Connecting With Fans Is About More Than Getting People To Pay Attention To You

from the a-connection-goes-beyond-first-access dept

When I first start talking about this whole CwF+RtB thing, I tended to focus more on the "RtB -- Reason to Buy" part of it, because I naturally assumed that was the big problem. After all, the big thing we kept hearing was how creative folks weren't able to make money any more. However, the more I've been discussing this with people, the more I realize that many, many folks out there have serious problems with the first part, the "connecting with fans," part. I recently got an email from an artist who seemed upset, saying that he was giving out all of his music for free, but fans weren't interested. Similarly, I recently got into a discussion in the comments with someone from a newspaper who insisted that I was wrong in saying news organizations need to better enable their community. His argument was that newspapers put up comments, just like we have at Techdirt, so they're doing the exact same thing as we are.

Both of these appear to be cases of cargo cult copying, where someone tries to copy just the superficial outwardly obvious aspects of what others are doing, without taking the time to understand (1) the deeper underlying reasons why they work for some or (2) recognizing how that might (or might not) apply to what you're doing yourself. Connecting with fans isn't about "oh just give away content for free," or "oh, put up some comment forms." It's about actually figuring out what your community wants, interacting with them, and giving them what they want. It's about actually participating in some manner.

I was thinking about all of this as I read an interesting blog post by Marcus Taylor, where he explains the process by which he became a fan of the singer Jason Mraz, who had that catchy hit single last summer that many of you probably heard. But just hearing a catchy hit song being played over and over again isn't enough to make someone a true fan. Taylor points out that it went way beyond that, and took him not just listening to much more of Mraz's music via various online offerings, but then coming across some interviews with Mraz, where his personality shines through. Taylor points out that it took some time, but he finally realized that he didn't just like Mraz's music, but he liked Mraz -- and that made the jump possible. From there he comes up with a short list of "ways to make fans fall in love with you":

• Be yourself -- Most people despise a fake personality and can smell it a mile off, be your self and people will appreciate that.
• Be transparent -- don't hide the fact that you're a small local band if that's what you are -- if you're honest and likeable then your fans will be more inclined to help you get to the next step.
• Be professional but not too serious -- After all, life's too short for being too serious and worrying about everything, have fun but remain professional.
• Leave breadcrumbs everywhere -- better yet, leave breadcrumbs that show off the points above and give your fans a good reason to love you. Remember not all fans react to the same mediums as strongly so keep producing images, videos, and text content to bait them.

Obviously, this doesn't apply for everyone, and there is no "magic formula" for figuring out the best way to connect with fans, but it's certainly about doing a lot more than tossing out some free content and a comment form and wondering why fans aren't rushing to you. You actually need to be a part of that process, and actually let your personality come through. Being human really counts for something, and it's a point that's ignored all too often.

Along those lines, this upcoming Tuesday, at the a2n conference in Berlin, I'll be leading a brainstorming session generating ideas for musicians to better connect with their fans.

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Filipino Gov't Loses Court Case Because It Relied On Wikipedia

from the but-was-the-info-accurate? dept

A few years back, we discussed whether or not it was appropriate for judges to cite Wikipedia, noting that some were against the idea. Now, Slashdot points us to a case over in the Philippines, where the Filipino government has lost a recent lawsuit, in large part due to relying on Wikipedia to counter claims, rather than bringing in an expert witness.

However, what's odd, is that the judge in the case seems upset about the use of Wikipedia itself, with no specific attempt to determine if the citation was accurate or credible. It appears that the government was really using Wikipedia to call up the infamous psychologists' bible DSM-IV, in order to explore whether or not one of the participants in the case had a real personality disorder. While citing Wikipedia might not be the wisest of decisions, it still seems a bit harsh to dismiss it entirely because of the source, without any effort to determine if the content itself was legitimate.

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Is Falsely Being Accused Of File Sharing With An Automated Pre-Settlement Letter A Form Of Harassment?

from the we-may-find-out dept

With law operations like ACS:Law in the UK and US Copyright Group in the US sending out thousands upon thousands of "pre-settlement" (i.e., "pay us or we'll sue you") letters for those it accuses of copyright infringement, based on extremely flimsy evidence, it's inevitable that plenty of innocent people will get swept up in the legal threats. At least one law firm in the UK is looking for those who were falsely accused to file a harassment charge on their behalf. This seems like a stretch. Even if it does seem like harassment, my guess is that no court would likely find that such legal threats were harassment, as the lawyers bringing the suits would make the case that it was just an "honest mistake." Of course, if you tried to use that in response to a threat letter for sharing a file online, I doubt these law firms would simply let you walk away...

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BBC Loses Its Attempt To Silence Top Gear Test Driver The Stig From Revealing His Identity

from the hello-ben-collins dept

The incredibly popular UK BBC TV show Top Gear has been involved in a legal fight with publisher HarperCollins over the plans to publish a book revealing the identity of "The Stig," the always secretive test driver who appears in the show unidentified in a racing suit and helmet. The BBC spent its (publicly-funded) money to try to prevent such a revelation, but the UK courts have pointed out the basic free speech rights involved, and allowed racecar driver Ben Collins to admit that he's The Stig and have his autobiography published. Of course, in watching this battle unfold, I was confused as to why the BBC was going after HarperCollins, rather than targeting Ben Collins directly (and, by the way, I'm assuming the "Collins" in both names is a coincidence). Either way, as HarperCollins notes, this does appear to be a victory for free speech. In the meantime, if the BBC is really so upset that "the mystery" is gone, why not just get a new once-again secret Stig? In fact, the BBC has actually done exactly that in the past, dumping Perry McCarthy as the original Stig after his identity was revealed.

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When Will People Learn: Websites Are Not Liable For What People Write In The Comments

from the so-many-wasted-lawsuits dept

It still amazes me when lawsuits actually get filed against sites for things that people write in the comments. Section 230 case law is really well established on this, and you would think lawyers would know better. But, such lawsuits still get filed, and they get dismissed just as quickly. In this particular case, a TV news anchor who was arrested during a drug bust (though, later, not indicted) got upset about her (former) employer writing an article about her arrest, where some people wrote things she didn't like in the comments. So, she sued her former employer for "allowing unfiltered online comments which contained false information." Of course, allowing unfiltered comments is not, by itself, illegal, and the court made that clear:

Miles does not allege that the defendants wrote or revised the false comments. In fact, she alleges that the comments were not filtered by the defendants. Furthermore, she complains that the defendants merely allowed the comments, and there is no indication or allegation that the defendants encouraged defamatory comments on their website. As a result, the Court finds that the defendants are immune from liability for the allegedly defamatory third-party comments published on its website pursuant to the Communications Decency Act.

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eBay Dumping All Third Party Checkout Options

from the you-buy-with-ebay,-you-pay-with-ebay dept

Reader Mike sent over a story from Investors.com claiming that eBay was now banning Google Checkout from eBay. That struck me as odd, because we had written about eBay banning Google Checkout more than four years ago, and weren't aware that anything had changed. And, in fact, that's the case. Ebay is pointing out that the new announcement has nothing to do with Google, which has always been banned. Instead, what it means is that other third party payment offerings, which had previously been allowed, will no longer be offered. That seems unfortunate, as eBay used to be quite open about letting others play nicely in its sandbox, but recently has become more and more controlling.

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Lawyer Tries Selling DIY Legal Response Kit For Those Hit By US Copyright Group Suits

from the pro-se-me dept

With US Copyright Group (really DC law firm Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver) filing tens of thousands of lawsuits against individuals accused of file sharing certain movies, there's been something of a scramble for some of those accused to find legal help. While the EFF put together a list of lawyers interested in helping those accused, one of them, Graham Syfert, has realized that many of those accused really can't afford a lawyer for their defense, and so he's put together some worksheets to help those who wish to defend themselves, pro se, against USCG. Apparently, he was trying to charge $99 for the worksheets, but after TorrentFreak raised questions about the price, he's dropped it to $9.99. As Syfert told TorrentFreak:

"My dream would be to have 10,000-20,000 people file all three documents to the lawyers and severely cripple the entire process and show them that you shouldn't be allowed to join so many defendants."

That seems a bit unlikely but for those accused of sharing a movie, and without the means for full legal representation, at least there's some alternative.

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If You Have To Tweet About Me Before I Give You Content, Will You Still Respect Me In The Morning?

from the not-realy-a-strong-endorsement dept

A couple months back, we discussed the growing trend of some content creators to require some sort of promotion in exchange for "free" content -- such as "tweet about our album and you can download a song." Apparently, such practices are becoming more common place, with a whole company being built around the concept. However, just like I wrote when we first discussed this, these sorts of requirements seem like fake word of mouth marketing, unlikely to drive any sort of sustained interest. That's because you're requiring people to promote you just to get your content, rather than giving them the content and having it be awesome enough that they actually want to tell their friends about it. It basically gets the equation backwards, and in the process, seems to suggest that the content in question really isn't that good. After all, if you have to force people to promote you before you'll give them content for free, it sounds like you don't think they'd want to promote you after they got it. I can see why people would jump on this kind of bandwagon, but I think that those who do should consider the possible negative signals it gives off.

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How Microsoft Missed The Disruptive Innovation In Paid Search

from the missing-the-details dept

We recently highlighted a part of one of Paul Graham's recent essays that told the story of how Yahoo missed the paid search opportunity, by fearing that it would cannibalize all the revenue coming in from its "portal" business. As we noted, it was a great example of why big companies so rarely notice disruptive innovation, even when it's handed to them. Ali Partovi picked up on the same part of Graham's essay, and wrote a similar story about why Microsoft also failed to see the opportunity in paid search, despite the fact that Partovi and others were pushing for it, both from the outside, and then inside (after Microsoft bought his company, LinkExchange):

From 1997 to 2000, we visited Yahoo more than a dozen times to pitch the Keywords idea: pay-for-placement, keyword-targeted text ads on the side of search results. Despite repeated rejection, we pitched every member of Yahoo's executive team multiple times, each time finding new ways to present the concept and new data to support how profitable and huge the opportunity might be, all in vain....

In late 1998, Microsoft bought LinkExchange for $265 million, telling us they liked the "Keywords" vision. As Microsoft employees, we continued pitching the Keywords deal not only to Yahoo, but also to the up-and-coming Google. I wasn't surprised to find that these companies were wary of partnering with Microsoft. My greater surprise was the seemingly insurmountable resistance we faced within Microsoft itself.

After almost two years of fighting bureaucratic obstacles, we finally got the green light to launch "Keywords" as an MSN Search feature in 2000. It started growing rapidly, and the MSN Ad Sales division feared (correctly) that it would cannibalize banner ad revenue. They therefore decided (incorrectly) to shut down Keywords after a few months. If Yahoo's demise stemmed in part from being ambivalent about technology, perhaps Microsoft's error stemmed in part from being ambivalent about ad sales: we couldn't get the senior execs interested enough to intervene.

Both cases highlight the same basic point: the claim that big companies will automatically recognize a disruptive innovation and "copy it" is wishful thinking in many cases. Time and time and time again we see stories more like the ones above, where truly disruptive innovation isn't just ignored, it's actively blocked at big legacy companies who fear it cannibalizing an existing business, rather than recognizing the opportunity.

In the end, both Microsoft and Yahoo failed to jump into keyword search in any serious way until long after Google established it as a giant business. At that point, both tried to play catch-up, with Yahoo buying Overture and Microsoft rebuilding its product -- and as we've also seen over and over again, by waiting that long, it was too late. The two companies still haven't come anywhere close to catching up in market share, even if the technology is considered to be about equal at this point.

So the fear of some big company coming out and just "copying" you is generally overblown. If your idea is really disruptive, they probably won't recognize it, and by the time they do, you'll have a big head start, and their attempts to copy what you did will prove a lot more difficult than they expected.

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Court Refuses To Dismiss Righthaven Lawsuit Just Because Righthaven Bought The Copyright After Infringement Happened

from the trolling-allowed dept

We've noted a variety of creative defenses being tested in response to lawsuits from Righthaven. One attempt was to claim that Righthaven had no standing, because it did not hold the copyright when the actual infringement occurred. That's because the way Righthaven works is it searches for copies of parts of articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal (or the new newspapers who just signed up) and only then buys the copyright in question for the purpose of suing.

While it may have been a novel theory to say that you can't sue in such situations, there was little legal basis for that claim, and a judge has rejected it as a reason to dismiss. The judge did say that the issue could be explored further at trial, but the defendant in this case clearly read the writing on the wall and quickly settled the case, realizing that it's cheaper to settle than to fight. That, of course, is exactly what Righthaven's whole business model is predicated on.

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Ohio Senator Introduces Bill That Would Let Ex-Convicts Try To Erase Online Information About Their Arrest

from the the-internet-never-forgets dept

You may remember a story from last year about a convicted murderer in Germany trying to use a law that was designed to protect an individual's name and likeness from unwanted publicity, to demand Wikipedia remove all information about him, such as his murder conviction. Apparently, some US politicians think something similar is a good idea. Thomas O'Toole points us to a report of an Ohio state senator who has proposed a bill that would allow repeat offenders the ability to "delete their record" from public view, which (stunningly) might also require newspapers to remove all old articles about their arrests and convictions:

Under threat of a $250,000 fine, the bill would require individuals, newspapers and other news media to delete stories from the Internet and their archives about the arrests and convictions of those who win expungement orders.

If a party knowingly released information about a sealed conviction, they would face a $500,000 fine. The damages would double to $1 million if the banned information was available on the Internet.

As the article notes, this almost certainly violates the First Amendment and the concept of prior restraint. The state senator in question, Shirley Smith, claims that people are misinterpreting the bill, and it was not intended to apply to news stories (even though, as written, it certainly appears to do exactly that). Smith says that language requiring "business organizations" to not publish such information is actually targeted at former employers of individuals, saying they cannot disclose a conviction to potential new employers. The idea behind the bill is to make it easier for ex-convicts to get jobs. Of course, it's still difficult to see how disclosing factual information like that should ever be considered illegal.

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Record Labels Flip Out After Indian Copyright Board Massively Lowers Radio Royalties

from the get-ready-for-the-anti-India-spin dept

Get ready to hear all sorts of stories from record labels about how India is "anti-music" and a problem. That's because the Copyright Board in India just drastically changed the royalty structure for playing music on FM radios. Rather than a set hourly rate of approximately $25.60 - $35.50/hour (1200 to 1600 rupees), it's now saying that stations should just pay 2% of their net advertising. That turns out to be a massive change -- perhaps a drop of about 90% to the record labels, since the current hourly rates represent about 18% of net advertising revenue. Of course, as the article points out, the 18% rate was much higher than most of the rest of the world and crippling to radio stations. But, in the world we live in, the record labels will never accept the idea that they don't always deserve greater and greater rights to money.

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How The Patent Office Outsourced Its Job To Non-Expert Jurors

from the this-is-sad dept

I already wrote about Larry Downes blog post suggesting that Paul Allen's patent lawsuits might actually be an attempt to expose problems with the patent system, but I wanted to discuss a different point Downes raised earlier in the post, in discussing the problems of the patent system. Obviously, we've discussed many ways in which the patent system today fails to do what it's supposed to do, and a big part of the problem is the fact that the USPTO seems to approve a ton of crappy patents. This isn't because the examiners aren't trying hard, but just because the very nature of the system, and its inherent lack of scalability, mean the incentives are always going to lead to approvals of bad patents.

But what does this mean in practice? Downes highlights the problem this causes in a very simple way: it's the USPTO outsourcing the patent review process to unskilled juries:

The result has been the creation of a shadow patent examination process through litigation. The grant of a patent is no longer the final step, in other words. The de facto examination really takes place when the holder tries to enforce the patent against an alleged infringer, and the defendant claims invalidity of the patent as a defense. When such cases go to trial, which they rarely do, a jury of laymen are then tasked with doing the work avoided by the patent examiner.

In effect, the patent office has outsourced its job to the judiciary and in particular to a jury of non-experts. If nothing else, that is a feature of the modern system that absolutely no one is happy with, or in any event that no one can justify.

This is a pretty big problem when you think about it. Already, there are concerns that the supposed patent examiner "experts" often don't have enough expertise to judge the non-obviousness of certain inventions. To then shift the burden to inherently unskilled non-experts to make that decision, even with advocates for both sides fighting it out in front of them, seems to go against the very idea that patents are supposed to only be allowed if they are non-obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art. Asking those not skilled in the art to make that judgment seems like a mistake.

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When Suing A Website For Libel, It Helps To Actually Sue The Right One

from the thedirt-vs.-thedirty dept

Last week, a story caught my eye, about a website being ordered to pay $11 million for failing to respond to a lawsuit claiming libel. The story caught my attention for a few reasons: first, I'm always interested in libel lawsuits involving blogs and second... the name of the site that was sued was TheDirt.com, which... er... seemed close enough to Techdirt.com that I had to pause for a second and make sure it wasn't us. Anyway, after all that, it didn't seem like the ruling was interesting enough for a post... until some other details came out.

The lawsuit itself came from a Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader/high school English teacher named Sarah Jones, who was upset that the site in question apparently posted a picture of her and reported that she had an affair with a player and had contracted two venereal diseases. Assuming there's no truth to the rumors, it sounded like a straightforward libel case -- though from all the reporting, it's not clear if the site owners themselves wrote the content, or if it was written by a user -- in which case the site might have Section 230 protections (potentially depending on how involved they were in encouraging such content).

So why is the case suddenly interesting? Well, perhaps because it now appears that Ms. Jones' lawyers sued the wrong company. Oops. The lawsuit was filed against Los Angeles-based Dirty World Entertainment Recordings, which runs the website TheDirt.com. Problem is that the site that contained the content in question was TheDirty.com, and that's run by a Scottsdale-based company called Dirty World LLC who had no indication that there was a lawsuit going on at all. Oops indeed. At least no one sued us.

Amusingly, the folks at TheDirt.com are amusingly asking if they should sue for libel right back, considering all the press coverage claiming (falsely) that they had libeled Ms. Jones. Oh, and as for TheDirty.com, it's also asking the AP for an apology for falsely reporting that it had lost the lawsuit when it hadn't even been served. Quite a dirty mess. Separately, I have to imagine that Jones' lawyer, Eric Deters, now regrets his statement to the AP:

"If they would have just taken it down, this all would have been over," Deters said. "They just kind of mocked the whole court system."

Might have helped if you sued the right company.

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If Fashion Copyright Harms So Many, Why Is Congress Pushing For It?

from the regulatory-capture dept

With the latest version of the totally unnecessary and ridiculously dangerous fashion copyright bill likely to become law, despite a near total lack of justification for it, combined with significant evidence of the harm it will do, it might make you ask how the hell does a law like this get passed, and why does someone like Senator Chuck Schumer come up with something quite this badly thought out? Thankfully, law professors Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman -- who have been pointing out the problems with Schumer's weird infatuation over fashion copyright for years -- have a basic explanation for how such bad laws get passed. Basically, it's a form of regulatory capture. A very small group of players are likely to benefit at the expense of the overall market and consumers -- but that small group are a lot more focused on the issue than everyone hurt by it:

When a large group favors a policy change, it is expensive to organize that group to seek it. And often each member of a very large group will experience only small individual benefits from the policy -- so no member has the incentive to invest in change. Apathy reigns. Conversely, a small group can usually organize cheaply. And because the group is small, each individual member is likely to realize a much larger benefit from the sought-after change. As a result, the small group is properly motivated. In short, the committed minority can often beat the disorganized majority.

They then note that this is quite common in copyright law:

That scenario explains how a lot of law is made, and intellectual property law is no exception. The problem is most acute with copyright. Producers of copyrighted works -- film studios, record labels, commercial publishing companies -- are few in number and stand to gain significantly from more powerful protections (and therefore have ample incentive to spend money seeking policy change). The result is that Congress hears, loudly and often, from those who favor stronger protection. Congress does not hear nearly as often from those who take the opposite view. Who is that? Well, just about every consumer who has to pay more for a book or a song because stronger property rights prevent competition from low-cost copyists that would otherwise exist. We all pay a little hidden tax every time copyright law expands.

It's even worse than that, actually. In many cases, there are plenty of us willing to speak up about the harm caused by greater protectionism, and the vast amounts of actual evidence and research showing how these policies are inherently going to do more harm than good -- but very few people in Congress listen. Why? Because the industry has done a rather impressive targeted PR job of branding anyone who actually presents evidence and facts about the harm done by copyright law as simply supporting "piracy," which then gets lumped in with all sorts of other awful things. It's really a shame.

Raustiala and Sprigman also point out that this is actually a repeat action. A small group of fashion designers colluded to stop competition during the 1930s, and that only ended when the Supreme Court broke it up for antitrust reasons -- leading those involved to insist that the industry would surely fail without the ability to collude against competition. Of course, the opposite happened. But the new bill effectively brings back the antitrust activity of a few fashion designers -- but this time with Congressional approval. What a sad state of affairs.

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Does Steven Levitan Also Want A Cut Every Time You Buy A TV?

from the let's-get-this-straight-now... dept

We recently wrote about how TV producer Steven Levitan was publicly complaining that content creators deserve a cut of any IPO proceeds that Hulu gets, if it does go public. We pointed out what a ridiculous sense of entitlement was involved in such a sentiment, but rather than back down, Levitan is apparently only just beginning. The Hollywood Reporter interviewed him about his views on this, and he simply kept on repeating the same ridiculous concept that as a content producer he somehow deserves the money that Hulu makes. He also complains that TV companies should either keep shows offline under the false belief that TV shows are less likely to be pirated (no, stop laughing, he's serious) and that if they must go online, they should include all of the commercials seen on TV. Because, apparently, recognizing that you're dealing with people watching shows under very different circumstances and in very different ways apparently has not occurred to Levitan.

The more he argues, the deeper a hole Levitan seems to dig in his reasoning. He complains that if we don't figure out a way to make his shows profitable, the only thing left to watch will be "sneezing pandas." This is a version of the movie industry's "$200 million myth." It's the "well, it costs me $x to make this, so if we can't make that back, no one else could possibly make quality content for less." It's incredibly elitist and wrong. Not only is there good content made for less money out there (beyond the sneezing pandas), but if there's really demand for his shows (and there appears to be), then there are smart business models you can pursue that don't involve pissing off your fans or demanding an equity pay out from a company you didn't actually invest in.

Of course, the Hollywood Reporter doesn't help when it asks silly questions like:

Rupert Murdoch also has been an advocate of content creators getting paid for use of copyrighted content online. Has he reached out?

This assumes, falsely, that folks who are working on things like Hulu or who support alternative business models don't want to get content creators paid. Look, we all want content creators to get paid, we just think they should do it with smart business models, rather than by restricting content, pissing off fans and running to the government for greater protectionism.

In the meantime, since Levitan still seems to think he deserves a cut of Hulu's eventual IPO take, I have to ask if he also thinks he deserves a cut from every TV sold, or from whatever money TV companies raise from the capital markets?

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Funding To Edit 200 Hours Of Pirate Bay Documentary Footage Raised In Just Three Days

from the but-pirates-want-everything-for-free!!!! dept

A bunch of folks have been sending over the news that filmmaker Simon Klose was attempting to raise $25,000 in order to hire a professional editor to edit down over 200 hours of footage Simon had filmed of The Pirate Bay's founders over the period of the last couple of years. In his intro pitch, he pointed out that some thought it was strange that he was making a movie about an organization that many in the movie industry hated. But, Simon, of course, points out that such a response is silly. The industry and the market have changed, and there are new avenues to raising funds -- such as directly via a platform like Kickstarter. What's really impressive though is that it only took three days to raise the funds, and there are still over three more weeks to go, and the amount raised keeps going up.

In an interview about the fundraising process, Klose points out that it's not at all surprising that people who support things like The Pirate Bay would support his film, because he was offering them something they actually wanted to support:

I think it's natural that you support stuff you believe in. The people who support our movie obviously don't believe in the services that the movie and record industries are offering them. To me it's much more ironic that the corporations are claiming that the system used to be just and beneficial to artists before the internet came around. It never was.

And, of course, Klose fully intends to release the movie via The Pirate Bay (as well as by DVD). When asked about how he feels about people file sharing his movie, he notes:

Filesharing is great marketing, I don't mind people marketing my work.

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Companies Not Rushing To The Patent Office For Accelerated Review Of Green Patents

from the perhaps-they're-not-in-such-a-rush? dept

We were a bit worried late last year when the USPTO announced plans to speed up the review process for so-called "green tech patents." Speeding up the review process of a system notorious for granting bad, innovation-hindering patents doesn't seem wise for an emerging market. The USPTO said it would cap the trial period to just 3,000 patents to keep it from getting overwhelmed. However, it turns out that the USPTO needn't have worried. They haven't even gotten halfway to the cap yet. To date, only 1,477 requests have been made for the accelerated review program. Apparently this has lots of lawyers scratching their heads, wondering if the program is too expensive or what. Of course, there is another possibility as well: the really innovative folks working on greentech breakthroughs are focused on actually innovating, rather than worrying about the patent office. But, perhaps that's just wishful thinking...

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Perhaps Avoiding Links Is Really A Way To Get People Not To Read The Details Of The Studies You're Misrepresenting

from the link-link-away dept

Earlier this year, as part of a discussion about Nick Carr's most recent book we pointed to some reports that noted Carr appeared to misrepresent the scientific research to support his point. It appears that others are finding more examples of this as well. There was a little web-hubbub that I ignored earlier this year when Carr declared that links in documents were bad, and he was shifting all his links to the end. This was apparently based on some research, Carr claimed, that showed links in text are really distracting. Personally, I found that premise to be laughable, as I think after my second week online I stopped being distracted by links and quickly learned to use them effectively.

Still, without having a chance to dig into the research, I didn't have much to say on the subject. However, Scott Rosenberg is digging in and finding that, once again, it appears that Carr is conveniently misrepresenting the studies he relies on to support his anti-link thesis. The problem is that the study seems to show that poorly used and explained links distract people, but that hardly condemns all in-text links. Basically, the key study involved two groups looking at a piece of text, one that had a "next" link at the bottom, and the other that had three "links" randomly inserted into the text, with each of those three links doing the same thing as the "next" button (and there was no "back" button). In other words, as Rosenberg notes:

What the researchers did was to muck up a perfectly good story with meaningless links. Of course the readers of this version had a rougher time than the control group, who got to read a much more sensibly organized version. All this study proved was something we already knew: that badly executed hypertext can indeed ruin the process of reading. So, of course, can badly executed narrative structure, or grammar, or punctuation.

In fact, Rosenberg notes, another study that Carr looked at also focused on "next" links, rather than how actual linking tends to work online. I'm sure that Carr really believes in his thesis, but it seems quite problematic that when anyone looks at the evidence he relies on, it doesn't seem to say what he claims it says. In the meantime, I'm guessing that many people's feeling towards links reflects Rosenberg's statement:

Maybe in the early days of the Web, when they were newfangled, people felt compelled to click -- like primitives suddenly encountering TV and jabbing their fingers at the channel selector, wondering what will magically appear next.

I think we all passed through that phase quickly. If your experience matches mine, then today, your eyes pass over a link. Most often you ignore it. Sometimes, you hover your mouse pointer to see where it goes. Every now and then, you click the link open in a new tab to read when you're done. And very rarely, you might actually stop what you're reading and read the linked text. If you do, it's usually a sign that you've lost interest in the original article anyway. Which can happen just as easily in a magazine or newspaper -- where, instead of clicking a link, we just turn the page.

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What If You Could Click A Button And A Sponsor Would Pay A Site Money (Without It Being Clickfraud)?

from the rethinking-payments dept

I recently wrote about Flattr and how it's a different take on micropayments that seems more interesting to me (though I'm still not convinced it'll get big enough to make a difference). In that post, I also noted a competitor, Kachingle. Apparently, another company is about to enter the space, named Twixa, but it has a slight twist on the concept. Rather than asking users of a site to click a button to pay with their own money, the "ThankThis" offering from Twixa gets a sponsor to pay the money. Basically, any time you clicked the "Thank This" button (which looks similar to the Flattr button), rather than some of your money going to the site, a sponsor's money goes to the site. Of course, it also puts up a simple ad, which is how the sponsor finds this worthwhile. In some ways it's almost a direct play on the fact that some sites ask people to click on their ads to get cost-per-click cash from advertisers -- even though that's often frowned upon as a form of "click fraud." In this case, however, it's encouraged with the participation of sponsors. I'm still not convinced that enough people would really click to make a difference, but it is quite interesting to see how this space is evolving.

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