Four Important Points on SOPA and PIPA

January 19, 2012

Four things worth noting:

  • The fight over SOPA and PIPA is not an unfair fight unduly influenced by billions of dollars in dirty money.  While it is true that a billion dollar lobbying industry headed by Capitol Hill insiders helped piece together the bills, the primary opposition to them is also a multibillion dollar industry.  Corporate entities like Google make lots of money off of content, most of which is legal and some of which is illegal.
  • SOPA and PIPA do not legally place an undue burden on businesses in the sense that it simply requires them to do their due diligence to fight the crime facilitated by their service.  This is standard practice.  Bars don’t serve drunks, pawn shops can’t buy stolen goods, photo labs won’t reprint copyrighted pictures, and pharmacies have to verify narcotic prescriptions.  It’s not silly to suggest that YouTube, which makes money off of each video view, should have to reasonably ensure their content is legal.
  • It’s offensive to suggest that SOPA would place the US on par with China, Syria, or Iran in terms of repression and censorship.  Being tracked down and imprisoned, beaten, or executed for your internet activity is not the same as losing blog access.  Ask the protestors in Tahrir Square.
  • There really is a lot of pirated content online.*  Any ideas on how to actually reduce that?  SOPA is bad, but we all have a compelling interest in reducing the theft of other people’s property, so let’s have alternatives from the anti-SOPA crowd.

*Pet Peeve: It rings a bit hollow for some of my friends to be protesting SOPA while they continue to download movies, music, and games illegally from torrents online.

1 Comment | American Dream, Economy, PIPA, SOPA, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Vital Signs Blog

Kindling a love for E-Books

August 31, 2011
48 percent of Americans ages 18-24 have never read a book for pleasure.

48 percent of Americans ages 18-24 have never read a book for pleasure.

The global e-book market is now over $1.2 billion, having carved a solid niche out of the $30-some billion book market.  81 percent of e-reader owners read on their device more than once a week.

40 percent of readers who own a digital reading device report reading more now than they did before.  58 percent anticipate reading more in the future than they do now.

And the sales back that up: Amazon customers buy 3.3 times as many books after purchasing a Kindle than they did before owning an e-reader.  Add to that the 48 percent of all e-reader content that is free,  and there’s a compelling case that the e-reader is leading to more reading.

Despite these gains, there are still alarming issues.

  • 48 percent of Americans ages 18-24 have never read a book for pleasure.
  • E-readers read slower.  On average, iPad readers consume the same content 6.2 percent slower than their print counterparts, and Kindle users are 10.7 percent slower than their print counterparts.
Of course, the biggest issue might be content.  E-readers have spent substantially more money on crime thriller writer John Locke, who sells his books only in e-format for $0.99 per title, than they have on Shakespeare, Dante, Virgil, Homer, and their compatriots.

Leave a Comment » | Innovation, Reading, Social Interaction, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Vital Signs Blog

Profile of the iPhone

August 30, 2011

iPhone Retro

Some fun facts about iPhone users:

- Half of all iPhone users are under 30, and about 20 percent are students.

- Half of new iPhone subscriptions are upgrades from conventional mobile phones. 10 percent are new subscriptions. 40 percent migrate from another smartphone.

- Of the 40 percent migrating from another smartphone, three-quarters report surfing the web more on their new iPhone than they did on their old smartphone. 70 percent also report checking their email more frequently.

- 60 percent of iPhone users browse the internet on their phone once per day or more.

- Three-quarters of iPhone subscribers were already Apple customers before purchasing an iPhone. 70 percent of iPhone users are self-described “early adopters” of new technologies.

- One-third of iPhone users use GPS functionality ten times or more per month; by contrast, 13 percent of other smartphone users say the same.

- By a ratio of 2.2:1, iPhone users are more likely to be comfortable with advertising on their phones than other smartphone users.

- By a ratio of 2:1, iPhone users report performing financial transactions on their smartphones.

- 93 percent of all iPhone users have added an app to their phone. Only 66 percent of other smartphone users can say the same.

Apple’s ability to attract and retain new customers, as well as their ability to get users to pay for new functionality, is remarkable. With Steve Jobs no longer at the helm, we’ll see if their business model holds up.

Leave a Comment » | Social Interaction, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Vital Signs Blog

Turn off the Cell Phone!

August 29, 2011

Thirty Percent

Thirty percent of those between the ages of 18 and 29 in the US have used a cell phone at least once in the last 30 days to avoid interacting with the people around them.

Seventy percent have used their phone for entertainment purposes.

Forty-two percent have had trouble doing something because they couldn’t use their cell phone.

Those numbers are 13%, 42%, and 27%, respectively, for the general public (all adults).

Neil Postman, the Digital Era has arrived.  Welcome to the Brave New World.

(data courtesy of this report at the Pew Internet and American Life Project)

1 Comment | American Dream, Social Interaction, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Vital Signs Blog

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