Mini Byte: David Pogue Looks at the "Other" Side of Your Facebook Life*

It is hard to compete with David Pogue, the New York Times tech writer, because he writes so well about technology and its practical applications.  Pogue often focuses not the technical wizardry itself, but on whether the technology actually accomplishes something that users want.

Two recent columns on Facebook's "Other" message directory are good examples.  (The foregoing link is to the second article, which as a link in it to the first.)  Facebook has a messaging feature in it by which users can send you messages.  Messages from your FB "Friends" go in your "Inbox".  Then, there is the "Other" box.   Like email, most of us want to get message that matter to us, but do not want spam or other irrelevant communication. Most of us, myself included overlooked the "Other" box or assumed that it contained spam or other unwanted posts.

How good is the "Friends"/"Other" function in Facebook at striking a balance between the wanted and unwanted?  First, users of FB need to know the difference and the intended function between the two inboxes.

Pogue set out to make FB users aware of the "Other" box and its function.  In response to his first post, readers went to their "Other" box.  Some found spam or other junk.  Some found much more, however, which is discussed in Pogue's second column:  notification of prize winnings, long lost friend, FB would be "Friends" (or stalkers).  When I looked into my "Other" box, I found a lot of invitations or concert ticket announcements that I probably would have wanted to see at the time they were sent.  There were also somewhat odd items, like an actual announcement from FB about policy changes.  (Do FB consider its own policies "junk"???)  You might hope that there is an easy way to move the messages that you would like to see in the future over to the "Inbox".

Unfortunately, as Pogue points out, here is where Facebook's technology breaks down:

You have only two options here: Basic (the factory setting, the one causing all the problems) and Strict.
Unfortunately, the Strict option puts even more messages into the “Other” folder! It’s making the problem of missed messages worse. (A warning there even says: “You may miss messages from other people you know.”)

Look: it’s clear that the “Other”-folder system is broken in a very upsetting way. It’s preventing important connections, blocking the very communications that Facebook was created to foster.

Let’s hope that Facebook finds a better solution to blocking unwanted messages. Because right now, the secret Other folder is swallowing up a lot more than spam.

It also seems difficult to get rid of the four years' worth of unread messages that I found in my "Other" box.  Facebook only seems to allow you to delete them individually (as "conversations", even though you never knew they were there or responded to them).

Read Pogue's second column at this link: David Pogue.  And, go your Facebook "Other" box (click on "Messages" first) and see what's in the your "Other" of your life.*

08/01/2013 - Here is a short update to this post:

I went to send a post on Facebook to someone with whom I was not "connected" (a FB "Friend").  This interesting message appeared below the post text box:

Your message will go to [Name of recipient]'s Other folder because you aren't connected to her on Facebook. See More

When I clicked on See More, here's the pop-up that appeared:

Send this message directly to her Inbox for $1.00 USD

So Facebook is now trying to squeeze cash out of us to get our posts into someone's Inbox!  Everything for a price!


*Apologies to Fred Neil for my abuse of the title to is great song "Other Side of  This Life" (perhaps better known to some by The Jefferson Airplane's cover version).

Piracy, Privacy, and Money, Money, Money! - Part I

This post is the first part of a round-up of significant developments in 2012.

Piracy

"Well, yes mate. See, I’m dishonest. And a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It’s the honest ones you need to watch out for, because you never know when they’re going to do something incredibly… stupid."  Captain Jack Sparrow (IMDb Link; captainjackblog.com Link)

In January, the Justice Department took down one of the largest file sharing services on the Internet, Megaupload, for alleged piracy of copyrighted material.  The colorful cast of characters involved in Megaupload will guarantee a forthcoming movie to rival Social Network.  You can read more details, including endorsements of Megaupload by celebrities, its purported rapper CEO, and its founder Kim Dotcom and his $6 million worth of automobiles in these linked reports from Marketplace Tech Report and The New York Times.

Here is what I find interesting about this story:

• There seems to be little dispute that Megaupload was trafficking illegally in copyrighted material.
• Megaupload was wildly popular, being ranked in the top 20 of Internet sites.
• The Justice Department had to reach across the waters to take down Megaupload, which is based outside the United States, and to arrest some of the indicted principals.  Kim Dotcom (a.k.a. Kim Schmitz) was living in New Zealand.
• The Justice Department’s action prompted a retaliatory protest from Anonymous, a loosely organized group of Internet hackers (more on which can be found at this NYT link).  In what the Times called "digital Molotov cocktails," Anonymous appears to have launched digital denial of service attacks on computers at the Justice Department and major entertainment companies as protest over the shutdown of Megaupload.
• The scope of action taken by the Justice Department is significant.  The Times reported:

As part of the crackdown, more than 20 search warrants were executed in the United States and in eight other countries.  About $50 million in assets were also seized, as well as a number of servers and 18 domain names that formed Megaupload’s network of file-sharing sites. 

Concurrent with the Megaupload take-down, Congressional consideration of legislation to stop Internet piracy came under attack from major Internet players.  Two bills were before Congress: the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, in the House, and the Protect Intellectual Property Act, or PIPA, in the Senate.  The day before the Megaupload take-down, major Internet sites such Wikipedia and Google launched campaigns in opposition to the legislation, arguing that it would result in serious impairment on the freedom to share information on the Internet.  Wikipedia actually "went dark" for a day, taking down access to its site, one of the most widely used on the Internet, and posting instead a message to users who accessed the site asking them to oppose legislation and to contact their representatives in Congress to pass the message along.

The SOPA/PIPA protest is notable for several reasons.  It marks an historic moment when Internet giants like Google and Wikipedia set aside commercial and competitive differences and acted in concert to express a political view.  More importantly, they did so in a way that demonstrated again the considerable power that the Internet has to reach people, communicate ideas and organize political action.

These Internet companies are expressing valid issues about the provisions of SOPA/PIPA, particularly whether the measures to prevent piracy go too far and would impede legitimate exchanges of information.  That does not mean, however, the the proposed legislation is wholly wrong or the that Internet companies, most of whom have commercial interests to protect as well as the freedom of information sharing, are completely right.  New York Times columnist David Pogue has a good commentary on this protest of SOPA/PIPA.

In that commentary Pogue points out that the opposition to SOPA/PIPA falls into two different groups that are not really in agreement with each other.  The first group would agree the piracy of protected intellectual property should be stopped, but takes issue with the steps that SOPA/PIPA would take to stop such piracy.  The concerns of this group could be addressed by re-writing the provisions of the legislation.  The second group really believes that piracy is good, a kind of an Internet variant of Gordon Geko’s famous "Greed is good" statement from the movie Wall Street.  This second group wants to be able to have free Internet access to copyrighted material, whatever its nature.  The second group wants no legislation or enforcement efforts at all.  In this respect, the people protesting the take-down of Megaupload, including Anonymous, also may represent those who want free information without cost, even if it is protected by copyright or other intellectual property rights.

With these two developments occurring side-by-side, it is also most interesting to note that the existing laws that were used to take down Megaupload appear to have rather far-reaching enforcement powers already.  If you believe that the artists and businesses who create music, film, literature, photograph and other forms of intellectual property should have their rights protected and that fair compensation should be paid for use of such material, then it would seem important to improve the existing laws that protect such rights in a way that does not threaten the free speech and the free exchange of ideas.

Spot You One: Spotify vs. Pandora

 One recent evening, a colleague sent me the following email:

Sitting at desk at office finishing up a few things, playing my U2 Pandora station, enjoying Radiohead’s “High And Dry”!

Pandora is a"free" Internet music service. It allows you to create "channels" by selecting one or more artists of your choice.  These artists can be popular, rock, rap, folk, classical, jazz; you name it.  Even local artists may show up on Pandora if they have an identifiable musical style and recorded music available. Pandora then streams music to you from those artists and other artists that it deems similar to the ones that you selected.

I use Pandora.  As I began writing this column, my Bela Fleck (Click here for link to belafleck.com) channel was playing and the current selection was a piece by the preeminent jazz bassist Stanley Clarke (Click her for link to stanleyclarke.com) called "Rite of Strings". (Bela Fleck is a banjo player extraordinaire whose work has spanned genres from bluegrass to folk to jazz fusion to classical.  He has been nominated for Grammys in more different categories than anyone else.  His band the Flecktones (Click here for link to flecktones.com) features another preeminent bass player, Victor Wooten (Click here for link to victorwooten.com).  This may give you some idea how well Pandora's software works at finding affinity between your musical selections and its suggestions.)

I have numerous Pandora channels.  You can use different Pandora channels to create a musical backdrop while using your computer at work or at home or on the move.  You can add different artist together to "mix" a channel to your tastes.  These channels can be shared through Pandora with your friends.

You get to listen for 30 hours each month free with advertising announcements occasionally dropped into your music stream.  For a monthly payment you can upgrade to unlimited service and no advertising.  You do not get to "keep" this music, either by download or playlist, but you can take Pandora anywhere for free and play your channels or create new ones because there is a mobile application for iPhones and Android phones.  (See the discussion below about the potential costs of streaming music on a mobile device.)

Pandora has been in the financial news lately because it is very popular, but has not found a way to "make money".  In other words, advertising revenue (often a key source of Internet revenue) and user fees are not paying for the cost of the service.

Spotify, which has proved wildly successful abroad,  finally has entered the U.S. market.  You need an “invitation” to get it, but you can request one online from Spotify.com.  Spotify is a separate music player that loads outside your browser, like iTunes.  (Pandora runs inside your web browser as a separate tab.) Spotify recognizes and plays your iTunes and Windows Media Player libraries as well as its own music catalog.

Spotify also recognizes mobile devices that you have connected to your computer, such as an iPod and iPhone and Android phones, so you can sync MP3 files.  (You will need to have the Spotify app on these devices to take advantage of this feature.  To sync with a mobile phone you must us a WiFi connection.)

Spotify lets you listen to tons of steaming music, even new releases, without downloading.  You can create playlists or listen to entire albums. And Spotify is "FREE"!  That's right, the basic service is free and you get access to all kinds of music that the record companies have previously tried to hold back.  (Yes, there are exceptions:  no Beatles, Led Zeppelin, etc.)

This is a BIG step forward with respect to Internet music distribution.  For more on this development, see David Pogue's column in the New York Time at this link (David Pogue's column on Spotify).

There are paid upgrades for Spotify.  Like Pandora, the upgrades remove commercials, but the free player is great.  The only negatives I have found so far are that you have have a premium service plan at $10 a month to stream music on your phone or other mobile device and that search  function on the player for finding music could be better at getting you to the music that you want to hear.  The premium plan for mobile streaming likely will hold down mobile usage.

A note of caution about streaming music on a mobile device:  streaming music on a mobile device usually sucks up significant bandwidth.  No matter what device you use, if you are using your cellular carrier's data service to stream the music and you do not have an unlimited data plan at a monthly fee, you may see significant data charges on your bills.  With the predicted demise of unlimited broadband plans from cellular services, mobile users could be paying a lot more than $10 a month to stream music when data plan charges are considered.  If you are streaming music on a mobile device, it is best to do it over a WiFi network to avoid cellular data charges.

Finally, you may want to consider your personal listening preferences.  I like lots of different music, but I generally like to select music from a wide range of sources.  In earlier columns I have written about the music on my iPod.  To get music onto an iPod, you must use iTunes.  Whether you use iTunes as a music player on your computer is up to you, but it is a very good music player.  By default, I end up using iTunes as a music player as well as a way to make playlists for my iPod or for burning to disks.

I generally have my iPod on the "shuffle" setting and I get a very interesting music mix.  Let's first compare this approach with my experience with Pandora.

Recently my iPod was playing "New South Africa" by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, a rather jazzy banjo driven song, with strong bass lines from Victor Wooten.  My iPod then shuffled the following songs (remember that shuffle is a random selection):  "Back in the U.S.S.R." by The Beatles from the Love soundtrack, "Send in the Clowns" by Frank Sinatra, "For the Turnstiles" by Neil Young (which features a banjo), "Blackbird/Yesterday" by The Beatles from the Love soundtrack, and "Beeswing" by Richard Thompson.  I was quite pleased with all of this and the random selection did not bother me.  (Please note that iTunes now has a "Genius" feature that goes through your music library and makes intelligent suggestions for playlists.)

Pandora operates differently.  You cannot decide to listen to an entire recording by Bela Fleck or just music by Bela Fleck. When you create a channel, Pandora will play music from the artist or artists that you have selected each time that you start playing that channel and then intermittently as the channel continues to play.  It will select other similar artist to play in between.  So, my Bela Fleck channel will follow a song by Bela Fleck with music from Stanley Clarke, David Grisman, Jerry Douglas, or Edgar Meyer or groups that I have not heard, like Quintet Of The Hot Club Of San Francisco, which share thematic elements with Bela Fleck.  You can skip forward on Pandora, but not backwards.  Pandora also provides a wealth of information about the artists and the recording from which the music comes.  Most importantly to Pandora's business model, it provides links to buy the music to which you are listening.  Pandora's deal with the music industry in providing this music free is that in return it will promote sales of the music.

Spotify has a different approach.  It is similar to going into a large music library (like the iTunes online music catalog) and listening to whatever you want.  For free.  "Free" is the big difference between the Spotify music catalog and the iTunes music catalog.  You can sample things online with iTunes, but you have to buy to listen to the complete recording.

On Spotify, you can pick one song by an artist or a whole album and listen as much as you want.  Recently, I listened to Emmylou Harris' latest release Hard Bargain in its entirety.  Someone recommended the group Airborne Toxic Event to me.  I went and listened to its most recent release on Spotify.  My daughters and I were going to an O.A.R. (Of a Revolution) concert.  Never having heard any of O.A.R.'s music, I listened to a live concert recording on Spotify.  You can build playlists of songs you like on Spotify, just as you can in iTunes.  Over time you can build your own library of music by creating such playlists.  (When I first connected, Spotify sent me a link to a playlist that it has created called "Hello America" that I could download in Spotify to get started.)

Spotify does not let you move this music around unless you buy it.  You cannot download your online playlists to a mobile device.  You cannot burn them to disk.  As with iTunes, you have to own the mucis to do that.

Also, Spotify does not have is a shuffle feature.  This makes sense as Spotify offers you the whole universe of music, unlike iTunes which shuffles only the the songs that you have loaded into a library.

So Spotify is the next big thing with respect to Internet music.  The question remains whether it will make money.  Spotify does have the distinction, however, of finally getting the music industry to loosen up and let people access great music on the Internet.  Let's hope that lasts.

The iPhones are Coming, The iPhones are Coming (to Verizon)!!

This is old "news" even to the online readers of this column, but the deal is done.  Apple and Verizon have come to terms and the iPhone will be available on the Verizon network, starting February 10.  See David Pogue's piece in the New York Times yesterday, which highlights two immediate differences in the operation of the iPhone on Verizon vs. ATT (no surfing the internet while calling and no usage abroad), and one significant advantage that Verizon has:  far better coverage on its more extensive network here at home.

Pogue cautions, however, that the influx of new iPhone users and the spike in data demand  may sap Verizon's network.  It is too early to tell. Marketplace Tech Report had a report on whether Verizon's network is up to the challenge.

The Wall Street Journal's Smart Money reports that you can expect some marketing changes at Verizon that are designed "encourage" existing customers to move to the iPhone.  Verizon will be discontinues its popular upgrade program.  Meanwhile, ATT and other businesses in the smart-phone wars are bracing for the effects.

I will have to look at details of the service contract, but this Verizon customer is ready to end his long wait to get an iPhone.

Mini-Byte: Another Pogue Crusade?

As recently reported here , New York Times Technology writer David Pogue was part of a successul crusade against Verizon for predatory billing practices.  Verizon was billing customers for accidental connections that did not involve any air time.  That campaign ultimately resulted in Verizon paying $92 million in refunds.

A reader has given Pogue a suggestion for another campaign:  roll-over megabytes. AT&T has roll-over minutes, which allow a customer to carry forward minutes that the customer paid for, but did not use.  Pogue and his reader are suggesting the same concept for megabytes of data that go unused.  Read Pogue's comments here and join the crusade.

Mini-Byte: Favorite Tech Reports

I have mentioned in other columns additional, probably better sources for information about technology.  I thought that I would you a short list of these sources, as there has been at least one change of name recently,  The many of the names below are hyperlinks in the online version of this column, so you can click on them and go to the websites:

Marketplace Tech Report -  This is a five minute podcast each day on technology issues.  It was formerly called Future Tense and hosted by Jon Gordon.  It has changed its name to become part of American Public Media's series of financial and business reports.  It is now hosted by John Moe and provides excellent coverage of a wide range of technology topics.  (American Public Media also distributes Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer's Almanac.

John Dvorak's Second Opinion - Distributed by The Wall Street Journal's Digital Network, this column features sharp criticism and iconoclastic views of John Dvorak, who is tech journalism's equivalent of Andy Rooney.  For another side of Mr. Dvorak, see his blog, aptly named Dvorak Uncensored.


All Things Digital - Also distributed by The Wall Street Journal's Digital Network, this website includes a wide variety of contributors, including the Journal's excellent Personal Technology columnist, Walt Mossberg and Boom Town's Kara Swisher.

TWIT - TWIT (This Week in Tech) is a website for commentary on technology assembled by Leo Laporte.  One of its primary features is a weekly podcast of roughly an hour in length, TWIT (podcast).

Pogue's Posts - a central site for accessing the columns of David Pogue, technology columnist of The New York Times.

TechnoLawyer Blog -  A site for those who want technology commentary specifically for the legal profession. Sign up for the e-newsletters.

David Beats A Goliath

New York Times Technology writer David Pogue has written for some time about the abuses of  the giant telecommunications companies.  I have mentioned this in a prior Reality Byte's post.  Now comes  "Verizon Comes Clean", in which David reports on Verizon's admission that it has been collecting millions of dollars from $1.99 charges it assessed on users who inadvertently connected to the Internet on their flip phones. Verizon will be paying out a $90 million refund. Read David's full report by clicking on the link above.

Cellphone Users Unite!

While some of us wait for the day when we can get on iPhone on our network of choice, others are taking the cellphone providers to task for their monopolistic practices designed to suck money out the pockets of users. A leading crusader in the regard is David Pogue, whose Pogue's Posts appear in The New York Times. Pogue was recently interviewed on American Public Media's Future Tense, where he and host Jon Gordon discussed Pogue's list of complaints about the way cellphone networks bill for services.

Pogue campaigned to get users on Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T to rise up and object to the 15 second instructions that greet users when they try to retrieve voice mail. As Gordon summarized, Pogue contends that such messages "amount to theft of customers money and time." In the interview, Gordon probes Pogue on his other concerns about cellphone billing practices.

Gordon did a series of programs in August on cellphone issues. Several of these reports deal with Gordon's quest to buy a new cellphone that was just right for him. Another report highlighted that Americans pay more for their cellphones and service than most of the rest of the world. High cellphone costs in the U.S. are attributable to our ubiquitous use of cellphones, the billing practices with which Pogue has taken issue, and lack of real competition in the cellular service industry. Finally, as we might have guessed, Gordon highlighted a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project that found that Americans ages 12 to 17 are adopting and using cellphones at a rate comparable to adults.