April 29, 2008
Girls In Tech -- Tonight in SF
I'm speaking at the Girls in Tech Power Femme Roundup put on by Adriana Gascoigne.
Here the info if you'd like to come (from Adriana):
the Girls in Tech femme-Power RoundUP on April 29th at 6:30pm at Orrick, San Francisco. We have an AMAZING group of panelists joining us. Some of these lovely ladies include:
Kaamna Dhawan, Skewz.com
Eve Phillips, Chirp Interactive
Jeanine LeFlore, LiveHit
Mary Hodder, Dabble
Jory Des Jardins, Blogher
Layne Gray, Vivanista
Sarah Lacy, BusinessWeek/Yahoo! Tech Ticker
Rebecca Parsons, ThoughtWorks
Sasha Cagen, StyleMob/GLAM.com
Moderator: Sue Kwon, Anchorwoman, CBS 5
To RSVP, please click on the following link:
April 28, 2008
Webguild Sez Lack of Openness in Web20 Land Hurt Them, and Behaves in Closed Manner Themselves
Webguild sent out a very disturbing email this morning, saying that because they held evening events named "The Future of Web Apps" (also a Carson company conference series event name) and "Web 20 Conference and Expo" (also an OReilly conference series event name) that Google had ceased to sponsor or host the WebGuild events.
WebGuild's post is here: called "Shame on You Tim OReilly." I read it, and found it disconcerting, because if true, it implies that OReilly (not Carson) went to Google, instead of approaching Webguild directly, and used its "old boy's network" to get Google to pull support, because of the naming conflicts.
Then, I left a comment tried to leave a comment on the WebGuild post, which said (which was up temporarily but has now been deleted):
Hi,
From the outside, this does sound disturbing, but I'm reserving judgment until I see answers to a few questions.
First, I agree with Michael Slater above that it's strange to name your evening event after The Future of Web Apps conference (not an OReilly event, but rather a Carson event) and your conference after the Web 20 Conference and Expo which is an OReilly event.
Why not change the names a bit, to avoid confusion in the marketplace (the point of trademarks)?
Second, I don't think OReilly sued IT@Cork but rather sent them a Cease and Desist letter. I think you should correct your post as such. They subsequently worked things out, without a lawsuit.
Did OReilly and Carson contact you directly about the naming conflict? You don't say in your post but that's a very important point.
Lastly, I don't think you help your argument by conflating the "old boy network" as you call it, with your issue, which is that Trademark holders went around you to your sponsors to put pressure on you.
Pls let us know the answers to help us understand more about what's happened.
Thanks,
mary
Note that the Michael Slater comment is now missing(note: Slater did a post on the missing comment and issues here) (as is mine now.. a few minutes after it was briefly posted) from the WebGuild post, which was legitimate but negative, suggesting that it was really strange to name *two* events after two other conferences. Other later comments are there. For a while, they didn't post mine, but now it's up, listed before others that appeared before it in the list.
Anyway, I have to say, based upon seeing the Slater comment disappear, and now mine, they just lost a lot of points.
I've attended their events in the past, but now I'm not so sure I would go, or sympathize with their issues.
I'd really like answers to the questions I wrote, so that I can make up my own mind about what they are doing. But getting lots of people to blog negatively about Tim isn't the answer here.
We need better community solutions than that for solving IP issues and community confusion for naming issues with events.
Updated: Techcrunch wrote about this same topic Jan 1, 2008 which gives more background on Webguild.
April 23, 2008
Data Sharing Summit Report
Last Friday and Saturday the Data Sharing Summit was held in SF. I attended a bit on Friday, but not Saturday. It looked like a lot got done by the participants, and so they did accomplish a lot!
Kaliya Hamlin has posted notes and goals for the next meeting in one month.
Here is an excerpt of the results:
Do-able Now
* Portable Identities (OpenID, LiveID, FB-ID)
* OAuth (sever to server) delegated auth.
* Contacts Portability (FOAF, XFN, Microformats, like MicroID)
* Sync (feed sync)
* Social Network Portability (Open Social FB platform)
* Social Application Portability
Do-able Soon
* Standard Schema for Profile
* Standard Schema for Address books
* Media portability + metadata + permissions
* Linking ID’s of different ecosystems?
Looking forward to the Data Sharing Summit 2 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View on May 15th.
April 22, 2008
South Park on the Internets
Hilarious South Park episode on losing access to your drug of choice: the internets. Note the giant Linksys router is the placeholder for the whole internet. Funny. Go watch it.
April 17, 2008
FCC Hearing at Stanford Today
I can't go, but I hope lots of folks out there who support and open and free internet do. Here's the schedule according to Save The Internet:
It is rare for all five members of the Federal Communications Commission to leave Washington, D.C., and they want to hear from you. There will be a public comment period - come speak up to save the Internet!
WHAT: Public Hearing on the Future of the Internet
WHEN: Thursday, April 17
TIME: 12:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
WHERE: Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Stanford University
(471 Lagunita Drive, Palo Alto, CA) Map It!
For directions and travel information, visit: http://www.savetheinternet.com/=stanford_travel
FCC Public Hearing Agenda
12:00 p.m. - Welcome/Opening Remarks
12:45 p.m. - Panel 1: Network Management and Consumer Expectations
3:00 p.m. - Panel 2: Consumer Access to Emerging Internet Technologies and Applications
4:30 p.m. - Public Comment
6:30 p.m. - Closing Remarks
7:00 p.m. - Adjournment
Note also that Comcast is proposing a "P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" according to ArsTechnica, who is skeptical. Don't see any users in that room, but if they don't invite us, I'd guess after Boston, we'd all get pretty mad and force them to include us. Either way, (FCC or voluntary code) I think it's going to be user centric in the end. We're just going to have to fight like hell.
Kevin Marks also makes a great point about Comcast: They are like The Producers who oversold their Broadway show, assuming it would fail, by getting 100 people to buy 10% of the who. Comcast, by overselling their network for internet access is doing the same, and then having secret levels above which they cut people off out of the blue, is pretty bad.
