International Law
Freedom to Differ 
A blog that speaks freely about legal issues facing the media and the internet. It mainly covers issues relating to the legal regulation of the internet and the media, but at times Constitutional law issues and politics are discussed. While the focus is on Australia, developments in other nations around the world are considered as well.
Post Frequency: 3.5/day Last Entry: November 21, 2009 at 03:35:35 Recent Entries: 1102
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Moving Numbers
Posted on November 21, 2009Zolitics, which describes itself as "the world's first political entertainment network", is posting a funny, smart political web series called Moving Numbers. Here is a trailer: Moving Numbers "Truth" Trailer from Zolitics on Vimeo. You can watch the series here.
Real people on Twitter for #followfriday
Posted on November 20, 2009Following the lead of my friend Kate Carruthers, I now post to my blog each Friday five real people I am recommending as part of #followfriday on Twitter. I like this approach as it makes the #followfriday suggestions more personal and allows an opportunity for me to (briefly) explain why...
Newspapers are what?
Posted on November 19, 2009I laughed out loud when I read this on TechCrunch, "Newspapers Are What? Google?s Got Some Suggestions":
Inside Insiders
Posted on November 15, 2009Every Sunday I've been posting a short weekly comment on Australian politics, following the ABC's Sunday morning political chat show, Insiders. Here is this week's podcast:
Football, politics and Constitution: a potential legal issue surrounding the 2018 or 2022 World Cup
Posted on November 14, 2009I read in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning that rugby league officials fear the Federal Government will introduce legislation to effectively stop rugby league from playing matches for two months if Australia wins its bid to host the soccer World Cup in 2018 or 2022...
Real people on Twitter for #followfriday
Posted on November 13, 2009Over the past few weeks I've noticed that my friend Kate Carruthers has posted to her a blog five real people she is recommending as part of #followfriday on Twitter. I quite like this approach as it makes the #followfriday suggestions more personal and allows an opportunity to (briefly) explain...
Dispo Maps
Posted on November 12, 2009QUT PhD student, Jan Seeburger, has developed a new iPhone app called Dispo Maps: DispoMaps enables you to add contacts from your iPhone?s address book and share your location with them. If a contact has more than one email address, you can select which email account you would like DispoMaps...
Professor PowerPoint
Posted on November 11, 2009Slashdot had an interesting post on PowerPoint as a teaching and learning tool at universities titled, Attack of the PowerPoint-Wielding Professors: "A CS student blogger named Carolyn offers an interesting take on why learning from PowerPoint lectures is frustrating...
Sesame Street turns 40: one, two, three ... forty
Posted on November 11, 2009This week Sesame Street is turning 40. To celebrate I thought I'd embed my favourite Sesame Street mash-up video, The Count Censored:
The noughties: "Decade in Review"
Posted on November 10, 2009Newsweek 20/10 marks the first 10 years of the new century:
Inside Insiders
Posted on November 07, 2009Every Sunday I've been posting a short weekly comment on Australian politics, following the ABC's Sunday morning political chat show, Insiders. Here is this week's podcast:
E-courts only work with e-judges and e-lawyers
Posted on November 07, 2009After reading this article, "Court tweets sustained but paper lurks", on technology in an Australian courtroom, I recorded this podcast where I share some thoughts on why e-courts have been slow to take off in Australia:
Inside Insiders
Posted on October 31, 2009Every Sunday I've been posting a short weekly comment on Australian politics, following the ABC's Sunday morning political chat show, Insiders. Here is this week's podcast:
Losing net neutrality
Posted on October 29, 2009Gizmodo shows us a worst case scenario of what could happen if we don't maintain net neutrality:
Inside Insiders
Posted on October 27, 2009Every Sunday I've been posting a short weekly comment on Australian politics, following the ABC's Sunday morning political chat show, Insiders. Here is this week's podcast:
Inside Insiders
Posted on October 25, 2009Every Sunday I've posting a short weekly comment on Australian politics, following the ABC's Sunday morning political chat show, Insiders. Here is this week's podcast:
Inside Insiders
Posted on October 18, 2009Every Sunday I've posting a short weekly comment on Australian politics, following the ABC's Sunday morning political chat show, Insiders. Here is this week's podcast: Close readers, or listeners, will notice that I had been using a service called Audioboo to record and post these podcasts, however, I am now...
Audioboo: Inside Insiders
Posted on October 10, 2009Every Sunday I use Audioboo to post a short weekly comment on Australian politics, following the ABC's Sunday morning political chat show, Insiders. Here is this week's Audioboo: Listen!
Audioboo: Inside Insiders
Posted on October 04, 2009Every Sunday I use Audioboo to post a short weekly comment on Australian politics, following the ABC's Sunday morning political chat show, Insiders. Here is this week's Audioboo: Listen!
Thinking out loud
Posted on October 03, 2009Back in April I blogged about how I wasn't sure what I was going to do with this humble little blog (see here), and not much has changed since. Here I muse out loud about the future of Freedom to Differ: Listen! I would, however, be interested in your thoughts...
Google Wave
Posted on October 03, 2009Like most nerds, the highlight of this week was the beta release of Google Wave. After having spent a little time playing around with it yesterday and today, I thought I'd post a short Audioboo with my initial impressions: Listen! If you still don't know what Google Wave is, check...
Audioboo: Sunday morning political talk shows
Posted on September 30, 2009I've posted a quick Audioboo review of the main Sunday morning political talk shows in the US from the perspective of an US political junkie based in Australia: Listen!
Did You Know?
Posted on September 27, 2009There are many surprising statistics in The Economist?s Fall 2009 ?Did You Know?? video on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology. For example, 95% of all downloaded songs last year weren?t paid for and that apparently 40 million people have been rick-rolled:
Dear Lily (an open letter to Lily Allen)
Posted on September 27, 2009Here is an open letter to Lily Allen in song format, regarding her recent campaign against filesharing and her decision to quit music. (If this makes no sense to you, you can read the background here.)
Audioboo: Inside Insiders
Posted on September 27, 2009I have started using Audioboo to post a short weekly comment on Australian politics every Sunday, following the ABC's Sunday morning political chat show, Insiders. Starting this week I thought I would also repost them to this blog, in the hope that they will gradually find an audience...
Recap of the 40 Hour Famine Lock-In
Posted on August 23, 2009This weekend I had the amazing experience of doing the 40 Hour Famine while locked in the Big Brother house. The 40 Hour Lock-In, as it was dubbed, was a once in a life experience that raised awareness and money to help children, families and communities in desperate need...
40 Hour Famine Lock-In: 40 people, 40 hours, One house, One Mission!
Posted on August 17, 2009This weekend I am doing the 40 hour famine to raise money for World Vision Australia. However, rather than just sitting by myself feeling hungry for 40 hours, I have been lucky enough to be selected for the 40 Hour Famine Lock-In. I am one of 40 people who will...
A social network road trip
Posted on August 17, 2009Graham Smith took a Facebook road trip to actually see in person his Facebook friends. He saw friends from childhood, college, previous jobs and ex girlfriends. He saw people he hadn't spoken to in years. And he documented it with his friend Josh Baron to produce an amazing documentary: ?Before...
Social media revolution
Posted on August 17, 2009This thought provoking video presents a series of interesting statistics about the growth of social media:
Hack
Posted on August 08, 2009Yesterday I was a guest on Hack, Triple J's nightly current affairs show, where we discussed a range of different legal issues, including drug laws, file-sharing, abortion, euthanasia and gay rights: THE SHAKE UP! What's illegal that shouldn't be? What should be a crime? Be a lawmaker with three legal...
Have you finished your marking?
Posted on August 06, 2009In Campus Review, for the week commencing Monday, 3 August 2009, there is a biting and hysterical piece that looks at the pressures academics face when marking. If you are a university lecturer (or even a student) you really should read the whole piece here, but I thought I'd reproduce...
Golden Gavel next Tuesday 11 August
Posted on August 04, 2009The Golden Gavel is on next Tuesday 11 August at Vinos Eagle Street Pier ... and once again I will be competing. The Golden Gavel is an annual event held by the Queensland Young Lawyers in coordination with the Australian Young Lawyers Committee. The Golden Gavel is a public speaking...
Law 2.0
Posted on July 29, 2009At the State Legal Educators Conference this morning, I am presenting a paper titled Law 2.0: The Challenge of User-generated and Peer-produced Networks, Content & Culture. You can watch a video of that presentation here: Law 2.0: The Challenge of User-generated and Peer-produced Networks, Content & Culture from Peter Black...
Guest post: "We Should Re-Think our Stance on Fiji"
Posted on May 06, 2009Dilan, a regular reader of this blog, has written this opinion piece on Fiji and I have agreed to post it below: We Should Re-Think our Stance on Fiji It seems self-evident that democracy is the most effective form of government regardless of how imperfect it may be...
#atNickHodge: "Australian Constitution. Yes, We have one"
Posted on May 01, 2009Last night I was a guest on Nick Hodge's Ustream show, atNickHodge, where we discussed the Australian Constitution:
Podcast on Ice TV Pty Ltd v Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd
Posted on April 23, 2009Yesterday evening I had a chat with Ben Grubb from Tech Wired Australia about the High Court's decision Ice TV Pty Ltd v Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd. Ben has posted a podcast of that conversation you can download here. And see my previous posts on the decision here and...
What others are saying about Ice TV Pty Ltd v Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd
Posted on April 22, 2009Yesterday the High Court of Australia handed down its decision in Ice TV Pty Ltd v Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd, bringing to an end legal proceedings that have been going on for the past three years. (I first blogged about the case in October 2006 here...
Ice TV Pty Ltd v Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd
Posted on April 21, 2009Update: link fixed. Judgment also now available on AustLII here. The High Court of Australian has handed down this morning its decision in Ice TV Pty Ltd v Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd. I've been following this case since October 2006 (see my first post here) so it is interesting...
So what is happening with this blog?
Posted on April 05, 2009I've just realised that it has been almost two months since I posted anything to this little blog. Unlike my previous blogging hiatus, this blogging break was not planned in any way, it just happened. My absence from the blogosphere was not because there was nothing worth blogging about or...
Podcast of The Tangled Web: Beyond an Internet Filter
Posted on March 26, 2009On Tuesday night I had the pleasure of chairing a newmatilda.com public forum on the internet regulation debate in Australia: newmatilda.com presents a series of public forums about the internet regulation debate in Australia. The Federal Government's proposal to block internet sites with a mandatory filter has drawn overwhelming opposition...
Finally! A politician worth following on Twitter
Posted on February 07, 2009Politico's Ben Smith explains why we should all be following US Senator Claire McCaskill on Twitter: Many politicians are now on Twitter, but few are posting stream-of-consciousness updates from their BlackBerrys, and the telegraphic press releases that compose most official tweets can be a bit wearing...
"25 Things I Didn't Want to Know About You"
Posted on February 07, 2009Time's Claire Suddath has understandably had enough of the latest ridiculous Facebook meme, "25 Things About Me":A girl I knew in high school has memorized all of Janet Jackson's dance routines. A college acquaintance is afraid of train whistles. Five separate people harbor lifelong desires to visit New Zealand...
Goodbye Twitter?
Posted on February 07, 2009Facebook has announced that they are opening up their status API:Facebook has made a number of updates to the Facebok platform one of which is the opening of status updates. In order to get Facebook statuses, you no longer need to use a session ID to access statuses...
Brisbane Twestival
Posted on February 07, 2009This coming Thursday 12 February a series of Twestivals are being held over the world to raise money for charity: water and Brisbane is no exception:Step right up! Come along to the number one charity event this year: Brisbane Twestival!We're raising money for charity:water, who help the 1 in 6...
iiNet copyright case update
Posted on February 07, 2009In November I blogged that iiNet had been sued for copyright infringement by by Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Disney and the Seven Network (see here). The case moved forward during the week with iiNet filing their defence on Thursday and...
Joe Trippi at QUT: "Online campaigning in the US Presidential election"
Posted on February 05, 2009As part of Joe Trippi's visit to Australia thanks to Microsoft Australia, he will be speaking at QUT on Thursday 5 March:QUT Faculty of Law Free Public Lecture Series 2009Presents Mr Joe TrippiTrippi & Associates (USA) Online campaigning in the US Presidential election Thursday 5 March 2009 The Gibson RoomLevel...
The Great Dissenter
Posted on January 29, 2009On Monday Justice Kirby will retire from the High Court of Australia. In today's The Australian there are two pieces on Justice Kirby's contribution, one by Michael Pelly and another by Professor Michael Lavarch. Although only time will tell if the judicial philoposhy evident in Justice Kirby's judgments, many of...
Second Annual Microsoft Politics & Technology Forum: Online Campaigning
Posted on January 28, 2009On Thursday 26 February, Microsoft will be hosting their second annual Politics and Technology Forum. The keynote speaker this year is Joe Trippi. Once again it looks as though it will be an excellent event: Join government, business leaders and political bloggers at the second annual Microsoft Politics & Technology...
Pirating the 2009 Oscars
Posted on January 28, 2009Waxy has posted some amazing data on the availability of unauthorised copies of Oscar-nominated movies. The data reveals that virtually all movies have been posted to file sharing networks and that the source for almost all of those movies are screener copies distributed by the studios and not the poor...
Lose-lose: The New York Times and GateHouse Media settle their dispute over linking
Posted on January 27, 2009The New York Times Company and GateHouse Media have settled the copyright infringement suit Gatehouse Media filed last month:GateHouse had accused The Boston Globe and its website, Boston.com, both of which are owned by The New York Times, of violating copyright law by posting material without permission from WickedLocal...
Top 250 Australian blogs
Posted on January 27, 2009Over at Dipping into the Blogpond, Meg Tsiamis has posted a special Australia Day 2009 list of the 250 top Australian blogs. This humble little blog, which was once in the top 100, is now sitting at 157 (that's what happens when your blogging becomes erratic, sporadic even)...
Social media will apparently make you a better writer
Posted on January 27, 2009Over the weekend I cam across two separate blog posts that made the somewhat counter intuitive argument that blogging and Twitter actually make you better writers. In a guest post on Problogger, freelance writer Jenny Cromie outlined five ways blogging can improve your writing...
Blawg Review #196
Posted on January 26, 2009G'day and welcome back down under! And most importantly, Happy Australia Day! This is the fourth time I have hosted Blawg Review from Australia (I previously hosted Blawg Review #85, Blawg Review #136 and Blawg Review #178.). For those who don't know, the Blawg Review is a weekly round-up of...
Comparing government copyright on the web: from whitehouse.gov to pm.gov.au
Posted on January 24, 2009One feature of US President Barack Obama's relaunched whitehouse.gov website was the inclusion in the copyright notice the provision that all third-party content on the site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License:Copyright Notice Pursuant to federal law, government-produced materials appearing on this site are not copyright protected...
Facebook thinks friends are worth more than 37 cents
Posted on January 24, 2009I thought I should post an update to the story on the interesting marketing strategy employed by Burger King on Facebook that I blogged about two weeks ago(see here). From TechCrunch:Burger King, through their insanely creative advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky (see their recent Burger King perfume launch), launches...
A Thousand Words
Posted on January 23, 2009Ted Chung's mesmerising short film, A Thousand Words, is deservedly beginning to go viral. Jeffrey Wells describes it in this way:... an elegant, concise and very affecting portrait of big-city loneliness and instant connections that flare up and are gone seconds later...
White House exempts YouTube from privacy rules
Posted on January 23, 2009CNET's Chris Soghoian has a fascinating post on an under-reported early decision of the Obama administration:The new Web site for Obama's White House is already drawing attention from privacy activists and tech bloggers. While the initial focus has been on the site's policies relating to search engine robots, a far...
"Writing in the Age of Distraction"
Posted on January 23, 2009Cory Doctorow has a useful piece on writing in the age of distraction:We know that our readers are distracted and sometimes even overwhelmed by the myriad distractions that lie one click away on the Internet, but of course writers face the same glorious problem: the delirious world of information and...
Colbert's Remix Challenge
Posted on January 23, 2009When Larry Lessig appeared on The Colbert Report two weeks ago to talk about this latest book, Remix, he basically invited people to remix the interview over the protests of host Stephen Colbert's (see here). Now Colbert has responded to some of the remixes that have popped up online (for...
Filtering political speech
Posted on January 23, 2009Stilgherrian has a piece in Crikey today titled So Conroy?s Internet filter won?t block political speech, eh?:?Freedom of speech is fundamentally important in a democratic society and there has never been any suggestion that the Australian Government would seek to block political content,? intoned Senator Stephen Conroy on Tuesday...
Copyright blocks The Wonder Years on DVD
Posted on January 22, 2009Techdirt reports that thanks to problems with music licensing rights, The Wonder Years is unlikely to be available on DVD anytime soon:One of the tragedies of ridiculous music licensing practices has been that TV shows that involved great music can no longer be seen -- because when they were first...
Social media and US Airways Flight 1549
Posted on January 22, 2009When US Airways Flight 1549 crash landed on the Hudson River, the event unfolded before the world on a range of social media websites. Employees at Hill & Knowlton have put together two interesting presentations that illustrate the speed at which this event unfolded online...
"But the greatest of these is love"
Posted on January 22, 2009Last December, Justice Kirby gave the address at the Griffith Business School and Griffith Law School graduation ceremony. Although Justice Kirby has been a prolific speaker throughout his time on the High Court, I don't think he has ever given a speech before on the topic of love:So what is...
Freakdom of Speech
Posted on January 22, 2009Patrick Bristow's Freakdom of Speech is a satire of the diversity of dumb to be found in America. The first episode is America on Obama: Read NewTeeVee's review here.
Charon QC promotes the upcoming Australia Day Blawg Review
Posted on January 22, 2009After reading my post earlier tonight about an Australia Day Blawg Review (see here), UK blawger Charon QC was inspired to put together this little video using Xtranormal. I don't think I've ever looked so good ...If you want to listen to a real and somewhat serious conversation between Charon...
We Live in Public trailer
Posted on January 22, 2009Josh Harris has created a documentary We Live in Public, about the possibility of the virtual world taking over society in the future, which premiered this week at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival:
RIP Sir John Mortimer
Posted on January 22, 2009Although Sir John Mortimer passed away a week ago, if you haven't read his obituary written by Geoffrey Robertson in The Guardian, you really should. It reminds us there was more to his extraordinary life than the creation of Rumpole of the Bailey:John was a successful silk - he had...
Coming soon ... an Australia Day Blawg Review
Posted on January 22, 2009On Monday 26 January I will be hosting Blawg Review #196, a weekly round-up of posts from around the blawgosphere, for the fourth time. I have previously hosted Blawg Review #85, Blawg Review #136 and Blawg Review #178. Therefore I would encourage you all to let me know what interesting...
iTunes for news
Posted on January 15, 2009In a piece for the New York Times, David Carr suggested that there should be an iTunes for news:Last Tuesday, iTunes, Apple?s ubiquitous online music store that sold more than 2.4 billion tracks last year alone, changed its own tune, announcing that songs would no longer be sold with copying...
12 January 2009: a decisive day in the history of intellectual property?
Posted on January 15, 2009Three days ago, YouTube permanently disabled the account of critic and commentator Kevin B. Lee, suggesting that YouTube is cracking down on critical video essays posted to the site:Kevin?s video essays wed critical commentary or conversation to clips from copyright films in a ?teaching? context, and most of them were...
Optus spam fine
Posted on January 15, 2009The ACMA has fined Optus under the Spam Act 2003:Optus has been slapped with fines of $110,000, the second biggest penalty ever issued under the Spam Act. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has accused Optus of sending 20,000 electronic messages without accurate sender identification...
The Importance of Ideas
Posted on January 15, 2009Check out a great new blog from Jason Whittaker, The Importance of Ideas, here. The name of the blog comes from this quote from the legendary journalist, Edward R. Murrow:"Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information." I'm looking forward to reading Jason's ideas...
Social Media Club Brisbane January
Posted on January 15, 2009The inaugural event for the year for the Social Media Club Brisbane is next week, on Tuesday January 20, commencing at 5.30 pm, at the Melbourne Hotel in West End. Co-hosting this event with SMC Brisbane, and generously covering venue costs and providing refreshments, is the blogger advertising network Nuffnang,...
A-PAC: Australia's Public Affairs Channel
Posted on January 13, 2009Australia's answer to C-SPAN, now called A-PAC, will launch on 20 January. The website is online here, where you can watch a promotional (propaganda?) video that gives the impression that this channel was the most important outcome of Kevin Rudd's 2020 Summit and that it has come "more than a...
"I hope my murder will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration"
Posted on January 13, 2009I would encourage you to read this extraordinary article by the editor of the Sri Lankan Sunday Leader, which was published three days after he was shot dead in Colombo. Read it here.
The Gob Act: A Tribute to Arrested Development
Posted on January 13, 2009Although I'd normally post this video to my tumblelog Freedom to Dither, I am such a fan of Arrested Development that I thought i'd post it here instead. So here The Gob Act: A Tribute to Arrested Development:
Last chance to vote in the 2008 Weblog Awards
Posted on January 13, 2009As I have blogged before (see here), this blog has been nominated for a 2008 Weblog Award in the Best Law Blog category. There are only a few hours left before voting closes, so if you want to vote for the first or the last time, you can do so...
Mad Men Twitter fan fiction
Posted on January 12, 2009Business Week has an interesting story on how Mad Men fans are using Twiiter in a way that is "blurring the lines between brand infringement and brand extension": On AMC's hit show Mad Men, character Peggy Olson is the ambitious secretary-turned-copywriter at fictional Manhattan advertising agency Sterling Cooper...
"How one book ignited a culture war"
Posted on January 12, 2009In a piece for The Observer, Andrew Anthony looks at the cultural impact of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses.It's 20 years since Iran's religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini pronounced a death sentence on Salman Rushdie for 'insulting' Islam with his novel The Satanic Verses...
A conversation with Charon QC
Posted on January 11, 2009Earlier this evening I chatted with British blawger Charon QC for a podcast he has now posted to his blog. On the podcast we chat about the Australian Government's plan to filter the internet, blogging, Twitter, cricket and legal education.You can download the podcast here.
Twitter squatters
Posted on January 11, 2009Techdirt has a fascinating post on Twitter squatters:In 1994, reporter Joshua Quittner famously registered the domain name mcdonalds.com, and wrote a whole article about how so many top brand names were available for registering by anyone who wanted them...
Heart by The Richter Scales
Posted on January 11, 2009At The Crunchies, The Richter Scales debuted a brand new song, Heart. In a post at TechCrunch, Jason Klncaid says the song "depicts a hilariously overoptimistic startup and pokes fun at just about everything in the tech industry, from overhyped launches to ridiculous product ideas...
Remixing Lessig and Colbert
Posted on January 11, 2009When Larry Lessig appeared on The Colbert Report during the week to talk about this latest book, Remix, he basically invited people to remix the interview (see here). Here are two audio remixes: one from Sam and another from Jim Vanaria. Here are two video remixes:And the audio to the...
37 cents is the value of a Facebook friend
Posted on January 11, 2009The New York Times blog Bits has a post on an interesting marketing strategy by Burger King on Facebook: You may not be able to get a coupon for a digital TV converter box, but if you?re experiencing a bit of bloat on your Facebook friend list, you can snag...
Nigerian scams ... if you can't beat them, join them?
Posted on January 09, 2009Yesterday The Age reported that two Queenslanders had been charged over recruiting people to a Nigerian scam which netted the fraudsters more than $4.3 million: Police said the Sunshine Coast man, 48, and woman, 40, were initially victims of the operation, having been invited to take part in a bogus...
Lessig on Colbert
Posted on January 09, 2009Stephen Colbert talks to Larry Lessig about this latest book, Remix:The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30cLawrence LessigColbert at ChristmasColbert Christmas DVDGreen ScreenBill O'Reilly Interview
How newspapers failed to invent the web
Posted on January 09, 2009In Slate Jack Shafer has a great piece that charts the various attempts the newspaper industry have made to respond to new technologies, before explaining how ultimately the newspaper industry has failed when it comes to the internet:Newspapers deserve bragging rights for having homesteaded the Web long before most government...
MacHEADS
Posted on January 09, 2009ZDNet has a review of MacHEADS:Prominent sex blogger and renowned Apple fangirl Violet Blue declares passionately that she'd never sleep with a Windows user. Dozens of Mac fanboys and girls drink and dance together at an Apple-centric party, jubilant that, for another year, Apple still exists...
FTW! ... the origins of some Web 2.0 terms
Posted on January 09, 2009ReadWriteWeb charts the origins of five popular Web 2.0 terms:Web 2.0 is pretty cool - so cool in fact that it's got its own buzzwords and lingo that not everybody knows. Everybody has a lot to gain from participation in this new cultural phenomenon, though, so there's no reason why...
History of the Internet
Posted on January 09, 2009History of the Internet is an animated documentary from PICOL that explains the major inventions of the internet:History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.
Who killed online Scrabble?
Posted on January 09, 2009Techdirt has a good post on how Hasbro and Mattel killed online Scrabble:We've been chronicling just how badly both Hasbro and Mattel screwed up in responding to the massive success of Scrabulous on Facebook. The ridiculously popular application was attracting over 500,000 users every day and (amazingly) making Scrabble cool...
Obama really wants his Blackberry
Posted on January 09, 2009The New York Times reports that Obama is still trying to hold on to his Blackberry:President-elect Barack Obama has yet to relent, but he conceded that he might be losing the battle to keep his independent lifeline to the outside world.?I?m still clinging to my BlackBerry,? Mr...
"The world smirks at Conroy's censorship plan"
Posted on January 09, 2009In today's Crikey, the Vice Chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia Colin Jacobs had an excellent piece on a new study published by Brooklyn Law School entitled "Filtering in Oz: Australia's Foray Into Internet Censorship".The rest of the world has been smirking at Stephen Conroy's ill-conceived plan to censor Australia's Internet...
"Everyone's digital these days"
Posted on January 08, 2009In the Washington Post, Howard Kurtz talks about how Dr Sanjay Gupta used Twitter to confirm he had been approached by the Obama administration about the US Surgeon General's post:I confirmed yesterday that Obama has offered the job and that Gupta had all but officially accepted...
The Australian Constitution on your iPhone or iPod Touch
Posted on January 08, 2009Ben Kremer (who blogs at Lawfont) has created an iPhone and iPod Touch application that contains the text of the Australian Constitution. You can download the free application at the iTunes Store here.
Vote in the 2008 Weblog Awards
Posted on January 07, 2009As I've blogged before (see here), I am very excited and honoured that this blog, Peter Black's Freedom to Differ, has been nominated for a 2008 Weblog Award in the Best Law Blog category. The other nominated blogs (or blawgs) are without doubt some of the leading blawgs in the...
Facebook firing
Posted on January 07, 2009A few weeks ago I blogged about service by Facebook (see here and here) and now the Calgary Herald has a story on an employee being fired by Facebook:When esthetician Crystal Bell was fired via Facebook, she spawned a debate over"cyber sacking" and what employers owe their employees in times...
Anonymous defamation
Posted on January 07, 2009The New York Daily News reports on a lawsuit against Google, as host of Blogger.com:A Vogue cover girl is suing Google in an attempt to unmask the blogger who trashed her as a "skank" and an "old hag."Liskula Cohen, a blond beauty who has modeled for Giorgio Armani and Versace,...
Important DMCA copyright decision
Posted on January 07, 2009Wired's Threat Level Blog reports on an important copyright decision out of the US:Online video-sharing sites are scoring another major legal victory, as a federal judge is ruling that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects such sites from copyright violations if they abide by takedown notices as the DMCA prescribes...
Twitter in the courtroom
Posted on January 07, 2009In the US, a Colorado judge recently approved the use of Twitter, as well as live-blogging, inside the courtroom to cover an infant-abuse trial:Prosecutors and defense attorneys wanted bloggers silenced in the courtroom next week, but a Boulder judge ordered Monday that cell phones and computers won?t be banned from...
TV Tonight Awards
Posted on January 07, 2009TV Tonight, probably Australia's leading television blog, has posted the winners of the 2008 TV Tonight Awards. You can see the winners are here.
"The Christmas Classic that Almost Wasn't"
Posted on January 04, 2009Ronald J. Rychlak explains how copyright law helped to make It's a Wonderful Life a Christmas classic:The other night, along with many other Americans, I watched the Frank Capra classic It's a Wonderful Life. Starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, the movie has become a Christmas staple -- but it...
Today Popeye, tomorrow Mickey Mouse?
Posted on January 02, 2009This week the cartoon character Popeye came out of copyright protection and into the public domain. Techdirt observes that it "be quite interesting to see what happens next, as it will be something of a preview of the eventual Mickey Mouse fight that will be coming":Disney was able to continually...
Slate V: the best viral political videos of 2008
Posted on January 02, 2009In a Power Recap, Slate V presents 20 of the best viral political videos of 2008. Congratulations to Australian Hugh Atkin whose video, John McCain Gets BarackRoll'd, was the number one viral video. Slate V says it was "a perfect metaphor for McCain's defeat and maybe the best mashup of...
Academic blogging
Posted on January 02, 2009Jeremy Gans has decided to bring a halt to his Charterblog, which for the past year has followed the progress of Victoria?s Charter of Human Rights. Although this is a loss to the Australian blawgosphere and to anyone interested in human rights and charters of rights, it is hard to...
Best legal posts from 2008
Posted on January 01, 2009Continuing my end-of-year wrap ...Here are what I consider to be some of the "best" law-themed posts from 2008. Again, some of these posts are academic, some are trivial, some just link to what other people say, and some are a little random, but they do represent what interests me...
Best internet and technology posts from 2008
Posted on January 01, 2009Continuing my end-of-year wrap ...Here are what I consider to be some of the "best" internet and technology themed posts from 2008. Again, some of these posts are academic, some are trivial, some just link to what other people say, and some are a little random, but they do represent...
Best media and entertainment posts from 2008
Posted on January 01, 2009Continuing my end-of-year wrap ...Here are what I consider to be some of the "best" media and entertainment themed posts from 2008. Again, some of these posts are academic, some are trivial, some just link to what other people say, and some are a little random, but they do represent...
Op-ed pieces from 2008
Posted on January 01, 2009Continuing my end-of-year wrap ...Over the next few days I'll be linking to some of the "best" posts from 2008 on this blog, but I thought I'd start by linking to the op-ed pieces I have had published in 2008: "Court judgment online through Facebook a sign of the times"...
Happy New Year!
Posted on December 31, 2008Happy New Year! I hope you have safe, healthy and prosperous 2009.Thank you for reading Freedom to Differ.
Best videos of 2008
Posted on December 31, 2008Continuing my end-of-year wrap ...What follows are the top ten videos I've embedded either here on Freedom to Differ or on Freedom to Dither this year. This list is very subjective - these videos are not necessarily the most viewed or most commented on, nor are they necessarily the funniest...
Nominated for a 2008 Weblog Award
Posted on December 31, 2008I am very excited and honoured that this blog, Peter Black's Freedom to Differ, has been nominated for a 2008 Weblog Award in the Best Law Blog category. The other nominated blogs (or blawgs) are without doubt some of the leading blawgs in the world and are written by some...
Nominated for a 2008 Weblog Award
Posted on December 30, 2008I am very excited and honoured that this blog, Peter Black's Freedom to Differ, has been nominated for a 2008 Weblog Award in the Best Law Blog category. The other nominated blogs (or blawgs) are without doubt some of the leading blawgs in the world and are written by some...
Things to watch for in 2009 (or not)
Posted on December 29, 2008Continuing my end-of-year wrap ...The past two years I have boldly made a series of predictions (for see 2007 here and fror 2008 here) with about a 50% success rate. Rather than subject myself to more ridicule at the end of 2009 I had thought I'd just list a few...
Freedom to Differ on your iPhone or iPod Touch
Posted on December 29, 2008Last month I used Intersquash to "optimise" Freedom to Differ for the iPhone and iPod Touch (see here). However based on the feedback I have received since this change, I have decided to turn it off. So from now on, if you visit this blog on your iPhone or iPod...
Looking back at my predictions for 2008
Posted on December 29, 2008Continuing my end-of-year wrap ...Here is a report card on how my predictions for 2008 turned out: Hillary Clinton will become the next President of the United States - This obviously didn't unfold as I had anticipated, with Barack Obama winning the nomination and then the presidency...
Best TV of 2008
Posted on December 28, 2008Continuing my end-of-year wrap ...Best Australian TV Shows: Insiders - As followers of my Twitter stream know, I religiously watch Insiders every morning ("If it is Sunday, it is Insiders"). It is without doubt the best political talk show in Australia and it provides an entertaining and informed discussion of...
Best of the web in 2008
Posted on December 28, 2008The first post in my end-of-year wrap ...Best Australian Blogs: Somebody Think of the Children - Michael Meloni's blog has been the definitive resource on the Australian Government's ridiculous policy decision to introduce mandatory internet filtering...
Coming soon ... End of Year Wrap
Posted on December 28, 2008As I did at the end of 2006 (see here) and 2007 (see here), the next week or so will feature a series of posts that wrap up the year, including: Best of the web in 2008 Best TV of 2008 Best videos of 2008 Looking back at my predictions...
The year in 140 characters
Posted on December 20, 2008Craig Stoltz presents a new use for Twitter:I think I?ve blundered into a novel and possibly world-changing use for Twitter: 140-character versions of those Holiday Family Update letters/e-mails. Like fruitcakes and 6 a.m. door-buster sales, the letters are a holiday tradition that persists despite wide public disapproval...
Guilt: a new way to stop piracy?
Posted on December 19, 2008Techdirt wonders whether you can guilt someone into not pirating software:A bunch of folks have been submitting this story about USB Overdrive X's response to anyone who uses a pirated key to use their software. Basically, the company allows you to go ahead, but tells you (in a very human...
RIAA comes to its senses
Posted on December 19, 2008The Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports that the Recording Industry Association of America is rethinking its litigation strategy:Major news for online music geeks: The recording industry plans to lay down its litigation offensive against music pirates in favor of a more PR-friendly, if not more effective, strategy...
Today Facebook, tomorrow Twitter
Posted on December 19, 2008Techdirt asks did Burger King really just issue a CD through Twitter?Now that it's legal to serve papers to someone through Facebook, Burger King has apparently sent a cease and desist via Twitter to the user "whoppervirgins" for an unauthorized use of trademark...
Op-ed piece on service via Facebook
Posted on December 18, 2008I have an op-ed piece in today's The Courier Mail on the decision by Master David Harper of the ACT Supreme Court last week to order that a default judgment of the court could be served on the defendants by notification through Facebook. You can read it here.
Blogging update
Posted on December 17, 2008Tomorrow I hop on a plane to London for a two and a bit week holiday in England and Ireland. At this stage I have no idea as to whether I will have the time, inclination or even regular internet access to blog while I am away, so it is...
People's Choice Open Web Awards Winners
Posted on December 17, 2008Mashable has announced the winners of The 2nd Annual Open Web Awards, a multilingual, international online voting competition that covers major innovations in web technology. Through an online nominating and voting process, the Open Web Awards recognizes and honors the top achievements of websites and services in 26 categories...
A really early adopter
Posted on December 15, 2008Mashable reports on a precocious baby twittering from the womb: Think you?re an early adopter, huh? @kickbee has you beat. Expectant father Corey Menscher wanted to ?create a device that would give me a chance to be aware of our baby?s movements?. He created a waistband for his wife which...
Justice Bell appointed to the High Court of Australia
Posted on December 15, 2008Attorney-General Robert McClelland has announced that the Australian Government has decided to recommend to Her Excellency the Governor-General the appointment of Justice Virginia Margaret Bell as a Justice of the High Court of Australia, with effect from 3 February 2009...
De-friending
Posted on December 15, 2008In a guest post for Mashable David Spark (@dspark) offers twelve great tales of de-friending:De-friending has always been awkward. Social networks offer one click ?remove a friend? options, but it still doesn?t make the decision any easier. What follows is a collection of stories about de-friending...
KickYouTube
Posted on December 14, 2008Mashable covers an easy way to download YouTube videos:Downloading YouTube videos isn?t a feature supported natively by the site: copyright issues are the likely reason. And yet, often we find ourselves wanting to download a great video to our desktops for remixing or offline viewing...
Change 2.0
Posted on December 14, 2008In a piece for Newsweek titled "Change 2.0", Larry Lessig asks can Obama create a truly transformational presidency. Read it here.
"Australia: A Movie About Contract Law"
Posted on December 14, 2008At Concurring Opinions Miriam Cherry offers a critique of Australia that is unlikely to boost its disappointing box office:A few days ago, in a fit of holiday and pre-exam frivolity, I went to see Australia, the latest Baz Luhrmann ? Nicole Kidman collaboration...
Smile ... you're on Facebook/MySpace
Posted on December 14, 2008ReadWriteWeb reports on a study that basically finds that if you smile in your social network photos you probably have more friends:Researchers Nicholas Christakis and James Folwer recently published a paper in the British Medical Journal where they examined how a person's happiness is related to the happiness of their...
Digital for Good
Posted on December 14, 2008Check out a new blog by my friend Eddie Harran, Digital for Good. This is how Eddie describes it:"DigitalForGood" Exploring Digital Technology as force for positive social change/ The Mainfesto for Geeks Who Care/ This blog explores the emerging digital space and its cross section in business, society, and the...
Two weeks without sex or the internet?
Posted on December 14, 2008Bits (a blog of the New York Times) reports on an Intel survey on internet reliance:Intel came up with a novel way to show how important the Internet and computing have become in the lives of Americans. In conjunction with Harris Interactive, the company conducted a survey of adults in...
A really silly idea: a used MP3 store
Posted on December 14, 2008The Tech Law Prof Blog is quite rightly dismissive of the idea of a used MP3 store:As ham fisted as the RIAA and labels can be about dealing with piracy issues, there are times when someone comes up with an idea to sell music that is so bad, it makes...
"To Catch a (Joke) Thief"
Posted on December 13, 2008U.Va. News reports on a study of copyright, social norms and stand-up comedy:In part, it was a viral video of two well-known comedians hurling obscenities at each other that prompted a pair of University of Virginia law professors to take a serious look at how professional comics protect themselves from...
Some interesting top ten lists
Posted on December 13, 2008Over the past few days I've come across a few different top ten lists. The first was Oddee's list of ten of the geekiest graffiti. This was my favourite: Next was Politico's list of the top ten political films of 2008, culminating with these two:2 ?Recount...
Keith Olbermann's "homoerotic" obsession with Bill O'Reilly
Posted on December 13, 2008During the week Keith Olbermann attacked the late night FoxNews Channel show Red Eye, sparking this priceless response from Red Eye host Greg Gutfeld:
Service via Facebook
Posted on December 12, 2008In July this year I blogged about a decision of Queensland District Court Judge Ryrie in Citigroup Pty Ltd v Weerakoon [2008] QDC 174 that service could not occur via Facebook:An alternative was requested in the amended application in order that a sealed copy of the claim might be emailed...
Offensive, banned and rejected ads
Posted on December 11, 2008Oddee has put together a list of fifteen of the most offensive, banned and rejected ads. You can check out the full list here, but I think this was my favourite:
Prop 8 - The Musical
Posted on December 04, 2008Although I'd normally post a video like this on my tumblelog Freedom to Dither, I thought it deserved a more prominent post:See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die
Op-ed piece on jury by Facebook
Posted on December 03, 2008I have an op-ed piece in today's The Courier Mail inspired by this story last week where a juror sought the advice of her Facebook friends as to whether the accused was guilty or innocent. You can read it here. However as is usually the case, I prefer my proposed...
Forum: Internet filtering and censorship proposals
Posted on November 26, 2008Tomorrow (Thursday 27 November) the UNSW Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre is hosting a forum to explore aspects of the Australian Government's current internet filtering and censorship proposals. The aim of the forum is to "get beyond the more heated claims and counter-claims circulating at present and explore some of...
Weatherall on the iiNet copyright lawsuit
Posted on November 21, 2008In between papers yesterday at the Media, Communications and Public Speech Conference I posted a link to a news report about the iiNet copyright lawsuit (see here). Although I haven't had time to look into or think about the case any further, Kim Weatherall has obtained a copy of the...
Vote now in the Open Web Awards
Posted on November 21, 2008Nominations are now closed and voting open for the Second Annual Open Web Awards.The Open Web Awards is the only multilingual international online voting competition that covers major innovations in web technology. Through an online nominating and voting process, the Open Web Awards recognizes and honors the top achievements in...
iiNet sued for copyright infringement
Posted on November 20, 2008This news report was drawn to my attention during a break today at the Media, Communications and Public Speech Conference:The Australian film and television industry has launched a major legal action against one of Australia's largest internet service providers for allegedly allowing its users to download pirated movies and TV...
Media, Communications and Public Speech
Posted on November 18, 2008On 20 and 21 November I'll be live blogging the 2008 Conference of the Centre for Media and Communications Law Media, Communications and Public Speech at the University of Melbourne. Here is the Conference program.
Forum: Internet filtering and censorship proposals
Posted on November 14, 2008On Thursday 27 November, the UNSW Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre is hosting a forum to explore aspects of the Australian Government's current internet filtering and censorship proposals. The aim of the forum is to "get beyond the more heated claims and counter-claims circulating at present and explore some of...
Last call for nominations for the Open Web Awards
Posted on November 14, 2008The nomination period for the second annual Open Web Awards is almost over. If you haven?t nominated your favorite site or company you must do so before Sunday 16 November at 11:59 pm PST.The Open Web Awards is the only multilingual international online voting competition that covers major innovations in...
2008 Weblog Awards
Posted on November 10, 2008Nominations are now open for the 2008 Weblog Awards. You can nominate your favourite blog in 48 different categories here. You might even want to nominate this humble blog for something ...
Freedom to Differ on your iPhone or iPod Touch
Posted on November 10, 2008Thanks to Intersquash there is now a version of Freedom to Differ for your iPhone. Now if you visit this blog on your iPhone or iPod Touch you will automatically be forwarded to an optimised version of this blog.intersquash demo from jon on Vimeo.
The 2nd Annual Open Web Awards
Posted on November 10, 2008The nominations for the second annual Open Web Awards are now open. The Open Web Awards is the only multilingual international online voting competition that covers major innovations in web technology. Through an online nominating and voting process, the Open Web Awards recognizes and honors the top achievements in 26...
Movember update
Posted on November 10, 2008It day 10 of Movember and my mustache is coming along slowly. From this point in I will be posting a progress photo daily to my Pete does Movember tumblr. Thank you to those who have already donated (I'm up to $285). If you would like to donate to my...
An Australian Blawg Review
Posted on November 10, 2008Australian Duncan Bucknell is the host of Blawg Review #185. Read it here.Read previous editions of Blawg Review here, including the three editions I have hosted over the past few years: Blawg Review #85, Blawg Review #136 and Blawg Review #178.
A post on the US election
Posted on November 10, 2008So much has been already written about the extraordinary US election on Tuesday and President-elect Barack Obama's historic and meteoric rise, that I know there is nothing further I could add. But before I move on and blog about other topics and issues, I thought I'd link to a couple...
A post on the US election
Posted on November 09, 2008So much has been already written about the extraordinary US election on Tuesday and President-elect Barack Obama's historic and meteoric rise, that I know there is nothing further I could add. But before I move on and blog about other topics and issues, I thought I'd link to a couple...
US election videos
Posted on November 04, 2008Here are my favourite five viral videos from the US election:5. Chuck Norris Approved4. I'm Fucking Obama (if you haven't seen the original on which this video is based, you should watch it first here)3. Hey Sarah Palin2. John McCain gets Barack Roll'd1...
The always fair and balanced Brit Hume
Posted on November 04, 2008This election is the last time Brit Hume will anchor the FoxNews Channel's coverage. When FoxNews was starting out over ten years ago, Brit gave the channel instant credibility and since then he has ensured that FoxNews has lived up to its fair and balanced mantra...
Some comments on the US election
Posted on November 04, 2008In a matter of hours Americans will go to the polls, bringing an end to one of the longest and most fascinating Presidential election campaigns in history. It is an election that has captivated not just the US but the world. The interest in Australia alone is unprecedented...
US election
Posted on November 03, 2008Stay tuned ... later tonight or first thing tomorrow morning I'll be posting my thoughts on the US Presidential election - my predictions plus who I would vote for and why. You may be surprised ...
Obama's tech policy
Posted on November 03, 2008With only a few days before the US Presidential election Barack Obama has released a web ad that is being aimed directly at the science and technology sector:
McCain on SNL
Posted on November 02, 2008With three days left before the election, John McCain makes fun of his situation on Saturday Night Live:
War of the Worlds on Twitter
Posted on November 01, 2008it was only a matter of time:A spontaneous re-enactment of Orson Welles' 1938 "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast unfolded Friday on microblogging site Twitter. Hundreds of tweets detailed a mock Martian invasion, with reports both panic-stricken and humorous...
Santos and Obama
Posted on November 01, 2008Aficionados of The West Wing have been noticing for some time a few similarities between the arc last season of the show that saw Matthew Santos become US President and the meteoric rise and skillful campaign of Barack Obama. Politico outlines some of these similarities in the introduction to an...
It is foolish to ban Facebook at work
Posted on November 01, 2008Techdirt reports on a study that comes to the very logical conclusion that employers should not ban Facebook at work:Earlier this year, we pointed out that it was silly for companies to block Facebook at work, because it's merely a communications tool...
The Sarah Palin gotcha call
Posted on November 01, 2008According to Politico's Ben Smith, Sarah Palin was only "mildly amused" when a pair of French-Canadian comedians spoke to her impersonating Nicolas Sarkozy:Sarah Palin's campaign issued an "mildly amused" response to having joined Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy in having been the victim of a prank by a pair of...
It doesn't matter what you call it
Posted on November 01, 2008Last month Brendan Scott posted to his blog an argument that it was incorrect to label copyright infringement as stealing:There is a copyright-infringement-as-stealing meme which has been pushed for some time, but seems to be relentlessly marketed at the moment...
No online campaigning in Japan
Posted on November 01, 2008Newsweek has a revealing report on how Japan has blocked online campaigning. It is remarkable to discover that such a technologically advanced nation places such extensive restrictions on online campaigning:Japan is one of the world's most wired countries; 60 percent of its citizens have high-speed broadband and e-commerce is thriving...
A tribute to Lessig
Posted on November 01, 2008At launch of Larry Lessig's latest book, Remix, this "extraordinary" video by Robert Greenwald was played: (Michael - I hope you enjoyed this tribute.)
Governments beware: hyperpolitics is here!
Posted on November 01, 2008In a very insightful piece, Mark Pesce describes how the recent internet filtering controversy is a good example of hyperpolitics:In less than a week's time, Conroy has found himself in deeper and hotter water than ever before in his ministerial career...
Privacy by geography
Posted on November 01, 2008TechCrunch's Michael Arrington reports on a fascinating project looking at privacy settings on Flickr: This picture was presented by Elizabeth Churchill, Principal Research Scientist at Yahoo at a meeting I am attending today. It shows the privacy settings of a sample of a million Flickr users from 2005...
R18+ for games
Posted on November 01, 2008Electronic Frontiers Australia has launched a new website, R18+ for games , as part of a campaign for the introduction of an R18+ rating for video games in Australia:Australia is the only Western country without an R rating for computer and video games...
Academics try the Radiohead model
Posted on November 01, 2008Michael Madison describes an interesting new form of legal publishing:Profs. Lydia Loren and Joe Miller (Lewis & Clark) have launched Semaphore Press, which intends to release downloadable law school casebooks on a ?Radiohead? model: students should pay what they feel is appropriate, and please don?t share the file with others...
New IP podcast
Posted on November 01, 2008UCLA Professor Doug Lichtman has launched a new podcast, Intellectual Property Colloquium. This is how he describes it:The project is called the Intellectual Property Colloquium, and it is essentially an online audio program devoted to intellectual property topics...
Great Twitter moments
Posted on November 01, 2008For Mashable David Sparks lists 16 great Twitter moments, including this gem:Suss out someone?s dating potential Andrea (real name and Twitter ID withheld) went out on a first date with a guy. The date went well, and they talked about going out again...
The Great E-Barrier Reef
Posted on November 01, 2008Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy, one of the leading legal blogs in the United States, has blogged about the Australian Government's proposal to filter the internet. He also coined the phrase the "Great E-Barrier Reef" to label the policy (at least I think he was the first to use...
"Clearly, the sky is falling. The question now is how many people will be left to cover it."
Posted on October 30, 2008In the New York Times David Carr chronicles the demise of old media:Stop and think about where you are reading this column. If you are one of the million or so people who are reading it in a newspaper that landed on your doorstop or that you picked up at...
Linking is not defamation
Posted on October 30, 2008Earlier this week British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kelleher delivered an important ruling for free speech on the internet. In Crookes v Wikimedia Foundation Inc., 2008 BCSC 1424, Wayne Crookes sued Jon Newton, the operator of p2p.net, for defamation for linking to four articles that Crookes alleged were defamatory...
Australian censorship
Posted on October 30, 2008Many Australians are rightly outraged at the policy of their to introduce mandatory internet filtering. This is normally I topic I would have blogged about here in great detail (the name of the blog is, after all, inspired by a US Supreme Court decision on the First Amendment) but due...
Public Law Weekend
Posted on October 30, 2008Update: Unfortunately I can't access the internet in the auditorium so I cannot live blog the weekend. I will post a summary of the day sometime this evening.I will be live blogging the thirteenth annual Public Law Weekend held by the Centre for International and Public Law at the ANU...
Op-ed piece on internet filtering
Posted on October 29, 2008I have an op-ed piece in today's The Courier Mail looking at the Australian Government's internet filtering policy. You can read it here.
Privacy settings and Facebook
Posted on October 29, 2008At apophenia, danah boyd acknowledges a feature of Facebook that is one of it's great strengths and one of it's weaknesses:Facebook's privacy settings are the most flexible and the most confusing privacy settings in the industry. Over and over again, I interview teens (and adults) who think that they've set...
DMCA turns 10
Posted on October 29, 2008Ten years ago yesterday, on 28 October 1998, the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act was signed into law. The Electronic Frontier Foundation marked the occasion with its report, Unintended Consequences: Ten Years Under the DMCA.
UNSW thinking about stopping free wi-fi ... what is this really about?
Posted on October 28, 2008The Fairfax papers have a story today about the University of New South Wales considering stopping its free wi-fi internet for students because so many students are using it to download illegal files:The University of NSW has threatened to axe its free wireless internet service because students are bringing in...
Support Movember
Posted on October 27, 2008During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I'm growing a Mo. That's right I'm bringing the Mo back because I'm passionate about tackling men's health issues and being proactive in the fight against men's depression and prostate cancer. To donate to my Mo you can either: Click here and...
Taste we can believe in
Posted on October 27, 2008Over at Madisonian.net, Ann Bartow highlights a trade mark parody we can believe in:
Social media and the law
Posted on October 25, 2008My QUT colleague Axel Bruns is live blogging a conference in Germany on the political dimensions of Web 2.0: "Das Internet zwischen egalitärer Teilhabe und ökonomischer Vermachtung". The opening keynote by Karl-Heinz Ladeur on social media and the law sounded particularly fascinating, in large part to a couple of novel...
Lessig on copyright and politics
Posted on October 25, 2008During the week the New York Times published an op-ed piece from Larry Lessig explaining how copyright law is being used as a tool for censorship:Copyright law has become a political weapon because of a statute passed a decade ago: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act...
ACTA update
Posted on October 25, 2008During the week my QUT colleague Nic Suzor attended a briefing session hosted by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Read Nic's summary of the briefing here. The main points Nic took away from the meeting were as follows: Negotiations will...
Some election themed videos
Posted on October 25, 2008These two US Presidential election themed videos have been viral video hits over the past few days. The first features Will Ferrell returning to Saturday Night Live as George W Bush giving his endorsement to John McCain and Sarah Palin:The second asks wassup:
If the MPAA did handbags
Posted on October 25, 2008Techdirt writes about a very clever - and funny - spoof:Lauren sent in an amusing spoof put together by a website about handbags, looking at how the handbag industry would be different if it had the equivalent of the MPAA around. It's an amusing little satire, with things like demands...
There is something wrong here
Posted on October 22, 2008Unfortunately I think this diagram of the life-and-death cycle of a social media campaign by David Armano, author of the Logic+Emotion marketing blog and VP for experience design at Critical Mass, accurately represents how many people in the social media sphere view lawyers: (Via Web2...
Influential Australian Twitterers
Posted on October 19, 2008ShiftedPixels - The Online Influence Agency and @Nickhac have put together a list of Australia's most influential Twitterers. I'm currently number 59 and falling ... Social Media Marketing Agency - Shifted Pixels Social Media Monitoring - BuzzNumbers Nick Holmes a Court Web...
Palin on Saturday Night Live
Posted on October 19, 2008Sarah Palin made two appearances on Saturday Night Live this weekend:Sarah Palin opens the show: The Palin Rap: But Sarah Palin was not the only political figure to have some fun this weekend - both Barack Obama and John McCain made fun of each other and themselves at the Alfred...
High Court begins hearing Ice TV
Posted on October 16, 2008The High Court began hearing the Ice TV appeal today before six justices (Justice Kirby didn't sit). The hearing will continue tomorrow. The transcript of the first day of oral argument is already available on AustLII here (interestingly the Court gave leave to Telstra and the Australian Digital Alliance to...
The Howard Years
Posted on October 14, 2008Now available on YouTube is a preview of the upcoming ABC documentary The Howard Years:TV Tonight's David Knox has more here. After having read The Costello Memiors I am realy looking forward to hearing more about John Howard's term as Prime Minister from several other key players.
How to change copyright law
Posted on October 13, 2008Larry Lessig has an excellent op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on how to change copyright law (ignore the misleading headline "In Defense of Piracy"). He suggests these five changes: Deregulate amateur remix: We need to restore a copyright law that leaves "amateur creativity" free from regulation...
Kookaburra sits Down Under
Posted on October 13, 2008Over the weekend The Sunday Telegraph had an interesting story on how the ABC TV show Spicks and Specks has given rise to an interesting copyright case: TWO of Australia's most loved anthems are locked in a courtroom copyright battle sparked by a question on the ABC's music quiz show...
Moving on
Posted on October 13, 2008This YouTube video effectively describes the phenomenon of early adopters moving on to from one Web 2.0 fad to the next. For me it is not just Facebook to Twitter, but also blogging to Twitter - compared to 12 months ago I spend very little time on this blog, but...
"Embarrassment is only a math problem away"
Posted on October 09, 2008I had a piece in The Courier Mail this morning on Google's ridiculous Mail Goggles application. I'd suggested the headline for the piece should be "Embarrassment is only a math problem away", but instead they went for "Google math test will prove no barrier for the determined drunk" in the...
Reflections on using Twitter for Blawg Review
Posted on October 04, 2008A few weeks back I hosted Blawg Revew #178 for the third time. What made this time different from the previous times I had hosted it was that I delivered Blawg Review in two ways - in addition to the standard blog post, I used Twitter throughout the day to...
Blawg Review #178
Posted on September 22, 2008G'day and welcome back down under! This is the third time I have hosted Blawg Review from Australia (the other two times were Blawg Review #85 and Blawg Review #136). For those who don't know, the Blawg Review is a weekly round-up of posts from around the blawgosphere...
Coming soon ... Blawg Review #178
Posted on September 20, 2008On Monday 22 September 2008 I'll be hosting Blawg Review #178 here at Freedom to Differ. This will be the third time I have hosted Blawg Review from Australia, with the previous two times being Blawg Review #85 and Blawg Review #136. (For those who don't know, the Blawg Review...
Blawg Review #178 via Twitter
Posted on September 20, 2008As I blogged about on Saturday I will be delivering Blawg Review #178 in two ways - via this blog and via Twitter. The blawg posts that will included in Blawg Review #178 will be released progressively via Twitter throughout Monday 22 September (Brisbane time) before the the complete Blawg...
Australian Law Librarians' Association Conference
Posted on September 17, 2008I am in Perth this week attending the Australian Law Librarians' Association Annual Conference. The program for the conference is available online here. The paper I'll present this afternoon is titled "Law 2.0: The challenge of user-generated and peer-produced networks, content and culture"...
"Chillax: if it works like a word, just use it"
Posted on September 07, 2008Erin McKean, lexicographer (dictionaryevangelist.com) and blogger (dressaday.com), says if it looks like a word, just use it: Funner. Impactful. Blowiest. Territorialism. Multifunctionality. Dialoguey. Dancey. Thrifting. Chillaxing. Anonymized. Interestinger...
Heart to Barricuda: cease and desist
Posted on September 07, 2008This may be old news but now, but it is nonetheless interesting: Ann and Nancy Wilson, headliners of Heart, demanded Friday that Republicans stop using their hit song "Barracuda" at rallies for vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. It's the second time this year that GOP stage managers...
Links for Friday 5 September
Posted on September 06, 2008Some links from the past few days: Chief justice open to TV cameras in courtrooms (The Age) - "AUSTRALIA'S new top judge has indicated he is personally open to the idea of High Court decisions being televised as part of broader efforts to help the community understand the work of...
The end?
Posted on September 06, 2008Last week Duncan Riley lamented the end of privacy: A new first for Ustream.tv and possibly the net, a birth was streamed live to the world today from West Pennsylvania. At the time of writing I can?t find a recording of the birth, with only a video of the child...
Links for Tuesday 1 September
Posted on September 02, 2008These intellectual property themed links are once again from the month of August: An IP Checklist for Bloggers (v.1.1) Colette Vogele's blog - Colette Vogele has come up with a one page IP checklist for bloggers. YouTube Praises Dismissal of Copyright Suit Against Veoh (Bits) - "A federal court in...
Blog Day
Posted on September 01, 2008Although I am a day late for Blog Day 2008, I thought I'd nonetheless join in. This is what Blog Day is all about: What is BlogDay? BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and...
Following Gustav
Posted on August 31, 2008With Hurricane Gustav approaching the Gulf Coast it has been interesting to see how the internet is being used to disseminate news and information. Blogs, Twitter, forums, Flickr, Utterz and a range of other social media are all helping to cover the Hurricane as it nears the US...
The World Isn't Clear Cut
Posted on August 31, 2008As someone who used to do a lot of debating at school and university, it was nice to see this promotional video for the Griffith Organised Debating Society (GODS) on Q&A last week:
What is Twitter?
Posted on August 31, 2008My colleagues and friends tend to ask me a lot of tech questions, but probably the one question I get asked more than any other is "what is Twitter?". It also probably the hardest question to answer because you either "get" Twitter and use and love it, or you don't...
Links for Sunday 31 August
Posted on August 31, 2008For over a year I used to post to this blog Daily News Links, however I stopped as it was taking too much time to put it together each evening. As part of my attempt to rejuvenate this blog I've decided to resurrect this feature in a slightly different form...
Writer's block
Posted on August 30, 2008Last month I purported to resume blogging after a liberating six week hiatus from blogging (see here and here). However, after an initial flurry of posts, this is my first post to this blog in about three weeks. This wasn't a planned blogging break, rather it happened due to a...
Privacy in Australia
Posted on August 10, 2008The Australian Law Reform Commission?s report on privacy laws in Australia, For Your Information: Australian Privacy Law and Practice (ALRC 108), has been released. You can download the three-volume, 2700 page report here, or view the media release and accompanying briefing notes here...
Twitter's downfall
Posted on August 08, 2008Another very funny adaptation of this Hitler video. The problem this time? Twitter is down: (Hat tip: Mark Pesce.)
Google Street View and privacy
Posted on August 06, 2008I have a piece in today's Courier Mail that wonders what the privacy issue is with Google Street View. You can read it here.
A few interesting links
Posted on August 06, 2008A few interesting links from the last few days: At LawFont Kim Weatherall analyses today's High Court decision in Copyright Agency Limited vs The State of NSW [2008] HCA 35. Read her summary here. The Economist looks at e-hatred, arguing that "social networks and video-sharing sites don?t always bring people...
Dr Horrible, TV and participatory culture
Posted on August 03, 2008Tama Leaver has posted an interesting presentation he recently gave, titled What Dr Horrible Can Teach TV About Participatory Culture: ... one of my ongoing interests is the way that traditional media forms, especially television, engage with participatory culture and their immediate fan networks...
We really are six degrees from Kevin Bacon
Posted on August 03, 2008The Washington Post reports on an interesting study from Microsoft on human connectivity: Turns out, it is a small world. The "small world theory," embodied in the old saw that there are just "six degrees of separation" between any two strangers on Earth, has been largely corroborated by a massive...
We really are only six degrees from Kevin Bacon after all
Posted on August 03, 2008The Washington Post reports on an interesting study from Microsoft on human connectivity: Turns out, it is a small world. The "small world theory," embodied in the old saw that there are just "six degrees of separation" between any two strangers on Earth, has been largely corroborated by a massive...
An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube
Posted on August 02, 2008Michael Wesch, the famed anthropologist focused on digital culture behind the videos The Machine is Us/Ing Us and A Vision of Students Today) has released a presentation he gave to the Library of Congress on YouTube. It is long (55 minutes) and familiar to those of you have followed YouTube's...
The other blogging Peter Black
Posted on August 02, 2008I've been aware of my namesake, a UK Liberal Democrat who maintains a blog, for some time, but it was nonetheless interesting to see Andrew Bartlett review his blog, and in particular, a more recent piece of his on the impact of blogging and the internet on politics: I?ve mused...
And you thought I was obsessed with reality TV
Posted on August 02, 2008Two psychiatrists from Montreal claim there is a recognisable psychiatric illness known as The Truman Show Delusion: Joel and Ian Gold, brothers and psychiatrists from Montreal, believe they have discovered a signature mental illness of the YouTube era: patients who claim they are subjects of their own reality TV shows...
Join my blog network on Facebook
Posted on August 02, 2008For those of you who are Facebook users, in addition to the Freedom to Differ Facebook Application, you can now connect with other readers through the Blog Networks Application: Join my blog network on Facebook Blog Networks And don't forget to follow me on Twitter.
Academics on Facebook
Posted on August 02, 2008When I first joined Facebook I was nervous about what role it should have (if any) with my students. Indeed, for quite some time I used to ignore Friend Requests from students. However, I ultimately took advantage of the limited profile and then advanced privacy settings and configured a version...
The end of the Patry Copyright Blog
Posted on August 02, 2008William Patry has decided to end his blog, The Patry Copyright Blog. This is a loss to the IP blogosphere and the blogosphere in general, but after reading his final post you will understand why. For him, it came down to two things. First, the refusal or inability of many...
What (if anything) do the exams I've set say about me?
Posted on August 01, 2008Ever since the New York Times posted copies of the exams Barack Obama set while a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, the media and the blogosphere have been carefully analysing them, trying to find what they reveal about him, his mind and his ideology...
High Court hilarity
Posted on August 01, 2008It is always embarrassing when a mobile phone goes off in an inappropriate place or inconvenient time. And so it was the Acting Chief Justice of Australia: WHAT do you do with a judge whose phone goes off in court? And what if the judge is the Acting Chief Justice...
Searching iPods at customs?
Posted on July 29, 2008The Internet Industry Association has called on the Australian Government to take a "balanced approach" to a proposed but little known Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that could result in customs officials searching travellers' laptops and MP3 players when they arrive in Australia: The Internet Industry Association (IIA) today called on the...
A sign of the times
Posted on July 29, 2008Australian swimming's golden couple Eamon Sullivan and Stephanie Rice have apparently broken up. It seems only appropriate that the couple, who shot to fame thanks to some "raunchy" party picks on Facebook, announced the break up by changing their Facebook relationship status: Australian swimming's glamour couple Eamon Sullivan and Stephanie...
The RNC tries make a point with humour
Posted on July 29, 2008I was intrigued to see this post on The Caucus (a blog hosted by the New York Times) that the RNC has set up a parody Facebook for Barack Obama, BarackBook.com, to highlight some of his lesser known associations. An interesting political strategy - and a novel use twist on...
Defamation on Facebook
Posted on July 24, 2008As if to demonstrate Judge Ryrie's point from my previous post about the uncertainty of Facebook pages ("that anyone can create an identity that could mimic the true person's identity"), I then read this story about a defamation case in the UK centred around a fake Facebook page: A businessman...
Service via Facebook?
Posted on July 24, 2008When legal proceedings are initiated in Queensland, a copy of the claim and statement of claim must be given to or 'served' on the defendant. This is usually done by way of personal service, where the relevant documents are personally handed to the defendant...
One more Big Brother post
Posted on July 24, 2008Given my gushing rant on Monday night you probably thought that would be the last post on Big Brother for some time, possibly ever. However, I thought I'd post this video that pays tribute to the 2008 housemates:
While on hiatus ...
Posted on July 22, 2008While this blog was on hiatus I was mainly concentrating on a few different research projects, but I did manage to do a few things that may be interest to regular readers. First, I attended Microsoft's inaugural Politics and Technology Forum in Canberra...
Can Jayent Patel receive a fair trial?
Posted on July 22, 2008An op-ed piece I wrote looking at how the internet may impact upon whether Jayent Patel can receive a fair trial is in today's Courier Mail. It is available online here.
It's time to go Big Brother ... for now
Posted on July 21, 2008The last episode of Big Brother ended tonight with the words "It's time to go Big Brother ... for now". So hope remains that Big Brother will one day return in some form. But for now it is worth reflecting on the past eight seasons. I've always blogged a bit...
The hiatus ... is over
Posted on July 20, 2008After a six week break, blogging will resume tomorrow. Details to follow in the morning.
Blogging resumes
Posted on July 20, 2008Six weeks ago I put this blog on hiatus, not knowing when if ever I would return to blogging. It had become too time consuming and no fun. I felt as though I had to post every day. It consisted little more than me embedding videos and cutting and pasting...
A hiatus ...
Posted on June 08, 2008I'm going to take a break from blogging for a while I figure out how I best want to use this space. Although I will not be blogging, I may tumble occasionally at Freedom to Dither, continue to be delicious, Twitter away, and I will definitely not be giving up...
Four videos
Posted on June 06, 2008Seeing this has been a long, tiring week (well, for me at least), I thought rather than a series of tech or law posts this evening, I'd embed four videos that I find funny. The first two come from one of my favourite blogs TVNewser and show that newsreaders and...
"Facebook murder" story ridiculous
Posted on June 06, 2008Today's front page of Brisbane's The Courier Mail screamed FACEBOOK MURDER. This was the part of the story that made the rest of the front page: WHAT started as a Facebook message from a former boyfriend has ended in the gruesome murder of Sarah Elston, a talented young Brisbane artist...
What is popular to pirates?
Posted on June 05, 2008TorrentFreak looks at the ten most popular pirated TV shows: Nearly 50% of all the people who use BitTorrent at any given point in time do so to download a TV show, with popular series such as ?Lost? getting close to 10 million downloads per episode. These figures are getting...
Some upcoming events (in Brisbane for a change)
Posted on June 05, 2008There are two upcoming events arranged by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) that would be of interest to anyone who reads this blog: Building an Australasian Commons Tuesday 24 June 2008, Brisbane Creating Value: Between Commerce and Commons Wed 25 - Fri 27 June...
Information Cocoons
Posted on June 05, 2008At Bloggingheads.tv there is an interesting discussion between Cass Sunstein and Eugene Volokh on a range of topics: The echo-chamber effect in blogs vs. newspapers The architecture of serendipity Cass offers solutions for blogosphere balkinization The Fairness Doctrine sounds good?in theory Should blogs be liable for defamation? Flag-burning, Nazi Germany,...
But That's Not My Point...
Posted on June 04, 2008The Daily Tube highlighted this very funny video by written, directed and starring Auggie Smith and Patrick Sauer:
Prince really covets his privacy
Posted on June 04, 2008From What Would Tyler Durden Do: I?ve been trying for like 20 hours to find a decent copy of Prince at Coachella doing a cover of "Creep" by Radiohead, but it's impossible because Prince is a temperamental fairy and he told his record label to remove every copy they find,...
Breakfast Media Wrap
Posted on June 04, 2008Crikey's Richard Farmer has started posting a daily wrap of what the national and regional Australian newspaper. It offers an excellent wrap of the days news stories. Check it out here.
Vin Cerf on leveraging social media
Posted on June 04, 2008Vin Cerf discussed how brands can leverage social media: (Hat tip: Trevor Cook's Corporate Engagement.)
Section 230 immunity and the Roommates.com case
Posted on June 04, 2008Larry Downes looks at the section 230 immunity and the Roommates.com case: I write in this month?s CIO Insight about the 9th Circuit?s en banc decision in the Roommates.com case. This important decision tested the limits of immunity for information service providers (in this case, the operator of a website...
Search 4.0
Posted on June 04, 2008The Future of Search blog writes about wanting to put humans back in search: Previously I?ve covered what I dubbed Search 3.0, how search engines have evolved toward blending vertical or specialized results into ?regular? web listings. Today, the step beyond that: Search 4...
The law of Facebook
Posted on June 04, 2008Law students at the University of Ottawa have filed a complaint with the Canadian federal privacy commissioner against Facebook: The students, including several dedicated Facebook users, allege the popular social networking website has committed 22 violations of Canadian privacy law...
Assessing your phorm
Posted on June 04, 2008Media Post's Daily Online Examiner looks at how ISPs are responding to the phorm threat: Behavioral targeting company Phorm hasn?t launched yet, but is already facing more pushback than even the staunchest privacy advocates likely anticipated. The latest news is that Phorm opponent Alex Hanff is calling for people to...
Blogging returns
Posted on June 04, 2008Every now and again I just need to give up blogging, and this week was on the times I needed a virtual break or a secular sabbath. Anyway, blogging will resume tonight.
The future of social media
Posted on June 04, 2008ReadWriteWeb has a good piece on the future of social media: Social networking is at a major fork in the road. Down one road is adding more features to a walled garden and opening up just enough, so that users seldom need to leave. Most sites are going down this...
Granada Tavern v Smith
Posted on June 04, 2008Check out the amusing catchwords from the Federal Court of Australia decision in Granada Tavern v Smith, especially the catchwords under Evidence: INDUSTRIAL LAW ? appeal from Federal Magistrates Court ? whether error in finding employer applied duress to employee in connection with an Australian Workplace Agreement EVIDENCE ? proper...
Lessig's next big thing
Posted on May 30, 2008The Nation has a good profile of Larry Lessig: In late March, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig came to DC to draw back the curtain on the second act of his career. Lessig, with his placid mien and quiet voice, does not exude the aura of a star, but over...
The weekend web
Posted on May 30, 2008Business Week describes the weekend web: There's only one Web. At least that's been the standard response in many tech circles to the emergence of the wireless Web. The point? No matter how you get online, be it by PC or smartphone, you'll still do the same things on the...
New Solicitor-General of Australia appointed
Posted on May 30, 2008The Attorney-General Robert McClelland has just issued this media release: I am pleased to announce the appointment of Stephen John Gageler SC as the next Solicitor-General of Australia. Mr Gageler will commence a five year term on 1 September 2008. Mr Gageler is a highly respected member of the New...
fbCal: a great new Facebook application
Posted on May 29, 2008Only a few hours ago I was complaining to my sister that I couldn't export Facebook events to my calendar, so I was thrilled to read Duncan Riley's review of fbCal: fbCal is a Facebook application that allows users to export date specific information from Facebook to external calander services...
Now this is exciting ...
Posted on May 29, 2008TV Tonight reports the exciting news that Working Dog is returning to the ABC: Great news today with the announcement that Working Dog is to make a brand new series, The Hollowmen, on the ABC. Set in the world of politics, the 6 x 30 min series will look at...
US newspapers turn 225
Posted on May 29, 2008USA Today writes that the death of newspapers is premature: "The report of my death is an exaggeration." Mark Twain to the New York Journal, 1897 The first daily newspaper in the USA was born 225 years ago next week. The triweekly Pennsylvania Evening Post in Philadelphia became a daily...
Mercedes Corby wins
Posted on May 29, 2008Mercedes Corby has won her defamation against Today Tonight: Mercedes Corby has won her defamation case against Channel Seven. Corby, sister of Schapelle Corby - jailed for attempting to smuggle marijuana into Bali in 2004 - had claimed that she was grossly defamed in the Today Tonight programs...
Marketing movies on Facebook
Posted on May 29, 2008ClickZ looks at how Indiana Jones has been promoted on Facebook: Paramount Pictures is expected to have a monster hit this Memorial Day Weekend with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Regardless of how the film does in theaters, the studio has scored big on Facebook...
Rethinking copyright law
Posted on May 27, 2008TechCrunch's Michael Arrington comments on YouTube-Viacom copyright showdown (see my earlier post from today here) and offers some insightful observations on the need to rethink copyright law: There was more posturing today in the big YouTube-Viacom copyright showdown that began around the time that Google acquired YouTube and started talking...
Is what Lee Siegel did wrong?
Posted on May 27, 2008US critic Lee Siegel got into trouble for posting flattering replies to his own blog under a false name. In The Guardian he explains why he has no regrets: The web is only about 15 years old, but already the conversation about it runs along tired old lines...
Best products of 2008
Posted on May 27, 2008PC World lists the best tech products of 2008: After a good deal of--ahem--lively discussion, the editors at PC World have completed this year's list of the 100 best technology products available today. How did we do it? After nominating hundreds of devices, apps, sites, and services we knew to...
Australia considering cyber treaty
Posted on May 27, 2008Australian IT reports that a proposed cyber treaty may mean new surveillance laws in Australia: LAWS allowing police to rapidly secure evidence held on computers, and to obtain real-time access to network traffic, may be needed for Australia to join a global treaty aimed at fighting fraud and electronic crime...
Zuckerberg set up Facebook to get laid?
Posted on May 27, 2008Gawker has posted copies of documents supposedly by "Bringing Down The House" author Ben Mezrich that detail plans for a memoir about Facebook?s founders. The book will apparently include the revelation that Facebook was set up to help Mark Zuckerberg get laid: The author of Bringing Down The House has...
Viacom "threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression"
Posted on May 27, 2008Google is arguing hard that there is something very important at stake in Viacom's action against YouTube: Google's lawyers suggest that Viacom's strategy in its $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube is to subvert the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's protection of websites and Internet service providers and "threatens the way hundreds...
Twitter or something else?
Posted on May 26, 2008Like many Twitter uses I've been very frustrated by the amount of time Twitter has been down recently. So I found Brian Alvery's proposed business model for Twitter very amusing: I finally figured out a business model for Twitter. It's advertising based and it only works if Twitter doesn't solve...
Well this is an overreaction
Posted on May 26, 2008In the UK, The Register reports that Faceparty has deleted most of its users over the age of 36 because it claims older users pose a danger of sex offending: A social networking site has deleted most of its users over the age of 36 because it claims older users...
Recount
Posted on May 26, 2008Charlie Rose interviews Kevin Spacey, David Boies and Jeff Toobin on the upcoming HBO movie Recount:
How many friends do you really need?
Posted on May 26, 2008Techdirt's Mike Masnick says that he'll decide who is friends are: There's already been a court ruling noting that being a Facebook friend is not like being a "real" friend, but the vast "cheapening" of the concept of friendship is ticking some people off...
Campaign chorus
Posted on May 26, 2008As all readers of this blog would be aware, this is America's first YouTube election. In a piece for the Sydney Morning Herald, Dorian Lynskey counts the hits - and misses: YouTube is the entertainment battleground for the US election. From stars to amateurs, thousands of campaigners have posted songs...
Internet users getting more selfish
Posted on May 26, 2008BBC News reports that we are getting more selfish when we hop online: Web users are getting more ruthless and selfish when they go online, reveals research. The annual report into web habits by usability guru Jakob Nielsen shows people are becoming much less patient when they go online...
It's just a flesh wound!
Posted on May 26, 2008An inspired use of Monty Python's Holy Grail to highlight Hillary Clinton's struggling campaign:
Email to remain dominant
Posted on May 26, 2008Media Post reports on the future of email: One of the issues raised repeatedly during Wednesday's opening sessions at the Email Insider Summit was: Whither email when a younger generation raised on Facebook, MySpace and social networking platforms enters the workforce? Will they use email to communicate with their colleagues,...
Apparently I'm an attention-seeking extrovert
Posted on May 23, 2008Australian social networking expert Laurel Papworth analyses social networking profiles for News.com.au: IF you're changing your Facebook status every five minutes there is a good chance the only thing people will notice is that you're an attention-seeking extrovert...
A life exposed
Posted on May 23, 2008The cover story for this Sunday's Times Magazine, is an insightful and poignant piece by Emily Gould looking at the consequences of exposing her life - and the lives of those around her - in her blog Emily Magazine: Back in 2006, when I was 24, my life was cozy...
Be afraid, be very afraid
Posted on May 23, 2008I was surprised to read that online crime (and associated paranoia) in Canada is so high, especially because these findings would be similar in most western countries: Canadians are more likely to be victims of crime on the Internet than they are on the streets, suggests a new survey commissioned...
The panels for the Politics and Technology Forum with Matt Bai
Posted on May 22, 2008Yesterday I promised that more details on Microsfot's Politics and Technology Forum with Matt Bai would be forthcoming (see here). So here are the two panels that follow Matt Bai's keynote address on the rise of political movements in the internet age and, as you can see, I am fortunate...
Politics and Technology Forum with Matt Bai
Posted on May 21, 2008Microsoft Australia has confirmed an their inaugural Politics & Technology Forum: Join Government and business leaders and political bloggers for Australia?s inaugural Politics & Technology Forum, proudly sponsored by Microsoft, on 25 June 2008 at the Hyatt, Canberra...
QUT Legal Practice 30th Anniversary Free Public Lecture by Justice Michael Kirby
Posted on May 21, 2008The QUT Legal Practice Unit is hosting an exciting event on 17 June: To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the QUT Legal Practice Unit, Justice Michael Kirby is presenting a Free Public Lecture. In this public lecture Justice Michael Kirby will describe recent developments in the High Court of Australia...
Beware of those depressing blogs
Posted on May 21, 2008At The Inquisitr Duncan Riley rants about how Australian football players have apparently been banned from reading blogs by the Australian Football League Players Association as reading blogs causes depression: The AFLPA contends that blogs don?t provide any decent feedback, and are racist, carry sexual overtones, are a form of...
It was only a matter of time
Posted on May 21, 2008Silicon Alley Insider breaks the news that Redlasso is in legal trouble: Redlasso, a TV clip service favored by bloggers everywhere, is being threatened with legal action by three of the major media conglomerates: Fox (NWS), CBS (CBS) and NBC (GE). The three companies have sent the Web firm a...
Facebook overtakes MySpace in Australia
Posted on May 20, 2008Ben Shepherd is reporting that Facebook now has more Australian users than MySpace: Facebook passes Myspace in AU for first time April Neilsen numbers are out and Facebook has passed Myspace in terms of usage. Facebook: 2.646m users Myspace: 2.623m users Source: Neilsen Netview, April 2008 Myspace has shed over...
Twitter Come Back
Posted on May 20, 2008With Twitter down again this evening (although at least this time it was a planned outage), I thought I'd post this song "Twitter Comes Back" (well, it is sort of musical):
Al Jazeera English keeps trying
Posted on May 20, 2008Al Jazeera English is looking to expand its reach and gain access to the US market: The English-language offshoot of Al Jazeera, the Arabic television news network, is pushing for a "breakthrough" that would make the channel available to American TV viewers and help it move beyond a turbulent start-up...
More McCain
Posted on May 20, 2008Here is another video of John McCain on Saturday Night Live: For a previous video, see here.
Burgundy and Brokaw
Posted on May 20, 2008Ron Burgundy interviews Tom Brokaw: lt;a href=quot;http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/660cb47b01quot;gt;Ron Burgundy Interviews Tom Brokaw!! An FOD Exclusive!lt;/agt; on lt;a href=quot;http://www.funnyordie.comquot;gt;FunnyOrDie.comlt;/agt;
Do bloggers exist?
Posted on May 20, 2008At The Local Anthony Dever highlights an interesting post by Joel Postman arguing that claiming to be a blogger is now a misnomer: A blog is a tool. There is no such thing as ?a blogger,? or someone who can be rationally defined by their ability to use a blog,...
McCainPedia is not a real wiki
Posted on May 19, 2008"McCainPedia" may well be good name for a website, but the DNC seems to have totally missed the point of using a wiki: The DNC will tomorrow launch "McCainPedia," a wiki-like hub of their opposition research on the GOP nominee. The site features a bevy of articles and documents organized...
Desperate times call for desperate measures
Posted on May 19, 2008The New York Magazine reports on a NYU student who has invented a virtual girlfriend ... as part of art class: Photo: Courtesy of Drew Burrows You work late. Like, every night. You probably screwed up your last steady relationship, and, well, maybe there's no one to curl up next...
McCain is old
Posted on May 19, 2008On Saturday Night Live John McCain makes fun of his age: "I have the the courage, the wisdom, experience and, most importantly, the oldness necessary [to be president]".
OMG ... TTYL
Posted on May 19, 2008According to NewScientistTech the much-aligned IM txt may not be that bad after all: LOL, OMG and TTYL: parents and teachers worry that teenagers' use of these and other forms of online shorthand is harming their language skills. Perhaps they will take comfort from a study suggesting that instant messaging...
Blogging 2.0
Posted on May 19, 2008The always opinionated Duncan Riley opines on Blogging 2.0: Blogging 2.0 If blogging 1.0 was about enabling the conversation on each blog, blogging 2.0 is about enabling the conversation across many blogs and supporting sites and services. The conversation has matured and no longer is it acceptable to believe that...
British PM launching online question time
Posted on May 19, 2008British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has finally found a use for YouTube: Gordon Brown is seeking to embrace the digital age by launching an online version of prime minister's questions. He has pledged to respond to video clip questions submitted via the Downing Street YouTube website...
Bodysnarking
Posted on May 19, 2008At Concurring Opinions Frank Pasquale introduces me to a new term, "bodysnarking": Author Hannah Seligson coins a new term in her critique of celeb-mocking websites: bodysnarking, which she defines as the snide, often witty, comments that have become a ubiquitous part of under-30 female conversation...
Think twice before you sign up for an online service using a fake name or email address
Posted on May 19, 2008Much has been over the past few days of the decision to indict a Missouri mother on charges connected to the suicide of a 13-year-old MySpace user (see my post here). However, MSNBC approaches it from a different angle: Think twice before you sign up for an online service using...
The social networking chase
Posted on May 18, 2008Do you ever feel as though you are being chased in the social networking wars? (Hat tip: Ross Hill.)
Is Google becoming evil?
Posted on May 18, 2008TechCrunch's Michael Arrington highlights a difficult issue for US technology companies - balancing commercial interests against free speech: These stories are becoming more common as Internet companies operate under the laws of many counties. In February A Moroccan man was arrested for pretending to be the Moroccan king?s younger brother,...
Phone more important than wallet?
Posted on May 18, 2008PC World reports on the results of a surprising survey: More than one-third of workers would choose their mobile phone over their wallet, keys, laptop or digital music player if they had to leave the house for 24 hours and could take only one item, a new survey has found...
Enter the Twitpitch
Posted on May 17, 2008Business Week has an intriguing post on the Twitpitch: Forget the elevator pitch. Forget the press release. Forget the PowerPoint deck. If you were making a "Twitpitch" about your business, it would be over by now. A what? A Twitpitch forces you to tell your company's story in 140 characters...
MySpace crimes
Posted on May 17, 2008Two interesting pieces of news to note relating to people using MySpace for criminal purposes. The first, is a ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Doe v. MySpace Inc that predictably held that MySpace is immune under s 230 of the Communications Decency Act...
Bill O'Reilly Flips Out - Dance Remix
Posted on May 17, 2008Here is another video making fun of Bill O'Reilly's losing his cool when he hosted Inside Edition: (Hat tip: Blawg Review editor.)
Addressing rape on YouTube
Posted on May 17, 2008CNN has a story on an extraordinary use for YouTube: The video is hard to turn away from. A sobbing 16-year-old sits in her bedroom and, staring into a camera, says she has been raped. "Hi, my name is Crystal. ... I need some help. I didn't want to do...
First music download trial may get a do-over
Posted on May 17, 2008At the Fordham University School of Law Conference on International Intellectual Property Law & Policy in March I participated in a panel discussion on Capitol Records v. Thomas (D. Minn. 2007) and statutory damages (Ray Beckerman has an informal preliminary transcript of that discussion here), so I am interested to...
Copyright Paradox
Posted on May 17, 2008Over at The Volokh Conspiracy Neil Netanel has been guest blogging on his new book Copyright's Paradox. Here are some of his posts: Online Journalism versus Newspapers Copyright's Paradox How Copyright Burdens Speech Copyright and the First Amendment Blood Libel or Just Libel? For anyone interested in the tension between...
What to do with this blog?
Posted on May 17, 2008Just over a week ago I began to wonder about what I should do with this blog and so I posted about it: This week Duncan Riley announced his new blogging venture, The Inquisitr (see my post here). However in my mind an equally significant announcement was that Skepticlawyer (Helen...
Stephen Spielberg presents: John King
Posted on May 17, 2008Close Encounters of the magic wall kind: (Hat tip: Blawg Review editor.)
Blackboard to sync with Facebook
Posted on May 17, 2008Michael Rees has a good post on a potentially great new Blackboard tool: This influence Facebook has over the social networking of university students across the world is undoubtedly significant and probably growing. The dominant learning management system used in universities is Blackboard...
Why Gen Y is going to change the web
Posted on May 17, 2008ReadWriteWeb's Sarah Perez looks at why Gen Y is going to change the web: Gen Y is taking over. The generation of young adults that's composed of the children of Boomers, Generation Jones, and even some Gen X'ers, is the biggest generation since the Baby Boomers and three times the...
The "Atomization of Conversation"
Posted on May 17, 2008Josh Kopelman, Managing Director of First Round Capital, discusses a new phenomenon, the "atomization of conversation": Last week I was speaking with Lawrence Hooper of Loladex and he used a phrase that's been sticking in my head. When I asked him whether people would be willing to solicit their friends...
ID fraud on social networking sites
Posted on May 17, 2008The Age has a detailed look at identity fraud in social networking sites: IT'S what makes you unique among the Earth's 6.65 billion humans - your identity. Your name, your date of birth, where you live, who you barrack for, even your pet's name - private details now so easily...
Social networking annoyances
Posted on May 15, 2008PC World has put together a list of the top ten social networking annoyances. These are some of them: The same question people used to ask about PCs can be asked of social networks: Were our lives easier or harder, better or worse, simpler or more complex, before they came...
Colbert defends his mentor O'Reilly
Posted on May 15, 2008Stephen Colbert responds to the leaked footage from earlier in the week of a Bill O?Reilly meltdown:
A code for bloggers
Posted on May 15, 2008The Guardian reports on widespread support for a code of conduct for bloggers: Nearly half of all internet users would support a voluntary code of conduct for bloggers and online commentators, according to research. A survey by legal firm DLA Piper said 46% of web users think bloggers should sign...
Building an Australasian Commons
Posted on May 15, 2008Several of my colleagues at QUT have been working to put together this upcoming conference, Building an Australasian Commons: CCau is pleased to announce that details for its 2008 national conference, Building an Australasian Commons, have now been finalised...
Nexus
Posted on May 13, 2008ReadWriteWeb profiles a great little Facebook application: Looking to visualize your Facebook friend graph? You can with a Facebook app called Nexus. This app is a friend grapher that displays a visual analysis of your Facebook connections. But it's not just a pretty picture: in addition to viewing how your...
Facebook sued
Posted on May 13, 2008Tech Law Prof highlights an interesting lawsuit: A Dean of Students of a Roman Catholic school in Indianapolis is suing Facebook over a prank page depicting which depicts that individual as acting inappropriately for a person in that position. The issue for Tim Puntarelli is not to punish Facebook but...
Apple Mac music video
Posted on May 12, 2008This video shows some of the many cool ways you can use a Mac set to the song of "Again & Again" by the Bird & the Bee:
Hillary's Downfall
Posted on May 12, 2008is this offensive? I found it very funny (and I'm a Hillary supporter), but techPresident isn't sure: OMG! WARNING: Over the top, offensive humor! There seems to be no limit to the power of the people to use the internet to express themselves politically, artistically, ...
The evolution of the press release
Posted on May 12, 2008TechCrunch has a fascinating guest post from Brian Solis, Principal of FutureWorks, a PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley and also blogs at PR 2.0, on the evolution of the press release. Read it here.
Should Twitter be "freemium"?
Posted on May 12, 2008Webomatica makes a good point: Twitter is now known for going down without warning, leaving Twitter-addicts moaning that they feel disconnected and the world is coming to an end. But the complaining brings up an issue that bugs me - it?s modus operandi for new web services to be free,...
Copyright criminal mushots
Posted on May 11, 2008From Boing Boing: Brett from Open Source Cinema sez, "We're asking people to take photos of themselves with a mug shot plate indicating their copyright criminality. Then we're going to animate the photos and have them appear in our movie, Basement Tapes, an open source documentary...
Good question
Posted on May 11, 2008Daniel Solove asks why is there no stare decisis for methods of interpretation?: The judiciary adheres to stare decisis for many principles of law, but it seems to allow a free-for-all when it comes to interpretative method. Interpretative method (for both the Constitution as well as statutes) is left to...
"Rumour Has It"
Posted on May 11, 2008The Washington Post charts the evolution of gossip to Juicy Campus and wonders what the law can do: "I am suggesting that language evolved to allow us to gossip . . . to facilitate the bonding of social groups . . . it mainly achieves this aim by permitting the...
Laptop thieves nabbed with help from Mac software
Posted on May 11, 2008Boing Boing offers another good reason to own a Mac I suppose: Glenn Fleishman says, Two alleged thieves were found with stolen computer and A/V gear taken from three roommates in White Plains, N.Y., because one of the victims is a Mac expert. She used the notoriously hard-to-get-working Back to...
Global IP Index
Posted on May 10, 2008Taylor Wessing has launched the results of its Global Intellectual Property (IP) Index: The Global IP Index presents a comprehensive statistical comparison of IP protection and enforcement in 22 of the world's leading economies, rating each jurisdiction for protecting and enforcing patents, trade marks and copyrights...
Why Twitter?
Posted on May 10, 2008At Media Post's Online Spin blog Max Kalehoff offers a great explanation of why we Twitter: I use Twitter, the micro-blogging platform. Each post is limited to 140 characters, so it instills succinct, efficient expression. And you only receive regular posts from those people you choose to follow, so you...
Sad Kermit
Posted on May 10, 2008A very sad Kermit re-enacts the suicide attempt scene from the Royal Tennenbaums: See more funny videos at CollegeHumor
Levi's viral hit
Posted on May 10, 2008Wired reviews an effective viral marketing from Levi Strauss: The hottest video on YouTube right now showcases a handful of agile hipsters effortlessly hopping, leaping and even back-flipping into their jeans. Amateur videos of friends performing such stunts are common enough on YouTube, but this video is the work of...
Another clever use of Twitter
Posted on May 10, 2008Lost Remote highlights another very effective use of Twitter: WCNC just used Twitter to cover the North Carolina primary. ?It was incredibly successful,? says WCNC?s Kayla Castille, who said reporters and anchors ?really got into it.? Of course, Twitter has been gaining popularity in media circles, from the New York...
Jon Stewart is like Bill O'Reilly?
Posted on May 09, 2008The Associated Press reports on an interesting finding: A journalism think tank studying "The Daily Show" doesn't believe many people get their news from Jon Stewart ? because otherwise they wouldn't get the jokes. The Project for Excellence in Journalism also said it was surprised at how much the Comedy...
Nine Network Australia Pty Limited v IceTV Pty Limited
Posted on May 09, 2008Yesterday the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia handed down its decision in Nine Network Australia Pty Limited v IceTV Pty Limited, a very interesting copyright case relating to electronic TV programming guides. The opening paragraph of the Court's decision neatly summarises the issue: The main issue in...
2008 Press Freedom Report
Posted on May 09, 2008The 2008 Press Freedom Report of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, Breaking the shackles: the continuing fight against censorship and spin 2008 was launched at the Alliance's annual Press Freedom Dinner last Friday night in Sydney. Read the full report here.
Reflections ...
Posted on May 09, 2008This week Duncan Riley announced his new blogging venture, The Inquisitr (see my post here). However in my mind an equally significant announcement was that Skepticlawyer (Helen Dale) from Catallaxy and Legal Eagle from The Legal Soapbox are teaming up at in a joint blog venture, Skepticlawyer...
Identity impersonation on Facebook
Posted on May 06, 2008The Winnipeg Sun reports an on unusual prosecution for impersonation on Facebook: Posed as a teacher? Police charge 15-year-old alleged Facebook faker He's facing the music for allegedly using Facebook illegally. And at age 15, the Brandon boy is a rare kind of suspect for the relatively rare criminal offence...
Webby winners announced
Posted on May 06, 2008The full list of the Webby Awards winners, nominees and honorees are now available here. Comedian Stephen Colbert received a Webby for being the Internet's "Person of the Year". Mashable has a good summary here: Given the amazing amount of social media and blogosphere award winners announced (not to mention...
The state of the Facebook platform
Posted on May 06, 200820bits looks at the state of the Facebook platform ... and it's not exactly strong: Something is wrong in the Facebook developer community. Starting in March I began noticing that the level of activity in the Facebook developers forum was dropping sharply...
The Nuclear Option
Posted on May 06, 2008Mark Pesce has presented his thoughts on hyperconnectivity, hyperempowerment and Twitter at the Walkley Public Affairs Conference on Social Media in Sydney today: You can read his thoughts here.
Duncan Riley's new project
Posted on May 06, 2008Australian blogging celebrity Duncan Riley is leaving TechCrunch to start a new project, The Inquisitr. Read what TechCrunch's Michael Arrington has to say about Duncan's sad departure here. You can also read Duncan describe his new project here (and watch him on a video), or listen to him on a...
An internet mystery
Posted on May 06, 2008Wired presents an internet mystery, how much of the internet's traffic really is file sharing? How much of the traffic on the internet is peer-to-peer file trading? Everyone seems to agree it represents a lot of the traffic, but the truth is no one knows (with the possible exception of...
Wikipedia seeks CDA immunity ... and should get it
Posted on May 06, 2008Wikipedia seeks immunity under the Communications Decency Act: Online encyclopedia Wikipedia is asking a court to dismiss a libel lawsuit brought by literary agent Barbara Bauer, who alleges that she was described as "The Dumbest of the 20 Worst" in an article...
The Empire Strikes Barack
Posted on May 04, 2008The latest viral video hit focused on Barack Obama:
Chlamydia spreads virally on Facebook
Posted on May 04, 2008TechCrunch's Duncan Riley highlights an unusual Facebook application: A new app from the American Social Health Association aims to spread Chlamydia on Facebook to raise awareness of the disease. The Morph Monkey Facebook app looks fairly benign at the start...
Murdering the internet
Posted on May 04, 2008Newsweek has a fascinating interview with Professor Jonathan Zittrain: If you say that the iPhone is the greatest invention of your lifetime, few would bat an eye. If you stay up all night playing Halo 3 like some deranged supermarathoner bent on blasting strangers a continent away on your Xbox...
More and more downloaded music
Posted on May 04, 2008More and more people are downloading their music rather than buying CDs: Digital sales of music represented 10 percent of the total worldwide music market in 2007, up from six percent in 2006, according to In-Stat. By 2012, digital music sales will represent an impressive 40 percent of all music...
Google diminishing domain names
Posted on May 04, 2008At WebProNews, Barry Welford asks is Google driving down the value of domain names? Robin Cannon in Search Engine Journal asks the somewhat puzzling question, ?Is Google Trumping The URL?? Apparently more and more people use Google to find websites than type in the URL in the address bar of...
Happy birthday
Posted on May 03, 2008Spam turns 30: Spam - the scourge of every e-mail inbox - celebrates its 30th anniversary this weekend. The first recognisable e-mail marketing message was sent on 3 May, 1978 to 400 people on behalf of DEC - a now-defunct computer-maker. The message was sent via Arpanet - the internet's...
Online alter egos
Posted on May 03, 2008The Washington Post explains the rise of online alter egos on sites like Facebook and MySpace: Since joining Facebook and MySpace two years ago, Luke Mitchell has amassed 476 friends, mostly buddies from high school and college. It was a great way to keep in touch, until his boss showed...
"When does kinky porn become illegal?"
Posted on May 03, 2008BBC News looks at a new UK law banning "extreme pornography": A bill outlawing the possession of "extreme pornography" is set to become law next week. But many fear it has been rushed through and will criminalise innocent people with a harmless taste for unconventional sex...
Introducing an investigative humorist
Posted on May 03, 2008The Washington Post profiles Adam Chodikoff, a researcher for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: So here's Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition forces in Iraq four years ago, describing the situation in a TV interview in September 2003: "We're not in a quagmire," he's saying confidently...
Anti-piracy video controversy
Posted on May 03, 2008The Sydney Morning Herald reports on an Australian anti-piracy video that has backfired on its creators: An artist featured in a new campaign pushed by the Australian music industry to discourage illegal file sharing and change the public's perception that musicians live like royalty says he was duped into joining...
Radiohead's All I Need
Posted on May 03, 2008The Daily Tube drew my attention to Radiohead's latest music video: Radiohead teamed up with MTV to produce this poignant video for their single "All I Need," which shows the dichotomy of two children's lives: one, a privileged Western child, the other, bound by the laws of servitude and silence...
Most influential political pundits
Posted on May 03, 2008The Telegraph has put together a list of the top 50 US political pundits. Here is the top ten: Karl Rove Chris Matthews Sean Hannity Rush Limbaugh John Harris and Jim Vandehei Matt Drudge Tim Russert Jon Stewart David Brooks Mark Halperin Read the full list here.
Blogger one of the world's most influential people
Posted on May 02, 2008TechCrunch's Michael Arrington has been named as one of the world's most influential people, according to Time magazine: Michael Arrington, a former corporate attorney who, via his TechCrunch blog, has become one of the most influential figures on the Web, is the quintessential blogger: intense, passionate, consumed with his subject,...
Facebook in reality
Posted on May 02, 2008What would it be like if Facebook was actually played out in real life?
2008 Fugly Awards
Posted on May 02, 2008The winners of the 2008 Fugly Awards have been announced. Find out the winners here.
Twitter users = tech elite = influence
Posted on April 30, 2008Steve Rubel argues that while Twitter has a tiny reach, it is still very influential: There's been an interesting discussion over the last few days about Twitter's reach. WSJ reporter Kara Swisher surveyed her dinner party and found out that no one there uses the micro-blogging site...
Is the DataPortability logo cursed?
Posted on April 30, 2008TechCrunch's Michael Arrington reports that the DataPortability Workgroup is once again having legal problems over its logo: The DataPortability Workgroup ... now faces its second legal challenge to, of all things, its choice of logo. In February, Red Hat sent a cease and desist letter claiming trademark infringement over their...
Hulu could have saved Arrested Development
Posted on April 30, 2008An interesting post at Lost Remote: Warner Bros. is ... resurrecting the WB network ? online. The site will feature archive video of many of the WB?s classic shows. Warner Bros. is pursuing the ?long tail? of content, much like Hulu has done with its extensive lineup of vintage shows...
How to stop your inbox exploding
Posted on April 30, 2008Cory Doctorow offers five tips to stop from your inbox from exploding: I live and die in my email, receiving hundreds of non-spam messages every day. If I'm stationary and not actually feeding or playing with the baby, chances are I've got my laptop open somewhere nearby, online and downloading...
"Behind the Memes" with cewebrities
Posted on April 30, 2008Wired profiles some of the internet's biggest cewebrities: Who are the geek elite that make us laugh out loud? Chances are you've heard of a Tron-obsessed computer guy, gotten a JibJab e-card, or giggled at a Chuck Norris Fact, but you've probably never met the person (or people) behind these...
Roundtable Seminar - Reforming the Constitution
Posted on April 30, 2008Today I'm participating in a Roundtable Seminar on Reforming the Constitution at Parliament House in Canberra. For more details see my earlier post here. If you're interested in the topic, you can watch the Roundtable as a webcast here. Blogging will resume tomorrow.
Lenovo parodies MacBook Air ad
Posted on April 30, 2008Gizmodo drew my attention to this clever parody ad: Most parody videos are lame in the sense that they take one joke and stretch it to 60 seconds, but Lenovo's one joke actually works when properly executed. Not to spoil anything, but it's a send-up of the MacBook Air in...
"Lessig style"
Posted on April 29, 2008I've blogged about Larry Lessig's unique PowerPoint Keynote style (see here and here) and now a physicist explains why it is so effective. Read it here.
Should JK Rowling win?
Posted on April 29, 2008In a piece for FindLaw's Writ, Julie Hilden analyses J.K. Rowling's lawsuit against those who plan to publish an Unauthorized Harry Potter Encyclopedia and asks, who should win? Recently, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers sued a small publisher that is planning to sell a lexicon/encyclopedia of her...
The formula for a viral video hit
Posted on April 29, 2008The Daily Tube presents the formula for a viral video hit: Here's a surefire formula for viral vid success: take the Muppets, add some R-rated raunch, mix together with a little clever editing, and voila! In this case, here's Miss Piggy lip syncing Peaches' raunchy ode "F--k the Pain Away"...
Am I smug and condescending?
Posted on April 29, 2008Information Week drew my attention to this Marketplace public radio story on the typical Mac user: It was technology's turn in the earnings barrel today. After the bell, Amazon reported a 28 percent rise in first quarter profits. Apple said its profits jumped more than 35 percent...
A social Big Brother
Posted on April 28, 2008The online presence of Australian Big Brother, which launched tonight, is embracing user-generated content: NETWORK Ten is about to take a big leap into the world of social media with the launch of more user-generated content on the official Big Brother 2008 website and a Facebook profile...
APEC charges against The Chaser dropped
Posted on April 28, 2008The APEC-related charges against members of ABC TV's The Chaser's War on Everything have been dropped. The New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery QC, has released this statement explaining his reasons for dropping the charges: Direction Today I have directed that there be no further proceedings on...
It's hard to tell what is real these days ...
Posted on April 28, 2008TV Tonight reports on this bizarre intersection of several forms of so-called "reality TV": Fake Corey just part of the Act No that isn't Corey Worthington, but this promo made by the Movie Networks Channel was enough to trigger complaints by viewers who felt it inappropriate to hire the notorious...
Teachers go wild
Posted on April 28, 2008The Washington Post presents a dilemma for young school teachers: It's almost like Googling someone: Log on to Facebook. Join the Washington, D.C., network. Search the Web site for your favorite school system. And then watch the public profiles of 20-something teachers unfurl like gift wrap on the screen, revealing...
Social networking safely
Posted on April 28, 2008PC World and the Washington Post both published stories yesterday on how to social network safely. From PC World: Howard Schmidt was reluctant to hop on the social networking bandwagon--a byproduct, he says, of the paranoia he internalizes a security professional...
Howard Knopf uninvited to the Public Policy Forum
Posted on April 28, 2008Howard Knopf has been uninvited to the Public Policy Forum on intellectual property reform in Canada, as he explains on his blog: I have now been uninvited to the Public Policy Forum (?PPF?) IP program entitled INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY REFORM: INNOVATION AND THE ECONOMY on April 28, 2008, which will now...
no caps? no worries ... lol
Posted on April 27, 2008A recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project considers the e-communication language of teenagers: As e-mail messages, text messages and social network postings become nearly ubiquitous in the lives of teenagers, the informality of electronic communications is seeping into their schoolwork, a new study says...
Roundtable Seminar - Reforming the Constitution
Posted on April 27, 2008This week on Thursday 1 May I'll be participating in a Roundtable Seminar on Reforming the Constitution at Parliament House in Canberra. This is the media release: Committee roundtable to discuss constitutional reform Federal-State relations, a constitutional preamble and issues of citizenship will be on the agenda at a roundtable...
What do people think this blog is?
Posted on April 27, 2008I was looking at the Feedburner statistics for my blog this evening and was amused - and a little horrified - to discover in the past month that these were the top search terms that resulted in people visiting my blog: Yes unfortunately my blog seems to be a magnet...
Australian domain name transfer made easier
Posted on April 26, 2008The Australian Trade Marks Law Blog reports that .au domain name transfer is to be made easier: As of 1 June 2008, a new and more flexible registrant transfer policy comes into effect, allowing domain name registrants to transfer their domain name licence to another eligible entity for any reason...
Cera on Showalter
Posted on April 26, 2008Michael Cera, of Arrested Development and Superbad fame, on the Michael Showalter "Showalter" for CHTV: See more funny videos at CollegeHumor
Social networking at work
Posted on April 26, 2008PC World suggests that firms are getting blind-sided by social networking: Still thinking about building a social-networking site for your employees? Sure they haven't started without you? Check Facebook, you might get a surprise. As companies grapple with whether, and how, to offer a social-networking platform for their workers, some...
Sex 2.0
Posted on April 26, 2008With the Web 2.0 Expo being held this week, Wired's Regina Lynn instead offers seven reasons why you'd be better off going to sex conferences instead: When it comes to technology, it's the great unfulfilled needs that matter most. That's where the next fortunes will be made...
Justice Scalia on 60 Minutes: Al Gore got courts involved in Florida; time to "get over it"
Posted on April 26, 2008US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says that the 2000 Bush v Gore decision wasn't political and that folks need to get over it:
Facebook undercover
Posted on April 26, 2008In the UK, police going undercover to spy on Facebook users: Scotland Yard has set up a special squad to police Facebook, the social networking site, and spy on criminals who brag about their crimes. While the website is popular with millions who use it to message friends and organise...
YouTube university
Posted on April 26, 2008Ars Technica reports on a recent attempt to teach a university course through YouTube: The ease of video production has greatly expanded the academic world's ability to communicate, and has been used successfully as a supplement to the classroom experience...
How to plot your e-venge
Posted on April 26, 2008The Observer discusses a trend that sees ex-lovers getting their revenge online: Don't get mad; get email. That was Tessa Martin's way of getting over a string of broken love affairs. She didn't cut up her ex-boyfriends' trousers, write off their cars or seek inspiration from Glenn Close's character in...
Mobiles not allowed in New York schools
Posted on April 25, 2008Ars Technica reports that the New York Supreme Court has upheld a ban on mobile phones in schools: Kids in New York City's public schools will have to continue doing without their cell phones. Yesterday, New York Supreme Court Judge Angela Mazzarelli denied an attempt to overturn a ban on...
New logo for DataPortability
Posted on April 25, 2008DataPortability has a brand new logo: Learn more about DataPortability here.
Magic Wall vs Bill Board
Posted on April 25, 2008MTV News' Tim Kash goes behind the scenes at CNN to play with John King's Magic Wall:
Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle
Posted on April 25, 2008TechCrunch looks at some of the domain names owned by Google: Uptime monitoring service Pingdom has put together a list of thousands of .com domain names owned by Google, based on an analysis of the root zone file. They then verified the most interesting ones with WHOIS information...
A 2.0bituary and the Big Social Media Lie
Posted on April 25, 2008Craig Stoltz highlights a a blog entry by Stowe Boyd on "John Edwards?s 2.0bituary and the Big Social Media Lie": This seems like an odd day to write about John Edwards, whom some of you may remember was running for president at some remote time in the past, like February...
What can you take from the web?
Posted on April 24, 2008Kirk Teska, an adjunct law professor at Suffolk University Law School, has put together for IEEE Spectrum a good explanation of what you can legally take from the internet: Intellectual property law has a history of clashing with new technologies. In the early 1900s, for example, when player pianos were...
Google Me
Posted on April 24, 2008CNET News.com reports on an unusual new film: You know you've done it. Like just almost anyone who knows how to use a computer, I'm willing to bet you've googled your own name to see what's out there about you, and to see who else has the same name. In...
Lessig will survive
Posted on April 23, 2008Larry Lessig gets defensive on the RedState flap: Many of you have written about the REDSTATE blog entry, pointing to an excerpt of a talk I gave at Google in which I showed a video by Javier Prato in which Jesus is singing Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive...
"A swing and a miss for 'three strikes' policy"
Posted on April 23, 2008Michael Geist looks at the move towards requiring internet service providers to terminate subscribers if they engage in file-sharing activities on three occasions: The new baseball season is in full swing, yet in recent months the phrase "three strikes and you're out" has taken on an entirely different meaning on...
Vote in the Fugly Awards
Posted on April 23, 2008The nominees for the 2008 TV Fugly Awards have been announced and you can now vote for the winners here.
Copyright and dancing on treadmills
Posted on April 23, 2008Techdirt asks can you copyright the idea of dancing on treadmills? By now, one hopes that you've seen the incredibly creative video that the band Ok Go did for the song "Here It Goes Again." The video, filmed in a single take, has the four band members dancing across a...
Are you my friend?
Posted on April 22, 2008The Washington Post has a fascinating piece on friendship in the age of social networking: Shadee Malaklou has lots of friends. A whole lot -- 1,295, according to her latest Facebook count. But whom exactly can she count on? Malaklou, 22, acknowledges that if she ran into some of her...
World Live Web
Posted on April 22, 2008Media Post's Online Spin blog highlights the World Live Web: Move over, World Wide Web, and give a warm welcome to the World Live Web (WLW). Actually it?s been around for many years now. Unfortunately it hasn?t popped up in our beloved industry until late...
"The Genius of Gossip Girl"
Posted on April 22, 2008Although I've never seen an episode of Gossip Girl, after reading this gushing piece in the New York Magazine, I'm beginning to think it may be worth checking out: Before you see them, you can hear them. The sound is low but insistent, a hum that gradually develops into something...
How to win an internet argument
Posted on April 22, 2008Wired's Alt Text presents a handy guide to logical fallacies that will aid you in any argument: Do you ever get into arguments on the internet? If not, get a refund from your ISP, because you're not getting your money's worth. The latest Alt Text is a handy guide to...
News you can wear
Posted on April 22, 2008Lost Remote reports that CNN.com is going to allow you to get your favourite CNN.com headline on a t-shirt: People either love or hate CNN.com headlines. They?re short, witty and funny. Some say they?re sensational. In fact, there?s even a website dedicated to ?a hilarious collection of CNN?s often ridiculous...
From Little Things, Big Things Grow
Posted on April 22, 2008GetUp has announced the release of "From Little Things, Big Things Grow": GetUp! launches hit song for Reconciliation! GetUp! yesterday announced the release of ?From Little Things, Big Things Grow? by The GetUp Mob. Buy the song now and help us make this a Number One hit to harness the...
Barack and the Boss
Posted on April 21, 2008Slate V concocts this very funny attack ad on Barack Obama:
"My Life on Facebook as a Woman and Why Social Network Advertising Doesn't Work"
Posted on April 21, 2008Allen Stern changes his sex to find out how Facebook targets its advertising: Last weekend I joked around on Twitter regarding the ads I see on Facebook on the left menu. As a single man in my 30s, the ads are always sexual in nature -- some examples: "Hot Singles...
Top tech bloggers
Posted on April 21, 2008TechCrunch analyses Techmeme and comes up with a list of the top tech bloggers. Read the list here.
What about the digital economy?
Posted on April 21, 2008Australia 2020 Summit participant Professor Stuart Cunningham asks what about the digital economy? The Australia 2020 Summit brought people from the heights and the streets together to meet and exchange ideas. It was an exciting concept that produced many valuable ideas...
Blawg Review #156
Posted on April 21, 2008Benjamin Duranske at Virtually Blind hosts a superb Blawg Review focusing on virtual worlds. Read it here.
"Your Twitter is not your blog is not your Tumblr is not your FriendFeed"
Posted on April 20, 2008Justin Williams rails against the noise of Web 2.0: I love the fact that Web software has become more social. Being able to see what music my friends are listening to on Last.fm or what they?re up to on Twitter has enriched my life and helped me get to know...
Andrew Bolt defends Gordon Ramsay
Posted on April 20, 2008Conservative columnist Andrew Bolt defends Gordon Ramsay: MAY I have a quiet f...ing word with the Liberals who are shocked by Gordon Ramsay? Do you really want to be at war with a chef who has the highest-rating show on Melbourne television? But, more importantly, do you really want people...
The power of embeddable video
Posted on April 20, 2008Lost Remote highlights the undeniable power of embeddable video: In January, MSNBC.com became the first major news network to offer embeddable video players. In March, MSNBC.com says it set a video record: 125.7 million streams on 7 million unique users, which it says beats CNN...
Funny Or Die turns one
Posted on April 20, 2008Funny Or Die is celebrating its first birthday: Funny or Die Turns One! on FunnyOrDie.com
Blogging sweatshops
Posted on April 20, 2008Barely Political takes us behind the scenes and reveals blogging sweatshops: (Hat tip: Boing Boing.)
Too much email
Posted on April 20, 2008The New York Times looks at the problem of too much email: E-MAIL has become the bane of some people?s professional lives. Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch, a blog covering new Internet companies, last month stared balefully at his inbox, with 2,433 unread e-mail messages, not counting 721 messages...
Twitter down ... again
Posted on April 20, 2008In one of the many instances of Twitter being down, MG Siegler gets all philosophical about and ask If Twitter Breaks in the Woods and No One Can Tweet About It, Is It Really Broken? Read it here.
Australia 2020
Posted on April 19, 2008The final verdict on the value of the Australia 2020 Summit probably won't be known until the Rudd Government delivers its response to the ideas later this year. However, my initial response is that it is has been a self-congratulatory and highly political event that continues Rudd's approach to governing...
Oregon puts copyright law to an unusual (and unfortunate) use
Posted on April 18, 2008Techdirt reports on Oregon's decision to stop sites from reproducing Oregon's laws: Well here's a story about copyright that's so bizarre it makes you think that there must be a mistake somewhere -- but it seems to be completely true. Apparently, Oregon is complaining to sites like Justia (which publish...
"Borrowing" wifi
Posted on April 18, 2008Only 12% of people apparently "borrow" unsecured wifi. I'm just surprised the percentage isn't higher: Although it is illegal in some parts of the world, 12% of U.S. and U.K. respondents to an Accenture survey have logged on to someone else's unsecured Wi-Fi connection...
One for coffee lovers
Posted on April 18, 2008If, like me, you enjoy a good cup of coffee (or several), then check out Mashable's list of nine must see sites for coffee lovers: The Mashable team is from all over the planet with Pete hailing from Scotland, Stan in Croatia, and the rest of us all over the...
No 10 is all a Twitter
Posted on April 18, 2008In the UK Gordon Brown is using the internet to reach out to the electorate: When Tony Blair wanted to get his message across without having to rely on lobby journalists to pass it on undiluted, he went over their heads to talk to the public from the GMTV sofa...
Back in the top 100
Posted on April 18, 2008Last August I was surprised to discover that this blog had made the Top 100 Australian Blog Index (see here). I managed to stay in the list for a few months before slipping out again. However, changes to Alexa's ranking system (see here) has resulted in my scraping my way...
The noise of Web 2.0
Posted on April 18, 2008Alexander Vanelsas astutely observes that the noise in Web 2.0 is mainly a Tech Elite?s problem: Erick Schonfeld has a funny article today on TechCrunch in which he predicts/hopes that web 3.0 is about removing the noise. We all recognize the problem he describes...
Password peril
Posted on April 18, 2008I think we've all been guilty of this: Using the same password for multiple Web pages is the Internet-era equivalent of having the same key for your home, car and bank safe-deposit box. Even though a universal password is like gold for cyber crooks because they can use it to...
Candidates on Colbert
Posted on April 18, 2008On Thursday night Stephen Colbert had an extraordinary line up of politicians - Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama. What a show!
Turning the wireless off
Posted on April 18, 2008The University of Chicago Law School has made the decision to remove internet access from most of its classrooms: The University of Chicago Law School has removed Internet access in most of its classrooms because of a growing problem of students surfing the Web on laptops during lectures...
Time for a break
Posted on April 18, 2008Six weeks ago ago I took a virtual mini-break or secular sabbath (see here). At the time I doubted whether I could actually do it, but in the end I found that I enjoyed my break immensely. Today I read this article on The Age website and decided I should...
Microsoft has the last laugh
Posted on April 18, 2008In turns out that Microsoft has a sense of humour after all ... Guys, the joke's on us. Big time. Bloggers have been chortling all day over a goofy video made for Microsoft's sales team that made its way onto YouTube. The video, "Rocking Our Sales," by "Bruce ServicePack and...
Uncensored blogging
Posted on April 17, 2008TorrentFreak reports that The Pirate Bay is launching an uncensored blogging service: In their ever continuing battle to free the Internet, The Pirate Bay has now launched an uncensored blogging service, called Baywords. The service is intended to be a safe haven for bloggers who want to be able to...
Stewart interviews Bush (sort of)
Posted on April 17, 2008Jon Stewart interviews Will Ferrell as George W Bush Sunday night's Night of Too Many Stars benefit for autism education on Comedy Central: Will Ferrell as Bush w/Jon Stewart on FunnyOrDie.com
Googolopoly
Posted on April 16, 2008Box.net presents Googolopoly: At Box, we obviously spend a lot of time talking about what?s going on on the internet. With such a high quantity of real and rumored products and acquisitions announcements, Google obviously gets a lot of attention in our animated discussions...
Facebook fans (or not)
Posted on April 16, 2008Australian workers want access to Facebook: YOUNGER generation workers see advantages in working environments which allow access to social network websites, a survey has found. Sixty eight per cent of respondents believe that allowing employees to access social networking sites showed employers trusted them...
"Twitter. Don?t leave home without it."
Posted on April 16, 2008TechCrunch's Michael Arrington was spot when he observed, "Twitter. Don?t leave home without it.", while commenting on this remarkable story: When Egyptian police scooped up UC Berkeley graduate journalism student James Karl Buck, who was photographing a noisy demonstration, and dumped him in a jail cell last week, they didn't...
The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It
Posted on April 15, 2008Professor Jonathan Zittrain has a fascinating new book out on the future of the internet. The Boston Review has an article based on the book. Read that article here and order the book from Amazon here.
Harry Potter Lexicon trial
Posted on April 15, 2008Read about the first day of the Harry Potter Lexicon trial here (from the Wall Street Journal Law Blog): When J.K. Rowling concluded her testimony today in the case of Warner Bros. and Rowling vs. RDR Books, the Law Blog stepped outside at the recess to have a chat with...
Catty Facebookers
Posted on April 15, 2008Funny or Die dramatises what happens when two Facebook friends meet: Catty Facebookers on FunnyOrDie.com
Cewebrities and other internet people
Posted on April 15, 2008As I was writing my piece for The Courier Mail on cewebrity over the weekend, I couldn't get this song out of head: http://view.break.com/362585 - Watch more free videos On a related note, Techdirt's Mike Masnick was impressed that the Associated Press wasn't blaming YouTube for the Florida bashing: Last...
Writing off your personal life
Posted on April 15, 2008Wired's Steve Friess raises a very intriguing tax question, "When Your Personal Life Is Your Business, Is Everything a Tax Write-off?": Sometime last year, podcaster Anneke Rudegeair bought three different brands of condoms. This month, she sat down with TurboTax and listed the cost of rubbers as a deduction...
Censorship workarounds
Posted on April 15, 2008CNET's Graham Webster explains why he posts censorship workarounds: Does posting censorship workarounds help the censors? That's the question I've been mulling for the last few days. I asked for your comments, and the verdict is in: Almost no one thinks we should keep these tricks to ourselves...
Understanding the Facebook News Feed
Posted on April 15, 2008TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid highlights a commonly misunderstood feature of the Facebook News Feed (I know it took me a while to realise this): The Facebook News Feed is a strange beast. Upon its release, it was met with an extremely negative reception as members protested their new ?auto-stalker?, but it...
A right to snoop
Posted on April 15, 2008In the US, newspapers are arguing that they have a First Amendment right to snoop on their readers: Usually, when people talk about the trade offs between privacy and freedom of the press, the argument is about whether the public has the right to know some fact about an individual?s...
Content = commodity
Posted on April 15, 2008ReadWriteWeb explains how content is becoming a commodity: Over the weekend, it seemed that everyone in the tech blogosphere contributed to the discussion around fractured blog comments; Robert Scoble even went so far as to say that the "era of blogger's control" is over...
Jakarta copies Beijing when it comes to censorship
Posted on April 14, 2008The Australian examines Indonesia's decision to block YouTube and other video sites: INDONESIA'S blocking this week of YouTube and other video-sharing websites was a direct copying of repressive Chinese censorship methods but was a strategy doomed to failure, one of the country's most senior journalists predicted...
Should we give Andrew Baron some credit?
Posted on April 14, 2008Yesterday I blogged about how Rocketboom's Andrew Baron was auctioning off his Twitter account on eBay (see here). Perhaps unsurprisingly this move has attracted a wave of attention from the blogosphere (and twitsophere). Now Charles Cooper chimes in with the observation that we should give Andrew Baron some credit for...
PollDaddy Twitter polls
Posted on April 14, 2008PollDaddy has launched a great tool that allows you to create a poll and post it as your Twitter status. Here is one I created: a href =http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/520692/ /a br/ span style=font-size:9px; /span Try it out here.
TV Fugly Awards
Posted on April 14, 2008Nominations are now open for the Fugly Awards, an "annual chance for frustrated viewers and lovers of bad tv to vote on the worst of what's been on telly over the last 12 months". Learn more about the Fugly Awards here and nominate here.
The great friend divide
Posted on April 14, 2008Robert Scoble has a very intelligent post on the value of friends on social networking sites: I?m tracking the new ?friend divide.? What is it? Well, compare your experiences on a number of services when you only have one friend vs., say, 500. Look at Upcoming...
Cewebrity
Posted on April 14, 2008A piece I wrote on internet fame and cewebrity is now available on News.com.au here.
The internet is expanding
Posted on April 14, 2008Monkey Dust takes us behind the scenes of a typical ISP:
Tracey Ullman as Arianna Huffington
Posted on April 14, 2008Each week on her new Showtime series State Of The Union, Tracey Ullman does an uncanny portrayal of the Huffington's Post Founder and Editor-In-Chief Arianna Huffington: Watch more clips here.
The latest in nerd verite
Posted on April 13, 2008Slate's Cultural Gabfest tipped me off to the latest in nerd verite, The Guild, a funny and original web series focused on the real world lives of online gamers. Here is episode 1:
The new digital paparazzi
Posted on April 13, 2008The new digital paparazzi, a piece I wrote on how technology has resulted in teenagers and young adults having a very different conception of privacy, is now available on On Line Opinion here.
Twitter account for sale
Posted on April 13, 2008Rocketboom founder Andrew Baron has put his Twitter account up for sale: How much is a Twitter account with nearly 1,500 followers worth? Rocketboom founder Andrew Baron wants to find out, and launches a publicity stunt that will spark a debate about trust and privacy: He?s selling his Twitter account,...
Think before you post
Posted on April 12, 2008Preston Williams, a staff writer for The Washington Post, reports on a student whose Facebook status update has had lasting repercussions: In an Instant, Message Has a Lasting Impact On his final day of winter break from Wake Forest University, Lucas Caparelli sat on the couch in his father's girlfriend's...
Virtual fame
Posted on April 12, 2008The Age profiles three Australian artists who are using Second Life to build their profile: Second Life has become second nature for three enterprising Australian artists, writes Clare Morgan. Imagine an art gallery where you can not only touch the works on display, you can walk over them, sit on...
Music 2.0
Posted on April 12, 2008Music futurist Gerd Leonhard has released a video explaining what music 2.0 is and how the music industry should change to adapt to 'web 2.0' principles: (Hat tip: ReadWriteWeb.)
Must-see mashups
Posted on April 12, 2008PC World has put together a list of 11 sites not to miss: Call them Web 2.0 sites or mashups -- or come up with your own trendy term. Whatever you call them, there are sites popping up all over the Web that process information in new ways rather than...
Hulu international
Posted on April 12, 2008I've blogged before about how Hulu doesn't work internationally (see here), and now Duncan Riley suggests that Hulu is working on international streaming, with Australia, Canada and the UK up first: Hulu has started offering the above box to international users visiting the site from outside of the United States,...
You must blog
Posted on April 12, 2008Malaysian politicians have performed a remarkable about-face on blogs: Some candidates for posts in Malaysia's ruling party will be required to set up blogs, an official said Friday, a turnaround for governing politicians who had derided online politicking...
Some things never change
Posted on April 12, 2008NewTeeVee reports that sex and hip hop are the most searched terms on YouTube:
Made up words of Web 3.0
Posted on April 11, 2008David Armano lists the top 10 made up words of Web 3.0 here. These were some of my favourites: 1. Socialstainable The act of socially conscious and sustainable conversations, interactions and recycled linking. "Is your blog socialsustainable? Mine is" "How can our marketing be more socialsustainable?" 2...
Tearing down the walls
Posted on April 11, 2008BusinessWeek reviews FriendFeed: Attention, attention: The latest tech darling has arrived, and it goes by the name of FriendFeed. Silicon Valley is buzzing about the seven-month-old startup, which offers a promising if somewhat messy new Internet service...
The Meter is Running
Posted on April 11, 2008On The Daily Show, John Oliver looks at the legacy of FoxNews:
If Learned Hand had spent time in the blogosphere
Posted on April 11, 2008A hysterical post from Orin Kerron The Volokh Conspiracy: If Learned Hand were alive today and spent a lot of time reading blog comment threads, I think his famous address "The Spirit of Liberty" probably would have gone something like this: What then is the spirit of liberty? Only a...
MySpace love
Posted on April 10, 2008Declan McCullagh, in a blog post at The Iconoclast, a CNET News.com blog, highlights a very sensible judicial decision from New York: The annals of history are replete with examples of teenage angst and unrequited love. It took the state of New York to make those a crime...
2020 Summit to be televised
Posted on April 10, 2008TV Tonight reports that the Australia 2020 Summit will be televised: ABC will broadcast the 2020 Summit, principally on its ABC2 channel. The opening and closing ceremonies will screen on ABC1 on April 19/20 and extensive coverage will air live on ABC2 across both days...
"Warming Up to User-Generated Content"
Posted on April 09, 2008Professor Edward Lee, who blogs at The Utube Blog, has posted an article on copyright law and user-generated content: Lee, Edward, "Warming Up to User-Generated Content" . University of Illinois Law Review, Vol. 2008, No. 5, 2008 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn...
"Living Without Copyright in a Digital World"
Posted on April 09, 2008Diane Leenheer Zimmerman has an interesting piece on copyright in the digital age: Diane Leenheer Zimmerman, "Living Without Copyright in a Digital World". Albany Law Review, 2007. NYU Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 07-20 Available at SSRN: http://papers...
The Truth According to Wikipedia
Posted on April 09, 2008TechCrunch reports that Dutch filmmaker IJsbrand van Veelen stirred a lot of controversy last week at the Next Web conference when he premiered his documentary The Truth About Wikipedia. Read more here. The documentary is now available to watch on YouTube:
Viral video South Park style
Posted on April 09, 2008South Park takes aim at some of the internet's viral video stars: (Hat tip: Mashable.)
Blogging killed the radio star
Posted on April 09, 2008Every few weeks over the past year or two I find myself giving a radio interview on some internet law related matter. For example, on Sunday it was online privacy and Facebook for Breakfast with George and Paul on 2UE 954 and this afternoon it was about the YouTube bashing...
Time surveys the blogosphere
Posted on April 08, 2008Time.com has put together a list of 25 blogs in Time.com's First Annual Blog Index: From millions of blogs about nothing, we've selected the 25 best about something?from politics and global affairs to shopping and sports. And, yes, we've got a few about nothing, too...
The Vine
Posted on April 08, 2008Fairfax Digital has launched The Vine, a website apparently designed Generation Y: Generation Y is the focus of an Australian news website launched today. The Vine (www.thevine.com.au), operated by Fairfax Digital, combines news stories targeted towards 18-25 year olds, with user-contributed content...
TV Fugly Awards
Posted on April 08, 2008Anthony Dever is gearing up for another year of the TV Fugly Awards (think The Razzies for Australian TV). If you have any ideas, let Anthony know here.
Avatar Heroes
Posted on April 08, 2008Jon Stewart reports on the US Congress Hearings on Second Life:
Copy culture
Posted on April 07, 2008Home copying is unsurprisingly burnt into the teenage psyche: More than half of young people copy the songs on their hard drives to friends and even more swap CD copies, according to research that reveals the huge challenge home copying poses to a music industry already battling internet file-sharing...
Maher on the internet
Posted on April 07, 2008Stay tuned until 4:10 in when Bill Maher starts his rant on the internet, culminating with "it enables pompous blowhards to connect with other pompous blowhards in a vast circle jerk of pomposity":
Men are online fools
Posted on April 07, 2008When the battle of the sexes moves online, Tom LaSusa explains that men are apparently more likely to be duped by internet fraud schemes: They say girls develop much faster than boys. At the very least, they appear to be quicker on the uptake when it comes to avoiding getting...
Courts split on p2p
Posted on April 07, 2008An interesting split has emerged in the US courts on the legality of file-sharing software: Leaving a copyrighted song where others can get at it with peer-to-peer software doesn't constitute a copyright violation until someone downloads it, a federal judge said in a record industry lawsuit against college students...
Record online libel damages awarded in UK
Posted on April 07, 2008The Guardian reports on record online libel damages awarded in the UK: A social housing firm and its owner have been awarded the UK's highest internet libel damages at the high court after an anonymous news and discussion site agreed to pay £100,000 compensation following a campaign of defamation and...
How to make viral videos
Posted on April 07, 2008This parody video will teach you the "secret strategies" behind many viral videos. Check out the original TechCrunch article by Dan Ackerman Greenberg here. (Hat tip: Paul Gulyas.)
Still immune?
Posted on April 07, 2008Having blogged about Juicy Campus several times over the past few weeks (see here, here, here and here), I thought Daniel J Solove's post at Concurring Opinions asking whether the Roommates.com case would affect the s 230 immunity for Juicy Campus: The U...
"Boring" couple sues
Posted on April 07, 2008A fun find by The Wall Street Journal Law Blog: The Law Blog had never heard of Google Street Views until we came across this Smoking Gun story about Aaron and Christine Boring. To be honest, we?re a bit unhappy with Google ?Street Views? because we can?t seem to find...
Trademark trouble for Google
Posted on April 07, 2008Media Post's Just an Online Minute considers a series of trademark lawsuits against Google: When Google decided four years ago to allow trademarked names to trigger paid search ads, the company had to have anticipated that litigation would result. And it has...
It's back ...
Posted on April 07, 2008I can't think of a better way to resume blogging than with this great teaser for the upcoming season of Big Brother:
Blogging resumes
Posted on April 07, 2008After a five day blogging hiatus (possibly the longest in this blog's history) blogging will resume this evening ...
Censoring your social networks
Posted on April 01, 2008The Times Online has a disturbing report on a new form internet censorship being proposed in the UK: Social networking sites will be required to remove material unsuitable for children, such as nude or violent images and comments, within 24 hours of receiving a complaint, under a tough new code...
Regular blogging to return soon
Posted on April 01, 2008I write this post overlooking the tarmac at JFK International Airport, thinking about the week that has just been, but also the week ahead. I had great time at the Fordham Conference Intellectual Law & Policy in New York last week and have had the opportunity to meet some amazing...
From journalism to blogging
Posted on March 31, 2008Erick Schonfeld, a former journalist for Time, reflects on the change from moving from Time to TechCrunch: Blink, and six months go by. Ever since I made the move from Time Inc. to TechCrunch, my life has become a whirlwind of nonstop blog posting, little sleep, and a growing addiction...
A reminder: Freedom to Differ and social networks
Posted on March 30, 2008In addition to (or instead of) following this blog by visiting http://www.freedomtodiffer.com/ or reading it in your RSS reader, you can stay up-to-date with this blog from within your preferred social network (well, as long as your preferred social network is Facebook, MySpace, Bebo or Ning)...
Live blogging the Fordham Intellectual Law & Policy Conference
Posted on March 28, 2008What follows is my attempt to live blog the second day of the Fordham Annual Conference on Intellectual Property Law & Policy:
Are we sick of life aggregators already?
Posted on March 25, 2008ReadWriteWeb wonders if we are sick of lifestreaming already: Backlash is probably too harsh a word, but as the buzz around lifestreaming continues to build, some people are starting to question where it fits into their daily lives. Last week, we wondered whether sites like FriendFeed solved the problem of...
Raining McCain
Posted on March 25, 2008Forget about Obama Girl (see here), here are the McCain girls:
The internet changes news
Posted on March 25, 2008Time looks at how the internet has changed news: Here is a basic shift that has occurred in the news business: Because of the Internet, you, the reader, no longer have to buy information in pre-fabricated packages like ?newspapers.? You can just go online and individually select the articles you...
Huffington beats Drudge
Posted on March 25, 2008The Huffington Post has apparently become the most read blog on the internet: Could it be a digital indicator that the Blue states are taking back ground from the Red ones?at least in cyberspace? In February, for the first time ever, Arianna Huffington?s liberal political mega-blog and news site, the...
Nine appeals Ice TV decision
Posted on March 25, 2008TV Tonight reports on the Nine Network's appeal against the Federal Court's decision in Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd v Ice TV Pty Ltd: The Nine Network is to appeal against a copyright ruling last year against ICE-TV. ICE-TV allows viewers to subscribe to an electronic programme guide and record...
Upcoming: Fordham Annual Conference on International Intellectual Property Law & Policy
Posted on March 24, 2008Later this week I will live-blogging the Fordham Annual Conference on International Intellectual Property Law and Policy:
"The Professor as Open Book"
Posted on March 23, 2008The New York Times looks at how university lecturers/professors are using social networks to connect and engage with their students: IT is not necessary for a student studying multivariable calculus, medieval literature or Roman archaeology to know that the professor on the podium shoots pool, has donned a bunny costume...
Censored!
Posted on March 23, 2008I was amused to receive an email from a friend today advising that my blog is blocked in China: Hey Pete I'm in China for a few months at the moment. I thought you'd get a kick out of knowing that your blog is blocked by the great firewall. Image...
Down for everyone or just me?
Posted on March 23, 2008Check out Down for everyone or just me? - a great little site that tells you whether a particular site is down for everyone or just you. (Hat tip: Kate Carruthers via Twitter.)
Freedom to Differ and social networks
Posted on March 23, 2008In addition to (or instead of) following this blog by visiting http://www.freedomtodiffer.com/ or reading it in your RSS reader, you can stay up-to-date with this blog from within your preferred social network (well, as long as your preferred social network is Facebook, MySpace, Bebo or Ning)...
The Big Apple
Posted on March 23, 2008This morning I depart for New York City where I will be attending the Fordham Annual Conference on Intellectual Property Law & Policy. Therefore blogging may be a little erratic for the next week. That said, I will still try to post daily and it is my intention to live...
Squirrels need Facebook
Posted on March 22, 2008The Discovery Channel is reporting that apparently squirrels network like Facebook friends: The squirrel world has its own Kevin Bacon -- a socially well-connected individual dubbed Mercedes by the scientist who studies him. The major difference between human and squirrel social networks is that people, as the conventional wisdom goes,...
Readers may find this post offensive
Posted on March 22, 2008Given the controversy in Australia over Gordon Ramsay's constant swearing, especially his use of the word "cunt" in the 9:30pm time slot (see here), I thought I'd post riverbasil's meditation on that very word:
This shouldn't be legal
Posted on March 22, 2008I was disturbed to read this story, "FBI posts fake hyperlinks to snare child porn suspects", by CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh during the week: The FBI has recently adopted a novel investigative technique: posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, and then raiding the homes...
TubeDeeDo
Posted on March 22, 2008Presenting the Kings of YouTube (TubeDeeDo) Rap (from the creators of The Kings of Myspace):
Chris Wallace on Fox & Friends
Posted on March 22, 2008Chris Wallace, the host of Fox News Sunday, appeared on Fox & Friends yesterday and took them to talk for their coverage of Barack Obama:
Change Congress launched
Posted on March 22, 2008Larry Lessig has officially launched Change Congress:
Nine's programming coup
Posted on March 22, 2008TV Tonight reports on a great move by Australia's Nine Network: Hold on to your toques (chef's hat)..... Gordon Ramsay is coming to Australia. In a killer move by the Nine Network, Gordon Ramsay is to open a restaurant at Melbourne's Crown Casino, and the entire project will be filmed...
Facebook = cheating?
Posted on March 22, 2008I have been meaning to blog about Canada's Ryerson University threatening to expel a student on the basis that his study group on Facebook might encourage cheating for the past week or so, but haven't got around to it until now. In case you haven't heard of the controversy, PC...
"I Like to Watch"
Posted on March 22, 2008In a piece for Salon, Heather Havrilesky observes that even if you can't live a life of leisure, at least you can watch one on TV, from Big Brother to The Real Housewives of New York City. Read it here.
More on those pointless Twitter Color Wars
Posted on March 22, 2008Mashable has an update on the useless Twitter Color Wars: In what may turn out to be the shortest-lived web fad since the Star Wars Kid, the tech elite are going all a-Twitter over Color Wars 2008. The protocol: follow your favorite ?color team? on Twitter (or noteam at all)...
Shit ... the US Supreme Court considers fleeting expletives
Posted on March 22, 2008Last week I blogged that the US Supreme Court is going to review the Federal Communications Commission?s policy of punishing broadcasters for airing "fleeting expletives" (see here). Today that decision is the subject of an editorial in the New York Times: The F...
The world's weirdest cases
Posted on March 21, 2008For the Times Online, Gary Slapper has put together a list of the world's weirdest cases: A meticulous collector of amusing and curious anecdotes from the world of law, Professor Gary Slapper's Case Notes column has long been a staple of The Times' Law section...
Cover It Live or Twitter?
Posted on March 21, 2008Next week I am attending the Fordham Conference on Intellectual Law & Policy in New York and I was planning to live blog the event. However, I can't decide whether I should use Cover It Live or Twitter to blog the proceedings. To help me decide, you can cast your...
I do ... on Twitter
Posted on March 21, 2008Mashable has discovered a new use for Twitter - marriage proposals: Forget statistics and pageviews; marriage proposals, folks, are what really cements a web service as a part of our everyday life. Now, we?ve seen Twitter on CSI, but I don?t remember seeing anyone propose to someone over it...
Happy Easter
Posted on March 21, 2008Warning: this video contains random acts of violence perpetrated by a beloved holiday icon: (Hat tip: The Daily Tube.)
Bedtime Stories
Posted on March 21, 2008My Damn Channel is now showing spiced up, adults-only Bedtime stories. Here is Goldilocks and The Frog Prince:
"Breaking the Law To Get a Break"
Posted on March 21, 2008From the Washington Post: For many music-oriented Web start-ups, a copyright lawsuit can be a death sentence. But for Imeem, getting sued by one of the biggest record labels played a pivotal role in its success. In May, Warner Music Group sued the social network, saying that it allowed millions...
And now we know why
Posted on March 21, 2008Yesterday I posted a video depicting a very violent Easter Bunny (see here). Black 20 has now released a second video that shows how the Easter Bunny came to hate us all:
2007 YouTube Video Awards
Posted on March 21, 2008YouTube has announced the winners of the 2007 YouTube Video Awards. You can view all the winners here, but these are some of the highlights ... First place in Series - The Guild: First place in Creative - Original Human Tetris: First place in Commentary - What the Buck: First...
"C is for Clinton, that's good enough for me!"
Posted on March 20, 2008Samantha Power, one of Barrack Obama's former advisers who described Hillary Clinton as a "monster" appeared this week on The Colbert Report. As Stephen Colbert pointed out there can be good monsters, like the Cookie Monster:
What the fuck?
Posted on March 20, 2008Gordon Ramsay is used to controversy so it perhaps not surprising that at times foul-mouthed chef has offended the sensibilities of some Australian politicians: FEDERAL Parliament will be asked to investigate swearing on TV after the coarse language in Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares...
Is this offensive?
Posted on March 20, 2008Over at Larvatus Prodeo tigtog explains why she doesn't find this beaver offensive: Y?know, I don?t find this offensive. It?s clever, not least in its rather pointed metacommentary on the way that advertisements for menstrual products have relied on euphemisms since forever...
Juicy Campus subpoenaed
Posted on March 20, 2008Having blogged about Juicy Campus several times over the past few weeks (see here, here and here), I thought it was worth noting that it has been subpoenaed by the New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram as part of an investigation into derogatory comments on the site...
Barack Obama's race
Posted on March 20, 2008The mainstream media and the blogosphere have been obsessing over Barack Obama's speech on race this week. However, rather than chiming in to the debate or linking to some of the commentary, I thought I'd highlight a few interesting posts that approach race and Obama's speech from a sightly different...
Why the color wars?
Posted on March 20, 2008After my post last night on the Twitter Color Wars (see here), a commenter referred me to the source, zefrank: ok, i promise not to let this blog devolve into a series of posts about twitter, but i think this is worth mentioning. We used to play color wars at...
Are you social?
Posted on March 20, 2008On Twitter this morning Ross Hill made an interesting remark: "Isn't it funny how geeks and nerds own the word 'social' now, online at least.." So true ...
Are Apple ads hurting Microsoft's brand?
Posted on March 20, 2008CNET's Beyond Binary blog considers whether Apple's "I'm a Mac" ads have hurt Microsoft's brand: A new ranking of global brands shows Microsoft's reputation sinking in recent years. Among the possible factors: Apple's "I'm a Mac" ads. Microsoft lands at No...
Twitter color wars
Posted on March 20, 2008If you're on Twitter you may come across in the last few hours the so-called Twitter Color Wars. If you want to find out what that is all about, check out Mashable's post here.
How Apple breaks the rules
Posted on March 20, 2008Wired explains how Apple got everything right by doing everything wrong: Google's famous catchphrase, "Don't be evil," has become a shorthand mission statement for Silicon Valley, encompassing a variety of ideals that proponents say are good for business and good for the world: Embrace open platforms...
Another politician who blogs
Posted on March 20, 2008Trevor Cook points out that Cairns has a mayor who blogs. Read her blog - Cairns First - here.
Is Brisbane ready for a Social Media Club?
Posted on March 20, 2008My friend Des Walsh is trying to set up a Social Media Club in Brisbane: Q. What?s the difference between Boston, Massachusetts and Brisbane, Queensland? A. A lot. At opposite ends of the earth, for one thing. Different climates and time zones. I could go on...
Law & Order sued
Posted on March 20, 2008The New York Times describes the libel case being leveled against the producers of Law & Order: In the criminal justice system of television?s ?Law & Order,? the plots are inspired by two separate, yet equally important, groups: the television writers who craft the intricate if sometimes convoluted episodes, and...
"Everywhere and nowhere"
Posted on March 20, 2008The Economist writes that social networking will become a ubiquitous feature of online life, but that does not mean it is a business: So it is entirely conceivable that social networking, like web-mail, will never make oodles of money. That, however, in no way detracts from its enormous utility...
A proposed internet censorship code for China
Posted on March 19, 2008PC World reports on an interesting development relating to internet censorship in China: A code of conduct addressing how major Internet service providers and portal operators should deal with Internet censorship in China is in the final stages of preparation by Human Rights Watch and the providers, the head of...
Facebook Chat
Posted on March 19, 2008TechCrunch has the exclusive video of a demonstration of the upcoming Facebook Chat application:
"A More Perfect Union"
Posted on March 19, 2008The blogosphere (and mainstream media for that matter) are busy today discussing Barack Obama's speech on race. Rather than read the commentary or watch edited excerpts, watch the whole thing and make up your own mind:
Cure boredom with Twitter
Posted on March 19, 2008ReadWriteWeb offers five ways to have fun with Twitter when you're bored: We've all had one of those days when the universe seems to be playing games with us. Things haven't quite worked out all day, there's nothing good on TV, all your friends are out with each other and...
Maybe internet addiction is not a mental illness after all
Posted on March 19, 2008Yesterday I blogged about internet addiction (see here), but not everyone is buying it: Over the past few years, we've seen so many "calls" to label the use of certain technologies as "addictions" that we've noticed something of a... well... addiction by some to call for new technology addictions...
More privacy for Facebook
Posted on March 18, 2008TechCrunch reports that Facebook is about to introduce its long anticipated privacy controls for groups of friends: Facebook announced new privacy controls at a press event at their downtown Palo Alto headquarters today, and also demoed their new chat application - called Facebook Chat - that has been rumored since...
How to confess
Posted on March 18, 2008Following the Elliott Spitzer scandal last week Slate V produced a primer on "The Art of Fessing Up":
Internet addiction = mental illness?
Posted on March 18, 2008According to the Citizen Ottawa, some doctors are beginning to take internet addiction very seriously: Compulsive e-mailing and text messaging could soon become classified as an official brain illness. An editorial in this month's issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry says Internet addiction -- including "excessive gaming, sexual pre-occupations...
GW Law Revue presents Abuse of Expression
Posted on March 18, 2008There are nine entertaining videos from the George Washington Law School Law Revue - Abuse of Expression - available on YouTube here:
Slate's new law blog
Posted on March 18, 2008Slate has launched a new group law blog - Convictions - with a great range of contributors: Ben Wittes, David Barron, Deb Pearlstein, Adam White, Dawn Johnson, Doug Kmiec, Diane Amann, Nancy Gertner, Jack Balkin, Kenji Yoshino, Marty Lederman, Orin Kerr, Patrick Keefe, Eric Posner, Richard Ford, Tim Wu, Viet...
It's not Hicks
Posted on March 17, 2008On Sunday I blogged about the rumour that Andrew Denton's first "mystery" guest of the year would be David Hicks (see here), however, it turns that that was nothing more than a false rumour. TV Tonight reports that the Denton's first guest will actually be Wayne Carey: Contrary to speculation...
Fuck yeah!
Posted on March 17, 2008The US Supreme Court is going to hear its irst major case on broadcast indecency in 30 years. From Jan Crawford Greenburg's Legalities blog: Holy @$#%! Here?s a surprise: The Supreme Court is going to hear some bad language. The justices announced today they?re going to take up the issue...
Hooked on social networks
Posted on March 17, 2008Troy Wolverton for the San Jose Mercury News explains why he is hooked on social networks: In January, I received an e-mail through Facebook from a college friend with whom I'd long regretted losing touch. Last month, as the Mercury News was about to announce layoffs, a contact on LinkedIn...
Finding talent on MySpace
Posted on March 17, 2008Wired has a very interesting piece on how Hollywood is beginning to use social networking sites to find fresh talent, using Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park as a case study: He's worked with Matt Damon, Sean Penn, Nicole Kidman and Keanu Reeves, but director Gus Van Sant had no interest...
The State of the News Media
Posted on March 17, 2008The Project for Excellence in Journalism has released its annual report on American journalism, The State of the News Media 2008. Read the whole report here. Here is the report's introduction: The state of the American news media in 2008 is more troubled than a year ago...
Black is the new President
Posted on March 17, 2008A few weeks back Tina Fey's "Bitch is the new black!" rant on Saturday Night Live (see here) arguably changed the course of the Democratic primaries (see here). This week Tracy Morgan hit back in defence of Barack Obama:
More on Juicy Campus
Posted on March 16, 2008The New York Times covers some of the legal issues surrounding Juicy Campus, a site I have blogged about a few times over the past few weeks (see here and here): ... Juicy Campus [is] an eight-month-old Web site (JuicyCampus.com) that cultivates and distributes gossip across a network of 59...
Change Congress to launch this week
Posted on March 15, 2008Larry Lessig has announced by email that his Change Congress movement will be officially launched this week: Dear Friend, Colorado Congressman Wayne Allard has taken over $45,900 from ConAgra Food Corporation and over $405,000 from the oil and gas industry...
Blogging and newspapers
Posted on March 15, 2008Mark Cuban wonders why newspapers have taken to blogging: ... newspapers having "bloggers" is easily one of the many bad decisions that newspapers have made over the past 10 years. Much of what I am about to say can be considered semantics, but guess what, marketing and branding are all...
Bad movie titles
Posted on March 15, 2008Jack Lechner explains why Quantum of Solace - the title of the next Bond movie - is a bad movie title: It?s official: The next James Bond film will be called Quantum of Solace. This announcement has already caused much head-scratching throughout the world ? or at least the part...
Hicks to appear on Denton
Posted on March 15, 2008The Sydney Morning Herald picks up an interesting rumour: SPECULATION is mounting that convicted terrorism supporter David Hicks will break his silence in an exclusive interview with Andrew Denton on March 31. The former Guantanamo Bay inmate was banned from speaking to the media until March 30 as part of...
Reporting the news: linear or contextual?
Posted on March 15, 2008Mashable's Paul Glazowski wonders what is the best way to display news online, linear or contextual: First, I want to express very clearly at start of this post that I?m all for RSS, and the linear way in which news is delivered via the medium. It?s convenient and efficient, and...
Dupre uncovered
Posted on March 15, 2008The media has been uncovering details about Ashley Dupre's life (Dupre being the woman who reportedly worked as an escort and whose clients included former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer) through her socialnetworking profiles: For most people, updating your MySpace or Facebook profile is not news...
IM in Facebook
Posted on March 15, 2008In a long overdue move, Facebook is to add instant messaging: Facebook has been testing a new instant messaging service and will be launching it to the public soon, perhaps in the next week. Our understanding is that the service will be built into user?s Facebook pages and allow them...
Delicious drops the dots
Posted on March 15, 2008Mashable reports on a delicious makeover: Del.icio.us has just previewed a completely overhauled site design at a gathering earlier this week, flaunting an even cleaner layout and simplified format, according to Silicon Alley Insider. The company has been talking about making these changes for some time now, but at least...
FriendFeed and SocialThing!
Posted on March 15, 2008As a follow up to yesterday's post (see here), here is ReadWriteWeb's take on FriendFeed and SocialThing!: FriendFeed has a bit of a head start, but even barring that, there are more intuitive features in place despite its visual shortcomings. The most notable is that it links you to your...
A duet ...
Posted on March 15, 2008Here is a funny (and cute) duet in the vein of Juno between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton:
Should a late-night comedy show be able to change the course of a presidential campaign?
Posted on March 15, 2008That's the question Stephen Colbert asked media analyst Howard Kurtz: And read Howard Kurtz's analysis of this issue here.
FriendFeed ... the next big thing
Posted on March 14, 2008Although FriendFeed is the latest hot startup, I can't help but agree with Duncan Riley's commentary: If you haven?t been keeping up with the noise, FriendFeed is the hot startup of the minute. The service launched to the public February 25 and announced $5 million in funding at the same...
Watch what you say on Juicy Campus
Posted on March 14, 2008I've blogged about Juicy Campus before (see here) and it is now once again in the headlines: Make rape, physical violence, and even non-gun-related death threats all you want online with virtually no consequence?but when it comes to school shootings, law enforcement thinks the 'Net is serious business...
Politics and the teaching of law
Posted on March 14, 2008Legal Eagle has a fascinating post on ideology, law and teaching: As I am a university lecturer, I was interested to read about the Young Liberals? campaign to ?out? left-wing lecturers. That seems to miss the point to me: it?s a bit unpleasantly reminiscent of a McCarthyist witch hunt...
Hulu no fun down under either
Posted on March 13, 2008From Mashable: Hulu - Still Not That Fun If You?re In Europe by Stan Schroeder I know we?ve said it before. I know it?s nothing new. But now that it?s officially launched, I still have to give Hulu one huge thumbs down simply because none of the videos on the...
Virtual protest against internet censorship
Posted on March 13, 2008CNN reports on an important virtual protest against internet censorship: Fifteen countries were named as "Internet enemies" on Wednesday as press freedom campaigners called on Web users to join a 24-hour virtual protest condemning cyber-censorship. The online demonstrations in virtual locations including China's Tiananmen Square, Cuba's Revolution Square and North...
Legal education blogs
Posted on March 13, 2008Law X.0 takes stock of some legal education blogs: Hosted by the Elon University Law School, the Center for Engaged Learning in the Law Blog "is intended to contribute to the discourse on teaching and learning in law, from the inspirational to the whimsical, to the mechanical...
Capitals or lowercase?
Posted on March 12, 2008Information Week's Mitch Wagner addresses a question that has bugged me for some time, "Should 'Internet,' 'Web,' And 'E-Mail' Start With Lowercase Letters?": Just as the Internet has evolved over the past decade and a half, the language used to describe it has evolved as well...
Casting your digital shadow
Posted on March 12, 2008Bits explains the size of our individual digital shadows: The digital universe ? the pile of digital information that includes everything from e-mail to YouTube videos ? is growing faster than previously thought, according to a new study from the research firm IDC...
They're saying what about me online?
Posted on March 12, 2008In guest Andy Beal, co-author of Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online and CEO of online reputation monitoring tool Trackur, Mashable offers ten tactics to save your online reputation. Read them here.
Law blogging and the academy
Posted on March 12, 2008J Robert Brown Jr attempts to analyse the role of law faculty blogs in legal scholarship: Brown , J. Robert Robert, "Of Empires, Independents, and Captives: Law Blogging, Law Scholarship, and Law School Rankings" (February 16, 2008). U Denver Legal Studies Research Paper No...
Australia 2020 for everyone
Posted on March 12, 2008Jim Rettrew is trying to give all Australians a way to participate in the Australia 2020 Summit: For the 20 million people not invited to the 2020 Summit, the online community created a wiki so people across Australia could post, discuss, and vote on the best ideas for the country...
Beware the angry law student
Posted on March 11, 2008As Techdirt says, when law students angry ... lawsuits get filed: A year ago, we wrote about a popular law student message board/forum called AutoAdmit that was making some female law students upset, as they claimed sexist messages on those boards were making it difficult for them to find a...
Fox Business News misses out
Posted on March 11, 2008News Corp loses its domain name battle over Fox Business News: NEWS CORP.'S 6-MONTH-OLD FOX BUSINESS News has lost its battle for the same domain name. The World International Property Organization's Arbitration and Mediation Center has ruled that Florida businessman Derek Hodges, of Sebring, Fla...
Who really reads political blogs?
Posted on March 11, 2008Information Week reports that despite all the attention they attract, not many Americans actually read political blogs: Despite the attention given to political blogs, only one in five Americans read them regularly, a research firm said Monday. In fact, 56% of Americans say they never read blogs that discuss politics,...
The Law Accordion To Hanson Bridgett
Posted on March 11, 2008The San Francisco law firm of Hanson Bridgett has a different way of promoting itself: (Hat tip: The Faculty Lounge.)
If life were a musical ...
Posted on March 10, 2008This video featured on Boing Boing reminded me of The Chaser's "If life were a musical" series: Here is how the pranksters at Improv Everywhere describe this video: For our latest mission, 16 agents staged a spontaneous musical in the food court of a Los Angeles shopping mall...
The difficulties of governing
Posted on March 10, 2008According to Malcolm Farr, the new Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, is finding the business of government harder than perhaps he thought: NOW that the symbols, some of them clangers, have left the political stage the Federal Government is confronting the less pleasant aspects of...
Social networking or social hyping?
Posted on March 10, 2008I think Steve Hodson is onto something here: The whole purpose; or at least the purpose that is pimped out to the general internet public is that things like Facebook, Twitter and even FriendFeed are a great way to create new friendships, keep in touch with all these new and...
Wikipedia's soul
Posted on March 10, 2008The Economist analyses the battle for Wikipedia's soul: IT IS the biggest encyclopedia in history and the most successful example of ?user-generated content? on the internet, with over 9m articles in 250 languages contributed by volunteers collaborating online...
Freedom to Differ must have been no 51 ...
Posted on March 10, 2008The Guardian has compiled a list of the world's 50 most powerful blogs, with The Huffington Post coming in at number one: From Prince Harry in Afghanistan to Tom Cruise ranting about Scientology and footage from the Burmese uprising, blogging has never been bigger...
Taking back the internet
Posted on March 10, 2008Slashdot highlights what sounds like a fascinating lecture from Professor Jonathan Zittrain: uctpjac writes "Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford and renowned cyberlaw scholar, gave a lecture explaining that the Internet has to be taken out of the hands of the anarchists, the libertarians, and the...
Feeling angry?
Posted on March 10, 2008Mashable lists 24+ sites where you can vent you anger: Feeling angry? Sad? Stressed? Squeeze ball not working? Or just getting bored? The world wide web offers its own set of places where you can vent your anger. Here is a look at 24+ such sites. Some of them are...
FCC and the chilling effect
Posted on March 09, 2008TV Week suggests that in the US the FCC is having a chilling effect on television shows: Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin may be winning the fight he has picked with TV networks that air racy programming. Mr. Martin?s agency lost the last major indecency court case in federal...
I'm back ...
Posted on March 09, 2008After my weekend virtual mini-break (see here) I am now back in the world of technology. I must say that I found it not only quite easy to survive with no computer, no internet, no email, no Twitter, no Facebook, no blogging and even no television, but I really enjoyed...
Are you friends with your parents?
Posted on March 09, 2008The Washington Post describes a dilemma I am yet to face: When Matt Florian signed onto his Facebook account recently to check the status of his 400-plus friends, he had a friend request. It was from his dad. The junior at Sherwood High School in Montgomery County didn't panic...
Broken email
Posted on March 09, 2008The Observer looks at whether email is a broken business tool: The deluge of email flooding workers' inboxes every day has become so overwhelming that it is now a 'broken business tool' in urgent need of fixing, companies have been warned. The average employee spends an estimated 90 minutes to...
Jimmy Kimmel talks about those videos
Posted on March 09, 2008Over the past few weeks I've blogged about the hysterically funny hit viral video where Sarah Silverman confesses to her boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel that she is fucking Matt Damon (see here) and Jimmy Kimmel's equally funny response (see here), and now Jimmy Kimmel talks about both videos for Newsweek: NEWSWEEK:...
My virtual mini-break starts now!
Posted on March 07, 2008On Monday I linked to an article in the New York Times where Mark Bittman, a self-confessed techno-addict, wrote about the virtues in taking a "virtual break": In short, my name is Mark, and I?m a techno-addict. But ... I decided to do something about it...
Telstra loses court challenge to ACCC
Posted on March 06, 2008The High Court today handed down a rare unanimous joint judgment dismissing Telstra's constitutional challenge to the ACCC. Read the judgment here. This is how The Australian summarised the decision: THE High Court of Australia today threw out Telstra's constitutional challenge against the competition watchdog's powers to set prices for...
Hillary Guy
Posted on March 06, 2008Houston Chronicle editorial cartoonist, Nick Anderson, has made a hilarious spoof of the Obama Girl phenomenon:
More on Change Congress
Posted on March 06, 2008Information Week gives us an update on Larry Lessig's Change Congress project: Government-reform advocates plan in two weeks to launch a system for members of Congress to pledge to reduce the role of money in government, Lawrence Lessig said. The Change Congress project will ask members of Congress to make...
Still don't get Twitter?
Posted on March 06, 2008I quite frequently get feedback from people "what is Twitter?". Now Common Craft have put together a video explaining Twitter in plain English:
Generation Facebook's skills are apparently being wasted at work
Posted on March 06, 2008ZD News reports that employers are under-utilising the skills of the Generation Facebook: The tech savvy of "Generation Facebook" is going down the drain at work, new research has found. People who have left school in the past three years have strong confidence in their IT skills, but the organizations...
iPods = crime?
Posted on March 06, 2008Wired covers a report that suggests a crime wave in the US might be caused by iPods: It's easy to see why iPods would be alluring targets for criminals: The music players are valuable and easy to resell, and people absorbed in their personal soundtracks can be vulnerably oblivious to...
Twitter: "an idiot and spam-free zone"
Posted on March 06, 2008The Guardian asks why there are no spam or trolls on Twitter: Because it's rather like an RSS feed - you choose to read it - and nobody so far has worked out how to spam a feed. Twitter, for those not in the know, is a collection of microblogs...
Some new blogs
Posted on March 05, 2008This will probably be the only post for today as tonight I am trying to finalise the set up of a new blog focusing on Copyright in the Digital Age (which will be both a teaching and public blog). But while I'm blogging about new blogs, check out Surviving Law...
Are you a jerk?
Posted on March 04, 2008PC World introduces us to the jerks of the web: Scammers, stalkers, online antagonists ready to pick a fight, folks who are just plain mean--what is it about the Web that turns people into jerks? One expert says the anonymity of the Web makes everyone behave as if they were...
Become an IP donor
Posted on March 04, 2008Free Art & Technology suggest we should become intellectual property donors: Why let all of your ideas die with you? Current Copyright law prevents anyone from building upon your creativity for 70 years after your death. Live on in collaboration with others...
Mark Holden leaves Australian Idol
Posted on March 04, 2008TV Tonight reports that Mark Holden will not be involved in Australian Idol this year. Read more here.
Clinton tries to be funny ... again
Posted on March 04, 2008From The Huffington Post: Hillary Clinton appeared (via satellite from Texas) on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on the eve of the crucial Texas and Ohio primaries. The segment began on a humorous note before turning to campaign themes. Stewart opened the interview by saying that "this election is...
I always knew blogging was good for me
Posted on March 04, 2008For those of you who worry about how much time I spend blogging or online generally, take comfort in this piece of news: A new study has found Bloggers are better adjusted and live healthier, happier social lives. The research, from Swinburne University of Technology found that ?people felt they...
That's a lot of splogs
Posted on March 04, 2008Wordpress suggests that one third of blogs are splogs: Would you believe that about a third of blogs are spam? At least those are the numbers for Wordpress, according to Matt Mullenweg, the blogging platform?s founder. But think about how many spam blogs there are out there...
Maybe I need a virtual break too ...
Posted on March 03, 2008Mark Bittman's article in the New York Times, " I Need a Virtual Break. No, Really.", made me think perhaps I was also in need of a virtual break: I TOOK a real day off this weekend: computers shut down, cellphone left in my work bag, land-line ringer off...
The death of email?
Posted on March 03, 2008At the Future of Web Apps Conference in Miami, Caroline McCarthy wonders about the future of email: The way people have been talking about e-mail at the Future of Web Apps conference, you'd think it were a cell phone carrier or a domestic airline. It's antiquated, it's backward, and everybody...
A new way to be dumped?
Posted on March 03, 2008Valleywag reports on what may be a world first: This is surely a first: Breaking up with a girlfriend via Wikipedia. Jimmy Wales, the creator of the world's best collection of Outkast lyrics, has announced in a statement on the website that he's no longer seeing Rachel Marsden, the saucy...
No free speech in spam
Posted on March 03, 2008Ars Technica reports on a significant decision on free speech and spam from Virginia: Virginia's Supreme Court on Friday upheld the first US felony conviction for spamming. The spammer will serve nine years in prison for sending what authorities believe to be millions of messages over a two-month period in...
Hillary Clinton on Saturday Night Live
Posted on March 02, 2008The Huffington Post summarises the opening to this week's Saturday Night Live: Saturday Night Live opened tonight with a fake presidential debate hosted by mock Brian Williams and Tim Russert. Williams and Russert were bored by healthcare and were overly nice to Obama, while Amy Poehler, as Hillary Clinton, played...
JuicyCampus.com ... only in America
Posted on March 02, 2008The Washington Post's Marc Fisher describes an entry about a University of Virginia (U-Va.) student on JuicyCampus.com, a website that urges college students to "give us the juice" anonymously: [it] names [her] and says she "will sleep with any guy." This sort of post has given JuicyCampus -- which features...
Are you getting bored with Facebook?
Posted on March 01, 2008This Facebook Anthem is yet another song that uses Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire to make its point; in this case an anti-Facebook rant:
Are gadgets making our lives easier or just gadgetier?
Posted on March 01, 2008Steve Tobak asks, are gadgets making our lives easier or just gadgetier? Ever wonder how we got along without cell phones, BlackBerrys, notebook computers, and fax machines? How did we manage to have fun without video games, MP3 players, and DVRs? Come to think of it, how did we ever...
Internet censorship as a trade barrier
Posted on March 01, 2008Techdirt wonders whether internet censorship should be treated as a trade barrier: I'm generally wary of attempts to use international trade agreements to bludgeon through other policies. For example, Hollywood has used that system for ages to force through bad copyright laws on other nations...
Australia may not have an R rating for games after all
Posted on March 01, 2008The Australian reports that South Australia may stop Australia from introducing an R18+ rating for computer games: SOUTH Australia will quash any plans to introduce an R18+ classification for computer games at an upcoming Standing committee of attorneys-general (SCAG) meeting...
Just making sure that phishing is illegal
Posted on March 01, 2008Techdirt questions why the US Senate is considering a law to make phishing illegal: As the saying goes, when your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. The folks in Congress sure do an awful lot of whacking at various nails these days...
Who is the world's most powerful journalist?
Posted on March 01, 2008The Telegraph floats the idea that Matt Drudge is the world's most powerful journalist: Ten years ago, he was a reclusive, pasty-faced 31-year-old who, bashing away on his laptop in his grungy Hollywood apartment, shot to prominence when he threatened to bring down Bill Clinton's presidency by breaking news of...
Time for a Twittervention?
Posted on March 01, 2008David Armano offers ten signs that you might need a Twitter intervention: 1. You type "@" before names in e-mail, blog comments and data fields. 2. Your written communications have become extremely short. 140 characters or less. 3. You change your Twitter avatar at least 3-5 times a week...
Snow day
Posted on March 01, 2008Former White House Press Secretary and FNC journalist Tony Snow appeared recently on The Colbert Report:
The day the macchiato died
Posted on March 01, 2008On Tuesday, Starbucks closed down all of its US stores for a three-hour barista training session. Jason Jones covered the story for The Daily Show:
Jack Nicholson supports Hillary Clinton
Posted on March 01, 2008A very clever ad featuring Jack Nicholson declaring his support for Hillary Clinton:
Making sense of social media
Posted on February 29, 2008On a post to the Online Spin blog Cory Treffiletti breaks down social media: Social media can be a bit daunting if you don?t take a moment to make sense of it all. Each week there are more companies being funded and more mergers and acquisitions taking place as companies...
Reforming the Oscars
Posted on February 28, 2008In the Los Angeles Times Patrick Goldstein offers some suggestions on how to improve the Oscars broadcast: IT'S now painfully obvious that the Oscars need what nearly every aging star in Hollywood has already had -- a face-lift. The ratings for the show couldn't have been any worse if they'd...
Slate's delegate calculator
Posted on February 28, 2008If - like me - you are closely following the Democratic primary contest, you will have hours of fun playing around with Slate's delegate calculator. Check it out here.
US politics imitates The West Wing
Posted on February 28, 2008Slate V explains how life imitates The West Wing:
Barackula: The Musical
Posted on February 28, 2008Well, this is just odd: Barackula is a short political horror rock musical about young Barack Obama having to stave off a secret society of vampires at Harvard when he was inducted into presidency at the Harvard Law Review in 1990. Barackula from mark mannschreck on Vimeo.
Seth Rogen?
Posted on February 28, 2008Over the past few weeks I've blogged about the hysterically funny hit viral video where Sarah Silverman confesses to her boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel that she is fucking Matt Damon (see here) and Jimmy Kimmel's equally funny response (see here), but now things are getting strange with Elizabeth Banks from The...
Jimmy Kimmel responds
Posted on February 26, 2008A few weeks back I blogged about the hysterically funny hit viral video where Sarah Silverman confesses to her boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel that she is fucking Matt Damon (see here). In his post-Oscar show Jimmy Kimmel got his revenge:
University branding
Posted on February 26, 2008The Higher Education Supplement in The Australian this morning has a good article by Robert Goldney, Head of Psychiatry in Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Adelaide, on the branding of Australian universities. Are tag lines or position statements effective? Certainly universities appear to have embraced them with...
Over at Lawfont
Posted on February 26, 2008Kim Weatherall had two particularly interesting posts over at Lawfont yesterday. The first was noting an article by my QUT colleagues Dale Clapperton and Professor Stephen Corones arguing that the technological tying of the iPhone in Australia may contravene the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth): All over the press today...
Is bitch the new black?
Posted on February 26, 2008The Huffington Post highlights Tina Fey basically endorsing Hillary Clinton on Saturday Night Live: In a segment on Update called "Women's News" ("It's a great time to be a lady in America!") Fey celebrated the news of a woman running for president ? and then (after a bitty swipe at...
Lessig decides
Posted on February 26, 2008Following up on my post about Larry Lessig considering whether to run for Congress, Larry has now posted a video explaining why he is not running:
About time!
Posted on February 25, 2008Promising news in yesterday's The Age: The most violent video games around could soon be sold in Australia after the Federal Government said it was considering updating the classification system for games to include an R18+ rating. Unlike films, magazines and other publications, there is no adult classification for games...
Falling Slowly
Posted on February 25, 2008Watching the Oscar Ceremony last night and seeing the superb Falling Slowly deservedly win Best Song (read more here from The Envelope), reminded me of a video I blogged about in January (see here) that used that song in a tribute to movies released in 2007...
Blawg Review #148
Posted on February 25, 2008Check out Brett Trout's excellent Blawg Review at BlawgIT here.
The myth of Web 2.0 democracy
Posted on February 25, 2008In a piece for Slate, Chris Wilson breaks down the myth of Web 2.0 democracy: It's getting harder to be a Wikipedia-hater. The user-generated and -edited online encyclopedia?which doesn't even require contributors to register?somehow holds its own against the Encyclopedia Britannica in accuracy, a Nature study concluded, and has many...
Slate V on the Oscars
Posted on February 24, 2008Slate V has two interesting videos focusing on the Oscars, the first looks at the obscure category of film editing and the second looks at Oscar winners who have gone on to star in truly horrible films:
The Oscars on YouTube
Posted on February 24, 2008The Oscars now has a YouTube channel with highlights from previous Oscar ceremonies. I would embed some of my favourite moments, but the Academy has requested that embeds be disabled. So instead, visit the channel here, and look back at some of the most memorable moments in the history of...
The Razzies
Posted on February 24, 2008The 28th Annual Golden Raspberry Awards have been announced. This is the media release: Many a RAZZIE® record was broken at this weekend's 28th Annual Golden Raspberry Awards, which dis-honor Worst Achievements in Film. Lindsay Lohan and Eddie Murphy, each starring in one of 2007's Worst Picture nominees, both managed...
Oscar Predictions
Posted on February 24, 2008With the Academy Awards less than a day away, I thought that like last year (see here) I'd post my predictions: Picture - Michael Clayton Direction - Ethan and Joel Coen (No Country For Old Men) Actor - Daniel Day Lewis (There Will Be Blood) Actress - Julie Christie (Away...
Scrabulous music video
Posted on February 24, 2008A parody of Fergie's "Glamorous" on that much-discussed Facebook application, Scrabulous:
A blogging break
Posted on February 22, 2008With classes starting up again next week, I'm busy getting everything ready for the start of the new semester. As such, there may not be any blogging until Sunday or Monday.
Lessig08
Posted on February 20, 2008Larry Lessig has posted a video to a new site Lessig08 - Change Congress to "explain the launch of two exploratory projects ? first, a Change Congress movement, and second, my own decision whether to run for Congress in the California 12th":
"Turns Out Social Networks Aren't Breeding Grounds For Sexual Predators"
Posted on February 20, 2008From Techdirt: Over the past few years there has been a huge number of grandstanding politicians claiming that social networks like Facebook and MySpace were breeding grounds for online predators, who were trying to entice children. They've been pushing for new laws, basically so they can get into the papers...
Juicy Campus
Posted on February 20, 2008Mashable discusses Juicy Campus: Is this cyber-bullying at its finest? JuicyCampus is an online network that lets students at various college campuses in the US say whatever they want, anonymously of course. Give a bunch of just-out-of-high-school kids an opportunity like this, and they?ll run with it...
Yahoo filters (censors?) the Pirate Bay
Posted on February 20, 2008Torrent Freak blogs about Yahoo's decision to exclude the Pirate Bay from their search results: Filtering or blocking the Pirate Bay is beginning to become a trend. Little over a week ago, a Danish court ordered the ISP ?Tele2? to block its customers access to The Pirate Bay...
The history of HD DVD and Blu-Ray
Posted on February 20, 2008PC World charts the history of the format battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc: The high-definition movie disc battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc can be traced all the way back to 2000, when companies began experimenting with using new blue lasers in optical disc systems...
Presentation Zen
Posted on February 20, 2008I was listening to the most recent This Week In Law podcast today and was intrigued by a discussion of a book titled Presentation Zen about PowerPoint technique. A quick Google search revealed that in addition to the book, there is a related blog that looks at issues related to...
The Nerd Handbook
Posted on February 20, 2008If you don't understand nerds, the Nerd Handbook is for you. Read it here.
Are Americans hostile to knowledge?
Posted on February 18, 2008In a piece for the New York Times, Patricia Cohen asks are Americans hostile to knowledge? A popular video on YouTube shows Kellie Pickler, the adorable platinum blonde from ?American Idol,? appearing on the Fox game show ?Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?? during celebrity week...
The wit of Hugh Atkin
Posted on February 18, 2008I've blogged before about the recent Australian law grad, Hugh Atkin, whose YouTube's videos are proving a hit here and around the world (see here), and now he is the subject of a short profile in today's Sydney Morning Herald: IT TAKES a certain kind of wit to cut through...
Censoring social networks
Posted on February 18, 2008The Internet & Democracy group based at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School asks who is afraid of the big, bad Facebook? Although Facebook is probably known more as a threat to productivity stateside, Sacred Facts?s post surveying its censorship in a number of Middle...
Three copyright strikes and you're out!
Posted on February 17, 2008The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Rudd Government is considering introducing a three-strikes policy against computer users who download songs illegally: AS THE internet threatens to kill the established music industry, the Rudd Government is considering a three-strikes policy against computer users who download songs illegally...
Congratulations to Psiphon
Posted on February 16, 2008The OpenNet Initiative Blog congratulates Psiphon: Psiphon, a tool developed at the Citizen Lab to help Internet users evade censorship, has won its latest in a string of awards and accolades, the Netxplorateur Grand Prix 2008. As Internet filtering grows around the world, so does commitment against it...
"If You Can?t Let Go, Twitter"
Posted on February 16, 2008In the New York Times, Michelle Slatalla has an entertaining and interesting piece recounting a parent's experiences with Twitter. Read it here.
Is MySpace good for society?
Posted on February 16, 2008A special Freakonomics Quorum asks is MySpace good for society? Two little words ? ?social networking? ? have become a giant buzzphrase over the past couple of years, what with the worldwide march of Facebook and headline-ready stories about Web-assisted suicides...
Will Larry Lessig run for Congress?
Posted on February 16, 2008techPresident wonders if "Lessig for Congress" might not be as silly as it first seems: There's a playful drive afoot to draft law professor, free-culture guru, and PowerPoint maestro Larry Lessig to run in the April 8 special election for the open seat in California's 12th congressional district...
Hiding misconduct from YouTube
Posted on February 16, 2008Techdirt is unimpressed by a proposed Utah law: It's really fairly amazing to see how people react when bad activities are brought to light. A few times now, we've seen stories of students who were able to film inappropriate activity from teachers or principals with their mobile phones...
"Is Selling A CD You Found In The Trash Copyright Infringement?"
Posted on February 16, 2008From Techdirt: Various courts have held that by putting something in the trash, you are relinquishing your ownership of those goods. However, apparently that might not apply to music. William Patry has the story on an unfortunate decision by our court system, suggesting that if you find a CD in...
Use of MySpace may violate court order
Posted on February 16, 2008A judge says use of MySpace may violate a restraining order: In one of the first rulings of its kind, a Staten Island judge has said that a teenage girl could be charged with violating a restraining order by using MySpace.com to reach out to people she was told not...
There Will Be Bell
Posted on February 16, 2008The Daily Tube sets the scene for There Will Be Bell: Oscar favorite "There Will Be Blood" raises a host of questions about the ethics of oil. But long before P.T. Anderson ever got his hands on the script, the kids of Bayside High (from TV's "Saved by the Bell")...
Liking Barack Obama is "like liking an iPhone"
Posted on February 16, 2008Slate's Dahlia Lithwick has written a very amusing letter breaking up with Barack Obama: Dear Barack: I know it's kind of lame to break up with you on Valentine's Day. And on the Internet to boot. But it's also kind of ironic. And that's what I need to tell you...
John McCain prank calls Hillary
Posted on February 16, 2008A funny mashup from BarelyPolitical.com:
Microsoft to teach teenagers about IP
Posted on February 15, 2008Information Week explains Microsoft's response to a recent study on teenagers attitudes to intellectual property: Teens appear to be willing to curtail illegal downloading when told they face fines or jail time. This finding, among many in a survey published by Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) on Wednesday, is the basis for...
Facebook defamation Down Under
Posted on February 15, 2008Australian IT reports on what is apparently the first Australian case where Facebook has been met with threats to sue: A VICTORIAN man has published public apologies in two major papers after comments he made about a family through his Facebook page. The public notices have cost the man about...
"On the Internet there are a lot of nude pictures and sexy photos, but the police don?t bring charges"
Posted on February 15, 2008A fascinating story from the New York Times on online free speech in Hong Kong: A series of arrests here for posting sexually explicit images of what appear to be some of Asia?s best-known pop stars has led to a division among Internet users over free speech, and questions of...
Are you wasting too much time online?
Posted on February 15, 2008TechCrunch reviews a new application that will stop you from wasting too much time on the internet: New Y Combinator startup 8aweek aims to help you stop wasting all that time on random Internet sites. They offer a Firefox plugin that monitors the web sites you visit and how long...
Online dating horror stories
Posted on February 14, 2008To mark Valentine's Day, PC World collects some online dating horror stories: Internet dating has become an extremely popular way to meet people, and has indeed brought a lot of lonely folks together. But not every date turns out like an eHarmony ad. So in observance of Valentine's Day, we...
Trademarking nakedness
Posted on February 14, 2008The Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports on an unusual case: When the Law Blog strolls through Times Square and sees the so-called Naked Cowboy ? the guitar-strumming street-singer whose uniform is limited to cowboy boots, a hat, and a pair of briefs ? several questions occur to us: Doesn?t...
Now that the strike is over ...
Posted on February 14, 2008Now that the strike is over and our favourite TV shows can go back into production, the Washington Post has put together a list of which shows are going have more new episodes for this season. Read the list here.
Steve Jobs ... the epitome of cool
Posted on February 14, 2008Alexander Wolfe asks, what is that song in the new MacBook Air commercial? You can't teach cool. Fortunately for Apple, Steve Jobs needs no instruction, as he's proved once again with his company's new TV ad for the DVD-less notebook I've taken to calling the MacBook (Hot) Air...
Are you messaging the love today?
Posted on February 14, 2008In turns out that Valentine's Day is a good day for mobile phone carriers: Text messages may not sound as romantic as flowers, chocolate, and dinner dates, but they're more popular on Valentine's Day than any other holiday, according toAT&T (NYSE: T)...
oneConnect
Posted on February 14, 2008The New York Times offers a glimpse of Yahoo's oneConnect: Yahoo is working on a mobile service called oneConnect designed to aggregate contacts and communications around what it calls a "socially connected address book." The service, due to launch in the second quarter this year, will be open and other...
Resisting YouTube's lure
Posted on February 14, 2008MediaWeek reports on the growing trend of saying "no" to YouTube: Based on the recent slew of online video distribution deals, media?s biggest companies are sending YouTube a clear message: We don?t need you. At least that?s the stance of companies like Viacom and NBC Universal, which continue to resist...
Twitter: getting fired at Yahoo
Posted on February 14, 2008On Tuesday the Silicon Alley Insider blog charted the last day of a Yahoo employee via Twitter: Yahoo's Ryan Kuder was canned today. A drag for him, but a gift for the rest of us--because he Twittered it. A new form of literature is in the making... Y! layoffs today,...
Why phishing works
Posted on February 14, 2008Rachna Dhamija, J. D. Tygar and Marti Hearst from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Science have published an academic paper explaining "Why Phishing Works". Here is the abstract: To build systems shielding users from fraudulent (or phishing) websites, designers need to know which attack strategies work and why...
Australian tech budget cut
Posted on February 14, 2008The Rudd Government has announced that the technology sector will not be immune from upcoming budget cuts: The Rudd government's so-called Razor Gang has taken the blade to some of the Howard government's pre-election promises for the 2007-08 fiscal year, including AU$30 million sliced from the federal tech budget...
Qutting Facebook
Posted on February 14, 2008Quitting Facebook has been in the news a bit recently, sparked in part by the reports that Bill Gates is one of those trying to get out of Facebook: Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has stopped using the Web site Facebook, the most damning indictment in a week full of bad...
Happy Valentine's Day
Posted on February 13, 2008As this post last year was popular, I've decided to repost some Valentine's Day videos. First up, YouTube (A Love Song): And another song, Valentine's Day by M. David Hornbuckle: Next, some Valentine's Day pains: And here is a guide for how to anti-Valentine: Need some help? Here are some...
Are you sure Corey Worthington Delaney is Wikipedia worthy?
Posted on February 12, 2008Last month I blogged about the discussions as to whether the infamous MySpace party teenager Corey Worthington Delaney deserved a Wikipedia entry (see here), and it seems as though the debate is still going: MELBOURNE teenager Corey Worthington, also known by the surname Delaney, is set to finally get his...
Banning Underbelly
Posted on February 12, 2008News.com.au highlights a practical problem with today's so-called ban of Underbelly, as ordered by the Victorian Supreme Court: A BAN on the screening of controversial crime drama Underbelly in Victoria will almost certainly be undermined by illegal copies of the show being shared online...
john.he.is
Posted on February 12, 2008Here is a parody of the Barack Obama "Yes I Can" video focusing on John McCain, john.he.is:
Australia says sorry
Posted on February 12, 2008Today was a momentous day in Australia's history as we finally said sorry. This was text of Federal Parliament's apology: Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history. We reflect on their past mistreatment...
Does fair use matter?
Posted on February 11, 2008Mike Madison looks at fair use: There?s nothing like a juicy fair use lawsuit to get copyright lawyers all wound up. Yesterday, the New York Times published this Joe Nocera column revisiting the Harry Potter/RDR Books/HP Lexicon lawsuit, fanning the embers of a debate that burned through the blogosphere last...
Be careful
Posted on February 11, 2008The Guardian reports on a cautious but understandable new BBC policy: BBC editorial staff have been told to be cautious over the use of photos from social networking websites, saying the practice raises a number of legal and ethical issues. The BBC does not yet have a fixed policy on...
Real estate, Google and defamation
Posted on February 11, 2008From The Age: 'So sue me' taunt to agents over 'defamatory' web articles Peter Gregory CONSUMER advocate Neil Jenman has called on two South Yarra real estate agents to sue him for defamation after they launched legal action to stop internet access to two of his articles...
Alan Jones loses his appeal
Posted on February 11, 2008From The Australian: RADIO host Alan Jones has lost his challenge against a conviction for broadcasting the name of a juvenile involved in a murder trial. In the NSW District Court today, Judge Michael Finnane accepted Jones had an honest belief that he could broadcast the name, but found this...
Tech company logos
Posted on February 09, 2008Neatorama has a fascinating look at the origin of tech companies? logos and how they evolved over time. Read it here.
Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon
Posted on February 09, 2008I know this video is over a week old now, but I only got around to watching it today. Strangely enough I only watched after Emily Bazelon said on Slate's Political Gabfest podcast that she enjoyed it even more than the Barack Obama "Yes I Can" video. Anyway, here is...
Yahoo's Grief
Posted on February 09, 2008The Deal Book (a New York Times blog) looks at the five stages of Yahoo's grief: Denial: The initial stage: ?It can?t be happening.? Yahoo is well past this. By rejecting Microsoft?s initial foray back in February 2007, Yahoo?s denial of Microsoft?s interest may have only whet Microsoft?s appetite, bought...
Dark Knight trailer ... with lego
Posted on February 09, 2008Watch the Dark Knight trailer followed by the Lego version ... funny stuff:
Maybe digital natives can read after all
Posted on February 09, 2008The Guardian looks at a recent UK report on the decline of reading but wonders, what are children doing when they sit in front of a computer all day? We've been hearing about the decline of reading for so long now that it's amazing a contemporary teenager can even recognise...
TV lowlights from Super Tuesday
Posted on February 09, 2008Slate V has collected some election night lowlights from the television coverage of Super Tuesday:
China censors Chinese censorship
Posted on February 09, 2008An ironic post from Techdirt: This probably won't come as much of a surprise to, well, anyone, but when Reporters Without Borders came out with a report on how China censors the internet, China ordered that the report be censored. Of course, to do that, China's censors issued a list...
Yahoo rejects Microsoft
Posted on February 09, 2008From the Wall Street Journal: Yahoo Inc.'s board plans to reject Microsoft Corp.'s unsolicited $44.6 billion offer to acquire the Web giant, a person familiar with the situation says. After a series of meetings over the past week, Yahoo's board determined that the $31 per share offer "massively undervalues" Yahoo,...
A hardly surprising finding
Posted on February 09, 2008Ars Technica reports on an interesting research report: The amount of online "chatter" about an upcoming album release directly correlates to higher physical album sales, according to two researchers with New York University's Stern Business School. Professor Vasant Dhar and former student Elaine Chang observed the trends of 108 albums...
Congratulations Hugh Atkin
Posted on February 09, 2008Australian Hugh Atkin, who has posted a range of fantastic videos to YouTube, had one of his videos played on Insiders this morning, Corey Delaney's Other Party (which I blogged about a few weeks back here):
Don't really want your family on Facebook, try Kindo
Posted on February 09, 2008TechCrunch reviews Kindo: London-based Kindo, a social network aimed at your living family-tree, has won undisclosed seed funding from Estonia-based Ambient Sound Investments, reports TechCrunch UK ... Kindo covers the ?next generation? family tree, with communication features, stats and a family ?news feed? not unlike a Facebook feed...
Sex or TV?
Posted on February 09, 2008An amusing post from Lost Remote TV Blog: A survey from a UK television company says nearly half of the men they asked would give up sex for 6 months if they were given a 50-inch plasma TV. Only a third of women would make that trade. According to the...
The Censored Count
Posted on February 07, 2008It should come as no surprise what The Count loves to do ... so why should Sesame Street censor him?
The end of an era: Ray Martin resigns from Nine
Posted on February 07, 2008From The Australian: RAY Martin has resigned from the Nine Network after 30 years with the broadcaster. Martin tonight confirmed he was leaving the network, which he joined in 1978 as a reporter on 60 Minutes. He said he had been considering leaving Nine for some time...
Giuliani and Edwards Rock Out!
Posted on February 07, 2008After dropping out of their respective electoral races Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards got together, had a few drinks and recorded a song:
What to expect from Google Book Search
Posted on February 07, 2008Campus Technology presents the "Google Book Search: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly": Yes, Google is opening up whole new worlds for internet surfers and researchers everywhere-even before the model is ready. FORGET EVERYTHING YOU BELIEVE about Google's book digitization project...
Australian politicians not really online yet
Posted on February 07, 2008ZDNet News reports on a recent UTS study that many Australian politicians still failed to use the internet in the election campaign last year: Some dubbed last year's Federal poll "the Internet election", but research shows the net still has far to go in shaping the fortunes of our parliament...
"Rumor: Plaxo Sold to Google for $200M?"
Posted on February 07, 2008From Wired's Epicenter blog: We're hearing rumors that online contact management service Plaxo has accepted a sub-$200 million offer and that the purchasing company is most likely search engine Google. Plaxo has been in the news recently, reportedly hiring a bank to shepherd a sale...
"Someone get Patricia Hammond a Xanax"
Posted on February 06, 2008In this clip FoxNews anchor Shep Smith has a wonderfully entertaining rant against an emailer accusing him of bias against Mitt Romney. It is probably the best TV moment to come out of Super Tuesday:
Second Skin
Posted on February 06, 2008A trailer for an upcoming documentary on virtual worlds: (Hat tip: Boing Boing.)
The Flashbulb turns to BitTorrent
Posted on February 06, 2008TorrentFreak has an interview with The Flashbulb, aka Benn Jordan: An established, but outraged musician has decided to shun conventional distribution methods by following other recent initiatives (such as Radiohead?s ?In Rainbows? promotion) by making his latest album available for free download...
Need more Facebook friends?
Posted on February 06, 2008The unofficial Facebook blog allfacebook has drawn my attention to a new Facebook feature - Facebook will now suggest friends for you. This is a screenshot of the new option, which you can find under "Account" and then "Email Notifications": Unless you have no friends I'm not sure how useful...
What do Britons really value?
Posted on February 06, 2008A fun story from The Guardian: Porn? Sex? Britons value cruises much more It used to be sex that mattered most, but the world of internet domain names was rocked by a more genteel pleasure yesterday as a tour operator made cruises.co.uk the UK's most expensive piece of dotcom property...
Online resources for Super-Duper Tuesday
Posted on February 05, 2008Mashable has put together a list of sites to get us through Super-Duper Tuesday: 40+ Super Tuesday 2008 Resources For those not in the United States, ?Super Tuesday? is when 24 states start figuring out who their delegates at the national conventions will be to decide each parties Presidential candidate...
What would Microhoo mean for Australia?
Posted on February 05, 2008The Age looks at how a Microsoft-Yahoo merger could raise problems in Australia: Microsoft's $50 billion bid for Yahoo, if successful, could create significant problems for the local partnerships Yahoo7 and Ninemsn, analysts say. Yahoo7 is a 50-50 joint venture between Seven Media and Yahoo, while PBL Media (owner of...
Abercrombie & Fitch advertising in trouble (again)
Posted on February 05, 2008Yesterday I blogged about the FCC's decision that Charlotte Ross's buttocks were both shocking and titillating (see here), and now today it is the appropriateness of some suggestive advertising from Abercrombie & Fitch that is causing controversy. From the Wall Street Journal Law Blog: Abercrombie & Fitch, the 115-year-old clothing...
All my friends are leaving Facebook ...
Posted on February 05, 2008Seeing I had a little rant yesterday about "Facebook refusenicks" (see here), I thought I'd try to provide some balance by linking to a blog post where a now former Facebook friend of mine explains why she has decided to delete her Facebook account. Read Jean's rant, where she sets...
My favourite Super Bowl ad
Posted on February 05, 2008After having now finally watched all the Super Bowl ads on YouTube, I've decided this is my favourite: Read about the ad from Richard Buran here and Duncan Macleod here. There are alot of other good ads, but if you haven't had the chance to watch some or all of...
Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC?
Posted on February 05, 2008In the New York Times Noam Cohen looks at the style of hillaryclinton.com and barackobama.com: STYLES make fights ? or so goes the boxing cliché. In 2008, they make presidential campaigns, too. This is especially true for the two remaining Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama...
Surprising win for MySpace in domain name dispute
Posted on February 05, 2008The Guardian reports on a win for MySpace: MySpace has won the right to have the MySpace.co.uk domain name despite another firm having registered it six years before the social networking website launched. The ruling, by domain registry Nominet's dispute resolution service, has caused controversy in the industry because Total...
Not much blogging today
Posted on February 05, 2008There is unlikely to be any blogging today as I'll be watching the Super Tuesday results come in.
Barack Obama: "Yes We Can"
Posted on February 04, 2008This video - apparently made without the support or knowledge of Barack Obama - is a viral video sensation: I'm not convinced this video actually helps Barack's campaign or furthers his message at all. Indeed, I'm inclined to agree with Wagner James Au from NewTeeVee: The video was made without...
Can you copyright a joke? You must be kidding!
Posted on February 04, 2008Techdirt's Mike Masnick looks at whether you can copyright a joke: Last year there was a bit of a fuss when comedian Joe Rogan accused Carlos Mencia of stealing jokes. Amusingly, Mencia responded to the claims of plagiarism by using a copyright infringement claim to get Rogan's video of the...
The rise of Twitter
Posted on February 04, 2008ReadWriteWeb discusses the rise of Twitter as a platform for serious discourse: Twitter is fast becoming a serious platform for discourse and discussion. More than a status app, it is being used as a first alert mechanism for the dissemination of news and for immediate discussion surrounding that news...
NB. Reading this post from the screen will make you green!
Posted on February 04, 2008Every email my sister a friend sends me from her work account has at the end of the email: PS. Reading this email from the screen will make you green! As this has actually bugged me some time, I could not agree more with Michael Arrington's recent rant at TechCrunch...
NSW courtrooms move online
Posted on February 04, 2008Very exciting news on the future of e-courts in New South Wales, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald: COURT cases will be conducted live on the internet in NSW from next week. JusticeLink, a $48 million cutting-edge computer system, will be introduced into the District Court, allowing lawyers, prosecutors,...
Search engine law
Posted on February 04, 2008There was a recent piece by Mark Anderson published by IEEE Spectrum, "The Gray Areas of Search-Engine Law" that raised a couple of interesting points: The law is always playing catch-up with technology. But in the world of search-engine law, say some scholars, the courts have only begun to recognize...
Hillary and the Band
Posted on February 04, 2008A very clever viral video from Hillary Clinton's official campaign:
"Fishermen Beat Rare Dolphin to Death"
Posted on February 04, 2008Slate's Jack Shafer had a good piece last week on the tabloid excesses of the editors at CNN.com, MSNBC.com and FoxNews.com, which included a list of very tabloid sounding headlines that were given "top story" status, including: from CNN: Baby's body, car seat found on roadside Girls gang-raped, forced to...
YouTubers decide for themselves: are Charlotte Ross's buttocks both shocking and titillating?
Posted on February 04, 2008WebProNews explains how the FCC Sends YouTubers Searching For Butt Scene: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) thought long and hard about whether Charlotte Ross's buttocks were both shocking and titillating. Five years later, they've decided they were indeed, and are fining 52 ABC stations $1...
Journalists and Wikipedia
Posted on February 04, 2008The American Journalism Review discusses the use of Wikipedia by journalists: It's unclear if many newsrooms have formal policies banning Wikipedia attribution in their stories, but many have informal ones. At the Philadelphia Inquirer, which cited Wikipedia in an article about the death of television personality Tom Snyder last July,...
Huckabee Girl
Posted on February 04, 2008There has been Obama Girl, Giuliani Girl and even the Romney Girls, but the sharpest and most critical of this genre would have to be the Huckbee Girl. As The Daily Tube says, "With skimpy skivvies and a surprisingly catchy tune, Huckabee Girl delivers a ringing lampooning of the erstwhile...
The value of emerging social tools
Posted on February 04, 2008JP Rangaswami has a fascinating and well written post on the value of emerging social tools, which are so often written off as a waste of time. You should read the whole piece, but here is the introduction so you get the flavour of it: I can remember a time...
Now I know what to call them: "Facebook refusenicks"
Posted on February 04, 2008A few of my friends stubbornly refuse to join Facebook, and I'd always put it down to their own peculiar eccentricities or some need to be contrary, but according to Times Online, they can now claim that they are part of an anti-Facebook movement called "Facebook refusenicks": Facebook dominated media...
More on Microsoft and Yahoo
Posted on February 04, 2008Mark Cuban explains Why Yahoo should say Yes to MicroSoft: One thing about Jerry Yang that I always have admired is that he cares. He cares about his employees. He cares about his products. He cares about his shareholders. Most of all he cares about building a world class company...
YouTube lawsuits
Posted on February 04, 2008The Utube Blog has an excellent summary of the status of the various lawsuits that have been filed against YouTube. Read the update here.
"Protest starts on Facebook, ends in the street"
Posted on February 04, 2008The Berkman Center's Digital Natives blog provides an example of the power of Facebook: Hundreds of thousands of Columbians are expected to march today in 185 cities across the globe in protest of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and their use of kidnapping as a weapon...
Where to watch the Super Bowl commercials
Posted on February 03, 2008YouTube has a dedicated channel where you can watch and vote on your favourite Super Bowl commercials. Check out the ads and vote here.
"I just don't see it as a TV series. Maybe a movie?"
Posted on February 03, 2008Arrested Development fans my remember an exchange in the last episode when Maeby pitched her family's story to Ron Howard, who said: "I just don't see it as a TV series. Maybe a movie?" Well, an Arrested Development movie may well happen now, according to E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos:...
Super Bowl Commercials
Posted on February 03, 2008Yes, it is Super Bowl time again (although I sure every American reading this blog is already more then aware of this fact), and Mahalo is promising live coverage of the commercials. Check it out here. This ad is already being predicted as one of the most discussed ads of...
The story of the week: Microsoft and Yahoo
Posted on February 03, 2008Hundreds (possibly thousands) of articles and blog posts have been written this week about Microsoft's offer of $44.6 billion to acquire Yahoo, however I thought it may be useful to highlight a couple of particularly good or interesting articles on this very significant tech story...
"Law professors dress scruffily, and we need to do something about that"
Posted on February 03, 2008The title of this post is the very simple, one line abstract to the following article: Jensen, Erik M., "Law School Attire: A Call for a Uniform Uniform Code" . Oklahoma City University Law Review, Forthcoming Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1020738 Here is an extended extract from Jensen's introduction to a...
Cheating 101
Posted on February 03, 2008Law Geek Jason Schultz has posted a collection of videos where students demonstrate their favourite techniques for cheating in exams. You can watch the videos here. I'm not sure whether these students are brave, foolish, or champions of free speech ....
Some exciting upcoming events at QUT
Posted on February 03, 2008The Intellectual Property: Knowledge, Culture and Economy Research Program based at the Law Faculty at Queensland University of Technology has a couple of exciting upcoming events ... ---------- The Knowledge Commons Symposium - Wednesday 6 February ?The Knowledge Commons?: what is it and why is it important to Australia?s innovation...
I'm back ...
Posted on February 03, 2008Alot has been happening to blog about, so expect a flurry of posts this evening ... In the meantime, I've bookmarked 38 news articles on del.icio.us that may be of interest to some of you. If you're looking for a tech news fix, visit my del.icio.us page here.
Google on Microsoft and Yahoo; Microsoft responds
Posted on February 03, 2008Google has come out in a blog post on the Official Google Blog by David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, and stated that: Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another...
Australia 2020 Summit
Posted on February 03, 2008The Australian media and blogosphere are all abuzz about Kevin Rudd's announcement yesterday that he will convene an Australia 2020 Summit in April: The Rudd Government will convene an Australia 2020 Summit at Parliament House on 19 and 20 April to help shape a long term strategy for the nation?s...
Blogging to resume this weekend
Posted on February 01, 2008My apologies for the lack of posts over the last few days - I've been trying to finish an article. Hopefully blogging will resume as normal sometime in the next day or so.
Prologue versus Twitter
Posted on January 29, 2008Mike Bogle at Tech Ticker has an excellent post comparing and contrasting Prologue and Twitter: Wordpress launched Prologue today, in a move that many technophiles and bloggers have immediately heralded as the death of Twitter. Personally, I think the hype has gotten the better of far too many people...
Target to the blogosphere: you?re irrelevant
Posted on January 29, 2008A public relations misstep by Target is now international news, courtesy of the New York Times: Target to the blogosphere: you?re irrelevant. That was the message the cheap-chic retailer seemed to convey in an abrupt e-mail message to ShapingYouth.org, a blog about the impact of marketing on children...
A Techmeme for Twitter
Posted on January 29, 2008TechCrunch reviews Tweetmeme, a fantastic new site that acts as a Techmeme for Twitter: It had to happen sooner or later. We?ve had Technorati. We?ve had TechMeme. Now we have Tweetmeme, which will track what?s hot on micro-blogging platform Twitter. The business of tracking the online conversation just a got...
Huckabee endorses GodTube
Posted on January 29, 2008I blogged about GodTube last year (see here), and now Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee offers his support: We've all heard about the importance of YouTube in the 2008 presidential campaign. But what about GodTube? GodTube is a new online video social networking community for Christians -- basically, YouTube for The...
Election law and the internet
Posted on January 29, 2008This report from The New Zealand Herald highlights the difficulty of applying election laws to the internet: The Electoral Finance Act has claimed its first scalp after a 21-year-old was obliged to take down his website when the Electoral Commission said it breached election rules by not including his name...
Delver: a new social search
Posted on January 29, 2008TechCrunch reviews a promising social search engine, Delver: What if a search engine knew who your friends were and delivered results based on their actions and content across the Web? Today at the DEMO conference, an Israeli startup called Delver (formerly Semingo) is coming out of stealth and announcing its...
Qtrax update
Posted on January 29, 2008Yesterday I blogged about Free and legal P2P music from Qtrax, although it now seems that Qtrax's announcement was premature: This is being covered to death elsewhere, so I won?t spend too much time on it. But if a startup is going to spend nearly $1 million announcing a new...
The Negotiating Table
Posted on January 28, 2008WGA and AMPTP negotiators return to the table in this skit written by Family Guy creator Seth Macfarlane: The Negotiating Table on FunnyOrDie.com
Corey Delaney's other party
Posted on January 28, 2008Corey Delaney becomes responsible for another unruly party:
Changes
Posted on January 28, 2008This cleverly edited video makes fun of the recurring theme of the US Presidential primaries - change:
Terrorism and speech
Posted on January 28, 2008In a piece for FindLaw's Writ, Joanne Mariner considers terrorism and speech: Restrictions of all sorts have multiplied in the heightened security environment of the last six-and-a-half years, so it should be no surprise that, around the world, legal restrictions on speech have tightened...
A novel use of the Protect Act
Posted on January 28, 2008Wired reports on a novel use of the US Protect Act that is being appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court: Criminal defense lawyers say they will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review a novel legal approach the government has begun using to win stiff mandatory prison...
Web Hot or Not?
Posted on January 28, 2008Mashable reviews a new website, Web Hot or Not?: Technorati founder David Sifry has just launched a website with investor friend Martin Varsavsky that is, in so many words, a Hot or Not for websites. Actually, it?s called Web Hot or Not, so you get the point right away here...
A Blackberry for everyone
Posted on January 28, 2008PC World reports that soon the new jazzed up Blackberry will be in the hands of everyone, not just executives: Research In Motion has leapt into the retail consumer market with products such as its pink BlackBerry Pearl, a candybar-shaped e-mail phone stuffed with multimedia goodies, exposing itself to shoppers'...
Free and legal P2P music from Qtrax
Posted on January 28, 2008A big announcement Midem conference in Cannes, France: After years of fighting peer-to-peer file-sharing companies, the major record labels have decided that if they can't beat them, they might as well join them -- in one case, anyway. At the Midem conference in Cannes, France, Qtrax announced deals with all...
The life cycle of a blog post
Posted on January 27, 2008Wired has a fantastic graphic showing what happens to a blog-post after you click "publish": You have a blog. You compose a new post. You click Publish and lean back to admire your work. Imperceptibly and all but instantaneously, your post slips into a vast and recursive network of software...
Raging Against the Machine
Posted on January 27, 2008Lee Siegel, the author of a book published this month titled Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob, really doesn't like the social web: (Hat tip: Mashable.)
I don't get it
Posted on January 26, 2008I've seen this ad for the Commonwealth Bank several times now and I still don't think I get it. Moreover, I don't think it is going to get anyone to bank with the Commonwealth Bank. Anyway, let me know what you think ...
Are you happy?
Posted on January 26, 2008Mashable's Paul Glazowski asks, does social networking make you happy? And, well, the answer I have for you is pretty simple: online social networking upsets people. Funny, eh? Yeah, in some respects, such a conclusion is really very humorous. Perhaps too humorous...
Bill Clinton: "Screw It, I'm Running For President"
Posted on January 26, 2008A very funny story from The Onion: After spending two months accompanying his wife, Hillary, on the campaign trail, former president Bill Clinton announced Monday that he is joining the 2008 presidential race, saying he "could no longer resist the urge...
The internet in 1996
Posted on January 26, 2008eKarjala looks back at the internet as it was in 1996: In 1996, the Internet Archive began archiving the web for a service called the Wayback Machine. They've now archived 55 billion web pages. That's enough web pages that if you were to print them all out using your roommate's...
Thinking long term
Posted on January 26, 2008The Observer's John Naughton on the First Law of Technology: The First Law of Technology says we invariably overestimate the short-term impact of new technologies while underestimating their longer-term effects. The invention of printing in the 15th century had an extraordinary short-term impact: though scholars argue about the precise number,...
Facebook extends platform
Posted on January 26, 2008All Facebook, an unofficial Facebook blog, comments on a significant but under-reported development: I surely did not see this coming anytime soon but Facebook just released their JavaScript client library than enables developers to extend their applications to their own websites...
An author explains why he pirated his own book
Posted on January 26, 2008Techdirt observes that a best-selling author believes that pirating his own book helped sales tremendously: We've been seeing more and more examples lately of content creators recognizing how they benefit from giving away their content for free. What's most amusing, however, is that every time we point out an example,...
The Facebook economy
Posted on January 26, 2008Knowledge@Wharton has posted an interesting piece titled "Scrabulous and the New Social Operating System: How Facebook Gave Birth to an Industry": Most industries do not begin on a single day, but it's easy to see Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's presentation on May 24, 2007, as the starting gun in an...
"All this online sharing has to stop"
Posted on January 26, 2008While Charles Arthur sympathises with the music industry, he says they need to get in line: The IFPI - the International Federation of Phonographic Industries - is the global music industry organisation whose very name tells you how long ago progress overtook it...
Google to kill domain tasting
Posted on January 26, 2008Good news from Google, according to the Domain Tools Blog: A confidential informant says Google will stop monetizing all domains if they are less then five days old. This potential new policy change by Google could stop all Domain Tasting in its tracks...
Widget watch
Posted on January 26, 2008Clint Boulton at Google Watch says the world is warming to widgets: This just in: Google doesn't lead every market it's in. No, it's true. According to the latest November 2007 widget stats from comScore, Google has the sixth widest widget-viewing audience with more than 19 million viewers...
What is "Asia" and what is "Commons" anyway?
Posted on January 26, 2008Following the Workshop on Asia and Commons last week, Rebecca MacKinnon reflected on the highlights of the workshop: For me, the two most thought-provoking sessions at the Workshop on Asia and Commons last weekend were a panel on Saturday afternoon called "Commons: Cultural Perspectives from Asia" and Sunday's final brainstorm...
What copyright law and plane crashes have in common
Posted on January 26, 2008At Concurring Opinions Bruce Boyden explains what copyright law and plane crashes have in common. After explaining system accidents resulting in plane crashes, Boyden asks: How does all of this relate to copyright? Copyright law is badly designed to relate to humans...
Muse Knights of Cydonia
Posted on January 26, 2008Knights of Cydonia from Muse finished number one in the Triple J Hottest 100 today. This is the strange but brilliant video clip for Knights of Cydonia:
A Facebook friend is anything but a friend in need
Posted on January 25, 2008The Guardian points out that you can't always expect your Facebook Friends to stand by you: If ever evidence were needed that a Facebook friend is anything but a friend in need - the declining cyber-support for the man named today as history's biggest rogue trader speaks volumes...
Zenware
Posted on January 25, 2008In a piece for Slate, Jeffrey MacIntyre seeks a distraction free desktop: If your computer desktop is anything like mine?and, brother, it is?you've paved over every spare pixel in an iconistan of clutter. Desktop design originated in a wistful visual metaphor, the clean, still work surface, encouraging users to productive...
The power of P2P
Posted on January 25, 2008CNET News.com's Marguerite Reardon defends of peer-to-peer technology: Peer-to-peer technology has gotten a bad rap for years, but a group of Internet service providers led by Verizon Communications is working to harness the technology to reduce network traffic and speed up video downloads on the Web...
What now for The Dark Knight?
Posted on January 25, 2008The Wall Street Journal wonders whether the marketing for the upcoming Batman movie, The Dark Knight, will change following Heath Ledger's death: For nearly nine months, Internet-savvy movie fans have been tantalized by a Web marketing campaign to slowly unveil the new look for one of Hollywood's most popular characters:...
Obituaries for young, living stars
Posted on January 25, 2008On Tuesday this week (the morning of Heath Ledger's death), the San Francisco Chronicle published a story titled, "Debate rages over prewritten obituaries for young, living stars". Ledger's tragic, unexpected death seems a case in point: It's never been a secret that when people die after long and distinguished careers,...
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