Andrew Orlowski

Collected Journalism

Tag: Techno utopians

  • The Long Tail can seriously damage your business

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    The most comprehensive empirical study of digital music sales ever conducted has some bad news for Californian technology utopians. Since 2004, WiReD magazine editor Chris Anderson has been hawking his “Long Tail” proposition around the world: blockbusters will matter less, and businesses will “sell less of more”. The graph has become iconic – a kind of ‘Hockey Stick’ for Web 2.0 – with the author applying his message to many different business sectors. Alas, following the WiReD Way of Business … Read More

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  • The Great Circular Awards Ceremony

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Showered with awards

    Is there a more incestuous and self-congratulatory scene anywhere outside the fashion business?

    What a strange world it is, the world of “digital rights” activism. Campaigners pause only to pat each other on the back.

    Last week, anti-copyright campaigners Public Knowledge revealed their annual award winners. The group’s president Gigi B Sohn proudly announced the winners: fellow campaigner Carl Malamud of PublicResource.org, fellow campaigner Ben Scott of FreePress… and fellow campaigner Fred Von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the … Read More

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  • One Laptop Per Child: it’s a con, says former exec

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    The former security director of the One Laptop Per Child non-profit has blasted the project for losing sight of its goals, accusing chairman Nicholas Negroponte of deceiving the public. It’s all about shipping kit, says Ivan Krstić in an incendiary essay.

    “I quit when Nicholas told me — and not just me — that learning was never part of the mission. The mission was, in his mind, always getting as many laptops as possible out there; to say anything about … Read More

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  • Futurist’s music widget goes titsup 2.0

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Music’s best-known “futurist” has admitted his latest business idea has flopped and the service will close. Gerd Leonard of “Music 2.0” fame, who popularised the phrase “music flows like water”, has discovered that on the internet, revenue flows like set cement.

    His company Sonific, which allows bloggers to embed a widget that plays music, will suspend its service on May 1. The founder blamed “lack of solid revenue modelling”

    (Translation 2.0: no income).
    … Read More

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  • Teachers: Feel my Truthiness – Jimbo

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Yes, it’s that time of year when children eagerly gather round a kindly old man with a beard. He makes great promises to them, if only they just work hard enough. But they just get a load of obscenities back.

    Only it’s not Santa.

    Wikipedia’s Maximum Leader and peripatetic salesman Jimmy Wales breezed into London yesterday. This time he’s pitching Jimbo’s Big Bag of Trivia at teachers and lecturers.… Read More

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  • How Web 2.0 concentrates power, and makes Microsoft stronger

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    One IT Manager, bemoaning his lot to me, recently compared the rise of Web 2.0 enthusiasts to the problem the Police has with Freemasons. The blog and wiki evangelists within are not as secretive, of course, but they’re equally cult-like: speaking their own language, and using the populist rhetoric of “empowerment” for relentless self-advancement.

    He couldn’t care less that employees were “wasting” time on Facebook – that was a “problem” for their line managers to deal with, and not an … Read More

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