The Register reports that BitTorrent has come to deals with three consumer electronics manufacturers in order to develop devices with an embedded BitTorrent client, thus bypassing the PC and freeing it to do other tasks. This would be specially useful to laptop users, who don’t want their mobile computer immobilized by a large download.
Reading The Daily WTF today, a neat site that posts screw-ups made by programmers and tech management, I noticed the owner mentions his new company, HiddenNetwork.com. What strikes me is that they are targeting bloggers straight on, paying them to run a JavaScript banner that links to job offers, paid for by the employers looking for talent.
A blogger who signs up will receive $5 per 1.000 impressions, and $25 for each employee referral. In theory, only good quality jobs are posted through this network. This is not exactly like paying bloggers to write product reviews, which stirred a good deal of controversy, but what would happen if a blogger writes bad about a company or product whose job offer is appearing right above the post? Comments welcome.
A few days ago, while looking for a new mouse, I stumbled upon a game controller, which consists of a seat and a wheel styled in Formula 1 fashion. Right now, Fernando Alonso is looking as the candidate to win this year’s World Championship with Renault, and so he has become a coveted prize for any advertiser worth anything. Now, picture the box of the game system:
Can you spot the cheeky part? Yes, the device is designed by none other than the world-famous…Fernando. Not Fernando Alonso, but the great Fernando. I feel sooo compelled to buy this thing right now and give it a place of honor in my house. Besides, the guy in the picture looks like he is about to hit a bridge head on.
The second piece of totally wrong design is this:
So, how am I supposed to use this Bluetooth GPS receiver, which came with the Route66 Mobile package, without voiding the warranty? The ‘void if broken’ label is placed on the wrapping, not covering a screw hole as usual, to prevent opening of the actual device. If one could switch it on without opening the wrapping, it would still be viable, but the battery that comes with this module, is an external LiIon that needs to be installed prior to use! So, if you buy Route66, beware – you will not be able to use the product without voiding the warranty, which makes it kind of useless…
Reading with interest the flurry of posts about Google’s purchase of YouTube for around $1.6 billion, it seems the main worry right now is that since Google is a very rich company ($131 billion cap!), the lawsuits for copyright violations will start raining faster than you can say MPAA. Mark Cuban is particularly pessimistic about the business decision.
My take is that Google in general, Larry and Sergey in particular, are rather smart, and would not have taken this step, putting the entire company at risk, without first having an agreement with the main content providers that would be likely to sue. This would include TV networks, MPAA, RIAA and the usual suspects. A very obvious conclusion is that if there is money to be made placing ads on content, or selling premium accounts the way Flickr does, why can this not be shared with the copyright owners?
A more twisted conclusion is that the copyright owners could be giving up on microcontrolling every individual byte in an Orwellian manner, and see the light. What is better at promoting new content than the word-of-mouth of millions of fans?
YouTube videos are of notoriously bad quality for the most part, in essence, making it possible to turn the originals into streamable flash clips. Have you ever tried to watch a video full screen? It sucks. What the clip may do is convince me to go out and buy the DVD!
Time will see, but I place my bets on a blanket all-you-can-eat license that will allow YouTube to promote content, keeping both users and moguls happy. 15-second ads at the start of each video? Maybe, but then if you pay us $19.95 a year…
