Media

Quite a bit has been written about Yahoo's acquisition of Tumblr. The business issues are interesting – Is Yahoo paying too much? How will Yahoo translate the acquisition into shareholder value? Etc. These are the right questions to ask, but I have different question entirely...

To protect themselves against excessive monitoring, security exploits and ISP throttling, some BitTorrent users turn to anonymizing services such as VPNs and proxies. Over the past months interest in these privacy protection services has surged. However, for some less technically skilled people all the talk about privacy settings and IP-leaks may prove to be too much. The latter group is now catered for by TrafficPrivacy, a new and fully anonymous BitTorrent client that launched this week. Feature wise the client is relatively limited, but unlike others it has a fully configured and dummy proof anonymity option built in. Simply enter your login credentials and everything just works. “TrafficPrivacy’s mission is to provide users with real 100% protection and anonymity without additional settings, which can be quite difficult for non tech savvy users. That’s why we include protection into a tiny BitTorrent client,” TrafficPrivacy’s Alex told TorrentFreak. As with other anonymity services a long term subscription to TrafficPrivacy doesn’t come free. The service is currently priced at $6.95 per month, but there is a 7-day free trial available for people who want to give it a spin before committing to it longer term. Contrary to VPNs or BitTorrent proxies, users will have to swap their current BitTorrent client for the TrafficPrivacy software. This is a deliberate choice from the makers, as it’s the only way to guarantee that all the privacy settings are properly configured. With Vuze, uTorrent and other clients people often forget to use the right settings or get confused by the terminology, which can result in their true IP-address leaking out. The new client’s goal is to avoid this. “The target audience for TrafficPrivacy are users who put a lot of value on their safety and anonymity, but do not want to configure all the complicated settings. We want to keep everything as simple as possible and let users feel safe without tinkering with various privacy options in current BitTorrent clients,” Alex says. TrafficPrivacy BitTorrent Client One thing to keep in mind is that TrafficPrivacy only offers anonymous BitTorrent transfers. Other traffic, such as that generated by a web browser, will be linked to the user’s regular IP-address. Users can see if anonymity is turned on directly from the client, but it’s always wise to verify it through an external service that checks the BitTorrent IP. To guarantee the user’s privacy the company says it doesn’t keep any connection logs that can be traced back to individual customers. Also, if the TrafficPrivacy servers happen to go down the client will stop working entirely. “If TrafficPrivacy server goes down, all downloads stop and it doesn’t leak the real IP-address,” Alex informs TorrentFreak. The TrafficPrivacy team are no newcomers to the security scene. The new client was developed as part of the existing TorrentPrivacy proxy/VPN service, but when the new client was finished they decided to turn in into a completely new product and a brand of its own. While TrafficPrivacy might not appeal to all BitTorrent users, its ease of use and simplicity will probably be welcomed by those who are less technically skilled. Source: TrafficPrivacy Launches Anonymous BitTorrent Client

It’s been a good week for guest speakers here at the office. Gary Vaynerchuk was here on Tuesday, and Clayton Christensen spoke yesterday. Pretty much a coincidence, I think, as their talks were part of two different programs here, but I think Christensen would happily cite @garyvee as an example of his theories in action. So Gary was fun, but I was looking forward to Christensen. There’s a not-too-thin logical chain where I have a job in this industry because of his research getting into the hands of certain early online news adopters. When Gary spoke, I think I promised Sean Blanda I would give Christensen the #sholinonrap treatment. @seanblanda oh Sean I’m really not feeling #sholinonrap today. Maybe tomorrow when Clayton Christensen is here. — Ryan Sholin (@ryansholin) May 21, 2013 I had my dates mixed up, but you get the picture. For the uninitiated, “#sholinonrap” is how Sean responds on Twitter or Facebook or wherever, whenever I make some sort of hip-hop reference. Last time Sean was here at the office for some sort of panel, I gave him the treatment, tweeting about the panel in the form of rap lyrics. And not only was it fun, but it was also a disciplined approach to note-taking that forced me to do three things: Pay attention. Boil down complex topics into simple, 140-character-or-less approximations of lines of verse, complete with rhymes and flow where possible. (I am not an expert at this, kids.) Show my work by tweeting it. In other words, an efficient and entertaining (for me, anyway) bit of exercise for my brain. So yesterday during Christensen’s talk, I found a nondescript spot in the audience between a VP of News and a Social Media Editor and did my thing. It went okay. Many, many thanks to Chris Amico for whipping up a Storify of #christensenonrap before I even had a chance to get back to my desk to prep for my next meeting. Here it is: [View the story "#christensenonrap" on Storify] ### I had a couple interesting conversations later in the day about why Christensen might not have been too excited about answering direct questions about how this applies to the news business. One reason might be that the American Press Institute (hi y’all!) spent a few years of research on how Christensen’s theories about disruptive innovation fit into the news business. Newspaper Next. You might have heard of it. Maybe not. Here are a few useful links. (Some of these are remarkably useful.) The Newspaper Next research itself, from API. This should probably be required reading for anyone seeing this, but really, you should have read it a few years ago. Some of it may seem patently obvious now. Steve Buttry in September 2011 on his personal experience as part of the Newspaper Next project. An October 2011 Nieman Lab post by Justin Ellis revisiting the Newspaper Next research and its impact (or lack thereof). From Nieman Lab again, an October 2012 post that includes a podcast interview with Christensen and links to… …the Fall 2012 Nieman Reports cover story on Christensen and how his disruption theory applies to the news industry. Plenty to peruse there over your holiday weekend, eh? Anyway, hope you enjoyed this episode of #sholinonrap. Beast! Related PostsSee you in Vegas?ONA09 debrief and the swaggerThe Future Of Newspapers – Clayton Christensen at Forbes.comZemanta

Yahoo snaps up Tumblr: Yahoo approved a $1.1 billion deal to buy Tumblr over the weekend, giving the company, as The New York Times’ Jenna Wortham noted, a big stake in the current wave of simpler, more personal and expressive social media platforms. Yahoo pledged “not to screw it up,” and its sources told All Things D’s Kara Swisher they’d take a hands-off approach to Tumblr. But it will make changes — Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said it would introduce more ads to Tumblr’s dashboards. A lot of people were immediately skeptical of Yahoo’s ability (or willingness) to keep Tumblr un-screwed-up, including GigaOM’s Mathew Ingram, who noted, as many others did, that Yahoo was unable to do that with its prior purchases Geocities and Flickr. PandoDaily’s Sarah Lacy pointed out that a lot has changed at Yahoo since then (particularly Mayer’s presence). Still, blogging pioneer Dave Winer warned that when you sell a company, your buyers can do what they want with it; promises don’t matter. YouTube’s Hunter Walk offered Yahoo some helpful tips from Google’s management of his own site. Several other writers along with Lacy saw this move as a good one for Yahoo. Forbes’ Alex Konrad saw it as a success as long as Yahoo maintains a light touch, and Ingram said it made some sense as a desperation move. Reuters’ Felix Salmon said the deal looks good from both sides — it allows Yahoo better user data and advertising opportunities, and it lets Tumblr pawn off its profitability problems. Tumblr co-founder Marco Arment said the Yahoo deal will allow Tumblr’s founder and head, David Karp, to focus on design and user experience while offloading concerns about maintenance and money to Yahoo. Business Insider’s Jay Yarow and Nicholas Carlson cited similar reasons in arguing that this deal works for Tumblr, and reasoned that it also helps Yahoo solve its mobile problem. Tech entrepreneur John Battelle said the key is Yahoo’s shift from traditional to native advertising, and Fast Company’s Sarah Kessler advised Yahoo to adopt Tumblr’s creativity in developing native ads. Fortune’s John Saroff listed some reasons to doubt Tumblr’s effectiveness for advertising, however. BuzzFeed’s John Herrman argued that Yahoo is buying Tumblr for access to its young user base, which sees Yahoo as representing adults, and with them cluelessness and boredom. Ingrid Lunden of TechCrunch asserted that Tumblr’s users will jump ship rather than go with it to Yahoo, and WordPress saw a jump in posts at the announcement, potentially (though not necessarily likely) suggesting a migration. Business Insider’s Jay Yarow saw a troubling dip in traffic at Tumblr over the past few months, while Timothy B. Lee of The Washington Post saw Yahoo’s fixation on young, “cool” users as a sign that’s thinking too much like a media company, rather than a tech company. Paul Smalera of Reuters, meanwhile, argued that Yahoo and Tumblr’s fundamental clashes in philosophy could be greater than their shared strengths. The Guardian’s Michael Wolff was similarly skeptical, writing that the Tumblr purchase is fueled more by desperate investors than anything else: “nothing in Yahoo’s muddled experience and questionable competence suggests it knows anything about the social business or has any sensibility that has anything to do with cool.” Finally, tech entrepreneur Anil Dash offered some thoughts about how Tumblr upended the conventional wisdom on blogging and furthered the form as a result, and Referly’s Danielle Morrill wrote that Tumblr could have had an even bigger windfall if it had figured out how to better monetize its user base. Is investigative reporting being criminalized?: After last week’s revelation that the U.S. Department of Justice seized a broad swath of the Associated Press

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has launched three new Aadhaar enabled services – an authentication services using Iris, an authentication service using one time pin (OTP) and an electronic know your customer (eKYC) service. It also announced that currently over 400 million residents have been enrolled for an Aadhaar number, while about 350 million Aadhaar numbers have been issued. eKYC service: The eKYC service will allow one to authorize service providers to receive electronic copy of their identify proof and address. This will allow instant and paperless verification of of one’s identity and address. Using this service will allow sharing of demographic information including name, address, DOB, gender, photograph and mobile number this was collected during enrollment. This is quite different to what was said at the Aadhaar Development Track conference organized by NASSCOM in Bangalore in 2011. At the conference, key personnel from the authority including Head of Technology Srikanth Nadhamuni, Chief Product Manager Sanjay Jain and Pramod Varma, Chief Architect had mentioned that the Aadhaar backend will simply verify the info and return a Yes or No response. Aadhaar would not send any other data back, except in cases of National Security, for which protocols were not been decided back then. This contradicts with the services that UIDAI is offering for Aadhaar enabled services. With the eKYC service, UIDAI shares all demographic information including name, address, DOB, gender, photograph, and mobile number to the service providers. With 350 million Aadhaar cards issued, access to such information not only brings up privacy issues but also security concerns. What stops hackers to get into UIDAI server and collect all private information. Also note that, this information is not that one can easily change. One’s name, address, DOB, gender, and mobile number (possibly) remains the same for a larger part of their life. The fact that this information can be retrieved means UIDAI provides an API to access them, and it won’t be long before the system is abused. Iris Authentication: With Iris based authentication service, residents will be able to authenticate their identity for availing Aadhaar enabled services by providing a combination of Aadhaar number and Iris image. One just needs to submit their Aadhaar number and Iris image to UIDAI’s Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) for verification. The CIDR then verifies whether the image submitted matches with the Iris data available in CIDR which was collected during enrollment. Once verified, the CIDR responds with Yes or No message. The government claims that this service can be availed by anyone who has an Aadhaar number including old, blind and those who may have undergone cataract surgery. It also claims that it can offer Iris Authentication for 350 million residents who currently hold Aadhaar number. Authentication service using One Time Pin (OTP): Through this authentication process, residents will be able to authenticate their identity for Aadhaar enabled service by providing a combination of Aadhaar number and OTP sent to the registered mobile number provided at the enrollment time or subsequent updation. This process can be carried out by users themselves using their mobile number on a self service mode without having to use biometric authentication device which requires assisted service. To use this authentication method, one has to request for OTP against an Aadhaar, which is sent to UIDAI’s CIDR. CIDR then sends a newly generated random OTP to users mobile or email address. The users then have to submit the Aadhaar number and the OTP received on their mobile number or email address to CIDR for verification. Once verified, CIDR responds with a Yes or No reply. Aadhaar Kendra: Besides these services UIDAI has also launched Aadhaar Kendra, which will be permanent enrollment centers to facilitate enrollment of resident

New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) has filed an appeal against the New York Court’s dismissal of its lawsuit against Nielsen for the alleged manipulation of TV ratings and viewership data in February 2013, reports LiveMint. NDTV has refused to comment on the matter to the publication while Nielsen has told the publication in an email statement that they cannot comment on it since it is subjudice. According to the appeal filed by NDTV on May 15, 2013, the company has said that the trial court failed to acknowledge Nielsen New York’s ownership and control of the Nielsen process in India and around the world. It also says that the court erred by disregarding the fact that Nielsen is headquarted with its senior management in New York and thereby wrongly concluded that majority of its defendants were foreign. In February 2013, the New York Court had dismissed NDTV’s lawsuit against Nielsen on grounds of lack of jurisdiction, however NDTV claims that the court had wrongly concluded that its allegations were against TAM in India, when their allegations was actually against Nielsen New York, for which Indian courts do not have the jurisdiction. NDTV had originally filed a lawsuit against Nielsen in July 2012, seeking $580 million for gross negligence against TAM and misrepresentations, $810 million for fraud, $125 million for negligence and gross negligence against Nielsen, $125 million for negligence and gross negligence against Kantar, $790 million for breach of contract against TAM, $250 million for prima facie tort against TAM and millions more on various costs including legal fees and punitive damages to be determined by trier of fact during the legal proceedings. Timeline of the NDTV-Nielsen Lawsuit: April 2012: NDTV talks with TAM on the manipulation of television ratings. July 2012: NDTV files lawsuit against Nielsen for alleged manipulation of television ratings.  Do read the NDTV’s whistleblower account which includes details of interactions between NDTV and Nielsen where Nielsen had admitted to inaccuracy and rigging of data and had promised more investment in TAM to improve the process. August 23, 2012: WPP (parent company of Nielsen) says NDTV’s lawsuit is hypothetical and plans to sue NDTV for defamation. NDTV responded to this statement saying that WPP’s statements were a PR effort and that the case cannot be hypothetical since it is available for public viewing on the website of the Supreme Court of New York. August 24, 2012: In an interview with Mint, Sir Martin Sorrell, Founder and Chief Executive of WPP Group Plc, said that the lawsuit was not served properly, and that it was a mischief on NDTV’s part. He had alleged that NDTV’s lawyers had called up WPP and had asked if the firm would like to discuss a settlement. He also added that it is NDTV’s attempt to blame TAM for their performance. August 26, 2012: NDTV had refuted WPP’s claim of asking the firm to discuss a settlement. NDTV also said that Eric Salama, the chief executive of Kantar had sent a confidential mail to NDTV on 8 August, suggesting a meeting to “halt litigation”. August 27, 2012: WPP refuted NDTV’s claim that WPP is taking Indian market very lightly. WPP further said that they welcome NDTV’s decision to not want to get into a prolonged trial and also clarified about the issue over the interactions on the ‘settlement’ between the two companies. February 2013: New York Court dismisses NDTV’s lawsuit. NDTV plans to appeal against this decision in the New York Lower Court. May 2013: NDTV files an appeal against New York Court’s dismissal of NDTV’s lawsuit.

The Telegraph Media Group (TMG) managed to increase its operating profit last year, making £58.4m on a turnover if £327.5m. In the previous year, it made £55.7m. According to the financial statements filed at Companies House for the full year ended 30 December 2012, TMG's turnover fell to £327.5m, down 1% on 2011. Print advertising revenues declined year on year, but the company said it was encouraged by the growth in digital and consumer revenues, which "significantly mitigated this decline." Circulation revenues also declined year on year. The decline in revenues was offset by reduced costs, helped in particular by lower newsprint prices. As a result of this, and a continuing investment in digital development, the rise in operating profit, of £2.7m, represented an increase of 4.8%.It means that the publisher of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, which is ultimately owned by Sirs David and Frederick Barclay, has continued to defy the downward market trend in the sector. Rival titles, such as The Times, The Guardian and The Independent, are loss-making. Given that the company has a staff of about 1,000 people, TMG's chief executive, Murdoch MacLennan, has clearly managed costs with commendable efficiency. Source: TMG NB: Though TMG filed its accounts with Companies House earlier this week, as I write, they have yet to be posted on its website.Telegraph Media GroupBarclay BrothersMurdoch MacLennanDaily TelegraphSunday TelegraphTony GallagherMedia businessThe GuardianThe TimesThe IndependentRoy Greensladeguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

And not caring what Elton John says about any of it.

Robin Good's insight:Clipzine is a web app which makes it easy to collect images from any website page and to visually organize them into page-based collections.On each page it is possible to place as many as 24 pieces of content and to decide how large or small each element will be. The user can expand each imported element over two or more tiles and move it around to any position.It is also possible to use one or more tiles to add custom text and information and to format it professionally.One key practical use of Clipzine that can be helpful in testing out its capablities is its ability to create a visual magazine of any Pinterest board.Just go to the selected Pinterest board page, click the Clipzine bookmarklet and select the unique Clipzine option to capture "all" images available on that page at once.Once captured all the images in a "zine", click on Edit / Syling and then on the Styling button that appears above each page content. Now hover with your mouse on any image in the collection and experiment with the feature buttons that appear around and in the center of each image.The final collection, called a zine, can be saved, published on the web, shared on social media, embedded on other sites or saved to a PDF file.My comment: This is one of the very few curation tools that leverages a tremendously powerful variable: control of positioning and size of elements in a collection. This is very useful as it empowers the curator to go beyond the linear top-down list or newspaper/magazine sequence and to create a more varied "equilibrium" between the elements in the collection. Understanding how to use Clipzine is not as intuitive as one would like, and the UI, thanks also to the presence of unpleasant and distracting ads is not as clean and straightforward as I would like to be. Promising concept. Powerful visual control in the hands of the curator. A bit disappointing implementation and not so intuitive and simple to use (for now). Free to use. Ad supported.Find out more / Try it out now: https://clipzine.me/See it on Scoop.it, via Content Curation World

BEIJING - Appliance giant Haier has selected UM as one of its media agencies in China.