Q&A: The Man Behind LiveLeak, The Islamic State's Favourite Site For Beheading Videos | ||
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Video sharing site LiveLeak isn't your average startup. There's no CEO, office, PR team or venture capital funding. But LiveLeak has grown to be one of the biggest video sharing sites on the internet. Along the way, LiveLeak has received death threats, fought back against ISIS/Islamic State, and seen itself mentioned by Prime Minister Tony Blair and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow. "War is no longer something read in dispatches, it comes straight into the living room. Take a website like LiveLeak, which has become popular with soldiers from both sides of the divide in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Operational documentary material, from their mobile phones or laptops, is posted on the site in real time." British Prime Minister Tony Blair speaking on Jan. 12 2007. If you've watched a video originating from Iraq, Syria, Libya or Russia in recent years, you've probably seen a LiveLeak logo in the top left corner. The site has carved out a niche amongst the vast amount of video sharing startups online by offering a far more relaxed policy on what can and cannot be uploaded. The video embedded below, "Idiot Causes Head-on Collision," is typical of the content found on the site: It originates from an Eastern European country (Belarus), it's filmed using a dash-mounted camera, and it depicts a serious, potentially fatal, car crash: LiveLeak is best known for videos such as the car crash footage embedded above. Often, the videos contain violence, or visible injuries. A page that shows the most-viewed content on the site includes videos of a plane struggling to land, a Russian tampon commercial, and the execution of Saddam Hussein. Violence, car crashes, sex and conspiracies make up a vast amount of LiveLeak's most popular videos. But, despite its reputation as an uncensored version of YouTube playing host to some of the goriest videos on the internet, LiveLeak has actively worked to create a more family-friendly community. LiveLeak's founding team met while working on a related project in the early 2000s. Ogrish was a classic internet shock site that specialized in gory, violent videos. Its original tag line was "Can you handle life?" hinting at the graphic content hosted on the site. But in November 2006, Ogrish abruptly shut down, directing its users to visit a new video service: LiveLeak. Forty-one-year-old Hayden Hewitt is the only public member of LiveLeak's founding team. All other founders of the site have remained anonymous since LiveLeak launched in 2006, perhaps fearful of the impact that the site could have on their careers. Hewitt, who lives in Manchester spoke to Business Insider about the site's history. "Ogrish had gone as far as it could go," Hewitt told us. "It had become a parody of itself. Ogrish was a very serious site, it wasn't like a lot of the gore sites you might see now that are based off that model. It was tremendously serious, everything was researched, there was no laughing at dead people or anything like that, the community was actually remarkably reserved." "We’d gone as far as we could go with [Ogrish] ... Traffic was still climbing, but we felt we reached a point where we didn’t want to progress with it." Despite launching as a tamer version of Ogrish, LiveLeak was soon mired in controversy. In 2008, Dutch politician Geert Wilders created a short documentary named Fitna that was highly critical of Islam. After attempting to hire extra security to screen it in Holland and then having his website suspended, Wilders turned to LiveLeak and requested that they host the controversial film. Unprepared for what was to come next, LiveLeak agreed.
But thing were about to get crazier. LiveLeak was forced to take the video offline after Hewitt became the target of death threats. "We get a lot of threats in general, but these were becoming very, very specific ... Certain outlets were reporting my full name, and the rough area of Manchester which I was living in at the time, so the threats started becoming a little bit more direct. We had to do something. We took it offline for 48 hours while we made a lot of preparations, including ensuring my family would be looked after for a period of time if anything happened to me." Fitna was eventually re-uploaded to LiveLeak, although it was then taken down again over a copyright claim. The controversy died down as many of the video's critics were able to view the film, which resembled a poorly edited PowerPoint presentation. The Fitna incident had shown LiveLeak's founders just how powerful the site could be. By relaxing the restrictions found elsewhere, they could host videos that nobody else would. But with that notoriety came a risk to the lives of the site's founders. Business Insider asked Hewitt why he chose to become the only public face of the organization: "I drew the short straw on that one. It’s a case of necessity. Just being another faceless website is a little too corporate. It is an independent outfit, everybody works, everybody has other jobs. There are no full time LiveLeak employees." Were Hewitt's family aware of his second life as one of the founders of a notorious website? "My wife was fully aware at the time, of course. I don’t imagine she was over the moon, but this was something I believe in. Sometimes ignorant people should be able to have a voice. I believed in that. But, I’ve got a kid now, so I don’t know." Does being the public face of one of the internet's most notorious websites hurt Hewitt's career away from the site? "It has harmed my career in that I spend far more time than is financially responsible on the site. But not much of what I do relies on the skillsets I’ve developed over the years in terms of community development. I was asked in a recent interview why I don’t do consulting, and that’s because it’s never occurred to me. I’m too busy. It’s neither been one way or another. I think it’s been beneficial in a lot of organisational ways, communicative ways, perhaps. But overall, I just spend far too much time on it." More often that not, the LiveLeak community is able to quietly share and discuss videos on the site without interference or criticism. But every few years, LiveLeak resurfaces as the polar opposite of the restrictions on mainstream sites. The divide between LiveLeak and other sites became more prominent in 2013 after Facebook issued a six-month ban on all videos showing beheadings. Facebook had decided to remove the violent videos after being warned that viewing beheadings could cause its users long-term harm. LiveLeak, however, had allowed beheading videos since its inception, and continued to let users upload graphic content. Hewitt was invited onto Britain's Newsnight current affairs programme to discuss LiveLeak's policy of allowing content that was banned elsewhere. With its graphic violence and notoriety, does LiveLeak's sole public founder consider the site to have a positive impact on the internet? Hewitt isn't sure it has any impact at all. "If you look at the wider world, it certainly couldn’t make it any worse. It depends what you take out of it, what the experience is ... Me personally, I don’t think it has any impact on the greater world whatsoever, and if we look around us, it’s relatively small-fry in terms of any nastiness." LiveLeak returned to prominence in August after ISIS/Islamic State released a video showing the beheading of American journalist James Foley on Aug. 19. The video was quickly removed from YouTube, as it violated the site's policy on violent content. But LiveLeak, which chooses not to censor violent content unless it's overly gratuitous, decided to host the video. Site traffic soared as people searched for the video:
Hewitt and the other LiveLeak founders held a vote over whether the site should host further beheading videos from ISIS. The result was unanimous: ISIS was banned from LiveLeak. LiveLeak went on to publish a blog post that explained the reasons behind the ban. For a community famed for its tolerance of graphic violence, many questioned the reasons behind the ban. In its statement, LiveLeak explained that it had no desire to host any beheading videos from ISIS, remarking "We've shown the world the true horror of this form of execution more than once in the past and we cannot find any compelling reason to even be thought of as promoting the actions of this group." LiveLeak kept its word. As ISIS released more brutal videos showing the beheading of American and British journalists and aid works, the moderators of LiveLeak have worked to remove them from the site. Footage from Syria and Iraq remains popular, however, and there are still car crash videos emerging from Russia. So what's next for LiveLeak? The site hasn't changed very much since its inception, but there are big changes on the way. Hewitt told Business Insider that the "next step is the live streaming aspect which is very close to a Beta launch after a long development." LiveLeak users will soon be able to stream video from war zones and protests in real-time, without interruption or censorship. LiveLeak is going to become its own online network of live feeds from around the world. The site remains popular with soldiers fighting in far-flung locations. Soon, as well as car crashes and tampon commercials, we may see live video from the frontlines. That could give rise to even more controversy than the site has seen before. SEE ALSO: ISIS Banned From Controversial Video Site LiveLeak After James Foley Execution Video Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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"The video went live and I think half of the Netherlands actually logged into the site that day," says LiveLeak founder Hewitt. "In terms of numbers, quite literally half the country. Everything just went crazy."
But LiveLeak's founders had to make an important decision. As traffic soared, they received news that ISIS had further hostages, and the group was planning to behead them also. This concerned LiveLeak's founders. When the terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi began releasing beheading videos in 2004, Ogrish, the forerunner to LiveLeak, allowed them on the site. But now, the founders felt uneasy about potentially facilitating another series of gory videos. This Diagram We Saw Inside Facebook's London Office Ought To Terrify Apple (FB, AAPL) | ||
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For years, Apple has dominated the $45 billion app business with its App Store. Android has always been the second-best place for apps. Facebook, however, has a plan that could change all that. This hastily scrawled diagram on a whiteboard in its London office represents that plan, and it ought to scare the folks at Apple who work to maintain the primacy of iOS among app developers. (We explain the diagram below.) iPhone and iPad users are generally more lucrative than Android people for apps, in terms of download fees and in-app payments. So the best apps are developed first for Apple's iOS mobile operating system. Only if they are successful do companies produce an Android version, often months or years later. Even then, Android apps tend to be copies of the original iOS app, with all the flaws and compromises that implies. The dominance of iOS creates a bizarre distortion in the app market: Apple only has a 12% share of mobile users; 80% of users are on Android. Yet the 4-to-1 majority is treated as second class in the app world. It can actually be difficult to hire Android developers because staff only want to work on iOS. And you can be hugely successful as an app creator, even if the vast majority of phone users have no contact with your product. At Facebook in Europe, however, executives think that Apple's iOS dominance might be about to weaken. We spoke to Facebook's Europe, Middle East, and Africa platform director Julien Codorniou recently and were surprised when he told us that the trend he was seeing favored Android. Revenue generation on Android is catching up to iOS, and more developers — particularly for game developers — are going Android-first, especially in Europe. Facebook is hoping to take advantage of this via its Parse app development platform, which Codorniou believes virtually erases the two-step iOS/Android development process, letting companies release new apps on both platforms simultaneously. Erasing a key selling point for the iPhone.That would actually be good for Apple in the sense that a robust, growing app market only increases Apple's App Store revenues. But it would be also bad for Apple because if apps are released at the same time on Android it erases one of the key selling points of the iPhone: That users who want the cool new apps must be Apple users in order to get them.
Essentially, app developers would make two separate apps — one for iOS and then, later, one for Android. They needed a lot of operations to support them, like servers. Facebook's Parse platform replaces that: It lets companies build, store, and serve apps directly from the Parse cloud. All developers have to do is create an iOS client, an Android client, and even a Windows Phone client, and publish them as needed. Once the apps are in the Apple App Store and the Google Play store, then developers can use Facebook's various marketing products — mobile app install ads, engagement ads, and the Facebook Audience Network — to promote them. The inequality statement at the bottom of the diagram, "CPI < LTV", indicates what developers are aiming for: As long as the Cost Per Install (the marketing investment it took to persuade you to download an app) is less than the Long Term Value of new downloads, users, and in-app payments, then the company should keep spending on more ads on Facebook. If the cost is greater than the value, the companies are advised to halt what they are doing and think again. More than 270,000 apps are using the system, up from 100,000 the year before. (For scale, both Apple's App store and Google Play have greater than 1 million apps available. So Facebook is partnering with a significant chunk of the market.) "We see more people being Android-first because of the size of the market."
"I would say no," Cordoniou says, "we can make you big on Facebook.com, on the web, on iOS, on Android, on Windows phone, on any new platform coming up that we support. The main value of proposition of Facebook is the fact that it’s cross-platform." They still have to build separate clients of course, that isn't going away. But are they more likely to continue to build the Apple one first? "We see more people being Android-first because of the size of the market," Codorniou says. "The Parse technology is like Unity in gaming. [Unity is a game development platform on which you can create games for a multitude of different systems.] You build on Unity, you’re almost de facto on iOS and on Android. You see a lot of cross-platform tools, this is why we have an amazing partnership with Unity on top of Parse and on top of Facebook Canvas, because if you build on Unity, you can build on iOS, Android, and Facebook at the same time. You see a lot of games like that being developed by Russian developers." "It’s easier to update your app on Android."Android-first, really? "People look at the numbers. They want downloads, installs. They know that the monetization is catching up on Android. Of course iOS is the better platform when it comes to monetization, but it’s easier to update your app on Android. There are many people on an Android phone. ... The world you described [in which Apple is dominant] was true a year ago, but I see that things are changing."
"There is a pattern coming from Eastern Europe. The Russian developers develop on Android first because of a big audience, and it maybe being easier to develop. They liked the fact that they could submit a new version of the app every day. [With Apple, you have to get each new version of the app approved before it hits the App Store. There is no version approval for Android.] This is a trend that I see and I think it is going to accelerate." Codorniou has a team of evangelists, spreading the word, too: "As of today, I have four guys from my team in Paris talking to Android developers about the greatness of Parse, Facebook login, app links, app events, all of these things we introduced at f8. It’s a very important bet for us." Time will tell, of course. The App Store is currently generating perhaps $10 billion in annual revenue for iOS developers, and Google Play is generating $5 billion. It could take a long time to shift that momentum in such a way that developers become incentivized to go Android-first or even Android-equal. But if it were to happen, Facebook wants developers to know it has just the system to help with that. SEE ALSO: This Vicious Job Cycle Explains Why Startups Don't Use Android Even Though It's 80% Of The Market SEE ALSO: Still Don't Believe Android Is For The Poor? This Chart Proves It Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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As we discussed the app market, Codorniou drew the above diagram on a whiteboard on the eighth floor of Facebook's cavernous London offices. We have annotated it here so you can see what's going on.
But does the Parse platform compete with Apple or Google?
"The vision we have with Parse and with the platform in general is to accelerate the time to market. It should not take you six months to develop from iOS to Android." Prosecutor: The Man Accused Of Running The Silk Road 2.0 Has 'Admitted To Everything' | ||
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Blake Benthall, the man accused of running the deep web's notorious illegal marketplace the Silk Road, reportedly confessed minutes after being arrested yesterday in San Francisco. Ars Technica reported from Benthall's first court hearing today, which lasted around 15 minutes. Federal prosecutor Kathryn Haun reportedly told the court that Benthall has already admitted to running the Silk Road. "Mr. Benthall did admit to everything after receiving his Miranda rights—that he was the administrator of Silk Road 2.0," Haun said to the court. Benthall is charged with one count of conspiring to commit narcotics trafficking, one count of conspiring to commit computer hacking, one count of conspiring to traffic in fraudulent identification documents, and one count of money laundering conspiracy. The FBI shut down the Silk Road 2.0 site on Thursday after monitoring the site and Benthall's alleged involvement. If convicted, he could face life in prison. SpaceX confirmed to Business Insider that Benthall was previously employed at the California-based rocket development company founded by Elon Musk. Benthall worked as a flight software engineer from Dec. 9, 2013 until Feb. 21, 2014. Additionally, Benthall proudly posted online of his experience with cryptocurrency Bitcoin. His Twitter bio reads "rocket scientist, bitcoin dreamer." The FBI's criminal complaint against Benthall claims that the Silk Road's employees were paid exclusively through Bitcoin, and that Benthall ran the site's "tumbler" that ensured transactions remained anonymous. A LinkedIn profile that appears to belong to Benthall shows he worked at a charity in his native Texas, helping to design and maintain its website. He went on to work as a volunteer programmer for a project that brought the Linux operating system to the newly launched iPod, before creating a video game hosting company in his teenage years, according to the LinkedIn profile. The young programmer attended a Florida college from 2007 to 2008, where he organised concerts and performed as part of the school's band, the LinkedIn profile shows. Benthall also ran a tech incubator out of his San Francisco home at the same time the FBI accuses him of overseeing the world's largest online drug market, Forbes' Ryan Mac reports. The FBI accuses Benthall of using Bitcoin gained from running the Silk Road to buy a Tesla car. One day before the Silk Road 2.0's first birthday, the FBI arrested Benthall and raided his home in San Francisco's Mission district. On Thursday, the anniversary of the Silk Road 2.0's launch, the arrest was revealed and the drug marketplace taken down as part of Operation Onymous, a cross-continent scheme involving the FBI and European police. SEE ALSO: FBI Arrests Former SpaceX Employee, Alleging He Ran The 'Deep Web' Drug Marketplace Silk Road 2.0 Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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CHARTS: The NFL Is Getting Trounced By The English Premier League In Global Sponsorship Deals | ||
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The English Premier League (EPL) may lag behind the top North American sports leagues in terms of total revenue, but during the 2012-13 season, the EPL outpaced its American counterpart, the National Football League, in commercial revenue, according to data provided by the Sports Business Group Deloitte and the sponsorship consultancy firm IEG. The figures for commercial revenue consist mostly of sponsorship deals with the leagues as a whole and singular teams or clubs. Selling these deals is clearly an art at which the English excel, as everything in the EPL now has a logo on it. Last year, the NFL saw its commercial revenues rise by 5.7%, up to £630 million ($1.07 billion). The Premier League surpassed that with almost £700 million ($1.1 billion).
Commercially speaking, it has been a fruitful time for English football. In 2010, the Premier League's revenues were only £450 million, meaning the league experienced a commercial revenue increase of 57% in just the last four years. With EPL leader Chelsea FC recently snagging a reported $16 million-a-year shirt deal with Turkish Airways, the revenue gap between the English and American leagues is set to grow even bigger. In a June 2014 report, Dan Jones, a partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, said: “Once again the global appeal of the Premier League has continued to drive commercial revenue growth, particularly at the highest ranked Premier League clubs. Matchday revenue also increased by 6% with fewer unsold seats at Premier League games than ever before.”
But just because the English League makes more money through sponsorship deals than the NFL, it does not mean that revenue is split evenly among clubs. Technically, because only 20 teams compete in the Premier League — compared to the 32 of the NFL — English clubs should each pull in an average revenue that is almost double their American counterparts. But that's far from the case. In the NFL, an idea known as "sport socialism" prevents an excessive concentration of wealth in the hands of a single team. That is the idea behind the salary cap, which limits the amount of money that any of the NFL's 32 teams can spend on a player's salary each year. As a result, 61% of total revenues — which includes a huge broadcasting contract not included in the charts above — is equally split among the teams. That would be unthinkable in the Premier League, which is the economic equivalent of pre-Revolution France. Only six English clubs earn more than the average revenue (figure below). The Guardian DataLab reveals that in the 2012-2013 season, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, the two Manchester clubs, and Tottenham alone made 82% of the total commercial revenue, with the other 14 clubs splitting the rest. In the EPL, commercial revenue is tightly-linked to on-field performance. In August, Bloomberg noted that only this elite group, with the exception of Tottenham, have a real shot at winning the league.
In contrast, in the NFL, nine teams earned above the average in the 2012-13 season. Six more earned about average, meaning that 17 teams earned less than average. Among the teams that earned less than average were the Seattle Seahawks, which ended up winning the Superbowl — meaning that the link between revenues and on-field performance is not as strong in American football. Additionally, Forbes calculated the total value of all the NFL franchises and the top 20 European football clubs.
In the chart above, the top five highest-earning American football teams (red bars) are all valued at more than £1 billion. Meanwhile, of the top five English clubs, only Manchester United exceeded that amount. The highest-valued American team, the Dallas Cowboys, are barely worth twice as much as the fifth-highest valued team on the chart, the New York Jets. Manchester United, on the other hand, is worth five times more than Britain's fifth-highest valued team, Tottenham. These figures also include the stadium revenues, where English clubs suffer because of their smaller stadiums (and thus smaller crowds). The smallest figure recorded at the Washington Redskins' FedEx Arena, 56,000 spectators, is still much bigger than a sold-out stadium at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge, 42,000. The biggest difference, though, has to be broadcast revenue, where the NFL remains on top. That's because American broadcasters, who play in a market of 300 million spectators, have more money to spend than British broadcasters, such as BT, Sky, and the BBC, where the national audience is around one sixth of the American figure.
The NFL instead earned an average of £1.9 billion ($3 billion) per year in the last few seasons, although the exact figure is hard to determine as it is made up of multi-year deals and local TV or radio broadcasting agreements with singular teams. As all but one NFL team are private entities who make a profit, they tend not to publish their budgets or disclose their deals. The Green Bay Packers are the only community-held team, similarly to football clubs such as Barcelona. They have to present their budget to the shareholders every year, and this is one of the strategies for estimating the profits of the whole league. In conclusion: NFL teams earn more money through broadcasting because they reach a larger national audience and because these revenues are almost equally split among each others. Premier League clubs, or at least the very top teams, are better at signing sponsorship deals. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Deloitte calculated that Q&A: The Man Behind LiveLeak, The Islamic State's Favourite Site For Beheading Videos | ||
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Video sharing site LiveLeak isn't your average startup. There's no CEO, office, PR team or venture capital funding. But LiveLeak has grown to be one of the biggest video sharing sites on the internet. Along the way, LiveLeak has received death threats, fought back against ISIS/Islamic State, and seen itself mentioned by Prime Minister Tony Blair and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow. "War is no longer something read in dispatches, it comes straight into the living room. Take a website like LiveLeak, which has become popular with soldiers from both sides of the divide in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Operational documentary material, from their mobile phones or laptops, is posted on the site in real time." British Prime Minister Tony Blair speaking on Jan. 12 2007. If you've watched a video originating from Iraq, Syria, Libya or Russia in recent years, you've probably seen a LiveLeak logo in the top left corner. The site has carved out a niche amongst the vast amount of video sharing startups online by offering a far more relaxed policy on what can and cannot be uploaded. The video embedded below, "Idiot Causes Head-on Collision," is typical of the content found on the site: It originates from an Eastern European country (Belarus), it's filmed using a dash-mounted camera, and it depicts a serious, potentially fatal, car crash: LiveLeak is best known for videos such as the car crash footage embedded above. Often, the videos contain violence, or visible injuries. A page that shows the most-viewed content on the site includes videos of a plane struggling to land, a Russian tampon commercial, and the execution of Saddam Hussein. Violence, car crashes, sex and conspiracies make up a vast amount of LiveLeak's most popular videos. But, despite its reputation as an uncensored version of YouTube playing host to some of the goriest videos on the internet, LiveLeak has actively worked to create a more family-friendly community. LiveLeak's founding team met while working on a related project in the early 2000s. Ogrish was a classic internet shock site that specialized in gory, violent videos. Its original tag line was "Can you handle life?" hinting at the graphic content hosted on the site. But in November 2006, Ogrish abruptly shut down, directing its users to visit a new video service: LiveLeak. Forty-one-year-old Hayden Hewitt is the only public member of LiveLeak's founding team. All other founders of the site have remained anonymous since LiveLeak launched in 2006, perhaps fearful of the impact that the site could have on their careers. Hewitt, who lives in Manchester spoke to Business Insider about the site's history. "Ogrish had gone as far as it could go," Hewitt told us. "It had become a parody of itself. Ogrish was a very serious site, it wasn't like a lot of the gore sites you might see now that are based off that model. It was tremendously serious, everything was researched, there was no laughing at dead people or anything like that, the community was actually remarkably reserved." "We’d gone as far as we could go with [Ogrish] ... Traffic was still climbing, but we felt we reached a point where we didn’t want to progress with it." Despite launching as a tamer version of Ogrish, LiveLeak was soon mired in controversy. In 2008, Dutch politician Geert Wilders created a short documentary named Fitna that was highly critical of Islam. After attempting to hire extra security to screen it in Holland and then having his website suspended, Wilders turned to LiveLeak and requested that they host the controversial film. Unprepared for what was to come next, LiveLeak agreed.
But thing were about to get crazier. LiveLeak was forced to take the video offline after Hewitt became the target of death threats. "We get a lot of threats in general, but these were becoming very, very specific ... Certain outlets were reporting my full name, and the rough area of Manchester which I was living in at the time, so the threats started becoming a little bit more direct. We had to do something. We took it offline for 48 hours while we made a lot of preparations, including ensuring my family would be looked after for a period of time if anything happened to me." Fitna was eventually re-uploaded to LiveLeak, although it was then taken down again over a copyright claim. The controversy died down as many of the video's critics were able to view the film, which resembled a poorly edited PowerPoint presentation. The Fitna incident had shown LiveLeak's founders just how powerful the site could be. By relaxing the restrictions found elsewhere, they could host videos that nobody else would. But with that notoriety came a risk to the lives of the site's founders. Business Insider asked Hewitt why he chose to become the only public face of the organization: "I drew the short straw on that one. It’s a case of necessity. Just being another faceless website is a little too corporate. It is an independent outfit, everybody works, everybody has other jobs. There are no full time LiveLeak employees." Were Hewitt's family aware of his second life as one of the founders of a notorious website? "My wife was fully aware at the time, of course. I don’t imagine she was over the moon, but this was something I believe in. Sometimes ignorant people should be able to have a voice. I believed in that. But, I’ve got a kid now, so I don’t know." Does being the public face of one of the internet's most notorious websites hurt Hewitt's career away from the site? "It has harmed my career in that I spend far more time than is financially responsible on the site. But not much of what I do relies on the skillsets I’ve developed over the years in terms of community development. I was asked in a recent interview why I don’t do consulting, and that’s because it’s never occurred to me. I’m too busy. It’s neither been one way or another. I think it’s been beneficial in a lot of organisational ways, communicative ways, perhaps. But overall, I just spend far too much time on it." More often that not, the LiveLeak community is able to quietly share and discuss videos on the site without interference or criticism. But every few years, LiveLeak resurfaces as the polar opposite of the restrictions on mainstream sites. The divide between LiveLeak and other sites became more prominent in 2013 after Facebook issued a six-month ban on all videos showing beheadings. Facebook had decided to remove the violent videos after being warned that viewing beheadings could cause its users long-term harm. LiveLeak, however, had allowed beheading videos since its inception, and continued to let users upload graphic content. Hewitt was invited onto Britain's Newsnight current affairs programme to discuss LiveLeak's policy of allowing content that was banned elsewhere. With its graphic violence and notoriety, does LiveLeak's sole public founder consider the site to have a positive impact on the internet? Hewitt isn't sure it has any impact at all. "If you look at the wider world, it certainly couldn’t make it any worse. It depends what you take out of it, what the experience is ... Me personally, I don’t think it has any impact on the greater world whatsoever, and if we look around us, it’s relatively small-fry in terms of any nastiness." LiveLeak returned to prominence in August after ISIS/Islamic State released a video showing the beheading of American journalist James Foley on Aug. 19. The video was quickly removed from YouTube, as it violated the site's policy on violent content. But LiveLeak, which chooses not to censor violent content unless it's overly gratuitous, decided to host the video. Site traffic soared as people searched for the video:
Hewitt and the other LiveLeak founders held a vote over whether the site should host further beheading videos from ISIS. The result was unanimous: ISIS was banned from LiveLeak. LiveLeak went on to publish a blog post that explained the reasons behind the ban. For a community famed for its tolerance of graphic violence, many questioned the reasons behind the ban. In its statement, LiveLeak explained that it had no desire to host any beheading videos from ISIS, remarking "We've shown the world the true horror of this form of execution more than once in the past and we cannot find any compelling reason to even be thought of as promoting the actions of this group." LiveLeak kept its word. As ISIS released more brutal videos showing the beheading of American and British journalists and aid works, the moderators of LiveLeak have worked to remove them from the site. Footage from Syria and Iraq remains popular, however, and there are still car crash videos emerging from Russia. So what's next for LiveLeak? The site hasn't changed very much since its inception, but there are big changes on the way. Hewitt told Business Insider that the "next step is the live streaming aspect which is very close to a Beta launch after a long development." LiveLeak users will soon be able to stream video from war zones and protests in real-time, without interruption or censorship. LiveLeak is going to become its own online network of live feeds from around the world. The site remains popular with soldiers fighting in far-flung locations. Soon, as well as car crashes and tampon commercials, we may see live video from the frontlines. That could give rise to even more controversy than the site has seen before. SEE ALSO: ISIS Banned From Controversial Video Site LiveLeak After James Foley Execution Video Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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33 Quintessentially 'British' Brands That Are Not Actually British | ||
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British brands are appreciated around the world for their quality and heritage. Many of them, though, are also owned by foreigners. For some "British" brands, it's well-known they have foreign owners: Surely everyone is aware that Harrods was bought by Qatar Holdings in 2010? And before that it was owned by the Fayed brothers of Egypt? But others are more discreet about their proprietors. They know that the Brits occasionally fight for their companies to stay in British hands, like when MPs went to bat against Kraft's takeover of Cadbury in 2011. HP is the famous brown sauce of the Houses of Parliament (hence the name). Nevertheless, it is owned by Americans: Heinz purchased it in 2005. House of Fraser is owned by the Sanpower Group, a Chinese corporation that bought it this year for £450 million ($716 million). Before that it was owned by the Icelandic group Baugur. What could be more British than Sarsons vinegar on a plate of fish and chips? A Japanese vinegar manufacturer, Mizkan, bought Sarsons in 2012 for £41 million ($66 million). See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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This Diagram We Saw Inside Facebook's London Office Ought To Terrify Apple (FB, AAPL) | ||
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For years, Apple has dominated the $45 billion app business with its App Store. Android has always been the second-best place for apps. Facebook, however, has a plan that could change all that. This hastily scrawled diagram on a whiteboard in its London office represents that plan, and it ought to scare the folks at Apple who work to maintain the primacy of iOS among app developers. (We explain the diagram below.) iPhone and iPad users are generally more lucrative than Android people for apps, in terms of download fees and in-app payments. So the best apps are developed first for Apple's iOS mobile operating system. Only if they are successful do companies produce an Android version, often months or years later. Even then, Android apps tend to be copies of the original iOS app, with all the flaws and compromises that implies. The dominance of iOS creates a bizarre distortion in the app market: Apple only has a 12% share of mobile users; 80% of users are on Android. Yet the 4-to-1 majority is treated as second class in the app world. It can actually be difficult to hire Android developers because staff only want to work on iOS. And you can be hugely successful as an app creator, even if the vast majority of phone users have no contact with your product. At Facebook in Europe, however, executives think that Apple's iOS dominance might be about to weaken. We spoke to Facebook's Europe, Middle East, and Africa platform director Julien Codorniou recently and were surprised when he told us that the trend he was seeing favored Android. Revenue generation on Android is catching up to iOS, and more developers — particularly for game developers — are going Android-first, especially in Europe. Facebook is hoping to take advantage of this via its Parse app development platform, which Codorniou believes virtually erases the two-step iOS/Android development process, letting companies release new apps on both platforms simultaneously. Erasing a key selling point for the iPhone.That would actually be good for Apple in the sense that a robust, growing app market only increases Apple's App Store revenues. But it would be also bad for Apple because if apps are released at the same time on Android it erases one of the key selling points of the iPhone: That users who want the cool new apps must be Apple users in order to get them.
Essentially, app developers would make two separate apps — one for iOS and then, later, one for Android. They needed a lot of operations to support them, like servers. Facebook's Parse platform replaces that: It lets companies build, store, and serve apps directly from the Parse cloud. All developers have to do is create an iOS client, an Android client, and even a Windows Phone client, and publish them as needed. Once the apps are in the Apple App Store and the Google Play store, then developers can use Facebook's various marketing products — mobile app install ads, engagement ads, and the Facebook Audience Network — to promote them. The inequality statement at the bottom of the diagram, "CPI < LTV", indicates what developers are aiming for: As long as the Cost Per Install (the marketing investment it took to persuade you to download an app) is less than the Long Term Value of new downloads, users, and in-app payments, then the company should keep spending on more ads on Facebook. If the cost is greater than the value, the companies are advised to halt what they are doing and think again. More than 270,000 apps are using the system, up from 100,000 the year before. (For scale, both Apple's App store and Google Play have greater than 1 million apps available. So Facebook is partnering with a significant chunk of the market.) "We see more people being Android-first because of the size of the market."
"I would say no," Cordoniou says, "we can make you big on Facebook.com, on the web, on iOS, on Android, on Windows phone, on any new platform coming up that we support. The main value of proposition of Facebook is the fact that it’s cross-platform." They still have to build separate clients of course, that isn't going away. But are they more likely to continue to build the Apple one first? "We see more people being Android-first because of the size of the market," Codorniou says. "The Parse technology is like Unity in gaming. [Unity is a game development platform on which you can create games for a multitude of different systems.] You build on Unity, you’re almost de facto on iOS and on Android. You see a lot of cross-platform tools, this is why we have an amazing partnership with Unity on top of Parse and on top of Facebook Canvas, because if you build on Unity, you can build on iOS, Android, and Facebook at the same time. You see a lot of games like that being developed by Russian developers." "It’s easier to update your app on Android."Android-first, really? "People look at the numbers. They want downloads, installs. They know that the monetization is catching up on Android. Of course iOS is the better platform when it comes to monetization, but it’s easier to update your app on Android. There are many people on an Android phone. ... The world you described [in which Apple is dominant] was true a year ago, but I see that things are changing."
"There is a pattern coming from Eastern Europe. The Russian developers develop on Android first because of a big audience, and it maybe being easier to develop. They liked the fact that they could submit a new version of the app every day. [With Apple, you have to get each new version of the app approved before it hits the App Store. There is no version approval for Android.] This is a trend that I see and I think it is going to accelerate." Codorniou has a team of evangelists, spreading the word, too: "As of today, I have four guys from my team in Paris talking to Android developers about the greatness of Parse, Facebook login, app links, app events, all of these things we introduced at f8. It’s a very important bet for us." Time will tell, of course. The App Store is currently generating perhaps $10 billion in annual revenue for iOS developers, and Google Play is generating $5 billion. It could take a long time to shift that momentum in such a way that developers become incentivized to go Android-first or even Android-equal. But if it were to happen, Facebook wants developers to know it has just the system to help with that. SEE ALSO: This Vicious Job Cycle Explains Why Startups Don't Use Android Even Though It's 80% Of The Market SEE ALSO: Still Don't Believe Android Is For The Poor? This Chart Proves It Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The Conservatives' John Redwood Admits His 'Brexit' Plan Is A Big Threat To UK Markets | ||
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John Redwood, the Conservative MP for Wokingham who supports Britain exiting the European Union, says "political risks" — like the Brexit referendum he supports — are now the main concern for investors in the UK. His contradictory warning comes after he made an astonishing speech in September in which he threatened British businesses with payback if they waded into the Brexit debate against him and his anti-EU supporters. And that speech came after remarks during the Scottish independence referendum campaign when he expressed dismay over businesses who argued in favor of keeping the country together. So yes, Redwood's views are complicated. He appears to be both the cause of, and the warning for, the Brexit risks he's worrying about. We got Redwood to explain them to us in an interview. (The verbatim Q&A is below.) "We will be destabilizing their corporate governance."While he remains a euroskeptic, Redwood admits that political risk is hurting the British business environment right now. Here is the backstory: At the end of September, Redwood said that any company speaking in favor staying in the EU would face consequences from his allies: "They will find those of us organising the ‘get out’ campaign will then make life difficult for them by making sure that their customers, their employees and their shareholders who disagree with them – and there will be a lot who disagree with them – will be expressing their views very forcefully and will be destabilising their corporate governance." He said, “The only answer for all concerned is for big business to keep out and not express a corporate view ... This is absolutely crucial that these people get this. That it will be deeply disruptive to their businesses, and maybe even to their own tenure of their jobs, if a chief executive with a handful of shares thinks he can put the voice of a multinational corporation behind a highly intense political argument in one country in which they operate." Tough words. It almost sounds like a threat: Shut up, or we'll come after you. "The UK has suffered from ... investor worries about political risk."Weeks later, Redwood has mellowed a bit. In an interview with Business Insider in his capacity as chairman of investment company Evercore Pan-Asset, Redwood said that the surprisingly narrow victory for the government in September's Scottish independence referendum had shocked investors, making Britain look like a more risky place to park money. Asked about the main challenges facing the country, he said (emphasis added): The UK has suffered from both the Eurozone crisis but also from investor worries about political risk. The political risks first started to become apparent when the Scottish referendum was looking a bit close and have carried on due to uncertainty over who will be governing after next May. The polls are very inconclusive and no one at this stage can be confident in any of the parties gaining a majority in the general election next year. Markets are trying to price in the risks of different governments and their policies. The fact that the Conservative Party has promised to hold an in/out referendum on the UK's membership of the EU if it wins a majority in the next parliament will be top among these risks. The referendum pledge has been seen as an effort to halt the rise of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) with its staunchly euroskeptic views luring disaffected Conservative backbenchers over to its cause. So far, two Conservative MPs have defected to UKIP, with the party threatening to erode the Tory's traditional voter base at the general election next year. Recent polls put UKIP on course to win as much as 17% of the national vote. "They may find out there is a cost."And here's the problem. The Scottish independence vote shook the market's confidence in the mainstream parties' ability to run an effective campaign against a populist cause. For some, it also demonstrated the power of the private sector to sway the electorate. On the eve of the vote, large firms including John Lewis, Asda and Marks & Spencer warned that the price of consumer staples such as food and clothing would rise in the event of independence. The vote then went in favor of staying in Britain. At the time, Redwood was highly critical of the decision of retailers to intervene in the Scottish vote, saying: I find the dash of many retailers to tell us things might be a bit dearer in Scotland if they vote for independence odd ... It looks as if they simply wanted to play politics, and they may find out there is a cost to them. Now he's saying the same thing, but for the opposite reason: He wants businesses to stay silent again, but this time it's the pro-union companies he wants muzzled. It is not likely that CEOs will do as Redwood asks. Given just how close polls of whether the UK should stay in or leave the EU have been, companies have every reason to put their case to the public:
Here is the full transcript of our interview:Business Insider: What are the major risks investors are worrying about at the moment? John Redwood [JR]: We take both a strategic and a tactical view. We can have an asset class like Chinese shares, which we are long-term bulls on, but you may not want to hold them for a year or two if the market mood turns against them. We have strategically been worried about the Eurozone for some time as we feel its leaders haven’t managed to tackle the underlying problems — they still don’t have a mechanism for transferring money from the rich to the poor parts of the zone as you do in the dollar or the sterling area. They have problems rerouting the German surplus to deficit countries, forcing the latter to run a surplus with the rest of the world. Until they solve that general problem the Eurozone is likely to suffer repeated crises and is going to be an area of relatively low growth. BI: So is your base case a break-up of the Eurozone or its survival? JR: My base case is that the euro survives by continuing to muddle through. The way they do this is a very reluctant Germany being compelled to ease its stance of blocking moves for the ECB to buy bonds or for governments to improve the transfer mechanism between surplus and deficit countries. However, you should expect regular jolts. We’re having another painful jolt at the moment awaiting the results of the bank stress tests and having German legal action over the powers of the ECB. It is a bit destabilising when the most successful economy in the zone is taking the central bank to court. It’s going to be a difficult process but I think in the end Germany is going to have to give ground. If support for anti-euro parties such as the Alternative for Deutschland party [known as the AfD] rises substantially, however, I would have to revise my view. BI: How vulnerable is the UK to a decline in investor confidence in Europe? JR: The UK has suffered from both the Eurozone crisis but also from investor worries about political risk. The political risk first started to become apparent when the Scottish referendum was looking a bit close and have carried on due to uncertainty over who will be governing after May. BI: Would these concerns be concentrated around the possibility of another referendum on the UK leaving the EU? JR: Well there are all sorts of political worries, yes. Prior to any referendum, which would require a Conservative majority government, there’s a lot of consideration about who might form a government. The polls are very inconclusive and no-one at this stage can be confident in any of the parties gaining a majority in the general election next year. Markets are trying to price in the risks of different governments and their policies. BI: Did the Scottish referendum underline the fact that the market was too complacent about the risks of binary in/out votes? JR: I think for the first five months of the year the markets in the UK were very optimistic as the economy was speeding up and the outlook was getting better and better. People started to think about these risks at the start of the European Parliament elections and they really hit home during the Scottish referendum. BI: Could rolling political risks in the UK pose a challenge for plans announced by the major parties to reduce the country’s budget deficit? JR: Markets were reassured that both the government parties and the opposition are agreed that the deficit has got to come down — although there are disagreements over how far and how fast. It’s much easier for the UK to be an attractive prospect and a sound borrower because it controls its own money. The reason it got so difficult for countries like Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland within the euro is that they didn’t have the option of simply creating their own money to meet their commitments and had to live under German-led ECB controls, which made it much more difficult for them. I think the plans for fiscal consolidation are necessary and helpful. The US undertook similar fiscal consolidation under Obama that didn’t get nearly the same level of attention, and it didn’t impede a good American economy. The recovery got underway there sooner even though, or perhaps because the US was taking stronger action earlier on the deficit. Deficit reduction targets are about eliminating the structural deficit. If the world economy plunged then I’m quite sure that whoever is in power will think that a cyclical adjustment would need to be made if the growth that you expect doesn’t materialise. BI: What are the most important signals that markets are currently looking out for? JR: To me the most important things to look out for are interest rates and confidence levels. Broadly we’re still in a world where all the main jurisdictions want to keep interest rates very low and you haven’t got any major economies where you can see the need to jack up interest rates to head off inflation. This should mean a pretty benign outlook for equities. The Bank of England has been leading us to believe that interest rates will go up early next year, but investors looking at the slide in oil prices and below-target inflation are now thinking it might be lower for longer. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The New Hobbit Trailer Has Arrived — And It Looks Epic | ||
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A trailer for the new Hobbit film has finally arrived, as fans eagerly await the third instalment of the JRR Tolkien novel retelling. Warner Bros' "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" is out on Dec. 12 and is directed by Oscar-winner Peter Jackson. It sees an all-star cast return, including Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf, and Orlando Bloom as Legolas. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as the dragon. The trailer, published on Nov. 6, is a dramatic, formidable three minutes of fire, sweeping views of mystic mountains and fortresses, and battling armies engulfed in smoke and anger. Watch it here:
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Puma profits drop in Q3 on marketing, forex costs | ||
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Frankfurt (AFP) - Puma, the German maker of sportswear and equipment, said Friday that its profits fell in the third quarter, hit by marketing expenses and foreign exchange effects. Puma said in a statement that its net profit fell to 29 million euros ($36 million) in the period from July to September from 53 million euros a year earlier. Underlying or operating profit was also down, falling to 46 million euros from 80 million euros, while sales increased by 3.7 percent to 843.4 million euros. "In a good third quarter, Puma achieved sales that were slightly better than expected," said chief executive Bjorn Gulden. Looking ahead, Puma said it would "continue to invest strongly in marketing and sports assets as well as start investing in IT infrastructure, while maintaining tight control on other operating expenditures." On the basis of the results so far, Puma said it now expected a "low single-digit increase in net sales" for the full year, upgrading its previous forecast for stagnant sales. Given the planned increase in marketing investments throughout the second half of the year, the company said it was sticking to its forecast for operating and net profit margins of 5.0 percent and 3.0 percent.
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'People Are Losing Confidence In Him': A Brutal Takedown Of Dick Costolo's Reign At Twitter (TWTR) | ||
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The Wall Street Journal has published a long, detailed and at times brutal anaylsis of CEO Dick Costolo's reign at Twitter. Seriously, go read the whole thing if you care about the fate of world's best platform for sharing news (and why it seems to be treading water compared to the meteoric rise of Snapchat and Instagram). If you follow Twitter closely, you'll notice little in the story that is specifically new. What the article does instead is put together the entire jigsaw in one place: And when you see the complete picture, it's harsh: • A vague and difficult to understand description of Twitter's audience as a series of "eccentric circles." (Does he mean concentric circles?) • Costolo wants to emphasize Twitter's wider, non-logged in audience (i.e. on news pages that have embedded tweets) to avoid comparisons to Facebook. But talking about the larger size of the Twitter audience invites comparisons to Facebook's even larger off-platform audience. • Endless management turmoil, much of it triggered by Costolo himself (especially when he hired one of his friends, Michael Sippey, to run the product team, who later left the company). • This bit is especially worrying: "In all, the CEO has replaced or lost five direct reports since the IPO. Last week, he named Twitter’s fifth head of product in as many years. Its most recent vice president of product, Daniel Graf, who came from Google Maps and was handpicked by Mr Costolo, lasted less than six months in the post." The stock has fallen from around $55 in September to around $40 now. So the scrutiny is warranted. Walter Price of Allianz Global’s Technology Fund has reduced his position in Twitter, he told the Journal: “People are losing confidence in him.” In the meantime, here's my take on the way people mostly misunderstand why Twitter is so interesting and so important. Disclosure: The author owns Twitter stock. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Bubba takes Reed under wing after foul-mouthed outburst | ||
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Shanghai (AFP) - Double Masters champion Bubba Watson revealed he put a comforting arm round American Patrick Reed's shoulder, before shooting a sparkling second-round 67 Friday at the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai. Ryder Cup star Reed found himself a victim of trial by television as his foul-mouthed tirade, directed at himself, was picked up by microphones and broadcast around the world. Watson told AFP, after moving into a third place share behind leader Graeme McDowell by finishing with five straight birdies, that Reed had come to his hotel room Thursday night. "He came to me last night and said, 'Hey, I did something bad'," Watson said. "I said, 'What did you do?' So he showed me the clip on his phone. I said, 'Yeah, that's not good. That's not good, man'." The video showed Reed missing a short putt on his 10th hole Thursday before swearing to himself and using a gay slur. Watson, who turned 36 on Wednesday, had every sympathy for Reed who is 11 years his junior. "I said, 'Well, we always learn something out of every situation'," added Watson. "That's how you become a better man, and that's what I told him. And it's the same thing with me. I bet sometime before I pass away, unless I pass away tonight, I'm going to mess up again. "I said, tell everybody you're sorry and move on and hopefully everybody will forgive you over time."
- 'A poor choice of words' -
Reed shot 73 Friday to be level par for the tournament and told reporters that he couldn't actually recall making the outburst. "Today I felt like I handled myself pretty well, yesterday I did not," Reed said. "I was so in the moment I don't remember saying it. I remember being upset of course," Reed said. "Yesterday I made a stupid error that's for sure and definitely I'm sorry for the words I said." He said that the TV microphones are sensitive but that was no excuse. "We all know there's microphones out there at the end of the day you have to know how to control and handle your emotions. "You know I live and die through every shot. It's one of those things I have to learn how to deal with." Reed's playing partner Graeme McDowell scorched to a second successive 67 to get to 10 under to lead the tournament by three shots from England's Ian Poulter (67), with Watson and Japan's Hiroshi Iwata tied for third a shot further back. McDowell said he hadn't heard Reed on Thursday. "I was at the other end of the green so I didn't hear it," he told AFP. "We all joke that golf's a four-letter word. And there's a lot of four-letter words involved when you play," said McDowell "I don't blame Patrick for using a profanity, obviously it was just unfortunately a poor choice of words. He used one word which is politically incorrect and here we are." The US PGA Tour issued a short statement which read: "The PGA Tour's Conduct Unbecoming regulations prohibit the use of obscene language on the golf course. The PGA Tour will deal with this matter internally in accordance with its regulations."
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EU warns of Mideast violence without political progress | ||
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Jerusalem (AFP) - The European Union's new foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini warned Friday of a new wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence if there is no progress towards peace talks. Speaking in Jerusalem on her first visit to the region since taking up the EU's top diplomatic post, Mogherini said there was a real "urgency" to pick up and advance the moribund peace process. "The risk is that if we do not move forward on the political track, we will go back... again to violence," she told reporters at a joint news conference with her Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman. "That's why I see the urgency in moving forward." But she also flagged up Israel's settlement building on lands the Palestinians want for a future state as an "obstacle" to a negotiated peace. "New settlements are an obstacle as we see (it) but we also see that there might be a political will... to resume the talks and specially (to) make sure that these talks bring to results," she said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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