As independent media creation becomes more common, new ways of protecting that intellectual property will be necessary. Creative Commons was fine for the hobbyist who basically wanted to say, “I don’t want to make any money with my stuff and neither can you.” But for those who truly want to make a business of it, a better method is needed. Traditional copyright is fine, but there’s no easy way for the small publisher to license their work to someone else without having an attorney draft new documents for each licensee. However, a new service is attempting to make it happen - RightsAgent.

Here’s a good article about how they intend to make it work.

Anyone who has been writing a blog or reading a blog for more than ten minutes knows how vital the comments of any post can be. And it’s no surprise that the worst “flames” and “trolls” are the anonymous comments. If I was a mathematician of any sort, I could probably correlate the value of any given blog comment with the the number of comments that person posts anonymously vs. comments they post with their real name (any takers?). In fact, there’s probably a corollary out there that says the value of any system in general increases as anonymity within the community decreases. I did find one article that comes close to such a study.

I admit, I’ve posted comments on which I did not use my real name. Nothing I said was offensive or blatantly rude, yet the three comments I did post this year were - how shall I say this - more “aggressive” than I would have been if the conversation were happening at a reception. Yet there’s always a tinge of guilt that goes along with being an “anonymous coward”, as Slashdot calls them. PennyArcade.com sums it up best with a simple blackboard formula.

A quick search of the terms “anonymous comments” in Google delivered this interesting post entitled, the The Mystery of Anonymous Comments, plus many others. It’s obvious this issue has been addressed before.

As you might expect, the more readers a blogger has, the more they have to deal with the garbage. Robert Scoble, Mike Arrington and Jason Calacanis have all had to deal with it - with all of them either shutting off comments to individual posts or their blog entirely because it gets so bad.

Part of the problem lies in a vague “unwritten rule of blogging” that says that all comments must be allowed so that we can all have a world of transparency and justice. What a bunch of nonsense. I wish I could find the person that wrote that unwritten rule so I could anonymously comment on their blog that they’re a stupid fool. :) I’ve never subscribed to this and if a comment is lame, offensive, unproductive or doesn’t add anything to the discussion, I’m going to delete it. Heck, if it has bad grammar that might just be enough to get axed. So shoot me - it’s my blog - not your open forum. If you want a voice, you’re welcome to go to Blogger.com and get your own.

All this leads to one thing: the blogging world would be better if more people posted with their real name. And I’m willing to do my part. From this day forward, I am making a pact with myself and the rest of the blogging and message board world to always use my real name on any comment or post. If I’m not willing to attach what I say to my name, I shouldn’t be posting it anyway.

Feel free to post your anonymous comment - but don’t expect it to be there long.

Update: Looks like action is finally being taken against an anonymous poster. Hopefully we see more of this.

I’ve been immersing myself into the world of search engine marketing lately. One of the very first things I did was “Google” the term: “search engine marketing.” I was simply curious who made the top 10 listings in the industry where they teach you how to make the top 10 listings.

The first listing: Wikipedia’s page for the term “search engine marketing.” Search for “podcasting” and you get the same thing: the Wikipedia page for the term: “podcasting.”

The problem is, neither of those results deserve to be number one. I know what search engine marketing is. I know what podcasting is. If I know enough to type in the term, I know enough to know what the basic definition is. And I couldn’t care less about the history of the term.

I would guess that most people who type in those terms are not looking for definitions or history. They, like myself, are looking for help in the subject. The first listing should be the best “how to” article available, with the next 100 listings being a close second. Until Wikipedia starts listing resources and outbound links to great sites that answer the “how to” question, Google is wasting my time by making them them #1.

I’m curious if anyone has any experience with the battery drain speed of the iPhone when it has Wi-Fi on all the time vs. not having it on. Basically I’m looking for either scientific or unscientific tests (or even anecdotal evidence) that shows:

1) Battery use time until re-charge necessary WITH Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on all the time
1) Battery use time until re-charge WITHOUT Wi-Fi and BlueTooth on
2) Battery use time until re-charge with just Wi-Fi on
3) Battery use time until re-charge with just Bluetooth on

AdBrite, an Internet advertising company, has raised $23,000,000 according to PaidContent.org. Om Malik is saying it’s probably not the last infusion. The company raised $4 million in 2004 and $6 million in 2006 for a grand total of $35,000,000 to date. My only question: where the heck does all this money go?

I can see this kind of money would be necessary for something like a startup pharmaceutical company, where the cost of entering the game in both equipment and specialized knowledge is astronomical. But an Internet company? I just don’t see why so much is necessary. After four years, shouldn’t the company be making enough to fund it’s own growth?

I can’t imagine the first investors who put in the initial $4 million are pleased. If I’m missing something here, please let me know. But this news just solidifies the fact that I just don’t get the VC world.

I just unsubscribed from British Airway’s email marketing messages - for the second time - so who knows if this is actually working. After I clicked on the unsubscribe link, I was taken to a page where I have to choose which country site to go to. Huh? Then after choosing the USA site, I’m presented with a form where I have to type in my email address. Why in the world should I have to type in my email address? Anyway, after doing so and clicking Submit, the confirmation page says:

Thank you. We have received your request to unsubscribe from British Airways Group special offer emails. Please allow 10 working days for this to be completed.

Ten working days??? Are you kidding me? What on earth could possibly take two weeks to accomplish?  TNC New Media has about 1/10,000th of BA’s annual revenue and we have an automated one-click unsubscribe function in our email newsletters.

Give me a break, British Airways. This ain’t 1995.

I just finished talking to a reporter from one of the tradeshow and conference magazines about how to research starting a new event.  One of the things I mentioned was making sure your event was highly targeted for a niche community.  When I’ve said this, most people tell me their idea and it’s still rather broad.  As a general guidepost, take the audience you think is the perfect niche for your event (or website) and cut it in half again.  What you’re left with is probably the right niche.Worried about getting too niche?  Don’t.  Here’s a blog about one thing and one thing only - tomatoes - http://www.TomatoCasual.com.