Google Inc. has been ordered to disclose reams of data detailing the personal video-watching habits of YouTube users in a landmark court decision that critics say could potentially identify millions of people around the world and erodes expectations of privacy on the Internet.

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this is a really sad day. Instead of focusing on how to end piracy through better quality of products, different revenue models and ultimately educating consumers, Viacom spends a ton of cash in taking YouTube to court. So they get the logs..then what? come after the users that upload the content or come after the users that view the content?

the battle cannot be won by them as the people have decided to not play…we have spent a ton of money over the years to support TV,Movies,CD’s etc when the quality has not been there. They need to come from a different direction and not continue to bull dozer their way through.

Sathish

The CNET News Blog is indicating that after only 24 hours of being released Firefox 3 captured 4% of the overall share of web browsers. Statistics from Mozilla show that 8 million people have downloaded Firefox 3 in the first 24 hours of release. The total number of downloads as of when I was writing this article is 23 million. You can keep track at http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/

Early adoption statistic from sources such as slashdot.com & pcpro.co.uk show that 55% of Firefox users are already updated to Firefox 3. This is very impressive considering that Microsoft still has 30% of Internet Explorer users still using Internet Explorer 6.

Firefox 3 is definitely a force to be reckoned with. Among 15,000 improvements to the browser, there are definitely some that have changed the way I browse websites. My favorite feature is the Smart Location Bar. This feature makes it so much easier to browse websites and locates sites you’ve previously visited even if you can’t really remember the URL. Over time this feature adapts to your preferences and gets even more AWESOME!

Jay Sethi

we have this debate internally with almost all the projects we do….what’s the value of our work. Creative, technology, strategy .. each have a different way of being valued. Each task required many many years of experience to enable us to do what we do. Simply calculating your value on the hours it takes doesn’t make sense as the hours you spend on a project also includes the YEARS of experience, insights and best practices. How do you convey these values to the client and how do you get them to appreciate the overall value proposition and not just a hours x resources mathematical view.

as we continue to ponder… enjoy the article on the 2500.00 banana story. What caught my attention initially is the following quote,

Michael Fernandes’s installation piece in Halifax is one expensive piece of fruit. As the artist explains, it’s the process, not the banana, that is important

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HALIFAX — Is a banana art?

A passerby walking along Granville Street in Halifax might now have reason to think so. Because in the window at Gallery Page and Strange sits a humble banana.

At first glance, it appears to be a forgotten part of someone’s lunch. Perhaps set aside because it’s still a bit green and not really ready to eat. But on closer look the passerby will notice a tag alongside the piece of fruit. The artist is identified as Michael Fernandes. The work is called Banana. The price is $2,500.

And there’s a blue sticker, indicating that a buyer has put a hold on this work.

People walk past a banana installation exhibit by Michael Fernandes at the Gallery Page And Strange on Granville St. in Halifax, NS on Wednesday, July 2nd. (Sandor Fizli for The Globe and Mail)

It’s a gutsy move, even for a recognized experimental artist, one that has sparked public bemusement, a guerrilla raid by the so-called Patrick Swayze Collective and the anger of some local students who claim the project has trivialized art.

“Collectors are contacting us, they’ve seen the picture on our website and they’re asking us what medium he’s using,” gallery co-owner Victoria Page said. “And I say, ‘It’s a banana, you understand that it’s a banana.’ ” The window sill was chosen as a place where the public and private spheres meet and, since the middle of June, Fernandes has been exchanging the banana almost daily. Each time he uses a slightly greener banana to gradually reverse the ripening process.

“I’m taking it back to green, before green it doesn’t exist,” said the 64-year-old native of Trinidad, who lived near banana trees before immigrating to Canada in his teens. “The banana is temporal. We are also temporal, but we live as if we are not.”

But the work is not actually the banana, Fernandes explained in an interview. The process is what’s important. He’s hoping to mount a similar project for the Beijing Olympics, using a blood orange.

The buyer should not be expecting a superlative piece of fruit in return for $2,500. The bananas Fernandes is using for the display are ordinary, purchased from local supermarkets. Indeed, most days the artist eats the banana he has replaced. Instead, the buyer will be paying for the concept and will receive photos documenting the project. The buyer may also get press clippings or credit as patron if the project is staged again.

No tangible piece of art will trade hands.

“It’s not the banana. Yes, anybody could give you a banana,” said Fernandes, who is staging the exhibition without public funding.

“One of the [potential] clients wanted to know if I could come to her condominium and install the 21 days of bananas. I said ‘No, no, there is not a banana for sale,’ ” he added, acknowledging: “Her friends think she’s crazy.”

The most he can offer a buyer is the final banana, which will be installed at the gallery Friday and will be put on display in the completely unripe state the industry describes as “uniform green.”

“Maybe you could shellac it,” ventured Page, who said that the artist initially wanted to make a statement by offering the piece at $15,000. Gallery staff believed it would actually sell if priced more reasonably, though, so they settled on $2,500 to keep it in line with other work for sale at the gallery.

Two people have put a hold on the piece, Page said. There has also been a surge of public attention, she added, not all of it positive.

“Some people are really angry about the banana. Especially some [art] students who feel it’s poking fun at art, [and say] ‘How can anyone take this seriously?’ ” They’re not the only ones uncertain how to react. The gallery’s insurer refused to cover the piece, Fernandes and Page said, and one of the bananas was stolen not long after the exhibition started.

Last month, shortly before closing time, Page’s business partner Victoria Strange was distracted while a mysterious group swapped the banana for an apple. The thieves left a note scrawled on a napkin, calling bananas “the most radioactive fruit on earth.”

The thieves identified themselves as “The Patrick Swayze Collective” and claimed, “We exist. We definitely exist.”

I have always said that most of the world’s problems can be fixed if we listen to the ideas of our youths. I am in the process of launching my not-for-profit organization UMA Foundation to see I can help tap into this. The concept if very simple, Pick 3 social issues and invite University and final year students to submita biz plan on how they would fix the issue. Winners get … (i can’t say yet.)

Here one small example ..

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i must say, i am addicted to gadgets. Blackberry, IPOD, PSP, WII..all of them get my attention and I have “invested” tons of cash over the past few years on my uncontrollable habit. But, the desire to get the iPhone is not there. In looking at the price plans offered by ROGERS, i can’t imagine why anyone with an ounce of brain-power would want to get it. Without an unlimited plan, you can really get raped on the monthly fees. How? well, ROGERS does not define what constitutes usage of a megabyte of data so you can very easily burn on all your data quote in a very very short amount of time.

Initial estimates based how i think i would utilize the iPhone in its fullness can cost me atleast an extra 1000.00 on top off the base package.

I think its a dumb move on Rogers part. If they made is less expensive and less complex to signoff, the will have the hottest phone in the market and the fast growing subscriber list for ROGERS (certainly a super summer hit) .. to add to this, i can’t believe we are being charged for DATA anymore. With web 2.0 and rich media sites and the current phones in the markets with the ability to access these sites, anything less then UNLIMITED data is a complete waste of money.

so, how can i get the iphone?

One idea is to get it and unlock it and use it on another network with unlimited data… I don’t have any other ideas. If you have an ideas, please share…i really want this toy ..er.. i mean phone.

Sathish

this is really going to suck..no more XP for sale. I recently purchased a new laptop with Vista on it. Its was the best money could buy..totally loaded with memory etc. It last two months before i switched to a MAC and I now must confess.the HYPE is true about MACs!

I should have done this 10yrs ago…

Good by PC, Microsoft..XP/VISTA etc etc….some one get me some starbucks.. hahaha

sathish

could be just the monday morning mindset..but I couldn’t stop laughing..

http://adsoftheworld.com/media/tv/milk_bc_dairy_foundation_teen_power_team

Sathish

hey..everyone..

sorry for the very long absence from blogging. Since April, I have been on the road with desiFEST and executing in Montreal, Vancouver and finally in Toronto on May 31st. While that adventure was going full force, BlueBand Media has also been very active with new accounts, new office, new staff .. so, it been a fun and crazy few months.

I am sitting in our new downtown office and happy to back sharing my thoughts, ideas and interests via this blog. You will also soon see a few of our team members also contribute their thoughts and ideas on the state of digital marketing in Toronto and the role BBM is playing to enhance the industry.

For today’s thoughts.
I heard Obama say, “this country is about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.” I got me think about BBM, myself and the group that works with we. To be a start up (2 yrs old) and already achieving the kind of success we have seen in the last 2 years can only be attributed to our drive to be extraordinary. Each member of the team really focuses on the the best individually and collectively. This is a unique culture that can only exist with the right people. I am happy to say I am surrounded daily by passionate, detail focused, caring and extraodinary folks….and it makes getting out of bed and getting to work very very exciting.

till next time…Sathish Bala

I’ve been quite interested about this war on the web between mircosoft and google. If you noticed from my last post that Both google and mircosoft are both trying to dominate the world wide web. We’ll see who wins

Google and Salesforce.com, two of Microsoft’s most conspicuous rivals, are expanding a 10-month-old collaboration in an effort to accelerate their sales of customer management and office software to businesses.

The two companies were to announce Monday that they had integrated Salesforce’s customer relationship management software and Google’s suite of office productivity applications, which includes e-mail, word processing and spreadsheet programs, into a single software package.

Like most of the software the two companies create, the package will not require a download or installation, but rather will be delivered as a service over the Web.

The offering will compete with Microsoft’s customer relationship management software, which is integrated with its Office suite. The alliance could help Google, whose productivity programs are used largely by individuals, make inroads into businesses, where it is seeking to challenge Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar Office franchise.

Already customers of Google’s and Salesforce’s programs can use them side by side. But Dave Girouard, Google’s vice president and general manager, said the integrated offering would bring users new functions.

For example, users would able to keep track of e-mail sent to a customer right on that customer’s sales record, and a group of people collaborating on a sales account would be able to communicate by instant message with one another, he said.

“In the history of hosted software to date, applications could be like islands,” Girouard said. “They don’t really work together seamlessly. This is a first of its kind.”

Microsoft, which dominates the productivity software market but is a smaller player in customer relationship management software, or CRM, brushed aside concerns about competition from the Google-Salesforce alliance.

“Salesforce has belatedly recognized that it is important to link CRM apps to productivity tools,” said Brad Wilson, general manager for Microsoft’s customer relationship management unit. “It has been core to our product since we launched five years ago. It validates our strategy.”

Google and Salesforce, two of the most important proponents of the idea of delivering software as a service over the Web, have grown increasingly close over the past several months. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so that makes Google my best friend,” said Marc Benioff, chief executive of Salesforce.

When Google introduced its package of productivity applications in February 2007, Salesforce was one of the few large companies committed to using the software. In June, the two companies began integrating Google’s AdWords advertising technology into Salesforce, and in November, Salesforce joined OpenSocial, an alliance of companies then led by Google that was establishing standards for creating applications for social networks.

Salesforce for Google Apps, as the integrated product is called, will be available to Salesforce customers at no additional cost, starting Monday.

Last night, Microsoft pushed out a ton of new features to Windows Live Maps, including a face-lift to some of its 3-D cities (Las Vegas, Dallas, Denver and Phoenix), the ability to export your collections to GPS devices and GeoRSS feeds (which means I can make custom maps for my Dash GPS), support for 3D-map video tours, better directions and traffic information, and also one-click directions that change the route on a map based on what direction you are coming from.

But there was one feature that really caught my eye. You can now import KML files into Live Maps. KML stands for Keyhole Markup Language, and it was invented by Keyhole, the acquired startup behind Google Earth that is now part of Google. KML has become a standard for describing maps hosted on the Web.

What this means, though, is that Live Maps can now drink Google’s milkshake. Because all the customized maps that people have made and share on Google Maps can be grabbed as a KML file. So now Microsoft can benefit from all that work done by Google Map users by simply slurping all of those maps into Live Maps.

Of course, this is a two-way street, since any customized map on Live Maps or in Microsoft’s Virtual Earth can now also be exported as a KML file. Google can take out its straw and slurp right back from the Live Maps glass. The difference is that Google’s glass is a lot more full and is more yummy because so many more people have created customized Google Maps than customized Live Maps.

So right about now, Microsoft is wielding an old wooden bowling pin, wiping its chin, and ranting, “I drink it up!”