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Congress pushes more Internet business off-shore

Details are still coming in, but it looks like the U.S. Government is hoping to make it more attractive for Internet Radio businesses to be run off-shore then in the States. The decision (like much Internet-related policy) creates a market condition that potentially pushes revenue and innovation to other countries.

“The new rules issued by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board earlier this year prescribe rate hikes of 0.08 cent per song per listener retroactive to 2006. They would also climb to 0.19 cent per song by 2010.” [cnet]

The fees are high enough that many small players (where small==independent) will be forced to shut down. The irony, of course, is that broadcast radio continues to pay no fees at all (and to not play the songs I want to hear, which might be why they get the free ride.)

For more on the issue, see:

• Shaken Internet Radio Stations Face Specter of New Fees Sunday (Via washingtonpost.com.)
• D-Day Sunday For Internet Radio As Court Rejects Royalties Appeal (Via TechCrunch.com.)
• Court declines to postpone Internet radio royalty hike (Via ars technica)
• Court rejects Webcasters’ plea for relief (Via cnet.)

And of course, the blog post that almost saved the day:

• Online Radio Is Saved; SoundExchange Will Not Enforce New Royalty Rates on Sunday (Via wired.com)

Local Search patent wars: another reason software patents suck

Found this today on TechCrunch, “Patent Wars: Local.com Nabs Local Search Patent“.

From the post:

“Local.com saw its stock price rise 52% today after it was awarded patent number 7,200,413 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. According to the text of the patent, it covers what they term “Enhanced Directory Assistance”, which will deliver keyword specific ad referrals based on user input via operator, SMS, WAP, or voice.

This is in addition to their recently granted patent number 7,231,405, which covers crawling the web and geocoding location based content.”

That second bit is even more troubling, since it could impact anyone crawling web pages for addresses. The unfortunate thing is that we’re just starting to see sites doing interesting things with scraping and geocoding — and many of the possibilities are actually quite helpful. For example, sites like Zillow already scrape property addresses from local tax records and plot real estate prices on an interactive map… Chicago Crime plots scraped crime reports… Heck, anything that scrapes content with an address for use in plotting on a map would conflict with this patent.

If the idea of locking down automated crawling and geocoding isn’t enough to raise concern, check of these listings of mapping-related concepts that may also end up off-limits if the patent race continues:

• Google Local Search Glossary
• Microsoft Virtual Earth and Local Search Patent Applications

We are the robot invaders

It’s ironic how much sci-fi involves saving Earth from robot space invaders, yet we’re the one’s sending laser-packing robots to Mars:

(Via:

• Newest Mars Rover packs heat
• NASA’s next Mars rover is a laser-equipped monster
• Future NASA Rover Will Scare Aliens with Rock-crushing Lasers

)

Today is Wiretap the Internet Day!

Starting today, your intertubes are tapped. You weren’t using those civil liberties anyway, right?

For more, see:

• Today is America’s wiretap the Internet day (Via BoingBoing)
• Reminder: Monday is Wiretap the Internet Day (Via Wired)

“Scientists say video games can reshape education”

Having just recently picked up a copy of Big Brain Academy for the DS Lite, this article comes as no surprise: “Not playing around: Scientists say video games can reshape education.”

“The theory is that games teach skills that employers want: analytical thinking, team building, multitasking and problem-solving under duress.”

What is a surprise though, is to hear that there are still people who are skeptical about using games for education. I mean, where would my mad dance floor skillz be without Dance Dance Revolution? Ok, bad example.

Looking back though, I fondly remember going to my elementary school library to play typing tutors and Oregon Trail (which taught us the value of 4×4 vehicles.) But past elementary school, educational games went away. At home, I was slingin’ LOGO and playing Zork, but my in-school computer use evolved into using spreadsheets and, eventually, programming Pascal.

The article does mention one important fact though:

“The gaming industry has already figured out that educational games don’t make money in the consumer marketplace. The new approach would instead market them directly to schools.”

This is key. You definitely don’t want some “education council” designing the games — they’re going to suck. You need professional game designers. And if you can organize enough of our tax dollars into funding such development, then you give the gaming industry a reason to take the educational market more seriously.

Search volume as an economic indicator

I’ve used Google Trends to do a few trend charts of various technologies, but this article, “Unexpected Decline in Existing Home Sales? Not Exactly” shows a wonderful example of online search usage as a precursor to real-world activity (in this case, searching on “homes for sale” before buying a house.) The chart below summarizes it, but you might want to click through at take a look at the full post (it’s short but interesting):

It makes me wonder what other real-world behavior (particularly economic activity) can be predicted by watching net usage. For example, it might be interesting to see a mapping between Google Music Trends data (which scans Google Talk conversations) and real music sales. Even better might be predicting stock market activity using search behavior…

3D modeling the Earth

Google SketchUp for OS X finally released to the public this week (as did Google Earth Beta 4 for OS X, Linux, and Windows, in case you missed it.) If you’re not familiar with SketchUp, but are at least remotely interested in 3D modeling, I suggest hoping over to the Google SketchUp Tutorials and having a peek. The first few tutorials elicit a jaw-dropping “it can’t be that easy” reaction.

On first glance, Google offering a 3D modeling program seems a bit strange. I mean, what could this possibly have to do with search, right? But the key is to look at it differently. If you’ve used Google Earth, odds are high that you’ve also tried looking a major city with the “3D Buildings” option enabled for that all too futuristic, flying-through-the-world experience. But what you notice when you do this is that there aren’t enough 3D models, and they tend to lack detail. So how do we get from flat, satellite photographs to rich 3D models of every building in the world? Well, you start by giving away a free, easy to use 3D modeling program that can import/export into Google Earth… And then you let your customers (happily) do the work for you. (Co-creation at it’s best.)

For more, see:

• How do I place a SketchUp model in Google Earth?
• Google’s 3D Warehouse

Below: an example SketchUp model (of the University of Texas tower) geo-positioned over a Google Earth map tile

Looking across the pond for new media innovation

I just watched the BBC demo from mix06. Stunning. But while watching it, it occurred to me that the BBC’s unique position of being publicly funded is a huge advantage for adopting new media technology, and that advertising-funded media in the States seems to be battling against these same advancements.

Since UK citizens fund the BBC (at least, that’s my simplified interpretation), it is in the BBC’s interest to make their content easily available to all (paying) citizens. In other words, DVR’s, IPTV, and video iPod’s can be embraced rather then feared. Additionally, since their funding is somewhat fixed and consistent (ie., no spiky ad revenue), it is also in the BBC’s interest to reduce content distribution costs where possible to free up money for new content creation (ie., P2P file sharing amongst their customers is a good thing since it cuts the BBC’s direct bandwidth costs.)

Where it gets particularly interesting though, is that the BBC should be in no way threatened by the idea that their viewers will be copying, re-mixing, fast-forwarding, place-shifting, and sharing the content. With no need to track ad impressions, there’s no dreaded “30-second-skip” attacking legacy business models. Surly they still need to track customer interest to know which shows to fund, but that seems a lot easier then developing content based on how lucrative a viewing audience is for advertisers.

What’s great about this situation is how well it demonstrates the connection between business models and the ability to embrace change and adopt to consumer needs. In the States, we are at risk of legislation making it illegal to watch movies on one’s computer and even more illegal to share a video with a friend. In the UK, IPTV and P2P networks might just save the country money.