Charles Barthold › Comments

If Spam didn't work, you wouldn't get any. Just like direct mail and telemarketing - it will stop when it becomes unprofitable. Until then, get used to it. (Spam has an even greater head start because it is inherently cheap.) - AJ Kohn

I can believe it. If it weren't for spam I would never have met my husband. - April Buchheit

I'm still waiting for unsolicited email trying to sell me Spam. - Kevin Fox

April, now I'm curious. :P - Hao Chen

Ah...Paul was a mail-order groom. - Hutch Carpenter

This just doesn't pass a smell test - Brian Sullivan

Ok I'll say it- NO, no way- no how! - michael sean wright

oh yes, i have for fun. my limit is $20 and we have product demostrations. on my old blog, i had reviews on some of the crap i bought. - Admiral Anika

Brian, I agree. It should be closer to 80% with the 90,10,1 rule. The rest are just too embarrassed to admit it. - John Frost

No way. If it worked this well, more legit organizations would be using it. Right now, spammers who sell products are often deceiving even their customers about what the click-through rate is going to be. The rest are organized crime. - Neil Kandalgaonkar

I suspect these 'surveys' are using expansive definitions of spam, including newsletters from organizations that you've bought from before. - Neil Kandalgaonkar

About 29% of Americans can't find Canada on a map. The same 29%? - Dror Shimshowitz

29% of Americans support President Bush. - James Prudente

You're joking?!!?? Absolutely not, are there really people out there that are that stupid? - Kol Tregaskes from twhirl

About 2-4 times a year, I get a SPAM e-mail that I like. That's about 2-4 out of 40,000 = 0.005-0.01%. Lousy ratio compared to 0.5-3.0% direct mail or opt-in-e-mail, but I guess it works for many companies. - Mitchell Tsai

Me:inside of opposite 71% :) - Igor Poltavskiy

e-commerce, 'e' stands for e-mail :-D - Yung-Hui Lim

Never forget that things happen for a reason. There wouldn't be spam if it didn't work at least one in one billion times. That's all it takes. That's okay. Bill Gates solved spam back in 2006 or so. - Chris Brogan

i'm still waiting for my $29 million check from those guys in Nigeria. what's up with that? - .LAG liked that

Where the hell did they find these people? At an idiots conventions? That number sounds exceptionally high!! - Paul OFlaherty

a security company suggests that 29% of survey "respondents" admit to purchasing something from a spam email. 622 survey participants, ~150 admit to purchases. So, 150 purchasers who visit a security company's website has been extrapolated to the entire population of the internet. well done. - Chris Hollander

oh, and by the way, the security company that did the survey happens to sell anti-spamware software. but I'm sure that's just a coincidence. - Chris Hollander

Yeah, juxtapose this with the fact that there was only one video feed for the opening ceremonies. - Alex Scoble

Which is how China was able to inject the computer generated images of the "firework" footprints. - Alex Scoble

Wow. Corral is definitely the right word. I wonder if it's first come, first seated? - Lisa L. Seifert

At least they have paying work. - tom sparks

Also think of it as commiditising the images - one camera, one source, one expensive picture! - Simon Bisson from twhirl

If they actually were spread around and had different points of view it might make sense but my guess is that 5 or 10 total would guarantee complete coverage. Of course Nikon and Canon are happy - Brian Sullivan

If copyright law wasn't so screwed up, then yes, it might make sense to have one or a few photographers, and then distribute their photos. But that would never work in our screwed up world... - Josh Bancroft

Why? If you've ever seen the crying accordion player at FDR's funeral you would know why. Everyone was taking pics of the funeral, and one photog turned around to take this classic shot (which I think won several awards) http://www.mishalov.com/images... - Andrew Leyden

and maybe some of them are simply doing it for their photoblog :) - Midori

Not all photogs are created equal. not all are looking for the same shot. Some might be better at shooting one sport than another. I know I can shoot rowing better than I can shoot baseball. - Andrew Feinberg

Andrew: You mention rowing. Did you mean sculling? Have you done much shooting of kayaking? - Mathew A. Koeneker

I'd shoot sweep rowing (one oar per athlete) differently from sculling (two oars per athlete). I haven't shot kayaking at all. but I'd probably be shooting sprint, not whitewater. - Andrew Feinberg

If only we could have access to all of those pictures, and digitally combine them into a single explorable gigapixel image... - Chris Hollander

i wonder if they realize that they could take a high quality video and capture like a trillion stills from it ;) - Steven Livingstone-Pérez from twhirl

seriously ridiculous amount of photogs in attendance in the "corral" - Susan Beebe

Probably not... but who decides who actually gets to shot that? Who are the best photographers, do they have a 'club'? If I'm not the best photographer, how am I ever gonna get the chance to try or indeed learn if I'm never accepted into the club. Not every lens is always aimed at the one thing. If we didn't have a variety of pictures then complaints would be raised about the lack of coverage. Or maybe the government could pick them. I'd take oversaturation to maintain freedom of the press than say... China - Johnny Worthington

Can you see Thomas Hawk in there? - Adam Helweh

you can say the same about blogs - Antonio Altamirano

The better question is : Do we need THAT much RebelXT's lol ;) - Martin Gommel from feedalizr

Do we need THAT many newspapers? Do we need THAT many news websites? Do we need THAT many magazines? Do we need THAT many news TV stations? Why won't we all be hooked up to our big brother central news feed and live like drones???? - Amit Morson

Do we need this many blogs? :-) - Colby Olson

If you were paid to go by FastCompany to cover the tech angle would you have gone and my other question (like colby) is do we need so many bloggers at each conference covering the same thing. 1. Its bad for your carbon footprint and 2. The noise is the same with a slight twist. - sam sethi

For a great behind-the-scenes insight into the work of photographers at the Olympics I highly recommend this Newsweek blog, co-authored by their 3 photographers in Beijing: http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs.... - Ole Begemann

Sam: seriously? I am the one who makes the resource decisions for Fast Company TV and I could never justify taking so much time off to cover an event that so many others are covering. I try not to do that anymore even when the event is in my backyard, much less in China. No, we don't need so many bloggers covering the same thing at events. That's why I don't try to go to things anymore with lots of other bloggers. - Robert Scoble

do we need this many tech bloggers ? - Dave Ploch from fftogo

Dave: probably not. But one thing, we aren't using up lots of resources and we're not complaining that we're getting laid off from our jobs (hundreds of journalists in San Francisco area alone have lost their jobs recently thanks to the business model of newspapers changing radically). So, the comparison does not stand up. - Robert Scoble

I blame copyright laws. They're all taking essentially the same photo, but IP laws prevent them from sharing it. - Gabe

agreed, but I would argue the point about resources. Bloggers are extremely green. Also, how many blogger have this as their sole income or even as their only responsibilty in a business? - Dave Ploch

not green I meant - Dave Ploch

Gabe: that's not true. The Associated Press exists for sharing photos and saving journalistic resources. My photo of John Edwards was given to the Associated Press and dozens of newspapers and TV stations used it. - Robert Scoble

Robert. Really - I don't understand the schadenfreude? It's actually starting to sound chippy. Andrew was actually spot on. Out of the thousands of photos taken, only a very few are actually goint to be sufficiently interesting to warrant sticking on the page. One of the things I miss about newspapers and like when I do still pick them up, is a great page composition with a fabulous photo. - mattpovey

you're right. One guy with a flickr Account would have been enough. - Bertrand Duperrin

I really don't see the semi-obsession with this. Who is supposed to now decide how many is enough? Who is supposed to tell us how we can make a living, or what is worth taking a picture of. I know I wouldn't;t be thrilled with only one or two photographers being allowed to shoot there. What is this supposed to be saying about us? That all around the world humans are interested int he performance of the most gifted athletes on earth? Why am I supposed to feel bad about that again? - Soulhuntre

Similarly I don't "blame" IP laws - though obviously they are a factor here. But that's a good thing. It is a GOOD thing that humans are allowed to own what they produce... anything else is slavery. The right to decide what I produce, and who benefits from it, is to me a core human right. Besides, many of those photos will be resold time and again. - Soulhuntre

I agree with Soulhuntre -- let the market decide. Those photog are there meeting someone's demand, right or wrong. - Charles Barthold from Alert Thingy

I think it would be easier if all these outlets just told common people , send us your pics, we'll pay if its used in our publication. However, I dont think the common man has faith with the MSM.. as MSM are perecived as crooks .. take the pic, pub it and dont let any1 know who sent it in. - Peter Dawson

Doesn't just lock out Linux users but also PowerPC Mac users I'd phrase the question as follows: 'Knowing that Flash has a greater installed user base than Silverlight and that, unlike Silverlight, Flash is available on Linux and Mac PowerPC platforms. Why was Silverlight chosen over Flash, and what *specific* advantages does Silverlight provide to end users.' - Paul Grav

Microsofts PR dept changed that logic Paul. Give PR enough money and they can work miracles! - Roberto Bonini

Gregory. For sure, but I'd still like to hear how they can spin a response to make it look like their actions benefits end users. They obviously wouldn't respond by saying 'MS gave us a bunch of money'. - Paul Grav

MS and NBC have long been partners. There is a cable tv station called MSNBC that was created years ago as MS foray into content creation. - Rob Diana

Silverlight works on Linux - http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlig... - andy brudtkuhl

I tried to watch soccer highlights and got nothing from NBC's player on Firefox 3, Mac iBook G4. I supppse there's all sorts of plug-ins and whatnot that I need to download, but F that. The thing needs to just WORK and it doesn't. - David Connell from twhirl

Ask them why it's such a pain in the neck to view their videos on nbcolympics.com. Youtube is a breeze. NBC, as do other networks, seems to enjoy making it a burden to view. - Charles Barthold from Alert Thingy

Of the live streaming video websites I've used, it's easily the highest quality video I've seen and I haven't had any buffering yet, so I can't knock their choice of tech. - Richard Lawler from twhirl

I like the videos and the underlying tech, it's just the UI that makes me want to smash my head against the wall. - Johan

The quality is awesome and the streaming is very reliable. The UI I am ambivalent about. Compared to flash the streaming looks great and the development cycle in Silverlight is much more robust. They may have alienated 10% of the market that can't play silverlight - but that's no loss to them, those folks will watch on TV then. - Soulhuntre

Just a guess on the "Why Silverlight?" question is that Silverlight implements Windows Media DRM (even on the Mac). Perhaps NBC wanted to protect their streams? - Tom Conrad

The video quality is great, but I'm with Johan and others on the UI. The issue is I expected something different, so I got off on the wrong foot with the site. I think I was wrong in assuming that the main purpose of the site was the live streaming. It's not. It has a bunch of commentary, news clips, and on and on. All this other stuff muddled the site for me. It wasn't until I realized... more... - Loren Heiny

agree with Loren. ncaab.com for march madness was primarily live streams of the games which i liked much better. costas said there are 1000 hd cameras covering the olympics. plenty of content to live stream with that.... - Tim Connors from mioNews

Robert - you can also use the imaginary person feature to follow people who are NOT yet on FriendFeed. The only thing I haven't figured out is if FF somehow will know to merge people when they finally sign up... - Patrick Lightbody from mioNews

I like friendfeed much better also. I think that I am going to add more people to be invisable kind of like it was said. - Gaje Master from twhirl

Patrick - Yeah, the imaginary friend feature is nice, but I don't think it can be shared right? - Dickson Loh from twhirl

FriendFeed does not detect if one of your imaginary friend eventually signs up. Other people can't see your imaginary's posts. So there's no point in commenting on an imaginary friend's post UNLESS you're doing to to respond via Twitter (which is how I use it). You also can't "Reshare" and imaginary friend post. You can, but the link won't work for anyone. - Paul Reynolds