meta-roj

a brief, lucid comment from professor lessig:

Ok, so NBC produces a show about Private Lynch. She says the story is not true. But nonetheless, NBC runs the show. CBS produces a show about Ronald Reagan. The man who Would Save Reagan from TV and others say it is biased against Reagan. CBS cancels the show.

Apparently it is ok to bend the truth, but only in one way.

bend toward the flag, please. and try to relax. this will go a lot easier if you relax.

yet another company has decided to compromise [what should be] its core corporate value in a silly, offensive attempt to hook existing customers on new stuff. then compounds the error by spinning it as an “ease of use” issue, rather than confessing their sin and making it better.

as reported in the register, and seeding a lively online discussion, belkin is the latest to get my attention.

the offense from belkin is that a software “upgrade” applied to belkin routers periodically grabs an http session and redirects it to an ad page for belkin parental-control software. great idea. yes, of course i want to be hijacked by my own network.

no doubt someone in marketing came up with this. they didn’t think about the response from the customers when they figured it out (were they banking on stupidity?) they didn’t consider the impact on the trust relationship with their existing (and future) customers? they didn’t consider the impact of the realization that belkin not only has the technical ability (as does any other company providing network infrastructure components that are upgradable), but the willingness and intent to inject code into the customer network that results in unexpected behavior? could it be worse? did they consider these things (and others) and decide to implement this anyway?

sure, today’s upgrade might just be a nagging advertisement a few times a day, but tomorrow’s upgrade could be… oh, i dunno… a router that blocks access to competitors’ sites? i guess the sky’s the limit. that’s why it’s important to trust the vendors that provide infrastructure components, and trust is right where this one hits.

Eric Deming [that’s ericd@belkin.com] (quote via newswireless.net)

Without trying to sound too stand-offish, we are not talking about SPAM here. Parental Control is a subscription service, and Belkin wanted to make registering for the service very easy. Traditional methods of registration, such as asking the user to go to a website or navigate to the Router’s internal Web page to enter information didn’t meet the ease-of-use goal.

Eric Deming [that’s ericd@belkin.com] (quote via the register)

I know this feature might be misunderstood and might PO some people. I know the manual could do a better job explaining it. These are all things that we at Belkin are working to remedy.

i think we understand very well. we have a new definition to play with: “unsolicited commercial webpage.”

the basic premise here is that marketing people don’t make policy decisions any better than lawyers. funny, that.

surely, it can only be a matter of time before this overwhelmingly successful marketing tactic is employed by other companies. imagine your next ford playing ads for new ford accessories every few minutes on your radio. imagine your next dvd player interrupting movies periodically to remind you that the company that manufactured the dvd player has arrange an excellent deal for you to buy some particular brand of microwave popcorn. and, of course, your next cd player bringing you a friendly message from the riaa – “don’t rip this cd” in the middle of random tracks.

take the hint, companies. pissed off customers are not the kinds of customers you want.

congratulations belkin, you’ve joined the league of companies that have gone out of their way to prove they can’t be trusted. this great idea might just cost you everything.

additional info is available at slashdot, news wireless, boing boing, kuro5hin and surely many more to come.

update (2003.11.09 6ish iam): one last check at the belkin website reveals this:

belkin

Important message from Belkin:
Belkin is aware of some recent postings that claim that Belkin wireless routers are spamming users during the setup process and periodically thereafter. It is not now, nor has it ever been, the policy of Belkin to intentionally spam our customers or anyone else. Belkin offers a free trial of our parental control feature in our routers, and to make our customers aware of the feature itself and to give them the opportunity to take advantage of the free trial, we have tried to direct users to the information regarding the parental control features. However, since this has become a source of concern to our users, and it is Belkin policy to address the concerns of our users quickly, Belkin has decided to remove this function from the routers. Each router’s firmware that incorporates parental control as an option will be changed.

take it for what it’s worth, they’ve decided to pull the tactic.

update (2003.11.11 8:30am): the message has changed.

belkin

Important message from Belkin:
In response to a recent Usenet group posting stating that Belkin spams its customers through its routers, Belkin Corporation apologizes for the concern this has caused and is taking action to address the issue. To allay customers’ worries, Belkin will offer a firmware upgrade that will be available via download from its website (www.belkin.com) on November 17, 2003. This upgrade will rid the redirect completely so that no additional browser windows will appear during the router’s installation process. Questions can be directed to our dedicated networking customer support line at 877-736-5771 or e-mailed to kannynmc@belkin.com.

my defense of the cd has generated some interesting responses. oddly, many of them are focused on the ramen math that appears toward the end. (ok, maybe that’s not so odd, except that it suggests people read the whole thing).

since it was so popular, i thought i’d do some more ramen math, take this to the next level and give you the generalized formula for feeding artists.

to be completely fair, i think i need to establish a more rational ramen-unit price, and for that, i need to bump up my previous price point. a quick spin around the web turned up a few places offering cases of 12 3oz maruchan ramen noodles for $1.89. unit price: $.1575, we’ll go with 20 cents for easy math, which is a substantial markup from my own last purchase (8 package for a dollar). of course, this is a financial projection, so the more times i can say “that’s a conservative estimate” the better. 20 cents is a conservative estimate (!). we’ll go with 20 cents.

next, a band cannot live on ramen alone, and there’s a creative way to double-up on the ramen magic. it’s rice, rice, baby. here we’ll go with a 25-pound bag for $15. at that price, rice is 60 cents per pound, or 3.75 cents per ounce. just to be conservative (!), we’ll go with 4 cents per ounce.

now to do the rest of the math, i need some rice-cooking standards. the trick is to make ramen according to the directions, eat the noodles, then throw 2 ounces of rice (or so) into the leftover “stock,” and cook it again for a second serving. so here’s the magic formula: 1 ramen package + 2 oz dry rice = two flavorful meals!

$.20/package + $.04 * 2 ounces = 28 cents for two meals, or 14 cents per meal.

we’ll round that up to 15 cents to be conservative (!).

there are 365.24219 days in the year, and three meals per day, so that’s 1095.72657 meals per person per year, and we’ll round that up to 1100 to be conservative (!).

so the working musician needs 1100 meals at 15 cents each, or $165 per year, just to eat. and we can extrapolate to a band of arbitrary size:

anything beyond that is gravy, of course 🙂 so, get out there and make some music!

there are other advantages to this meal plan… a 25-pound bag of rice has many, many uses on the road, but that’s a subject for another day…

tim left us all a pointer to a little (ok, not so little) bit from jeff jarvis.

jeff starts with the news at penn state and wanders around to touch such interesting things as the emergence of the experience economy, to the points that create value in music.

in the music-business theme echoing this week, here, there and a few other places, it’s about the relationship.

so, welcome to the dance, jeff. it’s a mambo tonight.

peacekeeper

teacher

the register has an article that sheds some light on the brutal reality of the online music business. steve jobs is on the record, and the bottom line is this: even with with 80% market share, itunes makes no money. and they’re not making up for it in volume.

update: the recording is available here.

update (2003.11.20): ryan has a recent comment and a bit of a prediction on the subject. (and we’re on the same frequency when it comes to the death of the cd – “people will continue to buy CD’s”

with the announcement yesterday of a sony-bmg hookup, and the pending warner-emi deal, we may soon have just three major labels.

of course, there are other issues. with sony-bmg rushing to the altar, there might be a strategy to leave the warner-emi deal in regulatory trouble – last merger to the party.

how many big labels is enough? cartel? oligopoly? monopoly?

Senator Paul S. Sarbanes, Democrat, Maryland voted AGAINST the supplemental appropriation for iraq.

Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat, Maryland DID NOT VOTE on the supplemental appropriation for iraq.

this information is based on phone calls placed to their respective offices today (november 6, 2003)

i should’ve said something earlier, but… the united states senate passed the $87 billion supplemental spending request on a voice vote. this bill spends $300 out of every pocket in america.

what this means is that no senator is “on the record” voting for or against this measure. so, if you want to know how your senator voted, you need to call them up and ask. and they don’t have to tell you.

stupid. cowards.

if you ever needed an excuse to fire your senator, now you have it. tell your senators that they are always accountable. you don’t have to agree with every vote they make on your behalf, but they do have to be transparent. that’s how this country is supposed to work.