Take that Arianna Huffington! NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- A longtime Huffington Post blogger has filed a lawsuit against the site, its two co-founders and new owner AOL, seeking $105 million on behalf of himself and 9,000 other unpaid bloggers. |
The suit is being led by Jonathan Tasini, a journalist and union organizer, who filed the complaint Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Tasini is seeking class-action status for the case. |
Tasini says Arianna Huffington personally invited him to blog for the Huffington Post in 2005, shortly after the site launched. He subsequently wrote 216 unpaid posts for the site, though he stopped blogging after AOL ( AOL) agreed to buy it on February 7 |
"The value added by the content provided by [the unpaid bloggers] to TheHuffingtonPost.com's price was at least $105 million, none of which was shared," the legal complaint says. |
Tasini himself goes much further in his comments about HuffPo and its founder: "It's hard to find a bigger example of hypocrisy. Arianna has made her name on standing up for the little guy -- meanwhile, she is behaving exactly like Goldman Sachs and all the robber barons." |
HuffPo bloggers, Tasini says, "are merely slaves on Arianna's plantation. We do all the work and she won't share a dime." |
A Huffington Post spokesman said "the lawsuit is without merit." |
He compared the site's unpaid bloggers with the "hundreds of people [who] go on TV shows to promote their views and ideas." He also pointed out bloggers can cross-post their work on other sites, and that the company does employ a full-time, paid staff as well. |
For all his vitriol, Tasini says the lawsuit wasn't his idea. In fact, it was the brainchild of the two Kurzon Strauss lawyers who are now representing him. |
"Speaking for myself only, I'm looking to set some standard for blogging as we move forward," Tasini says. "If we don't set standards now, we'll move into a spot where creators can't make a living." |
Tasini has deep roots in digital journalism -- and in court battles over it. He was the lead plaintiff in the landmark 2001 Supreme Court case New York Times Co. vs. Tasini, which focused on publications' rights to license freelancers' work for distribution through electronic databases like LexisNexis. The case was decided in favor of the plaintiffs. |
In the case against the Huffington Post, Tasini says he would be willing to settle out of court "if Arianna suggested something fair."  |
This must be the American Dream.... According to the most recent information, the Forbes 400 now have a greater net worth than the bottom 50% of U.S. households combined. |
In 2009, the total net worth of the Forbes 400 was $1.27 trillion.
The best information now available shows that in 2009 the bottom 60% (yes, now it's 60%, not 50%) of U.S. households owned only 2.3% of total U.S. wealth.
Total U.S. household net worth -- rich, middle class and poor combined -- at the time the Forbes list came out was $53.15 trillion. So the bottom 60% of households possessed just $1.22 trillion of that $53.15 trillion, less than the Forbes 400.
Thus the Forbes 400 unquestionably have more wealth than the bottom 50%.
By contrast, in 2007 the bottom 50% of U.S. households owned slightly more wealth than the Forbes 400; the economic meltdown has hurt the bottom more than the top. (And in fact, in 2010 the net worth of the Forbes 400 jumped to $1.37 trillion.)
SOURCES:
1. Total net worth of Forbes 400, 2009: Forbes
2. Total net worth of bottom 60% of U.S. households, 2009, by percent of total U.S. household net worth: Edward Wolff, "Recent Trends in Household Wealth in the United States: Rising Debt and the Middle-Class Squeeze—an Update to 2007," p. 33
Edward Wolff, Professor of Economics at New York University, is the top academic expert on economic inequality in the U.S. He writes:
"A somewhat rough update, based on the change in housing and stock prices, shows a marked deterioration in middle-class wealth. According to my estimates, while mean wealth (in 2007 dollars) fell by 17.3 percent between 2007 and 2009 to $443,600, median wealth plunged by an astounding 36.1 percent to $65,400 (about the same level as in 1992!) ... Trends in inequality [from 2007 to mid-2009] ... show a fairly steep rise in wealth inequality ... The share of the top 1 percent advanced from 34.6 to 37.1 percent, that of the top 5 percent from 61.8 to 65 percent, and that of the top quintile from 85 to 87.7 percent, while that of the second quintile fell from 10.9 to 10 percent, that of the middle quintile from 4 to 3.1 percent, and that of the bottom two quintiles from 0.2 to -0.8 percent." (emphasis added)
Note: a "quintile" is 20% of U.S. households, so the middle and bottom two quintiles include 60% of U.S. households.
3. Total net worth of U.S. households, third quarter of 2009: Federal Reserve, p. 1
4. Total net worth of bottom 50% of U.S. households, 2007, by amount: Arthur B. Kennickell, Federal Reserve, "Ponds and Streams: Wealth and Income in the U.S., 1989 to 2007, p. 35
5. Total net worth of Forbes 400, 2007: Forbes
6. Total net worth of Forbes 400, 2010: |
This must be the American Dream. So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here at home. |
Welcome to America in the second decade of the 21st century. An army of long-term unemployed workers is spread across the land, the human fallout from the Great Recession and long years of misguided economic policies. Optimism is in short supply. The few jobs now being created too often pay a pittance, not nearly enough to pry open the doors to a middle-class standard of living. |
Arthur Miller, echoing the poet Archibald MacLeish, liked to say that the essence of America was its promises. That was a long time ago. Limitless greed, unrestrained corporate power and a ferocious addiction to foreign oil have led us to an era of perpetual war and economic decline. Young people today are staring at a future in which they will be less well off than their elders, a reversal of fortune that should send a shudder through everyone. |
The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely. |
Nearly 14 million Americans are jobless and the outlook for many of them is grim. Since there is just one job available for every five individuals looking for work, four of the five are out of luck. Instead of a land of opportunity, the U.S. is increasingly becoming a place of limited expectations. A college professor in Washington told me this week that graduates from his program were finding jobs, but they were not making very much money, certainly not enough to think about raising a family. |
There is plenty of economic activity in the U.S., and plenty of wealth. But like greedy children, the folks at the top are seizing virtually all the marbles. Income and wealth inequality in the U.S. have reached stages that would make the third world blush. As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion. |
Americans behave as if this is somehow normal or acceptable. It shouldn’t be, and didn’t used to be. Through much of the post-World War II era, income distribution was far more equitable, with the top 10 percent of families accounting for just a third of average income growth, and the bottom 90 percent receiving two-thirds. That seems like ancient history now. |
The current maldistribution of wealth is also scandalous. In 2009, the richest 5 percent claimed 63.5 percent of the nation’s wealth. The overwhelming majority, the bottom 80 percent, collectively held just 12.8 percent. |
This inequality, in which an enormous segment of the population struggles while the fortunate few ride the gravy train, is a world-class recipe for social unrest. Downward mobility is an ever-shortening fuse leading to profound consequences. |
A stark example of the fundamental unfairness that is now so widespread was in The New York Times on Friday under the headline: “G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether.” Despite profits of $14.2 billion — $5.1 billion from its operations in the United States — General Electric did not have to pay any U.S. taxes last year. |
As The Times’s David Kocieniewski reported, “Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.” |
G.E. is the nation’s largest corporation. Its chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, is the leader of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. You can understand how ordinary workers might look at this cozy corporate-government arrangement and conclude that it is not fully committed to the best interests of working people. |
Overwhelming imbalances in wealth and income inevitably result in enormous imbalances of political power. So the corporations and the very wealthy continue to do well. The employment crisis never gets addressed. The wars never end. And nation-building never gets a foothold here at home. |
Whether intentional or not, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse may have started luring bitter T-Mobile subscribers to the Sprint network who share common ground with him when it comes to AT&T.
Neither camp thinks AT&T’s purchase of the T-Mobile network is a good idea, but only one of them (Hesse) can say they voiced that opinion directly to the face of AT&T President Ralph De La Vega.
When Hesse was asked what his thoughts were on the recent carrier acquisition while on stage — sitting between Vega and Verizon CEO Dan Mead, to top it off — for a CTIA Wireless 2011 CEO panel, he paused a bit and then fired off a response.
“My opinion doesn’t matter. I think the FCC (Federal Communication Commission) and DOJ (Dept. of Justice) with have the say on that,” adding that he doesn’t believe it’s healthy letting two companies control 80 percent of all consumer wireless communication. It’s arguable that as a former executive of AT&T in the `90’s and the current head of Sprint, Hesse’s opinion does matter.
Regardless, it got a reaction from those in attendance who weren’t expecting much commentary about AT&T’s big purchase since the news was barely two days old and all T-Mobile executives were canceled from all appearances at the CTIA show to presumably prevent just that.
“I do have concerns that it would stifle innovation and too much power would be in the hands of just two,” Hesse said, which is both an expected and justified reaction for the leader of a company playing the role of underdog in a fight with two giants.
Verizon’s Mead weighed in shortly thereafter claiming that there’s plenty of competition among carriers, which would be true if your idea of remaining competitive was based on adult CEOs playing checkers with five-year-olds who still get excited about punch. Otherwise, I think it’s safe to point out that it wouldn’t be in his company’s best interest to say anything less about competition in the marketplace.
The discussion about carrier competition ended shortly thereafter but the snark from Sprint did not. Hesse took another jab, this time at Verizon after moderator Jim Cramer posed the question of why the wireless networks go down.
“Aren’t you on Verizon?” Hesse said to Cramer as he nodded his head yes. Ironically, Verizon’s LTE network looks to be the most impressive at this point.
But perhaps it’s the entire company and not just the CEO that’s adjusting its attitude to fit new roll as the underdog carrier. In another CTIA panel, Sprint Senior Vice President of Network Bob Azzi made fun of AT&T’s marketing department for being in charge of upgrading their network.
“If three can become four, then four can become five,” he said. Without competition to point out things like this to the consumers, people will believe whatever they’re told or just have to deal with it due to no alternatives.
Even if Hesse’s words don’t resonate with all the unhappy T-Mobile subscribers who want to switch carriers, Sprint is the choice most similar to the motivations that attracted them to T-Mobile in the first place. |
Other social media sites could learn from Digg's many mistakes. Namely giving the community a redesign it hated (and taking away features so that Digg could spam its own Front Page) and banning most of its Top Users. Startups in Silicon Valley are like old generals. They don’t die anymore, buoyed on life-rafts of lingering venture capital and modest revenues. They just fade away, eventually purchased for assets that are a shadow of their former promise. It’s pretty clear that Digg is on that path. The company isn’t dead, but it’s been fading away for a while, and its soul is all but gone. The company can spin it however it wants– the final nail in the coffin is news that founder Kevin Rose– long Digg’s greatest asset– is leaving. |
I’m traveling in Indonesia, so the news will be old by the time you read this, but you’ll have to forgive another sentimental post. Digg has always represented the spirit of the early Web 2.0 movement to me. Facebook has never been the emblematic company of the Web’s mid-2000 resurgence, because it has always been such an outlier from the pack. But Digg– like Delicious, Six Apart, Flickr, YouTube and others– was one of those messy, risky companies founded at a time when no one was ready to believe in the Web again. The scars from the 2000 bust were too deep. These companies weren’t celebrated like Web startups today– they were mocked. People thought the founders were delusional.
The entrepreneurs were the exact opposite of the kids today seduced by the promises of Y Combinator, easy cash of super angels and lure of TechCrunch headlines. They were doing something that still stank of broken dreams and evaporated billions. And they were doing it for one simple reason: they couldn’t stop themselves.
And Digg was one of the first to prove you could take advantage of a decade of open source development to start a company for dirt cheap, one of the first to prove you didn’t have to be a technical genius to build a great product, and one of the first to prove a rabid community could make a site explode very, very quickly. Digg was never the biggest company of the movement, but it was bigger than many, and it stood for something. It was the everyman. This is why I put Kevin Rose on the cover of BusinessWeek in 2006. It was his first cover, my first cover, and one of the first national magazine covers about the Web 2.0 movement, period.
That cover– with provocative cover language cooked up by my wily New York editors to move copies– sparked a lot of hatred. It was my first brush with controversy, and one of BusinessWeek’s first big blog scandals as well.
But that cover also sparked inspiration, and the credit for that doesn’t go to BusinessWeek or me, it goes to Digg, Jay Adelson and Rose. It was the first time I saw young people reading BusinessWeek around San Francisco. On magazine racks it wasn’t put back with business publications, it was put back next to copies of FHM and Maxim. And recently BleacherReport founder Bryan Goldberg told me that when he read that cover back in 2006 he felt something he’d never felt reading a business magazine or even watching athletes and rockstars–sheer, consuming envy. If this kid– not a genius like Bill Gates, just a kid with an idea– could build Digg, why couldn’t he build what would later become BleacherReport? It was something that pushed him to quit his job and follow his own dream.
Fair disclosure: That cover probably helped me more than anyone. It landed me a book deal that changed my career. And I first met Michael Arrington right after it ran. He introduced himself to me just outside the Web 2.0 conference, and said he liked the story. That friendship changed my career too, and it was the first of many times he’d defend me against haters.
What Arrington got that others didn’t was that these companies and the Web 2.0 movement were only getting started. Among the article’s “outrageously overstated claims” was that YouTube could sell for $500 million. It sold for three times that a month or so later. The article argued Facebook could be worth more than MySpace. Again, that soon proved understated too. And Digg? Well we got Digg exactly right. We said it could sell for between $150 million and $200 million, and over the next few months and years there were several negotiations and at least one solid offer in that exact range. But Digg — unlike peers like Flickr and Delicious– said no, and its best days seemed ahead of it.
So what happened? In my view, Digg had a lot of things right. More than a million people loved its product– rabidly loved it. They loved it in a way we’d rarely seen until that point. Digg had top investors. And it had the vision part, too. Rose’s mission has played out. Digg helped transform how we consume media. While media properties balked at the idea in 2006, share buttons litter the Web today. We no longer rely on media gatekeepers for news. No one tells us what the front page should be– we create our own with the help of our friends.
Unfortunately Twitter is the one that’s pulled the bulk of his vision off, not Digg. It’s another example of what I’ve argued before– that it’s frequently not the company that comes up with something first that nails the execution. (And it might explain why Rose spends so much time on Twitter.)
The lesson from Digg is crucial as Silicon Valley’s ecosystem has made it easier and easier to start a company. It’s that a great product is necessary but not nearly enough. Building a real company is harder, and it takes execution and leadership. Things like a New York-based CEO and a sometimes-distracted co-founder took a toll on Digg in its most pivotal days. As I wrote in my book a year after that cover, startups reflect their founders’ personalities. Back then, Slide was characterized by silent intensity, Facebook was like a messy, pizza-stained dorm room, and Digg? Well, Digg’s offices were empty most evenings.
I have no doubt that Rose and Adelson are stronger after Digg than they were before. After all, few people remember that before Zynga, Mark Pincus’ Tribe didn’t live up to high expectations either. Like Pincus, I believe they both Rose and Adelson still have their biggest successes ahead of them. Adelson has already moved on with SimpleGeo, and Rose is moving on with a new mystery project.
There will be haters on this post. And that’s fine. But the people who write checks in the Valley have respect for what Digg built, whether the founders fell short or not. Smart people will always want to back these guys– as Mike Maples said on Ask a VC last week– and people like Arrington and me will root for them again.
That’s what makes the Valley such a unique place. |
Isn't the Captain of a sinking ship supposed to go down with the ship? Just Sayin'. Wow, when I wrote last night that Kevin Rose doesn’t really use Digg anymore, I had no idea how perfect the timing was. It turns out Rose really has tuned out. Because, say multiple sources, he’s already resigned from the company and is closing a $1+ million financing round for a new company he’s founded.
Rose first launched Digg in December 2004. The service was an instant hit, and for a long while just all the big players thought about acquiring the company. Things never got so close as they did in mid-2008, when Google took Digg all the way to the alter before walking away at the last minute. Digg would have been sold for some $200 million. Every employee knew about the deal because Google had interviewed them all individually. Credit to then-CEO Jay Adelson for getting everyone back on track after the deal fell apart.
But those were the glory days for Digg. The site faded as newer services like Twitter and Facebook became ubiquitous. Rose and Adelson had a falling out, Rose stopped coming by the office much for months, and one of them had to go. It was Adelson. Rose took over as CEO until they hired Matt Williams last Fall.
Rose stayed on in vague executive role after Williams took over, but it’s been clear that Digg isn’t really top of mind for him anymore. He’s not using it much, as I showed last night. And he is very active with Revision3 and other projects.
So what’s the new startup? We’re still trying to figure that out, as well as who he’s hired and who’s invested. We’ll update as we hear more. Rose, for his part, isn’t responding to my emails, which isn’t surprising. |
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WOW, now if only Digg had this level of customer service for its members. Mirco Wilhelm, the unfortunate Flickr user who found his entire Flickr account accidentally emptied by an over-enthusiastic Flickr employee, has a reason to smile again for his 4,000 photos, numerous comments, favorites and sets have been restored back to their previous state.
Wilhelm, a Flickr member of five years, found his entire account had vanished and assumed it was connected to a recent abuse report he had filed. Sadly for him, he wasn’t to be so lucky. Contacting Flickr’s support team, Wilhelm was told that instead of the flagged account being deleted, it was his account that had been mistakenly deleted, and he wouldn’t get it back.
The Flickr email read:
Unfortunately, I have mixed up the accounts and accidentally deleted yours. I am terribly sorry for this grave error and hope that this mistake can be reconciled…I can restore your account, although we will not be able to retrieve your photos. I know that there is a lot of history on your account–again, please accept my apology for my negligence. Once I restore your account, I will add four years of free Pro to make up for my error.
The awarding four free years of Flickr Pro was a nice gesture but it wouldn’t give Wilhelm his photos and associated data back. He had his work featured on several websites that linked back to his Flickr account, meaning links would have to be updated manually should he decide to re-upload his entire collection of photos.
Flickr replied:
Yesterday, Flickr mistakenly deleted a member’s account due to human error. Flickr takes user trust very seriously and we, like our users, take great pride in being able to take, post, and share photos. Our teams are in touch with the member and are currently working hard to try to restore the contents of his account. In addition, we are providing the member with 25 years of free Flickr Pro membership. We are also actively working on a process that will allow us to easily restore deleted accounts and will roll this functionality out soon.
Note the last sentence. Here, Flickr has enabled its own downfall. Instead of flagging accounts for deletion and giving a grace period, allowing for accidental account deletions to be remedied, Flickr would unceremoniously pull the entire account without the option of getting it back.
Cnet reports that Flickr had managed to restore part of Wilhelm’s account yesterday and in the past few hours Flickr has been able to bring the entire account back to its original state:
Yahoo is pleased to share that the Flickr team has fully restored a member’s account that was mistakenly deleted yesterday. We regret the human error that led to the mistake and have worked hard to rectify the situation, including reloading the entire photo portfolio and providing the member with 25 years of free Flickr Pro membership.
Flickr users should now be able to breathe a little easier knowing that should their accounts be mistakenly deleted, they will get their photos back if it’s found to be an error on Flickr’s part.
Even though the measure is now in place, always make sure you back up your collection. |
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