To Hussein or not to Hussein? Facebookers duke it out

It all started as a way to prove solidarity with Barack Obama and take a stand against people who associated the presidential candidate with terrorists because of his middle name, Hussein. Hundreds of supporters on Facebook added "Hussein" as their middle name on the site and joined groups such as "Take The Middle Name 'Hussein' for Barack Obama." There were thousands of them. There was Marc Hussein Andreessen. Clay Hussein Shirky. Kate Hussein Wetherhead. Peter Hussein Honeyman. James Hussein Shaw. Patricia Hussein Washburn.

But Facebook, like other communities, hosts people of many different political persuasions. They also had something to say about Hussein as a middle name. So they started their own Facebook groups. Now, there are more than 100 groups on the social networking site concerning the issue of adopting Hussein as a middle name.

They include the likes of (you may need to be a Facebook member to view them):

Support Obama – Add Hussein as your middle name to protest misconceptions

Anyone with the middle name "Hussein" should not be president of the U.S.

Saying Barack's middle name is "Hussein" doesn't make you a racist

Enough already with the "I changed my middle name to 'Hussein' on Facebook"

The groups and the discussion among them have made some participants marvel at the way Facebook allows them to engage in political discourse with people they didn’t previously know. Still others make fun of them for talking politics on a social network that also houses pictures of people drinking beer.

Alex Freeman, a music professor at Carleton College, started his 5,134-member group, I'm changing my Facebook name to Hussein, a few weeks ago.

"In a small way, I thought I could defuse the bigotry, or at least the fear," he said. Supporters he didn’t know posted compliments on the group's homepage, including one whose actual middle name was Hussain. Dissidents also posted, telling him his idea was stupid. While Freeman was sleeping, one Turkish group posted dozens of pictures of genocide on the site as sabotage. Still, Freeman thought the group was effective.

"One guy wrote and said, 'This is retarded, you’re not doing anything,' " Freeman said. "I explained it to him, and he said he saw my point and joined."

Same with Casey Godwin, a 16-year old from Dunn, N.C., who started the group His Middle Name is Hussein, for Pete's Sake, which featured a photo saying "Beware Obama and bin Laden." Godwin, an Obama supporter, says she started the group ...

Around the Web 10.31.08: Halloween edition

-- The Justice Department's demands may drive a stake through the heart of Google's search-ad deal with Yahoo. WSJ and Bloomberg (for you non-WSJ subscribers)

-- Unless, of course, it's just scare tactics by Google. Boomtown

-- Apple poached one of IBM's top executives, and IBM isn't letting him go without a fright. I mean fight. CNet

-- Here are some of the best geek-o'-lanterns around. Wired

-- Need help planning your pumpkin? Check out this website. Carve Pumpkin

-- Silicon Valley's outlook for the near future is ghoulish, venture capitalists say. SF Gate

-- Sun Microsystems' earnings reports continue to terrify investors. NYT

-- An angry mob came after their version of Frankenstein's monster: the founder of campus gossip site JuicyCampus. WashPost

-- As it adds features and members, Facebook is sucking up money like a vampire sucking up blood. TechCrunch

-- The Acura TL's high-tech features are definitely more treat than trick. LAT

Happy Halloween from the L.A. Times Technology blog!

-- Chris Gaither

Photo: Apple jack-o'-lantern. Credit: Computerjoe via Flickr

Singles meet up through their mobile phones

Phones can do a lot of things: wake you up in the morning, remind you of that meeting you forgot, add and subtract the numbers you can't. Now, they can also find you a new girlfriend or boyfriend.

As we describe in more detail in this story in today's L.A. Times, singles are increasingly using their phones to meet new people. Some start texting with strangers and hit it off. Some send each other dirty jokes through texts. Others look at the maps on their phones and, though different applications, find nearby people looking to connect. The story says:

First there was phone dating, in which singles would read personal ads and leave each other voice messages. Next came Internet dating, online matchmaking services made more popular by increased access to broadband. Now, with phones accompanying them everywhere, people are turning to mobile dating services.

"With a cellphone, you can do it any time, any place," said Bob Bentz, director of marketing and sales at Advanced Telecom Services, a Wayne, Pa., company that offers a 350,000-member dating service called MatchLink Mobile. "If you're waiting for the bus, you can be finding a date."

Don't worry, married people. The applications are spreading beyond the dating world. If you're one of the 143 million people with GPS on your cellphone, you can sign up for a program that lets you locate nearby people who share your interests as a couple, whether that be visiting Bed Bath & Beyond, going for walks or hosting board-game nights.

Admittedly, you'll need to choose carefully when you sent a text to woo a potential friend or mate: you'll only have 160 characters. But lucky for you, there are also websites to help you out by providing you all the cheesy romantic text messages you'll need. For dirty text jokes, though, you'll have to go somewhere else.

-- Alana Semuels

Photo by paraquenoseolvide via Flickr

Game giant Electronic Arts posts loss, plans job cuts

The slumping economy just caught up to the video game industry -- and clubbed it across the head.

Electronic Arts, the publisher behind such franchises as Madden NFL and Rock Band, said today that retail sales of its games had slowed down in October -- right about the time the global financial crisis deepened. The Redwood City, Calif., company lowered its profit forecast for the all-important holiday season and said it planned to cut its workforce by about 6%, somewhere between 500 and 600 jobs, to try to save $50 million a year in expenses.

EA's shares cratered more than 15% to $23.50 in after-hours trading following its fiscal-second-quarter earnings report. Its shares had fallen 31 cents, or 1.1%, to $27.73 before the closing bell.

"Considering the slowdown at retail we’ve seen in October, we are cautious in the short term," Chief Executive John Riccitiello said in a statement. "Longer term, we are very bullish on the game sector overall and on EA in particular."

Chief Financial Officer Eric Brown said the job cuts weren't necessarily tied to the economy but were part of a broader restructuring effort the company has been undergoing since Riccitiello took the helm in early 2007. Brown said the cuts would be spread throughout the company's worldwide offices.

The game industry had been hiring furiously, especially in California, and video game sales have historically fared well during economic slowdowns. As we recently wrote in the first installment of our series about video-game jobs, the Work of Play:

In recent years, the state has witnessed an explosion of new jobs and global exports from the video game business, which is expected to deliver nearly $50 billion in sales this year despite the brutal economy.

Global financial woes have dragged down game makers' stock prices and are damping consumer spending heading into the holidays, when the industry typically generates 40% of its annual revenue. Still, analysts say that video games generally hold up well during economic slowdowns, and they expect 2008 sales to reach record highs.

So far, at least, game companies say they haven't scaled back their hiring plans. The state that gave birth to Pong in 1972 has become home to more than 18,000 video game workers, nearly half of the industry's domestic workforce. Tiny companies and giant corporations are braving high taxes and the soaring cost of living to tap into the state's unique blend of engineers in the north and artists in the south.

So much for that. Instead of hiring, EA is starting to let people go and leave some open positions unfilled. The company today reported a loss of $310 million, or 97 cents a share, for the quarter ended Sept. 30. That was steeper than the loss of $195 million, or 62 cents a share, a year earlier. One bright spot was revenue: EA said sales rose 40% to $894 million, from $640 million. But it spent more to develop and market its games, hurting the bottom line.

-- Chris Gaither and Alex Pham

Photo: Scene from Facebreaker, an arcade-style boxing game from EA. Credit: Electronic Arts

Pomegranate phone? Nova Scotia ad budget goes to cellphone concept video

Some may call it unrealistic: an ultra-thin, touch-screen cellphone with e-mail, Web browsing, GPS, a camera and a video projector. Throw in a coffee brewer, shaver and harmonica, and you have the Pomegranate NS08 phone.

The far-fetched concept isn't the brainchild of any cellphone manufacturers, nor a farce from recent mobile entrant Google -- a company known for such tech hoaxes as last year's sewage-powered wireless broadband service. The Pomegranate phone is part of a $300,000 ad campaign put together by Nova Scotia. Yes, that Nova Scotia, the small province in southeastern Canada.

The website is part of the Nova Scotian government's "Come to Life" ad campaign, which hopes to build interest in the province virally through nontraditional means, a spokesman for the campaign said in an e-mail. And an imaginary cellphone would certainly classify as nontraditional.

"We needed to find a unique way to get people focused on our province," another "Come to Life" representative, Stacey Jones-Oxner, said in an e-mail. "Since there is so much buzz out there around the newest and latest smartphones, we thought this was a good device to use. This is especially true when you consider that the people who are interested in the latest technology are often people involved in business and tend to be key influencers."

Jones-Oxner says they're trying to reach those with clout in cities such as Boston, Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary. OK, so why not just take out an ad in a local newspaper? "If you consider the amount of people we have reached and compare it to the cost of say a full-page ad in ONE of our target cities (approx $60,000) it is a solid investment," Jones-Oxner wrote.

The month-old website -- created entirely by Nova Scotian citizens, right down to where the website host server is located -- has received nearly 150,000 hits, with a majority of visitors also clicking through to the Nova Scotian government website. The campaign says it is pleased with the results so far and expects popularity to snowball in the future. "The great thing about a viral campaign like this one is that it has a long shelf life!" Jones-Oxner wrote.

Now, the real question is how long until I can actually play the harmonica solo from "Blowin' in the Wind" on my cellphone?

-- Mark Milian

Photo of the Pomegranate NS08 by Nova Scotia's "Come to Life."

BlackBerry and iPhone users get free Wi-Fi at Starbucks

The iPhone and BlackBerry have created a class of know-it-alls who can prove their point about anything, be it geography, history or cooties, thanks to their mobile Internet connections. But the rest of us had refuge: Sometimes, they were out of range of a quick cell network.

Now, know-it-alls have even more places that they'll be able to access the Internet to prove their point. AT&T today said it would offer free Wi-Fi in 17,000 hot spots around the country, including Starbucks and Barnes & Noble, to its subscribers who use iPhones and Wi-Fi-enabled BlackBerry handsets. Just what you need: more know-it-alls in Starbucks.

You might be wondering: Many iPhone users already have access to a 3G network -- why do they need Wi-Fi? But Wi-Fi is generally faster. Plus, AT&T spokeswoman Katie Farnham said connecting to a Wi-Fi network instead of a cell site could save battery life. AT&T calls its Wi-Fi network "the nation's largest."

What's more, many areas still can't connect to the 3G network, said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy at Jupiter media. "It is a nice way to amortize the cost by adding some new functionality," he said.

But the service, which AT&T had previously announced twice before immediately and inexplicably shutting it down, is no game-changer in the wireless market. After all, T-Mobile offers its subscribers access to Wi-Fi in lots of locations too, and that hasn't brought in crowds of customers.

AT&T also said today it's expanding the Napster Mobile music service to more handsets, which it says was made possible by less restrictive digital rights management requirements from record labels. However, since they're know-it alls, many AT&T customers, and especially iPhone users, probably know there are lots more ways than Napster to get music on your phone. You can even even jiggle your iPhone to a beat, and, like a DJ, make your own tunes.

-- Alana Semuels

Photo credit: Pinot & Dita via Flickr

Beatles jam-session video game due next year*

After many hard days' nights of negotiations, the first video game that lets you perform Beatles music is on its way to consoles next year.

The Beatles' record label, Apple Corps, today announced a deal with MTV Networks and Harmonix, publishers of the Rock Band franchise, to bring the legendary band's songs to an interactive music game. The Beatles game won't be part of the Rock Band franchise, but the creators said that it would be compatible with the Rock Band microphone, guitar controller and drum kit and that they expected it in stores by the 2009 holiday season.

"The project is a fun idea which broadens the appeal of the Beatles and their music," former Beatles singer and guitarist Paul McCartney said in a statement. "I like people having the opportunity to get to know the music from the inside out."

Until now, the Beatles, who broke up in the 1970s, have largely skipped the digital music revolution, refusing to sell their extensive song catalog through iTunes and other download stores. But Rock Band and rival Guitar Hero, which let players sing and jam along with hit songs, have been huge sellers for video game publishers. The games also have given a sales boost to many of the bands and musicians featured.

Our colleague Randy Lewis at The Times' Pop & Hiss blog reports on a press conference the companies held this morning:

Participants in the press conference, which included MTV executives Judy McGrath and Van Toffler and Alex Rigopulos, CEO and co-founder of Harmonix, which created Rock Band and is a division of MTV Networks, said the game would take players on a journey through the Beatles’ music and story through imagery and songs spanning the band’s career.

There had long been speculation about the use of Beatles music in a video game format, and earlier this year, Martin Bandier, chief executive of Sony ATV Publishing, which owns most of the Beatles copyrights, told The Times that he “liked the idea of a dedicated Beatles edition of Guitar Hero.” In aligning instead with the rival Rock Band team, Jones said that MTV and Harmonix was clearly the innovator in this category of games; they had the first platform to offer a full band experience. Apple also was impressed with their creative approach.

Executives from MTV and Apple Corps today declined to say whether the agreement would bring Beatles music to Rock Band. According to MTV.com:

It's been reported that MTV and Activision have both been courting the Beatles, arguably the biggest band that has yet to lend their music to either the Guitar Hero or Rock Band franchises. But MTV won out, with Senior Vice President of Games Paul DeGooyer saying that the announcement is the culmination of a conversation between MTV and Apple Corps that had been going on for 17 months.

Apple Corps, MTV and Harmonix said the game was "creatively conceived with input from" McCartney and fellow Beatles founder Ringo Starr, and it received the blessing of Beatles widows Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison.

"The Beatles continue to evolve with the passing of time, and how wonderful that the Beatles' legacy will find its natural progression into the 21st century through the computerized world we live in," Starr said in a statement. "Let the games commence."

Rock Band is published by Electronic Arts, of Redwood City, Calif. Lazard Capital Markets said in a research note this morning that the Beatles game could provide a "significant boost" to the franchise, which the investment bank said had lost momentum this year to Guitar Hero, which is published by Santa Monica-based Activision Blizzard. Lazard analyst Colin Sebastian said Beatles releases had sold more than 600 million records, tapes and CDs.

-- Chris Gaither

Photo: The Beatles perform on the "Ed Sullivan Show" in 1964. Credit: Associated Press

* This post was updated with additional material from the Pop & Hiss blog.

Around the Web 10.30.08: Advice for those feeling down in Silicon Valley

-- Famed venture capitalist John Doerr advises start-ups on how to survive the downturn. Boomtown

-- Successful entrepreneurs add their two cents. VentureBeat

-- Hewlett-Packard is considering selling netbooks (stripped down computers designed for Web surfing) more cheaply to people who sign up for wireless contracts. WSJ

-- Free Wi-Fi at AT&T hot spots for iPhone owners. VentureBeat

-- The fastest-growing group of iPhone users is lower-income people.  Wired

-- Motorola says no Google phones until Christmas 2009. Silicon Alley Insider

-- AOL follows trend to open up to other services. CNet

-- CurrentTV plans to make election night social with Twitter and Digg. Mashable

-- Beatles license songs to Viacom's video game unit. WSJ

-- Time magazine names 23andMe genetic testing service the best invention of 2008. Time

-- Coming soon: Flexible 125-inch plasma TV. PC World

-- Who is the Oprah of social media? The Seamless Brand

-- And now for your moment of LOLdog zen. JPG Magazine

-- Jessica Guynn

Photo: John Doerr. Credit: Bizuayehu Tesfaye / Bloomberg News

Deal brings Netflix movies and TV shows to TiVo

Netflix continues to expand the reach of its "Watch Instantly" video streaming service, striking a deal to make its movie and TV shows available to about 1 million TiVo owners who have high-speed Internet connections.

The partnership represents a bit of back to the future for the two companies, which originally announced a video-on-demand deal in the fall of 2004. That earlier agreement unraveled because of a combination of technology and rights issues.

Fast-forward to today's news, in which Netflix said it would provide access to a digital library of about 12,000 movies and television shows on the TV, through the TiVo Series3, TiVo HD and TiVo HD XL devices. The two companies begin testing the on-demand service Thursday in several thousand homes and expect to make it broadly available in early December. 

The new streaming service comes at no additional charge to Netflix and TiVo subscribers.

The partnership represents an attempt by TiVo to differentiate its service from the generic cable DVR offerings. In addition to recording, TiVo offers subscribers access to Amazon.com's video-on-demand service, which allows viewers to buy TV shows and buy or rent movies. It also delivers YouTube videos for free. The Netflix agreement brings expanded selection of independent films as well as mainstream movies provided through its own deal with Starz, the premium cable service.

"In addition to TiVo subscribers having the ability to record everything off of their cable and satellite, now they have the ability to download movies on a rental or purchase basis," said Tara Maitra, TiVo's vice president and general manager of content services. "Our whole goal is ... to be your complete source for all your entertainment content."

-- Dawn C. Chmielewski

Chmielewski covers the entertainment industry

Photo of Netflix on TiVo by TiVo. Screen features image of Beetlejuice, (c)1988 Geffen Film Co. All rights reserved.

VHS goes the way of the dodo (finally)

Anyone out there still holding their breath and hoping that VHS might make a comeback? It's time to exhale. Japanese electronics maker JVC said this week that it was going to stop making VCRs and that it would stop selling them once inventory ran out. The first company to start making stand-alone VCRs, in 1976, JVC was also the last to stop making them. I guess that selling all those videocassettes you were hoarding isn't going to get you through the recession now.

What happened to the VCR, which was in 70% of U.S. homes by 1990 and 90% of U.S. homes by 1999? DVD players, for one. Maybe too many people heeded the advice of a 1990 L.A. Times article, which read:

The smart money is to ignore all of the VCRs and jump into the laser video disc field buying a combination player that plays audio CDs as well as laser video discs.

OK, laser discs posed no match for the VCR, which reigned supreme until the DVD came along. Regardless, any technology that you can't leave in the sun without melting doesn't have much of a chance of succeeding in these days of global warming.

VHS lasted six years longer than its early competitor, Betamax. Sony stopped making Betamax videocassette recorders by the end of 2002 (although strangely, it still sold 3,000 of those devices in 2001). Devoted Betaphiles still hoarded and traded the equipment, and some might still be making a few bucks on EBay, where one video player was going for $58.01 and had 10 bids.

Who knows if VCR owners will have the same success selling their machines on EBay down the road. At the time this post was written, the most expensive VCR in the auction site's vintage electronics category was selling for $35. It had no bids. 

-- Alana Semuels

Photo by drbrain via Flickr