 days to get to my own answers for Linqia. I wonder if Jerry Yang can answer them?

Monetization and the Facebook Ecosystem

Platform eco-systems need a way for developers and creators to make real money or they will die. My question of the day: Does Facebook have this?

As a developer, the Facebook platform gives me a terrific opportunity to attract many users virally in a way that is not possible on my own domain. But am I building a business or just working for Facebook for free? Word Ads can be as low as $0.05 CPA (thanks @shalunov) and users are already at their destination (rather than on a search results page) so are not inclined to click away via an ad.

At the launch of the MySpace Developer Platform Launch in Sydney this week (nicely organised by Randal and streamed by Pollenizer) Markus Weichselbaum, the CEO of TheBroth , was asked: “What’s My Stripper Name – How did you monetise that?” 17 mins into this video of the event:

“It’s monetised by a product by IAC. IAC is a very large company called Ask.com and they have a whole division called FunWebProducts. This is a browser based toolbar that allows you to glitterise stuff, send smileys and in return, for them, basically installs a search box in your browser which will then, for them, show sponsored results. So if you do install the toolbar, and you use the search, they make money and in order for you to do that they offer you the extra stuff so you can glitterise things.”

Hmm. Sounds like an adware strategy to me. No different to the kind of business Kazaa found itself in when the value of ads in a popular social destination site were driven to nothing. I couldn’t actually find the toolbar download in What’s My Stripper Name? but did find it on TheBroth’s ClicktoGlitter. The toolbar is Webfetti. The terms of use show that it is classic adware that puts a large amount of junk on your machine to maximise revenue generation even when you are not using the app that installed it.

2. Features of the MyWebSearch Toolbar

By downloading the MyWebSearch toolbar, you will be installing a toolbar in your Internet browser (and any supported email functions and instant messenger functions) with the following features:

SEARCH BOX: This is a search box located within the toolbar that will help you search the Internet with search results from Ask.com.

SEARCH ASSISTANT: This provides relevant links and results when you make a search request in your browser address bar or if your browser address (DNS) request is invalid, misspelled or incorrectly formatted.

WEBFETTI: This feature enables you to customize a social networking profile page with layouts, graphics, custom cursors, music and video.

ZWINKY: This feature allows you to create and modify avatar characters, and use them in a social networking environment. If you use Windows XP, the ZWINKY feature will also automatically provide you with an icon that will appear in your Windows XP system tray at the bottom right of your desktop. Use of the Zwinky feature is subject to separate terms of use at http://info.zwinky.com/zwinkyinfo/tos.jhtml.

SMILEY CENTRAL: This allows you to insert smiley face emoticons and other graphics into your web-mail, Outlook, Outlook Express and instant messages.

POPULAR SCREENSAVERS: This provides you with photos and images that can be added to the user’s screensaver or PC desktop wallpaper. Also includes the ability to add personal digital photos.

MY FUN CARDS: This provides access to free electronic greeting cards that you can personalize on the Web and send to any email address.

CURSOR MANIA: Free computer mouse cursors that allow the user to change the look of his/her default cursor to something more fun and expressive.

FUN BUDDY ICONS: Free icons that can be added to an instant messenger client.

HISTORY SWATTER: This allows you to delete easily computer cookies, URL history, temporary cache, and other stored browser files.

POP SWATTER: Free tool that swats pop-up ads before they appear. Includes a “Safe List” to allow pop-ups from user-specified web pages.

SMOTOS: This enables you to post, upload, share, download and store images, and allows you to send such images to email addresses of your choice.

MY INFO: This provides one-click access to news, sports, weather, finances, horoscope, movie listings, lottery results and more, which appear in a thin window to the immediate left of your main browser window.

MY MAIL NOTIFIER: This allows you to use animated characters to alert you to new web mail messages.

MY MAIL SIGNATURE: This allows you to create signature designs to place in the footer of outgoing email messages.

MY MAIL STAMP: This allows you to insert digital stamp designs into outgoing emails.

MY MAIL STATIONERY: This provides you with background images, colors and themes to enhance the look of outgoing email messages.

Is this the destiny of Facebook applications?

Returning to the MySpace launch, Mick relayed a question from Richard McMannus at ReadWriteWeb: “Is Hypertargeting hyperhype? (19:30 on the video). Markus answered:

“I don’t think so. I’ll be very straight… Currently Facebook gives you absolutely nothing to help you monetise.  But, with MySpace and Hypertargeting, even if its just 10% as good as it sounds, it will be a substantial help for developers to monetise.”

Who can say whether Hypertargeting will work, but I think that MySpace are correctly thinking about the ecosystem in adding it. Without it, developers fail to make money, so they trick people into inviting their friends, create booster apps that have no value other than to get you to install another app, cover the screen in a cacophony of  ads and then install adware on your PC, then…  the users leave.

Am I being too simplistic?  Does anyone have any great examples of Facebook applications making money and retaining users? I’d love to hear about those if you do.

My Contribution to Spouse 2.0 Day

Ashley and Chris over at Faraday Media have created a new day they are calling Spouse 2.0 and today is the day.

Here’s my contribution to the worthy cause of staying married whilst being a start-up junkie.

I realised the other week that my biggest failing as a spouse was not paying enough attention to the small stuff. Hey, I am busy changing the world so how am I going to notice that the floor needs vacuuming

I just don’t see it. I am on conference calls, writing spec and blog posts, designing user interfaces, speaking with India about outsourcing, etc. The goals are big, the ambition is high. Its about creating a perfect world for my family…

The problem is, it’s insulting. Its leaving all the shit jobs to my spouse without noticing. I am actually quite happy to do house work, but just don’t notice.

So here’s what I did. I decided that the best way was to treat it like a startup and have a weekly meeting to agree on the goals and tasks for the week and literally schedule them in. I created a template which every week, without fail, we sit down and complete. Things we cover:

• Weekly events: Make sure we each know what the others are doing so no double booking, birthdays are remembered, baby-sitters arranged, etc
• Career issues: What’s going on Enough money coming in, etc
• Tasks: Who is going to do what house work and when.

Here is the template we use.

Morle Inc Tasks.pdf

Let me know if you find this useful.

Technorati Tags: Spouse 2.0

Why the Post Void?

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. I want to mark this moment for when I look back on my blog in the years to come and wonder what the heck happened.

This was the time when Tangler, Facebook and Twitter changed the dynamic. Why Because ideas have become collaborative. I have discussions with people these days, more than I post ideas.

• Phil on Facebook
• Phil on Twitter

The BBC Hired Anthony!

The BBC have hired my good friend Anthony Rose to be the new head of digital media technology. I worked closely with Anthony while he was CTO at Altnet and I was CTO for Kazaa. He has an awesome understanding of media technology and will be a force of positive change for the Beeb. Good luck mate.

Meme: What R U Wearing?

Mick just tagged me with one of these blog meme things. The subject of the day: What are you wearing It’s times like this that I regret checking my feeds first thing in the morning!

I am wearing my Next pajama ensemble consisting of a light blue t-shirt (quite nicely fitted for pjs) and kinda checkered shorts (bit daggy but I am nearly 40). I have a badge on that my 2 year old son Ollie made that looks like the sun. Its made of felt and pipe cleaners.

OK. Xav, Randal, Martin and Morten – you’re tagged guys.