More Frivolous Patents

The patent trolling continues, which should really be no surprise. Consider that Nortel put its portfolio of 6,000 patents on the auction block, with Google starting bidding at $900 million dollars only to be beat out by a consortium of Apple, Microsoft, Research in Motion, EMC, Ericsson and Sony for $4.5 billion ($750 million each). Each of these companies, Google included, wants to protect itself from patent trolls along with finding new revenue streams from licensing options.

The fun doesn't end there...

Lodsys sues Rovio

Rovio, the makers of the wildly popular (and somewhat addictive) Angry Birds game, is being sued for patent infringement by Lodsys. Lodsys claims that it holds a patent that covers how Angry Birds allows players to purchase new levels in the game. While Apple has maintained that its licenses extend to third-party developers, Lodsys started laying its groundwork in a May 31 post, Apple's License Claim Disputed.

The Lodsys About the Inventor page claims that Dan Abelow is a prolific inventor and an expert on website usability, ease-of-use and assured user performance. It then uses a "click here" link to direct traffic to Dan Abelow's web site. His web site content consists of text as images with image maps for the in-content links. If you are web developer who isn't even at the "expert" level he claims, then you already know that his claim of being an expert on usability is clearly a flat-out lie.

That's the nature of the person behind this suit.

PacketVideo sues Spotify

Spotify has just made its debut in the United States and almost immediately after doing so is getting sued. PacketVideo is leaning on a 1995 (issued in 1997) U.S. patent related to streaming music, itself citing six other patents. PacketVideo was founded in 1998 and purchased by NTT Docomo Inc., Japan's largest mobile phone operator, in August 2010. The patent in question has stayed with PacketVideo. PacketVideo is also suing over a European patent originally owned by a Swiss company.

PacketVideo outlines its position in a press release on its site, PacketVideo Files Patent Infringement Lawsuits Against Spotify. Spotify's response is to be expected: PacketVideo is claiming that by distributing music over the Internet, Spotify (and by inference any other similar digital music service) has infringed one of the patents that has previously been acquired by PacketVideo. Spotify is strongly contesting PacketVideo's claim.

I am wondering if Turntable.fm is just too small to bother suing.

Geotag sues 397 Companies

Last year a client reached out to me over some concern in the jewelry industry about patent lawsuits from a company called Geotag. In particular, companies that used a "find a retailer" feature to allow users to provide a zip code to see nearby stores were being sued. Given that Geotag paid $119 million for the patent, it was clearly in it for the shakedowm. This sampling shows that Geotag was really after the big fish, probably in hopes of a payout: Cartier and its Find a Boutique function at Cartier.us; Rolex and its Dealer Finder at Rolex.com; Sterling Jewelers' store locator on both Kay.com and Jared.com; Van Cleef & Arpels Boutique Search on VanCleef-Arpels.com; the store locator on Zale Corp.-owned GordonsJewelers.com; the store and event finder on Tiffany.com and the store locator on Kroger Co.-owned FredMeyer.com.

Not being a lawyer, I could not counsel my client on any particular legal action, but I could reassure my client that since Google Maps and Microsoft Bing provide much of this capability, it would be a matter of time before those two would either get caught up or step in and duke it out with the patent troll. Strange bedfellows indeed: Microsoft and Google jointly sue GeoTag Inc. in order to invalidate a patent asserted against more than 300 entities and Microsoft And Google Jointly Hit GeoTag With A Lawsuit To Invalidate Its Patent.

Related

• Frivolous Patents on the Web


• Big bidding: Apple, Microsoft, RIM nab Nortel patents for $4.5 billion


• Angry Birds maker sued by US firm Lodsys for 'violating patents'


• That Didn't Take Long: Spotify Sued For Patent Infringement Just Weeks After Entering US Market


• Tech co. sues majors over Web site component


• Twitter Gets Sued For Letting Famous People Interact Online


• Fighting patent 'trolls' — there's no app for that

Read More

Don't Let HTML5 Become the New DHTML

This photo represents some of the technologies (pint glasses) that HTML5 (t-shirt) is thought to encompass (drink). The horror of that concept is represented by the hands (defensive wounds coming).

I had the pleasure of sharing some pints with Bruce Lawson and Chris Mills last week in London. While discussing what bands are emo versus punk rock and during an exchange of favorite phrases to refer to the chronically daft, we touched on HTML5 and its perceptions a bit.

This thought process was rekindled just this week when I got in a discussion with a not-very-technical manager of web projects who insisted on mobile support and decidedly CSS3-based styling by implementing HTML5. The key here is the insistence on using HTML5. For a little context, we use HTML 4.01 Transitional for our projects. It's a valid and complete specification. It allows us to use things like WOFF, CSS3, AJAX, support mobile devices and so on.

I understand that many have co-opted "HTML5" as a brand for a suite of new technologies (most of them even from the W3C or WHATWG). I do not accept that, however, because it confuses the point when it comes time to make choices about technologies. This is a battle I have already fought repeatedly back when DHTML (and IE4!) became the rage and I had clients asking what technologies I would use to build their pages — insisting in advance that it be DHTML. I could explain that DHTML was just a terrible term coined to mean HTML4, CSS and JavaScript, but clients didn't care. It didn't matter to them. Good for them.

For developers and the people that manage them, including those who write on these topics, I have a different expectation than I have from clients. Allowing HTML5 to mean CSS3, geolocation, H.264, or any other technology just makes it harder on us who work in this space. A technology for a project should be chosen based on the goals at hand, not because a client insists on it because of a misunderstanding of a brand or because the press release will sound great when citing how cutting edge everyone is. Most importantly, a technology should not be chosen because of confusion over terminology — least of all when that term actually refers to one particular specification.

Please, fellow developer/writer/manager, make an effort to understand the technologies you reference so you do not confuse other developers/writers/managers, set incorrect expectations with clients, or generally demonstrate that you do not get it (especially if you want to work for me).

I have written on this extensively (with many links in each article that are to further details not written by me):

• W3C Clarifies HTML5 Logo Is for HTML Only


• HTML5 Finally Gets... a Logo?


• Google, Arcade Fire Confused on HTML5


• Google Doodle: Bouncy Balls Aren't HTML5


• HTML5 and CSS3 Confusion

If you are a writer (whether a journalist, blogger or analyst) then please take a few moments to read this useful and informational post: HTML5: notes for analysts and journalists (also not written by me). There will be a quiz. I don't know when, but there will be a quiz.

Now, to reveal how Bruce and Chris really felt about the HTML5 confusion:

Here are posts from both Bruce and Chris discussing this confusion, within the context of the new HTML5 logo muddying the point earlier this year:

• On the HTML5 logo, by Bruce Lawson on January 18, 2011.


• HTML5 logo: be proud, but don’t muddy the waters!, by Chris Mills on January 18, 2011.

Read More

Social Media Day 2011 in Buffalo #smdayBUF

Last night marked the second Mashable-sponsored Social Media Day here in Buffalo. With 154 RSVPs for the event, the venue, The Eights Bistro, saw a steady churn throughout the night as people came and went (but mostly came and stayed).

If you were not there then you can catch up with some of the activity by viewing the Twitter stream, tagged with #smdayBUF. There were many photos throughout the evening, and as some of the albums start to show up I will link them here. If you have one you want linked, please pass it along. This includes any video or news coverage.

This year's event was organized by the Buffalo chapter of Social Media Club. The Buffalo chapter is less than a year old and has many of the members that helped organize the event last year, plus many newcomers. This year the event enjoyed a greater turnout and more people who can claim that social media is an official part of their jobs now, when even just a year ago many organizations were still just dabbling. Thanks for this year go out to (yes, I am just using their Twitter handles): @buffalogal, @k8creative, @dangigante, @ecollins7, @ashleiJ, @Isimon33, @aaronpsmith, and @djlopro

The list of sponsors is pictured below, and they were all kind enough to generate door prizes, services, time and effort.

In addition to all this fun, I decided to follow someone around who was capturing video of the event on her phone, making for a nice, pointless, unnecessarily loud video of my own (if you are at work, turn down your speakers before playing it):

As I said above, if you have your own images, videos or links, please send me the links or comment below.

Photos and Videos

• Buffalo.com pre-event coverage.


• Buffalo Rising pre-event coverage, written by Social Media Club Buffalo chapter president.
  
• Photos from Buffalo.com (#18 shows my awesome QR code shirt, and #27 makes me glad I sucked in my gut).


• Photos from Clark Dever, who provided photography services for last year's event as well.

Previous Events

• Social Media Club Buffalo: #TacoVino, December 10, 2010.


• Buffalo Launches Social Media Club Chapter, September 23, 2010.


• Event Profile: #smdayBUF & #smdayBUF 2.0, August 12, 2010 (posted at City Love Cloting).


• Social Media Day in Buffalo #smdayBUF, July 1, 2010.

Read More

Find QR Code Mistakes Before Making Your Own

The local AAF chapter here in Buffalo, Advertising Club of Buffalo, presented a primer on social media in its monthly AdLab event a couple nights ago. At the request of members, QR codes made an appearance on the topic list at the end of the presentation. While I could discuss the curious association QR codes seem to have with social media, that's outside the scope of what I want to discuss.

Technology issues aside, the presenters tried to explain to attendees that QR codes themselves are a call to action, and just as any call to action you have to be prepared to support it. One audience member suggested that just sending someone to a web site was a bad idea, another tweeted that they should be ignored:

In general, I think the crowd missed the point. And I think that's ok. If they don't immediately see the value of a QR code then they probably haven't identified a business case where it applies. I haven't identified a business case for a blimp for my business, so I can pretty much forget about blimps. I think we can all agree that's a safe way for me to go.

I have written about uses for QR codes before, but after my experience on Tuesday I am taking a different approach and writing up some practical, real-life experiences of where they fail in the hopes that I can provide some cautions when a real business case for their use does present itself.

Most people who will use a QR code will be using a smartphone. You don't see too many people wrangle their netbook or laptop out of the case just to capture a QR code in a print ad at their local coffee shop. Some might even have their tablet computer (ok, iPad) handy and will use that instead (ok, iPad 2).

Mobile Unfriendly

This ad promotes a series of local events that spanned a few days over assorted venues. As a smartphone user, I was looking forward to the prospect of maps, timelines, and descriptions of all the events, though I really only expected the same web site I could view on my desktop computer.

But this is what I saw on my phone:

And this what I saw on an iPad (I am showing the contact page to demonstrate that it is definitely not the correct site):

For context, here is the site as it appears in my Flash-enabled desktop computer (note, no handshake stock image):

I reached out to the organization to tell them there were problems, and they were quick to address as best they could, but they were also limited by the platform they chose. They used a platform called Wix, which allows clients to make Flash-based web sites for free, and automatically shunts users to an HTML-powered mobile template if it senses the user is on a smartphone. The problem is that for non-technical clients, it is not clear that there is a mobile site nor is it clear how to maintain it. This is a classic example of You Get What You Pay For.

Not Mobile Optimized

The same newspaper where I found the QR code I discuss above had another advertisement for a local college promoting its open house. The text below the QR code directs readers to scan the code to RSVP for the open house.

This is what I saw on my smartphone:

Here's what they did right with this: in the absence of being able to make a mobile-friendly site, they did nothing at all. It's not a Flash-based site, and it's not so reliant on cutting edge technology that a smartphone cannot render it. In fact, mobile browsers can handle this page pretty well.

Here's what's wrong: the user, having come to this page on his or her phone, now has to fill out 12 fields, including a simple spam blocker, to RSVP for the event. As an end user who just loaded the page on the phone to RSVP as the ad suggests, I didn't expect I'd have to bloody my thumbs entering this much information (hyperbole anyone?). As a technical user, I was hoping for an easy way to add this event to my calendar and maybe directions to the college that aren't a PDF download.

Context (added July 1, 2011)

In this example, I proudly wore my QR-code-embroidered shirt (well, one of them from my growing collection) to the Social Media Day event last night. Throughout the evening people asked about it and a few even scanned it — successfully.

As the night wore on and the bar became darker, there just wasn't enough light to get good enough contrast for a QR code scanner. Once that happened, people asked what it linked to and one, as evidenced by the tweet above, even made his own assumption.

Knowing how people will scan your QR code comes from understanding where they will be when scanning (a water park, the office, a car) and what they will be doing (drowning, working, driving). It's fair to assume that not all scenarios will be a good fit for a QR code, including some obvious ones like billboards on highways, so make an effort to understand the context of where it will appear along with the value of the reward for making the user go to the trouble.

Wrap-up

These are examples of good intentions. However, lack of a solid business case leading up to putting the QR code into advertisements, compounded by lack of understanding the medium after the QR code is scanned can result in a negative experience. Pile on the clear lack of testing on mobile devices for the first one and you have a recipe for disaster.

Now, to connect this with social media (because that's where I am borrowing these rules and where this discussion started), if you don't understand the medium, don't have a business case, and aren't prepared to commit (whether by testing or engaging) then that tweet way above is spot on — forget about QR codes.

Related

• How To Use QR Codes: A Marketer's Guide


• 5 Qr Code Failures To Learn From, May 14, 2011.


• Making and Using QR Codes, March 28, 2011 at evolt.org (also at my site).


• Real World Hyperlinks, March 8, 2010 at evolt.org (also at my site).

Read More

A Little More on Klout and My Magical Gift

The graphic above shows my Klout score as of today. Not only did my number jump dramatically, I also shifted from being an Explorer to being a Specialist. That corresponds to a two column jump in the Klout 4×4 graph of social influence. I don't know how that is measured, though, so I can't exactly tear that apart.

This graphic shows my Klout score as of yesterday. A balmy 49, or a 6 point jump from my 42 from one week ago. You'll notice both graphics indicate a jump of 2 points in the last thirty days, though without clarification of whether that's measured from my score on day 0, or my change from my last score. So I revisited my Score Analysis:

As you can see in this chart, the lowest point of my last thirty days is still above 50 (the tooltip in the image represents the point at the lowest part of the graph, coming in at 50.39). If you look at my score from yesterday, I was below 50, and yet according to this chart not only have I not been below 50 in thirty days, yesterday my score was 53.08. And to push this point again, precisely one week ago, my score was 42, as I proudly displayed in this image:

I have jumped 11 points in seven days. I have done it magically since it's not even tracked on the chart. I have apparently developed magical powers over time, space, and social influence.

This demonstrates precisely why I am suspect of any social influence scoring model that is used by any organization to deliver any level of different service or benefit.

Related

• Klout. Nail. Coffin. Who cares?, November 25, 2010 by Martijn Linssen.


• Why your Klout score is meaningless, June 1, 2011 by Alex Braunstein.


• Why your Klout score is meaningless, June 6, 2011 by Andrew Gelman.


• Does Your Klout Score Mean Anything?, June 21, 2011 by me.


• Social Scoring As the New SEO, June 27, 2011 by me.

Read More

Social Scoring As the New SEO

Lately I have noticed that Klout is getting a lot of traction in discussions about social media. It may be that there is just more coverage, or the name has started to penetrate to more users, or the idea of social scoring is becoming more interesting to marketers. It's also possible that I am keyed into it because I don't really believe the scoring model is truly accurate. On this last point, you can see my blog post from Tuesday, Does Your Klout Score Mean Anything? to understand my skepticism.

My skepticism was not assuaged when I noticed that my Klout dashboard (yes, I finally signed up) claims that my score has gone up 2 points in the last 30 days, justified by the handy plot Klout provides of that same period, even though I know 30 days ago my score was 7 points lower (I took a screen capture). It appears that after I added my Facebook and LinkedIn profiles to Klout, it retroactively adjusted my score. Which sounds very much like revisionist history and further erodes my confidence in Klout's platform.

Despite this clearly math-free scoring model, Mashable opened an article (with the technically accurate, but still unfortunate page address of klout-gate) last week with this unsurprising statement:

Your Facebook influence, as measured by Klout, will determine your access level to select brand pages on Facebook — and it could net you perks.

This weekend The New York Times published Got Twitter? You've Been Scored where it examines the scoring trend and what it means for consumers.

Companies with names like Klout, PeerIndex and Twitter Grader are in the process of scoring millions, eventually billions, of people on their level of influence [...] [T]hey are beginning to measure influence in more nuanced ways, and posting their judgments — in the form of a score — online.

The New York Times article takes it a bit further and outlines specific examples in the real world where a Klout score can have an impact on the perks, benefits and discounts a consumer might receive from brands:

More than 2,500 companies are using Klout's data. Last week, Klout revealed that Audi would begin offering promotions to Facebook users based on their Klout score. Last year, Virgin America used the company to offer highly rated influencers in Toronto free round-trip flights to San Francisco or Los Angeles. In Las Vegas, the Palms Hotel and Casino is using Klout data to give highly rated guests an upgrade or tickets to Cirque du Soleil.

While I believe this has significant parallels to SEO in its early days, the key difference is that this impacts individual consumers, not organizations trying to promote their web sites. The direct correlation with a tangible cost (whether by discount or freebie) also appeals to an individual more readily, since you don't need an accountant and a balance sheet to figure out the benefits.

Since Klout score is partly driven by your Twitter follower count, Twitter replies, Twitter retweets, Facebook friends and comments, and now LinkedIn activity (with the promise of Foursquare in the future), we can expect to see the recent scourge of Twitter follower guarantees (among others) make a comeback. Within a company, you might have an individual tasked with wading through these detrimental sales pitches, but the average consumer who wants a discount at a hotel might not understand that a promise of thousands of Twitter followers may ultimately guarantee a significant reduction in one's "score."

If you read this blog, then you are either technically capable, fancy yourself a social media expert, or think you know something about SEO (or you're my mom — Hi Mom!). Now would be a good time to take those skills and try to help your friends and family. Look for the same trends we saw in SEO spam ("Submit your site to hundreds of search engines!") and social media spam ("Twitter followers guaranteed!"), only with promises tweaked to the new target market (consumers).

Just as some companies wear their Google Page Rank with pride (or shame), we may start to see individual people do the same with the per-person analogue — their social influence score.

Read More

The evolt.org Logo Using Only CSS

This:

<p id="evolt">
<a href="http://evolt.org">evolt.org</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.evolt.org">lists.evolt.org</a><br>
<a href="http://browsers.evolt.org">browsers.evolt.org</a>
</p>

Begat this:

evolt.org

lists.evolt.org

browsers.evolt.org

See a little more detail and the CSS over at evolt.org.

Read More