The Tree is Cooler, but the House is Familiar

Richard Stiennon has an article at ZDNet that shows via some interesting pictures why Windows is less secure than Linux. The theory, which sounds logical to me, is that “in its long evolution, Windows has grown so complicated that it is harder to secure.”

I suspect that is the case. Imagine a house on which you add new rooms and wings every year or so. Eventually, there are so many windows and doors that anyone who tries can find a way in and the original burglar alarm isn’t equipped to handle all the new stuff.

That’s probably a good way to think of the Windows security issues.

That, of course, and the fact that everyone lives in houses, so the crooks know that’s where the goods are kept. If everyone lived in trees, the crooks would focus on trees.

In other words, the fact that most people use Windows means that the virus and spyware writers focus on Windows.

Granted, you could use Linux if you wanted to have a more secure system, but I’ve used Linux and while I appreciate all that it can do, it is simply too hard to configure for the average computer user. Plus, a lot of the software that people are used to doesn’t have a Linux version. The smart choice may be Linux, but clearly the easy choice is Windows. In that race, I generally put my money on easy.

When forced to choose between safe in a tree or vulnerable in a house, most people pick the house. Even if the tree is cooler.

So we patch and firewall and hope, while Microsoft keeps building more rooms.

Web 2.0 Wars: Quarter-Finals Round One

The Web 2.0 Wars season has come to an end. The list of winners and playoff brackets were posted the other day.

Now it’s time for the first round in the quarter-finals.

Here’s how the playoffs will work. After taking a look at my prior commentary about each application, I’ll revisit the page and see what, if anything, is new. I’ll add an update for each contestant and pick the winner.

Here are the contestants for the first quarter-final round:

Pageflakes
YouTube
Poddater
TailRank (replaced Tagworld)
FireAnt

Pageflakes is a content aggregator and custom portal. It is easy to set up and has some pre-configured content to help you get started. You can import your RSS feeds or add content manually. I still prefer My Yahoo, but that may be because I am so familiar with it. Pageflakes is a well designed and easy to use application.

YouTube is a video hosting, sharing and search service. It’s free and seems fast and reliable. Since it won Round 2 back in early February, it has really taken off. Even people who know little about tech and the internet are becoming aware of YouTube. This week I noticed a secretary in my office watching this somewhat pitiful and somewhat hilarious ego-fest (Warning: strong language; not suitable for kids). Youtube is a force to be reckoned with.

Poddater is a personals meets podcasting site. You make a video profile and upload it to share with others. I’m about a thousand years too old to be interested in this, but it’s a unique idea and the web site looks very well designed. This is one service that I can’t sign up and try for obviously, but the idea is a good one.

TailRank is a memetracker, and a mighty fine one at that. Since winning Round 4, Kevin and crew have added one excellent feature after another to TailRank. Listening to users is smart on so many levels, and Kevin listens to his users. A well designed and useful application with huge potential.

FireAnt is a video blog directory and search engine. The downloadable client allows you to watch video blogs in many different formats. You can search for content and you can subscribe to RSS video feeds and have content delivered to you automatically. It’s a neat service, but I still prefer YouTube for my video needs.

And the Winner of the first quarter-final round is:

While all of these applications are excellent and have great potential, YouTube and TailRank are juggernauts of the new internet. Either one would be a great choice to move to the Final Four, but YouTube’s penetration into the non-tech population gives it a slight edge.

YouTube moves to the Final Four.

TIVO Deathwatch: DirecTV Wins Again

This heart of mine could never see
What everybody knew but me
Just trusting you was my great sin
What can I do, you win again

– Hank Williams

DirecTV and TIVO made an announcement today that at first blush sounds like great news. At first blush.

In the wake of DirecTV abandoning TIVO in favor of some as yet unreleased DirecTV branded recorder, the parties agreed to extend their “commercial agreement” for 3 years.

So what does this mean for DirecTV customers who use TIVOs? In my house we have 4 of the HDTV DirecTIVOs. I call them our $1000 doorstops in waiting.

First of all, it won’t keep our TIVOs from being obsolete in the face of the move to MPEG-4 by DirecTV as a part of the roll out of local networks in HDTV. In fact, the Houston stations are supposedly available now in HDTV. The only problem is that there is no MPEG-4 compatible DirecTIVO or equivalent. So while today’s news likely means that my DirecTIVOs will continue to receive the channels that are currently available, they will not get the Houston HDTV locals or presumably any new DirecTV HDTV content, which will likely be pushed in MPEG-4 format.

It also seems unlikely that TIVO will produce a new MPEG-4 compatible DirecTIVO. And if it did, the fool me one rule dictates that consumers not buy it in light of the 3 year term of the new agreement. I suppose if the unit came out shortly, I’d consider buying it, as 3 years is a long time in tech-years. But every day that passes makes that a less desirable option.

While this deal sends a little oxygen into TIVO’s breathing tube, the real win is on the DirecTV side of the ledger, as part of the deal is an agreement that TIVO will not sue DirecTV for patent infringement, like it is currently suing EchoStar, operator of the Dish Network.

Meanwhile, DirecTV continues to develop and market their own branded digital recorders.

TIVO does get an extension of the $1 per month per TIVO box payment from DirecTV. This is worth about $36M a year- which is real money.

Commenting on the new deal, Nyquist Capital cuts to the bottom line and says:

In short, we’re a little stumped why the market thinks this is such a great deal beyond protecting a recurring revenue stream. If DirecTV had agreed to use Tivo exclusively and stop in house development, that would be big news. All that has really happened is a further extension of the status quo.

My conclusion is that someone at DirecTV got smart and proactive and cut a deal with TIVO that DirecTV views more as a settlement of the potential patent infringement claim than a business deal, in exchange for continuing the $1 per month per TIVO box payments for 3 more years. The fact that this will delay enraging all of the DirecTV TIVO users is just icing on the cake.

Let me say it again- this is about lawsuit avoidance. Think of it as a pre-settlement of a potential lawsuit.

TIVO gets some much needed cash to keep the lights on while it tries in vain to reinvent itself. DirecTV gets out of a potentially messy lawsuit and can claim to be taking care of its TIVO-loving customers.

Thomas Hawk (like me a TIVO user), while agreeing that there is less than meets the eye here, calls it a win/win. From the stands it sure looks like it.

But I bet if you pulled up the photo finish tape and had the contract in your hand, one horse’s nose clearly hit the finish line first.

DirecTV wins again.

Bring Out Yer Dead: The Last Days of Traditional Radio

Bring out yer dead.
Here’s one.
I’m not dead.
He says he’s not dead.
Yes he is.
I’m not.
Well, he will be soon, he’s very ill.
I’m getting better.
No you’re not, you’ll be stone dead in a moment.

-Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Podcasting News reports today that podcasting and MP3 players are stealing listeners from traditional over the air radio. Cited is a study by Bridge Ratings, which predicts that by 2010, traditional radio’s current 94% penetration will have sunk to 85%.

According to the study, 27% of people 12-24 attribute their reduced use of radio to MP3 use; 22% attributed it to tired radio programming; 3% attributed it to podcast listening.

Other than the podcasting number, which seems about 10 times too high, those numbers sound pretty logical to me. I wonder, however, why there wasn’t consideration of the migration to satellite radio. My guess is that satellite radio, which is largely ad-free, will be the biggest threat to traditional radio.

Fred Wilson thinks HD Radio may save the traditional radio format. Perhaps, but I still say the desire for no ads will trump the desire for higher audio quality.

I believe that what’s killing traditional radio, and particularly FM radio, is its dependence on ads as the major revenue source. You can get away with ads for sporting events and other exclusive programming, but not music. No way. Not anymore.

The world is too flat for traditional advertising to fly. This is true in every media, and it is especially true for music. The smart PR firms out there are huddled in conference rooms thinking up some revolutionary marketing strategy that we haven’t seen yet. Mark my words- in 5 years advertising will be a lot different than it is today and in 10 years it will be a completely different industry.

Entire companies have been launched in the name of ad-avoidance. There’s simply no way people are going to continue to listen to over the top car ads and other nonsense just to hear the same songs they can hear without ads via an MP3 player or satellite radio. I often burn a CD-R with MP3’s and listen to it for a few days in shuffle mode. As the CD and DVD recording technology becomes more widespread and as auto makers continue to put better technology in cars, this trend will continue.

So what does traditional radio do? It has one major revenue source- and it is the exact one that will not work long term.

Traditional radio is dead. The only question is what will take its place.

Tags: radio, mp3, satellite radio

An Internet for Every Laptop

In a move destined to up the stakes in the internet multiplier game, a company called Webaroo has developed a tool that will put the internet (well, at least the important parts of it) on your laptop. No more pesky internet connection problems.

For a mere 40 GB of space, you can take the internet with you.

Google, who has been developing a measly one new internet, will certainly feel pressured now to develop a few more. Maybe Google will announce a program to put internets on iPods or maybe cell phones. I have a refrigerator that should be good for 7-8 internets.

Techdirt, as always, has a good read on this story.

Look, I travel a good bit. And the lack of an internet connection can be a pain. But there are three forces already in motion to fix this problem:

1) Free wi-fi. Many cities and lots of businesses are rolling out free wi-fi as a public service and/or a way to attract traffic. The shopping mall beside my office just announced that it has free wi-fi for visitors.

2) National wireless networks, like Verizon’s, which I use and have written favorably about here. At $15 a month extra to use my phone as a modem, one business trip per month without the need to buy access from a hotel or airport pays for the cost.

3) Airlines are gradually rolling out internet connections on their airplanes. Granted, there will probably be a cost involved. But if you need the internet for business, a small charge isn’t going to keep you from connecting. If you are not traveling on business and you can’t generally do without the internet on a plane, you need to reassess your priorities.

I also wonder what the business model is here. Are ads pushed in addition to the internet content? Will content providers pay to get in or at the top of the saved cache? If it’s free (and it is according to the FAQ), there has to be revenue from some other source. The only one I can think of is the old Web 2.0 standby- ads. Either directly or indirectly via page placement within the downloaded cache. If there’s another logical revenue stream, I can’t think of it.

So, I guess I’m wondering- what’s the catch?

In sum, an offline internet might solve a few problems for a few people, but I don’t see much of a business opportunity here.

Disney: One Tentative Step Towards the Present

I have never understand and still do not understand why putting otherwise free content on the internet is even an issue. If I were in charge of a TV network, I’d have started streaming my content back in the nineties. All of it.

If someone can receive my shows over the air for crying out loud and for free for crying out loud, what, exactly, is it that I am trying to preserve by treating this content like it’s some sort of national treasure? People have been recording and time-shifting network television since the VCR went mainstream in the early eighties.

TV networks have been hiding in the past for a couple of reasons.

One, there are a lot more content producers chasing the same number of viewers, so business expectations required that the networks proceed with caution to avoid giving away a potential revenue source. The record labels have already begun a de facto movement aimed at forcing consumers to pay for the same content multiple times.

The networks can’t really do that, since the content is primarily ad-based and has always been available for free. A corollary to the Billy Preston Rule makes it hard for the networks to take the record labels’ approach ($0 multiplied by anything is still $0).

Second, the networks were incredibly slow to appreciate the power of the internet. I’m still not sure they fully understand that the internet is a distribution method, not some mystical new business model.

Disney seems to have figured some of this out, and has announced that it will begin to stream some of its most popular shows, including Lost and Desperate Housewives at no cost to viewers. Note that the content will be streamed and that there will be non-skippable ads. Streaming gives Disney comfort (false perhaps) that it is not allowing the content to roam freely on the world “wild” web, and ads pay at least some of the costs of providing the content online.

It is important to note that this is being described as a two month trial period. Think of Disney as the Groundhog in late January. It’s about to peek out from its hole, but anything dark and scary might send it running back to a safe offline place.

Which means that I hope someone has prepared the Disney executives for the inevitable recording and redistribution of the streams. There is a way to record anything you can see or hear over a computer- and you can be sure someone will do it. I hope Disney doesn’t get spooked by that or we could be in for many more weeks of network internet-avoidance.

Just remember Disney- people can also record and redistribute content they receive over the air. The internet is no different. Say it with me. It is no different.

I think if Disney stays the course, we’ll see all of its network content online before too long. Being the first network to bow to the inevitable should and hopefully will pay off in the end.

Of course the real losers in this game are the vendors like iTunes who have been grasping for a way to make some money by reselling network content to the 10 people who actually watch TV shows on their iPods. I suppose those 10 people can still buy the right to do so, but this gives the rest of us a way to watch a show if our TIVOs crash (which, as we all know, they often do).

I’m excited about this and I applaud Disney for being at least a little progressive.

Bott vs Cringely and My Lawyer Newsome Story

I have a confession to make.

I’ve never watched much public television. Yes, I like Austin City Limits. And yes, I love PBS’s children’s shows, which my kids used to watch a lot before they learned about Sponge Bob and Scooby-Doo. But other than the mysteries that used to come on on Thursday nights, which I quit watching when that guy who played such an excellent Sherlock Holmes died, I have watched very little public television.

So I’d never heard of Robert X. Cringely until a few months ago. Apparently he’s a tech writer for PBS. While I’m in confession mode, I didn’t even realize there was one PBS. I thought PBS was a name for the various public television stations around the country who produce those great kids shows and other stuff favored by hybrid drivers and vegetarians.

But I digress.

Ed Bott came out swinging yesterday over an article Cringely wrote that touched on computer security.

It seems that Cringely mischaracterized some comments made by Mike Danseglio, program manager for the Security Solutions group at Microsoft, at the InfoSec World conference. World conference. Why not Universe conference? I know, why not Conference that Encompasses all of Time and Space? World conference. World Series. My old neighbor World B. Free. Names are the tattoos of the needle averse crowd.

Without going into a bunch of detail, Cringely quoted Danseglio as saying that the best way for companies and governments to deal with malware and spyware infestations is to put in place automated processes to wipe clean hard drives and reinstall operating systems and applications periodically.

What?

Has this guy ever even been inside a big corporate office? Does he have any idea how hard that would be to implement? It would require first and foremost a way to backup everything on every computer on the network. And here’s a news flash. Many if not most big companies store emails and documents on central servers. What they do not do is back up the hard drives of every local computer regularly, if at all.

You can’t rely on the desktop users to know how not to open an email from a stranger that says “I Love You,” so you certainly can’t expect them to know to or how to back up their hard drives. You also can’t explain to them why all of their locally stored data disappears every couple of weeks or months.

In sum, that is an unworkable solution for many companies.

To make matters worse, but much more interesting, Ed busts on Cringely for mischaracterizing what Danseglio said. Ed says, and based on what I read at the eWeek article I’d have to agree, that Danseglio said only that a hard drive wipe and reinstall is a last resort against a deeply infected machine. He also said that prevention was the best approach. From the eWeek article:

“The easy way to deal with this is to think about prevention. Preventing an infection is far easier than cleaning up,” he said, urging enterprise administrators to block known bad content using firewalls and proxy filtering and to ensure security software regularly scans for infections.

Ed smacks Cringely around pretty good and concludes:

If it says Cringely, you know it’s wrong.

I also didn’t know that Robert X. Cringely wasn’t this cat’s real name until I read Ed’s post. Why, exactly, does a tech writer for PBS need to pull a Marion Morrison and create a stage name? I am highly suspicious of anyone who isn’t a John Wayne-equivalent who uses an alias. A handle, like The Internet Guy, The Sports Guy or whatnot is fine because nobody believes that’s a given name. But using another name is just too Dragnet for me.

Also, I get really hacked when someone introduces themselves to me using their middle initial. “Hello, I’m Harcourt P. Livingston,” usually results in me going half caveman and half Cher by thumping my chest and saying “Kent” a couple of times.

Some people have like five names. I once met a guy who had five names and was the IVth. We didn’t hang out much.

All of this reminds me of something that happened many years ago in my wife’s hometown. We had been to her parents’ church and were standing around talking outside after the service. Some guy walks up to me and puts out his hand (now remember, this was a social setting) and says “Hello, I am Dr. So-and-so.” I shook his hand and said “Pleased to meet you, I’m lawyer Newsome.”

As I knew he would be, he was offended. My point was made.

Names. You have to love ’em.

About the Video Hosting Services

Dwight Silverman has a post this morning about the various video hosting services. He links to a post by DVguru that summarizes many of the options. I’ve looked at many of these sites as a part of my Web 2.0 Wars series and I’ve uploaded quite a few videos to test them out. Here’s my take.

I have traditionally used Castpost to host the videos I upload, because I am an alpha tester and because it was one of the first services that appeared on my radar. Castpost is still in alpha testing and has fallen behind some of the other services in the mindshare race. I hope it catches up, but in the meantime, I want to talk about the other video-related sites I use.

For finding good (and by good I generally mean funny) content, I start with YouTube and end up with Google Video. If there’s something video-related starting to create a buzz in the blogosphere, 9 times out of 10 it will be available on one of those sites. I like YouTube’s layout and interface better, but Google Video is easy to use and much better than many of Google’s recently added “me too” services.

But there’s another option for hosting video content you want to quickly add to your blog that I like better than either of those.

Stickam is neat because, in addition to uploading video files, you can create a video with your webcam directly from the Stickam application and save it directly to your Stickam account. A link is then automatically generated that will allow you to embed that video on a web page or in a blog post. The main Stickam page is too busy and not quite as intuitive as YouTube’s, but the extra features make it my choice for the creation and/or uploading of video content.

If you want to create, combine and edit videos online, the place to start is probably Jumpcut. One cool thing about Jumpcut is that you can remix other people’s videos to make your own version. I found this excellent song and equally excellent video at Jumpcut.

For me it breaks down like this:

Finding Video: YouTube; Google Video
Uploading Video: YouTube; Castpost
Creating Video for My Blog: Stickam
Editing and Remixing Video: Jumpcut

Newsome Research Report: The Sky is Still Blue

blue
Important Newsome.Org Research Report

The blogosphere is all a tither over a new Forrester Research report that says virtually nobody (percentage wise) listens to podcasts. Om says that’s OK because the glass is half full since more people listen to podcasts than use Web 2.0 applications. Look for Om’s new show on the Comedy Channel, because that was Onion funny.

Before gazing up to the sky in preparation for our new research report, those of me at Newsome Research asked a random sampling of the people at our dinner table the other night (3 families worth, with 2 iPod owners among them) if they listened to podcasts. I’ve tried to ask this question before, but people just looked at me blankly for a second or two before going back to whatever relevant conversation I had interrupted.

50% of the iPod owners knew what a podcast was, but none of them had ever listened to one. This is true notwithstanding the fact that one of the attendees (that would be me) does a podcast.

I’m almost 100% certain that, except for a couple of people who listen to my podcasts from their computers so they can tease me about the fact that I do one, no one I know in the real world has ever listened to a podcast. I am exactly 100% certain that no one I know in the real world has ever listed to a podcast on a pod.

Sometimes those of us in the tech blogosphere start believing that anyone other than us cares about the stuff we care about. That is a huge mistake. We are blogging and podcasting for each other. The 5 blog readers without a blog probably have a blog by now. Embrace the truth and it will free you. And all that.

Now back to podcasts.

Om points out correctly that podcasts are still hard to do. Doc Searls and I have talked about that as well. Don Dodge says it’s about user impatience, and I think he’s onto something. That’s why Podzinger will rule the podosphere if it can get word searching to work right.

So why do we do them?

Because we are interested in the technology and because we can. Sure, some people listen to them, but I suspect that most podcasters have little or no interaction with their listeners. You can’t leave a comment or a trackback to a podcast (sure, you can to a post talking about the podcast, but that’s different).

Podcasts are, for me, a supplemental and less interactive addition to my blog. Because I talk about music some, they let me play some of that music for people. I can assure you of one thing- if I didn’t have a blog, there’s no way I would go to all the effort of doing a podcast.

Om has 700 listeners. In podcast numbers (which are something like dog years), that’s like a million. Of course Om is well known as is his co-host Niall Kennedy. If I quit my day job and did nothing but podcast for 15 years, I might end up with half that many listeners. Then, of course, I would decide that podcasting is too hard and stop- making all that effort for naught.

So unlike blogging, where I disagree with those who claim not to care about having readers, I don’t think any sane person who isn’t Om or a near-Om would start podcasting and expect his or her numbers to get far into the triple digits. Podcasters podcast for a hundred different reasons. Ones who want to stay sane don’t do it for the traffic.

I don’t understand who is surprised by this new Forrester Research report. Perhaps the same ones who will be surprised by the latest Newsome Research Report. Tomorrow morning, I’ll look up when I go outside and do an update.

RanchoCast – April 7, 2006 Edition

I did a new podcast tonight. The theme is the Classic Rock Show.

Raina and the kids are visiting her parents this weekend, so Lucky Dog and I turned it up and played some of my favorite classic rock songs. Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Grateful Dead, Mountain, a live gem from the Guess Who and much more.

64 minutes of good classic rock.