Thomas Hawk of blog tag, so I m supposed to tell you five things that you don t already know about me. At first I wasn t going to do it, but since Tom was the one who introduced me to tagging articles, photo-tagging and geo-tagging, I figure that he probably knows a thing or two about playing tag, so here goes.
1.

) The best prize I ever won was a free Turkey. At the time I thought I would get a live one, but sadly my bird was frozen, yet still quite tasty.
2.

) I once actually attended clown school
3.) The first time I served Jury Duty, I volunteered to be the foreman and we spent three days arguing over a fender bender before we hopelessly deadlocked.
4.

) I used to have a pet goat. It would eat anything.
5.

) At one time in my life, I worked as a butler.
Since Alex Raiano is , I ll tag him, , , . December 28, 2006.

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As more and more criminals have discovered how lucrative cyber crime can be, it s causing a shortage of tech talent for the crime lords who run the digital sewer.

In , the BBC reports that these gangs are starting to go to increasingly desperate measures in order to recruit hackers into their criminal underworlds. To a certain extent, this shouldn t really be all that surprising. People love using technological advancements, but there are only so many people who really actually understand how the infrastructure works and more importantly to the criminals, how to get around the .

At the same time, crime is easy. Anyone can steal, getting away with it s the hard part and with the digital transition, it creates opportunities that many two bit theives want to cash in on even though they lack the skills to do this themselves. The problem is though, like any case where demand exceeds supply, there are only so many criminals who are willing to work in the cyberslums.

As a result criminal enterprises have started paying for students to get technlogy degrees and have started recruiting kids who dabble in hacking into their gangs.
While I can understand the to teenagers, this trend is really very frightening. Criminals aren t the sort of people who make investments in human capital and then .

If someone is going to blow $100K on an education, you have to expect that they re going to want to make that money back, plus a lot of profit for the risks they are taking. With cyber crime having become even more sophisticated, these recruitment efforts are a natural way for these gangs to fill their need for quality tech people. With so many legitimate opportunities out there in life, it s sad to think that people are trapping themselves in lives of crimes just so that they can and run con jobs.

Hopefully, this trend won t turn out to be a long term development for the tech industry because there are already enough problems trying to stop the people who don t know what their doing, let alone the ones who get training. December 9, 2006. , .

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Last year, I saw that Steve Swasey, Netflix s Director of Corporate Communications, granted an interview with an investment website named . At the time, the site had erroneously claimed that Netflix was planning on unveiling a movie download service shortly , when Netflix had in fact, just told investors that they were for a Netflix / TiVo service for the indefinite future.

When I in the company s reporting, rather then making a public correction and admiting that they were wrong, they instead silently changed the story to remove the language that was in the original article.
Being interested in Netflix, I had registered with WallSt.net, in order to listen to the interview.

Unfortunately, I quickly found the email address that I had used was overrun with penny stock spam. While I have no way of knowing whether or not WallSt.net was behind the spam, I did find it interesting to note that several of the companies that pay them to promote their stocks were included in these emails.

Regardless of whether or not WallSt.net was responsible for sending out the penny stock spam though, it s clear that the company uses press releases as a tactic to tie legitimate companies to illiquid penny stocks that they have a financial interest in promoting. At the time of their first Netflix interview, they had issued a press release that appeared on the Netflix business wire, that included a mention of Teleplus Enterprises ( ) in the headline.

Since that date, Teleplus has lost over 52% of their value.
A few days later, WallSt.Net issued another press release on the Netflix business wire, promoting their Netflix interview yet again and this time referencing a company named Securac Corp.

( ) and China Mobility Solutions ( ). Since that time Securac has lost 91% of their market value and China Mobility has lost 80%.
At the time, I had dismissed the interview as an honest mistake by Swasey and had assumed that Netflix would not have initially provided them with the interview, had they known about WallSt.

net s penny stock tactics beforehand. After seeing them abuse their coverage of their initial interview to tout these penny stocks, I had assumed that Netflix would cut off communication with their firm, yet earlier this week, I was suprised to find out that Steve Swasey has yet again, given another interview to WallSt.net and this morning, surprise surprise, WallSt.

net issued to the business newswires, reminding investors that they have an update on Checkpoint, Netflix and a company named Infinix Corp ( ). Infinix is a penny stock that trades on the pink sheets that has convienently agreed to pay WallSt.Net $3,150 for media and advertising services.

Now I don t know anything about Infinix or their business model, but I do know that because they trade on the pink sheets, it which means that they are exempt from providing regulatory filings that legitimate public companies have to maintain. Investors don t get quarterly financial reports, an accurate view of the number of shares outstanding, or any other important information that one needs to make informed decisions.
Why Netflix would allow their good corporate reputation to be sullied by these cheap carnival barkers is beyond me, but I find their continued support of the company to be truly disturbing.

Considering, that after covering every single intimate detail about Netflix for nearly three years, that I can t even get Netflix s PR department to respond to a single email from me, I m amazed that this site has been able to get not one, but two opportunities to muddy Netflix s financial reputation. Had Netflix investors fallen for WallSt.net s press release touting scheme last year, it would have cost them dearly and yet a year later, Steve Swasey is more then happy to publically discuss Netflix from a financial perspective on their site.

Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice shame on Netflix. November 21, 2006. , , .

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If there was ever a poster child for , I would be it. Every movie I rent from Netflix is from their archived content, when I search for music online it is always for , I even bought my car through that gave me more flexibility then a traditional dealership.

I m not sure that I can pinpoint the exact appeal of the longtail, but part of it, is that I like being able to support the underdog.
Whether it s choosing a small club over a stadium concert or prefering a new restaurant over an old favorite, I m the sort of person who will only bet on the underdog when I go to Las Vegas. It could be the , it could be my natural affinity for innovation, or it may just be that I like having lots and lots of choices, but when it comes to choosing between the longtail or the short head, I ll pick the longtail 95% of the time.

Given my natural bent towards longtail preferences, it came as no surprise, that when I needed to find new furniture for my place, I naturally turned towards the internet. This wasn t my first move though, in fact I spent several Saturdays picking through local furniture stores, but everything I found was either generic or extremely expensive. It wasn t until I turned to the net, that I realized I could not only save 50%, but that I could also increase my choices by expanding my search beyond the few local shops in my neighborhood, and into the thousands of local businesses across the entire US.

At first the choice was almost overwhelming, but finally I came across a store named Everything Furniture that seemed to have what I needed. Not only did they offer me a diverse and unique selection to choose from, but I found online as well.
While initially I had intended on writing a glowing review on the company by using them as an example of the benefits of living in the longtail, unfortunately my experience didn t allow me to score this transaction as a victory for my longtail lifestyle.

Yes, they delivered the furniture and yes it was much less expensive then purchasing furniture using a more traditional route, but there were several obstacles I had to overcome along the way.
The first was actually receiving the furniture itself. The delivery took longer then expected and while I didn t mind waiting, I was disappointed when the shipping firm that they outsourced my order to, tried to extort me when it did arrive.

Basically, my shipper flat out refused to move any of my furniture beyond the front door of my apartment building, despite there being an oversized elevator designed for just such a delivery.
When I protested that he he was leaving me with a lot of cargo and without any means of getting it to my apartment, I was told that for $20 (wink wink nudge nudge) he d bend the insurance rules and bring the cargo to my front door. While I wouldn t have minded paying an extra $20 for shipping, I did mind that this was never disclosed upfront and that the shipper was willing to break the rules as long as I slipped him a Lincoln.

When I refused he left me to transport several large boxes on my own, without the proper equipment.
Once I managed to drag the boxes into my apartment, I quickly discovered that one of the pieces had been damaged during the shipping. I contacted Everything Furniture and they agreed to ship out a replacement piece, but it meant I had to wait another 2 - 3 weeks before completing my purchase.

While these issues were minor obstacles for me to deal with, the one that made me never want to do business with Everything Furniture again, was what happened after I completed my purchase. Shortly after receiving my furniture, I began to receive, at least, 2 catalogs a day from countless mail order companies. Over the last month, I ve called 2 dozen companies and have asked to be taken off of their mailing lists, yet everyday I seem to get another catalog from a different company, which necessitates another telephone call on top of a 90 day waiting period, before they actually stop sending me anything.

While I understand that Everything Furniture needs to turn a profit, they never asked my permission to sell my name and address to a catalog spam list and receiving junk mail is something that I m particularly sensitive to.
We have laws against , rules and prohibitions against , yet there is little that I can do to prevent being bombarded with one Christmas catalog after another.
I ve never purchased anything from a catalog in my life and I don t intend to start now.

By quickly glancing over many of these mailings, I can tell that the prices are outrageous and that they are wasting their postage by sending them to me. While the discount on the furniture was nice, I would have picked another company to do business with, in a heartbeat, had I known that the cost of my purchase would be death by mail.
My experience isn t likely to change my outlook on the longtail, but it does serve as a good warning on the dangers of living in the longtail.

With many choices comes many risks and while I may have been smart enough to make sure that I wasn t going to be ripped off by Everything Furniture, I never thought to research their business practices before placing my order. While the abundance of choice can be a good thing, something can also be said for sticking with brands that have established reputations as being good corporate citizens. Everything Furniture may have fulfilled their contractual obligation with me, but the experience now serves as an important reminder to be more careful when doing business with companies I ve never heard of.

November 16, 2006. , , , . .

Studio executives would like you to believe that HD-DVD and Blu-ray represent the future of the DVD, but according to Ad-Jab . In a move sure to infuriate fans everywhere, HD-DVD is going to start including enhanced advertising content on the extra space that HD-DVD discs allow for.
The only thing more controversial then when you buy a DVD are when you go see a film.

The advertisments that you can opt out of, or skip past don t bother me quite as much, but I can t tell you how many times I ve rented a movie and have then been forced to sit through some lousy spot that I have no interest in.
It would be one thing if the DVD was free, but when I m paying hard earned cash for premium content, it s just not right double dip into adverstising as well.
The HD-DVD and Blu-ray has been , but if the studios plan on filling up that capacity with a bunch of spammy ads, it s going to give consumers one more reason to take a pass on the technology.

The strategy for HDTV DVDs has been a failure from the start and if the HD-DVD and Blu-ray camps can t figure a way out of their stalemate, they risk being made largely irrelvent by video on demand. With the Xbox 360 now offering HDTV downloads, it is only a matter of time before we see VOD technology more broadly adopted.
It s already a tough sell to get someone to pay up the big bucks for access to HDTV DVD technology, but if they are now going to including ads, after early adopters have shelled out $1,000 for what could possibly be obsolete technology, you can bet that there will be a backlash.

Hopefully, the studios will realize that they need to do something fast because everyday that delays the implementation of HDTV DVD technology is one less day that the studios will be able to justify charging $15 - $20 for a movie. November 7, 2006. , , , .

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I only lived in Seattle for three years, but it was long enough to get a sense of the pride that takes in their sense of privacy. Washington was one of the first states to pass laws combatting spam and they ve taken an aggressive stance against online marketing abuses that occur within in their state.

In their latest move to combat spyware, Washington state has sued Movieland.com for alleging offering a free three day trial and then saying that they owed them money.
I hope that Movieland gets buried by this lawsuit.

If what is being alleged is true, they deserve to have an example made out of them. I understand that it s tempting to use slime ball tactics to make money, but with so many opportunities out there, it s really not necessary to try and scam people in order to make a living. Pop ups are bad enough, but to tell people that they owe money for a free trial is even worse.

August 16, 2006. . .