Teens in Tech's Launch Marred by Technical Issues

Teens in Tech, the new startup purportedly creating a community for teens interested in creating new media, not-launch launched into private alpha yesterday. After a TechCrunch review yesterday, the group has been widely panned.

Critics point to the lack of innovation on the part of the company. It uses a standard Wordpress MU installation and has already shown a surprising lack of foresight. A review on TechCrunch generates huge site traffic and server load, but Teens in Tech (I’ll spell out the name to avoid the acronym - not the best marketing choice) was using DreamHost, a service clearly not designed for reliability. The people at Teens in Tech bit the bullet and switched to a more reliable host, but only after leaving the front page down for most of the all-important launch day.

But still, I don’t think the technicalities are critical. Being crashed by TechCrunch is almost a rite of passage for startups, but Teens in Tech should have at least attempted to plan. My concern lies with the theory behind the company. Even if the launch has been smooth and Teens in Tech used the best custom backend in the world, the service would still fail because it is pursuing a flawed (if existent) business plan. While the teen market is huge on the Internet, the number of teens who are willing to create new media is very small. From a business perspective, targeting such an infinitessimal market segment isn’t at all profitable. Opening up to everyone would defeat the purpose of beging a teen company and place the group the group in direct competition with more established foes, like Mevio.

In fact, one of only a few things Teens in Tech has going for them is the design. Sean Blake did an excellent job at creating a professional design to complement the content. But as professional as the site looks, I’m not sure how professional it actually is.

The company is not incorporated and much of the company’s future plans remain “in discussion.” Oddly, Teens in Tech is generating an inordinate amount of hype for a service launching into private alpha. I question the wisdom of launching so early, given the technical issues, lack of innovation, and lack of clear direction. While Teens in Tech has the profit potential of a lemonade stand on a deserted road, a few conversations with the Teens in Tech team lead me to believe that the company isn’t going after profit. They seem undecided at the moment, but some sort of charity-type, donation-based organization might be in the works.

For the most part, the criticism of Teens in Tech is well-deserved. They launched too early, with no real innovation, haunted by technical difficulties. It was just not thought through. It is, as of now, all hype and no product. But I won’t tolerate the people who say Teens in Tech is only popular in the media because of who Daniel, the founder, knows and because of his location (Daniel is based in Silicon Valley). Perhaps this has some merit in that Daniel has more access to those who matter, but the people who matter wouldn’t care about Daniel if he was just an ordinary person. Daniel obviously has something going for him that’s impressing the likes of Robert Scoble and others.

My primary concern is that Teens in Tech will harm the teen community as a whole on the Internet. As teens, we have a certain disadvantage because we are not viewed as equals. But we can’t expect to be treated specially because we’re young, either. If teens want to be as successful as adults, then they need to be as good as adults. Age is no excuse for a less-than-fantastic product.

I have nothing against Daniel or the Teens in Tech team, but I want them to use their efforts for something else. I want them to do something really great, but I’m not quite sure what. Daniel would do it well, I’m sure, but more importantly, if he and his team pulled it off, it would be a major advancement for teens. So my advice to Daniel is to close up shop on Teens in Tech and move on to something more worthy of his efforts. Teens in Tech is just not going to gain the audience it needs to be a successful business.

Google loves to play both sides of an argument. First, they claim it’s extremely difficult for them to filter out copyrighted material from YouTube, but at the same time they’ve been very strict and very effective at filtering out child pornography. Why can they do one and not the other? I’m sure Viacom would like to know. Google has also argued that they don’t need to protect their data, particularly IP addresses, more stringently because a user could generally not be identified through IP address. This is in addition to Google’s history of keeping more user data than God. But now that Viacom wants this data, YouTube (owned by Google) is saying the exact opposite - releasing IP addresses to Viacom’s legal team seems like the end of the world for Google.

Viacom is trying to get these records (which, to be clear, include the username, IP address, video data, and viewing statistics for every YouTube user) in connection with their March 2007 lawsuit Viacom International, Inc., Comedy Partners, Country Music Television, Inc., Paramount Pictures Corporation, and Black Entertainment Television, LLC v. Youtube, Inc., YouTube, LLC, and Google Inc. Viacom is claiming massive copyright infringement has taken place on YouTube (I don’t think this is a point of contention, we’ve all seen this), but more importantly that the scale of this infringement combined with YouTube not proactively removing copyrighted content has hurt Viacom and even aided Google in the form of ad revenue. Viacom is also alleging inducement of copyright infringement, a relatively new claim in copyright cases and the result of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., Et Al.v.Grokster LTD, Et Al.

I definitely do not have the legal expertise to analyze the case itself, but I’m quite interested by the data Google is being forced to turn over. I should note that the blogosphere has gone absolutely up-the-wall-best-to-put-some-people-in-an-insane-asylum crazy over this latest decision in the ongoing battle between Google and Viacom. TechCrunch suggested that Google toy with Viacom by sending the records over in paper format. (The records total 12 terabytes and, in paper format, would probably fill the Googleplex). My lawyer relations tell me type of game has been played by litigators in the past, so the courts are now very specific about how data is turned over. Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require all parties to agree to the format of the data, and failing agreement, the judge decides.

So, it seems, Google will have to turn over the data. The EFF is already going crazy, but I’m not sure the privacy implications are as dire as some believe. Google and Viacom, according to The New York Times, are working on ways of protecting user privacy, though no deal has been formalized and Viacom is under no obligation to agree to any such deal. Google wants to anonymize the data by redacting IP addresses and user names. But an EFF representative says even that’s not enough because when AOL release anonymized user data for research in 2006, The New York Times was able to track down one AOL user by analyzing her search queries only.

As far as I’m concerned, this is a moot point because the data, anonymized or not, will never be made public. Viacom certainly does not want the data to get out because it makes them look terrible and if anyone leaked it, their job and the next several years of their life would hang in the balance. Google definitely doesn’t want this data to get out. The only people that will see this are paralegals, assistants, and a handful of lawyers. I’m certain some people are concerned that the data will be used to target them individually, for illegal acts like copyright infringement, totally unrelated to Viacom’s cause of action against YouTube. Good news for them because the court’s protection order will not allow them to use the data for anything other than their initial claim. It’s just not that big of a deal.

I also find it somewhat hypocritical that anti-copyright activists want to make it hard for copyright holders to get data without a lawsuit, but when the copyright holder pursues legal means of obtaining the data, they also go crazy. I think a lawsuit should be a requirement for someone to obtain user data, but when the data is ordered, it should be delivered.

I’m worried about the precedent that this case sets, but in this particular instance I, as a YouTube user, am satisfied with the safeguards in place to prevent my privacy being violated. But if those safeguards are ever lessened in the future, then that’s a big problem. I’ll be following this case closely, like all copyright cases, because it could tie up some loose ends left by other cases.