Google's got more than Ad Words

Just a brief link to a slew of new promotions Google has posted for their web browser, Chrome. Personally I thought the approach was ingenious. Not all of them make sense, but they are mostly charming and thought provoking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqfwNbB0QqQ

For some reason blogger won't let me embed the video, so check them all out at the link above.

TPB: A follow-up

I will keep this brief, as there are countless other blogs and new sites that have already covered this very same story. As you might already know several weeks ago the owners of The Pirates Bay were convicted of assistance in pirating and sentenced to one year jail time and several million dollars in fines. Needless to say this outraged many people on the internet, and was seen as an attack on digital freedoms.

However, since that conviction a number of new events have occurred. First of which would be TPB calling for a retrial. Why? Because it turns out the judge who convicted them was a member and supporter of the RIAA and several other firms. This means that his judgement was, in all likelihood, incredibly biased.

Also, TPB posted on their site a notice to all members. It asked them not, under any circumstances, to attempt to help them pay their fines. They went on to explain that this was not because they felt liable, but because they felt wronged and had no intention of giving recording compainies a single cent.

Finally, the Sweedish Pirate Party (SPP?) had a record leap in membership, with several thousand joining on the day of the conviction. The group now has enough members that they are legally allowed a representitive in the national body.

All of this is suggestive of one thing. Piracy is not going away, it will fight. And by the looks of how things are going, it might well win.

Mega Video: The Future of Television?

Since watching television shows, and other clips, on the Internet has been steadily increasing in popularity ever since the advent of streaming video, there have been a number of sites that have attempted to capitalize on this market. Hulu is best known, raking in profits from ads placed at clutch points in the latter half of shows. As well as youtube, which has just recently begun to use advertising within their videos (in the form in video bar ads).

Another, lesser known, but still widely used service is Megavideo. Originating from the parent site Megaupload.com, Megavideo takes a slightly different approach from most services, an integrated approach. All videos on are offered to all viewers in high quality, with a mandatory pop-up at the beginning. From then on the viewer is allowed to watch what ever program they want, for free. Since Megavideo has many off-shore branches, this becomes an effective way to watch television shows that would be removed from youtube or missing on Hulu.

Naturally this isn't entirely legal, or at least not wholly moral, but it is profitable. However the real trick of megavideo is their bandwidth limit. Any viewer can watch about 72 minutes of video, before they have used their allotted limit and must wait (generally around an hour). This seems like quite a lot of time, but considering that most shows are around 43 minutes, and movies at least 90, the result is the viewer being left halfway through their program.

In steps the second revenue stream, premium accounts. For a nominal fee (about $10 for a month) the user can gain unlimited access and much faster steaming. This account also passes onto megaupload, where you get fast download and upload speeds of many files. The peak of this offer is that it is made immediately as the video cuts out, prompting immediate action.

I wont debate the legality of the service, they do only the bare minimum to not get sued off the net. But their pricing strategies and service are both highly effective. They are the only service online where one can find normally inaccessible shows and movies, in high quality, for free. Their growth and prominence are both testament to this success. I personally know many people, both young and old, who use the service. Some even choose it over the legal venues (although streaming copyrighted work is not technically illegal, only uploading).

This brings to mind the question: Is this the future of streaming television? The networks might not like it, but the service is unquestionably faster, less invasive, and more reliable than most streaming sites. Even Hulu (the current contender) does not have the breadth selection. It will be interesting to see if megavideo's combined Subscription/advertising service for high quality product becomes the dominant method.

The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay (TPB from here on out) is one of the most popular bit torrent search sites in the world. On it one can find links to movies, television, music, books and many many other files. Both legal and copyrighted. Despite the sites massive popularity it has not yet been shut down, for two reasons. First: Because it does not actually host any of the files, and simply serves as a search engine for .torrent file types. Second: Becuase it is located is Sweeden, where the copyright laws are different. As a result TBP has fended off now countless depositions from major media companies demanding they remove their content (In a highly amusing manner, I might add).

However, along with Swedish law, this invincible status has changed. Now TPB is entangled in a major lawsuit with the RIAA and several other media companies who are sueing the site, and its owners, for absolutely everything they are worth.

To properly understand the full meaning of the trial one must have a rudimentary understanding of the bit torrent program (and Peer-to-Peer file sharing in general). Bit torrent works by linking a large number of users through a torrent program (there are many of these, they are not illegal). Instead of sending the file from a single host (like a website) instead the intended recipient of the file becomes flagged by other uses. Those with the file already complete (or partially downloaded) then send small snippets of it to the recipient, and they intern send them to others. Thus many people can get the same file with relatively low bandwidth usage. (For a full explanation, go here: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/bittorrent.htm)

As stated above: TBP is a simple search engine for these files. Since it does not directly host them, or profit from them in any way (Their Ad revenue is quite low, and used to fund the site) they argue that they have done nothing wrong. The conglomerated media, on the other hand, argues that, because they are deliberately running the site with the intent of spreading these files, they are committing major copyright infringement. They are claiming losses in the tens of millions as a result.

Now the true relevance of this as such: Should TPB be convicted of piracy, the courts will have set a precedent that ANYONE, who's service assists in the location of these files (like google, yahoo, or any other search function) can be held responsible for copyright infringement.

Naturally the stakes are extremely high. But lets look at both cases.

The Pirate Bay: Though their lawyers would claim otherwise, TPB is clearly a site intended for the proliferation of copyrighted material. Though they may not host it themselves, they are taking great steps to make such files readily available. On the other hand, even without this site the files are still present, and easily found. Which begs the question, is TPB truly making any difference to the downloading of these files, or simply making saving time for those who would.
The owners of TPB would certainly like to think that way, and argue that their service's assistance in the downloading of copyrighted material is incidental. And that the RIAA cannot (or at least seriously lacks the data) to prove that they have actually suffered losses as a result (This is the case, actually, but it is up for the spin-doctors and lawyers to make that obvious)

The Conglomerated Media: The RIAA (and friends) have not taken a good approach to this trial. They had limited understanding of the bit torrent program (they experts admitted to having no idea how it worked) and extremely bad data. This in mind they have still made an admirable plea as to the harm caused by TPB, and the obvious criminal intent (which was pretty obvious) of the organization. Their desire is jail time, the removal of the site, huge fines for their "losses", and a list of all users of the Pirate Bay (which they are simply not going to get).

So how has this turned out so far? For TPB, pretty good. The prosecution had to drop half the charges on the first day due to their astounding lack of understanding about the technical aspects of the site. However, charges against the owners, and the act of aiding in 'criminal activity' still remain and are the lynch pin of the trial. Despite what one might think about copyright law, they can see where a guilty verdict (especially an unconditional one) would be a massive attack against the entirety of the Internet.

I for one, am understanding of the RIAA's stance, however absolutely despise the methods and laws they use to get their way. Despite what they would like one to think, file sharing is not theft (nothing is taken from the owner). I am quiet confident that the outcome of this trial will be felt in many ways, though the verdict will be left to decide if this is a positive dispersion of ideas. Or a gestapo like enforcement of truly bandwidth drowning proportions.

NIKEiD:

-Experience: The first thing I noticed upon entering the site was the layout, very Nike. Good balance of black and colors, clearly has an emphasis on the sleek look of the Nike shoe. Interestingly, I found the use of colors to be almost too great, some of the shoe colors were excessively bright and didn't mesh terribly well the the B&W aesthetic they were aiming for. On the other hand, I am not their target in the least, so perhaps they were right in their choices. The layout on the other hand was cool and intuitive. It was easy to follow the flow of the page from one link to the next.
Clearly the design is SUPER flash intensive, which didn't go over so well on the unusually slow Ithaca network, but once the site was loaded up I had little difficulty. As previously stated, the flow of the site was very strong. Each section led from one to the other, and I found myself inspecting links and finding where they sent me. Eventually this took me to the "What's New" section, and the swiftly to the custom shoe search and design area.
Though this was a nice design for casual viewers I do however, have some questions as to how difficult it would be to use if one were actually trying to accomplish something (like buying a shoe, for instance). There are a massive number of categories, sizes, designs, and several other aspects I was unaware existed till I saw this site. Once again, however, I am not their target. So perhaps the true audience has a better grasp of the inner workings of the shoe industry.
The feel of the site was uniform, and fit well Nike's image. Plenty of pictures of sports stars, mid action, and lots of colorful layouts showing the many different kinds of shoes. The uniform page layout was helpful for one who has no idea where they are going, and at the very least each page was interesting enough that I paged through quite a few before becoming bored.

-Shoe Design:

This here is my beautiful shoe. I believe I may be slightly biased in color choice given the Steelers recent success. Oh well.

Design with Nike was easy, point and click choices, rotating view, a good selection of shoes archetypes. I have a breeze making this shoe, it likely took less than five minutes all together. Honestly any issues I had with it were minor. For starters, the color selection was very limited. Some sections of the shoes had only 4-5 colors to choose from. but that is a minor complaint, that varied depending on the kind of shoe I was trying to make.
Second would be the fact that Nike makes you sign up to save the shoe. This in and of itself was little problem, but their mandatory desire for my home address turned me off from joining. But, as I said, this was a tiny qualm. Aside from those two things I could find no other complains. The layout was efficient, not that flashy, but it is important to be effective before flashy. Controls were super simple and required no thought or knowledge of shoes to employ.
They definitely have Puma beat in this aspect of their site.

Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ:

Experience:
HA! and I thought NIKEiD was flash heavy, how foolish of me. This crushes Nike in its obligatory use of adobe products.
But, where to start? This site has vastly more purpose than NIKEiD. Unlike Nike the Mongolian Shoe BBQ exists purely to design a shoe from start to finish, and has an easy to follow linear process of doing so. In fact, the entire site experience, from start to finish, is designing your shoe. Once complete you are done, right up to the point where you buy your shoe.
Overall, this leaves quite a bit to be desired as far as "experience" goes. Certainly the site has an amusing aesthetic, and good visuals. The images of the chef, and the restaurant really nail the feel they were going for. If only the flash player on my computer was fully functional I am sure that I would have had a blast for the 5-10 seconds those images went by. But it doesn't, and I didn't. Instead I waited something upwards of 3-5 minutes for each high-res picture to slowly drag by.
So my opinion of the "experience" is certainly colored by my internet connection. I would suggest they add a HTML only version of this site, but it really isn't something that can be accomplished without flash.

Shoe Design:
There it is, my beauty. I called it El Dorado.
Since almost all of this site is shoe design, I assumed that this is where most of the true experience lay. Whether by sheer luck, or superior programming, the connection wasn't nearly as aweful, and thus I actually managed to make this shoe in under 10 minutes.
The first steps in the process were simple. Pick a shoe, pick an existing color scheme (or not), then tweak. It was here that I determined Puma's target to be shoe designers. After all, they are the only people that could possibly need to know all the bloody terms for each part of the shoe that Puma is so kind to provide you with. As a layman I had some difficulty figuring out exactly what I was altering, and was profoundly confused as to why they didn't feel a point-and-click system was a good idea.
Once I got passed all that fluff, the shoe design was rather nice. Different colors and feel from Nike, but with more variety. Here I pondered over texture and color and design. Eventually settling on this black and gold design (for some strange reason I cannot explain).

Comparison:
Each site had their perks. NIKEiD was multi purpose and expansive, while Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ was narrow and focused. All in all, I'd have to say both succeed where the other fails.
NIKEiD was a good site, certainly. There is a great deal of information to uncover and a massive number of options once you find them. however, in all of this, the custom shoe idea gets lost. It becomes a side note for the many previously existing products. By the end of the process one feels less like they are making their own shoe and more like they are slightly altering and existing brand. Though this may be the case, the thrill of originality is much less.
The community feel of NIKEiD, however, is spot on. Being able to share shoe designs and make wall papers is exactly the sort of thing that keeps users coming back and, eventually, encourages them to buy.
On the flip side Puma's Mongolian Shoe BBQ is the ultimate in style. There is no doubt that (had my computer been fully functional) their site was much cooler and more original than NIKEiD. The greater focus on the shoe design made everything feel much more personal. However, I am afraid their site was too narrow. With little options out side the shoe design, there isn't much there to keep you coming back.
In both cases I found that, by the end of the design, the shoes were so grotesquely expensive that I would never EVER consider using either service as anything more than a time waster. However, when it comes down to it, I would say I would be more likely to use Puma's Mongolian Shoe BBQ. Due to the breadth of options and more direct approach, the actual shoe design portion of the site is superior to that of NIKEiD. But as a marketing tool for spreading their product NIKEiD is by far the superior site.

A new project

It would seem this has now become the blog for my Internet Marketing class, with Kurt Komaromi. Hopefully that will all go well.