The California DMV has shifted into a new gear by posted a number of training videos on YouTube. There are over 100 videos on YouTube that cover “Rules of the Road,” “Top Ten Reasons for Failing the Driving Test,” and specific questions from the test. When I first heard about this, I was skeptical that the videos could both inform and entertain today’s crop of drivers-in-training. The YouTube channel is doing just that. According to the New York Times,

“Since the department’s effort at youtube.com/californiadmv began last month, some of the clips have been viewed nearly 5,000 times.”

With those numbers you can certainly consider this experiment a success, especially since YouTube is a free service. Conversely, the DMV’s MySpace page is less popular. It currently boasts fewer than 40 friends, despite having a Q&A section called “Ask George.”

Blogger Seni Thomas shares some profundity at Conversation Agent about the nature of social networks in the forthcoming year.

The primary purpose of online networks, up to this point, has been to congregate around interests, hobbies, and passions to create communities. In 2008 I predict networks will become more tha[n] social. In 2008 we will see the growth of innovation networks, or i-Nets. Networks that allow ideas to attract people and people to discover ideas.

i-Nets, in a nutshell, are networks that layer advanced people search capabilities, democratic content voting, and collaborative applications over a social foundation. Think of a mash-up between Google Apps, Spock, Digg, and Facebook.

i-Nets, according to Seni, will be catalysts for strategy consolidation, allowing research, planning, design, and creative functions to work with unprecedented efficiency and effectiveness. It’s the kind of prediction made at the onset of every new business year — but the explosion of social networking interconnectivity and communications suggests that this generation just might be able to follow through on the promise.

Somebody’s had enough, as explained in ars technica.

A Boston man has filed a class-action lawsuit accusing hardware maker HP and office supply retailer Staples of colluding to inflate the price of printer ink cartridges in violation of federal antitrust law. According to the suit, HP allegedly paid Staples $100 million to refrain from selling inexpensive third-party ink cartridges, although the suit doesn’t make it clear how plaintiff Ranjit Bedi arrived at that figure.

Good luck, Ranjit. We’re all for lower overhead.

If you look a week or so back on the M&M blog, you’ll see the post “Well, since they asked so nicely…” But you can’t watch the video. It’s gone.

Just recently, this video went flying through everyone’s email boxes, making fun of the newest “bubble” of Internet companies, such as social networking sites, being valued at 57 megananotrabillion dollars. Now it’s been taken down by YouTube and other sites, due to a single photographer, Lane Hartwell, claiming copyright infringement.

I found out about the takedown from Wired. What I found more interesting than the actual story was the comment trail. It blows my mind how wide the spectrum of belief is. From copyright-backers to “it should all be free” backers. (On a related note: I once had someone tell me that if you posted something…ANYTHING…to the Web, it automatically became public domain!) As a professional in a creative field, I find the misinformation quite disturbing.

While wading through all the comments from people about the whole thing, I came across this gem:

“I realize this is a hard concept for most of the “Copyright-infringement-is-theft” crowd to wrap their heads around, but copying a photo found online is *NOT* the same as stealing a painting from a gallery.”

Well, sure it isn’t the same, but only in that online you are not taking the original physical item. But make no mistake, as far as copyright is concerned, there is no difference between hard drive or canvas. Both are physical media.

Obviously, people are very much in the dark when it comes to copyright law. I don’t pretend to be an expert, but it’s my job to know at least the basics. There are three things that I think most people don’t quite understand: first, the concept of intellectual property; second, the fact that copyright is automatic. The minute a work is put to physical media, it is copyrighted. One doesn’t have to register a work to have it copyrighted. (The role of copyright registration is a story for another time.) The third, and most egregious, is the concept of Fair Use.

The crowd who thinks the photographer is in the wrong will scream “Parody! Satire! FAIR USE!” They are wrong.

While the work as a whole may be a parody, it’s not a parody of her picture—and therefore is not fair use. Had it parodied her picture, she probably wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Hartwell has every right to ask that her photo be removed. It belongs to her. Her claim is legitimate.

Is it not the same as using a bit of a song. They are not using a small bit of her picture.

They will argue that Richter Scales isn’t making any money off the picture. Again, they are wrong. How many people knew who the Richter Scales were before this? (I think I hear crickets.) They perform…they now are better known—if I’m not mistaken, that will translate into more ticket sales to their performances. Or maybe more sales of their album. They are available on iTunes.

This is, of course, not the first time this has happened. It’s not the most newsworthy (well, until someone starts aping the heavy-handed ways of the RIAA). But it may be the most insidious. People think that if you put it up on the Internet, you know the risk you take of it being stolen. Does this really matter? What if I wanted to sell copies of my pictures online? I shouldn’t be penalized because I posted them online. They are mine, after all. And yet it happens, day in and day out.

The thing is, all of this could have been avoided if the Richter Scales had simply asked for permission (make no mistake, they did have the ability to contact her, through her Flickr page). They most likely would have gotten the permission. Instead, they just took it anyway. What’s truly sad is that it wasn’t an individual who took the picture, but it was an ENTITY that took it. A creative group at that. You would think they would have known better.

Oh, and as I write this, I found that it IS still available, but for how long, who knows.

Last month Avid Technology issued a press release stating that they will not be exhibiting at NAB 2008.

My initial reaction was, Oh no! What? No Avid display at NAB? That’s crazy!

I figured they must be in trouble. I mean, after all, Avid has been a big NAB exhibitor for years, setting up a huge display and occupying a very nice piece of the showroom floor real estate. It’s really quite impressive. And expensive, I’m sure.

All of my doubts come from many other factors, which include the layoffs, CEO changeover, and lack of new upgrades, updates, and tools. Also, I felt like Apple kicked Avid’s butt last year at NAB with introduction of Final Cut Pro’s ability to mix frame rates on a single timeline.

So what’s really going on? Is Avid in trouble? Have they stopped caring?

The press release indicates that the decision is strategic, not financial. They say they are listening to their customers and need to connect with them in new ways.

After taking some time to digest this news, I have come to the conclusion that it might actually be good news. Maybe they do have a plan and will actually benefit from removing themselves from the Expo.

Even though I’ve been angry with Avid lately, I have much more faith in Avid systems than any other NLE out there, despite all these issues going on with them right now, the biggest issue being the unknown future of the company.

Avid has said that they are going to reveal some kind of strategy plan to the public in February. I really hope they are working on getting their act together and will have something impressive to report come February and put Avid users minds at ease.

They’ve managed to create quite a buzz with the decision to not attend NAB; now let’s see if they have anything substantial to tell us. Overall I’m hoping to hear some kind of reassurance as to the future of the company. However, some of the more specific things I’m hoping for include an upgrade to allow mixed frame rates on a single timeline for all DNA systems, Nitris support for native DVCPRO-HD—which is currently very buggy—and finally, HD-SDI Output option for Media Composer’s software version. Honestly, I have no idea what to expect, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

After posting my thoughts on Google Docs versus Word, I got caught up wondering how many other players were in the game.

Richard MacManus put together a great rundown that shows there is more to the world of document creation than Google and Microsoft. Digging through his article and following some of links, I found that some folks are liking specific apps from some of the lesser-known players more than the comprehensive suite offered by Google. Right there is power of brand, eh?

Clearly I aligned myself with the Google tribe, and by doing so went straight to their offerings in whole. So I’m basically no different than the folks I chided for aligning with Word simply because it’s the biggest and most familiar—also brand power. Well, what’s different is that my brand of choice happens to be innovating in ways that appear more forward-thinking.

The website best-practices watchdogs at A List Apart published an interesting article on the improvements of HTML 5, discussing new controls, structure, and a host of other changes. As explained by author Lachlan Hunt:

“To give authors more flexibility and interoperability, and enable more interactive and exciting websites and applications, HTML 5 introduces and enhances a wide range of features including form controls, APIs, multimedia, structure, and semantics.”

But really, this is just a description of a draft. Work on HTML 5 actually began about three years ago, and even though it may start being used within the next few years, it probably won’t be complete for another 15 years! That’s right—a decade and a half. That’s an absolute eternity for an “upgrade,” especially in an industry that is basically in a constant state of accelerated evolution.

Work on HTML 5 is being carried out as a joint effort from many key players, the W3C HTML WG, the WHATWG, and representatives from the four major browser vendors: Apple, Mozilla, Opera, and Microsoft.

I’m all for advancements in HTML, but I can’t help but think there are bigger problems that this high-powered group could be tackling. Instead of giving us new markup for structuring, such as header and footer tags, how about focusing on standards compliance, rendering differences, and overall cross-browser incompatibilities? Truth is, Web developers aren’t being held back by HTML 4. They are being held back because of Internet Explorer; Microsoft doesn’t follow any rules and renders differently from all other browsers.

Even though we’ve seen many improvements in IE7, IE6 is still the browser of choice by over 60% of the population, including all major federal agencies. Like the article states, Web developers “seeking new techniques to provide enhanced functionality are being held back by the constraints of the language and browsers.”

These problems, however, are not in the structuring and layout of the HTML code. They’re on scripting and styling (JavaScript and CSS), and the incompatibility of old and new browsers.

If this group really wants to produce something new that will “give authors more flexibility and interoperability, and enable more interactive and exciting websites and applications,” they should throw out this draft, force Microsoft to play by the rules, and figure out how to get users up-to-speed on what’s current.

Everyone’s favorite humpback has a new handle, and Greenpeace has thanked us all for falling for the name hook, line, and sinker (badda-bing).

(Here’s a recap if you missed the initial story.)

Now they’re calling for us to show as much support protecting the big guy as we did naming him. Again, a tip of the captain’s cap to Greenpeace for surfing, rather than fighting, the overwhelming community sentiment.

Why is it that folks simply don’t know about Google Docs?

Last night my wife was grinding away at a school project, specifically a collaboratively written 37-page paper. Sounds like a blast, eh? As the deadline loomed she and her two collaborators were taking turns frantically making edits and then emailing the doc to the others for their turns in order. So while one person was working, the other two sat idle. In other words, at any given time, roughly 36 of the 37 pages were not being touched, and two-thirds of the brain power were checking their email every 30 seconds. That’s crazy talk! Enter Google Docs. It might still technically be in beta, but Wes dug up some sweet stats on its soaring popularity.

Money quotes from blogger Becky Blitzenhofer:

Lately, I seem to be getting more invites to view a Google document (rather than a Word document). I guess I’m not surprised though. It has been just over a year since Google Docs and Spreadsheets was officially released, and it has been just under a year since Microsoft released Office 2007. As many know, Office 2007 includes a whole new interface that is unfamiliar, and potentially frustrating, to the veteran Office user.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets are free and easy to use. In addition, they offer online sharing and collaboration, which is becoming a complete necessity in today’s workplace. The more people share links to their documents, the more people will be exposed to Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Google doesn’t have to do much, as Docs and Spreadsheets are viral by nature and should continue to spread. Google can move on to saving the world (such as with this project), while users continue to spread the news about a possible alternative to Office 2007.

Check the charts. There were roughly 200,000 unique visitors in October 2006 and over 1.4 million a year later. Nice jump indeed, but compared to computer users overall (or even just Microsoft Office users), that number isn’t much.

Google Docs is to documents what content management systems are to websites. What? That analogy isn’t razor sharp and crystal clear? I just like to insert “content management system” into everything I write these days.

What I mean is that in the old days of 2005, most organizations had to shepherd any and all website changes through the almighty webmaster. If two revisions showed up at once, one request sat idle while the first revision was made. Now we have content management system websites that allow multiple layperson contributors to edit multiple pages at will.

Further that, the editing takes place on a Web server, so you’re never without your latest content or development tools, like Dreamweaver. If you can hit the website, you can edit the content. That’s how Google Docs works. The documents live on a Google Web server, so if you have Internet access you can get your doc. No more, “Oh crap, I left the Fitzbergensimmons report on my C drive!”

AND here’s the kicker: multiple users can access and edit the same doc in real time. And all edits are tracked and recorded, so if some bossy wanker deletes your brilliant phrase, you can bring it right back. In short, once you use, and collaborate on, a web-based doc, the limits of desktop applications will simply glare into your eyeballs like those annoying halogen headlights.

So we’re back to the question of why don’t folks know about Google Docs? It’s been around, in one form or another, since the summer of 2005. This free, web-based, collaborative word processor has been available for over two years, and three well-educated graduate students had no inclination to use it, and at least one had never heard of it. Why not? I don’t know if it’s lack of promotion or lack of understanding, or if it’s simply because the large majority of computer users are Microsoft lemmings. We don’t know what we’re not missing, right?

Well now my wonderful wife knows what she was missing, and I hope she gets her teammates on board. I know I won’t miss the late-night panic attacks she’s been suffering.