Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Hey guys, if you are looking for a little intellectual stimulation this Labor day weekend after all the parades, barbecues, end of summer beach parties, TURN to the Scobleizer AND Insider Chatter for a big, bad jolt back into blogosphere goodness, courtesy of unique tech and CEO insights.

Robert Scoble has been lamenting that his controversial video confessions get all the link love/hate at the expense of his video profiles of top techies at IBM, Plaxo, VMWare…:

Adario Strange, of Wired Online, jumps in with a late whipping of my Sunday videos. It’s interesting that Wired chose to link to this and jump on the “Scoble is an idiot” pile.

It’s sad, because in the past year I’ve put up more than three hundred videos, most of which are far more deserving of your attention than the ones I put up on Sunday.

For our Labor Day weekend video viewing pleasure he talks with Mehran Sahami, who “runs Stanford University’s undergraduate computer science department,” underscoring:

You might think I’m stupid. Dumb. Lame. Irrelevant. Arrogant. Or worse.

But this guy is none of those things. In fact, he’s the opposite of all those things.

I know where Scoble is coming from; I also post many exclusive insider chats with cutting-edge CEOs that merit more exposure as well.

Got time this weekend? My personal picks are:

Lending Club $108 billion Market Opp ex Facebook: Goodbye Banks!

Office 2.0 Enterprise Showdown: Zoho vs. Google Apps vs. Microsoft

How Pegasus News Fuels Local Media Business Model for Fisher Communications

Craigslist Q & A: Classifieds Community NO ‘Walled Garden’ 

Qmecom Mass Personalized Video Ad Platform: Yahoo SmartAds, Digitas Beware

ENJOY! See you after the holiday, with more good (insider) stuff!

ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg is NO Facebook Visionary: Aaron Greenspan on Veritas, and Free PR

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Welcome to the who needs “Web site advertising with keyword popovers” club, Ryan! I have been calling attention to the nefarious nature of IntelliTXT and Kontera all summer.

DON’T FOREGET THE NEW GOOGLE CPA Ads, though.

In June, I asked the head of Google AdSense, Kim Malone, to explain Google’s claim that their new in-line text ad product, “Google CPA text link format for pay-per-action ads” is consistent with the Brin & Page infamous “you can make money without doing advertising evil” slogan. SEE Google Exec Skirts CPA Advertising Evil

Malone was unable to explain away Google’s own official description:

Text links are hyperlinked brief text descriptions that take on the characteristics of a publisher’s page. Publishers can place them in line with other text to better blend the ad and promote your product.

For example, you might see the following text link embedded in a publisher’s recommendatory text: “Widgets are fun! I encourage all my friends to Buy a high quality widget today.”

Ryan Block, saying “you know who you are,” at his personal blog. exhorts to all those bloggers and media companies which make money off of the likes of IntelliTXT to “friends, fucking stop it.”

Stop what exactly? Block:

Polluting your content, confusing your audience, and tricking them into clicking on ads that just won’t go away.

I have said same, many a time:

Google PPA Advertorial: The Next PayPerPost?

The new “Paid” but not quite identified as “Sponsored” Links Google advertising product, Pay-Per-Action (PPA) text link format, encourages the ”blending” of paid for ecommerce transactional links into publisher editorial, but does not require any upfront “advertorial” disclaimers by AdSense publishers for the Google ad product being shown to consumers “blended” with “objective,” non-paid for content.

Google Advertising Evil: Pop-Ups Bad, In-Editorial Ads Rock

Google’s decision to disclaim its new CPA / PPA embedded advertising within publisher content depending upon whether unsuspecting readers “mouseover” the unidentified as advertising Google AdWords ecommerce link, or not, is CONTRARY to the spirit of best online business practices determined by the Better Business Bureau.

The American Society of Business Publication Editors has also taken a stand against IntelliTXT and the like, as I report in Blogging Ethics: Why Blog ‘Disclosure’ is NO Panacea

At the ASBPE conference in New York City earlier this month, I heard the organization reaffirm how “ethics guide transparency.” In fact, the ASBPE “Guide to Preferred Editorial Practices” was the event “schwag.”

ASBPE rallied against the deceptive nature of sponsored links embedded in online editorial, underscoring:

Contextual links witthin editotrial contents should not be sold.

Will the blogosphere pay heed to the Better Business Bureau, the American Society of Business Publication Editors, Ryan Block AND myself, OR will blog advertising evil “pollution” continue?

PLUS: Can Facebook, MySpace, YouTube Escape Junk CPM Ad Purgatory?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

DailyMotion DOES want to be the next YouTube.

The big story is NOT the copyright infringing one though, as conventional blogosphere wisdom suggests, it is a WHO WANTS FRIENDS AND FAMILY JUNK (videos) AFTER ALL!

YouTube–aka Google–has long gone from its non-money making pursuit of enabling a free-to-the consumer video hosting and sharing platform to lusting after top money making video entertainment destination honors.

Who needs “friends and family” after all when “directors” are where all the real high production quality action is.

What user-generated “broadcast yourself” videos are being “promoted” at YouTube now? Those of the commercial, professionally produced kind:

Media rep posted TV commercial for clients, ”Red Stripe Sweater,”
HollyScoopTV videos, a division of DNA Group, online entertainment magazine,
Avril Lavigne “official” Girflriend video from RCA Records
Trailers presented by “the leading Internet broadcaster for the video game industry”…

Ditto for the DailyMotion “share your videos” home page, distributing the “creativecontent” work of professional “motionmakers”:

Rocketboom,
PBS,
Wallstrip,
l0ckergn0me

Do the REAL user-generated-videos have a realistic shot at online video glory anymore? Pro video is where the real interest and money is, be it of the independently produced genre or the massively corporate sponsored variety.

BOTH YouTube AND DailyMotion are looking more and more like what Google Video orignally set out to be:

An open video marketplace where any video producer, large or small, can upload their content and distribute it for free.

Sorry, real amateurs, the online video world is no longer amateur hour.

ALSO: GOOGLE MEDIA: One-Stop News Empire for Stories, Videos AND Letters to the Google Editor

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Big, bad corporate villian Viacom against innocent “friends and family” video guy, with good corporate friend YouTube stuck in the middle? NO.

Contrary to conventional Viacom is always the bad guy wisdom, the “fair use” game is not a clear cut one, no matter the circumstances. MOREOVER, everyone is entitled to play along, INCLUDING VIACOM.

While the blogosphere troops rally in typical lock-step fashion to restate Chris Knight’s case against Vicaom’s purported YouTube “chutzpah” against his alleged copyright infringement at YouTube, Viacom has stated why its fair use case is a fair one.

(Knight turns to a “Yiddish word,” chutzpah,” to accuse Viacom of “unbelievable gall or audiacity;” Perhaps that is why he deems himself to be a “renegade Christian thinker.”)

Despite Knight’s drama, though, and the blogosphere’s glee in believing it has caught Viacom with its hypocritical copyright pants down, Viacom has thrown cold (boring) water on the Knight plea for fair use fairness.

Knight’s “hometown paper,” News & Record, cites Viacom on the matter:

What’s the difference between VH1 using Knight’s commercial and Knight using VH1’s clip?

“The VH1 depiction was part commentary and edited,” said Jeremy Zweig, Viacom. But Knight’s version, an unedited copy, was illegal. “If he had transformed the clip in some way it would’ve been helpful,” Zweig said, “Or if he just linked to our Web site, that would be appropriate.”

YES, the fair use game is open to all players, even corporate ones.

Amanda Martin, a Raleigh attorney and First Amendment “expert,” is also cited:

There’s no clear-cut rule on what is and isn’t fair use of other people’s works in productions, but there are several considerations.

Republication with commentary and editing — such as VH1’s work — seems OK, she said, while Knight’s verbatim rebroadcast of the show doesn’t appear to be protected by law.

Is Knight the one with the YouTube chutzpah after all? Perhaps, for creating a public drama out of a shaky legal argument.

READ MORE FAIR USE INSIDER CHATTER:  YouTube License To Steal, and Humiliate: ‘Fair Use IS a Bitch’ AND Viacom, NBC Fight For Paid Content Rights

ALSO: Pro Video Land Grab: DailyMotion AND YouTube Turn Into Google Video and Advertising Evil Honors: IntelliTXT, Kontera, Google CPA Ads

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Citizen journalism hits the big screen, and small.

NowPublic made a “crowd powered news” splash last month when it snagged $10.6 million venture capital infusion to “enable NowPublic to further its goal of being the largest news network in the world with more people on the ground in the right places and at the right times to report the news.”

According to NowPublic, “News is new information on current events.” Sounds straight forward. But, in analyzing NowPublic’s “FrontPage”  at the time of its funding announcement and during Storm Erin last week, I found that NowPublic “contributors” were not generally posting original, primary-sourced “news.” Rather, NowPublic “news” stories appeared to be predominately of the derivative blogging style ilk, “borrowed” cut and pastes of ”news” stories originally reported by paid, professional news reporting organizations and/or other blogs.

NowPublic advises prospective contributors:

The news you post should be “news in this commonly accepted sense. It will be one of three types:”

1) Original, relevant information about a current event that you have actually witnessesed, documented or reserached.
2) New information yo have collected, aranged and contextualized about a current event.
3) Commentary, advice or analysis directly related to a current event.

As NowPublic often presents news commentary, rather than actual eye witness accounts, I asked Michael Tippett (”the guy who started up this crazy thing in his garage”) to explain his claim that NowPublic mobilizes “an army of reporters to cover the events that define our world.”

Our exchage is below.

DB: You assert NowPublic is a platform for citizen journalism. Nevertheless, on August 23, NowPublic’s lead homepage “Front Page story concerning Storm Erin, a breaking weather event that ought to be tailor made for the “crowd powered media” formula Nowpublic espouses, was not a citizen eye-witness account, it was a “cut and paste” redireect to an “original story” produced by Associated Press reporting and published by the U.K.’s Guardian Unlimited.

The number two Nowpublic “best crowd powered news” story featured on the Front Page, “59 year old makes college football team,” was also a “cut and paste” from an original AP report published at a Canadian sports news Website.

Why does Nowpublic claim to mobilize an “army of reporters to cover the events that define our world” when the NowPublic Front Page “news” often presents as a Digg-like aggregation of links to original reporting done by third party organizations and published elsewhere?

TIPPETT: Our view of crowd powering the news is very broad.

With thousands of reports coming in weekly it is simply not possible to manage the inflow and determine what is good, bad or otherwise using traditional, centrally controlled strategies. The alternative to this route is to crowd source the editorial (digglike, if you will). As a result the stories on the homepage are chosen largely based on the interests of our members. These choices and areas of focus wil often coorespond to decisions made within traditional news organizations. It is no surprise that people are interested in a category 5 hurricane or a bridge collapse.

But that is only one piece of the puzzle. The story abut Storm Erin uses a highlighted item from The Guardian. Our highlight tool lets people cite other websites as the source of news material and provides links back to the source document. in this regard we are no different than other news services (a search on the NYTime’s website for “reuters” for example produces 47 thousand results). We are not purists in this regard and we have never claimed to never cite 3rd party sources as the basis for anything.Quite the contrary, we think that 3rd party sources are often a very good starting point for discussion or additonal reporting.

Where we do feature original content in the Storm Erin example is in the commentary provided in the comments section and in the footage supplied by members. Material that has come in: http://www.nowpublic.com/node/615322/footage/list

The story has material from two eye witnesses so far. These are real people, on the ground, providing original reporting. I would expect the amount of material to grow over time. I’m not suggesting that all members provide Pullitzer worthy material but they do provide a citizen perspective of the news. They are living within the news cycle and it is their story thta NowPublic strives to tell.

THANKS MICHAEL.

ALSO: GOOGLE MEDIA: One-Stop News Empire for Stories, Videos AND Letters to the Google Editor

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

The CNN week that was: WHO needs Reuters? WE need Google!

CNN declares its money is best spent in-house in declaring independence from Reuters news service AND also declares it is fine with sharing its money with third-party vendors, in declaring an ad sales revenue share deal with Google AdSense.

CNN is putting its best news gathering face forward by spinning the Reuters dismissal as a way to achieve “greater control of our editorial product”:

To advantage CNN in the content marketplace and manage the continually rising costs associated with acquired assets, we are making significant investments in our own news gathering while simultaneously reducing our reliance on agency material.

CNN is not sharing what its “news gathering” investments are, however. Reuters has indicated though, that the bottom-line cause for the non-renewal of the 27 year relationship was the inability of CNN and Reuters to come to mutually satisfactory licensing terms. CNN is still retaning Associated Press news services.

If CNN is determined to chart its own fincial destinty, it ought to in-source all of its own ad sales as well. Who needs Google, AdSense revenue sharing that is.

After all, why not embrace “the control and independence needed to protect and extend online advertising revenue,” as Fast Search & Transfer’s AdMomentum, a representative private label contextual ad platform for media companies, exhorts:

As a media company, you know that search and contextual advertising is hte fastes growing online advertising segment. But how can you tap this explosive revenue opportunity when the “big three” dominate search-based advertiisng? Is out outsourcing your only option or can you compete on your own?

“Why shouldn’t you (CNN) be in control of your search and contextual advertising?,” Fast asks, and answers:

Gain Control & Flexibility.  Deliver your own branded advertising experience to advertisers and satisfy them with greater performance and more precise targeting.

Increase Revenue and Profit.  Reap 100% of your advertising revenue and boost profits with a highly configurable revenue engine that supports multiple bid models including auction, CPC, CPM and more.

Exploit Your Assets.  Tune the search relevancy to more effectively exploit your key content assets and increase ad performance.

Syndicate & Expand.  Extend your advertising platform to affiliate sites and alternative channels such as mobile and IPTV.

Perry Solomon, Fast, cut to the chase: after all, what publishers want “another hand in their pockets every time they are selling their ads.”

For CNN, Googley hands are the good ones.

ALSO: News Videos Fuel NowPublic Citizen Journalism and YouTube DMCA Chutzpah? Sorry, Viacom Also Entitled to Play Fair Use Game

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN