Google's China Game

So Google has agreed to censor its web search results in China. No Tiananmen Square, no independent Taiwan. No Gmail, no blogs.

It sucks that Google has to do this, but I think, all things considered, this falls on the right side of the OK line. Here’s why.

There’s definitely an OK line when it comes to ignoring basic rights in the name of global expansion. For example, I would be outraged if Google agreed to censor out stories about successful business women or members of a particular religion just to get some deal working in some far away country that doesn’t share our views about equality and religious freedom.

On the other hand, I don’t know that the Chinese people have voiced any desire to avoid reading about Tiananmen Square or Taiwan. To the contrary, they are being denied that right by the government. The top down origin of this restriction is, at least for me, the difference maker. While Google can’t allow its Chinese users to read about these things, it can give them something- a Chinese Google- they don’t already have. Maybe by becoming a player in the Chinese internet, Google can, over time, be a force for positive change.

Most of the efforts leading to this positive change will ultimately have to come from within China, not without. So I’m not bothered by Google’s decision to give the Chinese people something as opposed to nothing.

Plus, as Mathew Ingram points out, Google is not the first major U.S. internet player to make concessions in the name of Chinese expansion.

To get carried away and claim that this somehow represents Google’s transformation into Darth Vader is simply naive. Americans sometimes seem to believe that everyone has to start acting like us immediately and that anyone who doesn’t is, well, evil. That’s just not the way the world works. The important thing is to seek positive change and avoid going backwards. Google’s China game is certainly not a giant step forward, but being realistic and trying to work within the system is not going backwards either.

We can draw lots of lines in family discussions at the dinner table and in newspapers and blogs, but positive change sometimes requires compromise. Once you draw the wrong line, the conversation is over and the battle lost. At least this way Google lives, in China, to hopefully fight another day.

Are Message Boards Old School?

One of Tom Morris’s many good links today is a post at Learnandteachonline about how message boards have gone out of fashion. Let’s think about this a second.

The idea is that more web sites have become blogs or blog-like, inviting a more decentralized conversation. While I certainly agree with that, here are the big four reasons why I think message boards still have a place in 2006 and beyond.

1) Topics and messages on a message board are more clustered, which permits a faster and more immediate conversation. Faster because you can read and respond to many threads in a message board in a matter of a couple of minutes. More immediate because posters can and often do post a series of responses within seconds of each other. Take tonight’s loss by the formerly great Wake Forest basketball team to Florida State. Within seconds of the end of the game there were teens of topics and hundreds of posts at ACCBoards.Com about the demise of the Wake Forest basketball program. It would take a lot longer to get all of those points of view if they were spread out over several blogs.

2) Most people don’t know what a blog is and most of the people who know what blogs are don’t care about them. If I tried to move my traffic from ACCBoards.Com to some blog, I’d lose most of my traffic and all of my advertisers. There are simply more people who have the knowledge and inclination to visit and read message boards than blogs. This may change over time, but we’ve got a long way to go.

3) While interactivity at blogs is encouraged, it follows (both figuratively and literally) the content posted by the blogger. In other words, the blogger’s content is king at a blog, whereas everyone’s content is equal on a message board.

4) Non-posting readers (called lurkers on message boards) are far more likely to wander around a message board with thousands of posts on a particular topic than they are to surf from blog to blog and read maybe (on a great day) 100 posts on a topic.

I think greater interactivity has taken some traffic away from message boards since their heyday, but I firmly believe that message boards fill a related but separate need that will continue for years to come.

Technorati Tags: message boards

In Other News, the Sky is Still Blue

blue
Yep, it’s still blue

Everyone is all a tither about this statement from Susan Decker, Yahoo’s CFO:

We don’t think it’s reasonable to assume we’re going to gain a lot of share from Google. It’s not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share.

Steve Rubel says:

I have no interest in using a product that the company doesn’t aspire to make best of breed. If search is no longer hip to Yahoo, then Yahoo Search is no longer hip with me.

Steve, guys, what do you expect? Is is better for us and for Yahoo’s shareholders if Yahoo continues to tilt at the cyber-windmill by making the impossible a major part of its corporate plan?

Face it, no one is going to surpass Google as the internet search leader. I know, I know, I know- Google passed Yahoo and Alta Vista and HotBot (which was Google before Google) and all those other search engines not all that long ago, but the race is over. Betamax and LPs used to have the largest market share too. Should Sony/BMG make it a corporate goal to make LPs the new media of choice?

Of course not. The people who have to actually make the money have to be realistic. I think Ms. Decker’s statement is not only true, it shows that Yahoo is dealing with the what is, not the what was.

Rather than try to do the impossible, Yahoo should (a) buy Technorati right now, and then (b) follow Thomas Hawk’s Yahoo savings plan. Well, except for the TIVO part. I love me some TIVO too, but it’s dying on the vine thanks to abandonment by DirecTV and its deal-a-day approach to securing a lifeline.

Again, somebody tell me why Yahoo’s admission of the obvious is either surprising or disturbing?

Lessons from the Bayosphere

Dan Gillmor posted today about his experiences creating and trying to grow Bayosphere. He talks very frankly about the beginnings of Bayosphere, its successes, its failures and the conclusion that this well conceived and executed citizen media blog/website simply hasn’t worked as well as he’d hoped.

This is a must read for those who still believe I am wrong about the steep uphill climb faced by new blogs in 2006. I’m not saying this proves my point- it’s not about being right or wrong. I’m simply saying that if someone as well known and connected as Dan Gillmor can create something as good as Bayosphere, get the traffic Bayosphere gets and still conclude that it’s “obvious to anyone who’s paid attention, the site didn’t take off,” what does that say about the chances of a new blog created by some anonymous blogger without Dan’s reputation and experience?

Dan talked about his approach to community building:

We envisioned Bayosphere as a place where people in the San Francisco Bay Area community could learn about and discuss the regional scene, with a focus on technology, the main economic driver. My tech and policy blogging would be an anchor, hopefully attracting some readers and, crucially, some self-selected citizen journalists who’d join a wider conversation.

And the lack of collaboration:

Many fewer citizens participated, they were less interested in collaborating with one another, and the response to our initiatives was underwhelming. I would do things differently if I was starting over.

And, finally, the conclusion that I believe is telling for the potential new blogger:

The evidence strongly suggested early on that this was not likely to be a viable publishing venture for some considerable period without partnerships to bring in both readers and contributors.

Dan makes a lot of other excellent points about community building. Since any successful blog has to be, at least in part, a community, these comments are spot on for blog building.

He also talks about the tension between writing to communicate and the compromises that are required in the search for a profit. Again, all of this is part and parcel of the blogging vs business stuff I am so interested in.

Does this mean that growing a new blog is impossible? No, but it is an object lesson in how hard it is. And if it’s hard for Dan, it’s going to be harder for the rest of us.

More Discussion:

Darwinian Web
SiliconBeat
The Bay Area is Talking
JLuster.Org

More on the Battle for the Internet

David Isenberg has a good post on the network neutrality issue, that started out as a letter to one of the old media gatekeepers, on the battle for the future of the internet I talked about this past weekend.

He makes some very good points, but the one that really grabbed me is the following question: [Is] internet access a freedom, like freedom of the press, or a privilege that may be granted or withheld?

Clearly, the telcos want to couch it as a privilege they can parcel out (for a fee of course) to whichever web site will pay them the most money. The telcos want to play the role of traffic cop, directing people like you and me to certain websites by controlling the speed at which we go from where we want to go (slow) to where they are paid to direct us (fast).

The telecos (the same ones who want to ban municipal wi-fi in Texas) want the right to charge web sites and other bandwidth users for using their internet lines and infrastructure. We, the customers, have already paid our ISP for internet access. The telcos now want to charge our internet destinations for bringing us to them. Of course any destination that capitulates to this ludicrous demand will find some way to pass that cost through to us. So ultimately, we’ll all pay twice.

The answer, of course, is legislation requiring network neutrality. We need to nip this sort of thing in the bud. Here’s a list of email addresses for the members of Congress and other elected representatives (I don’t support the web site where this list is located, but it’s the best list I could find).

Otherwise, the internet, which has become central to our way of life, will become a privilege- and a more expensive one at that.

More recent discussion by:

PC World
Om Malik

Reading List

Here’s what’s on today.

Robert Gale links to an hilarious Ali G video.

Fred Wilson likes Last.fm more than Pandora. I like both, but Pandora works better for me. Plus the Last.fm player sounds horrible on my computer (though this may be a problem on my end since no one else seems to have this problem).

Thomas Hawk (my favorite photographer) joins a new blog network.

Blackberry loses its appeal. Personally, I’m bored with the whole Blackberry thing. Let’s liquidate both companies as a deterrent to future stupid lawsuits.

Frank Gruber talks about his TagCloud experience.

Steve Rubel confesses that before he landed in the blogosphere, he had a gig at another famous amusement park.

Amy Gahran talks more about her great idea for improving podcasts.

Naked Conversations Shipping from Amazon

I just got this email with respect to the copy I ordered the other day:

The following items were included in this shipment:
———————————————————————
Qty Item Price Shipped Subtotal
———————————————————————
1 Naked Conversations : How Blo $16.47 1 $16.47

———————————————————————
Item Subtotal: $16.47
Shipping & Handling: $0.00

Total: $16.47

Paid by *****: $16.47

——————————————————————–

Is Web 2.0 Only for Geeks?

geek

I’ve been thinking and posting about all these new Web 2.0 applications a lot lately. There’s no doubt that there are some great applications our there, most of them free, that can greatly enhance, simplify and organize our lives.

But here’s what starting to bug me: does anyone other than us know about them? Is Web 2.0 about everyone, or just the geeks (like me) who follow technology closely?

I can’t even get my friends and family to use Flickr, so how am I going to get them to use any of these things?

After I posted my mini-review of the best of the Web 2.0 applications, I asked some of my non-geek friends if they saw the post. Many of them said yes. But when I asked what they thought, they almost universally said that they didn’t really understand what all those programs did, and that they didn’t have the time (they meant inclination, but were being gentle) to try to figure it out.

There’s an obvious and substantial payoff to learning how to use Flickr. Our jobs require us to use email and Word. But the payoff for a lot of these Web 2.0 applications is more subtle, more remote. If Flickr is on the wrong side of the effort line, where does that leave these other applications?

So I wonder if the rest of the population really cares about Web 2.0? Is it enough that the technorati follows the development of these applications and eagerly uses them? I bet even the technorati’s use of many of these applications tapers off over time. I love to try out these new applications, but maybe one in ten becomes a part of my core application list (Flickr, Del.icio.us and Technorati being the big three so far).

Maybe over time all this stuff will be second nature to all the moms, dads, students and teachers. But we aren’t there yet (by a long shot) and it seems to me it will take some time to get there.

What does this mean for Web 2.0?

Will it change the world or is it just a passing fad of the technorati?

I’m Ready to Pull for Network Neutrality

Christopher Stern has an article at the Washington Post today about the telephone companies’ unbelievable new customer screw-job disguised as a business plan whereby the telephone companies, who control a lot of the pipes that carry internet traffic, want to sell faster throughput to certain websites. In other words, Google or Yahoo might pay the telephone companies money in exchange for faster speed through the pipes. Stated simply, if this insane plan is allowed to continue, the website of the company that pays the money will appear faster and more responsive than the company who doesn’t.

This may be the most consumer-unfriendly idea I have ever heard.

No one, from computer nerd to emailing granny, wants some dude in the sales department of some stock-price-falling, 20th century, former monopoly telephone company trying to direct them to particular websites by making them faster (and, as a result, making others slower).

This would be like the federal government allowing a state to sell lots of wide, fast roads to Target while leaving Walmart (not to mention all the mom and pop stores) at the end of old, crowded roads. People want to decide for themselves where to shop and where to surf.

Plus, once this happens, you can be sure these telephone companies will find other similar ways to make easy money. Toll pipes would probably be next- if they can make the website pay for speed, wouldn’t they naturally wonder if they can make the user pay a little too? One telephone representative already talked about “charging Apple five or 10 cents extra each time a customer downloaded a song using iTunes.” Charging Apple is one half-step away from charging the buyer.

No one, and I mean no one, wins here. If these companies don’t have a plan to pay for all this new (money making) infrastructure then simply don’t build it. That’s the way it works. You can’t change the game just because you aren’t winning.

Consumer groups, Yahoo, Google and anyone else with a brain cell to dangle have lined up to lobby Congress (why does grammar dictate that we capitalize that word- I don’t get it) for a “network neutrality law” that will prevent this nonsense.

On the other side are AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.

Who do you think has our best interest at heart?

I’m pulling for network neutrality.

Inbound Links Tutorial

There are probably a ton of handy plug-ins that do this for people using WordPress, Movable Type and other blogging platforms, but for those of us who don’t have a handy plug-in, I have been trying to figure out how to get a semi-automated list of “Most Recent Inbound Links” to appear on my front page. It’s a work in progress, but here’s what I’ve come up with so far. You can see the list in the right hand column.

First, I began bookmarking inbound links that I notice via Technorati and Google searches (those links are in the left hand column under “Other Blogs”) at Del.icio.us with the tag “inbound” (any tag will work as long as you only use it for inbound links). Since I use Firefox, the Del.icio.us extension makes this very easy. I don’t add any comments (one of the optional fields when you make a Del.icio.us bookmark) because I just want a list of links, but it would work fine with comments if you want to show excerpts, etc. The bookmarked inbound links then show up on the “inbound” (or whatever tag you use) filtered Del.icio.us page. Mine is here.

Note the RSS button at the bottom of that Del.icio.us page, indicating that there is an RSS feed for those bookmarks. Next I had to convert that RSS feed to javascript so it can be displayed on this page. I tried a bunch of different approaches, but the one that (so far) works the best is to run the RSS feed through Feed Digest, play with the display options via your Feed Digest Control Panel (I got rid of the default table structure and just made it a list of links with the date above them). Once you get the links to display the way you want (which Feed Digest makes pretty simple), you’re almost ready to go.

You can drop the javascript generated by Feed Digest right into your page if you want. When I did that, however, it didn’t display correctly and messed up my formatting.

So I made a separate html page- inbound.html, fixed the formatting on that page to my preference and added a server side include (like I use for the CD and book lists in the right hand column) to fetch and display that page.

It seems like a roundabout way to get there, but it seems to work so far. I’m going to test it out for a few days and see how I (and those who link here) like it.

It is only semi-automatic, however, because you still have to bookmark your inbound links via Del.icio.us. Like most people, I check my inbound links fairly often looking for cross-blog conversation opportunities, so I don’t find this to be burdensome. Plus, it serves as a filter for spam links.

There may be better ways to get there (short of changing my blogging platform). If so, I’d love to read about them in the Comments.