New Site January 15, 2006
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Please visit my new site at WesterveltBlog.com
How Evil is Google? January 14, 2006
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Here’s a fine example of how one person using the Internet can shape a company’s image. Is Google Evil or Not, is a Website started by Ugo Cei of Pavia, Italy.
According to his resume, Cei, 43, is a software developer and network manager who, in his spare time, is developing an open source portal he calls “The Open Source Zone.�
The premise of the site is to monitor news about Google, post links and a brief description of a new story about the company and then take a poll of readers asking “after reading this news item how do you describe Google?� Respondents can check boxes from 0 to 100% evil.
It’s unclear how popular, Is Google Evil or Not, will become, but I bet there is someone at Google monitoring the site and others like it. The site shows up in various search results on Google, so the company is not making any effort to block it.
Google is doing well so far. As of this blog entry, based on 137 votes, it is only17% evil.
Former Columnist to Speak at Harvard January 14, 2006
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Former San Jose Mercury News technology columnist Dan Gillmor will be leading the weekly Fellows Luncheon on Jan. 17 at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Gillmor’s topic is citizen media. He is founder of The Center for Citizen Media, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. The center has a broad mission to “help to enable and encourage grassroots media, especially citizen journalism, at every level.” It will be interesting to see how it refines its focus out the door. Let’s hope it opens up a discussion about ethical blogging, the formation of blogging networks and helps expound on the differences between a traditional newspaper report and one from a random blogger.
There’s also a webcast.
Motivate Your Employees to Read with Cash? January 12, 2006
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Bob Pritchett, a former program manager at Microsoft and currently president and CEO of Bible software firm Logos Research Systems Inc. has an idea to motivate his employees.
The author of “Fire Someone Today,� started a reading program where employees were given the opportunity to get paid to read business books. They were paid 15 cents per page and required to write a book report and send it to other employees via the office e-mail list. The most an employee could earn in a year was $175.
The whole thing struck me and my wife as troubling at first. But I didn’t realize how many varying opinions there were on the program. Some folks saw this as a way to reward employees for self improvement and acquiring a better understanding of their business environment.
Read his blog post yourself. He said an anonymous poll he conducted shows that most employees liked the program.
“Participants were evenly split on their primary motivation — learning or cash — but 96% said they read books they would not otherwise have read, and 100% said that what they learned was applicable to their job or personal life.â€?
Go figure. Now how many of those folks do you think cheated?
Will Newspapers Survive? Nope January 12, 2006
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This Commentary piece by Joseph Epstein, an essayist and former lecturer at Northwestern University, lays a dizzying blow to reporters and the future of newspapers. A writer with conservative political views, Epstein’s columns also appear in The Weekly Standard.
First the numbers he presents are pretty damning:
“Four-fifths of Americans once read newspapers; today, apparently fewer than half do. Among adults, in the decade 1990-2000, daily readership fell from 52.6 percent to 37.5 percent. From 1999 to 2004, according to the Newspaper Association of America, general circulation dropped by another 1.3 million.�
Then the commentary:
“… if I had to prophesy, my guess would be that newspapers will hobble along, getting ever more desperate and ever more vulgar. More of them will attempt the complicated mental acrobatic of further dumbing down while straining to keep up, relentlessly exerting themselves to sustain the mighty cataract of inessential information that threatens to drown us all.�
Ouch.
But the piece makes sweeping characterizations of reporters, calling the current crop coming from schools where “the reigning politics are liberal, and along with their degrees, and their sense of enlightened virtue, they emerge with locked-in political views.â€? This is simply not true. I knew many reporters with conservative and even Libertarian views and this didn’t appear to affect their reporting.
It also assumes that “much of contemporary journalism functions through leaks.� I wish there was a town or city beat reporter out there who could bring this guy on their rounds. Stop at city hall. Ruminate through deeds, schematic drawings and other heady documents for news. To finish out the day, they could bring him to the police station to get the police blotter. And I’d hope that once the reporter sat down to write a story something blares over the police scanner, further extending the 50+ hour day.
Nevertheless you can’t dispute the numbers. Something’s got to change.
Special thanks to the Thoughts on Paper Blog for Epstein’s alternative viewpoint.
Are Newspapers Relevant? You Bet January 12, 2006
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Baltimore Sun columnist Thomas Kostigen weighs in on whether newspapers are feeling pressure by readers turning to the Internet to get their news. Kostigen points out that Knight Ridder, which is under pressure from its largest investor to be sold off, helps shine the light on the positives in the industry.
“Newspapers are still relevant, indeed even resilient,� he wrote. “Online news outlets are mature enough to be called distinct and separate businesses.�
I agree that newspapers are still relevant. That’s not in question. When newspapers go under, we’ll all go under. A healthy dose of local news will always be needed and perhaps the most important part are the checks that local newspapers put on our local officials. Our towns and cities can’t go unchecked by the prying eyes of journalists. They do the work, asking the questions, that most of us don’t have time to ask.
What is in question are the newspaper delivery methods being used, which are becoming irrelevant. Are people reading less than they did? I believe they aren’t. In fact, I bet people are reading more and getting more information than they ever had before.
The Christian Science Monitor did a nice feature story on how the Web is changing reading habits. That change is forcing researchers to look at ways to use technology to make reading itself more efficient.
More efficient readers getting a greater amount of information from a greater number of sources means the public is better informed than it ever was before.
Newspapers clearly are in a state of transition, but I suspect new delivery methods, like the digital paper on the right, are being developed and could become affordable so that newspapers remain relevant for years to come.
Apple Behind On RSS Support January 12, 2006
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Dave Winer, the author of the programming language that created RSS feeds and other Web publishing tools is criticizing Apple’s support of RSS.
Apple won’t let its customers use Firefox to read RSS feeds. Instead it forces the user to read feeds in the Safari browser. Isn’t this a bit Microsoft like? No, wait, even Microsoft doesn’t do this anymore.
“Engadget quoted Jobs as saying they were using “industry standardâ€? RSS. Even if we used terminology like that (we don’t, there’s no standards body for RSS) one company can’t on its own say it’s standard, esp when it has so many mistakes in it. It’s a fairly damaging lie. Yeah, companies lie, I know — but then sometimes bloggers have to say they’re lying,” Winer said.
Google Stereotypes January 12, 2006
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Anyone who knows me knows that I’m big on stereotypes. To that end, I present to you the Google Prejudice Map, an interesting mash up of Google results and specific countries. For example if you use the search term: “Germans are known for *”, the results will be about resourcefulness and punctuality, and oh yeah, enjoying beer.
I’m not sure why Cubans are synonymous with “foul-mouthed,â€? or Bolivians have “a lack of understanding punctuality.â€? It’s not on the map, but apparently the Polish are known for their great pickles.
Satellite Radio Not Ready for Prime Time January 11, 2006
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I know, tell that to the six million people who signed up with either XM or Sirius radio, but these early adopters are really encountering a lot of issues. First, you’ve got to make a major investment. Yes, there are deals out there for satellite tuners from both services, but the minimum you should shell out for a product with decent functionality is about $50.
Next, you’ve got to install the device in your car. The issues here are endless. I’ve seen Web forums talk about everything from how to install an extra fuse in the fuse box to the most cosmetically pleasing way to run a cable from the tuner to the cigarette lighter. Believe me, if you’ve got a clunky box on your dash board, nothing is going to look cosmetically pleasing in your car. On top of all this, many units come with only a home or auto dock. This is the device needed to power the unit and pull in a satellite signal. Want to use the tuner in your home? You’ll have to buy a home dock. Let’s not talk about the issues there. Then you’ve got to pay $13 a month for service.
Satellite radio came to a head this week when Howard Stern made his debut on Sirius. In the weeks and months leading up to the debut many ran to the store or ordered a Sirius satellite tuner online to listen to the broadcast. Others have waited. New units unveiled at the Consumer and Electronic Show last week in Las Vegas are expected to trump the current models. We’ll have to wait and see.
CNET recently produced a special section, explaining the challenges and the pitfalls of satellite radio. It also does a fine job helping a person choose between both services. Handy reviews of mobile and home tuners are also available.
While both services offer more than a hundred channels, sound quality has been an issue for many tuners. The mobile tuners have lower sound quality than many mp3 players. If the tuner is transmitting the satellite signal to a blank station on your FM radio, it has been reported that sound quality also diminishes. I have listened to a friend’s Sirius unit and sound quality on a talk radio channel was AM quality at best. Music quality sounded as if it was a streaming audio file on the Internet.
I’ve been a fan of satellite television. Why? It offered a professional alternative to cable television with better picture quality and more options and services at a comparable price. Satellite radio offers more choice, including Howard Stern and others, but what it is lacking is professional quality.
Until automobile manufacturers install XM and Sirius ready tuner decks in vehicles as a standard option, there will be people playing with wires, cigarette lighters and fuse boxes. Many are happy to do this, drawn by the lure of Howard Stern and other stars, but the price and hassle just don’t meet the quality at this time.
Update: Widgets in 2006 January 10, 2006
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Watch out Microsoft. At today’s MacWorld presentation in San Francisco, Steve Jobs unveiled new widgets today for Mac OS 10.4.4. Mac has been a big supporter of Widgets, currently offering over 1,500 of them.  The latest widgets include a Google widget, an address book, ESPN for sports updates and a calendar, to name a few.
Now, I’ve said that widgets can clutter a desktop rather quickly, but clearly they have a purpose in that they can sit in the background and allow a casual user to glance at sports scores or quickly conduct a Google search without opening a Web browser. It will be interesting to see how much of Windows Vista builds in widget support.
