Pardon the inflammatory title, but I think people are missing the point with the latest “jailbraking”, lawsuit and Anonymous-action debacle with Sony.
Quick summary:
A guy buys a Playstation 3. He then plays with the internal workings of the machine in order to get it to do even more stuff than it could before. Sony sues him for it… an action that, frankly, is hard to morally justify even if you can show paperwork that makes it legal to do so. Anonymous attacks Sony websites and starts harassing Sony executives.
In case you missed it: Sony is suing him for modifying a product that he owns. He didn’t “license” or “lease” or “rent” that product. He owns it. Apparently, that doesn’t mean what it used to, because even though he owns that product he isn’t allowed to do with it as he pleases. That’s like a food manufacturer suing you for distributing a unique recipe, or an auto part manufacturer suing you for using car parts in a different brand car.
That’s it in a nutshell.
Ars Technica recently covered the story with a focus on how people have been able to get information on these executives. To me, this focus is completely uninteresting. Detectives have been able to get personal information on other people since before electricity was discovered, and always will.
Others have focused on the specific actions of Anonymous, and whether “they” went “too far”. That’s a fun philosophical debate if you really want to kill a few hours, but doesn’t actually have anything to do with what happens next.
That’s the key: what happens next?
This latest round of attacks by “Anonymous”, the general banner for “whatever random people got ticked off enough to target Sony executives for being a bunch of jackasses”, is becoming par for the course. You can’t stop it. Anonymous isn’t an organization. It’s just the phenomena of a bunch of people acting out. They don’t know each other, they don’t “keep in touch”, and there is no leader. YOU are Anonymous.
So, if a corporation tries to hurt random people, the members of that corporation can expect backlash. This is the world we live in.
While I’m not crazy about “mob mentality” or “mob rule”, I understand why it’s starting to happen. After Enron demonstrated to the world that corporate executives are above the law even when they seriously harm people, the notion of random people being sued for doing things that hurt people only in the vaguest and most esoteric sense is more than the average Netizen is ready to handle. People who do real harm are immune to punishment, and people who do largely theorhetical harm are lynched by the system.
Since there is no government mechanism for maintaining the balance, mob rule rises.
I don’t have a solution to the problem, but I do know that we’ll see more and more of this. It will go a bit further every time. Executives responsible for random smack-downs on the public can expect more and more backlash.
For those of us that have nothing to do with this conflict on either side, expect to be caught in the crossfire. You will be able to do less on the Internet tomorrow than you can today in order to keep executives safe from being held accountable by Anonymous. Corporate services you wanted to use will go down occasionally due to Anonymous attacks. The trend will continue.
The solution? Maybe more transparency in the corporate structure, more accountability… or maybe a completely new model under which to build a business. Ah, but this is my stop folks… I’m not really the “ingenious solutions” guy, just the “understanding what the hell is going on” guy.
Events are a great way to create word of mouth marketing, but taking them to a worldwide audience is expensive. Using immersive virtual world technologies you can expand your local event to a global audience without breaking the budget.
Today at 2pm PacificVirtual Worlds Keynote will be host to Laura Pevehouse Thomas, strategist for social media at Dell. Profiled as one of five “social media mavens” in the March 2009 issue of Austin Woman Magazine, she’s worked in and around the Dell family for nine years, primarily in the areas of corporate communications, employee communications, public relations, community affairs, branding and online communication.
Laura has earned the designation of Accredited Business Communicator from the International Association of Business Communicators, and received her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Louisiana State University. Before joining Dell Financial Services in 2000, she worked at the Texas Workforce Commission and PepsiCo Food Systems Worldwide.
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To join us in Second Life:
Go to SecondLife.com, create an account, and install the software.
Log in through the Second Life software using your user name.
Click here to be teleported to our studio before 2pm Pacific.
Want to know how to leverage Second Life to get new clients? Today’s guest is sales guru Ernie Young presenting: “Moving From Contact to Client in Second Life – Finding a Sales Process to Gain and Keep Customers for Life”. If you’ve ever had an interest in getting new clients, do not miss this rare opportunity to hear a true expert speak on the topic!
Today at 2pm PacificVirtual Worlds Keynote will be host to the Head Coach of SalesTeam East, Ernie Young. He started his selling career by opening his own business at 12 years old and operating it door to door throughout his teenage years before leaving for college. Over the past 35 years, Mr. Young accumulated vast experience and accomplishment in professional sales, sales training, and management. He has consistently led his sales teams to record-setting company performances in both large and small business organizations, and has been repeatedly awarded recognition for his personal career sales performance and for the sales levels achieved by the sales professionals under his management.
Before his long career in professional sales, Mr. Young served 10 years on active duty as a U.S. Naval Officer after which he continued to serve for 10 more years on a part time basis in the U.S. Naval Reserve. During his military career, he developed seasoned management skills, managing and training organizations of hundreds of military personnel. He holds a Bachelors of Science in Management from the U.S. Naval Academy and the rank of Commander, U.S. Naval Reserve.
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To join us in Second Life:
Go to SecondLife.com, create an account, and install the software.
Log in through the Second Life software using your user name.
Click here to be teleported to our studio before 2pm Pacific.
Linden Lab re-conceived its Second Life viewer (finally!) and created a new product. There is a lot of information about it, but here’s the short version:
Interface Cleanup: The old interface was a disaster. There’s no other way to say it. For new users it was like being threatened with the edge of a broken bottle, daring them to try to figure that nonsense out. This is much better. Well, not perfect, but better than a broken bottle in the face.
Current Location Easily Accessible: Just like in your web browser, your location in Second Life is now at the top of your screen. Copy/paste it into a document, send it to a friend, or paste locations up there that you want to visit. Now if they could find a way to make them shorter and more memorable…
Places To Explore: The worst part about entering Second Life for the first time, apart from the interface, has been the complete lack of direction for finding something interesting to do. While some will inevitably whine about the “preferential treatment” these destinations are getting, this was a critical change.
Improved Avatar Customization: Its still way to complex for new users, but they’ve made it much easier than it was before.
You can buy a house!: In the real world you can just buy a house and furnish it, and now you can in Second Life too. Thank goodness. Before you had to buy some land, make sure it was big enough for what you needed (which, as a new user, you have no real clue about), then find somewhere that sells houses, and figure out the build tools to deploy it correctly. Forget all that now: just go buy a house. *whew*
Webpages On Walls: A game-changing feature. Watch YouTube or run other Flash-based applications on your wall, no problem. Even bigger: users can just click the surface to automatically zoom in on it properly. Genius!
I’m usually loathe to give the Linden Lab crew too much credit for development of new features as it all seemingly comes at a glacier’s pace, but this was a huge leap forward for them. New users might actually get through an entire orientation without smashing their keyboards in frustration! Well done guys.
Now don’t stop here; keep it up!
Video Resources
A general overview of the Second Life 2.0 interface.
Web content on walls parts 1 and 2
(called “Shared Media” because they just can’t help but make up new terminology for you to learn… aren’t you grateful… )
You can buy a house. (“Linden Homes”)
The full set of in-depth tutorials covering every little thing in the new interface.
Last night Hélène Zuili, CEO of MakeMyWorlds, covered a specific case study of prototyping and rehearsing processes around a trade show exhibit using Second Life. She covers what tools were used for booth conception, marketing and sales, as well as how the virtual world component was used during the real world event to complement the exhibition and optimize the investment.
Virtual Worlds Keynote
Real World Expos in Virtual Spaces
What I really enjoyed about this presentation was the specifics on how this experience impacted sales. In addition to information on how salespeople became better prepared before the expo, we saw some actual conversion numbers on people visiting the virtual exhibits and following up with the company in question.
Please join us next week (Monday, March 1 at 2pm Pacific) when our guest will be Anders Grondstedt, President of The Gronstedt Group, as he tells us how Schneider Electric and IBM have found a strategic planning solution in Second Life.
