You should read this blog post before you delve into this piece.
“The Internet? The Internet is for porn!” exclaimed one of the speakers last week [18 May 2007] as the Oxford Union debated the question “This House believes that the Internet is the greatest force for Democratisation in the World”.
Professor John Palfrey of Harvard University was speaking against the motion. And although his point was tongue-in-cheek he accurately reflected an enduring situation with real-world use of the Internet. The Internet is for many things, but one of the biggest is, undoubtedly, porn.
A quarter of all search-engine requests are for pornography, at least a fifth of adults online have accessed a porn site, and there are an estimated 400 million Web pages out there catering for the demand. The adult industry is worth $57 billion worldwide, and the United States –the world centre for pornography – claims $12 billion of it.
To find out what on earth this is all about, please read this blog post.
“In all the years you’ve been chasing me, you have never got a single asset in my name. And you never will.”
That was how Stephen Michael Cohen made it plain to the man sitting opposite him – a man who had been on his trail for over a decade – that he would never admit defeat. The statement was all the more poignant given the fact that Cohen was wearing an orange jumpsuit, standard-issue to inmates at the Santa Clara correction facility. Even though he was in jail, with no date set for release, and the man he was addressing was his best route out of there, Cohen remained defiant.
I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned it but I’ve written this book about an extraordinary battle over the domain name Sex.com, and it was officially out on Monday.
I’ve been trying, naturally enough, to push this fact into the media, and I was delighted when my publisher’s publicity woman Lucy Ramsey told me that the Sunday Times News Review was interested in running a piece on it. I’ve always been a big fan of the New Review section of the Sunday Times. If ever I kept a section of the hugely bulky paper, it was this. And I remember thinking way back in the past that I would love to have a piece in it. Well, I was asked to do a piece for it. It was the worst possible timing of course – I have a huge amount of work on – but I did without sleep for two days and produced an article which I rather liked and sent it.
And the commissioning editor didn’t like it. But she was very pleasant about it and didn’t say “I don’t like it” but offered some other feasible reason. I agreed to rewrite it. So I wrote another version. I like this version too. Anyway, at 8.15pm, I get an email on my Blackberry saying that the piece was ready to go, they had made a few changes, but if I have any problems please call – she’ll be there until 10.30pm. My Blackberry would only show the first four paras or so, but it was clear it has been comprehensively rewritten. I asked her to add whoever had rehashed it to the byline. She said, no it was fine.
I’ve just seen that a review of my Sex.com book has popped up on the New Statesman.
It’s not very long and it’s taken a tack which I was surprised by, but I didn’t think the New Statesman would cover it as it tends to prefer more weighty and political books. Nonetheless, I think I would be intrigued by the review and even consider buying it -so that has to be good. I understand as well that The Times and The Sunday Telegraph will review it this week. And The Register and Techworld should also do reviews soon. And I have a range of interviews lined up next week. Should be fun.
I’ve just been sent this pic by my mate Ross who snapped it with his phone at WHSmith in Heathrow airport. It shows my book resting at number 12 in the Business and Management section. Obviously there’s been some terrible error and the staff has mistakenly put it as “12″ rather than both “1″ and “2″ as was surely intended, but that pleasing, ain’t it?
I have yet to see my book in the real world in a bookstore. I’m looking forward to it. I can’t help but think now of all the times I have scanned the book shelves of the newsagents in Heathrow pondering whether to buy a book or a newspaper – and usually just bought the newspaper. I wonder if each of the books in the paper has seen each author go through the same sort of process/journey/whatever I have. Anyway, with luck, I shall manage to bump up the charts once a few reviews come in (I am assuming of course that reviews *will* come in and that they’ll like it).
I have consistently failed to actually post on *my own blog* that the book I’ve spent three years on is finally done, printed and actually available to buy from all good bookstores.
But it is.
And I’ve just seen the first review of it that hasn’t come from my biased family and friends, and that’s from Gavin Brown – who is a rare breed of man who has such technical ability that you can imagine him *seeing* the Internet in the same way that Keanu Reeves sees the Matrix, but is also a friendly and chatty bloke. Gavin told me he’d written a review and I really had no idea whether he would like it or loathe it.
I’m delighted to say he liked it and has written a great review of it on Circle ID.
The tagline for my book on the Sex.com saga has to be with the publishers on Thursday i.e. in two days.
We – meaning me and the publisher – are still undecided so here is your chance to have some fun and help me out. There are a list below of the sort of variations we came up with a few months ago – they are also on the poll on the right. So, please, vote but also please offer your suggestions and variations. And do so quick. A signed book and a beer to whoever nails it…
I have passed the deadline for my book on Sex.com and I estimate I am still three weeks to a month away from finishing.
How? How could I have miscalculated? And why is it taking so long? Well, there are several reasons:
- A book contains a hell of a lot of words and it is hard, relentless work getting them written
- I underestimated the depth of the story. I am *still* discovering new elements to the story. I suppose when you are talking about two characters like Gary Kremen and Stephen Cohen, it was never going to be simple. And they have been at it for 10 years now. I figure if I am going to write a book on the whole saga I have to do it as comprehensively as possible.
- It took me a month to escape from my news editor mentality. You really have to get into a whole different state of mind to write a book
- It just takes alot of time to read thousands upon thousands of pages, interview people and pull it all into a coherent mass
Okay, I have completed the first, biggest stage of the Sexdotcom website.
I have grown sick of trying to get a blog fitting within the Latest news section so I have just stuck in some basic HTML covering where the book is up to, and what is going on with the Sex.com case in the real world.
I will add a blog style approach later, and then finally get around to have a blog interface later once I’ve moved onto a new hosting deal with MySQL so that people have leave comments. But, frankly, it was taking up too much time when I need to do more writing.
Christ, it takes ages to build an archive of articles.
Anyway, I have now built the biggest resource for the Sex.com story on my site – which is just as well seeing as I’m writing a whole book about it. And there’s still more to be added. I also plan to add some of my unique resources i.e. transcripts of my interviews, maybe tapes, more obscure news stories, chunks of the book written so far etc etc.
I am also very pleased with both the Timeline, which has helped give a real sense of the progression and the twists and turns in the case, and in particular the Legalese section which effectively explains a whole series of legal lingo and concepts in simple language and ties them into how they appeared in the Sex.com case.
Basically, what I’m saying is: I’ve updated my Sexdotcom.info site and you should have a look because it’s interesting.
