Friends with the band
Welcome to Idealog Weekly, the free email newsletter for New Zealand commercial creatives, entrepreneurs and anyone rich with ideas.
In this week’s issue: friends with the band, Dugg down, choking on chicken hooves, for the pessimist who has everything, how they did that, 11 questions on IP, playing for laughs and the quote of the week.
Friends with the band
Sometimes it’s nice to look at things from a new angle. That’s why we like Mark Roach’s pics of the New Zealand music industry at work: they’re usually taken from the stage, with Mark photographing people he knows well and works with. So you see the wardrobe malfunctions, the view of the audience from the stage, the low-rent rehearsal areas and the occasional off-stage peek of the people who put the shows together.
We printed a selection of Mark’s photographs in the latest issue of Idealog. Now we’re taking the next step and publishing almost 200 of his photographs on a wiki—and we’re inviting Kiwi music fans like you, dear reader, to visit the site and make your own contribution. If you’ve got a story about a gig, an anecdote about a certain guitarist, a favourite song to discuss or you want to track the career of your favourite musos, head to the Kiwi Music Wiki and edit away. You don’t even need to register—anyone can edit any page.
And you might get to make your contribution on paper, too. If we get enough interest we hope to publish a book, too—Mark’s photographs and the musings of Kiwi Music Fans everywhere. If you’ve ever wanted to be a published author, now’s your chance. Head on over to the Kiwi Music Wiki.
Dugg down
It’s insane what happened to Digg yesterday. The community news aggregation site has built a massive userbase in a short time and, other than YouTube, is probably the most successful of the Web 2.0 startups. But yesterday Digg’s users turned against it and in just a few hours it looked like the site had lost the only real asset it has—its fanbase.
Why? It’s all over these 32 characters: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 e3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0. They comprise a hexadecimal key that can be used to decrypt HD-DVD disks, an essential component in being able to play video from the disks on an unsupported system (say, Linux or an iPod) or to back them up.
Those characters are illegal to publish in the US, due to some particularly awful legislation, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, so Digg started censoring stories that contained the key (so much for American freedom of speech). Big mistake.
The users rebelled. They posted the key everywhere. Within minutes, Digg was riddled with posts, comments and user profiles that contained the code. More effectively than any Internet worm could, the key took over Digg. Digg worsened the problem by banning its troublesome users, sparking more outrage. At one point yesterday the company’s entire home page had been taken over by stories about the key. Digg looked set to both lose its users and become a test case for highly-paid Hollywood lawyers to have a crack at. Its twenty-something creators must have wished they’d sold it while it was still worth megamillions.
Digg did the only thing it could: it sided with its users. Founder Kevin Rose posted the key to his blog and announced it would “deal with whatever the consequences may be”.
By now, it’s too late for the key to be censored. After yesterday, Google too is rife with it. But it’s not the implications for Hollywood that interest me: it’s watching users exercise the power they have over Internet-based companies. Digg, like Amazon, YouTube or Ebay, makes its money entirely through the loyalty of its customers. Without them it has nothing and yesterday was proof that users can hit back. Imagine if your daily newspaper didn’t cover an issue and the next edition had been entirely taken over by its subscribers, all posting on the same topic and bitterly criticising the editors.
This isn’t over. The key has also been posted to Wikipedia which has quickly removed it and locked some articles to prevent it appearing again. This, too, isn’t going down well in the land of the First Amendment. What if Hollywood lawyers demand Google censors its index—will it too risk the wrath of its customers? What about Bebo? Facespan Facebook? MySpace? What would Trade Me do?
User-generated content is a nice way of letting your customers run your business, but at the end of the week they’re running it for themselves.
Choking on chicken hooves
We’ve all heard those stories about what goes into fast food. Would you like to hear a few more? McDonalds in the UK has set up a site to rebut some of the horror stories about its product; you can even ask a question and the Ronaldettes will answer it publicly.
With an opportunity like that, what would the British public like to know? Let’s look at the questions asked about, say, milkshakes. “I heard that milkshakes are made from pig’s fat, is it true?” “Do you put feathers in your shakes?” “Are your milkshakes made from dog lips?” “Is it true you put cow ears in your milkshake?” and this gem, “I heard that your milkshake was made from chicken hooves, is this true?”
McDonalds faithfully answered all those questions and more, but I have to say I read the questions a lot more carefully than the answers. Kudos to the junior marketing shill at McDonalds tasked with answering this pearler: “Why did your employees ejaculate in my grandmother’s milkshake?” I’m sure grandparents everywhere will slurp their shakes a lot happier knowing that management frowns on such practices.
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For the pessimist who has everything
Here’s the perfect gift for those who like to know when everything’s turning to custard. Despair, Inc has created The Pessimist’s Mug, “fashioned by the perpetually miserable”, to let you know just when that line has been crossed and it’s time to acknowledge the futility of it all.
How they did that
The best trick photography draws you so closely into a story that you don’t notice just how difficult the shot is. Consider Children of Men, the end-of-the-human-race thriller directed by Alfonso Cuarón, which includes some famous single-shot chase senses. This YouTube vid explains some of the technology behind the trickery.(Via Rowan Simpson)
11 questions on IP
At last week’s celebration of World Intellectual Property Day, held by Baldwins, the questions came thick and fast to a panel including Ken Stevens of Glidepath, Mark Backhaus of Ideas Inc and Craig Horrocks of Zorb. In fact, there wasn’t time to get through all the questions so Philip Thoreau of Baldwins has left a report of the event on the Idealog website and put forward 11 questions for further discussion. It’s a useful checklist for anyone who needs to protect their ideas.
Playing for laughs
The New Zealand International Comedy Festival kicks off tomorrow night and will cover most of the country over the next three weeks. The organisers’ picks include Jan Maree (“the drinking man’s Allyson Gofton”), Canadian standup Jason John Whitehead and man of the world Jeremy Elwood.
Josef Roberts, the Kiwi who gave Red Bull its wings in New Zealand and Australia, is speaking for the first time about his amazing story: from failed property developer to beverage millionaire. And now burger chain king. A great story, told by a great speaker, Josef is the perfect person to launch the AUT Idealog Innovation Series. May 17, 6pm at Auckland Art Gallery. Drinks and canapes supplied. Idealog subscribers can save $10 on a ticket if you book online. Better hurry because we can only fit 220 Idealogues into the space. And we’ve already sold a heap!
Check out Idealog’s events guide, Agenda, online and in print. Anyone can add an event to Agenda—just fill out the form on our website.
Quote of the week
“[Kiran] Mazumdar-Shaw never tried to please Wall Street … in fact, she prefers to look elsewhere. We tend to take an almost blinkered approach, she says, looking solely to the US and Europe for, say, biotechnology, but ideas and talent can come from anywhere.”
—Bette Flagler meets India’s richest woman
More at Idealog online
Read more on our website: web exclusives, opinion, Idealog IP, the Idealog blogs and the Idealog podcast. See you at idealog.co.nz.
Matt Cooney
Editor
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