August 2012

In 2007, Steve Jobs stood on stage, listing the benefits of Apple's then-new iPhone touchscreen. "You can do multi-finger gestures on it," he said, moving his hands back and forth in the now-familiar pinch-to-zoom motion. Then he paused, and his expression changed. "And boy, have we patented it."

The crowd laughed and began applauding as the word "Patented!" appeared on the screen behind him. You can draw a straight line from that classic Jobs moment to last week, when a jury decisively agreed with Apple that Samsung had copied the iPhone too closely. But you can also draw a line from that moment to another, much more insidious phenomenon: the persistent belief that Apple has a definitive patent on the pinch-to-zoom gesture. Apple almost certainly likes the confusion: there's no more distinctive multitouch gesture than pinch-to-zoom, and it's great for Apple if everyone thinks it's patented. Steve Jobs standing on stage doing an exaggerated pinch-to-zoom with his hands right before saying multitouch was patented wasn't some coincidence. It was a master salesman at work — and his work seems to have been extremely effective.

Twitter’s pitch to advertisers just got a whole lot more interesting. Marketers can now target Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts based on users’ interests.

For example, a dog food brand can run a Promoted Tweet aimed at users who post about their pet or follow other canine-crazy accounts. Twitter’s head of product marketing Guy Yalif said the company has compiled more than 350 interest categories—with 25 broad categories like movies that break down into more specific interests like comedy or horror—through the public signals its more than 140 million monthly active users send out every day, such as who they follow and what they tweet, to create audience segments brands can now target. But marketers can get even more specific than interest category targeting by targeting based on usernames. Username targeting doesn’t mean an ad would be shown to that Twitter account’s followers per se, but Twitter would look at the interests of the account’s followers and promote the tweet or account to users with similar interests.

Vivid co-chairman Steven Hirsch warned Republicans to be less "vigorous" in their approach to pornography. He applauded the Republicans' stance against child pornography but suggested that the party was acting old fashioned and was in danger of sparking a "witch hunt".

"Sex is everywhere in the adult world and this isn't going to change. If anything, it will become more pervasive," Hirsch said. "The Republicans' call for 'vigorous' enforcement of these laws is a hollow gesture and obvious pandering to ultra-right-wing conservatives." He also reminded Republicans of a 2009 Harvard study that found relatively high Internet porn subscriptions in traditionally conservative states.

Walk through the Republican National Convention and it might start to feel as much like a technology trade show as political nominating party, thanks to the branding and lobbying efforts of dozens of tech companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter and AT&T. Google wants attendees to sip free lattes in a huge, colorfully designed rec room. Facebook invites attendees to snap pictures at photo booths that post the image direct to a user's wall. Twitter's giving out T-shirts. And AT&T's logo is on RNC signage throughout downtown Tampa, the perk of being the event's "official wireless carrier." The oversized show of force is a big change for many tech companies — from Apple to Yelp — that didn't used to pay much heed to politics or Washington D.C. Now they spend big to fete lawmakers and send representatives to work the rooms as other industries long have.