Articles in “August 2009” from Datamation Blog

By Tom Dunlap

Are you ready for the pandemic?

Many people a lot smarter than I -- including experts among my colleagues like Naomi Graychase, managing editor of Wi-FiPlanet.com -- are sounding some pretty serious warnings. Last time I did a column about this, "Pearls Before Swine (Flu)," I got an earful from these experts.

They make some convincing arguments. From talking to them, it's clear I know pretty much nothing of flu strains or pathologies or pandemics. (I was sick that day when they covered that in school -- with the flu.)

Nevertheless, I still can't seem to get too worked up over the swine flu. Call me either optimistic or incredibly naive. Or both. I've never had a flu vaccine shot, for instance. I refuse to get one. Heck, I recklessly don't even wash my hands enough. Flu shots are a big deal here in Santa Cruz, California, a place that used to be known for "newlyweds and nearly deads." There's even a drive-thru option, where both driver and passenger can get shots without leaving the friendly confines of their car.

I feel like if we take all the steps they tell us to take (wash your stinkin' hands!), and if we just let the flu fighters take care of the problem, like they do with many flu strains, then we'll be all right. As a cynical journalist, I also wonder if all the purported cases of swine flu are really, in fact, swine. But maybe that's the head-in-the sand approach?

Which leads to this week's question:

Are You Worried About Swine Flu?

To Vote in the Poll (it takes a couple steps, so I beg your indulgence):

1. Click Watch Now below.
2. Look for the small Vote Now link. Click it
3. A box pops up. Vote, and you'll see your vote tally in real time
4. You can also post a comment

Long before "social media" and "Web 2.0" became common terms, many media professionals were expressing open contempt for the "amateurs" they thought were polluting the Internet with substandard garbage. The "pros" fervently desired to continue the "we publish, you consume" model upon with traditional media had been built. Some cling to that mindset even today.

I had an entirely different reaction -- fear. While generally I agreed with my colleagues that 90% of blogs sucked (of course, you could make that 90% argument about almost anything), I knew the other 10% represented a threat to our livelihoods. If a smart person with blogging software could publish entertaining and/or insightful content for free, what did that mean to the journalists whose paychecks depended in large part on their status as official members of the cloistered Fourth Estate? We've been finding that out over the past several years.

The impact of social media, of course, extends far beyond its effect on journalists and media companies. It's changing our culture, says Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everyone. Shirky discussed these changes in his keynote speech at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose this week. From InternetNews:

[I]n the 1990s, the prevailing wisdom was most people spent hours watching television because they liked it. Shirky doesn't deny that the TV remains a popular pastime, but said the rise of social media shows people also want to produce and interact with content.

"Sometimes we like to produce, sometimes we like to share, but we didn't have media that let us do that" until now.

With the rise of Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and other social networks, Shirky said the media landscape is increasing in both size and visibility.

Not to mention complexity. Everything has become interconnected. You no longer have to go to YouTube to watch a video. A blogger or web site can offer any YouTube video -- not a link, but the actual video -- by embedding code (offered by YouTube) on their blog or site. They can offer readers a chance to comment and debate or to click on any number of social networking icons (Digg, StumbleUpon, reddit, etc.) in order to potentially share the content with millions of other people who hadn't visited the site and thus never would have seen the content.

It's scary to some, confusing to many. But to me the rise and proliferation of social media is both fascinating and beneficial (the likes of Perez Hilton aside) to society. The revolution is here, folks, and it's not over yet.

By Tom Dunlap

Yesterday's Twitter outage got me wondering again about how fast this micro-blogging phenomenon has taken off and how many people thrive on tweeting.

Did the blackout leave you feeling "jittery" and "naked," as some people felt, according to CNN?

Twitter has grown so fast and become so useful to many of us, in spite of all the lame tweets clogging our TweetDeck. We've written plenty about that on this blog and elsewhere. For instance, Twitter has helped me greatly in running the recently redesigned web site  SemanticWeb.com.

But the Twitter backlash is also growing. Last night, Conan O'Brien said in his monologue (and I'm paraphrasing): "Computer hackers crashed Twitter today. And the good news? Computer hackers crashed Twitter today."

Which leads to today's poll question:

Do you use Twitter? How much?

To Vote in the Poll (it takes a couple steps, so I beg your indulgence):

1. Click Watch Now below.
2. Look for the small Vote Now link. Click it
3. A box pops up. Vote, and you'll see your vote tally in real time
4. You can also post a comment

It's the biggest challenge facing online publishers: Monetizing their content in a world where readers long have been conditioned to expect free. So far only a handful of sites -- the Wall Street Journal and ESPN.com are major examples -- have had any success with a paid-subscription model (though most of ESPN's content costs nothing).

Now Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp. -- which owns WSJ, Fox News, the New York Post and News of the World, among other media properties -- says it's time to charge for all of it. From New York Magazine:

"Quality journalism is not cheap," Murdoch said, after his company reported a $3.4 billion loss for the first half of the year. "The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites."

He anticipates this change will go into effect within the year, and that by next summer even his tabloid newspapers -- which sell on newsstands for pennies -- will be surrounded by pay walls. "I believe that if we're successful, we'll be followed fast by other media," he added.

I certainly agree that quality journalism isn't cheap, and based on News Corp.'s massive losses, neither is the brand of journalism practiced by outlets such as Fox News. It appears that promoting tea parties and "birther" conspiracies are costly endeavors.

While I'm more than happy to have News Corp. act as the canary in the coal mine for other online publishers, I believe this is doomed to fail, simply because it's almost impossible to keep content (paid or otherwise) from being lifted and published elsewhere on the Internet. Jeff Jarvis makes another good point in this column:

Charging for content brings marketing and customer-service costs. Online, it reduces audience and the advertising they justify. Putting content behind a wall cuts it off from search and links; they cut off your Googlejuice.

When publishers build those walls, they open the door for free competitors, who can now enter the content business with virtually no barrier to entry. Publishers who fool themselves into thinking pay will save the day only further forestall the innovation and experimentation that is the only possible path to success online.

I'm eager to see what happens, though I think there's a distinct possibility that Murdoch will change his mind as reality sinks in. We'll find out soon enough.

By Tom Dunlap

"Vista was just a bad dream. A dream that's almost over. Wake up, honey dearest, rub the sleep out of your eyes and smell the Windows 7."

That's what I tell myself whenever I have to struggle with Microsoft's bloated Vista operating system. Luckily, that's only part of the time. I work from home, and of course I'm my family's IT support guy. My wife has Vista, my son has two older Macs, and I have XP -- as well as that pulling-out-your-hair problem.

Meanwhile, the early returns from the beta testers of Microsoft's new Windows 7 OS look intriguing. CNET UK posted this today:

CNET's UK site has installed, tested, reviewed, and benchmarked the version of Windows 7 that's being shipped to manufacturers for a late October release. The verdict? An all-around approval, as Seth Rosenblatt declares Windows 7 improved in most every way, but especially in performance and shut-down measurements.

It might be ridiculously early to ask this question, but I'm curious:

Will You Upgrade to Windows 7?

To Vote in the Poll (it takes a couple steps, so I beg your indulgence):

1. Click Watch Now below.
2. Look for the small Vote Now link. Click it
3. A box pops up. Vote, and you'll see your vote tally in real time
4. You can also post a comment

Now there's an understatement for you. It comes from the security pros at Symantec, which just released its latest report on the state of security in networks. From InternetNews.com:

In its mid-year security update, Symantec warned that IT managers face both old threats and new. Malware purveyors continue to use e-mail as a vector of infection, and spam now accounts for 90 percent of all mail, but the bad guys are also using new technologies such as social media and new business methods such as scareware to spread their reach.

"Attacks are getting more sophisticated and then there's the problem of what the IT budget will look like in six to nine months," said Zulfikar Ramzan, Symantec Security Response technical director. "Life is not getting easier."

"It's the consumerization of IT," said Ramzan. "Individuals use 'consumer tools' on-site, making it more challenging for the security manager."

Such tools include consumer mobile devices and also social networks, thus spanning the gamut from hardware to software. "Mobile has long been the next frontier for attackers," said Ramzan. He added that no one operating system or tool dominates the space, making attacks less profitable than they would be in a monoculture.

The problem with attacks made through social networks, he said, is that recipients are more trusting of the source.

"If a message is coming from someone they know, users are more likely to do things that compromise their security," he said.

Absolutely. Even longtime Internet users can be tempted to act on a message from what seems to be a friend, relative or associate. It's just human nature. And as long as humans use computer networks, security challenges will remain no matter what the technology. Unfortunately for IT managers, I suspect we humans are here to stay for awhile. You'll just have to try to tolerate us.