Media

Under a new deal, the network will continue what has already become a 35-year tradition.

“We’re used to treating information as ‘free,’” writes Jaron Lanier in his latest book Who Owns the Future?, “but the price we pay for the illusion of ‘free’ is only workable so long as most of the overall economy isn’t about information.” Lanier argues that a free-culture mindset is dismantling the middle-class economy. In his estimation, the idea “that mankind’s information should be free is idealistic, and understandably popular, but information wouldn’t need to be free it no one were impoverished.” Who Owns the Future?, like his 2010 book You Are Not a Gadget, is another manifesto attempting to rebuff what he sees as the contemporary ethos of the web. But the followup also refreshingly attempts to pose solutions, one where all participants in this information-based world are paid for what they do and distribute on the web. Throughout, it places particular emphasis on the ways digital technology has unsettled the so-called “creative class” — journalists, musicians, photographers, and the like. As he sees it, the tribulations of those working in such fields may be a premonition for the middle class as a whole. It’s “urgent,” he writes, “to determine if the felling of creative-class careers was an anomaly or an early warning of what is to happen to immeasurably more middle-class jobs later in this century.” I recently spoke with Lanier and we discussed the ways he sees digital networking disrupting the media, why he thinks advertising can no longer sustain paid journalism, and why he misses the future. Lightly edited and condensed, here’s a transcript of our conversation. Eric Allen Been: You were one of the early advocates of the notion that “information wants to be free.” An idea most media companies initially embraced when it came to the web, and one that now some seem to regret. Could you talk a little bit about why you changed your mind on this line of thinking? Jaron Lanier: Sure. It was based on empirical results. The idea sounded wonderful 30 years ago. It sounded wonderful in the way that perfect libertarianism or perfect socialism can. It sounds right, but with all these attempts to make a perfect system, it doesn’t work out so well. Empirically, what I’ve seen is the hollowing out of middle-class opportunities and that there is an absurdity to the way it’s going. I think we’re not getting the benefits that I initially anticipated. Been: When it came to journalism, what were some of those benefits that you originally expected? I imagine you then thought it would be a largely positive thing. Lanier: Yeah. To use the terminology of the time, we — that is, me and others who were behind a lot of the ideas behind the Web 2.0 ethos or whatever — wanted to “supplant” or “make obsolete” the existing channels of journalism and the existing types of jobs in journalism. But what would come instead would be better — more open and all of that — and less intermediated. What happened instead was a little bit of what we anticipated. In a sense, the vision came true. Yes, anybody can blog and all that — and I still like that stuff — but the bigger problem is that an incredible inequity developed where the people with big computers who were routing what journalists did were getting all the formal benefits. Mainly the money, the power. And the people who were doing the work were so often just getting informal benefits, like reputation and the ability to promote themselves. That isn’t enough. The thing that we missed was how much power would accrue to the people with the biggest computers. That was the thing we didn’t really think through. Been: Historically, technological advances have caused disruptions to industries, but they’ve also tended to provide new jobs to replace the wiped-out ones. There seems to be some optimism i

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In January 2005, I met a clearly distressed young British journalist who told me of being beaten up by the Italian police during the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001.Four years on, Mark Covell was still suffering from both the physical and psychological effects of that savage attack as he recounted his injuries: eight broken ribs, smashed teeth, a collapsed lung and internal bleeding. He lost consciousness and slipped into a coma.He found it difficult to talk about what had happened and when he did try, he shook badly and often appeared close to tears. "You've never seen anything like it," he said several times. Indeed, I had no conception of what had really happened to him and to more than 100 other young journalists and activists who decided to spend the night bedded down in the Armando Diaz school in Genoa on 21 July 2001. Now, a further eight years on, I understand at last just what Mark and so many others suffered because I've seen the movie, Diaz – Don't Clean Up This Blood. The scenes in which the baton-wielding police indiscriminately beat the defenceless young people, all apparently innocent of any crime, were almost impossible to watch.Then came worse still - the humiliating and brutal treatment meted out to people once they reached the police station, some of them after being dragged forcibly from hospital.The film also reveals how police planted evidence - two Molotov cocktails - in order to justify their raid. None of the activists had weapons.If it were not for the fact that, after an interminable judicial process, 25 officers were eventually convicted for grievous bodily harm, libel and falsifying evidence, you could be forgiven for thinking it was an agit-prop movie that exaggerated what happened.Mark, a UK Indymedia journalist, is depicted in the film because he had the misfortune to be the first person assaulted by the police. He had ran out of the school to witness the squad of 300 police storming through the gates.His brave reporting effort ended with him being clubbed to the ground, viciously kicked by several policemen and left lying in a coma as officers charged over him into the school. In all, 93 people were seriously injured. It amounted, said Amnesty International - as quoted in the movie - to being "the most serious suspension of democratic rights in a western country since the second world war." Mark was finally vindicated, to an extent, when the Italian interior ministry agreed in September 2012 to pay him compensation of €340,000 (£280,000) in an out-of-court settlement.In return, Mark, who is still suffering from his injuries, had to agree to drop proceedings against the Italian government at the European court of human rights. He is also the only one of the 93, thus far, to receive his money.The settlement came three months after Italy's highest court upheld the convictions of 25 officers for grievous bodily harm, libel and falsifying evidence. But none of them will go to jail for their crimes. Some senior officers may be suspended for five years, but all the sentences were reduced by the statute of limitations. Mark therefore has mixed feelings about that. He said immediately afterwards: "It's legal history and I am overjoyed, but they did try to kill me and none are going to jail, so is this justice?"He is still hopeful that a further 40 officers will be convicted. Those verdicts are due on 14 June. And all of the victims who have campaigned for justice have also been pushing for Italy to introduce a torture law. "That would be one piece of good to come from all this," says Mark.As for the film, Mark believes it is an accurate portrayal of events. "It is based on 10,000 court documents and the evidence of victims and eye-witnesses. It is very, very good. Of course, so much happened, it's impossible to convey it in a single movie."Diaz – Don't Clean Up This Blood, a French-Italian-Romanian movie, was released in Germany last February and went on to win an award at the Berlin film festival. It has

MakeMyTrip has reported a net loss of $6.5 million for the quarter ending March 31, 2012, as compared to a $3 million profit reported in the corresponding quarter last year. This was on a Net Revenues (Revenue less service costs) of $21.77 million, down 1.4% from $22.1 million revenues in the same quarter last year. For the year ending March 31, 2013, MakeMyTrip reported a net loss of $6.04 million for FY13, a significant decline from $9.3 million profit in the previous fiscal. Net Revenues (Revenue less service costs) stood at $88.17 million, a minor dip from $88.18 million revenues in the previous fiscal. The company reported a gross booking of $311.7 million for the quarter ending March 31, 2012, up 26.4% year over year (YoY) from gross booking of $246.5 million in the corresponding quarter last year. For the fiscal FY13, the company saw a gross booking of $1.17 billion, a 17.8% growth from $992.95 million in FY12. Segment Revenues Air Ticketing Revenues Decline: Revenue from Air Ticketing significantly declined by 26.3% YoY to $13.14 million for the quarter, down from $20.9 million in Q4-FY12. This was despite a 16.6% increase YoY in gross bookings to $248.88 million for the quarter and a 13% increase YoY in transactions to 1.05 million for the quarter. The net revenue margins declined to 6% from 9% a year ago due to the reduction in airlines commission. For the fiscal FY13, the Air ticketing revenues declined by 14.3% to $56.77 million, down from $66.25 million revenues in FY12. This was despite a 12% growth in gross bookings to $939.6 million and a 2.1% increase in transactions to 3.79 million. Hotels and Packages Revenues Increase: The hotels and packages business however provided respite for the company, posting a 141.6% YoY increase in revenues to $7.70 million for the quarter, up from $3.19 million in Q4-FY12. The gross bookings increased by 89.3% to $62.8 million and the transactions increased by 97.1% to 0.17 million transactions. Net revenue margins increased to 12.3% from 9.6% a year ago. MakeMyTrip noted that this increase was aided by the acquisition of Hotel Travel Group and ITC Group in the previous quarter. For the fiscal FY13, the Hotel and packages revenues increased by 51.4% to $27.59 million, up from $18.23 million in FY12. The gross bookings increased by 49.6% to $229.92 million and the transactions increased by 65.6% to 0.57 million transactions. Other Revenue: Other revenues declined by 12.9% to $0.93 million for the quarter, down from $1.07 million revenues in the same quarter last year. The company attributed the decline to lower advertisement revenue from its websites. For the fiscal FY13, the other revenues however increased by 2.6% to $3.8 million, up from $3.71 million in FY12. Highlights - MakeMyTrip had partnered with OneAssist Consumer Solutions to offer travel assistance and protection products to its customers. - It had introduced Apple Passbook integration for its flight bookings earlier this month. It had informed that these passes will also offer Flight reminders to Passbook users. Download – Press Release

The JustDial IPO has been fully subscribed with bids for more than 12 times the amount at hand. While institutions bid for more than 10 times their allocation, retail investors who pitched for less than 200K worth have bid for 3.3x their quota. For retail the rule is that every single investor gets at least one lot, so if you applied you should be able to get 25 shares. The surprise was that HNIs bit this up 22x. They don’t have a safety net, so why do they care? Apparently, they do! Bids seem to now be concentrated at the higher end of the band. Now to see what happens on listing. Disclosure: I’ve bought a bit in the IPO, so I’m biased. The original post was published here. This post was written by Deepak Shenoy. Deepak writes on Money, Markets and Economics at Capital Mind.  He works with financial big data analysis in an early stage company and lives in Bangalore.  (c) Capital Mind 2013.

The big winner in mobile content is Games, accounting for 80% of download revenue and even more from in-app purchases.But most game publishers struggle to make a living. Data from in-game mobile ad network Tapjoy points to User Interface (UI) as the key differentiator for engagement and monetization.

The New Health Age will usher in transformational changes in health care and rapidly approaching medical miracles, and the economics of health care will be turned upside down. In fact, the future of health care is already appearing, at a revolutionary new medical complex in India.

The technique of marketing mix modeling has become so pervasive over the past two decades that every BTC company worth its salt is using MMM to make the biggest decisions it makes every year on the demand side.

Just because the company you may be interested in has no job openings does not mean none exist. The real challenge is in getting to the key decision maker who could hire you.