Doc Searls's Blog

em…

As a lifelong over-user of em dashes and F bombs—hey, I'm from New Jersey—it's fun for me to learn that AI slop generators follow my style and F bombs are a way around detection. I'd say more, but would rather point to Tom Fishburne's typically excellent cartoon and post about the whole thing. 

Delayed gratitude

As a patient who yielded a spleen to surgery many decades ago, I am now relieved to know they didn't take my liver by mistake.

All rise

NYTimes: John Ternus will replace Tim Cook as Apple's CEO in September. At 50, Ternus is younger than three of my kids.

Radio silence

While we're on a topic nobody cares about—a claim I validated with this post yesterday (which thus far has had, seriously, no visits)—I'm wondering what happened to Nielsen's radio ratings starting in January. Many stations and/or their streams have dropped from low to "N/A." For example, look at the bottom of the San Francisco market. Hard to believe that KNBR, the biggest AM signal in California with a full-size FM as well, has dropped to nothing and stayed there.

Not that crawling ashore is easy or smooth.

Eric Nuzum says public radio isn’t interested in saving itself. He’s actually quoting somebody else, but saying there’s a case. Specifically,

When I hear public media leaders talk about the state of audience, ratings, and legacy platforms, I hear a very strong decline-centered narrative, with one station CEO infamously saying that “radio is dead.” Really?

When you look at audience behavior—and the attitudinal markers in dozens of qualitative studies—a somewhat different story emerges.

Public radio isn’t dead to them (though, arguably, public radio is pretty much the last radio they listen to any more). Public radio is a part of their lives, still. It and its mission are still deeply important to them.

Do they listen less? Yes. But that’s more because public radio has been stagnant–largely unchanged in any meaningful way–for a generation, not because the audience are no longer interested in listening.

Radio isn’t dead, it is evolving. But public radio, in real and meaningful ways, isn’t.

So why did I stop writing about public radio? I stopped writing about this not because it’s hopeless—but because the answer hasn’t changed. Yet that doesn’t mean the opportunity is gone.

I wasn’t being flip when I mentioned that what I’ve written still holds. If you are reading this and wondering, “Okay, well, what should we do then?” Read. The. Linked. Posts. Above. It’s all there, the entire playbook–from national organizations all the way down to production assistants at local stations.

The links go (in chronological order) to here, here, and here. All good stuff.

Meanwhile, let’s look at the ratings for public stations in the top ten markets:

WNYC and WQXR in New York.KPCC and KCRW in Los Angeles.WBEZ in Chicago.KQED (#1) in San Francisco.KERA in Dallas.KUHF in Houston.WABE in Atlanta.WAMU in Washington (strong #2).WHYY in Philadelphia.WBUR and WGBH in Boston.

They are all holding steady or going up.

Looking down the market list, I see—

KNOW is #1 in Minneapolis.
KPBS is #1 in San Diego.
KUT is always #1 or #2 in Austin.
WUNC rules in Raleigh-Durham.

In Santa Barbara, public radio (including classical stations) collectively gets around a 25 share, which is enormous—as it has been for years.

What’s the problem? 

Alas, radio itself. Listening is moving from narrow-purpose instruments called radios to universal instruments called phones. Last night at a party, I asked a bunch of people what radio stations, if any, they listen to. All of them said they listen to podcasts and streams, some from public radio sources (shows more than stations). And most of these people were retired or close. (One was 20. To her, podcasts and streams are radio, like Netflix and TikTok are TV.)

My point is that public radio has a growing wedge of a shrinking pie, and it’s a pie that tastes like death. But of broadcast. AM is in hospice. Over-the-air TV is on death row. FM is terminal, but in denial. (Give it time. I’d say about a decade.)

The only hope for statons is with engagement. People, digital tech, and the Internet are perfect for that. AI and transmitters are not.

Did he die in his sleep?

"The Gambler" may be the best country song ever written.  And performed. (Kenny Rogers' version is the definitive one). Alas, its author, the great Don Schlitz, has passed on. Not many details on that: Nashville hospital, sudden illness. He was from Durham, NC, one of my former homes and favorite towns.

Nice, but I'm not buying it

In States with the worst (and best) road conditions, the Journal of Consumer Affairs says Indiana has the best roads. Seems reputable, but have they driven on residential streets in Indianapolis?

In his latest blog, Dave says, “If I were running WordPress, my first priority would be to get something exciting out that even non-WordPress users would talk about. Then do it again.” He follows with a good suggestion.

I have one too. I’ve told Matt about it, and he was receptive. But it’s not the kind of thing WordPress itself would need to do. Anyone who builds WordPress plugins can do it. There are lots of those.

The WordPress plugin I want will provide a way for sites to agree to MyTerms, and then store agreement decisions.

We also need browser plugins to proffer terms to sites, and store the same decisions.

So this is an appeal for both.

I want to make clear how big MyTerms is to the world, and to me.

For the world, it’s the only way we’ll get personal privacy online.

We’ll won’t get it from corporate privacy policies, which are largely bullshit. We won’t get it from “consent” to cookie “choices.” Those are mostly ignored by the sites that offer them, and are meaningless in any case. (See here, here, here, and here.) Regulations have also mostly failed, so far. (Without them, for example, we wouldn’t have those cookie notices.)

MyTerms will work because they make privacy a contract, and are backed by contract law that’s been with us forever.

With MyTerms, you are the first party—not a mere “user.” The site is the second party. It can agree or not. If it does, you’ve set the privacy terms. If it doesn’t, your browser plugin can record that choice as easily as it can record an agreement.

Far more business can be done based on privacy agreements that you require than is possible with the surveillance-based guesswork fecosystem we call adtech. (For more on those business possibilities, read Nitin Badjatia and Iain Henderson. Especially this piece here.)

I’ve been involved in many important movements in my life: Linux, open source, blogging, open space conferences, free and open photography, and personal AI are six big ones. MyTerms is bigger than all of them.

In my not-humble opinion, MyTerms will launch the third stage of the Internet’s evolution. The first was the Internet itself. The second was the Web. The third will be MyTerms and the constellations of trust-based business ecosystems it will enable.

MyTerms is an IEEE standard that took nine years to finish (though it’s radically simple). I chaired the working group. You can read about it here and download a copy of the standard as well.

Now we need development. There are a few things in the works, but the most leveraged ones will be browser and server plugins. Anyone want to make the Visicalc of the real Web 3? Get us those plugins.

As it happens, there are two events coming up where we can meet and work (both are designed for that):

VRM Day, on Monday, 27 April.IIW, from Tuesday to Thursday, 28 to 30 April.

Also, if you want to approach MyTerms development from an AI angle, there’s the Agentic Internet Workshop (AIW) on Friday, 1 May. All three are at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. VRM Day is free. IIW and AIW are cheap as conferences go.

Love to see and work with you at any or all of those, and beyond.

Kind of a Christo thing

Mission TARONI put a silk-wrapped mannequin in space. From The Dorothy Project. It has implications.

Today it's frost

The Monroe County Alert System just called me. I didn't answer, because they call too much. Glad to hear from them when there's a tornado risk, or when one is coming. Deep snow is another. But … fog? Thunderstorms? (Those can be almost daily in the summer.) 

Close your invisible robot eyes

This is good news, but not yet enough. Spying on people going about their ordinary lives is wrong, whether it's the government, your car, or your TV doing it.

April showers

Even as a little kid, I thought "March winds and April showers bring May flowers" was bogus. First, we went almost every Easter from New Jersey to North Carolina, where New Jersey's May flowers would be gone by April. Second, it seemed too general to be a rule, as well as too geographically specific. But I'm reminded of the saying today, as a soft, steady rain falls here in Southern Indiana, which is more like North Carolina than New Jersey. (We're at the same latitude as Washington DC.) Crocuses are long done, and so are the daffodils. Tulips and irises are up. And our dry garden (of hardy native plants) and lawn are drinking it in.

Which it is, here in Southern Indiana. Was yesterday too. Spring!

Getting strait

A visual of marine traffic piling up on the two sides of the Strait of Hormuz.

Also this story on transponder spoofing in Wired. Transponders are how one can see what ships are where, their routes, and other important facts for cooperative maritime navigation.

We have a leader

I just checked to see if my booked window seats on all four planes I'll be taking in the next several weeks each have a window. In the old days (before last November), I would check SeatGuru. But TripAdvisor killed it, and none of the six replacements I listed in Life After Seat Guru seemed equal to the job—at least not when I checked for my next few flights. But I can report that AeroLopa has that feature, for example, here. Nice.

Seems fixable

I dearly love the Internet Archive. I also think Charles Arthur is right in what he says here.

Good deal

This is cool: IU opens its free generative AI course to anyone worldwide.

As always

Jamie Smith nails it with No one is listening to Steve Jobs’s advice about the EU Digital ID Wallet. 

Still the only way

Interesting how old posts get new traffic. The biggest this morning on the ProjectVRM blog is to Health Care Relationship Management, which ran almost nineteen years ago. It was about a Steve Lohr story in the NY Times titled Google and Microsoft Look to Change Health Care.  The gist: "The Google and Microsoft initiatives would give much more control to individuals, a trend many health experts see as inevitable. 'Patients will ultimately be the stewards of their own information,' said John D. Halamka, a doctor and the chief information officer of the Harvard Medical School."

Next Tuesday, 21 April, at 4 pm Eastern, Judith Donath will speak here at Indiana University and online on The Alchemy of Confidence, addressing the most pressing question in our still-new digital age:

Why do we trust some signals—and fall for others?

She explains,

Deception and honesty have long been locked in evolutionary arms races. From peacock feathers to social media profiles, signals shape how we judge honesty and deception. But when false signals become widespread, trust breaks down—and only signals backed by real cost remain credible.

This talk introduces signaling theory, a powerful framework for understanding:

Why costly behaviors signal authenticityHow deception spreads in human communicationWhat this means for disinformation and identity in the digital age

How can technologies support trust and when does it undermine it? As rapid technological change reshapes the incentives for deception and detection, understanding the foundations of trust has never been more urgent.

Beyond signals alone, we’ll explore how trust, social systems, and oversight determine what—and who—we believe.

In a time when every AI passes Ye Olde Turing Test, deepfakes can look and sound better than the originals, and adtech trackers follow you everywhere, unseen, watching everything you do, who you do it with, and worse, there is no more important subject to study and master. Judith’s talk will be a great way to start—and to expand your knowledge if you’re on the case already.

Register and find the Zoom link to attend here.

A hopeful sign

My News Commons site and series are getting action lately.

Nobirds?

Engadget: Shoe company Allbirds pivots to AI compute in sign of a totally normal and healthy economy. Say hello to "NewBird AI." It's April 15, not April 1. Just noting that. 

Reuters. Investopedia. Marketwatch. Apparently, you can still buy their shoes: allbirds.com.

One more reason to hate advertising

MediaPost: Google Replacing Dynamic Search Ads With 'AI Max'

Has Atlas shrugged?

The post in my archive that has had the most visits lately is this one about ChatGPT Atlas. I haven't heard Atlas talked about much lately. According to Google Trends, interest has trailed off and kinda flatlined. Meanwhile, Google Search remains a skin on Gemini, so maybe that's your real Atlas right there.

Anyone here seen it?

The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist is out on Prime. Bonus link.