November 9. That’s the day on which Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers are to submit an amended version of their book settlement, one that addresses concerns that it might give them unfair advantage over other digital libraries or violate copyright laws abroad.
As of this week, pretty much anyone can tell you–“Skank” blogging just doesn’t pay. Unless your $15 million privacy lawsuit against Google ends up going your way, that is. Rosemary Port, the person who used Blogger to anonymously insult former model Liskula Cohen, was unmasked last week after months of speculation and promptly sued Google for turning over her information. Hilarity ensued, complete with dueling morning TV appearances.
The Open Book Alliance–or “Sour Grapes Alliance,” as Google likes to call it–formally launched Wednesday afternoon, debuting a new Web site, as well as the manifesto with which it is challenging Google’s settlement with authors and publishers.
The week ending Aug. 21 began Aug. 17 with another round of digital musical chairs–BoomTown reported that David Dickman, VP of West Coast sales for Yahoo, will be leaving the company at the end of the month for Warner Bros. to work in digital sales. Also, after a five-month tour of Europe and its finer Web establishments, Yahoo seems poised to name a new international head.
“In the end, in attempting to ‘do no evil,’ Google has done exactly that. I say this not just as someone running a content site but also as an end user. If this inequity of support continues along these lines, we will see a continuing destruction of our journalistic enterprises–enterprises that are one of the core building blocks of our democracy. Last year, while addressing the magazine publishers and editors of the MPA at the Google Campus, Eric Schmidt suggested that the Web was a ‘cesspool’ and that it was up to the major journalistic brands to clean it up. Well, Eric, in a great many ways, Google has helped to create that cesspool, and as such I would hope that it can be part of the solution.”
Google’s gone and run afoul of the Department of Justice again. Its interest piqued by the growing outcry over the company’s proposed book-search settlement with authors and publishers, the agency has opened an inquiry.
Poor adCenter Analytics. Never even made it out of beta. Microsoft today announced plans to scuttle the Web publishing metrics service, which was being developed as a rival to Google Analytics. Scheduled to shut down on Dec. 31, it will never go head to head with the search behemoth’s offering now.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
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