High Drama for Free. Chris Anderson gets spanked big-time after plagiarizing wikipedia in bulk for his upcoming book, “Free.” This Virginia Quarterly Review post lists the copied excerpts. The initial explanation for the omission was that neither Anderson nor his editors were confident in how to properly annotate wikipedia bibliographic citations, so they simply decided not to. This is, of course, a bullshit excuse. Anderson quickly apologized. If he hadn’t I’d still be buying the book. The best summary of the brouhaha is from Valeria Maltoni in Right Place, Right Time. “Chris Anderson says free is the future of a radical price, Malcolm Gladwell says it's priced to sell but doubts that free is the future, Seth Godin says Malcolm is wrong, while Mark Cuban makes the distinction between free and freely distributed. Chris Brogan seems to agree with Mark Cuban and thinks Seth, too is right. There is one thing all of these gentlemen have in common, and that is a passion for figuring out what the right place, right time is.”
Mike Rowe has more than a great voice. This story on Mike Rowe (“Dirty Jobs” host and “Deadlist Catch” narrator) is one of the most thought-provoking pieces I’ve read in a while. “Follow your passions and go for broke. This is what we’re told growing up to achieve success. But that’s not the only way to go, says Rowe. Think of what other people are doing and go the other way. It’s not just following your passions, it’s doing jobs other people aren’t doing. Or as Silicon Valley cartoonist cum philosopher Hugh McLeod says: IGNORE EVERYONE!” Thanks to Dave Penton for the infotweet.
Courage to be a butt plug. On the heels of Rowe’s “Ignore Everyone” reference, here’s Copyblogger’s “The Courage to be Wrong,” but I got more out of it than going beyond being wrong. I read Rolla May’s “Courage to Create” in 1982, so I get the concept. Maybe, along with being creative, the goal is to have the courage to be a butt plug as well. “It’s not just about differentiation, it’s about perverting the norm, destroying sacred traditions, and screwing with the way people think. It’s about doing, saying, or living something that’s so completely unexpected that people can’t help but pay attention.”
TechCrunch is back! I extricated myself from the web of TechCrunch distribution points some months ago, but this play-by-play of a new lawsuit Arrington describes at his brash, arrogant best exemplifies why I started reading Crunch in the first place.
Blogging –> Lifestreaming –> Something else. Perhaps the best take on the blogging verses lifestreaming issue I’ve read is from Steve Woodruff. "We’re going to burn through existing and new platforms over the coming years, and they’ll get more sophisticated in their abilities to let us network and communicate...The bits and pieces don’t really matter, they’ll evolve and converge. Each of them is an Expression and/or Connection Engine, all enabling our brave new world of networked communications.”
Inside a Netflix Distribution Center. Cool Pics.
Bing vs. Google. I don’t have any Zune news for you today, so here’s a new Bing/Google comparative search engine app for you. I’ve not used Google Search for two weeks and I feel fine. In thinking about why I’ve been Bingin’, I’d say it’s primarily due to two factors, 1) I don’t want Google to take over the world, and 2) every other Microsoft online offering has been either killed by Microsoft’s Marketing department or has been a lame product out of the gate carrying the “Live” moniker of doom. The surprise factor is strong with this one, Obi-Wan.
TweetSharp. Restating a Robert McLaws tweet, “Show Twitter updates on your .NET website in 4 lines of code with Tweet#. A very well designed API that works!” Robert criticizes most everything in Tech (one of the reasons I enjoy reading him), so when he likes something I pay attention.
Detroit after People. There’s a History Channel DVD in my Netflix queue titled “Life After People” depicting the state of the planet and manmade structures without the presence of people. These sad photos of present day Detroit fit that category. Thanks to Joel Ross for the infotweet.
The Wit and Wisdom of @Telecomgeek. In this week of saying goodbye to Farrah, Jackson, McMahon, and Billy Mays, the silence of @Telecomgeek is broken only in response to the loss of Karl Malden. “For my money, the best big-screeen portrayal of Omar Bradley by any actor.” In these crazy times it’s good to know someone can distill the noise of the world down to its essential truths.