The RIAA battlelines

I took a cheap shot at the RIAA in my last post, and have often wondered whether DRM was really the solve (or perhaps I should say "fate") for content distribution issues.

I think the jury's still out in a big way on this topic.

Either DRM technologies will become THE way that all digital content is licensed (even if that license is simply "unrestricted"), or it'll go the way of the Dodo. The middle ground will get squeezed out on this in the next 4 years.

Obviously, publishers (distribution middle men) and to a lesser (at least less vocal), but very real extent, creators want to ensure they're properly credited for their work, both financially and artistically. On the converse side, users want access to stuff as broadly and cheaply as possible - but most importantly, as conveniently as possible, with as high fidelity as available. This last has been a HUGE boon to the movie, music, and publishing industries, generally, as technology advances have meant people are re-purchasing essentially the same content in a variety of formats (e.g. LP, Tape, CD, AAC /VHS, Laser-Disc, DVD, HD-DVD).

But that trend has delivered broadly available commercial-grade content creation tools to (essentially) consumer cost points, in combination with federated broad digital communication (read: syndication) and personal publishing channels.

Case in point: MySpace's MP3 Store and this recent article about iTunes and iPod music consumption in the real world fly directly in the face of Microsoft's Zune, iTunes, etc, with things like YouTube skirting a narrow middle. The RIAA hopes you like Apple and Microsoft.

That iTunes/iPod usage article is the most interesting - and the big question is whether the trend it reveals is of the moment, or of the future.

You know this is something the software industry has been dealing with since its inception - its done OK. I realize its easy for me to say (because I have nothing at stake in this particular debate), but sometimes sweating the threat means you squander the opportunity.

The RIA battlelines

(Not to be confused with the RIAA battle - that's an entirely different funny/sad Monty Pythonesque story about how suing your customers is really in their best interests...)

Interesting article yesterday at Zdnet about the upcoming technology infrastructure contenders for Rich Internet Applications (RIA), primarily Flash/Apollo, XUL/Firefox, and XBAP/WPFe.



Not sure how much I agree with the details, but the broad strokes are interesting at least (to me at least :P - I've written on this topic more than a few times). The business models for the technology originators gets pretty short shrift though - Adobe's charging directly, through tools and the runtime (at least for devices), whilst the Mozilla Foundation's stuff is free (as in beer and as in software) with Microsoft somewhere in the middle. Wonder what impact that will have on success opportunities?

Also interesting is the implicit notion/question that the main turf war will be over browser plug-ins and/or extensions, as opposed to server-ware or development paradigms (like AJAX, Rails, etc.) - remains to be seen if that's true, though it feels right. Even Flash is still primarily ad-ware - and wherefore art though client-side Java or .NET apps?

Complicating matters further is the increasing user/input interaction fragmentation caused by portable general purpose computing devices like smart phones, PSPs and the like.

Some examples from the past.

Unicode-y-ness UTF-16 Nonsense

UTF-16 is an abomination. It is a lot of wasted code and space, doesn't really solve any real world issues and is just generally bad (not to mention responsible for probably billions of dollars in wasted code fitting and retrofitting). Everyone should just stick to UTF-8 . Strings are not randomly accessible data structures (unless you want to REALLY waste memory with UTF-32) - get over it. Adjust your coding practices appropriately, and for god's sakes don't convert everything to "mostly" two-byte character strings.

(and yes, it is a bit more space for far east languages, but is still just better - for example, do you know what endian UTF-16 you're using?)

p.s. this only applies if you're writing code, not script and its high-level equivalents.

Back to School

Summer's over. It's official (well, not official, but you know what I mean). Some interesting tidbits from over the long weekend:

• Tessseract (OCR software) has been open-sourced by Google. This is an underdeveloped area, especially in the OSS community (and so, very nice of Google), but expect to see an increase in CAPTCHA cracks. No good deed goes unpunished.
  
• Vista's in lock-down mode, getting ready to ship. As is always the case with these things, it'll be less and more than people expect, and it'll have a long tail of issues and upgrades that follow. Also, a funny side story about how Mactel machines from Apple being able to run Windows isn't as good for Apple as the zealot crowd thinks (not sure I agree).
  
• Slightly older, but always compelling stream of conciousness from John Carmack (of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, etc. fame) about stuff.
  
• Browzar (an IE "privacy" wrapper) has been getting some buzz; though it doesn't really appear to do squat. Still, though I think its useless, I feel compelled to defend it. There's been GROSSLY unfair criticism about it being "adware" in the press; appears this is the new "Red Scare" tactic. Truth is it, it IS Adware (you get it for free, and it generates money from advertising/search revenue) - but so is Firefox, the Google Toolbar, etc. What ought to be a simple statement of business model fact has instead has become a loaded, scary epithet. Pretty much every site on the 'net derives revenue from advertising, and the quid pro quo is free access to said software and services - but Adware and Malware (thanks to more than a few bad eggs) have become synonymous for desktop applications. There's nothing "tricky" about Browzar - other than it doesn't really work :P - let them be judged on the merits of their software, not the politics of public flagellations (half-wit, half-brained punditry seems the order of the day in the tech press these days...)

Its good to be the Wolf

So my kids have been having a little trouble lately with asking for stuff and complaining about things when they don't really mean it. ("I'm hungry!", "I'm tired!" , "I want that!", etc.)

These things go in waves, and this seemed to be the latest - no big deal. And so my wife thought she'd tell them a story, to maybe help them understand actions and consequences a bit bitter. And in this case, she thought the story of the "Boy who cried wolf" would be a good fit.

They thought it was pretty engaging and amusing at first. But they definitely got quieter as the story concluded with the real wolf showing up, and the boy getting thoroughly eaten (important to make an impression after all).

And their wide-eyed thoughtful silence lasted for about 7 seconds.

Then my older one,who's all of 5, says: "That was good mommy - tell us a story about the 'Girl who cried Jewelry'!"

...

Its good to be the Wolf...

AOL CTO resignation

Maureen Govern, until just recently CTO of AOL, was my immediate supervisor. While its true that she has left the company (and abruptly at that), everything else publicized, including any thought of associated causes or related dismissals is speculation (and often rarely coincident with actual causality, or reality) - it does no service to the company, or the people in question, for that matter. The Company does not comment on personnel issues like this.

But that's probably the intent (intERNET?) - after all, why should anyone let facts get in the way of opinion? (Can't happen to you? Welcome to a taste of the future...)

There's a lot going on at AOL these days for consumers (in the last few weeks alone):

• free domained e-mail addresses,
• premium video content for free,
• 5GB of web storage for free,
• a free VOIP phone number,
• free antivirus software

... all predicated on major business and organizational shifts, that in turn are following required massive internal technology upheavals and untangling over the last two and a half years - a shame that more process and bad press are what now emerge following this sad but seminal event in search research caused by AOL. It overshadows those works, successes, teams, and (most importantly) customer relationships.

I understand it, am sorry for its root, and it truly is a shame on many levels.