Learning Aloud

Flickr is one of those great services that began as an independent initiative and then was purchased by one of the larger “players” (Yahoo in this case). I have always assumed this was a business model – become popular, get purchased – because how the original Flickr folks expected to cover their costs was never obvious to me.

It now appears that Yahoo is making the effort to integrate Flickr as a service. When Flickr was first purchased, the impact on users was minimal. The service you were using was simply owned by someone else. I am guessing this situation did not tie in Flickr users sufficiently to benefit Yahoo. A transition of sorts required users to obtain a Yahoo account (no cost) and this process probably brought some exposure to other Yahoo services AND the ads embedded within such services.

Yahoo now appears to want to clean up loose ends and completely integrate Flickr within Yahoo. Those of us who joined before the transition received the following message:

You’re getting this email from Flickr HQ because you decided to detach your “markdgrabe” Flickr account from its Yahoo! ID. That means you’ve got what we like to call a “dangly” Flickr account that you need to deal with.

I have been trying untangle this situation for several days without much luck. I don’t have a great investment in the images I have stored in Flickr because this is one more of those services I have used so that I have an understanding of how the service works and can discuss the service based on experience. If a “dangly” account goes away, I can upload some new sample images without much difficult. However, I do like to play with the gadgets, widgets, or whatever offered by these services and have embedded Flickr services in several of my public offerings (e.g., this blog). I may have to wait for something to break and then fix it before this Yahoo transition makes sense to me.

The trip was going so well, but things have now gone south (or west in this case). The Hawaii flight was a little slow in getting into Las Vegas and Northwest said that 45 minutes would not be enough time to load our bags and passengers must fly with their bags. One in our party has a 6 month old and could have gone without bags so she could get the baby home, but Northwest had already taken the opportunity to give our seats away. There are no open seats for several days – I suppose because of Spring break. We will try to get out stand by at 6 in the morning.

One positive thing about the Las Vegas airport – free wifi.

Rest of the story:

S0, it is Friday and there are no open seats out until Tuesday. We go stand by.

Cindy and Lynn (with baby Addison) are allowed on a 6 AM flight. Women with children and women with broken leg (Cindy) first!

Kim and Jimbo make it on a 12 noon flight. Only room for two.

ME? I am the only one left, but they start allowing “elite” members to go to the head of the list. I am not elite enough.

5:50 PM and somebody fails to show. I get my chance. I have watched this process now for many hours and I have witnessed the angry passengers show up a few minutes to late and confront the individual at the gate to let them board. I am nervous until the door is closed. We taxi to the end of the runway and stop. We all wait. After a couple of minutes, the pilot comes on the intercom and says that his computer is showing an error message. He was able to reset the computer, but the maintenance people want to have a look. Fine with me. We taxi back to the gate and sit there – for a couple of hours.

They open the door to allow the maintenance men into the plane. No one follows to drag me off.

It turns out to be something related to the avionics cooling system. It is like those little fans in your computer says the captain. I get back to MSP sometime after midnight.

PS – I would have updated this blog from the Las Vegas airport, but I left my computer glasses (something like reading glasses) in the plane we took from Hawaii. When I get very tired (evidently sometime past 30 hours), things begin to look fuzzy. Sometimes, it is just better to get up the next day and start over. 🙂

Here is perhaps a glimpse at something new (actually old as an idea, but new as a product).

Here is a new service to keep your eye on (I have probably said this before). Freebase is a new type of user authored information source in which users add both content and connections. It is dangerous to suggest comparisons to the human brain, but one thing our brains appear to do that offers an advantage over simple storage is to connect the units of information we store (nodes and links). Looking up information when we want is great and the reality of access to information on demand argues against the need to memorize. However, what people miss in suggesting that searching the net eliminates the need for personal storage is that we do more than store information. We connect it. The connections we form may be activated when we retrieve this information and the connected information likely has some utility for us or we would not have formed the connections during encoding. The next generation or semantic web may offer potentially useful connections as well as the information we request.

In describing Freebase, blogger Nicholas Carr describes a wiki-like repository layered with user created metadata connecting elements of information.

Esther Dyson offers additional comments on this project.

This is not an educational topic per se, but the comment does concern the general topic of copyright and appropriate compensation to content producers.

My interest in technology has expanded my interest in music. Most of the music I listen to moves through one of my computers. This interface adds an added dimension because of the potential social network that can be connected to this music. When I purchase something from iTunes, the recommendations alert me to similar artists who may interest me. I am actually more interested in services such as last.fm or mashups such as pandorafm. These sources provide a variety of services that deepen my interest in the music I listen to and the artists who create this content.

It appears that the RIAA intends to increase the royalties demanded of internet radio services. I learned of this because the increase costs threaten the continuation of Pandora. This increase is anticipated to be especially damaging to what were previously regarded as a special category described as small webcasters (e.g., Rogueamoeba). As I read the law, it appears the minimum fee is $500. The cost per performance is about a tenth of a cent. It doesn’t sound like much, but those offering services at the low end typically do not collect money (there may be an occasional request for a donation).

Copyright is such a complex issue to me because different media work in different ways and because the problem is not necessarily that an opportunity exists, but that individuals might inappropriately take advantage of that opportunity (e.g., capturing a personal copy from what was intended as a one time experience). Differences in how we tend to respond to media are interesting. Theoretically, producers may benefit from different exposure models, but such differences are difficult to document. There is a concept I teach in the intro psychology section on motivation that would seem to apply. For example, Maslow’s hierarchy differentiates deficiency needs and growth needs. Responding to a deficiency need reduces the need to respond again. In contrast, responding to a growth need potentially increases the motive to respond again. Music often seems to function like a growth need. Finding a song or artist that you like increases willingness to listen to that same song or artist again. Hence, it has been argued that listening to an occasional song via internet radio increases rather than decreases sales for quality material. Access to most video and text material in most cases operates like a deficiency need. If I have the opportunity to view a movie or read a book for free, there are only a few rare cases in which that opportunity would increase my desire to then purchase that resource and certainly the general impact would be to reduce sales. I guess I believe that producers should have the right to control access to their creative works, but at least in the case of music I would think certain forms of free exposure would offer a financial advantage.