…Early Rumblings Of Hollywood Boycott
We petition the Obama Administration to: Investigate Chris Dodd and the MPAA for bribery after he publicly admited to bribing politicans to pass legislation.
From Ann Althouse, with the note:
Christopher Dodd has learned something in the last few weeks about how the internet works in a democracy. I suspect he’s about to learn a whole lot more.
From Slashdot.
From RogueClassicism.
Privacy experts praise Google+ rollout so far via Slashdot.
Does this mean Google is “better” than Facebook. Perhaps marginally. However, the fundamentals are the same: These “free” internet services are offered by for-profit companies. Their purpose is to make money for their stockholders, and they are going to do it one way or another. As I posted in in January:
“if you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold”.
From Popularity for Purchase:
- signs and symbols did indicate something real – a message from a friend or family member whom you see and care about
- signs and symbols indicate a false reality – the early stages of Facebook, when people would beef up their friend count with casual acquaintances and friends of friends, and use Like and Follow to build up a “social network“
- Signs that are not backed up by any reality. One hires ad hoc workers to write posts for one’s Facebook page, blog, Twitter feed. One appears to be a prolific writer, well versed on news and culture. One’s friends (the real ones!) are impressed, and notice one’s growing social circle. Then one hires other ad hoc Workers to Like, Follow, and Comment on the material written by the first lot. Your Google Analytics look great; you rank high in the search engines because you hired writers who are good at SEO. Many people leave comments on your site
- One day you wake up to find that (a) no one is interacting on your site except your paid workers and (b) the content you paid for was scraped to other sites and is being used by your new paid workers to write new-old material.
The Internet once again confirms Sturgeon’s Revelation.
Facebook has announced that developers of Facebook apps can now gather the personal contact information from their users.
Via Slashdot. As an old friend wrote about Facebook and other internet powers:
We don’t use the internet anymore: it is using us.
If you’re not paying for it, you’re not the customer: you’re the product being sold.
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 