Linked List: May 15, 2008

Thursday, 15 May 2008

An Event Apart 

My thanks to An Event Apart for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. I’ve been to two An Event Apart conferences, and they were both just terrific — informative and inspiring. If you care about standards-based web development, this is the conference. Upcoming events include Boston on June 23-24, San Francisco on August 18-19, and Chicago on October 13-14. Daring Fireball readers save $100 off registration using discount code “AEADARE”. Register during an early bird period and save a total of $200.

The Eye of the NFL’s Spying Storm 

The New York Times interviews Matt Walsh, lead videographer from 1999-2002 for the New England Patriots’ systematic videotape cheating system:

In the week after the game, Walsh said he asked a quarterback — again, he declined to name whom — how helpful the signals were. Walsh said the quarterback told him “probably about 75 percent of the time, Tampa Bay ran the defense we thought they were going to run — if not more.”

Ten bucks says the quarterback in question is Tom Brady.

Gary Vaynerchuk and Jim Cramer 

Colin Devroe has assembled all of Gary “Wine Library TV” Vaynerchuk’s TV appearances in one spot, including his appearance on Jim Cramer’s show this week. Vaynerchuk and Cramer are perfect together.

Comcast Blocking BitTorrent 24/7 for Some Customers, Contrary to FCC Testimony 

Cable companies lying and cheating their customers? That’s unpossible!

Anatomy of a Rumor 

Philip Elmer-DeWitt deconstructs yesterday’s rampant rumor of a supposed “Newton iPhone Tablet” based on a comment by a German Intel executive. (Why would anyone think something new from Apple, whatever the form factor, would have anything to do with the dead-for-a-decade Newton?)

CBS Acquiring CNet for $1.8 Billion 

A 45 percent premium over their closing stock price yesterday; doesn’t sound like a good deal to me.

How Apple is Changing DRM 

Great story in The Guardian on how Apple is changing the way the music industry thinks about DRM. In short, the labels thought DRM would give them control, and somehow sell more music. The reality is they’ve given Apple control, and, duh, people prefer buying DRM-free music. Plus, everyone other than Apple needs to go DRM-free if they want their files to play on iPods.

I think Microsoft has helped doom DRM for music, too — by screwing it up so badly, so many times.

The flip side, though, is that DRM rules the day for paid video content.