Website Comments: Anonymous or Not

Posted on May 6, 2008 by Kraig Baker

Cnet reports on comments made at Digital Hollywood by the Washington Post Executive Editor of their online division.  Essentially, Jim Brady said (and confirmed after) that he thought the best way to elevate discourse in the comments sections was to force individuals to identify themselves in order to post.  Like spam, griefers and other abusers of the comment sections have created problems for major media organizations.  The media organizations either have to block comments or overfilter -- in which case they get accused of being elitist -- or they open up the comments to very few restrictions -- in which case the quality of the discourse goes down and people revert to name calling and other sorts of ugliness.  I come down on the side of hoping that media organizations will do everything they can to preserve the open and anonymous nature of commenting, but as someone who avoids reading and making comments in many cases because of the level of discourse, I hope we can find a solution that will work.

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Read My Lips, No New Tax Collection Requirements

Posted on May 5, 2008 by Kraig Baker

Amazon.com sued New York state and its taxation department today to contest the constitutionality of a new state law requiring out-of-state Internet retailers to collect New York state taxes.  The law, which took effect April 23, requires that out-of-state Web retailers collect sales taxes from customers in the state if the retailers have New York-based representatives soliciting business on their behalf. The state considers Amazon and other retailers to be subject to this law because they have "affiliate" marketing arrangements.   Amazon alleges the law violates several aspects of the U.S. Constitution because it is "impermissibly vague and overbroad" in its requirement that Amazon, which has no physical presence or employees based in New York, to collect sales taxes.

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9 Billion Videos Viewed Every Month

Posted on April 25, 2008 by Kraig Baker
As SAG continued its negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers on Thursday, the actors union sent its second report to membership, outlining their position on new media and why it is important to actors.  The report states that people watch 9 billion videos online every month and that by 2010 the 100 leading media companies will be receive over $20B in revenue.  Of course, since this is a union dispute over residuals, undoubtedly we can quibble over the numbers, but regardless of what the "real" numbers are, consumers consumption of video on the web appears to be staggering.
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