The iPads start with video and music synced wirelessly on all devices, with each individual tablet displaying one part of the greater picture. Audience members are then invited to interact with the display. They can change the playback speed of both audio and video on each iPad, and also adjust screen brightness and choose what melody is being played. The experience essentially puts individual audience members in the role of DJ.

As people interact with the installation, video and audio get out of sync. The challenge is then to try to work together to get it back to its original state, just like how humans have to work together to try to negate some of our effect on the environment. Of course, the iPad itself uses some pretty toxic materials in its construction, isn’t user upgradeable, and can’t be recycled locally, and the project uses 25 of them, but who’s counting?

iProject25 was created by Taq, a composer who worked with Konami on the game BeatMania and his friend Simon Mayer, who heads a German design firm. Programmer Mui Iwase handled the iOS coding of the app used on the iPads. It’s a great example of the iPad being used for artistic purposes, but its creators believe it also demonstrates another way businesses might take advantage of Apple’s tablet for promotional efforts. What do you think? Wouldn’t you want to play with a giant wall of iPads if you ran into one in your local mall, for instance?

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Want to import your Gmail address book into Facebook? Google is happy to let you do that (although it doesn’t want to make it easy). But first, it wants you to be aware of what you’re doing — namely, that you are importing them into a place where you will never be able to get them back out again. Hence, the new message that greets anyone trying to use this feature, which has the sarcastic title: “Trap my contacts now.” In the serve-and-volley that has been going on between the two web giants over data portability in the past week, call this one a drop shot.

The Google message asks users: “Are you super sure you want to import your contact information for your friends into a service that won’t let you get it out?” and notes that the site the user was redirected from (Facebook’s name is never mentioned) “doesn’t allow you to re-export your data to other services, essentially locking up your contact data about your friends.” Google says it “strongly disagrees” with this kind of data protectionism, but is willing to let users export their information because it believes they should control what happens to it. The notice also contains a checkbox that allows a user to “register a complaint over data protectionism,” although it’s not clear what exactly that does.

(click for larger version)

Just to recap what has been going on for the past few days, Google changed the terms of its contacts API, which third-party developers use to automatically import email address books from Gmail, so that users can find their friends on a network or service. The change required that anyone making use of this feature also allow users to export their data, including email addresses — and this was a clear shot at Facebook, which doesn’t allow this (although you can download names, wall posts, photos, etc.) Facebook responded by linking directly to Google’s download feature, which is why the new warning appears.

In the only official comment that has emerged from Facebook, platform engineer Mike Vernal suggested that Google is being hypocritical about data portability, and is only concerned about it because Facebook is more popular and is a competitive threat. According to Vernal, allowing users to export email addresses is something Google should be required to do, but not something Facebook should have to do — because users on Facebook control their own contact info, but not their friends.

As several sites have noted, however, Facebook happily allows users to bulk export the contact information for all their friends from the social network to partners such as Microsoft and Yahoo, but not to Google. So it appears that there is plenty of hypocrisy to go around — and even more tangible signs that Google and Facebook are in the middle of a social war, and your contact information is one of the main weapons.

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Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Tambako the Jaguar

Google Voice is indeed a wonderful service that allows folks to consolidate numbers, send texts from Gmail, etc. Because it’s VoIP, instead of an extra phone line. you only need data; but Weintraub may be forgetting a key selling point of Google Voice that could undermine a business faster than hitting that iceberg sunk the Titanic — its voicemail transcriptions. Weintraub writes:

I’m also hearing murmurs that Google will soon support number-porting so that users can pull business lines/personal lines into Google Voice as well, if you desire. For those who want to keep their line with their telco, Google offers a voicemail and routing service which effectively has much of the same functionality as Google Voice.

For those who are unaware, Google’s voicemails can be delivered as an audio file and played online, or they can be transcribed using Google’s speech-to-text capabilities. Those transcriptions are often so terrible they become absurd, and are the subject of mocking blog posts. To illustrate what businesses might be in for, we pulled some business-related messages from the GigaOM staff — partly for laughs and partly as a service to any businesses who might want to attempt frugality for a while. Frugality comes at a cost:

Received Jan. 2010:

Hello, this is the Holocaust is. I’m assuming that Fairfield University in Connecticut, and I’m contacting you about the report that your role 2 or 3 years ago … I’m only email is Howard’s Hazel. W Hey, R. D. Call soon seeing you. I have a s. He has the AT hotmail dot com. So Holocaust of AT hotmail dot com…

Received Dec. 2009:

Hey Celeste, Hi, it’s kill Fred, tantra logic. XXX. XXX. XXX Oak at the office (XXX) XXX-XXXX on sell. It was great to see you last week he wants. I’m at 8. I’d appreciate it, our conversation intrigued with the possibility of doing some work together. Gimme a call please when you can, what’s up talk some more. Thanks. Bye.

Received Nov. 2010:

Hi Stacey, This is well with them. So if I was calling Nixon positions and I are Atlas and he came and I would think that they’re missing you know. If you can give me a call back. My number is, XXXXXXXX. Thanks. Bye.

Received Nov. 2010:

Hi Nicole, This is Suncrest I’m calling to see if I can follow up with you on the seat. Regarding this Email said if you could. And if you and recover the eyeball of the most of the I wanted to get elected. That. On the site time to get together. I am. This is for real, you can help pasta figured out that night….

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Many feature phones from other parts of the world have QR readers built-in, but not the iPhone. Fortunately, we have the App Store. I tested a whole range of different QR reader iPhone apps, and picked out five of the best. All are free to download. I tested each with three QR codes representing different content: a phone number, a piece of text (The quick brown fox…), and a URL (http://theappleblog.com).

#5: QR App

The interface for QR App can be a little confusing; in scan mode, what looks like the standard camera app shows up, making it seem as though you have to press the shutter button then the Use button. However, this isn’t the case — if the app detects a QR code anywhere in its view, it’ll automatically take the photo and read the barcode. I did have some trouble getting it to recognize codes sometimes, though.

Another annoyance I had with QR App was that the app will automatically open Safari or the Phone app without prompt f the code contains a URL or a phone number. Sometimes I like to be able to grab the information, but use it later on. The app does save a history of the codes you read, but I just don’t like the way it switches apps without asking permission first.

#4: i-nigma 4

There are two versions of i-nigma: i-nigma 4 for devices running iOS 4 and the other made for iOS 3. Like QR App, i-nigma saves a history of the codes you’ve read. However, i-nigma has a few sharing options for the codes in your history. You can display the code itself on your device’s screen for someone else to scan, or you can share on Facebook and Twitter. Unfortunately, sharing on social networks requires closing the app and opening the i-nigma website in Safari.

i-nigma has a few limited customization options: You can change the sound which plays when you scan a code, choose whether codes are automatically saved in the history, and whether you want URLs to be launched instantly or not. You can also save phone numbers you pick up into your contacts. It’s not the most flexible of apps, but it also isn’t the worst.

#3: TapReader

I’ll start with a downside to TapReader: when you launch the app for the first time, you need to give it an email address and set up a password, which it says is so that your QR codes are saved to your account for later viewing. However, the app has a local archive of recent QR codes, so I don’t see the need for an account.

My favourite feature of TapReader is that, although it can be a little hard to find at first, there’s a mode where you can scan multiple codes in succession without visiting the archive between scans. There may not be many occasions where you need to scan more than one code in a row, but at events like trade shows where you might be meeting a lot of people at once, it could come in handy.

There are also some settings in the app which allow you to turn off sound and vibration, and to decide which data types automatically launch other apps. This is good if you’d like phone numbers to automatically dial, for instance, but you don’t want URLs to open automatically.

#2: QR Scanner

Coming in at an extremely close second, QR Scanner is fast; you don’t have to align the code with the scanner on-screen; and it has settings similar to TapReader’s, which allow you to customise the apps which automatically launch when you scan a code. In its Recent Scans view, you can tap an item and have the option to open it with the appropriate app (it even suggests View on Map for addresses), or copy it to the clipboard.

The only reason QR Scanner falls to second is because of its interface. To put it simply, it’s ugly. Look at the screenshots in the gallery below for proof. Other than that, I can’t fault the app, but when it comes down to it, this is an iPhone, so I expect my apps to look good and work well.

#1: QR Reader for iPhone

The developers of QR Reader for iPhone got it exactly right. It’s the quickest to scan out of the five apps; it has a huge range usability and sharing options; and it also looks good.

When you read a code, the app will show you a “details” view which allows you to launch another app to open the information, except text and URLs, which both open within the app itself. For URLs, there’s a built-in web browser which cuts out the need for launching Safari. There are ads within the web browser view, but that’s a small price to pay with an app as nice as this.

Tapping Share in the details view brings up a list of ways to get the information out of the app, including email, Facebook, Twitter and Copy to Clipboard. The Facebook and Twitter options post to the service without leaving the app, so once you’ve logged in the first time, it’s a one-step process from then on.

Like I said, QR Reader for iPhone is the best app of the five, so if you’re going to download just one code reader, make it this one. Happy scanning!

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This isn’t the first time Gaga and Bieber have competed head-to-head on YouTube. Gaga held the top spot for the most-watched video ever on YouTube for a long time, but got surpassed by Bieber in July. Bieber’s Baby video has now been viewed more than 380 million times, as compared to Bad Romance with 303 million views.

Either way, all of this is good news for VEVO. The major label-owned music video platform publishes both artist’s videos on YouTube, so those billion views are further helping VEVO to establish itself as one of the biggest online video sites.

VEVO President and CEO Rio Cardeff is speaking at NewTeeVee Live tomorrow — and it’s not too late to get a ticket.

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The tit-for-tat spat between Facebook and Google over who controls a user’s contact information just got ramped up another notch: an engineer with Facebook’s platform team has posted a comment on a blog post about the brouhaha, accusing Google of changing its tune on data portability because of the competitive threat posed by Facebook. According to Mike Vernal, the social network has no intention of changing its mind on its approach to email addresses, and he makes it clear that Facebook believes it is more open than Google where it counts.

While Google wants users of Facebook to be able to download or export the email addresses of all their friends, Vernal argues that this is not up to Facebook to allow, because users own their own information — including their email address:

The most important principle for Facebook is that every person owns and controls her information. Each person owns her friends list, but not her friends’ information. A person has no more right to mass export all of her friends’ private email addresses than she does to mass export all of her friends’ private photo albums.

Just to recap for those of you trying to follow along at home, Google recently changed the terms of its contacts API — which allows third-party developers to auto-import a user’s contacts — to require that anyone making use of this feature also allow the same thing in return. The web giant said it was doing this primarily because large players like Facebook weren’t allowing users to export their information (although Facebook allows you to download some of your content from the network, that doesn’t include the email addresses of your social graph).

Facebook then stuck a thumb in the web giant’s eye by linking directly to Google’s own contact-downloading tool, and asking users to download their friends’ addresses and then upload them manually to the social network. A Google spokesman said (somewhat schoolmarm-ishly) that the company was “disappointed that Facebook didn’t invest their time in making it possible for their users to get their contacts out of Facebook” and that the company believed that “people should be able to control the data they create.”

Vernal, however, says Google didn’t always believe this. Less than a year ago, he says, Google blocked users from exporting their contact info to Facebook from Orkut, and at the time, the company released a statement saying that “mass exportation of email is not standard on most social networks — when a user friends someone, they don’t then expect that person to be easily able to send that contact information to a third party along with hundreds of other addresses with just one click.” Vernal says:

This functionality was not a problem when Orkut was winning in Brazil and India but, as soon as people starting preferring Facebook to Google products, Google changed its stance. First, Google simply broke their export feature and hoped people wouldn’t notice… then, when they got called out on it, they changed their policy completely. Today, the same thing is happening with Gmail.

This may seem like a lot of playground bickering or competitive posturing between two web giants — and it clearly is that — but there is also an important question at stake: do you own the right to export your friends’ email addresses and then import them into another program? Facebook seems to be saying that it is not only okay for Google to export email addresses, but that it must do this, because it runs an email program — but because Facebook is a social network (whatever that is), it doesn’t have to play by the same rules. Does that sound fair? Not to me.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

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Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user plain_jane53177

How do you feel about your right to be forgotten? To be honest, until I read this article, I didn’t realize being forgotten was a right. This news seems to reflect an intriguing new stage in our restlessly evolving relationship with technology.

Remember Me

Historically, humans have striven to be remembered. For millennia, individuals have spent their lives working to leave an inspiring, respectable legacy. Friends of mine who are parents cite that desire for legacy as one of the reasons why they have children. From the Egyptian pyramids to biological, astronomical and other scientific names that sport their discoverers’ own monikers, evidence abounds that many humans’ greatest desire is to leave their marks on the world.

Some argue that a key difference between humans and other animals is our memory. As a collective, we know that memory is precious, rich and often fleeting.

But technology breaks all the barriers humans face in the race to maintain recollection. Data can be stored indefinitely. And while previously web users were more concerned with saving data — backing up systems, distributing that storage across media and locations — and with organizing the information we had to allow easy, swift access to those digital memories, clearly, the tide is turning.

The question of a right to privacy seems to be less one of corporate data assets than it is about personal privacy. According to the report, this EU proposal was sparked by the fact that social networking sites failed to remove personal data that users themselves had supposedly deleted from the sites.

Yet the reason users are concerned about the preservation of that information — the perpetuation of a less-than-venerable online legacy — appears primarily to reflect a fear of our being poorly assessed by corporations and other bodies we may want to join.

Reputation Management

If you read about furor over a copyright complaint against cookery magazine Cooks Source last week, you know that reputations can be undone in an instant online. We watch the blunders of big players, and follow the online commentary that ensues — and while we may thrill to see the fat cats fail, we all know that next week, it could be us. HR could all too easily find those pictures of us acting up at a party, and then what?

In the past, we could rely on the frailty of human memory to dim the memories of our indiscretions. But now we have to fight to keep our legacy “pure” — to maintain, if you like, the consistency of our personal brands not just online, but in the world at large. We happily used technology to create virtual versions of ourselves. Now we’re finding those virtual versions more robust than we ever expected.

The good things we may have done, personally or professionally, don’t necessarily compete with the achievements of our peers. Perhaps they don’t make for such entertaining or popular photos. In the world of the Virtual Me, we may find it’s our less socially acceptable behavior, as depicted and recorded online, that differentiates us from others: job candidates, colleagues and contacts.

Mixing Business and Pleasure

When all is said and done, we own our personal data. Even if we provide an organization our details, the organization doesn’t own that information. The privacy laws that countries all over the world have developed are a testament to our agreement on this point.

So why do we need to assert our “right to be forgotten”? According to the article:

“Viviane Reding, Europe’s rights commissioner, said the world of data protection had been transformed by popular new technologies in the 15 years since data protection legislation was last amended.

‘Internet users must have effective control of what they put online and be able to correct, withdraw or delete it at will,’ she said.”

While no one disagrees with this principle, the fact is that people will remember us for who we are and what we do. If these proposed laws pass, they sound like they’ll be there to protect us from our reputations not among web users on the other side of the world, but among the people we know — or will meet — face-to-face, in our own towns and neighborhoods.

In that case, peoples’ online reputations are only part of the equation: we’ll have to hope our words and actions offline don’t speak too negatively for themselves.

What about you: are you worried that your “right to be forgotten” is being infringed?

Image by stock.xchng user Axonite.

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I don’t question the fact that Apple’s latest iPhone is susceptible to scratches, despite Apple Store employee claims that the “helicopter glass” used in its construction can withstand high velocity impacts, but I do question the iPhone maker’s responsibility regarding the glass case design when it comes to consumers.

The antenna is a different story. For users in poor coverage zones, where it might actually completely cut off signal reception, that’s a usage issue, and addressing it head-on was necessary. But scratches and cracks caused by contact with abrasive material? Not only is that a cosmetic problem, it’s also one people should be able to reasonably expect before even buying an iPhone, just by looking at the thing. Does it affect the product’s reliability? Clearly not, since the iPhone 4 is still the least likely smartphone to malfunction, according to a new SquareTrade report.

I have a case that involves a sliding component, and I use it all the time. I’m always careful to make sure the back is clean of dirt and dust before I slide the case on, but I’m also not going to be amazed or disappointed in Apple’s craftsmanship if I find scratches on the surface as a result.

My iPhone 3GS was criss-crossed with scratches by the time I retired it from service, but it also still worked fine. In fact, my girlfriend still uses it without issue, and it looks much better than the BlackBerry devices of friends who’ve had their phones for less than six months. No one comes up with a Watergate-based name for the way the cheap silver paint on RIM-designed bezels never fails to rub off and flake.

The iPhone 4′s design may not be perfect. It may even be more susceptible to damage than the last generation device. Is it a flaw? No. Should Apple be hand-holding consumers who can’t think logically about what might damage their devices? No. Should Apple continue to make risky design decisions that set the bar in terms of consumer electronics aesthetics? A thousand times yes.

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Yavonditte, who sold contextual ad network Quigo to AOL for $340 million, believes it’s this focus on relationships that will separate it from other social networks and broadcasting platforms like Facebook and Twitter. It’s unclear how Yavonditte will build a viable business (he isn’t discussing the business model yet), but I think Hashable has a chance to take our relationships to the next level. We’re already flooded with data and connections, and the next generation of social media will need to create better rankings and filtering within our collection of relationships, giving them more context, relevance and value.

Hashable currently works via Twitter, e-mail and through the Hashable.com website, allowing people to make introductions to each other. A Twitter user, for example can introduce two people by mentioning them in a tweet along with Hashable and including an #intro hashtag. The more people you introduce, the more HashCred points you get and the higher your ranking is on the Hashable leaderboard. The process works similarly on e-mail or through the website and gives the two people being introduced a way to see personal information about each other on an “ice breaker” page. Yavonditte said this creates an easy and incentivized way to bring people together. It can also simplify personal exchanges of information that usually occur with the trading of business cards. Android and iPhone  apps are also expected to be launched in the next month, creating what Yavonditte believes will be a kind of decentralized social network that can be accessed from any number of devices and platforms. The introductions are  listed publicly by default in an activity stream, though they can be made private at any time.

The site isn’t simply aimed at fostering introductions, which would put it on a collision course with LinkedIn and other introduction startups like Sumazi and Namesake; it’s meant to record interactions over time. As people meet up in person or over the phone, they can post that connection to Hashable, which documents the interaction between two people. It’s sort of like Facebook’s Friendship pages that catalog your history of interactions with a friend, but it’s meant to encourage and reward more engagement. The more you interact with people, the higher they rise on your list of strongest connections. That allows people to measure the intensity of their relationships with people, and allows others to see how strong your ties are to certain folk, helping others in your network understand who they might want to know.

Hashable will need to build a solid audience outside its current base of entrepreneurs in California and New York, many of whom are buzzing about the service, which comes out of beta in December. Users will have to get used to the idea of broadcasting their connections and interactions, but as we’re seeing with Foursquare, Blippy and DailyBooth, many are already moving down that path. If it’s successful, Hashable can help people better understand, manage and capitalize on their relationships.

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Last week, Heroku CEO Byron Sebastian told Om that the company is set to cross the 100,000-application threshold, an impressive feat given Heroku’s relatively small size compared with other cloud providers.  On Nov. 1, Heroku founder James Lindenbaum told me the company will exceed that mark “very shortly.” According to the Heroku website, its platform already hosts almost 98,000 apps, and Lindenbaum said the number coming on board per week has doubled over the past few months. In April, Heroku was hosting 60,000 applications. Lindenbaum estimates 25-30 percent of the apps fall under the umbrella of social media.

Of those roughly 25,000-30,000 applications, Facebook apps represent a large and growing percentage. With a little help, Facebook developers using Heroku have built applications that avoid the performance issues many other apps face. Many other apps can’t handle the complexities of interfacing with both the Facebook platform and the backend infrastructure — or even the amount of traffic. Lindenbaum points to Heroku customer Cardinal Blue, which maintains high performance for its social-gaming portfolio despite managing 12 million unique users.

With the Facebook App Package, Heroku customers have access to a best-practices guide and a starter kit of a 20GB dedicated database, 20 backend processes, 1GB of Membase Memcache, New Relic’s RPM Gold application-management service and a $200 credit for additional add-ons. With so many Facebook developers already choosing Heroku, Lindenbaum thinks the new program could drive significant growth. “We want to see what happens when we give people the core guidance.”

If successful, the Facebook App Package could spur an even broader social media push by Heroku. Lindenbaum says this is likely the first in a series of vertically focused packages, and there has been some thought given to a formal partnership with Facebook. He didn’t have details on how that partnership might look, but the idea of Heroku as the Official Application Platform of Facebook has a nice ring. Update: Heroku isn’t alone in targeting Facebook developers, though, as Joyent offers its own program hosted atop its SmartMachines IaaS platform. Update two: The Joyent program, which gives developers one virtual machine plus storage and bandwidth for a year, has been available since 2007 and, according to founder and chief scientist Jason Hoffman, maintains a steady– and capped — rate of about 15,000 VMs.

An interesting sidenote: However successful Heroku is with social apps (or in general), Amazon Web Services wins. Not only does Heroku run atop AWS, but some large social-software companies, such as Zynga, host their applications directly atop AWS.

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. . . Because most Americans only have a choice of only one or two broadband carriers, carriers are tempted to impose a toll charge on content and services, discriminating against websites that are unwilling to pay for equal treatment. This could create a two-tier Internet in which websites with the best relationships with network providers can get the fastest access to consumers, while all competing websites remain in a slower lane. Such a result would threaten innovation, the open tradition and architecture of the Internet, and competition among content and backbone providers. It would also threaten the equality of speech through which the Internet has begun to transform American political and cultural discourse. Barack Obama supports the basic principle that network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others. . . .

I remember being amazed that a candidate had actually come out and said that he understood what net neutrality was about and that he knew it was important to the nation’s economy and culture. President Obama said it again in February 2010.

“I’m a big believer in Net Neutrality. I campaigned on this. I continue to be a strong supporter of it. My FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has indicated that he shares the view that we’ve got to keep the Internet open, that we don’t want to create a bunch of gateways that prevent somebody who doesn’t have a lot of money but has a good idea from being able to start their next YouTube or their next Google on the Internet.”

“This is something we’re committed to. We’re getting pushback, obviously, from some of the bigger carriers who would like to be able to charge more fees and extract more money from wealthier customers. But we think that runs counter to the whole spirit of openness that has made the Internet such a powerful engine for not only economic growth, but also for the generation of ideas and creativity.”

Net neutrality is actually a very old idea. The idea is that when you’re making point-to-point basic transportation (of information or people) available to the public, you’re not supposed to discriminate against uses of your network. (Barbara van Schewick has a marvelous new book out about this here.) We’ve had this idea for lots of networks, including the telephone, the telegraph, the electrical grid, and the railroads. These networks provide basic inputs that are so important for economic growth and creativity that it would harm society to allow private network owners to pick winners and losers, charging one user more than another for the same basic transport service.

This old idea has a old response: distribution networks that should, by rights, be constrained from discriminating often seize the chance to act in cahoots with particularly valuable shippers to make better profits. They can do this when they don’t face much competition. This is good for the two in cahoots but bad for the rest of us.

Example: If you’re a railroad operator, you have high fixed costs and you’d love to have some deep-pocket shipper guarantee you a constant stream of revenue. The railroad barons of the early 1900s did exactly that, using secret rebates to effectively charge a favored customer (say, Standard Oil), much less than they charged other shippers using their lines. It was worth it to the railroads because they made more from Standard Oil, even with rebates, than they would have by offering commodity shipping to all comers. Result? Standard Oil could use the railroads to raise its rivals’ shipping costs and drive them out of business. Lots of rock-ribbed Republicans hated the railroads because they didn’t allow a free market to operate.

Well, the analogy to the railroad today is high-speed Internet access. It’s a key basic infrastructural input into economic life: transporting everything, and transforming every town in America and around the world. It wouldn’t be a good idea, the President keeps saying, to allow the private network operators who provide us with Internet access to discriminate against particular shippers (now, the content and application providers). These operators don’t have much competition to constrain them, and they have every interest in favoring their own business plans. Even more importantly, they’re providing an essential input to America’s economic future.

Deregulation of high-speed Internet access happened via some Bush-era FCC semantic shenanigans back in 2002. I’ve explained this here, and here. It’s time, the President has said, to go back to the status quo. We won the election, after all.

The Verizon-Google legislative proposal released this week would, if enshrined in legislation, allow network operators to provide exclusive-deal services over their Internet Protocol pipe that would compete directly with other online applications and raise their costs of doing business, just like our railroad-and-shipper example. A carrier could, say, partner with a cable channel to provide Video on Demand services to its subscribers. That would allow the cable channel to raise the “shipping” prices of rival online video distributors, because in order to reach audiences in a similarly technologically advanced way, the rival online distributor would have to also make a deal with the carrier: a deal that might not be available, or might be too expensive for a start-up.

(That’s why, by the way, the cable industry in particular wants these special services to be indistinguishable from Internet access. Cable wants to destroy its online competition, and this net neutrality issue is deeply related to the Comcast/NBCU merger. )

The companies are saying “don’t worry, that’s not the Internet.” But it will certainly appear to be the Internet to the rest of us, and we’ll give up on the slow-lane services that aren’t satisfying. The companies are also leaving wireless out of any nondiscrimination promises, which most of us also thought of as an access route to the Internet, and the nondiscrimination regime they’ve proposed for wired access is pretty weak.

In an op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News I’ve joined with three other law professors to say that the vacuum we now have in regulating high-speed Internet access has led these companies to divide things up among themselves. The FCC is being disintermediated, in effect. The Commission needs to act quickly to protect entrepreneurs, innovation, and consumers.

Here’s President Obama again:

“So let me remind everybody: Those of us in public office were not sent to Washington to do what’s easy. We weren’t sent there because of the big fancy title. We weren’t sent there to — because of a big fancy office. We weren’t sent there just so everybody can say how wonderful we are. We were sent there to do what was hard. (Applause.) We were sent there to take on the tough issues. We were sent there to solve the big challenges. And that’s why we’re there. (Applause.)”

Dear FCC: It’s time to do what is hard.

Susan Crawford is a member of the faculty of Cardozo Law School and also a Visiting Research Collaborator at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy.

Google Hasn’t Sold Out

The post explains that Google hasn’t “sold the tech industry out,” but instead, was engaged in a form of realpolitik by getting in bed with Verizon because nothing was getting done at the FCC and in Congress:

But given political realities, this particular issue has been intractable in Washington for several years now. At this time there are no enforceable protections — at the Federal Communications Commission or anywhere else — against even the worst forms of carrier discrimination against Internet traffic.

With that in mind, we decided to partner with a major broadband provider on the best policy solution we could devise together. We’re not saying this solution is perfect, but we believe that a proposal that locks in key enforceable protections for consumers is preferable to no protection at all.

That’s true, and that’s why last week, I called on FCC chairman Genachowski to man up and start moving the debate over broadband reclassification forward while also taking a lead on network neutrality. However, Google’s defense of itself is unconvincing. Go read the article in full, but here are the high points:

Wait, What About Wireless?

Google says the compromise was GOOD even if wireless isn’t included, because until this point, there was no regulation about network neutrality anywhere. It’s true that the FCC and members of Congress have tried for years to get network neutrality rules passed, but even after the Google-Verizon deal, there are still no network neutrality rules because this agreement isn’t law. Verizon will voluntarily abide by these rules, but it’s also an ISP with some of the fastest and fattest pipes around, so its concession is pretty trifling.

As for the selling out on wireless net neutrality, Google notes that discrimination on wireless is less likely because wireless is a more competitive industry, and because carriers are starting to allow open devices on their networks. It also notes that wireless providers have capacity constraints that make network management more important for wireless operators. I concede the last point, but a variety of factors from the amount of spectrum owned by Verizon and AT&T for 4G services, as well as device availability and high switching costs, make the nation’s wireless carriers less competitive than one might think. Additionally, open devices on networks are good, but Google knows that discrimination can still occur at the network level — and is likely to — regardless of what device is attached. If AT&T wants to block YouTube on its wireless network, it can, and phones, computers and anything else would be affected.

Welcome to the Best-Effort Internet

When it comes to the advanced network services carve-out (also known as managed services), Google defends its capitulation by pointing out that the compromise framework has safeguards:

• First, the broadband provider must fully comply with the consumer protection and nondiscrimination standards governing its Internet access service before it could pursue any of these other online service opportunities.
• Second, these services must be “distinguishable in purpose and scope” from Internet access, so that they cannot over time supplant the best effort Internet.
• Third, the FCC retains its full capacity to monitor these various service offerings, and to intervene where necessary to ensure that robust, unfettered broadband capacity is allocated to Internet access.

The first two are so vague as to be almost useless in defending this carve-out. Whose protection is Google talking about in the first place? The ISPs’? The government doesn’t have all that many standards; that’s part of the problem. In the second item — any time someone has to quote their agreement verbatim in defending it there’s a problem — the quote indicates those words are likely the loophole that ISPs will drive their alternative Internet through. I mean, do you want the web or the best-effort web? Seriously.

The third item touches on something Google never addresses in its entire statement, which is the fact that the FCC is rendered fairly powerless by this agreement. So when Google says the FCC “retains its full capacity to monitor these various service offerings,” I’m not getting a sense of security so much as wondering what a powerless FCC can actually do about any problems that arise.

The Great Android Comb Over

Now we get to the fun parts, where Google insists that this isn’t a business deal and this isn’t about Android. There it’s telling a version of the truth. This isn’t a business deal. It’s a policy recommendation. Google is too big to ever have to pay off an ISP to get its content to users, so it has no need to make a business deal. However, other startups or smaller companies may not be so lucky. As for Android… Fine, Google, it’s not about Android. But here you sound like a balding man with a comb-over insisting he’s not losing his hair, and this post doesn’t really change my mind that Android is your comb-over.

The final myth Google wants to debunk is that this compromise isn’t about two corporations legislating the future of the Internet.

Our two companies are proposing a legislative framework to the Congress for its consideration. We hope all stakeholders will weigh in and help shape the framework to move us all forward. We’re not so presumptuous to think that any two businesses could — or should — decide the future of this issue. We’re simply trying to offer a proposal to help resolve a debate which has largely stagnated after five years.

Here Google is playing the kind of semantic gymnastics that lobbyists deploy so well. In a world where corporate interests (and sometimes their actual lobbyists) write legislation, Google isn’t merely an interested party proposing an idea for network neutrality; it’s a powerful influencer suggesting to overworked and under-informed legislative aids how laws should be written. Unless the FCC takes back control of this process, or Congress stymies any legislative effort because its members are reluctant to touch a hot-button issue during a mid-term election year, Google and Verizon’s compromise will influence policy in a way that common citizens cannot.

Google closes by saying that it hopes “this helps address some of the inaccuracies that have appeared about our proposal.” I would like to offer a similar closing on this particular post. I hope this helps address and clarify some of the semantic sleights of hand or obfuscations that have appeared in Google’s defense, so folks in Congress, those reading about it on the web, and those inside Google who want to believe that this isn’t a selling out of Google’s defense of the open internet can understand what’s really being said.

Ironically, Google may have thrown its reputation under the bus with this whole effort, only to see Congress stand by and do nothing because of the coming mid-term elections. Or perhaps Congress will take the framework and bastardize it to an extent that Google will rue the day it tried to move the ball forward on net neutrality at all. Politics are messy, and Google is learning this firsthand.

Related GigaOM Pro Content (sub req’d): The New Net-Neutrality Debate: What’s the Best Way to Discriminate?

Laptop stands are widely heralded as a great solution for a more ergonomic workstation and better positioning of your computer. They come in all manner of shapes and sizes, from the downright awful to very slick and stylish.

I recently took the plunge and purchased the Rain Design mStand. This particular stand is designed specifically for aluminum MacBook laptops, matching the anodized metal finish wonderfully. Like the latest Apple notebooks, mStand is made from one solid piece of aluminum.

While not the most cost-effective solution (mStand costs $50), it certainly goes a long way towards offering an ergonomic and stylish accessory for any MacBook or MacBook Pro. This review will take a look at the design, stability, ergonomic design and limitations of the stand.

Design

Right from removing it from the box, the mStand looked comfortably at home in my Apple setup. The aim was to elevate my MacBook Pro to the same level of a Cinema Display and transform it into a more usable second monitor.

The design almost identically mimics the stand present on Apple’s Cinema Display and iMac computers — even down to the inclusion of a circular cable hole at the rear.

According to the documentation, the aluminum finish also assists with cooling your laptop through acting as a heat sink. While a solid metal block might not seem the best candidate for a heat sink, I found that it certainly did not cause any problems. My MacBook Pro remained cool and quiet.

Stability

Obviously if you’re going to entrust a small piece of metal to raise your precious MacBook 6 inches above a desk, stability is a major consideration. The mStand shines in this department due to a remarkably well-designed construction. It supports all MacBook and MacBook Pro models, along with any other laptop up to a 15″ widescreen.

Pressing, knocking and shaking the stand didn’t once instill a sense of fear for my laptop’s safety. If you’re using the stand on your lap (which works well), it’s perfectly capable of supporting even the most vigorous typing activity.

Pads cushion both the underside and front of your laptop where it comes into contact with the stand to ensure there’s no chance of scratching.

Ergonomics

The stand’s accompanying leaflet makes it clear that “all ergonomic guidelines recommend placing the screen at eye level, and keeping your back, forearms and wrists straight.” Coupling the mStand with an external keyboard and mouse is a far better solution than using a laptop directly on your desk:

mStand Ergonomics

I can’t see myself lugging all this gear to Starbucks for an afternoon, but it can work extremely well in an office environment.

As mentioned below, at times I felt that the stand may be elevating the screen a little too high. It could be that I’ll just need a few weeks to adjust to looking in a slightly different direction.

Limitations

The main limitation with this product is the non-adjustable height. While this is a common problem with many laptop stands, it could really make the mStand a perfect solution. I found that the stand elevated my MacBook Pro a little too high — almost to the top of my Cinema Display. I do, however, appreciate that this is likely the perfect position from an ergonomic perspective.

The only other niggle (and I’m really splitting hairs) is that the cable hole in the rear cannot accommodate the width of an external monitor connection. It’s a slight inconvenience for keeping cables organized, but certainly not a deal-breaker.

Conclusion

So far, I’ve been remarkably impressed with the mStand. It seems perfectly able to match Apple in terms of design, ergonomics and build quality — no easy task.

Is it worth the asking price of $50? The answer depends very much on whether you require a design that’s able to match the aluminum look and feel of an existing Mac setup. If appearance isn’t a major concern, the Logitech Alto Express may be a better (and more budget-friendly) alternative.

Whichever stand you go for, it’s definitely a move I would recommend for a more comfortable workspace.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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So we give props to the people who try to push forward measurement of the online video economy, among them today Digital Entertainment Group, Nielsen and BrightRoll.

The Hollywood and consumer electronics trade association Digital Entertainment Group reported last night a dip in home entertainment spending, including a 14 percent yearly drop in DVD sales. However, it also noted growth for categories like Blu-ray and digital revenue. Digital downloads brought in $487 million in the first quarter, up 19 percent.

Nielsen said this week it will begin measuring Internet usage in 375 of its TV ratings sample audience. While the move is apparently “controversial,” according to MediaPost, because it may possibly interfere with Nielsen’s TV research, that seems bound to fade with time. We’d all like to know more about how media platforms coexist, and are particularly interested in the emergence of “two-screen” media usage. The new research initiative, which could be expanded this fall if it goes well, will measure TV usage simultaneously with web video and other Internet usage.

Video ad network BrightRoll saw in its internal data that pre-roll prices are falling (though pre-rolls themselves are accounting for even more of the vast majority of its revenue). The average pre-roll CPM was down 9 percent in the first quarter from the last quarter of 2008 and 12 percent from a year ago. The fourth quarter had already been down 12.5 percent from the third and 25 percent from a year before. BrightRoll doesn’t break out a specific number, but AccuStream iMedia Research recently said the average U.S. CPM for premium pre-rolls was $35.

Those numbers aren’t expected to swing back up. BrightRoll also surveyed 150 U.S. advertising executives, 53 percent of whom said they expect in-stream ad prices to be marginally lower in a year. Twenty percent said they expect CPMs to cost half their current price.

As for how the video ad landscape is shaping up, 51 percent of those surveyed said they were most likely to buy video advertising from a publisher, 41 percent from an ad network, and 8 percent from a portal.

Disclosure: BrightRoll is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

The Compass is kind of a combo of recent video plug-ins from Cooliris, RealPlayer, StumbleUpon and VodPod, though I totally understand and respect if you’ve never heard of any of those. (Well, except RealPlayer, but this is their new stuff, not the old ubiquitous and yucky software. And the new stuff? You probably haven’t heard of.) When you enter a term on a search page, say Google, the Compass pops up at the top of the page as a scroll bar of videos with that keyword or ones similar to it as determined by related searches on Veoh. And in a soon-to-be-added feature, when you’re on a regular page that has a video, the Compass pops up a tab next to a video offering the option to watch related videos, add the video to a playlist, and then download videos to your desktop. These are some cool ideas, but I haven’t yet played with Compass enough to see if they’re executed in a non-kludgy way.

Veoh already has had some success with getting people to download its software; founder Dmitry Shapiro tells us the company sees 30,000 daily installations of its Veoh Player, which aids users in watching longer and higher-quality video than on its site.

Despite significant traffic, Veoh has long struggled to differentiate itself. But with early funders such as Michael Eisner, it has always had friends in high places, and this summer it raised $30 million from investors including Intel and Adobe. On the other hand, like every other video startup, Veoh also recently made layoffs. And the video search and discovery space is not exactly empty; strengthening players include Mefeedia, Taboola and OVGuide.

Disclosure: We use VodPod on this site. We also share an investor, True Ventures, with the company.

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