Yahoo and arch rival Google said on Thursday they had entered a non-exclusive partnership on search advertising expected to add as much as $800 million in annual revenue.
This deal will give Yahoo! some money to breathe and will take Microsoft off their back. The real reason behind it is to give Yahoo! a bit more time to find a better partner and learn about my idea.
In short: Adobe and Yahoo! should strike a winning deal.
[I probably need to write a better proposal... now that time is on our side]
** Update **
Incremental Blogger suggests that “Yahoo should acquire AllTop.com along with Guy Kawasaki“.
This is not a bad idea in its own right - directories are part of the DNA of Yahoo and Kawasaki does twits everyone with his AllTop evangelism. Advertising is maybe an answer, but its not the future. It could help Yahoo momentarily [like the Google donation], but it wouldn’t make it different and kicking.
We need something bigger here, something futuristic, something that will take Yahoo out of the miseries of Web 2.0 and into Web 3.0 [I'm afraid that Web 3.0 is going to be like World War III, but that's a different post].
Adobe, with their technological control over the future of the market, and with their stronghold of holding creative people in the balls, can trigger that move, and hey - every company in the world uses Adobe products. It will give Yahoo the leverage they need, and a lot of it.
To my original post - Adobe + Yahoo = Web 3.0
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70 countries will soon get the [official] iPhone 3G.
Israel is not one of these countries, and I’m quite annoyed at this.
The most annoying thing is that Israel’s neighbours - Jordan and Egypt will get the iPhone. How ruthless can Apple be? People will stand on the other side of the border with their 3G iPhones laughing at the Palestinians and Israelis, who will fight each other just to get a glimpse…
Countries like Liechtenstein [pop. 35,365], Macau [pop. 520,400] and Guinea-Bissau [pop. 1,586,000] are going to get the iPhone.
Hello!!! The glorious people of Israel have already jailbreaked more than 25,000 iPhones. Bought in American and European Apple Stores and brought to Israel in deep pockets, or bought in one of the dozens private importers of the iPhone to Israel, without the consent of the valid distributor iDigital.
Israeli entrepreneur Ouriel Ohayon says: Who cares?
But I do. I care!
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]]>Yesterday the news brought back the soap story of Yahoo vs “Big Company”, and I’ve had an idea.
I like Yahoo! I like Adobe!
I think it’ll be a good idea if they’ll join hands and merge (or whatever companies do).
Two days ago Adobe released their news Media Player. Few weeks ago they’ve released Adobe Photoshop Express.
Wouldn’t it be just great if Flickr and Photoshop would live together?
It’ll be a lot better then Flickr and Microsoft Expression…
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I normally buy the Nine Inch Nails albums, but I thought I’ll download it to check it out first. When Ghost I was downloaded I discovered a readme.txt file in it:
This torrent is an official upload from Nine Inch Nails.
We’re very proud to present a new collection of instrumental music, Ghosts I-IV. Â Almost two hours of music recorded over an intense ten week period last fall, Ghosts I-IV sprawls Nine Inch Nails across a variety of new terrain.
Now that we’re no longer constrained by a record label, we’ve decided to personally upload Ghosts I, the first of the four volumes, to various torrent sites, because we believe BitTorrent is a revolutionary digital distribution method, and we believe in finding ways to utilize new technologies instead of fighting them.
We encourage you to share the music of Ghosts I with your friends, post it on your website, play it on your podcast, use it for video projects, etc. Â It’s licensed for all non-commercial use under Creative Commons.
We’ve also made a 40 page PDF book to accompany the album. Â If you’d like to download it for free, visit http://ghosts.nin.com/main/pdf
Ghosts I is the first part of the 36 track collection Ghosts I-IV. Â Undoubtedly you’ll be able to find the complete collection on the same torrent network you found this file, but if you’re interested in the release, we encourage you to check it out at ghosts.nin.com, where the complete Ghosts I-IV is available directly from us in a variety of DRM-free digital formats, including FLAC lossless, for only $5. Â You can also order it on CD, or as a deluxe package with multitrack audio files, high definition audio on Blu-ray disc, and a large hard-bound book.
We genuinely appreciate your support, and hope you enjoy the new music. Â Thanks for listening.
Hence, what started as the illegal act of downloading an album over a torrent site, ended up as a totally legal act, approved by the creators of the content.
Maybe BitTorrent is not a bad word after all…
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]]>Facebook is giving users some control over whether to share information on their buying habits and other online activities with friends.
For the program announced Tuesday to work, enough users must actually say “yes” so advertisers can show users their pitches in the guise of friends’ endorsements.
It seems that Facebook is trying to make money out of its sudden success, but not exactly know how. It feels that its creators are shooting to all the directions, without success…
To tell the truth, web-advertising is a just another form of spam. If my Firefox plugin would have been only slightly better, I wouldn’t have any adverts on at all when browsing. Its a great spam filter.
But like with spam mails, I learned to ignore the adverts, and just mark them as spam, without even readin the content. I hardly ever go to advertised links, and it only happens by mistake, or because Google placed them in a strategic location at the top of my search results.
The major problem with spamdvertising is when heavy, loud, video adverts are appearing on certain news sites, jamming my bandwidth and crashing my browser. But I’m not sure that Google Adwords are doing any better.
I think web based companies should find other ways to make money than spam their users with advertising. Of course they might make good money of adverts, but the users don’t appreciate it a s good-will gesture, will not press on the proposed link (or doing it unknowingly), and will not remember the name of the brand. Slowly, we will just learn to ignore it.
Companies need to find a better way to advertise their products (examples 1 and 2). An simple ideas is that a marketing person will post the link on his (Facebook) page and will share it with his friends. If its good, his friends will share it with their friends and so on. This is lovable unspammed advertising (unless if its done excessively)
But how will the site (Facebook) will generate money of it?
Maybe the advertised company should donate money to the site after a succesful campaign? Maybe the site should create a pro version for their site (works for Flickr)? And maybe the site should sell T shirts and other products…
I know its difficult to generate money online, but can you please move on from web spamdverising and leave our reading space alone?
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]]>Its interesting to see the differences in me, from being creative to becoming managerial. Funnily, it happened in my job too…
Zohar in 2008:
ESTP (Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving)
content, emotionally stable, outgoing, social, group oriented, finisher, does not like to be alone, open, decisive, likes external praise, likes to be center of attention, frequently joking, adjusts easily, likes crowds, self confident, neutral moods, good at getting people to have fun, disorganized, messy, talented at presentation, not easily annoyed, does not like to be alone, enjoys crude jokes, likes to lead, likes sports, more likely to come off as masculine, risk taker, tends to dominate conversations, fearless, can handle criticism, hard to discourage
Favoured careers:
ceo, sports management, fighter pilot, marketing specialist, business manager, race car driver, supervisor, economist, airline pilot, bar owner, consultant, cia agent, security specialist, technician, businessman, mechanical engineer, public relations specialist, coach, manager, marketing director, sales associate, mechanic, politician, publicist
Disfavoured careers:
poet, artist, art teacher, novelist, bookstore owner, graphics designer, museum curator, librarian, freelance writer, author, florist, painter, school psychologist, songwriter, musician, professional college student, editor, philosopher, english professor
Zohar in 2005:
INFP (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving)
creative, smart, idealist, loner, attracted to sad things, disorganized, avoidant, can be overwhelmed by unpleasant feelings, prone to quitting, prone to feelings of loneliness, ambivalent of the rules, solitary, daydreams about people to maintain a sense of closeness, focus on fantasies, acts without planning, low self confidence, emotionally moody, can feel defective, prone to lateness, likes esoteric things, wounded at the core, feels shame, frequently losing things, prone to sadness, prone to dreaming about a rescuer, disorderly, observer, easily distracted, does not like crowds, can act without thinking, private, can feel uncomfortable around others, familiar with the darkside, hermit, more likely to support marijuana legalization, can sabotage self, likes the rain, sometimes can’t control fearful thoughts, prone to crying, prone to regret, attracted to the counter culture, can be submissive, prone to feeling discouraged, frequently second guesses self, not punctual, not always prepared, can feel victimized, prone to confusion, prone to irresponsibility, can be pessimistic
Favoured careers:
poet, painter, freelance artist, musician, writer, art therapist, teacher (art, music, drama), songwriter, art historian, library assistant, composer, work in the perfoming arts, art curator, playwrite, bookseller, cartoonist, video editor, photographer, philosopher, record store owner, digital artist, cinematographer, costume designer, film producer, philosophy professor, librarian, music therapist, enviromentalist, movie director, activist, bookstore owner, filmmakerDisfavoured careers:
business professional, manager, executive, administrator, business owner, supervisor, office manager, business analyst, financial analyst, public relations manager, ceo, executive assistant, judge, event coordinator, lawyer, office worker
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Yesterday I noticed that I had 9 more favourites by visitors to my Corporate Connection artwork on Flickr. This is quite unusual, even for this highly visited piece if work. I checked the statistics and I was shocked: instead of the normal 10, 15, 20 people visiting the page every day, I had 1,774 views only for yesterday.
70% of those arrived from Jason Kottke’s post about Corporate Connection. Only problem is that the post is dated to 15th February, 2006, less than 2 years ago.
I wonder what triggered the arrival of all these people?
PS. Since then I had 7 more favourites added…
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So This is the first post of the new year.
I guess this year really started for me with the Jewish New Year, in September. Then, I moved back to London, after almost a year in New York and New Jersey (with a break in California and Israel).
But if the real starting point was in September, then the Beginning is happening now. I mean, now I have a job, I have a house, I’ve settled with the fact that me and Dina are going to have a Cross-Atlantic relationship for some time.
This is the beginning of a new era, for me, for us.
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I’m thinking on many things lately. Mainly, on what I’ll grow up to be.
Am I going to be a graphic designer? a web designer? a filmmaker?
Or is it going to be some kind of interface designer… or a game designer.
Sometimes I’d like it to be a mix of all the things I do. Could it be?
I’m confused.
I’m growing up, I can feel it. And in some ways I feel that I might miss the train. I have some great ideas, and I find it hard to bring them to life. I think I’m waiting for something and I don’t know what. I’d just like to move on.
I’ve been sending some applications for internships. For all three subjects that are intersting to me: design for print, design for web and film production. I tried also for the game industry, but it seems there aren’t a lot of them, at least not in the design section.
I feel that I’d like an answer. Should I go this way? Should I go that way? or should I turn to a total different direction?
Some say the world is my oyster. I sure hope it is.
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From Wikipedia:
Digital Rights Management (generally abbreviated to DRM) is any of several technologies used by publishers (or copyright owners) to control access to and usage of digital data (such as software, music, movies) and hardware, handling usage restrictions associated with a specific instance of a digital work.
The producers of films and music are trying to keep the rights to their own. Slowly government rules are taking place, forbidding the right to copy digital work, even if its for personal purposes.
Lately, a bill has passed in France, known as DADVSI (in English: “law on authors’ rights and related rights in the information society”).
Most of the bill focuses on the repression of the exchange of copyrighted works over peer-to-peer networks and the criminalizing of the circumvention of DRM protection measures. The law… could significantly hamper free software, and also may significantly restrict the right to make copies of copyrighted works for private use.
StopDRM, (translated, original page here), a group of French activists are calling against the law.
After the adoption of law DADVSI by the government, greatest confusion reigns: the users of peer-to-peer received the insurance of the Minister for the culture which justice will be lenient, but the members of the StopDRM Collective worry for the consumers, who “do not pirate” but buy the music and films: what will arrive to them, now that the law was promulgated, if they circumvent the DRM for the legitimate use of works? And if they say it and inform the population? Are they assured them also any leniency?
3 members of the group have stepped forward. They went to the police to get arrested under the slogan “A lawsuit is wanted“.
The three have bought the original work of either music from iTunes or DVDs and transferred them to their portable media players by circumventing the code, thus breaking the law. One of them even have created a page Internet explaining how to remove the DRM of a protected bought work so that everyone can transfer its pieces on its portable player. While waiting for the response of the legal authorities, this page is accessible to all and is on http://drm.mediaarea.net.
The third, for its part, used a free software to read a DVD under GNU/Linux.
All of the three are about to face charges. The police officer was thinking that they are kidding with him, but at some point he discovered that they are right - this is illegal.
They most probably are facing sanctions of 3.750 euros fine for deliberated use with technical measurements realized by a Net surfer by his own means, six months of imprisonment and 30.000 euros fine for the provider of means of skirting, which acts in a deliberated way.
The problem is not the fact that you can do it at home, and nobody will know, but the fact that it is illegal to do so. A similar law is already applied in the US, and sooner or later, will take place in most of the countries in the world.
Ripping a DVD that I bought in order to save a copy of it at home or to be able to transfer it to a portable device and breaking the DRM of a song I bought from iTunes in order to play it on a non Apple device are my rights.
Lately, microsoft have released their own portable player, Zune, which is applying DRM to every song and video which is transferred to it, even if the title is under a GNU or a Creative Commons licence (of which, its against the licence to apply DRM).
The fight has only just begun.
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So, again, not only living in Suburbia, but all the names are taken from England.
So now, I live in psuedo UK, in a county which is not the real Middle Saxon, but hey, at least I’ve got Wal Mart and Ikea really close.
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My new hometown in the Garden State, next to Rutgers university campus, so it will be close for my girlfriend to go.
Its my first time living outside of a big city.
I’m a suburban boy now. Oh, so american…
(no offence)
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10 years ago John Perry Barlow wrote a manifesto that, in my opinion, all the internet users should read.
The manifesto, “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” is posted here. Barlow also co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an organization that defends freedom in the digital world, and takes active role is spreading its goals.These days there are a lot of stories coming up about internet censorship and privacy issues.
There is a constant gathering of information on each one of us, while we are not always aware to it. Companies like Google, Yahoo and AT&T are collecting all types of data on their users, which they might pass one day to the government.
Google Desktop search application, has a feature that copies information from the clients computer to their servers.
AT&T is being accused of “violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans’ communications.”
Reporters Without Bordes, a human rights movement, found out that Yahoo keeps reporting to the chineese government over “dissident expressions” that Chinese citizens have made in Yahoo’s forums. During the last 3 years more than 80 Chinese citizens have been jailed due to these reports.
Its not yet happening in any country in the world, or at least, we’re not sure, but - governments like to copy each other’s laws and regulations.
Today, more then ever, it is easy to store data on us and to keep track of our movement. These events and many others should remind us how important it is to put an emphasis on securing our privacy and protecting our freedom in a digital world .
A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
by John Perry Barlow (barlow [at] eff.org)Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.
Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.
You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.
You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don’t exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract . This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.
Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.
We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.
We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.
Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge . Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.
In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us.
You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.
In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.
Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.
These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.
We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.
Davos, Switzerland
February 8, 1996
Some of the EFF current campaigns:
Online Free Speech Campaign
The world’s largest Internet grassroots movement
The Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression
Free speech & open access in new media
Privacy Now!
The campaign for online privacy
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We still haven’t seen the movie ‘Paradise Now’, which has received the Golden Globe award for the best foreign movie, and is nominated for the Oscar in the same category. However, we do have to say a few things on the controversy around it.
The movie describes the process that leads two young palestinians to commit a suicide attack in the city of Tel Aviv.
“Each has his own reasons — and neither of them fits the image we have of the fanatical suicide bomber”.
(from the Jerusalem Cinemtheque website)
Few moments ago we received an email from a friend. The friend, who lives in a settlement in the West Bank, forwarded a large number of recipients a petition calling “The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences” to withdraw the nomination of the movie for an Oscar. The petition is supported by a letter from a mother who lost her son in a suicide bombing.
The Main argument behind the petition and the letter, is that “giving an Oscar to this film will glorify these murderers & the groups that have sent them [and] may even encourage more murders of this type”. If the movie represented the executers of the Twin Towers’ destruction, argues the petition, it would have been severely condemned and certainly wouldn’t be nominated for such a prestigious prize.
It is possible to understand the logic behind this petition. It is also possible to understand why a mother who lost her son in a suicide bombing, will not like to see that kind of film nominated for (or winning) the Oscar. However, it is important to remember that the film’s dealing with the issue of a suicide attack doesn’t mean that it legitimizes the act of doing it. On the contrary, a complex, serious and insightful treatment of the issue can help to promote a fresh approach and a critical thinking in both sides of the conflict.
Judging by the comments and reviews we’ve read of the film, it doesn’t idealize the suicide bombers and attacks but
“without letting anyone off the hook, examines the most horrific phenomenon of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.
The attempt of the petitioners to cause an avoidance of the issue will not make it disappear, but will prevent awareness and thwart serious discussion of it. Both sides still have to do a lot of learning and thinking on the issue, which this film could catalyze.
This is not the film that evokes protest for dealing with controversial issues. One of the most prominent examples is the film ‘Trainspotting’. The movie presents an unprecedented point of view of youth’ consumption of drugs, and especially heroin, in Scotland. The film doesn’t explores the question whether taking drugs is good or bad, but presents a sharp and unique description of an existing phenomena. The critics of ‘Trainspotting’ argued that the movie encourages the use of class A drugs.
One cannot control the personal interpretation of the viewers to every film. However, the very possibility of a problematic interpretation should not prevent films from dealing with controversial issues. Any art work should not be restricted by the common norms of good and bad, neither should be censored when it contradicts those norms.
Pushing the borders of the legitimate has always been the prime factor behind every intellectual and cultural development.
Thus, preventing ‘Paradise Now’ from an Academy Award nomination, will narrow its chances to become an incitement of critical thinking and re-evaluating of the accepted stereotypes.
Written in cooperation with Dina Fainberg.
Update: We have seen the film and we stand strong behind what we said!
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How did I get to where I am now?I am studying in CSM, graphic design, third year.Trying to work on my projects, trying to finish this year with dignity, trying to figure out what I’d like to do.
I started as a graphic designer, evolved into a film maker, and now I am a web designer.
I guess my goal is to keep evolving.