There are a lot of websites with Web 2.0 design tips, hints and tricks. Today, I found this stripe generator which easily builds stripes that you can use for your Web 2.0 background. Yeah!
Ok, how long is this web 2.0 design trend going to last and can’t we just separate the web 2.0 design from the other aspects of web 2.0 like user contributed content, tags and ajax?
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is after college students again and has started sending out query letters to numerous colleges and students. Techdirt has pointed out that his time around a couple of university’s either are refusing to cooperate or charging the RIAA for their employee’s time.
There has been a lot of information swirling around this latest charge by the RIAA that a lot of the queries they have made are base on vidence that would not hold up in court and that they are trying to do everything possible to settle these cases outside of court.
Brian Storm of mediaStorm, MSNBC fame is now conducting an online seminar for Apple explaining how to create a rich media podcast with Final Cut Pro.
I don’t think newspaper’s are dying, but many of the web’s top prognosticators are speculating that we are seeing the beginning of the end….
I do agree with them that if the newspaper industry as a whole doesn’t wake-up and change it’s operating model that it will be required to shrink it’s operations drastically due to declining revenue. But, I also see a lot newspapers (large, medium and small) embracing change and moving in a positive direction.
Start-up review does some great case studies on Internet start-ups and why they worked and made big money for their founders. This week they posted their case study on YouTube. Here are some of the interesting facts they pointed out about YouTube at the time of Google’s acquisition.
Television and radio stations receive their broadcast licenses to operate under the PICON (public interest convenience or necessity) standard because of the scarcity principle (limited number of broadcast channels available). Before the mid-80s the PICON standards were strictly enforced and if a TV station wasn’t operating within those standards, it’s broadcast license would be pulled. The Reagan administration deregulated broadcasting and since that point, TV has been pretty much a free for all except when it comes to children’s programming and obscenities.
According to the Arkansas TV News blog Clear Channel’s two Little Rock stations were hit with $26,000 in fines for not following the children’s programming regulations. It looks to me like they didn’t purposefully break the rules, but just someone didn’t know the rules or some clerical error occurred when scheduling commercials. But, Clear Channel still has to pay up. The corporate accountants might want to consider these fines next time they low ball they salary budget to save a few dollars. I’m sure an extra $10,000 in salary would have gotten Clear Channel a more competent staff member to make sure these problems and fines didn’t occur. The net result would have saved them $16,000.
The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) reported last week that newspaper online revenue jumped 35 percent in the fourth quarter of last year and that ad spending on newspaper web sites jumped 31.5 percent last year accounting for 5.4 percent of all newspaper ad spending in 2006. NAA President, John F. Sturm, attributed the growth to newspaper’s “online properties growing their audience and building brand loyalty on the web.”
New York Magazine has a great story about how teens and young adults live their life online with no concerns for privacy or who sees what they post. Here’s a short excerpt that I think sets the tone for the article…
One night at Two Boots pizza, I meet some tourists visiting from Kansas City: Kent Gasaway, his daughter Hannah, and two of her friends. The girls are 15. They have identical shiny hair and Ugg boots, and they answer my questions in a tangle of upspeak. Everyone has a Facebook, they tell me. Everyone used to have a Xanga (“So seventh grade!”). They got computers in third grade. Yes, they post party pictures. Yes, they use “away messages.” When I ask them why they’d like to appear on a reality show, they explain, “It’s the fame and the—well, not the fame, just the whole, ‘Oh, my God, weren’t you on TV?’ ”After a few minutes of this, I turn to Gasaway and ask if he has a Web page. He seems baffled by the question. “I don’t know why I would,” he says, speaking slowly. “I like my privacy.” He’s never seen Hannah’s Facebook profile. “I haven’t gone on it. I don’t know how to get into it!” I ask him if he takes pictures when he attends parties, and he looks at me like I have three heads. “There are a lot of weirdos out there,” he emphasizes. “There are a lot of strangers out there.”
As you read it, force yourself past the first racy anecdote. It gets better as you go.
“I guess when Viacom and CBS split up, CBS got the IQ.”
- Jeff Jarvis commenting on Viacom’s vs. CBS’s response to Youtube. Basically, CBS is asking YouTube to take down all unauthorized video and replacing it with an official copy of whatever video that was taken down to help build buzz around a central video clips rather than several unauthorized clips. On the otherhand Viacom is suing YouTube for having a business model that actually benefits from following the notice and take down provisions of the DMCA.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration revealed the details of it’s digital TV converter box subsidy that will allow every US household two apply for two $40 coupons to defray the cost of the converter box. The boxes are expected to cost between $50 and $70 a piece. The goal of the vouchers is a seamless shift to digital television by February 19, 2009.
The reason the feds are giving this subsidy is because the conversion to digital TV is a government mandate, not a market driven decision.