Controlling the Internet

A publisher who only supports Internet Explorer!

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I encouraged my TOM students to check out the Investext database for their term projects. Imagine my surprise to learn that Thomson, the publisher, thinks that the world is Windows only. Here is a note from the UCSD librarian.

Hi Roger. On the new Thomson One interface/platform, Investext really only works with IE.
Other browsers may now load at all, or have functionality/displays that are hobbled.

P.S. Here is what MIT library says: “Microsoft Internet Explorer is required. Thomson One will not work with other browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.”

We have to “love” the academic publishing industry. Still trying to saddle everything they provide with DRM. UC San Diego and the whole UC system are  moving toward an open publishing approach – I expect most of my colleagues will adopt it, although only slowly.

Internet commerce is still commerce

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My classes have been working on international treatment of Internet Censorship. It’s led to interesting discussions about company and national policies. But it’s easy (for me at least) to fall into the Internet is new and unique trap. It’s true, but sometimes it’s also irrelevant.

Here is an excerpt from Craigslist’s list of items that are forbidden to be advertised. These restrictions are the results of prosaic US laws on advertising and commerce. As far as I know, they are exactly the same for ads in newspapers, flyers, or even word of mouth. I don’t “like” certain of these restrictions, but by and large it’s a sensible list.

  • Tickets you are not allowed to sell, including airline tickets that restrict transfer.
  • Coupons or gift cards that restrict transfer or which you are not authorized to sell.
  • Lottery tickets, sports trading card grab bags, raffle tickets, sweepstakes entries, slot machines, other gambling items.
  • Used or rebuilt batteries, or batteries containing mercury.
  • Used bedding and clothing, unless sanitized in accordance with law.

via craigslist | about > prohibited items.

There are a few controversies about Craigslist ads that seem to have more specific Internet nuances. Sexual crimes seem to feature prominently in them.

The Jig Is Up: Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future – Alexis Madrigal – Technology – The Atlantic

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Some much needed skeptical talk about the current state of Internet innovation. -RB

That’s the microversion of the state of affairs. Here’s the macro version. Thousands of startups are doing almost exactly the same thing, minor variations on a theme. Tech journalists report endlessly on the same handful of well-established companies. Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft’s dominate pieces of the web, and they don’t appear to be in shaky positions. Good, long-time tech journalists like Om Malik are exhausted. He recently posted this to his blog after much ink was spilled over who Twitter hired as a public relations person:

Sure, these are some great people and everyone including me is happy for their new gigs and future success. But when I read these posts [I] often wonder to myself, have we run out of things to say and write that actually are about technology and the companies behind them? Or do we feel compelled to fill the white space between what matters? Sort of like talk radio?

via The Jig Is Up: Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future.