Who’s on Crack in Tech: They are freaking liars edition
by at May 8, 2009 12:00 pm
Sections: Apple, Columns, Communications, Computers, Features, Originals, Web, Who's On Crack
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Does truth exist online? Does truth matter online? That is the focus of my “Who’s on Crack” column today as it seems to be all the rage. I’ll look at the tech firms that may have bent the truth this past week and how we really feel about the truth in these days of broadband. And to my new online buddies who know me as the 62-year-old Tai Chi instructor from Encinitas, a hearty, “namaste.” Now, on to the lies that get under my skin.
This week, I am picking on:
Apple rules are firm only when you don’t complain loudly
This week Apple showed us yet again that their App Store is run by monkeys and that Apple’s will can be bent. After getting rejected by the cloak and dagger App Store review process, Trent Reznor, the drive behind the innovative NIN, went on a tear saying the system was flawed citing iTunes happily sells his music but flags his app for content? Our Natesh Sood takes a sympathetic view of Apple and suggests it is an honest mistake.
I could go along with that if only it were an isolated incident. Today’s fast paced media tells us this is not isolated. Remember the Baby-Shaker game? Tweetie update? Time and time again, Apple throws someone out only to hear them cry foul and then opens the door back up. I picture a monkey at the wheel, madly, and randomly pushing buttons on a control panel accepting and denying apps as fast as simian-aly possible. Can you tell me if I am close, Apple?
Let’s be honest about the rules? Putting out something that says it’s a flawed operation; we are inundated. It is a Sisyphus-ian task, that mail chute must be clogged with no end in site. Mistakes are going to be made, but let’s be clear that these rules are guidelines. An evolving set of guidelines.
Who’s censoring the censors on Facebook
Facebook has been pretty clear that all your stuff on their site is really theirs. It is a concept that is written and rewritten time and time again. So why should we be surprised when they decide to block one torrent provider over another? Because it isn’t right.
You don’t want illegal stuff on your site, we get that. But blocking only one provider sends the message that you’ll pick and choose this censorship. Sue Walsh tells us:
What looks like a social network simply covering their rear-end could be something that breaks the principles of our nation? Awesome! More here.
Amazon Kindle DX: savoir of newsprint
Oh, brother! Iyaz and I agree that while the concept of delivery of content and books via e-ink are intriguing, we both find the execution a bit off and pricing ridiculous. I had hopes that Amazon would work with newspapers to convert their readers to e-readers. A tough task for sure, but not one that is impossible. Until they announced the price and limited subsidization.
Apparently the subsidized Kindle DX is only for folks outside of delivery areas. W.T.F? Seriously? If they live outside the delivery area, you’ve already written those readers off, now you are going to pander them? Talk about missing the boat. Attention: residents of Kodiak, Alaska: now you can access the New Yorker! Woo-frickin’-hoo!
It has been a good run killing trees, dropping ink in rivers and putting your delivery people in cars in the wee hours of the morning. Time to think different or just stop thinking altogether. I fear the war is already won and like the soldiers battling at Fort Tyler, West Point, Georgia a week after peace was announced, both sides may not know it yet.
Truth: (huh) what is it good for?
And finally a bit of news that caught my eye this week both on NPR and all over news sites: truth in journalism. The thrust of this question is if journalism is handed over to us bloggers, who will hold power accountable? Who, in the absence of the j-school over-achievers will be there to ask the tough questions?
Great questions. Especially compared to a fun piece Crunchgear did just as the Kindle DX was announced, titled, Prediction: What Kindle DX stories will appear today?:
And sure enough, of course the prediction came true. Bloggers love to zig while others zag. If you can’t be first, be innovative. With the blogging world so densely populated, will any story remain unchallenged or question unasked? What about research and follow up? Then there is the whole “sometimes bloggers lie” thing.
That is where the trouble is. With incentives only to produce stories quick, we’ve developed the attention span of a fruit fly (apparently along with you). Who has time to work on something for weeks, let alone days. Woodward and Bernstein’s blog would have been: Is “Tricky Dick up to Watergate Hijinks?” followed up the next hour with “7 Reasons why you should build a stand alone shed for your computer.” We get the idea but not the facts and then we move on. If you got the story wrong, who cares? It gets buried 7 pages back in a matter of hours, forgotten by humanity.
Twitter only reinforces this. There is no pause on Twitter whilst you go research something. Miss it in the instant and down it flows like water through the drain in your bathtub, never to be seen again.
So where does this go? I don’t know. Maybe reporters need to be heirs of wealthy estates, like Bruce Wayne, only to mix it up with the common man and bring truth out of the shadows. What is your take? Do investigative reports deserve more than reality-show like fanaticism? Can bloggers slow things down and report like journalists? Don’t look for answers from me, I’ve been thinking about this all week and can’t make heads or tails of it.
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