As the writers’ strike drags on in Hollywood, it now looks as though some of the striking scribes may in turn strike out on their own.

Writers for movies and television aren’t going to wait to turn back the clock with their Hollywood relationships. The Los Angeles Times reported at least seven groups formed from Guild members plan to construct businesses that cater to the online audience.

Discussions between writers and the people who could provide the necessary capital to get their efforts going have been taking place for a few weeks. This includes not just venture capitalists, but advertisers keen on having their messages placed with high-quality content.

This shift in power seemed inevitable when I chatted with KFWB‘s Sharon Katchen earlier this month, and obviously had been taking place for some time. Some writers have immensely valuable contacts; Tony Gilroy’s ‘Michael Clayton’ became a reality thanks to his.

Such contacts are portable, and the writers who have the best ones among Hollywood’s stars look like they will be the people who will find financial backing quickly and get to work on their scripts. 2008 should be an interesting year for video on the Internet.

You get ten guesses what the issue was. And if you didn’t guess “Project Beacon,” you’re in big trouble. We’ve been covering this one for a while: announced almost a month ago, within weeks they were facing an FTC complaint threat and outraged users which lead to drastic changes.

And now they’ve done themselves one better: Facebook has apologized. Actually, Mark Zuckerberg did the apologizing, saying:

We’ve made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we’ve made even more with how we’ve handled them. We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it. While I am disappointed with our mistakes, we appreciate all the feedback we have received from our users.

As part of this apology, he states that they didn’t find the right balance between convenience/ease of use and privacy/invasiveness. He also announced that Facebook users will now have the ability to turn off Beacon completely.

Interestingly, the last time Zuckerberg posted on the Facebook company blog, it was to apologize for the invasiveness of the News Feed and Mini-Feed features, introduced late in summer 2006. Sounds like they didn’t learn their lesson.

It’s so nice to hear someone admit that they did something wrong and that they’re working to fix it, isn’t it? But will MoveOn.org . . . move on? Will Facebook users forgive them?

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Your Search Advisor blogger Andrew Miller cited some of the questions and answers Johnston addressed during the event. Among them, JotSpot will feature significantly in Google’s software as a service strategy:

Google Sites: Scheduled to be launched sometime next year (2008), Google Sites will expand upon the Google Page Creator already offered within Apps. Based on JotSpot collaboration tools, Sites will allow business to set up intranets, project management tracking, customer extranets, and any number of custom sites based on multi-user collaboration.

Johnston also noted the integration of GrandCentral, a Google acquisition that centralizes multiple phones into one number, into the forthcoming Google Sites. He declined to cite a timetable, but said it was a “huge priority” for Google.

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Turn was founded by Jim Barnett, the former CEO of AltaVista.  Depending on your point of view, that could be a good thing or a bad thing.  Still, in an “About Us” section, a promising corporate description states, “Turn eliminates the need for manual targeting and provides bidded CPA, CPC and CPM pricing for graphical and text ads.” 

Norwest Venture Partners, Trident Capital, and Shasta Ventures were apparently happy with both pieces of information; according to VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall, these three took part in the funding round.  All three were also present the last time Turn scooped up some money, and it’s usually a good sign when investors stick around.

Of course, Turn would also take it as a good sign if Google rolled over and played dead, but that’s not likely to happen.  Google, with its market cap of $177 billion (which is around 6,800 times the combined value of Turn’s two funding rounds), poses quite an obstacle.

Representatives from Turn were not available for comment, so, if you’ll excuse the pun, I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see how this all turns out.

Google Says It’s Time To Turn Japanese

"We hope policymakers take a careful look at exactly what is now happening overseas, why, and then draw the right conclusions about the steps necessary to bring the benefits of real broadband competition and innovation to all Americans," he concludes at the Google Public Policy Blog, referring to a report appearing in the Washington Post.

The WaPo article detailed that Japanese broadband was up to 30 times faster than the broadband in the United States.

30 times. Now, I’m not going to make a value judgment on this, but, in the America you grew up in, can you remember anything we could stand being second place in?

Okay, hockey and soccer. We didn’t care.

But a decade ago, Japan was struggling to keep up with the US in terms of Internet speed, and now they can watch broadcast quality television over it?

It’s interesting this article came from the Washington Post, too. A year ago, the paper wasn’t so hot on the idea of Net Neutrality. I called them on it, but I don’t think anyone noticed.

Whitt also notes SaveTheInternet.com’s explanation of why Japanese broadband speeds exploded so rapidly:

Less than a decade ago, DSL service in Japan was slower and pricier than in the United States. So the Japanese government mandated open access policies that forced the telephone monopoly to share its wires at wholesale rates with new competitors. The result: a broadband explosion.

Not only did DSL get faster and cheaper in Japan, but the new competition actually forced the creaky old phone monopoly to innovate.

That’s interesting, because the telco and cable company arguments have been exactly the opposite. They argue that any government involvement would stifle innovation and investment, even though a decade of non-involvement and $200 billion of tax-payer handouts have resulted in a duopoly that’s given us, well, about 15th place.

But my favorite part of the WaPo article was this section:

 [Japanese broadband] allows pathologists — using high-definition video and remote-controlled microscopes — to examine tissue samples from patients living in areas without access to major hospitals. Those patients need only find a clinic with the right microscope and an NTT fiber connection.

"Before, we did not have the richness of image detail," Matsuya said, noting that Japan has a severe shortage of pathologists. "With this equipment, I think it is possible to make a definitive remote diagnosis of cancer."

That’s funny to me because I seem to remember representatives of Verizon talking about the "cock-and-bull" and "Chicken Little stories" going around about Net Neutrality and how such government interference would stall or derail access to valuable Internet-based medical services.

It’s been a year and a half since this debate really started to get going, and I’ve seen no argument from the phone and cable side of it that’s held up to scrutiny.

Meanwhile, in other places on the Net, the mystery of who this author might be has been a titillating one, with theory after theory proposed and then discredited or stamped with a "maybe."

Well known writer about "all things Mac," Andy Ihnatko, with a sense of humor and writing style similar to FSJ’s, has been a crowd favorite. In an IM interview with Valleywag, Ihnatko would neither confirm or deny that he was the Fake Steve Jobs, claiming an ambiguous answer was safer…well, it’s hard to explain the logic, so we’ll just quote him:

If I’m him, I have plenty of reasons to throw you off the scent. If I’m not, I have plenty of reasons to try to convince you that I’m not…Either way, my motive would be to convince you I’m not FSJ, which would only lead folks to assume that my answers prove their belief (whatever it is)…So — again, whether I am FSJ or I’m not — the only real "win" in this situation is to neither confirm nor deny.

Which of course makes him sound guilty, thus proving his point in an MC Escher kind of way.

Whether or not he is or isn’t, directly asking him if he is, or speculating aloud, doesn’t violate any moral or civil codes. The online manhunt, though, took a nasty turn. At Sitening.com, Tyler Hall admits to a little trickery at the FSJ’s expense.

They created a joke website dedicated to iPhone haikus, and sent FSJ a bugged link that allowed them to track his IP address from referrer logs. Hall traced the address back to the Boston area, confirming for some that FSJ was indeed Ihnatko, who works out of Boston.

But whoever FSJ is, he wasn’t happy about it:

[I]t sort of almost makes a person begin to fear for the safety of himself and the people around him. It’s creepy. It’s gross. It’s wrong.

To whatever bit of pond scum is doing this stuff, let me say this: This was fun, up to a point. You’ve gone past that point. Stop.

That was enough for Tuaw.com’s Mike Schramm, who had been gleefully participating in the hunt. Schramm responded to reader response pleading that the desire for anonymity should be respected. Tuaw pledged to not write anymore speculation about it, as "FSJ is much more fun as FSJ himself."

From Fake Steve Jobs’s post, he’s been in discussions with attorneys to determine the legality of what Sitening.com did, and how much, if any, protection is afforded to his privacy.

And that won’t be a question easy to answer. IP addresses, and things on the Web in general, might be considered akin to public space and/or public information. Paparazzi can do what they do because of First Amendment protections of the press – you can take a picture of anything in public.

Phone numbers that are listed in phone books have been sore spots for Internet privacy advocates too, for even though numbers are public information, most don’t want their phone numbers available to people outside of their local areas. A Texan Digg.com user is debating this point with the Michigan police currently.

But IP addresses are not necessarily proof of anything either, even if the RIAA likes to say so in court.

Regardless, chalk this case up to just one more Internet privacy debate to be ironed out in the future, and an illustration of how dangerous the so-called "wisdom of crowds" can be.

“Search all of the Web, eBay, eBay Express, Half.com, and more,” invites eBay’s description of the product.  “Access sites you visit the most, such as Yahoo! Mail and My eBay, with just one click.  Protect your eBay and PayPal accounts against fraud with Account Guard.”  Or “[u]se eBay Alerts to help you win more items.”

Well, eBay Toolbar Featuring Yahoo! may have a clunky designation, but at least it let us know what we were in for.

Another aspect of the product launch provides insight into the state of things between eBay, Google, and Yahoo; eBay and Google may no longer be pals, but eBay’s Jeff Loui states, “My team and I have been working with our friends at Yahoo! to create a new version of the eBay Toolbar that combines the best features from both sites.”

Unfortunately, one “feature” that was left out is compatibility with Firefox.  But Loui assured readers that eBay and Yahoo were working on this, and that “we’ll be back with more updates as we have them.”  And now . . . all better.

I suppose that same signoff will do for me, though.  Hat tip to Barry Schwartz.

“Yahoo To Turn Away From Search?”

That statement can make a good headline, but the explanation behind it isn’t quite as attention-grabbing.  Bhat, you see, is Vice President of Front Doors, and the Times Online describes Front Doors as “Yahoo’s personalized home page.”

So as Bhat continued, saying, “The future of the web is about personalisation,” the VP may have just been promoting his project, rather than trashing the company’s main pursuit.  In fact, he stated, “Where search was dominant, now the web is about ‘me.’  It’s about weaving the web together in a way that is smart and personalised for the user,” so “personalized” search isn’t out of the question.

Still, those comments can be taken another way, as well.  According to Hitwise’s latest numbers, Google owns 65 percent of the U.S. search market, while Yahoo has claim to just 20 percent.  That certainly sounds like good reason to throw in the towel (or throw away a checkerboard).

But, for the time being, it looks as if we’ll have to stick to the first explanation.  When the Times Online asked Bhat to “clarify his comments,” the VP said, “We’re not admitting defeat.  Search still matters, but we need to be providing a wrapper around search to turn the info search offers up into something more useful.”

Did Doubleclick Turn Down Microsoft Money?

I heard the same things about Flickr. Rumors are that Flickr’s owners turned down AOL’s money, instead going for a lower amount from Yahoo. I never confirmed those rumors, but they were pretty consistent at the time.

Why would a company do that?

I can think of a few reasons.

1) Better cultural fit. I’ve seen that some employees are real jerks during negotiations and can sour a suitor on that person’s company.

2) Better reputation of main company. If you were a baseball player would you rather play for the New York Yankees or the Chicago Cubs? Especially if your goal is to win the World Series?

3) Better deal for employees. Free lunches? More stock options? Fewer relocations? Fewer potential layoffs?

4) Better business deal long term (stock price of one company might have more upside, for instance, which would sweeten the potential deal longterm).

5) More influence in industry by going with one company (one company might offer founders better positions, or more trips with corporate founders, etc).

6) Founders might like location of one company’s headquarters better than others (Silicon Valley offers techies a lot more economic opportunities than Seattle does, for instance, not to mention better weather).

Can you think of some reasons?

Oh, and John’s interview of Microsoft’s main lawyer is real interesting too. Especially the justifications for asking the DOJ to get involved in the deal.

I wonder when we’ll see an in-game advertising engine for Xbox? Probably not until after the DOJ gets involved, huh? Might remind folks that Microsoft still has billions of dollars in advertising revenues.

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