Disqus - Latest Comments for Mike Masnick

Re: Garmin Blinks…In a Good Way

Mike Masnick — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:14:29 -0000

Heh. If you're going to link to the earlier story, you might as well link to the followup as well:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071116/10550...

Well played, Garmin...

Re: Microsoft’s Virtual Earth

Mike Masnick — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 23:08:31 -0000

One very minor nitpick... :) Google Maps introduced that hybrid view just last week, allowing people to see combined satellite and street names and such.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/07/test-drive-this-hybrid-vehicle.html

Re: Google Base as a platform

Mike Masnick — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 06:15:20 -0000

Oh sure, go after the big name analysts and ignore the little guys. ;) We said Google Base was a platform for app development a month ago (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051025/16412...) and everyone ignored us. Anyway, the surprise to us is that Google didn't announce APIs with it. That's what would make this useful. It's sort of silly without them.

Re: Roundup — Facebook’s notes, Box.net, and other news

Mike Masnick — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:25:48 -0000

dotmobi's response is more of the same from them. They take Carlo's words and twist them around to create a strawman, but don't do much to answer the essential point: why does anyone actually *need* a .mobi address?

The folks there always claim that the reason is content doesn't look good on a mobile phone.

That doesn't explain what good .mobi is. You can make content look good on a mobile phone, and you can pretty easily set the content to display better by device based on the user-agent. This way no one has to wonder if a site has a mobile address or not.

There's simply no reason to pay extra (on an ongoing basis) for this.

Also, over time, the ability for mobile devices to take existing web content and display it nicely in a mobile environment has only improved (greatly!). Do the folks at dotmobi really believe it won't improve even more?

As for their point about the W3C's support, that's name dropping, but doesn't answer the essential question of whether having a separate internet for mobile content is a dangerous trend (a point on which Tim Berners-Lee agrees with us, if you want name dropping).

As for the heart of the claim concerning the "money grab" aspect of the premium names, you can judge for yourself. The company claims that it's holding back these names so as to avoid an "inequitable" solution. According to them, inequitable is "first come, first serve." Equitable is "highest bidder."

Perhaps they mean well, but it's hard to see that as anything but a money grab.

Our real issue with dotmobi has mainly been their continued efforts to make it sound like you *need* to buy a domain from them to do mobile content, or that their domain will somehow rescue or save mobile content. Nothing can be further from the truth. The company has not demonstrated what value they provide.

Anyway, for Carlo's own response to Neil's post, plus (oooh bonus!) added problems with dotmobi's new "emulator" effort, check out his writeup over at MobHappy:

http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2006/08/24/whats-mobi-playing-at-now/

Re: Women’s fashion network Glam raises $18.5 million at whopping valuation

Mike Masnick — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 14:57:55 -0000

I was under the impression that Glam was positioning itself not as a media property, but as an e-commerce property... the media component is just to get more people to buy. Not that the valuation doesn't seem extremely high, but it might be that those involved view it in a different way than a media play.

Re: Blog Money Influence

Mike Masnick — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 02:12:57 -0000

Hey Whit,

While we cringe a bit at being included or compared in any way to something like PayPerPost, glad to see you like what we're working on, and can't wait to see you sign up as the community's official asspatent expert...

Mike

Re: On Imaginary Dialogues Between Corporate Executives

Mike Masnick — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 02:05:28 -0000

Well, lucky for you, part of the value of the Insight Community will be the *community* aspect of it... so the more the merrier. Maybe we'll even let each of you play opposing characters in future imaginary dialogs. Who knows, maybe version 2.0 will let you guys do ajax-based puppet shows as well... ;)

Re: Yet another really dumb move by Warner Brothers

Mike Masnick — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:24:01 -0000

Hey Steve,

You should probably specify that this is Warner Music that did the takedown, not Warner Bros. Warner Bros is the movie studio, which no longer has any connection to Warner Music...

Re: Change or no change?

Mike Masnick — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 11:56:58 -0000

Funny that you say that in response to a post on Techdirt that totally rips apart the telcos arguments as being totally bogus. It's pointing out all the lies and dishonest statements in the Chicago Tribune editorial I see you wrote about elsewhere as if it was a *good* argument.

I'm against net neutrality legislation, as you are, but I actually find the telcos are being a LOT more dishonest in this debate.

You keep saying the internet is under stress but there's little evidence that is true. As George points out, VoIP is a very low bandwidth intensive app. There are questions as to whether it could use some QoS, but to say that it's a problem is silly. As far as I can tell, your argument is that BitTorrent is a problem. BitTorrent is only a problem if the telcos artficially limit bandwidth capacity. It's a problem they're creating on their own.

Meanwhile your claims that Google et al want "free reign" are so laughable I wonder why it's even worth responding. Would you like to pay Google's bandwidth bill? You think Google would be buying up so much dark fiber when they get such a "free ride" from the telcos?

Finally, while I agree that the idea that telcos would censor a website are silly, it's not quite as easy to dismiss as you've stated. The CEOs of AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth have all very publicly stated that they would consider blocking certain websites if they aren't willing to pay extra. So, you say it's far from reality, but the telcos have all suggested it's in their plans.

I agree that it's not likely to happen, mainly because the backlash would be extreme, but it's not quite as ridiculous as you state. The bigger concern is degrading or blocking other services, such as VoIP or video in favor of their own. *That* seems very likely.

Re: 2007/11/15/brijit-index/

Mike Masnick — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:10:48 -0000

Hi there,

While it's always great to see Techdirt mentioned somewhere, I'm at a loss as to how Brijit is like Techdirt in any way.

Brijit looks cool, but it looks completely different to what we're doing with Techdirt. We don't pay people to write abstracts for public consumption -- we pay experts to provide detailed and in-depth analysis for private consumption by companies.

Am I missing something?

Mike

Re: 2008/07/08/congress-censor-twitter-qik/

Mike Masnick — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:41:31 -0000

Mark,

I respect you and your reporting, but I'm afraid on this one you're just wrong. First off, I'm not being blinded by my bias. I am not a Democrat nor a liberal, so I don't see what makes you assume that my politics has any impact here.

The letter in question was clearly designed to loosen EXISTING rules. In other words, it's to make the situation better, not worse. It has nothing to do with Culberson's use of Twitter, but was supposed to FIX the issue with Congressional Reps not being allowed to use YouTube.

You have badly misread the letter, and bought into Culberson's false interpretation of it.

Mike

Re: 2008/07/08/congress-censor-twitter-qik/

Mike Masnick — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:31:10 -0000

Mark,

I respectfully disagree. These rules that Culberson and you are complaining about are ALREADY in existence. It forbids Congressmen from using ANY commercial website to send out a message. The letter here is an attempt to loosen those rules. It doesn't go far enough, but it is not, as you claim, an attempt to make the restrictions worse.

Culberson is already breaking the rules by posting on Twitter.

The problem is the existing rules, which this is an attempt to loosen -- not these new rules.

The letter DOES NOT as you say, increase enforcement.

Mike

Re: Thread

Mike Masnick — Mon, 15 Mar 2004 14:37:00 -0000

This is a very poorly thought out and written piece that ignores most of the important points and paints a picture that is simply not true.

I am a small business owner, and I think the patent system definitely needs to be reformed in the direction that is suggested by the FTC.

Unfortunately, the reporter in this case seems to equate "patents" with "innovation" - which is not the case. With the ease of patenting all sorts of ideas these days, small companies are hoarding patents, which they hang onto (note they don`t actually bring any products to market) until someone else comes up with the same idea (suggesting that, perhaps, it wasn`t "non-obvious") and then threatening them with patent infringement.

That`s not innovation, that`s extortion. By making the process of actually getting a patent much more stringent, and making sure that the patents are for truly innovative ideas that are actually being brought to market, we can promote innovation.

Our current patent system fails at that, and the only people that makes happy are those who abuse the patents and patent attorneys.

Wouldn`t this article have been a lot better if you looked critically at the components of the reform you suggested, rather than just tossing them all overboard? All three things mentioned are designed to improve the value of patents - by making sure they`re actually for innovative concepts.

How could that possibly be bad for businesses - big or small?

Re: Marketing 2.0 Can’t Fix Bad Products

Mike Masnick — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 06:28:37 -0000

Huh? I don't get it. If they're selling what people don't want to buy, people won't buy it. But... people *are* buying what GM is selling. Yes, GM is having some problems, but to say that there's a general consumer distate for GM's products is disproven easily just by looking at the number of cars GM sells.

You and I may not be fans of their products, but to suggest that consumers don't want GM vehicles because a few folks put together negative ads is a huge jump.

Re: How Sports Illustrated Nailed A-Rod, and Why It May Not Happen Again

Mike Masnick — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:37:33 -0000

Wait, what? At what point has *anyone* suggested that there won't be any paid journalists out there?

You seem to have set up a nice strawman here.

Re: How Sports Illustrated Nailed A-Rod, and Why It May Not Happen Again

Mike Masnick — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:42:09 -0000

No offense, but many of those "currently in the field" seem to be a bit clueless about basic economics concerning the production of what they do.

While newspapers are struggling right now, there are alternative business models that can and will support investigative reporting.

Also, it's worth noting that "investigative reporting" is a modern phenomenon. It really only came about in its current form in the 70s. So it's not exactly part of the "grand tradition" of journalism.

Re: Why I Love the Internet: Part 4,562,992

Mike Masnick — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:05:00 -0000

Unless, of course, you happen to live in Utah, where a state senator is proposing that such videos would be illegal:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080213/22524...