opinion
What would you like to read?
With the new year, this is your chance to shape the future of this space:
What do you think this blog’s focus should be?
- Technical issues?
- Web design?
- Building communities?
- What else..?
Your comments will be all be read and everybody will get a reply, so feel free to share!
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Patents: Oh, now this is disgusting
According to The Register, at IFA 2008, in Berlin, some good patent trolling took place. IFA stands for ‘Internationale Funkausstellung’ and is Europe’s largest consumer electronics fair. 69 companies were raided, which beats Cebit’s 51.
“Yes” you point out, “but it’s patent holders’ prerogative and, in fact, obligation, to enforce their patents.”
You are absolutely right but this is not what this is about. We are talking, here, about Italy-based Sisvel, which is one of those outfits that does not actually produce anything but maintains what they refer to as a patrimony. They mean, of course, that their business model consists of buying obscure patents and suing the hell out of everybody. More Sisvel fun here but feel free to Google them for yourself.
Now, what’s really aggravating is how these raids happen on suspicion of wrongdoing. If you are one of the raidees, your only option is to fight it in court, which isn’t really going to help with your current “boothless” situation. Cf. latter link.
Oh, and Sisvel have their own booth at IFA. And I thought that I had an evil neighbour.
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Open Letter to The Blogging Microcosm: give me content, not school fights!
Funny, how everybody is gazing at everybody else’s navel in our little world – disclaimer: I do not consider myself a Web2.0 “celebrity”, simply because I’m not – but even so it’s hard to always keep in mind that we are only talking about a very minor percentage of the world population, so busy are we all trumpeting that we are “building the future.”
Are we?
Loren Feldman’s quite innocent puppet show is now over. He wrote an open letter to Shel Israel, who was the butt of this particular joke, and that letter is quite bitter.
We are, in effect, moving from a situation where Shel Israel would have done himself some good by taking the joke graciously and instead damaged his image by over reacting, to one where Loren Feldman is the one reacting quite poorly – see his comments to his own post.
It would seem that Dave Winer is next. I will not go into details on this one, just read the comments at 1938media.com if you are that curious.
Some background: Shel Israel claims that he only met Feldman once, at SXSW, thus when Feldman writes “You and your crew”, he may be referring to Robert Scobble. True, it would appear that Feldman was fired from PodTech after posting his retarded “TechNigga” video. No link, I do not want Google to find a link from my blog to that. True, Scobble may have helped with the firing business. Honestly, I do not think that Scobble needed to intervene for people to realize of how little value the piece was. OK, there is always the possibility that there was a double layer of sarcasm: Feldman mocking people who rely on such stereotypes.
Well, that’s too bad: Feldman should move on. Israel should move on. There is money and sponsorship for everybody -well, everybody interesting- in the blogging world and I, for one, am reclaiming some much needed free time by unsubscribing from the blogs of people who keep obsessing over their jobs, Arrington, Scobble, and other topics that, while somewhat topical, live at the bottom of my list of things I give a hoot about. Yay!
My favourite blog post was made by Chris Edward and is titled “Loren Feldman: fighting for old media one blogger at a time.” It deliciously underscores the multi-facetted irony of Feldman’s post in such a compact post that it is a treasure of “content vs ego” ratio in my opinion. Suitably entertained, I decided to read more of Edward’s blog posts and found them interesting.
As a result, Chris Edward wins a new reader, others lose an old reader. If more people followed suit, I am sure that the numbers would have a welcome sobering effect on them.
I’m glad I’m not famous.
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Stop!!! There is no Lacygate.
OK. Isn’t anyone going to put a bit of perspective on he whole Sarah Lacy thing?
Look, guys. Drop it. Seriously.
There isn’t a “Lacygate”. Stop postfixing everything you do not like with “-gate”. Now, Allen Stern wants Lacy to apologize.
I, too, was in the room, Allen – mind if I call you Allen?. And I did not walk out of the whole thing red in the face, looking for justice.
I merely felt that there was some joke between Lacy and Zuckerberg and I was not in on the joke. That’s OK, I thought. I’ll get some value from the interview as they move on. Granted, that never happened. Now, I will never be able to tell whether that didn’t happen because this was one of those “zero calories” interviews or because of the heckling.
I do not remember the exact timeline but I am fairly certain that she did not “run to Twitter” to tell us to screw off. I actually believe that writing this presupposes a cognizance of Twitter that she did not, at the time, master.
There is not doubt she reacted badly, but I find it a bit odd, to claim to have lived through this thing as a wronged customer. It was clearly announced that this was *not* going to be a groundbreaking event and, well, it wasn’t. I went to SXSW to learn things and network with other professionals – and party, but don’t tell my boss. Mission accomplished. Everything else should be treated like small potatoes. Because it is. Or it should be.
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The Douches Are Out
Oh, great.
Merry X-Mas and all that. Unless you’re ThinkSecret. Or Fake Steve Jobs. See here.
And here.
Of course, there is still the possibility that it’s another hoax created by our favourite Steve Jobs.
Here are two groups of people who are not about to get any more of my money if this is all true:
Apple:
Sorry, guys, but coolness is part of your products’ appeal. If you behave like a-holes, I will simply dedicate more of my time writing drivers for Linux.
I know, this isn’t the first time Apple enters ************ mode. But, obviously, after their ThinkSecret victory, there is enough blood in the water to keep the frenzy alive for a while.
The EFF:
Oh, come on guys. Again, I have no idea whether FSJ’ posts are pure hoax or the real thing. But when in doubt, I always get on my soap box. So, here goes: It is not the first time that I see a report of the EFF getting a less-than-positive result. And claiming victory over a site’s shuttering, I’m sure that FSJ is devastated, now that you made clear to him that freedom of speech is your thing, but only on your terms.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah and Kwanzaa, or whatever else helps you live with yourselves.
Chris out.
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