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From TechCrunch comes breaking word that WallStrip, the hit or miss video blog about ’stock culture’, has been acquired by CBS News for $5 million. First, the good. Unlike most vlogs, Wallstrip manages to be entertaining more often than not. Lindsay Campbell is a great talent that a person can actually like (unlike other ‘web personalities’). And some bits are truly clever (and get cable business news notables to make a guest appearance):

Now the bad. According to TechCrunch the Vlog, for all its charms, has nearly no revenue. Sure, Lindsay would make a fine addition for any media organization that gets her. But given the woeful state of Wallstrip’s finances is she really going to add $5 million worth of value to CBS’s bottom line? It’s doubtful. A more likely reason is that vloggers are big media’s new shiny object. When their winds of fancy change I hope that likable pioneers like the folks at Wallstrip aren’t left up a creek without a paddle.

Buy the Militant Geek Circumvent DRM Shirt starting at $19.99

Media Rights Technology, or MRT - a DRM vendor, has one of the most unique sales strategies we’ve seen. They are threatening Adobe and Real with lawsuits for failing to buy their ‘technology’. The original Forbes article describes that the rationale is a bit wonky (surprise, surprise):

MRT and Bluebeat said the failure to use an available copyright protection solution contravenes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which prohibits the manufacture of any product or technology designed to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work or protects the rights of copyright owners.

Or, as Cory Doctorow says over on Boing Boing:

since the DMCA makes it illegal to break DRM, companies with broken DRM have to buy someone else’s DRM.

If those companies fail to comply MRT is seeking between $200-$2500 for each product distributed and/or sold. The strategy doesn’t make much sense to me. Of course, if a company is slimy enough to engage in DRM this probably a perfectly ‘rational’ approach to sales.

In other news HBO has decided that the problems with DRM aren’t its ‘presumed guilty before proven innocent’ approach or consumer rights crippling features. Instead, HBO surmises that everything would be ok with a name change. Apparently ‘rights-mangement’ has come to have negative associations in customer’s minds (wonder why) and so its time for a bit of marketing. The new warm and fuzzy name: Digital Consumer Enablement, or DCE.

HBO would also like to remind consumers that War is Peace, Freedom is Strength, and Ignorance is Strength.

Paris Hilton isn’t normally the stuff of Geek discussion. Her pending jailtime for violating probation (TWICE!) after driving under the influence is gratifying, but not tech. But when the vapid waif uses her MySpace.com page to start a viral petition THEN we take notice. (Of course, there’s more than just one. For more check out Defamer’s roundup of confused digital outpouring for the admitted drunk-driver.)

The screed on iPetitions.com begins:

To:
The Honorable Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

Paris Whitney Hilton is an American celebrity and socialite. She is an heiress to a share of the Hilton Hotel fortune, as well as to the real estate fortune of her father Richard Hilton. She provides hope for young people all over the U.S. and the world. She provides beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives.

Hilton is notable for her leading roles on the FOX reality series The Simple Life and in the remake of the Vincent Price horror classic “House of Wax”. In addition to her work as an actress, she has achieved some recognition as a model, celebrity spokesperson, singer, and writer.

As most of America now knows, Ms. Hilton was just charged in a Los Angeles court with DUI and sentenced to 45 days in Century Regional Detention Facility in California beginning on or before June 5, 2007.

We, the American public who support Paris, are shocked, dismayed and appalled by how Paris has been the person to be used as an example that Drunk Driving is wrong. We do not support drunk driving or DUI charges. Paris should have been sober. But she shouldn’t go to jail, either.

Isn’t technology wonderful? Instead of solving the world’s problems or creating communities for change the youth are banding together to save a pampered talentless ’starlet’. Disgusted yet? Well, another little feature of the modern technology is the ability to disseminate information quickly - LIKE THIS PICTURE OF PARIS HILTON DRIVING HER $200K BENTLEY YESTERDAY DESPITE STILL HAVING A SUSPENDED LICENSE. The photo should do wonders for her appeal.

Photo first found via FadedYouth and the travails behind it detailed on Metro.co.uk. I think I just had a -2 roll to ‘faith in humanity’ check.

Early last week on our sister site mutednoise I bantered about how Digg’s user base rising up in revolt represented the hereto unmentioned side of social networks; that is, the crowd will bite the hand that feeds it if they think the hand is red. In the comments I mentioned that playing hardball with the entire Internet was absolutely the worst possible strategy. That action took a so-so bit of geek errata and firmly planted it in popular culture. Case in point is this most recent episode of Galacticast (it does get a bit slow in the middle and if you’re not familiar with the television program Lost some jokes might not make sense - but the end gag is killer):

Pick your metaphor: the cat is out of the bag, geni out of the bottle, the milk has been spilled and no amount of crying is going to put it back. Digg has since stopped censoring its users and has made the statement that it will ‘go down fighting’. The outcome of which, according to certain legal circles, doesn’t look good.

But, while your waiting for Diggnation to die a slow death, how about claiming your own sequence of digits as your god-given intellectual property? Ed Felten tells us how:

First, we generate a fresh pseudorandom integer, just for you. Then we use your integer to encrypt a copyrighted haiku, thereby transforming your integer into a circumvention device capable of decrypting the haiku without your permission. We then give you all of our rights to decrypt the haiku using your integer. The DMCA does the rest.

Then, when you need a quick bit of cash to help Paris out of a jam anonymously post your secret number to your social network of choice. Make sure to act shocked and outraged as you sue them for every venture capital dollar they have.

Remember kids: knowing is half the battle.

(source: AP Photo/Nati Harnik. Hat tip to the SeattlePI)

What?! What did you thinking I was talking about?

I think I like the entertainment at previous Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meetings better.

Sure, last week’s news of 1000 heads-a-rolling wasn’t as fearsome as last year’s 10,000-strong pink slip parade. Even so, we’re a little surprised to see that there isn’t much outcry over fellow geeks on the chopping block.

As Conan O’Brian points out during a recent trip to an Intel plant it might have something to do with the drab work conditions. His visit to the gray-on-gray cubical madness of Intel is in sharp contrast to the creative wet dream inducer of Industrial Light and Magic. After seeing the two videos side by side it may very well be the geeks are just looking for convenient ways out. (Quick, watch the video before NBC also decides to sue YouTube for helping build and spread its media brands.)

Rumors of a brewing $50 billion deal appeared in papers like the New York Post, Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times over the weekend. Of course, the retired circus monkeys and I that work for Militant Geek don’t read any of those. We instead heard in a round-about manner from Valleywag.

But why now? One banker quoted in the Post said “They’re getting tired of being left at the altar.” That certainly may be true but both companies are profitable. Both could certainly continue doing what they do for many years to come. If they do merge they take both unsexy, yet functional fiefdoms and carelessly toss them into a thicket of tough questions: will they iron out the operational kinks quick enough to react to nimble competition? What will happen to their two distinctly different search operations? And, most importantly, how soon will the new company kill the Zune?

Recently, members for the technology press core were asked, by IBM, to attended a ‘virtual gathering’ in Second life. Second Life, as you may remember, is home to some of our favorite strip tease parlors and teledildonics experts - something that makes invitations to attend press conferences there all that much more strange.

Those fine folks at The Register thought it was a bit odd too. They sent back a retort of the finest regard - and posted it all for the world to see:

Fantasy and reality don’t actually combine well. Haven’t you noticed? Maybe that’s why marketing folk are so enthused about Second Life.
…
So what do I think of being briefed about your storage products in Second Life? Sure I’d like it, as long as the briefing takes place in this topless bar I’ve discovered in Second Life, where some of the avatars brief each other in outrageous virtual ways.

I love how this is IBM’s attempt at being ‘hip’ to the tech crowd. What’s next? The using the Web .0 Bullshitr for product pitches? If so, I personally can’t wait for my IBM shared peer-to-peer blogospheres.

Well, this week has been extraordinarily heavy on videos so what’s one more to take us into the weekend? In this clip NBC’s Conan O’Brian visits the offices of Industrial Light & Magic. Hilarity ensues:

Yesterday we covered the incredible train wreck of a promotional/training video that was Microsoft’s ‘Cyber Sitcom’. Today we can see a training video done right: it’s entertaining, its humorous, its got muppets, and it was done almost four decades ago. Yikes. At least we know what happened to the green cookie monster.