When the folks at Netbook Navigator first asked me to write about the company's new 9 inch tablet PC I had a hard time getting past the high price tag of nearly $1200. But that price was for an early model that packed 3G capabilities and was intended for early adopters. Now Netbook Navigator has updated the pricing for the Nav 9 tablet and the base model costs just $799. Yeah, that's still enough money to pick up 2-3 netbooks, but here's what you get for the money:

• Display: 8.9 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel multitouch display
• CPU: 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU
• Graphics: Intel GMA 950
• Storage: 16GB SSD
• RAM: 2GB
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
• Connectivity: 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, LAN, optional 3G HSDPA or CDMA
• I/O: 3 USB ports, MiniSD card slot, SIM card slot, port replicator w/VGA/LAN adapter, 1.3MP webcam
• Battery: 3 cell, 1700mAh (2.5 hours max)
• Dimensions: 10 x 6.6 x 0.8
• Weight: 2 pounds
• Other: car charger

The 3G module will cost you extra, as will a higher capacity battery which is good for up to 4 hours of run time. You can also get the Nav 9 with a 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB SSD. The most expensive unit will run you $1399, but the $799 starting price is certainly much more appealing than the $1200 the company was charging earlier.

Netbook Navigator has also put together a handy chart comparing the Nav 9 tablet to the upcoming Apple iPad and the already-on-the-market Archos 9 tablet. The long and short of it is that the Nav 9 supports multitasking, supports USB peripherals and SD card expansion, and comes in more varieties. Oh yeah, it can also run most Windows applications. On the other hand, it's thicker and heavier than the other tablets.

Post from: Liliputing

Netbook Navigator's Nav 9 slate PC gets affordable, guns for the iPad

If you are, then WordHustler is for you! If you don't know what a word hustler is, then listen up!

Similar to pixel pushers and glyph tossing typophiles a word hustler is trying to make it in this world with the written word. And that is where WordHustler comes in.

WordHustler was started by two word hustlers writers, John L. Singleton and Anne Walls, out of their frustration for the costs and time of submitting their works in an analog world. In short, the hustle took to much time away from being able to write.

Sure, there are always elements of every hustle, job or hobby that are tedious and simply part of the process. When someone chooses to be a writer they're not making that decision based on the amount of time they're going to spend at OfficeMax buying envelopes and the right paper. The choice is made because they love hardship have a voice that needs to be heard.

With this in mind the founders of WordHustler brought the hustle into the digital age by creating a hybrid CMS that doesn't display a writer's work online but submits it to traditional publishers.

WordHustler is one of those impressive web services that is focused on serving a niche market and was developed by people in that niche. By solving their own problems first they were able to take the code and create a service for anyone like them.

No more printing, stamping, less formatting and no more paper cuts as WordHustler automates this process for their users. There's also no more searching for contests or publishers that might want to review your work. It is all here inside WordHustler.

Beyond the obvious benefits to writers in easing their submission pains there is the additional benefit of a powerful, easy to use interface. WordHustler has one of the best search landing pages I have ever seen. It elegantly integrates a standard search box, results, rankings, standard filtering and my favorite, elements of advanced search visually.

What I mean by advanced search visually' is the ability to begin filtering content at an advanced level without presenting it that way. Typically this is done through an advanced' search form with 10+ text input boxes with labels like all these words,some of these words, or none of these words.'

WordHustler presents filtering tools like an AJAX slider to limit the amount of description to display and words, tags' to filter results on the page. At this time tools like this are often used in backend administration interfaces or like this one, only available on this site. Developers and designers would do well to look at this model and tinker with it to create solutions for users to filter at an advanced level with beginner skills.

The service has a very reasonable price tag for users when compared to the cost of going analog and creating the number of submissions that WordHustler will allow for writers. It is extremely reasonable when compared to the price of building ones own platform to do the same. That is, if you are the enterprising type.

Now that you know about WordHustler and have decided that you are a word hustler or maybe want to submit that long stowed screenplay you wrote right after college, you have no excuse not to give it a try.

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Are You A WordHustler? is a post from: TechStartups.com

Like any great lesson this one is short.

Know your audience, deliver and charge.

The movie Precious didn't win the overall box office this weekend Carol did. But what Precious did is set the record for average gross at $100k per theater. Compare that the to the gross per theater of Carol at $8k and some change. Slight difference.

Precious was a limited release in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Atlanta at 18 theaters. Attendees were 68% female and 50% black, according to Variety. The filmmakers and backers of this film were able to maximize there investment and start the word of mouth ball rolling by focusing on regions with the highest number of potential audience members.

This is a precious lesson in understanding an audience and delivering a product or experience that they are willing to pay for. It is proof that indie projects, which most online projects are, have value and can be monetized when the right audience is engaged.

Finding the right audience for content is possible producers just need to be open to maximizing their investment through limited and targeted releases.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

A Precious' Lesson is a post from: TechStartups.com

Dogster has never been a Web 2.0 darling. At first glance a social network for pets isn't the most innovative idea, and its audience is limited to the kinds of wackos who make name tags for their dogs at conferences or create elaborate fictional personalities for their cats.

But with the benefit of hindsight, Dogster has done two things very, very right: It never raised venture funding and never relied on an ad network for revenues. The result is its network of sites Dogster, Catster and Snuzzy that focused on maximizing revenues early on instead of aiming for user growth for the sake of user growth. While many other Web 2.0 names are struggling to raise more money to stay in business, Dogster has been profitable since the second quarter of 2007 and is solidly in control of its own destiny. (Full disclosure: Michael Arrington was a very early angel investor. His statement about his investments is here.)

Not only thatpremium ad sales for the sites are up 20% this year. Why? Because while hot sites like Digg and Facebook outsourced ads to big players like Microsoft and smaller sites outsourced them to Google, Dogster has invested five years in building direct relationships with big pet food, supply and other consumer packaged good brands. We figured each $50,000 ad deal was like getting another angel investor, says Ted Rheingold, Dogster CEO.

These aren't lame banners. These are coupons, contests and other things that incent users to interact with the brand. A recent example was a coupon from Royal Canin Cat Food. The company was hoping for 500 takers and it got 5,000. As a result Dogster and Catster charge $10-$12 CPMs and as high as $40 CPMs for their newsletter. (I interviewed Rheingold about this strategy back when I was co-hosting TechTicker. The clip is below.)

But there's a problem. Dogster is still a small site and even happy advertisers will only continue to pay so much to reach the same users. So Dogster has solved that by deciding to become in essence the thing that it always argued startups shouldn't work with: Ad resellers.

Dogster will now sell ads for the much larger Cheezburger Network of Lolanimal-related sites that include IHasaHotdog and ICanHazCheezburgera never-ending meme that will hit one billion page views later this week. That's 10 billion cat pictures served, says founder Ben Huh. At 72 pixels per inch, if you laid them out end-to-end it would reach the moon and back four times. (I'm guessing that moon part is actually true. Huh also told me that under the new deal every time they sold an ad, Dogster would ship them a free dog.)

The two have just closed their first sale to Clorox for Fresh Step Kitty Litter. Sexy? Maybe not. But it's lucrative. But Dogster is no longer in the one million-unique category, it's selling for six million uniques and until the CPM dies, this is still a volume industry. Neither company would comment much on the economics, but Dogster is taking a smaller cut than a traditional ad network would. In exchange, Cheezburger Networks has to do more work to make sure the ads are effective, whether it's creating a contest or just tracking the metrics the way Dogster already does in house.

It's an interesting announcement, since ICanHazCheezburger is so much larger and better known. Typically it's the smaller site that outsources inventory to the giant. But the founders Huh and Rheingold were long time friends who'd frequently ask each other's advice: Rheingold would ask how Huh got those gaudy user numbers and Huh would ask how on earth Rheingold was so good at monetization. Looks like the two will now be able to actually share those areas of expertise: Dogster now gets a network of six million uniques and Huh gets much higher revenues.

Neither of the deals is exclusive. Dogster plans to add more complementary sites to its ad inventory and Cheezburger Networks plans to ink similar partnerships for properties with non-pet user profiles like the FailBlog and newly launched ItMadeMyDay.comwhich has already hit one million page views.

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His dad's quips have resulted in more than 231,000 followers under the account name @smydadsays. But after it attracted wide attention in recent weeks as followers retweeted postings, and blogs and mainstream media covered it, Mr. Halpern finally broke the news.

But his dad didn't really get it. He asked if I had to start up the Internet to get on Twitter, and then I felt better because I knew he wouldn't understand the grand scope of what was going on, said Mr. Halpern in an interview.

Shortly after the revelation, his dad, who doesn't have Internet on his personal computer by choice, changed the subject. Mr. Halpern asked his father if he wanted to see the site. He responded with an adamant no, so Mr. Halpern read him some posts to check for accuracy, to which his dad responded, Yeah, I said that.

Mr. Halpern said that if his dad had been upset by the account, he would have discontinued it. He's my dad, and I live in his house rent-free. That's not a very nice thank you, he said.

He has long been documenting the quips of his father, who grew up working on a farm in Kentucky and was a doctor for more than 40 years. As a child, he recorded them in his diaries, and when he got older, he would post them as his status on Gmail Chat to give his friends a chuckle. In August, he found a new medium for disseminating his father's expletive-loaded one-liners: Twitter.

Mr. Halpern started the account after he left a job in Los Angeles and was unable to retrieve all of his personal documents on his work computer. He had just moved back in with his parents in San Diego, and a friend suggested he use Twitter as a way to document his life, because he had stopped keeping journals. He was reluctant because of the 140-character cap on tweets, but then thought it could be a good way to keep a record of his dad's quotes. I didn't expect it to have more than 10 people following it, he said.

A month later, he has become an Internet sensation. On Aug. 3, he began posting such gems as Your brother brought his baby over this morning. He told me it could stand. It couldn't stand for s. Just sat there. Big let down. Watching the Little League World Series, he said, These kids are all fat. I remember when you were in little leagueyou were fat. Other posts are best read on his page.

Mr. Halpern works from home as a writer for Maxim.com, and his father is retired, so throughout the day he collects the funny, and sometimes outrageous, things he says and chooses one to post each day. Early on, one of his friends brought up the possibility of his dad not saying anything quote-worthy, but he knew that wouldn't be a problem.

During the course of a day, he says tons of funny things because there's no filter. He admits some of his dad's best quotes are over 140 characters and are disqualified because of the limit.

Since his account has blown up in the media he's been approached by book agents, publishers and producers. In Los Angeles he tried to make it as a screenwriter but didn't find much success. It's ironic to think that I busted my ass trying to get my own writing out there, and what has been successful for me is something I didn't even write, he said.

Steve Gillmor is going to love this, of course, since he proclaimed that RSS was dead and Twitter was the new messaging protocol bus, or something to that effect. Rest In Peace, RSS, he wrote, saying It's time to get completely off RSS and switch to TwitterAll my RSS feeds are in Google Reader. I don't go there any more. Since all my feeds are in Google Reader and I don't go there, I don't use RSS anymore.

Santosh Jayaram, Twitter's existing head of operations (and also from Google), will presumably remain with the company and report to Costolo.

Costolo, who is also an early Twitter investor, is someone who has actual experience building scalable infrastructures, which Twitter sorely needs. The company hasn't launched any new features in recent memory, and continues to have regular downtime. In fact, Twitter's inability to build features and keep the service live is a serious competitive disadvantage. Costolo can presumably fix all that.

Twitter is actively hiring more senior people, we've heard. In July they hired Alexander Macgillivray, Google's associate general counsel for Product and IP, as their new General Counsel.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0

Jammie Thomas-Rasset

Much of Jammie Thomas-Rasset's legal arguments following this summer's $1.92 million Recording Industry Association of America file sharing jury verdict against her don't have much weight or precedent.

Clearly, that a jury in June ordered her to pay $80,000 for each of the 24 music tracks she infringed on Kazaa is outrageous and shocks the conscience and there's no rational relationship between the amount of harm suffered by the recording industry and the award granted.

Thomas-Rasset wass the nation's first sharing defendant to go before a jury. The RIAA has filed more than 30,000 lawsuits targeting individuals, and most have settled out of court.

That said, in their latest court papers, (.pdf) Thomas-Rasset's legal team again is sticking to the argument that the whopping jury award is a due process violation all in a bid perhaps to secure a third trial. (The first ended in a $222,000 judgment against the Minnesota woman, but a mistrial was declared after the judge conceded he gave faulty jury instructions)

Still, it is true that the U.S. Supreme Court and the lower courts have repeatedly reduced lofty jury awards based on so-called due process breached. But those were punitive damages awards, not statutory damages awards.

Those punitive damage reductions, including the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster, do not apply to Thomas-Rasset's case although Thomas-Rasset's defense team suggests there's always a first.

Punitive damages are the amount a jury awards to punish conduct of an offender. Up until recently, there generally has been no limit. But the Supreme Court has suggested that punitive damages should be limited to about no more than 10 times the amount of actual damages a jury awards.

Higher ratios, the courts have said, are due process breaches because defendants have no notice ahead of time about the lofty financial consequences of their actions.

But the law is crystal clear when it comes to the Copyright Act, the law under which the RIAA sued Thomas-Rasset. Juries can award up to $150,000 per violation. Punitive damages do not fall under the Copyright Act.

One of the only points in Thomas-Rasset's brief that makes a compelling argument is that the Copyright Act, when amended in 1999, didn't conceive of non-commercial cases the RIAA has been bringing the past six years.

The notion that Congress decided that the award of statutory damages in this case was somehow appropriate or tailored to ensure deterrence is a fiction that the plaintiffs would have this court adopt. The Congress that enacted the statutory-damages provision of the Copyright Act could not have had the kinds of illegal but non-commercial music downloading here at issue in mind, defense attorney K.A.D. Camara argues in recent briefs.

It's true: There's no doubt that a $1.92 judgment over $24 worth of music provides the clearest example yet of the abuses made possible by the 1976 Copyright Act, which Congress modified in 1999, at the behest of Hollywood and the recording industry, to carry a maximum penalty for a single infringement of up to $150,000.

That statutory penalty was intended to bankrupt large-scale commercial pirating operations, like organized DVD and CD bootleggers not to put individuals like Thomas-Rasset in debt for the rest of their lives.

Still, the RIAA is crying foul.

After Thomas-Rasset refused to settle out of court, the industry is now demanding that Thomas-Rasset pay up. The RIAA is also seeking U.S. District Judge Michael Davis to issue an injunction barring her from future file sharing.

Plaintiffs' evidence showed that defendant knew what she was doing was wrong, that she did it anyway, and then lied about it for years. Through two trials, defendant still shows no remorse whatsoever for her actions and has made it clear that she has no intention of ever satisfying any portion of the judgment against her, Timothy Reynolds, the RIAA's attorney, wrote (.pdf) Davis.

Judge Davis of Minnesota could rule on the retrial and injunction issue any time.

See Also:

• Jury in RIAA Trial Slaps $2 Million Fine on Jammie Thomas
• Feds Support $1.92 Million RIAA File Sharing Verdict
• Will File-Sharing Case Spawn a Copyright Reform Movement?
• Thomas Seeks New RIAA Trial; Says $1.92 Million Verdict Monstrous
• File Sharing Lawsuits at a Crossroads, After 5 Years of RIAA
• Jury Dings File Sharer $675000, RIAA Prevails Update

Version 5.2 also revamps the program's private sharing feature, launched in December. Rather than sharing each file with specific people, you can now create a list of files to share with all of your personal contacts, making it easier to share vacation photos, videos and so on while keeping any potentially racier content private.

Rather than creating its own social network, Limewire put its hooks into the networks people already use, which is a wise strategy. Between twitter, blogs, email, Facebook, instant messaging, text messaging, and something called a telephone, we hardly need another way to keep tabs on our friends.

Those who prefer to organize media on their own computers, rather than trusting it to Flickr, Vimeo and so on, will likely appreciate the way Limewire lets them serve media directly to their friends, even if the hey, I just shared something with you alert comes through another service (i.e. Facebook).

The main drawback to Limewire's private sharing feature is that both users need to be running Limewire at the same time in order to share. If Limewire's creators intend for us to keep the app running at all times, they might want to think about creating separate preferences for maximum upload speed for friends and maximum upload stream for strangers, to avoid running up against ISP file bandwidth limits. Limewire product manager Nathan Lovejoy told us via phone that he'll consider adding that suggestion to a future version.

I used to dread the uphill parts of my ride. On a recumbent bike, they're particularly difficult. So I'd slog through, barely surviving, looking forward to the superspeedy downhill parts.

Unfortunately, I had a serious accident a few years ago (saving the life of a clueless pedestrian by throwing myself onto the pavement). Downhill might be fast, but it's crazy.

Lesson learned. Now, I look forward to the uphill parts, because that's where the work is, the fun is, the improvement is. On the uphills, I have a reasonable shot at a gain over last time. The downhills are already maxed out by the laws of physics and safety.

The best time to do great customer service is when a customer is upset. The moment you earn your keep as a public speaker is when the room isn't just right or the plane is late or the projector doesn't work or the audience is tired or distracted. The best time to engage with an employee is when everything falls apart, not when you're hitting every milestone. And everyone now knows that the best time to start a project is when the economy is lousy.

Most of your competition spend their days looking forward to those rare moments when everything goes right. Imagine how much leverage you have if you spend your time maximizing those common moments when it doesn't.

AdvertisingAge got more details from the company about its research, which pegs the total free media coverage given to Twitter the past month to be worth $48 million. As AdAge points out, that's about half of what Microsoft plans to spend marketing Bing.

Online, Twitter received 2.73 billion impressions, undoubtedly some of them thanks to TechCrunch. Television contributed to 57% of the PR value, newspapers 37% and magazines 5%, according to VMS. As the monitoring company's CEO Peter Wengryn explains, the total coverage may be much higher than what the firm could possibly monitor, since it doesn't take into account mentions in smaller newspapers in the United States and media coverage in the rest of the world.

Either way, it's a LOT of coverage, acknowledges Gary Getto, VP-integrated media intelligence at VMS:

This is huge. It's very, very high. In fact, we looked at online coverage of Twitter vs. Google. Twitter is running significantly higher than Google and I didn't think anything was more popular than Google.

How long will Twitter continue to be the social media darling in the media? Long enough to eventually reach 1 billion users and become the pulse of the planet?

And more importantly, when will it start turning the mountains of attention, traffic and users it is getting into cold, hard cash?

(Image via MaximumPC)

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

The folks behind PrimaCloud, a cloud computing and storage product that offers a service-level agreement that it claims delivers 99.99 reliability (that means it can go down 53 minutes each year), said today it will save $1 million by virtualizing its network and will spend 50 percent less to deliver its high reliability cloud. The company has installed boxes from Xsigo Systems that sit between the servers and switches and create a cloud through which the network traffic from the virtual machines loaded on the servers is routed. The network can handle traffic destined for other servers or for the storage network without requiring separate cables.

This, combined with gear from Sun's Fishworks effort, has allowed PrimaCloud to virtualize its storage, networking and hardware saving it money and boosting reliability said Eric Novikoff, COO of Enki, which built PrimaCloud. The completely virtualized computing infrastructure, and creations of these three clouds, is an example of the next big change sweeping computing. Most clouds right now rely on virtualized hardware and some virtualized storage virtualized networks are the next focus.

Novikoff said PrimaCloud couldn't fully utilize its servers because of I/O limitations each virtual machines only had access to so much bandwidth on each server. When that bandwidth was tapped out, even if the server wasn't fully utilized, the machine had reached its limit. After virtualizing the I/O and using data center orchestration software from Enigmatec, Novikoff said when I/O limits were reached the job moved over to a new machine automatically. He was also able to allocate more bandwidth per server, so it became less necessary to move jobs around that often.

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The future of mobile: GigaOM Pro provides insider perspectives and analysis on the trends defining tomorrow's mobile market. Learn more

Sony was supposed to win this. The company made magnetic tape out of like paper and mud back in the 1940s, turned out a "pocketable" transistor radio in the 1950s, and invented the "portable" television by 1960. They had their first video tape recorder by 1963. They weren't the only ones, but they were among the first and best.

The so-called VTR business had a rocky start. The things were hulking bastards, with huge price tags and poor recording capability.

A company called Ampex put out the first "home entertainment" VTR in 1963, only it cost $30,000 in the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog, and was nicknamed Grant's Tomb because the product manager who thought it up was going to be shoved inside by the company's accountants. (He would have fit, too, the thing was so big.) Sony comes along in the middle of that decade and puts out a $1,200 "portable" VTR that came with a leatherette case and its own TV. It still weighed 65 pounds.

The worst part about these 1960s VTRs was that they were basically reel-to-reelyou had to thread your own 1-inch videotape through spools and stuff, and by the end of the decade, a one-hour spool of tape was like 8 inches in diameter. Can you imagine your TiVo needing 180 spools of videotape to get the job done?

As Sony toiled on the videotape problem, Matsushitawho we now call Panasonicand its independent subsidiary JVC weren't really standing out in the VTR business. Let's say this: Nobody would have guessed they'd be able to overthrow Sony and kick mecha ass within the decade.

However, these guys were among the biggest manufacturers, dwarfing Sony many times over. Matsushita, known for efficiency, not innovation, tended to focus on big boring appliancesTVs, refrigerators, air conditionerswith a smaller team, branded Technics, devoted to dominating the hi-fi realm. JVC was all about TVs and audio gear, and had decent video know-how.

It was Sony who solved the reel-to-reel problem withta daaa!a video cassette. It was called U-Matic, and at 3/4" thick, it was smaller than the earlier formats, but still a bit of a chunkster. Since video was a bit of a Wild West, Sony felt like it needed partners to firmly establish a format, and to avoid a format war. It asked Matsushita and JVC, who said "yes" as long as Sony adopted some changes. They key here: The partnership included a deal where everybody shared all the patents. Turns out, probably not the smartest move by Sony.

Sony was right to form a posse, though. Every single electronics maker in Japan, Europe and America was trying to build a video recorder. Some American firms were obsessed with lasers (though ironically it would later be the Dutch and Japanese firms who actually put lasers to good use); other American firms were jazzed about microfilm...for video. None of them had success. Before we get on with the story, here's a list of totally failed video players and recorders:

Matsushita VX-100 and VX-2000
Matsushita AutoVision
Toshiba/Sanyo V-Cord
Ampex InstaVision
MCA DiscoVision/Magnavox Magnavision
CBS Electronic Video Recording
RCA HoloTape
Sears/Cartridge Television Cartrivision

See what I mean? A friggin' mess it was.

Part of the problem was the message. Nobody knew what the hell this was all about. Sony wasn't just a pioneer in the technology, they thought hard about how to explain why you totally desperately want something bad. At one point, Sony hired Bela Lugosi to dress up one last time as Dracula, and explain that, since he worked nights, he needed to catch up on primetime shows when he got home. Get it? Vampiresthey're out killing people when Barney Miller is playing! It was a good bit, and there were a lot more like it. Little by little, the public caught on to what VCRs were for.

Anyway, U-Matic, launched in 1971, wasn't a runaway success, either, but it was the bestselling video recorder to date, and the first successful VCR. In the realm of pro video, it was hot. Sony cashed in by steering from the home market to the businesses but JVC, who kept trying to pitch it for home use, got hosed. Like villains in some Shakespearean play, Matsushita and JVC kinda lurked in the background, planning for the next round when they might one-up that little charmer, Sony. The name of their plot? Video Home System, which you and I call VHS.

Sony was naive. Like, crazy naive. In 1974, it asked Matsushita and JVC to partner up again, this time on a fully baked format called Betamax. They weren't asking for intellectual collaboration, just a deal to make and sell the things. It was a nice system, with really small tapes, but the problem was, the tapes only recorded for an hour. Sony was like, "That's not a problem," but everyone else was like, "Yes, it is." The would-be partners dragged their heels suspiciously, not signing any deals. Sony kinda thought that was weird, but went ahead and launched the one-hour Betamax box in 1975.

Big mistake.

Not long after Sony went into wide release with the one-hour Betamax, JVC pulled a two-hour VHS out of its butt. And in time for Christmas 1976 no less. Sony had another flash of naivete when it pressed on with the one-hour system for a while, even though it had a two-hour system in the works. In that gap, JVC and its big poppa Matsushita scored sales and recognition.

Some people say Betamax was "better" but that depends on many factors, and could very well be an urban myth. The technologies were so close Sony's own chairman called VHS a copy of Betamax. What may have looked good in one system with certain settings might not look as good on another with different settings. And by some accounts, Betamax's more moving parts meant they were more expensive to manufacture and more costly to maintain and repair. It's not an open-and-shut case of quantity vs. quality. Either way you look at it, there are compromises.

By this point, it wasn't just some anything-goes contest with a million formats. By 1976, all those above had died or were dying. In Japan, there were just two choices. The Japanese government told everyone to sort it out. Hitachi, Mitsubishi and Sharp joined Team VHS, but didn't really move forward.

In February 1977, Sony grabbed Toshiba and Sanyo, and then signed the American powerhouse brand Zenith up for an order of Sony-made Betamaxes with the Zenith name on them. Was it going to happen for Betamax after all? Seemed like they'd finally drawn at least a few good cards from the deck.

Sony might not have been totally screwed at that moment, but there were two American powerhouses, and the other one, RCA, was undecided. Ironically, the fate of the Japanese VCR industry relied on how well it could handle the most American of sports: Football. In other words, now that both players could manage two hours of recording time, what RCA wanted was enough recording time to capture a gamethree hours would do.

What transpired next is unclear. Even though, at the time, both technologies were limited to two-hour capacity, Matsushita pledged to make RCA tape machines that could record for four hours.

Was this a lie? Was it vaporware? Whatever the deal, JVC engineers pulled off a four-hour capacity six weeks later, and RCA agreed to buy 55,000 machines that year, and up to a million more in the next three years. Better yet, RCA's SelectaVision VHS decks would cost $300 less than the two-hour Betamaxes, at $1000 a pop.

Although Betamax hung on for a bit longer, that, boys and girls, was the end of the competition. In 1979, Sony market share tilted downward, and by 1980, the jig was up for those poor bastards.

Note: I recognize that there are other issues that might have come into play here, including Universal's lawsuit of Sony, which lead to today's Supreme Court definition of fair-use copyright law, and the fact that some studios, including Warner, began squeezing movies onto videotape early, with varying degrees of success. However, I contend that none of that changed the outcomethe war above was fought between Sony and Matsushita, and Matsushita won.

SOURCES:
Fast Forward: Hollywood, The Japanese, and the VCR Wars - James Lardner (Special thanks to you, Jim, for chatting me through some of this)
Sony - John Nathan
The History of Television - Albert Abramson
Sony History - Sony Global Website
Made in Japan - Akio Morita
Quest for Prosperity - Konosuke Matsushita
[PDF] Case Report on Betamax - Verardi et al
"Why VHS was better than Betamax" - Guardian UK - Jack Schofield

Gizmodo '79 is a week-long celebration of gadgets and geekdom 30 years ago, as the analog age gave way to the digital, and most of our favorite toys were just being born.

Content owners are looking beyond straight-up advertisements and product placements. One opportunity lies in the ability to immediately sell products seen in video content. To that end, startup Clikthrough has just raised $1 million for its interactive clickable video efforts.

Clikthrough is an interactive video platform that allows content owners to associate video with specific products and places and then push that content out. Clikthrough is not a destination site, does not have its own player, and says it can work with any third-party video publisher.

The company is starting off with music videos because they are short-form and drive a lot of traffic. Clikthrough has 39 music videos up on its site to showcase, for example, how it highlights the shirt Kelly Clarkson wears (or the hotel she's in) so the viewer can learn more about it or purchase it.

Clikthrough can do this because when the record labels provide a music video, they also hand over a list of every item featured in that video. Clikthrough then pulls pictures and information from those product sites and associates them with the objects in the video on the back end before the videos are pushed out for distribution.

The company earns money by charging a set-up fee as well as a rev split for clicks generated for products featured, as well an affiliate fee for any purchases made. Additionally, because it knows what's in a video down to the exact frame, Clikthrough will be able to serve up better targeted ads.

Music videos are a starting point for Clikthrough, which has relationships with Phonogenic/Sony Music, Universal Music and Slip N Slide Records. The company has some nice musical backers as well with this latest round of funding coming from investors like Swedish music producer/hit maker Max Martin and Nick Byrne, who was a member of the Irish band Westlife. Clikthrough does not have an official partnership with Vevo, the forthcoming video site from UMG and YouTube, yet. The company is looking to expand its technology to TV shows and movies.

Clikthrough is certainly getting into a crowded space. Other companies doing interactive, clickable video include Overlay.tv and PLY Media, Zunavision and Innovid.

Based in San Francisco, the 2-year old Clikthrough has four employees and has raised $2.1 million in funding to date.

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Chris Soghoian observed in CNET that

Google's terms of service, thick with legalese, state that:

You may not use Google's products, software, services and web sites and may not accept the Terms if you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google.

Of course if you're in the US that means that anyone under 18 is accessing Google's computer system in violation of its terms of service. And this applies to all Google services, YouTube, Gmail, and Image Search.

Ignoring Legal Risks Leads to Selective Prosecution
Federal prosecutors recently used the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to selectively prosecute Lori Drew as a hacker for violating MySpace's terms of service. She lied about her identity, and harassed a troubled minor who was also using the system under a false identity. After the child committed suicide, a media and political frenzy resulted in federal prosecutors turning a breach of the site's terms, which might not have even been civilly enforcable, in to a federal criminal case.

Ignoring the Disconnect Between Terms and Practice May Partly Void the Agreement
Obviously, online services retain the right to modify their own terms of use. You may begin a user experience with a minimal grant of rights and a maximum of restrictions when reflexively accepting terms. However, when site staff clearly operate to the contrary to those terms, and in some instances assure users that terms in the TOS won't be enforced, isn't the contract being modified within the user experience?

Smoking Gun: Google for Kids
Google in fact provides safe-search resources just for kids. There's no easily accessible link to terms of service, so arriving new users aren't even exposed to them.

Question 1: By creating this site and its other practices, doesn't Google by their own practice modify their terms?

Question 2: Could any reasonable person believe that a new visitor to the Google Directory for Kids and Teens should be bound by these unseen terms, which even Google seems to disregard?

Question 3: What risk is created by the gap between the lawyers who wrote the TOU, site management who follows their own drummer, and visitors who ignore the terms are entirely disconnected.

Are such TOU's unenforcable sharades posing as contracts?

Social media provides an inexpensive and powerful platform for regular people to make their voices heard to a massive audience. Unfortunately, people don't always use that power in reasonable and positive ways.

When a business faces an attack on its brand through social media, what is the appropriate response?

For instance, what about party-goers who have a few drinks, get out of hand, and are expelled from a club? When iphones come out and the club brand is ravaged online by angry tweets and videos about poor service, how is the club supposed to respond? Is the club supposed to publicly admit wrongdoing when none was committed and set a precedent for others to complain so they can get free stuff? It's a slippery slope for both a brand and the consumers that enjoy it.

Consider: A video in which country singer Dave Carroll mourns the damage of his Taylor guitar (supposedly) during a flight on United Airlines:

On his website, Dave Carroll moans the saga of his flight with United Airlines and the discovery of his damaged guitar. After getting the runaround from low-level company representatives about a damage claim, he concludes:

I realized then that as a songwriter and traveling musician I wasn't without options. In my final reply to Ms. Irlweg [The United Airlines representative] I told her that I would be writing three songs about United Airlines and my experience in the whole matter. I would then make videos for these songs and offer them for free download online, inviting viewers to vote on their favourite United song. My goal: to get one million hits in one year.

It's an interesting marketing plan for a small time musician in need of some publicity. He finished his diatribe with,

I should thank United. They've given me a creative outlet that has brought people together from around the world. We had a pile of laughs making the recording and the video while the images are spinning on how to make United: Song 2 even better than the first. So, thanks United! If my guitar had to be smashed due to extreme negligence I'm glad it was you that did it. Now sit back and enjoy the show.

And so he launched his show with website updates and a youtube video that continues to gain leverage through social media.

One of the drawbacks of social media is that most users have short attention spans and little use for fact-checking. I did a bit of my own fact-checking about Dave Carroll and his #unitedbreaksguitars experience: It turns out that United explicitly states on its website that it is not liable for damage to fragile items and includes the type of cases approved for transport of musical instruments.

Dave states that he witnessed ground crew throwing his band's instruments and yet he neglected to check his ostensibly-beloved Taylor guitar upon arrival. He says, The guitar case looked ok and we were tired.

Now, take the perspective of the United Airlines representative dealing with this situation: A guy complains to you that his expensive guitar was damaged but that he didn't notice it until a day after his flight. What is your first thought?

If your silly claim/fraud detector went off, good. It should. There are many ways a guitar could be broken in 24hrs and it would be ridiculous for an airline to welcome a suspicious liability.

Dave admits to filing a claim after leaving the airport. I'm familiar enough with shipping claims to know that once you leave the location of a business you're filing against without confirming damages, your chances of successfully settling a claim dramatically dwindle.

But all was not lost for Dave Carroll and the Sons of Maxwell. They had social media, some production talent, and a desire to embarrass a company into bending its rules just to shut them up.

United Airlines responded via Twitter to the barrage of tweets directed at them concerning the video:

Is this a step forward for social media? I don't think so. Dave Carroll and his Sons of Maxwell get some cheap publicity but at what cost to the rest of us?

We encourage companies to engage their customers through social media but little is said about how to deal with rogue campaigns bent on embarrassing a brand into cooperation.

It's tempting to jump on the UnitedBreaksGuitars bandwagon and gleefully watch as social media is used to force a company into action. ( This in spite of legitimate reasons for inaction.) It's tempting to say the customer is always right and ignore the need for policies meant to protect companies from fraudulent claims. It's tempting to get caught up in the seductive power of social media and forget that some people are interested only in promoting themselves.

Did United Airlines break Dave Carroll's guitar? Perhaps. But the only person he should be singing to right now is himself for not checking his guitar for damages when knew the rigors of its journey.

If social media is going to be a sustainable conversation between consumers and brands, it's important that we show respect to the brands that bravely step into this space. We need to be responsible participants in social media and use the powerful tool we've been given for good causes and not for senseless complaints.

Social media need not be about consumers whining to get free stuff. It must not be.

How do you think United Airlines and other companies faced with a similar situation should respond?

Share this post on Twitter

photo: dave carroll music

Hat tip to Stuart Foster for alerting me to this story via twitter.

Related posts:

1. Sexual Harassment And Social Media
2. How Do You Deal With Trolls? Trent Reznor (NIN) Walks Away From Social Media
3. A Tale Of Two Business Models

Time is usually - nearly always - displayed by a circular indication: one dial and two (or three) with the time displayed around a perpetual circle. However, this 360 representation of time goes against everything we learnt as we grew up drawing a straight line on a blank page and marking it Past, Present and Future. Why do we think of time as travelling in a straight line yet display it rotating around a circle? The answer is straightforward: mechanisms that continually rotate are much simpler to produce than those that trace a straight line then return to zero. In fact, the latter is so difficult that, until now, nobody has ever managed to develop a production wristwatch with true retrograde linear displays.

The triple-cam is crafted from bronze beryllium, a metal selected for its inherently self-lubricating properties and low co-efficient of friction, and takes the form of three small inclines. The precise shape of the curve of the incline is relayed to the pivoting rack, while the teeth on the end of the rack mesh with and rotate the minute cylinder. The triple-cam makes a complete rotation in three hours so that each of the three inclines takes 60 minutes, and 180 points of reference have been calculated on each of the three cams to ensure the precise and isochronic rotation of the minute cylinder.

Model: UR-CC1

Case: available in either grey gold with titanium case back (limited edition of 25 pieces) or black gold with titanium case back (limited edition of 25 pieces); brushed-satin finish

Movement: calibre UR-CC1; automatic winding regulated by fly brake turbine pneumatic shock absorber

Indications: linear display for hours and minutes with jumping hours and retrograde minutes ; second display both digital and linear

Dimensions: 45.7mm x 43.5mm x 15mm

Dial and Bridges: ARCAP P40. SuperLumiNova treatment on hours, minutes displays

Genesis of a creation

1958. Messrs Gilbert Albert and Louis Cottier combine their talents to create a watch destined to revolutionize the horological world. Their idea is completely outrageous: it is the world's first watch to feature a linear display. It is an extraordinary, avant-garde piece that fulfils none of the aesthetic criteria of the time. As for its linear indication, the idea may seem simple but the execution is a technical headache of monumental proportions. However Messrs Albert and Cottier believe in it and they stick with it, creating a prototype for Patek Philippe.

1959. A patent is deposited by Louis Cottier, detailing the technical scale of the achievement. Then nothing. The prototype is put on to one side. Does the watch even work? Today nobody knows for sure. It took its place in the corner of the Patek Philippe museum and proceeded to arouse curiosity from time to time.

1998. With pencil and paper Martin Frei, co-founder of the URWERK brand and an aesthete at heart, sketches the first outline of his future creation: a watch in which the hours and minutes are indicated by two straight, parallel lines. But he hesitates. With Felix Baumgartner, master watch-maker and co-founder of URWERK, another idea springs to mind the concept of the hour satellite, presented for the first time at Basel. The earlier project is postponed, sine die.

2006. URWERK is henceforth known and recognized for its mechanical hour satellite watches in which orbiting hour satellites indicate the minutes. But the idea of developing a different way of telling the time continues to fascinate Felix Baumgartner. In the end it is the Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds that gives him the decisive nudge in the right direction. In one of the most famous scenes from the film, the heroine seeks refuge in an old Dodge. The image lasts only a few seconds but it is crucial a close-up of the dashboard and its linear speedometer. Yes. That's it! A continuous line with which to mark time. Felix and Martin work non-stop on this new project. Their research leads them to the discovery of Gilbert Albert and Louis Cottier's watch. It will be their muse.

Original Prototype Movement

Watchmaker Felix Baumgartner

I am not big on nostalgia, but I have always loved the linear speedometers found on old cars. My older brother had a 1960's Volvo and it was that which gave us the first idea for a horological linear indication. I recently watched the film The Birds' by Alfred Hitchcock, and in it the heroine took refuge in an old Dodge with a linear speedometer- it is one of my favourite scenes. There are very few wristwatches with linear indications. One of them, if not the first, was The Cobra', which was developed in the late 1950s by Mr. Louis Cottier. It is sensational! Although it was created over half a century ago, it is still very contemporary. Unfortunately, it only exists as a single prototype and was never put into production. Now, 50 years after he filed his patent (1959), URWERK pays homage to the work of Louis Cottier by creating its own interpretation of the Cobra. -Felix Baumgartner

Designer Martin Frei

I am interested in the perception of time. Physicists tell us that time can be warped or stretched, and our daily experiences are with the circular cycles of the days, seasons and years. But I am also intrigued that time can be ordered, even straitjacketed, to flow in a linear direction - a straight line from the past, through the present, to the future. And, because this can represent an individual's lifeline, I feel that this linear format can be a very human way to look at time. That plus the fact that I think it looks really cool! -Martin Frei

Time is usually - nearly always - displayed by a circular indication: one dial and two (or three) with the time displayed around a perpetual circle. However, this 360 representation of time goes against everything we learnt as we grew up drawing a straight line on a blank page and marking it Past, Present and Future. Why do we think of time as travelling in a straight line yet display it rotating around a circle? The answer is straightforward: mechanisms that continually rotate are much simpler to produce than those that trace a straight line then return to zero. In fact, the latter is so difficult that, until now, nobody has ever managed to develop a production wristwatch with true retrograde linear displays.

The triple-cam is crafted from bronze beryllium, a metal selected for its inherently self-lubricating properties and low co-efficient of friction, and takes the form of three small inclines. The precise shape of the curve of the incline is relayed to the pivoting rack, while the teeth on the end of the rack mesh with and rotate the minute cylinder. The triple-cam makes a complete rotation in three hours so that each of the three inclines takes 60 minutes, and 180 points of reference have been calculated on each of the three cams to ensure the precise and isochronic rotation of the minute cylinder.

Model: UR-CC1

Case: available in either grey gold with titanium case back (limited edition of 25 pieces) or black gold with titanium case back (limited edition of 25 pieces); brushed-satin finish

Movement: calibre UR-CC1; automatic winding regulated by fly brake turbine pneumatic shock absorber

Indications: linear display for hours and minutes with jumping hours and retrograde minutes ; second display both digital and linear

Dimensions: 45.7mm x 43.5mm x 15mm

Dial and Bridges: ARCAP P40. SuperLumiNova treatment on hours, minutes displays

Genesis of a creation

1958. Messrs Gilbert Albert and Louis Cottier combine their talents to create a watch destined to revolutionize the horological world. Their idea is completely outrageous: it is the world's first watch to feature a linear display. It is an extraordinary, avant-garde piece that fulfils none of the aesthetic criteria of the time. As for its linear indication, the idea may seem simple but the execution is a technical headache of monumental proportions. However Messrs Albert and Cottier believe in it and they stick with it, creating a prototype for Patek Philippe.

1959. A patent is deposited by Louis Cottier, detailing the technical scale of the achievement. Then nothing. The prototype is put on to one side. Does the watch even work? Today nobody knows for sure. It took its place in the corner of the Patek Philippe museum and proceeded to arouse curiosity from time to time.

1998. With pencil and paper Martin Frei, co-founder of the URWERK brand and an aesthete at heart, sketches the first outline of his future creation: a watch in which the hours and minutes are indicated by two straight, parallel lines. But he hesitates. With Felix Baumgartner, master watch-maker and co-founder of URWERK, another idea springs to mind the concept of the hour satellite, presented for the first time at Basel. The earlier project is postponed, sine die.

2006. URWERK is henceforth known and recognized for its mechanical hour satellite watches in which orbiting hour satellites indicate the minutes. But the idea of developing a different way of telling the time continues to fascinate Felix Baumgartner. In the end it is the Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds that gives him the decisive nudge in the right direction. In one of the most famous scenes from the film, the heroine seeks refuge in an old Dodge. The image lasts only a few seconds but it is crucial a close-up of the dashboard and its linear speedometer. Yes. That's it! A continuous line with which to mark time. Felix and Martin work non-stop on this new project. Their research leads them to the discovery of Gilbert Albert and Louis Cottier's watch. It will be their muse.

Original Prototype Movement

Watchmaker Felix Baumgartner

I am not big on nostalgia, but I have always loved the linear speedometers found on old cars. My older brother had a 1960's Volvo and it was that which gave us the first idea for a horological linear indication. I recently watched the film The Birds' by Alfred Hitchcock, and in it the heroine took refuge in an old Dodge with a linear speedometer- it is one of my favourite scenes. There are very few wristwatches with linear indications. One of them, if not the first, was The Cobra', which was developed in the late 1950s by Mr. Louis Cottier. It is sensational! Although it was created over half a century ago, it is still very contemporary. Unfortunately, it only exists as a single prototype and was never put into production. Now, 50 years after he filed his patent (1959), URWERK pays homage to the work of Louis Cottier by creating its own interpretation of the Cobra. -Felix Baumgartner

Designer Martin Frei

I am interested in the perception of time. Physicists tell us that time can be warped or stretched, and our daily experiences are with the circular cycles of the days, seasons and years. But I am also intrigued that time can be ordered, even straitjacketed, to flow in a linear direction - a straight line from the past, through the present, to the future. And, because this can represent an individual's lifeline, I feel that this linear format can be a very human way to look at time. That plus the fact that I think it looks really cool! -Martin Frei

I have definite workaholic tendencies that are starting to induce productivity-draining burnout. In addition to my freelance consulting practice, I am usually balancing a number of side projects, working on the board of a non-profit that I helped co-found, and attending various events around Portland to keep in touch with my freelancer peers and learn about new technologies. This isn't the first time, I've had to deal with burnout. It usually creeps in slowly, and before I realize it, my work and technology hobbies have pushed everything else to the back burner. The feeling of burnout leaves me tired, stressed and less productive, so it's time again for me to re-prioritize and take control to get my productivity back.

I recently read a Harvard Business blog post by John Baldoni about staying creative under pressure, and he has several good suggestions: set standards, get a buddy and mandate time for fresh air. While he's talking about working under pressure, I use similar strategies to address burnout. (As an aside, if you don't already read the Harvard Business blogs, you really should. They are a great change of pace from most of the technology blogs that I read. They are very well written and cover interesting topics from different points of view.)

Here's my take on Baldoni's three suggestions, plus an additional tip of my own to help reduce burnout and get your productivity back:

Set standards. Take a hard look at how you spend your time and figure out which of those activities business and personal are the most important and worthwhile. Re-prioritize your activities and adopt some system for making sure that you focus your time on the important activities, and be brutal about cutting any activities that take too much time while not providing enough value. Make sure that you find time for a few fun activities to balance out all of the work.

Get a buddy. For freelancers, this can take a couple of different forms, and I would think of this as your support system. If you are overloaded and have too much work, find someone who can help out with some of the activities or that you can refer potential clients to when your schedule is full. This could also be someone to pick up some work if you need a vacation. On the other hand, maybe you need moral support or a mentor to coach you through some issues, so this might mean having a regular coffee or lunch meeting with someone who can help. In my case, I rely on the many events that I attend to chat with other freelancer friends to share ideas, talk about issues, brainstorm about technologies or get moral support.

Mandate fresh air time. This is important, and for many of us, it seems to be one of the first things to fall out of our schedules. We spend way too much time sitting on our rear ends and not enough time getting the blood pumping. A good fitness program can have a huge impact on your productivity. This doesn't mean that you need to run a marathon, but you should find a comfortable way to work regular exercise into your day. It could be a few short walks spread throughout the day, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, walking or biking instead of driving, or something more strenuous. I vary my workouts depending on my mood and the season. We have gorgeous weather in Portland this time of the year, so I try to take advantage of the hiking trails in many of our local parks, but during the rainy season, I'll spend more time in the gym.

Read for fun. Reading can be very relaxing, and I usually have at least one non-fiction book to expand my horizons while also reading a fiction book just for fun. Lately, I have been reading George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series for fun while also reading some books about online communities and technology. Take a few minutes every evening to read something you enjoy. The key to making this work is to read something you enjoy so that it feels like a reward, not a punishment.

How do you stay productive without burning out?

Photo by Rick Turoczy, used under Creative Commons.

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The paper was published and distributed in Chicago and raised quite a bit of breathless prose from folks like the NYT and BusinessWeek. As far as I know we appeared in the magazine/paper once or twice, which was nice to know.

Why did the Printed Blog die? Well, Karp wasn't able to get funding and the idea was, in a word, ludicrous - it was akin to pressing MP3 podcasts onto vinyl for those who still used a Technics turntable. The goal was noble - to introduce a non-online audience (Who? The old? Terminal Luddites?) to great online content - but this may have been swell back in 2004 when blogs were still fresh on the mass cerebellum. With the rise of the mobile web it's easier than ever to surf over to a few great sites on your cellphone, thereby supplanting the need for a piece of paper with those selfsame blog posts printed on it.

The former print journalist in me still craves what TPB was doing and as a blogger I looked wistfully at the Printed Blog, wondering if it would survive and thrive. Todays blog post is tomorrow's, well, nothing but at least you could have used a printed blog post to line your birdcage. It gave permanence to an evanescent medium, which was great. Sadly, the money was also evanescent.

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Costolo and his team, based in Chicago, joined Google two years ago when Feedburner was acquired for $100 million. Like some other Feedburner employees he has moved on to other projects within Google. He currently reports to Neal Mohan, an exec in the Ads group, as the group product manager for social ads.

Costolo has no plans for his next job/startup. But something tells me that in a few months we'll be hearing about his next venture. He turned $8 million in venture capital into a $100 million payday. More than a few venture capitalists will be taking him to lunch at their first opportunity.

Interesting side note: Costolo, who was a stand up comedian in a former life, is rumored to be the author of a Twitter account mocking a well known Silicon Valley angel investor, Chris Sacca. Zingers include Headed to Africa for charity kite-surfing event. Kites made from t-shirts of child soldiers in Ivory Coast to draw attention to their plight and Going over my SXSW talk on why I should have equity in your startup. Getting inspired just proofreading it. Sacca's real Twitter account is here.

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LOS ANGELES A federal judge on Thursday overturned guilty verdicts against Lori Drew, and issued a directed acquittal on the three misdemeanor charges.

U.S. District Judge George Wu granted a defense motion to overturn the jury verdict in the case after reviewing transcripts from last year's trial, in which 50-year-old Drew was convicted of three misdemeanor charges of unauthorized computer access.

Drew had faced a maximum sentence of three years and a $300,000 fine. Although prosecutors sought the maximum, probation authorities, in a pre-sentencing report sent to the court, had recommended probation and a $5,000 fine.

Drew was accused of participating in a cyberbullying scheme against a 13-year-old girl who later committed suicide. The case against Drew hinged on the government's novel argument that violating MySpace's terms of service for the purpose of harming another was the legal equivalent of computer hacking.

In September 2006, prosecutors said, Drew conspired to create a fake MySpace account for Josh Evans with her then 13-year-old daughter, Sarah, and a then-18-year-old employee and family friend named Ashley Grills.

Prosecutors alleged that Drew and the two others used the profile to lure Megan Meier, a 13-year-old neighbor, into an online relationship with Josh to find out what Megan was saying about Drew's daughter online. But in October, one of the group, writing as Josh, turned against Megan, and told her that the world would be a better place without her. Shortly afterward, Megan hanged herself in her bedroom.

MySpace's user agreement requires registrants, among other things, to provide factual information about themselves and to refrain from soliciting personal information from minors or using information obtained from MySpace services to harass or harm other people. By allegedly violating that click-to-agree contract, Drew committed the same crime as any hacker, prosecutors claimed.

But testimony in the case offered by prosecution witness Ashley Grills under a grant of immunity showed that nobody involved in the hoax actually read the terms of service. Grills also said that the hoax was her idea, not Drew's, and that it was Grills who created the Josh Evans profile, and later sent the cruel message that tipped the emotionally vulnerable 13-year-old girl into her final, tragic act.

Drew was cleared of the felony computer-hacking charges by a jury, but convicted of three misdemeanors for unauthorized computer access. The jury deadlocked on the felony charge of conspiracy.

More details to come.

Photo: AP

See also:

• Judge Postpones Lori Drew Sentencing; Weighs Dismissal
• Can Lori Drew Verdict Survive the 9th Circuit Court?
• Prosecutors Seek 3 Years in Prison for Lori Drew
• Lori Drew Not Guilty of Felonies in Landmark Cyberbullying Trial
• Prosecution: Lori Drew Schemed to Humiliate Teen Girl
• Government's Star Witness Stumbles: MySpace Hoax Was Her Idea, Not Drew's
• Experts Say MySpace Suicide Indictment Sets Scary' Legal Precedent
• Blog Readers Out Anonymous Adults that Newspaper Refused to Identify

Max Ray Butler, 36, faces up to 60 years in prison for the two felonies under law, but his actual sentence will be influenced by a number of factors, not least a plea agreement with federal prosecutors that was filed under seal Monday.

Wearing an ill-fitting orange jail uniform and round glasses, his hair cut short and neat, the six-foot-plus Butler towered over the burly deputy marshals that brought him into the court room. Once he settled into his seat, he spoke softly and evenly as he answered questions from the judge, frequently drawing admonishments to speak up for the benefit of the court reporter.

I actually did the actions that are relevant in the indictment, and I am guilty, Butler said, at one point.

Butler identified himself in court as Max Vision, the name he gave himself in the 1990s when he became a superstar in the computer security community. At that time Butler was billing himself out as a $100-an-hour computer security consultant, and he earned the respect of his peers for creating and curating an open source library of attack signatures used to detect computer intrusions.

But it turned out Butler was staging recreational hacks on the side, and in 2001 he was sent to federal prison for 18 months for launching a scripted attack that closed security holes on thousands on Pentagon systems, and left backdoors behind for his own use.

While in prison, Butler met more serious criminals, and he was befriended by a professional swindler named Jeffrey Norminton. After his release, Norminton introduced him to an Orange County, California entrepreneur and former bank robber named Chris Aragon.

Butler admitted Monday that he began hacking banks, merchants and other hackers to steal credit card numbers, then sold them to Aragon. Aragon, who's pending trial on related state charges in southern California, turned that stolen data into near-perfect counterfeit cards, complete with holograms, and recruited a crew of shoppers who used the cards to snap up designer merchandise for resale on eBay. Aragon earned at least $1 million in the business, police say.

Butler became a priority to federal law enforcement officials in 2006, when, under the handle Iceman, he staged a brazen takeover of the online carder forums where hackers and fraudsters buy and sell stolen data, fake IDs and specialized underground services.

He hacked into the forums, wiped out their databases, and absorbed their content and membership into his own site, called CardersMarket.

On one of the sites he hacked, called DarkMarket, Butler later discovered that an administrator named Master Splyntr was logging in from an FBI office in Pittsburgh. Butler partnered with a Canadian hacker to try and expose Master Splyntr as a fed, but his claim was largely dismissed in the underground as inter-forum rivalry. DarkMarket went on to become a full-blown undercover FBI operation, and the FBI and Secret Service began an investigation into Iceman.

(I wrote about Butler in the January issue of Wired. I'm now working on a book about him and the carder forums for Crown publishing).

Using informants and some genuine electronic gumshoe work, the feds identified Iceman as Butler about a year later, and arrested him in September 2007 at a corporate apartment he used as a hacking safe house.

When the feds seized Butler's hard drive, they found five terabytes of encrypted data on his harddrive, the government said Monday. They later cracked Butler's crypto, and discovered 1.8 million stolen credit card numbers belonging to 1,000 different banks. The banks tallied the fraudulent charges on the cards at $86.4 million.

But Butler's defense attorney told U.S. District Judge Maurice B. Cohill Jr. Monday that Butler and his associates weren't' responsible for all of the fraudulent charges.

Butler, noted federal public defender, Michael Novara, frequently cracked the computers of other members of the underground, and stole their stuff. Some of the credit card numbers found on Butler's hard drive had been in the hands of cyber thieves before Butler began his hacking spree.

Max is kind of a hacker's hacker, said Novara. There was a lot of stuff on his computer that he was not responsible for, and did not intend to use.

I don't think I ever heard the expression, a hacker's hacker' before, said Judge Cohill, with a smile.

Sources say Butler's plea deal will also wrap up a separate federal case in Virginia, in which Butler is charged with staging the first documented spear phishing attack against employees of a financial institution, gaining access to the corporate network of Capitol One bank.

Butler was calm and attentive at Monday's proceeding, which opened with federal prosecutor Luke Dembosky crossing to the defense table to shake hands with the hacker, who smiled and nodded.

Through his attorney, Butler released a two-paragraph statement following his plea.

Max Vision, known in this case as Max Butler, pled guilty today as a first step toward getting this sad chapter of his life behind him. It is unfortunate that his life circumstances in 2005 led him to participate in this criminal conduct, and he very much regrets doing so, he wrote.

Max has always preferred using his extraordinary computer skills his computer vision for the good of society and the cyber world, and he hopes that he will be given the opportunity in the future to once again don the white hat.

Asked afterward what kind of sentence the government expects for Butler, Dembosky was vague with reporters. Suffice to say, it won't be probation.

See Also:

• Notorious Crime Forum DarkMarket Goes Dark
• Cybercrime Supersite DarkMarket' Was FBI Sting, Documents Confirm
• 56 Arrested in DarkMarket Sting, Says FBI
• One Hacker's Audacious Plan to Rule the Black Market in Stolen Credit Cards
• A White Hat' Goes to Jail

Bessemer Venture Partners is incubating the startup and put in most of the original $900,000 in seed money. The company has raised a total of $1.4 million to date and works out of the Bessemer offices.

We first wrote about MashLogic in October 2008 when it went into private beta:

MashLogic is a more direct approach. Users must download a Firefox plugin to use it, but there's no toolbar. Instead, you simply change the settings to tell it what kind of information you'd like to have included on web pages. Links to Wikipedia is an easy one. But it also has company links to LinkedIn to show you people there you might know. And a currency converter. Etc. It's like a frickin Swiss Army Knife for hyperlinks.

One setting I like - the ability to remove all links on a page, and then only MashLogic links appear. For a lot of sites, the user experience is vastly superior. You can also create blacklists of domains that won't show up in links on the page, even if the original publisher put them there.

Once you've got the tool configured, smart links will start popping up all over the place. Professional Athletes get their playing stats, Politicians get a real time poll of their progress towards the White House. Currencies are *zap* converted. You can even see a map for any street address.

Their goal is to save you from having to go back to the search engine to find the next thing you're intersted in but isn't linked on the site.

The site has evolved since October. It's now available for Internet Explorer in addition to Firefox. Also, any topic trending up on Twitter is highlighted and linked (at the user option), with additional information on who's tweeting about that topic. And if a Twitter username appears in the text of a web page (as they do in our comments), clicking on it brings up a box with that Twitter users information. Users can also post to their Twitter accounts. Here's how it looks:

MashLogic works with publishers to create slightly customized versions of the product that pull information from that publisher first. Users can customize away from those changes, but most don't. We've been distributing a version of MashLogic since last October and it drives a fair amount of traffic to us from people seeing TechCrunch and CrunchBase content linked from around the web.

It's one of the few products I've tried that I've stuck with over these last months. It definitely makes browsing and research easier. Try it, I think you'll like it.

Here's an interview I did today with founder/VP Ranjit Padmanabhan. After I butcher his name we see how it all works:

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Eschewing the publisher focus of Issuu, or the broad business focus of DocStoc, the boot-strapped Edocr focuses on corporates and organisations. So for instance, companies can upload all their public-facing documents, whether they be company reports, press releases, guidance documents, you name it. Admittedly the slightly dull-but-necessary focus is not going to set the world alight, but with plenty of enterprises still getting their heads around the basics of blogging, RSS and even social networks like Twitter, edocr is a simple way for companies to share their PDFs without being lumped alongside a pirated copy of a Harry Potter novel.

New features include an improved design, bulk uploading of documents, an API, document categories, better search and the ability to auto-tweet to a Twitter account when new documents get uploaded. The question is, will that be enough to set it apart from the many players in this field?

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The essence of the dispute is that Power Ventures, instead of developing its interface through the Facebook Connect developer program, created a Facebook user account and accessed Facebook content through that account. Facebook alleged that the creation and use of that account was in violation of the Facebook Terms of Use. Facebook Complaint 24, 41. The complaint also alleges that Power Ventures used the interface that it created to induce Facebook users to share their usernames and passwords, and then utilized that information to access Facebook servers via its interface in a manner that violated the Facebook ToU.

The complaint alleges that the ToU prohibits a variety of activities, including, among other things, solicitation of passwords or personally identifying information for commercial or unlawful purposes; using or attempting to use the account of another user or creating a false identity; using automated scripts; impersonating another person or entity; sending junk mail or spam; harvesting e-mail addresses; registering for more than one account; and using Facebook's website for commercial use without the express permission of Facebook. The ToU also provides that the limited license granted to access and use the site terminates when the site is used other than as specifically authorized herein.

The copyright claim alleges that in violation of the ToU, Power Ventures used its account to access and copy the Facebook Web site, including the Facebook home page for which Facebook has obtained a copyright registration. Complaint 31, 70. Judge Fogel concluded that the allegations of the complaint made out a sufficient claim of copyright infringement because Power Ventures need only access and copy one page to commit copyright infringement. The court also found that the ToU prohibited downloading, scraping or distributing content from the Facebook Web site content except that belonging to the user, and that in any event, using automated methods, i.e., data mining, robots, scraping, or similar data gathering or extraction methods to access any content were also prohibited by the ToU. Thus, the court found that the allegation that Power Ventures accessed Facebook via automated means constituted made out a claim of direct copyright infringement, while the allegation that Facebook users utilized the Power.com interface to access their own profile pages made out claim of secondary copyright infringement.

Judge Fogel also declined to dismiss Facebook's claim that the use of automated scripts to access Facebook copyrighted content bypassed specific technical measures designed to block such access and thus violated the DMCA. The trademark infringement claims were sustained based upon the inclusion in the complaint of a screenshot illustrating the use of the Facebook mark on an e-mail sent by Power Ventures to Facebook users. The court did order Facebook to file a short statement clarifying the basis for its California unfair competition claim.

The complaint also alleges a federal CAN-SPAM claim stemming from the transmission of e-mails to other Facebook users encouraging them to use the Power.com interface. According to the opinion, Power Ventures abandoned its challenge to the sufficiency of the CAN-SPAM claim, as well as its challenge to the sufficiency of the complaint under the CFAA. The CFAA claim also is grounded on the allegation that Power Ventures's access to Facebook's computers was unauthorized because it was in violation of the Facebook ToU.

The court's refusal to dismiss Facebook's claims demonstrates that careful drafting of a Web site terms of use is essential to obtaining legal redress for unauthorized access, particularly unauthorized access by competitors and others for commercial purposes. Access that violates the clear proscriptions of a ToU can form the basis for a multiplicity of legal claims, thereby maximizing the chances of a successful challenge to unwanted access.

Finkel v. Facebook, Inc., 102578-09 (N.Y. Supreme Ct. complaint filed Feb. 24, 2009).

A New York teenager has sued Facebook and four Facebook users (plus their parents) for allegedly defamatory content posted in a private Facebook group called "90 Cents Short of a Dollar."

This case fits neatly with other legal battles over "cyber-bullying" (whatever that means), such as the AutoAdmit lawsuits, the Sandler case and the Lori Drew case. (For another recent and troubling example of cyber-bullying that I read just this morning, see Wolfe v. Fayetteville, Arkansas School Dist., 2009 WL 485400 (W.D. Ark. Feb. 26, 2009)).

In this case, the plaintiff's school peers said some not-nice things about her in a private Facebook page. The Newsday article has some more color about the sour relationships between Finkel and the defendants. The plaintiff claims that the posts meant that "the plaintiff was a woman of dubious morals, dubious sexual character, having engaged in bestiality, an 'I V drug user' as well as having contracted the H.I.V. virus and AIDS."

With respect to the claim against Facebook, this lawsuit is unquestionably DOA. Frankly, I'm not sure why the plaintiff bothered to sue Facebook. Facebook is completely immunized per 47 USC 230, and this should be an easy dismissal. The complaint didn't even try to do anything fancy to get around 230; in fact, the complaint alleges that Facebook "published" the content, the absolutely wrong allegation to make if you're trying to bypass 230. I think it significantly detracts from the sympathy we might otherwise feel for plaintiff for her to have futilely dragged Facebook into the lawsuit. And, it ensures there will be at least one aggressive defendant in the lawsuit.

With respect to the school peers' liability, this case raises some interesting and complex questions. First, and most obviously, how did the plaintiff get a copy of the private group's postings? This reminds me a little of the Washingtonienne case, although access to Cutler's blog wasn't technologically restricted like it was in Facebook.

Side note: the republication of the private group's posts in this complaint reminds us once again that we always have to be prepared for our digital words to show up on the front page of a national newspaper. In particular, including the transcript to the complaint without a protective order was an aggressive move; I suspect other people reading the transcript for the first time will not be happy.

Second, there were only 6 group members listed on the exhibit, which means the total universe of listeners for any defamatory statement was 5 other folks (the person posting the statement doesn't count). This may severely circumscribe any damages. Third, given that this group of 6 presumably represented a social clique with its own norms and mores, it's entirely possible that the small universe of readers completely understood that superficially factual statement weren't really factual and were never intended to be. In this respect, I'm reminded a little of the DiMeo v. Max case, where the judge adjusted the evaluative standards to reflect the fact that message boards fostered a laxer conversation, and readers understood that. A quick perusal of the posts suggests that all of them clearly were utter nonsense and, I suspect, fully understood by all readers to be inane and meaningless chatter. Finally, the posts apparently never referred to the plaintiff by name, although this may be irrelevant if everyone knew who was being discussed.

The lawsuit also goes after the students' parents. Among other things, to try to establish liability, the complaint alleges that the parents negligently supervised their children. I'd gladly write a $100 check today if the plaintiff or her lawyers could articulate a foolproof way that parents can use to prevent high schoolers from doing stupid things on Facebook (without denying them access to Facebook altogether).

From my perspective, going to court over this matter was not a good decision. Nevertheless, I remain troubled by the examples of mean behavior among students that I'm seeing in the alerts I'm getting. For example, the Wolfe and Sandler cases I mention above are absolutely horrifying. Even though I graduated high school nearly 25 years ago, reading about meanness among high schoolers still gives me the shakes, reminding me how bad high school can be! And it weighs heavily on my mind as a parent. However, I can't imagine any legal solution that will make people be less mean to each other.

Bridal Expo produces the Bridal Extravaganza Show in Houston, one of the largest bridal shows in the US. Hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of prospective brides attend; the show has been in business for 25 years and keeps databases of attendees and potential clients. Defendant Wedding Showcase scheduled the Houston Wedding Showcase for Feb. 2009, a few weeks after the Bridal Extravaganza at the same location. The individual defendants van Florestein and Moore, were key to creating the Wedding Showcase and are former Bridal Expo employeesshow manager and assistant. They left Bridal Expo in July 2008, but not before Moore downloaded Bridal Expo's databases and other information.

Defendants used Bridal Expo's database to mail ads to vendors for Wedding Showcase's November 2008 seminar. They used Google to advertise the Wedding Showcase as Houston's #1 Bridal Show, and mailed a brochure to vendors using quotations attributed to our vendors and our brides that actually came from other bridal shows on the East Coast, produced by another company.

In an earlier state court suit, Bridal Expo brought claims for trade secret misappropriation, unfair competition, and related torts. The judge denied a TRO and after a hearing also denied a temporary injunction. Bridal Expo nonsuited the state case and sued in federal court, using the same claims along with a Lanham Act false advertising claim and a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim.

On the state claims, the district court refused to disturb the state court's ruling on the temporary injunction. All the elements of collateral estoppel were present, though this of course only affected the availability of temporary relief, not a final adjudication on the merits. Given that only a month had passed since the state court denial, and that plaintiffs had held a successful bridal show in the interim (thus suggesting lack of harm), the court found no reason to revisit the state court's decision.

On the false advertising claim, plaintiffs argued that Houston's #1 Bridal Show was literally false, since Bridal Extravaganza is, in fact, the largest bridal show in Houston by any number of measures, and that the statement wasn't puffery because it was unambiguous and needed no additional context to give it meaning. Also, they argued that the brochures were literally false because defendants have yet to produce a bridal show in Houston.

Defendants called the Google ads puffery, and argued that the use of our in the brochures referred to the principals of Wedding Showcase, who have produced many shows. Moreover, the brochures mentioned several times that the Houston Wedding Showcase is a new show.

The court held, based on Pizza Hut, that the Google ads were too ambiguous to be actionable, and were the kind of bald assertion or general statement of superiority on which no reasonable consumer would rely. See also In re Century 21-RE/MAX Real Estate Advertising Claims Litigation, 882 F .Supp. 915, 923 (C.D.Cal.1994) (holding that # 1 was too vague to be actionable and declared ... # 1 in the United States and the World" was puffery, because it was opinion and made no reference to what was #1). Anyway, defendants stopped running the ad.

As for the brochure, plaintiffs argued that the our statements were literally false, and also that the brochure made literally false claims that van Florestein and another defenant had a combined 25 years of experience. Moreover, they argued that, by scheduling their show shortly after Bridal Extravaganza at the same location, defendants were trying to confuse customers into thinking their show was the Bridal Extravaganza.

On this record, the court found no literal falsity. Our could readily, in context, refer to the show's owners, one of whom ran the shows on the East Coast from which the our statements came. The brochure explained that the Houston Wedding Showcase would be a new show with a long history. Likewise, more than 25 years of combined experience could refer to the sum of the two principals' individual experience, not 25 years each. The court concluded that it was unlikely that a sophisticated vendor audience, familiar with the Houston wedding market, would be misled into thinking that the quoted brides and vendors were from Houston.

The evidence of confusion between the shows was that one of plaintiff's employees heard from one vendor at the Bridal Extravaganza that he was confused about who was running the Wedding Showcase, but there was no evidence of any connection to the brochure, and this was insufficient to claim confusion overall, though this might be an issue for a jury.

The CFAA claim was based on 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(4), creating liability for a person who knowingly and with intent to defraud, accesses a protected computer without authorization, or exceeds authorized access, and by means of such conduct furthers the intended fraud and obtains anything of value . For a civil claim, there are extra requirements; here, the key was loss to 1 or more persons during any 1-year period ... aggregating at least $5,000 in value. Loss includes costs of responding to an offense and conducting a damage assessment. Here, the claimed loss was the confidential trade secrets.

Defendants argued that their access wasn't without authorization and didn't exceed their authorization. Van Florestein and Moore accessed their work computers and took files to which they were allowed access as employees. They argued that there's a difference between access to computers and use or disclosure of information obtained through that access.

There's a split over the meaning of authorization. Some courts say that using files to harm the employer violates the CFAA even if the employee technically has authorization to access the files in the scope of her duties. Contrary to that, other courts have noted that, when Congress wanted to prohibit things like communication and delivery, it listed them. If Congress wanted to reach all wrongdoers who access information they then use to the detriment of their employers, it could have omitted the statute's words of limitation altogether. Despite the conclusions of other courts, the district court determined that, given those statutory construction arguments and the rule of lenity (since the CFAA is also a criminal statute), authorization is not exceeded just because the employee breaches her duty of loyalty to an employer.

Here, the files were copied/downloaded on the defendants' last day of employment. They hadn't signed a confidentiality agreement or any other agreement restricting access to the files they'd been working on at Bridal Expo. It was within the nature of their relationship to use their computers and access the files at issue. Indeed, a key Bridal Expo employee saw them using the computer on their final day and didn't complain, even though it was after they'd turned in their keys.

Thus, the court found plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on the merits. Moreover, even had there been a likelihood of success, a preliminary injunction would have been unwarranted, based on the Fifth Circuit's hesitance to grant injunctive relief against the use of information obtained through a past violation of the CFAA, where there was no potential for ongoing access.

The court stated, somewhat confusingly, that it would be willing to revisit the issue if defendants were continuing to use the vendor email list to advertiseeven if there's no likelihood of success on the merits? And then the court said that even if it had found likely success on the merits, it wouldn't have entered an injunction, because plaintiffs hadn't shown irreparable harmthat successful show they'd conducted since defendants entered the marketand defendants would suffer great harm if they couldn't produce their show: they'd have to cancel contracts, unwind arrangements on short notice, and pay cancellation fees. About that email list: It's unusual in a written opinion for a court to signal so overtly that, though it thinks there's no legal basis for some behavior, it nonetheless expects a party to engage in that behavior, but that seems to be what happened here.

1 Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.

2 Go to parties. You can't even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.

3 It's not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.

4 Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act if you can't control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.

5 Don't disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don't understand their logic. Don't pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific evidence'.

6 Learn to fail with pride and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error by mastering the error part.

7 Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words impossible', never', too difficult' too often, drop him or her from your social network. Never take no' for an answer (conversely, take most yeses' as most probably').

8 Don't read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants... or (again) parties.

9 Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.

10 Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them.