Barganistia has a great recap of the girls night out in Second Life. We went on a shopping spree. I’m going back for new hair.

I made the mistake of trying to modify my own. Like in real life, you should not attempt this unless you are highly skilled.

Check out the play-by-play commentary on After a Fashion.

And thank you to Katicus and Catherine for organizing and hauling us all around.

When I want a Chai tea latte, I choose Starbucks. I typically make my overpriced purchase at the Starbucks on Cornwall St. in Vancouver. I don’t mind paying for a good coffee (when I need it) and 99% of the time I’m happy with my experience in the store and enjoying my beverage.

I also like reading the paper cup. “The Way I See It” is a series of quotes, one is printed on each cup.

Today’s was:
“People should get out of their comfort zones on a daily basis. Take up knitting and boxing. It will make you so much more interesting.” –Raymond Lawson, Starbucks customer

That’s great Raymond got a spot on the cup.

His quote is not great. It’s far below the typical quotes.

It was disappointing. I came up with this:

Quote: The Way I See It
There’s only so much time in the day for mediocrity. The coffee better be good.

Then I saw a call to action on the coffee sleeve. “After you read ‘The Way I See It,’ tell us how you see it.” www.starbucks.com/wayiseeit

Ok. It’s Saturday and I’m procrastinating. I visited the site to submit my entry.

It’s a sad, corporate site.

There’s a description of what “The Way I See It” is, an inspiration quote from Giuliani and then a link to frequently asked questions.

Where do I follow through on the call to action? Where do I tell Starbucks how I see it?

Oh, there it is, buried as a menu item. “Contributor’s Corner.”

Nope not there.

That made me grumpy so I thought “I’ll tell you how I see it!”

Here’s the comment form.

Oh, wait the comment form is how you submit your “The Way I See It”.

Sigh.

There’s only so much time in the day for mediocrity. At least the coffee was good.

I’m almost out the door to the CanSpell Regional Spelling Bee. Should be fun.

UPDATE: It was totally fun. The spellers were 11 years old. I arrived at the start of the final round. There were 10 spellers remaining: 3 boys and 7 girls. Hailey was up first. Speller #7. I thought she sounded like a smarty-pants (in the best possible way) and she did go on to win the championship. The winner took home $3000. Second place was $2000 and went to Rebeccah, who seemed to be a crowd favourite in my section.

I wish I’d taken my notepad to record some of the words.

Please check out the survey on Galley Cat.

They want to know “What’s the most likely way a book gets on your to-read list?”

I read about it in a newspaper (print or online).
I read about it in a magazine (print or online).
I read about it on a blog.
I saw something about it on TV.
Someone I know recommended it.
It caught my eye in the bookstore.
I traded with a friend in publishing for a copy.

It would be a shame if only people in the publishing industry answered this survey, which they acknowledge. The call to action is go do the survey, then tell other book readers to answer the survey.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Oh what fun.

Tom Rubin, Associate General Counsel for Copyright, Trademark, and Trade Secrets at Microsoft, recently spoke to the Association of American Publishers (March 6, 2007).

His speech, ìSearching for Principles: Online Services and Intellectual Propertyî , is a clear attack on Google Book Search and a blatant cuddling up to the AAP, who are suing Google for scanning copyright-protected books without first seeking the permission of the copyright holder.

The entire speech is available on the Microsoft site. Read the speech here.

To state my position: Google Book Search is not about stealing copyright.

It’s pitiful that Rubin would seek to benefit from publishers’ fears of the unknown in order to promote Microsoft’s own product, Live Book Search. You can just hear the faint peeps of “MSN”. The little whine of “remember me, play with me, search with me. MSN. MSN. MSN.”

MSN has very little share of the search audience, they are practically non-existent compared to Google and Yahoo.

But if Microsoft wants to increase it’s share of search traffic do they really think pointing fingers is the way to go? So what if Microsoft’s Live Book Search is better than Google Book Search in terms of their communications with publishers. If very few people use Microsoft search then where is the discovery mechanism for books? Isn’t that the promise search engines are making to publishers and authors? We’ll help readers discovered your books.

Tim O’Reilly has a great article about the negative reactions to the Microsoft attack on Google, and he’s articulated many of the reasons why Google is not out of line with the Book Search program.

Read what O’Reilly Radar has to say.

Here are the rest of my thoughts on the matter.

Quote: Microsoft’s Rubin says,

“I do think that three simple principles can help us make the right choices. The first principle is that new services that expand online access to content should be encouraged. The second principle is that those new services must respect the legitimate interests of copyright holders; put conversely, we must forcefully reject any business model that is based on the systematic infringement of copyrights. The third principle is that even as we follow the first two principles, we must all work together to find consumer-friendly and cost-effective solutions to our shared goal of expanding online access to copyrighted and public-domain works.”

1st Principle: “new services that expand online access to content should be encouraged …” Only if they are Microsoft initiatives, right.

2nd Principle: “we must forcefully reject any business model that is based on the systematic infringement of copyrights.” I reject the fear mongering. Where is the infringement? The court hasn’t decided on this one, but I agree with Tim O’Reilly that if Google is wrong in making a copy of a book in order to create a search index, and that’s not considered fair use, “then the whole search engine economy comes tumbling down, since web search itself depends on the same fair use exemption.”

3rd Principle: “we must all work together to find consumer-friendly and cost-effective solutions to our shared goal of expanding online access to copyrighted and public-domain works.” Do publishers really want to expand online access of copyrighted materials? I think the ones suing Google are not interested in making their works discoverable online. But they should be. Publishers and record companies and any rights holders need to be better educated on what consumers are doing online, how readers want to discover titles, how readers want to screen information (you can filter what I see, but I do want to “look inside” before I buy online or go to the library to take out the book, or go to the bookstore to buy the book.)

Next rant.

Quote: Microsoft’s Rubin says, “In my view, Google has chosen the wrong path for the longer term, because it systematically violates copyright and deprives authors and publishers of an important avenue for monetizing their works. In doing so, it undermines critical incentives to create.”

Give me a break.

Google Book Search is offering publishers a way to monetize works that are collecting dust and sitting in obscurity in a library. An important avenue is the web. Here’s a scenario: “I’m looking for X. I Googled X. No results. It must not exist. Next thing. Off I go.” That’s consumer behaviour.

The counter argument is that not all books scanned are obscure. Many are new titles or are still protected under copyright. Great. Google is respecting that and only displaying a snippet of the book. A snippet relevant to my search inquiry.

Publishers already create and freely and widely distribute book descriptions, jacket copy, and author descriptions. Those bits of text get modified and posted on all sorts of retailer sites, reviewer sites, etc. Are publishers up in arms about their marketing copy? No. It’s marketing copy. They spent a lot of time writing a tailored bit of copy for one audience member. The perfect buyer of this book will love to know that it’s “a remarkable tale”, one of “strength and weakness”, set in “a land of complexities.”

Wouldn’t it be better to write copy tailored to every potential buyer? To give them a little excerpt to prove that this is the book for them?

That’s the value I see in Google Book Search (and Live Book Search, and any other search directory that wants to create an index of books and excerpts).

James has been working on a project called AdHack, which is a do-it-yourself advertising community. AdHack came to be because the mechanisms for creating compelling testimonials, print ads, web ads, product reviews, etc. are at our finger tips. In fact, they are fully within our hot little mitts. Companies can create great ads, but those ads often act in support of word-of-mouth recommendations from our peers.

For example, I recently decided to open an ING Direct account. I want those high interest rates that the commercials promise. But I’m skeptical of the company. Are they legit? I own too many “As Seen On TV” products that don’t live up to the hype so I’m hesitant to believe TV. Are the interest rates really the rates broadcast? How does it work when there are no branches? The question list is quite long so although the commercials reinforce brand awareness, they don’t compel me to try the service. What compels me is word of mouth–comments from my friend who has her mortgage with ING. Her good experience becomes my action item–go get an ING Direct account. The commerical supports my action but the real driving force is the experience of my trusted advisor, my friend.

AdHack is a community that lets people share their experiences. It’s the intermediary between company-produced commericals and peer-produced product/service reviews. It’s like an ad agency for the people, by the people.

Last week I created a quick video book review of Audrey Hepburn: The Paramount Years. My friend Kate blogged about the video as an example of a great idea for product reviewers. She’s absolutely right. And, it’s a great example of a way to participate in AdHack.com.

All of that is a long-winded way to say that Kate talked about creating video product reviews of laptop bags, and I created a video review of my Victorinox laptop bag. (Victorinox are the makers of SwissArmy knife.)