I wasn’t too concerned about missing the Opening Ceremonies from the Vancouver Winter Olympics, as I figured I could catch it online afterward.  NBC was keen to showcase its cool new Silverlight plug-in by streaming a considerable amount of the Beijing games in 2008.

But when I tried to watch Part 1 of the Opening Ceremonies, up came this message, along with a sign-in screen:

“You have selected a premium video (e.g. live stream or full-event replay).” Read more…

NBC Uses Facebook Connect As An Exclusive Login

I won’t be commenting on any NBC Olympics blog posts, or giving them a thumbs-up. That’s because the only option for commenting voting is Facebook Connect.

Unlike the federal government, which has also privileged Facebook Connect upon occasion, NBC is a corporation. It has no “taxpayer public interest” that should mandate the option of an open — non-proprietary, non-commercial — platform such as OpenID. But it should have advocates on its web dev staff who can convince their bosses that consumer choice in matters like this is in the corporation’s best interest. Read more…

Zynga Homepage

According to my Facebook News Feed, we are facing an agricultural crisis: I have more than 20 friends whose FarmVille crops need fertilizer. However, since FarmVille’s debut last June, the popular Facebook application has done more than flood my feed with farm-related requests. It has enabled its creator, Zynga, to reportedly rake in more than $200 million in 2009. But how can such revenues be possible if social gaming is supposed to be free? The answer lies in the sale of virtual goods and the games’ use of compulsion loops.

In social games, users are encouraged to enhance their farms or strengthen their mafias through the purchase of virtual goods. These can include fanciful structures (Ferris wheels), seasonal items (mistletoe-shooters) or tools (tractors) that enrich gameplay. Such goods allow users to customize their profiles, advance more quickly in the game or “keep up” with other players. In short, virtual goods are a graphic extension of common user behaviors such as self-expression or competitiveness.

Read more…

There has been a lot of discussion about the somewhat blatant omission of Flash from Apple’s newly introduced tablet, the iPad. Many of the technorati see the exclusion of Flash as Apple flexing its muscle as a kingmaker. They argue that Apple is using its influence to deprecate a technology it dislikes. While there has been some interesting talk around what this means for standards, web technologies and the future of Flash in particular, people may be missing the point. Apple’s decision to not include Flash on the iPhone OS platform (also used on the iPad) is likely a business decision and not an engineering one.

Those who support the decision argue that the inclusion of Flash would make the limitations of the hardware more obvious; as a CPU hog, Flash would slow down the browsing experience of the iPhone and the iPad and drain battery life. But businesses (Apple included) make engineering trade-offs all the time. Flash’s issues in Safari hardly seem like deal breakers and would be worthwhile trade-off for the value that it brings to a media consumption platform.

I don’t think Apple decided to pick a public fight with Adobe—arguably its most valuable third-party developer—because supporting Flash was too technically challenging. Rather, it likely has to do with Apple’s relationship with the content industry. Flash is verboten on the iPhone OS for the same reason that saving MP3s is verboten. So Apple can placate content owners and maintain the viability of its iTunes business.

If Flash were enabled on the iPhone OS, how long would it take for someone to put a streaming, Flash-based player in front of a new music service? Apple is the leading retailer of music in the United States. Why should it enable competition in a business where it has no peers and on a platform it has no reason to cede?  It simply doesn’t make sense for Apple to undercut its iTunes business and jeopardize its special status among content owners. It’s even possible that Apple’s agreements with rights holders expressly forbid it.

If user experience were the sole consideration, I’m sure Apple would gladly provide a Flash-enabled browser. While Apple may have some valid engineering concerns, they strike me as a convenient cover. Disabling Flash helps Apple control content on the platform by forcing it through iTunes or other approved software. This has to be clear to a firm who’s CEO sits on the board at Disney.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google will tomorrow announce more “social” features to Gmail, such as status updates and sharing content. Considering that Gmail is a primary, free email service, this is a really great innovation for consumers. It also threatens dominant, dedicated social networks like Facebook and Twitter unless they too can be integrated into the Gmail social streams. Hopefully they will be.

What about mobile? Currently, Gmail can be accessed by every major mobile platform through IMAP setting, but I think that a social Gmail would require an entirely new application to utilize more rich functionality. This provides Google an opportunity to differentiate Android with a best-in-class social Gmail experience and extend its presence on other phones like Blackberry and iPhone with must-have social Gmail applications — like it has with Google Maps.

At risk will be those computer and mobile applications like TweetDeck and Tweetie that already aggregate social feeds like a social Gmail would, but don’t provide that core email service to complement. Also at risk are mobile check-in applications like Foursquare, which would have a hard time competing with a social Gmail mobile application that has the same GPS functionality and services (maybe without the gaming/novelty component).

Speaking of services, this is where a social Gmail mobile application could really excel. With its recent acquisition of AdMob, Google is ramping up the mobile advertisement services. By drawing from a pool of data drawn from a connected social network, email and search, the ad services could be incredibly targeted and sink the competition.

Social Gmail may be an evolutionary step for the email platform, but it could be revolutionary for Google’s mobile strategy.

Let me preface this post by reminding folks that IANAL (I am not a lawyer).

Example of White House Flickr Photo

The U.S. government policy on photographs and copyright is pretty straightfoward: photos produced by federal employees as part of their job responsibilities are “not subject to copyright in the United States and there are no U.S. copyright restrictions on reproduction, derivative works, distribution, performance, or display of the work.”

Why, then, is the Obama White House asserting that no one but “news organizations” can use its Flickr photos? Why is it asserting that manipulation is prohibited? Why is it asserting that photos may not be used in “commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House”?

Read more…

I came across Robert Darnton’s beautifully articulated essay collection, The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future (2009), while looking for a book to review for class. Darnton’s book intrigued me from the first glance. Aside from the effective title, its warmly designed, aptly metaphorical cover drew me in, inviting me to flip through its pages. This is an experience that is unlikely to be matched by a digitized copy downloaded via the Internet, to be read on an electronic device.

Read more…

After turning off all site comments on Tuesday, AOL-owned Engadget today flipped the comment switch back on, ending a two-day hiatus resulting from its editors seeing too many comments that were “mean, ugly, pointless, and frankly threatening in some situations.”

Engadget columnist Michael Gartenberg expressed his discontent with the comments that followed his recent iPad editorial in a Tweet: “Amused. Bash me on @Engadget column. Suggest my parents were not married prior to birth, suggest I be fruitful & multiply. enclose your CV.”

With traditional news outlets declining and enthusiast blogs like Engadget on the rise, the implications of closing comments reflect how the stampede of online discourse can sometimes be too much for even mature, full-time blogs to endure. According to Alexa, Engadget today ranks 195 in the nation and 384 in the world for Internet traffic. It recently launched mobile applications for iPhone and Blackberry. It produces its own weekly podcasts and monthly TV shows (Edited per Zack’s comment). This is a full-time media company in all respects and an influential one at that – The AFP wrote a story on Engadget’s comment disabling.

Engadget editor Joshua Topolsky explains why things got out of hand in a Tweet: “I don’t think it’s about the class of the readership, it’s about scale.”

Scale is certainly an issue, but it shouldn’t excuse community behavior. Especially for a technology site like Engadget, you’d think that its die-hard community would be populated by primarily educated (either by trade or academically) and at least civil readers. Surely most are, but what caused Engadget to call “time-out” demonstrates how online media-enabled free speech can unveil the worst in us. Read more…