Richard Giles

Today I received an email in my Last.fm mail. I thought this was strange, since I’ve been a member for over three years and not received one. I had right to be intrigued, because when I checked, it was a nigerian scam.

From Sussy Kamara
Note:please reply to my private e-mail box below; ( sussy_dikko1983@yahoo.fr )
private email; sussy_dikko1983(at)y/a/h/o/o/ dot com
Urgent / Assistance

Hello Dear,

Permit me to inform you of my desire of going into business relationship with you. I know this mail may come to you as a surprise, since we have not known or written before.
Afer you receive this mail kindly contact me on my private e.mail contact below. introducing myself, I am Sussy Kamara, the Only Daughter of the late Mr and Mrs Dikko Kamara, my father was a gold and cocoa mercahnt based in accra, ghana and Abidjan (Ivory Coast), he was poisoned to death by his business associates on one of their business trips. before the death of my father on 29th june 2004 in a private hospital here in Abidjan.

He secretly called me on his bedside and told me that he has a sum of usd $6.5m (Six Million Five Hundred Thousand U.s), deposited in a suspence account in one of the prime bank here in abidjan ivory coast, that he used my name as his only daughter for the next of kin in depositing of the fund.

He also explained to me that it was because of this wealth that he was poisoned by his business associates, that I should seek for a foreign partner in a country of my choice where I will transfer this money and use it for investment purpose such as expansion of his existing cocoa business and real estate management overseas. Dear friend, I am humbly seeking your assistance in the following ways.

1) To assist me in retriving this money from the bank.
2) To serve as the guardian of this fund.
3) To make arrangement for me to come over to your country to further my education and to secure a residential permit in your country moreover, I am willing to offer you 15% of the total sum as compensation for your effort/input after the successful transfer of this fund to your nominated account overseas.

Furthermore, you can indicate your option towards assisting me as I believe that this transaction would be concluded within seven (7) working days you signify interest to assist me.

E-mail address above ( sussy_dikko1983@yahoo.fr ) . Anticipating to hear from you soon.

Yours sincerely,
Sussy Kamara.
Note:please reply to my private e-mail box below; ( sussy_dikko1983@yahoo.fr )

private email; sussy_dikko1983(at)y/a/h/o/o/ dot com

It just shows that Web 2.0 sites need to consider malicious uses of their service, but how on earth do you protect members from such a misuse.

In the mean time, if you haven’t used Last.fm, give it a try. It’s a great way to find new music, or at the very least, track your musical taste.

Basement.org has an article that sums up my thinking since ETech. Reality Check 2.0 suggests that were getting caught up in our own bubble.

The real point of all this is to shed some light on how we can get caught up in our own noise. Your grandma doesn’t know what tagging is. Your uncle is not using Rollyo. People on the street are not using Gmail. They’re using Hotmail.

That’s what amazes me about some, not all, Web 2.0 start-ups. The problem they are solving is so geeky, that they’re really just servicing a niche.

Many entrepreneurs need to take a step back and look at the majority, and ask themselves if their solution really solves a problem for the masses. Admittedly, some might actually only want to service geeks, and perhaps this is the major market for web services, but I think we all need to see some solutions as they are: a nice niche play.

I’ve been saying for at least a couple of years that television is changing. In fact it’s next in line to a major shift, like the music industry is experiencing.

I firmly believe that television shows will become subscription based. In fact, they already are, we just subscribe to a channel and time, rather than a particular “feed.”

Sport, and some news events, will require broadcast (or streaming), but it makes more sense to subscribe to a show over the air or on the Net, to capture most of your television needs.

I think this trend is best expressed with the iTunes Music Store, and the ability to purchase show. Looks like it’s doing well.

At his keynote speech Monday at the TelecomNext show in Las Vegas, Disney CEO Bob Iger said Disney content has surpassed 4 million downloads on iTunes since October 2005, when the media company first made television programming available on the new iPods.
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That data point is indicative of the biggest change in the TV business, he said. “Technology has transformed authority from the distributor and creator to the consumer. Today’s consumer is more tech-savvy and governs how and when and at what price content is sent to them,” he said. ITunes also introduced the concept of new distribution windows, he said. Disney has been a proponent of re-evaluating distribution windows for content in general.

While content is seemingly the beneficiary of the trend toward multiple and diverse platforms, Mr. Iger thinks the proliferation of platforms will actually separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to programming. “You will see a larger disparity in this new world order between what is good and what is inferior,” he said.

To succeed in this new world order, content providers and distributors must supply easy-to-use interfaces, he added.