Amazon Argues Against NY State Tax, Claiming It ‘Vague’ and ‘Invalid’

May 2, 2008

We here at Mashable recently touched briefly upon New York legislators’ consideration of a mandatory sales tax collected automatically by Amazon for purchases made by customers residing within the state. The proposal, a leftover from former governor Eliot Spitzer’s office, recently passed with approval from governor David Paterson, with objections from a number of commentators. Including myself, admittedly.

Most opposition to this measure centers around the basic principle that if a vendor (i.e., Amazon) is without a storefront or some other physical sales channel within the state in question, said vendor should not be required to administer a tax levy on customers within said state.

Well, now that the bill officially turned law, Amazon is trying to overturn its passing, according to Saul Hansell of The New York Times. It is arguing the legislation to be “overly broad and vague” and “invalid, illegal, and unconstitutional.” Chances are that the company will not be granted its wish.

The particularity that drove lawmakers to approve the measure is somewhat of a loose one. It says that, because Amazon operates an Associates program, in which its goods are marketed to visitors of third party sites (some based in the state of NY), that effectively makes for geographic attribution of sales and necessitates Amazon to provide tax revenue to the government. Yet, going by such logic, the law should ideally then require Amazon to gather taxes from customers only when they make purchases through any NY-based Associate. Which, if enough users of Amazon learned of this requirement, would drive consumers to simply ignore links on Associates’ pages and venture to the shopping megasite directly. The negative effect of such changes would be diminished income for site owners garnered through the affiliate program.

Regardless, Amazon will likely be forced to blanket its NY userbase with requests to pay taxes on their purchases. Given the state of American consumerism at the moment, the mandate may not bode well for the site in the short term, even with its commanding presence in the online retail space.

© Paul Glazowski for Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog, 2008. |
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ABC.com Talks Of Experimenting With More Ads Per TV Stream

May 2, 2008

Television networks have been sending original broadcast content to computer screens for many, many months now. Everyone from ABC to NBC to Fox to CBS are all in the business of grabbing as many advertising dollars as possible to make sure they don’t lose out on potential financial returns.

But they seem to only have garnered reasonably large audiences with their respective Web-based projects for the fact that they haven’t annoyed online viewers with a substantial number of spots. At present, most broadcasters routinely present video consumers with one advertisement per break, stretching from 15- to 30-seconds, two or more times per television episode. This seems a reasonable compromise for most. If you’re watching The Office or Family Guy on Hulu, say, and you’re asked to sit through two brief marketer spots, it’s not dreadful. Compared to traditional television, it’s a far better deal, no?

Sure. But ABC doesn’t appear pleased enough with that arrangement. According to Andrew Wallenstein of The Hollywood Reporter, the network is considering the placement of two advertisements, one after the other, within each video break on ABC.com. Indeed, rather than maintain the industry standard, which emphasizes “limited commercials” it may experiment with a two-fold advertising increase within its archive of episodic television on the Web. Albert Cheng, executive vice president of digital media for Disney-ABC Television Group, was quoted as saying: “It would be premature for us to say people only want one ad. It’s a likely sort of thinking (that viewers would want only one ad), but we want to push it a little bit to see how it would go.” According to the news report on the matter, DATG will commence research next week on the multiple-advertisement proposal.

ABC of course leaves a window open to reverse its efforts. Mr Cheng explained that “if research shows that users don’t want more ads per break, Disney won’t pursue the strategy.”

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Facebook Apps Useless? Heck no.

May 2, 2008

In analyzing a chart assembled this week by FlowingData as to the categorical makeup of Facebook’s application marketplace, Silicon Alley Insider’s Vasanth Sridharan purports the vast majority of third-party creations to be “useless.” Now, I wouldn’t argue for a second that Sridharan is entirely off base in making such an assessment. I imagine most items in that fast-expanding sea of software and services will fall into disuse, if they have not done so already.

But useless? Sure, that may be a phrase used to trigger a response, either for or against. Still, it seems odd to judge the marketplace so pertly. Certainly, the Facebook application database is comprised overwhelmingly with things labeled “Just for Fun,” but what exactly is wrong with that reality? Social networks these days are more and more often focused on things enjoyable and entertaining. What else would explain the media deals Facebook and MySpace and Bebo and Buzznet and so many others are scrounging for? Do “fun” things by default suggest irrelevance as far as application marketplace legitimacy is concerned?

In a past opinion published here at Mashable, I offered my reasoning that social networks would thrive well into the future largely due to developments in gaming and general leisure and amusements. I still stand by that statement. Given the growth in the broader gaming and entertainment space - whether one speaks about the phenomenal rise of the Wii or the wealth of premium video content making its way onto the Web - there’s little reason to think social networks will not need to survive as much on their productivity and connectivity options as their entertainment values. So this peculiar assumption that Facebook apps, given the parameters of fun vs. truly useful, are useless really holds little weight.

Yes, most titles in the Facebook application space will be ignored by the network’s many millions of users. That is an inevitable truth. But the statistics shown by FlowingData should presumably be taking in relative measure. Even if most applications are passed over, the majority chosen remain either in the ‘Just for Fun’ or ‘Gaming’ sets. Again, useless? On the whole. I think not.

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Thanks to Our Sponsors

May 2, 2008

This week, Mashable would like to thank our sponsors: EdgeCast Networks, IDrive, and andUNITE.

EdgeCast Networks offers a superior, cost-effective, global content delivery service that gives our customers competitive advantage in the delivery of digital media. Our world-class content delivery platform provides customers the cost benefits and flexibility of controlling their own content delivery network while liberating them from ISP contracts, capital investments and operational hassles.

IDrive is a leading Consumer and Small Business focused Online Backup service. IDrive is a simple and safe way to back up all the important stuff on your computer. A copy of user data is stored in a secure, remote location for safekeeping, so that in the event of disaster user data is retrievable from anywhere via Internet. IDrive’s features include automated critical data selection and scheduling via web as well as desktop agent, fast search to backup data, central console to manage multiple accounts, Continuous Data Backup, Open File and Locked file backup, Virtual Drive access and many more.

andUNITE turns search engines into meeting places. By using andUNITE.com you will be able to see immediately during your normal Internet search at Google & Co. who else searched for the same search terms as you did – no extra steps needed! By this, other users can help you directly if the search engine results are of no help to you – or you can help others. andUNITE.com is a unique, award winning Web service where you can find people with similar interests based on search terms. You can sign up anonymously and you always have full control of the privacy status of all of your search terms. andUNITE.com is already fun with only two people and you don’t have to fill in just another profile page since the profile is created automatically by collecting your search terms. Add andUNITE to your browser search box or install the toolbar for the full functionality including the “social layer” on top of the search result pages and see how exciting it can be to share your search terms with friends or anybody.

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Also, thanks to Sun Startup Essentials for sponsoring Startup Review. Now, it pays even more to be faster than everyone else. Turn cost savings and shortened development cycles into a competitive edge with the Sun Startup Essentials program. Time to market is critical to the success of any new business. The Sun Startup Essentials program is specifically designed to help you get your startup business off the ground in record time, by providing you with the expertise and services you need to get up and running fast. When you join the Sun Startup Essentials program, you gain access to industry-leading systems at deep discounts, free world-class software and web-based training, discounts on partner hosting services, and more! Conserve your cash and get ready for wild success with Sun.

For the development of social applications, including applications for Facebook and Google OpenSocial, Mashable recommends Aux Interactive. Aux is the only social application vendor officially endorsed by Mashable.

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Google News Now Looks Beautiful On Your iPhone

May 2, 2008

Finally, Google News is now available for iPhone and iPod Touch, for users in over 30 countries. Wait…iPhone isn’t available in over 30 countries, right? Oh well, let’s just shelve this one with the rest of unsolved mysteries, like the fact that Apple sells way more iPhones than its exclusive carrier, AT&T, has iPhone subscribers.

In any case, Google News for the iPhone is here, and it looks really nice, as you can see in the image below. To reach it from your device, you have several options:

- Go to www.google.com, click on the “more” tab and follow the link to Google News
- Go to www.google.com and do a search, then click on the News link at the top of the screen
- Go directly to Google News at news.google.com in your browser

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Ien Cheng Switches FT With Google

May 2, 2008

We’ve gotten used to writing about folks leaving Google, but every once in a while someone who’s not 22 and fresh from college joins the company. This time it’s Ien Cheng of Financial Times fame; he’ll leave the company to become the director of product management for advertising on Google’s European lead team.

Cheng feels he’s done a good job at FT; in an internal email he said that:

“…instead of a company that was demoralised and disappointed at our online performance after years of falling behind the competition, the Financial Times is today newly confident across all areas - from editorial and technology to marketing and ad sales - to win in an internet world. I remain as proud of and hopeful for the Financial Times in a digital age as ever. I’ve simply been offered an opportunity at Google that is, for me, unmissable.“

Cheng worked in business and product development since he joined Financial Times in 2000; he then switch to reporting, got promoted to publisher of FTChinese.com, and ended his career there working on the implementation of FT’s new subscription model.

[Image credits: journalism.co.uk]

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News Inflation Reaches Unimaginable New Heights

May 2, 2008

Every once in a while, something big is about to happen, and then it’s delayed. Or we don’t know exactly when will it go down. Aching to write something - anything, really - and to keep up with the competition, all the news sites and blogs in the world start speculating. One imaginary news item draws another; one photoshopped image is compared to another; weird predictions based on nothing become milestones which are to be quoted for weeks. We’re all slightly annoyed, but pretty much used to it by now.

But I’ve never seen it so bad as right now.

The problem is, we have two major tech events that are about to happen - Microsoft-Yahoo saga and the upcoming iPhone 2.0 - and while absolutely no one knows anything about the latter, and very few people can intelligently predict the outcome of the former, we see an unbelievable influx of news about these two topics every single day.

Case in point: today’s front page of Techmeme. After the initial news about Microsoft’s unsolicited bid for Yahoo, it was fun predicting how it might go down for a while. But after both companies tangled a very complex web around it, I’m quite sure that not even the decision makers can be certain on the outcome, let alone the rest of us.

Still, we’ve now got SIA predicting there’s a 60% chance Microsoft walks away from the Yahoo deal (how do they come up with these numbers?) or Ballmer’s asinine claim that Microsoft can build an online ad business without Yahoo, it just takes a bit more time.

Let’s make this clear. He’s saying that they’re willing to spend 44.6 billion dollars, to buy a little more time? How much time we’re talking about here, decades, centuries, eons? Yet, this statement has drawn hundreds of news articles - including this one, I’m not shying away from the responsibility here - and, let’s face it, most of them are quite worthless, because they’re based on thin air.

The story with iPhone 2.0 is even worse. This is the big story of the day. Now, consider the image below as exhibit a.

What does this picture tell us? That the new iPhone will have

a) exactly the same screen size
b) sensors rearranged a couple of millimeters left or right
c) more curvaceous body, on a microscopical scale
d) it will maybe (note the question mark in the image) come in red

And it’s all an absolutely unconfirmed rumor.

Hell, I’ve heard a rumor that one of the books in my library has been inhabited by a moth; wanna read a detailed analysis? I’ll throw in a couple of diagrams to sweeten the deal.

I’m not pointing fingers at anyone here. Bloggers are scribomaniacs by definition, and news sites are trying to keep up. But I would definitely read about a small startup with a nice little product that actually does something right now, than have to go through another analysis of MSFT-YHOO deal until something actually happens with it.

BTW, the iPhone is definitely going black, the 3G chip will be made by Foxconn, and the touch screen is going haptic. I’ve heard it from a reliable source.

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Bountii Upgrades Broaden Price Comparison Shopping

May 2, 2008

Bountii is a price comparison search engine that launched late last year, along with some funding from Y Combinator. As far as price comparison search engines go, Bountii not only restricts the number of retailers it crawls, but then digs deeper into the pricing details in order to provide users with more value than similar sites.

Though still remaining selective about the retailers it crawls, Bountii has in fact tripled the number of stores for the pricing information it displays. Bountii started out by letting you search and compare prices on electronics, but now also searches appliances as well. Appliance search tends to have greater appeal and necessity in a highly localized market, so I do wonder if Bountii will be looking more towards advertising on this end.

Whatever the case may be, any user hoping to earn some money from Bountii itself now ha an opportunity to do so, by finding prices for items that are lower than what Bountii already provides. It’s an age-old tactic that gets the consumer to help out with some of the research and dirty work, but it’s a method that still works well, especially if the consumer is gettin paid to help out.

Other new features include RSS feeds for pricing updates on any given search query, and social sharing capabilities for search results through a new widget. This widget really comes in handy when you need to share info on a site like Craigslist, or even eBay. This particular feature is meant for those sellers that would like to emphasize the quality of their own products, which they’re likely selling, but I imagine a widget and other social sharing features could come in handy for other reasons as well.

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Head to Head: Document Sharing Sites

May 2, 2008

From CMS to online word processors, there is no dearth of services and tools to help you put your documents online. The latest fad seems to be the online document sharing sites where you can upload and share your documents in their original formats. Below are five of the popular ones, some of which we have covered individually on this site before as well.

You can also check out how these services stand up against one another in our comparison table here.

(…)
Read the rest of Head to Head: Document Sharing Sites (529 words)

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Will Aggregation Ever Go Mainstream?

May 2, 2008

Louis Gray has an interesting post on what makes FriendFeed so addictive for those of us in the early adopter set. There are quite a few folks that are trying to make a go of it in the lifestreaming and aggregation set. As Louis said:

Plaxo did it. Profilactic did it. Iminta did it. Socialthing did it. FriendFeed did it. Facebook is starting to do it.

But simple aggregation is not enough. What FriendFeed got right very early on in the game is that it’s one thing to get all the services in one page, and quite another to make them interactive, so friends can talk to friends and peers can show peers what they like. Back in November, I wrote, “I first became interested in FriendFeed as the service could aggregate friends’ Web activity in a single place. But in recent weeks, it’s grown to be much more.”

FriendFeed became more because of two things: participation and discovery.

The feature sets, though, of FriendFeed have been matched set for set by nearly all the competitors, both in aggregation, discovery and discussion. The only difference is that FriendFeed is the one that folks have gravitated towards.

Louis goes on to say:

Now, as the early adopter crowd has found the FriendFeed religion, despite the occasional grumpy holdout, they’re now finding that the real potential in FriendFeed, as with other Web services, comes through participation.

Interestingly enough, though, it’s more than the occaisional grumpy hold out. As much as I love FriendFeed, it seems that every time I speak to anyone outside the echo chamber, they’re just not fans of FriendFeed. It isn’t that they don’t understand it, or like Kara Swisher’s friends they haven’t heard of it. It’s that they’ve tried it, and they just don’t like it.

Much like my post decrying all the talk of the recession, if I were to do a post entitled “Enough With The Talk of FriendFeed and Twitter,” I’m sure I’d get a surprisingly large number of comments in agreement. I think it isn’t that these sites aren’t cool and fun. I think that it’s just for folks who aren’t news junkies or folks who don’t make their hobbies and livings being up to date on the news have other things to be doing.

Frederic over at The Last Podcast as well as Corvida at SheGeeks both broached the topics of the chasm between the early adopters and the mainstream recently. Corvida concluded:

Maybe the masses aren’t ready for these platforms. Still, these are early adopter tools, regardless of the growth that one may be seeing. They all have the potential to go mainstream, but there’s a lot of work to be done. We’re still in our own bubble. Or are we?

Frederic continues with that stream of thought:

FriendFeed doesn’t really solve a problem for most mainstream users. It’s great for us geeks who have friends scattered all over the Internet, all of whom use Twitter, Jaiku, Flickr, blogs, reddit, delicious, last.fm etc.

Just have a look at the ‘everyone‘ stream on FriendFeed and you quickly get a feeling for who the current users are. Hint: it’s not people sharing photos with their grandparents.

Essentially, while FriendFeed is a great tool for us folks in the early adopter crowd, something needs to be done to either make lifestreaming and aggregation not only accessible to the newbs, but useful. I firmly believe that the future of New Media and even to a certain extent journalism is going to be in the social nets like this, as opposed to centralized around blogging hubs. It’s the nature of the evolution of these services to start to fill that niche.

But unless these tools can start to fill the needs of the mainstream, as opposed to the needs of the bleeding edge, they (like TechMeme) will continue to remain the utilities of the news junkies and the professional bloggers.

© Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins for Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog, 2008. |
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