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Statsaholic defense hits a spanner: owner a convicted extortionist

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statsaholic logoThe defense of the well regarded Statsaholic (previously Alexaholic), currently on the receiving end of law suit from Amazon for the crime of daring to use Amazon’s open API’s and render Alexa data better than Amazon was, has just hit the mother of all spanners, according to TechCrunch, Statsaholic’s owner, Ron Hornbaker, is a convicted extortionist.

But wait, it gets better, because as well as serving jail time for extortion, Hornbaker wasn’t just your garden variety, every day extortionist, he was an internet extortionist as well, frequenting AOL Chat rooms trying to extort money from wayward husbands. Yep, he’s 1996’s version of Michael Crook.

Knowing this, a lot of people have got egg on their faces, including yours truly, for going in to bat for a chap who well…just doesn’t play cricket, if you know what I mean. Time to remove my name from the online petition against the legal action as well, and apologize to Amazon. Sorry Amazon, I’ll do some digging before acting against you in the future.

Originally posted on April 22, 2007 @ 11:26 pm

eBay acquires StumbleUpon for $40-$45 million

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Techcrunch has the scoop: eBay has acquired social networking meets random surfing outfit StumbleUpon for $40-$45 million.

Valleywag does the figures and works out that whilst the deal is obviously good for the folks behind StumbleUpon.. they only ever took $1.5m in funding and never had a full venture capital round; the price means that sites like Digg may only be worth $100-$150 million, and the entire sector worth no more than $500million, which is probably significantly less than the sum total of funding that has gone into startups in Silicon Valley alone.

Originally posted on April 18, 2007 @ 7:49 pm

Will the Virginia Tech Massacre be the tipping point for Facebook?

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facebookTerrible, terrible business. I could start on the stupidity on American Gun Control laws (or lack there of) but this isn’t the time nor place.

In an internet sense though, is the Virginia Tech Massacre the tipping point for Facebook?

Did anyone see coverage of the whole thing on MySpace?

Articles like this at Reuters are reflected through out the MSM and the blog world: the response on the ground was covered nearly exclusively on Facebook. We know that Facebook had its day in the past, and was passed over by MySpace, and yet as a destination Facebook of late has become the new MySpace, the new in destination amongst a fickle user base, literally Facebook is experiencing a second coming, a new resurgence of popularity.

I’ve literally just signed up for Facebook today, and a bit like MySpace, I don’t fully get it yet. It reminds me of LinkedIn but with the ability to post stuff.

I’m yet to take the time to find/ read the VT Massacre coverage, but I will be shortly, as no doubt many others already have.

It’s a terrible thing to suggest that a site/ service succeeds off the back of tragedy, but in the same way that blogs came of age during the 2004 US presidential elections, the VT Massacre could be the tipping point for Facebook, the day that a rapidly growing social networking service finally hit the spotlight, a day that shall be remembered not only for the appalling loss of life, but also for a day that Facebook became the new MySpace, the new black.

Now if only they’d do something about the proliferation of guns in the United States.

Originally posted on April 18, 2007 @ 1:01 am

Vale Internet Radio

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Mark May 15 in your diary. It’s the day Internet Radio in the United States will cease to be.

In an outrageous move, the US Copyright Royalty Board has refused to consider complaints from industry representatives against it’s earlier decision to implement the RIAA supported new royalty structure for online radio. The new fee structure, that will commence May 15, sees internet radio stations having to pay a per song, per listener rating that worse still in being implemented retrospectively back to the beginning on 2006.Currently internet radio stations pay a portion of profit for each station paid in royalties. On top of this, there will also be a minimum fee of $500 per channel per year.

The move won’t drive all internet radio stations offline, after all, not all internet radio stations are located in the United States, but it is going to see a pile of US based stations either shut up shop, or move to other countries, with a fair bit of talk about the place of a number of operators looking at moving to Canada.

Sites such as Pandora are urging users to write to their Congressman, if you’re in the US I’d encourage you to do so.

Originally posted on April 17, 2007 @ 4:05 am

Is too much ever enough, or just too much?

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ustreamBlogging is a game of putting yourself out there, sharing your views with the world.

Then came Twitter. As much as I was a skeptic at first, Twitter really has become the next level in the evolution of online presence. It’s a slightly wild, 140 character extension of self, random thoughts, location and links.

And yet less that 2 months after the rise of Twitter, we see the Webcam technology of Web 1.0 meet the narcissism of Web 2.0, an always on stream of activity, and often lack thereof. If justin.tv bought the world of web cams to Web 2.0, ustream could become the poster child of a new movement of 20 somethings who are too old or too uncaring to remember the likes of Jenicam.

Is too much ever enough, or just too much?

Is the narcissystem the way of the future?

The poster kids of Web 2.0, Chris Pirillo and Robert Scoble have lead the way. Pirillo’s live streams are actually fairly interesting, Scoble’s streams of him in a car aren’t really my thing. Interestingly though in a historical sense is that the tech of the Truman Show is now available to the masses, at least those with generous bandwidth plans, particularly with their mobile (cell) providers.

Matthew Ingram has some good points, but I’m not sure he looks deeply enough at the overflow of information this all leads to. I’ve enjoyed watching some of Pirillo’s live stuff, but imagine if 20 other interesting people were doing the same thing? How then could I manage to watch them all? Imagine that in 3-6 months time ustream is the new YouTube, that thousands, tens of thousands are streaming parts, sometimes all of their day. What then?

I’ve always argued the text is the ultimate form of communication, because it allows dissemination to many easily and in a more manageable form. I love the idea of Podcasting, but I’ know that it’s far more limited than text because it takes far longer to consume. Always on video is harder again. Where as I can consume multiple podcasts, and thousands of blogs, it’s hard to consume more than a handful of always on streams, and certainly more so in terms of time, when Pirillo or Justin are at their best, I’m often asleep (12 hours ahead of US EST at the moment).

Question though is would I give it a try? Watch this space. The logistics are difficult, particularly mobile, given that always on data (via 3G) in Australia is expensive, but the narcissist in me is certainly tempted. Perhaps I can become another number in the too much is never enough equation.

Originally posted on April 16, 2007 @ 2:39 am