Mayhem & Chaos Blog

Dumbshit Dept.

Costly fact checking and Wikipedia

After the recent Oprah book club fiasco, the publisher has come out to say that Fact Checking is too costly:

Unlike journalists, publishers have never seen it as their purview to verify that the information in nonfiction books is true. Editors and publishers say the profit-margins in publishing don't allow for hiring fact-checkers. Instead, they rely on authors to be honest, and on their legal staffs to avoid libels suits. "An author brings a manuscript saying it represents the truth, and that relationship is one of trust," says Ms. Talese.

Recently Wikipedia has been hammered on credibility claims and I said that eventually Wikipedia will forge a new credibility model that we cannot grasp yet. To further muse on that thread, I think in light of these fact-checking revelations and recent debunking of a cloning researcher in Korea, we'll see that the high-road taken by academics criticizing WikiPedia isn't nearly as high as they would claim. I think the non-wikipedia world is likely to get knocked down a few pegs and sink lower in the overall credibility ratings as Wikipedia rises in its credibility. I wonder when the perceived credibility of Wikipedia rises above the credibility of for-profit publishers -- its only a matter of time.

Yes, fact checking is costly -- in a top-down model. Fact checking in a bottom-up model is distributed and built into the system. Which one is more scalable over the long term?

Technorati Tags: quality, wikipedia

Music industry watch

iPods for Congress!

The geniuses at IPAction have started a new campaign to get iPods for all senators. Sound crazy? Not quite:

But Senator Stevens, the 82-year old committee chairman from Alaska, surprised the audience by announcing that his daughter had bought him an iPod, and suddenly Stevens had a much greater understanding of the many ways innovative technology can create choice for consumers. Content industry representatives at the hearing found themselves answering much tougher questions than they typically receive.

I'll send them $20 when I get my first paycheck from my current consulting gig -- this sounds like a powerful way to educate congress.

Technorati Tags: government, ipod

Music industry watch

Pixar and Disney: The breakthrough we've been waiting for?

The music industry has been in a death-spiral for the last 10 years and we all know it. Every day it gets more painful to watch -- to the point where I hardly muse about the demise of the music industry anymore.

But, with talk of Pixar being sold to Disney the entertainment industry may be just around the corner from a revolution that's been needed for... about 10 years now. The current stalemate of the RIAA/MPAA constantly suing their customers and trying to ram-rod more DRM down our throats is only going to open the door for an open music industry to spring up and take its place.

The only other hope I have is that one company gets wise and opens up their content and starts licensing it to anyone who comes along. This one company is going to make money hand over fist and put the other companies into a serious bind. The other companies will then have two choices -- open up and compete, or stay closed and perish.

If Steve Jobs ends up on the board of Disney, there is a real possibility that this will happen:

"Jobs would bring a great addition to the Disney board that is not very tech savvy ... but the Disney guys are thinking about this (digital distribution) already."

(I'd almost say that already is already too late, but thats another topic)

Jobs has the strength of character to get the board of Disney to realize their mistakes -- either he will destroy Disney if they don't go along, or he'll turn them around and lead the company into licensing their catalog to everyone. Of course, this won't happen overnight, but I think there is now a very real chance that we'll see a significant change in the industry in the next 5 years.

Technorati Tags: disney, pixar

MusicBrainz

Linkara Musica

After weeks of negotiations and three months of having to keep quiet about the deal, Linkara just launched their new site Linkara Música! Linkara, a Spanish social networking site based in Barcelona, licensed the MusicBrainz data to create this new site. For more details, see the MusicBrainz Blog entry.

Technorati Tags: metabrainz

Music industry watch

Yahoo acquires WebJay

Looks like Yahoo has acquired WebJay, along with its creator Lucas Gonze:

I met Lucas more than a year ago when searching for a suitable default playlist format for the Y! Music Engine and stumbling across his excellent survey of playlist formats. We quickly became involved in the quest for the last playlist format the world would ever need (with help from many other smarties, such as Robert Kaye), the result of which is the extensible and open XSPF format that is starting to make the kids dance these days. Anyone involved in the XSPF project will tell you that I was completely useless and Lucas (and others!) was (were) indispensable.

Congrats to Lucas for getting solidly hitched to the corporate teat!

I continue to be excited that Yahoo believes in XSPF -- having a large company throw their weight behind this emerging open playlist standard pleases me immensely. The skill of making mix-tapes has largely been lost in the shuffle to make everything digital, and making playlists and sharing them with others has a lot of potential. Especially if it can be done without pirating all the music that goes with it -- passing around small XML playlists that people can use with their own players and content is key!

Technorati Tags: yahoo, xspf