February 17th, 2012 § Comments Off on blacklisting pirates? § permalink
Image via Wikipedia
This is dangerous thinking:
SOPA foe Fred Wilson says everyone is a pirate, but supports a blacklist for pirate sites | VentureBeat
“If we created an independent body that essentially created a black and white list,†Wilson told a crowd of media executives at the Paley Center in New York. “The black list are those sites we all know are bad news. We all know who the good guys are who are truly licensed and are operating legitimately. And we know who the bad guys are.†CNET reports that Wilson named Hulu, Netflix, Rdio, Spotify and Rhapsody among the good guys.
venturebeat.com
I highly respect Fred’s intuition for solving complex problems. he is usually right about these things, but blacklisting is dangerous per-se, because it’s really a question about authority – who could possibly be authoritative enough to judge if a site is a ‘well known pirate’?
I will not state all the obvious examples from history where this type of thinking went awry, but the fact that it is even debated is an indicator that the topic is important. engage with it before it’s too late.
February 16th, 2012 § § permalink
Image via Wikipedia
A friend of mine mentioned a while ago, that after listening to tv news about fishing disputes with Croatia, she went and checked how many fishermen there are actually. She is from the coastal region, so she suspected there might be something wrong with the facts.
she found out, that there is in fact, just over 100 people in this “sector”. to quote the “National strategic plan  for development of fishing in Slovenia“:
StatistiÄni podatki kažejo pomembno poveÄanje v Å¡tevilu delovno aktivnih oseb v gospodarskem ribolovu in akvakulturi skupaj za obdobje 1996-2004. Å tevilo delovno aktivnih oseb v ribiÅ¡ki predelavi se je v istem obdobju rahlo zmanjÅ¡alo. Vendar je bilo v letu 2005 okoli 142 zaposlenih v morskem ribiÅ¡tvu, kar je 2 manj kot leta 2004
from: Ministry of Agriculture
The document i’m quoting here is 38 pages of dense text about the status and the plans to develop a commercial sector of 150 people. Fishing has it special place in our national budget, with 10,740,533 EUR allocated for it’s development in 2012. Yes, that’s 10 and 6 zeros following it.
I like fishing, I like the sea, I like fishermen.
But for crying out loud, how can our country survive the financial crisis if the Ministries are spending time, resources and energy on, I’m sorry, projects with no impact on national level?!?!?!
February 15th, 2012 § Comments Off on Calypso Cases § permalink
Didn’t get a chance to write about them earlier, but this Ljubljana-based company is truly amazing.
the little case you see on the picture bellow – it’s made of 17 different parts and materials. I was privileged to see the drawer with all the variations they’ve built for testing purposes – 3 feet long row of cases of all shapes and sizes, with one common denominator: they all fit the phone perfectly, and they are all without a sew.
I’ve been heavily testing (read: beating up) a new Calypso Case for more than a month and it’s easy to say simply put, I’m impressed. Based in Ljubljana, Slovenia the founders are hand making iPhone 4 cases which are simply perfect in fit, function and design. They’re made of conite, titanium, leather and specially designed microfabrics.
via: joshspear.com
great work guys!
February 14th, 2012 § § permalink
Image via CrunchBase
amazing, i didn’t even know about it! if you like reading short stories, this is perfect!
i’m happily finishing my first real e-book now – 1Q84 – a 1000 pages of fantastic fiction, and was thinking about what to read next. after i’ve read all murakami’s, i’m actually in a state of void – a readers’ dilemma – should i try finding the next author, and risk a few months of agony of trying different ones, or should I go read Proust‘s In search of lost time, and have guaranteed a few months of agony? I think i’ll try with short stories for a while 🙂
Wattpad, a Union Square Ventures-backed platform for sharing stories and interacting with writers, has been growing steadily, and it hit a nice milestone in January – during that month, users spent more than 1 billion minutes on the service.
via: techcrunch.com
now, if only they had better recommendation engine… hm hm hm… 🙂
February 13th, 2012 § Comments Off on Blogging Trends for 2012: What You Need to Know § permalink
Image via Wikipedia
It’s great to hear Technorati sees the same trends as we do 🙂
brands’ interest continues to grow in the blogosphere, more bloggers are making their living by blogging than ever, and bloggers write more than ever.
In this video I interview Shani Higgins, CEO of Technorati. Shani shares information on the business of blogging and current blogging trends. Discover how much money bloggers make and learn more about the opportunities brands now offer bloggers. Be sure to check out the takeaways below after you watch the video.
via: www.socialmediaexaminer.com
February 13th, 2012 § Comments Off on Federated, Zemanta Launch Program to Connect Bloggers with Brands § permalink
I rarely write about my company here, but i’m exceptionally proud of this one:
Federated Media Publishing and Zemanta have announced a strategic partnership that will use technology to make it easier for bloggers and companies to connect, increasing opportunities to create targeted content marketing campaigns.
via: www.contentmarketinginstitute.com
Federated Media and John Battelle have been role models for all of us for years, and it’s a privilege to work with them.
February 12th, 2012 § Comments Off on Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-02-12 § permalink
February 12th, 2012 § Comments Off on Why A Blogger Needs To Be Crazy § permalink
Image via Wikipedia
I would actually expand on this point, to claim that ‘to achieve anything, one has to be crazy’. i think we should all start fighting to redefine the word ‘crazy’, clean it of it’s bad connotations, more towards the proposed meaning from this article: ‘extremely enthusiastic’.
Are you a crazy blogger (do you think I am crazing for writing this blog post)? Before we start, let me ask you some questions: What comes to your mind when you think the word crazy? Why? Take a piece of paper and write it down. Do not, I repeat, Do not scroll down to read more. Just answer the question first. Are you done?
via: weblogbetter.com
now, historically, the word crazy comes from ‘cracking pot’, something that is about to fall apart. it’s fascinating how our generation is making ‘explosions’ a good thing. instead of thinking of solid objects, nicely polished, we prefer energy, as free and intertwining as possible. we are fascinated by Emergence of higher-order patterns.
we are becoming ants.
February 12th, 2012 § Comments Off on kako se v medijih reproducira manjvrednost § permalink
Image via Wikipedia
z mediji in novinarji v sloveniji in njihovim kolektivnim in posamiÄnim odnosom do bralcev in okolja je marsikaj narobe, ampak danes me je zbodla na videz najmanj pomembna bodica. morda se bo kdo strinjal da odseva Å¡irÅ¡e težave.
v sobotni prilogi Dela sem se razveselil Älanka o Leonardovih veÄnih ženskah. razveselil iz dveh razlogov – ker je tema razstave zares zelo zanimiva, in ker imam to sreÄo da se obÄasno znajdem v Londonu in si vedno z veseljem vzamem kako uro za obisk kake galerije.
žal sem bil ustrezno razoÄaran že po prvem stavku. Älanek se zaÄne z besedami:
pravijo da je bila to razstava tisoÄletja. vrste pred londonsko nacionalno galerijo so bile, kljub mrazu, vsak dan neskonÄno dolge.
vir:Â delo
vse je jasno, razstava je že zakljuÄena, priložnost zamujena.
uredniÅ¡tvo ali novinar, ali oboji, paÄ domnevajo da piÅ¡ejo za bralce v dolini Å¡entflorjanski, in da je njihova naloga fascinirati z nedostopnim, ne pa obveÅ¡Äati o priložnostih. Slovenski bralec se lahko zgolj naslaja nad izbranima dvema reprodukcijama in sanja o ‘resniÄnem svetu’.
Äe bi Älanek pisal o finanÄni krizi bi naÅ¡teval podatke brez konteksta, zato da bi ‘nedostopnost’ zamaskiral v ‘nerazumljivost’; Äe bi pisal o uspehih bi govoril o tujih podjetjih; konÄno sporoÄilo je vedno: “itak se niÄ ne da spremeniti, pa tudi Äe bi se dalo itak ne boste niÄ spremenili.”
zavedam se da sem izbral izjemno nepomemben primer za to poanto, ampak ravno zaradi svoje benignosti je najbolj iskren.
February 11th, 2012 § Comments Off on Markos on writing § permalink
Image via Wikipedia
I was struck by this formulation today:
Just a notch above a monkey » On Tumblr
However when I write, it’s not really me who does it. Writing, even when trying to avoid self-censorship (unsuccessfully), engages a different part of a brain than responding to an image or a passage of text. I write so I can think, but even when not, I don’t just type a Joyce-like stream of consciousness. I form sentences I would prefer to utter, but usually don’t.
markos.gaivo.net
I’ve written about the difference between retweeting and rebloging recently, mainly from the perspective of individuals contribution to the aggregate knowledge of the world. but Marko hit the nail much harder.
Commenting may grow into expression, but if it doesn’t, all three of these activities are probably distinct in my head. Just like nodding at a meeting, thinking aloud, and sketching an idea on the napkin are very different engagement levels – you can feel the brain switching into different mode.
now, interesting question might be, what happens if you don’t use the ‘narrative’ brain for a while?
