Sunday Night thoughts

Ultimately i've been feeling a bit philosophical about life and how we can achieve what we want in it. And i was thinking about all the people that actually use the internet to potentate their public. I mean you can see ijustine getting lot's of viewers and becoming a celebrity and reference in geek society and in not so geek society too. I mean, i myself feel like a potential video producer and since i live in a country where the video and media market is underdeveloped i see the internet as the key to success in distributing any show or content arround the world. Even this blog, that not many people read, allows me to express what i think of life and media. Something crazy just a decade ago.

So i have to say that the Internet is the window of the oportunity, just jump through it. I'm going to bed now! Have a nice sunday night and a nice week and get the internet working for you so you can share your talents as you consume other poeples work.

Copyright Laws...lack of innovation

Recently many countries are passing copyright laws like Canada and Sweden that allow the government to check on the users files and activities and if they watch or have any copyrighted material they will be found guilty of violating Copyright Laws. (http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=4564a92a-a437-42d9-8688-dd16f501144d)

The truth is the world is changing, and with it our laws must change. Nowadays sharing files and content is virtually costless and also impossible to stop. The revolution of information or the Information Age are on their way already, but it seems some old school politicians or what some authors will call "Industrial Age Politicians" want to stop this revolution by making any kind of sharing and copying a crime.

I share files over the internet and i don't consider myself a criminal. Being raised on the pure information Age i believe sharing content is the way to do things and not the "outlaw exception" of it. Making a profit from any kind of work is definitely the right of the authors and creators of things online, but now the internet is showing us many ways in which people can actually earn money from their work, but still make it free or almost free for people to get the content. I feel the real truth behind this is that some companies and businesses that profited on the media content they distributed are seeing a major threat in this new ways of sharing media. Hence, when you see a threat the natural response is to protect themselves and act. They are acting by promoting laws that make any distribution channel that is different from what they use illegal.

What should the response be?

I think that this laws are showing the lack of innovation this companies have. And since there is a lack of innovation i believe there is a opportunity for innovators to kick in and start making new ways of making things. Naturally there are some already, since this has been happening for more than 5 years now. The way change things is for us to proof to politicians that Authors can benefit from new media channels such as the "Internet Channels" (Revision3 or NextNewNetworks, for example) or by using sites like Myspace to promote their bands. Or even post a blog with their music videos that profits from the ads on the site.

There are many ways of making money and still delivering free content to users. I think that this so called "copyright war" will end with the innovators winning. Maybe the same companies that are afraid now will become the key innovators in some time, maybe not. The truth is that the ones who innovate and also the ones that communicate this innovations to politicians will make a change once and for all.

I am fully conscious that change may hurt and that it is a problem that is not easy to solve. But, i also feel we have the capability of thinking of new ways to make the money get to the authors while the content goes around the world. I hope in the near future we can come out with far more innovations that will lead to all the content be released online for free or almost free, but that will still make the authors profit with it.

I also think maybe a good solution will be to ask people to pay the price they feel is the correct prize for a item or piece of information. At first this may seem like stupid, but this will actually take advantage of all the demand curve out there (to put it in economical terms) so people who can pay 1 dollar will do so, but also people that can pay 20 will do so, so the profits will maximize.

Well this subject is far from over, and this are just some thoughts on it.

The question is still open for the future of copyright laws . What's next?

iPhone: Awsomeness (Quoting Zadi Diaz from Epic-FU)

It's impossible to pass this by. Apple's CEO Steve Jobs (Close to a god to a lot of people) introduced the iPhone 3G earlier this week. The new phone has 3G internet connection and GPS as the most outstanding developments from last years model. The awesome news is that the iPhone supports common 3.5mm Earphone or Headphones and that is pretty cool, specially for me since i destroy my earphones every 4 months.

Well but the iPhone comes with much more features too. The Apps will be the greatest thing it will have. It will be amazing for users to have many things to do on their iphones such as tweet from the direct iphone client, buy on ebay and stream qik video (still on development). To add a bit on the 3G network, i think many of us will love to have a faster internet connection in our cellphone. A connection that is almost as fast as a wifi connection.

Thanks to Apple for bringing a phone that can do almost everything, i really look forward for the development of the apps that will bring awesomeness to the phone. The GPS will add a lot of functionality to the phone and help us to find lot's of places or ourselves when we get lost on a city (for the ones that travel a lot). It has also this "stocker" feature that allows you to find your friends around.

The most important feature for apple is that it has Microsoft Exchange support. This means the phone can be used for business applications. This will definetly take a bit of market share to RIM and Motorola that have been leading the business market.

To add more apple launched the MobileMe service that will make the iPhone work even better since now we can sync all to the me accounts and store pictures on our online hard drive. Plus having exchange for the rest of us, being able to sync all our devices with this service. Yes, this means that you can update your calendar in your iphone, your mac or pc and your ipod. This will make anyone even more productive. I find this MobileMe feature specially useful for students that will be able to program their schedules in advance and increase productivity.

Now it's time to wait until July 11th to see all this awesomeness work together.

Really Losing it, Plurk and More

The last few days i've been trying to find a nice domain name for my new site. It's basically a site to hold my own blogs and stuff, but i can't seem to one a proper name that fits. So that's why i'm really losing it, specially when all the names are already taken.

With regards to that, how about someone trying to sell me the domain name i want for one hundred thousand dollars, that's totally crazy. To insane to think that people are really hoping to make money registering sites someone may want. I'm sure my creativity will do better and i'll just pay arround 10 bucks for my domain.

Now changing subjects, i tried Plurk.com this week. It's a really nice site with a nice feature. Though i must confess i cant find the use of it, besides using it when Twitter is down. Justine Ezarik (iJustine) wrote a blog on it and that's how i got to join Plurk. I really think it looks cool and it has this cool feature of having the responses bellow the original plurk (update on twitter). The only thing i don't really like is the timeline. I get really lost with that and its just annoying not knowing in what date am i or anything. I guess i'll get used to it. Finally the idea of Plurk is all about what Mike Zuckerberg said on D6 : "sharing yourself"

Well i hope, more people get to try plurk or twitter.

But before i say goodbye.....This week one of my favorite Internet Shows, Epic Fu, is back.
So check it out right now and every Tuesday and Thursday on Revision3





P.S: remember to follow me on twitter.com/jjaime