The only two articles you’ll be able to read on Wikipedia today describe the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. The rest are unavailable due to a widespread blackout on the Internet. You might have noticed Google’s logo expressing their support, shown below. Google didn’t go as far as to shut the search engine down, which may very well put the Earth off its axis at this point, but they do have a SOPA/PIPA petition you can sign.

If you’re unfamiliar with this new legislation under review, it’s worth knowing about. The short version is that it has the potential to violate the First Amendment, censor and cripple the Internet, impose harmful regulations on American business and threaten whistle-blowing and other free speech actions. It is thoroughly documented, so I will point you to TechCrunch’s SOPA coverage for the latest.

Fellow tech entrepreneur Ben Huh, CEO of Cheezburger, has been fighting this battle for months. Go Ben! People took notice when Ben threatened to move his 1,000+ domain names away from GoDaddy if they continued to support the bill. Today, if you try to pull up one of his websites, FAIL Blog, you’ll see the following message before entering the site:

Ben is not alone. While Facebook hasn’t officially joined the ranks, Zuckerberg has. I haven’t been extremely vocal about this for various reasons, but not because I support the bills. I generally feel that ridiculous measures like this written by people who don’t truly understand the consequences will blow over in time. But that doesn’t just happen by accident. It happens thanks to thousands or millions of people who make a stand.

And it’s always a useful reminder of the power lawmakers have, and the attention we must pay to our own power to help them craft policies that positively influence our lives. Someone once told me that technology moves much faster than the law, and this is one of those points of conflict that can emerge.

If you want to help and have about 10 seconds, this SOPA/PIPA petition from Avaaz.org is a good place to start.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Technology, Web

You might have heard about Google’s announcement to purchase Motorola Mobility Holdings for $12.5 billion. On the surface this would seem to be a move to solidify the Android ecosystem and cult by starting to build and distribute their own mobile hardware (cell phones and tablets).

That’s part of it. Apple has demonstrated the market power and profitability that a proper cult following can generate and continues to demonstrate this commitment by practically giving away their newest operating system, Lion ($29), and actually giving away their upcoming iCloud service to all Lion users. Not a bad way to get people to buy the latest and greatest.

Not too far beneath Google’s surface brews a tempest that has significant implications for all mobile technology innovation in the years to come. Google’s main interest in Motorola is 17,000-plus patents that allow them to enter the patent wars currently underway. In this war, patents are conglomerated legal cards to be played as part of an ongoing legal strategy for each company vying for market share.

Patents were designed to fuel innovation by rewarding someone’s original idea, allowing him or her a specific period of time to capitalize monetarily on that idea. Technology moves much faster than the law, and we’re quickly seeing the limitations of copyright, trademark, and patent law as they currently stand.

On the heels of reports saying Android phones occupy nearly half the market, one might wonder how such a deal could get through anti-trust court. To Google’s credit, this does represent a new business sector for them as they wisely licensed the Android OS (classic Microsoft strategy) rather than building hardware (Apple). Now how do you think those dozens of hardware manufactures feel about competing directly with a company owned by their licensor?

While Larry Page states that the deal will “enhance competition and offer consumers accelerating innovation, greater choice, and wonderful user experiences,” I’m not convinced. The little guy doesn’t have the legal muscle to enter the patent wars, and is often only brought in unknowingly after he’s had some success.

Certainly Google has offered much innovation to the world, and some see as a defensive move. I have a limited amount of trust for any large corporation, and these days that includes Google and even Apple. If you’ve been watching this game awhile, it may seem somewhat ironic to see Apple and Microsoft banding together to sue Google. The enemy of my enemy and all that.

This situation makes me squirm the way much of our stock market does. What was created as an institution to allow anyone to invest in a company, hitching his or her star to the success and failure of that company, has become an abstraction that allows people to place bets on the success or failure of anything or nothing. We’ve seen how well that played out in recent years.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Gadget, Technology

It’s one thing when a company and its users, or anyone for that matter, declares their own holiday. In this case, Foursquare decided that April 16 (4/16) would be the perfect nerd-derived day to support their brand (4/(4 squared). The genesis of the idea can be traced back to an optometrist in Tampa in 2010.

You can hear thanks from all of the Foursquare crew here:

What’s remarkable is when the Mayor of New York City extends Foursquare’s self-proclamation into an official holiday for the city, a first for any social media brand. Is this a sign of things to come when digital startups like Foursquare base so much of their value on connecting people and businesses in the real world? The real world has responded in a way that’s anything but square.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Fun

10,000 Revolutionaries in Moldova used Twitter and other social networking services to protest the Communist government. The New York Times provides a good description of the situation and phenomenon. On the other side of the pond, Baltimore police are starting to use Twitter to fight crime.

I believe social media puts us all in the middle of a revolution, but evidence to this fact is typically more tame in the U.S. I see it as an extreme form of the power of collective voice, but it does have the negative impact of making us focus on the shiny objects (tools for social reform) rather than the message and results.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Social Media, Technology, Web

If the world isn’t ready to accept bloggers as journalists, then I must ask why it is that bloggers want to be considered journalists. I got out of journalism because I didn’t want to fight against the corporate interests and failing profit models. Social media, in particular blogging and independent journalism, has given me new hope in using broader sources of writing and investigation to find the truth. After all, isn’t that what journalism is really about? Reporting the truth as accurately as we can.

Not that I think all major news outlets need to go away. It might prove difficult for a group of bloggers to put together a reporting mission in Iraq. But I see more hope than hobby in the new regimes of citizen truth seekers. As even the most prominent journalism schools turn the study into more marketing than reporting, we must all question who really will have more access to and interest in the truth in the future.

The key issue here is defining who the government can force to reveal their source. Journalists are protected under the new bill. Bloggers and freelancers are not.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Social Media, Web

We’re having a run on Obama posts. Now this is change, Obama has launched a Web site that allows us to track money from The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act down to the congressional district. A great use of web technology to convey information the government has no reason to hide.

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Andy Swindler Categories: General, Technology, Web

In reading and thinking about Obama’s new strategies and policy recommendations, I see this fear of socialism popping up here and there. While I’m not a support of a completely socialist system, I also know that no president has the power to bend the country that far in any direction. However, clearly his plans do have a more liberal or socialist bent than we’ve seen for a long time.

What’s changed? And why might it work this time around?

The Internet has finally come of age. Facebook, MySpace, Wikipedia, and other sites have put the power of voice in the hands of the people. The only problem until now is that no one has been listening. With Obama’s deep understanding of the power of this medium, his ardent support of it, and his willingness to find solutions in the words of his constituents, I see a newfound hope that is encouraging, to say the least.

Blogs, forums, personal web sites, and comments across many sites create a network of conversation and debate that is not perfect, but is better than anything we’ve seen to date. No longer is the power of oratory limited to statesmen, scholars, elite businessmen,

For once, the government is asking for our opinions, and seems genuinely interested in what we have to say.

And for the first time in several years, we see the hope of a government that will hold itself accountable by embracing these technologies. The transparency of the Internet mandates that the people have a public voice. This voice has the power to persuade, argue, encourage, and identify wrong-doing with unprecedented equality, accuracy, and speed. Obama’s commitment to applying new marketing trends in technology to the government are enlightening:

“Among his proposals: making more government reports and data available online; Webcasts of all government meetings; and creating tech tools to allow users to track federal grants, contracts, lobbyist information and earmarks. He even proposes a five-day public comment period on any legislation pending before the White House.”

Granted there are problems. There is a great deal of noise out there, and it’s everyone’s job to sift through it. Technologies are getting better to allow us to do this, but human editors will always be necessary. A larger problem is the growing digital divide, which leaves millions of Americans out of this conversation. Democracy and equality are never comprehensive, even on the Internet, but we’re heading in the right direction.

Network Neutrality is going to be a key issue to keeping the Internet working as we know it, free and open to everyone who has access. And burgeoning organizations are focusing on the digital divide issue to make sure Broadband Internet is not a luxury, but a necessity for all Americans. Until we solve this issue and give everyone a voice, decisions will still be made by people who are not as directly affected by the results. That’s not democracy.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, General, Social Media, Web