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The Chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) released a draft of legislation designed to assure the privacy of information of web users.
“Our legislation confers privacy rights on individuals, informing them of the personal information that is collected and shared about them and giving them greater control over the collection, use and sharing of that information,” said Rep. Boucher in a communique.
"Our goal is to encourage greater levels of electronic commerce by providing to Internet users the assurance that their experience online will be more secure. That greater sense of privacy protection will be particularly important in encouraging the trend toward the cloud computing."
The draft legislation would require companies to clearly explain their privacy policies, provide an opt-out option for uses, and force companies to allow users to opt-out from having their information share with unaffiliated third parties such as ad networks.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Congressman releases draft legislation concerning privacy of information both on the Internet and offline
Google announces it will launch digital book service by summer; FTC may oppose Google and Apple moves
The WSJ is reporting that Google is getting into the book sales business starting this summer. The announcement, by Chris Palma, Strategic Partner Development Manager for Google, was made at an event held at the offices of Random House called "The Book on Google: Is the Future of Publishing in the Cloud?"
(Random House is one of the few major book publishers who have so far not inked a deal with Apple to appear in the company's iBooks store.)
The new service will be called Google Editions and will allow users to buy digital editions of the books they find in its search service -- even if that book comes from a retailer of independent shop.
The idea may sound new to some, but this is an old story of creating an online service that allows the publisher to take a cut of the transactions that take place through that site. The idea was that the mere creation of the online site would facilitate sales, and the owner of the site would take a percentage.
Here, Google is saying that they will create a search marketplace for books and that sales can be directly transacting at the search results -- with Google taking its piece of the revenue.
The question is why books? Certainly the same principal at play here would apply across the board. One answer to that question may be Google's desire to win the right to distribute the millions of out-of-print books. A case currently resides in a Manhattan federal court where U.S. District Judge Denny Chin is set to rule on whether Google can proceed with digitizing millions of books for its Google Book Search -- it has already scanned over seven million books.
For more background on the legal case involving Google, orphan works, and the ramifications of the battle over public domain works, read this FAQ at Wired.
Word is that the FTC may end up opposing Google's acquisition of AdMob. Dan Frommer writes a compelling column arguing for approval but cries of monopoly! are increasingly being heard in regard to Google.
Many think Apple's acquisition of Quattro Wireless and the creation of its iAd platform would smooth the way for Apple. But instead Apple faces its own scrutiny over both its mobile ad plans as well as its software development agreements.
iPhone OS and Android continue to be the path for mobile media; H-P, however, may push hard for WebOS
As publishers continue to mull over their mobile media strategies, many continue to ask themselves "what do we do first?"
The iTunes app store continues to beckon publishers for two reasons: its a central marketplace, easy to enter (as long as you are not a Pulitizer Prized winning cartoonist, that is) and easy to monitor. A quick review this morning, for instance, reveals no new iPad news apps, and a couple independent news apps for the iPhone.
← Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showing off a tablet running Windows, the least likely choice of OS for most tablet makers. Source: AFP
But new tablets are on the horizon and none will be using Apple's iPhone OS. With the Android market exploding, any publisher wishing to reach their audience through mobile devices, especially cell phones, need to demand Android apps from their development staff or development partners. (That is why it was interesting to find out that IDG's developer for their Gamestar mobile app develops for the iPhone exclusively.)
The very recent purchase of Palm by Hewlett-Package opens up the possibility that a third mobile OS could be aggressively pushed. H-P is the one company out there capable of building a mass market for a third mobile operating system. While it is most likely that H-P will concentrate in the tablet area, most likely building bulky, slow tablets, just as they do laptops, they will also probably price them low and sell millions of them.
For the next 12 months, however, the game will continue to be played in Apple's home court, with Google's Android growing and with Android based tablets possibly appearing (make that, most likely appearing).
Why the emphasis on the mobile OS? The short answer to battery life. The days of getting two hours of battery life on your laptop is over. My iPad's battery level has never been below 60 percent, and that was after six or seven hours of continuous use. The whole definition of a mobile computing device is evolving. A laptop is being recognized for what it always was: a portable desktop -- that is, a powerful computing device that can breathe out of the water for a few minutes (unplugged) but must return to the water quickly or die.
Netbooks were supposed to be the answer to this battery life problem but the tablet is proving a better solution.
Another reason for the success of the mobile OS is instant-on: the ability to push a button and instantly start surfing the web, read the paper or play a game. Anyone who owns an iPad can tell you what a job it is to read newspapers on the device -- any newspaper in the world, that is. Just as the print newspaper is convenient because it doesn't need to be booted up every morning, neither does the tablet run on a mobile OS.
These may have been the big reasons that H-P decided to shelve its Slate tablet, scheduled to run Windows 7. (The third reason, of course, is the licensing costs of running Windows versus an OS you own yourself.)
This may all seem like inside ball to some publishers but it is the equivalent of discussing paper weights and coating.
Monday, May 3, 2010
iPhone apps: SD Times takes a minimalist approach, while IDG's Gamestar app delivers the goods
You'd think the best mobile media apps would come from the tech community, but many of the big tech players are either still on the sidelines or counting on their flip book vendors to supply them with their mobile solutions.
SD Times, the newspaper for the software development industry, has launched an iPhone app and it is clear that software wizardry was not in the cards. To call the app minimal is to saying too much.
← SD Times, taking minimal to a whole new level with their iPhone app.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. The BZ Media property has given its readers a clean RSS reader I suppose. But wouldn't you think a B2B property called SD Times might know a few, you know, software developers? Maybe not, the company seems to be searching for website designers, as well.
Gamestar, if you are not familiar with it, is an iDG owned PC game magazine published out of Germany. The magazine has a circulation of around 250,000 and is one of Europe's best selling game magazines. A U.S. version of the magazine appeared and disappeared fairly quickly.
Gamestar's new iPhone app much more of what a mobile media app for the iPhone or Android should be. The app was developed by eMotionSoft, a German developer. Vidunan Pirathaparajah is listed on their site as Leitung Entwicklung (Lead Developer). Johnny Arulpragasam is listed as developer, finance and marketing, while Marcel Münchow is the user interface designer. The company's websites states that they built apps exclusively for the iPhone, a bit of a surprising admission.
Even if your German is not the best, it is clear this is a very good mobile app. In addition to the latest stories, complete with graphics, the app also delivers video and a photo gallery, as well as some offline features. The videos are delivered through YouTube which may seem to some like an easy way out but is actually a good solution -- after all, it forces the publisher to create a YouTube channel, something even TNM has. You can find Gamestar's YouTube channel here.
So, in the end, this is a simple RSS reader, too. But one that brings lots of content and multimedia to the smartphone user.
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Another new news app is called Czech News. It's 99 cent cost was not what convinced me to pass on buying it. It was its description:
Czech News is a very simple e-news reader for the people of the Czech Republic. This app brings you the latest news from all the top Sweden (sic) news sources.
Wow, top that Wired.
Did Reed lose passion for B2B?
Busy day here so posting will be light. But I wanted to point to the story BtoBOnline ran today which adds a bit to the Reed Business Information divestiture, and asks the question "did Reed lose their passion for B2B?"
Clearly Jordan Edmiston can be partially to blame for the lack of sales of the properties -- but only somewhat. The role of the M&A professional is match-maker. I used to tell my clients that I will bring in the buyer, help them evaluate the bid (or bids) and give them advice about the due diligence process, but that once the winning bid is determined the majority of my work is done. In other words, get a good lawyer.
But when there are no sales, when the company ends up negotiating with their managers, that doesn't speak well of the sales agents.
In the case of the RBI properties, however, I don't think it makes a big difference. Whether the B2B magazine get bought by a PE firm, a PE backed B2B, or are picked up by new management-created firms, the results are usually the same: tightly run trade media properties with very little room to maneuver.
The best result would be that new start-ups are created that are run like, well, start-ups. In other words, use the properties as spring boards into electronic media companies. They would need to be run like start-ups because there would have to be some staff hires that are in non-traditional areas: application development, open platform web development, etc.
In the meantime, the magazines can be relaunched but they will surely lose money, or at best break-even in the short run. And the future is not in the print products anyway, but in the products that can be created around the print product, utilizing the circulation and customer lists.
Morning Brief: Apple announces its sold one million iPads; Church to sell Washington Times; a weekend of Tribunes
Apple announced this morning that it has sold one million iPads.
“One million iPads in 28 days—that’s less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO in an Apple statement. “Demand continues to exceed supply and we’re working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers.”
← Chitika Labs estimate of Apple iPad sales probably remains too high.
While Apple's accomplishment would be important in its own right, combining this with last week's revelation that H-P was delaying its Slate tablet launch, and the Microsoft is scrapping plans for the Courier, this leaves the field wide open for Apple.
More importantly, this makes the decision making process for publishers easier: the iPhone OS (and Android) is where its at right now.
Speaking of Microsoft: Microsoft has committed itself to HTML5, and with that has come down hard on the side of Apple in the Apple-Adobe war over Flash. Writing on the IEBlog, Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager, Internet Explorer, writes "The future of the web is HTML5."
"Today, video on the web is predominantly Flash-based," Hachamovitch wrote. "While video may be available in other formats, the ease of accessing video using just a browser on a particular website without using Flash is a challenge for typical consumers. Flash does have some issues, particularly around reliability, security, and performance. We work closely with engineers at Adobe, sharing information about the issues we know of in ongoing technical discussions. Despite these issues, Flash remains an important part of delivering a good consumer experience on today’s web."
It looks like Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church is putting the Washington Times up for sale. The NYT's DealBook thinks former Post reporter, and Times editor, John Solomon may be a potential buyer.
Oncology journals publisher CIG Media Group announced it has made a financial endowment to aid local clinical cancer research, and foundations such as the ThriveWell Cancer Foundation.
CIG Media Group properties include Clinical Lung Cancer; Clinical Colorectal Cancer; Clinical Breast Cancer; Clinical Lymphoma, Myeloma & Leukemia; and Clinical Ovarian Cancer.
Rant: Is the Chicago Tribune America's worst metro daily? It has to be. For me, this weekend was, as they say, the straw that broke the camel's back. After growing up in a household with two daily newspapers delivered, and having never lived anywhere without getting home delivery of a newspaper, it may be time to end the practice.
Saturday: the Tribune features three stories on its front page. The first about the owner of the Cub and his fight to put up a sign. Really. But most of the front page concerned rhythmic gymnastics. Again, no joke. The was two inches dedicated to the oil spill off the coast of Louisiana.
Sunday: A hard hitting (yes, I'm kidding) feature on judges who the Tribune feels are too lenient on speeders. The majority of the page is made up of a feature on the Trine 2010 all-state academic team. The third story isn't a story, its the Trib's editorial diatribe against state funding. In other words, zero news.
The online Tribune was no better, maybe worse. Not finding any news in the print edition, I went online to find that this was the world according to the Chicago Tribune:
3 dead in double murder-suicide
Toddler dies after SW Side fire
Man killed in W. Rogers Park motorcycle crash
1 dead, 3 wounded in shooting at Zion house party
3 arrests in death of magician from 'Tonight Show'
Bensenville police get 'suspicious package'
Be afraid, be very afraid.
