Swedish Pirate Trial Now Officially a Circus

As discussed previously, the trial of the founders of popular torrent site The Pirate Bay was already a circus to begin with – both inside and outside the courtroom. Nonetheless, the Pirates were convicted on April 17th, but the absurdity continued when the Swedish press reported that the judge in the case was a member of industry groups with a direct interest in the case – a likely conflict of interest.

Today the case has officially become a three-ring circus. According to a Swedish newspaper, the judge who was assigned to investigate the conflict of interest has now been removed – due to her membership in the same industry organizations.

Which begs the question: is every judge in Sweden a member of these groups? And if not, why do the ones who are keep getting this case?

On a lighter note, the Pirates have come up with a beautifully petty and vindictive way to handle their fine of 30 million kroner fine: micropayments. They’ve asked their supporters to send payments of a single krona each (about 13 cents US) to the law firm representing the the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). Since each transfer after the first 1000 will cost the law firm 2 krona to process, it’s like fining the plaintiffs in reverse. Evil genius in action.

Meanwhile back in court, the removal of the latest judge has kicked the review over to three other judges, hopefully none of whom have any outside interest in intellectual property issues. Court of Appeals president Fredrik Wersäll expects that decision may come “in a maximum of a few weeks”.

Get Off My Lawn! (Again)

…or, Another Post About Twitter.

This time, courtesy of Mediapost.com’s Will Akerlof, who says it very nicely:

Twits: Why Twitter Won’t Change Marketing

Mashable: Off the Deep End

I wrote in January that the popular web news site mashable.com was obsessed with Twitter. Since I wrote that piece, they’ve only gotten crazier, though at least they’ve become a bit more honest about it by putting not one but two huge “Twitter” buttons at the top of their site.

Since January, they’ve also changed their tag-line from “All That’s New on the Web” to “The Social Media Guide”. Its a smart move, I’ll give them that; instead of a shotgun approach aimed at the entire web, they’re focusing on the niche that is currently getting the most attention. That’s one of the side benefits of having a name that means nothing: if they decided to cover cake recipes starting tomorrow, they could do it.

Another change seems to be including the advertising pitch right in their “About” page. Usually the general public doesn’t see its own demographic pitch, but Mashable puts it right there for the its readers to see:

Mashable will put your brand in front of the most tech-savvy early adopters, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, influencers, Web 2.0 aficionados and technology journalists. Mashable is also popular with bloggers and members of social networking sites — an increasingly influential demographic.

Wow – I’m impressed by how influential and tech-savvy I am, but I must say I feel a little dirty being used for my demographics.

Anyway, the purpose of today’s post is not to simply slag Mashable in any way possible (for example by posting links to hilariously bad early versions of their site, all of which pitch the latest “hot” web 2.0 startups that have since shriveled and died). No, today’s purpose is to simply point out how far off the deep end Mashable has gone into Twitter obsession.

At least in the early days, Pete Cashmore & Co. had the sense not to put all their eggs in one basket – they seemingly pitched any site that sent them a press release. But now it seems they’ve decided that Twitter is the future, period. Unfortunately, that makes it tough to run a web site, since there’s only so much to say about a service that sends tiny messages between users. So let’s take a look at the latest “social media news” according to Mashable:

Flirt140: Can You Find Your Dream Date Via Twitter?

Tweetmeme Shows Off the Future of Twitter Search

Tweet Street: 7 Extraordinary Twitter Uses in the Home

OneRiot Speeds Up Twitter Search and Adds Digg to the Mix

Scamming Twitter Trends: This Needs To Be Fixed

ThreadedTweets: Turn Your Twitter into a Realtime Conversation

TwitterJobSearch: Find a Job on Twitter

Literary Tweets: 100+ of the Best Authors on Twitter

The Retweeting Movement Adds Some Powerful New Tools

Please – anyone who gives a crap about about any of the above topics, write me and let me know why.

Of course, if Mashable is wrong, and Twitter is not the future of the internet and the next evolutionary step of mankind, they can always change their focus again. But as long as there’s an Archive.org, some of us will be here to throw it back in their faces. Sorry Pete, you deserve it for feeding into (and feeding from) the self-perpetuating “hotness” vortex of a phenomenon that is destined to end up here.