It’s funny how sometimes blogs and other media outlets like to pick one side because they know it’ll make for a more controversial (and thus, more interesting) article. Case in point: iPhone’s million sold units.

When I wrote about it, I was enthusiastic, and stated that it was a good start. Many blogs agreed that it was, at the very least, a very good result for Apple and the iPhone 3G.

Now, everyone seems to be “coming to their senses“, quoting sales numbers of other mobile giants such as Nokia, LG, and Samsung. Yes, a little perspective is good, but let’s not for a second think that iPhone’s million sold units in the opening weekend is anything less than a stellar accomplishment.

Now, probably due to lack of any other meaningful iPhone-related news, some are trying to convince us that it’s not. Carlo Longino’s “analysis”, also quoted by Techdirt and in turn by Gizmodo brings some numbers to the plate but forgets a couple of other crucial facts, which makes it, well, totally flawed.

The points?

- Nokia sells 1.28 million handsets per day.

- 282 million handsets are sold every day.

Heck, before I continue, I’ll add some more stats in favor of his argument:

- Apple didn’t sell any iPhones, new or old, in the period preceding the iPhone 3G’s opening weekend. Thus, some people were obviously waiting for an iPhone and when new ones finally came, the sales were higher.

Now, let’s look at the other side of the coin.

- Apple sells only one phone, and it’s a smartphone. Nokia sells everything from low-end, subsidized, 99 cents models to smartphones.

- The iPhone was basically sold out. A lot of Apple and AT&T stores would sell more iPhones if they could but they simply ran out.

- iPhone is an OLD phone. It’s a slightly revised version of a year-old model. I don’t know of any comparable model from any other manufacturer that will sell in 1 million units over one weekend.

Should I go on? The bottom line is that, Apple fanboy or not (which I’m definitely not as I don’t own any Apple products, including the iPhone), the number is impressive, and while it may not be an immense impact on the entire mobile phone market, it definitely means a big impact on the smartphone market, and, even more importantly, smartphone platform market. Let’s compare Apples to apples, shall we?

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:One Million iPhones and Ten Million iPhone Apps are a Good StartiPhone Coming to China Mobile?World’s Simplest iPhone AppApple: 2.3 Million iPhones Sold in First QuarteriPhone. Europe. Still on Track for September Launch.Taptap Social Contest Site Optimized for iPhoneWidgetbox Launches iPhone Widget Gallery Sans Apple’s SDK

Source:Mashable!

Since revamping a portion of its product offering late last year, Matchmine has since gone on to provide recommendation tools that are integrated with a network’s existing user preferences, as well as a centralized location for individual users to access and maintain their preferences from across their various networks. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but it’s a two-way street that covers a wide array of personal recommendations, and carries a good deal of flexibility in terms of future implementation of media consumption, recommendations, and cross-network communications.

That’s why several networks, such as Blogged, Odeo, and now Pixsy have chosen Matchmine to power recommendations on their sites. New partner Pixsy already had a very extensive reach across a number of networks, powering video search. So how will this new deal work for Matchmine and Pixsy? The same two-way street offering that Matchmine is becoming known for. Matchmine users will be able to port their Pixsy video preferences into their Matchmine account, and use those towards the creation of their overall preference score, which can be appied to any of the participating Matchmine partners.

Likewise, Pixsy will be providing recommendations based on Matchmine’s recommendation engine, and that includes Pixsy’s large network. According to Chase Norlin, CEO of Pixsy, the comany “hand selects key technology partners like Matchmine to present joint solutions to our publisher network of 35M uniques.” That’s a good expansion plan for Matchmine, as it seeks to become increasingly mainstream with its preference import options in order to apply recommendations across various media sites on the web. I still like Matchmine is doing, and it’s been fun to see such direct implementation of both network- and individual-based recommendations come about in a single service.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:MatchMine Fully Launches Cool Media Recommendations at DEMOMatchMine’s Media Reccomendations Gets $10MMatchmine Is A Personalized Media Recommendation EngineMatchmine Now Powers Recommendations on Blogged.comVideo Q&A: Odeo Partners with Matchmine for Media RecommendationsMatchmine Updates: OpenID for RecommendationsBlogged.com Adds Blog Article Search and Improves Recommendations

Source:Mashable!

I’ve gone to great lengths to avoid talking further about the race relations meme that ran around the tech blogosphere last week as a result of a year old Loren Feldman video cropping up in the news. The reason for this is pretty simple: I didn’t have the guts to talk about race. That’s right, you heard me.  Me.  The guy that’ll take on just about any controversial political topic (so long as I can loosely bring it back to social media somehow) didn’t have the guts to speak his mind.

The reason for this is simple: throughout the blogosphere and the various tentacled arms by which the dialogue extends from it, everyone was talking race last week.  And it wasn’t very long into the discussion that the very thing I spoke about yesterday in context of Wikipedia and other forms of democratic social media started happening to folks who in any way defended Loren: they were pushed to the fringe and given the most awful label someone can have these days.

Racist.

I’m broaching it now because one of the least controversial persons in the blogosphere, Chris Brogan, has decided to speak up on the topic and raise an important point. Before I get to his point, I’d like to explain my reasons for dropping out of the conversation, as I think it’s somewhat germane to the important issue he raises.

In the past, I probably would have waded in hip deep to the ongoing debate regarding whether or not Loren Feldman was overtly racist in his video, whether the satire was appropriate, and whether Verizon’s response of removing him from the network was indeed a measured or nuclear response. The problem was (and is), I’ve found, is that this debate devolves very quickly into emotional territory, whether or not the participants in the discussion are racist, and who is next to receive the Imus treatment.

In other words, the bigger you are, the harder you fall. Speaking in analogy and metaphor is central to the art of explaining and debate. Unfortunately in this day and age of political correctness, it’s almost impossible to know when you’re about to step on a landmine when you’re in this emotionally charged quagmire.

Simply put, I have a wife and two children.  My words are what put bread and butter on the table.  If I suddenly get the scarlet letter, my livelihood is gone from me.

This has to end. Everyone needs to man up in the social media world, put aside their emotions for a moment, and put on their thinking caps.  Chris Brogan very rightly likens the current controversy over the New Yorker magazine cover to the Loren Feldman incident as an echo. The mainstream media is performing their punditry over the “Terrorist Fist Jab” in much the same black and white tones as we did last week over the Loren Feldman “TechNigga” video. He goes on to ponder the fact that there might be more important things to worry about:

But this is what’s out there. This is the surface. This isn’t the secret campaigns that will (are?) spread through social networks, across back channels, hidden in some other kind of FriendFeed that we haven’t seen. Or maybe it’ll be out in the open, as Louis Gray reported on a short while back.

For a moment, we need to consider the larger implications of how social media can power some really negative experiences. Flash mobs are fun. But what else could they be?

What’s really ironic here is that this is one of the larger points that Loren Feldman was driving at with his satire (and he even spelled it out verbatim in an expletive-laden post after the series, embedded below). In between all the “gotcha, you’re a racist” moments in the conversation surrounding this, it seems that point is what was lost.

Click To Play

Chris goes on to say:

This isn’t one of those “film at 11″ shocker posts. Instead, it’s something I wanted to write to say that if you think that beating Loren Feldman down because his video broke away from satire and fell into racism, then you’ve lost. The fight is, I believe, a lot more sinister, running deeper under the radar than that, and with names that aren’t in the blogosocialmediacirclefishbowl sphere.

I don’t know if this post qualifies as a “Film at 11″ post, but I’m here to say that these days are here.  The things that Loren warned about last year are happening, and the malicious usage of social media for evil intent is here.

Let’s go over a sampling of the stories of the last year or so where social media has been used to pursue a racist or hate-filled agenda:

Senator Joe Lieberman Notices Al Qaeda Calls YouTube Home. Over the last year or so, I’ve kept a pretty decent track of the escalating level of hypocrisy in the enforcement of YouTube’s terms of service, particularly when it comes to free speech issues.  The government is starting to take note as well, and due to what is largely the Web 2.0 world’s inability to properly and consistently police themselves, is on a path to enforce draconian speech regulation similar to what the EU has in place.

Orkut a Haven for Pedophiles. Google held fast the position to protect the identities of child predators until public opinion turned on them. These pedophiles were using the wilds of the mostly anonymous dark corners of popular social networks to, in an organized manner, prey on children.

Al Qaeda Learns Social Media Marketing. An academic study shows that certain propaganda elements of Islamic terror groups are more well versed in social media marketing than most American businesses. We’re not talking YouTube only here, either.  Just about every major social networking tool is infiltrated, and they’re recruiting as young and impressionable as possible.

How long do you think it will be before this malicious intent strikes home for you? For those of you with loved ones fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere - do you think they’ve met an enemy combatant who was recruited via social media tools?  Do you imagine it’s possible for the real racists in America (the ones who aren’t averse to violence to prove a point) might figure out these tools as well? It’s been speculated publicly by Hillary Clinton herself that America isn’t ready for a black president, and that he may not survive his term in office. Do you think the tools that aid communication and organization might be used to facilitate that?

How long do you imagine it will be before the government figures out this is something they can use to frighten voters into supporting more freedom restricting legislation?

It’s time for us to stop tarring and feathering one another over what are ultimately silly emotional fights and look for ways to police ourselves responsibly, before the government decides to do it for us.

Let the brainstorming commence.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Good and EvilBe a Digg Rockstar with Social Media Firefox ExtensionNGTV - Joost’s Evil TwinTicket Giveaway to SMX Social Media in Long Beach, CAJohn Furrier Says Google’s CIO is Leaving for EMIThe Geek’s Guide to Good and EvilWeb 2.0 Invites for November 19th, 2007

Loren Feldman, the transgressive online-video maker and would-be comic, slams Scoble’s “woe-is-me” posturing over his Facebook ban. Play the video, or read on for the choicest bit.

He’s fighting for himself … It’s dishonest and it’s wrong. Facebook has a right to earn money. You agree to give them your data. Everybody knew about it going in, and that’s not good enough for Robert, because he thinks … he’s above another company’s terms of service … For Robert to wrap it up under the guise of “I’m a freedom fighter for your data” is just completely dishonest.

Source:Valleywag

“I want to apologize to all the black tech bloggers. It could have been any ethnic group. It could have been gay guys, could have been Jews, could have been micks, skinnies, chinks, any of them…It was just your guys’ bad luck that it went down that way…I’m a fucking idiot comedian and I did this.” When PodTech promised to sign on more “professional producers,” did it mean a white guy putting on a blackface minstrel show? Because that’s what PodTech talent Loren Feldman has been up to, as part of a freakish little “opera” this videoblogger has engineered over the past week. Here’s the story as told in videos, from “TechNigga” to Loren screaming, “No balls on any of you, you’re just fucking sheep.”

It’s particularly painful to watch someone become a vicious cornered little nobody — the kind of cracked-out mess of a man that you see pushing a shopping cart and squalling at strangers — when the victim wasn’t that sane to begin with. So it’s not fun to write this history of Loren Feldman, who’s turned himself from a mildly entertaining jester into the horrible little child you knew in grade school who would grow up beating on younger children to make himself feel powerful.

Feldman made his name in the tech blogging circle by acting out and getting sillier than anyone else dared. I loved one of his early shows, “Jason’s Place,” in which he parodied self-important entrepreneur Jason Calacanis by wearing a diaper and riding a hobbyhorse:

Months later, Feldman would find himself sucking up to Calacanis, pretending his startup Mahalo is more well-known than Facebook.

Once Feldman had made nice with those he previously mocked, what was left? Feldman turned to the enemies of PodTech, the company he’d mocked in the video above before they became his publisher. I’ll admit it got a bit personal when he responded to my articles about the company (I’ve been a vocal critic of the site) by recording a puppet show with a two-year-old’s ass:

But I was at least glad someone was trying to be funny. Unfortunately, Feldman has recently abandoned even this pretense.

This past Friday, Feldman posted a video titled “Where are the Black Tech Bloggers?” In this video, after explaining his question (”I mean black guys love technology. Car stereos, cell phones…”), the white male dressed as a dated caricature of a do-rag-wearing, pot-smoking black gangster hosting a site called “TechNigga.”

Click To Play

This screw-up was particularly ironic for Feldman. A couple of months ago, he had physically threatened Guy Kawasaki, calling the entrepreneur a “stupid motherfucker” for saying he learned about selling from his Jewish friends in the jewelry industry:

Click To Play

Now Feldman had resorted to offending entire races. The reaction to “TechNigga” was swift and negative. Unfortunately for Feldman, black tech bloggers do exist, such as Lynne Johnson. The Fastcompany.com editor called the video “bad black face.”

Feldman has recently been doing work for the Huffington Post; owner Arianna Huffington told Wired writer Adario Strange about “TechNigga,” “I found it both offensive and unfunny.”

The next day, Feldman posted a seemingly sincere apology to all he had recently offended in this and other videos, including tech bloggers of all races and Valleywag publisher Nick Denton and myself. He announced he would soon enter one-day sensitivity training at a rehab clinic.

But this now looks like a ruse; during his supposed treatment period, Feldman posted videos such as the following, which includes a soundtrack with the refrain, “My niggas.”

Click To Play

Note that the more offensive videos have appeared using Blip.tv, an independent video distributor that any publisher can use without editorial permission, while the more appropriate-seeming clips use the PodTech player and appear on PodTech.net.

Feldman then apologized once more:

And released a rather funny parody of the boring gnaw-your-own-leg-off tech shows at sites like PodTech:

Before ruining everything with a final nasty strike at all who dared criticize his creative genius:

It is here that he questioned the testicular fortitude of everyone in the videoblogging community who had criticized him, as well as copping out with a “Sorry black guys, it could’ve been the chinks.”

The obvious question is why PodTech is still in business with this insensitive, racist, bad-for-business videoblogger, and has not even criticized Feldman. The usually vocal PodTech owner John Furrier has remained silent, despite many calls for his response in a forum he frequently visits. As far as the company’s behavior speaks for itself, PodTech and John Furrier apparently support Feldman’s racist and hateful messages. This is one Don Imus who won’t get fired.

Looking for more adventure than the staid office parks of Silicon Valley will ever offer? Can you front-end your way through a minefield and reboot a server under enemy fire? Want to exercise those libertarian gun fantasies in the real world? And how about pulling down a $200K salary while you’re at it? Well, then, rifle-toting geeks, Uncle Sam has a job for you. Only one hitch, Ajaxian points out: It’s a Web-developer gig in Iraq. (Photo by minjung)

Source:Valleywag

I had no idea why one of PodTech’s major sponsors would tell the podcasting company to drop show host Loren Feldman from its front page. What man hasn’t shown a two-year-old’s ass on a tech podcast? The clip, in full glory, below.

Yes, it’s about me. I’m so very proud of everyone involved. In fact, I like the clip so much, I recommend you link to it with the word “PodTech” like so: PodTech. Then Google searchers can easily find this high-quality content when they search the site!