Another Example of No Free Lunch

I just got an email to join OpenSalon. It’s a social networking and blogging site. The idea is that you can blog there and get people to pay you for your work.

From the site:
“Open Salon is a publishing platform with a built-in audience. It was developed for writers, photographers and artists of any stripe in need of a smart home for their work (and not one of those giant, anonymous blog networks), and who are hoping to be rewarded for it. After a quick, free registration, you can immediately begin posting your words, images or videos to your blog, start building an audience and even earning money.”

This sounds like a great idea, right? I always question things that sound too good to be true. So I started a sign up process and decided it was probably important to check out the Terms and Conditions of the site before posting any content.

There was something I found in the Terms that reminded me of the following,

In life, there is no FREE LUNCH.

“By submitting or posting User Content using the Service or the Site, you grant to Salon an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license to: (1) use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute the User Content in or through any medium now known or hereafter invented, for any purpose; (2) to prepare derivative works using the User Content, or to incorporate it into other works, for any purpose; and (3) to grant and authorize sublicenses of any or all of the foregoing rights.”

It goes on to say that if I remove my user content, Salon still retains the above rights. They don’t own it, but they can do whatever they like with it. This sounds like a situation rife with unintended consequences.

Gotta be careful out there, I’m telling you, read your TOUs! (Terms of Use agreements)

Signed Off Facebook

About a week ago, I disabled my Facebook account. A movie I saw on a reputable blog freaked me out. I don’t want to get into the details here, others explain it much better than me. I had known some of the facts before but for some reason last week, it just got to me and I shut it down.

Just so we are clear, I’m not afraid of the Internets or any of this ‘social media’ stuff. I love it. I relish it. I seek out new services just for fun. But, I decided, since I wasn’t getting any value from it, (my professional network is on LinkedIn and my friends do like to hang out at mySpace so) Facebook felt like it was extra for me anyway.

I think it’s probably time for all of us to start reading those user agreements. DANG.

Quote from Minnebar Talk

“Social media is about fostering discovery.”

In the spirit of a John Hodgman twitter post, that is all.

SXSW – Has it jumped the shark?

I’ve always wanted to go to SXSW. I think the first time I heard about it was when I was a DJ at my college radio station. It sounded to me like a freaking mecca of cool.

Sadly, I’ve never made it to the event. Due to things like work and not having an extra $1000 or so on hand for something like that, that stars have just never aligned.

Now I’ve been reading all kinds of things about the event this year that make me feel like it might be too late to attend this event with the expectations I’ve carried with me since college.

Here’s a few things I’ve been picking up through my various social media channels.

One of the sessions was not giving participants the content that they thought they could expect from the panel. Since the audience was filled with a bunch of social media savvy people, they all started talking to each other about this on Meebo. Unbeknownst to the panelist and traditional journalists in the room, an entire conversation about how this happened without the presenters.

There was also an article in Salon.

The kicker of it for me was the info graphic I found in the latest Fast Company.

And the twitters that people are sending, point to the end of an era.

I’m not saying it won’t be a great event next year, I’m just saying I don’t think the event I’ve always heard about happens anymore. No judgment, but sometimes , ‘their old stuff WAS so much better’. Things change.

This Is Only A Toy, I Repeat…..

The Netdisaster is only a TOY.

Amazon Steps Up Customer Reviews

Now with video….

Not only is it an invitation to upload a video of your review, it’s smartly coupled with a very convienent link to a video camera you can purchase at Amazon to create your video product reviews for Amazon. This is such a great example of how context can drive sales. It’s also an interesting evolution of the product review that Amazon has made famous.

If you don’t already know about Facebook and privacy

You should be aware.

Here’s a New York Times article so you can get the background story.

If you are not a fan of this kind of approach to privacy at Facebook, check out this message from Moveon.org and sign the petition if you don’t agree with Facebook.

From Moveon.org site:

“
When you buy a book or movie online–or make a political contribution–do you want that information automatically shared with the world on Facebook? Most people would call that a huge invasion of privacy. But social networking site Facebook began doing just that. People across the country saw private purchases they made on other sites displayed publicly to everyone they know on Facebook. Why? To benefit corporate advertisers. Other sites are looking at Facebook’s example to see if they can get away with similar privacy breaches. We need to draw a line in the sand–making clear that the wish lists of corporate advertisers must not come before the basic privacy rights of Internet users.

Let’s get Facebook to stop invading our privacy. Sign the petition.

Then join the Facebook group “Facebook, stop invading my privacy!” and tell your friends.
“

Props to the Star Tribune

My husband sent me a link to the Star Tribune web site, 13 Seconds in August, the 35w Bridge collapse. It’s the top story on the site today.

I think this is a well formed work of journalism for the new century. It informs the public, it tells an amazing story and the part that really makes it a 21st century approach is providing a mechanism for survivors to add detail to the story. Everyone in MN and probably the country felt this tragedy in a visceral way. To provide an extension of the information and present it to the public as a work in progress is brave and valuable. This is a nice example of evolveing journalism for today — thanks Star Tribune.

Internet Radio Day Of Silence-June 26th

Today is a day of protest to draw attention to this:

*********************************************

An increase in royalties that would lead to

the virtual shutdown of this country’s

Internet radio industry if it is implemented.

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Please show some love for the little guy, especially in music.

The following information is from the Radio and Internet Newsletter.

“Internet radio may be driven out of business within weeks by a Copyright Royalty Board decision that gives record companies a royalty rate that exceeds 100% of most webcasters’ total revenues.

Visit SaveNetRadio.org for links to a petition to Congress you can sign, and to send the message directly to your Representative and Senators thatyou don’t want to lose Internet radio!”

Linked In

I really like the site linkedin. It’s got a nice professional feel to it and many of my friends and colleagues have joined so it seems like it’s kind of become a little bit of a defacto standard (for now, everything seems so temporary these days….)

They just added (or maybe i just noticed) a way to import your addresses from another account (google, yahoo, etc) and match up your contacts with linked in members. I really like this because they fixed something that I always felt was a problem. My addresses were already in another tool, finding people on linked in to invite them just became much easier and leverages the work I’ve already done building my contact list somewhere else. Chalk another one up for sharing. Thanks linkedin.