I don't know if I can make it really long or informative, It's my 30th hour without sleep...
But...

There is a debate going on, I'm tempted to say lately, but it's been several years now, and I feel it's just surfacing. Behold Print Media Vs Digital Media!

What made me want to write this post is this article on eff.org, which makes great sense and can be summed up in just one quote:

Anyone who claims that readers can’t and won’t and shouldn’t own their books are bent on the destruction of the book

For reference, there is my old rant about the Amazon Kindle where I explain why the device is bad, why it spies on you and why it robs you from your rights as a reader and as a consumer.

To my mind it goes even further than that. First off, print and digital media are fighting a battle that will only leave losers, it's already happening by the way, with Google attempting to limit the access to free news. Then, print media are so scared to lose their precious advertisers that they try competing on the long lost ground of the instant info.Digital media, on the other end, are brawling about content producing and space filling, and end up publishing top10s after top10s.

The truth is, now it's begun, we need digital media, as much as the audience crave for information. Everything moves fast, everybody reacts fast, the Holy Buzz travels faster than physically possible, and we need to keep track of that. Why, because information is togetherness, is community, is social acknowledgment, and us humans need it, it's in out genes.

The truth is, we still need print media. So much for the trees, I know, but we need print media. One reason is that trends and moods need time to form, situations are not formed instantly but are the result of a process of thoughts and actions, and, well, you know, you analyze the game after it's over... during the game, you comment it. Print media are good at that, they can afford to take more time, to investigate the topic and to spare us the effort of analysis, giving the prerogative to people who, more often than not it you read Time or Newsweek, know what they are writing about.

Yet there is another reason.

Have you tried to read a floppy disk recently? That's what I'm talking about. Now we are comfortable with our hard disks and pen drives, and trans-flash and... and all the information, petabytes of data, is totally unreadable without the proper material... Soon will be time for the Qubit and quantum computing, and our current storage systems will be obsolete.
I can read my grandmother's diary. I can read a 200 years old book.
I cannot read a 20 years old floppy. Even if my whole genealogy is in it, I can't access it.

I'm perplex about all that. Information can't be kept in, now less than ever, especially for a mercantile purpose. But it's raw information we are talking about, and a good analysis over this info is priceless and deserves a durable, non versatile medium.

Sooner or later, "they" will probably realize it too...wait and see...

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Here are some of my views, again, about Google and its possible future, and no, they are not 'good guys'.

• Google has become a quasi monopolistic instance on the internet
• The FCC has noticed it and they are now thinking about 'search neutrality'
• No, Google are not such good guys, neither that innovative, and tend to buy everything they can to crush the concurrence, or to bypass their search own algorithms to promote their products
• Not only the FCC has noticed that, but some devs are getting worried too
• Their relevance is less and less a fact, and they might be outsmarted by social networking websites
• Not long until a broader public notices it
• Still, going open would clean all this mess

If you've had the luck to spend some of you bits of boredom reading this blog, you probably know that I like to follow Google's strategies and evolution. You also probably know it somewhat worries me, even if I'm still enthused by their product.

It's too bad I'm publishing this post now, since everybody is busy with end-of-the-year-festivities and nobody will notice the fabulous article I am linking here: Search, but You May Not Find (nytimes.com)

It's all about search neutrality, or how Google, Yahoo and Bing are now "the gatekeepers of the internet". How it can unbalance the market and how someone should do something about it.

It begins on this cheerful note (bold is mine):

The need for search neutrality is particularly pressing because so much market power lies in the hands of one company: Google. With 71 percent of the United States search market (and 90 percent in Britain), Google’s dominance of both search and search advertising gives it overwhelming control. Google’s revenues exceeded $21 billion last year, but this pales next to the hundreds of billions of dollars of other companies’ revenues that Google controls indirectly through its search results and sponsored links.

Ok, until now nothing really new, we already know Google is very big. The sponsored links and search result part is maybe a bit less obvious, since many users are now tending to think that Google is the Internet. Think about it, not only G (I'll call it G yes, I feel lazy tonight) has contributed to create some huge fortunes, but there is now a whole market of SEO consulting and optimization entirely centered on them. Frightening bit, when you think about the metric cartload of so called "SEO specialist", Black Hat SEO pseudo hackers, content and link farms gravitating around it. G has an enormous influence on the economy both above and underground, and if you're in IT, you probably owe it your job, a way or another.

Ok, this bit is secured, pretty glad it was obvious.Next:

Another way that Google exploits its control is through preferential placement [..]promoting its own services at or near the top of its search results, bypassing the algorithms it uses to rank the services of others[...] Wherever it does so, incumbents are toppled, new entrants are suppressed and innovation is imperiled.[...]Some will argue that Google is itself so innovative that we needn’t worry. But the company isn’t as innovative as it is regularly given credit for[...]Google’s meteoric success, are essentially borrowed inventions: Google acquired AdSense by purchasing Applied Semantics in 2003; and AdWords, though developed by Google, is used under license from its inventors, Overture.

NICE TO KNOW! And nice to know I'm not a lunatic, the whole article make me feel I'm not alone, and this bit precisely, makes me feel that I'm right to worry.
That's one thing if Google is what it pretends to be, (that is: an open and innovative search engine pushing everyday the limits of information gathering and usability), and another thing altogether when it appears that the G is a buy-and-squash machine, intending to become the one vortex to any info hosted,shared, advertised or created on the web, from anywhere.

You can perfectly react thinking that, after all, they are offering a free service and no company should rely on free services (yeahright), that after all, they have the right to advertise their own product (it's not like they were, say, Microsoft and bundling, say, a browser with their operating system). And well, if people are so worried, people shall build their own monopolistic search engine.

Thinking like that would be logical, but no thank you. Be it with OS, Telecoms or search engines, monopole is bad.

From this point, how is the future branching?

G's core functionality is slowly but surely losing its appeal, losing relevance everyday while being submerged by content/link farms, domain parkers ands the likes. Users are more and more accustomed to seek information through social networking rather than organic search. Online marketers are aware of that.
Big Daddy G has also proven to be hungry enough to worry the FCC, that's almost an epiphany.
Until now, all they needed to do in order to prove the 'purity' of their policies was to hurl widgets at the crowd while screaming "We are no evil!". FCC is bad publicity, they will have to work harder.
If nothing is done, they could leave the lead to other runner-ups such as Cuil and "the word of the fingers". Worse, some developers are being seriously annoyed by their API policy and the word could spread pretty fast, leaving them without another major source of innovation.
See by yourself (readwriteweb.com and totlol.com)

Google releases a public API. They watch what third-party developers do with the API and modify the Terms of Service (ToS) for that API in a way that prevents breakthrough potential. Google may then move to offer a similar service based on their platform rather than the API.

That, dear sir, is a pissed-off developer talking from experience.

In order to regain the relevance they build their reputation upon, going social would be a great idea. It would also, if the FCC rules out for a search neutrality regulation, reinforce the hegemony driven image they are starting to acquire.

What they could do though, to get rid of any suspicions and confirm their good will toward the users and the Quality Of The Interwebs, is to go 100% open, even if they don't really seem to like the idea.

Year 2010 will be interesting. Wait and see.

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This Christmas, Amazon have been selling more kindle than physical books.

For those who still don't know the kindle is an e-book reader, you can access to an online library and download your e-books, and do everything you'd to usually except maybe reading in the bath.
I hate the product, deeply, due to very shady terms of use, I've blogged about it before.

It kills me to know that while privacy is becoming a major topic, which will probably be buzzing all around the web in 2010, people still fall for a device that spies on everything you read.

According to the chart on eff.org, the Kindle is not the only guilty one here, Google Books and the BnB Nook are also sharing information about your readings... to third party service providers.

Who are the third party service providers? I just wish it's not a potential future Independent Bureau Of Thought Correctness...

Well, just wait, see, and hope New Moon is never made illegal.

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Here is a long post, so I'll get to the bullets:

• People worry about online privacy
• Social media profiling could cost you your job for a nice week end bender
• Social media profiling could cost you your job for things you'd thing completely normal
• The law should grant online privacy the same status as IRL privacy
• The creation of a unique online ID could help

Few days after facebook changed its privacy policy, I've seen various reactions around the web and outside. When some people don't really care, some other are concerned enough to write "Is Social Media Privacy an Oxymoron?"

I've read it twice. And if I agree with some of what's written, I must say that the tone is much too optimistic to my taste.

I never had a tattoo, facial piercing or crazy haircut knowing that these would be a no-no for any future job seeking.
Nonetheless I like playing with my appearance. Every now and then I make silly faces, I dress up or I take cheesy poses, Rarely, very very rarely I drink myself silly (doesn't take much effort, I can't drink). Also, I don't chose my friends for their social status or their political inclinations, and I don't feel ashamed of being seen with them. I have many female friends, just friends, and sometimes we hug, and gay friends, and sometimes we hug too.

Two keywords when it comes to social media: fun and common sense. Have plenty of both.

That's where the problem is. Where does common sense and fun begin and when do they end to leave only downright shameful moments?

See this scenario:

On Friday night, I've had a terrible week and my mood belly flopping on a historical low, a friend of mine invites me to a quiet cafe to have a drink. Then, well, you know how it goes, and we end up in a much less reputable cafe, I've had my 3 beers (enough to make me really drunk) and I'm pole dancing with a girl I don't know and her gay buddy.
It's my absolute right.
Flashy flashy, a picture is taken and tagged on Facebook.
I sleep all the week end, not only because of the party but also because of my 70 work ours of last week, and on Monday I'm the freshest to go to work.
Mister Big Boss asks me in his office, he's seen my pics, he doesn't like drunk bent pole dancing.I slept, I didn't un-tag my pic, Ooops.

What's wrong in this case is the fact that I have the right to do whatever I want outside working hours, and that my private life belongs to me only. As long as I'm not breaking the law, sorry Boss, but you have no rights. Or you shouldn't have.

This scenario is already disturbing. But it could be worse.

See this one:

On a workday, I'll spend my evening with my best female friend, her gay friend, in a gay bar. The evening will be spent drinking juice, making silly jokes, and I'll tenderly hug my female friend and bear hug my gay friend as a good bye. Clickety clickety, photos, Facebook. I don't see why I should remove them.
The day after, job interview.
Tough luck, the HR person is secretly homophobic, and no, the HR person doesn't like my silly faces, and anyway I'm hugging that person who's not my wife, I am probably a heathen fornicator. No job for me.

That's where it becomes truly dangerous.

Laws have been created to make the office a place where people should work without having to be worried by their sexual/political/entertainment-al preferences. It's not always the case, but I don't think that, until now, any HR would ask you "Was this person you hugged your brother or are you gay? Was this woman you hugged your wife? Will you be so exuberant in you cubicle?". Mainly because it's probably not common practice yet, but also because they wouldn't have any pretext to ask.

In the first example, I haven't even uploaded the pics myself, a friend with lousy privacy settings did. In the second example, I uploaded pics seemingly harmless, and in both case, damn, it's my life there, I'm allowed, by law, to do these kind of things.

Fun and Common Sense are two concepts too often missing in some people, and lest we are careful we might see the rise of a dangerous kind of internet bigotry.

What to do then?

Simply forbid people you don't want nosing in your stuff from accessing your online personal data, the same way they can't enter your room and look for your stash of hidden pr0n.

A unique, legal and standardized online identity, granting legally you the same privacy right as in real life should take care of that.

Let's root for it, wait, and see.

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I don't even know if I'm being excessive about it.

Approximately a year ago I wrote About:Crome... Is there a plan behind the plan ?
And you know what, I was right.
Now I am looking, at the huge panel of products and services offered by the monster search engine and I can't help myself wondering what is exactly the plan after the plan behind the plan...

Here what Google mainly offers.

• Search engine
• Mail
• Documents
• Maps
• Apps and code repository
• Chat
• Conference
• Public DNS
• Real Time Search
• Google Goggle
• Browser
• Os

These being just a fragment of the whole, there is already a picture slowly forming in my mind: an online all knowing leviathan, gently shaking the Laplace Demon by the heels while engulfing and repeating a tsunami of uninterrupted data.
At this point, not only Google but any barely tenacious web user can get to know who you are, where you are, what you are looking at and what you are thinking at an hourly rate.
Google, nonetheless, reserves itself the right to know where you are going to and where you are from, soon both online and IRL.

The scary would stop there, but a quick look around the web tells me more; this is from the Google Blog:

One far-fetched idea: how about a wearable device that does searches in the background based on the words it picks up from conversations, and then flashes relevant facts?
[...]
Further, why should a search be words at all? Why can’t I enter my query as a picture of the birds overhead and have the search engine identify what kind of bird it is?
[...]
The basic concept is – if the answer exists online anywhere in any language, we’ll go get it for you, translate it and bring it back in your native tongue.

Google wants it all. All the information, about everything, right when you need it.
As a Google user, who uses their products on a daily basis, I find the initiative really grand; Why not salute the tentative to reach instant and complete knowledge for everyone?
As me, I can't help wondering what will happen if Google collapses once it's on the top, or if it turn evil.
I remember myself saying some years ago that cell phone would be a great idea to start a world domination scheme, but not complete until you get them linked to the internet, and internet in every home. Now all the flow is being channeled toward one product... and yes, without turning total conspiracy freak, I can say it bothers me.
With great knowledge comes great power and with great power comes great responsibility.

Wait and see...

Technorati Tags: google, conspiracy, search, goggles, dns, 8.8.8.8, monopole

You IPhone is spying on you ! Conspiracy again !

The new IPhone 3G is being released factory uncorked, faster, cheaper.
As usual, this is marvelous thing for the 1st version's buyers, knowing that the "cheaper" and "3G" tags could (should ?) have been implanted from the very beginning. But Nintendo does that too, these companies have their ways with their addicts.

Also, a little thing I just read on wired blogs retained my attention. I seems that the IPhone is potentially making screenshots of everything you do.

You just have to follow me here, not much effort to understand.

Some pieces of choice, from the same article :

"This flaw can only be exploited by somebody with physical access to a device, but your phone could get into the hands of someone with more malicious intent," [Jonathan Zdziarski ] said.

Zdziarski said this is only one way forensics experts collect evidence. Other methods include taking data from the iPhone's keyboard cache, Safari cache, Google Maps lookups and so on. Experts and hackers can also recover deleted photos or e-mails from months ago.

I spend an incredible amount of time finding a good keylogger to spy on my girlfriend, I'll just get her an IPhone.

Technorati Tags: IPhone, Apple, IDiot, Security, Hacking

If you haven't heard yet of the OLPC project, take a look in here.

To my mind, this is inevitable, knowledge must be shared in order to build a better word.

But then I stumbled across an alarming headline : WiFi frequency could accelerate the apparition of our kid's autism.

Now I see what it is all about. WiFi powered XO laptop take over the world and numb our kids. That's all Google's fault.

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