Category: Business

Corporate news from all over

Joe Nocera Trolls Apple

Seth Anderson0 comment

Tech Graveyard
Tech Graveyard

NYT columnist and Steve Jobs antagonist Joe Nocera builds a flimsy case for Apple’s decline upon a tenuous foundation in today’s paper. A few points worth responding to:

If Steve Jobs were still alive, would the new map application on the iPhone 5 be such an unmitigated disaster? Interesting question, isn’t it?

(click here to continue reading Has Apple Peaked? – NYTimes.com.)

No, not really. Are you asserting that everything Apple ever released while Steve Jobs was alive was perfect? As a Mac user from before Steve Jobs came back to Apple, I’ve followed the company pretty closely, and there were plenty of crappy applications, plenty of dud hardwares, plenty of missteps during the fifteen years of Jobs running Apple. Ping? The PowerMac G4 Cube? The so-called antenna problem with the iPhone 4? Final Cut Pro X? The hockey puck mouse? Some iterations of Mobile Me? You get the idea: Steve Jobs and Apple have failed plenty of times, releasing unpolished, unfinished or unsuccessful products. But for Joe Nocera, the alleged failure of Apple Maps 1.0 means Apple is about to crumble into pieces. Next week, Nocera is going to call for Apple to spin off their iOS division, and license the software to Nokia. 

In rolling out a new operating system for the iPhone 5, Apple replaced Google’s map application — the mapping gold standard — with its own, vastly inferior, application, which has infuriated its customers. With maps now such a critical feature of smartphones, it seems to be an inexplicable mistake.

…

And you can see it in the decision to replace Google’s map application. Once an ally, Google is now a rival, and the thought of allowing Google to promote its maps on Apple’s platform had become anathema. More to the point, Apple wants to force its customers to use its own products, even when they are not as good as those from rivals. Once companies start acting that way, they become vulnerable to newer, nimbler competitors that are trying to create something new, instead of milking the old. Just ask BlackBerry, which once reigned supreme in the smartphone market but is now roadkill for Apple and Samsung.

That’s one way of looking at it. But all we really know is that the license agreement between Apple and Google has ended. Perhaps Google didn’t want to license their maps to Apple anymore? Or Google raised the licensing fee to astronomical levels? After all, Google’s Android is a direct competitor to Apple’s iOS. Apple has always been more comfortable making their own versions of software so that companies don’t have leverage over Apple’s business decisions. Remember in the late ‘90s when Microsoft and Adobe almost stopped developing Microsoft Office and Photoshop for the Mac? I’d be leery of depending upon Google as well, Google has become much more cutthroat in recent years. 

Dreaming of Phone Booths for a modern Superman
Dreaming of Phone Booths for a modern Superman

And maybe that’s all it is — a mistake, soon to be fixed. But it is just as likely to turn out to be the canary in the coal mine. Though Apple will remain a highly profitable company for years to come, I would be surprised if it ever gives us another product as transformative as the iPhone or the iPad.

Part of the reason is obvious: Jobs isn’t there anymore. It is rare that a company is so completely an extension of one man’s brain as Apple was an extension of Jobs. While he was alive, that was a strength; now it’s a weakness. Apple’s current executive team is no doubt trying to maintain the same demanding, innovative culture, but it’s just not the same without the man himself looking over everybody’s shoulder. If the map glitch tells us anything, it is that.

But there is also a less obvious — yet possibly more important — reason that Apple’s best days may soon be behind it. When Jobs returned to the company in 1997, after 12 years in exile, Apple was in deep trouble. It could afford to take big risks and, indeed, to search for a new business model, because it had nothing to lose.

Fifteen years later, Apple has a hugely profitable business model to defend — and a lot to lose. Companies change when that happens. “The business model becomes a gilded cage, and management won’t do anything to challenge it, while doing everything they can to protect it,” says Larry Keeley, an innovation strategist at Doblin, a consulting firm.

Again, Nocera is trolling here. He claims to be able to see into the future, and tells us plebes that Apple will never make an innovative product again, ever! Really! And the reason that Apple is going to sour is that a first iteration of an app they released on Wednesday doesn’t please everyone. Maybe Mr. Nocera ought to switch to decaf and lay off the bath salts?

For the record, Maps seems to be ok for me, but I rarely used the Street View in Google Maps, plus Chicago is pretty well mapped. If I lived somewhere else, maybe I’d be displeased as well. But version 1 of Google Maps wasn’t so great either, and that didn’t mean that Google was about to descend into RIM/BlackBerry territory. No, instead, there were steady improvements made, and now Google Maps is fairly useful, and accurate. I still use it on my phone, by the way. In fact, I have an icon on my home screen that allows me to load it whenever I need it, or am concerned that Apple’s Map app might be wrong.

I would bet Joe Nocera $500 that Apple is going to improve its iOS Map app rapidly, and by version 3, this won’t be an issue for the majority of users. For all the negative press, I haven’t read of many people returning their iPhone because the Map app is so horrible.


A less “trolly” response from Mike Dobson:

I have spent several hours poring over the news for examples of the types of failures and find nothing unexpected in the results. Apple does not have a core competency in mapping and has not yet assembled the sizable, capable team that they will eventually need if they are determined to produce their own mapping/navigation/local search application.

Perhaps the most egregious error is that Apple’s team relied on quality control by algorithm and not a process partially vetted by informed human analysis. You cannot read about the errors in Apple Maps without realizing that these maps were being visually examined and used for the first time by Apple’s customers and not by Apple’s QC teams. If Apple thought that the results were going to be any different than they are, I would be surprised. Of course, hubris is a powerful emotion.

If you go back over this blog and follow my recounting of the history of Google’s attempts at developing a quality mapping service, you will notice that they initially tried to automate the entire process and failed miserably, as has Apple. Google learned that you cannot take the human out of the equation. While the mathematics of mapping appear relatively straight forward, I can assure you that if you take the informed human observer who possesses local and cartographic knowledge out of the equation that you will produce exactly what Apple has produced – A failed system.

The issue plaguing Apple Maps is not mathematics or algorithms, it is data quality and there can be little doubt about the types of errors that are plaguing the system. What is happening to Apple is that their users are measuring data quality. Users look for familiar places they know on maps and use these as methods of orienting themselves, as well as for testing the goodness of maps. They compare maps with reality to determine their location. They query local businesses to provide local services. When these actions fail, the map has failed and this is the source of Apple’s most significant problems. Apple’s maps are incomplete, illogical, positionally erroneous, out of date, and suffer from thematic inaccuracies.

(click here to continue reading Exploring Local » Blog Archive » Google Maps announces a 400 year advantage over Apple Maps.)

My point remains: the Apple Map app may be bad, will probably get somewhat better in the future, and this still doesn’t mean that Apple is about to turn into Sears & Roebuck, and be discarded in the tech graveyard.

Let Detroit Go Bankrupt – By Mitt Romney

Seth Anderson0 comment


Let Detroit Go Bankrupt – by Mitt Romney. Read it yourself and see if Smirky McSmirkenson actually can claim credit for GM, Ford, et al not being bankrupt. (Answer, he cannot, at least with a straight face).

Paul Krugman noted at the same time:

If the economy as a whole were in reasonably good shape and the credit markets were functioning, Chapter 11 would be the way to go. Under current circumstances, however, a default by GM would probably mean loss of ability to pay suppliers, which would mean liquidation — and that, in turn, would mean wiping out probably well over a million jobs at the worst possible moment.

and yet, Obama is having a hard-sell convincing folks in states impacted by the bailout to vote for him.

Ohio and Missouri are traditionally important swing states. But in St. Charles County, where Wentzville is, it’s not Mr. Obama but his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, who is predicted to win by a large margin. In heavily Democratic Lordstown, Mr. Obama is expected to prevail, but Mr. Romney is likely to carry two neighboring counties that also benefit from G.M.’s success.

“That’s surprising,” John Weaver, a political consultant and former John McCain adviser, told me this week. “I think especially with swing voters, they look at the auto industry and they see that government did work for them. It’s not just Wall Street that got help. It worked in a practical way in an industry that’s important to their state.” (Mr. Weaver isn’t working on the Romney campaign.)

I spoke this week with residents of both towns, and no one disputed that, from their perspective, the G.M. rescue has been a success.

“G.M. has been the catalyst for everything,” Wentzville’s mayor, Nick Guccione, told me. “They’ve already hired about 700 people, and they’re talking about bringing in over a thousand new jobs. And these are real jobs, with real wages. G.M. has brought in 1,300 construction workers for the new plant. We’re told that for every job they bring in, that creates five more jobs. It’s made Wentzville a more vibrant community. People can work, play, spend, shop.”

(click here to continue reading In Towns Helped by Obama’s GM Bail, Support for Romney)

Congress to Face Angry Farmers

Seth Anderson0 comment

A Little Sigh
A Little Sigh

What a surprise! The anti-American GOP Congress has decided farmers are not a core constituency, or at least are not as important as defense contractors. Since the GOP doesn’t believe in climate change, the drought is just god’s will, and farmers should pray for rain, avoid asking for government assistance. 

When Congress returns to business this week, it will be met not by the Code Pink antiwar protesters or the Tea Party supporters who often gathered near the Capitol last year. Instead, farmers will be out in force, rallying for a bill that lawmakers failed to pass before they recessed five weeks ago.

That unfinished bit of business threatens to cut off aid to farmers across the nation. But lawmakers, fresh off their parties’ conventions, appear to favor action on other bills that emphasize their political agendas over actual lawmaking.

When the Senate reconvenes on Monday, it will move to begin debate on a jobs bill for veterans that is championed by President Obama. The Democratic leadership is also considering yet another vote on Representative Paul D. Ryan’s budget, for no other apparent reason than to embarrass Republicans facing tough re-election battles.

In the House, Republicans will vote on a bill that seeks to phase out the Energy Department’s loan guarantee program that financed Solyndra, the bankrupt maker of solar power equipment. They also want Senate Democrats to come up with a measure like one already passed by the House that would replace the large-scale budget cuts for the Pentagon that are scheduled to take effect with other trims on Dec. 31. The military cuts were set in motion by an agreement to raise the debt ceiling last summer, and they became automatic when a special select committee failed to come up with at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years.

…

Over the summer, the Senate passed a bipartisan five-year farm bill that the House declined to take up. House leaders also refused to consider their own Agriculture Committee’s sweeping farm measure, instead pushing through a short-term $383 million package of loans and grants for livestock producers and a limited number of farmers. Senate leaders declined to take action on that measure because they said it was too limited, a view shared by many farmers.

Mr. Boehner lacks enough votes to pass a bill because Democrats dislike the $16 billion in cuts to nutrition programs, including food stamps, in the House committee’s bill. And many conservative Republicans would like to see more cuts over all in the measure.

 

(click here to continue reading Congress to Face Angry Farmers – NYTimes.com.)

Google’s paltry FTC Fine is a joke

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Nickles Not Pickles
Nickels Not Pickles

You might have heard that Google engineers created a way to surreptitiously collect data on all Safari users – including all iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users – ignoring the privacy settings. As a result of a computer scientist by the name of Jonathan Mayer, his investigation, and a subsequent media uproar, the FTC got involved, and eventually fined Google a few nickels.

The Federal Trade Commission fined Google $22.5 million on Thursday to settle charges that it had bypassed privacy settings in Apple’s Safari browser to be able to track users of the browser and show them advertisements, and violated an earlier privacy settlement with the agency.

The fine is the largest civil penalty ever levied by the commission, which has been cracking down on tech companies for privacy violations and is also investigating Google for antitrust violations.

“The social contract has to be that if you’re going to hold on to people’s most private data, you have to do a better job of honoring your privacy commitments,” said David C. Vladeck, the director of the commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a call with reporters. “And if there’s a message the commission is trying to send today, it’s that.”

The commission said Google had broken the terms of a 2011 settlement over privacy missteps related to the Buzz, a social networking tool now defunct.

(click here to continue reading F.T.C. Fines Google $22.5 Million for Safari Privacy Violations – NYTimes.com.)

 And I say nickels, because, to quote an earlier blog post:

The fine for violating the agreement is $16,000 per violation, per day. Because millions of people were affected, any fine could add up quickly, depending on how it is calculated

(click here to continue reading FTC Should Pursue Case Against Google at B12 Solipsism.)

Ride Smarter
Ride Smarter

Let’s do the math, as best we can on this convenient envelope on my desk. Google broke their agreement for about a year.1 Even if there was only one violation per day, this adds up to $5,840,000 in fines. But there are probably 200,000,000 iOS devices in active use2, plus desktop Macs running Safari, so potentially, Google was liable for 200,000,000 x 365 x $16,000 =  $1,168,000,000,000,000  in fines. Doh! Of course, the FTC doesn’t have the gumption to fine any corporation that much.  Instead they fined Google $22,000,000. 

For comparison, Google’s annual revenue is over $43,000,000,000 (per their 2nd Q 2012 report PDF). $22.5 million divided by $43.16 billion is 0.05213%. A joke in other words, a rounding error. If you made $50,000 a year in gross salary, and you got a fine of this magnitude, you’d pay…wait for it…$26. Yep, just twenty six dollars. Would it be worth it to you to pay a couple bucks a month in exchange for sellable advertising data on 200 million phones and iPads? Hell yes! Those cookies are a large reason why Google makes $43 billion a year, obviously they are valuable!

Google got off way, way too easily.

Let Me Show You How to Eagle Rock
Let Me Show You How to Eagle Rock

What about those incompetent boobs at the Federal Trade Commission? The FTC isn’t very motivated to snoop out privacy invasions in the first place, as Wired reported back in June, 2012:

Jonathan Mayer had a hunch.

The young computer scientist suspected that online advertisers might be following consumers around the web — even when they set their browsers to block the snippets of tracking code called cookies. If Mayer’s instinct was right, advertisers were eying people as they moved from one website to another even though their browsers were configured to prevent this sort of digital shadowing. Working long hours at his office, Mayer ran a series of clever tests in which he purchased ads that acted as sniffers for the sort of unauthorized cookies he was looking for. He hit the jackpot, unearthing one of the biggest privacy scandals of the past year: Google was secretly planting cookies on a vast number of iPhone browsers. Mayer thinks millions of iPhones were targeted by Google.

The feds are often the last to know about digital invasions of your privacy. This is precisely the type of privacy violation the Federal Trade Commission aims to protect consumers from, and Google, which claims the cookies were not planted in an unethical way, now reportedly faces a fine of more than $10 million.  But the FTC didn’t discover the violation. Mayer is a 25-year-old grad student working on law and computer science degrees at Stanford University. He shoehorned his sleuthing between classes and homework, working from an office he shares in the Gates Computer Science Building with students from New Zealand and Hong Kong. He doesn’t get paid for his work and he doesn’t get much rest.

If it seems odd that a federal regulator was scooped by a sleep-deprived student, get used to it, because the federal government is often the last to know about digital invasions of your privacy. The largest privacy scandal of the past year, also involving Google, wasn’t discovered by federal regulators, either. A privacy official in Germany forced Google to hand over the hard drives of cars equipped with 360-degree digital cameras that were taking pictures for its Street View program. The Germans discovered that Google wasn’t just shooting photos: The cars downloaded a panoply of sensitive data, including emails and passwords, from open Wi-Fi networks. Google had secretly done the same in the United States, but the FTC, as well as the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees broadcast issues, had no idea until the Germans figured it out.

(click here to continue reading Your FTC Privacy Watchdogs: Low-Tech, Defensive, Toothless | Threat Level | Wired.com.)

No wonder Google, and Microsoft, and others, spend so much money on lobbyists…

Google spent $5.03 million on lobbying from January through March of this year, a record for the Internet giant, and a 240 percent increase from the $1.48 million it spent on lobbyists in the same quarter a year ago, according to disclosures filed Friday with the clerk of the House.

By comparison, Apple spent $500,000; Facebook spent $650,000 Amazon spent $870,000; and Microsoft spent $1.79 million. Google even outspent Verizon Wireless, a notoriously big spender, which spent $4.51 million.

(click here to continue reading Under Scrutiny, Google Spends Record Amount on Lobbying – NYTimes.com.)

Footnotes:
  1. maybe a little more, I read somewhere the period was 18 months, but we’ll say a year for rounding purposes [↩]
  2. again, estimating. In this case, from an article dated Feb, 12, 2012, noting that Apple sold 156,000,000 in 2011 alone. [↩]

Stephen Colbert on Papa John’s “Obamacare” price hike

Seth Anderson0 comment

 

Stephen Colbert agrees with me regarding the asshole CEO of Papa John’s cardboard that resembles pizza:

President Obama’s health care reform law is wreaking havoc in the most unexpected places. This week, Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter predicted that the cost of providing health care to his employees will result in a 14-cent hike on pizza prices. It’s a wake-up call Americans will finally pay attention to, Stephen Colbert said Wednesday.

“That’s three times the value of a Papa John’s pizza,” Colbert said. And he doesn’t believe customers will swallow the price hike.

“Because when you order a Papa John’s pizza, it’s only after you’ve reached a state of such desperate, gnawing hunger that you would eat the ass off a raccoon that drowned in your bird bath. And even then, only after making absolutely sure that you’re all out of drowned raccoon ass. And now Obama expects you to shell out almost three extra nickels for this hot turd pie? Fuck that, eat the nickels, you have your dignity.”

(click here to continue reading Stephen Colbert on Papa John’s “Obamacare” price hike | TPMDC.)

Full clip here 

Continue reading “Stephen Colbert on Papa John’s “Obamacare” price hike”

John Schnatter CEO of Papa John’s Is An Asshole

Seth Anderson5 Comments

Fennel Portobello Red Pepper Pizza
homemade Fennel Portobello Red Pepper Pizza

If I ever was tempted to eat a Papa John’s pizza,1 asshole CEO John Schnatter has convinced me to forgo the temptation.

John Schnatter, chief executive of the pizza chain, is bashing President Obama’s healthcare reform law as a policy that will force the company to choose between its customers and its investors.

And if the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act rolls out as planned in 2014, Schnatter’s strategy is “of course … to pass that cost on the consumer in order to protect our shareholders’ best interest,” he said in a recent conference call.

Schnatter estimates that the legislation will cost Papa John’s about 11 cents to 14 cents per pizza, which equates to 15 cents to 20 cents per order. An average delivery charge runs $1.75 to $2.50.

“We’re not supportive of Obamacare like most businesses in our industry but our business model and unit economics are about as ideal as you can get for a food company to absorb Obamacare,” Schnatter said. “Ergo, we have a high ticket average with extremely high frequency of order counts, millions of pizzas per year.”

(click here to continue reading Papa John’s to raise pizza prices if ‘Obamacare’ survives: CEO – latimes.com.)

15¢ more, and health insurance for the people who make the damn cardboard-tasting pizza? Doesn’t seem like that big a burden to me. Especially in light of:

Net income for the second quarter, which ended June 24, rose 22.3% to $14.8 million, or 61 cents a share, from $12.1 million, or 47 cents a share a year earlier. Same-store sales soared 5.7% in North America.

Jerks like John Schnatter are what is wrong with America these days: no concern for anyone or anything besides the corporate quarterly profit. No wonder he’s a Mitt Romney zombie…

Unsurprisingly, Papa John’s chief is a big fan of Mitt Romney. Schnatter recently even hosted a private fundraiser for the Republican presidential candidate at his mansion in Anchorage, Ky.

I’ve worked in many places that didn’t provide healthcare for employees, luckily I was young, and um, lucky, not to need it. The food industry is built upon the backs of underpaid workers, who become disposable if ill, or injured.

Footnotes:
  1. I never have in the past [↩]

No You Cannot Use My Photo for Free Part 88

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Gate - Buckingham Palace
Gate – Buckingham Palace

While on vacation, I received this email: 

Hi Seth, As with many, I am captivated by the quality of your work!

I am a professor writing an ebook on “Chasing Wisdom” and would like your permission to use your work entitled “Gate – Buckingham Palace” as a photograph in my book.

I propose the following credit line: Photograph used by permission. Copyrighted by Seth Anderson.

Of course, please propose a credit line of your preference if you so choose.

Thank you

 I responded:

Thank you for your consideration. My normal rate is $800 (US) for a one-time usage fee. If this is something you would consider, please send me a purchase order, and I’ll invoice you and send you the image.

Please consider that I am self-employed, and responsible for all my own costs (health insurance, electricity, and so on), and thus am not interested in working without compensation.

I’ve written more on that topic a few times, including here:

www.b12partners.net/wp/2012/05/26/reasons-why-photographers-cannot-work-for-free/

Sincerely

An ebook often has lower costs associated with its creation, perhaps I would consider a lower fee as well, but we shall see if I get a response. Ideally, I would take the time to create a form letter from these various requests, but I never seem to get around to it. 

Parenthetically, the referenced photo is ok, but I wouldn’t call it one of my favorites. I’m sure there are many, many similar photos of the Buckingham Palace Gate taken every day.

 

—

Part 85

Part 86

Part 87 

—

 

update:

Thank you very much for your reply. Unfortunately, there is not budget for such permissions. I’ll look for another source.
Best

 

Fed Sees Action if Growth Doesn’t Pick Up Soon

Seth Anderson0 comment

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Every time I read about the sweet deal the Fed gives banks, I get mad. Corporate welfare is rarely the right answer, but the Fed and its relationship to banks continues unabated.

Another option is a change in the Fed’s public communication about its plans. Since January the Fed has been saying it doesn’t expect to raise short-term interest rates until late 2014. The Fed could change its policy statement in September to move that date into 2015. Such pronouncements about the expected path of short-term rates tend to reduce long- and medium-term interest rates. The Fed thinks this supports near-term spending and investment.

Officials also are looking at changing the interest rate paid on money banks deposit at the Fed. This interest on reserves is now 0.25%. Some critics say the Fed shouldn’t be paying banks even this small amount for money that they choose not to lend.

Fed officials haven’t been very enthusiastic about this idea. Some officials think the benefits of reducing the rate would be small, and some worry cutting the rate could disrupt short-term money markets. Still, officials might choose to reduce the rate in combination with other moves in an effort to give the economy a little extra lift. The European Central Bank cut its bank deposit rate to zero earlier this month.

The Fed could also try to push its benchmark interest rate, the federal funds rate, a little lower. Since late 2008, it has targeted a range for the rate between zero and 0.25%. It could narrow that range closer to zero.

(click here to continue reading Fed Sees Action if Growth Doesn’t Pick Up Soon – WSJ.com.)

Here’s why I get mad: the Fed lends corporate banks money at basically zero percent interest, no strings attached. Apparently, this happens in Europe as well. The banks in turn loan a percentage of that money out, at varying interest rates, 4.5% on a mortgage if you are a good credit risk, or 18% if you have a credit card that you’ve missed the payment deadline a few times. The rest they keep. Why is this acceptable? Since when did you vote on who your bank’s CEO will be?

How Does the State Respond?
How Does the State Respond?

I consider Ron Paul a crank on many, many topics, but I agree with him wholeheartedly on his repeated insistence that the Fed should be audited.

Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2011 – Directs the Comptroller General to complete, before the end of 2012, an audit of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and of the federal reserve banks, followed by a detailed report to Congress.

Repeals specified limitations on such an audit.

(click here to continue reading Bill Summary & Status – 112th Congress (2011 – 2012) – H.R.459 – All Information – THOMAS (Library of Congress).)

Why should the Fed policy be more hidden than that of every other branch, department and division of the government?

Acxiom Consumer Data Unavailable to Consumers

Seth Anderson2 Comments

Old Number Two
Old Number Two

Funny how this works: databases containing all sorts of data about you is compiled by giant, somewhat secretive corporations, and then rented out to corporations so marketers can sell their goods and services to you, and yet you have no access to the data. For what it’s worth, I took the time to opt out of Acxiom’s system, based on my email address, but who knows if they really removed me. I doubt it, but there is no way to verify or confirm in any case. We are just numbers to them, not people.

I recently asked to see the information held about me by the Acxiom Corporation, a database marketing company that collects and sells details about consumers’ financial status, shopping and recreational activities to banks, retailers, automakers and other businesses. In investor presentations and interviews, Acxiom executives have said that the company — the subject of a Sunday Business article last month — has information on about 500 million active consumers worldwide, with about 1,500 data points per person. Acxiom also promotes a program for consumers who wish to see the information the company has on them.

As a former pharmaceuticals industry reporter who has researched all kinds of diseases, drugs and quack cures online, I wanted to learn, for one, whether Acxiom had pegged me as concerned about arthritis, diabetes or allergies. Acxiom also has a proprietary household classification system that places people in one of 70 socioeconomic categories, like “Downtown Dwellers” or “Flush Families,” and I hoped to discover the caste to which it had assigned me.

But after I filled out an online request form and sent a personal check for $5 to cover the processing fee, the company simply sent me a list of some of my previous residential addresses. In other words, rather than learning the details about myself that marketers might use to profile and judge me, I received information I knew already.

It turns out that Acxiom, based in Little Rock, Ark., furnishes consumers only with data related to risk management, like their own prison records, tax liens, bankruptcy filings and residential histories. For a corporate client, the company is able to match customers by name with, say, the social networks or Internet providers they use, but it does not offer consumers the same information about themselves.

(click here to continue reading Acxiom Consumer Data, Often Unavailable to Consumers – NYTimes.com.)

Numbers Add Up to Nothing
Numbers Add Up to Nothing

and I’m totally in favor of the FTC forcing these companies to become more transparent, based upon the historical precedent of the credit card industry’s standard practice:

Now federal regulators are pressuring data brokers to operate more transparently. In a report earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission recommended that the industry set up a public Web portal that would display the names and contact information of data brokers, as well as describe consumers’ data access rights and other choices.

Julie Brill, a member of the Federal Trade Commission, said consumers should have access to all the details that data brokers collect on them, as well as any analyses that the companies sell about their behavior.

“I include in that not just the raw data, but also how that information has been analyzed to place the consumer into certain categories for marketing or other purposes,” she said. “I believe that giving consumers this kind of granularity will greatly increase consumer trust in the information flow process and will lead to more accurate marketing.”

At the moment, however, information brokers have wildly different policies. Acxiom lets people opt out of its marketing databases, while Epsilon, another marketing services firm, allows people to opt out of having their data rented to third parties. Epsilon says it will also furnish individuals, upon request, with general information about their past retail transactions — including the categories and years of purchase. But it does not include exact product or retailer names.

…

Commissioner Brill of the F.T.C. said she could not comment on specific companies. But she said the reluctance of the data broker industry to show consumers their own records reminded her of an earlier era, when consumer reporting agencies — companies that track and sell information about people’s credit histories — protested that it would be too expensive and time-consuming for them to show individuals the same reports that creditors could see. In 1996, Congress updated the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970, giving people greater access to the files that those agencies held about them. Today, consumers can easily gain access to their credit reports online.

“What the credit reporting industry did was change their point of view from client-oriented to consumer-oriented, and develop the tools and technology to allow consumers to see what’s in their reports and ensure it is accurate,” Ms. Brill said. “The data broker industry could do the exact same thing.”

(click here to continue reading Acxiom Consumer Data, Often Unavailable to Consumers – NYTimes.com.)

Viacom versus DirecTV

Seth Anderson0 comment

No Viacom For You
No Viacom For You

This is what is currently being broadcast on Comedy Central on my DirecTV box

www.directvpromise.com/

VIACOM WANTS YOU TO PAY OVER 30% MORE to get back the same channels you were already receiving.

That’s over $1B on top of what you were already paying for not only MTV and Nickelodeon, but also all of their other channels that you might never watch. You should be able to decide which Viacom channels you want and which you don’t.

To thank you for your patience until Viacom channels are returned, all 8 Encore Channels (including Encore Family) will be made available to all of our Residential customers thru July 31st.

!

Luckily for me, both The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Report are on vacation for another week. If this negotiation drags on as long as the AMC vs. Dish Networks dispute – which still isn’t settled – I’ll be annoyed. Stewart and Colbert are nearly the entire source of my televised news information – despite neither show being really a newsshow.

Sam Thielman of Adweek:

Viacom and DirecTV have split over carriage fee negotiations, with 17 million DirecTV customers now without Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and VH1. The faceoff got very public yesterday, and today is looking to hit in a much more extreme way, with both companies poised to roll out advertisements across multiple platforms taking their respective cases to the public.

“We proposed a fair deal that amounted to an increase of only a couple pennies per day per subscriber, and we remained willing to negotiate that deal right up to this evening’s deadline,” said Viacom in an unbylined statement on the company blog earlier today. If that sounds suspiciously like “you can feed a starving mega corporation for only pennies a day,” it probably should.

Per subscriber, most cable companies pay an average of $1.21 per month for a high-rated cable network like TNT; if “a couple” literally means “two,” that means Viacom is asking for about a 60-cent bump—basically half a TNT—from DirecTV.

DirecTV called it a 30 percent rate hike, estimating its total cost to the company (and eventually the subscribers) at $1 billion. Its ad to consumers, however, scolds Viacom for taking “an all-or-nothing” approach to carriage, requiring the MSO to keep all the Viacom networks rather than just the popular ones. That’s not exactly dirty pool, by carriage negotiation standards; no network conglomerate would ever see growth if it were.

(click here to continue reading Viacom and DirecTV Split Over Carriage Fees | Adweek.)

Discarded
Discarded

TechCrunch adds:

The latest spat between a pay TV provider and a content company has gotten ugly, with both DirecTV and Viacom taking to the web, pointing fingers and calling each other names. That’s to be expected, in this day and age, as cable and satellite subscribers become innocent bystanders in the big fight over how much money these corporate behemoths make.

Usually, though, these fights only matter to the subscribers who pay a certain cable or satellite provider, and only really when their favorite channels go dark. In the case of DirecTV and Viacom, however, the carriage dispute has a lot more collateral damage, as it affects pretty much anyone who enjoys watching select MTV and Comedy Central shows online.

Like some other pay TV providers before it, DirecTV has taken the unusual approach of telling subscribers that they can easily access a lot of the shows that have gone dark on the web. And in a counter-move, Viacom has begun playing hardball, by taking down that very same online programming. There’s only one problem: It’s not just DirecTV subscribers who can’t watch those shows online — the takedown applies to everyone else, as well.

As spotted by BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield earlier today (free registration required), Viacom has begun blocking access to certain key shows online, including The Daily Show and Jersey Shore. (Interestingly enough, the takedown doesn’t appear to affect Viacom programming that appears on other sites — like, for instance, The Daily Show episodes on Hulu. A Hulu spokesperson declined to comment on whether its licensed programming would also be affected.)

(click here to continue reading DirecTV Spat Results In Takedown Of Full-Length Viacom Shows For Everyone Online | TechCrunch.)

The WSJ reports on some of the root cause of the dispute:

The disappearance of Nickelodeon, MTV and Comedy Central from the TV sets of 20 million American homes on Wednesday marked a line in the sand drawn by one of the biggest pay-TV distributors in a dispute over programming fees with a major entertainment company.

What might once have been a run-of-the-mill spat has taken on heightened importance because it occurs at a pivotal time in the TV industry. Low-price or free online video outlets like Netflix, Amazon.com  and Google Inc.’s  YouTube are emerging as serious competitors to traditional cable-TV services, putting the spotlight on the relatively pricey nature of cable TV.

Viacoms channels-including Nickelodeon, MTV and Comedy Central-went off the air for DirectTV subscribers overnight after the two sides failed to come to an agreement on programming fees. William Launder has details on Markets Hub. (Photo: Nickelodeon/AP)

That issue is particularly acute in this dispute, where Viacom is seeking an increase in the fees it is paid by DirecTV  to carry its channels. Viacom licenses many of its shows to outlets like Netflix and Amazon, prompting industry executives to worry about cannibalizing traditional TV. Several top Viacom channels, particularly Nickelodeon, have recently seen ratings declines.

…

DirecTV has said Viacom is asking for a 30% increase in fees; Viacom says it is asking for a fair deal. The entertainment company says it has been paid below-market rates for its programming under a contract negotiated seven years ago with the satellite provider.

DirecTV said the lack of an agreement forced it to stop carrying Viacom channels late Tuesday, just before midnight. As of Wednesday evening, with social-media outlets like Twitter and Facebook ablaze with complaints about the dispute, Viacom and DirecTV executives had restarted negotiations.

…

Some Wall Street analysts say DirecTV might have more leverage than usual in this case because Viacom’s best-known channels have seen ratings declines and the media company doesn’t have the advantage of a sports or broadcast network to bolster its negotiations. Viacom points out Nickelodeon remains one of the most-watched channels on the dial. Many other Viacom channels, though, are much less-watched, according to Nielsen.

On Wednesday, Viacom TV personalities were tweeting their hopes for a quick resolution of the dispute. “Let’s all pray this Viacom/DirecTV beef gets squashed by next week,” tweeted Daniel Tosh of “Tosh.O,” a show on Comedy Central.Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, a reality-TV personality on “Jersey Shore,” tweeted a sad face emoticon and “Wah” as she quoted a fan’s tweet lamenting the loss of MTV on DirecTV.

(click here to continue reading Viacom, DirecTV Restart Carriage-Fee Talks; Web Video Inflames Fight Over TV Fees – WSJ.com.)

Journatic and the newspapers of the future

Seth Anderson0 comment

Washing the Chicago Tribune
Washing the Chicago Tribune

Story of the week, from my perspective, is the revelation of just how far our news organizations have fallen in importance. Seems as if we are witnessing the future of America; where industries get outsourced, job by job, and sent to some place where a salary of 50¢ an hour is nearly a middle class wage. Is this the Bain Capital model of the future? I find that depressing, and my connection to journalism is only as a reader, and through genetic history.1

The story has been percolating for a while, a recent piece on NPR’s This American Life was the blow-up event:

ACT TWO. FORGIVE US OUR PRESS PASSES. Producer Sarah Koenig reports on a company called Journatic, that is producing local journalism in a brand new way. Or is it really journalism? (23 1/2 minutes)

(click here to continue reading Act Two. Forgive us our Press Passes. | Switcheroo | This American Life.)

A Better Tribune

A Better Tribune

Turns out there was an insider, Ryan Smith, at Journatic feeding information because he was concerned. 

From the Guardian U.K:

If the best trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist, Journatic’s greatest ruse has been to convince the world that the company and its workers barely exist. Google the word “Journatic” and it’ll take a lot of digging through search results to find the company’s bare-bones website, because the site itself, as one blogger has reported, contains code that eliminates it from Google search results.

That’s strange for a company that’s had such a large impact on newspaper journalism. Over the last two or three years, the Chicago-based content provider has infiltrated dozens of mid to major newspapers across the country and obtained contracts to produc so-called “hyperlocal” news content. Those deals often lead to a horde of firings of editorial staff at those news organizations, as some full-time office-dwellers cede work to a small army of low-paid freelancers living all around the globe.

In this brave new media world, the face-to-face has been rendered as obsolete as health benefits and vacation pay, leading to a bizarrely disconnected state of affairs between the newspapers and the people putting words on its pages. I’ve copyedited or written news stories for a handful of major US newspapers over the past 18 months – the Houston Chronicle in Texas, San Francisco Chronicle in California and Newsday in Long Island, New York and others – yet it’s doubtful that any of the editors or senior executives for those news organizations could pick me out of a police line-up. In fact, it’s unlikely they could tell you a single personal detail about me or the other journalists behind the bylines of countless stories that appear in their print editions or on their websites, as provided by my employer.

Had editors at these newspapers requested a meeting with the individuals producing this new content, they’d have racked up a staggering amount of frequent flier miles. Journatic’s ranks are full of people like myself – home office-based US freelancers located far from the area they are covering. (I’ve never stepped foot in the Lone Star state once, much less visited the offices of the Houston Chronicle.) A second group of the company’s workers have been recruited from beyond the North American continent in developing countries like the Philippines and various African nations.

A final group of Journatic workers would be literally impossible to track down. Why? Because they don’t actually exist. They’re as fictional as Sherlock Holmes or the Sasquatch.

(click here to continue reading My adventures in Journatic’s new media landscape of outsourced hyperlocal news | Ryan Smith | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.)

Anna Tarkov of Poynter has a good overview of the entire fake byline story which concludes:

“Part of the reason Journatic keeps taking over more papers is so few people are talking about it and aren’t fully aware of what they’re doing,” [Ryan Smith] said by email. “Maybe now that the story is out, the public will be willing to spend money on good journalism instead of demanding quality information for free. That has definitely helped lead desperate newspapers to consider companies like Journatic.”

Someone who hopes the public will indeed listen is the non-partisan media advocacy group Free Press. They’ve posted a petition on their site that allows signers to contact Tribune and other companies known to work with Journatic to let them know how they feel about their news being produced overseas.

Craig Aaron, president and CEO of Free Press, explained his organization’s interest in an emailed statement: “Runaway media consolidation appears to have reached a new low. The idea that companies like Tribune would sack local journalists while outsourcing their jobs to other countries is appalling, but sadly not unexpected if you’ve been watching the downward spiral of the corporate media giants. But this rock-bottom moment in U.S. journalism may offer a moment of clarity about what happens when you continually put profits above public service.”

(click here to continue reading Journatic worker takes ‘This American Life’ inside outsourced journalism | Poynter..)

Rich Play - Poor Pay - Chicago Tribune
Rich Play – Poor Pay – Chicago Tribune

Michael Miner has been covering the story for a while:

The Tribune Company announced Monday it’s turning over TribLocal to Journatic—which the Tribune describes as a “Chicago-based media content provider” that “aggregates data.” Not just Chicago-based, it’s Tribune Tower-based, and Journatic’s approach to journalism is to turn it into piecework done at home. For weeks it’s been advertising for writers and offering these terms:

Position: Per Piece Writer Treatment: 1099 Independent Contractor Time: You choose when you work, but we are looking for day availability Location: Remote. As a contractor, you choose where you work Pay: Per-piece, roughly $12/hr. For example $4 stories take about 20 +/- minutes, and $2 stories take about 10 +/- minutes. Interest in Journatic heated up a month ago when it put together a 20-page mock neighborhood section for the Tribune. That’s when executive editor Peter Behle sent employees a notice that said in part, “Reporters will be sniffing around—and they are not authorized to talk with anyone about Journatic under any circumstances. Better yet, if you receive a reporter inquiry and tell us about it (without responding), we’ll pay you a $50 bonus.”

That’s good money for dropping a dime. A Journatic writer would have to write 13 stories to earn as much, and that’s even if they were the important $4 stories.

But now that word is out Journatic’s less guarded, and I just got off the phone with Brian Timpone, the CEO.

(click here to continue reading Tribune Company does deal with Journatic | The Bleader.)

The Perfect Way to Unwind
The Perfect Way to Unwind

and what do the out-sourced reporters actually write? Miner followed up:

Timpone had told me that data was collected and processed for Journatic in the Philippines but the writing is all domestic. Someone promptly posted a Journatic ad she’d spotted on a Filipino website that contradicted him: it said, “We’re looking for writers to work on events stories.” Journatic wanted Filipino writers “able to commit to 250 pieces/week minimum” at 35 to 40 cents a piece.

What’s the Filipino contribution to TribLocal Homewood-Flossmoor? I asked Timpone.

He directed me to the “Homewood-Flossmoor Athlete Tracker” on a back page. It’s a list of athletes from the local high school now playing varsity sports in college and their latest accomplishments, however humble—such as, “Has started 26 games this year, hitting .232 with nine RBIs.”

“That’s the kind of stuff we do in the Philippines, if you want to know,” said Timpone. He explained that when Journatic came into Homewood-Flossmoor, it created a database of around “100 newsmaking organizations”—such as women’s clubs, churches, schools, and athletes. With the athletes, the schedules of the teams they play for are loaded into the database, and then the teams’ websites are patrolled for results. “In the Philippines they collect the data and put it in the system. You need a program to do it.

“The school lunch menus might be formatted by Filipinos,” Timpone went on. “Say there are 25 school lunch menus released every Sunday. We have someone gather them and put them in the system. It’s not writing. We need people who speak English and are literate. It’s a typist job, but people don’t want to be called a typist.”

(click here to continue reading The burbs’ first look at Journatic | The Bleader.)

Daily News
Daily News

Side note: Jack Shafer posted a brief, interesting history of the byline itself:

Where does the sanctity of the byline come from?

Obviously, every news story should brim with the truth. But does an accurate story become unclean if the byline does not match the name of the writer (or writers) who produced it? In even the most professional of newsrooms, editors frequently do sufficient work on a piece – reporting and re-reporting sections, composing long passages without the assistance of the bylined writer, redefining the story’s parameters – that they deserve a byline or at least a co-byline. Yet magazine, newspaper and wire editors rarely receive this credit for their extraordinary interventions. Even so, I’ve never heard anybody claim that the readers of these pieces were in any way hoodwinked.

If bylines are so holy, why do the very best newspapers in the land allow government officials, foreign ambassadors, politicians, captains of industry and other notables claim sole bylines for their op-ed pieces? Almost to a one, these articles are composed by ghostwriters, yet journalistic convention denies the ghosts credit. If Journatic is deceiving the public, so too are the op-ed pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and many other newspapers. See also the books that unacknowledged ghostwriters write for their celebrity clients.

Not to go all Foucault (PDF file) on you, but the meaning of authorship has flexed over the centuries, depending on the direction that ideas about property and authority were taking. In the middle of the 1800s, as the American newspaper gathered cultural force and influence, bylines were still rare ornaments. Their assignment was inconsistent, even to writers who “deserved” them. Karl Marx, who wrote a column for the New York Tribune in the 1850s, complained that his contributions were sometimes published with his byline, sometimes as unsigned editorials, and sometimes not at all, as James Ledbetter pointed out in the introduction to Karl Marx: Dispatches for the New York Tribune. That said, Marx was not shy about submitting 125 columns written by his partner in communism, Friedrich Engels, as his own work.

One early advocate of bylines was Civil War General Joseph Hooker, who imposed them on battlefield correspondents in 1863 “as a means of attributing responsibility and blame for the publication of material he found inaccurate or dangerous to the Army of the Potomac,” as scholar Michael Schudson wrote in Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers. To be technical about it, journalistic bylines didn’t exist in the 1800s, as the term had yet to be invented. Instead, journalistic works credited to an author were called “signed articles” or “signature” pieces, as W. Joseph Campbell wrote in his book The Year That Defined American Journalism: 1897 and the Clash of Paradigms.

Signatures and signed articles became more common at newspapers by the late 1890s, as Alfred Balch noted in Lippincott’s Monthly (December 1898), conveying the growing status of journalists. “[I]t is the experience of every man who writes that signature makes him more careful,” Balch wrote, and this was good for publishers, too, he added. Yellow journalists Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst enthusiastically promoted their best writers (Richard Harding Davis, Sylvester Scovel, Ambrose Bierce, Nellie Bly, Stephen Crane and Eva Valesh, for example) by rewarding them with bylines, making celebrities out of them or adding to their established celebrity. But many publishers still disdained bylines because of the attention they focused on the writer at the expense of the publication. New York Times publisher-owner Adolph Ochs led the resistance, as Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones wrote in The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times:

Adolph had an ironclad policy on who got individual credit at the New York Times, insisting that “the business of the paper must be absolutely impersonal.” Bylines on stories were virtually nonexistent, and no editor, reporter or business manager was permitted to have stationery with his name on it.

(click here to continue reading How the byline beast was born | Jack Shafer.)

For the record, speaking only for myself, I have no objection to paying a reasonable price for online access to news. I pay the New York Times, pay the WSJ, pay some trade publications (Ad Age, for instance), and I’m ok with that. I don’t think news has to be free. But then I’m old.…

Footnotes:
  1. My grandfather was a newspaper man his whole life, and several of my relatives have made a living in various parts of the news industries, though as far as I know, nobody is currently employed thus [↩]

Corporations Cringe at Revealing CEO-Worker Pay Gap

Seth Anderson0 comment

Mini Bank In Fine Style
Mini Bank In Fine Style

Apparently, most corporations would rather stockholders not be aware of executive compensation agreements.

Section 953(b) of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requires publicly traded companies to disclose the ratio of CEO pay as a proportion of the median-paid employee at the firm. And yet, the Securities & Exchange Commission has yet to even propose a regulation for public comment, which would get the ball rolling on enforcing the act.

…

Companies that have opposed the regulation say that it would somehow be difficult to figure out the median pay of their staff. But the lawmakers point out that even the SEC’s former chief accountant says this should not be too complex a calculation for a business to make.

 

(click here to continue reading The Consumerist » Lawmakers Push For Companies To Disclose Ratio Of CEO Pay To That Of Employees.)

 AIG and you

 Oh, boo hoo. Math is hard1

The Wall Street Journal reports:

At issue is a rule that could force them to disclose the gap between what they pay their CEO and their median pay for employees, a potentially embarrassing figure that many companies would like to keep private.

 …”The ratio is not going to be a meaningful way to help investors but will be used as a political tool to attack companies,” says David Hirschmann, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets, which opposes the measure.

Consulting-firm Accenture says that figuring out the median among its 246,000 employees across 120 countries and various payroll systems would be expensive and slow. “The amount of work to calculate the ratio would be really quite incredible,” says Jill Smart, chief human resources officer for Accenture. The U.S Chamber of Commerce, American Insurance Association and National Retail Federation have expressed similar concerns to the SEC on behalf of members.

But companies whose boards already constrain the ratio between the CEO’s salary and that of the average worker say the task isn’t so complex.

“It doesn’t take months and months and millions of dollars to calculate this. It’s a relatively straightforward process that takes a few days,” says Mark Ehrnstein, a vice president at Whole Foods Market which instituted an executive salary cap a decade ago.

Whole Foods keeps a database that tracks each worker’s salary and bonus to ensure that no employee makes more than 19 times the average. That means the typical full-time worker earned about $38,000 last year, and no one earned more than $721,000. But the cap doesn’t factor in stock options or pension benefits, which would be required under the proposed rule, and it considers average, rather than median, salaries. A small number of other firms, including financial-services firm MBIA Inc.  and Bank of South Carolina Corp., provide executive pay figures and average or median employee pay in their proxy filings.

“It’s embarrassing that they pay their CEO 500 times what they pay their typical worker, especially if the company’s performance has been mediocre,” says New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, the provision’s author.

Total direct compensation for 248 CEOs at public companies rose 2.8% last year, to a median of $10.3 million, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal and Hay Group. A separate AFL-CIO analysis of CEO pay across a broad sample of S&P 500 firms showed the average CEO earned 380 times more than the typical U.S. worker. In 1980, that multiple was 42.

 

(click here to continue reading Firms Cringe at Revealing CEO-Worker Pay Gap – WSJ.com.)

In other words, most public corporations would rather not be transparent about what their CEOs would make because it makes the Board of Directors look like corrupt oligarchs. Cry me a river. And I find it hard to believe that reporting this information would be a burden. Take the payroll, dump it into a spreadsheet, and calculate the median! What’s tricky about that? The hardest part would be getting payroll information for a large multi-national corporation, but I doubt it would all that difficult to do.

 Beer Money at the MCA

 Batlett Naylor wrote, back in March:

In the face of intense industry lobbying, the SEC has yet to propose a rule for public comment. A simple disclosure figure should be well within the SEC’s ability. Corporate America’s antagonism may be revealing but should not be compelling.

The financial industry argues that identifying median pay will be difficult. Such claims either constitute an embarrassing confession about widespread mismanagement of a central financial issue, or a disingenuous smokescreen. The idea that firms have no idea what they pay their staff is ludicrous.

CEO pay has swollen from 42 times that of average factory workers in 1980 to 319 times in 2010. Studies show morale and productivity problems in the face of disproportionate CEO pay.

The congressional letter states that: “Income inequality is a growing concern among many Americans. … Incomes at the very top have skyrocketed in recent years while workers’ wages and incomes have stagnated. … And while comprehensive data will not be available until this provision takes effect, there is no question that CEO pay is soaring compared to that of average workers.”

A Public Citizen report last year found that industry lobbyists contesting this rule have spent more than $4.5 million trying to avoid disclosure. In addition, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has sent two letters to the SEC opposing this measure.

(click here to continue reading Will the SEC stand up to the financial industry’s disingenuous smokescreen? « CitizenVox.)

Footnotes:
  1. not really [↩]

On Orbitz, Mac Users Steered to Pricier Hotels

Seth Anderson0 comment

Had Enough for a Long Time
Had Enough for a Long Time

As a Mac user, I don’t like the implications of this business model…

Orbitz Worldwide Inc.  has found that people who use Apple Inc.’s Mac computers spend as much as 30% more a night on hotels, so the online travel agency is starting to show them different, and sometimes costlier, travel options than Windows visitors see.

Orbitz has found that Apple users spend as much as 30% more a night on hotels, so the online travel site is starting to show them different, and sometimes costlier, options than Windows visitors see.  

The Orbitz effort, which is in its early stages, demonstrates how tracking people’s online activities can use even seemingly innocuous information—in this case, the fact that customers are visiting Orbitz.com from a Mac—to start predicting their tastes and spending habits.

Orbitz found Mac users on average spend $20 to $30 more a night on hotels than their PC counterparts.

Orbitz executives confirmed that the company is experimenting with showing different hotel offers to Mac and PC visitors, but said the company isn’t showing the same room to different users at different prices. They also pointed out that users can opt to rank results by price.

(click here to continue reading On Orbitz, Mac Users Steered to Pricier Hotels – WSJ.com.)

When I’ve used Orbitz in the past, I didn’t even consider they were upselling me to more expensive options, and hiding the cheaper options from me. In the future, I will not even bother using Orbitz.

No You Cannot Use My Photo for Free Part 85

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Asking me to give you my photo for free is not about the money, really, it is about the respect that currency is afforded. If you are asking me for my photograph for free, you are not respecting my art. Not always, but usually, free goods and services are considered of lesser value than goods and services you pay for.

Imagine a world renowned chef going to his corner grocery store – not a chain grocery store, but a small independently operated grocery store, or even better, a booth at a Farmer’s Market – and asking for free produce.

The chef says, “I’m planning on creating a prix fixe event at my restaurant, and sell reservations for $150 each, plus tip and beverage, tax and so on. There will be 13 dishes served in all, and I’d like to feature your delicious organically grown carrots in one or two of them. I won’t pay you a dime, but on the menu, I’ll mention where the carrots were grown, if I have room.” 

Would you accept this deal? Would this pay for your growing costs? Your water? Your soil? Your time pulling weeds? For renting a booth at the Farmer’s Market? For your crop growing expertise? Granted the chef has put his own labor into the menu, and he could get flavorless carrots from Costco instead of using your carrots, but would mentioning your name be enough compensation? Would you get business from the guests who went to the restaurant and happened to notice your name in small print?

I say no, and would politely tell the chef to grow his own damn carrots.

Back to the topic on my mind, a couple of months ago, I got a request for usage of this photo:

 Borscht - Russian Tea Time

Borscht – Russian Tea Time – not sure how this goes with hockey, maybe some Russian connection?

The email read…

I would like to feature one of your Flickr photos in my new hockey book. I’m very impressed with the quality and spirit of your photos – they would look great in print!

About me: I am an established sports writer from Toronto. This will be my eighth hockey project. My others include [REDACTED list of 7 books]. My next book, [REDACTED], will focus on NHL team history and fan culture. It will be in stores in the fall of 2012.

In order to use your image, I will need confirmation that the photo was taken by you. In exchange for permission to use your photo, I will of course formally credit you in the book and can also recommend your work on Flickr, your blog, Linkedin, etc. Please just let me know exactly how you’d like your credit to appear (usual format: Name/Flickr).

Please let me know as soon as possible, as my deadline for your approval is in the next couple of weeks. If you are willing to grant permission and release for your photo, I would need you to please provide an original high-resolution version of the photo along with notification of your permission to reproduce and publish the image.

I am happy to provide more details, so please don’t hesitate to email me with any questions.

I responded:

Yes, I took the photo (at a Russian Tea Room in Chicago). My normal rates for inclusion in a book is $800 (US), plus a copy of the finished work. At this stage, working for free does not interest me, as I have to eat, pay health insurance, pay for my photo equipment and so on.

If you are interested in using my photo in your book, please send a formal request to my business partner at the following address:
[REDACTED]

and I’ll send you a purchase order, followed by a high resolution version of the image.

I never heard back from Mr. Hockey, I guess free was the only price he was looking for. And to be honest, this probably isn’t the best photo of borscht out there…

part 86

part 87