The great firewall of……Australia

internet

My blood has passed boiling point this week with the Australian government planning to put a mandatory firewall between me and the Internet. While the comparison to the Chinese firewall will be denied I am sure, this is essentially the same thing. A firewall will block all sites and content that the government decides are not suitable for us poor feeble minded citizens.

The reason of course is to “combat child pronography and adult content”, as if this measure has any hope at all of acheiving this. But then the lowest of acts are often wrapped in the noblest of reasons. Even before the legislation is even passed though, they are already talking of extending it to cover information on topics like anorexia. While they may think they are protecting us poor plebs, they are actually trying to restrict our access to information. Knowing something should not be a crime or restricted, only the actions we take. And in case you didn’t know there is no legislated free speech in Australia, even though we are a generally liberal country.

The problems I have with this are:

– This will not block the actual wrong doers, only prevent innocent people from accessing the complete Internet. Just like DRM annoys customers and is ignored by pirates.
– There is zero chance that this will only block the content intended. I am sure that a couple of sites that teach young girls to cope with anorexia will get blocked.
– Unblocking improperly blocked sites is likely to involve tortuous trips through bureaucracy.
– I left home over 25 years ago and have not needed parents to protect me from nasty people for some time, and my sensibilities are not so delicate that I need my eyes to be protected from naughty pictures.
– There is no clear method described for how what is blocked will be decided and how these decisions can be challenged.
– When the government proposed this before the last election there was supposed to be an opt-out clause which they have now removed. My lack of surprise at being lied to does not reduce my annoyance.

Thankfully the Australian Senate seems to be gearing up to block the legislation.

I Guess It’s Not My Data…

weblog

So today I got a client’s new website up and running. They had a service that basically built their website for them, which really wasn’t working for them. I ended up changing the whole service.

Before I did, I looked for a way to get all the photos off the old server. They had no FTP, no file manager and no way to get the photos off their servers. I emailed the support asking for a copy of all the pictures. What I got back really knocked my socks off:

Thanks for your message.

Unfortunately we don’t have any more access to your images than you do.

If you don’t have those images still on your own computer, the best way to download them might be to add them to a Photo Album, then view the album and download each image.

Sorry for any inconvenience!

Software Support Technician

Granted, the material on the site can be reproduced, but that means a little more work on my end. I was not too happy to hear someone couldn’t give back the content that is not theirs.

It’s not like this was a Geocities account. The company payed $20 a month to store data on. I can’t believe they just said “no” like that.

I know not everyone wants to know how to build a website. It’s not always the easiest thing to do. I’m just glad the site wasn’t too complex. I would’ve had a field day with their tech.

Instead, I canceled the membership and put the site on a trusted server.

A New Kind Of Comment Spam

weblog

I and others have been noticing a new kind of blog spam. Essentially relevant comments, being written by real people but linking to spam sites. I have noticed an increased number of these types of comments.

It is apparent that the battle on the comment spam front is starting to use real people. It is very apparent when you load the linked URL, they either try to link it from their contact info or are trying to hide a hyperlink in a period or single word so that it is not so obvious when you view the comment thread.

They are being pretty smart about it because a recent spammer I caught had left 10 comments without any external links. I assume this was to build trust within the system before he startrf to drop external links.

Bots are relative easy to beat but if spammers are using real people to leave relevant comments linking to their spam sites this will be a bigger challenge.

Talking with other bloggers with higher page ranks they are seeing similar tactics. I am at the point where I will ban any external URL’s from being posted by commenters.

 

The problem with TV advertising

marketing

It is too sexy!

When you look at the output on your television they are annoying and intrusive. To a marketing manager, or an executive though, the process of creating the ad is like living a little slice of Hollywood magic. It is sexy, and it is fun, and it can make you feel like a movie executive.

Additionally, if your senior management think marketing and advertising are the same thing (and most of them do), TV advertising seems safe to them as they have experienced it. Their experience is that they notice the ads on TV, and that TV ads can be so appealing that entire shows are dedicated to showing the best ads. The reality is that the attention they receive does not mean that they are effective, but this matters less than you would think. The mental perception that TV advertising works is hard to counter even with logic and data.

The reality for marketing managers is that a marketing campaign can be easier to sell to executives if it includes TV. “If we take this TV package with NBC you will get to appear on the Apprentice and talk to Donald Trump about our company.” is a very compelling pitch to a CEO. Stroking the pride of an executive in this way can also be a very good way to get advancement in a company regardless of any measurable outcome.

All this is why the downturn economy might cause some companies (the less smart ones) to focus more on TV than other advertising mediums. The question for them is not about the dollar cost, but rather the risk in the investment. Rightly or wrongly TV is often seen as low risk advertising spend. It is human nature to be more comfortable with things that are familiar to us, and things that our peers are doing.

Todd’s post earlier today on his discussion with an F500 marketer was brilliant. It was great to see an example of a marketing manager that takes their job seriously and looks for ways to improve the effectiveness of their campaigns. These people are not as rare as my earlier comments might suggest, but it is still good to see them in action. It was also a perfect example of how the podcasting space needs to sell itself to media buyers, clearly and concisely laying out the benefits of the media and then backing it up with hard, defendable data.

If you are a marketing manager that wants to include podcasting in your proposals, what can you do? There is nothing that you can do to replicate the glamour factor of TV, but you can change the executives perception of the risk. As I said earlier, part of the internal risk calculation people make is their familiarity. If you can get your executives actually listening to podcasts they will quickly become comfortable with them and the advertising will be easier to propose.

Here are a selection of podcasts that have great business content that will really appeal to your executives as a starting point. There are so many more as well that I have not had time to listen to myself.

Manager tools – EVERY manager should listen to this podcast [iTunes Subscribe]
The Economist which also has an audio word for word subscription of the magazine [RSS Subscribe]
Slate Big Money A newcomer that shows some promise [iTunes Subscribe]
WSJ Your Money Matters Every exec has a stock portfolio they are worried about [iTunes Subscribe]
TimesOnline Business Ideas Examines how other exec’s have changed markets [iTunes Subscribe]

If they are at all interested in tech make sure they add GNC as well. :)

Psystar Still At it – Now With Notebooks

Apple

Six months ago, Psystar entered the Desktop arena with a PC for $600 that could get your choice of Windows, Linux or Mac OSX. Of course Apple responded with a Lawsuit and Psystar countered. Every time we speculated Psystar is going down – Yet, they seem to continue on.

Psystar has announced in a Press Release they will be putting in Blue-Ray Players and NVidia 9800GT Graphics Cards into their lines of machines. Further, AppleInsider notes a Psystar representative has acknowledged:

Although there is no mobile open computer at the moment, I can tell you that it is something that is in development

How can this be? You would think that if there is a lawsuit under way that Psystar wouldn’t buck the system. Granted, the notebook can easily have Microsoft of Linux on it, but to jump into the pile of leaves like that is interesting and maybe even reckless. Could it indicate that Psystar may have the advantage in the lawsuit or are they just doing “Business as planned”?

One thing is for sure – If Psystar comes out with a $600 notebook (and one with Firewire I might add), Apple will definitely have to look at their practices with customers. Even though they are a debt-free company doesn’t mean they could fall into bankruptcy due to lack of sales.

BTW – For those that don’t know, Rainer Brockerhoff explains why Firewire on the Macbooks was not feesable with the new design.

Monetization for the Small Blogger

Information

I’m an admittedly small blogger. I have a thousand or so readers of my daily livejournal blog, a kind of a personal look at my life that includes stories about my job, my kids, and my own stupidity. I have a hundred readers of a writing blog I maintain, and a couple hundred readers of a circus blog I started several years ago. I’m the definition of a small blogger.

I’d love to make a little (okay, a lot of) money on my blogging, but up until now, that really hasn’t been an option. I tried the usual adsense track, but that earned me about thirteen cents in a year, so that’s not a way to go.

But by next year, small bloggers like me just may have a way to monetize our blogs (small podcasters too). Larry Genkin, the founder and editor of Blogger and Podcaster Magazine, has opened a new site intended to help small bloggers turn their hobby into a more lucrative business. I’m skeptical but interested, and signed up. The site is accepting signups, but will not go live until early 2009. The site is the Blogger and Podcaster Network.

Another Publication Moves to the Web

internet

Yesterday, the Christian Science Monitor announced that it would be going to web-only publication. That isn’t exactly true, as they will continue to produce a weekly news magazine in printed form. But the fact is, the majority of their work will now be done online.

Of course, the transferring of periodicals to the web has been happening for quite some time; there was a day when newspapers and magazines could be cutting edge on their news. Now, they are days or weeks behind the information we can get at a snap on the Internet. In addition, the costs of producing a print publication are skyrocketing; publishing on the web is certainly more cost-effective.

I think there’s still a place for print periodicals to exist, certainly. I read several hard-copy newspapers each week and will continue to do so. I also subscribe to a handful of magazines whose information is useful to me. I do think that if a periodical does not fill a needed niche, then it is destined to die. It goes back to the “scarce goods” concept.

But how do these periodicals monetize their web content, and continue to be able to pay staff and overhead costs? That becomes the question. Several recent studies indicate that web readers are easily able to ignore web advertising, and some browsers even provide plug-ins that block ads for readers.

But studies also show that readers of the web prefer short reads of 3-4 paragraphs, and do not tend to read in-depth articles the way they do in a print publication. So, if you move to the web, do you run the risk of making your information much more shallow to appeal to the “quick read” audience that the web provides?

Big questions with no answers, at this point.