Google bashing

I’ve noticed an increase in the unhealthy trend of Google bashing.  Murdoch wants to block his content from searches and the chap who owns the Dallas Mavericks wants to pay the world’s top 1000 websites to delist themselves from Google search.

I fear that a point is being missed in all this: Google is succesful because it works … the market gets want the market wants.

(Oh, and I’m just going to carry on reading The Guardian, thanks).

 

Avatar sings up a storm

You have got to love this little snippet from cnet news online which shows just how messy things can get when technology and media clash:

“Although several artists have been depicted in music games like Guitar Hero in the past, Gwen Stefani’s No Doubt is having some trouble with its own likeness in the newly released Band Hero game from Activision.

According to a court filing obtained by the Los Angeles Times, the band sued Activision over a feature in the title that provides gamers with the opportunity to have band members perform another artist’s songs.

The lawsuit specifically takes issue with the ability for gamers to have No Doubt lead singer Gwen Stefani perform the Rolling Stones’ Honky Tonk Women. The suit claims that it “results in an unauthorized performance by the Gwen Stefani avatar in a male voice boasting about having sex with prostitutes,” the LA Times is reporting, citing documents filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday. The suit also claims that No Doubt objected to the “Character Manipulation Feature,” but Activision refused to remove it.”

Full story here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10391715-17.html?tag=mncol;txt 

Technology is an amazing enabler of talent.  But when our games can have an impact on the real world reputation of a singer, it does get you thinking.  I wonder what Gwen really objects to?  That it’s not her material or that she’s singing as a man?  I suspect we’ll never know!  

From a legal perspective, it’s interesting to see how the law is being applied to these new buisness models and it’s an area which I expect to grow in importance as technology develops.  We’ll all be interacting in 3D with avatars in the next 10 years or so.  And Second Life will have nothing to do with it.

 

Warren Buffett

I watched the Warren Buffett programme on the BBC last night (in real time!).  It’s a really interesting programme, definitely worth a watch.  Catch it on iPlayer here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nn7vs/The_Worlds_Greatest_Money_Maker_Evan_Davis_meets_Warren_Buffett/

Some thoughts following watching the programme:

- from a management perspective, he is the master of positivity and praise (lots of managers saying things like “after he said that about me, I knew I wouldn’t let him down”)

- he doesn’t eat vegetables (bad Warren – eat your vegetables kids!)

- investing is *different* to speculating and there seems to be some benefit to not being caught up in all the hype both intellectually and physically

- leverage seems to be the root of all evil (perhaps we should have listened to Warren a while ago?)

- he gets cheaper cars because they are hail-damaged

Is he the most prudent man in the world?  Probably.

Niche products

The world is full of niche products but today I stumbled across one I thought I’d never see – an ISP especially for lawyers:

http://www.lawyersonline.co.uk/

See, we’re *that* special!

More than talk … the future of mobile

I spoke at the Westminster eForum event today on regulating the future mobile environment.  It was a great event attended by a really good mix of people, with a lively audience.

My personal view is that self regulation is better, more nimble and more accurate than anything a legislature could impose.  However, we have some interesting challenges ahead, because there are now – as I put it today – more cats to herd!

A mini summary of my talk, Twitter style:

- it’s all very complicated, lots more players

- keeping operators and apps developers happy/platform neutrality (no more banning Skype!)

- who’s behind the app/where do consumers get redress?

- payment streams getting complex/phones as quasi-credit cards

- some things never change/protection from inappropriate services and content (see in particular the good work being done by operators on the UK Code of Practice for the self regulation of new forms of content on mobiles

But my overriding theme was this: don’t let the lawyers over egg the pudding, let the market decide.

What did the others on my panel say?

- Sohail Bhatfrom MEF: figure out what your regulating first – the mobile phone environment has lots of different aspects of regulation (and Sohail had a great slide, which I’ll try and get a copy of to post here)

- Colin Browne from the Communications Consumer Panel played a video showing customers are not generally happy with mobile coverage in UK (at odds with David Stewart – Ofcom not Eurythmics – and his 94% consumer happy stat)

- Paul Whiting from Phonepayplus gave us all a reminder that premium can be clean (and wasn’t surprised that no one in the room stuck their hand up when asked ever used and adult premium rate service!)

- Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group made some very good points about how operators are still too restrictive and that we, as consumers and users, should be able to decide how we use our phone and any data carried over it – that we need an open market

- Simon Grossman of Orange had a tough slot at the end and fought valiantly against regulation: consumers have more choice, price points are lower, consumers are 94% satisfied, operators are not making super profits … so please don’t regulate!

Is this what it’s really come to? That pesky little 50p

So, The Reg today tells us that the Tories would scrap the 50p:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/19/hunt_broadband_tax/

All well and good … but the £ has to come from somewhere, doesn’t it?

How else are those parts of Digital Britain that actually matter going to have a backbone: like getting computers on kids’ desks.

Don’t kick the cloud in the side!

Poor Sidekick users … losing all their BFF data.  At least the Big M has apologised:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/15/sidekick/

But don’t let this glitch cloud your view of clouds … cloud services are here to stay and they have a real value in our working (and social!) lives.  Cloud services give you that ‘anywhere on’ service, flexible resource and great value for money.  Also, you won’t have to suffer that big bang update cycle because of continuous improvement for all.

So, go out and cloudify!

I leave the country for 48 hours and …

I was very kindly invited to attend the Oktoberfest in Munich this week – a wonderful experience which I recommend.  There’s nothing like seeing a whole load of usually formal buttoned up lawyers dancing on tables with steins of beer.  Quite extraordinary … and as for the Lederhosen.

But while I’ve been in Munich (with some business meetings too, I hasten to add) it’s been quite an eventful news cycle in the Internet/tech space.

We’re serving things via Twitter

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8285954.stm

Google has started to Wave

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hNuNwAmH70qO6UeSzyhkxQ9Dm9eg

and the Kharmic Koala “opens its eyes” – well done Canonical!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/01/ubuntu_karmic_koala_beta/

And I even got a quote in The Times

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6855086.ece

2,000,000,000

Yes, 2,000,000,000 iPhone app downloads – amazing eh!

Even more remarkable though, is this extrapolation by The Register:

“In fact, a search on “fart” in the Store turns up 406 downloadable impersonations of the fine art of clearing one’s nether throat.  If one were to assume that fart apps are downloaded at the same rate as other apps – an insupportable assumption, of course, but allow us the fantasy of such an extrapolation – those 406 apps would account for over 9.5 million instances of iPhone and iPod touch poots, toots, and related digital windbreaking.”

Like I said – remarkable!

Seeing the deal in action

It’s always nice when you work on something that is in the public eye – so lovely to see our client SBOBet’s Bill Mummery with some very fine West Ham United footballers following working on the sponsorship deal.  Weird, how they didn’t choose the photo with the lawyers in?

http://www.whufc.com/page/News/0,,12562~1787372,00.html