Seems like the F-word is more popular than China on the blogosphere. According to a Scansafe's Monthly Global Threat Report for March 2007:

"Up to 80 percent of blogs contain potentially offensive content, which can range from adult language to pornographic images, and about 6 percent of blogs host malware."

It gets worse. According to Scansafe's Dan Nadir, the appropriately named VP of Product Marketing:

There were as many blogs with the F-word as the word "China"

Oh dear. We do seem to have reached a cultural nadir here. So bloggers — those supposedly heroic citizen journalists — are more interested in insult than in discussing economic or political reforms in China. What's gone wrong here? Who the f**k is to blame for the foul language on the blogosphere?

The trouble with the F-word is in its inanity rather than vulgarity. It has become a completely meaningless word used by amateur writers and thinkers who are too lazy or ill-educated to think of a more appropriate word. The F-word is actually less than a word — its linguistic prevalence on the blogosphere represents a collective species retreat into primitive grunting. The F-word has become the collective "opinion" of today's 70 million opinionated bloggers. Thus its ubiquity.  

Don't like China's growing military, economic and cultural power? Then f**k China.

Scansafe's finding should be considered while digesting Howard Jacobson's latest thoughts about the opinion of the common man:

Our mistake is to conceive the common reader, like the common man, materially instead of philosophically. There never really was such a thing. Just an illusion of an illusion. But now he's out there snarling, his teeth sharp, every bite his God-given right to an opinion. And short of turning off the power or blowing up the system, there's nothing you can do to silence him.

Jacobson is right. It's a nadir alright — the democratized illusion of an democratic illusion. We've given the common man his own digital printing press to express himself to the world. And all he can say is f**k. 

Did anyone listen to Terry Gross' interview with Jimmy "Free Culture" Wales last week on NPR's Fresh Air? Was it just my wishful thinking, or was the normally all-too-tolerant Terry really really appalled by Jimmy and his Wikipedia menagerie of idiot editors and idiotic information?

It's definitely worth a listen — for Terry's witheringly understated humor, if nothing else. She seemed totally bemused by the idea that Wikipedia has no formal editors or editorial controls. But the most hilarious bit in the interview was when Terry recounted the story of her Fresh Air's Co- Executive Producer, Danny Miller, whose link from the Fresh Air entry on Wikipedia had him listed as the mass murder in Pat Barker's 2001 novel, Border Crossing. Here's what the Wikipedia had to say about Fresh Air's Danny Miller:

When Danny was ten years old he murdered an elderly woman by the name of Lizzie Parks, smothering her with a pillow before "play[ing]" with her deceased body. Based on psychologist Tom Seymour's testimony in court, Danny was sentenced to be tried as an adult, and served seven years at the Long Garth correctional institute. At the age of 18, Danny was transferred to an adult prison, where he was allegedly harassed and sexually abused.

Wikipedia has now fixed its "mistake". But imagine Terry Gross' horror when she discovered that the trusted first lieutenant on Fresh Air had murdered an old lady and "played" with her body (sounds like an ideal guy to invite onto her show). Not that Jimmy, forever incarcerated in his self-congratulatory "free culture" mental playground, seemed too bothered by the misunderstanding. "Ah, interesting," he responded to Terry. Wikipedia even has its own special page for this kind of misunderstanding, he explained, proudly about his website — a "disambiguation" page.

But Jimmy forgot to tell Terry that Wikipedia — which employs 7 people and has over 1.7 million entries written by anonymous contributors — is, by definition ambiguous. If you want disambiguity go to Britannica. Free culture is always ambiguous culture. Just ask Fresh Air's Co-Executive Producer and resident necrophiliac, Danny Miller.

That revolutionary bible of innovation, instigation and investment is at it again. The May issue of Wired gives us its 2007 Rave Awards for the "innovators, instigators and investors who are changing the world". 2007 Rave Award winners include J.K. Rowling (Business), Arianna Huffington (Renegade), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Politics) and Henry Louis Gates JR (Education). Yo to these Ravers and their incessant innovation, instigation and investment.

But what about those of us who don't want to be ordered about by Arnold Schwarzenegger, educated by Henry Louis Gate Jr or renegaded by Arianna? What happens if you think that we don't need any more innovation, instigation or investment? I guess that makes us the opposite of Ravers. We are Old Farts.

So here are my 2007 Old Fart awards — to those heroically vulgar souls who are using all their body parts to noisely protest against innovation, instigation and investment:

• Jonathan Freedland — The Guardian columnist wrote a memorable piece last week revealing the inanity of the blogosphere, describing it as a "stuffy meeting room on a bad night". Freedland wants to keep media a meritocratic closed-shop managed by experienced and educated correspondents. Mr Freedland wins the Old Fart Award for Journalism.
• Jean Twenge — UC San Diego pyschiatrist Twenge is the lead author of "Egos Inflating Over Time", a February report which reveals Gen Y to be unnaturally self-regarding and narcissistic. The Internet, Twenge argues, with its "MySpace and YouTube braggadocio", holds significant responsibility for the cultivation of this distasteful generational self-regard. Ms Twenge wins the Old Fart Award for Pyschiatry.
• Loren Feldman — The New York City videographer and president of 1938 Media who is singlehandedly taking on the Web 2.0 innovators, instigators and investors. Feldman reminds us that media is about "making interesting shit that people want to look at and then get people to buy it or get advertisers to advertise on it." Mr Feldman wins the Old Fart Award for Philosophy.
• Bill McKibben — The environmentalist is the world's sanest Luddite. McKibben's latest polemic, Deep Economy, reminds us that it is innovation, instigation and investment which have collectively conspired to wreck the planet. Mr McKibben wins the Old Fart Award for Economics.
• Lucy Kellaway — The Financial Times satirist and author of Who Moved My Blackberry. In her Management column, Kellaway has been innovatively fighting the idea of innovation for years. Her FT creation, Martin Lukes, the Chief Great Leader of a-b global (UK), is the world's most raving Raver and an excellent reason why we should all be old farts. Ms Kellaway wins the Old Fart Award for Inauthenticity.

Welcome to 1984, folks. It's been a bit delayed, but we're getting there.

That's what British journalist John Naughton concludes in an excellent Observer piece about the creeping and creepy power that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are amassing through the establishment of gigantic server farms all over world.  Naughton argues that ten years into the future, all the data about ourselves — "emails, documents, photographs, music, musics" — will reside on these environmentally destructive data farms being built in poor rural district like Mount Holly, South Carolina.

Naughton is both right and wrong. 1984 is actually more than just round the corner. It's here now — available for only $9.99 a month from AT&T. The amassing of data has finally been democratized. We can all be Big Brother now, everyone can be a data farmer. That's the beauty of citizen media.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal, in a piece entitled "Remote Patrol", gave us more than a sneak preview of 1984. Big Brother has even been priced competitively. For the highly affordable price of $9.99 a month, we can acquire AT&T's Remote Monitor — a high tech spying service that "beams streaming video from home-cams to cellphones, and can send customized text-message movement in particular rooms." So, for under ten bucks a month, we can watch our wives, monitor our kids, spy on our cleaning ladies. And, given its democratic pricing, those cleaning ladies with a voyeuristic bent can even afford to spy on us.

For those of us with serious money (what Web 2.0 democratizers call "elites"), 1984 offers even more choice. Best Buy are now selling a $15,000 home-monitoring system called ConnectedLife.Home which apparently can remotely "turn on sprinklers or a washing machine." I assume, too, that ConnectedLife.Home, can be shoved into reverse, enabling thieves and pranksters to the turn off home appliances such as anti burglar systems or fire alarms.

This democratized 1984 represents a great business opportunity — at least according to research firm Park Associates who promise us that the home monitoring market will mushroom from $91 million today to $400 in 2012. So, for all your innovative entrepreneurs, there are fortunes to be made from selling devices and services that empower us to spy on our neighbors. The Web 2.0 crowd will, no doubt, come up with businesses based on "user-generated-surveillance". Or how about services that spy on other species?

Don't laugh. Nothing is too absurd for the webcam crowd. The Wall Street Journal introduces us to Zach Glenwright, a video editor at a York, PA news station. Glenwright represents the banality of the digital voyeur:

 Zach Glenwright spends most of his day editing video for a local news station. But every 30 minutes or so, he takes a break on his work computer to check on a camera of his own, monitoring the squirrels and birds in the backyard of his home in York, Pa. "It's kind of like watching a TV show," says the 25-year-old.

Even old George Orwell couldn't have imagined this. In his 1984, the cameras were pointed at people; in our 1984, they are pointed at the squirrels and birds too.

Dave Winer thinks he's found the future of advertising on the Internet. I hope he's wrong. Because if Dave's vision ever becomes real, then media will become an endless commercial break of fast talking car salesmen stripping down to their underpants to sell us a Nissan.

Dave links to a YouTube video called "Let's Get Naked" an advertisement on YouTube (un)dressed up as content. This, he says, is 21st century advertising:

In the future, advertising will be so entertaining that it will create its own pull. No need to intrude, to hitch a ride on other more compelling content….If it's perfectly targeted, it isn't advertising, it's information. Information is welcome, advertising is offensive."

But "Let's Get Naked" is advertising rather than information. It's the video of a fat bearded car salesman stripping down to his boxers and explaining why you should buy cars from Clay Family Dealerships — a Massachusetts based dealership for Subaru, Chevrolet, Hyundai and Nissan motorcars. The humor is infantile and the pitch pathetically ingratiating. Trust me, the fatso is saying, trust me because I'm going to half undress on YouTube and show off my gross body while explaining why my car dealership is genuinely honest. This may resonate with Dave's frat-aesthetic sensibility, but to me it's neither funny nor educational. Most annoyingly, the guy doesn't even take off his boxers. So he doesn't even deliver on his first promise — of getting truly naked.

If this the future of media, then please lock me in a library and throw away the key. Dave is wrong that these sorts of advertisements are entertainment. A commercial is a commercial and indendent content is independent content. A fat guy on YouTube trying to sell me a Subaru from his "honest" dealership is neither Scorcese nor Kurosawa. We've all heard it a hundred times before — somebody pitching an "honest" car dealership that will "finally" expose the truth about a car's "real" price. Oh yeah. And, if you believe that, then I've got this can't miss Web 2.0 social networking user-generated-content start-up that you really need to look at.

So I'm afraid Dave Winer just got taken for a ride by an obese car salesman from a Boston suburb. Unless, of course, it's Dave who is taking all of us for a ride. Go to YouTube and watch the commercial for yourself. Then watch Dave.

Doesn't he kind of resemble that half naked bearded salesguy? Has anyone seen Dave in his boxers? Has he tried to peddle you a Nissan recently?

Okay, guys — so some of you have had a few problems with HP computers in the past. I'm sorry (although I personally am not responsible for the reliability of either the Microsoft operating system or the HP hardware) — I feel your pain and share your grief. But let's move now. Time to cheer up. Things can't be that bad.

So enough of this blogo-culture of complaint. It's Friday, reason-to-be-cheerful #1.. Let's make it a NO WHINING day. I want to celebrate some of electronic equipment I own that works 100% of the time. Here's my top five list:

• My Toyota RAV4 EV. It's a fully electric car that we bought five years ago. We recharge it most nights at our house — on a full charge it can do around 100 miles (enough to get me from my house in Berkeley to Redwood City and back). It has done 35,000 miles and we've never had a problem with its electric engine. This is a true convergence product — bringing together the green movement with the automobile industry. For a brief and tragic history of electric vehicles, see the movie Who Killed the Electric Car.
• My Arcam home-theater electronics. I'm a massive fan of this English high-end audio and video company. I've owned their beautifully designed (both externally and internally) FMJ A7 home theater processor, DVD 27 player and two sets of their seven channel F7 amplifier for five years now. In that time, I've had one problem with the laser of the DVD player which Audiophile Systems, the US distributor of Arcam, quickly fixed. 
• My Vaio laptop computer. I own the VGN-A290 laptop that has worked like a dream for the last three years. I still have a working VAIO from 1998.  I have had one VAIO that died — but that was after I dumped a bottle of Diet Coke on it. The VAIO's might not quite have the sex appeal of the latest HP gear, but they have, in my experience, been terrifically reliable.
• My Audiovector loudspeakers. These hand crafted, magical loudspeakers are made by my friend Ole Klimoth, in the equally magical city of Copenhagen. They are the most musical loudspeakers I've ever had the pleasure of listening. I've had a pair of the S6's and M1's for five years and never had a squeak of trouble from their wonderful tweeters. The Audiovector might not formally count as "electronics", but they certainly bring my Arcam gear to life.
• My iPod. Sorry to be so predictable here. But I couldn't live without it.

 What's your top five list?

It's not often that one's grandma reinvents herself as a nymph. As Alan Deutschman explains in his very readable Change or Die, radical change is a challenging business that favors only the most nimble. But Hewlett-Packard have pulled off a dramatic facelift, going from the greyest company in Silicon Valley to the bluest (and a very refined blue at that) with their newest line of personal computers.

Last week, I was invited down to HP's offices in Cupertino last week for a peep show. I was getting a exclusively early preview of HP's new line of personal computer from the guy in charge of their global marketing, Satjiv Chahil. As Chahil explains in the podcast interview (see/hear above), HP are making PCs personal again by designing them to be seamlessly integrated into the living room. The new range of HP computers — from the Pavilion s3000 Slimline, a6000 Desktop & m8000 Media Center desktop machines to the HP Pavilion tx1000 Entertainment Notebook to matching 19, 20 and 22-inch monitors — are designed for real people with real lives in real homes. Geeks in dark cubicles should close your eyes — I'm afraid there's nothing here for you.

So why me, the techno-sceptical author of the Great Seduction? Why did Chahil — the legendary marketing plastic surgeon who has orchestrated successful face lifts at Sony, Apple & Palm — give me an exclusive glimpse of his fabulous new range of PCs? After all, what do I, mr technosceptic, know about computers?

Exactly. I may not be much of an expert on processing power or the size of hard drives, but I sure know a good looking computer when I see one. And Chahil was showing off the sexiest looking computers that I've ever set eyes on. Coming in a piano-black finish with a highly refined silver trim and those blue LED lights, the new HP range looks more like a high-end stereo rig than a traditional PC. What Chahil and his HP design team have done is make the exterior of their PCs as sophisticated as their interiors. These computers won't disgrace the most elegant living room. HP's new range is so stylish that it even makes the Apple iPhone look dull. To see an unadulterated, uncensored video of the HP range, go here (parental permission suggested).

But it's not just the sex appeal that has me lusting after these digital darlings. Beyond their piano-black finish and silver trim and blue LED light accents, these PCs has been designed to be as easy and fun to use as a flat panel television or a home-theater system. We hear that damn word "convergence" all too often here in Silicon Valley. But these devices finally signal the coming together of computers and entertainment centers. As Hartmut Esslinger, the founder of Frog Design and original designer of the Macintosh computer said of HP's new range:

 “First, computers entered the personal space based upon function and features. Now, there’s a lot of demand for great design that is integrated into a deeper understanding of real market trends and people’s emotional needs. “HP clearly understands today’s consumer dynamics, and this inspiring line of new products will appeal both to the mind and the heart.”

 Or as John Englehart, managing partner of Branded Asset Management Group and a leading thinker about brand building in the digital age, emailed me about the new HP look:

 "These days, consumer technology is valuable to the extent that it enables desire. Anyone who doubts that should have a chat with the folks who used to say no one would spend more than a buck for a cup of coffee. In harnessing the power of design with powerful technology, H-P is returning to its fabled garage to make the 'digital home' as desirable as it is functional. More than technology, they're poised to create culture.

So yet, I confess, my technosceptical heart and mind have been seduced. It's spring in Silicon Valley and HP have discovered sex.  Grandma has reinvented herself as a nymph. Now all we need is a fiber-to-the-home high speed Internet connection (hint hint — Verizon) to bring home entertainment nirvana to the Valley.

What is the future of media?

Tony Kern knows. Kern, the managing principal for media and entertainment at Deloitte, has just published a survey about the future of media. The core of Deloitte's survey is a break down of media habits in four broad age groups in order to determine a more accurate picture of current consumption patterns:

1) Millenials (13-24)

2) Generation X (25-41)

3) Boomers (42-60)

4) Matures (61-75) 

I talked to Kern yesterday to get an overview of the Deloitte survey. And anyone who wants to know the future of magazines, newspapers, music and television is strongly advised to listen to my conversation with him. Kern has some really surprising things to say, particularly about the robust future of magazines and tv and what he calls "the unlimited channel universe."

For anyone who wants to contact Tony to talk more about Deloitte's survey, he can reached at  akern@deloitte.com

I heard Craig Newmark on the radio today. Schlumpy Craig, as New York magazine calls him, was on NPR's All Things Considered laying out his theory of human nature. Humans are OK, a  smiling Craig reassures us:

 I used to share the cynicism common to many nerds: that people were frequently malicious and opportunistic. But, of course, you don't get treated well wearing a plastic pocket protector and thick, black glasses taped together, and now, I get that. Years of customer service have changed the way I think about people. Now I believe that people are overwhelmingly trustworthy and deeply OK. I don't want to sound sanctimonious or syrupy….

No, Craig, you don't sound either sanctimonious or syrupy. You just sound as clueless as George Bush in the Green Zone. What Internet, I wonder, are you on?  Because it sure isn't the same Internet that the rest of us are looking at. Are you so Craigslist-centric, so intoxicated with your own self-congratulatory communitarianism, that you've failed to notice that the Internet is overflowing with malicious and opportunistic people ripping each off, spamming innocent e-mailers to death, buying and selling hard-core pornography, gambling illegally, flaming each other with hideous rhetorical violence on the blogosphere. 

So, for the sake of Craigslist-centric Craig, here's just a couple of news items from today's Guardian online which show, once and for all, that humans, particularly humans on the Internet, aren't OK:

1) Bobbie Johnson reports that serious online child abuse cases has quadrupled over the last three years. The Internet Watch Foundation processed 31,776 cases of illegal images on more than 3,000 websites (82% hosted in the US and Russia). Most of the images are of kids under 12. To be fair to Craig, he is making a serious effort to crack down on the exploitation of minors on Craigslist. But having just browsed the erotic services section of the Bay Area Craigslist, the word "young" comes up with a creepy frequency: New Asia Young Girls, Young Asian Nympho, Any Young Asian Gal like some assistance once in a while? etc etc. Craig might be convinced that the Internet provides us with that "sense of neighborhood and community" which we apparently "crave". But it's pretty obvious that many of us use the Internet to satisfy more primeval cravings. And not all of those cravings are legal.

2) James Harkin reports the story of Kevin Whitlock, a father of two who committed suicide live on the Internet last month. Whitlock hung himself in real-time, broadcasting the event on his webcam to an Internet chatroom. So much for user-generated-content. "Is this real" one chatroom spectator typed while others, apparently, "goaded" Whitlock on. Harkin links this hideous spectacle with Web 2.0"s "orgy of self-expression" which, he believes, is creating a "Cyburbia" that "thrives on feverish rumor and illicit sexual liaisons,populated by voyeurs, exhibitionists, amateur enthusiasts and even trainee terrorists."

So who's to blame for Cyburbia? Who is morally responsible for today's immoral Internet? In part, Harkin blames the Silicon Valley guys in charge of the Web 2.0 show:

 Partly to blame are the middle-aged men who run the media and business worlds, whose biggest fear is that technology might leave them and their careers behind. Then there are the disillusioned lefties, who have found in the rhetorical activism of the internet a new and less troublesome kind of politics than that which involved real people.

Craig is one of these middle-aged men — part media mogul, part abstract leftie. Like Tim O'Reilly and Jimmy Wales and the other libertarian fathers of the Web 2.0 movement, Craig has got to take more moral responsibility for his own creation. Craig might be half saint and half cuddly nerd, but it's irresponsible for him to believe that the rest of the human race can live up to his alpine moral standards. All we need is a code of ethics, guys like Tim and Craig tell us. Meanwhile, the erotic services section of Craigslist attracts more than double the postings on any other category. Meanwhile, people are self-broadcasting their own suicides to Internet chatrooms. Meanwhile, serious child abuse on the Internet has tripled over the last three years. Meanwhile, bloggers threaten to sexually mutilate Kathy Sierra.

Yet on planet Newmark, people remain "overwhelmingly trustworthy and deeply OK." Earth to Craig: what Internet are you on?

So what does the Google acquisition of Doubleclick tell us?

It says that Google isn't an all-you-can-eat restaurant in Mountain View or a do-no-evil NGO or a research department of Stanford University. It isn't even a search engine. No. Google is a remarkably profitable business that is cornering the market for selling all forms of advertising on the Internet. And given that 95% of all content on the Internet is given away to consumers rather than sold, online advertising is obviously a business with the rosiest of futures. So, if Google controls the banner advertising industry through Doubleclick as well as owning 50% of today's $10 billion a year search engine advertising business (not to mention its deal with Clear Channel to sell radio ads),  where might the long-term strategic challenge to Google come from?

It comes from online custom publishing operations like GE's Imagination Theater or Anheuser-Busch's Bud.tv. Custom publishing is fake independent content — what Richard Siklos in today's NY Times describes as an "evolved form of marketing blurred with media". And it's big business, worth $28.6 billion a year and growing at 15% annually (according to Investment bank Veronis Suhler Stevenson). Custom publishing doesn't contain advertising because, to misquote McLuhan, the content is the commercial. The entire media experience is one long ad. And, as more and more corporations like GE and Anheuser-Busch wake up to the fact that they can have their own online commercial channels, this is becoming the real future of media. As Siklos writes:

 A world where old distinctions between media and marketing are becoming increasingly — and at times disturbingly — blurry.

So where does that leave Google? How do they get into the online custom publishing business — a media where the message is one long commercial break? Actually, they are already in it. They bought into the business for $1.65 billion last summer. YouTube is an early form of an online custom publishing video business. The video upload service is a platform for the blurring of media and marketing. Just look at Smirnoff's Tea Partay video on YouTube — a perfect example of the way that Web 2.0 is collapsing independent content and commercials.

So Google not only have DoubleClicked on online advertising, but they've also YouTubed the online custom publishing racket. Those boys in the Googleplex might not be entirely moral — but they sure are smart businessmen.