This Week in Google 282 (Transcript)

Leo: It's time for TWiG, This Week in Google. Jeff Jarvis and Gina Trapani are here. Kind of a sad day for us, we'll talk about that in just a little bit. Also, some big Google news, of course, there always is. That's why we talk each week on TWiG, next.

Voiceover: Netcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT! Bandwidth for This Week in Google is provided by Cachefly.com.

Leo: This is TWiG, This Week in Google, episode 282, recorded January 7, 2015.

I Dream of Gina

This Week in Google is brought to you by lynda.com. Invest in yourself for 2015, lynda.com has thousands of courses to help you learn new tech, business and creative skills. For a free ten-day trial visit lynda.com/twig. That's lynda.com/twig.

And by LegalZoom. Visit LegalZoom to save on your legal needs and gain access to a network of legal plan attorneys for guidance. LegalZoom is not a law firm, but provides self-help services at your specific direction. Visit legalzoom.com and use the offer code TWIG to receive $10 off at checkout. It's time for TWiG, This Week in Google! The show where we talk about Google, the Cloud, Facebook, Twitter, whatever's on our mind. A lot of media too because Jeff Jarvis is here, professor of Journalism at CUNY, the City University of New York. Thank you for coming out for our New Year's Eve party, Jeff.

Jeff: Oh, it was great. Just great.

Leo: Jeff is still beardless, which he did for $20 thousand. I am still hairless, which I did for $40 thousand. We raised $75 thousand for UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund. Isn't that great?

Gina: Amazing.

Leo: Nice job. That's Gina Trapani from ThinkUp.com.

Gina: Hello!

Leo: And All About Android. And I have some very sad news. This is her last TWiG.

Gina: Ugh. Well, my last weekly, right? I mean, I'm -

Leo: We said come back whenever you want. But I know that the business at ThinkUp has gotten busy, busy, busy and you just don't have time to do – she's also leaving All About Android. In fact, you don't have any podcasts, right?

Gina: No, no. I won't be doing any podcasts, it's the first time in like six years. Yeah, this is just so sad and bittersweet. But, you know, I started building this company, ThinkUp, and I think we have a shot at making something that is sustainable. But it's been – it was a weird kind of year. 2014 was hard, you know. We raised some venture capital and then we figured out that we're a business but we're not a venture capital business, meaning that, you know, we're not the hockey stick geyser, ten times whatever. We're just a regular business, kind of building revenue very slowly. So we decided, “Hey, you know, we're not going to do VC.” We had to lay off a bunch of our team, which was really tough.

Leo: Oh, I didn't know that. I'm sorry.

Gina: Yeah, no, no. It's okay. I mean, my team was fantastic and everyone was extremely understanding, and totally got it. Everyone landed on their feet and it was a small team to begin with. But yeah, it was tough. It was definitely painful. But you know, we – Anil, my cofounder, and I really want to give this a go, and we want to work on this fulltime, the two of us, together. That's what we plan to do in 2015. So it's going to be a full time job and a half, and I've just been trying to be real honest with him and with my family, and try to figure out what's best.

Leo: Yeah, I mean, you have a new baby and you just moved. There's a lot on your plate. I completely understand.

Jeff: I'm still bereft. I'm still very sad, Gina.

Leo: Both Jeff and I had the same reaction the chat room is having right now. Because they're hearing it for the first time. I said, in capital letters, “THIS IS HORRIBLE!” Jeff, what did you write? It was great. In fact, I got to read Jeff's tribute to Gina.

Gina: Oh, oh, no.

Leo: Because it was – you said, of course, you're the wordsmith. You said it better than either – at least better than I could do. You just, quite moving. Let me read it to you. “I am so depressed about this, Gina.”

Gina: Oh wait, this is our email. Yes.

Leo: “If there's anything that would make the show possible, I'd be so happy to keep working with you,” and we have worked out something, so stay tuned. “Gina's genius is bringing both a technologist's perspective and a profoundly ethical view of technology, and she's the nicest person I know. These are going to be impossible shoes to fill.” I say, we all agree.

Jeff: Speaking of shoes, I then tried to push – Gina barricaded it. But I tried to push that we could do this like Shark Tank where Barbara and Laurie shift off. She could be the part time. But your response, Gina?

Gina: I said, “I only wish that I could wear heels the way Laurie and Barbara wear heels.”

Leo: That email thread was quite fun, and Jeff really said it quite eloquently, for Lisa and me both, we just – there's no way we can replace you. You have agreed, I'm happy to say, to come back once a month.

Gina: Yes, and thank you for letting me do that, because let me tell you, the idea of quitting completely cold turkey really freaked me out. This was such a hard decision. I mean, we've been through a lot together. It's been six years? 400 hours? Once a week?  I mean, I've lived in four different apartments. I've done this show from two different offices, from my mother's basement.

Jeff: You had a baby.

Gina: I mean, yeah, I had a child. Yeah, a lot has happened. We've been together for a long time, and I really wrestled with it. You know, it's just a matter of kind of, hours in the day. Part of it is that, you know, I'm primarily a developer and you guys are embedded in news, right? You're, in Leo's case – (crosstalk)

Leo: It's all we think about all week long.

Gina: Yeah, yeah. But, you know, there have been times, and I'm sure our listeners have heard it. There are times I show up and I'm like, “I haven't heard this story. I just haven't been reading the news.” So it's a little bit more prep time for me and it takes my head out of, you know, I get into that coder flow thing. So I'm just going to have more on my plate this year, so it was such a hard decision. But I've so enjoyed my time on the show and I am going to be back once a month, thank you. If I can, you know, harass Jason and Ron into having me on All About Android as a guest once in a while.

Leo: I don't think that will be hard.

Jason: Harass? Are you kidding me?

Gina: I will. Hopefully I can come on as a guest.

Jason: Anytime.

Leo: Let me ask you. Be honest with me. If you had won the App Arena, would you have stayed?

Jason: Is this what we needed to do to keep you, Gina?

Leo: Is it that? Because I can fix it?

Gina: I won out strong last night, and I'll be doing a show – the episode next week. But no, it was Ron's turn. It was all good. I needed to give Ron a run and I did, I took him to the last episode of the year.

Jason: At this point, every regular host on All About Android has won a year. So it's kind of worked out in a strange way.

Leo: That's nice.

Gina: It has, it has.

Leo: Well, you really are a huge part of TWiT and we won't let you go, but we will let you have a little more time to yourself. I understand that.

Gina: I appreciate that. I appreciate that, and you've all been so supportive of me.

Leo: Door's always open, you know that. You know, so Jeff and I will soldier on without her.

Jeff: Wah! (fake crying)

Leo: I know. We're hoping, we've had so many great people who have filled in and been on the show in the past, Danny Sullivan, Kevin Marks, Matt Cutts. In fact, I told Lisa, “Call Matt and see if he left Google because I could see this as Matt Cutts' new job.” Matthew Ingram. So many people have been on this show on a regular basis. Kevin Tofel, Adam Pash. So we have certainly, plenty of people who will rotate in and we'll – I think, you know, we'll look for someone.

Jeff: I think it's also really important – I don't want to say – this is going to sound rude. But a female perspective on this tech world is so valuable and so – (crosstalk)

Leo: Well, that's right. So we are going to look for a woman for sure, yeah.

Jeff: You know, what was wracking my brain is, that's what's wrong with technology. It is so hard, Gina. You're rare in more ways than one.

Leo: The great women in tech are in great demand and there's a lot of competition. But you made a suggestion. We're going to call her, and -

Gina: Yeah, I'm being an unabashed feminist in suggesting all the women that I know.

Leo: We need that. We absolutely need that female perspective.

Jeff: Gina, keep the names coming, yeah.

Gina: I will.

Leo: On all our shows. I make, you know, Intel announced yesterday that they're going to devote $300 million to improving diversity at Intel, which is, you know, pretty much White and Asian men. They're going to fund scholarships, they're going to do education, they're going to create jobs to get African-Americans, people of color, but also women in the door there. It is something we all need to do so much, so you have my commitment throughout all of our shows that we're going to add diversity as much as we can. We really try as hard as we can.

Gina: I want to help with that as much as I can. So if you ever need suggestions, I will continue to make suggestions for my replacement here. But any time, in any capacity, I want to help with that.

Leo: Yes, and I'd love to have a coder. That was the other thing you brought here.

Jeff: That was the other thing, exactly.

Gina: Right.

Leo: Developer's perspective is very valuable. So we'll, you know. We won't replace you, but we'll find some other people to be on the show. There will always be a chair, or an avatar as we call these screens. Gina Trapani, you're the best, Gina. Now I know how Nick Denton felt.

Gina: Oh!

Jeff: Oh, well, screw Nick. To heck with Nick.

Leo: Getting to the news, and we will do the final change log. I don't know if we can do the change log, Jeff, without Gina. That's her -

Jeff: We've screwed it up every time we've tried.

Leo: We are so bad at that. So bad at that.

Gina: Aw, well. You'll find someone who can do the change log, or you can retire it and do a different segment. Whatever.

Leo: We'll figure out something. Chat room is so verklempt. They're just like, they're so sad. I kind of almost feel bad for them.

Gina: Chat room, you guys are awesome. This is so – I think this is really hard. But I'm actually glad that we got it out in the open and now I can just think about all the time we spent together and how great it's been. So I'm happy.

Leo: Yes. We love having Gina on. By the way, speaking of Matt Cutts, $1000 from Mr. Matt for our UNICEF donation.

Gina: Oh, that's extremely generous.

Jeff: What I'll also say is timing.

Leo: Why, because he put us over $50 [thousand]?

Jeff: Yes.

Leo: Yes, heh, “Oh my god.” His thirty day challenge is, “Can I get a tattoo on Leo's butt?” He succeeded. Amazing.

Gina: In one click of the PayPal button, or whatever it is, he did his thirty day challenge.

Leo: Matt, I invite you to quit Google. You're tired there. Come and work for us, okay? Just telling you, just saying. Google did finally weigh in on net neutrality. Both Google and Microsoft, in fact, all the big tech giants, have stayed strangely silent in this open comment period where the FCC was deciding, “How do we protect net neutrality?” You remember President Obama suggested Title 2 regulation. That's the part of the Telecommunications Act of 1934 that allows the FCC to regulate common carriers. In 1934, that meant the phone company. One of the approaches to protecting net neutrality, even the court suggested this in the Verizon v. FCC case, would be to declare broadband providers common carriers. Then the FCC would have jurisdiction. There would be a lot of rules that maybe we don't want applied to internet providers. President Obama suggested a legal term called forbearance, that is the FCC could selectively enforce Title 2.

Google has weighed in, finally, with a comment. There was some thought that really, the tech giants were actually lobbying against Title 2 secretly through their lobbying, their governmental lobbying arms. But Google filed a comment and said that if the FCC does treat broadband internet providers, like Google Fiber, as telecommunications services, that would be potentially good for Google. Because Google Fiber would then get access to utility poles and other essential infrastructure currently owned by the utilities, including other broadband providers. Really thrilled to have Google make some statement in this regard. And I'm kind of thrilled, because it means Google may even be considering Google Fiber as a business, which we weren't sure. We thought maybe -

Jeff: Yay.

Gina: Yeah, that's cool. Just the statement is a little weird though. Is this in support? I mean, it felt like a little bit of a zinger? Like, “Oh, great, we get access to the poles now.” I mean, it felt – I wasn't sure how to feel about that.

Leo: It was a zinger to Comcast. Like, neener, neener, neener.

Gina: If this is what we get, then great.

Leo: Comcast has access to the poles, by the way. AT&T, Comcast, all these others, they do have access.

Jeff: Somebody on Twitter said, “If we're at the point of negotiating the rate for access to the poles, then things have changed.”

Leo: Right. Google Fiber, which competes against all, Comcast and AT&T, does not have the right and the service has had trouble getting access to some poles as it builds out its fiber optic network to homes. A lot cheaper to put a wire in a pole than a trench. Very expensive to dig, so it's about a tenth the price of digging trenches. Reid Hunt, who was chairman of the FCC in the '90s, said, “Pole access is fundamental and Google will never be able to make the case for Google Fiber without it. If Title 2 gives Google pole access, it might really rock the world with broadband access.” Please! Wouldn't everybody – well, maybe not everybody. Wouldn't almost everybody watching at least want choice of Google Fiber?

Jeff: Yes. Because you know what, the competition is good. We believe in competition. It has had an effect. Just like T-Mobile has had an effect on AT&T, Google has had an effect on Comcast. Good. That's the American way.

Leo: According to this article in the Wall Street Journal's Digits column, Alistair Barr writing, he quotes a lawyer at the firm Kelly Drye & Warren who is also involved, a lobbyist in this. They are saying, “Google's saying to the FCC that if the go the Title 2 route, here's a fine point to deal with, regardless of whether they oppose or support the general approach.” This is what you're saying, Gina. It wasn't exactly, “You should go Title 2.” It was, “Well, if you do ...”

Gina: “Good on us.”

Leo: He says, “Google's covering its bases. They're merely being pragmatic.” I don't know.

Gina: That's why we like them so much, right?

Leo: Right, they're very pragmatic. There's no doubt about that.

Gina: They're being pragmatic.

Leo: I'd love to get Google Fiber or at least have that option, that'd be fabulous. Let's see, Google TV is dead, but we'll save that for the change log.

Gina: Yes, we can talk about that now or we can save it, either way.

Leo: We'll chat about that. We've got Android TV, we don't need Google TV. We've got Android TV.

Gina: Yeah, that's the upshot.

Leo: Google also lobbying to free up low-cost and unused airwaves.

Jeff: This is the other shoe to drop. They've talked about, you know, super WiFi for a long time and I think that's the other thing they're going to push.

Leo: It's about 150 mega Hz of spectrum at around 3.5 gHz. So it's not that low frequency. But they're saying, “Leave it unregulated,” just like 2.4 gHz is unregulated. Look what we got because of the unregulated spectrum at 2.4. We got WiFi. We got Sonos. We got all sorts of interesting things. 3.5 gHz is not particularly useful to wireless carriers as it's not good for long distance and it doesn't go through things. But it does carry a lot of bandwidth, so it would be good for perhaps things like local wireless networks, in parks and things like that. So Google is lobbying, saying, “Free the spectrum! Free the spectrum!”

Gina: Free it up, wireless for everybody.

Jeff: “Please release me. Let me go.”

Leo: Google has, like all the tech companies, finally realized that if you really want to get anything done, you've got to go to Washington. You've got to pay some lawyer with access to Congress critters a lot of money.

Gina: You got to play the game.

Leo: Got to play the game. Window 8.1 vulnerability? Microsoft knows about it. In fact, they've known about it for three months because Google told them. Microsoft waited, Google announced it. They said, “After 90 days, it's fair game.” Microsoft, I'm sure, would've preferred that Google said nothing. Google's point, and I think it's well taken, is, “You know, if there's a security hole, it's reasonable for us to give the company a time to patch. But it's also a public's right to know if this hole exists because the company could otherwise just ignore it and attackers could find it.” Now, don't worry so much. Because Microsoft points out that a bad guy would have to have valid login credentials and be able to log on locally to a targeted machine. It's not something that could easily be done over the internet.

Gina: You know, I have weird mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I totally understand that Google notified Microsoft about this vulnerability, gave them 90 days, and once the 90 days were up, even though Microsoft didn't issue the patch, announced the bug, published code on how to exploit the bug.

Leo: Published code, showed you how to do it.

Gina: I mean, I sort of get it but I also wonder a little bit, like, someone from Google couldn't pick up the phone and call somebody from Microsoft five days before and been like, “Hey, now really? We're going to post.”

Leo: Well, they may have.

Gina: It felt like a little bit of a public shaming, slap on the wrist PR thing going on here at the, you know, risk of opening up users to a vulnerability. I really can see both sides of it.

Leo: Well, it certainly is true that Google – there's no love lost between Google and Microsoft. They are competing, you know. Microsoft's Windows competes with Google Chrome OS. In fact, Microsoft is very aggressive about it.

Gina: But like, users lose. Users lose. You know what I mean? Just because of a corporate spat doesn't mean that users should be, you know, put at risk.

Leo: I think this is a standard, though, in security. I can remember 20 years ago talking – well, maybe not 20. 15 years ago, talking with Matthew Conover of Woo-Woo, which was one of these early security firms. They'd found a bad bug. They'd asked Microsoft to patch it endlessly, and after six months, they finally said, “You know what? Hackers are going to find this. We've got to tell the world.” So it's a debate that does go on inside the security community all the time. What's an appropriate amount of time? But I think everybody understands, you can't sit on it forever.

Gina: Yes, that's absolutely right, and it concerns me that Microsoft wasn't able to push a patch. You know, it concerns me just from a stockbroker perspective. We talked before, like, the measure of good software isn't how many bugs, it's how the company responds to those bugs, right? Like, how quickly it gets fixed and how well. Six months is too long. I get it. I totally get the argument, but it also feels like – why are you putting users at risk to sort of make a point that Microsoft is slow and didn't fix it? You know?

Leo: Well, you can blame both. Microsoft ignored it for three months.

Gina: Microsoft's too slow and Google didn't, you know -

Leo: They're going to fix it, now.

Gina: Well, I'm sure that they will. I'm sure somebody's in trouble at Microsoft for that. At least I hope.

Leo: Google's policy to do this has been in place since 2001. So it's been a while. In fact, it's kind of a general practice in the security industry. I know what you're saying, Gina. It would be a little easier if these two weren't battling each other out. It seems like the hate each other. Microsoft posted those, you know, the Gmail Man reading your emails and, “Don't trust Google.”

Jeff: And hires lobbying companies to go after them and PR companies to go after them stealthily, yeah. They're pretty nasty.

Leo: Google has never made a good version of any of the Google apps for Windows phone, and even tried to force Microsoft to get rid of the one version of Youtube they had, the Microsoft version.

Jeff: Microsoft hasn't put Skype on Chrome.

Leo: Oh, wow. You're right.

Jeff: That's why I'm here.

Leo: All though, I think now you can – isn't there a Chrome extension? I thought there was a way to -

Jeff: Not yet.

Leo: Hm! Google has been asked to remove 354 million pirate links in 2014. This is according to TorrentFreak. That's a lot of infringing leaks, 345 million. Not only that, it's an increase of 75% since 2013.

Gina: 75%.

Leo: In 2008, Google received only a few dozen take down notices. Now it processes more than a million a day.

Gina: Yes, I mean, these companies have to be automating these takedown requests, right? I mean, they're not hiring humans to submit these like they were back in '08.

Leo: There's probably somebody sitting in the Capital Records building in Los Angeles whose sole job is just to keep pressing “Send” on that email button.

Gina: “And this one, and this one, and this one ...”

Leo: “Send, send ...”

Gina: 345 million times.

Leo: The way TorrentFreak came up with this number. Google doesn't do a yearly number, but TorrentFreak went through each weekly report that Google does do and found – by the way, this is unique URLs, not merely requests. 345,169,134 unique URLs. Most take down requests were sent for the domains 4shared.com – just in case you're a pirate and want to know where to go. 4Shared.com, rapidgator.net and uploaded.net. Each had more than 5 million targeted URLs. UK music industry group BPI is number one, 60 million reported links from them, from BPI. Wow. Does Google – Google does sometimes pull these down, right? I mean, aren't they required to by the DMCA?

Jeff: Yeah.

Gina: Yes, they do. I thought they take down most of them, I thought. Not all of them. I guess their relationship with the MPAA went kind of sour because -

Leo: Well, yeah. You saw part of the Sony leak showed how the MPAA and Sony had been in concert, attacking Google by doing such sleazy things as hiring ex Mississippi State Attorney General to lobby current Mississippi State Attorney General Jim Hood to sue Google over pirate links. “We didn't do it, was him over there.” Google says, “The right combination of price, convenience and inventory will do far more to reduce piracy than enforcement can.” I have to agree with that.

Gina: Which is mostly true, right? I mean, look, there's always going to be people who will go out of their way to not pay, but I think most people – I definitely had that shift. There was a time when I was acquiring video files in ways that I will not describe in detail here.

Leo: Yes! Napster was amazing.

Gina: Who's going to pay for it? I'll just stream it. It's easier. I don't have to deal with all these crazy clients and weird sites. I'd rather just pay the $4, or $18 or whatever the heck it is. It's just easier. Now I do, I pay for everything, it's all on the up and up when it's available.

Leo: You know why Game of Thrones is the number one pirated show of 2014, because HBO didn't offer it to – you couldn't watch it.

Gina: It's too hard to get.

Leo: So you had to pirate it. If they offered it for sale, I bet you half of those pirated copies would have been sold. The other question is, how many of the pirated copies would those people have ever spent any money anyway? Are you actually losing sales?

Jeff: How much impact will the new wireless ESPN – cable-less ESPN cost?

Leo: Let's take a break and talk about that. This is an announcement from CES, from Echo Star. They make the Dish Network. They've got a new sling TV, which means you don't have to have a cable TV subscription. You can use your current internet to get ESPN, CNN and others. Sports is a big part about why people have local TV, right? Cable. Let's take a break, we'll talk about that in just a bit. Gina Trapani's last show, wah!

Jeff: Wah!

Leo: Jeff Jarvis is here too. We're babies.

Jeff: We're crying. No!

Gina: Not forever and ever! Not forever and ever, though.

Leo: No, I have a dream fantasy that ThinkUp's going to take off. You're going to sell it to some big company, make a billion dollars and then you're just going to work for free here forever.

Gina: The alternate possibility is that ThinkUp fails completely and in 2016 I come and say, “Leo, please hire me?”

Leo: “I will double, I will triple, I will quadruple your fee!” Whatever it takes. We've got to make sure Etta gets plenty of applesauce.

Gina: She's a big fan of applesauce.

Leo: Does she eat applesauce?

Gina: She loves applesauce.

Leo: Who doesn't?

Gina: We even tricked her into liking the unsweetened stuff, so she's a true fan.

Leo: Ooh, smart. Smart. Our show today brought to you by lynda.com. You know, a good New Year resolution would be to invest in yourself in 2015 and lynda.com can help you start your new year, learn something new. We've got a free ten day trial so you can do it without any cost to you, lynda.com. Millions of people around the world use lynda.com. There are over 4500 courses. You can learn anything – web design, photography, visual design, soft business skills like time management, negotiation, software training like Excel, Wordpress, Photoshop. All their courses are taught by the best experts in the business, people we know who have been on our show. Ben Long, and Derek Story and Burt Munroy. I mean, some of the best people. So they're great experts, they're great teachers and the videos are beautifully produced. They're cut up so you can go subject by subject.

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So I'm not sure what the details are yet on Echo Star's new sling TV.

Jeff: $20, it includes ESPN -

Leo: How much?

Jeff: $20 a month.

Leo: That's not bad.

Jeff: It's just ESPN, no terrestrial networks, you know, and then – (crosstalk)

Leo: Not CBS, NBC, but Turner, Scripts – I thought I saw CNN as well on here, but maybe not. As previously reported by Variety, Dish at some point anticipates being able to offer broadcast programming in a separate premium tier. So this is kind of like what that area was, but with the cooperation of the content creators. Starts at $20 per month, and that includes TBS, ESPN and TNT. Ah, you know, ESPN is the most expensive cable network. Cable companies know that customers, you know, keep their cable TV because of ESPN.

Jeff: Well, but there's also – except in my son's home. In Jake's home, nobody here watches ESPN. But I have no choice, you have to have ESPN and it's the hugest – it's the biggest single cost for a channel.

Leo: I think it's $16 a month to the cable company.

Jeff: It's a lot, yes, and I'd love to go ala carte. I mean, they do amazing things. ESPN is amazing, but I'm not a sports fan.

Leo: You'll get all three, ESPN, ESPN2. Remember, ESPN is owned by ABC, which is owned by Disney. So it's also the case, you'll get the Disney Channel and ABC Family.

Jeff: You don't get like the eight ESPN channels? Or nine ESPN channels, there's so many now.

Leo: The Ocho. There's Cartoon Network. You will get CNN, I was right. Adult Swim and Youtube stuff from Maker Studios, because Disney owns Maker. That's interesting. So this is kind of almost a Disney deal. There's a kid's extra option for $5 a month that gets you more Disney, Disney Jr., Disney XD, Boomerang, Baby TV and Duck TV. You'll be getting those soon, Gina.

Gina: Yes, you know, this honestly – when we moved into the new place, I introduced the idea of not getting cable and I came to a dead stop because my partner is just a huge sports fan. She was like, “No, football.” And I was like, “Oh right, that, okay. Oh right, that thing!”

Leo: There's no way to watch NFL football unless you're a Verizon customer. There's no way to watch it otherwise. You know, I like to watch this Sunday, my favorite drunk awards show, the Golden Globes. I like to watch. There's some live stuff I like to see, you can only see on network television. She likes The Voice.

Gina: Once in a while.

Leo: Once in a while. I personally, I would just watch Downtown Abbey all day if I had a choice. But that's because I'm so posh.

Gina: You are posh.

Jeff: No, no.

Leo: You hate Downtown Abbey, Jeff?

Jeff: No, no, no. I don't hate it. I just – it's … no, Leo. Really?

Leo: Yeah, I love Downtown Abbey. What's wrong with that?

Gina: I love it too.

Leo: Yes, it's like Glee in costumes. No, it's not at all like Glee in any form or fashion.

Gina: No, no it's not. I watch it just for the dowager's lines.

Leo: Yes, she's so great, Maggie Smith. Now, you will not get a Sling TV set top box. You will be able to use Roku, or Fire TV, the Amazon solution, or Google's Nexus player. Some smart TVs too, from LG and Samsung, will have it. Xbox One will have it. Of course, you can do it on your computer, and Android and iOS. Interesting. I think we're starting to see the shift to IP TV. It's going to be slow, it's going to be painful.

Jeff: Too slow.

Leo: You know that Comcast and everybody else are going to “grr.” You know why they're going this right now, I swear it. The Comcast/Time Warner merger has left Comcast a little bit weakened. They haven't done it yet and they want to get this through, right? And boy, it's touch and go. So Comcast has got to sheathe its claws, even though you know they'd love to spank these companies. Say, “Well, if you can do that, I guess you don't need us, do you?”

Gina: It's a great use for you too, Leo, for your network. It means that, you know, maybe it means that it'll be easier for people to discover TWiT on their devices, on whatever devices that they're using. You know, last night on All About Android, we had the founder of Haystack TV, which is a mobile app that does personalized video, like news video, for you. So you're like, “I'm interested in CES,” for example and it'll show you news clips from various sources in the app. It was a great conversation, I highly recommend it. But what I loved is that the app started basically as a Chromecast app, as a webpage that would kind of pick out news clips you'd be interested in, then cast them to your screen. So it started on Chromecast, became an Android app, and now they're on Android TV, which we'll talk about later.

Leo: So they're an aggregator of others' content?

Gina: News clip aggregator, right. So I don't need a cable subscription in order to just watch the news clips that would matter to me.

Leo: How do they get the rights?

Jason: It's all Youtube.

Gina: That's a good question.

Jason: It's all Youtube, so they're basically – yeah. If it's on Youtube, they have the ability to play it through their player. You know, news organizations are more and more putting up their individual segments and stuff.

Leo: Yes, but they're going to stop if it costs them money to do this. So if people do choose this in lieu of paying for a cable subscription, that comes right – you know, it's kind of hard to understand this, but the money you pay to the cable company for the local channels then goes to the local channels, to some degree. Right? The cable companies are paying the local channels for this. So if the cable companies can't sell you local packages because you don't need that anymore, because you can watch news on Youtube, that's going to impact them, I think. I think that's why this whole thing is so rickety. Everybody is very -

Gina: It's a shifting business model. It's got to be a shifting business model, right?

Leo: Yes, you know, this is why it's taken so long for ESPN and others to say, “All right, we're going to go over the top.” HBO is a perfect example. “We're going to go over the top. We're going to become an internet channel.” Because the cable companies, either it's in their contracts, they can't. It was with Tech TV. The contract was very specific, “You cannot put this stuff online.” There was some limitations. You could only do a certain number of minutes per hour and so forth. I think these clauses persist in existing contracts. But also, there's the threat that if you do it, well, I guess you don't need us anymore. Right now, the business model for HBO, and CNN and everybody else is, “Well, you've got to be on the cable.” So it's going to – I don't know, frankly, how they're leveraging this. I have to think it's because of this Time Warner thing, that Comcast can't really threaten them. They're hoping they can get some -

Jeff: I think you're right.

Leo: They're hoping they can get some critical mass, some momentum up before Comcast and Time Warner's over, one way or the other.

Jeff: Because they're trying to play nice with everything right now.

Leo: They don't dare say anything. They can't say, “Boo.” All right. I got to ask you about this one. Gina, you did 23andMe. I did 23andMe.

Jeff: So did I.

Leo: We all have wet earwax.

Gina: I have brown hair, by the way. I don't know if you know this about me. Brown hair, brown eyes.

Leo: But my spit says my hair is brown. So I love this idea. In fact, if you go to 23andMe on the web, they sell this whole idea that - hey, it's great. It's a genetic ancestry service. For $99, you spit in a little tube and they tell you kind of weak stuff, frankly, about – like, I'm 2% Neanderthal, or something like that. Silly stuff. But read this page carefully, because I'm wondering where it says, “Oh, and by the way, we're going to sell your genetic information to big companies for tens of millions.”

Jeff: With permission, I do believe. With permission, I do believe the story says.

Leo: They say, and I don't remember them asking me.

Jeff: No, no, they'll have to go and get permission now.

Leo: Oh, they have to come back. Because look, look at this. It's secure.

Jeff: (crosstalk) – if you have Parkinson's, Leo.

Leo: Yes?

Jeff: And if you believe that sharing your data is going to be helpful to trying to find a cure for this disease -

Leo: Then you would want to do that.

Jeff: Then you would absolutely, I think, want to do that. The story that I read said that you'll be given the option to do that.

Leo: We'll see. So they haven't done it yet?

Jeff: Either this is going to start exactly the kind of technopanic that you start to elude to. But, to me, it's an example where sharing data could save lives.

Leo: I agree, I agree. But I feel like they should have been more clear up front, or it should say on the page as one of the features and benefits, because paying them $99 to share my genetic data for tens of millions of dollars with Fiser isn't, in my mind, how the deal was. Now, if they ask me, “We'd like to share your stuff,” it's opt in or opt out? Did I already, when I signed up with a lot of fine print -

Jeff: The story I read, and God, I can't find it now, said they were going to have to go back to 3000 people who have Parkinson's and ask their permission.

Leo: Oh, that's for those. That's because they want to combine the medical information with the genetic information. But they are also selling the larger database of genetic information that they have gathered. So that's different.

Gina: So wait, this is anonymized and aggregated, or this is -

Leo: I would presume it is. Not the 3000, that's the difference, I think.

Jeff: I see.

Leo: Well, this isn't – it's not completely clear. So I guess we should find out. But I saw a lot of people saying, “Oh look, they've said if you ever saw their slide deck for their investors, you would know this was the plan all along.” So I immediately went to the front page of the website expecting something around this. But I didn't see anything. So I think, maybe, it was in their slide deck. But unless you go to those kinds of conferences or you're a venture capitalist, you may not be completely clear. So this is the first of ten deals with big biotech companies. Genentech is going to pay $60 million, or up to, for access to 23andMe's data to study Parkinson's. Since 23andMe started in 2006, it's convinced 800 thousand customers, including the three of us, to hand over our DNA – one vial of spit at a time. By the way, they don't do a full analysis of the DNA. They only do small little bits. It's not a full genome you're getting back. But 23andMe wasn't going to fund a big business by selling spit kits at the cut rate of $99. Well, I don't know about that. They've made $80 million.

Jeff: Well, when they started, it was like $250. [inaudible 00:40:43], they lowered the price.

Leo: “Big data has been in 23andMe's DNA from the beginning,” writes Sarah Xiong in Gizmodo, a-ha. She says, actually, it was founded by Ann Wojcicki, who was Sergey Brin's wife. She told the New York Times she watched, in the early days of Google, she watched Larry. Larry would say, “I just want the world's data in my laptop.” She said, “I felt the same way about healthcare. I wanted the world's data accessible. So that's why I started 23andMe.” But that wasn't the sales pitch I got.

Gina: It's funny. So I feel like I'm probably the most pro-privacy of the three of us, but I don't have any problem with this. In fact, I feel like this is data I want to help, given that it's aggregated and anonymous. I mean, they're not giving my name, and address and social security number along with my sequence, right?

Leo: Well, they will in some cases, but they'll ask you for permission.

Gina: But they're asking about my lifestyle, and where I live, and my background and then if I have certain genetic markers. Then they're going to do research on how those things correlate. That's the best possible use of my data, I think.

Leo: This is ironic, because I tried to sign up for that MIT project where you would very publicly give them your entire genome. You'd pay for it, thousands of dollars, and then they would give your information, by name, to companies who wanted to do genomic research. That, I was behind. But -

Gina: Oh, so you feel duped. You feel like you were -

Leo: Yes, you got to tell people this up front.

Jeff: Yes, I don't disagree with that, Leo, but I do agree with Gina, that in general, I think it's a super thing.

Leo: It's a good thing.

Jeff: The real issue to me, if it was privacy, is not that some pharmaceutical company gets tons of data that they can analyze and get some correlations that have value. I think that's a good thing. The real question is, could the police get your DNA and use it against you in a way that you don't know? That's privacy.

Leo: Well, but I’m also reading their privacy statement. They don’t mention that they’re going to sell your anonymized - they should say, specifically, “And we may sell your anonymized data to big pharma.” They don’t say that.

Jeff: Yes.

Gina: Yes, they should definitely be transparent about it. It shouldn’t only be in their slide deck, for sure. I think because I knew the company’s connection to Google, I just assumed that was part of the business model. But that’s because we do what we do.

Leo: There should be a big link on the front page and in this privacy to the setting.

Gina: I haven’t logged into 23andMe for a long time.

Leo: I know. It does say, “If you’ve given consent for your genetic and self report information to be used in research, 23andWe,” this is another business, I guess, “23andWe Research, as described in the Applicable Consent document,” no link. “We may include such information in the aggregated genetic and self report information intended to be published in peer review scientific journals.” It does imply that it’s their own research arm, 23andWe. I don’t know. I feel like they should have been a little more up front. I agree with you, there’s a huge societal benefit to this. But people need to explicitly know what they’re doing if they’re going to do that.

Gina: Yeah, it’s funny. I think I told you guys, when I did do the 23andMe, it was one of the weirder user experiences I ever had. Because I had submitted my spit sample and then I got this email from them that said, “Oh, you’ve got this new information that’s been unlocked.” Then I logged in and it said, “Hey, we have now identified this marker for Parkinson’s. Now we know whether or not we have this marker, but this is potentially life changing information, you might want to sit down and get some privacy.”

Leo: That’s appropriate. By the way, don’t do that anymore.

Gina: I was just like, I was totally freaked. There I was in the middle of my work day, not at all prepared for this, and I clicked the button. It was like, “Oh no, you don’t have it.” I was just like, (gasping). It was just - (crosstalk)

Leo: It implied that you did.

Gina: It was just a very bizarre interaction to have with a website. That’s an interaction I expect to have with my doctor. It was weird. It felt like they built up this big reveal when they had nothing to tell me, essentially. Anyway, I felt -

Leo: I think that was required. I remember the FDA went after them, and they have now stopped - I think they’ve stopped giving health information. I think that was the thing the FDA didn’t like.

Jeff: That was the thing. The FDA, yes.

Gina: Okay, okay.

Leo: Yes, I had the same experience. This is a very long privacy statement. I don’t see anything. They mention advertisers, general service providers. “We may share aggregated information with third parties, stripped of your registration information as different from individual…” Data about genotype. I just think nobody’s going to deduce that they’re going to sell this for $60 million to Genentech from this information. Okay, “Withdraw my consent.” You can go to your Account Settings page. All right, so let me do that, see if I can do that easily. Well, I won’t do it on the air because I have to sign in. Would you withdraw your consent? No, you think this is good. Hello?

Jeff: I do.

Leo: You give them consent?

Jeff: Yes.

Leo: Yes, and like I said, I mean, I never got selected. But [Esther Dyson?] had done this big thing and that was a really cool idea, and I wanted to do it.

Gina: So wait, did you - did they send you an email saying, “Hey, do you want to -”

Leo: No.

Gina: I’m looking.

Leo: Privacy and consent, “I do not want to receive sharing invitations.” See, you get all these invitations from third cousins, right? That’s different. Relatives operate. Basic research consent, here it is. So apparently, I have given consent to participate in 23andMe scientific research, stripped of identifying registration information. That’s the other thing that worries me a little bit, is that - how much can you anonymize genetic information?

Gina: Right.

Leo: And, by the way, they still have my spit. There’s a button that says, “Discard sample, not recommended.” I think they want to keep my spit.

Jeff: Can you imagine that warehouse?

Leo: The spit warehouse.

Jeff/Gina: The spithouse.

Leo: 800 thousand saliva samples.

Jeff: A brick spithouse.

Leo: I want to see that. If I withdraw my consent, does the information that they sold get taken back? No. Anyway, it isn’t really learning more about yourself this new year. It’s really more letting Genentech learn more about yourself this new year.

Jeff: But who’s going to invent the drugs that are likely to save lives?

Leo: I agree, I agree.

Jeff: It ain’t going to be you, or me or AT&T. It’s going to be them.

Leo: Right. Hey, you know what? Everybody should be aware, that’s all. I wish they were a little more clear, because I missed the slide deck.

Jeff: Inevitably, the answer is clarity and transparency. You cannot make an informed consent if you’re not informed.

Leo: Right.

Jeff: That’s the key.

Gina: That’s true.

Leo: This really scares me. Remember, the FBI says that while we know it was North Korea, FBI director says, “Those sloppy hackers revealed their IP addresses. That’s how we know.” Oh, dear.

Jeff: Oh my.

Leo: Oh, dear.

Jeff: Oh my.

Leo: Speaking at Fordham Law School at the Cyber Security Conference on Wednesday -

Jeff: Oh no.

Leo: Yes. “Hackers in the attack failed on multiple occasions to use proxy servers, revealing the IP addresses that tied them to North Koreans.” They got sloppy, but we saw. So maybe that’s the secret information. But as everybody knows, this stuff’s more complicated than it might appear.

Gina: This also felt like a PR slap in the face a little bit, they’re just trying to embarrass the North Koreans.

Leo: Yes, they were sloppy.

Gina: They were sloppy.

Leo: You know who hacked Sony. We know it was North Koreans. We know. They were sloppy.

Gina: Those North Koreans always leave a mess behind them we can identify.

Leo: Unless it was sloppy Chinese people who pretended to be North Koreans, but wait a minute! Verizon is apparently, according to Bloomberg, approaching AOL for a takeover or a joint venture. Joint venture, big deal. Takeover, interesting. Verizon wants to do more video and the company isn’t having significant acquisition instructions, according to Verizon chief executive Lowell McAdam. “But there is potential for us to do partnerships.” That would be very interesting, if Verizon acquired AOL. Boy, that would be a sad end to a sad story.

Jeff: It would be. I have my doubts about it.

Leo: I think this is pretty nutso.

Jeff: Yes, I think that as much. I was pretty appalled at Christopher Mihms at the Wall Street Journal, who I think is good at covering technology, put up a tree that I think went over the top and said that, Ross Levinson, the former Yahoo! executive that I guess had speculated about this. Said he shouldn’t be working in a tech company ever again. I thought, “Jeez.”

Leo: Oh my God.

Jeff: I finally said to him, “You know, there are people who say that about your proprietor in journalism. So …”

Leo: Megan J. Smith, former Googler, MIT-trained mechanical engineer and now the nation’s chief technical officer, has a Blackberry and a 2013 Dell laptop.

Gina: Wait, wait. Megan has a what? Did you just say -

Leo: A Blackberry and a 2013 Dell laptop.

Jeff: Isn’t that sad?

Leo: And by government standards, state of the art, baby.

Gina: Oh my God.

Leo: She says, “I am here to upgrade the internet at the White House.” She must just laugh when she goes home to her 2015 5K iMac and puts the government computer aside.

Jeff: Or perhaps, in her case, a Pixel.

Leo: She might have a Chromebook Pixel, too. Why not?

Jeff: She might.

Leo: We’ve talked before, we talked with Clay Johnson, the founder of Blue State Digital and the guy who ran Obama’s online campaign in 2008. He said, “You don’t have any idea how bad it is when you arrive and you see these clunky old CRT monitors. Technology is not, you know, up to date by any means.”

Gina: It’s slow. It moves slow.

Leo: You want government to be slow.

Gina: Well, the security - oh, you do, right? Until they hand you the Blackberry and the Windows PC.

Leo: Then you go, “Ooh, that’s slow.”

Gina: That’s really slow.

Leo: By the way, it’s not one of the new Blackberry classics. No, no. Nothing like that. We haven’t done the change log yet, have we?

Gina: We have not.

Leo: Let’s take a break. When we come back, Gina’s final change log. Wah!

Jeff: Wah!

Leo: We’re a couple of babies. If you shaved your head, we’d both look like babies, Jeff.

Jeff: I know. We have baby butt skin now.

Leo: That’s true. Very soft, very luscious.

Our show today brought to you by LegalZoom. Beginning of the year means it’s a good time to get your life in shape and I know you’ve been putting off stuff, like protecting your family with a will or a living trust. LegalZoom can make this very easy. We just got the will kit, it’s so great. I think Lisa’s doing it. It comes in a nice binder, all the stuff you need. It couldn’t be easier. It also means gaining control of your financial affairs, if you’re thinking of starting a business. Or maybe you already have one, protect it simply, easily and affordably with LegalZoom. You can incorporate; you can do an LLC. All sorts of stuff. For more than ten years, LegalZoom has helped millions of people get the personalized attention they need. If you like help, they can connect you with an independent attorney in more states. But understand, they’re not a law firm. Actually, they’re kind of better. They help you do the legal work you need to do, with their guidance, their questionnaires. Don’t let another year pass by before getting your life organized. For legal help you can count on, for your family, your small business, go to LegalZoom.com. As a little thank you, if you mention TWiG at checkout, use that offer code TWIG, you’ll get $10 off. Just saying a little thank you. Protect your family. If you haven’t done this, do it, please. I beg of you. Protect your family, protect your future at LegalZoom.com. Ooh, student loan forgiveness. See if you qualify and they’ll help you through the paperwork. That’s a good one. LegalZoom.com, just make sure you use the offer code TWIG at checkout.

Now, time to play the trumpets one last time.

Jeff: Oh. (whimpers)

Leo: Here’s Gina Trapani.

Gina: You guys are killing me.

Leo: I know, it’s mean!

Gina: I’m enjoying the love fest. The love fest is great for my ego. I’m getting it in the chat room, getting it on Twitter, from you. But still, you’re killing me. I don’t really want to retire the change log. I feel like I’m going to get you a new host that will continue the change log.

Leo: Okay, okay, okay.

Jeff: We’re going to hang the trumpets up over the stadium, “Retired.”

Gina: Oh, man.

Leo: We’ll get a fog horn.

Jeff: The Gina jersey will go there, hung up.

Jason: We’ve got a vuvuzela, you know, in the other room.

Gina: (crosstalk) - vuvuzela, if you feel like a burrito, and the Glee. Oh, yes.

Jeff: Oh. Memories. Oh.

Gina: All right, the change log. Let’s talk about Google Cast, not just the Chromecast but the Cast protocol. At CES, Google announced Google Cast for audio, which will let you play back sounds from apps directly to speakers, sound bars and AV receivers. Sony LG and Denon will be the first to offer Google-ready products this spring, Google says. So they’re will be Cast in your audio.

Leo: That’s cool.

Gina: Actually, already use my Chromecast to cast audio. I will play music but, you know, your TV has to be on, the screen has to be on. So this is kind of nice. Hangouts for iOS is basically - Google’s updated it. It’s basically brought up to parity with the Android version. So Hangouts with iOS now has Google Voice integrations. You can access SMS and voicemails from your Google Voice account in the Hangouts app. You can quickly share your location. You can add status messages and access stickers, of course. So that’s all on iOS now, iOS 8.

Leo: Wait, we have stickers?

Gina: There are stickers in Hangouts, yes. Hangouts has gotten kind of fun, in a weird way. I texted, “Hooray!” to someone recently, and you know, this cute little guy came up and did a dance.

Leo: If you just type, “Hooray,” it does it?

Gina: Yes, if you send it to - or, if you say, “Where are you?” or someone texts you, “Where are you?” There will be a little button to show up that’ll say, “Tap here to share your location.” It’s gotten really smart. So it actually kind of - it analyzes the text of what you’re sending or receiving and then it’ll respond.

Leo: But not on the desktop. Only on the smart phone.

Gina: Right.

Leo: Ah, that’s why.

Gina: Yes, yes. Let’s see, what else we got here? Google Search results now displays song lyrics right in the one box at the top of the search page. So if you type in the song title and lyrics, it’s kind of hit or miss. You’ll get lyrics if the song is basically in Google Play. So the results are powered by Google Play. So if you type, you know, “Beastie Boys Fight For Your Right Lyrics,” you’ll see the song lyrics right there in the results. I tried a couple of other songs, I didn’t get them. Really, it’s got to be in Google Play. But still, kind of nice.

Jeff: Here’s a question for you. Wasn’t that long ago where lyric sites were being taken down just as much as download sites because lyrics were copyrighted, blah blah blah. Now we have things like Rap Genius. Is it now - do artists now say, “What the heck, my lyrics are my promotion, it’s okay.” And nobody’s fighting it any more?

Leo: I don’t think so. I remember when that was. Yes, that’s interesting.

Gina: That was a thing, right? I feel like that was a long time ago.

Leo: It was a brief thing, and maybe they lost in court. So what is the Search? You type, “lyrics” …

Gina: Yes, you type a song title and lyrics. So if you type, like, you know, okay. Try that one.

Leo: Because this is - see, I’m not getting the special thing.

Gina: Try that Beastie Boys, Fight For Your Right. That one definitely works. It’s got to be a song on Google Play, so it’s a little bit limited. Hit or miss.

Jeff: So I type in, “Take Me To Church,” a song I like, by the way. I get the video and then I get maps to churches.

Leo: Maybe I have to type “Rolling Stones Honky Tonk Woman.”

Gina: Yes, you see where it says, “Full lyrics on Google Play,” at the bottom of the box?

Leo: Because this one I could never understand the words of. I would love if Google - yes, see? I guess it’s not in there.

Gina: Mustn’t be in there, in their database.

Leo: Nobody knows the words. Yes, I think when Tina Turner wanted to record it, she actually had to go to Mick Jagger and say, “Could you write the words down, because I don’t …”

Gina: “Could you just jot that down?”

Leo: “I don’t understand what you’re saying.” (sing gibberish)

Gina: You should have done the Google Voice transcription version, that’d be funny. Finally, Google TV, rest in peace. It’s effectively dead. Google pulled support for the Google TV developer tools, which basically means you can’t build out your Google TV anymore. It doesn’t mean that existing Google TV devices will stop working. Those will continue to work; apps you have on them will continue to work. But essentially, the Google TV team is going Android TV. Android TV is the new hotness. So, yes, no more new Google TV apps. I know we were all on the edges of our seats, waiting for new Google TV apps … not.

Leo: Well, I bought a Google TV. I have several. I have the Logitech one. I’ve got the Sony one.

Jeff: You schmuck, you.

Leo: What a fool I am.

Gina: Man, oh man.

Leo: It feels pretty antiquated now. It feels about as bad as a 2013 Dell laptop.

Gina: I remember there was a big pitch for Google TV, being like, “You get the web on your TV.” I remember being like, “Yes!” But it was just the implementation that was wrong. Chromecast was the right implementation.

Leo: It’s so lightweight, it’s so great. Yes.

Gina: Yes, yes.

Jeff: David Schmidt on Twitter, just tweeted me and said, “Isn’t the Pixel itself a 2013 computer?” “Touche,” I said.

Leo: Oh, it is. Yes, a lot of people in chat room are mad at me, saying, “What do you mean, a 2013 Dell? What’s wrong with that?” Well, I’m just going to say, in most companies, including ours, when the new employee arrives, they’re given a new computer. So it would be, you know - they don’t give them somebody else’s hand-me-down. It’s not antiquated, but it’s not normal in business to do that. Maybe it is, I don’t know. You’re right, 2013 is only two years ago. I’m showing my snobbery. That - (blows vuvuzela)

Jeff: Well done, Jason.

Leo: I got my Google conch. (vuvuzela) My mournful conch.

Jason: It’s just not - it’s almost majestic enough, but not quite.

Leo: Almost majestic. That’s me, almost majestic.

Gina: Almost majestic enough.

Leo: (vuvuzela) It sounds like a bull elephant, mating call of a bull elephant. It’s not good, I admit it.

Gina: Fancy vuvuzela.

Leo: This is a vuvuzela from South Africa, from the previous World Cup. A fan brought it. It was actually played in South Africa.

Gina: Oh, it’s not beads, it’s like knit.

Leo: It’s beads. Well, it is beads but it’s a knit. It’s not made of beads, it’s a knit cover. Yes, it’s pretty sweet, huh?

Gina: It’s very nice.

Leo: Hey, if you came to our New Year’s Eve party, I would’ve let you play it with the band.

Gina: Oh, man. Next year.

Leo: (hums Star Wars Cantina Theme) Anything else you want to say before we get to our picks, tips and number?

Jeff: Oh, we’re already there. Jeez.

Leo: Evan and Sarah Lacey, I didn’t even know they were fighting.

Jeff: Well, Sarah wrote this column. She got some grief for it. She wrote a piece basically saying that tech guys don’t have the courage to be media guys, using as an example, Omidyar and Ev. I forget the other one. Saying they were - (crosstalk)

Leo: Jeff Basos, maybe?

Jeff: Yes, and she was comparing herself to her role model, some said, Kate Graham of Washington Post.

Leo: Oh, please. And Walter Cronkite is my role model.

Jeff: So that was - she was already getting some grief over that. Then Ev came back with what I think was a very good response. He said, you know, “What are you saying, I’m controversial, risked a verse?” I know Ev risked everything he had to get Blogger going. He’s risking constantly. He’s changing the world for a third time now, doing amazing things, and I’m not going to say what the kicker is. I’ll just say, people, go to the link and read the kicker because it’s great. Brilliant.

Leo: Yes, just read it.

Jeff: It’s brilliant. I won’t spoil it for you, just go read it.

Leo: Well, she said to Ev, “Eff off,” right?

Jeff: No.

Leo: Oh, that was his response to her.

Jeff: To her, because she said the he didn’t like conflict. His response to that was, “Eff off.” As in, “I’m okay with conflict, see?” That’s what was funny about it.

Leo: Oh, there it is. I get it. You know, it’s so inside baseball and so few people even know who Sarah Lacey and Ev Williams are. It’s like, “Oh, they’re fighting. Oh.”

Gina: It’s fun for us.

Leo: It’s fun for us, we know who they are. We know the backstory, the incessantly long backstory. I somewhat - I mean, I’m not going to get into it.

Gina: What?

Leo: Richard Stallman - oh, I feel like Ev - I mean, there is a point taken that he’s really not - Medium is about as much about journalism as Blogger or Twitter.

Jeff: That’s what he says. That’s what he says, too, “Why are you going after me? I’m a magazine publisher. Some of the stuff we publish, we publish ourselves. Some we don’t.” He’s gotten crap because one piece was taken down, but he didn’t take it down. The author took it down. You know, Ev’s creating a platform where people can create and say all kinds of things.

Leo: You love Medium. You publish on Medium, right?

Jeff: I do a lot and I’m publishing my entire book, Geeks Bearing Gifts, available now not only to buy, but you can read it, check it out.

Leo: I’m still puzzled by that. I’ve said this to you many times. I don’t understand why you would give away your content to Ev.

Gina: It’s distribution.

Jeff: Well, in this case, my goal is to change the world and brainwash people.

Leo: Right, you want as many people to see it as possible. But Medium isn’t like Youtube. I can see doing it on Youtube because Youtube’s where everybody goes. But really, is Medium a big publishing platform? Send it to the New York Times.

Jeff: It’s pretty - well. It’s pretty and it’s easy to use. People go there, it’s what I use.

Leo: It’s easy to use. It’s a nice tool.

Jeff: Yes, it’s a great tool.

Gina: And there’s a certain cache about it, right? There’s a certain - yes.

Leo: Ev’s very good at that, too. It’s all to his benefit.

Jeff: Yes. That’s okay.

Leo: He’s a businessman.

Jeff: That’s okay. I mean, this is part of the Stallman piece too. This paranoia that occurs if somebody else gets benefit out of something that you do there. You know, I remember when -

Leo: Richard Stallman, who I love, who created -

Jeff: He drives me nuts.

Leo: He created a new -

Jeff: He’s done amazing things in his career, absolutely amazing things but his paranoia.

Leo: He was one of the original MIT hackers. He wrote Emax.

Gina: He’s religious about it.

Leo: He’s religious about it. In fact, he doesn’t want people to call it Linux and won’t do an interview with you unless you call it the new Linux. He doesn’t like un-free software. He says, “All software should be free, as in Libra.” He says, “Don’t use Uber because it uses an un-free program,” an app. “It requires the use of other non-free software. It lets Big Brother track you.” Oh, okay.

Jeff: Non-free programs trample user - (crosstalk)

Gina: That’s his argument for not using Uber?

Leo: Yes, because it uses an app which is a non-free program, tramples its users’ freedom. But I understand Richard’s philosophy. He is a purist.

Jeff: Oh boy.

Leo: But it’s not practical in the real world to only use Libra software.

Gina: Stallman has to exist. I’m glad that he exists.

Leo: I am too.

Jeff: Yes.

Gina: He sets an extreme bar, right? And he asks questions, maybe that no one else does. I think it’s important to have, kind of the radicals, you know, in the world. He’s one of them and I, you know.

Leo: He does, by the way, in the remainder of the article, talk about all the other completely legitimate and good reasons you shouldn’t use Uber.

Jeff: About Uber, I think it’s an awful company and does some bad things. I have no problem with that. But the rationale behind this, “If it’s free, it’s bad,” routine. “If you’re going to make the product,” routine. I’m just tired of the camp.

Gina: Anil also hates that line.

Jeff: Well, Gina. You’re going to miss this, Gina.

Leo: I’m always in favor of open versus proprietary, but it doesn’t - I’m not religious about it. I’m not. Which he is, which is fine. I think he’s right, and remember, he comes from the earliest days of computer hackery, where if you needed a program, you wrote it yourself. It would be rude to not let others take your program, modify it for their own use, you know, that kind of thing. That’s all he’s saying and that comes from that - I think in many ways, it’s like Marxism. It’s a little bit idealogical, but I understand what he’s saying. I may be more on his side than not.

Jeff: Oh, you just do that to be contrary.

Leo: No.

Jeff: The hairless among the hairy.

Leo: He is very hairy and he plays a mean recorder. We got him on the screensavers to sing the Open Source Anthem.

Gina: That’s awesome.

Jeff: By the way, some time ago I really wanted Barlow to come on and do a dramatic reading of his -

Leo: Right.

Jeff: And he, no, he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. I asked him to and he wouldn’t do it. Now he’s done it. You’ve seen that? There’s a dramatic reading. I don’t think it was quite the oomph I would’ve given it, of his Declaration of Independence for Cyberspace. You can buy it in a limited edition vinyl disk.

Leo: Good. I hope he says, “Inspired by Jeff Jarvis.”

Jeff: No, no, I’m sure I was one of many who asked him to do this.

Leo: That probably is proprietary. I can’t play it.

Jeff: No, no. Not with him.

Leo: Maybe I need to pay for it, give money to the EFF. I love John Perry Barlow. You know, when he was on Triangulation, I mentioned that and he said, “I don’t know. I don’t believe in it any more. I wrote that a long time ago.”

Jeff: Search for “JP Barlow Declaration of Independence Vinyl” and you’ll find it on BoingBoing.

Leo: Vinyl, isn’t that funny?

Jeff: Isn’t that funny? Yes, it’s a vinyl.

Leo: A limited edition vinyl. He wrote it in 1996. It’s 180 grand vinyl edition from the Department of Records. Black on black sleeve with an embossed title, a high-quality printing of the Declaration inside and the beat side [Sforza?] version backed by original school from (garbles German name). Wow. But it is, you’re right, free CC license downloads.

Jeff: Of course.

Leo: “Governments of the industrial world, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from cyberspace!” It does sound a little dated.

Jeff: Oh, but I love it. Play just a few seconds of it.

Leo: Should I? Sure, if I could find it. Is the audio on here?

Jeff: Go to the link, there you go.

Leo: Ladies and gentlemen, we give you John Perry Barlow.

(audio plays)

Leo: It’s kind of like hearing Ezra Pound read his poetry. It just takes a little of the wind out of the sails.

Jeff: Yes. He’s too reasonable. He’s supposed to be mad.

Leo: Yes, “I’m here.”

(audio continues)

This is 1996.

Jeff: It’s a great piece, I still think.

(audio continues)

Leo: I wish this were true. Let me play it with the music, let’s see how that sounds.

(beings new audio)

I’m sure there will be a Youtube video soon. I like this. Wow, Jeff. This was your idea, a Declaration of Independence -

Jeff: No, no, I was hardly the only one.

Leo: Department of Records Co., that’s who made it. I guess this is the first of many from the Department of Records. I think we should buy it. I’m going to buy it, how much is it? You can get it in flak, .mp3, or for $50 you can get it in plastic and then all you need is a turntable.

Jeff: A turntable, that’s the problem.

Leo: Ladies and gentlemen, this is the worst time I’ve ever had in my life, because I have to say goodbye to - a temporary goodbye to Gina Trapani. She’ll be back every month, though, which is nice.

Gina: I’ll check in on your two.

Leo: And you will see others on the show. It’s a chance for us to get many other hosts that we’ve had fill in the past on in a regular basis. I think we’re going to find a woman of color who is a computer programmer and an Android lover to replace you. That’s my goal.

Gina: You can do it. You can do it.

Leo: Set the bar that high.

Gina: Set the bar high.

Leo: Gina, you’re the best. You really are. People, please, let’s keep Gina gainfully employed by going to ThinkUp.com and subscribing. It is awesome, $5 a month. There is a free trial. The insights you get will be amazing. I’ll show you my insights. Jeff and I are subscribers - oops, I went to the wrong page. We love it.

Jeff: It tracks my eff words religiously.

Leo: Beautifully. Let’s see, Cashmere Hill has changed her bio. I’ve got three interesting new followers including somebody named Jupiter in Velvet. Now, the head shaver got some big favorites this week. Big favorites, yes. 19% of my status updates contained the words, “I, me, mine.”

Jason: That’s not bad.

Leo: Yes. I’m not as bad as people think. My most popular tweet, two years ago, “What happens in Vegas, city badge on FourSquare.” Those were the days. Remember that? 100 replies on my bald passport picture and Steve, you can thank me for generating more than half a million more people seeing your tweet. So it’s fun. This is what you get. ThinkUp.com.

Gina: Thank you so much for talking about ThinkUp and being so supportive, you, and Jeff, and Jason and Ron on All About Android. I really appreciate it. I don’t know, we’ll see what happens. It’s a lot of fun, but we’ll see what happens.

Leo: You’ll be back.

Gina: Thank you for six amazing years of talking about Google. It’s such a pleasure and a privilege to have this time with you all, every week.

Leo: You know, I’ve always been such a fan. I remember when Marilyn said, “I want to do a productivity show with Gina Trapani.” We called you and from then on, it’s been nothing but a romance. You’re the greatest.

Jeff: Gina, I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned from you and how delighted I am to be near you. We’re going to make sure you get rich so you retire right here.

Leo: Yes, that’s my fantasy. Verizon comes along, buys it for $100 million and you spend the rest of your life doing podcasts.

Gina: You know, it’s not my main goal, but I’ll take it. As a side effect, I’ll take it. I wouldn’t turn that down. Well, thank you. Thank you again for everything, too. I learned so much about broadcasting, and about watching, and especially, you, Leo. Especially Jason. The two of you are just such consummate professionals and you’re so good at what you do. You’re such incredible experts. It’s been six years and I still trip over my own words and have a hard time forming a complete sentence. It’s been incredible and I’m really glad that I’ll be back in a month.

Leo: Yes, we’ll make sure of that.

Gina: Yes, and I’ll touch base.

Jason: I’ve got your email and your number, actually, so …

Leo: It’ll be fun. We’ll just skip the tip and the number and just make it, because I think this is the way to end the show. Thank you, Gina.

Jeff: Oh, Gina? Gina, you could shave your hair if you wanted to.

Leo: Your hair - I wanted to say this, but then I thought, “That would be sexist and wrong.” Your hair looks great.

Gina: Oh, thank you very much. Wow, I’ll take a hair compliment any day. Thank you very much.

Leo: It’s fabulous. You can say the same of me, if you wish.

Gina: I truly wanted to thank the chat room for, I mean, just all the love I’m getting today. Thank you so much. My head isn’t going to fit into the Skype box if you guys keep going. This is incredible. Thank you to the chat room. Chat room scared me at first, in the first year, but after that it was a love affair.

Leo: You’re going to continue to post at scribbling.net, yes?

Gina: Yes, I am. I am, I sure am. In fact, I did a post about wrapping up here. Yes, I’m going to try to be writing a little bit more.

Leo: You’re going to want some self expression and more than just PHP. You need a little more than just a little C code, a little Java here and there. You’ve got to use prose, baby, prose.

Gina: Yes, yes, it’s true.

Leo: I love that picture.

Gina: I love that picture too. I included that picture because I just love it.

Leo: Jeff, we’re looking more like those guys.

Jeff: I know!

Gina: Yes, I like the Miss Piggy version, too.

Leo: That’s awesome. All right, Gina. All the best. Thank you so much.

Gina: Thank you.

Leo: Jeff, you’ll be back next week, right?

Jeff: I think you should play Gina off with the trumpets.

Leo: You should never quit the show Jeff, or I’ll plotz.

Jeff: I’m just afraid that our ratings are going to go down to zero because everybody watches for Gina. Could happen, right, boss?

Leo: Sad elephant trombone. (vuvuzela)

Gina: Very nice.

Leo: See you later, Gina. See you later, everybody. Thanks for joining us. We’ll see you next week on This Week in Google! Bye bye.