The internet just showed it's connectivity power in response to internet legislation. The buzz was focused at the web's core: the domain level, where GoDaddy has control...or maybe not.
The thread was kicked off by a user called selfprodigy, a small business owner who promises to transfer all 51 of his company's domains to another registrar, something that is seldom a simple, speedy process. Reddit users are proposing that December 29 be named "Move Your Domain Away From GoDaddy Day" in response to the company's support of SOPA.
So Why Does GoDaddy Support SOPA Anyway?
"As much as some would like to paint a bleak picture, this debate is not about Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley," reads a statement GoDaddy filed with the U.S. House of Representatives. "This debate is about preserving, protecting, and creating American jobs and protecting American consumers from the dangers that they face on-line."
GoDaddy goes on to condemn the ease with which people can conduct illegal activity like selling fake drugs and sharing copyrighted material on the Internet today and dismisses concerns about the potential drawbacks of SOPA and the Protect IP Act. Critics claim that this legislation hands too much power over to corporations and authorities to police the Internet and could lead to wholesale censorship online. GoDaddy disagrees.
"This bill cannot reasonably be equated with censorship. This bill promotes action pursuant to preexisting criminal and civil laws," the company said. "Not only is there no First Amendment concern, but the notion that we should turn a blind eye to criminal conduct because other countries may take oppressive steps in response is an affront to the very fabric of this nation."
Whatever the logic of GoDaddy's position may be, SOPA critics are not buying it. The calls to boycott the company have begun to spread beyond Reddit and competing domain registrars are using the opportunity to promote their own services. Namecheap, a provider frequently cited in the Reddit thread (Namecheap's social media manager is active in the discussion), has offered up discount codes like BYEBYEGD for users who wish to move away from GoDaddy. Talk of customers moving their domains has even come up in the company's own support forums.
Still, we're talking about a company that has over 50 million domains registered and it's not yet clear how widespread opposition to SOPA is beyond the tech community. Whether or not these efforts will have a sizable impact on GoDaddy's business remains to be seen.
UPDATE: The anti-GoDaddy sentiment has only spread in the last few hours. Y Combinator founder Paul Graham announced that pro-SOPA companies would no longer be welcome at the incubator's Demo Days and other events. Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh has threatened to move more than 1,000 domain names from GoDaddy to another provider and is publicly encouraging Google to reconsider its relationship with GoDaddy as well.
UPDATE #2:Automattic founder and Wordpress creator Matt Mullenweg tweeted a link this morning to GoDaddyBoycott.org, a site that encourages users to sign an online petition against GoDaddy and pledge to transfer their domains away from the service. The site looks to be an extension of Fight For the Future, an anti-SOPA advocacy site.
ReadWriteWeb will be keeping a close eye on this story and SOPA developments in general in the days and weeks ahead, so stay tuned for more news and analysis.
The video is the best part, and at learntoprogram.tv, the code is available to use.
With just a little Javascript knowledge you can create a sliding div effect that is commonly seen on the web.
In this video tutorial, Mark will show you how to create a sliding div within the browser. The sliding div reveals it’s content as the div opens and completely disappears once the div is closed. The full code appears below:
I was very lucky to catch Mark Lassoff in between speaking at DevLearn, working on his forthcoming book from Focal Press, and producing his next training video for the company he founded, LearnToProgram.tv. Mark is an anomoly in the world of elearning these days, because he knows how to code.
[Awesome elearning interview here.]
Now for a few personal questions that will really give readers a chance to get to know you.
eLW: Word on the street is you have some insane 80s TV trivia knowledge. So I gotta try to stump you. Which show had a character named “Skippy” and who played that character?
ML: Wow, that’s easy. Family Ties. Skippy was played by Marc Price. As a child Skippy got his head caught in the bannister three times.
eLW: That was too easy, I guess. OK, Square Pegs: most famous actor?
ML: Well, I think you’re fishing for Sarah Jessica Parker– but the better actor on the show was Jamie Gertz. Jamie just did an episode of Modern Family.
eLW: OK. Growing Pains. First names of all the Seavers?
ML: Jason, Mike, Ben, Maggie, and Carol. The last couple of seasons they had a baby? Right? I can’t remember the baby’s name, but I remember the baby grew up during hiatus. At the end of one season she was an infant and then at the beginning of the next season she had speaking lines. Leonardo DiCaprio was on there for a season as well– He played some runaway that family adopted.
eLW: Who played the kids?
ML: Easy– Tracy Gold was Carol– Her sister, Missy, was the governor’s daughter on Benson. Kirk Cameron played Mike. Jeremy Miller was Ben. The late Andrew Koenig played Mike’s best friend, Sylvester Stabone. His father played Chekov in the Star Trek Series. Got any more?
eLW: You are good. I give up. OK, no I don’t: Mr. Belvedere’s first name?
ML: Lynn. Brice Beckman, who played Wesley, just had a series on VH-1 a couple of years ago.
eLW: Amazing. Thank you, Mark. And for our readers who like networking, one final question: What’s next on your conference calendar? Or where can people find you online?
ML: We are talking about exhibiting at Learning Solutions, but have not yet made a decision. I will likely be at the MLearning Show in June and will be back at DevLearn next year. We’re also planning on going to ISTE 2012.
If DevLearn 2011 at the Aria in Las Vegas did anything, it confirmed one certainty about elearning: elearning is exhilarating. eLearning is esoteric, cutting edge, tumultuous, and sexy. And elearning is an industry. Yes, elearning is a thrilling industry that combines esoteric theory like gamification, cutting edge tools like Cloud technologies, tumultuous teetering between HTML5 and Flash, and the inspiringly sexy and sleek iPad — the world’s most seductive learning tool.
Eric and Shonit Speaking at DevLearn11
The eLearning Guild hosted quite a conference. Featured speakers spoke with vigor, sessions delivered an array of ideas and practice, DemoFest showcased elearning eye candy, and the expo bristled with the promise of the next best thing. Vegas was sunny. And Vegasy. The Aria Hotel and Casino is a great place for a convention. Or three (it’s actually three levels of luxurious conference space). I overhead one participant wondering why the bathrooms were so far away; they were a bit of a walk, but everything in Vegas seems to require a good stroll.
And a good stroll can clear the mind. A stroll can give a conference attendee time to think. A much needed moment in the eye of the DevLearn11 storm.
If DevLearn11 at the Aria did anything, it made me want to go again next year. The eLearning Guild has already announced it: same place, same week. I recommend a pilgrimage. I hope to present again next year, and I’m sure B.J., Shonit, and Kevin will be there, presenting or learning. Plan on it. I can’t guarantee that you’ll love it. But you’re going to love it.
If DevLearn11 did anything, it confirmed that one tool has had the greatest impact on elearning — by far. PowerPoint has had more influence on elearning than any other tool, person, idea, or book of ideas.
PowerPoint has had more influence on elearning than any other tool, person, idea, or book of ideas.
If someone at DevLearn11 had kept track of all the buzz words, from HMTL5 to to curation to iPad to mlearning to the cloud, the word most used, both positively and pejoratively, was PowerPoint. The rapid authoring tools embed in PowerPoint or import from PowerPoint. The early, crude elearning was death by PowerPoint. And the new pedagogy preaches a new era of PowerPoint panache, well past the boorish bullet points.
If DevLearn11 did anything, it gathered together a world-wide community of learning professionals who love elearning and believe in both technology and transfer. I got to meet many people I have otherwise known only online or through words. Here’s what I learned: If you walk up to only one person to say hi, make sure it’s Jay Cross. I meet him earlier in the year at another conference, and DevLearn confirmed his overall super-duper-ness. Here are a few more elearning A-list people that I recommend meeting: Clive Shepherd, Jane Hart, Tom Kuhlman, Andrew Scivally, Nemo Chu, Ethan Edwards, Dave Anderson and Harold Jarche. (Less easy to find, but just as awesome: Sheila, Patrick, Kevin, Mark, Stacy, Juli, and Video Jesus.) DevLearn11 also featured participants who looked just like Ed Asner and Steve Martin. No Elvis impersonators. But Koreen Olbrish did a showgirl shout-out during her Ignite! presentation.
Should I do the if DevLearn11 thing again? Or just say it: I’ll meet you at DevLearn 2012 in Vegas. Don’t be late, and don’t leave early!
The iPad is an amazing tool and holds new promise for mobile learning -- mlearning -- since the screen size is large enough for legitimate elearning material and the device is still small and sleek enough for easy on-the-go use.
Now, designers and developers can build training after training and push it out through an iPad app. The training can take advantage of all the interactivity of the iPad with multi-media content.
Updates and edits can publish in real time. And learners can cache the training to their iPad so they can view the training when wifi or 3G is not available.
You can get updates or sign up to be a beta user of this authoring tool by signing up at http://appauthorpro.com
A week ago I saw tat I was approaching 3,000 tweets. For those that don't know, a tweet is a status update on Twitter, a microblog...LOL, just kidding.
I sort of wanted to tweet something extra cool or significant or witty for number 3,000. But I am just as pleased with the random one that occurred.
Here's are some things my 3,000th tweet say about me:
I tweet a good amount.
I'm kind of into breaking news (I beat @CNNBRK CNN's breaking news' tweet on the subject).
I like football; or, at least, the Minnesota Vikings.
I got to 3,000 tweets faster than Kirby Puckett got to 3,000 hits.
I know how to use #hashtags.
I can spell.
I've watched or do watch The Apprentice or Celebrity Apprentice (or at least keep up on pop culture/terms).
I'm very good-looking.
I was not held enough as an infant.
How about you? What does your 3,000 "hit" say about you.
It makes me want to ask: how did dads do it before there were apps?
I'm new to the iPhone and now iPad, and I am loving the apps and the touch screen fun. And thanks to humanity, there is a bizarre, ridiculous app for everything--even if there shouldn't be.
I love that fears have special names, like arachnophobia, the fear of spiders. And that crazy one for the fear of the number 13. Yikes! My favorite fear these days is FOMO. FOMO is the Fear of Missing Out. It's a powerful force that has been sweeping the nation--and world. Or should I say swiffering the nation? (Shout out to Dane Cook.) The fear of missing out on something is precisely the reason many have flooded to Twitter and Facebook, and FOMO is also the motivating factor behind the clicking of links. If everyone is clicking @coolguy's link, I better not be the only one who doesn't see what's there! The trouble with FOMO and links is that there are a lot of @coolguys and a very lot of links. (Yes, word fans, I just split my "a lot" like Captain Kirk split his infinitive...try it!) With so many links to not miss out on, nobody has time to hang out on a site, to linger and peruse, to establish a relationship with, or to take the time to buy what might be offered. FOMO is powerful despite being irrational. But most fears are. Do you have it? Is it driving your clicking decisions? Is it hurting your web business? Eric Matas http://ericmatas.com Sent from my HTC smartphone.
