Disqus - Latest Comments for Dave Taylor

Re: Lets All Do The Crowdsource

Dave Taylor — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:36:06 -0000

Isn't what you're talking about in the Tom Tom case more akin to "crowd data collection services", though, Micah? When I think of crowdsourcing, I think of tapping into the knowledge, experience and analysis of individuals en masse. In other words, making the brains of the crowd part of the data set, rather than just their experience. Or am I off on this one, which is entirely possible. I mean, that jumped shark had to end up somewhere...

Re: Wordpress Trademark Scammers?

Dave Taylor — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:17:26 -0000

I fear that we're getting sidetracked defending Sherman and dissecting what Matt's written, rather than focusing on the central topic, which is: does Automattic / Wordpress have a legal obligation to defend its trademark? The answer is YES.

So that's a first important realization, just as Microsoft is going to defend Excel and, from personal experience, Porsche is going to defend its own brand name (I own Porschecountry.info, but only after negotiating with their attorneys and explaining why I wanted it), they are required to defend the Wordpress trademark, so that it continues to be a viable trademark at all.

The question, then, is whether Matt and his group are prosecuting potentially offending domain and company names *fairly* or not, and from what I can tell, he is not.

By a nice coincidence of timing, Matt and I had dinner together in Seattle just a few nights ago, and I asked him about this issue. He told me what you've read on this page, that he just doesn't like these two companies and feels that they're spammy or otherwise not true to the spirit of his entire effort.

Is that fair? Well, Sherman's not a spammer or hustler, in my experience. Is it legal for one or two violators to be singled out in the first phase of prosecuting trademark violators? It sure is, as far as I know. Is it a smart strategy? Probably not, but Matt really is a brilliant, gentle sort of guy so I can completely understand his desire to keep everything free, open and public, even if that's really not how a capitalist system works.

So for what it's worth, I think that the problem here isn't that Matt is pursuing these two companies, but that his company needs to be simultaneously pursuing every company that's in violation of their trademark. Or, if that's too big a job (in which case the trademark might already be ready to be discarded by the USPTO) then perhaps every firm that's *profiting* from Wordpress.

Re: Wordpress Trademark Scammers?

Dave Taylor — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:17:26 -0000

Re: Nobody works every minute they are at work, which means the Google Geeks are constantly talking with each other, team building, bonding and goofing off. And for 20% of that goofing-off time, I’ll g...

Dave Taylor — Tue, 29 May 2007 11:27:10 -0000

John, "Cringely" has an amusing article, but it flies in the face of the experience of anyone working on the cutting edge. If you're truly doing interesting research, than the majority of it IS going to fail and die. My experience? A couple of years at HP Labs, where management DIDN'T keep this basic dictum in mind and so we didn't actually do much on the cutting edge...

Re: The Business of Blogging = Findability

Dave Taylor — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 01:07:19 -0000

Thanks for the link, Douglas. Much appreciated.

Oh, and if you're wondering, my arm's all better now, thankfully, and the sling is back in the medicine cabinet!

Re: Vegas Baby!

Dave Taylor — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 02:27:34 -0000

Great to have you blogging about my workshop, Paul. Find me, let's do a podcast on building buzz! :-)

Re: Pepsi Pulls AMP’s Controversial “Before You Score” iPhone App

Dave Taylor — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:12:59 -0000

I thought it was amusing and not offensive. I shared it with a group of professional women at a dinner and we had some great laughs over the app. It's actually quite witty if you dig into it and look at how they hook into Twitter and other live data feeds. But apparently a sense of humor can't be a requirement for downloading an app. Sorry to see it go.

Re: BBS05 – Dave Taylor and “Findability”

Dave Taylor — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 02:23:55 -0000

Thanks for the nice writeup and your kind words. Yes, content is going to remain king, even in these days of automated blogging tools, scrapers and the simplicity of cut and paste. :-)