Technology Talk

About a month ago, Steve Jobs made headlines by publishing his thoughts on music memo. In it, he argued for selling content that was free from digital rights management (DRM) - technology that restricts users from using digital content as they’d like under the guise of preventing copyright infringement.

I like Apple, but I’m not a raving fan who believes they can do no wrong, like some. I love my iPod Nano, and have considered purchasing an iBook in the past… but I never felt like they are a company that can do not wrong - especially when they sued bloggers (and lost). Read the rest

BitTorrent was founded in 2004 as an alternative to the peer-to-peer networks like Napster, Kazaa and others. I quickly made the switch to download and, when given the option, still prefer it to current alternatives.

While BitTorrent is still a P2P distribution network, it works differently from the others. For most P2P, a file (mp3, video, pdf, etc) sits on a server in cyberspace. You connect to that computer, request the file, and download it from that computer. Read the rest

A few months ago, Stephen Colbert pointed out how easy it was to add incorrect information to Wikipedia. He used the elephant population as an example, and within minutes of mentioning it, his fan base had added an incorrect “fact” - that “The number of elephants has tripled in the last 6 months” to Wikipedia’s entry on elephants.

Fortunately, Wikipedia’s community of editors were on top of the situation and quickly stopped all editing of the elephant page for a few days until interest in the story died down. Read the rest

The Attorney Generals from 21 states believe that Anheuser-Busch isn’t doing enough to keep underage kids off its Bud.tv site, Advertising Age is reporting. While they aren’t threatening to sue just yet, they have sent a stern warning stating

“We feel strongly that since you are creating the programming and controlling the internet-based network, not just advertising on it, you have a higher responsibility to ensure that youth are not exposed to the marketing on your site,” the letter to A-B reads. “We fail to see how your use of age verification on the Bud.tv site is a genuine attempt to keep youth from accessing the site’s content.”

Read the rest

Guy Kawasaki recently posted this video of the Churchill Club’s look at “Startup Success.” Panelists include the CEOs from Personal News Network, LinkedIn, JotSpot, Jajah, and Photobucket.

The CEO of JotSpot, Joe Kraus, formerly founded and sold Excite.com quoted a VC at Mobius Venture Capital when he defined Web 2.0 as “Ajax, Adsense, and Arrogance,” which I thought was pretty funny. He then when on to discuss how the Web 2.0 boom is different from the dotcoms of the 90s - mainly that access to cheap labor and hardware drive down costs so it feels like a “return to entrepreneurship” and a “return to doing it for the love of it.” Read the rest