text:
Thesis #74 of The Cluetrain Manifesto says, "We are immune to advertising. Just forget it." We wrote that in 1999, when everybody thought that advertising was going to be THE model for businesses on the Internet. The crash came less than a year later.
Then the next bubble came, and this time everybody thought (surprise!) that advertising was going to be THE model for businesses on the Internet. This time they were right, because Google made it so. In fact, Google makes billions with advertising, not just for itself, but for millions of other sites, including countless blogs. Google does it by making advertising accountable, and by moving the wasteful side of guesswork. They take it off ink, paper, airwaves and billboards, and shift it to server cycles, pixels, rods and cones.
Still, most advertising is still wasted. The difference now is that advertising is accountable while it wastes less costly things. This is fine as far as it goes, which is pretty far, even in the current crash.
But advertising is still a bubble, and has been since it was invented more than a century ago. I've been saying this for many years, including last month right here.
In fact, last May I reported how Mike Arrington of TechCrunch was "outraged" by my suggestion that advertising was a bubble (or something to that effect… it's in this podcast somewhere… maybe one of ya'll can hunt down the quote). [Later… Dave Wallace found a clip.]
Now comes Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet, by Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information Management at Wharton, writing in TechCrunch, no less. When I read it the thought balloon over my head said "Yess!" and "Amen, brother!" over and over. For example:
Pushing a message at a potential customer when it has not been requested and when the consumer is in the midst of something else on the net, will fail as a major revenue source for most internet sites. This is particularly true when the consumer knows that the sponsor of the ad has paid to have this information, which was verified by no one, thrust at him.
Exactly what we said in Cluetrain, and what most people say when they look for havens from advertising, which they find with TiVo and many ad-free places on the Web.
Clemons follows that with this:
The net will find monetization models and these will be different from the advertising models used by mass media, just as the models used by mass media were different from the monetization models of theater and sporting events before them. Indeed, there has to be some way to create websites that do other than provide free access to content, some of it proprietary, some of it licensed, and some of it stolen, and funded by advertising.
At ProjectVRM we have been working on one, called PayChoice. [Later… changed to EmanciPay.] Since most of you don't follow links, I'll drop the first two sections in right here:
PayChoice is a new business model for media: one by which readers, listeners and viewers can quickly and easily pay for the goods they use — on their own terms, and not just those of suppliers' arcane systems.
The idea is to build a new marketplace for media — one where supply and demand can relate, converse and transact business on mutually beneficial terms, rather than only on terms provided by thousands of different silo'd systems, each serving to hold the customer captive.
PayChoice is a breed of VRM, or Vendor Relationship Management. VRM is the reciprocal of CRM or Customer Relationship Management. VRM provides customers with tools for engaging with vendors in ways that work for both parties. PayChoice is one of those tools. Or a set of them.
We now live in a media environment where goods previously sold directly or paid for by advertising are freely available and shared widely over the Internet. A number of factors contribute to a business and social conundrum for suppliers of those goods:
- Easy copying and sharing makes the goods freely available at growing ease and convenience.
- Copying and sharing is so widespread and common that punishment for copyright and other usage violations touches only a small minority of offenders, and has proven to be a losing proposition.
What the marketplace requires are new business and social contracts that ease payment and stigmatize non-payment for media goods. The friction involved in voluntary payment is still high, even on the Web, where one must go through complex forms even to make simple payments. There is no common and easy way either to keep track of what media (free or otherwise) we consume (see Media Logging), to determine what it might be worth, and to pay for it easily and in standard ways — to many different suppliers. (Again, each supplier has its own system for accepting payments.)
PayChoice will create a "buy button"-simple payment system to allow readers, listeners and viewers to pay whatever they like, at their discretion, for whatever media products they use. For too many media the traditional business models — subscriptions, newsstand sales, advertising and underwriting — are not sufficient. (Especially in the current economic environment, which is akin to an earthquake that won't stop.) Nor do they support full participation and involvement with their users.
PayChoice differs from other payment models (subscriptions, newsstand, tip jars) by allowing the customer to pay any amount they please, when they please, with minimum friction — and with full choice about what they disclose about themselves. PayChoice will also support credit for referrals, requests for service, feedback and other relationship support mechanisms, all at the control of the user. For example, PayChoice can provide quick and easy ways for listeners to pay for public radio broadcasts or podcasts, for readers to pay for otherwise "free" papers or blogs, and paid request for stories or programs to be expressed and aggregated, without requiring the customer to disclose unnecessary private information, to become a "member". This will scaffold real relationships between buyers and sellers, and for supporting journalists covering what Jake Shapiro calls "microbeats." It will also give deeper meaning to "membership" in non-profits. (Under the current system, "membership" means putting one's name on a pitch list for future contributions, and not much more than that.)
PayChoice will also connect the sellers' CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems with customers' VRM (Vendor Relationship Management) systems, supporting rich and participatory two-way relationships. In fact, PayChoice will by definition be a VRM system.
The idea of "micro-payments" for goods on the Net has been around for a long time, and has recently been revitalized as a potential business model for journalism by an article by Walter Isaacson in Time Magazine. What ProjectVRM suggests instead is something we don't yet have, but very much need: micro-accounting for actual uses. These including reading, listening and watching.
Most of what we now call "content" is both free for the taking and worth more than $zero. How much more? We need to be able to say.
So, as currently planned, PayChoice (again, now EmanciPay) would —
- Provide a single and easy way that consumers of "content" can become customers of it. In the current system — which isn't one — every artist, every musical group, every public radio and TV station, has his, her or its own way of taking in contributions from those who appreciate the work. This can be arduous and time-consuming for everybody involved. What PayChoice proposes, however, is not a replacement for existing systems, but a new system that can supplement existing fund-raising systems — one that can soak up much of today's MLOTT: Money Left On The Table.
- Provide ways for individuals to look back through their media usage histories, inform themselves about what they have been enjoying, and to determine how much it is worth to them. The Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP), and later the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), both came up with "rates and terms that would have been negotiated in the marketplace between a willing buyer and a willing seller" — language that first appeared in the 1995 Digital Performance Royalty Act (DPRA), and tweaked in 1998 by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), under which both the CARP and the CRB operated. The rates they came up with peaked at $.0001 per "performance" (a song or recording), per listener. PayChoice creates the "willing buyer" that the DRPA thought wouldn't exist.
- Stigmatize non-payment for worthwhile media goods. This is where "social" will finally come to be something more than yet another tech buzzmodifier.
All these require micro-accounting, not micro-payments. In fact micro-accounting can inform ordinary payments that can be made in clever new ways that should satisfy everybody with an interest in seeing artists compensated fairly for their work. An individual listener, for example, can say "I want to pay 1¢ for every song I hear on the radio," and "I'll send SoundExchange a lump sum of all the pennies wish to pay for songs I hear over the course of a year, along with an accounting of what artists and songs I've listened to" — and leave dispersal of those totaled pennies up to the kind of agency that likes, and can be trusted, to do that kind of thing.
Similar systems can also be put in place for readers of newspapers, blogs and other journals.
What's important is that the control is in the hands of the individual, and that the accounting and dispersal systems work the same way for everybody.
No, we don't have it yet, but we do plan to put it in the Public Radio Tuner in due time. It will help that well over a million of those tuners have been downloaded so far for iPhones.
Back to Eric Clemons' piece:
The internet is the most liberating of all mass media developed to date. It is participatory, like swapping stories around a campfire or attending a renaissance fair. It is not meant solely to push content, in one direction, to a captive audience, the way movies or traditional network television did. It provides the greatest array of entertainment and information, on any subject, with any degree of formality, on demand. And it is the best and the most trusted source of commercial product information on cost, selection, availability, and suitability, using community content, professional reviews and peer reviews.
My basic premise is that the internet is not replacing advertising but shattering it, and all the king's horses, all the king's men, and all the creative talent of Madison Avenue cannot put it together again.
This is exactly where we were going in Cluetrain. Back then, and still today, people tend to think of the Net as yet another one-way producer-to-consumer "medium" for "delivering messages" along with goods that "consumers" pay for. But the Net was and remains a place that serves demand at least as well as it serves supply. The demand side just hasn't been fully equipped yet. That's what the VRM movement (which includes but is not limited to ProjectVRM) is all about providing. When we (and others) succeed, we won't just be consumers anymore. We'll be customers in full standing.
Eric Clemons goes on to explain many reasons why advertising is a bubble. I agree with all of them, though I am not as pessimistic about Google, for the main reasons Jeff Jarvis visits in What Would Google Do? The fact remains that Google, more than any other large company operating on the Web, gets the fundamentals of abundance: that you make money because of it rather than with it. They know the vulnerability of advertising as a model, and I expect them to work no less hard disrupting the model than they have at building it out. (Perhaps in their secret labs they are already at work on this. I don't know. But if they're smart, which they are, they're on the case.) Clemons closes with this:
The internet is about freedom, and I suspect that a truly free population will not be held captive and forced to watch ads. We always knew that freedom comes at a price; perhaps the price of internet freedom and the failure of ads will be paying a fair price for the content and the experience and the recommendations that we value.
Among the other tools we need are pricing guns for customers. We haven't had that since before Industry won the Industrial Revolution. But we'll get them. PayChoice is one example of them. There will be more. And they'll work because not paying will be increasingly stigmatized.
Right now, for example, most music is available for free. Never mind that some of us call downloading it "theft" or "piracy". The other price is 99¢, which millions pay in iTunes and through other online stores. Those two price points are not enough. We need ones we can set on our own.
For years Congress and its regulatory arbitrators (first the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel and later the Copyright Royalty Board) have been saying there is no "willing buyer" to match the "willing seller" in the online radio, or streaming, business. That is, Internet radio. So, in the absence of that buyer, these panels have handed the pricing gun to the sellers (the RIAA and its collection agency, SoundExchange), but set the prices first. Last I heard, the royalty rate was set to peak at $.0019 per recording, per listener, in 2010.
If you pay 99¢ per song, you'd have to listen to it, what, 521 times to equal the same rate? If you use iTunes, check and see how many times you listen to any song.
So I'm thinking, hey, I'd be glad to pay a penny a recording for what I hear on the radio. These days you have a huge choice of radio stations on the Net. Most play music. All could carry data about that music. I'd be glad to account for that listening, and pay accordingly. And I'd like right now to set that price at a defaulted penny a song. I'd be glad to aggregate my listen-logging with others, with a pledge or an escrow account containing a sum of money for dispersal to artists at that rate. And see what happens.
In fact, that's what I want to do with PayChoice (EmanciPay) after we work out the kinks by providing a supplementary business model for public media. Stay tuned.
Oh, and this topic will be among the many I'll talk about at lunch tomorrow at the Berkman Center. More here.*
*This talk brought an invite from Jeff Kehoe, of Harvard Business Review Press, to turn the whole thing into a book. The result was The Intention Economy: When Customers Take Charge, which HBRP published in 2012. And now, as I write this addendum in 2021, we are about to start proving on the ground, through ProjectVRM's spin-off, Customer Commons.
Tags: advertising, EmanciPay, Eric Clemons, micro-accounting, microaccounting, micropayments, music, paychoice, public radio, radio, techcruch
79 comments
i said this:
> "customers won't pay…
> fans will, because they
> want their status as fans
> publicly acknowledged"
in reply, you said this:
> might seem politically-correct to some,
> but it is an assertion that is
> not backed up by any empirical data
> or reference to some kind of
> objective evidence.
i then supplied data and evidence.
you said "of course that's true", and then
maintained you aren't talking about that.
so, you know… you have confused me…
and i will leave it at that, thank you…
artists-and-fans _will_ change the world.
if the greedy people don't blow it up first.
"empirical data and evidence" that fans buy merchandise? You were wanting to prove that fans buy merchandise? No argument.
However, strictly speaking, fans are customers… but you differentiate them. You say "customers won't pay, but fans will"… OK, so… I guess your argument is that, VRM and the PayChoice button will work as a system, providing it involves selling highly desirable stuff to devoted fans, who really want that stuff… and they will pay an "inflated price because they know that money goes to the band"
OK… so the suggested system we have been discussing, is that:
PayChoice will create a "buy button"-simple payment system to allow readers, listeners and viewers to pay whatever they like, at their discretion, for whatever media products they use.
So, yes… you are right. If the PayChoice Button is used for these enthusiastic fans who "buy those t-shirts to show fanhood,
and laugh at the inflated price… Then the PayChoice button will indeed work!
What was I thinking? This is pure genius… all we have to do is get all customers, (sorry "fans") to be in this state of mind, and Doc Searls will get the Nobel Prize for economics; and you will have a good percentage of the bragging rights for making it all so clear for everyone.
ok, well i think doc has cleared stuff up
with this last comment of his, so thanks.
doc makes it clear that he's talking about
_voluntary_ payments for _free_ stuff…
that is, paychoice is about digital goods,
with their new-and-unique quality that
the "copying and sharing" of these things
is now _easy,_common_and_widespread_.
because of this, even if such goods were
not originally offered on a cost-free basis,
they're _de_facto_ available cost-free, as
> punishment for copyright and
> other usage violations touches only
> a small minority of offenders, and
> has proven to be a losing proposition.
in other words, paychoice — which is what
we're discussing, simon — as it's imagined
has little to do with the commercial world
of scarce-and-limited _physical_ goods
and their necessarily-high variable costs.
so, simon, dragging the marketplace into
the discussion here, which you have done
repeatedly, is simply off-topic, in my view.
further, the idea, which you expressed on
twitter, that you are "kicking arse" here,
is just downright silly. that's my opinion.
you might be kicking, but your foot ain't
hitting doc's "arse", it's just flailing in air.
i hope that doesn't sound harsh, because
i don't mean it harsh. it's just my opinion.
but i have no doubt that it's what i think.
simon said:
> I guess your argument is that,
> VRM and the PayChoice button
> will work as a system, providing
> it involves selling highly desirable
> stuff to devoted fans, who really
> want that stuff… and they will pay
> an "inflated price because they
> know that money goes to the band"
so, i guess reading comprehension is
not one of your strong suits, is it now?
so let me try and make it more simple.
the reason i had to express the fan bond
in _commercial_ terms like "t-shirt sales"
is because we don't have infrastructure
that allows it to be expressed as a _gift_.
fans would be willing to _gift_ the artist
— hand them a small amount of cash —
if there was an infrastructure allowing it.
but there isn't, so fans "give their gift"
in the best way they can, which is by
allowing themselves to be "overcharged"
for things like t-shirts, posters, and such.
but if there was a method facilitating it,
i'm convinced fans would be willing to
gift a small amount of cash voluntarily.
in other words, the t-shirt itself is largely
superfluous. (not entirely, but largely.)
and you can see this, for yourself, simon,
by seeing how people tip in a restaurant.
we've created a convention whereby you
can "gift" your server in a small amount,
or even not-so-small, and people _do_…
now, there's no _bond_ there between
the customer and the server. all parties
agree that it's a one-time occasion, and
that what's being expressed is not "love",
but merely appreciation for good service.
yet many people make their living off of
this convention of voluntary reciprocation.
so what i'm saying is that we can create
this convention between artist and fans,
since there already exists a bond there
— a strong one — and "love" is relevant.
and i believe artists can make their living
off of this convention of gift-reciprocation.
that is why i expressed my opposition to
paychoice vocabulary that casts the thing
in terms of "buyers and sellers", because
"love" is a _critical_ part of this equation,
and love has no place in the marketplace.
the situation runs a little deeper, in that
i believe it takes a little bit of something
to stimulate the gift from fan to artist —
but i don't think it will take all that much.
i believe fans want to be in a community,
that they want their fanhood expressed,
so i feel the voluntary gift of cash needs
to be reciprocated by public recognition
that acknowledges the gift as a signal of
the fan's appreciation, and thus serves to
identify the fan as a community member.
that's all it'd take: a public recognition of
the gift, placing the fan in the community.
doc said:
> through a simple pledging and/or
> escrowing a penny for every song
> heard on the radio, a podcast,
> or in a live performance
well, pledging and escrowing sounds like
they're something done _before_ the fact.
i tend to think in terms of after-the-fact…
the artist puts out a free gift, and the fans,
on coming to respect its value, reciprocate.
plus if you're paying a penny for every song,
rather than only the songs that you _love_,
then i'd say you're a fan of the radio station.
but maybe these aren't fundamental gripes,
rather just merely implementation details…
sarcasm is the unfortunate last resort when it all gets too silly…
I have a number of concerns, 1st of which is that you appear to have been 'moving the goal-posts'… VRM stands for 'Vendor Relationship Management'. 'Vendors' vend… definition: verb [ trans. ] "offer (small items, esp. food) for sale" i.e. they sell stuff…
If you are: "…proposing a new voluntary payment system for free stuff" then you have chosen a very soft-target; and please explain: Why does the customer need "a pricing gun" for things that are already 'free'?
There are a lot of reasons why 'Free' should remain 'Free'… You must be aware of a lot of so-called new-economy thinking coming from some very smart guys like Umair Haque, Chris Anderson, Geoffrey Moore and Clay Shirky (and I would have thought, for starters, that Umair Haque's well known standard non-negotiables, might have resonated with you) i.e.
> Light beats heavy.
> Open beats closed.
> Free beats paid.
> Good beats evil.
and then of course there's Chris Anderson's well constructed arguments on exactly this topic: i.e. 'Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business' http://tinyurl.com/2okqbk and a direct link to a video presentation by Chris: http://tinyurl.com/dcvtqz
Geoffrey Moore: "…From computing is free to memory is free to now the bus is free. It changes the economic game, particularly for services businesses." http://tinyurl.com/dc3oa3
and Clay Shirky on: "why free communities are more thorough, creative and productive than formal institutions designed to accomplish the same things." http://tinyurl.com/6g7dpf
Now, Clay's talk, although absolutely brilliant, is not strictly about pricing models and/or the wisdom of 'Free' vs 'Paid' like Haque, Moore and Anderson, but Clay's talk is fascinating in that he starts by using Flickr as an example of "coordination costs falling through the floor" and the macro consequences thereof …he highlights that the Printing Press "precipated 200 years of chaos" and points to a likely upcoming "50 years of chaos… in which loosley coordinated groups will have increasingly high leverage"
This all may sound over-complex and unrelated… BUT, its very much about the same phenomena that Chris Anderson, Umair Haque and Geoffrey Moore have been table-thumping about and its directly related to the 'open-source' movement.
Which side of history are you on?
this just in:
> http://techdirt.com/articles/20090327/1547244281.shtml
simon said:
> Which side of history are you on?
maybe doc is on the side of _the_future_,
and thinks "history" is not all that relevant.
here in the 21st century (welcome, simon!)
many things once offered at a _price_ —
like music, books, movies, and the news
— are now being provided "free of charge",
which is wonderful, except for the nagging
question about how creators will get paid.
that's the question doc is trying to answer.
i'm kinda surprised you haven't heard about
this question being asked by lots of people,
simon, because it's rather a big deal today…
to say that public radio's value "exceeds zero", as you also indicate does 'music' and 'many other forms of media', is something only a fool would argue against. (If something has 'zero value'… who wants it?) But it still does not explain why a "pricing-gun" (and I'm not clear what that term actually means) is needed, if the goods/services in question are free.
To say: "The customer needs a pricing gun because it would be good to have one." is… well, at best a very facile justification.
You say: "In economic terms, it can be a signaling mechanism to sellers. Right now the signaling only goes one way: from seller to buyer.
Actually… buyers 'vote with their feet', with their purchases, with their 'churn-rate' from telco-networks and 'subscriptions', 'page-views' and 'click-throughs' on the web… demand tells supply a lot. To ignore all that and say that all this is not so, in such an unqualified (without defining context) statement is disingenuous.
The kind of feedback mechanisms that you say you as a public-radio listener, could be enacted by you as an individual, but you indicate you require a pan-systemic epiphany that will induce "lots of music producers will go pound on Congress to change the copyright terms." That is sooooo Yasgur's-Farm meets a Larry Lessig wet-dream!
Your strategies are the opposite of 'disruptive'… You can't knock on the door of the Tower of Babel and say: "Excuse me, but I'd like to knock you down and make you irrelevant"… To deal with a behemoth multiple times your size, you have to either do a Trojan Horse or put into play a benefit that is determined at the level of the architecture of the system, not one that tries to apply an honor-system as a component/button in the system you want to disrupt.
Also, your description of "because effects", as what happens when you make money because of something rather than with it, is 'riddle-like', and doesn't seem to have much gravitas because the object of your making money 'with' something seems usually to be something that is already available for free. As they say: where's the business-model?
If your mission is simply to: "make it possible for people to pay easily for stuff that's available for free but worth more than that. then there isn't going to be much to discuss…
Doc says: "We want to put payment under the control of the buyer, and to do it in a way that gets standardized, so sellers have a simple, easy and straightforward way to take in the money (plus whatever other information might come through the same channel).
That is an attempt at describing a business-model, so saying simply that "there isn't one" is yet more fancy (and evasive) footwork…
"A pricing-gun – for free-stuff – because it would be good to have one"
..and I'd like a car that ran on water and generated enough electiricity while doing so to power my house! ….why? because it would be good to have one.
Explanation? You could start here: http://www.edgepolitics.com/?cat=18
But in short, there is a science to 'Disruption in Marketplaces' it doesn't happen by accident, or competing openly with legacy players, even if the form of commpetiition is neutered by only targeting "free-stuff" on a kind of honor-system basis. – It happens by 'moving to uncontested ground'…. 'targeting non-consumers' and by developing 'new architectures', not new buttons, and hoping that will, it will cause a moral movement, that will (Moses-like) part the Red-Sea of Congress.
we're evidently talking past each other,
simon, as i can't fathom your objections
(and believe that if there is anything of
substance, you could say it much better),
_or_ see whatever _your_ vision might be
(other than a super rosy glow around p2p,
which i likely share with you in large part,
but don't see where you're going with it),
so i'm just gonna let doc deal with you…
or not…
My objections are, that Doc has a highly public-platform to promote innovation, but from my point of view, he has set the bar very low, and the metrics for success are indistinct and vague.
There is a lot more to the P2P-Meme than Napster-esque Piracy… [see the expansive work of Michel Bauwens at: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/ ]
However, Michel's work, much as I greatly admire him, is on the theoretical side of the study of the P2P-Meme, and he is absolutely prodigious… a massive resource. – I am not cut from the same cloth… I have a practical focus, but I'm hardly likely to spill my I.P. out here in a public forum.
I am just doing what I can to stir people up… promote vigorous intellectiual debate, challenge dogmas and preconceptions etc etc… If someone wants to seriously engage me on practical plans, I am all ears.
simon! simon! simon!
you have been a _huge_ waste of time!
and then you say this?
> I'm hardly likely to spill my
> I.P. out here in a public forum.
your "i.p."? my goodness gracious! you
are looking for a way to get yourself paid?
i am trying to get _everyone_ paid!
and shatter the notion of "property"
in the process. no wonder that we've
been totally unable to communicate…
> I am just doing what I can
> to stir people up…
sorry, you haven't done that here.
> promote vigorous intellectiual debate
you can't even _spell_ "intellectual."
and vigor? this interaction was _limp_…
> challenge dogmas and preconceptions
nope and nope.
> etc etc…
and nope and nope again.
> If someone wants to seriously engage
> me on practical plans, I am all ears.
well, for someone who is "all ears", you
certainly don't seem to be able to listen.
and when i ask for _your_ vision, you
clam up, the better to guard your "i.p.".
so i'm not really sure why you showed up,
simon, not sure why you showed up at all.
because you know what they say:
lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Doc suggested we close the thread… But you have decided to taint the discussion with bitchiness… and now have become down right insulting.
I typed that post quickly at about 7.15 am before dropping my kids to school… It was a typo, because I was rushing… Of course I can spell 'intellectual'…
I.P. is 'Intellectual Property'… as I am sure you know. My motivations are not based on greed, but rather to try and protect ideas that have had years of work (by a number of people) put into them, that others may immitate, plunder and execute badly.
My I.P. is about empowering ordinary people at the edges of the internet to gain power over centralized corporate forces… but am I a bleeding-heart nihilistic completely non-commercial person? Of course not… I have two children to put through school and college and to feed and look after and other loved ones to support. – So, do I want to earn some income from my hard work, and support others who work with me to do the same? Yes…
At least I have the courage to say who I am, and to write openly and concisely about my ideas and principles, and put them on the public record, for all to see… and not hide behind a pseudonym.
Who are you mate?
Besides an invisible coward who hides behind a fake name, and a link to: http://worthapenny.com with it's 34 words of fanciful utopian dribble
Yo, Simon! 🙂
In a parallel universe Bowerbird is substituted by someone such as myself, someone without a pseudonym, and a site called 1p2U (as in '1 penny to you'). This is a site to permit a blogger's readers to pay them to blog, at the rate of a penny per article.
It utilises a web service called The Contingency Market, that is to enable people to make monetary exchanges contingent upon the outcome of dependent future events, e.g. the publication of intellectual works.
Given neither of these are yet operational, my words can also be written off as utopian drivel, but heck, it's good to dream eh?
bowerbird is not a "fake" name, simon.
it's my poetry name, and i have been
interacting exclusively with that name
since i got on the web back in 1996…
(under poetry, i've used it since 1987.)
so i would suppose you would say that
robert zimmerman was "hiding behind"
the "fake name" of bob dylan, right?
or that samuel langhorne clemens was
also just "an invisible coward" who was
"hiding behind" his mark twain moniker.
or perhaps eric arthur blair was afraid of
"big brother" for real, and that's why he
wrote as george orwell?
do you know any more about those
3 people knowing their "real" names?
conversely, would your own message
be any less obtuse, simon, if i were to
dub you "bitter gobbledygook idiot"?
as for my "fanciful utopian dribble",
exactly what part of "i don't give a
flying fuck if you 'take me seriously'"
did you fail to understand, simon?
You are comparing yourself to Mark Twain and Bob Dylan? I won't even comment on that…
'Bowerbird' is, as Pseudonym… commenting here without using your real name is tantamount to being a 'Troll' ….pure and simple
Here's an article by Kathryn Darden on:
Using Avatars & Pseudonyms – License for Rude Behavior?
This is exactly the pattern you have followed… using a Pseudonym to come here and say whatever your like, with as little accountability as possible.
Pingback from A Frog in the Valley » Linkdump / Brainpump on April 24, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Having fun with my Ipad. It's the bomb. One problem is that the navigation buttons are flaky. Perhaps I have a setting wrong?
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Weekend Links: The Spookiest Places On Earth
What were your favorite literary characters intended to look like? Casting directors will have their own ideas that sometimes do (and many times don't) add up with what we imagined in our minds. But what did the authors intend? "The Composites" takes literary descriptions and plugs them into law enforcement software to get an idea of the faces as described. Very weird and definitely in the uncanny valley!
It may not be near Halloween, but it is dark and wintry, and a good time to snuggle up reading about the 10 Most Terrifying Places on Earth (eeeek!)
For my fellow weather nerds (or anybody looking to get the most accurate forecasts), Slate did a thoughtful piece on one of my favorite sites, Weather Underground, and how they have built the most comprehensive "micro" weather site in America. (Side note: I used the Readability link because I LOVE Readability - it's free and amazing for browsing news!)
Nostalgia time: here are 48 pictures from the 90s that perfectly capture the decade. Big thanks to my friend Ryan for these, who said "My favorite is probably Madonna, Sting and 2pac at dinner together." For me it's probably the Lisa Frank shout out. Maybe JTT.
Or, going back even further, how about a look at skateboarding in New York in the 1960s? I give people grief for having selective amnesia about the "good times" in the past, but this really does look like a pretty good time all around.
This video of a historic bridge being demolished in mere seconds is cool … and then a little sad. For all of the planning and work and struggle that goes into building a bridge, it's astonishing how quickly it can be turned to dust!
So … what exactly happens to the Coke in Coca-Cola? (And as a side-note, the beverage was invented by Dr. Pemberton in my hometown of Columbus, Georgia, not Atlanta! Though Dr. Pemberton did move there and that's when it really took off. It's a point of pride for Columbus, I can't just let it slip!)
From the Department of Procrastination: strange physics-based interactive objects to play around with - you can click "random" at the top bar for more!
For those of you who have watched multiple HBO shows (or in my case … all of them …) you'll probably notice quite a few familiar faces. You can thank the "HBO Recycling Program" (in the form of a handy interactive chart) for that - or some very smart casting directors who know how to hang on to talent! And completely unintentionally, I seem to have brought things full circle.
Stay tuned - more links tomorrow! In the meantime, send your submissions to firstname.lastname@example.com

subset: commoncrawl


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Iowa Gini Index of Income Inequality
The Gini Index, or Gini coefficient, is a statistical measure of distribution that is often used to track economic inequality. It measures how wealth is distributed in a given population. The output is a value between 0 and 1. In Iowa and throughout the country, Gini Index is a major focus of the American Community Survey (ACS), conducted each year by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Higher values mean greater inequality. A Gini value of 0 means a perfectly equal society, where everyone's income is the same. A value of 1, on the other hand, represents perfect inequality—a society in which only one person or group has all the wealth. This report explores how Iowa's Gini Index is changing—and how the data compares to the United States as a whole.
How does the Gini Index of Iowa compare to other states and the United States?
How does the Gini Index vary within Iowa?
Note: Hover over a county in Iowa to see its Gini Index.
About the Data
Data is from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS), 1-year estimates, table B19083. This report uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.


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Our leading market position as a vacuum
supplier for steel degassing is built on our understanding of customers'
processes and expertise in providing vacuum solutions for vacuum degassing
(VD), vacuum oxygen decarburising (VOD) and Ruhrstahl Heraeus (RH) processes.
We have by far the largest installed base
of dry pumps in the global steel industry with a global footprint of
manufacturing, sales and service:
Processes in the growing secondary
metallurgy sector depend on several vacuum-based treatments: vacuum degassing
(VD) for alloy steels; vacuum oxygen decarburising (VOD) for stainless steels;
and combinations of both treatments, for example vacuum degassing oxygen
blowing (VDOB) and vacuum carbon decarburising (VCD), for low and ultra-low
carbon steels.
Our vacuum systems have been successfully
applied to all these secondary metallurgy processes at customers' production
facilities around the world. With the proven modular system design we enabled
degassing and decarburising melt sizes up to 200 tonnes in electric steelmaking
facilities (mini-mills).
In large integrated steelmaking facilities,
typically equipped with basic oxygen converters, secondary metallurgical
processing is carried out mainly in Ruhrstahl Heraeus (RH) systems.
We have developed a 'super' degasser module
to address the high volume flow rates needed to successfully degas and
decarburise steel products, using multiple high volumetric flow boosters in
parallel to handle the gas loads produced, while optimising the total number of
system elements required.
What's the driving force behind the auto industry? Vacuum of course!
View our Infographic


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1924 KKK photo loses Ohio blue ribbon after complaint
XENIA, Ohio (AP) – A photo taken at a 1924 Ku Klux Klan rally with burning crosses was stripped of its winning blue ribbon at a county fair after a complaint that it was offensive.
The photo, which won first place in an antique photo category at the Greene County Fair in Xenia, depicts robed and unrobed KKK members kneeling in a circle at a Dayton rally. Burning crosses are visible in the background of the white supremacist group's gathering. On the photo is written "Dayton Klan 23 … Realm-of-Ohio … September 27, 1924."
The photo was removed from the western Ohio fairgrounds Tuesday after someone complained to a fair board member about what it showed and said it shouldn't have been rewarded by the fair, the Dayton Daily News reported.
Officials want to make clear that the fair in no way was endorsing what the photo depicted.
"We stripped the first-place placing and we have removed the photo from the fairgrounds," said Jeff Barr, Greene County Agricultural Society director. "The photo was not something we support at all. … We're here for everybody."
He said judges in such contests are considering artistry and antiquity when awarding ribbons.
"It could have been the oldest antique there," Barr said.
The photo was returned to its owner, who wasn't identified by the fair.
Information from: Dayton Daily News, http://www.daytondailynews.com
# # #
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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This big dude was photographed at the Circle B Bar Preserve in Lakeland, Fla.
This big dude was photographed at the Circle B Bar Preserve in Lakeland, Fla.
Everybody has a story. Here's a little of mine.
The Official Website For Nostalgia Kinky Publishing and The Sylvia Kristel Archives
...a classic film and TV blog
One writer's experiences, and battles with words
The Only Crime Is Getting Caught
Poetry and Prose by Gabriela Marie Milton #1 Amazon Bestselling Poet & Editor, Award Winning Author, Pushcart Prize Nominee
An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture
A Home for Writers and Readers
The role of the artist is to not look away. - Kurosawa
Burgers, Books, Music, Movies, Offbeat Adventures & Pop Culture!
Movie Reviews by Movie Critic Joanna Langfield.
I was born not knowing and have only little time to change that here and there
Horror/Suspense writer, Reviewer. Grower!
Drawing a line through 50


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House & Home
House & Home15+ Living Rooms Perfect For Relaxed Entertaining November 11 2016 Entertaining season is
Entertaining season is upon us, which means our living rooms are about to get a ton of attention. It's where we host guests for cocktails, spend leisurely afternoons with loved ones, and unwind after extravagant holiday meals. If you're looking to give your living room a facelift, here are 18 spaces that will inspire you to take yours to the next level.
Antique charm and architectural detail are at the forefront of this refined living space. Handsome furniture creates an intimate seating area around the fireplace, which was rebuilt using an old mantel found in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Plentiful seating in this bohemian-style living room makes it the perfect place to gather for family downtime or with a large party. Homey elements — like a pottery collection, colorful book spines and Moroccan-inspired carpeting — make wonderful conversation starters.
In this midtown Toronto living room, black and white artwork add a dash of Parisian flair, while sculptural elements like a wicker table, floor lamp and ball introduce texture and contrast against the elegant curve of the staircase.
Kelvin Browne's cottage living room shows a true connection to nature. The original bricked fireplace and rustic wooden envelope pay homage to the abundance of natural wealth outside. White linen sofas offer a cozy place to curl up.
Traditional furnishings and a flagstone fireplace lend this charming living room a natural feel, while soft blue accents impart an air of tranquility.
This intimate living room evokes a sense of old-world sophistication thanks to classic furnishings, a subdued palette and hints of brass and gold borrowed from the coffee table legs and the frames of travel-inspired photos.
Designer Sarah Richardson took the weather into consideration when designing this living room in London, England. Neutral tones used on the wall and sofa ensure that the space won't feel dark on drearier days, while pinks and reds punctuate it with color and enliven the elegant aesthetic.
In this standout living room, pattern, color and texture were masterfully layered to create this ultra chic and space that's balanced by clean lines and vintage-inspired pieces.
Watch this home tour on H&H TV.
This room's eclectic mix of color and pattern, from the boho art pieces that decorate the coral-colored hearth to the rows of books stacked against the wall, lends laid-back sophistication to the space.
A collection of vintage pieces — including a 17th century deer sculpture, vintage Sputnik chandelier and 1940s triptych — add interest to this bright and airy living room's classic color scheme.
Rich reds and calming blues make up the painterly color scheme in this living room. A custom built-in bookshelf provides ample storage for treasured reads, and a unique panel in the center offers a spot to hang larger artwork and can slide aside to reveal a flatscreen TV when guests are over.
In this Paris-meets-Provence living room, a modern concrete fireplace is softened with pops of pink, white linen chairs and white-washed barn wood.
Formal architecture — including an ornate arched window, panelling and crown molding — lend this living room a old-world elegance that's perfectly complemented by the jewel-toned velvet sofa.
In this stately living room, coffered ceilings done at an angle draw the eye inward and balance the more formal limed-oak panelling. Classic furniture pieces play off the buttery hue of the ceiling, while a dark coffee-toned floor adds richness and warmth.
Dramatic peacock-blue walls give Colette van den Thillart's own living room a glamorous, jewel-box feel. Lighter shades of green in the armchair and rug help brighten the space, while a custom amoeba-shaped coffee table makes maneuvering around seating easier and introduces a more organic element.
This living room is a fresh take on traditional style, with old-world classics like the mantel and Heriz rug balanced by clean-lined chairs that invite you to cozy up and relax by the fire.
In smaller living rooms, accessories kept at a minimum allow larger furniture pieces to shine. Here, the sapphire blue sofa lends gravitas to the space and picks up on the hints of blue in the Turkish rug.
With crown moldings, high ceilings and baseboards, you'd never guess that this stately living room was actually located in a condo! This character-driven space features a symmetrical design that elegantly combines color, pattern and texture.


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The sun inched above the horizon, its pale light casting a peach-colored glow across the dark ocean. The sunrise silence was only broken by the swish of the waves and the click of our cameras.
When I visited Oahu, I had a craving to take pretty photos: turquoise ocean, golden sand, blue sky with a dabbling of clouds to make it interesting. This craving went unfulfilled for the most part on my first trip to Hawaii, when I arrived at the same time as a weeklong storm. When it wasn't raining, the skies were overcast and gloomy. My mood was just as gloomy.
When I went back to Oahu at the end of September, I was determined to rectify my previous failure. I searched the Internet for a photography tour and on TripAdvisor I discovered Oahu Photography Tours with maximum favorable reviews. I signed up and the experience was even better than the promise.
Our guide Alex Wilson collected us in the pre-dawn darkness of Waikiki, then we hustled south to Sandy Beach, racing the rising sun. He got us set up with tripods and the peaceful yet stunning show began.
We signed up for the all-day tour. It started with the sunrise at Sandy Beach, then we cruised around the South Shore (so beautiful and mostly empty at 7 a.m.) and up the Windward Coast then around the famous North Shore and back through the center of the island with a final stop at a hidden gem of a botanical garden in Honolulu. On the way, we saw rocky beaches where waves flung spray high in the air and silent sandy beaches without a soul in sight. We saw the small island that portrayed Gilligan's Island in the TV show. We respectfully photographed a heiau — a Hawaiian sacred site — and got our feet wet trying to take pictures of sea turtles swimming in the surf.
Alex was our guide, driver, camera expert and photography adviser all in one. Sometimes while giving us space to shoot, he even answered customer inquiries via his cellphone. It was an office to envy — standing in the warm sun at Waimanalo Bay.
Oahu Photography Tours provides wonderfully personalized service. They take a maximum of seven customers per tour. There were only four of us plus Alex on the day we went.
The company provides tripods and rain gear (which we didn't need, fortunately). Otherwise, take your camera gear, enough money to buy lunch and a bottle of water. Don't weigh yourself down, because you should carry everything with you when you leave the van. Our stops included beach parks as well as spots on the side of the road. Alex said it's not unheard of for people to break into vehicles, so we didn't tempt them by leaving valuables inside the van. I recommend taking a hat that you can tie down somehow. There was a lot of wind. The photos we took of each other are comical with our hair flying every which way.
I have a digital SLR and I brought a new set of filters to play with: a polarizing filter to reduce reflections on water and a neutral density filter to cut back on bright sunlight if I wanted to use a slower shutter speed. Technically, I had three cameras on me, counting my cellphone and a pocket digital I brought because it takes movies. But you don't have to be as obsessive as I am to take advantage of a photo tour.
On the website, http://www.oahuphotographytours.com, it reads: "Bring your camera. Bring whatever it is that you take pictures with. These tours are not just for those who have decided to invest hundreds of dollars into their camera equipment. We don't care if you take pictures with an iPad or a Polaroid. As long as you bring something to capture the beauty with you, you will be fine."
I had fun on this tour. It was a nice introduction to Oahu and it was enjoyable traveling around the island seeing different sights and having time to take photos. It was a relaxing experience — there was no guide hustling us along or whipping past scenic spots at 45 miles per hour. ("If you look quick between those buildings you'll see …" That kind of tour gives me a pain.)
It was also fun having someone to talk photography with. I've had my DSLR since 2009 and there are still tricks I haven't figure out. Alex helped me learn what a couple of buttons do. He's really good about finding locations where you can frame the shot, adding interest and depth to the scene. He knows his stuff. You can see some of his photos on the website.
In addition to the all-day tour, Oahu Photography Tours offers sunrise and sunset tours and even full moon tours, if you're there at the right time.
We ended the day at Lilio'ukulani Botanical Garden, where there is a small but pretty waterfall. Alex set me up with a tripod and I put the neutral density filter on my lens. Though the waterfall was in bright sunlight, I could slow down my shutter speed and capture the movement of the flowing water. It was the final accomplishment in a day of personal photographic triumphs.
Hawaiian sunrise. Check. Sea turtles swimming. Check. Turquoise water, golden sand and blue sky with a dabbling of clouds to make it interesting. Check!


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The first Pies 'n' Thighs opened in the spring of 2006, a tiny kitchen in the back of a dive bar on Kent Street that produced no-frills barbecue for a scattering of picnic tables almost directly under the Williamsburg Bridge. The place closed in 2008, after the Department of Health arrived at an unsympathetic assessment of the setup, but you can still form an idea of its reputation among the local cognoscenti by looking at user reviews on Yelp: "I stayed in an abusive relationship with my former landlord just so I could be in Williamsburg near you." Now the restaurant has reopened in a pleasant corner location a few minutes away.
The new premises preserve an informal, even makeshift feel—eclectic vintage furniture, gingham-patterned vinyl tablecloths, drinks in plastic beakers, ad-hoc hand-drawn signage—but the restaurant is now distinctly grownup. There are three seating areas: a diner-style one near the kitchen, an airy, barnlike room behind, and, between the two, some outdoor tables. The star of the menu is the fried chicken, with a batter both perfectly crisped and richly succulent; the chicken inside is brined, tender, and cooked not a moment too long. A grittier breading, almost eggshell-like, covering a pungent dry-fried catfish, is no less successful. Side dishes include hush puppies—pert, crunchy, and sinful—but the kitchen also obtains some fine results in other items without resorting to calorific overload: a tart cucumber salad with lightly vinegared tomatoes and onions, and smoky collard greens, boiled with small hunks of pork. Biscuits arrive with a luxurious golden crust on the outside and a gooey, doughy center. By comparison, pulled pork and beef brisket are unexceptional, the flavor pleasant but lacking definition. What's more, the pork comes in a cruelly fragile bun, which leaves you cupping fistfuls of meat and disintegrating bread.
Great care goes into the production of a constantly changing array of pies, which range from seasonal (rhubarb) to downright outré (guava cheesecake). Key-lime pie is the staple, its citrus tang wonderfully matched against a graham-cracker crust, for which Sarah Buck is said to make her own graham crackers to pound to smithereens. (Buck, who is married to the New Yorker staff writer Kelefa Sanneh, is a co-owner of the restaurant, as well as its pastry chef.) The place is generally full of youngish Williamsburg types with beards and assertive eyewear, and enough plaid shirts to make you think you've ended up in the Appalachians. (Open weekdays for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; weekends for brunch and dinner. Entrées $5-$11.) ♦


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Morocco hosts world's artists, imprisons its own
RABAT, Morocco – Morocco's glittering Mawazine international music festival wraps up this weekend with performances by Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz, after nine days of showcasing the North African kingdom's cool factor — even as dissident Moroccan musicians are imprisoned for their anti-establishment lyrics.
The 11-year-old "Rhythms of the World" festival in the capital Rabat has always highlighted Morocco's contradictions as the country spends millions to lure top world artists to perform at generally free concerts, while much the country remains mired in poverty.
In past years the festival has been attacked by Islamists for inviting gay performer Elton John in 2010 and by activists for the cost of attracting Shakira and other high profile acts in 2011, but this year the theme of protest is freedom of expression.
Just a week before the festival began, Human Rights Watch slammed Morocco for sentencing a rapper to a year in prison for lyrics deemed insulting to police — a common theme in rap music elsewhere in the world.
"Morocco hosts one famous international music festival after another each spring, but meanwhile it imprisons one of its own singers solely because of lyrics and images that displease the authorities," Sarah Leah Whitson, Mideast director of the group said in a statement. "Morocco should be known as a haven for world music, not for locking up singers with a political message."
Moroccan rapper Mouad Belghouat, known as El-Haqed, or "The Enraged" was convicted on May 11 of "showing contempt" to public servants with his song "Dogs of the State" about police corruption. He is known for his political activism and vitriolic songs attacking social injustice, the monarchy and corruption.
A week later, dissident poet Youssef Belkhdim was convicted of attacking police — a charge he denies — at a sit-in he organized in support of Belghouat and sentenced to two years in prison.
The two men belonged to Morocco's pro-democracy February 20 movement that last year brought tens of thousands into the streets protesting corruption and calling for political reform.
The extravagant sums spent on the Mawazine have been a mainstay of the movement's slogans. Festival organizers maintain that the Mawazine's estimated $7 million price tag is worth it because it improves Morocco's image abroad and gives people at home access to music from around the world. The festival is funded largely by corporate sponsors with strong ties to the state.
"It's a celebration. It's a celebration of the city, a celebration of Morocco and it reflects a bit Morocco's good life to the world," said program director Mahmoud Lemseffer. "It is a vehicle to present the image of our country, of its hospitality and tolerance."
Tens of thousands attend each of the festival's eight venues which present Arabic music, Moroccan music, music from sub-Saharan Africa as well as international acts, which this year included Evanescence, the Scorpions, Gloria Gaynor, Nigel Kennedy and Jimmy Cliff.
Most of the acts have free sections open to the public and on Tuesday, families strolling along Rabat's Bouregreg river stopped to listen to Beninian songstress Angelique Kidjo belt out classics from South African diva Mariam Makebe and talk about the struggle against apartheid.
But for critics, there is irony in punishing artists at home while hosting international ones known for their support of freedom of expression. Lenny Kravitz, for instance, has striven in song after song to confront America's tortured attitude about race.
"I think that people should really say what they feel — everybody has the right to speak their mind, you see how things change in places where people were once condemned," said Kravitz at a press conference Thursday when asked about politics in music. "When I was in Brazil a couple of years ago, I was talking with (musician and activist) Caetano Veloso who dealt with that same thing, who did jail time — and now he has made a difference."
Salif Traore of the Ivorian band Magic System said that for African artists, speaking truth to power and freedom of expression is what their music is all about.
"We in Africa, we say that artists, musicians and singers are the eyes, ears, and mouths of the people," he told The Associated Press, when asked about his views on the El-Haqed case.
Rachid el-Belghiti, who heads a national anti-Mawazine campaign, also contests the government's assertion that it's supporting culture in Morocco with this festival, countering that it's really just about making the country look good abroad.
He said the Mawazine, which is run by a close confidant of King Mohammed VI, eats up the lion's share of corporate sponsorship so that little is left for other festivals around the country.
As millions are being spent to lure in big name acts, local theaters and dance schools around the country are closing down because of a lack of funding.
"A country which puts its artists in prison simply for expressing themselves with their voice or their instruments cannot pretend to support culture," he said. "That's impossible."


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Instagram has always been leader of the pack when it comes to filters and social capabilities, but the more avid smartphone photographers were left in the dust. The app lacked more in-depth photo tools, replacing everything with Willow and Valencia (and, fine, a few options for cropping, scaling, tilting, and softening).
Pro Tip for editing me using
@instagram's new creative tools: focus on me, nothing else matters— Karl the Fog (@KarlTheFog)
June 3, 2014
However, a major update that launched Tuesday introduces a more robust set of tools for editing photos that many Insta-fans have been craving. Version 6.0 now lets you manually tweak your photo's saturation and other settings instead of just slapping on a catchall filter. Dubbed Instagram's "creative tools," iOS and Android users now have ten new features to outfit their photos with.
After you've taken or selected a photo to share, you'll now find a wrench icon next to your row of filters; tap it to reveal your new editing toolkit. Some tools are simply better versions of older Instagram features—like the adjust tool, that now crops and straightens your photo at the same time, and a better brightness tool to make your photo lighter or darker.
While most of these tools are completely new to Instagram, you've likely seen similar features in other photo apps. You can adjust the contrast; use the warmth tool to make things warmer with orange tones or cooler with blue tones; and increase or decrease the photo's saturation.
There are also tools that focus on tweaking just certain areas of a photo, instead of doing an all-around adjustment. The highlight tool adjusts the brightness on only the bright areas of the image, and the shadows tool does the same, but focuses only on the dark spots. Vignette darkens the photo's edges, which draws the eye to the subject in the center. You can also use the sharpening tool to make the photo a little crisper, which is great for correcting a shaky shot.
The final touch on Instagram 6.0 focuses on, of course, filters. Each filter can now be turned up or down, adjusting what Instagram calls filter strength. This setting isn't found in your toolbox—instead, just double tap on any filter to adjust its strength. You'll also find the border tool hidden in the filter strength tool; tap on a filter to add a border after you're done adjusting.
Each of these tools uses a slider bar for adjustment, so you can tweak your photos to get them precisely how you want them to look. Personally, I'm really pleased with the new filter strength option, as I prefer a more subtle approach to my Instagram snaps. I love the warmth of Sierra, for example, but sometimes find it too strong, so turning it down a notch will make it just right. Other photo control freaks will likely love the whole kit for its bevy of options and ease of use.
Instagram 6.0 is rolling out to Android and iOS users today—look for it in the App Store and Play Store.


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Live Writer is now Open Source
Windows Live Writer has been turning blogging up to 11 since 2007, but since 2012 things have been a bit quiet with the application itself. However over the past few months I have had the pleasure working with a very pasionate group of engineers volunteering their time to ensure that Live Writer has a sustainable future. I'm pleased to announce that today the .NET Foundation welcomes a new project - Open Live Writer. One of the great things about Live Writer has always been the passionate community behind it and I can't wait to see what that community does now everying is open source and on GitHub.
In this guest post from Rob Dolin, he explains more about the new project and how to get started with the new, Open Live Writer which is available to download now.
-- Martin
Windows Live Writer Released as the open source Open Live Writer
It's a great day for bloggers who have a favorite tool for creating content. Today Microsoft announced that Open Live Writer was released and has been contributed to the .NET Foundation. Open Live Writer is an open source application enabling users to author, edit, and publish blog posts. It is based on a fork of the well-loved but not actively developed Windows Live Writer code. Scott Hanselman helped carry the torch at Microsoft on this project, and I've been proud to be part of the all-volunteer team to make it happen.
History of Windows Live Writer
The product that became Live Writer was originally created by a small, super-talented team of engineers including Jeremy Allaire, JJ Allaire, Joe Cheng, Charles Teague, and Spike Washburn. The team joined Microsoft through an acquisition in 2006 and organized with the Spaces team where I was working. Becky Pezely joined the team and over time, the team grew and shipped many popular releases of Windows Live Writer.
As Microsoft was planning for the version of Windows Live that would coincide with the Windows 8 operating system release, the teams that built the Windows Live client apps for Windows were encouraged to focus on building a smaller set of Windows 8 apps designed to work well with both traditional PC input mechanisms and touch. The original team concluded their work on Windows Live Writer with Windows Live Writer 2012.
Reviving Live Writer
Even though there was no active development, Windows Live Writer continued to be a favorite tool of a passionate community of Windows PC users for authoring, editing, and publishing blog posts. Data from WordPress.com at the time suggested that Windows Live Writer (even two years after active development ended) was the #1 app for authoring a blog post to WordPress.com on a Windows PC. In fact, some of our technical evangelists were actively using Windows Live Writer for publishing on WordPress-powered blogs. A few team members from my former MS Open Tech team took an early interest in joining Scott Hanselman to revive Live Writer as an open source project.
By January 2015, a group of about a half-dozen engineers interested in spending some of their volunteer time to help release an updated version of Live Writer had found each other. Jon Gallant sent an email to a few large group email lists at Microsoft soliciting volunteers and we collected about 50 people interested in helping. Anne Legato, Ed Essey, and the team at The Garage were most helpful in sharing advice on launching external projects. Scott Guthrie also agreed to be Open Live Writer's sponsor.
Why v0.5
You might wonder why we're releasing a version 0.5 now instead of waiting to get to a v0.9 or a v1.0. A few considerations went into this. First, we wanted to get this out as an open source project as quickly as possible so people outside of Microsoft could start participating. Second, we suspect many people may be taking some vacation around the end of December and we wanted to make sure the project was available. Third, Eddie Kessler and the folks on Google's Blogger team asked us to ship no later than early December 2015 so they could turn-off an old API that Windows Live Writer was dependent on. Eddie and team originally had planned to turn-off the API earlier and we are thankful for their collaboration and partnership in extending its life until we could release Open Live Writer.
Why .NET Foundation
The volunteer team considered a few options for releasing Open Live Writer. Ultimately, we found a great partnership in the .NET Foundation to support our goals around growing community participation for the project. Martin Woodward, Robin Ginn, and the team has been super-helpful in many matters including open source governance and administrative support, to marketing and communications.
And Open Live Writer is many thousands of lines of C# code, so the .NET Foundation is a good technical match too. J
Enough Background, SHOW ME THE BITS!
To download the latest version of Open Live Writer, visit our website: http://www.OpenLiveWriter.org/. Open Live Writer is designed to sit side-by-side with Windows Live Writer so installing Open Live Writer won't impact your existing version of Windows Live Writer.
For the latest news and updates about Open Live Writer, you can follow us on Twitter as @OpenLiveWriter and find other ways to connect on: http://www.OpenLiveWriter.org/.
Help Wanted
Open Live Writer is brought to you by a volunteer team and continued improvements are dependent on volunteers. The code is available on GitHub: http://www.github.com/OpenLiveWriter/ and we welcome pull requests and open issues.
However, we're not just looking for developers. Anyone who wants to test early bits, help with visual design, interactive design, technical writing, partnership negotiation, product management, marketing, digital media, and more would be welcomed. You can find ways to plug-in to the community at: http://www.OpenLiveWriter.org/.
Thank You
Thanks very much for your interest in Open Live Writer and many happy blog posts—
Rob Dolin (@RobDolin)
Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Cross-Platform and Open Tools team
(On behalf of the Open Live Writer committers)


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To help narrow the college search, students and families may view a wide variety of colleges and university campuses on eCampusTours.com. Each virtual campus tour features 360° x 360° images of key spots on campus. Students and parents can see what campus life is really like through unique panoramic virtual tours - visitors can go inside dorm rooms and classrooms, stroll on the quad and check out the library on the official college or university campus map.
If students like what they see, they can search the college website, contact the college admission office, or save the virtual college tour in their eCampusTours profile.
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Friday is a big day.
We kick off Bike to Work month (Tim) and Bike to School month (Anne and the kids). I'm pretty sure we'll be blessed with clear (or at least dry) skies, so don't delay the start of your commute season. Remember, this is Seattle—the weather can only get worse as we get closer to June.
If you find yourself downtown with a spare hour around lunch time, I'd recommend checking out the Forum, TOWN HALL: Visioning the Puget Sound Region's Transportation Future. It's part of their ongoing Friday Forums series:
Transit demand continues to skyrocket while operating revenues are plummeting. How do car sharing, walkable and bike-friendly communities, and transit work together to form a new vision for transportation?
You're even bring your lunch so if your schedule can swing it—unfortunately, mine can't— please share any good takeaways. From over here in the cheap seats, it looks like an interesting collection of speakers will be covering some major ground.
WHEN:Friday, May 1st, 12:00 – 1:30 PM
WHERE: Bertha Landes Knight Room, Seattle City Hall (on 5th Ave.between Cherry and James St.)
More info at the Transportation Choices Coalition website.


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Connectors: A Big Mistake x 6 Pack
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Delivery information
- FREE ROI postage for schools on orders containing at least one paid item.*
- FREE ROI postage on orders €40 or over
- €8 postage charge on ROI orders
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Book Club orders
- FREE postage to schools*
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Product description
Connectors is a groundbreaking reading scheme which narrows the attainment gap through peer-to-peer learning. Children work in small independent groups, each taking a turn to be the leader as they read a book together.
Clear prompts represented by coloured faces show each child when it is their turn to read and lead, and how to focus group debate by asking the others to predict outcomes, clarify issues and pose questions. This exciting approach builds reading and listening skills and promotes teamwork and participation.
The Sutton Trust ranks peer tutoring as one of the most effective ways to improve achievement, with disadvantaged and low achieving pupils making particular gains.
Now, for the first time, the Connectors series branches out into fiction, allowing children to develop their skills by enjoying lively book-banded stories. In A Big Mistake, two sisters fake their mum's signature, only to discover that forgery can have very serious consequences. How will they undo their mistake?
This pack contains six copies of A Big Mistake, graded for Book Band Orange.
Product Details
Date published
March 4th, 2013
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THE BIG BANG THEORY delivered its largest audience ever and matched its series-high adults 18-49 rating and PERSON OF INTEREST surged to a series high in viewers while also matching its best ever adults 18-49 rating, according to Nielsen preliminary live plus same day ratings for Thursday, Jan. 3.
THE BIG BANG THEORY swept its time period, finishing first in households (11.2/17), viewers (18.98m), adults 25-54 (7.7/19), adults 18-49 (6.0/17) and adults 18-34 (4.0/13). THE BIG BANG THEORY posted series highs in households, viewers and adults 25-54 and matched its series high in adults 18-49.
TWO AND A HALF MEN was first in households (9.2/14), viewers (15.39m), adults 25-54 (6.0/12) and adults 18-49 (4.6/12) from 8:30-9:00 PM. TWO AND A HALF MEN posted its best deliveries in both households and adults 25-54 since Dec. 21, 2011, its best viewers total since Nov. 21, 2011 and its best adults 18-49 rating since Jan. 16, 2012 – all when the program was on Monday.
PERSON OF INTEREST was first in households (9.7/15), viewers (16.14m), adults 25-54 (4.8/11) and adults 18-49 (3.4/09) at 9:00 PM. PERSON OF INTEREST posted its best delivery ever in viewers, matched its series high in adults 18-49 and delivered its second- best adults 25-54 rating.
ELEMENTARY was first in households (7.1/12), viewers (11.36m), adults 25-54 (3.5/09) and adults 18-49 (2.5/07). ELEMENTARY posted its best viewer total since the series premiere on Sept. 27, 2012 and its best deliveries in both adults 25-54 and adults 18-49 since Oct. 4, 2012.
For the night, CBS was first in households (9.0/14), viewers (14.90m), adults 25-54 (5.1/12) and adults 18-49 (3.7/10) – all Thursday season highs. CBS beat NBC, ABC, FOX and CW combined by +54% in viewers (vs. 9.68m), +42% in adults 25-54 (vs. 3.6/08) and +19% in adults 18-49 (vs. 3.1/08).


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Humble food meets high art
'Art + Food: Beyond the Still Life' in Sydney, Australia, makes connections between consumerism, food production, and cultural identity.
The curated group exhibition "Art + Food: Beyond the Still Life" at Brenda May Gallery in Sydney, Australia, considers the representation of food within the visual arts and beyond the standard still life tableaux. The consumption of food is a universally shared experience, enabling people viewing the exhibition to connect with the issues surrounding consumerism, food production and cultural identity.
Some of the highlights include a large installation of biscuit tins amassed by the artist Christine Turner over a 15-year period as well as an installation by Sue Saxon and Jane Becker of hundreds of fragile eggshells on strands of lights. The show also includes a number of photographs featuring melting ice sculptures by Janet Tavener, the colourful remnants of meals by Vin Ryan and both a colourful and melting ice block by Will Nolan.
A sculpture composed of Murray River salt by Ken and Julia Yonetani will be offset by the artistic rendering of salt diffraction by Al Munro. The only traditional still life painting in the exhibition is by Michael Edwards who paints cement fruit which makes for a perfect pairing with the actual cast cement hamburgers by Will Coles.
The salt sculptures of Ken and Julia Yonetani consider the way food production affects the environment of the Murray River basin in southeast Australia, the origin of the salt used to construct the work. Likewise, Maz Dixon's paintings and collages feature "The Big Things in Australia" highlighting the influence of the food industry on tourism by depicting some of the giant "sculptures" which litter the Australian landscape.
The beauty of some of the more traditional mediums of photography and sculpture is offset by works that leave the viewer feeling somewhat more uncomfortable. Claire Anna Watson's film "Sortie" begins with a pair of tweezers plucking pips one at a time from a ripe strawberry. The film progresses to a dissection of the fruit that echoes the look and feel of a gory surgical scene. Sarah Field's quaint tea set includes human hair and fur which recalls the surrealist Méret Oppenheim sculpture of a fur-covered tea set, "Object (Le Déjeuner en fourrure)" made in 1936.
For "Lifescapes," artist Christine Turner says, "I have found that biscuit tins require a simple configuration when presented in artworks. Each tin provides a great deal of information of its own. Information about societal customs, the economy, consumerism and much more." Most people, when viewing the work, circle the parameter recognising tins from their own mother's and grandmother's kitchens. The installation draws on people's nostalgia for familiar things and a certain time or place.
"In our house, the biscuit tin was only brought out on the weekends for afternoon tea. A humble suburban 'high tea'. One that I relished," says Turner. "Central to this ritual was the beautiful treasure trove … the Arnott's biscuit tin. It came with a 3-pound 'fancy assortment' of our favourite biscuits, from the delicate Shortbread Cream, to the decadent Monte Carlo. We always ate the Monte Carlos first. Once the biscuit tins were empty they became 'reliquaries' for all manner of things. Needlework, gloves, letters, keepsakes of every kind."
"Art + Food: Beyond the Still Life" is a Crave Sydney International Food Festival event. Artists include Senden Blackwood and Laura Mathias, Will Coles, Maz Dixon, Michael Edwards, Stuart Elliott (courtesy Turner Galleries, Perth), Sarah Field (courtesy Michael Reid at Elizabeth Bay), James Guppy, Irianna Kanellopoulou, Al Munro, Will Nolan, Vin Ryan (courtesy of Anna Pappas Gallery, Melbourne), Sue Saxon and Jane Becker, Robyn Stacey (courtesy of Stills Gallery, Sydney), Susanna Strati, Janet Tavener, Christine Turner, Claire Anna Watson, Elizabeth Willing and Ken + Julia Yonetani (courtesy Artereal Gallery, Sydney).
The exhibit is on display at Brenda May Gallery until Oct. 20.
Megan Fizell is the curator of "Art + Food: Beyond the Still Life."