Society & economy – Page 5

Dodgeball mobile site on the way

After suggesting that Dodgeball had become braindead, signs of life, like the forthcoming Dodgeball Mobile, are making me reconsider.

One thing that I would prefer to see, though, is their use of the “m dot” convention, rather than the longer-than-necessary “www.dodgeball.com/mobile” URL.

I sent them this feedback and got an automated reply:

Thanks for writing to dodgeball. This is just an automated reply to let you know that we received your email. We’re putting most of our energy on
improving dodgeball right now, so we’re unable to provide personal
responses to all the email we receive. We do look over all feedback and
suggestions, so we can bring you the best dodgeball experience possible.

So, at least they’re “putting most of [their] energy on improving dodgeball”. We’ll see, but frankly I’m becoming more and more of a fan of Plazes SMS.

Information philanthropy

I hadn’t quite thought about the co-production economy from the standpoint of philanthropy, but in a message from Chris Baskind, the admin of the Lighter Footstep Ma.gnolia Group, he said:

I know there’s nothing more valuable to you than your time, so let me ask for it directly: please contribute great links when you see them. Ma.gnolia’s interface is snappier than ever, and it doesn’t take long to archive a resource that might really make a difference to someone down the line.

It occurs to me that perhaps in the information economy, quality information, links and good ideas really are useful and valuable surrogates in place of donating money, which require centralized bodies, disclosures and other “conversion taxes” (that is, changing your dollars and cents into things that are tangibly useful for an endeavor).

I dunno, thoughts?

Opera 9.10 adds antiphishing

Opera 9.10 is out today with the the addition of what they’re wisely calling “Fraud Protection” (Firefox calls phished or spoofed sites “suspected forgeries“).

Similar to Firefox’s hybrid approach, wherein you can either download a list of sites to your computer or instead run checks against a Google service, Opera downloads a list of URLs from Phishtank and then runs a query against GeoTrust to see if the domain you’re visiting is legit.

It’s interesting to see that the heaviest area of browser “innovation” in the past couple years seems to be in anti-phishing, anti-spam, anti-popups, anti-forgeries, anti-fraud and generally fighting other things that make the Internet suck.

Now, at least, most of the major browsers are caught up with technology that will submit your surfing habits to third party sites in the interest of protecting you from the baddies, though it’s of course curious the choice of partners in each case and how this benefits each, enabling them to learn from this data… For example, in the case of Firefox or Microsoft, who partnered with Google and… Microsoft… respectively, will they also be able to use this information to improve their search results and advertising tactics? They say no, but hey now, if they’re the only choice on the block, that puts them in a pretty powerful position to determine who’s on the up and up and who’s… not.

‘The Corporation’ released on BitTorrent for free

Now here’s something clearly to be thankful for.

Sundance award-winning documentary The Corporation has been released for free on BitTorrent.

TorrentFreak has the details:

The new torrent download includes a high-quality rip of the master DVD and a 40 minute interview with Joel Bakan, the author of the book and writer of the film. Mark Achbar actually dedicated a computer in his garage to do nothing but seed.

Although the torrent download is free, the filmmakers encourage people to donate a small fee if they like what they see. We asked Mark Achbar how the first round of donations went. He said, “since my initial torrent launch of The Corporation at the end of August, there have been $635.00 in contributions. They ranged from $2 to three very generous gifts of $100 each. All are very much appreciated.”

The makers of “The Corporation just launched a Campaign for Corporate Harm Reduction (C4CHR) in collaboration with Hellocoolworld.com. The purpose of this campaign is to collect stories about the impact of the film, asking people what they did, or something they’ve heard happened as a result of the film.

“We want to create a feedback loop on the “what you can do” front, and perhaps turn it into a book. The torrent is a great way to stay in touch with people about our current activities Achbar” Achbar explained.

He added, “my only regret is that I didn’t put up my own torrent sooner.”

Download the official torrent (DivX or iPod formats available) and start seeding!

Bonus: ChomskyTorrents has a bunch of other awesome mind-freeing stuff to check out! Definitely fodder for CitiCinema.

Skype + eBay + Google Local, Base and Payments, oh my!

Had a meeting with our advisor Don Thorson today (who’s currently at Jajah) and found it interesting to see that Google is strongly moving to make good on the deal they inked with eBay in August into the voice communications area.

First, they started talking about giving away ad-supported cell phones, then they added Skype to the Google Pack and now they’ve gone and made the most obvious play by adding click-to-call dialing to Google Local, executing on part of the original agreement.

With Skype adding SMS capabilities it’s curious to watch Google and Skype fight a pitched battle into telephony systems while the rest seem to be waiting and watching.

I mean, doesn’t this have an obvious end point?

I mean, take eBay listings, take Google Base, take Adwords as it spins out into radio and print, take Skype and take free click-to-calls where Google aka Skype foots the bill… add free cell phones… free wifi. And now give Google the tools to monetize the whole lot of the transactions flowing over its servers, airwaves and cell towers… and the ability to know who you are, what you’re up to, what you like, and how much you’re worth to advertisers.

If I were a farming man, I’d be a tad concerned about these Google silos cropping up along the horizon. But that’s just me.

The end of Web Two Dot Oh (drink!)

With the New York Times calling the beginning of Web 3.0 (not so much, say the trademark holders) and one of the few interesting diggers in the valley getting canned (see meme — did Winer really break this one?) in favor of dollars and cents over T & A, I have to wonder whether the short period of Web 2.0-ness that began with the launch of IE7 has already come haltingly to an end.

I mean, when the personality assassin of Silicon Valley wants to go after the “audience with less interest about trivial scandals and far more interested in the financial impact Silicon Valley has on the world”, I guess, well, we all have to realize that it’s no longer about us, but about them. And about the money. And about the same boring drivel that made the last bubble so disgusting and soulless.

So, whatever, we’re not in a bubble. We’re just in a fucking hamster wheel, racing against time in perpetual beta, waiting for someone to unhook the wheel and let us escape to freedom. Or something.

Bon chance, Darling Nickie-boy!