Google bidding for spectrum – not entirely a blessing

Google is really trying hard to get its applications and services into mobile phones. But in the bargain it could be encroaching into every part of our Internet lives from its core business in search, to the Android operating system and applications on phones, to now owning spectrum for mobile telephony and data.

Google announced today that it will apply to participate in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) upcoming auction of wireless spectrum in the 700 megahertz (MHz) band.

As part of the nationally mandated transition to digital television, the 700 MHz spectrum auction -- which begins January 24, 2008 -- will free up spectrum airwaves for more efficient wireless Internet service for consumers. Advocacy by public interest groups and Google earlier this year helped ensure that regardless of which bidders win a key portion of the spectrum up for auction (the so-called "C Block"), they will be required to allow their users to download any software application they want on their mobile device, and to use any mobile devices they would like on that wireless network, Google said. The winner must ensure these rights for consumers if the reserve price of $4.6 billion for the C Block is met at auction, it added.

Google’s moves in the last few months have been aimed to get its services into mobile phones, thus opening up a new advertising revenue stream for the company. Mobile operators however want to control what applications users download, because they are also beginning to see special services as large potential revenue streams, including from advertising. If Google wants to get into the phones of these mobile operators, it can only do so through generous revenue sharing deals with the operators.

The search giant has hence been pushing for opening up the networks, to further its business interests. The 700 MHz spectrum auction was an opportunity for Google and other groups to advocate to the FCC that at least this part of the spectrum should be kept open by bid winners.

Google has been at the same time pushing the open source Android platform for mobile devices, which will again support third-party applications, including Google’s. However the big players like Nokia are not backing this initiative. Having seen the control and commoditization of the PC platform by Intel and Microsoft, they don’t want something similar in the mobile phone market.

It is not clear at this point whether Google really plans to win the auction, or just meet the reserve price for the auction. Also not clear is whether Google, if it bids seriously and wins, will get into actual network operation. If it decides to do so, not only other service providers and mobile phone makers, but also users should be worried. Google will be playing in too many inter-related markets from mobile networks to mobile devices to applications such as search, giving it a lot of opportunity to control.

Related articles:

Google wants an equal chance to get into your mobile phone

Google builds its own virtual machine for Android

Google builds its own virtual machine for Android

Google Inc. is expanding into mobile phone software, and according to some reports, into offering mobile services. Google is taking no chances. It wants its applications including search in everyone's mobile phone, and is averse to cutting revenue sharing deals with handset makers or service providers.

So Google adopts a new spiel that will surely resonate with a lot of consumers - vendor or operator lock-in is bad, and we are all better off if the mobile Internet is free.

But Google's own way about going with its Android platform for mobile phones suggests that Google may want to create lock-ins of its own.

"Instead of using the standards-based Java Micro Edition (JME) as an engine to run Java applications, Google wrote its own virtual machine for Android, calling it Dalvik. There are technical advantages and disadvantages to using Dalvik, developers said, but technology may not have been the driver for Google", according to this report in Computerworld.

Rather than require phone makers to license JME as part of Android, Stefano Mazzocchi said, Google built its own virtual machine. Dalvik converts Java byte codes into Dalvik byte codes, Computerworld quoted Stefano Mazzocchi, a developer and board member at Apache Labs, as saying.

A phone maker could freely use JME under an open-source license if it shares innovations to the software with the community, but most large handset makers are reluctant to do that, Mazzocchi said. Dalvik converts Java byte codes into Dalvik byte codes.

What this means is that Android is not going to make developers any happier. They will still have to write software to JME and Dalvik, and also for the platforms of other vendors who support different foundation software. Dalvik will just be one more option for them.

It may not make consumers happy either. If I have an application running on JME, it may not run on Dalvik. Google is in effect perpetuating consumer lock-ins with its own presumably non-standard implementation of a virtual machine.

In effect Android, although open source, does not then qualify as a truly open standard, but just a fork in the long and frustrating struggle to open-ness on the mobile phone.

Related Articles:

Google wants an equal chance to get into your mobile phone

A Google phone. So why the fuss ?

YouTube sued in India for copyright infringement

Google Inc. and many Internet companies hold that they cannot be held liable for whatever happens on their video sharing and social networking sites. Telephone companies aren't held liable if people plan a murder over the telephone, so why should Internet companies, according to Google.

An Indian company, the makers of the T-Series music and videos, thinks otherwise. It has sued Google and YouTube for allegedly infringing its copyrights, as a lot of its copyrighted content is claimed to be available without permission on YouTube. A court in Delhi has passed an interim restraining order on Google and YouTube which would require YouTube to pull down all content on their site that could be in infringement of T-Series' copyrights, according to this report in InfoWorld.

Google has been pushing for an amendment to section 79 of the Indian Information Technology Act 2000 that will remove the liability of network service providers for content posted by users. The current version of section 79 requires that the network service provider prove that the offense or contravention was committed without their knowledge or that they had exercised all due diligence to prevent the commission of such offense or contravention.

Interestingly, T-Series seems to have filed the case under the Indian Copyright Act, and not under the Information Technology Act, according to this blog. The lawyer for T-Series is quoted by Infoworld as saying that YouTube is not a neutral intermediary but a web site that makes money from clicks on advertising on its site.

The dispute between Internet sharing sites and media companies is unlikely to get resolved anytime soon. There have however been moves by companies like NBC Universal and Walt Disney and other media companies who announced last month a set of guidelines for user-generated content (UGC) services, without infringing copyrights. Among the measures proposed is the implementation of filtering technology with the goal to eliminate infringing content on UGC services, including blocking infringing uploads before they are made available to the public. Google was not among these companies, though MySpace was part of the annoucement.

Google seems to be worried that too much control may make sharing and social networking sites less popular. The issue is about how much of control. The media companies are willing to allow fair use of copyrighted content, which is what is required for the flowering of creativity around orginal content. Lowering controls beyond that would be a license for illicit use of copyrighted content.

Just as media companies want to push for copyright enforcement on networking and sharing sites, there is a section of government and society in India that is pushing for greater control over what gets posted on these sites. The offer by Google and other Internet companies to pull down objectionable material post-facto is not seen as good enough. If there can be filters to prevent uploading of copyrighted material, why can't tech savvy companies come up with filters for pornography for example. Google should listen rather than play the same old tune of intermediary neutrality.

Related article:

Google says don’t shoot the messenger

Google wants an equal chance to get into your mobile phone

Google Inc., T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm, Motorola and others have collaborated on the development of Android, which is open source software for mobile devices, including an operating system, middleware and key mobile applications.

As reported in various newspapers and in this blog, the Google Phone is not a device introduced by Google, but a software stack for mobile phones.

The companies have teamed under an alliance called the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), a multinational alliance of technology and mobile industry leaders.

The key objective of Android is summed in this paragraph on the web site of the alliance: “Android does not differentiate between the phone's core applications and third-party applications. They can all be built to have equal access to a phone's capabilities providing users with a broad spectrum of applications and services.”

Google’s bid to proliferate a standard platform, even an open-source platform, will likely be resisted by many mobile phone vendors including Nokia. An open source platform would deprive Nokia of its differentiation. Open source tends to drive commoditization, because every new software feature is available to anyone else to include in their phones.

In its bid to expand its presence beyond the desktop, Google has been pushing for mobile phone vendors and service providers to open up their platforms and services to third-party applications. That would enable users to download Google applications and services on to their phones without having to worry about software compatibility issues, or whether their network operator supports the application.

Currently Google, as also other application and services vendors have to negotiate with mobile phone vendors and network operators to support their applications or services. In such a deal Google would probably have to share its key revenue stream – advertising – with service providers.

The adoption of an open platform would help Google as also users who would have the freedom to choose applications for their device. These days if you buy a phone from Nokia Corp. or Sony Ericsson, or any other vendor, before you download an application, you have to verify that the software is compatible with and supported by your specific mobile phone model. You may also have to check with mobile phone service providers to find out if they support the application.

Google’s move to promote a standard platform is however likely to be resisted by mobile phone makers and network operators, as it will be seen by many as a move by Google to extend its dominance to beyond the desktop, and beyond search. The question foremost on vendors’ minds will be: what is Google doing with operating system and middleware for the mobile phone ? Isn’t that the same thing that Microsoft has been trying with its own software ?

As an user, I too would be a little worried, if my favorite search provider, news aggregator, online productivity applications provider, and blog hosting provider were to also try to get into operating system software. Google is beyond doubt the key player in the Open Handset Alliance. To assuage the doubts of handset vendors and those of users, the company has to make a clear statement of its own objectives.

Apart from winning over big handset vendors like Nokia, Google and Open Handset Alliance will also have to win over large service providers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless. These two companies together control over 50 percent of the US market, and have long been used to deciding what goes into phones on their network. Control has provided them rich content and services revenue streams. They may not take too kindly to having Google and the Open Handset Alliance telling them what to do on their networks.

Related articles:

A Google phone. So why the fuss ?

Defame with impunity on Wikipedia

I agree that information should be free and free-flowing. Wikipedia was built around those principles, and around community-generated content. Unfortunately the community, or more correctly the public at large, is not as responsible as Wikipedia had expected.

Now A French judge has dismissed a defamation and privacy case against Wikipedia after ruling that the free online encyclopedia was not responsible for information introduced onto its Web site, according to this report from Reuters.

Moreover, Web site hosts are not legally bound to monitor or investigate the origin of the information they store, the Judge Emmanuel Binoche said after the online encyclopedia was sued by three French nationals over a Wikipedia article that said they were gay activists, according to the report.

Laws vary from country to country, but the overall tendency seems to be to exempt owners of community edited web-sites and social networking sites from liability for pornography or slander or other such nefarious content.

This ultra-liberal attitude when it comes to content crimes on the Internet leaves me wondering – where does that leave the individual ?

Before the arrival of online community edited news and opinion sites, the main source of potential defamation were public speeches and the newspapers, and in both cases liability for defamation is quite clear. Both the person defaming, as well as the forum which published the defamatory remarks are liable in varying degrees.

Issues of liability aside, because of the viral nature of the online medium, there is no stopping a false rumor before it starts.

Once a story is up on the net, it gets picked up by blogs, other sites, and even online newspapers. Some of them may quote the allegation, and hope to reduce liability by linking to the site from where they picked up the allegation. The upshot is that the slander is all over the place, before you can even say “ cease and desist”. By the time you have been able to identify and send a notice to the site that started it, your reputation is raked fore and aft.

In this context, the need for community edited sites and social networking sites to monitor content, and block content found objectionable is a must. Their liability should in fact be increased to make sure they acquit this responsibility. To be sure Internet companies will throw up their hands, and tell us their sites are so popular that the volume of content is more than they can filter properly.

That is a nice argument – but it is cold comfort to me if someone goes on Facebook or Wikipedia and describes me as a rapist. Sure, I can go after Facebook and Wikipedia, ask them to remove the objectionable material, identify the person who described me as a rapist, and sue him in court. But it may be all too late - the allegation is already all over the Internet.

Google has often used the analogy of the telephone to argue that the Internet service provider should be only as liable as a telephone services provider, who is not liable if a murder is plotted over the telephone. The times have changed. Two people talking on the phone, and calling me a pedophile are just two people. That is the extent of the damage. But if these two people put it out on their Orkut scrapbook or on Wikipedia, that number could jump to millions of people.

Related articles:

Internet reflects, nay amplifies social problems
Google says don’t shoot the messenger

Google’s power is exaggerated

In the old days, if you wanted to research a topic, or if you wanted to find out if a medicine is good for your kid, or if you wanted to buy a music system, you had to hop various locations ranging from a visit to the library, to a visit to the drug store for a long chat with a knowledgeable person there, to a visit to the local electronics store.

Along came Google Search and changed all that. I can research a topic, find out all the information available on a medicine, and comparison shop a music system, if I use Google. I need to have a lot of patience, as most of the results thrown up by Google Search are totally irrelevant to my immediate needs.

However intelligent Google may have made search, it is still only an algorithm fetching information from a whole variety of sources, based on the keywords I have typed.

With Google having the dominant share for search, it gives Google enormous power on how information, including commercial information, flows to the user. That is one of the reasons publishing houses are increasingly seeing Google as a competitor for advertising revenue. Rather than pay an online newspaper for an advertisement of their latest laptop, a vendor may be better off bidding for keywords that would ensure that their advertisement shows up whenever somebody does a search for “laptop”.

Does this mean that Google will be the ultimate arbiter of what a consumer buys ? I think that would be exaggerating Google’s role as a search engine. When I am searching the net using Google, all that Google throws up is a lot of text and links containing my keywords. Google Search cannot provide context. More importantly it cannot provide guidance.

Even as Google throws open the web to users looking for information, it also floods you with irrelevant information. What that means is that increasingly people will need gatekeepers who will sift the good stuff from the not-so-good, and the lousy.

Recognizing this opportunity there are a number of web sites and blogs that position themselves as buyer guides to everything from cameras to music systems, to automobiles to gardening gear. Not unexpectedly these sites have ads placed by Google on them, as well as ads from vendors.

So humongous is the web today, that we now need a new super-set of gatekeeper sites that will guide us through these various comparison shopping and peer review web-sites. How do I know whether a site is recommending a laptop from a particular brand, because that brand has long –term advertising contracts with the web site ? What do I know about the integrity or for that matter the maturity and qualifications of the reviewers ?

In the final analysis, it will be the well-known brands that will provide us our guide-posts. For laptops, for example, we are more likely to go to sites like Cnet.com or PCWorld.com to make an informed choice.

Google Search, and those sponsored links Google puts on top and on the right hand side every time you search for a term, may however be relevant when folks are buying a product they already know well, a product with either a known brand or well-known specifications. Then people are only looking for the online vendor that can provide the product quickly and conveniently. If people are looking for anything more sophisticated than that, they will look for gatekeepers and editors to counsel and guide, a role Google Search is ill-equipped to play.

Google can also ill-afford to be partial on search results whether in general search or in news. If I am looking for the latest news on Iraq, and I can’t get it from some of the better known and popular newspapers after I do a Google search, I will head straight to their web sites. If I search for laptops, and the key vendors or the key buyer guides I know are not listed, again I will look at Google as unreliable, and head for the web sites of the vendors I know.

If Google wants to make money on search it has to continue giving reliable results, and not play gatekeeper. Google knows that is not its role.

Related articles:
Finding gold on the Net is a long shot
Will you buy potatoes on the Net ?

Media companies announce plans to protect copyright online

Leading Internet and media companies announced Thursday a set of guidelines for user-generated content (UGC) services, without infringing copyrights.

Among the measures proposed is the implementation of filtering technology with the goal to eliminate infringing content on UGC services, including blocking infringing uploads before they are made available to the public.

The companies supporting these principles include CBS Corp., Dailymotion, Fox Entertainment Group, Microsoft Corp., MySpace, NBC Universal, Veoh Networks Inc., Viacom Inc. and The Walt Disney Company, according to statements issued by these companies.

The ease of uploading video content on the Internet has led to the creation of millions of original works by new creators – works that range from scripted programs, to virtuoso musical performances and to humorous skits and social parody, the companies said. It also has resulted in the proliferation of uploaded content that infringes copyrighted works, they warned.

For details of the new content identification and filtering program advocated by these media and Internet companies click this link.

Interestingly the companies say that they are willing to accommodate fair use of copyrighted content. For example, when sending notices and making claims of infringement, copyright owners should accommodate fair use, according to the new principles. Fair use has however not been defined in the principles.

Google Inc., which runs the popular YouTube video sharing site is not a participating member of this program. Google and YouTube are facing a number of copyright-infringement legal suits, including a US$1 billion action filed by Viacom Inc. The company however unveiled on Tuesday content filtering technology, called Video Identification. The technology does not yet allow the blocking of copyrighted content from being uploaded, according to reports.

Google may have to go along with the Internet and media companies, as it has always said that it would like to protect copyrights.

Putting controls on copyrighted content, while allowing for a liberal interpretation of fair use would ensure that YouTube and other such sites continue to be tools for innovation and creativity.

Related article:

The Internet helps RIAA squeeze profits

Google says don’t shoot the messenger

Google Inc. is agitated that the Indian government may retain a provision in its Information Technology Act., that makes intermediaries such as ISPs (Internet Service Providers), website hosting companies, search engines, email services, social networks liable for illegal user content. See here the comments from a policy analyst at Google India.

Google has reasons to be worried about “intermediary liability”. Recently a cantankerous political party in Mumbai, called the Shiv Sena, demanded that Google’s social networking site, Orkut, should be banned in India, and prosecuted, after some users posted content considered defamatory of the party’s leader.

There is a precedent of sorts for that. In 2004, Avnish Bajaj, the then CEO of eBay’s Indian subsidiary was arrested in connection with the sale of a pornographic video clip on the online auction portal. Bajaj was arrested under the provisions of the Information Technology Act relating to intermediary liability.

I agree that intermediaries should not be held responsible for illegal content. Google’s policy analyst, Rishi Jaitly, says a telephone company is not held responsible if two people use a telephone call to plan a crime.

The argument about the telephone is specious and does not recognize that the times have changed. The content of a phone call between two housewives slandering somebody remains between the two, or if it spreads it will be a few persons at a time.

In contrast, because of the viral nature of content on the Internet, if somebody takes a young girl’s naked picture, using a spy camera, or he takes her face shot and adds someone else’s naked body to it, that picture will be all over the world in seconds.

By the time the aggrieved person discovers that it has happened, and reports it to Google, and then Google goes through its internal procedures to decide whether the content should be brought down or not, that picture will be all over the Internet, and the young lady’s honor and privacy in shambles.

Folks like Google and other Internet service providers have been pushing social networking and online communities without coming up with appropriate ways to counter misuse of these large-scale communication platforms. “It would be technologically infeasible for ISPs and web companies to pre-screen each and every bit of content being uploaded onto our platforms, especially as the amount of information coming online increases exponentially in India and around the world,” says the Google policy analyst.

Fair enough, but what this means is that technology innovation and new applications like social networking, touted as part of the brave new Web 2.0, have thrown up new problems. Like Google and a lot of other people, Indian Parliament's Standing Committee on Information Technology is also fumbling in search of a solution. Don’t blame them. Work with them, because as government they are more concerned about the individual. Perhaps the government worries that if intermediaries are not at all held liable for content, they may be more inclined to turn a blind eye to such content.

Instead Google decides to harangue the government with its self-serving view on Internet freedom and economic development. “More importantly, imposing such a burdensome standard (of intermediary liability) would crush innovation, throttle Indian competitiveness, and prevent entrepreneurs from deploying new services in the first place, a truly unfortunate outcome for the growth of the Internet in India,” says the Google policy analyst.

Internet growth is not the topmost priority for all people. More important to most of them is protecting their modesty and privacy, and that of their children.

Related article:

Internet reflects, nay amplifies social problems

A Google phone. So why the fuss ?

Tracking tech companies these days is like tracking movie stars and other celebrity. Will she marry that handsome dude she has been seeing of late ? Does that mean she has fallen out with that gorgeous hunk she was seen with last week at the Ritz ? And by the way, any truth to reports that she had had a silicone implant ?

There is abundant speculation in the mainline newspapers, trade publications and blogs that Google may be bringing out a mobile phone. Surely Google Inc. is loving it, as did Apple Inc. when all that speculative frenzy built up around the iPhone. Folks save them a lot of advertising bucks by doing their work for them. We had pre-announced the iPhone based on crumbs Apple fed us, and we are now trying to pre-announce the Google phone – whether it is a real phone or only software.

If Google brings to market a phone, that is nice. It is also nice every time Nokia Corp. or Motorola Inc. bring out a phone with some new feature. But it is nothing to get into a paroxysm about.

Yes, the PC changed the world in many ways, but another mobile phone will not.

In fact the mobile service providers will ensure that the phone does not go very far. Mobile service providers want control, and they will want control over everything that goes into that phone. Apple wrested control from AT&T by offering it exclusivity, but, despite the popularity of the product, remember it runs on only one network in the US.

The only way Google can play this game to its advantage is to buy wireless spectrum, and allocate it to buddies who will invest in mobile communications companies. There are reports they are going to do just that. But getting into the service provider business to make sure its content and applications is on the phone, is akin to starting up a PC company that ships only Google apps. Google does not seem to know what to do with its cash just now.

I am more inclined to take the view that Google like Microsoft Corp. may emerge as a provider of software and reference design to mobile phone makers like Nokia and Motorola. Miguel Helft at the New York Times is one of a number who are coming around to this view.

Microsoft hasn’t been very successful in this market because cell phone makers have always been wary of large companies invading their turf. That is the reason Nokia has invested in Symbian, a developer of software for phones. Google too will be seen as an upstart by entrenched phone makers.

Besides, if folks like Nokia use the Google software, they will still be required to tweak it for the operator, who may decide he wants Yahoo’s application, rather than Google’s.

But all this hasn’t answered my question. Why is everyone going ga-ga over Google’s new phone/phone software ? Are we so starved for excitement ?

Office productivity moving online, market suddenly hot

Microsoft Corp. announced Monday its Microsoft Office Live Workspace, a web based extension of Microsoft Office that that allows users to access their documents online and share their work with others including those who do not run Microsoft Office on the desktop.

The beta version of this service, which went online today, allows users to collaborate and comment on documents online, but requires Microsoft Office to run on the desktop if the document has to be edited.

Microsoft has only put a part of its Office suite online, to protect its business of selling software licenses to Office on the desktop. The company is pitching for a combination “software and service” model for the delivery of software in contrast to competitor Google Inc., which offers online office productivity software like a spreadsheet, word processor, and presentation software.

Adobe Systems Inc. is also moving towards an online model. It also announced Monday that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a company in Waltham, Massachusetts called Virtual Ubiquity and its online word processor,Buzzword, which was built with Adobe Flex software and runs in the Adobe Flash Player.

Microsoft’s move to help its customers access their files on the web from wherever they are, may hence be seen as a nice new feature, but not a dramatic change in business model. A lot of customers in fact favor this dual model, and there have been hints that Google too may offer a desktop version of its office productivity software.

All of a sudden, office productivity, is seeing fierce competition. It seemed like that market had been won and conceded to Microsoft with folks like OpenOffice and StarOffice putting up token resistance.

IBM Corp. launched last month Lotus Symphony, an office productivity suite based on open-source OpenOffice.org and Eclipse. The company had 100,000 downloads of the software in the first week it was offered. Analysts like Gartner Inc. say that IBM’s Symphony is just a makeover of OpenOffice which was already available for free download or through Sun Microsystems Inc. as StarOffice. Because of remaining compatibility issues, user organizations have to still run Microsoft Office once they start using OpenOffice, according to Gartner.

Related articles:

IBM has 100,000 downloads of Lotus Symphony, but too early to call

IBM has 100,000 downloads of Lotus Symphony, but too early to call

IBM Corp. has reported 100,000 downloads in one week of the beta version of Lotus Symphony, its free office suite, which is seen as a potential competitor to Microsoft Corp’s Office suite.

Symphony is based on the open source OpenOffice.org and Eclipse framework, and promotes the ODF for XML (Open Document Format), which is an XML standard approved by the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) in Geneva. Microsoft’s Office suite supports Open XML, which failed to get fast-track approval as an ISO standard earlier this month.

Research firm Gartner Inc. however said in a research note that the Symphony release is not as significant as it may seem. Symphony is an IBM distribution of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications from the OpenOffice.org suite of productivity applications, much like the StarOffice suite available from Sun Microsystems Inc., and also distributed by Google, it pointed out.

As pointed out in a posting in this blog on September 17, despite IBM’s marketing muscle and a large customer base, the move by IBM may not really cut into Microsoft’s business. OpenOffice has been around free for many years, but its adoption has not been dramatic so far, and comes mainly from open-source die-hards.

Organizations have not widely implemented OpenOffice because their versions of Microsoft Office are still supported (Microsoft supports office versions for 10 years). Also, compatibility is not perfect, requiring some users to run Microsoft Office, Gartner said.

Competition is also coming to IBM and Microsoft from online hosted office applications from companies like Google Inc. Google has hinted at offering both online and offline versions of its software.

Related article:

IBM to counter Microsoft Office, but without a compelling strategy

Orkut as theatre

Orkut, the social networking site hosted by Google Inc., is surely and quickly emerging more as a well-choreographed spectacle, than as a genuine and spontaneous forum for social interaction.

A caveat at the outset: this is not a critique of Orkut alone, but of all similar networking sites, that were set up with the promise of helping the youth to socialize and make friends.

The way Orkut has shaped out, nay its new raison d'être, is about making members look good to their friends and peers on the site. It is less about spontaneity and more about theatre.

Members upload their best snaps, chronicle their travels with well-selected snaps clicked in exotic locations, update peers on their wonderful new jobs, and generally convey through their sites that everything is hunky-dory and on the upswing at their end.

Social status on Orkut is predicated largely on the number of persons in your friends listing, even if you barely know some of the persons, or didn't exchange a call or a scrap with some of them for months.

Another measure of Orkut status is the number of scraps in your scrapbook, which most folks on Orkut treasure and accumulate, even though Orkut provides a facility to delete scraps.

The best way to increase the number of scraps is to scrap others as frequently as possible, even if they have nothing much to say, or if what had to be said could have been better said on phone. Hence you have husbands scrapping their wives to say they will be late for dinner, or as banal a comment as “Hey nice to c u here”.

The upshot is that nothing serious actually gets discussed on Orkut. If social networking in the physical world is about the sharing of common themes and ideas, bouncing out of new and unusual ideas, and generally trying to build community, Orkut has become by and large about mechanical scrapping and collection of friends.

There aren’t many new, original ideas of singular importance discussed on Orkut. There is nothing online like the “fiercely agonal spirit” described by the political theorist Hannah Arendt. In contrast, Orkut and other social networking is about conformity, being one with the crowd online, and doing your best to get accepted.

There have been frequent attempts to bring in political debate into Orkut, with communities like “I Hate Pakistan” or “Bush Sucks”(login required). But don’t expect a cerebral, well-informed debate on these communities.

On “Bush Sucks”, for example, besides referring to George Bush as responsible for killing thousands of people, members of Orkut said they hated Bush because “he was born”. Another “Orkuter” hates Bush because “he wants the abstinence of sex...before marrieg (sic)”, while still another dislikes the US President because “i don't know... just hate bush”.

The lack of depth in political commentary largely reflects the psyche of the generation that is currently on Orkut –-- they are primarily in their teens or early and mid 20s. This is the MTV generation that grew up with one credo – hedonism even if most of them can’t spell the word. For them Che Guevara is a picture on a T-Shirt to impress your girl with.

Related Articles:

Internet reflects, nay amplifies social problems
Instant Happiness

Google Reader now multilingual

Google Inc. is offering multi-lingual support on its Google Reader, its web-based news feed reader.

Google Reader, which was only available in English, from Sept 18 supports French, Italian, German, Spanish, English (UK), Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Japanese, and Korean.

The multi-lingual support for Google Reader is in line with the strategy of Google and other Internet companies like Yahoo Inc. to offer multi-lingual support for most of their services and tools, to make their services relevant in non-English speaking markets.

Blogs have also become an international phenomenon, and they are not constrained by language or nationality, wrote Google’s Product Marketing Manager Kevin Systrom on Google’s blog. In fact, blogs have become an important way to bring rise to independent reporters and writers, and there are more and more people who wish to read blogs in other languages, Systrom said.

IBM to counter Microsoft Office, but without a compelling strategy

IBM Corp. will be offering online office productivity applications such as a word processor, spread sheet, and business presentation software, according to various reports.

The package, called Lotus Symphony, will be offered free to download to users, starting Tuesday, said The New York Times.

By this move IBM will once again be competing with Microsoft Corp. in the office applications space.

Google Inc. is also offering a software suite including word processing, spreadsheet and calendar management programs. The company is adding soon a business presentation program to compete with Microsoft’s PowerPoint. However the software and the data generated by users on this software remains online.

The software offered by IBM will be open source software from OpenOffice.org, according to the reports.

Despite IBM’s marketing muscle and a large customer base, the move by IBM may not really cut into Microsoft’s business. OpenOffice has been around free for many years, but its adoption has not been dramatic so far, and comes mainly from open-source die-hards.

Microsoft, planning to stay with its software license revenue model, has pushed a “ software and service” model that requires users to still buy Microsoft Office software and install it on their machines. Microsoft’s Office Live provides online extensions to the software.

Related Articles:

Alert: Microsoft loses anti-trust case in Europe

A little more tolerance Mr. Stallman !

Internet reflects, nay amplifies social problems

The Internet is a mirror to the population that uses it, Google Inc.’s vice president and chief Internet evangelist Vinton Cerf told the BBC in August. “When you have a problem in the mirror you do not fix the mirror, you fix that which is reflected in the mirror”, Cerf said while rejecting regulation of the Internet.

To my mind, to stretch Cerf’s metaphor a little, the Internet is like a concave shaving mirror. It magnifies and throws up every blemish in society, because it offers a far greater degree of anonymity, and much greater and easier access to people.

In the old days, I had to worry about having my pocket picked by a person next to me in the subway or a bus or in the park. These days, using the Internet, a person as far away as Lagos or Moscow can dip into my pocket.

Recently I put up my laptop for sale on a popular auction site. It was my first auction, and I was delighted that someone had made me an offer within less than an hour of my posting my item ! Then the bidder got in touch with me and requested me to do him a favor and ship the laptop to his dear friend in Nigeria in time for his birthday. Incidentally, I has specified when placing the laptop for auction, that I would not arrange to ship the product.

The bidder however persisted, and even sent me an online link to his bank that showed that the funds for paying for the laptop had been kept in escrow, for disbursement as soon as I proved that the item had been shipped to his dear friend. Unfortunately, when I traced the bank web-site to its owner, I found that it wasn’t owned by a bank, but by a resident of London.

After seven days wasted, and canceling the transaction, I put up the item for auction again. Guess what ? I had a bidder again within the hour. No two guesses: the bidder wanted his girlfriend in Benin to have it in time for her birthday.

I still don’t know, and frankly don’t care who were the folks I dealt with. Were they really Nigerian scammers, as some pundits told me ? The rub is that I had been promised by the auction site that I could theoretically reach customers throughout the world. All I had succeeded in doing was attracting to myself anonymous criminal elements from around the world.

The recent hacker attack on the Bank of India site in India, and others in other countries, testify that we are at a big risk on the Internet when we least expect it. According to this report, you just had to go to the Bank of India web-site and your computer was hosed with a whole lot of compromising malware and Trojans.

Even my email is not safe. I am not talking only about folks dropping viruses and Trojans through my mailbox. Security software folks like Symantec have made a great business out of their ability to block and remove this vermin.

I am talking about the large variety of offers, some offering to cure my sexual debilitations they are privy to, others promising to keep me in a diazepam-induced Nirvana for as long as I can pay for it, and still others thoughtfully offering me a chance to share in a rich widow’s inheritance.

Apart from their being a nuisance, there is the chance that somebody may be gullible enough to be inveigled into these deals. There are a large number of reports that confirm that a lot of folks in the US have in fact got into deep trouble trying to share in someone’s loot.

The Internet gives us the most valuable and scary insights into the depths human nature can sink to, when given global access and anonymity. Does this mean that we should shut down the Internet ? No ways, I make my money of it, I download music far faster than if I had waited for the local brick-and-mortar store to stock it, I can research information on the net, I can chat up distant friends on instant messengers, people under repressive regimes can now communicate with the outside world !

The point is that we have to be very, very careful, starting with the realization that it is not a brave new world out there in cyberspace.

The Internet and its promise of Second Life is not the promise of liberation from a cruel terra firma. It is the same sad world we live in, only a lot more unsafe, because the criminals can now get you in the privacy and security of your home. Forewarned, as the old saw goes, is forearmed. Irrational exuberance could have deadly results.

Internet reflects, nay amplifies social problems

The Internet is a mirror to the population that uses it, Google Inc.’s vice president and chief Internet evangelist Vinton Cerf told the BBC in August. “When you have a problem in the mirror you do not fix the mirror, you fix that which is reflected in the mirror”, Cerf said while rejecting regulation of the Internet.

To my mind, to stretch Cerf’s metaphor a little, the Internet is like a concave shaving mirror. It magnifies and throws up every blemish in society, because it offers a far greater degree of anonymity, and much greater and easier access to people.

In the old days, I had to worry about having my pocket picked by a person next to me in the subway or a bus or in the park. These days, using the Internet, a person as far away as Lagos or Moscow can dip into my pocket.

Recently I put up my laptop for sale on a popular auction site. It was my first auction, and I was delighted that someone had made me an offer within less than an hour of my posting my item ! Then the bidder got in touch with me and requested me to do him a favor and ship the laptop to his dear friend in Nigeria in time for his birthday. Incidentally, I has specified when placing the laptop for auction, that I would not arrange to ship the product.

The bidder however persisted, and even sent me an online link to his bank that showed that the funds for paying for the laptop had been kept in escrow, for disbursement as soon as I proved that the item had been shipped to his dear friend. Unfortunately, when I traced the bank web-site to its owner, I found that it wasn’t owned by a bank, but by a resident of London.

After seven days wasted, and canceling the transaction, I put up the item for auction again. Guess what ? I had a bidder again within the hour. No two guesses: the bidder wanted his girlfriend in Benin to have it in time for her birthday.

I still don’t know, and frankly don’t care who were the folks I dealt with. Were they really Nigerian scammers, as some pundits told me ? The rub is that I had been promised by the auction site that I could theoretically reach customers throughout the world. All I had succeeded in doing was attracting to myself anonymous criminal elements from around the world.

The recent hacker attack on the Bank of India site in India, and others in other countries, testify that we are at a big risk on the Internet when we least expect it. According to this report, you just had to go to the Bank of India web-site and your computer was hosed with a whole lot of compromising malware and Trojans.

Even my email is not safe. I am not talking only about folks dropping viruses and Trojans through my mailbox. Security software folks like Symantec have made a great business out of their ability to block and remove this vermin.

I am talking about the large variety of offers, some offering to cure my sexual debilitations they are privy to, others promising to keep me in a diazepam-induced Nirvana for as long as I can pay for it, and still others thoughtfully offering me a chance to share in a rich widow’s inheritance.

Apart from their being a nuisance, there is the chance that somebody may be gullible enough to be inveigled into these deals. There are a large number of reports that confirm that a lot of folks in the US have in fact got into deep trouble trying to share in someone’s loot.

The Internet gives us the most valuable and scary insights into the depths human nature can sink to, when given global access and anonymity. Does this mean that we should shut down the Internet ? No ways, I make my money of it, I download music far faster than if I had waited for the local brick-and-mortar store to stock it, I can research information on the net, I can chat up distant friends on instant messengers, people under repressive regimes can now communicate with the outside world !

The point is that we have to be very, very careful, starting with the realization that it is not a brave new world out there in cyberspace.

The Internet and its promise of Second Life is not the promise of liberation from a cruel terra firma. It is the same sad world we live in, only a lot more unsafe, because the criminals can now get you in the privacy and security of your home. Forewarned, as the old saw goes, is forearmed. Irrational exuberance could have deadly results.