meta-roj

i’ve been waiting for a good link into lisa rein (because there are just so many common threads here), and today i found one. in keeping with the tools and results post of some weeks ago, again, it’s all in the approach.

the riaa made a mistake. usually, in civil interaction, when you make a mistake, it’s a good idea to apologize. a little. especially if everyone is watching you and it’s a really big mistake.

obviously, a little story in a little newspaper like the new york times isn’t the whole story here, but… y’know. it’s just an opinion of mine. humility is a good thing. self-deprecation is a good thing too. and apologizing when you bag the wrong ferocious criminal is always a good thing. joi puts it well:

Being sued isn’t like, “oh sorry… wrong number..”

maybe it’s a cultural thing?

just, please, when you apologize, try to be a little more sincere than “my bad.”

since the riaa [apparently] isn’t going to do it, i will.

mrs. ward, i am very sorry that the recording industry association of america incorrectly identified you as a career criminal and music thief. i’m sorry you had to deal with lawyers and paperwork. i’m sorry you had to deal with media and rap music (but only because you don’t seem to like it 🙂 ). and i do hope that the recording industry association of america will make every effort to learn from this mistake and implement changes to prevent this from happening again.

as if i didn’t have enough problems with politicians right now… today, i wander into this article in salon. since it’s in salon, you’ll have to ante up to read the whole thing, but this line should be enough to get your attention (even if you don’t feel like reading):

Not only is the country’s leading touch-screen voting system so badly designed that votes can be easily changed, but its manufacturer is run by a die-hard GOP donor who vowed to deliver his state for Bush next year.

the flaws made news earlier this year, particularly with a $50+ million-dollar contract pending and some flaws found by researchers at johns hopkins. wired has an update, and we expect the maryland report to be available by next week.

any questions? think your vote should count?

visit Black Box Voting

and perhaps express some concerns to these fine people:

Diebold, Incorporated
5995 Mayfair Road
P.O. Box 3077
North Canton, Ohio USA 44720-8077

1.330.490.4000

i’ve watched with some interest dave sifry‘s adventures with sputnik, because i think there’s a lot for me to learn. today’s lesson comes a few days late (it’s been a strange weekend), but this piece on business models made interesting reading. it’s part of an ongoing dialogue between don park (of smgt-phone fame) and tim oren (of declining social capital in vc fame).

i guess don started this one here. tim’s public analysis offers some real insight into (and evidence of) the experience on the vc side of the world. ultimately, dave had a few things to say (and kudos for seeing sputnik in the abstract).

now, i am given to understand that “tool” is a very bad word in technology and investor circles these days, but, i just have to bring this full circle. this is the issue of determinism, which is one of the thoughts that actually prompted me to start this crazy blog thing. i’m still far from conclusions, but this discussion among the blogs (and now, i guess, i’ve dragged my own into the mix) gives a lot of different, and very interesting, perspectives on the question.

dave’s comments on the new sputnik business model include this statement: “let our customers figure out the business model that was right for them.” twice. in bold.

i couldn’t agree more – it’s a fundamental premise in my current work in the business of music, and it was a fundamental premise in my last major adventure in big business, too. maybe that makes me a tool.

today, i heard someone compare the decss legal mess on trade secrets to the formula for coke, which, of course, is a classic trade secret.

i’m paraphrasing here, but the statement was made that in the interest of business, and of consumers, who obviously want coke to be available, the formula must be protected. and even if someone were to “get the formula” that coke should have the ability to “get it back” to protect their secret, their business model and their consumers.

my question is (and this is a classic observation of knowledge and human nature), how, precisely, do you propose to “get back” a secret? disinformation? fud? neuralyzer? even hollywood was forced to bring in the “deneuralyzer” to make a sequel. it can’t be done. (and a quick tour of the web reveals that many, many people think they have the formula for coke).

now, there’s a lot to be said for coke keeping their formula secret, but that hasn’t (and shouldn’t) stop people from trying to “out-coke coke” – be it pepsi, new coke, or opencola. this is, after all, one of the ways that progress is made. (new coke, of course, is evidence that even with access to the trade secrets, you can screw up in dramatic form.)

thanks to a tip, we now have evidence of a major escalation in the “Smartass Arsenal” in the war for the control of Friendster. a weapon so powerful, so perverse, so inhumane and wanton in its destructive powers, that surely, no reasonable person would actually use it. and lo, it is called pretendster.

(just can’t beat that -ster thing)

now auto-generating fake ids and, more interesting, fake testimonials is click-through-easy. so, drop on by and play with the new tool.

i discussed determinism and the dawn of this friendster battle a while ago, and i promised you an update (and it came in exactly 7 days. how cool is that?).

this week just seems to be a week to pick pieces of the blog up and smash them into headines. first, i found a vc headline that resonated with social capital… and now, the subject of todays redux is friendster

the headline is “Attack of the Smartasses” – a wonderfully catchy headline appearing in the sf weekly. and the meta-roj-blog-post of the moment is “on determinism” from a bit over a week ago.

nevermind, for a moment, that it’s a “dot-ster” and we’ve got plenty of those.

this is actually interesting. it seems that management at friendster has come to the awful awakening that the users aren’t using the tools in precisely the manner that they (management) envisioned. even more interesting, because it’s a highly-networked tool, attempts to “enforce” the original intent are being met with [distributed] resistance.

so who will triumph in the ultimate battle of wills? will management beat the smartasses into submission? will the smartasses infiltrate friendster to the point that there’s nothing “real” left? will all the “real” people be chased away? will the system be redesigned to make life hard on smartasses? will anyone care when the dust settles?

tune in next week, or month, or remind me i should follow this up some day, for more exciting episodes of They did WHAT with my baby?

(and, by the way, i’m roj isan at friendster, so stop in and say hi, but only if you’re friendly.

some days ago, i made a very brief post that included what i think is a very insightful and multi-faceted quote (the kind i like best). unfortunately, i haven’t found the source of the quote (google is no help, maybe it was radio, or maybe i bastardized it just enough to make it my own). in any case, it resonated with some of my current thinking enough for me to jot it down and eventually blog it, and today i found an interesting expansion on the subject.

Tim Oren comments on the unintended consequences of the push for disclosure of information in the business of venture capital.

since i’m flirting with venture capital, it’s a Very Good Thing for me to know more about how this works. i’m the guy with the Next Big Idea (which you may or may not know already from the content of this blog), but just a little bit of [not so great] experience sitting across the table from vc investors, so i do like the idea of being able to better dissect a few living examples. i’ll even admit that there’s a little part of me that says “hey, if you’ve got that kind of money, you get little sympathy from me. if only i had your problems…” while i try find a way to make rice interesting. again.

on the other hand, i appreciate the concepts of trust and delegation – they are, in fact, key to my Big Idea. there are issues of due diligence and “know thyself” well enough to survive the heartburn episodes. if you don’t do your homework, and the guy from “nigeria” runs off with your bank account, well… you shouldn’t be playing the game. and if you don’t have the stomach for the risks, then you shouldn’t be playing the game either. and maybe all of us are due a scam or two just for good measure and to keep us humble. that said, a fund manager is a fund manager (with a track record), because they understand managing a fund. at some point, as an investor in a fund, you just have to trust that you have picked a good manager (or team), sit back, take your blood pressure medication, and enjoy the ride.

Oren’s point is that disclosure of the process, and broad public scrutiny of the “work in progress” is not necessarily a good thing, and the consequences only begin with the initial public “oh my!” reaction – it ripples through layer after layer of social capital.

forcing open the books is a decline in social capital, and it increases the costs of doing business. MORE diligence. MORE lawyers. MORE FOIA lawsuits. and, as Oren points out, the consequences stifle opportunity for everyone involved. entire classes of funding sources (those subject to even the potential of public-disclosure suits) may vanish under the new reality. VC firms may be compelled to limit their funding sources. and on the other side of the table, entrepreneurs (and struggling entrepreneurs like myself) may be forced to work under the hot lights of public exposure (which can kill), or simply have fewer “quiet” options for funding.

if there’s one thing i’ve heard from vc investors over and over in public statements and casual conversations, it’s “trust us.” trust us with your life, your work, your economic well-being. in a world increasingly dominated by you-can-use-it-but-you-don’t-own-it end user licensing agreements, six-page non-disclosure agreements, and other arcane legalspeak, it’s almost refreshing that there still exists a segment of financial and human endeavor where trust is a key part of doing business. there’s a very solid, practical reason trust plays a huge role in venture capital. (that said, i disagree with a lot of the way the business is done, because i think proclamations of trust are insufficient, but that’s a subject for another day…)

in the end, i think the consequences outweigh the benefits. i’ve been getting my education in “vc mindset” the hard, tedious way, and that’s fine. i haven’t learned anything really useful from an investigative reporter on the subject. this is probably inevitable in the wake of the “scandals of the early 2000’s”- the public wants someone digging up the dirt on the next corporate scandal before it becomes a corporate scandal, and venture capital is the “high drama” end of the investment universe. does this eventually slip down to the level of “Star Search 2005: Who Wants To Marry A VC”? pick up your touch-tone phone, america, and pick the Next Big Idea….

a corner of the social network has been torn, and that means things will be more expensive for everyone, including me.

Under the leadership of CEO, Jack Valenti, the MPAA represents the business of theatrical film, and claims to “serve as leader and advocate for major producers and distributors of entertainment programming for television, cable, home video and future delivery systems not yet imagined.” (source).

The MPAA board of directors consists of the Chairmen and Presidents of the seven major studios (Disney, Sony. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal and Warner Brothers). These are big companies with diverse interests. Disney, for example, does a bit of business in theme parks. Sony makes electronic gadgets. But they all come together under the umbrella of the MPAA to protect and defend their film studio businesses.

So, I was just sitting around enjoying a bit of online banter, and then I made an off the cuff comment. Today, I will do a bit of homework. I leave it to my good readers and motivated commenters to do more homework if so desired.

According to MPAA statistics, the average US resident saw 5.7 movies in theaters during 2002, with an average ticket price of $5.81. This means the average person spent $33.12 to see movies in theaters in 2002. The same report (but different original source) claims that the average spending per person on home video in 2002 was $119.23.

This means the film industry received $152.35 from every person in the United States, 21.7% at the box office and 78.3% from home video.

Admittedly, these are very broad strokes, but the same report also reveals that 1185.8 million units of prerecorded VHS and DVD material were sold in 2002. VHS prices are not indicated, but the 702.4 million DVD units apparently had an average price of $20.78. This represents gross sales on DVD of $14.6 billion, compared to gross box office receipts of $9.5 billion. That means the film industry received $1.54 from DVD sales for every dollar of box office reciepts (and some additional pennies from VHS sales…).

The way I read this, the VCR (and the sequel, VCR2: The DVD) now constitute the majority of revenue for the film industry, and thus the majority of the seven-figure salary (and piles of perks) for the MPAA CEO, Jack Valenti. (Yes, yes, there’s a big difference between revenue and the net profits used to fund the multi-million-dollar payroll and lobbying efforts of the MPAA, but I did say you could do more homework…)

Jack Valenti, Congressional Hearings on Home Recording, Before the Subcommittee of Courts, Civil Liberties and the Administration of Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 97th Congress, Second Session, April 12, 1982.

I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.

So tell me, Jack, 20 years later, how does it feel to be on the strangler’s payroll?

a concept that has “bubbled forth” in my thoughts of late is that of determinism and predestination, particularly in the context of technology and technology businesses.

a bit of foreshadowing may be in this entry, but i hope to expand on the thoughts a bit today.

this will probably be a bit scattered at this stage, but it will undoubtedly evolve…
(more…)

there’s an explosion of social networking sites recently (friendster, tribe.net, linkedin and many more, i’m sure), and it seems to me that these are all very fragile concepts.

the value of these things depends a lot on the number of people participating, but it’s going to be very easy to alienate or otherwise drive away chunks of the network. of course, the company can “screw up” – a major private-information-exposure scandal would certainly do it – but there are more subtle things that can break these networks….

people participate in “general purpose” networks like these, but i have to assume that they generally have a fairly specific purpose. if the network (or the software supporting the network) can’t deliver on that purpose, i’m gone. so that’s a lack-of-value problem. how do you create (and more importantly, maintain) specific value in a general network? is more open better?

the other side is “driving people away” – if i feel like i’m being “harassed” or “bothered” by people in the network, that’s just as likely to drive me away. how do you keep the “signal to noise” ratio tolerable in an open network?

i don’t know how it will shake out, but i think these companies and sites will have to follow where their networks lead – if they try to force them to fit a pre-defined model, they risk alienating large chunks of the network they’ve managed to build.