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Is Privacy A Thing Of The Past?

April 15, 2010 By 2 Comments

As I sat and watched Mike Arrington of TechCrunch interview Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, I heard them discuss the future of privacy.  It seems that Zuckerberg is evangelizing the death of the doctrine of privacy.  With Facebook being the largest social network out there, that is a pretty scary notion given the fact that we all are signing up and turning our social life over to the Internet.  I wonder what privacy will look like in the next few years?  In fact it seems to be changing at a rapid pace and evolving with every new application.

I recently helped present a series at my son’s school on “Cyber Safety”.  In addition, local law enforcement also presented on the dangers of the world of social networks and what our children are doing online and the predators that are out there and their methods.  It was very sobering to figure that there are that many people out there trying to harm our kids via the Internet and social networks.  An yet, we are all flocking to these networks as our new playgrounds and the place to be and all from the safety, or so it may seem, of our own homes.

I am particularly interested in geo-location or geo-tracking applications that are becoming more and more popular.  Twitter themselves have opened up location based Tweets so that people can determine your whereabouts as you click away at 140 characters.  These software applications are so new that they have yet to become mainstream uses for evil but it can only be a matter of time until we begin to hear of predators using them and suddenly you will hear of their evil deeds on the prime time news.

Is privacy going away?  Is our notion that we are protected by privacy laws and common sense enough?  Have you read the terms of service of each and every software application that you are using today?  Perhaps you have agreed to give up your rights to a private life by participating in that latest cool place to hang out on the Internet?  In 2009 I deemed it “The Year of Listening” as that was the new marketing mantra.  If that were the case, we should probably listen to what I am now calling “The Year of Privacy.”  It could turn out that our privacy will then turn into the “Year of Living Dangerously.”

photo via Alan Cleaver_2000

Filed Under: Blog Tools, Blogs and Law, Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Blogger Protection and Google

August 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment

This is a great discussion on CNN about the outing of the blogger.  I may have to add to this discussion further.

Filed Under: Blogs and Law, Social Media Tagged With: ,

Arrington and Sethi are Hatfield and McCoy

August 3, 2009 By 1 Comment

Dennis Howlett writes today about the lawsuit involving Sam Sethi and Mike Arrington and Interserve, Inc., als known in our wrold as TechCrunch.  As a disclosure I remember this riff vividly as my friend and partner Tris Hussey was involved in this problem and other friends, Marc Orchant and Oliver Starr were also part of the BlogNation.com which is peripherally part of the overall story.  I am not a huge fan of what took place in that business deal and I see what happened as unfortunate to my friends.

I won’t get into the merits of the case, nor will I try to discuss the legal issues as I had plenty of the legal world after working there for 22 years.  I do want to comment on the somewhat short sightedness I see on behalf of Mike Arrington and TechCrunch as it relates to the lawsuit.  I know that Mike Arrington is giving this lawsuit less than a nuisance value and sees no merit to the claims and perhaps wants it to carry it on for more page views (which of course I am adding to albeit a small amount). I’m afraid that this is just the beginning of something that will give Mr. Sethi more fuel for his feud and make this debacle continue.

Mike has stated that he will not participate in the litigation and that they will ignore it, not planning to subject himself to the litigation process in the UK.  I think that is not a bad strategy from a legal standpoint as it carries with it somewhat of a "no harm, no foul" consequence.  California Law does not really give much weight to the UK and its judgment, be it a default judgment or otherwise. I should note that a default judgment might have  less weight than a judgment on the merits, but I digress.  From a business standpoint, I think this might be a bad move.

According to Mike his legal costs could exceed £500,000, to win the case which the experts indicated should not have been a problem.  The court would then have awarded Mike his legal costs, but that is like squeezing blood from a turnip as I assume Sethi is not in a position to pay that type of money, given what I know of the Blog Nation debacle.  The part here that is troublesome is giving life or a breath or two of life to Sam Sethi and his continued efforts to gain the upper hand and make him appear to be in a better position in his case against Mike Arrington and TechCrunch.

In addition, now Arrington must watch how he works around having this judgment against him in the UK.  I am assuming at some point it may be necessary for him to do business there or to collect from advertisers there or to get money from the UK.  I am assuming that any funds due to him or his company from that jurisdiction can be attached or to some effect, garnished to satisfy the judgment.  He has already canceled to speak at an event he told the organizers he would be a part of and who knows how many other ventures he must cancel or at least not appear for in the UK.  I am not sure the limitation on satisfying judgments in the UK, but I can assure you that Sethi will be waiting at the opportunity to get his shot in to collect if only a dollar of the judgment.  The time to put this to bed is now.  The time to finish it is here.  If not, this could drag on for some time.  As I stated above, that could be what we are looking for from someone that wants to sensationalize it.

If you are a person that is owed money as a result of the Blog Nation debacle, it might provide fruitful to see if you can attach your own judgment to funds related to the Sethi’s judgment.  Who knows it might work.  It is by far more than you will get if you are waiting for an old paycheck to clear.

Photo above via CrunchNotes*

*I wanted to point out the labeled photo on CrunchNotes is "sethiissuchadick.jpg" :)   Classic.

Tags: , , Sam Sethi, Tris Hussey, Oliver Starr, Marc Orchant,

Filed Under: Blogs and Law, Blogs and Politics, BTW, Media, Miscellaneous, Professional Blogging

Twitter About To Open A Can of Tweets

July 1, 2009 By 1 Comment

I am wondering how this will play out but I just had an opportunity to read through a TechCrunch article by Robin Wauters where it was uncovered that Twitter, Inc. may begin reaching out to people that are using Tweet in their applications or in their businesses and asking that they refrain from the practice.  This seems to me to be a day late and a billion dollars short.  I can’t understand how they are just now thinking of trademarking in as little time as May of 2009 the word Tweet.  What other words have they asked be trademarked?  What law firm sold them on this idea?  Surely if you began to get some steam as you did back in as early as 2007 you would have thought that some of these names associated with your brand would have been at that more valuable?  To begin this process now seems like an oops to me.  I actually like the email sent as it seems to give the impression that they have no weight behind the statement:

Hi,

Twitter, Inc is uncomfortable with the use of the word Tweet (our trademark) and the similarity in your UI and our own. How can we go about having you change your UI to better differentiate your offering from our own?

They feel "uncomfortable?"  Perhaps if they really thought this was a battle worth winning they would actually be more than just "uncomfortable."  I fully expect after the update to the blog post added after the fact wherein Twitter provides a response, that we will get yet another update that says something to the effect that, "We realize this seems crazy but we forgot to actually think of this before."  The next thing you know they will be printing up business cards and hiring a receptionist. 

This all seems to be the way this company is operating behind the scenes.  They fell into a great thing without realizing its potential or what it would turn into.  They then found that it was cool and might be worth some money to someone, then they found out that they should have some idea as to how to make money with it, and now they are realizing that they should be protecting it from everyone.  I just shake my head at the way this company is shaping up.  It must just be one comedy show after another behind he scenes there.  The great thing is, it is still loved by millions.

Tags: , , , , ,

Filed Under: Announcements, Blogs and Law, BTW, Marketing, Media, Social Media

Hosted Blogging Applications; Another Example Why They Are Not For Me

February 6, 2009 By 1 Comment

blogger.jpegI am constantly finding reasons why I am not a proponent of hosting blogging plans. I am a WordPress supporter yet I don’t recommend hosting your blog on WordPress.com, and in spite of the Google mantra of doing no evil, I tell many to run away from Google’s application Blogger. In a recent article by Tech Dirt regarding Google’s unilateral deletion of blog posts I get another piece of the puzzle that causes me to continue my preaching. In the post, they indicate:

An RIAA source says that the group sends Google a list of URLs it doesn’t like, and Google “then deals with the problem.” Google says that it notifies bloggers after their posts have been taken down, in accordance with the DMCA. But it should hardly be surprising that many of those affected say they’ve gotten no such notice, nor that the offending material was either legally posted and/or supplied by the labels themselves.

I have always been a strong advocate for owning my own content. Be it good or bad content it is still mine. I have heard the stories of whole blogs being deleted that were around for years and all of the data that was in that blog being lost to a black hole never to be seen. I am just not that trusting of others with my blog. I am not keen on the idea of Google being able to subjectively judge a post and remove it without any due process other than an alleged email or notice they sent. Sure it costs a little extra than just the URL and some specialty template, but paying for hosting and controlling your own destiny is something that is worth the price.

Filed Under: Blog Platforms, Blog Tips, Bloggers and Blogs, Blogging News, Blogs and Law, Business Blogging, The Site Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Truth Can Lead To Involuntary Transparency

July 12, 2007 By 1 Comment

Transparency always comes at a price.  Normally the price is honesty and integrity, but sometimes it can come in the form of justice and wrath.  While following along with Twitter today, Anil Dash of Six Apart provided a link to a post by Adam Kuban at the Serious Eats blog that comments on an article in the Wall Street Journal by David Kesmodel and John R. Wilke about comments in forums by “Rahobed”. Now that all the attribution is out of the way let’s discuss the story.

wfimage It seems that John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, has been out in the web acting as the pseudonymous Rahobed, a backward spelling of his wife’s name Deborah, and posting in forums and other places about Whole Foods and its competitor Wild Oats.  I am always amazed at what can be found by using some backend tools to uncover the identity of commenters on blogs and those in forums.  This seems to be the gist of his comments:

“Would Whole Foods buy OATS?” Rahodeb asked, using Wild Oats’ stock symbol. “Almost surely not at current prices. What would they gain? OATS locations are too small.” Rahodeb speculated that Wild Oats eventually would be sold after sliding into bankruptcy or when its stock fell below $5. A month later, Rahodeb wrote that Wild Oats management “clearly doesn’t know what it is doing …. OATS has no value and no future.”

Should he have used his own name? Perhaps commenting and conversing in forums was not the best way to achieve the conversation about his industry.  I might suggest that instead of acting as a sock puppet and making comments and disparaging statements about rivals in forums, it may have been better for Mr. Mackey to have started a blog to discuss his thoughts on the industry, about his competitors or what he thought about his own haircut.

Yes, it is a fine line when dealing as a public company where any misstated item could come back to haunt a company.  Statements made to manipulate stock prices is obviously illegal, and of course any slanderous comments or libelous articles still come with criminal penalties as well as civil.  This can all be a difficult path, but a CEO of a corporation should not be out there on the Web doing this type of activity.  For the obvious reason of the possibility of getting caught.  The results now are for worse than if he had just started the John Mackey blog.

 

Filed Under: Blog Mining, Blog Tools, Blogging News, Blogs and Law, Blogs and PR, Business Blogging, Corporate Blogs, Media

The New Digg Effect – What This Means For Social Media

May 2, 2007 By 3 Comments

After watching the story unfold about the blog post that appeared on Digg that was dugg over 15,000 times and appeared on page one of Digg.  The Digg Effect as it has become known is a phrase given when this phenomena occurs.  Many times if a story becomes popular enough it will appear on page 1 of Digg and the result is traffic soaring to the point of bringing most servers to their knees and crashing many sites.  This Digg Effect has taken on new meaning for me since seeing the resulting revolution that unfolded.

For me, the "New Digg Effect" is the power of social networks and communities.  This can be used for good or for bad actually.  In my opinion, posting something on a site that breaks the law or goes against a terms of service rules can be a very bad thing.  Mob rule takes over in this new action.  This is not necessarily unique in the instance of Digg, but its popularity was shown and the number of people that can influence an outcome was apparent here.  As I read a comment by Paul Montgomery at Tech Crunch it came clear to me that this could be a New Digg Effect:

I agree with the users on this one. They win. I just wish they could turn their power on some issue that actually mattered. (emphasis added)

That made me think of the power that social networks and communities could wield in other areas. The viral effect of this new medium.  It made me think of things like the Amber Alert System, and then I began to think of the power a mob could have on a Presidential election in online communities.  I’m not sure if the New Digg Effect has me running scared at this point or in awe how quickly something can travel from shore to shore and continent to continent when a group wants something accomplished.   Social Media and the online communities carry a new torch at this point.  Like Paul Montgomery said, let’s use this New Digg Effect for something that really matters.

Filed Under: Advertising, Blog Consulting, Blog Mining, Blog Platforms, Blog Tools, Bloggers and Blogs, Blogging News, Blogs and Law, Blogs and Politics, Blogs and PR, Business Blogging, Findability, Marketing, Media

My Epilogue and Editorial of the Kathy Sierra Saga

April 9, 2007 By 3 Comments

After looking back on the time that I first was posted, my own initial reactions, the people I have spoken to and the people I have read has given me an overall perspective on this debacle. I call it a debacle because it is a classic example of the power of blogs, the power of voices and the power of people and their own thoughts all coming together with disastrous results. On one hand we have the victim who has a deep feeling of fear and anxiety resultant from the actions of others. Others had a simple and one sided account of their mission and purpose. This mission and purpose was a different idea and had nothing to do with the other, until at some point–it did. Then the two met and it became something it was not intended.

In this instance we have a group of people that are brilliant and intelligent players all in a group. This group likes to provide a separate side of the story, another possible look at the way people use words and the way people write and explain their beliefs. This began in a not so insignificant post by Tara Hunt. Resulting from that post an idea was born, "why don’t we have some fun with this, and start a new website." This is where meankids group was derived, a group of people that may be outside the mainstream of thinking, a group of people that may not agree with the popular kids and their thoughts and attitudes. "Let’s give a different side of the coin of their thoughts and let’s make it satirical", they intended. Mean Kids was then launched.

At first, the site was written and published in the mission and manner it set out to accomplish their task. They were witty, satirical, brilliant and intelligent. As in any fraternity or other sophomoric group, there became a change in the focus and mission. Suddenly the game began to be a "who could be meanest", "who could one up the person with their next post?" Someone then crossed the line. They were not satirical but actually mean.  They crossed the line in a way not intended by the site.  Nobody laughed and nobody thought it was funny.  You can almost picture the group laughing and cheering and carrying on and then this post went up, and they all stood like a deer in the headlights and all you could hear were crickets chirping.  The site was immediately taken down and the post and data destroyed.  Then Chris decided to make it work again but this time it got ugly fast and they decided to take that site down as well.  I’m not sure of the reasons for the second round, and when Chris tried to explain it I wasn’t really sure again.  I think he had a certain vision, but I’m not sure he had the right players.

I don’t condone the intent behind the posts that went bad, but I’m sure that there is call for the other side of the coin in most cases.  It’s nice to know that there are people out there with differing opinions with the mainstream, and that they are not afraid to voice those opinions.  What is not accepted is how that "other side" is published.  Calling people out for their opinions is called for, the manner is how you do it in this case was not the proper forum.  This was locker room talk that got out of hand.  It was some men trying desperately to be the cool guy and it turned out bad.  Unfortunately it also coincided with an email to Kathy Sierra, and also coincided with the comments made and then removed from her blog.  I don’t believe that one had anything to do with the other and that they are totally separate events.  Perhaps we will learn more of this when the investigation is complete.  That is, if there is ever to be a full investigation.

What have we learned?  O’Reilly has drafted his Code of Conduct. I have read many of the associated posts, and it does not appear to be popular with the mainstream opinion.  Will O’Reilly be given death threats and will they post misogynistic things about him?  Probably not.  He is not the "Cute Kitty".  The New York Times comes out today with their piece on A Call For Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs, written by Brad Stone.  It also touches on this issue.  I cannot sign on for enforcement of something that in itself will never be adopted by those that are trolls in the first place. Being nice and civil is not something we should have to write down for people to follow.  A code of conduct is not a necessary step in my opinion.

Everyone has had an opportunity to sit back and reflect on what took place and how it was good bad or indifferent.  I think the damage was apparent, and I feel that the players have all taken many lessons from this that won’t soon be forgotten.  There are some players that have yet to surface, and yet may never surface.  I do think that I have grown personally from the experience and I think I can pass that on to my, children, my clients, and bloggers that I mentor in the future.

Tags: Kathy Sierra, , Meankids.org, Chris Locke, , Blogger Code of Conduct,

Filed Under: Blog Consulting, Blog Mining, Bloggers and Blogs, Blogging News, Blogs and Law, Blogs and PR, Business Blogging, Media, Miscellaneous

The Sierra Saga Part 3: Who Are The Real Culprits in The Kathy Sierra Saga

April 6, 2007 By 4 Comments

I have been trying to determine how to continue talking about the Kathy Sierra incident without whipping a dead horse and without adding to an already overzealous echo chamber, or to provide fodder for the angry mob.  I have seen many talk about this issue, and I have seen some very good ideas and opinions and have seen some very poorly written articles that do not add anything to the conversation other than to fan flames or to hop on the bandwagon calling for prosecution or the heads of the accused.  I think that needs to be the distinction.  People are innocent until proven guilty and some adhere to that thought while others do not think that is an option.  They want to have a person to burn at the stake.  I have tried to take the information I have,  make it presentable and to allow people to be informed about the situation and be objective in the approach. I also feel that in order to prove someone guilty, you also have to know who are the accused innocents.

Since the last time I posted Part 2, we have seen CNN’s coverage of the situation, a very poor account and a unfair reporting of the entire situation.  This is nothing more than sensationalism on the part of the MSM, but at least they highlighted "Cute Kitty" for us.  We have also seen that Kathy and Chris Locke have met, and have come out with a joint statement regarding the CNN coverage.  Robert Scoble returned to his blog and has moved onward, and even Maryam Scoble has shown me that I was not wrong in my thoughts on her class and grace. Since my last post, I have had a chance to speak to Chris Locke by telephone and have had a better look into the situation from his point of view.  I have exchanged emails with Jeneane Sessum and have spoken through email to  Joey and to Frank Paynter via phone.  Where it warrants, I can add information gleaned from those conversations to fill in gaps and holes in what has not been reported for facts they were able to provide.  Anything else they may have said may be more construed about their feelings and emotions, and do not lend more or less to the discussion.

I would like to continue my objective approach as I talk about the people involved in this saga.  In Kathy’s original post, she of course names some people she felt may have been responsible for the problems.  She does not divulge any other people that might be involved, but her comments allow some to come forward.  Paul Ritchie is one such person that admits to being a player in the meankids.org blog and in the UncleBobisms.com blog.  We find on February 15, 2007, he posts about Chris Locke’s project, MeanKids.org., and about the new site UncleBobisms.com on March 20. It is interesting to note the Paul reveals that their are 7 people involved in the "new" meankids site.  He seems to know the number of people or authors, but does not tell us those involved.  He has since had his own multipart posts regarding the matter and to better understand his position I would ask you read his account. 

Joey seems to be another large player in the meankids.org site and Unclebobisms.com  He admits to being the Joey, Kathy refers to in her article and has some knowledge that I have corroborated with Chris Locke in my phone conversation.  Joey has told me that he was not an author in the meankids.org site but only left "lame comments" and read the articles there.  He did have authorship rights in the unclebobisms.com site.  The Kat referred to in the comment singled out by Ms. Sierra was in fact pointed toward Kat Herding, and the "Jane" referred to in the comment made by Joey is in fact Chris Locke himself, as his nom de plume was Jane in their exchanges.  We have all heard by now the Saturday Night Live parody at work here.  We also know that Chris Locke is an author in the Kat Herding site, and was referred to other times as Kat.  Joey explained to me more than once that between the time of his posting of comments taken out of context, and the time at which Kathy Sierra posted her article, had she or anyone else contacted him previous, he would have immediately apologized for the comment and cleared up any confusion.  He is sorry that Ms. Sierra took this comment the wrong way, and does offer his apology to her in the regard. He indicates that he did not author the post as revealed by Kathy but does admit to commenting and that his comment is also being taken out of context.  Joey was invited by email along with others to author Unclebobisms.com by Chris Locke and Frank and believes that any of the respondents were given author privileges.  He stated that on March 25, he and others received an email from Frank regarding Kathy’s issues and emailed a response but did not hear back from Frank.  Frank sent the email to all of the authors.

So all of the accused have been discussed here, but one named person is conveniently absent, Alan Herrell.  Alan provided an email to Doc Searls, and has not come forward nor has he been able to be reached by me.  Doc indicates he has tried to contact Alan without success.  I would very much like to talk with Alan as his missing piece to the puzzle I feel is a major factor.  I’m not sure if he has recovered his identity or if he is back in the saddle, but I invite him to let me update this post.  We have no idea if he is the Rev Ed (I always see this as revised edition) on the site.  I do note the blogroll indicates an Ed Hominem.

I have not talked with Kathy Sierra, as I feel she has been clear on her thoughts.  She is scared, does not feel safe and feels threatened.  I do not intend to heighten and already hypersensitive situation.  I would be happy to speak to Kathy about this and would also update my post if she herself provided other information.

I was able to visit each of the sites related to the meankids.org blogroll and have seen most of the posts and the cache of what I could read.  Only circumstantially we may get a feel into those others possibly involved as authors, or commenter on the site that may have been contributed.  When I spoke to Chris via phone he had said that their were "10 authors, give or take 1 or 2". I have no idea if we have a complete list of authors, but I think that some of the people that were authors that have not come forward are still available for comment.  It is clear that Frank and Chris are not going to provide any further names to be dragged into the fracas and perhaps that is better for everyone.  It does not help Kathy close the loop on her fear however,  I do not believe that the list of authors has been revealed in a complete form.  There are others that have not come forward.  I don’t feel Alice Cooper has any hand in talking bad about Kathy Sierra or anyone else, but I could be wrong.  I would invite the others on the blogroll as linked to above let us know if they were or were not authors.  Mr. Cooper feel free to call me directly.

Shelley Powers in a response to comments on her own site and post reveals that the original picture that is shown in the Kathy Sierra post is found on a Flickr site.  I’m not sure how she found that as I have not been able to keep up with all of the comments and blog posts as I was able to in the beginning.  Perhaps Shelley could shed some light on how she found that picture or who provided the information.  I have not been able to compare her information to mine but would also invite her to share what she has developed.

Part 1, and Part 2

Coming Up:  Epilogue – What is my opinion?

Tags: , Kathy Sierra, Chris Locke, , Maryam Scoble, Jeneane Sessum, Paul Ritchie, , Shelley Powers,  Kat Herding, Meankids, Unclebobisms, ,  Frank Paynter

Filed Under: Blog Mining, Bloggers and Blogs, Blogging News, Blogs and Law, Blogs and PR, Marketing, Media, Miscellaneous

Joint Statement by Sierra/Locke and Scoble Returns

April 2, 2007 By Leave a Comment

I wanted to let everyone know that I am still researching and doing some reading on the issues and events of last week involving Kathy Sierra and the misogynistic blog posts and the threats via email.  I was contacted by Chris Locke, and we exchanged some emails, and I will be speaking to him further about some of the facts as he knows them and will provide that relevant information when it becomes available.  The joint statement of Chris Locke and Katy Sierra.

I see Robert Scoble has also returned and made his own statement about his thoughts.  Welcome back Robert and we look to you for leadership and guidance as we move forward.  I will be making my own thoughts known as I wrap up with my Saga epilogue I’ll post later.

Tags: Kathy Sierra, Chris Locke,

Filed Under: Bloggers and Blogs, Blogging News, Blogs and Law, Blogs and PR, Media, Miscellaneous
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