TheWatchWorks

If I ever write another book it will probably be about one of three topics. The first is the truth about how the press and journalism really works – the sausage making – to show just how much of a beautiful, subjective and chaotic mess it all is. The second idea is to talk about how perfect blogging is, with its constant feedback loop, as a training ground for mass psychology and manipulation. The third idea I’m keeping to myself for now, but it’s more startup focused.

It’s the second one that’s been on my mind lately. Mostly because it’s become pretty clear to me that any blogger worth her salt could start, say, an extremely successful militant religious cult.

Any blogger will tell you how frustrating the early days are. Getting someone, anyone, to link to you. Your first comment! etc. And as your audience grows you are introduced to the first rule of anonymous human behavior – it’s dark and brutal, and reminds me how thin the veil of civilized behavior really is. If there is something nasty that can be said, someone will say it. Over and over.

A big part of blogging is simply keeping the peace. You set rules on whether or not you’ll allow anonymous commenting, or commenting at all. You decide if/how to moderate comments. You decide if/how to respond to opposing arguments and (more often) personal attacks. And you, involuntarily for the most part, evolve your writing in response to the feedback loop. Those are the days of innocence, simple joys and simple sadnesses.

But then you start to get really good at what you do. You write something and you get trashed. The next time you try it a little differently and it the commenters love you. You don’t even do it consciously – but over the years you just get better at it. To the point where you pretty much know exactly what the reaction will be to any given post, and how to tweak things to get the reaction you want.

Zynga talks about constant A/B testing in its games to maximize revenue, a huge competitive advantage for them. Bloggers go through the same thing every time they write a post.

Old media types don’t have quite the same experience because they generally have an editorial agenda, certain writing rules, and editors to please. There are too many layers between them and the direct feedback loop. so they evolve much more slowly. Bloggers have a direct line to the collective mind.

I imagine priests and rabbis and career politicians have much the same experience. Speaking publicly so frequently they learn exactly how to manipulate the audience, or the camera, to get the reaction they want. It doesn’t work on every individual, but the masses as a group are easy to manipulate. and your audience tends to self reinforce over time, meaning the people who buy what you’re selling tend to come back for more, and others wander away.

In a post last weekend I wrote about women in tech. I feel like I’m on pretty firm ground here, since more than half of our senior staff are women, including our CEO, and we cover female entrepreneurs whenever we find them. I know exactly the post I could have written to get a super big high five from our audience. Talk big about how the problem is so prevalent, talk quietly about what we do directly to help solve it (but note how much more we must do!), and then salute the ringleaders who are making a living out of pretending to care about the issue (without, of course, pointing out that they are frauds). Seriously, I could have had you as a collective group eating out of my hand on that one. I even pointed to a couple of posts by men that did exactly that (also very experienced bloggers who know how to write a crowd pleaser when they need to).

I didn’t do that though. I wrote a different post that I intended to question some of the basic assumptions that are being made about women in technology. And I knew exactly what the comments would be like. More FU than high five, for example.

And that’s ok with me. I’d rather say what I really think than pander to the crowd. This is an issue that’s too important to use for my own glorification.

It would be so much better if we could stop a lot of the bullshit that we see in blogging. To do that we need a smarter audience – one that sees through it because they’ve been trained to, and demands a little more meat on the bone from the sites they frequent. I’m telling you flat out that any decent blogger can manipulate the hell out of their audience. Don’t let yourself be one of the manipulated.

In a follow up post I may explain some of the common tricks to manipulate the crowd so you can see through them more easily in the future. And just for the record, we try to avoid manipulating readers here at TechCrunch. Or at least to abuse that power as little as possible. And most of my favorite blogs also play it straight.

Remember this, though. When you’re reading something here that’s getting you really riled up, stop. It may be that you really should be thinking the exact opposite of what you are. And if you find yourself floating through a post agreeing with all the subtle pandering, wake up! And call us on it immediately.

And yes, I know exactly what you as a group are going to say in the comments below. If I told you it would change the outcome, of course. But I think you know deep down that I’m right.

Stealth Mode Watch, a searchable data spider of often very revealing SEC form D filings, is the brain child of Denis Papathanasiou, who came up with the idea while researching funding options (a.k.a spying) for his ebooks startup Fifobooks, “I was just using it to keep tabs on specific investors and other competitors in the ebook space, but I mentioned it to a few people, and they were interested enough to want to use it themselves.”

Papathanasiou then added a public API and launched it in beta under its own domain. Right now the site allows a simple search mode which shows results for the past four weeks and then an extended API mode which allows results past that date as well as filtering parameters like “people,”"companies” and “places” (Humans beware: The data is delivered in XML files).

Papathanasiou says he got the idea from First Round Capital Managing Director Josh Kopelman’s “The Death of Stealth Mode,” which warned startups of the perils of filing series D forms.

“If you’re starting a company and want to stay in “stealth mode”, make sure you understand the impact of your Form D filing and factor that into your plans. And if you’re a lawyer for a startup company, please tell your clients about the public disclosures you make on their behalf!”

In the meantime, watch your back McClure.
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The term “social network” is of course synonymous with online networks like Facebook. But think about what you’re actual social life is like for a second. Are you really closest to the people whose items you “like” the most on Facebook? What about the people you @reply or retweet on Twitter? The people you reblog the most on Tumblr? If you’re anything like me, probably not. Instead, the best indicator of who I actually interact with socially the most in real life are the calls I make and the texts I send — it’s all mobile interaction.

I’ve written before that I think location is the bridge between social networks and actual social life. But why do we even need that bridge? Why are so many startups content to build on top of the Facebook or Twitter social graph, when a lot of them can access your actual social graph in your mobile contact book? We’re seeing more and more apps go “mobile first, web second” these days, and that’s likely to increase going forward. This means that they start as services on mobile devices. So again I ask, why not just get to your actual social graph through your contacts there?

Sure, many do that to some extent already. APIs for Android and the iPhone give you access to contact list information to varying degrees. But most startups are still approaching that idea as a secondary tactic after they’ve hooked in your social graph through Facebook or Twitter. But I think we may start to see some that go right to the heart of your contacts on your mobile device. In fact, I met with one in the making last week, Addappt.

While they’re still building out the product, the core idea of Addappt is to connect people through their contact lists (in this case, on the iPhone). Specifically, their app scours your contact list to see which of your friends are signed up to go to various upcoming conferences. But you can easily see this concept transferred to any number of social utilities. “When was the last time the address book saw any innovation?,” is the way co-founder Mrinal Desai puts it. And he’s right.

It seems that companies like Apple and Google are sitting on a treasure trove of actual social data with these contact lists. Calls, texts, emails, it’s all right there. Google obviously has tried (and failed) to build a social graph through your email contacts before — but they went about it wrong, and they did so on the desktop. Mobile is the key to this.

Currently, we’re also seeing Apple also struggle in its first real attempt at social networking, with iTunes Ping. Their network is way too closed to be of much use — but at least they get that mobile should be a component of it.

But imagine if Apple built social tools right into your Contacts app? Maybe it would start with short status updates (maybe this would even pull in tweets), and then it would move to something like instant messaging. Then imagine if they did something with location? All of this would be opt-in, of course, but it could be very powerful.

And think about FaceTime. It’s an amazing product, but it’s far too hard to use because you never know when someone else is available to chat. Apple won’t accept the FacePlant app which solves this, so I have to believe they’re working on their own solution. The Contact app would be perfect for this. You load it up and see who is available to FaceTime.

Obviously, using your mobile contact book isn’t ideal for all types of social applications. But for the ones you want to use with just your closest friends: location, photos, short messages, events — it could be a killer set of data.

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A couple weeks ago, Facebook officially opened their new office in Seattle, WA. At the time, Facebook’s Ari Steinberg (the main engineer in charge up there) wrote a post and shared a few pictures of what it looks like. But those pictures sort of made it look like a dismal, dreary version of Office Space (I know Seattle is cloudy all the time, but come on). So we’ve got a few better ones that show actual signs of life.

Just as when Facebook opened their new Bay Area office, and when Twitter opened their office, I think it’s sort of neat to see pictures inside these offices — to see where the sausage is made. We’ve been thinking about doing something like this for TechCrunch TV as well — think: Cribs for tech startups. We’ll expose ridiculous murals and raid startups’ fridges. Would that interest you?

Behold Facebook Seattle below. I’m not even sure Mike has been inside yet even though Steinberg moved 800 miles to be near him.

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According to new research from Pew Internet, 82% of American adults own a cell phone, Blackberry, iPhone or other similar devices. And 65% of adults who own them say they have slept with their cell phones on or right next to their beds.

Yet consumers don’t know what these devices are made of exactly, and what their environmental and health impact may be. Phone manufacturers aren’t required to share all the details. Some do anyway.

Not Apple, though. The company is keeping secrets as usual, this time from O2 EcoRatings the UK-based initiative to rank the most and least environmentally sustainable mobile phones.

Nokia, HTC, Samsung, LG, Palm and Sony Ericsson participated in the O2 EcoRatings. And RIM committed to participate in the next year of the study. The ratings, released last week, found the Sony Ericsson Elm the most environmentally friendly phone.

Was Apple justified in blowing off the outside, environmental inquiry about the iPhone? After all, new environmental reports, labels and certifications come out every couple of weeks.

Recently, the EPA proposed a new vehicle efficiency rating, and a new partnership called the ULE-880 kicked off ratings of manufacturers.

The sheer volume makes it hard for companies and consumers to know which reports are credible and scientific, or just public relations fluff.

Jennifer Woofter, founder and president of Strategic Sustainability Consulting near Washington D.C. believes the O2 EcoRatings are credible, though. Woofter’s company helps manufacturers get their products, operations and environmental reporting up to the specifications of retailers like Wal-Mart.

By declining to participate in environmental ratings by trustworthy outside agencies, Woofter says “[Apple] isn’t taking a leadership position when it comes to sustainability. And it risks looking like a company that doesn’t take feedback well.” She believes that Apple’s own environmental audits are not yet done in a consistent manner, or with clear enough criteria to appease legitimate concerns.

Environmental researchers still want Apple to answer some questions publicly like: are the materials in its devices obtained from conflict-free mines? What toxins, if any, are still in those iPhones and chargers? With what standards and regularity does Apple review its original equipment manufacturing partners to make sure they are operating in an environmentally and socially responsible way? How will the company curb e-waste?

Continued secrecy should not surprise those familiar with Apple’s corporate ways. Earlier this year, the company shot down two shareholder proposals asking it to do more rigorous reporting.

Apple rarely acquires other companies, preferring to innovate from within, which also happens to minimize its exposure to outsiders like a target company’s attorneys, accountants or advisers.

One of the firms that developed O2 EcoRatings Telefónica O2 UK is not a total stranger to Apple, but a major mobile carrier and retailer that sells the Apple iPhone in Europe. The other, Forum For the Future, is an independent non-profit that promotes “sustainable development” and studies the impact of various industries on people and the planet.

Woofter (who is not affiliated with either) lauded them for: making their ratings criteria clear and non-proprietary; examining metrics like energy use and materials in the phones; and looking at the sources of these materials, and conditions for workers all along the supply chain. “Sustainability is not just about carbon,” she says.

In the past, Apple has allowed a number of its personal computers and laptops to be rated by a US-based environmental reporting non-profit, the Green Electronics Council, which created the highly influential Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, or EPEAT standards. Its products received stellar EPEAT ratings, “Gold” level across the board.

Opening up about its computers helped Apple win some respect from (and quiet down) Greenpeace; the environmental activists launched a massive campaign criticizing Apple in 2007. Allowing the iPhone to be independently rated and compared to peers’ devices could make the company look good and green anew. So why would Apple still decline?

Chris Pinney, the director of research and policy at Boston College’s Center for Corporate Citizenship suggests it’s because they just don’t have to talk. “Apple has a comprehensive supplier code and auditing program. They may feel their [own reporting] is sufficient to deal with ‘green’ issues. They may also feel they have nothing to gain by joining a new, ‘eco-rating’ initiative in a market where they are a dominant player,” he says.

Pinney believes real change and less secrecy will be driven by government standards and by large carriers and retailers like Wal-Mart as they demand more labeling on the products they handle due to consumer pressure.

For now, an Apple spokesperson declined to comment on O2 EcoRatings. She pointed to the “environment” pages of Apple’s website, and emphasized that the company restricts more toxins than the European RoHS Directive, which limits the use of hazardous substances in electronics and is considered progressive today.

Customers can bring most iPhones and iPods (not including the shuffle) to Apple retail stores for recycling, she said. For returned iPods, they get a 10% discount on a new iPod. The company hasn’t created a similarly motivating program for its iPads, iPhones, batteries, chargers or laptops, though.

Apple’s retail employees aren’t required to inform customers about responsible e-waste disposal, or available take-back and recycling programs.

Environmental responsibility is a theme largely absent from Apple’s hype events, too. Nobody from Apple’s top ranks talked about green features or e-waste recycling as they rolled out a new lineup of media devices last week.

Contrarily, Apple has been lauded for being accidentally and overtly green: their iPods and iTunes store have displaced tons of waste from compact discs. They’ve also been designing more energy-efficient products using less toxic material, and minimizing packaging over time. They’ve applied for patents to include solar cells in their portable devices. And a host of iPhone apps are meant to help consumers lead “greener” lives.

Still, if you found out your new iPhone was full of conflict minerals would you keep it? Or if it contained cancer-causing toxins, would you still sleep with it?

Top Secret photo via: Malakh Kelevra
E-waste recycling photo via: U.S. Army Environmental Command

Editor’s note: The following guest post is by Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, the CEO of WatchMojo, a producer and distributor of premium video content. Read his other posts here, or follow him on Twitter @ashkan

My cohort at Revision 3, CEO Jim Louderback, recently wrote an article called “Screw Viral Videos.” Why? Because according to Louderback, “viral videos deliver little or no value to anyone.” Which led me to wonder: what about content farms?

The Definition of Content Farms

While no official description exists yet, a content farm is the term given to a website or media organization that

• seeks to maximize content production output
• while minimizing production costs
• to acquire as much organic search traffic as possible
• with the main intent of converting that traffic into revenue, generally from advertising.

Over the past few years, anticipation of “content farm” poster boy Demand Media’s IPO has fueled both a lot of media cynicism and investor curiosity. No doubt, the fact that most of the content farms are seeking to disrupt traditional media organizations, in general, and journalists, in particular, explains some of the cynicism, but it does little to ask the question of whether the strategy itself is wise.

From One Dumb Idea to Another

Just five years ago, the conventional wisdom suggested that ad-supported media organizations should embrace user-generated content as a way to “scale” content offerings on their site, arguing that marketers will chase eyeballs no matter what. Today, that ranks up there as one of the dumber strategies in the history of publishing and advertising as marketers totally rejected UGC and even the biggest proponents of UGC shifted their business models to address that reality.

Back in April, I asked “Will AOL and Demand Media’s Content Farm Strategy Prevail?” and basically concluded that a “machine-gun, carpet-bombing” editorial strategy relying on a freelance model might work with articles but runs the risk of producing wildly inconsistent videos which would scare off advertisers. The important word to consider in all of this is not in fact content, but advertising, since—paywalls and iPad subscription fantasies notwithstanding—content remains largely an ad-supported game.

With Advertising, Value Trumps Cost

As Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt once stated: “advertising remains the last bastion of unaccountable spending in corporate America.”  Profiting from that disequilibrium are the ad agencies who care less about costs than they do about value—getting the most bang for their advertising buck

In economic terms, what matters most to them is balancing quality with cost to provide value; not minimizing cost and maximizing output. The effort to maximize output is based on the objective of maximizing organic traffic, but as we saw with UGC, more traffic does not mean more revenue, it just means a greater supply of inventory which pummels ad rates.

Who Are Your Clients: Financiers or Marketers?

In other words, if you don’t come from a publishing or advertising background—and you’re business is supported by venture capitalists or private equity bankers while you try to woo investment bankers—then, indeed, you need to stress that you can produce more content more cheaply than anyone else.  But that kind of downward spiral rhetoric will ring hollow to marketers who underwrite most of the media world.

Marketers Don’t Like Cheap Dates

Conversely, if your business aims to serve marketers and other media companies, that is not the right tone to strike: after all, should content producers really be conveying the fact that we’re cheap dates?

Being in the content business requires an understanding that you will be perpetually trying to master the art and science of production, distribution and monetization; that is an ongoing process. It is not at all akin to writing code for software that—once built—can create an infinite amount of copies and licenses to sell.

The jury’s out on whether the content farm approach will prove successful, but I am betting that in 2011, you will start to see a regression to the mean, with the very same companies who are rushing to emulate the leading content farm companies revert back towards a more balanced approach to publishing and focus on quality.  Meanwhile, the firms who bet the farm on quality and focus on offering value  in the form of quality content, instead of focusing on costs and output alone, will reap the most come harvest time.

Photo credit: Flickr/ h.koppdelaney

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You’ll forgive me for sneaking in some pop culture in the mix because it’s Saturday and all, right? Rapper Kanye West is having a bit of a moment on Twitter the past few hours, apologizing for the Taylor Swift incident from last year when he stormed the stage during the artist’s acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards to complain that Beyonce should have won the Best Female Video award instead.

But not just that. He’s also making it crystal clear, as others have before him admittedly, that Twitter has changed the way celebrities interact with their fans and anyone who’s interested in what they have to say really. And slamming mainstream media in the process.

So reading about four pages of tweets by West, there are some interesting gems to be found in there besides his apologies to Swift and his complaints about the massive backlash he’s received since then, receiving death threats and getting booed off stage and so on.

This blog reposted the long rant (easier to read).

Here’s part of his rant against mainstream media, and his love for Twitter:

Man I love Twitter… I’ve always been at the mercy of the press but no more… The media tried to demonize me

She deserves the apology more than anyone. Thank you Biz Stone and Evan Williams for creating a platform where we can communicate directly

and

These aren’t regular tweets… this is stream of consciousness … I want you guys to know and feel where my head is at…

These tweets have no manager, no publicist , no grammar checking… this is raw

True enough, the rapper could have written a thoughtful blog post (or a letter) on the matter and it would have been picked up by followers and celeb watchers just the same, but the beauty of Twitter is that it enables, encourages even, people to be more concise and direct.

You can consider his tweets insane rambling by a celebrity who is up late and possibly drunk, or as some lame way of getting attention (if it is, I’ll take this over most publicity stunts I’ve seen over the past three decades).

Or you can look at it this way: 5 years ago, how were fans able to get this much insight into their idols’ thoughts and feelings? Answer is they didn’t.

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When I was ready to transition from computer programmer to project manager, my employer, Xerox Corporation, sent me to its huge training center in Leesburg, Virginia. Over two weeks, the people there taught me some of the skills I needed in order to succeed in my new role: managing projects, motivating people, complying with employment regulations, and preparing status reports and presentations. The company also encouraged me to complete an MBA, on a part-time basis, at New York University. It gave me lots of time off and paid for the tuition.

Tech companies in the internet era offer their employees some great perks. But do you think that Facebook, Groupon, or Zynga provide budding professionals with any serious management training? Not at all. Given the way tech companies grow and the HR challenges they face, management training and career development are more important than ever. But few have the time—they are too busy surviving.

Professors Robert Fulmer and Byron Hanson of Duke University’s Corporate Education group researched the management practices of 23 leading high-tech firms. Corporate executives in an overwhelming majority, 89 percent, believed that leadership development was becoming increasingly important for their companies; 58 percent ranked this as a high corporate priority. Yet less than one-fourth of the managers interviewed had a clear roadmap for how they could develop themselves, and more than half didn’t even know who in their organization was responsible for the development of leaders. The conclusion of the researchers wasn’t surprising: many high-tech companies are young, so their systems and procedures for grooming leaders aren’t well developed or firmly established.

Maybe this is why so many tech companies suffer from morale problems, missed deadlines, customer-support disasters, and high turnover. And this may be one of the reasons why so many tech startups who succeed in selling their vision and raising millions in financing are just a flash in the pan.

One of the interesting findings in the Fulmer and Hanson research was that more than 70 percent of the tech executives interviewed said that leadership development in technology-driven firms is different than in other industries. The researchers believed, just as I do, that these tech executives were dead wrong. The lessons that leading companies like Proctor and Gamble and General Electric have learned about management development and training apply as much, if not more, to tech companies.

This means that if you’re a fresh grad joining a hot new tech startup, you shouldn’t expect your managers to train and groom you, or the company to provide you with time off to complete an MBA. You’re on your own. If you are working at some of the more established companies, such as IBM and HP—which do have excellent management-development practices—take full advantage of them. You need to learn all you can.

Many people are born with an innate sense of vision; they readily learn new technologies and master them. Some are very good at communicating and inspiring others. But you can’t be born with the skills needed to plan projects, adhere to EEOC guidelines, and prepare budgets and manage finances, or to know the intricacies of business and intellectual property law. All this has to be learned. Some skills can be developed on the job, but this is usually through trial and error.

I usually recommend that engineering students who want to become managers and CEOs complete a fifth year of education. There are one-year long engineering management programs which cover such subjects as marketing, finance, intellectual property, business law, and management—similar to the key courses in an MBA program; plus tech-oriented subjects like innovation management, operations management, and entrepreneurship.  One such program (and there are many) is the Duke Masters of Engineering Management program, at which I teach.

For experienced tech workers in Silicon Valley, Berkeley and Stanford both have excellent executive MBA programs. Berkeley Haas School dean, Rich Lyons told me over dinner, last month, of his plans to make his school the premier training ground for Silicon Valley executives. Boston’s Babson College is also launching a program in San Francisco.

But not everyone needs to spend two years doing an MBA. Berkeley’s college of engineering is creating a much shorter program targeted at Silicon Valley techies with leadership potential. Under the aegis of Fung Institute Chief Scientist and Director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology, Ikhlaq Sidhu, the school is developing a professional program in Engineering Leadership. This will meet one evening a week for six months and teach subjects like product management, entrepreneurial thinking, leadership and finance. It will also teach team building, business management, and motivation.

The new Berkeley program is highly selective however.  It will only accept 25 candidates in 2011, based on recommendations from senior executives in the valley. Sidhu says that he hopes to address the “symptoms of engineering without leadership”—which include organizational indecision about new products and services; unresolved conflict between product management and engineering; and superficial technology strategies.  Berkeley will likely expand this program significantly over time and add many others. After all there is a great need.

Editor’s note: Guest writer Vivek Wadhwa  is an entrepreneur turned academic. He is a Visiting Scholar at the School of Information at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University. You can follow him on Twitter at @vwadhwaand find his research at www.wadhwa.com.

Look out Plancast and Upcoming, here comes Lanyrd. Ok, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but if it's possible to have a SXSW "tipping point" at an event then Lanyrd just had it at dConstruct, a popular design and developer conference in the UK. So what is it? The guys behind Lanyrd say they are not trying to build a general purpose events site but instead they are just interested in conferences and everything associated with them: speakers, attendees, venues, books, video and audio, twitter conversation, blog coverage - you name it.

The Funded founder Adeo Ressi was arrested and briefly detained earlier this evening over an altercation with a flight attendant. The airline? Virgin America, which I’ve been holding up as virtually the only airline that doesn’t suck (See Virgin Airlines Fails To Commit Atrocities On Flight VX746 and Delta Flight 1843 From JFK To Hell).

Ressi’s description of the incident is below, and he has sent this to Virgin, he tells me. I’ve reached out to Virgin America for their position.

I can’t help but note the similarities with Jet Blue flight attendant Steven Slater, who has now been rewarded for his behavior with a reality tv show. The worse the flight attendant, the better the chance for fame and glory, I guess.

You posted something nice about Virgin America a little over a week ago. I actually agreed until I was briefly and wrongly arrested as a result of a stressed out flight attendant today.

I am horrified by the incident on VX22 today, after flying over 70,000 miles with the company. Here are the details.

I was on flight VX22 in seat 2B, First Class, under the name Adeodato Gregory Ressi di Cervia. My company, the Founder Institute, is enrolling hundreds of entrepreneurs from eight cities into the incubator, so I was working before taking off. I shut everything down when the cabin door was shut, and started working again when the Internet was turned on at 10,000 feet, reviewing founder applications.

The first class steward, the “ITL,” served some food, but otherwise ignored passengers. There was a young stewardess in the back of the plane that brought me two ginger ails, some nuts, and Pringles. It was strange that the steward ignored passengers, focusing his attention on a baby in the font row, but I didn’t really notice much, since I was busy.

As we started to descend, the captain came on and asked everyone to shut down computers and electronic devices. The ITL walked down the isle immediately following the captain’s announcement and tapped my computer to indicate that I should shut off my computer. I looked up, nodded and indicated that I needed a second to finish an email, and he walked past me into coach.

By the time he returned, approximately 60 to 90 seconds later, I had finished the email at exactly 5:33 PM EST (according to email records), and I was closing the laptop lid. He stood above me, and the ITL said in a loud voice, “I told you to close the computer. You need to listen to me. You need to obey my orders. I am in charge. I told you to close the computer. You need to listen. I am in charge. Not you.” This went on for a while. It was awkward, uncalled for and embarrassing.

Meanwhile, I was holding the closed computer up off the tray table for everyone to see, as it was being shut down even before he walked over. He then said, “I can contact the authorities and have you arrested.” I responded, “I have done nothing wrong. Go ahead, if you like, I have done nothing wrong.”

Now, a few minutes after the original announcement by the captain, the ITL walks up to the bulkhead phone, and I presume he calls the captain. The captain then makes an announcement that everyone should have their devices off or “the authorities will be contacted and meet us upon landing.” My device was already off for a few minutes at this point, and I ask for the ITL’s name, who now completely ignores me.

As we continue to descend, I had a bag on the floor in First Class, which I know is not allowed on Virgin America First Class because I have flown over 70,000 miles on the airline. So, I ask the ITL to put the bag up, and he responds, “get up, and put it away yourself.”

I get up, and then the ITL starts yelling at me again for standing up when the plane is below 10,000 feet. I toss the bag into the overhead, leaving it open, sit down quickly and he calls the captain again using the bulkhead phone. He then comes over to shut the overhead compartment. At this point, we did not speak again during the flight.

We land at 5:49 PM, 16 minutes after I closed my computer down. We taxi to the gate, and there was a 15 minute delay while the authorities were called. Two NYC police men escorted me off the plane. Passengers are delayed even further as the police interrogated me in front of the exit door. Once I start moving up the platform, escorted by two police men, and the passengers are finally let out. Three First Class and Main Cabin Select passengers agree to be witnesses on my behalf to the police, taking more of their valuable time to say that I did nothing wrong.

Meanwhile, I was detained for an hour at the gate by police, who eventually let me go, jokingly referring to this as an “argument over a cell phone” to the TSA. Meanwhile, the Virgin America captain lectured me twice on the importance of turning your computer off, without even listening to my side of the story. The ITL told the police a story that I had been disruptive at other points in the flight, and the police said that the Virgin America flight team were now defending each other. The police also clearly indicated that they thought the ITL was not telling the truth. The police and the TSA had no charges.

You can get the police report for the names of two supportive First Class customers.

I am extremely disturbed by this incident in First Class on Virgin America. I request that Virgin America (1) terminate the ITL in question and (2) refund my money for the whole trip, allowing me to purchase alternative travel home. I do not want to wind up with this ITL on my flight again, as I have recognized him from my 70,000+ miles of flight with the airline.

I a law abiding citizen that has never gotten more than a mild speeding ticket, and I fly over 250,000 miles per year. I never raised my voice. I never cursed. I followed the captain’s instructions. Yet, I was removed from a Virgin America by police for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

Thank you.

Adeo Ressi

Update: Virgin America’s statement:

We are currently investigating this with our crew, JFK station and the authorities. Although we never want to inconvenience or upset our guests, safety and adherence to FAA rules are always our first priority. As indicated by the post, refusing to turn off a personal electronic device or delaying doing so — is a violation of FAA rules. The FAA makes all airlines and flight crew strictly accountable to enforce these rules. That said, we do take this post very seriously and are investigating in order to determine what unfolded onboard and address any miscommunication that may have occurred. When we have more information, we will connect with Mr. Ressi directly as well.

Update 2: Another person claiming to be on the flight has commented:

Adeo – I had to dash but handed my business card to you as you were being detained. I heard you shut your laptop as I was still fiddling with my kindle. Perhaps I should have been arrested as well. The flight attendant was clearly stressed out and over reacted. When he phoned the captain the first time your device had already been shut down and stowed away. As an eyewitness to the event I was taken aback by the unprofessional out of control behavior of the flight attendant I’m more than happy to be interviewed by the CEO of Virgin America. VA lost more than one customer. Kpb

Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ obsessive focus on design detail is at least partially responsible for why the tech sphere and the design sphere are so intertwined at the moment. Which makes the ire that Jobs has received for the current iTunes 10 logo (not to mention the foibles of Ping) particularly poignant. The universal hatred for this thing has spawned an @BPGlobalPR-esque Twitter account, some pretty impressive suggestions of alternate logos over on design collaboration site Dribbble, and an email to Jobs himself.

ValuLeads designer Joshua Kopac:

Enjoyed the presentation today. But … this new iTunes logo really sucks. You’re taking 10+ years of instant product recognition and replacing it with an unknown. Let’s both cross our fingers on this….

Steve Jobs to designer Joshua Kopac:

We disagree.

Sent from my iPhone

Attention Joshua Kopac, Steve Jobs has been reinventing the design landscape since before you were using Mac Paint. HE TOOK A FONT CLASS AT REED FOR CHRISSAKES.

But yeah, people love to backseat graphic design among other things, so I’ll tell you what, anyone who thinks that they can do a better job at logo design than Jobs, Jony Ive and team is welcome to have at it. Just send your submissions to tips@techcrunch, with subject line: “I am better than Steve Jobs” or something more clever and I’ll link to and post the best ones here.

Because I for one find the more “Metal” iTunes 10 logo kind of cool and I’m sure our readers, nerds that they are, could do way better.

Side note: How much do you think sending that “Sent from my iPhone” notification pleases Steve Jobs? I’m willing to bet a heckuva a lot. I’m almost surprised Jobs doesn’t include a * after the “my” as in, *”I designed it, bitch.”

Image: Rich Hemsley

Update: We’ve got our first post-worthy alternate by Chris Carlozzi. Not sure what the heart on the right is supposed to symbolize, but the rest of it is top notch.

And here’s our second by Filipe Hauser.

And a third by Nabeel Khalid.

Fourth contender by Faizal Bakri.

Fifth in the series by Dan Reneer, whose email subject line was “Steve Jobs has more money than me, but only because he wears mock turtlenecks.”

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Bad news for Craigslist users who like to peruse the Erotic Services Adult Services section of their site. It’s gone, replaced by a large black and white “censored” logo.

I’ve reached out to Craigslist for comment and await their reply. But the choice of words is significant – the section wasn’t simply removed, the censored word was used.

The site has been embattled as old press and state attorneys general use any excuse to blame sex crimes on the site. From South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster’s failed crusade against them to a variety of press stories about sex and other crimes. If it’s just a sex crime it isn’t a story. But if a listing on Craigslist was involved, it’s a big story.

Craigslist has fought back using little more than their blog and logic. And they’re right. Having prostitution up front and regulated, as Craigslist does, means less crime is associated with it. It’s not like prostitution, sometimes called the world’s oldest profession, was invented on the site.

The fact that eBay and others do exactly the same thing, but without human review and moderation, doesn’t seem to matter. Craigslist Sex is what scares the general population, and it’s what the press and the politicians will continue to use to get their hits and votes.

So the Craigslist Adult Section was removed. Is the world now a safer place?

Update: This only appears to affect U.S. sites, so if you’re looking for a happy ending in Saskatoon or the West Bank, have at it.

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The Obama administration back in January promised $8 billion in funding for cities and states to build high-speed, intercity rail projects.

This week, the Department of Transporation issued its specifications for the manufacture of new fast trains, namely double-decker coach, dining, baggage, and business class passenger rail cars that can travel between 79 MPH and up to 220 MPH.

Bi-level rail cars not typical in the US today, would accommodate more passengers, and hopefully alleviate congested roads and some resulting air pollution.

According to the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials (AASHTO) 95 percent of passenger travel in America is made by car, motorcycle and truck on our highways now.

Expanding highway capacity and overhauling busted roads with more durable and sustainable materials can prevent some traffic jams. But even highway professionals advocate building efficient, intercity, high speed trains and upgrading our freight rail systems.

Wireless companies like Groundlink and D-Link could win business rigging new high speed trains with internet service and related equipment.

Cities that recently won government funding for their high speed passenger rail projects include: Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio, and Battle Creek, Michigan among others along the Detroit to Chicago route.

Feds promised the biggest piece of the budget in their national high speed rail transit program earlier this year to large-scale efforts in Florida and California that would connect Tampa and Orlando with 168 MPH trains, and Los Angeles and San Francisco with trains running up to 200 MPH.

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As a longtime Apple TV owner, I’ll admit a dirty little secret: I really like the device. Sure, it has been one of the rare flops for Apple in recent years. And it could be so much more with say, a Blu-ray player or a web browser. But it is really good at its core functionality: bringing iTunes content into your living room. And that’s why this new version of the Apple TV makes sense — at least for now.

When I first bought the Apple TV, there were two varieties: a 40 gigabyte version and a 160 gigabyte version. I was torn between which one to get, but I ultimately went with the 160 GB one thinking I could put most of my movies on it. Big mistake. I basically never use the hard drive on my Apple TV, so it’s a 160 GB hard drive sitting there doing nothing. Instead, I stream everything to the Apple TV.

In fact, the only time I do use the hard drive on my current Apple TV is when I rent a movie on it. Currently, even when renting, you download a movie to your hard drive where it sits for up to 30 days (or 24 hours after you start playing it). But with the new iTunes rentals (both TV and movies) everything is streamed — no hard drive is required (besides a small one for buffering purposes). Thanks to that, and undoubtedly the knowledge that most owners were using it for streaming, Apple removed the hard drive from the device, and cut it down in size and price.

Now, at one-forth the size and less than half the price, it’s an even more attractive way to get your iTunes content into your living room. And it has a few very nice bonuses. The mixture of the new Netflix functionality with Apple’s new release rental movies makes this an excellent in-home movie machine for the masses. For those who pay $9 a month to Netflix, you get access to tens of thousands of older movies. For those interested in newer movies, they’re $4.99 a pop from Apple.

Yes, Apple removed the option to buy movies on the Apple TV itself. But you can still do this through iTunes on your computer — or on your iPad/iPhone/iPod touch. And guess what? With the forthcoming AirPlay feature, you’ll be able to stream any of those purchased movies right from any of those devices to the Apple TV. In a way, it sort of does make the Apple TV a $99 iPad accessory.

Further, the removal of the option to buy (as well as the removal of the SD options) make Apple TV much less complicated for general consumers. Now there is no question about whether you should rent or buy. There is also no question about whether you should do rent or buy in HD or SD. I suspect most people were renting in HD on the device, which is why Apple made the move it did to eliminate the other unnecessary options. They’re keeping it simple, stupid.

Apple also removed the option to buy TV shows — which never really made much sense to me. There are some shows that people would like to own, but most are definitely watch-once programs. Previously, there was no rental option, you had to buy. Worse, even if you did want to own a lot, the old Apple TV didn’t have nearly enough storage to handle them all — some HD TV show seasons take up 30 GB of space or more. The model just didn’t make a lot of sense.

Granted, Apple’s current $0.99 TV show rental option is pretty weak. They only have shows from ABC and Fox — and only some shows from Fox. But obviously, just as happened with iTunes music and movies, Apple is hoping all the studios eventually get on board.  And if they do relatively soon, the Apple TV will be a very interesting device to consumers as both a movie box and as a potential cable replacement. Sure, most people aren’t going to feel comfortable totally killing cable just yet — but at $99, this will be a very interesting experiment for a lot of people.

All that said, let’s be clear: this Apple TV is not the killer device in the living room. This will be more popular than the current Apple TV, but it will not be iPod/iPhone/iPad-big. And Apple seems to know that, which is why they’re still talking cautiously about it.

The problem Apple faces is the same problem that everyone faces: content agreements. Hollywood is proving much harder to convince than the music labels were. In a few years, if DVD sales keep falling and cable revenues start decreasing, they’ll be more receptive to new options.

The killer Apple TV would have TV network subscription packages. It would offer live events. It would have every movie ever made available on-demand.

And on-demand is the big key to all of this. All of this content is going to move to the cloud. It has too for storage purposes and given how many devices we all have. Rentals just completely made the jump, but eventually purchases will too. At first, you’ll have the option to download certain movies you’ve bought to take on the go, but when you’re at your home, even movies you “own” will be streamed — they’ll simply be streamed for free. And then one day, all of this stuff will be in the cloud entirely as mobile devices will always be connected by high-speed wireless.

This is the future. It’s Apple’s future along with everyone else’s. This Apple TV is one small step in that direction, and at $99 it makes sense for now — at $229, it never did. This is a stepping stone to the cloud age. Right now it’s a mixture of the internal cloud (streaming from within your house) with the external cloud (streaming rentals from the cloud). Soon it will all be external.

If this half-step isn’t your thing, if you want more functionality, buy a Mac mini. There’s a reason Apple just added a HDMI output to it. But that device is too complicated and way too expensive for most consumers to use as a set-top box. The Apple TV is simple.

Oh, and one more thing: the true killer Apple TV device will have apps. I’m still absolutely convinced (as many people are) that it’s only a question of when they make the jump to the living room. The fact that this new Apple TV is running iOS seems to be all the proof one should need that this will come eventually.

When that happens, the Apple TV will become a hell of a lot more than a hobby.

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Location-based service Echo Echo recently posted the above image to their blog in a (successful) attempt to garner some media attention as the debate around online privacy continues to rage.

As extreme as their“If Mark Zuckerberg Cared About Privacy” example is, it does call attention to the needless complexity of various web service privacy agreements, settings and policies.

In the wake of a $8.5 million lawsuit settlement today, search giant Google made a gesture of good faith in the “caring about privacy” department, assuring users that it was taking steps in order to make the minutae of online privacy easier to understand.

“For example, we’re deleting a sentence that reads, ‘The affiliated sites through which our services are offered may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies,’ since it seems obvious that sites not owned by Google might have their own privacy policies.”

Perhaps this concerted movement towards being more transparent and simple with regards to privacy would also work well for Facebook which, like Google, is currently involved in various privacy scuffles.

Vidyo, a company that specializes in high-quality video conferencing technology for the enterprise, is betting big on bringing video conferencing to mobile devices, including tablets and smartphones. Similar to Skype, Vidyo offers a technology that allows people to connect with each other over the web via video conferencing. However, the company says that Vidyo system is focused more on the enterprise, providing a reliable system, allowing conferencing for many parties at once, and offering high quality video. And Vidyo has built a big business licensing its technology to large electronics companies, such as HP, Intel and Hitachi. Vidyo’s technology is also used by Google to power video for Google Chat.

Curious what Google’s Gmail Priority Inbox means for those of us that use an IMAP or POP client like Mac Mail or the Mail function on an iPhone? Well as of yet the feature is not fully enabled on either IMAP or POP-compatible third party or mobile clients, leaving a large percentage of people who hate viewing email a standard web browser out in the cold.

If you try to use the service in Mac Mail right now the emails determined by the Priority Inbox algorithm to be “Important” are sent to an “Important” folder under Gmail. In order to reach them in Mail for the iPhone you also have to search for the “Important” folder under your Gmail account folder.

Priority Inbox is like a pet, you have to train it in order for it to function properly, and this training is partly accomplished using the up-voting and down-voting arrows currently only available in your browser. The algorithm also tracks archiving behaviors like starring , which are also limited when using IMAP/POP. And while Google plans on adding the training feature to both Gmail mobile browsers like Google for the iPhone and to Android, third party IMAP clients like Mac Mail will most likely be left out of the loop, at least for the time being.

The majority of complaints I’ve heard from Priority Inbox users (“It’s still showing me junk mail!”) are from people who basically don’t grasp the key fact that the algorithm needs to be trained to get good, which is hard to do if you’re primarily viewing email over the phone or through Mac Mail.

When the IMAP issues were pointed out, a Google spokesperson responded, unsurprisingly, “Priority Inbox is best when viewed in Gmail’s web UI.”

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Can someone please explain this Bloomberg Businessweek story to me? I’ve read it a few times and am still having a hard time understanding what is or what isn’t being implied, or not implied, about a partnership between Coinstar and Apple.

First of all, the title is awful because most people likely don’t know that Coinstar owns Redbox (they acquired them last year), the DVD rental kiosk company. Instead, most people know Coinstar as those machines in supermarkets where you turn in your loose change for cash or silly things, like Facebook Credits. So why on Earth would they be partnering with Apple on some online venture?

Well, again, it’s about Redbox, as they sort of note in the first paragraph. But what are they going to do with Apple?

“I would not conclude we are or are not doing a streaming deal with them,” Coinstar CEO Paul Davis told Bloomberg. Well that clears things right up.

A streaming deal? While Davis notes Coinstar’s “longstanding relationship” with Apple, that’s for iTunes gift cards right now, which is an option at some of their kiosks. A streaming deal is another matter entirely, obviously.

Clearly, Coinstar (again, Redbox) wants to get into that market to be able to compete with their main rival now: Netflix. The problem with partnering with Apple is that Netflix beat them to it. Just this week, Apple unveiled their new Apple TV which has Netflix streaming built-in. Now, Netflix focuses mainly on catalog (read: older) titles, while Redbox focuses on newer titles, but that’s because Redbox is doing DVDs right now (the business Netflix is slowly moving away from). If Redbox gets into streaming, it would likely have to move more towards catalog titles as well.

Further, Apple already offers new movie releases on their own. And they actually get the majority of them before Redbox does because Redbox was forced to cave to ridiculous Hollywood studio demands that they wait 28 days before getting new release DVDs. As Apple CEO Steve Jobs pointed out a few times on stage this week, Apple gets those movies day-and-date (they day they are released for sale on DVD).

So it’s not clear to me how this possibly maybe non-partnership partnership would actually be beneficial to Apple. iTunes kiosks? Perhaps. But the article doesn’t mention that at all. It just non-talks about a streaming non-deal that may or may not be real. And may or may not make any sense. Or something.

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It seems that one of the beta testers for Google TV couldn’t keep all that goodness to himself, and has posted several pictures and some video of the near-finished interface and hardware. It’s a brief and not particularly shocking video, but seeing it running on a home TV and hearing a regular guy expressing legitimate (if subdued) excitement make it a lot more real.

Continue reading…

First we had the Google vs China debacle, then came Saudi Arabia’s tussle with RIM. And now it’s India’s turn: threatening to block RIM, Google and Skype unless the companies agree to set up localised servers, all the better for state monitoring of communications.

Curiously, compared to the outrage levelled at the Saudi and Chinese governments, American reaction to India’s move has been pretty muted. Could it be that India is somehow perceived as “less evil” than the Muslim/Communist nations? Also: to what extent is India simply doing what every government – including the US government – tries to do: demanding the ability to monitor digital chatter in the hope of foiling criminal and terrorist plots? After all, if Big Brother can’t read your BBMs, haven’t the terrorists already won?

In this week’s episode of Why Is This News, we talk to Harvard Law professor Jon Zittrain, who explains the differences between governments who obey the rule of law, and those who don’t – and why Sarah’s right to criticize the government by email is totally protected, unless she should happen to email it to Paul.

Video below.