Martin Gibson has joined Accel Partners as a venture partner in the firm’s London office. He had previously been a London-based partner with Atlas Venture, but left earlier this year as a part of a personnel restructuring after Atlas closed its eighth fund well below target.
Go here to find out where other ex-Atlas pros ended up.
By Carmi Levy, Betanews
Birthdays in the world of tech normally aren’t that big of a deal for most folks. We tend to feel as much nostalgia toward hardware, software and services as we do toward flu shots and oil changes for the car. But even if you don’t use Firefox — and by the numbers, that’s over 60% of you — it’s difficult to underestimate this once-upstart browser’s impact on the way we experience the Internet, and how our software is developed in the first place.
Replacing monopoly with choice
Before Firefox came along, Internet browsing was Microsoft’s game to lose. The company had successfully used its ability to bake IE into the fabric of its dominant operating system, to none-too-subtly force mainstream internauts to overlook the alternative. If IE was already sitting on the average user’s desktop, the logic went, why would he or she even bother to download Netscape?
The strategy worked, as Netscape began a long, slow slide into oblivion. Users by the millions simply stuck with what their OS came with. I’m keenly aware of the fact that Betanews readers can download and install a browser in the time it takes to change the channel. Yet I’m also keenly aware that our tech savvy readers are far outnumbered by the kind of Internet users who, for a while anyway, didn’t understand what a browser was, and who thought “The Internet” was the glowing IE icon on their desktop.
Microsoft got this, too. Whatever your view on the company, it’s easy to see that this fundamental understanding of its audience helped it recover from almost missing the browser bandwagon altogether. Antitrust cases notwithstanding, Microsoft’s recognition that most everyday end users wouldn’t bother (at least in the chaotic early days of the commercialized Internet) to take the time to download something as mundane as a browser, helped it drive a large chunk of the Internet agenda for the better part of a decade. Although we scoff at the notion of default desktop real estate today, it mattered immensely when Windows 95 first hit the market.
The shift toward download-your-own
But getting and keeping a monopoly are two entirely different things. As Microsoft eventually learned, product innovation matters, and its inability to focus on that growing market need left the door slightly open for an alternative.
By failing to move the bar once it wrested control, Microsoft virtually guaranteed that increasingly sophisticated and demanding mainstream users — who by then had figured out how to customize their desktops with their own software choices — would eventually take the time to download and install a new browser. By 2004, there were enough of them who were ticked off with IE’s dominant market position, its bloat, its disrespect for the Web standards of the day, and its sock-it-to-me reputation as a target for hackers that IE’s days as the default choice were numbered.
It’s easy to forget that Firefox wasn’t always a flexible upstart. It was born out of the ashes of Netscape’s Mozilla Project, a bloated failure that stands as an example of too many features and not enough thought devoted toward making them work with each other…or for the end user. The project’s rebirth under the Mozilla Foundation as a broad-scale open source collaboration allowed it to return focus to the singular browser. It also gave it the edge needed to position itself as a viable alternative to the then-dominant IE.
Firefox introduced a number of features that we now take for granted: Tabbed browsing, add-ons and extensions, integrated search, themes, consistent support for Web standards, download management, pop-up blocking, and best of all, speed. And while age has helped more recent competitors like Google’s Chrome begin the process of turning yesterday’s David into today’s Goliath, Firefox remains a formidable platform with enough developer and end-user support to ensure it won’t soon meet Netscape’s fate.
Of course, nothing is a given in the world of tech. And despite its vaunted success in hacking out a growing base of fans (over 24% of all users, according to October 2009 data from NetApplications) and taking on a company many saw at the time as unbeatable, Firefox the browser isn’t immune to the creeping ailments of age. It’s gotten bigger and slower with each successive generation, and its prodigious use of memory and system resources remains a widespread source of irritation. But as the first truly successful example of an open source product that went mainstream, Firefox has helped build the business model by which software that’s given away for free can become the basis of an industry.
An intensifying market
As version 3.6 gets set to go gold, the core developers are already filling in the blanks on a roadmap that stretches years into the future. Google, which was an early and ongoing Firefox supporter, now wants its own piece of the action as it aggressively improves Google Chrome and uses the browser as the basis for its first full-blown desktop operating system, Google Chrome OS. The broader client market is evolving as well, as the desktops that defined the bulk of our online activities in 2004 give way to increasingly mobile form factors and uses. Firefox’s mobile project, known as Fennec, is expected to deliver a working product in 2010. None of this would have happened without Firefox 1.0.
No one quite knows where any of this will end up. And whatever features and performance the various players pile in to their respective offerings in the coming months and years, they’ll all owe a debt of gratitude to a product…more accurately, to an open source project that saw the potential in shifting the market away from dominant offerings from commercial players that limited choice and stifled development.
In that respect, Firefox was less a product than a revolution in how software is developed and used, and how sustainable markets are built around these products. I can’t wait to see what the next five years have in store.
Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.
BOSTON â November 10, 2009 â Nucleus Research analysts examined the deployment of IBM Cognos BI at Martinâs Point Health Care and found a 1,185% return on investment (ROI) with payback in one month.
Martinâs Point Health Care is a not-for-profit regional health care provider operating nine facilities in Maine and New Hampshire. The agency also administers the US Family Health Plan in northern New England and New York, as well as Medicare Advantage health plans and health management services in Maine.
Martinâs Point Health Care needed a more efficient way to make information available to its employees. The company did not have a unified approach to reporting and data publication, plus the updating of reports was labor intensive and costly. The approach to make custom reports for each end-user in support of operational and financial decisions prevented the company from benefiting from better analytics and data management. Martinâs Point Health Care decided to address this issue by realigning the informatics team and building a unified view of the agencyâs data and interactive functionality built upon its existing IBM Cognos BI solutions. As a result they built a new Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC).
The new BICC reduced the costs of report creation and improved the productivity of data users. In selectively fulfilling report requests, Martinâs Point Health Care has reduced report building by 20%. The company has further improved productivity by being able to spend far less time locating and manually analyzing information from various reports and databases.
âThis deployment shows how a BICC can leverage existing software investments. The BICC initiated a cultural shift around reporting and persuaded people to better utilize existing end-user driven reporting and analysis tools. As a result, report request volumes decreased significantly and data users became more productive,â said David OâConnell, senior analyst, Nucleus Research.
All Nucleus Research ROI case studies are independent assessments, evaluating the costs and benefits from the IT deployment. The case study is available at www.NucleusResearch.com
Nucleus Research is a global provider of IT research and advisory services that provides CFOs, CIOs and their staffs with the real-world information they need to maximize business returns from their technology investments, including successfully executing their IT deployments and determining the business value of their initiatives. For more information, visit NucleusResearch.com.
Zune down! The Zune support forums are awash with users claiming various issues with Zune subscription media. Songs are not showing up, or if they do, they aren’t playing. Sounds like an authentication issue to me, and those happen every once in a while — but for weeks on end?
Any of you fine folks out there having trouble? I’ll see if I can scare up any info from the Zune team and post an update later. [Thanks, Aditya]
Update: My Zunepal tells me that the DRM reset tool might work, though that’s all the information he volunteered. Anybody brave enough to try it?
Not long ago, Eric Schmidt estimated that Google would start making monthly acquisitions. Today, it’s almost looking like the dial got bumped up to hourly, since following this morning’s confirmed acquisition of AdMob, a report has indicated that Google’s bought Gizmo5, too.
Gizmo5 is a VoIP firm. Two recent company blog posts are titled "Introducing GizmoVoice – A Free Phone Line Using Google & Gizmo5" and "Add Gizmo5 Calling Directly To Gmail!" so it’s clear that there are some strong links between it and Google.
Two less obvious details also make them a good match, since the Gizmo5 homepage is dotted with the word "free" (as we all know, Google rarely charges for things) and the Gizmo5 site is available in nine languages (Google loves to serve lots of countries).
Anyway, Michael Arrington, who was the first to write about the rumored acquisition, predicted that Gizmo5 will fill a vital role. "Gizmo5 will be the glue that puts Google Voice and Google Talk together into a single product," he stated. "And that product looks a lot like a Skype competitor."
Arrington put Gizmo5’s price at $30 million (in cash). Gizmo5’s site has since become quite slow, but we’ll keep an eye out for official confirmation.
Related Articles:
> Google Buys Mobile Ad Firm For $750 Million In Stock
> eBay And Skype Settle Litigation
> Schmidt Forecasts Monthly Acquisitions
Last month, we wrote about the highly troubling efforts by the head of software firm Jenzabar to abuse trademark law to stifle criticism of that company’s founder and CEO (who, earlier in her life, was famous for “leading” part of the student uprising in Tiananmen Square). She was upset at the makers of a documentary film that was somewhat critical of her, and she tried to use trademark law against them, after an attempt at defamation failed. There is simply no trademark violation at all in this situation… but it is a company with lots of cash suing some independent documentary film makers, so it has all the appearances of filing a lawsuit just to cause trouble for the filmmakers.
Our posts were based on some blog posts by Public Citizen, criticizing Jenzabar and its founder/CEO Ling Chai. Rather than recognizing that it’s going too far, Jenzabar apparently decided to go on the attack. Public Citizen’s Paul Alan Levy alerts us to the news that Chai and Jenzabar are now claiming that Public Citizen’s blogging about the case is illegal.
Specifically, the complaint from Jenzabar is that Levy pointing out that Google has stated that it does not use metatags in its search algorithms is not admissible and will “cause prejudice,” because it is not an official statement from Google. That, of course, is silly. Google has made it clear for a while that it doesn’t use metatags, but this particular announcement came from Google’s Matt Cutts (disclaimer: an acquaintance/friend of mine) and was on Google’s official blog, and Matt regularly speaks for Google on these sorts of issues. Yet, Jenzabar claims that it’s “hearsay.” That seems like a pretty difficult position to take. Jenzabar really wants to keep insisting that Google uses metatags, even as Google is making clear it does not? And it wants to force the court to censor blog posts to keep living in that fantasy world? Good luck with that…
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Archipelago Learning Inc., a Dallas-based provider of online education tools and services, has set its IPO terms to 6.25 million common shares being offered at between $15 and $17 per share. It would have an initial market cap of approximately $427 million, were it to price at the high end of its range.
The company plans to trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol ARCL, with BoA Merrill Lynch and William Blair & Co. serving as co-lead underwriters. Providence Equity Partners acquired a majority stake in Archipelago Learning in January 2007, for $84.5 million. It currently holds a 70.1% position. www.archipelagolearning.com
By Joe Wilcox, Betanews
On Friday, ComScore reported that in September, worldwide, Internet users spent more time at Microsoft sites than at Google, Yahoo or even Facebook. It’s an amazing statistic that has questionable street cred. ComScore has presented the data in a favorable way to Microsoft but which doesn’t accurately represent exactly how Internet users really spend time on popular Websites.
Time-spent-online data is hugely important to Microsoft and other popular destinations, such as Facebook, Google or Yahoo. While bloggers and news organizations obsess over every pageview, time spent online is a much more important metric. People coming and staying for hours is potentially more valuable to online advertisers than Internet users who click in and click out, which too often is the only measurable value of pageviews.
How people spend their time online is important, too. There — when read between the lines — ComScore’s data has some value for Microsoft. Are site visitors reading blog posts or news stories? Banner advertising and contextual search keywords could be effective. Are they playing interactive games with other Internet users? Contextually relevant ads within games could be better. Are they chatting with friends via IM or social status updates? Banner ads and interactive surveys might be more effective.
Time after Time
ComScore claims that worldwide during September, Microsoft sites accounted for 14.5 percent of the time spent online, followed by Google at 9.3 percent. What a strange perspective. After so many months — years — of Microsoft trailing Google by huge amounts, roles are decidedly reversed. But in the United States, Google and Yahoo led Microsoft, which overwhelming dominated online time in Europe,Latin America and Middle East (see first chart), ComScore claims.
The ComScore report is big on “What?” or “How much?” but offers scant reasons on “Why?” that makes the data relevant. The reasons are hugely important for understanding how consumer Microsoft marketing and new product releases could be paying off. Additionally, the phenomenon could show where Microsoft could leverage against Google and how Yahoo might be fumbling. I couch with “could” and “might” because of the caveats coming in the next two paragraphs.
The ComScore data, while important for Microsoft, is incomplete. ComScore excludes Internet cafes, public computers and smaller mobile devices, such as cell phones, PDAs and smartphones. Internet cafes could be good for Microsoft because of some emerging markets, where the MSN and even Windows Live brands are strong; ditto for Yahoo. Public computers, if these count education institutions, could be good for Google. Cell phones and smartphones are a grabbag.
The data also is unspecific in a crucial area: How much actual time did individuals spend online. ComScore findings are in aggregate. For perspective, back in February, AOL and Yahoo led with most time online per Internet user, according to Nielsen. Per individual: 3:58:22 (hours, minutes, seconds) for AOL but only 2:16:54 for Microsoft. Caveat: Nielsen’s data only measures United States, while ComScore offers worldwide view. That said, U.S. data is inconsistent between the online analysis firms, too (see both charts).
Nielsen’s most recent data, also for September, shows Microsoft sites as No. 5 not No. 3 in the United States (see chart 2). Nielsen’s data is inconsitent with ComScore’s findings. AOL, which ComScore ranks No. 3 in the United States doesn’t show up at all in ComScore’s US rankings. Most startling, ComScore puts Facebook at No. 4 for time spent online among US Internet users, while Nielsen ranks Facebook as No. 1.
Facebook’s placement is hugely significant. In February, the social networking site didn’t even make Nielsen’s US top five. Now Facebook is tops, with time-spent-online per individual a whopping 5:24:38. Right, almost five-and-a-half hours per Internet user. Something else: Nielsen shows time online at Microsoft sites going down by about 8 minutes between February and September. By comparison, time online at Google sites rose about 40 minutes, nudging ahead of Microsoft.
Means to a Measure
Metrics and measurement mean everything for online data such as this. But to companies like Facebook, Google or Microsoft, marketing matters more. Microsoft will gain immeasurable PR value from ComScore’s study. But Nielsen’s consistency tracking time online — and measurement per individual — is more credible. Then there is the “Why?” ComScore does give, which makes sense of its approach to measuring time spent online at various Websites. Quoting the ComScore press release — a rarity for me:
Mearly 27 billion hours were spent on the Internet globally by a record online population of 1.2 billion Internet users age 15 and older. Microsoft Sites accounted for 14.5 percent of total minutes spent online in September, making it the most engaging global property, with Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger representing nearly 70 percent of time spent on the property during the month.
Whoa. Seventy-percent came from Windows Live Messenger? Exactly how does usage of Microsoft’s desktop IM client count as time spent on the company’s sites? Surely only a fraction of Live Messenger users come through the the Web-based version, based on Microsoft data about client downloads. I ask again: How does time spent in Live Messenger count as time at Microsoft sites? Windows Live log-ins perhaps?
Maybe Safeway or Trader Joes should tally everyone using one of their shopping bags in monthly store customer counts. Perhaps Visa should count everyone using its cards to buy products as visitors to its Website. How about beauty product companies like Clinque, Mac or Sephora count every free product sample as customer purchase.
Something about ComScore’s data — at least as presented — doesn’t make sense.
Still, behind the measure, Microsoft can gain valuable insight. Windows Live Messenger is an arguably hot on-desktop/online property. It’s real estate Microsoft could connect to other properties, particularly broader Windows Live services or Windows 7.
To reiterate, ComScore’s data is questionably valid as presented (other than for Microsoft marketing purposes) because:
So, Betanews readers, I have to ask: Where do you spend most of your time online? Gulp, I would hope it would be Betanews. Comments are open for your answer.
So to recap: nobody has been given permission to sell Modern Warfare 2 early. It’s a crazy Internet rumor that has no basis in reality. But it’s happening like whoa. What is based in reality is that the first reviews of the game have started appearing online, and they’re all from UK newspapers. A strange place to see the first reviews of what’s probably going to end up being the biggest game of the year (with all due respect to Assassin’s Creed II).
Both The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian (my favorite British paper, if only for its football coverage) gave the game perfect scores. I’ll quote each review’s final paragraph, because it’s easy and my head still aches like nobody’s business.
The Daily Telegraph:
All told, Modern Warfare 2 crosses into the must-have category of video games effortlessly. It offers an unmatched shooter experience, a compelling story mode, a slick package of mini missions and a multiplayer which is pretty much unparalleled in depth. It’s sure to satisfy the demands of its fan base, and anyone who considers themselves a fan of shooters in general should definitely pick up a copy. It may be debatable as to whether Modern Warfare 2 is objectively the best release of 2009, but it’s certainly the finest game in its genre, as well one of the truly great games of this or indeed any year.
The Guardian:
All in all, MW2 is exactly what fans were expecting. Yes, it carries a hefty price-tag, a shortish single player campaign and only adds a handful of genuinely new elements to the prequel, but you won’t find a more polished, intelligent FPS this year. For non-stop action, superior AI and perfectly balanced weapons, it’s a worthy chart-topper that hammers a nail into any hope of the COD franchise returning to its WW2 roots anytime short of the next round of console upgrades. And, on this evidence, you won’t find too many complaints about that.
Sounds to me that if you’re even remotely a fan of the FPS genre, then you’ll probably at least like the game.
Look for more exciting reviews to hit the Web in the coming hours.
CoTweet, a company that helps businesses use Twitter, released some details about a new service today, and in doing so, demonstrated that there’s a real demand for such things. The CoTweet Enterprise Innovators Program already has at least six major customers despite costing $1,500 per month.
Coca-Cola, Ford, McDonald’s, Microsoft, SunTrust, and Whole Foods are among the early adopters, which is quite impressive. Another interesting detail is that CoTweet isn’t exactly begging for clients; the program’s existence was discovered by Wall Street Journal reporter Andrew LaVallee, and businesses in fact have to request an invitation to scope out the new offering.
As for what their interest (and monthly payments of $1,500) will net them, the CoTweet Enterprise Innovators Program offers engagement, influence, and reach analytics, along with archives of customer interactions and a couple other things.
Anyway, this development could provide a number of clues concerning the future of Twitter. One point in the site’s favor is that corporate users are so fascinated by it. This should give Twitter some staying power.
Also, although the launch of the CoTweet Enterprise Innovators Program might seem like yet another missed revenue opportunity (Twitter’s indicated before that it might try to make money by selling premium accounts and analytics services), Twitter could still presumably join the game at any point in time.
The interesting thing is that these well-connected companies didn’t wait for it to do so. Microsoft and the others almost surely would have heard if Twitter had a service in the pipeline, and then would have held out another couple of weeks or months to use it. So any sort of official offering may be quite a ways off.
One last item of note: a post on the CoTweet Blog made clear, "The CoTweet public beta remains free for consumers and enterprises."
Related Articles:
> 20 Goals For Business Social Media Use
> 8 Reasons You Need To Stop Ignoring Twitter
> A Suggested Users List For Twitter That You Can Actually Use
Leading mobile phone maker Nokia today announced a recall of three types of Nokia-branded phone charger which were found to be a shock hazard.
The chargers were manufactured by Chinese mobile phone component firm BYD International Electronic Company this year. Nokia today said that the plastic covers of these chargers could come loose and open up to expose the internal components which could shock the user if handled improperly. Nokia said it was not aware of any injuries or incidents related to these chargers.
Nokia is offering a free replacement to affected units, which carry the model numbers AC-3U, AC-3E, or AC-4U. Since these were all made within the last six months, if you purchased a Nokia charger before June 15, 2009, you are not impacted by this recall.
Nokia has not detailed the breadth of this recall, saying in the recall statement that only “a limited number” of chargers are affected. In Nokia’s blog, the company was equally vague, noting that it’s only “a limited number of chargers manufactured over a short period available in a select number of countries.”
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has not yet issued a warning for consumers in the United States, which would indicate exactly how many units were affected in the US, if at all. Several sources have reported that the recall encompasses 14 million units, but that has not been officially declared by Nokia.
We contacted the company this morning to confirm this number and find out which devices shipped with these adapters, but the company has not yet responded.
Happy post-Halloween! Thanks for sending in your costumes and thanks, most of you, for following the rules. That said, I’m proud to show you the 11 best costumes in this line-up, as judged by all of us at CG. I added one extra because we just couldn’t bear to choose between the various Iron Men we saw.
Here’s how to vote:
O2 just announced what seems like a fairly magnanimous gesture on its part today, in preparation for the launch of the iPhone on other UK carriers and the end of iPhone exclusivity in that country. That should mean that O2 customers who want to take their business elsewhere can have their phones unlocked as early as tomorrow, since Nov. 10 is the stated launch date for Orange UK’s iPhone offerings.
The news, which comes via The iPhone Blog, is a promising sign for all iPhone users. If Apple is at all a party to the decision to allow unlocking of its devices in countries where the iPhone is available on multiple networks, then hope exists for countries like Canada, too, where the iPhone recently became available on Bell and Telus, as well as Rogers, the original carrier.
O2 CEO Matthew Key describes in an interview with the Times Online how customers will be able to unlock, though that won’t relieve them of their contractual obligations:
Once the iPhone becomes available on other UK networks, we will allow O2 customers to unlock their iPhones, although of course they will still need to honor any outstanding contract period they have. At the end of their contract period, they are entirely free to move to another operator — though naturally we hope they won’t want to!
It isn’t clear how the unlocking procedure will actually work. Will users have to physically visit an O2 store, or can it be done over the phone using iTunes at home? Whatever the method, O2 is doing the right thing by providing its customers a choice, which is a good faith gesture which should end up building customer loyalty and avoiding resentment. No word yet on whether or not other UK carriers will be offering the same service for their iPhone devices.
By Katherine Noyes, LinuxInsider
Following the Karmic Koala’s joyful reception last week, sentiments toward the FOSSy marsupial have become distinctly less enthusiastic in recent days — at least for some.
“Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu’s Karmic Koala” was the headline on a piece that ran in The Register last week, which chronicled multiple cases of frustration among some users upgrading to the new version.
“More than a fifth of people upgrading to Ubuntu 9.10 have reported issues they can’t fix, according to an Ubuntuforums.org poll,” The Register reported. “Only around 10 percent of those upgrading or installing reported a completely flawless experience.”
A biased snapshot
Of course, the opinions represented in said poll aren’t exactly representative of the population at large, as Slashdot bloggers quickly pointed out, biased as it is toward those with problems.
In fact, at the top of the poll, the following red-ink warning is given:
*** Disclaimer for those willing to analyse this poll ***
Most of users voting here are users with issues.
Users with painless experience are not likely to come here."
Nevertheless, word of The Register’s report quickly spread, and bloggers far and wide didn’t hesitate to register their own reactions.
“I upgraded to Ubuntu 9.10 and it is quite buggy,” wrote MichaelSmith on Slashdot, for example. “Much more than previous releases. I have had to go back to the NDIS wrapper to use my WG511 PCMCIA wifi adapter. I haven’t had to do that in years.”
On the other hand: “The statistics derived by The Register are invalid, and probably quite wrong, being from a non-representative self-selected subset of Karmic installations or upgrades,” countered AliasMarlowe.
“Here’s another non-representative data set: I have installed or upgraded 4 PCs from Jaunty to Karmic at home (2 upgrade 32-bit, 1 upgrade 64-bit, 1 conversion 32-bit to 64-bit),” AliasMarlowe added. “All went flawlessly, even the migration of user accounts and reinstallation of applications (including commercial paid-for apps) on the 32-bit to 64-bit reinstallation.”
Over on LXer, meanwhile, HoTMetal warned, “I’ve said it before and here it goes again: never, ever upgrade. Clean installs are the only way to go.”
Then again: “Never upgrade? Clean install only? That’s Windows-think,” shot back tuxchick. “I have Debian boxes that have gone for years without ever needing a reinstallation, upgrade and dist-upgrade all the way. Though with Ubuntu upgrading to a new release has always been a roll of the dice.”
Bottom line? If you’re upgrading, be prepared at least for the possibility of a bumpy ride early on.
Does Wine make Linux too loose?
The problems one is likely to encounter with Linux tend to pale by comparison with the security problems one is likely to have using Windows. Unless, that is, you’re using Wine.
Indeed, alert blogger fsufitch recently uncovered a situation in which Wine allowed Linux to get infected by a virus targeting Windows.
“Wine emulates Windows well enough to get infected by a Windows virus,” fsufitch wrote — noting, however, that the observed virus didn’t work as intended.
“So WINE can get a virus intended for Windows, if you jump through some hoops to help the virus along,” wrote AliasMarlowe on Slashdot, where bloggers took quick notice of the news. “Color me unworried.”
Then again: “Linux is by no means impervious to infection, but you would need to really put an effort into getting and staying infected,” wrote Jeff901 over on Digg. “Things just don’t run without your knowledge or control.”
And an anecdote: “Using Linux, I’d gotten into the habit of ignoring warnings about all the Web sites I knew spread malware and viruses — sometimes because I was looking for something, and sometimes just because it’s fun to walk through a battlefield with godmode on,” JanusTheDoorman began.
“Then, because I needed to run certain software for school, I reinstalled Windows onto my laptop, and absentmindedly continued my usual browsing habits for about a week without so much as spybot to keep me safe,” JanusTheDoorman added. “The moment of realization was a bit like what I imagine it’d be like waking up in a doorway, noticing a syringe on the ground next to you, and feeling an itch in your arm…”
Just how big a security concern is Wine? Linux Girl felt it her duty to ask around.
“As long as said virus can’t punch through my web browser and install itself, I’m fine with it,” Montreal consultant and Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack told LinuxInsider. “As long as viruses need user intervention to install, we can keep it down to a user education problem.”
Indeed, “unless there is an inside job like Wine, it is very difficult to get a virus in GNU/Linux,” blogger Robert Pogson agreed. “The GNU/Linux ecosystem is so diverse, hackers cannot build their stuff for all the varieties of drivers, kernels, GUIs, apps and builds to make overflows and such to work. They would rather compromise millions of willing zombies running that other OS — it’s just too easy.”
The result is “1000:1 more security against malware with GNU/Linux these days,” Pogson noted. “I love it.”
“Reading the anguish of users of that other OS struggling for days to cleanse their systems only to reinstall after nothing works brings tears to my eyes,” he added. “I just have to tell them about running malware free for eight years without a scanner.”
Is the Linux user simply more educated?
A bigger question lies behind the current news, however, and that’s, “Why does Linux not get viruses?” Slashdot blogger hairyfeet told LinuxInsider.
“Ultimately, I believe it comes down to the fact that the malware writers know that Linux users are generally more savvy, less likely to fall for tricks, and less likely to fall for the really dumb attacks,” hairyfeet said. “Which is why I say, ‘Linux users: hope and pray to Linus and RMS you never have a year of a Linux desktop.’”
With mainstream users comes “‘the Velma problem,’” hairyfeet explained. “Velma is sweet and nice and always remembers your name and all about your family, but Velma has a darker side: she is what we in the repair biz call … DUM DUM DUM … the disaster area.”
Specifically, Velma is a user who “followed step-by-step instructions to turn off her antivirus and put the password in a password-protected .zip file,” hairyfeet explained. “For what? It was supposed to be a ‘happy puppy’ screensaver.”
Then there’s the user who “would run anything — .exe, .vbs, you name it — as long as it had the word ‘lesbians’ in it,” hairyfeet added.
“So WINE running a Windows virus is nothing more than a ‘stupid Linux trick’… for now,” he said. “What will be ultimately more interesting is whether the volunteer nature of Linux will hold up to a tidal wave of stupidity if the year of the Linux desktop ever comes to be.”
The minute they find out the “Velma problem” has come to Linux en masse, hairyfeet predicted, “your old friends in the Russian Business network and their friends in Nigeria and China will be happy to cook up ‘Happy_Pup.sh’ and ‘lesbian_video_player.deb’ and nicely provide step-by-step instructions that Velma and all her friends will follow to the letter.”
Of course, whether those “Velma” users will all be using the same distro is another question entirely, as is whether hackers will be able to do significant damage amid the formidable strength that lies in Linux’s diversity.
Then, too, there’s the fact that any mass migration to Linux will surely have to involve at least some learning and education on the part of all those new users.
Dare we hope that the Year of the Linux Desktop — whenever it happens — may also bring about the Era of the Educated User? Now that would be a milestone in computing history.
Originally published on LinuxInsider
© 2009 ECT News Network. All rights reserved.
© 2009 BetaNews.com. All rights reserved.
The first iPhone worm has been discovered. It comes to us via Australia, and appears to be limited to that country for now, although it has the potential to spread. It also stars Rick Astley, so to speak. The work changes the iPhone’s wallpaper to an image of the 1980s pop singer, who’s enjoyed a recent resurgence thanks to the Rick-rolling Internet phenomenon.
The worm has the ability to break into jailbroken iPhones only. Even if you’ve jailbroken, you still aren’t vulnerable unless you’ve also installed SSH, and not changed the default password after doing so. As a result, only a small fraction of the larger iPhone community is probably susceptible to the “ikee virus,” as it is called in its own source code.
Still, it shows that as the platform matures and becomes more widespread, it also becomes the target of more malicious attacks. Most hackers, like any businesspeople, are interested in the bottom line, and part of that involves targeting the largest group of people possible. With millions of users worldwide, the iPhone is definitely an appealing mark. ikee’s creator, a hacker calling himself “ikex,” cites a different explanation for this particular worm’s creation:
Why?: Boredom, because i found it so stupid the fact that on my initial scan of my 3G optus range i found 27 hosts running SSH daemons, i could access 26 of them with root:alpine. Doesn’t anyone RTFM anymore?
In the case of this worm, which only changes the background wallpaper to the Astley photo with the slogan, “ikee is never going to give you up” across the top, Graham Cluley of SophosLabs suggests it’s really only an experiment:
The source code is littered with comments from the author suggesting the worm has been written as an experiment. One of the comments berates affected users for not following instructions when installing SSH, because if they had changed the default password the worm would not have been able to infect them.
While not dangerous in and of itself (it actually sort of provides a service by reminding users to take precautions), it could open the door for similar programs with less innocuous payloads. Hopefully, jailbreak users will learn from the experience and be prepared if someone more sinister tries to do the same thing again.
It’ll be interesting to see whether Apple latches onto this as a means to further decry the evils of jailbreak. If it leads to more serious exploits, it definitely would constitute a good reason to stay on the straight and narrow. In either case, expect to see more security concerns surrounding the iPhone as it continues its commercial success.
According to a report by the Silicon Alley Insider, if you’re looking to hire an iPhone dev, it’s probably best to make sure you do a thorough background check before you do. Some coders have been claiming credit for work they didn’t do, and are using the false accolades to try and wrestle more work from unsuspecting companies and individuals looking to cash in on the App Store phenomenon.
Some of the lies being perpetrated are coming from firms that look otherwise legit. Lots of offshore development companies are cashing in on the trend by providing low-cost alternatives to in-house or domestic U.S. solutions, and some of those are taking serious heat for what appear to be bald-faced lies.
One of the more high-profile apps involved in the scam is TapBots‘ popular iPhone unit conversion application, ConvertBot. ConvertBot’s design and intuitive interface have earned it praise from both the press and iPhone users, and it remains a popular app in its category. According to Ars Technica, TapBots partner Paul Haddad recently received a surprising inquiry from a client about his program:
This prospective client wasn’t looking to hire TapBots for any development work, they were looking for confirmation that a development firm out of India did the coding on ConvertBot, a popular TapBots application. The client had found Trucid, the supposed coders of ConvertBot, on the Rentacoder.com website, a virtual cork board where companies can hang their business cards. Trucid quoted a sum of $2,400 for an application similar to ConvertBot. The only problem? TapBots designs and writes all of its applications entirely in house.
At least the company in this case was smart enough to make some inquiries before going ahead and hiring the coding company making the false claims. Other people might not be so discerning and cautious.
Another developer, Sugar Cube, Inc. operating out of San Francisco, only discovered that others were taking credit for its work when prospective clients noted that they’d already seen the screenshots included in Sugar Cube’s pitch materials in packages from other development firms. Apparently, Sugar Cube had been trying to secure referral relationships with some other firms, and in so doing had sent around a sampler package. Some of these companies were then redistributing the materials as their own.
It’s a disturbing trend, but one to be expected with something like the App Store, which many see as an opportunity to cash in quickly and easily. As the industry matures, expect to see this sort of thing become less and less common, but until then, check and double-check any claims that seem to good to be true.
For many years, we’ve been quite skeptical of any business model in virtual worlds/social networks that rely on “buying virtual goods.” That’s because these are all based on artificial scarcities, and as we all know (hopefully, by now), relying on artificial scarcities for a business model is incredibly risky, especially once people realize the scarcities are artificial. And yet, over the past few years, a number of businesses have been built on this very premise. In fact, Silicon Valley is crawling these days with businesses built on selling virtual goods, and if you talk to many VCs about it, you’ll quickly note that they’re positively giddy over the fact that people are paying for this stuff. What they don’t seem to realize is that it’s unlikely to last.
In the last couple weeks, Mike Arrington, over at TechCrunch, did an amazing job calling attention to the widely known, but rarely discussed in polite company, dark underbelly to most of those business models: quite a large part of their revenue is based on scammy offers that effectively trick unsophisticated purchasers (often kids) into signing up for expensive subscriptions to things they don’t want. I was at an investor “roundtable” a couple months ago, which was mostly bankers in suits, and they were laughing about just how gullible people are on these things, and it’s great to see TechCrunch exposing them, and pushing the worst abusers to clean up their act. Of course, even when some, like Zynga, claim to be cleaning up their act, Arrington was able to dig up a video where Zynga’s CEO proudly talked about the scammy tactics he used — and then noted that these same scammy tactics showed right back up on Zynga, after the company promised they were gone. Those who use these kinds of tactics may find that while they “bring revenue now,” it may be short-lived. Companies that focus on such abusive tactics live to regret it (just ask RealNetworks).
But, the really amazing thing, as pointed out by Dan Lyons/Fake Steve Jobs, in an amazingly un-Fake-Steve-Jobs-like rant, is to compare the series of writeups by Arrington with the love letter to Zynga and other “virtual goods” companies in the NY Times, which came out after most of Arrington’s posts, and makes no mention of them at all. As Lyons/FSJ notes:
So: they walked into this shit-storm and somehow, by some miracle, managed not to notice the fecal matter flying all around them. It’s like covering a football game that took place in the middle of the blizzard and neglecting to mention the weather.Now, maybe they did all the reporting before Arrington’s stuff broke. In which case they should have gone back and updated their info. Or maybe, just maybe, Zynga’s PR people teed up a Times story as a kind of rebuttal to what Arrington was reporting. Either way, that’s what ended up happening: Zynga used the Times to deflect the bad shit flying at them from Arrington. They need good press because they’re hoping to cash out by going public next year. That story in the Times will be worth millions. Many millions.
Meanwhile, Arrington, still digging, blasted again on Saturday night, reporting that sleazy ads had popped up again on Zynga, despite promises that they would be taken down.
Um, New York Times? If you guys are still wondering why people are dropping their subscriptions and getting their news from blogs instead of you — this is why.
After which, Lyons/FSJ notes:
And to all those people who go around wringing their hands and saying what are we going to do when the “real newspapers” all die and we have to get our news from Gawker and HuffPo and TechCrunch? Friends, I think we’re going to be just fine…. What really cracks me up is how often I still hear people say that bloggers are mere “aggregators” and the “real journalism” gets done at places like the Times. Because time after time, blogs are simply beating the shit out of the newspapers. They’re the ones who still dare to go for the throat, while their counterparts at big newspapers just keep reaching for the shrimp cocktail.
Of course, there’s just a bit of irony in noting that Dan Lyons wrote one of the quintessential blog bashing articles four years ago, when he was writing for Forbes, at one point suggesting that blogger “journalists” were no different than notorious (NY Times) maker-up-of-stories, Jayson Blair. Nice to see he’s coming around to recognizing things perhaps aren’t so bad in the blog world.
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Google said today it has signed an agreement to acquire mobile display advertising firm AdMob for $750 million in stock.
Google says its acquisition will improve its existing expertise and technology in mobile advertising, while also giving advertisers and publishers more choice in the growing new area.
Highlights of Google’s purchase of AdMob include:
"Mobile advertising has enormous potential as a marketing medium and while this industry is still in the early stages of development, AdMob has already made exceptional progress in a very short time," said Susan Wojcicki, Vice President of Product Management at Google.
"AdMob is the quintessential Silicon Valley startup — generating impressive year on year revenue growth — and we’re excited to welcome this talented team to Google."
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>Usage Of Mobile Web And Apps Doubles In 2 Years
>Mobile Advertising Guidelines Get An Update
>Best Buy Now Installing Google Mobile Apps On Smartphones
The floundering economy hasn’t kept consumers from spending on mobile data, according to the latest quarterly report on the wireless industry from Chetan Sharma, one of our GigaOM Pro analysts. U.S. data service revenues grew 27 percent year-over-year in the third quarter, Sharma reported, with Verizon Wireless and AT&T accounting for 80 percent of the rise, underscoring what I wrote last week about how the rich carriers are getting richer. Given the investment needed to build out new networks, and the incredible growth in data, both the smaller carriers and U.S. regulators should mind the growing gap between those that are raking in the wireless data dough and those that are not.
Verizon’s data revenue exceeded $4 billion during the quarter, and is now approaching longtime global leader NTT DoCoMo. Overall, the top four U.S. carriers “are now a permanent fixture” among the top 10 worldwide carriers in terms of mobile service revenues. Other nuggets from Sharma’s report include:
U.S. mobile data traffic is likely to exceed 400 petabytes by the end of 2009, according to Sharma, up 193 percent from 2008. And that increased usage is forcing carriers to accelerate their 4G strategies and adopt a multipronged model to manage traffic more effectively. With the larger carriers seeing the greatest revenue gains from data, it stands to reason that as more investment is needed to “keep up with the Verizons” both AT&T and Verizon will continue their data lead. That’s bad news for T-Mobile and Sprint. Sprint’s investment in WiMAX was its attempt to get out in front of this demand for data, but so far it looks like its timing may have been off.
According to Technorati’s 2009 State of the Blogosphere report, 70% of bloggers talk about products or brands on their blogs, eMarketer reports. And obviously some of these mentions would be prompted by free sample products, etc.—a practice popular enough to draw the notice of the FTC, which now requires disclosure on such review products.
Interestingly, corporate bloggers were least likely to blog about brands and products (lawsuit anyone?), and hobbyist bloggers were second least likely. Technorati defined hobbyist bloggers as those that blog for fun. They don’t make money (and only some of them want to, which I think is awesome). Instead of brands and products, they mostly share “personal musings” (53% of hobbyists), and 76% blog to speak their minds. 72% of bloggers fell into this category.
“Part-timers” were most likely to mention brands and products. They blog to supplement their main income. 15% of respondents, most part-timers blog to share their expertise or attract new clients.
“Self-employed” bloggers, 9% of the survey respondents, blog full time for their own company or organization. (Corporate bloggers, 4%, blog for someone else’s company/organization—including their employer.)
Despite the focus on products and brands, bloggers felt that the free goodies weren’t the most important benefits from their blogs—gaining visibility (individually or for their business) and bringing in new business were the top two benefits cited by bloggers surveyed.
What do you think? Do you blog about brands? What benefits have you seen from blogging? Which group do you fall into?
