MyThoughts

Internet Radio Day Of Silence

Day Of Silence For Internet RadioReadWriteWeb is reporting that beginning tomorrow June 26, 2007, thousands of webmasters who operate online radio stations will observe a day of silence to protest the rate increase of 0.012 cents per song, per listener, from the current 0.007 cents rate.

Sites such as Live365, Pandora, SHOUTcast, Rhapsody and many more will be participating in the day of silence. It looks like Last.FM won’t be participating, and I think it’s recent acquisition by CBS may be the reason why.

Personally, I think this is the equivalent of Americans refusing to purchase gasoline for a day. It looks like it could work on paper, but in reality, it is a lost cause. I do think however, that giving users a taste of what it might be like without net radio may actually tip some users over the fence and actually get them off their butts to call their local representative, however, in most cases, I don’t see this blackout as having any major effect to what may be coming down the pike.

I will truly miss Pandora if it goes under. I’ve only started using it recently and I love it. Now, the big bad record companies are going to take it away from us. What do you think about this situation? Will you take some time out of your day tomorrow to call your representative to try and save internet radio?

Who Needs Privacy?

As illustrated by Nick Douglas writer for Valleywag and a recent article on Mashable.com written by James Mowery titled Stalking 2.0 have users switched from wanting to remain anonymous to practically being stalked and not giving a hoot about privacy anymore? As most of us know, anonymity on the Internet is a tough thing to come by. Some say it doesn’t even exist. Why is it then, that so many people are using Web 2.0 services that practically broadcast everything they do with their computer system to the web?

It is unnerving to see so many users literally broadcasting much of their personal information to the web. I feel that if this trend of broadcasting ones life to the Internet continues, there will be a sharp increase in the amount of cases that deal with identity theft. Each one of these broadcasting services is a piece of a puzzle, collect enough pieces and you can put together a comprehensive profile on a specific person. One thing is for sure, browsing the web and going through a user’s online presence to compile personal information is a whole lot easier than hacking into a user’s system.

The next time I hear someone complain about Google and how much information they store on their users to accommodate targeted advertising, I am going to remind them that there are folks like Nick Douglas who can likely find the information they need about a particular person within 60 minutes of browsing each social networking site that a user may be apart of. Not every guy is as nice as Nick, and I whole heartedly believe that the social engineering types are gleaming with joy as the information they needed to work so hard to obtain is now given to them on a silver platter.

Who else is concerned about what is going on? Do I and others have nothing to worry about?