Some, perhaps including Rupert Murdoch, might find this story uplifting.
While there has been much recent bellowing, whining, and general cat-on-heat griping about Google making money from the fine work of others, now I can report that some are finding ways to make money piggybacking on the broad spine of Google's engineering.
Two enterprising entities, different in their form but united in their purpose, have attempted to use Google's Street View as a medium for their own commercial messages.
First, there was car rental company AutoShare, the Canadian equivalent Zipcar in the U.S. You know, the folks who are always reserving spots in your favorite parking lot. Well, AutoShare thought it would be fun to ask its customers to look out for its cars on Street View and offer a limited number of them prizes for their vision.
(Credit:
Autoshare)
The prize wasn't much: 100 strong Canadian dollars. But with some astute ad targeting in locations such as Facebook and Google, their "In-The-Wild" promotion seems to have entertained the world-weary citizens of Toronto.
Indeed, the AutoShare Twitter page shows that people got rather excited about looking for AutoShare's 200 cars on Google's public-spirited cameras.
This enterprising thought process was, perhaps, topped by Editors. Editors is an indie band (don't most bands have to be indie these days?) from the British town of Birmingham, where the people who claim to be my parents say I was born.
To launch their latest album, Editors used a little Flash trickery to hack into Street View, London version, and create their own custom locations where people could enjoy some of their really very fine music and even see some of the band's fans. (Video embedded)
Editors were rather clever in choosing locations that were not normally accessible on Street View.
Recently, I wrote about IKEA's wonderful use of Facebook to launch a store in Malmo, Sweden. And I know some people thought one should point out that this use was not entirely in accordance with Facebook's promotional guidelines.
However, when companies decide that on occasion they'd prefer to use information you thought might be private for commercial gain, when companies ask you to opt out (if they ask you at all) rather than opt in, there are those who might feel that some enterprising uses of, say, Facebook and Google Street View, should be classified as pioneering.
Great commerce, just like great art, sometimes breaks a couple of rules, doesn't it? In fact, Murdoch has done it quite brilliantly on occasion.
The Disney Company is always so good at accessing one's inner child. The hope, the joy, the glory of absolute love, family goodness, and everything that sails in it.
So I am thrown a little off course when I hear that Disney may have falsely accused an 11-year-old boy of hacking the Pirates of the Caribbean video game and disabled his account.
The account I have read comes from the boy's dad, Brian Guy. Guy is a manager of MySQL's hardy pirates at Sun Microsystems. He also has a blog, which was positively fulminating with frustration Tuesday, as Guy told the story of his son's video game review site.
The site, Carsonreviews.com, seems to this untrained eye to be a rather fine construction, full of wit and wisdom. For example: "While my parents are busy cleaning the house for Thanksgiving, I am busy checking out free online games.= )"
Yet Carson's dad says: "Disney has falsely accused my 11-year-old son of hacking the online game, and Disney temporarily banned his account. They sent him a curt e-mail lecturing him about something he didn't even do."
Does a pirate ever accused another pirate of pirating? Just wondering.
(Credit: CC Joe Shlabotnik/Flickr)Dad does seem like a fair and remarkably balanced chap as he explained: "I can see how at first glance, they might have misinterpreted his chat logs. Another user had made my son aware of a "glitch" (that's what they called it) that allowed users to rapid fire their cannons."
We are all insecure in this currently crazy world and any opportunity to rapid fire one's cannons at least deserves some attention. However, Carson quickly realized that speeding up his firing might require some file-changing. Which is a bad, bad thing to contemplate.
Dad posted the logs from his son's site to show that Carson was merely asking questions. I post them here for your perusal and edification:
* November 27, 2009 9:35:16 PM PST : when i searched it on the internet it said that i had to hack into some files, is this true?
* November 27, 2009 9:37:33 PM PST : so when i looked it up it said i had to hack into some files to do it, is this true?
* November 27, 2009 9:38:45 PM PST : i searched the glitch up on the internet
* November 27, 2009 9:39:06 PM PST : it said i had to hack into some files to do the glitch, is this true?
* November 27, 2009 9:41:22 PM PST : like i have to go in some files and change them?
However, he says Disney rapid-fired an e-mail that showed the darker side of its piratical nature.
Dad says Disney espied the logs, reached for its rum, muttered yo-ho-ho, and declared this was proof of "the use of third-party software, shown in the logs." The company also froze his son's account.
Dad entreated Disney by e-mail. Someone called Tony from Disney's Online Member Services apparently replied: "As a family-friendly company, all in-game chat is moderated equally for everyone regardless of age to maintain a friendly and safe online environment for all to enjoy. In regards to your account, the use or distribution of any software or device that allows automated or other manipulation of gameplay is not allowed. Such use may result in the termination of your account."
Dad didn't feel this answered the question, so he adorned his blog with his feelings. He would like Disney to apologize and, as of writing, he says he has not received such an apology.
I do not sense Pinocchio's lengthening nose in any part of Guy's story, so I, too, have attempted to contact Disney and will update should I receive a reply. I do hope that everyone can become BFFs again.
Perhaps this is an instance of careless customer service. But when your customer is 11 years old, perhaps you should pause and ask yourself: What would Johnny Depp do?"
I can understand why people are so keen to find alien life. It isn't so much a scientific fascination with what might be out there. It's more a pained hope that what is out there might be more enjoyable than what is down here.
So I am wrestled to the ground by a certain sympathy for Brad Niesluchowski.
According to the Arizona Republic, Niesluchowski was asked to resign after allegedly using his position at the Higley Unified School District to exercise his own (and our) need for an alien encounter.
This was not a case of uploading pictures of potential lady friends from Eastern Europe. No, this was a rather more imaginative downloading of software that searches for extra-terrestrial life.
The Republic's sleuths got their hands on documents that suggest Niesluchowski was encouraged to resign after he downloaded free University of California (the terribly forward-thinking Berkeley branch) software that uses idle computers to examine information collected by radio telescopes.
This would be information that might indicate that ET is, indeed, flying around in a bike basket somewhere out there.
Niesluchowski, you see, enjoyed the authority to purchase all sorts of technology for his district. And his alleged downloading of alien-hunting software might well have used additional energy resources and caused other related damage or accelerated depreciation to the hardware. The school district estimates these losses at between $1.2 million and $1.6 million.
Specifically, Niesluchowski stands accused of downloading a program called SETI@home to every computer in the school district.
You might rather enjoy perusing the SETI Web site. One of its recent small steps for man was to launch a site for Iran so that Iranians might also co-operate in accelerating the incidence of Klingon contact.
However, SETI might not have been the only software Niesluchowski donated to Higley. The school district also claimed it had found another program, with the heavenly name of BOINC, that also emanated from Berkeley.
Perhaps Niesluchowski's alleged behavior was not entirely thought through. Perhaps he simply hoped no one would ever notice. But, using the moniker "NEZ" he had reportedly become one of the most active and admired alien hunters. The Republic suggests that he earned 575 million "credits,", representing the enormous hours he spent in the search for the next world.
I would, however, like to offer an alternative theory as to why he might have behaved in the way he allegedly did.
The Polish roots of the name "Niesluchowski" are the words "not" and "listening". It seems perfectly possible to me that Niesluchowski merely wanted to prove that, despite his name, he was doing more future-focused listening that anyone in the world.
Sometimes ingenuity doesn't quite lead you to a comfortable place.
The enterprising folks at WPMI TV in Mobile, Ala., decided that they should reach out on a real-time basis to their viewers. They erected a billboard, adorned it with an image of three of its most photogenic anchors, and added a live Twitter feed.
The whole thing ran very smoothly, until a passing human took this photograph and sent it in to The Palmetto Scoop.
(Credit:
The Palmetto Scoop via Mashable)
Perhaps one's first reaction would be that this image might have enjoyed a little concoction.
However, Mashable has confirmed that not only is it real, but, citing the Lagniappe blog, it says WPMI-TV's general manager and news director have allegedly been suspended for a week because of this unfortunate conflagration.
This all seems just slightly odd. Television and radio has always been fond of slipping in a seven-second delay just in case untoward syllables slip through the mouths of guests or, indeed, hosts. It seems that no such delay was considered for this Twitter feed.
Yet who might have imagined such an unhappy coincidence might have occurred?
I'm sure that all Dell laptops are wonderful machines that would make perfect gifts for even the most misanthropic, laptop-loathing humans.
However, my feelings were temporarily frozen, not unlike Michael Douglas' forehead, when I espied that Austin's finest was trying to garland this holiday period with a Netbook that seems to have special twittering powers.
I see the liquid remnants of your scoffing floating through the ether. However, please peruse the picture with which I have decorated this post.
(Credit:
Dell.com)
It's from the Dell site and it seems like a normal Dell Netbook, doesn't it? The blurb beneath this picture declares, "Build it your way make it your own," which is quite a tempting offer when you consider the price seems to be a vastly generous $299.
Yet this sweet little device appears to be called the Twitter Mini. And the promise that Dell offers reads: "Perfect for Tweeting! Windows 7 Starter Included!"
Naturally, I am already excited. It has been something of my month's dream to find a device that is perfect for pumping out my 140 finest characters. But I'm stumped to the point of limping to work out why this particular Netbook is perfect for tweeting and others aren't.
I clicked on the image and found myself at this page, which offered me nothing other than some severe pain in my neck and brain.
While telling me this was a Netbook, and while mentioning that this series of Netbooks was "small, ultraportable, and designed to keep you connected," there wasn't even a mention of the word "Twitter."
Look, were there a Technological Olympics, I would not even make it as a hostess. But could someone please explain to me why the Twitter Mini is perfect for tweeting when the Mini 10, for example, is perfect for, well, according to the site, nothing at all?
Does the Twitter Mini automatically shorten tweetable URLs if I just stare at the screen? Does it have a direct and very hot line to Ashton Kutcher, Shaquille O'Neal, Stephen Fry, and that weird Russian girl who keeps following me, even though the Twitter folks keep deleting her naked entreaties?
Or did someone in the Dell marketing department get a little over-excited? Please feel free to send me a tweet.
In its attempt to redress the imbalance created by the latest Verizon ads, AT&T has hurriedly cobbled together not just one Luke Wilson ad, but several.
Curiously, one ad features precisely the same strategy as that of the latest iPhone advertising: reminding those who might still be on the fence, on the phone, or even on the lam that you can't simultaneously enjoy voice and Web surfing on the Verizon 3G network--and hence on the Motorola Droid.
So here we have Luke Wilson, still looking a little peaky and dressed in a difficult brown. Behind Luke, we have a man trying to use two phones (by implication, Verizon phones) to perform a task the iPhone will manage alone.
Some might find it entertaining that as his friend attempts to download something on one of his Verizon phones, he complains that it's all going rather slowly. Others might find this both true and funny.
AT&T hasn't merely paid Wilson a little more than 3G to make this comparison. Someone, somewhere, has, perhaps even wisely, said, "We need a map to counter Verizon's map."
So the writers hit upon the idea of a two-part extravaganza (this already aired during Tuesday's "Dancing with the Stars" finale), in which Wilson produces postcards from all the different American towns that really do--no, really--have AT&T 3G coverage.
Wilson says his job is to set the record straight, with respect to Verizon's vicious besmirching of the AT&T network. He tries his best. He tells us that AT&T covers 97 percent of all Americans--yes, 300 million people.
The AT&T map also seems far more filled-in and far more colorful than it appears in Verizon spots, though one suspects that local word of mouth might be rather stronger, in this instance, than national advertising. If you live in Spokane, Wash., for example, and you know someone there who has spotty 3G service on a particular network, that is far more powerful an influencer than any number of Wilson's postcards or Verizon's barbs.
It's enlightening, however, to discover that Wilson once dated someone in Tulsa, Okla., and it didn't work out. Did she catch him simultaneously calling and Web surfing? Perhaps we will never know.
He calls himself Agent Zero. His shirt number is a big, fat zero. And this accurately reflects the number of tweets Gilbert Arenas has posted to his Twitter account.
It's not that Arenas, the Washington Wizards point guard, isn't confident of his literary skills. Oh, no. Just look at his finely sculpted blog.
However, according to The Washington Post, Arenas has no interest in being a small time Twitter player. He wants 1 million followers before he will start to offer tweets from his copious and wondrous life and imagination.
Just last week Arenas told the Associated Press that he's chosen to go for 1 million because "it's so far-fetched."
And when some cruel know-it-all tried to point out that the way folks normally get followers is, well, by tweeting, Arenas replied with the sagacity of Wittgenstein: "I'm trying to do the opposite."
So that you can get some sense of Arenas' twittering possibilities, I have embedded a small piece of film featuring the Arenas bobblehead, quite a character in its own right.
However, I know you'll be wondering just how far away Arenas is from achieving immortal far-fetchedness. Well, he's pretty close to catching Shaquille O'Neal, who enjoys just over 2.5 million followers.
Yes, Arenas has already amassed, at the time of typing this, 5,717 followers. Perhaps the 4-9 Wizards will need to win a few more games before his Twitter page is swamped by mass anticipation of Arenas' first tweet.
As you begin to contemplate your Thanksgiving meal, your family gathered around you, your loved ones embracing you, please be thankful you are not Sal9000.
Sal appears to be a man with very idiosyncratic needs, which he has attempted to satiate by marrying his favorite video game character.
Perhaps you think I have finally lost my last marble. However, please examine this footage. Courtesy of the radical realists at BoingBoing, this video shows that Sal married Nene Anegasaki, a character in the Nintendo DS game, Love Plus.
These unique nuptials were apparently broadcast on the Japanese video sharing site, Nico Nico Douga, a place where many strange things occur for, no doubt, extremely sound psychological reasons.
I don't wish to so much as broach the topic of marital consummation. However, I can tell you that attending the wedding, which was held, naturally, at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, were the bride's virtual video game girlfriend, a live audience and, yes, a real religious priest.
I cannot find record of where the happy couple might be honeymooning, but I have an indelible fear that it might be in a very small, dark apartment somewhere in Tokyo. I trust they will have a large and healthy family.
Insurance companies want us to be healthy. Really, they do. They have our interests at heart, and they defend those interests with an unusual zeal. This is why I am wondering which details might be missing from the tale of Natalie Blanchard.
According to the Associated Press, Blanchard, a 29-year-old IBM employee from Bromont, Quebec, was suffering from depression and took time away from work, relying on sick-leave benefits from her insurer, Manulife Financial.
The monthly payments were suddenly halted. When she called Manulife to ask why, she says she was told that it had espied photos on her Facebook page that showed her cheerful. Ergo, the argument allegedly went, she was able to work. Which led to the second ergo: no more payments.
The pictures, about which I am sure you are already wondering, were of her at a show featuring those tensing torsos, the Chippendales, as well as at a birthday party and on a beach holiday.
Depression is a nasty business. Cures are not exactly logical. And Blanchard says she went on three trips, each of a four-day duration, after consulting with her psychiatrist.
Manulife, while confirming (footage from Sky News embedded here) that it does use social-networking sites to, well, check up on its customers, also said, "We would not deny or terminate a valid claim solely based on information published on Web sites such as Facebook."
Perhaps you, too, have some questions. What sort of a life is it when you spend your days trawling social-networking sites to sniff around your customers' personal existence? How is it that Manulife observed Blanchard's photos? Did she leave her Facebook page entirely open, or could it be that she had her insurance agent as one of her Facebook friends? Was she, indeed, already under suspicion before the Facebook trawling began?
December 8, this case will be heard in the Quebec Superior Court. Surely, we will learn a little more about Natalie Blanchard and a little more about Manulife. Perhaps Facebook could provide a live feed from the proceedings?
It seems that Apple doesn't respect Verizon's Droid phone quite as much as it does Microsoft's PCs. But two new ad spots, launching Monday evening, come as close as Apple has done thus far to directly attack the allegedly do-it-all robotphone.
The Droid, you see, went after Apple in its teaser campaign with some telling remarks and the hearty claim that Droid does what the iPhone doesn't. Then Verizon decided it would be fun to knock both the iPhone and AT&T's spotty 3G coverage with its "Misfit Toys" concept.
AT&T has already replied by hustling a hastily-dressed Luke Wilson into directing a few resentful pins at Verizon's effigy. However these new ads, while entirely in keeping with the iPhone tone and style, end with a line that expressly assaults the doings of Droid--or rather, its alleged non-doings.
Both ads focus on the iPhone's ability to allow you to use voice and data capabilities simultaneously over the AT&T network. By asking gently at the end of each spot "Can your phone and your network do that?" Apple is bursting what it sees as the inflated stealth bombing that accompanied the launch of the Droid.
Apple iPhone Ad - Did You See My Email? from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.
Apple iPhone Ad - What Time's The Movie? from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.
These ads don't mention the Droid or Verizon by name. But the fact that Apple has decided to address its rivals, however obliquely, suggests that one can look forward to more accusations, more bickering, and more attempted one-upmanship.
'Tis the season of goodwill, after all.
