Clueless AP Can't Figure Out It's Own YouTube Channel

It's no news that professional journalism, especially of the print variety, is in an ever desperate crisis. The failing economy has only exacerbated the crisis as well as the desperation.

That desperation becomes ever more apparent as the brain trust at the top of mainstream news organizations lashes out at the market, grasping for a stronghold that will preserve what has already disappeared. The more desperate the move, the more evident it becomes that the (old, white, male) leadership of these organizations is completely lost in the (not so new anymore) Internet reality and are, in fact, the largest barrier to their organizations' survival.

Witness this demonstration of ineptitude by the Associated Press:

In its quest to become the RIAA of the newspaper industry, the A.P.’s executives and lawyers are beginning to match their counterparts in the music industry for cluelessness. A country radio station in Tennessee, WTNQ-FM, received a cease-and-desist letter from an A.P. vice president of affiliate relations for posting videos from the A.P.’s official Youtube channel on its Website.

The AP's official channel on YouTube.

Which displays codes for embedding the videos.

A feature that can be turned off.

What is more clueless—not knowing how to operate your own YouTube channel, attacking your affiliate for using it, or not even being aware that you have a YouTube channel? And then to think that it'd be a good idea to emulate the strategy of the music labels? You know, because that's worked out so well.

At what point do the shareholders (or members, in the case of the AP) of these organizations realize that top management is in the deep weeds and should be relieved from the angst of trying to navigate out of it?

Congrats to local journalists Trace Sharp and Christian Grantham on breaking this story and achieving national (even international) coverage of it.

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Battered, but not broken: understanding the WPA crack

You may have heard recently that the WPA security protocol for WiFi had been cracked. Well, sort of. To be sure, it has been compromised, but you might be just fine and you should definitely continue to use WPA if WPA2 is not available in your wireless router.

And while we're on the subject, under no circumstances should you rely on WEP for wireless encryption unless you have absolutely no other choice and you firmly believe that abstinence-only education works.

Tews pointed out that "if you used security features just for preventing other people from using your bandwidth, you are perfectly safe," which is the case for most home users. Someone can't use this attack to break into a home or corporate network, nor decipher all the data that passes.

Read on as Glenn Fleishman at Ars Technica provides all the nerdy details.

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AT&T gives free WiFi access to iPhone users

AT&T seems to have finally pushed the button—prematurely clicked a few times earlier this year—and granted iPhone subscribers the same free access to its national WiFi hotspot network that DSL, fiber, laptop 3G, and business subscribers already receive. The company posted a revised WiFi hotspot network page this morning, and reportedly texted some iPhone users with the new info.

I've also heard that Boingo offers free WiFi service for iPhones, something that would be handy at many (most?) airports. Further, I've heard that you can access said Boingo service on your laptop by using Firefox with the useragent set to iPhone. I wonder if this trick would work at Starbucks....

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NBC To Offer Complete Olympics Online — But Only To Windows Vista

Oh, this is rich. For the first time, NBC (which owns rights for the U.S. television market) will offer complete video of the Summer Olympic Games online. Yay! The service, dubbed, "NBC Olympics on the Go" will be available only for users of Microsoft's Vista Home Premium and Ultimate operating systems. Say what?!

But the new service is available only to computers running Microsoft's (MSFT) Vista operating system — a limitation that leaves out millions of Windows XP and Apple (AAPL) Mac users as well as those using mobile devices such as iPods and mobile phones. And only two flavors of Vista — Home Premium and Ultimate — have the Media Center component necessary for running NBC's software. That eliminates most business notebooks.

So, uh, it eliminates all the people who don't have Vista or who have downgraded to XP or who didn't pony up for Premium or Ultimate or who actually might be "on the go" during the games?

It doesn't even look like Microsoft paid for the exclusive. Are these people really this astronomically stupid?

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Download YouTube Videos as MP4 Files

I don't think I've ever had a reason to do this, but if I ever did, I'm sure I'd much rather have an MP4 file than crappy Flash video.

An interesting side-effect of YouTube's recent push for higher quality videos is that most videos can be downloaded as MP4 files directly from YouTube. Until now, you could only get FLV files from your browser's cache or using one of the many websites that let you download YouTube videos.

Why would I prefer MP4 files over FLV? That's easy.

YouTube's MP4 files have a higher resolution, stereo sound and can be played with applications like VLC, MPlayer, iTunes, QuickTime. Not all YouTube videos can be downloaded as MP4 files and the fallback format is FLV.

Jump get the properly formed URL, bookmarklet, and/or Greasemonkey script.

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Cell phoning from home pits WiFi against femtocells

"What the eff is a femtocell?" you might be asking yourself. Short answer: another mystery box to add to your home network, but this one let's you make mobile phone calls over your broadband Internet connection.

"Why would I want to do that?" Two reasons: 1) unlimited free calls from home; 2) better coverage inside your house (or office).

"Couldn't I do the same thing with a WiFi-enabled mobile phone?" Why, yes, yes you could. If you can find one.

From the network's perspective, femtocells accomplish the same thing as an IP-enabled cell phone, in that they shift call traffic off the cell network and onto the user's broadband connection.

Jump for a quick summary of the current situation.

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Gmail being throttled, blocked by some anti-spam vendors

If you send email from Gmail, be forewarned: your messages may be delayed or outright rejected.

Over the past month, major anti-spam vendors have had to apply scrutiny to Gmail in a way they haven't had to before, and the result is reduced delivery performance and sometimes outright blocking of Gmail. Some messaging hosts are being instructed to reject SMTP connections from Google.

It all began when Google's bot-busting CAPTCHA for Gmail was defeated sometime in February. According to sources around the anti-spam industry, the result has been a marked increase in spam originating from Gmail SMTP servers. Some say the spam increase started even earlier, but all are in agreement on one thing: this is a serious problem.

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Firefox 3 vs. Safari 3

After a few weeks in the arms of Firefox 3 betas, I’ve returned to Safari as my daily browser. Unsurprisingly, it’s the interface that drove me back.

Gruber ticks off the design advantages that Safari holds over Firefox—in function as well as user interface—as well as a few spots where Firefox outdoes the Apple browser. Gruber's priorities might not be the same as yours, but his analysis is illuminating and may alter the way you assess browsers.

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Color Wars Erupt on Twitter

At approximately 11:05 am CT yesterday, zefrank sent the following tweet:

Good Morning! As you can see, i am now a member of the blue team!

And then all hell broke loose. No one really seemed to know what was going on, but plenty of people wanted to avoid being left out. Teams started sprouting up in support of their favorite colors, or non-colors, or patterns of colors. Within 12 hours, at least 1,000 people had begun following at least one of the 30+ color teams and countless others were asking, "what's this color wars thing?"

Of course, zefrank provided only limited guidance, posting the occasional cryptic tweet throughout the day.

what team are you on? don't make up some imaginary team either...for God's sake the color wars are coming! 11:10 am

i'm losing track of teams - please make sure that your team has a @_____team- for example @blueteam 11:51 am

choose your team, make your badges (you don't have to wear them all the time - just when we start playing) today is "pick your team day" approx. 12:40 pm

ok.now lets be hush about the teams thing.lets put away our badges for the time being.color wars will start soon enough.back to normal :) approx. 2:40 pm

the first colorwar2008 scrimmages will begin in the next couple days...a crack team is working on it approx. 6:40 pm

By the end of the day, most people still didn't know what was really going on, and plenty of people had opted out altogether. Yet even some of the non-players didn't want to be left out and jumped on the noTeam and teamblack bandwagons. And then there were those, like Voltron, calling for peace and unity.

This morning, however, we awoke to a simple tweet from zefrank, linking to his blog post explaining the Color Wars as some kind of virtual recreation of games he played as a kid at summer camp. As word of the explanation spreads, the jury is still out on how popular the actual Color Wars might be, but at least for the first 18 hours or so, the lead-up swept the Twitterverse like a storm. Or, perhaps more fittingly, like a virus -- demonstrating the potential of Twitter for rapid, viral dissemination. As well as the potential for all of us to return to our middle school/junior high days given the right circumstances.

So which color team have you picked? Follow the action at colorwars.net (where this story is re-posted).

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Twitter in Plain English

Seems like just about everyone's using Twitter but you. What's all the fuss? Find out by watching this excellent 2.5 minute tutorial from the fine folks at Common Craft.

Then get off your sorry ass and start tweeting.

[via sleepydad]

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Fontogenic Candidate Selection

Following up on our recent post about comparing the Democratic candidates with their corresponding computer platforms, today we introduce political analysis based on typography. Really, could this blog be any more geeky?

Gruber sets the stage (in a way sure to please Jackson): "If you’re going to cast your vote based on the candidates’ choice of fonts, it’s Obama all the way."

A Font We Can Believe In

I think it’s interesting that the design of Gotham was influenced by early Modernism, another movement that was about change and social idealism. And I like that the design aesthetic that may help move Obama into the White House was inspired by the humble NY Port Authority Bus Terminal sign. -Helvetica film director Gary Hustwit

[Yes, someone made a film about the font Helvetica. Seriously.]

McCain After Shave Balm

Hillary's snooze of a serif might have come off a heart-healthy cereal box, or a mildly embarrassing over-the-counter ointment; if you're feeling generous you might associate it with a Board of Ed circular, or an obscure academic journal. But Senator McCain's typeface is positively mystifying: after three decades signifying a very down-market notion of luxe, this particular sans serif has settled into being the font of choice for the hygiene aisle. -H&FJ

You've really got to see the mock-ups with this one.

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“Natural Born Clickers”? Who are these people?

Just 6 percent of the online population (dubbed “Natural Born Clickers”) are responsible for more than 50 percent of display ad clicks.

Online advertisers aren't going to like this at all. Not only do these heavy clickers account for the majority of ad clicks, they also behave differently than average Internet users in lots of other ways -- like spending four times as much time online but not spending more money than the average. So much for effective advertising online -- it's now a much more complex environment. Or maybe it's just back to the old 50% adage and same as it ever was. New media advertising is old media advertising.

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Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC?

"On one thing, the experts seem to agree. The differences between hillaryclinton.com and barackobama.com can be summed up this way: Barack Obama is a Mac, and Hillary Clinton is a PC."

Well, this is certainly a new way to analyze the candidates. Beats the heck out of talking about what they wear, as at least there is some substance involved. I'm not sure it's the best guide to selecting the candidate you will support, though.

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The Future of Social Networks

In a guest column on GigaOm, Brian McConnell writes about the past and future of social networks. I appreciated the review of previous incarnations of online social networking, but I'm finding his postulations about the future to be a bit long-winded for a rather simple idea: an open standard will be developed/adopted for social profiles (much like RSS for articles, iCal for calendars), online publishing platforms (e.g., Blogger, Yahoo!) will adopt it as a feature, and then commercial social network providers (e.g., Facebook, MySpace) will be in big trouble. There, I said it in one sentence.

However, what I find truly interesting about this subject are the implications of this likely development. And not just in terms of who wins and who loses. More like, who will be first to exploit the new standard in some innovative way (Plaxo?, Tumblr?, start-up?), what new compelling thing will commercial social networks become in order to survive, and (once all your social data is accessible) how will you be able to use this meta-data about yourself? Enter Jackson Miller's conceptualization of 3D social networking.

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Get Connected at PodCamp Nashville

Following on the success of last summer's BarCamp new media "unconference," tech-savvy musicians, marketers, bloggers and developers will gather next month in Nashville to discuss new media and podcasting. PodCamp Nashville, which is free to the public, will be held at the historic Cannery Ballroom on Saturday, February 9, and is designed for anyone interested in online media to share ideas, hear from industry experts, and participate in discussions and demos.

Just like BarCamp Nashville, PodCamp promises to bring together creative, tech and business types from across Nashville to exchange expertise and collaborate on developing new ideas and projects. It's a fantastic opportunity to meet people and get involved in local new media development. Organizer Dave Delaney recommends that interested participants register in advance to be assured admission.

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How Leopard Will Improve Your Security

With the release last week of the feature list for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, the security world is buzzing about some extremely important updates that should, if they work as expected, significantly improve Mac security and will make me less nervous about connecting to wireless networks in Internet cafes.

Tell me more... (via Daring Fireball)

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Gmail gets IMAP

Looks like the Google is finally rolling out IMAP access for Gmail. It's about time. With this feature in place, there is absolutely no reason to use any other free email service.

Why is IMAP integration a good thing for Gmail? POP was a stepping stone, but IMAP pushes Gmails benefits over the top. With IMAP, users can now access their email via a desktop application like Outlook or Thunderbird, read emails, make changes, delete, and have the changes made across platforms. So if you now log into your Gmail account, the message which you read in Thunderbird, will now be marked accordingly. No more wasting time trying to sift through emails that had already been answered.

Official Gmail Blog: Sync your inbox across devices with free IMAP

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Strange Bedfellows: Why an Apple/Google collaboration has been so difficult to make happen.

You can see how easy it is, then, to gin up a strategy whereby each company plays to its strength. Google handles the back end and Apple the front end.... [However,] Apple isn't going to be satisfied making clever little interfaces to a world of information provided -- and owned -- by Google. Schmidt (and Carr) see that Apple doesn't have the supercomputer, but Jobs just as firmly believes that Google doesn't know how to run the supercomputer it has, and besides, he can rent a supercomputer anytime he wants one, so there.

Hmm, didn't I say something to this effect back in September? Well, at least the first part (Carr's thesis) and, to some extent, the second (Cringley's). Cringely's analysis is spot-on (and much more colorful). (via Daring Fireball)

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The One Ill Building

When I first saw the banner unfurled on Sixth Avenue, I figured The One Ill Building was the Beastie Boys' first foray into urban planning....

If not a real estate development, then surely theoneillbuilding.com was promoting a new documentary about sick building syndrome, perhaps narrated by Al Gore.

(via Daring Fireball)

Time for some retro intercapping?

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Connect More Easily to Wi-Fi Hotspots with the iPhone

Devicescape has released a simple application for the iPhone that lets you connect to Wi-Fi hotspots without all the fuss of tapping in user names and passwords, clicking Accept buttons, or remembering WEP and WPA encryption keys.

(via Daring Fireball)

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