The Gong Show

Union Square Ventures current members (and an alum) went on a blogging tear today. Stellar posts all around, good enough to merit a reading list here:

• Brad’s post today regarding public editing after publication is excellent. A must read for all new media producers and consumers (and prosumers).
• Next, check out Charlie’s early numbers and analysis on Voki (and the competition). Very entertaining, and his opinions hit the nail on the head for me.
• Finally, Fred wrote about his usage of Wesabe and how it fits into his personal finance management. This is great for two reasons; it’s a succinct and accurate description of the value of Wesabe, and it’s an intriguing view into user experience and the process of adopting software.

I still can’t believe I get paid to take part in dialogs like this every day. I love this job.

I’ve been to a bunch of concerts this weekend: Mastodon, Tapes N Tapes, and Pretty Girls Make Graves.

All great shows… There’s no way I could pick a favorite.

Mastodon was totally brutal (read: hardcore, not shitty). Halfway through, I expected to see them sacrafice a goat on stage. I jumped in the mosh pit and was promptly reminded by an elbow to the face that I’m no longer 17. I walked out of the show soaked in sweat (the majority of which was not my own) and I loved every second of it.

Tapes N Tapes generated climactic walls of sound that crashed violently, and then gently washed over the audience as it withdrew. Perhaps I’m taking this metaphor too far, but I loved the ebb and flow… constantly changing volume dynamics.

The new songs that Tapes N Tapes played were incredible. I don’t remember the song titles they called out, but I’m really excited about their next album now. The Loon, their latest album, was released 18 months ago, so I think a new album will come sooner rather than later.

Pretty Girls Make Graves is currently running across the states on their fairwell tour. I’ve been a fan since freshman year of college, yet this is the first (and due to their breakup, the last) chance I had to see them live. They unleased hooks so addictive and sticky, they make cocaine look like pixy sticks. I’m still humming a few of the trickier riffs in my head; they grab hold and don’t let go.

The Pretty Girls Make Graves show was my first show at the Gramercy Theater. This is my new favorite venue, easily the best venue in the city. The acoustivcs are excellent in every nook in the room, and the stadium seating is great for lounging through the openers, while the floor provides ample room for rabid fans of the main act. I’d go back there just for the venue, regardless of who’s playing (ok… Maybe not Matchbox 20).

It was a marathon of great music… I should do this more often.

Here are Hype Machine searches for the bands in this post if you want a sample of the music I saw.
Pretty Girls Make Graves on the Hype Machine.
Tapes N Tapes on the Hype Machine.
Mastodon on the Hype Machine.

Or just listen to this playlist:

Wallstrip interviewed Jimmy Wales today. It turned out great; check it out (also embedded below).

My favorite quote from the interview: “There’s something about a project to gather all the world’s knowledge that really brings out the nutcases.”

Considering my recent interest in the boundaries and definition of fair use with respect to caching, I wanted to comment on the decision today to overturn the prior decision in the Google V. Perfect 10 case. The courts decided today that Google’s caching of Perfect 10′s images in thumbnail form is legal under fair use.

This piece of the judge’s findings summarizes the outcome nicely:

Google has put Perfect 10’s thumbnail images (along with millions of other thumbnail images) to a use fundamentally different than the use intended by Perfect 10. In doing so, Google has provided a significant benefit to the public.

It’s interesting that an important aspect of fair use is a “fundamentally different use” than intended by the copyright owner. So, if I want to index all the music on the internet for the purpose of making it searchable, that would be fundamentally different than the use intented by the major label content owners, which is to sell the music for consumption.

Also, an important aspect of the ruling is the “significant benefit to the public” that Google provides in their fair use. So, again using my music on the internet example, if I opened my index of searchable music to the public, there would be an obvious public benefit because my index would aid discovery in ways that are not currently available.

I’m sure there’s a fallacy in my logic because I am trying to apply the law from one medium to another medium… but as I argued before: “It seems silly to set up two different standards based on the contents of packets. Packets are packets. Beyond its copyright status, it shouldn’t matter what’s in a packet for caching to be considered fair use.”

I’m happy about the Google ruling. It’s setting precedent for other different applications of caching/indexing media online.

I’m attending a talk by Chris DiBona at Google today. The event is free and open to the public, but you need to sign-up in advance (unfortunately sign-ups are closed at this point).

I bring it up because Read/Write Web did an intriguing interview with Chris. My favorite question:

Q: Are their any commercial applications, which you believe are especially vulnerable to an open source competitor emerging?

A: I think that vulnerable is the wrong word. Here’s how I think of it: if a commercial entity finds that they can no longer sell their software because a viable open source project has risen to displace them, they really have to decide if they want to start selling services around the open source offerings or get out of that particular line of business. IBM has done a terrific job of the former.

Of course, Chris is right: IBM has done a terrific job of transitioning to the services market, and even endorsing open source alternatives in the process (Eclipse, GNU-Linux, etc). But, what’s more interesting to me is the lack of companies that are failing to make this transition, except one: Microsoft.

Another Read/Write Web article points out Microsoft’s failure to adapt to open source. Microsoft has been losing market share of internal products for years to Firefox, Apache, MySQL, GNU-Linux, etc. What about other failures? Perhaps Borland (falling to GCC and Eclipse), or was Borland more of a victim of Microsoft’s MSDN initiatives than open source? It’s amazing how terrible Microsoft is at adapting to open source competitors, and yet there are so few other companies fighting in the same futile way. Other companies threatened by open source (Sun, Novell, IBM, Apple, etc) have adapted and even embraced, transitioning as Chris DiBona outlined.

I hope Chris talks more about how open source is shaping software markets tonight. If anyone else is attending, drop me a line.

Update: I found this Wikipedia article about the origins of this X W-L formula. Of course, I should have looked at Wikipedia first…

Original Post: I just learned about the X W-L stat is baseball standings. I don’t know if it’s a common metric for all baseball standings, but they use in at MLB.com.

According to MLB.com, X W-L is the expected number of Wins and Losses based on runs scored (RS) and runs allowed (RA). The following formula is used to calculate X W-L:

RS^1.82/((RS^1.82)+(RA^1.82))

I think this is pretty cool. You can use X W-L as statistical evidence about the luck of a given team. For example, the general buzz around New York is that the Yankees rocky start was due to a lot of close losses, bad luck. Their actual W-L is 16-18 and their X W-L is 19-15, a difference of three games. So, there’s some statistical evidence to the thought that the Yankees are just down on their luck.

I wonder how the MLB derived the 1.82 constant in the X W-L formula? I’m sure there’s a math major out there that understands the greater principle at work here.

My response to the announcement that Hammer is on the expert panel at Techcrunch 20:

NYT has an interesting quick review of the latest battle in the war over who owns clickstream data?

The latest battle described here pitted Jeff Chester, the executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy, against Mike Zaneis, the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) vice president for public policy. An attendee, Kaliya Hamlin, described the battle as the “angry, progressive anti-consumer guy vs. the super-corporate marketing guy.”

This debate has been played out many times, and I have participated on both sides of the table.

The blogger/publisher in me says that anytime users request data from my server, they need to give me as much information as required in order to allow my server to return the requested data. And, in exchange for that data, I have every right to log that requested data and use as I please (analytics, tracking, etc). Users have the right to do the same thing for me.

The consumer in me knows just how creepy this tracking can get, and I do think that consumers need some protections against the really aggressive tracking.

Mary Hodder’s blog Napsterization asks:

Is your clickstream a personal expression (carefully chosen and shaped by you)? In other words, can you copyright your clickstream and exert ownership?

This is a great question. And the lawyers I’ve talked to about this issue have come out mixed. Some say “yes” clickstream is subject to copyright law. Others say “no” it is not subject to copyright because a requirement for copyright is an intentional act of creation, and clickstream is generated implicitly, not intentionally.

I wish I was there to watch Mr. Chester and Mr. Zaneis duke it out in the latest battle over clickstream. And, I’m always interested in debating this subject with people. I’m happy to take on either side of the debate because I’m really torn internally.

Over a year ago, a Nevada court ruled that Google’s cache falls within the boundaries of fair use.

Does that mean that when I download copyrighted* streaming media (like internet radio) and cache the result, my cache of the streaming media falls under fair use?

Or, does the fallacy in this logic rest in the fact that Google’s cache is strictly text data and I’m talking about caching audio/video data?

It seems silly to set up two different standards based on the contents of packets. Packets are packets. Beyond its copyright status, it shouldn’t matter what’s in a packet for caching to be considered fair use. If caching any copyrighted* packet is legal, than caching all copyrighted* packets should be legal.

However, if caching streaming media is fair use, then I could setup a server that caches every internet radio station out there and dumps the data into S3. Then, I’d have a universe of every song ever broadcast. Legally.

So, what’s the catch?

* By “copyrighted” I’m referring to strict, “all rights reserved” copyright, not CC.