Good God people.  Is this what it’s come to?  I don’t even know what to say about this. 

Let me start from the beginning.  Microsoft has a new search engine called Bing.  Steve Ballmer, as the CEO of Microsoft, is on a little press tour trying to tout Bing as the turning point in Microsoft’s struggle to beat Google.  In doing that Mr. Ballmer produced this quote which Henry Blodget based his post around…

[H]ey, we’ve had some early tries [in search], kind of like you might call Windows 1, and I think there was something called Windows 2 in there, and Windows 386 in the late ’80s, but [Bing] is far more like Windows 3. People say, aha, I see the vision. It pays off but it won’t fully pay off the vision in its first incarnation...

Blodget’s response was…

What is Steve missing here?  Microsoft had a monopoly in operating systems.  When you have a monopoly, everyone buys your upgrades. They buy them because they're a bit better, yes, but mostly because they don't have a choice.

Now as anyone with even a hint of historical knowledge knows Microsoft did not have a Monopoly on the Operating System in the time of Windows 1, 2 or 3.  In fact, they were so desperate to hang on to their DOS business that they jumped into bed with IBM and declared OS/2 the future of computing

And no, MS-DOS was not a monopoly. They had several viable competitors at every step of the chain.  From Amiga to Apple, CP/M to Desqview and all those in-between.

(Popular Myth: the Apple II used MS-DOS.  Truth: It used Apple’s version of DOS called…wait for it…AppleDOS)

Now I rarely attack an actual person.  I’ll attack a person’s ideas until I’m blue in the face but almost never an actual person.  But my God how is this guy considered a top-tier blogger in the tech scene? 

How is it that Techmeme has several other articles from supposed “tech pundits” that seem to go along with this analysis?  It’s crazy to me.  Do we just not care about actual expertise anymore?  Is knowing what you’re talking about just irrelevant now? 

I took the day off today to catch up on a bunch of stuff including this blog and I’d planned to write on the topic of Bing.  But this really “hit me where it hurts.”  I still want to believe blogs are a place where informed people write thoughtful analysis of the day’s events.  That’s why I have a blog, to participate in that type of discussion. 

Which is why this is so disheartening to me.

On the topic of Bing… Just to make the point here’s the real irony: Steve Ballmer is wrong.  But for completely different reasons.

If you know the history of Windows you realize that Microsoft had all but given up hope on it.  Gates was in love with the new Mac and corporations were all still buying from IBM.  Which is why Microsoft pledged it’s support for OS/2.  By the time Windows 2 was released the project had shrunk down to a skeleton crew. 

What happened then is two Microsoft programmers got the idea of working around a DOS limitation that kept Windows from fully using extended memory.  That turned it into a usable, low cost GUI for old DOS machines and that is why Windows took off (and OS/2 landed in the junk heap of history)

So what Ballmer misses is that Windows took off because a small team had the freedom to go off on their own and do something great.  Microsoft’s current monolithic structure prevents such innovation and THAT is why Bing probably won’t have the same success Windows had.

Since this seems to be “TV Week” here on the blog I thought I’d share this story. 

I found this link via tvbythenumbers.com which has become one of my favorite sites.  Rather than tell you what it says I’ll just quote the paragraph (which is succinctly packed with information)…

Pardon me if I mention a few inconvenient facts that have surfaced in recent weeks. First, Nielsen reported TV viewing is at its highest point in history. That means in the entire 59 years since the company began compiling time-spent statistics, the numbers have never been bigger. To be more specific, the latest data shows the average American household, per day, spends eight hours and 21 minutes in front of the television. Men spend four hours and 49 minutes watching, and women spend five hours and 25 minutes. And teens, that demo that we “lost” to Facebook, YouTube and the iPod? They spend an average of three hours and 27 minutes per day watching television, and that’s also an all-time high.

and…

Some key findings: 99 percent of viewing in the past year was done on a “traditional” television set; less than 5 percent of TV viewing was DVR playback; and YouTube, Hulu and all other Web/cell phone media accounted for less than 1 percent of viewing.

The truly sad thing about the above numbers is that a lot of tech people, if they don’t flat out deny them, will be shocked.  The going consensus in the tech blogosphere seems to think Internet has already made TV obsolete.  I specifically remember a study in December that claimed…well…let me just dig up the quote again…

Some of this comes as no surprise, as younger people tend to be early adopters. The millennials embrace gaming, music, the Internet, and user-generated content. They’re less likely to read newspapers, watch TV, read formal news sites, or visit traditional shopping and product review sites. Their preferred way of absorbing content is watching video on the web and handheld devices or listening to music on mobile phones and MP3 music players.

Now after reading that I’ll ask the same question I asked in December: Do you really think students prefer viewing their TV in a tiny window on their computer screen? Or is it possible they might prefer a large HDTV with Surround Sound?

I mean, I’m as much a fan of Hulu as the next guy but lets be realistic here. 

That is why I’m making this post.  The idea that the web is going to be where most people choose to view their TV is ridiculous.  Put it up to even the slightest bit of scrutiny and you’d realize that.  It’s just silly.

Addendum: For the record, I do think we will some day reach a digital consolidation where the TV and your PC become interconnected and hence interchangeable.  But that’s all the more reason to push the point I make above.  No one tries to get to their destination if they’ve fooled themselves into thinking they’re already there.

The Washington Post has an editorial today in which they suggest the federal government should step in to protect their content.  They propose laws that, to my eyes, are just ridiculous. 

Given the topic of their article (they're angry at people copying their content) I've decided not to quote them out of respect.  But the laws they suggest include things like reclassifying web crawlers as copyright infringement and making laws that prohibit bloggers from quoting newspaper content.  Again, a little ridiculous all in all.

But I think the article's instructive in that it, and the responses to it, show two sides that are both arguing for unrealistic options.  Let me explain. 

The side opposing Journalists is saying technology should be allowed to flourish and therefore web sites should be able to do anything they want with content that's published to the web.  Basically "let technology sort it out."  The problem with that theory is it doesn't really understand the role of technology in society.  Technology is amoral.  Not good, not bad, just sort of there.  So it's up to society to set rules for technology.  The perfect example of this is cloning people to be organ donors.  Most would find this idea reprehensible and that's why we have laws against human cloning (which are thankfully not needed thus far but that's sure to change very soon).  So technology is not something that should be trusted to set guidelines.

But on the other hand the side of the journalists is equally mistaken.  They think that putting strict laws on everything will somehow save their industry and the simple truth is it won't.  Here's the hard reality: Life used to be lived locally.  People had local TV stations, local radio stations and their local newspaper.  Because of that the world needed thousands of newspapers.  That's not true anymore.  Not only are the newspapers all competing with each other they're competing with the TV and radio stations who now offer print versions of their stories on the web.  So no matter how many laws you enact a large portion of the print media is going to die off.

Given that you might ask what I think we, as a society, should do?

I'm not one to encourage new laws but I can see the print media's side of the story.  If I quote the meat of their article on this blog you probably aren't going to click on the link to read the rest.  This leaves the newspapers with no revenue (once actual print newspapers become unsustainable).  To me that's unacceptable.

My ideal solution would be to have the newspapers create a widget that allows you to embed their text but puts a little ad on the bottom of it so they can still make some money off blogs that quote their articles.  The problem with that is most bloggers will probably continue to copy text rather than use the widget.  Given that fact I'd be in favor of a law restricting bloggers from taking content provided one of the stipulations be that the newspapers' must offer their content in a way that allows bloggers to continue using it (like the widget idea above).

My take on this is certainly not ideal and there could very well be a much better answer out there.  But as long as both sides of the argument keep pushing unrealistic solutions I don't think we'll ever find it.

Mental Note: Don't promise to post something the next day unless you already have it written.

Moving on...

I did want to address one other issue from the Wired post of a couple days ago.  In it the author makes a point to quote this person...

User reaction to the move was swift and predictable. “Well, off to the torrent sites,” one wrote on Hulu’s Sunny forum. “Hulu blows!” declared another. “Whose retarded idea was that?”

and then referenced them later...

That guy on Hulu’s user forum who was turning to the Torrent sites? Kilar reads these forums all the time. The executives who control Hulu’s programming should do the same.

Clearly the author is trying to make a point, namely that people will turn to Torrent sites if Hulu doesn't do exactly as they say.

I'm sorry but this just doesn't track for me.  It's a basic premise of human nature that people take the path of least resistance.  We as human beings seek out a path that will deliver the most value for the least amount of effort.

There are factors that can cloud our judgement as far as what that path is but if there's a path that obviously provides more for less people will take it.

Torrents, for better or worse, beat Hulu in just about every way.  They are generally of higher quality, you get to keep the copy, there are no commercials, etc...  There's really only one aspect where Hulu is better (instant access) and with today's quick connections and widespread torrent use that's not even really an issue.

So if you aren't already using Torrents it's probably because there's something artificially inhibiting you.  Making the path seem like it will require more effort.  That something is...the law. 

Which all brings me back around to my point.  If you're the type of person who is willing to risk Torrent use than you're probably already using them.  If not you're probably stuck with Hulu.  The only people who claim they're going to drop Hulu for torrents are the people who already use torrents and who stumbled upon the Hulu blog post through a news site.  They aren't using Hulu they're just trying to make Hulu think they were a user so Hulu will be hurt by their decision (which, of course, wasn't actually their decision in the first place)

Let me apologize in advance for the long wind up here.  But the point needs some elaboration

When I was a kid I loved Comic Books.  I spent every cent I had on them, collected all the industry mags/zines, even kept tabs on CompuServe (where most comic creators had an account at the time) and the Newsgroups (this is pre-Mainstream Web). 

Then, one glorious day, my local comic shop agreed to let me work part time after school.  With that a whole new world of information was opened to me.  The world of distributor Sales figures.

The thing you have to understand is that these figures were top secret at the time.  I'd actually tried to get at them every way a Jr. High age kid could and fell flat on my face every time.  But now I had them and let me tell you...I was SHOCKED.

Why you ask? 

Comic fans are an emotional lot.  So every time a major change happens in their favorite book you'll see a lot of people screaming about how they'll "drop the book" or "never read a Marvel comic again."  I always assumed these people made good on their threat.  But one look at the sales charts showed they simply couldn't have.  Even if new people were coming in to replace them it would cause some fluctuation as new people showed up right before the old ones left.   But there was none of that. 

In fact, sales were about as consistent as any product I've ever seen, even as an adult (who has seen his fair share of sales charts).  It was pretty clear these people were just blowing off steam and had no intention of following through with their threats.

Which leads me to the point of this long wind-up.  I quote from Wired online's article about Hulu...

Two weeks ago, comScore’s report that Hulu had pulled into the top three streaming video sites was quickly followed by news that Disney — the corporate parent of ABC and ESPN—was taking a stake in the venture. But in the long run, those two milestones could be overshadowed by a seemingly much smaller bit of news: the decision in January to pull most episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia from the site.

Instead of carrying every episode of Sunny, a way off-center Danny DeVito comedy that languished on FX until Hulu users made it one of the site’s most popular programs, Hulu limited its offering to the five most recent shows. User reaction to the move was swift and predictable. “Well, off to the torrent sites,” one wrote on Hulu’s Sunny forum. “Hulu blows!” declared another. “Whose retarded idea was that?”

So that's the point of the long intro to this post.  As an adult I'm far less shocked by this behavior in that I've seen enough emotional people in my life to realize they tend to over react and say things they don't mean when angry.  Still the fact that people like this author try to use those angry responses as proof of their point makes the lesson a good one to have.

The really ironic part of this quote is the fact that the author admits the episodes were pulled in January and that, as of two weeks ago, Hulu is growing like crazy.  So the obvious conclusion is that the incident in question had very little effect on Hulu.   He just chose to ignore those facts.

There's one more piece to this article that I'd like to address but this post  has already gone on a little too long so I'll save that...for tomorrow

(that's called a teaser ;)

For the record I get tired of it.  Tired of being the one who has to stick up for the worst the world can produce.  Tired of feeling sick to my stomach because I'm having to defend beliefs I feel are reprehensible. 

But here's the thing.  I continue to do it because I know emotionalism is the road to destruction.  If you allow yourself or  your society to just act according to how they feel eventually you get to the point where you're trampling over good people.  Because all good people have valid disagreements.  So while these movements might start out trying to get rid of bad people they end up paving a road to hell with their good intentions.

Which brings me to Bob Cuban's battle against Holocaust denial on Facebook...

It is undisputed that as a collective , Holocaust Deniers are overwhelmingly antisemitic.  One cannot be separated from the other.   They use a fringe, discredited historical theory as a pretext and rallying point to perpetrate and promote their message of hate using Facebook as  recruiting ground.   By allowing these groups whether they number 1 or 1000, Facebook is not promoting open discussion of  a controversial issue.  It is  promoting and encouraging hatred towards ethnic and religious groups, nothing more.

By claiming open discussion as the rationale for allowing these groups to exist, Facebook is playing games with semantics.  Facebook is taking form over substance to protect their imaginary subjective corporate line in the sand they have drawn.

Now there's almost no point in trying to tear apart Mr. Cuban's logic because, to be perfectly frank, there is none.  He's quoting his personal feelings about the topic (that Holocaust denial = Anti-Semitism) as fact with no proof to back that up.

(For the record, I think he's absolutely right but I can't prove it either which is sort of my point here)

So really what he's saying is "ban this group because I don't like them."  But as I said above that leads down a dangerous path.

The obvious counter argument to what I'm saying is that society has to have standards.  We as a majority feel that Holocaust denial is unacceptable so we as a majority should be allowed to censor it.  Not only "allowed to" but in fact obligated to censor it to prevent violence against Jews. 

But see that's where you run into the flaw of that theory.  We as a society have an obligation to stop violence against Jews but we can do that simply by outlawing the violence.  There is no upside to censoring thought.  In fact, just the opposite.   The end result of outlawing thought is you make it look more valid than it actually is.  You give the people trying to recruit others to their hateful agenda a rallying cry by making it look like the government is trying to hide something.

So how is this tech related?  Every industry has a heritage.  A set of values that it inherits from those who created the industry in the first place.  For businesses on the Internet that heritage is openness.  For better or worse the Internet is now the protector of free speech. 

Don't get me wrong, there will always be a place on the Internet for those who want to connect with like minded individuals.  Those sites should feel free to ban whoever and whatever they want.  But companies who claim "open discussion" as part of their value system need to set their personal biases aside when judging what is or is not appropriate discussion.

Addendum: I forgot to address one piece of Mr. Cuban's argument in that he claims Facebook should remove the group because hate speech is against the law in some of the countries that Facebook serves which means the groups are a violation of Facebook's Terms of Service.  This issue comes up every once in a while and my response is always the same "ToS agreements are to protect the company who writes them therefore it's within the company's rights to ignore them if they so choose". 

I might not agree with the sentiment but the video itself is top notch.

I wanted to follow up on a post I made a short while back.  In it I said developers were making a mistake in building startups around the APIs of large companies because they are given no guarantee from those companies.  I further tried to prove that power makes these companies stupid which in turn makes them treat developers badly.  

I used the point to hopefully convince people that it’s time for the IT industry to start demanding contractual agreements from these companies.  That way when you build a startup you’ll have some guarantee from the company saying the service you built it on will continue to function (and as a result all your work won’t go to waste)

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that since then Twitter killed a program named StatTweets…

We’ve all heard the stories about Apple rejecting apps from the iTunes App Store for arbitrary reasons. Now Twitter is raising some hackles for shutting down accounts for no good reason. In this case, the accounts belong to StatTweets, which was created by Robbie Allen, the developer behind sports stat site StatSheet. StatTweets was a way to get sports scores and updates about your favorite NBA, NFL, and college teams.

What did Allen do wrong? Twitter cited violations to its terms of service including “copyright infringement,” “mass account creation,” and “squatting” (you can read all the details on the StatSheet blog).

And Facebook shut down a widget called Newsfeed RSS…

A new Facebook application that allowed users to export the full contents of their stream into an RSS feed has been quickly shut down by Facebook for violating the site’s privacy rules.

Newsfeed RSS was an application developed by Teck Chia that took Facebook’s “Open Stream API” and made the contents a little too open. Here’s the problem: converting users’ Facebook streams into RSS feeds is inherently insecure, because many RSS feed readers make feed URLs public and indexable. That could lead to information Facebook users thought they were only sharing with their Facebook friends ending up in search engine archives forever.

I feel the point is an important one so I’m going to try to pick these stories out as they surface to continue making it.  The important thing to remember about the stories above is that each developer spent probably thousands of dollars worth of time on their respective apps.  Time that was then flushed down the toilet thanks to the company they chose to build their app around.

The Intro

I have a story to tell.

I'm walking a fine line here so you'll have to forgive me.  But I really want to address this and I really want to use a specific example.  At the same time I don't want to actually attack this person or accuse them of something that might not be true.

So I've done two things.  One, I'm keeping it all anonymous to try to obscure the identity of the blogger in question.  Second, I held this post so it's been a significant amount of time since these events took place.  I won't say how long, but awhile. 

For anonymity purposes we'll call the person in the story "The Blogger" and we'll refer to the months it happened in as Month 1, 2 and 3.  Traffic estimates are from Compete.com

The Story

"The Blogger" had recently started his own group blog.  This new site had gotten a significant traffic boost coming out of the gate but had been in decline since.  That is, until "Month 1" of our story.

In "Month 1" the blogger posted a non-tech story which he thought was true but which turned out to be false.  The story was very popular though and as a result he got a significant boost in traffic (one which he bragged about).  But that boost pretty much evaporated in "Month 2" (he did see a minor increase but only about 1/10th of the original boost)

Which brings us to "Month 3" where the blogger reported on the upcoming product release of a popular company.  This story was about a tech company releasing a product at an unbelievable price point.  Said company is very well covered and if the story had been true it would have meant a huge scoop for "The Blogger" and his site because none of the sites dedicated to covering this company had heard anything about it.

Anyway, it turns out the story was completely false.

Now, from the start something seemed fishy here.  First the story was about a very well covered company yet this blogger, who had never had a scoop from that company before, somehow got it before anyone else.  Second, of all the sites covering the company none of them seemed able to confirm the news.  Even after "The Blogger" broke his story.  Third, the source of the info seemed to be something that would be widely available.  Finally, the rumor being reported added to a previous rumor (on another site) which had been all but confirmed (in other words, if you were going to guess about something the blogger's story would be it). 

Bottom line: I personally felt the evidence pointed to the blogger having made up the story to get traffic.

The Conclusion

Again, I have no proof which is exactly why I'm piling on the anonymity.  But it got me to thinking, what would stop someone from doing just that?  Newspaper reporters keep anonymous sources but they generally have to confirm those sources with an editor or publisher.  Bloggers can type whatever they want with no check or balance whatsoever.

More importantly, if it was a lie the blogger got exactly what he wanted from it.  The story gave him another traffic boost and in the end he could just say "my source lied to me" and there's no way to prove otherwise.

I guess what I'm getting at here is...it works!  Lying to get traffic works.  Obviously you have to pace yourself, you can't lie all the time.  But a few well placed lies work. 

The Lesson

I put a good amount of time into exploring how tech and morality intertwine but in doing that I don't want anyone to think I'm saying "acting morally will make you successful" 

Hopefully it will but it very well might not.

Morality is good for the world but not always for the person choosing to take the moral course.  The world is filled with people who chose to act completely immorally and succeed time and time again because of it.  Morality requires altruism.  If you aren't an altruistic person than morality probably isn't going to hold much lure for you.

This might seem cynical but it's really just the opposite.   Living life requires deciding what you are willing to do to succeed.  If you decide not to do immoral things you should know you've given up that success for a cause.  You accept that loss because you know that, in doing so, you're making the world a better place.  That might not be the greatest solace in the world but it's solace none the less.

For The Record...I am of the belief that there are successes around every corner and that turning down one chance at success doesn't mean you won't be successful.  I don't doubt I could have been far more successful with just a little dishonesty but living an honest life I've still still gotten more than I personally would have asked for in life.  Anyway, that belief colors the opinion above and if I truly felt someone was losing their one and only chance at success by living morally I might give different advice (though again, I don't believe that "one and only chance" is something that actually exists)