Beyond "Censored": What Craigslist's "Adult Services" Decision Means for Free Speech. On Saturday, after years of pressure from law enforcement officials, Internet classified ad web site Craigslist bowed to demands to remove its "Adult Services" section which critics charged encouraged prostitution and other sex-related crimes. Or at least it appears that it did. Without explanation, following the latest in a series of open letters from state attorneys general decrying the third party content permitted on the site, Craigslist replaced the "Adult Services" link that formerly appeared on the front page of the site with a white-on-black "censored" bar.
Whether this move will substantially affect the rate of illegal prostitution across the country remains to be seen. Many, even some of Craigslist's critics, appear to have their doubts. The federal statutory immunity upon which Craigslist relies is not some clever loophole. It didn't have to be this way. At least two lessons can be drawn from this latest skirmish in the battle between Craigslist and its critics. The Future of Social Objects. The Internet of Things, when real world objects are connected to the Internet, has been slow to attract the attention of budding entrepreneurs. However, there has been some startup action in so-called "social objects. " We've covered two companies in this domain in recent times, StickyBits and TalesOfThings. The New York Times profiled a third company in this space over the weekend, Itizen.
All of these startups are searching for a business model, but there is massive long term potential in this market. Leandro Agro, CEO of sensor data company WideTag (our review), says that by 2050 objects will be judged more for their 'sociality' than their aesthetic value. It's an intriguing notion, so in this post we imagine what a 'social' tennis racquet might look like in 40 years. Living Objects "Every object should tell its own story. A Social Tennis Racquet (Circa 2050) Using Agro's vision, here is one possible scenario. Imagine a tennis racquet with an RFID chip embedded in it.
The newswire quandary. Questions: should newswire agencies serve consumers – directly? And, to a broader extent, how does the current information shift impact the agencies’ future? Two recent events lead me to explore these questions in today’s Monday Note. The first one is rather significant: last week, Associated Press announced a deal with Google allowing the search engine to republish its newswire stories. And the second was the admission by the new CEO of Agence France-Presse that he was indeed willing to join the B2C fray. Before going further, a bit of disclosure. About a year ago, the previous AFP CEO asked me to evaluate the newswire agency’s strategy. With this out of the way, let’s go back to the issue of newswires going after the consumer market. Unfortunately, there is not one answer to this question.
With the advent of instant and ubiquitous information, the dominance – and even the relevance – of the “Big Three” (Bloomberg is marginally in the general news segment) is now seriously challenged. What Life Means To Me by Jack London.