Freakonomics Blog » Saving the Rhinos: an Addendum

Freakonomics Blog » Saving the Rhinos: an Addendum:

Another more subtle alternative has been proposed by the Harvard economist Michael Kremer. This approach to rhino conservation incorporates elements of both of the schemes you describe in your question.

Why do poachers kill rhinos? Because they get well-paid by middlemen. And why are middlemen able to offer handsome rewards to poachers? Because rhino horns sell for huge sums in the Far East, owing to the scarcity of available horns. So it is high prices that ultimately drive poaching activity.

Now, suppose the government were to announce the strict enforcement of anti-poaching laws and higher penalties rhino killers. Rhino middlemen would quickly realize that supply will grow even scarcer – and hence prices even higher – in the near future. So they’ll buy up as many rhino horns as they can in anticipation of this future of low supply and high prices. But this rush to poach before laws go into effect could itself drive rhinos into extinction.

Professor Kremer’s proposed solution is that the government put together its own stockpile of rhino horns, either from seized contraband or from, as you suggest, controlled harvesting.

As it happens, I was down in Southern California last week and spent time at the San Diego Wild Animal Park in Escondido, and one of the topics that came up was the upcoming extinction of one of the populations of black rhinos. Another was some of the success the park has had in working with the Masai on protecting lions.

One of the assumptions made by Kremer is that there’s enough of a stable government that it’s not only willing to take on these issues, but they’re capable of it. In areas where this is true — South Africa, for instance — it has happened, and there’s been some progress protecting lions and elephants and the reserve lands.

But in other places where governments are unstable (at best) or locked in a civil war, not only might they not see this as a priority, it’s rather hard for them to enforce laws in lands they can’t even visit because the rebels have control over it. That’s been a significant problem both with Rhinos and Gorillas in various areas, especially in Western Africa.

it’s hard for the government to stop poaching when they can’t even send troops or workers into an area without them being shot. The civil instability of the area makes these problems exceptionally difficult to solve — at best.

The second problem with the idea of a legitimate stockpile of horn is that it really doesn’t solve the problem, but it creates a legitimate pool of material that the poached material can infiltrate into. A similar attempt was made to disrupt ivory poaching and trading by filling the market with certified ivory; all that does is leave the poached ivory one forged certificate away from being sold safely. you can look at similar situations in blood diamonds and in the antiquities market (where if you can show that the artifact was expatriated before the restrictions were put in place, it’s okay to keep or sell — and hence there’s a thriving market in falsified histories for poached antiquities). The bottom line is, you don’t solve the problem by replacing an illicit trade with a legal one, you simply give the poachers one more avenue for creating pathways for their product.

The alternative? In places where it’s not safe for anyone (government, NGO, etc) to operate — not much. It’s a tough deal, and seems too late for some populations of rhinos, period.

But one thing that came up at the park I found very interesting. The culture of the Masai is based on the cow. Status and wealth is based on how many cows you own. In Masai culture, when a lion killed a cow, the warriors would hunt the lion in return.

The Wild Animal Park as part of a conservation group worked with the Masai, and agreed to pay market value for any lion-killed cow, if the Masai wouldn’t hunt the lions. What they’ve done is change the dynamics of the relationship (social and financial) and worked with the Masai to become protectors of the lions. According to the people I talked to, it’s been very effective.

This seems to be the trick needed. Poachers are, ultimately, trying to feed their family. The best way to change their idea of how to do this is to change the economic views of the value of the animals; make those animals more valuable alive than dead.

For a number of years, I’ve donated money to an organization called RARE. It’s primary purpose is to help preserve endangered habitat by working with the locals to teach them how to use those habitats in sustainable ways — a key tool is eco-tourism, and they’ve had some good success in South American, and in the last few years have expanded into southern africa. The idea is to teach the locals non-destructive ways to use the resources at hand, to give then incentives to WANT to preserve the resources, not exploit them.

That’s a strategy that seems to work well in some situations. Again, however, it’s not something you can do in the middle of a civil war. In some ways, it’s a carrot vs. stick situation. If you create a context that helps the locals WANT to protect those resources (habitats, species, etc), it’ll happen. Solutions that try to force those changes tend to fail.

Update:

more on this from Salad is Slaughter:

Salad Is Slaughter – A Gluttonous Curmudgeon and “D” List Blogger » More on Rhinos:

I visited the San Diego Wild Animal Park on the 22nd, and during the Asian Photo Caravan Safari they discussed one of the methods used to save (I think it was) the Southern White Rhino. Instead of putting the poachers in prison, they hired the poachers to protect the rhinos. The poachers didn’t hate the rhinos, they just needed the money. Money from the government or from a conservation society is just as good as from the people dealing contraband. Also, the poachers knew the rhinos’ habits better than anyone, and so knew best how to find and protect them.

One problem they discussed about breeding white rhinos in captivity: the discovered that you need two females before one will go in to heat. That’s because the females actually control their reproductive cycle because they want a girlfriend around to help protect the young.

Women in the Hockey Hall of Fame? Sure, Why Not?

Hockey Rants:

Don’t tell this to Dave Harrison of Prince George, who apparently still pines for the 1930s, and thinks women’s hockey has no place in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Women’s hockey is just a shade faster than Tai Chi but only half as interesting.

If any event is worthy of an “escape call” early in the first period, it’s women’s hockey.

As a crowd pleaser it seems to appeal only to other women who have convinced themselves that it’s entertaining, feminist promoters of lost causes, anxious sponsors who are about to lose their shirts, milquetoast males who allow their women to choose their clothes (Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche), and husbands who nod in agreement if they know what’s good for them.

No self-respecting, red-blooded, beer-drinking, Canadian male hockey fan ever takes women’s hockey seriously.

I will agree that women’s hockey is boring (to me) and it is like comparing the original Iron Chef to the watered-down American version, but the Hockey Hall of Fame is not exclusively for males, in title or in theory.

How could a serious hockey fan ever discount the impact that certain female players have had on the game and on the national consciousness?

This came up today on the women-in-hockey mailing list Laurie and I have managed for years. You can only imagine the response.

My favorite: he’s welcome to his opinion, no matter how wrong he is.

Me — I’m just sad that those kind of attitudes are not only still in existence in today’s society, but tolerated by some, and promoted as positive by others. Sad, but not surprised.

Jes, without realizing it, defines the problem wonderfully — by looking at women’s hockey in the mirror of the men’s game, and finding it wanting. This is the same reason the WNBA is considered by many a geek show — it’s not really marketed at women, but as a way for male basketball fans to waste some time waiting for the real stuff to return. (The ABL actually wasn’t afraid to market to women as a primary audience — unfortunately, it got eaten by the financial power of the NBA)

Fortunately, women generally don’t CARE what guys like Dave Harrison think; they’re not in it to get validation from some idiot male chauvinist, they’re in it because they enjoy hockey. And that, I think, is what scares guys like Harrison and makes them try to belittle women’s sports.

Fortunately, the reason anyone’s even paying attention to this is because this kind of attitude has gotten increasingly rare, or at least, the people who believe this are generally smart enough not to stand up on a soapbox and promote it quite so loudly. We’re making progress.

But it’s clear we’re not there yet.

The real good news is this: the women will keep playing hockey and enjoying it for what it is, without trying to be guys in a guys game. And that’ll continue pissing off guys like Dave Harrison… But where 15 years ago, people like Dave might have been able to influence the situation, now he’s merely a sad voice in the distance.

Oh, and jes? Women find your writing boring, too. But that’s okay, no? Different strokes and all that, right? And more important than that: women really don’t care what you think about their game, as long as they get to keep playing.

And THAT’s what matters. Not what anyone thinks about how they play.

(and me? I”m proud to have been able to support the growth of women being able to play the game and enjoy it in the small way I have. And I find their version of the game far from boring. Different from how men play — but men could learn from them, if they wanted to…)

Walsh changed forever his sport, Bay Area’s image

San Jose Mercury News – Killion: Walsh changed forever his sport, Bay Area’s image:

The ties that bind us together are human products: memories, tradition, lore.

And, with Bill Walsh’s death, the Bay Area’s fabric just unraveled a bit. Because he created something that pulled us together.

Walsh was a thread running through our culture. Part of our collective glue. He changed forever not only his sport, but also the Bay Area’s image, our shared memories, our sense of who we are.

The 49ers as created by Walsh were a football phenomenon, but more important, they were a native force. In a fractured, diverse place, Walsh created a community, a local swagger. He forged a special time and place that won’t be forgotten.

These days we’re having a legend drought.

And so we say goodbye to a true legend, a quiet one who would reject being called that, but someone who affected Bay Area sports, and the sporting universe in general, as much as Willie Mays did in his time, or Wayne Gretzky did in hockey.

Rest in Peace, Bill. And thank you.

Memories #1: Colorado Rockies hockey

A little piece of hockey history, courtesy of Scott Knaster.

This is not your practice blog: Memories #1: Colorado Rockies hockey:

The Colorado Rockies were a National Hockey League team, mostly forgotten now. The Rockies played in Denver for 6 seasons in the late 1970s and early ’80s. Their wacky logo was a mountain carved out of the Colorado state flag. They were spectacularly unsuccessful on the ice, making the playoffs only once in those 6 seasons. The Rockies are known for having employed Don Cherry as head coach, and for being the first sports team to use “Gary Glitter’s Rock & Roll, Pt. 2″ regularly at games.

Despite their generally crappy play, Barbara and I used to love going to the games. For part of their run, Barbara was the assistant public relations director for the Denver Nuggets of the NBA, who played in McNichols Sports Arena, also the Rockies’ home. Because of this connection, Barbara could get into the Rockies games, and she was able to sneak me in also by getting me this pass

The risks of being acquired

YouTube Suckage Syndrome : Venture Chronicles:

YouTube under Google has been one long disappointment since the acquisition was announced last October. Where is the innovation, a better video converter and upload process, kick ass search, integration with other Google services?

Okay, pop quiz: name a company/technology/service/whatever that got acquired by a bigger company that went on and continued thriving and innovating?

I’m having trouble. The best that can be said is that they minimize how long it takes to be integrated in — think about Flickr after being bought by Yahoo; they went through, what, a year or so, where the major feature enhancements seemed to be integration with (and then full migration to) Yahoo IDs. Not exactly what their customers were demanding, and it’s just now that you’re really starting to see innovation on Flickr again such as more flexible page displays and localized language support.

It is, perhaps, inevitable that when you get bought, you go through a phase where instead of actually continuing to work on your product, you have to learn to play with your new owners, wehther it’s moving to their data centers, migrating to their back end databases and IT systems, whatever. I can’t think of a major (or even moderate) acquisition where there wasn’t some form or anotehr of this “acquisition stasis”. the larger you are, the longer it’s likely to take, too, so things like Flickr and YouTube are significant ones, while a smaller group like MyBlogLog seemed to get over it a lot faster. It’s simple inertia and logistics reality.

Physics wins.

But — and perhaps this is something not really taken into consideration as part of the acquisition — this, well, interlude can be a significant competitive disadvantage (I admit that at one point, I was starting to seriously consider moving off of Flickr because, well, nothing was happening and places like Smugmug were lapping them with new functionality); in a fast moving marketplace, that could be death. Imagine if Facebook got bought, and then spent four or six months figuring out how to be Yahooed before innovating the product again? We’d all be using something else, right?

Given the realities of being acquired, I doubt there’s a damn thing anyone can do about this, either, even if both sides recognize it and pledge to avoid it. It’s just the way things are.

You can’t build neat new visible things until the underlying infrastructure supports it. And frankly, that’s where the heavy lifting occurs, and it’s not easy. Especially when you’re starting with two environments not designed to talk to each other.

Pages, Pucks and Pantry: Hockey-Sharks New Jumbotron

Pages, Pucks and Pantry: Hockey-Sharks New Jumbotron:

See that? That’s where the new Jumbo-tron will be going up at the Tank. And I think those are the new speakers already up. Wahoo…bout figgin time. Maybe this year I’ll actually be able to see and hear what’s on the Jumbo-tron.

Freakonomics Blog » Should We Just Let the Tour de France Dopers Dope Away?

Freakonomics Blog » Should We Just Let the Tour de France Dopers Dope Away?:

Now that virtually every cyclist in the Tour de France has been booted for doping, is it time to consider a radical rethinking of the doping issue?

Is it time, perhaps, to come up with a pre-approved list of performance-enhancing agents and procedures, require the riders to accept full responsibility for whatever long-term physical and emotional damage these agents and procedures may produce, and let everyone ride on a relatively even keel without having to ban the leader every third day?

If the cyclists are already doping, why should we worry about their health? If the sport is already so gravely compromised, why should we pretend it hasn’t been?

I can argue both sides of this.

The argument in favor of letting players dope boils down to two main ideas: they’re already doing it, so why not legitimize it? And the other idea is that as long as the athletes know what they’re getting into — why shouldn’t we let them?

The argument against doping is pretty simple: doping kills athletes. Cyclists have been doping with EPO for years, as well as with red cell transfusions and other ways to increase oxygen uptake. And as long as Cyclists have been doing this, cyclists have been dying.

Do you want any sport to become like pro wrestling, where one of the rarest things is a wrestler over age 45?

There are two reasons why sports have drug restrictions. well, actually, three:

First is to keep the athlete from doing stupid and dangerous things to themselves because they’re willing to do so to win. Athletes are not the best judge of what’s in their long-term interest, and the competitive instinct and the political pressure to win causes lapses of judgement. Athletes DO need to be protected from themselves, and from bad advice from those they listen to.

Second is to try to keep the sport on a fair basis: the idea is, in theory, for the best athlete to win. The more you allow an athlete to “hack” this essential fairness, the less relevant the results are (at least in theory). Is the idea to allow the best athlete to win? or the one with the best access of technology?

This is a constant struggle in most sports — hockey limits the size of goaltender gear and what you can do to your stick; NASCAR limits horsepower and other mechanical aspects of cars; bicycling limits equipment as well to try to prevent races from becoming technological challenges. There’s a long tradition of sports trying to manage the compromises between a sport moving forward and the technology changing the sport.

Oh, and third? Drug doping gives some people a lot of power and political push; it’s one reason why Dick Pound ought to rot in hell, because he’s the embodiment of drug testing becoming a means to power instead of a check against excesses.

Personally, I stand firmly in the middle here. I think a lot of drug testing and doping work done today is excessive — the Olympics is a circus of politics over common sense; honestly, I don’t care if hockey players take Sudafed (a no no) or shooters take Benadryl. Neither one is going to affect a player’s long-term health, and the competitive advantages are minimal.

On the other hand, look at wrestlers and the history of steroids and other drugs. Do you really want to give athletes free reign to take the chance that something might happen later so they can win now?

The current state of drug testing in sports is well out of balance. it needs to be dialed back and focus more on the health and safety of the athlete. But do away with testing? allow doping of cyclists?

Where do you draw the line? How much risk are you going to allow an athlete to screw up (or truncate) their future life for current, fleeting glory? it’s a tough call. But the reality is, even WITH drug restrictions and testing you see athletes willing to take chances to win, and we now see with the WWE and with cycling that those decisions have come back to haunt (and kill) athletes.

I’d have serious problems being a fan of a sport where I knew athletes were taking serious risks iwth their health to win; that’s a reason why I stopped following women’s gymnastics years ago, once it became clear how endemic the pressure towards delayed puberty, bulemia and anorexia.

Where does this turn into blood and circuses? Do I want the blood of an athlete on my hands as a fan?

I have trouble with that. And one thing I do know, and which has been proven time and time again, if you don’t protect the athletes from themselves in making these kind of “win now, worry about tomorrow later” decisions, they WILL choose to win now — and pay later. And because of that, those decisions shouldn’t be in the athlete’s hands, or their handlers.

update:

nice piece on this posted on Freakomics from Joe Linsdsey of Bicycling magazine.

Freakonomics Blog » Why Legalizing Sports Doping Won’t Work:

Yesterday, I posted a short piece called “Should We Just Let the Tour de France Dopers Dope Away?” It wasn’t an outright call for legalization of sports doping, but I wanted to put the idea on the table.

Well, Joe Lindsey, a contributing writer for Bicycling magazine, wrote in to say that there are a lot of compelling reasons to keep the idea off the table. Joe, who has written widely on doping in cycling, was good enough to write up his argument in the guest post below.

Truncated RSS Feeds Kill Conversations and Long Term Traffic: Technology Evangelist

Truncated RSS Feeds Kill Conversations and Long Term Traffic: Technology Evangelist:

I am so tired of truncated RSS feeds.

Why do you continue to work under the assumption that you’re better off forcing people to click through to read blog posts or news stories rather than allowing them to read content within their feed readers?

This is wrong.

Why?

This is something I’ve been grappling with. there are no good answers, either.

Given that at some point you need to monetize your systems, what’s the lesser evil? using a non-full feed (truncated, whatever) to encourage people to click in to where the advertising is, or do put advertising into the feed?

There is a third option, which is neither — but TANSTAAFL. it’s not necessarily a viable option.

So, I want to toss this out. Once you decide you really need to monetize that feed, what’s the way to do it? I personally dislike ads in an RSS feed, but if you do a full feed, you strongly discourage feed readers from clicking through o where the advertising is.

I’m not sure which option I prefer. Or more correctly, dislike least.

thoughts?

New Sharks Logo: The Reviews Are In – Sports Blog – The FanHouse

New Sharks Logo: The Reviews Are In – Sports Blog – The FanHouse:

Although it had been leaked on the Web several days earlier — and you can ask the Capitals what a pain-in-the-ass that can be — the San Jose Sharks officially unveiled their new logo at a press event yesterday. PJ Swenson from Sharkspage has some great coverage, including comments made by logo designer Terry Smith.

I’ve been mostly offline doing Other Stuff, so I haven’t really had a chance to comment on this.

just as well. Having looked at the new logo, I don’t really have much to say. I didn’t think the old logo needed to be changed; it seemed pretty classic and timeless to me.

The new logo? looks like Stan Lee stopped in for along weekend, or perhaps Frank Miller. I don’t dislike it, but it doesn’t do much for me, either. it frankly looks to me like something that might work as a shoulder patch, but as the main logo?

it’s not going to drag me off somewhere to buy a new jersey right away. Maybe I’ll like it better in person. I don’t dislike it, I simply don’t particularly see it as an improvement.

So I guess this is one vote for “who cares?”

San Jose Mercury News – More doping problems at Tour

San Jose Mercury News – More doping problems at Tour:

Today, a senior French doping official said yet another rider failed a doping test – this time for testosterone.

The revelation came a day after Alexandre Vinokourov and his Astana team were disqualified because he tested positive for a banned blood transfusion.

The doping official said he did not know the identity of the cyclist who tested positive for testosterone. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case with reporters.

After the stage, Italian Cristian Moreni was led away by police.

the two things the Tour needed this year was some drama to generate interest, and to be clean. It had the former in spades, and just as I was finding myself drawn back into it….

oh well. hockey camps open in a few weeks. Last time you’ll see me talk about bicycling for, well, probably forever.

on the ‘NHL is Too Big’ bandwagon. (no, not me!)

PuckUpdate .: The Hockey Blog :: Archives Archives (weekly):

Larry Brooks is officially on my personal ‘NHL is Too Big’ bandwagon. The league is looking to expand into two more markets (the NHL as Starbucks approach to a league), but Brooks says the active roster should drop down to 20 per game (from 23), with 16 players dressed per game (down from 18). As Brooks points out, two expansion teams would bring 46 players into the NHL and it’s a safe bet they wouldn’t be 46 Joe Sakics.

No; in realty, each team would need to find the equivalent of one mid-2nd rounder to fill out the roster. During the initial expansion, you can expect the rules to be set so the teams suck early on (it’s what we do!), and guys like Brooks will declare how right they were, but over 3-5 years, the teams will be able to build decent teams and it’ll be very much a non-issue.

This argument was made when the league brought in Nashville, Columbus, Atlanta and the Wild — yet nobody today seems to be complaining that the talent is too diluted. it was made when the ducks and the Panthers came into the league. It was made when the Sharks, Senators and Lightning arrived.

heck, this argument was made when the team expanded from 6 to twelve teams.

Funny, the world hasn’t ended. More importantly, expansion in the last fifteen years has had a lot less impact on the quality of hockey than the league rule changes — the TV timeout has allowed teams to focus on the top three lines more, and the rules to cut out obstruction have brought back into the league the smaller, talented player that was being manhandled out of the league (we’ll call that the “Dennis Savard” rule), giving us better hockey than we’ve seen in a decade.

And it would make things much better for players. The Rangers traded center Matt Cullen back to Carolina to free up cap space. But if the Rangers only had three lines, he would have been a keeper, with plenty of money under the cap to keep him. Heck. They could have probably even given him a raise. Instead, the Rangers had to trade a strong player for the sake of salary, and a player who wanted to stay in New York had to leave.

Sorry, but — you want to do away with the jobs of 90 players (3 per team x 30 or 32 teams), and those guys will most likely be younger guys or journeymen, mostly making from league minimum to maybe $1.5m a year — so that we can take that money and give a few players already making a lot of money even more money? And this is good for players — how?

Well, it’s good if you are a top player who’s upset that you’re only making $6 million a year and not $8. It’s not good if you’re Mark Gandler trying to get their client money up to the limit. But benefitting players by cutting a bunch of jobs that hurt the working stiffs of the game? (because, of course, teams aren’t going to cut the roster by cutting their Joe Sakic….)

I just don’t buy it. I wonder what the elite players most likely to benefit from this cut would say. Actually, I think the contracts of Joe Thornton, Syndey Crosby and Jarome Iginla, all of whom took much less than the legal max they could have demanded, already answers that question.

Technovia: Does your company earn attention? Or does it buy attention?

Technovia: Does your company earn attention? Or does it buy attention?:

As we move more and more into an interactive, conversational set of dominating media the opportunities for companies to buy the attention of potential customers through advertising are going to be less and less. With the proliferation of channels, and with the cost of creating compelling ads getting higher and higher, buying attention is becoming less and less effective and more and more expensive.

And, where you can buy attention, you’ll need to ensure that the message you’re presenting to people is so tightly targeted that it’s almost able to earn their attention, simply by being slap bang in the middle of their sets of interests. This is the secret to Google’s success: ads with targeting, small, low-cost, but lots of them.

However, the tools for earning attention have never been more democratically distributed, from blogging to Facebook to whatever the next thing is. Every employee in every company is empowered, at least in theory, to help your company earn attention.

This is all true — but it also presumes a couple of things I disagree with.

First of all, that conversation Ian is talking about isn’t with the the entire population, or even with significant parts of the market. It’s with a subset; that subset tends to be technologically sophisticated and perhaps that leading edge of influencers, but assuming that you can engage them and make ANY product a success simply isn’t true.

This tactic works, but it works for SOME products and SOME companies. To presume that this is the one true way of marketing into the future is simply incorrect, and lots of folks online fall into the trap of “this works for me, this is what I like, so this is how it ought to be”.

Think about this — the iPhone was a massive success, as was the iPod. What are the big gripes about the iPhone online? That there’s limited ability to write programs for it and to a lesser degree, that it’s not “open”. well, Neither is the iPod, and it did okay. Ditto the lack of programmability — even though games now exist for the iPod, it’s not “open” by any means. Doesn’t seem to be hurting.

This is the classic tunnel vision problem of the online universe: we tend to forget that we are not the general public. For all the geeks want to hack the iPhone (and I expect it’ll happen, but in 1.0? nah) — that’s not the market Apple was looking for, and clearly, it didn’t hurt the iPhone on initial release.

That’s because the iPhone, like the iPod, is a consumer product, not a geek product — for all its inherent geekiness.

The same is true of marketing by conversation, or whatever in the hell we’ll end up calling it. What works for Google works because Google is marketing to a primarily geeky audience; to be blunt about it, Google didn’t succeed at search because it did blogs, it succeeded at search because it got itself set up as the default in the browsers early on, and for its consumer-oriented products, they succeeded because of good marketing and strategy, not blogs and conversation.

Apple? Apple’s marketing is as closed as the iPod. Horrors, say the geeks. They need to let employees blog and speak to the masses, or they’re doomed.

yeah, right. Since I left Apple last fall, it’s stock has basically doubled, and their quarterly numbers have been stunning. Such a failure, Apple’s gonna die — and has been since 1984.

My point isn’t that Ian’s wrong — he’s right, and even Apple could benefit by opening up some more. But — what’s wrong is this assumption that there’s a single way to do something. Google couldn’t market it’s company the way Apple does. Do you honestly think that Apple marketing the iPhone through conversational marketing would have generated the level of hype and anticipation it got through traditional marketing?

Not a chance, and if you’re honest with yourself, you’d admit it. If you don’t, either you don’t understand consumer marketing or you don’t understand Apple….

Does anyone seriously think that 3M or Proctor and Gamble could replace their current marketing with conversational tools and be successful with general consumers? Not a chance. Supplement them? yes. Replace them? no.

Maybe in five years, maybe in ten. But even then, there will never be this “there is only one way to do this” that we tend to adopt online. Life’s never that simple, never that black and white.

And that’s a place where, by succeeding while not following this “they must”, Apple has once again shown that there are many ways to bell the cat; the trick is to make sure you know which one will work with the specific cat you’re trying to bell…

ESPN – Burnside: Did Bettman tell Preds to back off Balsillie talks? – NHL

ESPN – Burnside: Did Bettman tell Preds to back off Balsillie talks? – NHL:

Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie has accused NHL commissioner Gary Bettman of forcing the owner of the Nashville Predators to break off discussions about the sale of the team to Balsillie, ESPN.com has learned.

The Canadian ownership group also alleges Bettman directed Predators owner Craig Leipold to focus on closing a deal with William “Boots” Del Biaggio III, who is the front man for a group trying to bring an NHL team to Kansas City.

“We were advised by Mr. Leipold that the commissioner had found out about the existence of the negotiations and ordered him to immediately cease any further communications with us,” Balsillie’s legal representative, Richard Rodier, told ESPN.com this week.

Maybe Bettman did. Maybe he didn’t. Probably did, but not in the way Balsillie is portraying it.

In this case, I tend to side with Bettman, also. It’s no secret that Balsillie’s intending to move Nashville — no matter what the league wants — to Hamilton. it’s been clear since early on that he’s not unwilling to try the “Al Davis” gambit, either, of basically moving the team and throwing it into the courts and seeing how much money he can cost the league along the way.

So, if you’re Gary Bettman, and you’re hearing from the Board of Governors about it, OF COURSE you’re going to go to Leipold and say “hey, this guy’s not going to be approved, don’t bother”. Remember: Leipold owns the team and can sell to anyone he wants, but the buyer has to be approved by the league for the sale to finalize. If the league’s decided that’s not going to happen, the right thing to do is tell Leipold so he can stop wasting time on something that’s going to be tossed out.

The scenarios for the league to get into nasty legal fights here is just stunning. Which lawsuit do you want the league to be involved in? the one where Balsillie sues the NHL for rejecting his purchase? The one where Balsillie sues the NHL for rejecting his move to Hamilton? Or the one where Bailsillie sues the NHL for having moved the Predators ANYWAY and trying to force the NHL to accept it?

The league doesn’t need this kind of fun. And that, I think, is the message Bettman took to Nashville. And he should have. Of course, so many folks want to see Bettman as the root cause of all of the league’s real and perceived problems — but in reality, he’s the messenger for the Board of Governors, and I think it’s clear the Governors decided the Balsillie was nothing but trouble and decided he wasn’t going to be approved, no matter what. And that’s their privilege, as the owners of the league.

Many players have told ESPN.com they believe a new team in Hamilton would generate significantly more revenue than a team in Kansas City. Governors and GMs have told ESPN.com in the past year they believe a second team in Southern Ontario would be a surefire success. Phoenix Coyotes coach Wayne Gretzky, still one of hockey’s most influential figures, recently said he thought a team in Hamilton would be a success.

This, of course, is actually irrelevant, and when did the players become better businessmen than the owners, anyway? or sit down and study the deal and the numbers?

Ultimately, I think Balsillie blew it here. He could have played the game, made all of the proper noises about nashville, and structured it to make sure he could break the lease — heck, given how low the average ticket price is in Nashville, he could use the “we have to run this as a business” argument, jumped the ticket prices 20% in two seasons, killed the season ticket sales and be in Hamilton in four years.

But instead, he opened up ticket sales in Hamilton before actually owning the team — and made it clear what his intentions were and what he intended to do, with or without league support. His history of solving things with lawyers is well-known. And that — ultimately, his lack of patience for playing out the end game in Nashville — is what killed his chance of owning an NHL team. At this point, he’s never going to get one, and his continuing attempts to badger the league is only going to hurt his chances further, not help them. He’s going to win the battle for the hearts of Canadians — and lose the war, which is getting a team into Southern Ontario.

I’m not surprised at this, either. That’s his style. And the league clearly doesn’t want a team in Hamilton at this point. Not only will the Leafs never go for that (and don’t minimize the power of the #1 revenue team — and revenue sharing contributor — and their ability to convince other teams to support them here), but I’m sure Buffalo wasn’t thrilled, either. If you start looking at realignment if Nashville moves to Hamilton, and how that affects team travel issues, you can easily find six or seven teams that would see Hamilton as a really bad thing; say, everyone west of St. Louis has a reason not to encourage this.

I’m wondering, in retrospect, whether the league tossed an olive branch at Balsillie and had it trampled. Remember back around the All-Star game where Bettman suddenly came out and talked about how Winnipeg was starting to look attractive to the league? I’m now wondering whether this was the start of an attempt to encourage Balsillie that if he really wanted to move a team to Canada, that the league wouldn’t get in the way of a move to Winnipeg. That would be a useful compromise position for both sides: the team moves back to Canada, but not to Southern Ontario.

Balsillie pretty clearly rejected that; he wants what he wants, and isn’t interested in what might be the interests of the rest of the league. And that’s why the league has decided that his money’s no good here. Think about it: Balsillie has never tried to work with the league to find common ground. He negotiated with Leipold in secret, he started the move to Hamilton early and without permission, he brought lawyers and threats about the possible move into the discussion, and now that he’s been frozen out, he’s playing the “let’s fight in public” game to try to make the league and Bettman look as bad as possible.

Imagine being one of the other 29 owners of an NHL team and having to work with this guy for the next ten years. Is that the kind of owner you want around? Money isn’t everything, and while the various owners aren’t necessarily friends, or even friendly competitors, there HAS to be some common ground of cooperation for the good of the league. Seen any inidication that Balsilie recognizes that (or cares) anywhere? Neither do I.

So in this case, the league is right to exclude someone like Balsillie. Hey, for all Mark Cuban rips on the NBA and the league — he’s doing it to improve the league, and he works within the league to get it done. You can’t even say Balsillie would be that cooperative.

In other words, he’s not Mark Cuban. He’s not even Charlie Finley. he’s Al Davis. And can you see any league, anywhere, at any time, willingly adding an Al Davis to their ownership group? I can’t.

We need to be realistic, unless this local ownership group can rally significant money into the deal: Nashville is done. it’s all about when and how gracefully and to where now. Balsillie’s strategy backfired, and he’s now no longer an option; I think he was offered Winnipeg and rejected it, and that ended the discussion. So now, it’s giving Nashville a fair chance to make it work, and if/when it fails it has to go somewhere. If Balsillie had played even a marginally cooperative “go through the motions” strategy, he’d have gotten his hands on the Preds, and then the league would have had a fun fight keeping them out Hamilton. By playing the game so bluntly — Balsillie played himself out of the game, and gave the league the ability to save themselves from that disaster.

So the reason Balsillie doesn’t have a team — and now, never will — is all his fault. Because he took a group of 29 guys who are all successful businessmen who didn’t get there by being bullied, and tried to bully them. And it didn’t work.

Talk about a misread on how to play this….

Conserving Your Limited Attention

Nick Bradbury: Conserving Your Limited Attention:

When I hear someone complaining about all the feeds competing for their attention, I have to wonder why they don’t just unsubscribe from most of them. Are their aggregators not helping them find the feeds they’re paying the least attention to so they can figure out which ones to unsubscribe from? I regularly weed out the feeds that I don’t spend any time with, so catching up with my unread posts every morning doesn’t turn into an all-day affair.

Been there, done that. it works. It’s sometimes eye opening, too. For instance, take your list of so-called “A list” bloggers and unsubscribe from them on the assumption that if they say something interesting, other people in your feeds will point to what they say, right? And then see which ones people actually talk about and are generating content that starts discussions, and which ones are A-listers because, well, they’re A-listers.

I’ve been weeding my feeds for years. My comfort level for how many feeds I like having is around 400. When it gets to 450, or I get really busy, I start feeling like I’m spending too much time reading and not enough time doing, so I start parsing out feeds I’m not that interested in. it’s the garden hose that works for me…

In my case, part of my “feed weeding” involves getting rid of a bunch of single-topic feeds, then subscribing to one feed that points out the interesting articles in those feeds. Scoble’s link blog, for example, saves me from subscribing to a ton of tech-related feeds. In this situation, Scoble assumes the position of an editor (and I do the same thing with my link blog).

yeah — what he said. I don’t have time to parse all of those feeds, so when I can find someone who does it for me — that’s worth something.

In fact, I suggested just this kind of model a few years back:

Chuqui 3.0.1 Beta: The commercialization of weblogs…:

A second way, but one I think depends more heavily on micropayments, is that of the data miner — the person who either has a focus on a specific topic (whether it’s alternative music, nanotechnology, or science fiction) and who mines the data stream to supply content on that topic — not so much writing on a topic as acting as a filter on what’s written, much as a magazine editor chooses what stories to publish, and filters the submission stream into a magazine their subscribers want to read… (a third option, somewhat a variant of this second, is the “miner by request”, who’s specialty is finding what they’re contracted to find, but in this case, a weblog is more a marketing vehicle than a distribution tool…)

Only at the time, I saw micropayments as the way to fund a good data miner or editor; micropayments? dead and buried, and replaced by an advertising model. In retrospect, gee, what a surprise: people are not all that interested in paying a small value for something useful, but will happily put up with ads if the ads pay for it and they get it “for free”. Now, where have we seen these models before?

Oh, yeah, Television. Micropayments are, in their way, the net equivalent of PBS, and the Google Adsense model is network television. And look which one succeeded in television? History teaches us another lesson — through hindsight. again…

To some degree, this is the financial model that Jason calcanis and nick denton both figured out how to monetize, and the most popular blogs on the net today aren’t ones that generate a lot of original content, but are instead what I call “survey” blogs, ones that act as these filters to “stuff” all across the net.

to some degree, we’re reinventing the publisher model; too often, people look at a book publisher or a magazine editor as someone who limits access to content. “The net will set us free”, because everyone can self-publish now. But that doesn’t obsolete Sturgeon’s law, and that’s the forgotten part of an editor or publisher’s job: to filter out the crap and help you find the stuff worth reading. The slush pile exists for a reason, and we’re now re-inventing this online — the big difference is that the editorial selection process is no longer gated by who owns the presses, so you can have a LOT of editors, each building their own niche and audience — and through advertising, generate an income commensurate with how well they do their job for their readers.

And THAT is a really great thing — it’s much easier for voices to get heard, but we’re starting phase 2 of that process: that we still need people to help us find those interesting voices.

there IS still a need for editors, and you’re now seeing this category emerge and become financially viable for folks. For me, none too soon.

(hat tip, Jeremy)

A Better Way to Manage News Comments: Technology Evangelist

A Better Way to Manage News Comments: Technology Evangelist:

For those who don’t want to invest in proper moderation of things like discussion boards or comments, a compromise solution that works very well is trackbacks. Rather than allowing people to contribute to your site’s articles directly, give them credit for the comments they make about your articles on their own blogs. The quality of comments goes up tremendously in this situation since people are more accountable for their writing. Rather than leaving drive-by snarky comments, they’re writing for their regular audience and for the audience interested in the story on your news site (or blog).

I don’t agree with this. Here’s the problem: at least with blog comments, you can add authentication or CAPTCHAs or some kind of protection from spamming. Trackbacks, as they’re currently designed and implemented, are open and unprotected, and spammers have been using them for a while to try to spam links onto blogs.

Six Apart (among others) has started a process to update trackback standards and formalize them. I’m not sure what the current status is, honestly, but at least they’re trying to find a fix for this, but for now, trackbacks, unless you turn on full moderation (available in Typepad and I believe other platforms) and approve each one through, puts you at huge risk of trackback spam and getting your sites washed over by garbage, especially the porn and drug spammers.

I’ve gone back and forth from no trackbacks to open to moderated, looking for the best compromise. These days, I ahve them open but moderated, so I can look at them before they go live. Unfortunately, there’s no way with a trackback to add a CAPTCHA or TypeKey to allow them to go live without reivew in some cases, but that’s frankly a hassle, even for a relatively small site like mine.

Recommending that people leave trackbacks wide open is just giving them a timebomb that’ll go off when they least expect it, so suggesting they use trackbacks instead of comments doesn’t really solve the problem; they’re both open to spam, only trackbacks are MORE open to it right now.

Software spots key players in online communities

Software spots key players in online communities – tech – 20 July 2007 – New Scientist Tech:

Welser’s group found that the most informative individuals – dubbed “answer people” – are also relatively taciturn, rarely participating in discussions heavily. They also tend to shy away from the “discussion artists” who dominate most threads.

Instead, these people mostly post one or two messages to a lot of different discussion threads, and tend to respond to users who do not post a lot. They also tended to avoid long discussions, jumping in when someone had a specific question, providing a useful answer and then bowing out from further talk.

Because the findings use quantitative data about posting behaviour, Welser says they could prove useful for developing automated systems that assigns high reputation to certain people within a discussion. Or, they could make it easier for a search engine to find messages that are most likely to be useful, based on the user.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who’s run online communities for any length of time.

I am, however, interested to see some objective data that indicates that my belief that catering to the loudest members (my “squeaky wheels”) isn’t what makes for better communities. Or even quieter ones. Not that I’m still bitter over all of those fights about how to set “reply-to” on mailing lists or anything.

Nope. Not me.

(long story, won’t bore you)

But seriously, it’s nice to see people making headway in the quest to find ways to identify key users; although honestly, this sounds a lot like Pagerank for people….

Hit the head, get a penalty

Mike Chen’s Hockey Blog: Hit the head, get a penalty:

I’ve often wondered why the NHLPA doesn’t do more to actually protect the physical health constituency. Sure, they do things like try to drive up salaries and pensions and stuff like that, but what about actual on-ice health concerns? Visors, dirty hits, hits to the head — the PA seems content to allow its players police themselves on these issues rather than looking at the big picture. The problem is that almost every hockey observer, from former players to longtime media members, have remarked on the degeneration of on-ice respect between players. Is it an old-school mentality or is the membership just too proud to acknowledge the dangers of these issues — especially concussions?

This is going to sound like a snide answer, maybe, but it really isn’t: the NHLPA doesn’t do more here because the players don’t want it to.

Talk to enough players, or read their inteviews, and chat with team doctors and team officials, and this one is easy to understand. The Players Association sets its agenda based on the priorities of its members, and the members are players, not doctors. The players are heavily indoctrinated into, for better or worse, the macho “we’re hockey players, tape an aspirin to it” mentality. There’s a strong indoctrination that this is about player choice, and when given a choice, players will almost always choose performance over safety and playing over not playing.

There’s a strong underlying attitude that players are skilled enough to avoid the injurious hit, or that they can shake it off and play through it.

The fight over protecting the head is the same fight we’ve seen over visors (protecting the eyes), and 20 years ago, helmets and goalie masks. Visors are finally getting over the hump in terms of acceptance — I think over a third of the league now wears them, even on such “only girly guys wear visor” teams like the Blackhawks. We’re getting to that point where visors will hit the “what were we thinking?” idea that helmets have finally hit.

Heads are a few years behind that, but I think there’s growing awareness that hits to the head need to be dealt with. It’s a surprisingly complex problem, as well, with lots of bad answers that won’t help the game. Solutions are, however, being sought now. About damn time.

But — we have to remember that the PA is the player’s representation, not its nanny. It does what the players tell it to, not what it SHOULD do. That’s because the players set the agenda for the PA, not the team doctors — so it all comes down to convincing the players to make it a priority. And that’s happening, slowly. And, unfortunately, it’s being done mostly through watching peers take hits and not recover from them, it seems. (oh, and don’t underestimate the power of the hockey wife in this discussion. They’ve probably done more to encourage visor usage than all fo the team doctors combined…)

Will the gambling referee keep hockey out of Vegas?

On the Forecheck: Will the gambling referee keep hockey out of Vegas? – NHL Statistics, Analysis, and Opinion:

Today’s news that the FBI is investigating an NBA referee for allegedly betting on basketball games, including ones that he was working, is sure to send shockwaves throughout professional basketball. What might it mean for potential NHL expansion into Las Vegas, however? For decades major league sports has avoided all serious talk of setting up shop in America’s gambling mecca, and now we have just the sort of story that has kept the big leagues away.

ouch. this hurts the NBA and all sports, even if it turns out to be incorrect. The referee is one person who can not be seen as not being above influence (for all we complain and whine about them); even if it’s just one referee and not the league itself, this will impact the league.

Frankly, this shouldn’t affect a team moving o Vegas at all; we’re well beyond places like vegas or jersey city being important to being able to gamble, and not putting a team there won’t protect a weak invidividual from doing something stupid. Unfortunately, perception wins over reality sometimes, as does politics…

Arbour to Step Behind Islanders Bench One More Time – Sports Blog – The FanHouse

Arbour to Step Behind Islanders Bench One More Time – Sports Blog – The FanHouse:

Next season promises to be a trying one for the New York Islanders. Forced to ice a patchwork lineup for the second season in a row, it might be tough to fault head coach Ted Nolan if he wanted to take a night off sometime in 2007-08.

This is really cool. Congrats to the Islanders and Ted Nolan for making this happen.

Keywords, Keywords, and More Keywords

Keywords, Keywords, and More Keywords – O’Reilly Digital Media Blog:

I recently came across a cool add-on for Aperture. David Riecks, who currently chairs the SAA Imaging Technology Standards Committee, has a small but very useful product called Controlled Vocabulary.

Okay, this is cool. I’ll be buying this one shortly.

I’ve had getting controlled vocabulary support into Aperture as a low-priority project for a while. For those not familiar with it (for some background, check http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/), it’s a standardized set of keywords that, hopefully, cover most of your keywording needs.

The advantages to me are pretty simple: it’s a way of trying to make sure the keywords you use are the ones potential buyers are searching on, and it makes it easier for potential sales sites to localize those keywords, which makes your photos potentially available in other languages. Both Getty Images and iStockPhoto are supporting this now, so if you’re looking at working with Getty or moving into the Microstock markets, using controlled vocabulary is probably a good idea.

OH, and if you’re trying to decide which IPTC fields you should be filling out on your photos, here is a page with the best description I’ve found of the fields and suggestions of which ones to use