One of the obvious effects of the internet is that it’s allowed people to pick and choose news outlets that match and reinforce their own preexisting beliefs. It ends up creating communities of people reinforcing their own common viewpoint. Even worse, news stories that confirm their beliefs get brought into the internet site, providing additional “support” for their ideas. The problem is that there’s always a filter going on - the filter eliminates information conflicting with the community view, while popularizing information supporting the community view.

Now, as if that wasn’t bad enough, all information ends up getting filtered and reinterpreted - so that information which only tentatively supports a viewpoint gets reinterpreted as proving one viewpoint. I ran across a couple instances of this recently on the internet. A few cases:

Via Slashdot, I ran across an the article “Why my books are no longer for sale via Amazon”, which contained this paragraph:

Amazon still uses Digital Rights Management. This is not a customer-helpful feature. In fact, Apple iTunes has gotten rid of it, as have many other music sellers, and found that sales increase. If Amazon was doing this ‘for the little man’ then where are all their attempts to get rid of proprietary Kindle software and DRM? We know it increases sales to drop DRM, so why aren’t they doing it? Customers would love it. But Amazon would lose control.

Now, like a lot of creators, I have mixed feelings about DRM. But, what I was interested in was the quote “we all know if increases sales to drop DRM”. Fortunately, he provided a link. So, I’ll bite. For someone who wants to get to the facts, what’s the evidence for his statement that “we all know”? His link leads to a 2007 Crunchgear article, “EMI’s DRM-free Sales Are Working”:

Plenty of people looked disgusted with EMI’s decision to turn its catalog of music loose, free of DRM. Now it seems the tables have turned, as EMI’s DRM-free approach to selling digital music is working out quite well. According to reports, Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon has seen a sales increase between 272 and 350 percent, while OK Go’s Oh No has increased 77 percent. Those are huge numbers and could mean the difference between a paltry paycheck and a big fat one.

So with increased sales and widespread praise from just about everyone, will other record labels follow suit? Is this what the industry needed to realize that DRM just isn’t the way to go anymore? Looks like it to me.

Okay, sounds good. What’s their source? A 2007 BoingBoing post “DRM-free EMI music outselling lockware”:

The Inquirer reports that in the short time since EMI went DRM-free with its music, its sales have skyrocketed: Since EMI ditched the DRM on iTunes it has seen sales of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon increase by between 272 and 350 percent… According to Bloomberg, digital sales for other DRM free music increased by between 17 to 24 per cent. OK Go’s Oh No increased 77 per cent. Coldplay’s A Rush Of Blood To The Head jumped 115 per cent.

Hm. What’s BoingBoing’s source? The Inquirer.net, “EMI has DRM free sales boom” (I bolded a few interesting sentences left out of the above “news reports”.)

RECORD OUTFIT EMI is reporting that the sales results for its DRM-free music are better than those with protection. Since EMI ditched the DRM on iTunes it has seen sales of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon increase by between 272 and 350 percent. It is too early to tell if this is just a temporary rise as punters replace their old DRM infected tracks with those which are protection free. However it does look like punters have given the record labels the thumbs up for DRM free music. According to Bloomberg, digital sales for other DRM free music increased by between 17 to 24 per cent. OK Go’s Oh No increased 77 per cent. Coldplay’s A Rush Of Blood To The Head jumped 115 per cent. Sadly CD sales still are dropping down the toilet.

And their source for this information? They provide two links, but one is dead. The working link is a blog about the music business: Coolfer, “EMI Says Dropping DRM Showing Good Initial Results, But Questions Emerge”:

Bloomberg News has an article in which an EMI SVP said, “The initial results of DRM-free music are good.” Increased sales of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon were singled out. That’s true. Digital sales of Dark Side of the Moon have averaged over 3,600 units since the launch of iTunes Plus and the availability of unprotected AAC files. In the 11 prior weeks, average sales were 830 units per week. That’s an increase of 272%. In the week iTunes Plus was released, digital sales of Dark Side of the Moon jumped 350% that week alone. (iTunes Plus, which enables users to upgrade tracks to unprotected AAC from the older, protected AAC versions for $0.30 per track, lauched May 30th.)

Okay. So, sales jumped from 830 units/week in the 11 weeks leading up to May 30, to 3,600 (units/week?) in the 2-weeks or 2.5 weeks following. Now, my first question looking at this is: Are these results typical for all music sales after iTunes Plus, or was there some other factors involved to drive-up “Dark Side of the Moon” sales specifically, which could undermine the claim that these increased sales were due to dropping DRM.

The blogger goes on:

Here’s the main question: Does an upgrade using iTunes Plus count as a scan? I can’t find out. If that’s the case, the increase in sales will actually a temporary thing. Once people who want to upgrade their tracks have done so, sales should drop and level off at pre-iTunes Plus levels (or, as EMI is hoping, above pre-launch numbers). My gut tells me SoundScan counts an upgrade as a sale. Those Pink Floyd numbers look to be more indicative of a technology-enabled sales jump than they are a sign of support for DRM-free downloads.

Yes, that’s true. If iTunes counts every $0.30 upgrade from DRMed “Dark Side of the Moon” to DRM-free “Dark Side of the Moon”, then does that really count as an argument against DRM?

What about other albums? Digital sales in the last two weeks for Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream rose 17% versus the 11 prior weeks’ average. Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me jumped nearly 24%. OK Go’s Oh No increased 77%. Coldplay’s A Rush Of Blood To The Head jumped 115%.

Notably, these numbers aren’t nearly as high. It makes me wonder if other things were going on with these bands at the same time that iTunes Plus launched. Afterall, if these sales increases are caused by eliminating DRM, then why are there such large disparities in sales increases? In other words, why is there a 272% increase for Dark Side of the Moon, but only a 17% increase for Siamese Dream? I also wonder if these sales increases were picked from the albums that spiked that week. They’re only showing five albums. Are there thousands of others that showed virtually no change? And did the announcement of DRM-free tracks cause a spike in iTunes sales in general - not necessarily because they are DRM-free, but merely because iTunes was in the news? Interestingly, the lower sales percentages were dropped from the downstream blog-posts citing this article. By the time you get to the CrunchGear article, only two albums are cited (Dark Side of the Moon +272%, and Oh No +77%) and then they act as if these results are typical.

Those are just digital album sales I’m talking about. But here’s something very interesting: CD sales of four of those five titles dropped sharply over the same period. CD sales of OK Go’s Oh No dropped 45%. CD sales of Coldplay’s A Rush Of Blood To The Head dropped 24%. Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me fell nearly 33%. Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is down only 12%. Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream increased almost 15% — probably the result of the band’s new single and upcoming album hype.

Interesting, so sales of DRM-free digital downloads might be cannibalizing sales of DRM-free CDs. Even worse, CD sales are still much larger than digital sales. From numbers I’ve seen, CD sales in 2007 would’ve been bringing in 7x as much sales revenue as digital sales. This means, a 50% increase in digital sales won’t offset losses from a 10% drop in CD sales.

The blogger seems to agree with the cannibalizing interpretation:

“The most likely scenario is one in which iTunes Plus — and the emergence of higher quality, DRM-free downloads — has somehow accelerated the CD-for-digital substitution that has eroded CD sales.”

What’s the point of all this? When you look at people citing one source after another, the information was filtered and twisted into a viewpoint that confirms their preferred beliefs. The original article said that “We know it increases sales to drop DRM” - a bold and unequivocal statement, but the follow the chain of links down to the original source and you find a much more complex picture - one that’s far more tentative and unclear, with unanswered questions and conflicting information.

This chart shows who dropped which information from their blog-post. BoingBoing dropped all the negative information about the decline in CD sales and the possibility that this was a temporary increase. Tech Crunch dropped some of the lower sales increases in favor of the high-sales increases and suggested they were typical.

On that note, I’ll quickly cite a second example along the same lines. This is another BoingBoing distortion:

BoingBoing: O’Reilly drops ebook DRM, sees 104% increase in sales:

It’s been 18 months since O’Reilly, the world’s largest publisher of tech books, stopped using DRM on its ebooks. In the intervening time, O’Reilly’s ebook sales have increased by 104 percent…

Now, obviously, there’s been a big rise in the number of eReaders on the market in the past few years, so the claim that this rise is due to dropping DRM is questionable. What about the publishing industry as a whole? How have their eBook sales been going (which still include DRM)?

Based on a comparison of these charts, I’d say that the publishing industry as a whole has seen bigger increases in eBooks than O’Reilly. It looks to me like the publishing industry saw an 225% increase in eBook revenue over the time that O’Reilly saw a 104% increase.

Now, I’m not arguing that the music and book industry should use DRM. Personally, I think it’s nonsense to sell DRMed music when they’re also selling CDs (which aren’t DRMed) where it’s trivial to turn them into mp3s and upload them. I’m just pointing out the distortion of the facts.

What’s really sad is the way information gets cut-up and edited to support a viewpoint that someone wants to advance — to create an alternate reality where “everyone knows X” even though “X” isn’t supported by the data. At each step along the way, information was removed to make the story more simple and convincing, but less accurate. Notably, this isn’t corporations distorting data to serve their own financial interests, but it’s “consumer advocates” who are doing the distorting to reinforce and promote their own views about the world.

“You bring a game into a house, nothing to stop an eight year-old kid from becoming a terrorist and shooting people.”

Obviously, John Christensen could’ve done a better job with the interview, although he probably isn’t put into too many television debates, so I can forgive him for that. It also looked to me like they might’ve been doing the interview early in the morning, and Christensen was not entirely awake. The other people were obviously better prepared for the attack. The “let’s have a fair and balanced debate” by the host was rather farcical. It seemed more like “let’s both beat up this novice and unprepared public speaker, and the fact that we give him a chance to speak will make us look like we’re providing balance”.

According to Ripten.com:

Fox contacted [Christensen] that same day with just a few hours notice. In addition to Jon never having been on television before, the segment was filmed at 3:30 AM his time, which meant he wasn’t exactly “well rested” before going on air.

Ultimately, though, game-companies are at a disadvantage because the media looks for things to talk about, wants to push people’s buttons, talk about controversy, and get credit for talking about it first. They will come after game companies because they want to drive-up viewer numbers. Playing on people’s preconceived notions is the easiest way to do it. At best, the only thing interviewees can do is hold them at bay - by providing a cogent defense of the industry. They’ll always be back, though.

Stephen Totilo, of Kotaku, does a better job of handling the press:

Cool New Flash Drive

I picked up a new flash drive recently. This is a 4GB flash drive that I picked up for $15. (All the electronics are stored in the black plastic area you see here.) A quick look at Amazon reveals that they’re selling 128 GB USB flash drives. I’m amazed how small this stuff is.

John Carmack and Apple

John Carmack recently commented that working with Apple is a big pain. I know how companies like to control their image, but there are some times when it gets ridiculous. Retaliation for saying the wrong thing about them?

“My relationship with Apple has been long standing, but it’s a rollercoaster ride,” he told Kotaku. “I’ll be invited up on stage for a keynote one month and then I’ll say something they don’t like and I can be blacklisted for six months.”

Working with Apple on iPhone games has been no different, Carmack said, but he is happy to see that former collaborator Graeme Devine is now working at Apple in the iPhone Game Technologies division. (Source)

You’d think that someone as big as John Carmack would have enough weight to avoid getting these kinds of punishments.

Google Chrome

Ever wonder why Google made Chrome, and started pushing it on www.google.com? Aren’t there already a perfectly good browsers (Firefox, Safari)? I was confused for a while until I thought about this.

Mozilla, the organization behind the popular Firefox web browser, has extended its search deal with Google for another three years. In return for setting Google as the default search engine on Firefox, Google pays Mozilla a substantial sum – in 2006 the total amounted to around $57 million, or 85% of the company’s total revenue. The deal was originally going to expire in 2006, but was later extended to 2008 and will now run through 2011. (Source)

Google’s business is advertising. Maintaining its advertising sector means staying on top as the number one search engine in the face of upstarts like Microsoft Bing. Sure, Google can keep paying Firefox hundreds of millions of dollars to be the default search engine (which, by the way, Bing doesn’t appear on the Firefox Search-Dropdown at all). But, someone at Google must’ve realized that they don’t want to be at the mercy of Firefox. The more marketshare Firefox has, the worse the negotiating position is for Google. I’m sure Google doesn’t want to get in a bidding war with Microsoft over Firefox’ search window. Someone at Google obviously realized that even if they can take 20% marketshare from Firefox, that would reduce Firefox’ negotiating power, and save them a lot of money. Ideally, Chrome would eat-up all of Firefox’ marketshare. Chrome users are, by default, pointed to Google’s search-engine. It just makes sense for Google to drop a few million on their own browser rather than pay-off Firefox year after year.

So far, Google Chrome has made a strong showing; 30 million users after just 10 months, which is a heck of a trajectory. Firefox is around 330 million users (24%), and IE still has 2/3rds of the browser market.

Smart people saying dumb things:

In the smart-people-saying-dumb-things department, I ran across the comment below on a blog recently. (To be fair, I can’t actually vouch for Brad Armstrong being smart.)

Seriously?

The internet has enlightened me to how misunderstood the software and the software industry is. I like the “big corporations” spin; it’s always a good way to side-step people’s critical thinking centers of the brain. Maybe I should comment about the legal system being a right of all Americans, and therefore, he should have to work for free. I think it’s entirely fair to call someone a hypocrite if they demand that software developers work for free, while they work a job that pays their bills. Only full-time volunteers (40-50 hours/week) and people who give 100% of their income to charity are allowed to cast that stone. It’s irksome that software developers have to justify getting paid for our work.

I’m also thinking of becoming an anti-physical property believer. Everything should be shared with everyone. That’s the best way to meet everyone’s needs. The big corporations don’t want us to share because sharing means buying less stuff. This means that you’re a wicked and evil person if you stop me from borrowing your car, watching your TV, using your computer, and sleeping under your roof. Oh, and I’m inviting all my hippie friends. They don’t shower because it messes up the natural oils on their skin. If you try to stop me, I’ll just have to “beat the system in order to fight the big corporations who own the corrupt legal system” - i.e. I’ll take what I want. Ownership is a scam created by the big corporations!

Joystiq has been running a few articles about how companies got their name. The story behind Stardock:

“I was in college and started the company to help pay for school until I could get a real job. I needed to get a computer and got a hold of a wholesale distributor to get the parts to build it. When I called, they asked me what the name of the company was and in panic, I looked around and was reading a book by Raymond E. Feist and the chapter was called ‘Stardock’ so that’s what I said the company’s name was. It stuck and has been since.”

Wow, he came up with a name on the spur of the moment.

The story Randy Pitchford tells about Gearbox (of Half-Life fame) is a little more harder to believe. It involves a high-stakes late night poker game in New Orleans with Gabe Newell. And, if that tall-tale didn’t trip your BS detector, it appears that Valve and Gearbox are now confirming that the story is a fabrication. I wonder if Pitchford was just seeing how far he could string Joystiq along with that unlikely story.

These stories remind me of a recent episode of This American Life, called “Origin Stories”. In the beginning of the episode, they discuss corporate creation myths. Google even has a myth about starting in a garage:

The Apple and Hewlett-Packard garages have now become such a part of Silicon Valley myth, that it’s made other tech companies want stories like it. Google, for example, they did not start in a garage. The founders began working on their search engine in 1996, when they were at Stanford. They didn’t move into a garage until 1998. They already had investors, and they were just in the garage for five months. But in 2006, Google bought the garage as a company landmark.

It’s like no one wants to hear the story of the rich, well-connected guys who meetup at the Marriott conference room to hatch a business plan. You know, there’s no romance in that.

Dan Heath has written about these origin stories in Fast Company magazine. He says one way to measure just how appealing these stories are, is to count all the ones that get quotes widely, even though they aren’t remotely true.

For instance, when eBay began, a story circulated that it’s founder created the company so that his fiance could buy and collect Pez dispensers more easily. Not true.

One of the creators of YouTube used to claim that the idea for the business came after a dinner party in 2005 when two of the company’s masterminds, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, shot some video and tried to post it online, and found out just how hard that was back then…. Steve Chen later admitted in Time magazine that the dinner party [story] was embellished to provide a better founding myth.

Of course, there’s plenty of other myths created about historical figures, as well. For example, Christopher Columbus didn’t have some crazy idea that the earth was round back in 1492 - everyone knew that the earth was round. In fact, a Greek mathematician had made a pretty good estimate of the size of the earth back in the third century BC. And George Washington didn’t cut down a cherry tree.