turker.out.println

I think Google is turning into Microsoft day by day. No, it is not because they are growing insanely. No, it is not because they are becoming evil (may be they are but not related to this post). It is because they are becoming very boring with their branding. Last week Google killed the product search service Froogle’s brand and renamed it to “Google Product Search”. They say Froogle name did not describe what the product does. Probably true but did Google mean web search? No, but it means web search now among other things. How did Klenex become synanomous with facial tissue? Yes, you got it now, right? So, I don’t buy this argument. I am thinking Google is becoming the next Microsoft.

I just learned that the satirical newspaper Onion will launch a video site called Onion News Network. The content will be a parodical view of 24 hour news networks like CNN, MSNBC, and others.

There is more information in the WSJ article (free). Below is the promotional video (a good sign is that it can be embedded) that is on the Onion web site.

Technorati Tags: onion, onion news network, news, cnn

[tags]news, internet video, onion [/tags]

Tomorrow, on March 22nd 2007 podcasters will send a message to the music industry. The goal is to make the indie group Black Lab to #1 on the iTunes list.

All you need to do is to spend couple minutes of your time and $0.99 to buy the Black Lab song “Mine Again” using the image link above. To learn more about this social movement check this page out.

Technorati Tags: bum rush the charts, black lab. mine again

[tags]bum rush the charts, indie music movement[/tags]

You remember when Viacom demanded YouTube to pull more than 100.000 videos, right? As far as I remember, YouTube tried to comply with this demand and removed many clips from the site.

However, this must have not been enough for Viacom since today they announced that they sued YouTube for a total of 1 billion dollars for a “massive intentional copyright infringement”. I think “massive” and “intentional” are the interesting words in this quote.

(more…)

Today I learned from Turkish blogs that YouTube is accessible from Turkey again. I am glad that a bad decision is reversed but I do not think this is going to make things any better. There has been a lot of negative coverage of the news all over the blogs and I think the damage is done. The lift of the ban did not cause as much discussion as the ban itself as expected. Here is the AP story and Techdirt’s take on the issue. There is also the opinion of The 463 that I was able to find.

An interesting question that came to my attention lately is who removed the videos first: YouTube or the creator of the video. As most people I thought it was YouTube who immediately removed the clip but turns out that the clip was removed by the uploader not YouTube.

I also learned this morning from a comment on my blog in Turkish that someone Turkish created a video in response to the offending one. I think it is a good one among all those stupid and possibly equally offending responses from Turkish people.

So, the ban is gone but the impression that Turkey is a country that restricts free expression remains.

Technorati Tags: youtube, turkey, turkey bans youtube

[tags] youtube, turkey, censorship, law, legislation[/tags]

I am sure most of you heard the news by now since it is even picked up by Techcrunch and the discussion is on the front page of Techmeme as of now with lots of related discussions including popular blogs like Mashable, IP Democracy and many more.

It makes me really sad that my country is taking an action that supports censorship and aligns herself with the likes of China and Iran when it comes to trying to block internet.

I read (in a Turkish source) that the same court ruled the ban said the ban may be lifted if YouTube removes the offending clips from the website. What is funny to me is that YouTube had removed the clips before the ban has started. So, I am not sure where this leaves the decision. My guess is that the ban will be lifted in a couple of days. But the damage is done and Turkey’s action is took its place in the history of attempted censorship.

To be fair, Turkey is not the only country who is struggling with the new legislative demands of the Internet. As I read in IP Democracy’s post, France is also taking action for making a large part of video-based citizen journalism illegal. Moreover, less than a week ago US Justice Department targeted image sharing sites in their quest to be able to increase their Internet surveillance.

Technorati Tags: youtube, turkey bans youtube, turkey

[tags] youtube, turkey, censorship, legislation, law[/tags]