BuzzMachine

I’m writing the section of the book now on what Googlethink could bring to banking. Among the topics I have in mind:
* Peer-to-peer and microloans (Prosper, Kiva, Zopa, Lending Club, VirginMoney, dhanaX, et al).
* Microinsurance.
* No-brick no-mortar banks (Egg et al, which didn’t take off and what did got bought up)
* Freeing our credit-card and purchase data to learn from it.
* Covestor and other wise investor and wisdom of the crowd stock picking plays
* The death of the analyst and rise of the blog
* New currencies — phone minutes in Africa, fake dollars on Facebook.
* Mint and other online finance help sites.

What am I missing? What do you think banking could and should be if it asked what Google, craig, Zuck, Jeff (Bezos, not Jarvis), Jimbo, et al would do?

As always, thanks.

Tom Loosemore, blogging MP Tom Watson — and others, including the Guardian — have been fighting to get more public data made public in the UK. Now Watson and Loosemore have launched a $40k prize to mashup this data and come out with lots of lemonade. Here’s Paul Bradshaw on the movement. Here are some — as a Brit tweet said — stonking good ideas already.

: LATER: This tweet by Charles Arthur of the Guardian — “wtf? No downloadable school league tables?” — made me realize that newspapers are also foolish not to make their data mashuppable. If we put out all our sports data as tables that could be downloaded and mashed up people would build no end of great stuff on top of us. That’s thinking like a platform. WWGD?

So now The New York Times frets — as I have — that once he got the nomination, Barack Obama has been making u-turns and right turns as he rejects public financing, embraces the Supreme Court’s gun decision, criticizes the Supreme Court on the death penalty, and flip-flops on FISA. (Oh, and I forgot, as he endorses “faith-based initiatives.” Here, alone, we see a helluva compilation of Constitutional views on guns, unreasonable search and seizure, capital punishment, and separation of church and state. He taught con law — let’s look up some of his old lectures, someone, please.)

I don’t want to — I really don’t want to — say I told you so. But this is what I feared from him: that his empty rhetoric was the mark of high cynicism in politics (if I get get them to buy this hot air without saying anything then I can do anything I need to do to get elected… though he’s not even letting what he has said stop him from flipping). My other fear is that he is unproven and could be Jimmy Carter, and given the clumsiness of his dash from left to middle — overshooting the mark and ending up too far to the right for The Times’ comfort — I’d say he’s not looking so smooth right now.

So what is it you can believe in with Obama? What is change? Answer me that.

Oh, I’m stuck voting for him. So are his cultists who are now protesting his moves; they’re really trapped. But this is what I feared.

Says The Times:

We are not shocked when a candidate moves to the center for the general election. But Mr. Obama’s shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games.

There are still vital differences between Mr. Obama and Senator John McCain on issues like the war in Iraq, taxes, health care and Supreme Court nominations. We don’t want any “redefining” on these big questions. This country needs change it can believe in.

He’s just a politician.

: LATER: In the comments, Fred Wilson is making what is now becoming a common argument: he’s doing what he has to do to win: “I feared he wasn’t tough and polished and skilled. These moves show that he is.” Hear Eric Alterman saying the same thing: “I don’t know what he really believes in his heart.” Read Mike Tomasky saying the same thing: “It’s acceptable - and necessary - for Barack Obama to compromise his liberal principles in order to get elected…. I’ve always objected to setting up principle as a value that’s oppositional to winning. To me, winning is a principle. It’s the highest principle there is.”

So move on, folks, there’s nothing to believe in here. Change? What change? Chump change. Plus ça etc.

Well, since everyone’s abandoning principle for expediency, even though I disagree with the Obama supporters who are criticizing him on FISA — I actually support his stand — I will celebrate how they are holding his feet to the fire on his own principles and I’ll say what we need in particpatory democracy is more folks like them and fewer who are willing to throw aside principle for power, means for the end. That is politics the old way. That is what we were promised would be changing. In the immortal word of another blogger: Heh.

: LATER STILL: In my recitation of Obama’s flipping and sidling, I forgot to include his possible rethinking on Iraq. Here, again, I agree with him — he should reconsider dates and deadlines based on reality; I’ve said that all along (and so did Hillary). But this, too, will piss off the loyalists who got him where he is.

: And the Kossaks are restless. In response to Obama’s statement — which acknowledges the revolt brewing under his own wing at MyBarackObama.com — comments include:

The only explanation for his Oct 2007 FISA stance? Principle. He stood to gain nothing otherwise from it.

The only explanation for his current stance? Political necessity.

The only problem? It’s not necessary. We’re getting played, here, folks. This explanation is crap. He’s using several of the very same frames used by other capitulators and moderate Rs.

We’re. Getting. Played.

But other Kossaks are sounding like the robot on Lost in Space: Does not compute. Does not compute.
One complains: “Has this site always been so insane or has it really, really jumped the shark recently? I don’t belong here anymore.” Another adds: “That’s how I feel Like I don’t belong with the net roots anymore. Even TPM has been hammering Obama.”

And just as in every cult I’ve covered (and I covered them in my San Francisco newspaper days), paranoia emerges: “This is another ‘operation chaos’ style invasion to create a wedge among Obama’s supporters. The sad part is that Markos from Kos and Arianna from Huffpost, indirectly sparked the idea when they criticized FISA. While criticism and accountability should be welcome, those in a position of influence such as Ko and Arianna should use it more responsibly, knowing that Rove, Limbaugh and right-wing nuts are out there ready and desperate to use any tactic to diminish O’s support base.” The cult is cracking. They always do.

From PDF2008: The Sifry, Scoble, and Jarvis boys.

PaidContent says it’s a false alarm that Viacom will get personally identifiable information on our video viewing from YouTube and Google as part of its self-destructive lawsuit. Nonetheless, the episode has sparked the question I pose in the headline: When Google becomes our library, who acts as the librarian to protect our privacy as a matter of principle?

And what is the principle? Any site with content — Google, Amazon, a newspaper, a blog, an ISP — is now the moral equivalent of a library or bookstore, two institutions that try hard not to hand over information on what content we seek and consume arguing that that would violate our First Amendment rights. The controversy in the telco immunity legislation is that those searches were made without warrants. In this case, there is a warrant. When I ran sites, we got subpoenas all the time and handed over IP addresses when ordered; that was company policy. I always found it troubling and as a result ordered that we would change our data retention policy and get rid of IP addresses as soon as possible. Should Google and other sites erase IPs and rely only on cookies without personally identifiable information?

I say all this more as a question than as a statement. Viacom could have just as easily gotten our addresses and account names. Even as blind as Viacom is to the new reality — the suit itself is the proof of that — they realized, as PaidContent points out, that getting our personal viewing information would have turned them into a corporate peeping-tom pariah. So what is the principle and the law in your view? What should they be? And what are the practical tactics we should expect content sites to take? Should I be erasing my logs? Is that pointless because Google Analytics has them too? What gives?

: LATER: Bob Wyman adds in the comments:

PaidContent was spun… They are wrong. Viacom claims that they will receive no “personally identifiable information” because they managed to get the judge to accept that “login id is a pseudonym … which … ‘cannot identify specific individuals’” (See pages 13-14 of the ruling). The judge granted Viacom’s demand to receive “all data from the Logging database” — including login id.

I don’t know about you, but I sure think my Google “login id” does a pretty good job of identifying me…

:UPDATE: the Journal has a good July 4 story outlining how Google is trying to get Viacom to agree to scrubbing personally identifiable information out of the data because of the uproar over it.

We need a principle as we have one governing the ethics and if possible the behavior of bookstores and libraries. Google is the library.

Is Google psychoanalyzing me?

I just noticed that all the AdSense ads on the page with this post were for anger management.

Well, I didn’t think I sounded angry. How did Google conclude that I was? Is it targeting ads just to words or now to moods?

Next time I do go on a rant, I expect them to advertise massages, spas, merlots, and drugs.

I was gobsmacked and delighted to see that my baby, Entertainment Weekly, just came out with its 1000th issue (and they’re about to issue a redesign in its 1001st; I had to redesign it after only 15 issues because — I’ll now confess since I couldn’t then — the first design sucked). I also happened to have breakfast yesterday with old friend Scott Donaton, who’s the new boss of the business, and was also glad to see it’s in good hands.

Janet Coats, editor of the Tampa Tribune, sat down in her newsroom to tell the staff about layoffs, reorganizations, new ways of doing business, and harsh realities and an intern named Jessica DaSilva recorded the event with appropriate admiration.

My favorite bomb: “People need to stop looking at TBO.com [the newspaper's affiliated web site] as an add on to The Tampa Tribune. The truth is that The Tampa Tribune is an add on to TBO.”

Another: “She stressed more than several times that if newspaers don’t change then NEWSPAPERS WILL DIE.” (DaSilva’s emphasis) She said that without change newspapers would continue their “death spiral - because that’s what it is.”

More: They laid off a sports reporter in the Tallahassee bureau because it makes more sense to have a reporter working in Tampa than one working in a city four hours away. Local is what she’s emphasizing. DaSilva said: “If they want national news, they have several national news sources to get it. Instead, the Trib should be used to give the community something they can’t get from the NY Times or WaPo. Give them their news.” Amen.

Isn’t the paper profitable, someone asked. “The Tribune hasn’t been bringing in profits for a long time… This isn’t about profit margins anymore…. We weren’t even in the black this year.” This is a reality check not just for the staff but for media-haters who think that papers are still money machines. They are becoming money-losing machines.

Competition? She told the staff to get over the idea that they should operate and judge themselves by doing the same stories as The St. Petersburg Times. Can’t afford that anymore.

I have no idea what went through the minds of the veteran staff. But I’m delighted with what went through the mind of this intern: “Through most of this meeting, I just wanted to shout, ‘Amen!’ and ‘You go girl!’ because Janet understands what’s up…. Janet, you’re my hero, and I think this is worth fighting for too.”

Whether Coats’ formula for reorganization is the right one or not I have no idea and only trying it will tell. But at least she’s trying. Mindy McAdams has the details from an email someone at the paper sent her.

It’s going to be like this:
* Managing editors
* 5-6 audience editors — keep in touch with what the print, TV, online audiences want/need
* 5 sections of reporting (all the reporters for print, TV and Web are mashed up together in these groups):
1. Deadline — for breaking/daily news
2. Data — specifically for database stuff
3. Watchdog — for investigative reporting
4. Personal journalism — stuff for people’s every day lives like weather, health, entertainment
5. Grassroots — citizen journalism….

Outside of these groups are three “finishing” groups for print, TV and online to determine what stories should be covered and with what medium.

All the reporters will be trained in gathering news for online in case there’s a need for it. They’ll be training them on the go. The focus will now be on immediacy and using mediums appropriately. The print product is going to be more enterprise and in-depth, the Web is for breaking news, etc.

They’re also straying from the beats system. They want reporting to be more fluid. Like, if the reporter who usually covers city hall has to work on an investigative piece, someone else (like an education or religion reporter or anyone) could step up to cover daily stories.

This staffer, too, recognizes the necessity, telling Mindy: “Everyone here is kind of freaking out about the change, but what else is the Trib to do? Sit back and let profits continue to drop and keep laying off employees? At least they’re doing something and trying to figure it out. That’s more than what a lot of news organizations can say.”

Here’s Eric Deggens report on the changes.

Amy Webb talks today about newspapers getting rid of entire sections — and they hear no complaint, no protest. She takes this opportunity to wonder why we’re not spending more on R&D. Well, I’ve long agreed.

But I take something else from her observation, something more ominous: What if papers kept killing sections and nobody cared? Do they care about the newspaper? Or will there be good news in there — you finally kill something they do care about? Get rid of the business section, as the Baltimore Sun just did, following the example of other papers: Yawn. Most local business sections suck anyway. Get rid of the features section as another paper did: Silence. That one surprises me, which is why I think there’s a dangerous message in that. So what if you got rid of sports? People may be getting all they want online and on TV. National? International? Well, I’ve been arguing that papers should no traffic in commodity news anymore, that they should do what they do best and link to the rest. My very local paper does a crappy job with national news so I think they shouldn’t bother.

Local? Well, if a paper killed that and nobody cared that’d be time to lock up and turn off the lights. I’m hoping — praying — there’d be an outcry.

Or maybe there’s good news in what Amy reports: Papers can get rid of their commodity news and crappy sections and can concentrate their precious and dwindling resources on what matters, which I still believe is local reporting. Maybe.

I see a tweet from No. 10 that leads me to this statement by PM Gordon Brown:

… healthcare is not a privilege to be purchased but a moral right secured for all.

A moral right for all. That is where the debate should begin here.

I twittered that I was having fun writing the chapter in my book about what a restaurant run on Googlethink might look like (besides being decorated in gaudy primary colors). Andy Carvin responded saying it might look like this: the Wiki Wiki Teriyaki restaurant in Austin. He said:

Rather than having a set menu, they just have a bunch of ingredients and invite you to bring your own. The diners, who call themselves “recipedians,” get to put together their own recipes and have them cooked. Other diners can then build on each other’s recipes and discuss them, creating a seemingly limitless array of recipes. Soon they’ll add ratings and tags to make it easier for diners to parse their options.

I got so excited that I stopped reading and immediately Googled the place. Odd, I thought, all they brag about is their sauce, not this bravely innovative way to open-source a restaurant.

Then I went back to Andy’s post and read the rest of it:

Actually, none of that is true. It’s just a restaurant with the word “wiki” in it. Twice. But how cool would that be?

Cool indeed. Andy got me without even trying.

Anyway, I have lots of ideas about an open and transparent restaurant operation, experience, and community. If you have any ideas you’d like to share, please join in. Then maybe we can pull a McDonald’s and buy the Wiki Wiki and franchise it.

Paulo Coehlo — whom I got to interview in Paris for my book and an upcoming column — is asking his readers to help him create a virtual exhibition of them reading his books making 100 million — you read right — books sold. He loves the connections with readers the internet enables.

This reminds me of what friend Annik Rubens’ fans do for her podcast, Schlaflos in Muenchen, taking pictures of their iPods wherever they are in the world to show how far the show travels: