Emails a danger in the workplace. Apparently.

A senior representative of leading IT consultancy BearingPoint, Robert Hilliard, has declared that email is a "terrible way to do the majority of business". BearingPoint recommend businesses adopt "collaboration technologies". The core of the argument appears to be that person-to-person communication does not have enough visibility, while a collaborative process is more open and transparent.

I'm not convinced.

The issue of visibility and transparency appears to be driven by legal coverage issues and not underlying issues with the technology itself. Collaboration shifts the focus on to "group communication", maximising the number of people who can see the information development process and spreading the points of blame in turn reducing individual levels of risk. It's not improving communication, it's improving arse coverage.

Mr Hilliard does have a good point when he says:

A person-to-person piece of communication is not visible to anybody else. It is a legal document. You would never consider writing a letter between two organisations without having an appropriately authorised person reviewing it but you don't hesitate to have two junior members of two companies write an informal email to each other that would expose both organisations.

The problem is not one of the tools but of the processes of the operating environment. The solution isn't "collaboration tools" (which he doesn't define but I'm assuming it's things like MediaWiki, Google Docs and Basecamp as examples) which add extra layers of complexity to what should be a simple process of communication. The solution is greater education and simple, clearly defined guidelines on appropriate levels of interaction at an officer-to-officer level.

After all, it's not as if BearingPoint would have a vested interest in promoting introducing collaborative models in favour of existing email infrastructure, now is it?

Just another IT consultancy selflessly promoting more technology as the answer.

envelope originally uploaded to Flickr by timothymorgan. Used under a Creative Commons By Attribution 2.0 licence.

Legislation chipping away at RFID

According to this LA Times article - Senate blocks mandatory ID implants in employees - the Senate of the state of California has passed legislation to prevent employers mandating that employees must have an RFID chip implanted in their bodies. The legislation was prompted by at least one company beginning to market human-ready RFID devices. I am not surprised that later in the article mention is made of at least one company requiring all employees working in a high security area to be implanted in much the same way that dogs and cats are currently chipped for ID purposes.

I find it refreshing that governments around the world are starting to recognise that indiscriminate chipping is a problem yet at the same time I find it disturbing that there needs to be legislation around this at all. This is not a privacy issue for me. Framing it as a privacy issue implies that in some way the concerns could be addressed and corporations could return to punching chips in everyone sufficiently distracted to not see the big needle coming. Instead, I see this issue as one of personal liberty.

RFID is largely used for tracking inventory and livestock with delusions of freedom (as an aside, why don't more cows escape from the paddock? I have yet to see a cattle fence that could sustain a concentrated freedom-inspired stampede. Sure, there might be casualties in the first wave, but think of the common good for all cow-kind? On the other hand, if I was put out to stud where all I had to do was eat and chase the ladies around the farm, I probably wouldn't be too keen on motivating everyone for mass break-out either). As noted in this Slashdot comment, tagging people with RFID marks them as live inventory, which returns me to cattle corralled in the paddock.

I'm sure some companies feel they have a very good reason for wanting to insert foreign bodies under the skin of their workers but my concern is: where do you draw the line? Today, it's for "security purposes" at a job that you may or may not choose to keep. Then more employers require a chip, then most employers require one. How much further does it spread? Ex-prisoners? Welfare recipients? Long stay foreign workers and international students? People who listen to ABBA? The list goes on and on.

Feature creep and requirements bloat are bad enough when it comes to software and project management. I don't see the need to expose personal liberty to the same slippery slope.

Via Slashdot

Inject your RFID tags now! originally uploaded to Flickr by Nadya Peek. Used under a Creative Commons By Attribution 2.0 license.

Facebook etiquette: Finally!

Note: An updated and revised version of this post can now be found at techwhimsy.com.


I am happy to concede that I was slow to jump on the Facebook bandwagon. After all, there is only so much adopting that one can do in a fast paced, 2.0 "must be the first, oh please, I just have to be the first" fashion and Facebook was over that threshold. However, once I signed up, I found myself bewildered as I had no context for the rules of engagement. I needed an etiquette guide and I maintain that social networks like Facebook are failing their new users when they don't at least point to a user-generated guide.

Enter Wired's new How To Wiki. I am relieved that the community has filled the gaping void and provided meaning to the bewildering array of behaviours I have witnessed in my short time on the 'book. I present to you Save Face on Facebook.

The list seems like common sense to me. All except the one about not writing on your own wall, that is. Why is that? The whole Wall-to-Wall thing seems counter-intuitive to me and I think that's one for the Facebook usability gurus to work on. Apart from that one lapse, I'm happily powering my laptop with my own sense of inflated self-satisfaction.

There should be more etiquette guides to social networks. I hope that this is just the start of something bigger for the social network movement.

Cosmopolitan's New Etiquette Guide originally uploaded to Flickr by numberstumper and edited by me. Used under a Creative Commons By Attribution - Sharealike 2.0 licence.

One big happy family

I love the fact that the same company that owns MySpace will now own the Wall Street Journal, too. What a small world this is becoming.

Techcrunch, on the news that News Corp has reached a tentative agreement to buy Dow Jones & Co.

Vista works just fine. Quit whinging.

Unlike what appears to be, well, everyone else, I am having very few problems with Windows Vista. I did have a problem with my Dell, Vista and hibernation, but I fixed that with a simple update of the video drivers. Anyway, that's hardly a showstopper of a problem.

AP seems to have finally picked up on the fact that some people still don't like Vista all that much. I'm really tired of the few vocal "A List" bloggers and web celebrities who continue to get media traction with their anti-Vista problems, declaring that it's just no good and people shouldn't use it.

Personally, I have had Vista work with fewer issues than I ever had with Windows 2000 or Windows XP. I will admit that I'm hardly bleeding edge, I don't have a lot of old, mission critical peripherals and I don't push my system to the extreme. On the other hand, I'm not a typical user either. My Vista works just fine, thank you.

I have no problems in recommending that people use Vista, especially if they are buying a new computer and can't decide whether to get one with XP or Vista. You may not want to upgrade your current XP system, but that's more a general caution on my part. There are no killer apps for Vista just yet, but give it time. When that happens, jump on board.

The perfect kilo

Australian expertise is hard at it once again.

Scientists at the CSIRO are building a sphere of silicon weighing exactly 1 kilogram.

The kilogram is the last fundamental unit in the international standards that is still measured in relation to a physical unit - the "international prototype" - and is stored in Paris. The prototype is a mixture of platinum and iridium.

The Avogadro Project is an attempt to provide a constant value by bringing together enough atoms of a single substance to create a kilogram.

Apparently silicon is a great candidate as its properties are well known, single crystals can be grown with great precision with atomic uniformity and it is a material that is readily accessible at a reasonable cost, making it much easier to reproduce. It is a sphere because it's got no sides to chip or corners to knock off, maintaining the integrity of the final product.

I'm amazed that we still define a kilogram based on a lump of metal stored in a basement in France. I can see why the international scientific community is working together to try and develop a uniform measurement based on a natural constant rather than depend on a physical object. According to the BIPM, there are only 6 official copies of the kilogram, and they're all stored in the same vault.

Personally, I'd be much happier if a significant component of mass in the metric system had a touch more redundancy built in.

Photo of the roundest object in the world courtesy of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industry Research Organisation.
Photo of the kilogram international prototype courtesy of the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures.

Tech typologies

The Pew Internet & American Life Project (part of the American independent Pew Research Center) has released the research report A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users [available as a pdf], which breaks down US technology consumers into a number of broad categories.

Apparently, all consumers of technology in the US can be divided into one of three broad user categories:

1. Elite Tech: Omnivores, Connectors, Lackluster Veterans, Productivity Enhancers


2. Middle-of-the-Road: Mobile Centrics, Connected But Hassled


3. Few Tech Assets: Inexperienced Experimenters, Light But Satisfied, Indifferents, Off the Network

Some of the things that caught my interest included:

• 15% of users do not have a mobile phone or an internet connection (how do they survive?)


• while "high tech" is dominated by males, mobile phone usage for things other than basic voice calls is a pretty even gender split. I wonder if this is because computers are seen as geeky guy thing, phones are more universal without the same sort of bias attached, allowing women to feel more comfortable in immersing themselves in the technology?


• Household income has some bearing but it isn't as strong as I thought it would be. The mid-range users have similar incomes to the high-range users, but have obviously chosen not to buy more toys and not all high-tech users have a high household income but have managed to acquire the high tech they seek.

There is even a quiz you can take to see where you fit. Obviously, if you take the quiz you're not likely to be Off the Network and if you're reading this, you will probably fall into the same category as me which is:

Omnivore: members of this group use their extensive suite of technology tools to do an enormous range of things online, on the go, and with their cell phones. Omnivores are highly engaged with video online and digital content. Between blogging, maintaining their Web pages, remixing digital content, or posting their creations to their websites, they are creative participants in cyberspace.

Omnivores make up 8% of the American public.

new tech looks old tech originally uploaded to Flickr by o2ma. Used under a Creative Commons 2.0 BY-SA license.

The Brain Game

Human brain
Originally uploaded to Flickr by Gaetan Lee.

Competition continues to be hot in the world of making playing games just that little bit lazier.

• Emotiv Systems has a prototype of a head-set based system with electrodes that attach to the skull. The setup detects electrical activity in the brain to detect player thoughts, feelings and expressions". Apparently it connects wirelessly to all game systems from consoles to PCs.
  
• NeuroSky has a technology that requires just a single small electrode (although all the press photos show that you still need to wear a headset - http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&gbv=2&q=neurosky+technology (Safe Search On). Neurosky currently has a demonstration of a small Darth Vader that can be controlled through its technology.
  
• Cyber Learning Technology LLC proudly trumpets its Smart Brain Game technology as "the ONLY Neurofeedback Technology developed, patented and tested at NASA". CyberLearning also want to draw a link between their products and research that helps sufferers of ADHD.
  

I choose to work under the assumption that if all this activity is going on in the game controller market, there has to be substantial research going on in universities and government institutions looking into brainwave telemetry for other purposes such as for disabled patients or remote and/or dangerous workplaces (underground mines, deep space etc). I sure hope so.

After reading up a little on what each of these technologies enables, I am left with just one question? Does anyone really want to be able to control a game with their mind alone? It seems to me that this could make a game fiendishly difficult, requiring great powers of concentration.

I don't know about anyone else but when I play games, I want to relax.

WEP sucks just that little bit more

News in the last week or so that WEP (or Wired Equivalent Privacy), one of the wireless network security protocols, has been proven to be even weaker than everyone thought.

Of course, WEP has been easily crackable for a few years now, but what is most notable about this latest piece of research is that it takes even less time (we're talking less than 5 minutes here) with easily available software on a low-powered off-the-shelf system (Centrino chip no less).

But why is this important? If everyone knows that WEP is so easily cracked, then why does so much hardware still support this legacy security protocol? Until just a few hours ago, I thought that the new PCI Wi-Fi card I bought just over a month ago only supported WEP, purely because I missed one pull down menu when I set-up my network. I knew both my laptop and new modem/router supported the far more secure WPA but I was disappointed that I would be running a network with far from ideal security (as a sys admin in training, this bugged me).

One little pull down menu, buried deep. While my irritation should probably be directed at the designers of the GUI for the setup software of my Wi-Fi card, I really think it's time that manufacturers let go of WEP. It's only real benefit seems to be that it will stop your less tech savvy neighbours from leeching off your internet access (I don't have any shard folders so I think that's all they could do). I felt safer that there were at least two other unsecured networks nearby me and that any script kiddie would go for them instead,although I was still very uncomfortable with the idea of running a WEP network.

I don't think security through obfuscation is something people should be promoting. How about security with something that is actually secure?

Further reading:
Ars Technica - New attack cracks WEP in record time
Slashdot - WEP cracked even worse
Original research paper (pdf link) - Breaking 104 bit WEP in less than 60 seconds

Photo Hackers on Planet Earth 6 originally uploaded to Flickr by ioerror. Used under a Creative Commons license.

NASA 3D Martian Flyovers

I'm a bit slow to post this but it's interesting rather than timely so that doesn't matter too much (in other words, "For no other reason than I think this is pretty cool").

As reported on Slashdot and New Scientist: Space, NASA has released two computer generated flyovers of Martian rover landing sites based on data collected by the Mars Recon Orbiter.

The original NASA files are available through the NASA TV Video Gallery.

Work site of Opportunity

Work site of Spirit

New Gmail funkiness

Update 2: It even lets you label all incoming mail from other accounts so you can tell at a glance where mail has come from. Even funkier. (2/3/07)

Update 1: Works like a charm, and even allows SSL connections (if supported by your ISP) which means I can use Internode's securemail features. Funky. (1/3/07)


I have no idea how long this has been going on but Gmail is now letting selected users collect email from up to 5 other POP enabled email accounts into your Gmail inbox. It will then let you have customised settings so that you can send email from your Gmail inbox but it will look like it was sent from your other POP-enabled account/s.

It can be enabled in the Settings/Accounts section. I'm in the process of setting it up with my ISP email address as a trial but it requires some verification and my verification email hasn't arrived yet.

I can see this being very useful.

Edit 2/3/07 19:23: I changed my original edit to an update. It makes more sense this way and fits in with the second update.

Remember, FLOSS is good for you

If you'll excuse me a quiet fan-boy moment, I just want to share my joy that my favourite podcast, FLOSS Weekly, is back on the air after a long hiatus! W00t!

For those who don't know, FLOSS (or Free/Libre Open Source Software) is a podcast hosted by Chris DiBona (lately of Google as their Open Source Manager)) and Leo Laporte (This Week in Tech etc) where leading lights in the open source community are interviewed.

FLOSS is my favourite tech podcast for two reasons:

1. they interview people who have contributed in a meaningful way, which is most definitely not restricted to the code monkey types. For example, they have interviewed Hemos and CmdrTaco, founders of Slashdot, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and Eben Moglen, lead counsel law-talkin' guy for the Free Software Foundation; and
2. most recently they've talked to an Australian (Jeff Waugh, who did a lot of organisational work for Ubuntu and set up the original LinuxConf.au linux conference).

The stories that are spun are always interesting and it's nice that they choose subjects that have done more than the typical code contributions (although they're spoken to their share of hackers as well).

Hopefully FLOSS will continue on better than ever.

It's all about the quantum

A lot has been going down in the world of quantum in the last few weeks:

• D-Wave Systems demoed their quantum computer in Vancouver on 13 Feb 2007.


• However, qualified sceptics, as well as the usual unqualified ones remain somewhat unconvinced D-wave has what it think it was (but hey, at least it can play sudoku)


• and in other quantum news, researchers from Toshiba, University of Cambridge and Imperial College, London, have plugged some loopholes, making quantum cryptography more secure
  

Actually, it's not all that exciting after all. Maybe I just collapsed the wrong wave-state.

Gadgets suck. Apparently.

Former editor of well known gadget-crazy Gizmodo has launched a widely publicised spray at gadget makers and the early adopter gadget freaks who can't stop buying them.

Some of my favourite quotes from the rant include:

These guys want me to write a weekly column, but I hate consumer electronics, I hate marketing, and I hate you people, because you're all so dumb.

and

You may think you're making up the "bleeding edge" of "gadget pimpatude" but you're really just a loose confederation of marks the consumer electronics industry uses as free market research and easy money. "Give me the latest version," you coo, hiking up your skirt another inch over your exposed wallet. "Point Oh One upgrades make me so hot."

and

Get it together: every single one of these consumer electronics companies should be approached as the enemy. They work for us. Hold their feet to the fire when they say their product is going to change even a small part of our lives. Circle back again in six months when they're shilling the incremental upgrade and ask them why the last version didn't cut the mustard.

The real kicker for me is that not only do "slowly slowly" tech lovers like the readers of the (very excellent) Signals vs Noise blog from the guys of 37 Signals generally agree with the rant (do a quick scan of the comments here), but there were many comments on the Gizmodo site as well.

I will be the first to admit that since I don't read Gizmodo I'm probably missing some context to the rant (reading the comments makes that clear to me) and Brian Lam of Gizmodo did say quite explicitly that the editorial was posted to "stir things up" but that doesn't mean that the rant still isn't valid.

The readers of SvN raised an interesting point in the comments: does this early adopter sheeple (my words, not theirs) attitude for gadgets extend to inhabitants of the bleeding edge of software? Does regularly using beta versions and jumping on a 1.0 release leave you open to the same sort of attack? Possibly. You could certainly raise a convincing argument along those lines. However, one of the differences there is that beta software is often released free or with an "early adopter" discount. 1.0 releases, on the other hand, seem to be released at an earlier stage in the development cycle than they used to be. It's almost become acceptable that a 1.0 will still have bugs and the inevitable bug-fix or service pack patch will be along soon enough. It's a situation I find distasteful as I don't think that paying customers should be used as some form of free beta-tester, but it looks like it is part of a growing trend. I don't think it's "agile development" either where you release a small product and incrementally update regularly with new features. That's a different thing altogether (and is one I like the sound of, although it may be quite different in practice. What would I know? I'm just a geek in training.)

I'm regularly grateful that my personal circumstance leave me in a situation where I can't be an early adopter, no matter how badly I want to be one (so badly that it hurts - trust me on this one). I only own two real gadgets - my first gen black iPod Nano (it is first gen for a Nano but I felt that 4 successful years of iPoddery meant that I could trust it to not suck) and my Motorola RAZR V3x mobile phone, which had been out in various forms for a while before I bought it. I also did a bit of research into it so, while I knew it would have some shortcomings I was prepared for them (battery life sucks, but it is the same for most 3G phones). I am on the bleeding edge of software a bit in the sense that while my new laptop is simply a low-end Dell, it is running Vista. When you consider that I only just upgraded my desktop to XP from Windows 2000, this is quite a big step for me.

Being a gadget watcher does have some benefits, my favourite being that I can jump on a bandwagon early during that small window where something has been around for a while so the worst kinks have been ironed out but ownership is still rare enough that I can enjoy the coolness of it, if for only a little while.

I'll take any coolness I can get.

ABC Going Commercial

That bastion of free content, the ABC, is looking at charging for downloads as part of a larger "digital media evolution". The ABC has a mammoth amount of TV and radio content that it has developed over the last 50 or so years and it continues to create more every day.

While some staff have have labelled the move as being "commercialism by stealth", the ABC has been selling DVDs of some of its shows through the ABC Shops. It is hard to see how pay-per-download services are any different or in some way detrimental to the Australian taxpayer, particularly if, as rumoured, the price would be significantly less than buying the DVDs. I generally consider it a good thing when content owners and creators open their archives to make content available again to those who want it.

But that's just the TV. Apparently the ABC has one of the world's largest collections of podcasts from their radio stations available for download. I've heard figures of millions of downloads a month, but I can't find any solid reference to that. If accurate, that's substantial in anyone's language.

At this stage, the ABC hasn't been forthcoming with further information. I would consider it a bad thing, however, if the ABC started charging for a service that it has currently been providing for free (for example, the radio podcasts currently available). Apparently the plans for the future include "video on demand, access to digital archives and new partnerships that allow content to be more widely available" while also remaining true to the ABC Charter and the ABC Act.

I'm not a lawyer but I think that means no overt commercialism and that a situation similar to that enjoyed by the ABC Shops would prevail. Maybe this would open up opportunities for the ABC to enter into a strong online/digital partnership with the BBC, who in the past have not been afraid to try something new now and again.

I'm cautiously optimistic about this new direction for the the ABC. In the absence of further details, however, I think this is another one where we will all have to wait and see.

Amiga still alive and kicking

In news that will warm the hearts of old-school Amiga lovers, I discovered today that the not only is the AmigaOS still being updated but that the final version of AmigaOS 4 has been released.

Now, I was never a Commorodore or Amiga man myself. In the heady days of the C64 I was busy faffing about with an Amstrad CPC 464 (with green monochrome monitor and tape deck! Woot!) and I never did own an Amiga. However, all that I have read since those days indicates that the AmigaOS was one bitchin' operating system which had an untimely and messy demise.

The down side to the AmigaOS release is that it can only be used on the PowerPC based AmigaOne motherboard which, apparently, is on a production hiatus (although more may be released this year).

That makes this a strange class of random news - if you have an AmigaOne system, you probably already know this. If you don't have an AmigaOne system, this news is no good to you anyway (unless it stirs up some loin-lifting nostalgia for your systems of old). However, it does make it perfect news for some random geekery.

Found via Ars Technica [permalink]

Google tweaking Gmail interface again

It's only a little thing, but Google have been playing with the Gmail interface again.

They've moved the various reply options from the header view to a pull-down menu off to one side. How very 2.0 of them. It;s part of the "Five new features"update which also includes:

• an update conversation button you can click to make sure someone didn't email the same witty Al Jaffee snappy answer while you were typing;
• a "forward all" to forward entire conversations (because there obviously isn't enough junk circulating with Reply To All);
• saving Gmail chats if the chattee logs off while you were typing but before you hit send (I thought it did this already?); and
• a new Java app to read your Gmail on your mobile phone (which I could do now if I wanted to).

Nothing all that exciting but I am curious to see what they do to the overall Gmail experience.

NVIDIA buys PortalPlayer

The jostling for position in the potentially lucrative mobile video market continues unabated.

AMD's purchase of ATI seemed like a match made in heaven when it came to consumer-level mobile apps. ATI has long had its fingers in the mobile pie, providing graphic-chip tech for portable devices like PDAs and mobile phones. Coupled with AMDs CPU know-how, the sky seemed the limit. Ultra-Mobile PCs (UMPCs) seem to be getting more press, 3G mobile phones are packed with more and more features like games, onboard video cameras and video conferencing and every second small-time electronics corp appears to be releasing a portable DAP (Digital Audio Player) with onboard video capability to compete with iPods, Sansas and Zunes of the world.

Now it looks like competition has become just a little hotter as NVIDIA is acquiring PortalPlayer (subject to approval by regulators). For anyone unfamiliar, PortalPlayer is the company behind the system-on-a-chip technology that has powered DAPs like the iPod and the Sandisk Sansa e200 series. Perhaps more exciting is PortalPlayer's Preface, which is a tiny LCD screen on the lid of your laptop called Windows Sideshow which displays data, pictures and other widget-like functionality. It's low power so it can run for many hours, apparently even without the laptop being powered up.

After the AMD-ATI merger, it looks like NVIDIA are trying to ensure that they are more than just a graphics procesor company, ripe for the pickings. This could be the toehold into the handheld graphics world they've been looking for.

Roomba shonky? Say it isn't so!

Choice, a consumer advocate group, have included the Roomba as one of their 10 shonkiest products for 2006. Choice have labelled it "almost useless on carpet, ridiculously slow on hard floors and annoyingly noisy" and that it has a "dirt redistribution feature: when its small dirt container starts filling up, every time it bumps into a wall or other obstacle a little heap of collected dirt falls out again".

I call Shenanigans, Choice. I thought part of the point of having a Roomba was that you turned it on before you went to work and then emptied it out when you got home at night, therefore making noise somewhat a moot point. I also think that most vacuums are useless on all but the thinnest carpet, largely because any vacuum I've ever used has sucked (or more to the point, not sucked). Finally, I would wager that if you emptied the Roomba after every use (which you are supposed to do with all but the biggest suckers), and used it regularly, it wouldn't be dumping dirt all over the place. In fact, the manufacturers have told Choice that if you ran the Roomba almost every day like it's designed to be used, this isn't going to be a problem as there won't be enough dirt for it to fill up. Duh. Way to go Choice. The reason I want a Roomba is to use it every day. That way the vacuuming gets done (which doesn't happen manually because I can't be bothered!).

My dream is to have two vacuum cleaners - the Roomba for pottering around while I'm at work and a hard core Dyson when I want to a bit of DIY. Oh, and a Scooba for mopping the kitchen.

Another reason this list is, well, shonky is that they include the iPod because some people complain about flat batteries, scratched screens and trouble with Apple over repairs. I see a lot of iPods. Surely, pure market concentration means that some people are going to have complaints. It's a bit of a stretch to call it shonky (although I have heard that Apple repairs are "difficult" at times).

I still want a Roomba.

Google buy YouTube

After days of rumours, and countless convincing arguments from many people as to why it was pure speculation and why they would be mad to do it, Google went and acquired YouTube in a stock-for-stock deal worth approximately US $1.6 billion (or about A $2.2 billion). With that kind of money floating around, I am clearly in the wrong business.

(And is it just me, or is the Web 2.0 business model for so many companies:

1. come up with an idea
2. attract some hype
3. get bought out by Google
4. PROFIT!!

Swap out Step 3 with Launch IPO, and you've got the dot.com boom. Or am I just being cynical?)

There were many good reasons why this was never going to happen:

• Google had their own video offering, Google Video (surprising name, huh?). Sure, YouTube was more popular with apparently a better user interface (I never saw it myself - they're as bad as each other in my opinion - ugly and confusing - but it may be a different story for people uploading video)
• If YouTube was really serving up 100 million videos daily, it must have been pouring through the bandwidth at an alarming speed. I shudder to think what the burn rate was on any venture capital that had been poured in to YouTube
• YouTube is rife with copyright material. If Google took it over, they would be exposed to potential legal action from copyright owners like the big entertainment conglomerates. There may not have been much point in suing YouTube as who knew if they even had any money. Google, on the other hand, clearly and publicly has very deep pockets
• US $1.6 billion is a hell of a lot of money. Even MySpace only went for US $580 million. This values YouTube at 3 times that

It just didn't seem to make sense, but Google went ahead and did it anyway. Of course, more than anything else, Google has become an advertising company first, search engine second, cool toys for geeks and normal people alike a distant third. Serving 100 million videos a day must translate into a gigantic number of unique hits and pairs of eyeballs, just waiting to be served ads while the latest viral video is streaming to their desktop. I'm sure the advertising potential is mind boggling.

Apparently Google Video and YouTube will remain separate entities. I'm not sure why yet, but perhaps they will serve different markets. I honestly haven't thought this part through yet.

I also don't know if the announcement that Google and SonyBMG have signed a deal that will see all of SonyBMG's music video collection available for free on Google Video was before or after the YouTube announcement (they're both dated 9 October 2006). Did Sony sign on because the acquisition of YouTube was in the works, or was it a surprise to them as well? Sony had to have known - otherwise that's a huge thing to keep secret in a deal like this.

Anyway, it's all very interesting. The more the internet seems to move away from traditional entertainment models with Web 2.0, IP TV, podcasts, Creative Commons mashups and the like, the more it seems to be dragged back in to the standard way of things - free content paid for with inescapable advertising.

The more things change...