Graph Search and the Like.

The question the new Graph Search at Facebook continually elicits in me as I've discussed it on various lists, as well as read a couple dozen articles on it, is:

Do I really need my whole graph to find what I need?

First.. how much and what do i need?

Advertisers, marketers, graph search makers, all operate on the assumption that we all need much more than we do.. and if the last 5 years had taught us anything, it's that a lot of people borrowed a lot of home equity to buy crap they later dumped at Goodwill..

In other words.. yes.. we do need some things, a plane ticket, rental car.. a new laptop.. etc. But I do think many know how to get those things.. without necessarily getting all that much input from others.

And that leads to my other point: how many others do you need, and how much of their input?

This weekend I had a guest here.. who rented a car from Avis.. and it's the third time she's signed up for the lowest level car and then been given a 3-series BMW or a Mini.. for $25 a day.

That's a nice to know factoid.. but if everyone coming to SFO knew it.. she would never get a BMW for a tin can on wheels price.. we talked about whether she would share this anywhere.. and she said no.. she would not share it. Though she's very active on many social communities.

Another angle: about 7 years ago, I was in a book club with Jerry Michalski and about 5 others.. and we would read books on ants and viruses and ecosystems.. trying to apply those understandings to what was going on online.. we did it for a couple of years and it was very helpful.

But one of our conclusions after talking through two dozen books and working through the logic of different takes on systems and people and flows of information was that in the end, you only need the right 5 people to help you find the things you need, get the right ideas, advice, etc to make good choices.. and these were verbal conversations because most often, even if these people were highly active online, they wouldn't necessarily share certain information online, for various reasons (it took too much time, there were consequences for having those opinions, they didn't want to be bugged, etc). In fact, much of the time the good intel didn't make it to the searchable web for months or a year or two later.. and I still find that true today, even with Twitter, FB, quora, tumbler, etc. People who really know stuff don't want or need to show it off.. and there is downside for sharing the data.

So these questions linger for me.. as I think about Graph Search.. which may have some value.. but I am highly skeptical of what, how much, etc.

There will be some value.. but I think maybe it will be comparable to the kind of "lift" that an Ad gets, when some new technology is added to the Ad selection or whatever.. often that lift is just a couple of percent better than before but to Ad people.. that's great.. because they are doing something at scale.

For us.. for individuals.. if Graph Search got us 10% better intel over what we could otherwise find using existing search systems.. would that be worth the increased personal exposure and loss of control over our data we give away in a system like this...

And lastly, I'm skeptical because I do believe Facebook's biggest issue is trust -- people withhold information intentionally. It's not a safe place and most people know it.

Graph Search makes Facebook a lot less safe. Which leads also to the question: do I need to know who in my graph likes something salacious? Really, does this help us develop better relationships or just make our current relationships a bit more unsavory?

So if people search, see what's exposed, and cut down their sharing even more, then the effectiveness of Graph Search goes way down. That 10% bump in quality information you got with Graph Search could turn out to drop 20 points.. you might find that you have -10% quality over your search results compared to before Graph Search.

I think Graph Search will only work when we have Personal Data Stores, and can set terms for use of our data, and then our friends can search our non-public, but friend-shared information, without fear that a company like Facebook will sell us out.

Until then, I'm very skeptical of Graph Search at Facebook, other than as a model for the sea change to come where we will drive our own data and interactions, and treat Facebook as the bar or restaurant it is, where I would most definitely want the in-person protection of clothing. As it stands now, we just got more naked in Facebook, which doesn't deserve to also hold our personal information the way it does now (leading to our naked state there). It's just a Cheesecake Factory online, but most people don't see that yet.

Likes, and the Like.

Last week, I went through my whole Facebook list and undid things that "seemed" like they might be an issue if they came up in FB's new Graph Search.

But it's hard to know what could be an issue..

I will say that the way i see the "like" button being used it multifaceted. People like things for many reasons:

* to acknowledge receipt or that they've seen something
* to thank someone for remarking
* to thank someone for taking an action or sharing something
* to show laughter
* to acknowledge understanding the item or page
* to promote a comment so other's see it
* to help a friend who asked you to like something
* to comment without commenting
* to show the poster that you are "there" in their world
* to make it so that you will keep seeing the poster's facebook stuff
* to start receiving the "RSS" feed in your news feed of a page, person, or thing
* to get access to coupons, deals or a contest
* to make the liker noticeable to someone they aren't "friends" with..
* to cause a post, photo or page to show up in their feed to promote it (without actually liking the thing)
* to pee on the item to "aggregate it" in your list of items you want to keep a link to and it may not be because you like the actual thing in the page, photo or post
* to give more happy birthday comments or appreciate other's HBs because the birthday person is close to the liker (a spouse, perhaps)

*and* it's also done to actually "like" something in the traditional sense.

I can even see people "liking" likes (not functionally possible.. but it's done in a way by liking a comment that says something in the above list of ways of paying attention.)

The problem is, most of what I see as "likes" aren't about liking something, as in " I like it !! ". They are about the fact that there is no other way to do something to something on FB in any way, with the exception of commenting which isn't always possible, because you may not have rights to comment due to your relationship with the poster and the privacy settings the poster has set on FB.

Those likes are about attention to something with a variety of meanings.

I'm sure there are more reasons to "like" that aren't about actually having a favorable thought about an item, post, update, photo, page, etc..

But you get my point.

And so Graph Search is silly.. when the search results assume the "likers" all have affection or agree with the item and weren't doing something for some other social reason out of expediency.

Update 4/2/2013: Here are a couple of example screengrabs from my own feed that show this is something others are becoming more and more aware of as they try to make sense of the "like" and the like:

SOPAPIPA: Why we need to consider Compulsory Licensing Once Again

Paul Tassi over at Forbes has a great article titled You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Kill You. He talks about now Hollywood is trying to drive Netflix out of business by increasing the fees they receive, when in fact Netflix is the lifeboat Hollywood needs.

But Tassi isn't going far enough, I believe, in looking at Netflix as an example of a Silicon Valley lifeboat for Hollywood. Netflix is a microcosm of what could happen, across the internet and all users, if we looked at compulsory licensing for all media and users, and not just Netflix customers. Netflix is a great model for what could exist across the internet.

Denise Howell invited me to This Week in Law (TWiL 146: Mary Hodder and the Lifeboat of Fire) and of course, the SOPA PIPA thing came up.. and I referred to Terry Fisher's Compulsory Licensing ideas (though several others had other versions of compulsory licensing too...). He was at the Berkman center at the time, and still is, and lots of folks commented (like Ed Felton, Ernie Miller and Derek Slater back in the day ...this link goes to a page listing a year's worth of CL discussion in 2003).

At the time, in 2003, I advocated against compulsory licensing, in favor of a P2P system that would pay artists and end the copyright wars from Hollywood. Well, that was wishful thinking and never happened, and in the meantime, we have loads of Hollywood payola flooding WDC looking for even more draconian laws than what we have now, which will be quite harmful to the internet as an ecosystem.

So as the world has shifted over the past 10 years, I realize we need to revisit compulsory licensing, with built in privacy so we maintain our "right to read anonymously" (per Julie Cohen.. an amazing thinker) and deal with other issues like counting, watermarks and tracking (guess what, 10 years later, we all realize that thousands are tracking everything we *each* do online everyday.. so while I want my clickstream, etc to be private and user-controlled, I'm less concerned about this now as far as compulsory licensing is concerned than I was in 2003).

So my thought is, why not collect a fee at the front end of each month, across internet service points, from users. If no one uses any media, the funds stay put in escrow with the ISP and non-users don't pay. But if media is used in a given month, downloaded, etc, moneys are distributed to copyright holders. And if works are in the public domain? No payments would go out either. Yes, it would require a giant copyright registry, and ISPs to track (let's say, for 90 days, before dumping a user's media list) what anyone on an ISP provided connection used, in order to distribute fees. And it would require a giant fight in Hollywood about who gets paid what, for what, at what time, etc. Hey, maybe that will mean you can watch a first release movie on opening day, on your ipad, where a larger share goes to that copyright holder because of the timing of your consumption?

In my view, figuring out how to solve the Hollywood problem with compulsory licensing is worth doing, by getting all the smart people who understand networks, and licensing, and all the other hairy stuff that will come up in a room and working it out. It would get artists paid, and it would get the users whatever they want in terms of media, and it would get Hollywood into the lifeboat that Silicon Valley offers, finally.

Finally.

DRM and Control Over Our Own Computers is a Human Rights Issue

...
If we lose the ability to completely control computers we own, these machine can, and will, be used to put us under constant surveillance. If that happens, computers will have completed a trajectory from contributing to human freedom and making the Iron Curtain look like a rusty sieve, to fulfilling the 1984 telescreen vision of pervasive monitoring of every activity of every person.

DRM isn't just a copyright issue, it is a human rights issue.

-- Zigurd Mednieks in response to BoingBoing about the Coming War on General Purpose Computing referencing a talk by Cory Doctorow.

BTW.. why can't we deep link to a person's post in Google+ ? If we can, it's not obvious.

Should an Actress be Suing IMDB Because She Doesn't Want Her Age Posted?

Brad McCarty of The Next Web thinks the IMDb: Age-publishing lawsuit is “a frivolous abuse� and should be dropped.

Reading his piece, I can see that on first glance, it sounds silly. An actress anonymously sues the Amazon-owned IMDB folks because they won't remove her birthdate, claiming that it will adversely affect her career. And now, IMBD has asked the judge to only allow the lawsuit to move forward if her name is made public:

"Truth and justice are philosophical pillars of this Court. The perpetuation of fraud, even for an actor's career, is inconsistent with these principals. Plaintiff's attempt to manipulate the federal court system so she can censor iMDb's display of her birth date and pretend to the world that she is not 40 years old is selfish, contrary to the public interest and a frivolous abuse of this Court's resources."

But this argument between IMDB and the actress points to a much bigger issue, and it's not the one about IMDB making its living trading on other's data, whether from Hollywood or the users who add to the IMDB system for free, which I would understand is a fairly selfish undertaking by IMDB.

Why should IMDB be able to operate "selfishly" by publishing people's personal data, outside their discretion, and the actress in question not be able to "selfishly" make a living by trading in her looks for salary? I would say IMDB is pretty hypocritical here. And do they really think the Judge, the public, or the Hollywood set they make money from, are that stupid that we wouldn't understand that IMDB is selfish too?

I understand from reading the Hollywood Reporter article that the IMDB believes she may be the same actress that years ago tried to change her birthday, submitted by a previous agent to IMDB. Since IMDB believes this is an issue of fraud (they have no proof), they now want the identity of the actress made public. But since the old information isn't part of the case, does it really matter? Yes, I get that actresses have lied about their ages for a long time, but is it really "in the public interest" to out this woman? It's definitely in her economic interest not to out her, so i just think Amazon-IMDB are being nasty and frankly it seems frivolous of them to try to out her.

But this is really beside the point.

The Larger Issue

I believe people should be able to choose what personal information is shown about them on websites.. especially data that isn't or wasn't before the past 10 years, public. It's easy to dismiss this as vanity or frivolous.. but as more and more personal data is out there, and as people lose control of it.. it points to a much larger issue: how do individuals control information about them that doesn't really need to be public?

I can see that by having her age obscured, the people who hire her would just think of her age based upon appearance.. which is actually for an actress or actor, probably a good measure. Giving the specific age will plant that in producer's and public's heads. So I can see her point.

Rather than get into a discussion of harms and "how bad is it" about one or another data breaches, I think the real question is:

What kind of society do we want to have, where everyone's data is public and out of their control? What does it do to us, to devolve into a totalitarian model where everyone is afraid because frankly, everyone has something to hide? Or maybe their friends do.

Right now, life and health insurance companies are telling the press and their investors that they are screening people in Facebook. And it's not just you under scrutiny. It's your friends. This was covered extensively in the Wall Street Journal "what they know" series a year ago. There are also finance companies that are telling users to "unfriend" anyone they are connected to in Facebook with bad credit... because when you are reviewed, friends with bad credit will reflect on you.

This issue of personal data and control is much larger than an actress and her age being displayed without her consent.

It's about how we allow others to show information about us, verses having control of it ourselves. I think for a civil and democratic society to work, we can't leave that up to companies with no oversight and a big profit motive, but instead need to think about giving the individual ultimate control over certain types of personal data.

So while the actress may be vain, may be trying to gloss over her age, or may just be reflecting the economic realities of her profession, which i do think are real, and we may poo-poo this as silly, this lawsuit reflects the much greater tension about personal data and control and actually could be a really interesting test case, given that we don't have much privacy law in the US.

Women and Leadership Roles: How Emotional Literacy Would Solve the Problem of the "Male Dominated" Tech and Business

I just read Sheryl Sandberg's profile by Ken Auletta in the New Yorker (A Woman's Place: Can Sheryl Sandberg upend Silicon Valley's male-dominated culture?).. and some months ago watched Sheryl Sandberg's video on women and success from TedWomen. (For more background, she was also covered recently in Bloomberg or watch her Barnard commencement speech .)

In all these talks, Sheryl notes that women are dropping out of tech and business leadership tracks.

She makes some good points, but only iteratively adds to what we've already talked about for the last 8 years about women in tech.

A little history

About 6 years ago, I came up with a list of things, along with a couple of other women, that we could do to encourage women:
* help women get speaker training
* encourage and submit women to speak at events
* help women pitch their companies to funders and get into the entrepreneurial ring
* help women get mentorship and family support they need to stay on leadership tracks
* help women get into science and technology tracks in school and keep them in those tracks in the working world
* get more women in the room to change the tone of whatever is happening
* when you hire, think about how women will read the ad: kick ass engineer will likely not get women applying
* when you hire, remember the women undersell and the men oversell, and if you even them out they are similarly prepared for the job

... and more recently, riffing on the last two, and I wrote a post last year in response to Clay Shirky's post on how his male students were much more aggressive about asking for help and in pursuing jobs that his female students, where I noted that in tech, often our filter for who gets noticed and appreciated is aggression. In other words, students of both genders need to be aggressive, but if our filters only notice the super-agressive, then we miss out on a lot of qualified people, especially women.

One of the key points Sheryl Sandberg makes is that women need to lean forward. I have seen women lean back even when we have explicitly made space for them. I can highlight one example out of the many I have seen in the 8 years I have been proactively working on this:

In service to the list above, a group of women and I pushed for speaker training by having Lura Dolas who is a premiere executive speaker trainer come to She's Geeky as well as for training for geek speakers at Citizen Space one saturday (coordinated at the time by Tara Hunt). But you know what? We held signups open for women, for a couple of weeks. Few women signed up even though we did lots of personal invites, and eventually opened it to men. All the rest of the spots were gone in a flash. So I get what Sheryl Sandberg is saying: she suggests that encouraging women to "lean forward" would work. I've been trying to get women in tech to do that, with a little different terminology, for 8 years.

I, as well as many others, have emailed (for years) various conference organizers from Mike Arrington to Tim O'Reilly suggesting highly-accomplished women for their speaker line-ups (with links to bio pages from the Speaker's Wiki as well as topic sorts of the many women listed by tags). Mike Arrington is right when he says the very few women at the top of tech are barraged by requests to speak and often turn down event requests. But there are other women who are very well qualified to speak, however the criteria for who is eligible is often heavily in favor of typically male tech behaviors: rabid self-promotion, the ability to speak very early on a new topic or meme, regardless of what they know, and brashness.

Women often eschew these qualities or don't know how to navigate them because they run so counter to women's social norms. So that, mixed with women's usualy less overall interest in having a big "title," which many conferences like to promote in association wifth the event (look: we've got 80 C-level speakers.. come pay several thousand to attend our event !) make women less attractive to conference organizers. Though I would argue that at most events I attend, women speakers share far more data and opinion than the men, and are often much more interesting speakers compared to the men who often hold their proverbial cards to their chests and don't share as much interesting stuff. So to me, the practical reality is that as far as speakers go, women are the brash risk-takers on stage. I often seek women out to get info the guys won't share.

Sheryl Sandberg suggests three ways we can push women in tech and leadership roles:
* keep women "leaning forward" (participating actively) in business, leadership and tech
* stay in the game (ie when they have kids, don't drop out) with a spouse who does as much housework as you do
* think bigger and take more risks

Those three are great additions to the set of things we can all recommend women do. But to me, these lists: our 8 plus Sheryl's 3 (two of hers overlap so it's really about 9 ways to get women more into leadership roles), not to mention complaining about the lack of women speakers at conferences or the lack of women on board's of directors, or lamenting the dearth of women in engineering or getting women to pitch a company, as Women 2.0 tries to support in their annual contest, doesn't get us what we need or want. Which is a healthier ecosystem between men and women in tech and business so that women can more naturally be themselves, contribute, and inhabit leadership roles and overall, products are better.

In fact, over the past three or four years, I'd mostly given up talking publicly about the dearth of women in tech and business. The problem isn't getting solved, despite things like the Speaker's Wiki created so that non-typical speakers could list themselves. For me, the value of that wiki listing is in being able to email a few biographies to conference organizers, which I do often privately. It's a much more positive step than complaining about the lack of women speakers, which I'm so tired of.... But overall, the topic has felt like a waste of time because men in tech look down on women for discussing it, and it doesn't feel like anything ever changes.

Frankly I could see Sheryl getting burned out on discussing the topic (from lack of results) the way so many of us have over the past decade. I give her about 2-3 years to get frustrated and move on to other things, at least as far as speaking out in the New Yorker and at Ted and college commencements and other forums. The topic gets old and you want to be constructive.. so you start thinking about other things you care about that get more traction. It's not that you don't care about women in business and tech leadership roles, but maybe the other things I've done for years like holding personal dinner parties for women business leaders, or the women in tech weekends south of Santa Cruz at the beach, are just more effective at creating connections and support between and for women in tech and business. And they don't have the downside you get when you keep bringing the issue up publicly.

What's new on this topic?

Recently, I've been rethinking: why are we still here in the same place with women in tech? Why is it that our old list of 8 or Sheryl's new list of 3 ways to push women up the leadership and tech ladders may help a little, for the tremendous effort they take, but they don't really effect the overall problem?

What is the deeper problem set here? Why talk about it again? Well, it started for me with a surprising conversation.

I chatted a few weeks ago with a friend who is a man in finance, business and banking (but no tech at all), about the problems women encounter in tech and business generally. I told him I felt often men have been socialized to be on "teams" where there is a team spirit, where they don't look to the coach to discipline someone. Instead, they do it through peer pressure, and they also don't criticize team members unless they violate a big rule that everyone knows.

How does this work in tech? I explained to my friend that often a group of guys will huddle at a conference or some event, and they are playing with their laptops and mobile devices, listening to (mainly male) presenters in sessions, and then back at the group email check and hallway conversations. The guys joke around and mostly none of them looks too closely at what anyone else is doing with their company or their products or pitches. They all joke and get along. There are some guys who do look more closely at products and companies, but you almost never hear them share their real views or anything at all critical of the other tech or guys.

Women, on the other hand, often see the flaws in those companies, or products or pitches and say so. They see how a product or algorithm can exclude or hurt people or create problems for users. How a business model won't resonate with people and why it will take about 2 years to show that no one wants what's on offer. They see what can go wrong. Why? Because we watched our moms and the other moms growing up, and we got socialized to look for the problems and to prevent disasters, and to do things fairly and equitably for everyone involved, because we (the women, the moms) would have to manage the problems, clean up the disasters and take care of anyone who was hurt.

For example, where a Dad might say, "Hey kids, lets climb the tree and we'll jump off onto our new trampoline!" And mom would say, "Wait a minute, the kids are going to jump off an 8' high branch, hit the trampoline at 4', and bounce off onto the ground and probably break things?" She would put a stop to the plan, saying "You can only jump on the middle of the trampoline and not at the edges and no jumping off anything else onto the trampoline." And while mom was a major bummer, she was also preventing broken bones, loss of school days (that might lead to having to repeat a grade if the injuries were really bad), pain and suffering, and oh yeah, if the neighbor kids got hurt, getting sued by their parents for negligence and potentially losing the house and having to move or at least getting into a major fight with those neighbors.

Yeah.. mom is really a bummer here. But in a very good way, because she is socialized to know that she will have to pick up the pieces of problems that get out of hand, nurse the sick, and see 10 steps down the road the implications of decisions. Dad on the other hand, in this scenario, is thinking of the fun.

Now, you can say there are plenty of dads that wouldn't suggest this with their kids, but I actually know a dad, who is a successful risk taker at work who makes lots of money and is considered by colleagues to be very good, who suggested this to his kids, partly because he figured he could manage it and catch any kids bouncing off the trampoline. But his wife put a stop to it. Though one kid did jump off the tree branch later when the parents weren't around and got a compound fracture out of the deal.

When there's disaster, like with the broken bones, it's the mom who usually drives the kid to school every day for three months, instead of having him ride his bike with his friends. She was the one who sacrificed a half hour every morning being late for work, and she knew what the sacrifices might be in advance of disaster striking, when she shut down the jumping-from-the-tree plan.

The real way to think about that mom, and many women's contributions in warding off disaster, is to say those women are caring about the greater good over a longer term. It's a more masculine trait to think about making a splash and more a typical feminine archetype to care about the long term risks.

We all hold both archetypes inside us, women are more apt to express more of the feminine archetype, bringing a way of being conscious of the longer term effects on other people, the longer term business model, the larger effect the business will have on society. Comparatively, men statistically are more likely to embody the male archetype which is often about taking larger, often dangerous risks for shorter term gain in order to break out for the big score and function more in a team mode with the other guys. And our society pushes us through socialization to these gender specific modes by blessing what is socially acceptable.

These gender-specific tendencies translate to a scenario in tech and business where men often show up as more exciting, brash risk takers who if they succeed, shine in the myth of the genius who did it all. Women are often behind the scenes, managing the fall-out of risks, and frankly, putting the kibosh on some proposals (read: bummer) in companies, in tech generally, and in business. And bummer it is if you don't take kindly to women's important role in thinking critically about risks and the consequences.

How many women do you know who you would put in the high-risk-taking category?

But this difference is *exactly* why we want a mix of men and women engineering, directing, creating and sustaining, leading businesses, and shaping policy, so we get a balance of each gender's tendencies which statistically will likely make the company or product or governments far more successful and stronger than if one gender alone works toward success.

So after telling this male friend about men and women in tech, the trampoline story and my general thesis that women are "analyst critics" and that feels like a bummer for the guys, I asked what he thought about the situation.

He said, "Well, whether guys know it consciously or not, most men tend to put women into two categories: bitch or hot. She can be in both, but she has to be very hot to over come 'the bitch' label in terms of whether a guy would talk with her or be 'friends' with her. So, while plenty of guys are socialized better because they are married or with a woman and therefore don't do this 'hot vs. bitch' assessment explicitly, no guy is going to defend a woman if all the other guys decide they don't really like her... no reason given. Or defend her if one guy starts picking on her, either to her or outside her purview, with the guys. Because we are all on the team. However, the unspoken reason is she is in the bitch category because once, once! she 'complained' about something, even if it was done constructively to solve a real problem. She had demonstrated that she could complain any time going forward and the guys know they can't be themselves around her. In other words, they have to be 'good' around her but can 'be themselves' with the guys. So now the set up becomes one where the guys have fun with each other, but are serious when any women are around, even if some of those women have never criticized or done anything to put themselves into the 'bitch' category."

Second, he noted that most men, in the face of even very mild criticism coupled with constructive solutions given from a woman, take her not as her, but rather to a place of fear. This fear is rooted in men's 2-year-old selves, deep down, where their mothers yelled at them or criticized them. So while the woman in a tech project might be saying: "Hey how about doing the project this way where something good can happen, because the other way isn't so good for the users..." the guy goes to a place where the woman co-worker is "his mother," telling him that he's wrong. The man can't hear the woman, because there are too many old filters in the way. And while again, some men have to have more criticism to get that fear going, most men aren't so conscious that they can hear criticism from women of a project, conference or company as being about the actual problem, but rather they take it to be about themselves. The criticism becomes an "ego-threat" and old defense mechanisms kick in. And criticism coming from a woman, well, lands her in "bitch jail", where the man's 2-year old fear is triggered and the woman can't really fix that without changing the larger issue of that man's consciousness about himself.

HIM: "We are all human and feel the emotions similarly in a way: Fear feels the same for men as fear feels to woman. Anger is anger for men and women. But if a man has fear.. he's what: 'a pussy.' If a woman has fear.. 'that's just how women are.' And if a man has anger, 'that's how men are.' But if a woman has anger, 'she's a bitch.' Even if she's just giving constructive criticism. Most men I know interpret any woman's criticism as inches from 'anger' no matter how nicely and constructively it's given, and therefore, she's rapidly entering 'bitch jail.' "

I have to say, I found it pretty shocking that a guy would cop to all this. And he wasn't leaving himself out of the category. Just being brutally honest.

If you're a guy reading this, and you are mad right now, I would ask yourself these questions:
Have you ever felt fear when a woman colleague has constructively criticized your project? Or did you even realize at the time you feared anything? Did you tell her, owning the fear and admitting it was your issue, not hers? Did you make it safe for her to share further criticisms? Or did you just distance yourself from the woman, and not work with her so much anymore, and did she just sort of back off from giving further feedback and instead, move away from the male members of the team? In other words, did she lean back and did you help her to be less involved?

So are you mad because my friend's words hit a nerve.. and this is uncomfortable? Because it only takes a few of these instances for a woman in tech or business to sit back and not participate as much. You may say, she's not tough enough. But she may say: why bother, if no one can take what I have to say.

I have another story, about a friend who is a partner on Sand Hill Road. She never speaks at the weekly partner meetings to review deals, until the end of the meeting (about 4 hours). She's learned that she waits until the chest beating and the competitiveness are over and the guys (the rest of the partners are, of course, all guys) have exhausted themselves and said everything they want to say. Then they look around.. and ask her what she thinks about this week's deals. Then, and only then, are they ready to listen to her. And they do. But she has leaned back. Effectively. I mean, she is a successful partner at a successful and top rated VC firm. But she leans back. Because that's how the guys can take her.

Back to my friend's and my conversation:

ME: Well.. it's true that it's not socially acceptable for a woman to express anger. Most women I know aren't even conscious of their own anger, or how much anger is inside them. They are so used to stuffing their anger, and moving on, that the anger comes out sideways. And men are right to fear that. It's not safe when men stuff fear, or women stuff anger, for anyone, because we are avoiding what is real, but complicated, and not socially acceptable. It comes out sideways for both of us. Men avoid angry women out of unconscious fear, and women try to work with men's fear, but can't, because fearful men won't include women in the real work, reducing women to things that are valued for their looks. That's a lot of sideways behavior.

Certainly I have been guilty of this.. especially prior to doing the emotional literacy work I've engaged in more recently. I have definitely stuffed anger, had it come out side ways, to other's confusion, and not owned what I was doing or feeling. It's probably been scary for men I've worked with, because I've *not talked* about anger, or released the pressure of feeling mad about the unfairness of something ... like not being taken seriously by the men in the room... or like a speaker list where organizers didn't even try to find qualified women, or disregarded dozens of qualified women. Or for example, once when I pitched to a partner's meeting in a Venture Capital firm, and had the senior partner refuse to look at me or ask me questions directly no matter how polite I was. Instead he asked all the questions to my male business partner, who turned every one over to me. Women have all had experiences like this. And we don't get mad. But everyone knows it's in there somewhere. And on and on with examples.

So if emotional literacy is the larger issue, how do we fix this? How do we get unstuck at a deeper level, than suggesting speaker training, or asking women to lean forward?

I'm not proposing we (women) try to change the guys that project the team vibe, consciously or unconsciously, who don't facing their own fear, or aren't honest about their own projections and inability to own what they are doing, or speak and share their fear.

I mean, women could do a big movement to educate men and get them to shift their thinking, a la the 70s, but that's a lot of work for something I don't think, frankly, will work. I don't think women can really change the attitudes and behavior patterns men carry, especially unconsciously.

Instead, I'm proposing we (women) change us. And my friend suggests that he, and other men, have to change men. Because, he too says, "Women can't change men, rather men can only initiate each other and teach each other to feel fear constructively, consciously, honestly and safely, in order to see women as women and not through the many filters they carry now."

So how do we do that? You know when people say: "Change yourself, change the world?" Where if you change yourself, everyone reacts and they are forced to treat you differently and if they don't, you don't care anyway because you've moved on and in a way others are left either changing or being left behind? Yeah. That way to change the world.

So how do we change us?

I'm not proposing that women be more like men.. to be more "fun" or take more crazy risks. Because trying to be something you aren't -- a team player if you've never been on a team, or able to laugh with the guys like a guy, when you aren't a guy, propose highly risky actions -- never works.

Instead, I think the answer lies in facing our own issues, as women, and not only changing ourselves for work, but everywhere. I'm proposing that we look at how we are angry, how we stuff that and don't face it, and aren't honest about it. Which makes us unsafe to many men. I believe that if women were honest about their anger, they would reside in their own power, own it, and reasonable risks and "leaning forward" as Sheryl says, would happen naturally and without a few of us pushing women to do what doesn't feel good to them now. Because most women aren't living in their authentic power which means they haven't faced their own anger or owned it.

As my man friend named it, "Women seem to have slid backwards over the past 20 years.. they are very concerned with their appearance to the sacrifice of their own truths and personal well being." My thought exactly.There's nothing wrong with looking good. But it should be secondary, and yet many young and older women seem to be focused on that to the detriment of their own advancement. It translates into caring more about what others think about you than asking for what you deserve, speaking the truth, and risking criticism to speak what is real and authentic. Which is all pretty much a recipe for holding anger deep down in an unconscious woman.

Not being taken seriously, not seeing women speaking at tech conferences, being on the boards of companies or doing what is high level work, could add even more anger. I know from years ago, challenging the organizers of conferences about how they had none, or one or two, women speakers at an event, didn't work. And women have been angry, when conference organizers react with silence or brush off the issue. But it was an anger women didn't feel they could express, or weren't conscious of.. and yet it was there.. I could feel it. And the men understandably feared that. Because the anger was coming out sideways.. it wasn't clean, owned and direct.

So, HE continued, "If men have taken the feminist messages from the 70s (like "who needs a man anyway?") and defaulted into emotionally illiteracy, where they don't have to own their emotions, or be conscious and share their own fear, then we end up with stagnant gender roles and fear about ever letting those roles shift again. Because the effect of those messages from the 70s have hung around, and a lot of men heard those messages from women as having an underlying criticism of who we are as men and whether we are even needed. For men who come after the 70s, the sons and nephews of men of age in the 70s, those boys are getting their modeling of what men are like, what it means to be a man in the world, how to treat women and how express their own emotions. The effects men felt in the 70s have been passed on to the current generations of men.

"There is a place where it's okay for men to express our emotions in our culture, but there is an invisible line for us, where when men cross it, the rest of the guys all point a stern finger and say to the one guy crossing the line: 'Dude, what are you being such a pussy for?' A guy who isn't emotionally literate will cave. But the guy, if he's emotionally literate, can say: "Hey, I'm feeling some fear / anger / sadness / a threat... " because that man is tired of having to not be himself for the sake of his friends. The truth about this is that there is a quiet revolution in men's circles across the country, THAT HASN'T YET trickled into our business and technology companies across the country.

"And so it's that distinction, that men can't yet be honest and direct. But as men begin to own their own internal emotional truth, to themselves and to each other, they'll realize that women are already there... waiting for them."

The notion is that the genders are secretly eyeing each other, where men look at the women's camp, women look at the men's camp, and if we raise the problem of women excluded from industry (tech, business, etc) and young women regressing to placing their value in the old stereotypical values like: "how do i look, how sexy am i, how desirable to the opposite sex.." this feels like a failure of the attempt women made during the feminism of the 70s to be integrated into male culture, male business and to be seen as equals.

If you accept that that 70s movement failed in a way, then it makes sense that women came into male domains (80's and 90s) and now women are receding from tech jobs from the 2000s on. (There are still women working, but the numbers in traditional male domains are down).

So why is this? Well, one view via my male friend has is that men inherently felt threatened during the 70s and 80s and after. This is partly because of what he called the "fragile male ego" which he says,"...is a reality especially among men who haven't done personal work.. who aren't emotionally literate." But also some of the loudest and clearest women's voices in the 70s and 80s were making men bad and wrong. He says further, "When men talk, we tend to lump all women into one voice.. so the women were lumped together as man-haters in the 70s and 80s."

So to the extent that the women's movement was about "taking power from men" ...this reaction from men happened. And got internalized by men.

So why have men returned to excluding women? My friend says, "Men tended to stereotype what was going on around their own exclusion by 'man hating women,' and reacted out of collective fear, toward women who wanted power." That power being the ability to join men at work, in business, or tech, and be taken seriously.

My friend goes on: "Men have always been at a place of lesser emotional literacy than women, so the dialog men cannot participate in with women is something like this: (to a man) How do you feel about women working in what has been men's world? A healthy male response would be: 'I feel fear of it because there has been incendiary language by a few women and that causes me to want to fight... '."

So in other words, emotional literacy allows for a full bodied conversation, where the whole body is involved in the conversation. Where the emotions in my body can be expressed.. and it's okay on both sides of the genders.

Again, HE said, "But men aren't able to do that yet, with women. But in general they do it with men, but it's limited.. to stomach, sexuality, gut.. but that's it. And many men have been raised by mothers who are emotionally invasive, so there is also a tendency to disbelieve that a women's desire for a full bodied emotionally aware dialog is *not* going to somehow come at a price to the man.

"So men aren't able to have a full bodied conversation with women, and women are waiting on men to get there.. to become emotionally literate.

"The problem is that when men fail to do this work, and when women don't have an equal partner (who is being emotionally aware) then women recede into a place where they try to find their value in the old stereotypical ways: valued for their looks and sexually because an equal dialog isn't really happening and neither party is really seeing each other as fully human."

ME: What about women? Why doesn't it work for us to help men?

HIM: "So if emotional literacy did happen, then men would treat women as more than tits and ass.. and women would feel that and feel able to take the risk of revealing who they are to men. That means women would be intellectually revealing, in board rooms, engineering rooms, with fully available ideas and contributions to the work.

"But the problem is, men can only do this work with men. Women can't help them. Men have to initiate men, men have to work on emotional literacy with each other, men have to make it safe to be masculine and live in their male bodies, and still express fear, even to women."

ME: So while this would change personal relationships a lot, in the context of work, men and women would see each other as humans who all have fear, feel threats, have anger, etc so we could be real about our contributions to projects, technology, development, etc. And women would be included and invited fully into speaking, leadership etc.

So this dialog between my male friend and me gives an idea of how we agreed women generally recede from the business world, because of these generalized dynamics. What my friend said above, and his take on men and women, which we both get are generalizations but also feel are generally true in our working experience, is a way to see that the lists of things women can do, like leaning forward, or getting speaker training, doesn't get at this deeper underlying problem to change what is happening with women in tech and business. Those suggestions are salve covering the underlying tense and uncomfortable relations between men and women in many work and professional situations, and we can see them explicitly displayed on many a tech conference speaker's list.

If men were to become emotionally literate and transparent it would change everything across the board: technology, business, leadership, speaking, conferences, product development, even Wall Street and the recent sociopathic behavior many men there have engaged in with our financial systems, to the huge detriment world wide of our economies and peoples. If women were to become emotionally literate, they would own their anger consciously, allowing men to feel safer in the presence of that anger.

I get that emotional literacy is a very tall order, but becoming aware of the need is a step. Talking about it is another step forward. I get it's very hard work each of us needs to do to face our selves and our emotional truths, so that when we go to work, we are clean and clear.

The upside for our society when men and women become emotionally literate is huge. It definitely extends beyond just tech conference speakers lists. It's just that a conference speaker list is a written testament to the problem at hand. Men and women can't now see each other as just human because of the many thick filters in the way of our communication and shared goals, that hold us in more adolescent gender roles.

One of the challenges with startups and incumbent businesses alike.. is the men are often looking for the splash (an IPO or a big fast score or a big win). But women often anticipate the greater consequences and see the longer term view. If men could invite women into really share the work, with full ability to share emotional and intellectual reality -- without judgements created through a person's own filters and projections, but rather from a place where both sides have emotional literacy -- with full ability to work toward the greater good, and long term success of the company and projects, men would succeed with less risky behavior and achieve more balance, women would succeed by bringing in their more considered approach to receive full acceptance as tech and business co-workers, co-founders and partners, leaders and contributors. And people, society, our economy, would be far more stable and successful by the work of an emotionally literate leadership and creator populace.

Discussion: Building for a Personal Data Ecosystem - A Case Study

Just left the Quantified Self conference where I led a session in the last breakout on "building for a personal data ecosystem." Since we weren't on the official program, i was very happy to be holding something in an Infinity session. Fifteen or so people came, and I talked about Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium and our mission for a user centric data model where user's control their data through agents, or Personal Data Stores. I also mentioned what I was seeing at the event, which was lots of folks building apps, making new silos of data, and repeating the model where users' data is in question as to who owns it, and users don't really have access to their data except through the a service's website and possibly an API that might send a little data somewhere else (like twitter or facebook).

I suggested that in a Personal Data Ecosystem, apps makers could take data from their users and send it straight through to the users' Personal Data Stores (PDS). That way if the app or hardware changed or ceased to support their old systems, the user would have their old data to play with in their PDS. And I talked about open formats for the data (think.. what about an open format for Heart Monitor data, where you pulse is described and you can take that data anywhere). Services could think about just providing a great service, instead of trying to manage all the user data storage and security. Users would control their data in their Personal Data Stores/Lockers/Banks, and I said that a bunch of companies were building these PDSs, including Sing.ly which is building the Locker Project.

Sing.ly happened to have someone there, Jared Hansen, who is a developer in the open source project. And there was a guy from Basis, Bashir, who is building hardware (like a wristwatch) that you monitor things like your heartrate with.. though it does monitor many other things as well on your body. We also had a couple of health researchers there, plus other health and wellness companies looking at data, as well as Ian Li, of Carnegie Mellon who is researching data collection and normalization, and a woman from the EFF. And we had a couple of users who talked about what users need.

After a few minutes, Bashir from Basis explained their dilemma around the hardware which isn't all that profitable for them. So initially they were questioning what to do with the data and how to monitize the company. Should they sell the data, or give it to users, or charge uses for it, or give it away to developers who could create a great ecosystem by building lots of apps, thus driving more sales? And who's data is it?

WOW. WOW!!!!

So we were off an running, with the impromptu Basis use case of how to get the value of the data, include the user and let the user have choice and autonomy, and how to leverage what is being done out in the marketplace and with developers creativity with data. Oh.. and don't forget about participating in microformats and Activity Streams creation to make bottom up grass-roots standards for the data formats and exchanges.

We talked through what it would mean to give away the data, support users and ask them if they wanted their data included in studies, get additional revenue for Basis while maintaining the inclusion of the user in the process and what developers could and should do. We brainstormed a lot of things, and covered the good and bad points of how it would all work and how to support Basis' market model while still being good and fair to the users.

I have no idea what Basis will do, but I would love it if they would join the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium in the Startup Circle, to help build out ways to make a user centric data system for user's wellness data collected with Basis hardware.

What an amazing opportunity Basis has for doing the right thing for users, and leading the wellness and personal data ecosystem by creating a win-win for themselves and users. They could create a new market for wellness data, that is user driven.

Frankly, we need more discussions like this. It's not about Do Not Track models where we kill all the data plus the value of it, and it's not about "business as usual" where the user isn't included and businesses do whatever they want with user data.

It's about creating markets that do right by users and have companies making money ethically and conversing with us in the market.

Thanks to everyone who came! We had many representatives of the relevant stakeholders and the discussion was enlightening and rare.. but one I hope to make more common in the near future!

Where is the Personal Data Awareness? And what are the Missed Opportunities at QS2011

I'm at the Quantified Self Conference in Mountain View today and tomorrow.

A few thoughts. There are lots of people here from various disciplines: health care, tech companies like 23andme.com that marry personal genomics and tech, apps makers and health and wellness hardware makers. And lots of folks just wanting to track themselves.

Sessions are preprogrammed (in other words, the conference is all done top down broadcast mode), and now and then in people's statements, a person will pass along the vibe of the old style medical industry (that is: we know more than you and we'll tell you what's true.. that mode was in the opening session where we were lectured to). Though I just walked through all the sessions in round 1 and the individual break out sessions are more discussion mode which is great to see.

There was a near complete lack of consciousness about protecting user's data as I walked in and spent a few minutes in each of the first 6 sessions. The impicit assumption was that "we" (builders, companies, etc) can take data and use it for whatever "we" want. Building systems that aren't just about more silos with data lock-in, or building for a Personal Data Ecosystem model where users keep their own archives and data, and then choose where their data goes, what purpose it's used for and control what is happening isn't on the radar. It is especially important that we look at issues of privacy, control, autonomy, choice and transparency for the highly personal, very sensitive data collected around personal wellness and health.

There is a single session, led by lawyers about privacy in round 2. But the rest of the sessions do not seem to be aware at all that they need to build from concept on for privacy, data control by the users, where users keep their data and the applications, devices and monitoring tools "use" the data with permission.

And there is no session about personal data control, where the QS apps would work on a Personal Data Store. I've asked to have one.. but we'll see if they decide to let me do it. The assumption is developers will just build more silos with more data collected, about you, crossed with other data about you, that after combined, creates yet another silo of data. There may be an API available, but effectively, the data is stuck in another silo, that a regular user can't really get at it, hold it, control it, share it, correct it or delete it.

It's dismal.. thinking about how all this highly personal data is just assumed to be owned by apps makers and companies and users are just cows in a big milking system. The participants of QS are just continuing the tradition started by the health industry and continued by tech company silos in making the users say "Moo." Pick your ecosystem and prepare to be milked.

Lastly, I'm really happy to report that the QS organizers decided to order a really healthy vegetable lunch salad (with either chicken or tofu on it).. Great work on that front!

McKinsey's Research Arm Claims Big Data Mining Will Save Us All

Steve Lohr has a write up in today's NYTimes: Mining of Raw Data May Bring a Surge of Innovation about McKinsey & Company's report on Big Data: The Next Frontier for Innovation, Competition and Productivity.

I think we need to challenge assumptions about the inputs... compare the inputs from "hoovered" personal data to that of what people assemble in personal data stores operating in a Personal Data Ecosystem.

Execs from Rapleaf and Intellius have admitted publicly, recently, that they know half their data is bad, they don't know which half. I also sat recently with the woman from Experian who is in charge of segregating and keeping separate data from the internet (verses financial data which is regulated) for their offerings about users. When I posited that a lot of her data was likely wrong, she agreed.

User's obscure their data intentionally because they are scared.

For myself, I can tell you that in the last few years, I have obscured data online (birthdate, zip code, name, address, phone number, preferences, email addresses) as well as health info (not to my doctors, but to data collectors whom I do not trust yet claim they never share the data. For example, you can't get a mammogram in SF / Children's Hosp without sharing a huge amount of very personal data.. so i made it all fake because I don't trust the lab and who they sell the data to...). And I fake it to the pharmacy when they ask for more than my basic info to fill a prescription. In fact my current insurance company has my name and birthdate a little wrong and i'm not correcting them.. because it makes it harder to aggregate my data across systems. Oh.. and my bank spells my name: Hoddler .. and has a slightly incorrect address (don't you love how they key in the wrong data!) and i'm not correcting that either.

I fake all sorts of stuff on and offline... I fail to correct bad data... I know many others do too.. I have since 1994 been faking my data online. Somehow even then, without understanding the privacy issues or how the internet worked then, I just didn't trust the system because I knew then we had no privacy protection in this country (US). As I began working with online technology in 1997, and started really understanding it, I've felt more than ever the need to obscure my data and make it difficult to combine in a pivot about me.

I get that this security by obscurity and mistakes doesn't cut it, but it's the best I can do right now.

So my question for the McKinsey research people is: have they factored this in?

And have they factored in that users have obscured enough information that me at one site cannot be aggregated with me at another site?

Or have they factored in that the people at institutions who key in the data from our driver's licenses get it wrong (my bank with my name and address) or the insurance co (my application correctly filled out.. with my name and DOB) or whatever?

The answer is to give us proper protections for our data. 4th amendment protections and rights over sharing of our data, so that we make sure the data is right. We can aggregate our own data in Personal Data Stores. Then we can trade fairly for that data if we agree to being included in the big data systems McKinsey is saying will help us so much.

I agree big data analytics can help us as a society, but not without good data, and not without including users into the system, as equitable players who deserve to have rights over our data, including choice and autonomy to participate in big data systems.

But until then.. big data is working with databases that are half right.. because we don't have choice, autonomy, rights or protections as users, and that's the first problem with McKinsey's assumptions.

Tracking Do Not Track at Morris + King

A bit of Context
Obviously, this diagram is a little cynical (courtesy of Chinagrrrl), but not too far off from how we manage personal data online today. But there are a lot of proposals on the table to fix this dilemma. One is Do Not Track which industry sees as something they can self-impose on an *opt-in* basis (for themselves) and opt-out (for the users) and self-regulate by having advertising trade org.s monitor compliance, with the FTC stepping in as necessary. There are also a number of DNT bills introduced in Congress and various hearings on tracking where the FTC would regulate implementation. And Johns Kerry and McCain have introduce a Rights and Responsibilities proposal in the Senate, that instead of Do Not Track (Kerry's LA, Danny Sepulveda told me DNT is a waste of time) suggest ways that data collectors would have to be responsible with our data. However, that bill lets 3rd party marketing, data tracking and Facebook's privacy bending ways totally off the hook. Both of these plans / legislative initiatives completely ignore the more than 40 startups and companies building for the Personal Data Ecosystem where users would collect their own data, and make use of the value, which the World Economic Forum recently said was "a new asset class".

That said, the rest of this post describes the Tracking DNT panel at Morris + King the other night.

Tracking Do Not Track
Tuesday night I was on a panel at Morris + King, an PR firm in NYC, called Tracking Do Not Track. Our hosts: Andy Morris and Dawn Barber (who co-founded NY Tech Meetup with Scott Heifferman) were very good about putting together a diverse group of people to talk about Do Not Track and the various issues with personal data and the advertising industry that have so many talking these days. My guesstimate was that about 100 people attended, mostly from industry (tech & advertising).

Our group included:
Brian Morrisey (Editor in Chief of Digiday, an ad industry trade publication) as Moderator
David Norris (CEO of Blue Cava)
Dan Jaffe (Exec VP, Govt Relations for the Assoc of National Advertisers - ANA)
Helen Nissenbaum, Professor, Media, Culture & Communication at New York University
and me: Chair of the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium

We started off with Brian's question: who are you, what do you do in a nutshell, and what do you think of the state of online privacy these days?

I was first.. and gave a quick explanation of PDEC which is to say that we offer a middle way between Do Not Track (DNT) and what is going on now online (Business as Usual). Our middle way offers a market solution to users' wanting control of their data, and the tracking and digital dossier building by shadowy companies to stop..we don't believe DNT will work and don't support it, though we do see that some kind of "Rights and Responsibilities" legislation would help create a level playing field for any company that collects personal data. Those rights and responsibilities for personal data collectors needs to include giving user's a copy of their data, so they can then put them into personal data stores (or banks, lockers, etc) and then use the data as the person sees fit.

Oh, and I said the state of online privacy was pretty dismal, though I was optimistic because it feels like this year, it's actually possible to get personal data some basic protections similar to HIPPA or FCRA where user's can get their data, and we can make the Personal Data Ecosystem emerge as a market solution that finally works for people. Granted, it's a 5-7 year proposition to really create a new market, but we can actually start this year because of the 40 or so startups that are funded and building pieces of the PDE and the push in the US Government to do something about the dismalness of online privacy.

Helen Nissenbaum, whom I've admired for years for her thoughtful approach to privacy and usability, agreed that privacy online was pretty bad, and explained her work around Adnostic, a "privacy preserving targeted advertising" system made with some Stanford folks.

By far, the best comment Helen made all night was that tracking and aggregating data that pivots on people is not ethical, that it's bad for people and for the incremental 1% improvement we might see in targeted advertising, it's not worth the incredible intrusiveness of tracking. In particular she said, "Anonymization does not change intrusiveness."

Dan Jaffe spoke next, and surprise, agreed that online privacy is not good, but talked about how publishers need to support their businesses and that behavioral advertising is helping them do it, and that Do Not Track should be self-regulated by the industry because they know their business best. And government has a tendency to screw up regulations and therefore, we should let advertisers figure out what works.

Next up was David Norris, who agreed with my use of the word, "dismal" to describe online privacy and said that Blue Cava was supporting a self-regulatory model because they didn't feel that Do Not Track as proposed for legislation was a good idea.

We chatted about the viability of Do Not Track, and with Norris, Jaffe and me all agreeing it wasn't a good idea. However Jaffe said he didn't like the idea of any regulation, that the industry could do it themselves, and that my "data rights and responsibilities" support for legislation would be just as bad for data collectors.

Folks in the audience, like Esther Dyson, pushed back on Jaffe, saying that she wanted the ability to choose where and when her data was out at some vendors site, and that's why, she said, "I'm supporting Mary and her organization" because it's a market model that gave her choice.

I was very pleased to hear her endorse us (thank you Esther!)

In the end, I think we got our message out which is that tracking individuals is a bad thing, that users should be the only ones tracking themselves across sites, but that sites can track within the site to optimize business. And that users should have a marketplace to trade data, like they do in mileage accounts, and choose when they trade, as partners, and not have it done for them in secret as is the case now. And that we want to see users data protected with a basic set of rights, like Health, Education and Financial data currently is now.

Curiously, Dan Jaffe made a comment about HIPPA, the health data protection law, suggesting that users get their health data so maybe they could get their personal data too. Given that that is a law, and he was opposed to regulation of any sort otherwise, I wasn't sure what to make of this.

However, I was really pleased with the opportunity to talk about PDEC, the startups and tech efforts to create a personal data ecosystem, and to provide a different view than the usual support for Do Not Track as we try to figure out what is best for our society.

Thanks Andy and Dawn for inviting me!

Honestly.com: 5 stars for everyone! Or how useful are public anonymous reviews?

Honestly.com is a people review site that allows others to anonymously review and/or rate a person.

First, a look at what the site is, in case you aren't familiar with it.

What they do:

Here is a screenshot of Cathy Brook's review page (she has 26 total):

Notice a few things if you go to the site: people are mostly given 5 star ratings like Cathy, and also rated highly on skills, relationships, productivity and integrity. Ratings/reviews are anonymous, and the reviewed person can leave comments.

Given how little the site has spread, 26 reviews is a lot. I wasn't able to find anyone else in my networks (mostly early adopters) with more than 5 or 6 reviews. Many only had say, 2 ratings, and those two were nothing but 5 stars, no review, no info on any of the 4 categories, etc. However, if you go to "top performers" (can we say: incentivise getting your friends to review you so you can make the ranked list?) there are lots of people in the 20-40 range of reviews, though the founder of Honestly has 222 reviews.. but i assume that's a lot about testing the site and proving the concept.

You can also sort by the number of stars, and here is a screenshot of 3 star reviews she received (the lowest scores in her ratings):

Notice that reviewers did not say why they gave a less than perfect review, and Cathy responded to each of those 3 star ratings. I found that in almost all the less than perfect ratings people did not specify why they gave 3 or less stars. And the lower ratings without any context, like Cathy's, are useless. Who would actually rely on them?

Some reviewers are "trusted," and some and some are "novice." It's not clear what that means, but Honestly.com is using Facebook logins, so maybe it has something to do with your number of friends/activities in Facebooks (more might make you more trusted) or maybe you have to leave more reviews at Honestly.com to be trusted.. or have more people in your Honestly.com network. Whatever it is, I see no reason why I would trust one reviewer over another in Honestly.com's system. My response is to treat all anonymous reviewers the same since I don't know who they are, what relationship they have to the reviewed and whether I would trust them.

One thing to note about trust around a person or handle online is that often we find people more trustworthy if we see them consistently and reasonably acting online. These of course are subjective and in the eye of the beholder. But consistent and reasonable actions do allow us to think more highly of someone over time. Anonymous reviews don't ever allow us to feel that a reviewer who is fair and consistent over time might be more trusted. We are asked to cede trust to Honestly.com abut who is deemed "trusted" verses "novice." And what is a novice anyway? What should we think about novice reviews?

An interesting side note is that Honestly.com is also placing people at their professions, so Esther Dyson is currently listed as a "director at Boxee" and John Clippinger is a "student at Harvard" and Steve Newhouse is an "employee at Conde Nast" and Stu Gannes is a "student at Stanford" and Clay Shirky is a "student at NYU... and on an on. All of these are wrong. Yes these people are associated with the organizations noted, but their roles are completely and bizarrely twisted causing me to suspect the Honestly.com site more.. because things I know to be false are stated as fact. So I'm asking myself, "what else can't I trust here."

How Honestly compares to other review systems

The old method for some kind of review might go like this: a person asks for a letter of recommendation or a reference, and then gives the letter writer a place to send the letter or asks the hiring person to call the reference. The reviewed doesn't know what's been said, but since they are asking trusted reviewers, the reviewed likely has a good idea that the overall message about them will be positive. The idea though was the reviewer would be able to speak freely because the reviewed wasn't going to know exactly what the reviewer was saying. And the reviewer could be very specific, often putting the letter on university or company letterhead which is harder to fake, and the review would be tailored to the purpose of the event (ie, getting into grad school or applying for a specific job).

More recently online, LinkedIn started public reviews, where folks would all list on their own resume a connection to a company or a school. Then when a review was created about a colleague or whatever, those reviews would be associated with the reviewed's listing of that company or school and the reviewer was connected through that link as well and it created a kind of verification even if it is just personal assertion on a public site. Reviews are generally public, the reviewer and context are named and associated with the time and entity where they have a connection and the reviewed can also reject the review.

The problem with LinkedIn reviews, in my experience is that sometimes people lie about their relationship, get bullied to write a review (I have personally been bullied twice to leave reviews for people.. I declined both but one of the people threatened to sue me as a result). A person can also lie about other aspects of the job (I personally know of at least 10 people on LinkedIn who currently show job titles, time frames and supervisor relationships that are flat out lies). Then the review is post on top of the lies about the job situation and it compounds the situation.. all appearing to be on the up and up. The interesting thing, as I started to discover those lies posted at LinkedIn, was that since two people are corroborating the situation with reviews, links, timeframes and titles it becomes harder to refute.. in fact there is no way to refute it). Given that, I'm not sure it's any better or worse to have anonymous reviews at Honestly.com, because frankly, if I can't trust some of LinkedIn, why would I trust any of it?

One other problem I've found over the years at LinkedIn is that a number of people regularly and actively seek out reviews (including the two people who tried to bully me into doing them). I've noticed an inverse relationship to review value: the more and better the reviews, often the worse the person is to work with as they are focused on the wrong set of goals (ie, getting quick short term reviews and making public statements instead of doing a great job, meeting the needs of a project or communicating well in service to the project). In other words, if someone is terribly motivated to get a rating or review out of the deal.. and this sounds odd but I've seen it a number of times, that motivation can overtake the motivation to make sure the project is done right and the company is happy.

Another issue with LinkedIn reviews is that reviewers can make them to suck up, creating something more generous or not terribly specific in order to make the reviewed person happy and in order to be associated with someone that may on the internet make the reviewing party look good and well connected.

Since Honestly.com's reviews aren't connected to people or specific jobs it's both impossible to tell how a reviewer knows what they assert, these reviews are even less reliable than at LinkedIn (though not that much). If at some point, Honestly decided to turn on the names of the reviewers they could find problems since people reviewed others thinking the reviews would be anonymous. Socially that could be a disaster and frankly I think Honestly has painted itself into a corner here. I also am reminded of the glitch a few years ago at Amazon where reviews of products and media were sometimes anonymous and for a few days, real names were exposed, revealing that reviews were often written by very biased people. That very same thing could happen at Honestly.com. But given that people are the objects of review, turning on real names could all be quite awkward for social and work relationships.

Why Honestly.com won't work in it's current form

So why is Honestly.com (at least in current form) not very honest or real? Well, the set up promotes people just writing whatever they want, disconnected from context and purpose, without any kind of understanding about who is saying what about the reviewed person. How much value does a review have, given that it's anonymous, there is no context for the reviewer or their relationship, or the purpose of the review, and there is no way to verify anything. The setup also promotes people just saying whatever is nice.

Those people I know on the site are all mostly very nice people (mostly, we all have our difficult sides) but getting a good review about working skills, effectiveness and productivity isn't so much about being nice. I do want to work with people who are fun and interesting, but ultimately we do need to get the job done.

In fact, what I see happening at Honestly, which is far worse than at LinkedIn, is that the site is becoming a popularity contest.. you see the jocks and the cheerleaders (CEOs and Marketing people in adult terms) doing very well with 5 star ratings and lots of reviews. What does a nice, non-specific 5 star rating and review mean anyway? My experience with hiring popular people is that the work doesn't happen as much as continued effort to remain popular. And it's also a matter of taste: one guy's 1star is another's 5star and it's subjective as well.

I don't see many geeks at Honestly.com, or folks who's reviews would need to be very context dependent (ie, if I want a mobile programmer, I need to know a lot about what they know and have done.. and wouldn't hire say, a front end web developer unless they also have years of C and Java and coding very stable small things like say, an OS from the 80s and early 90s). And frankly I don't care if that engineer is a little antisocial.. I want them programming, while people push pizza under the door periodically. Yes.. they need to understand digital social environments, but if you have product and design people, that can be managed. And frankly one person's "nice" doesn't work for someone else.. there is chemistry in our interactions after all. But why does that engineer need to be told publicly that he's a little antisocial? Isn't that a little weird socially? Throwing something like that out there anonymously? Being a little antisocial for some jobs is okay.

So does Honestly turn into the 5 star club, where everyone gets 5 or maybe 4.5 stars? Is it an old boys club where you review your friends and they review you and you all agree to do 5 stars and say you are all "GREAT!" ? Can someone hiring or looking for funding rely on these reviews that are all basically 4-5 stars or the few that aren't show nothing other than a 3 star rating?

When hiring I would never use LinkedIn or Honestly reviews unless I was looking for a popular person (might be good for a marketing or PR person). I have an obligation to do the footwork to find out if an applicant can do the work and are effective. These sites are not helpful and I would never rely on them, partly because of the known fake information and the bizarre social contract that a public review creates.

Frankly when I read reviews at Amazon, I specifically look to the bad reviews to see if I can live with the issues around a product or the characteristics that some didn't like in media. Nothing is perfect.. but if Honestly.com creates a culture where there is no reality about how we are as people in the reviews, and the public social contract around criticizing is pretty clear that it's not okay to do it in public, then I don't think the site with ever be helpful for real evaluation. And frankly why should it? We are talking about reviewing people after all and that in and of itself is pretty weird on a public website. I'm not sure negative reviews would work anyway because there is still no context or verifiable connection and what would a negative review really communicate, compared to say, a toaster oven at Amazon? I think negative reviews would just make Honestly.com a really downer and who would want to use it at that point? But what is the point of a site with only positive reviews?

There are other reasons people give good references for jobs not well done (in personal or phone refs): they do so out of obligation, they fired the person and want to see them get hired elsewhere to relieve that guilt, other guilt and pity, or like I experienced twice, they were bullied and it worked. Of course there are also good reviews because the reviewed is great and does great work. But how can you tell the difference between these?

Lastly, people change. A person labeled "great" at 25 could have a crisis at 30 and become unreliable.. or the same 25 year old could be a flake then and terrific at 32. So I'm not sure that a cumulative rating system over time is so great either, in the form of a fixed website.

So let's cut to the chase. Usually it takes 2 years for everyone to figure out that something in silicon valley isn't real. GroupOn will take that time.. as they are currently hot and making money, though the 20 or so businesses that I've talked to that have done a coupon have in 95% of the cases had very negative experiences and won't do online coupons again. I don't think GroupOn is viable long term for many other reasons as well but it's sexy now, though they could change into a long term viable model. But as they exist now, they frankly *need* to get bought by Google or someone proto. In 2 years.. people will see the current set of issues.

Likewise, I think Honestly.com, which doesn't have any great buzz currently, other than it's on Facebook occasionally or because people send me messages asking me to review them, will take a while for people to figure out it's not helpful, not worth their time, and in some ways reinforces the high school for adults model we love to embody at times in silicon valley, where you know, the jocks and the cheerleaders are socially held up and the rest grumble.

I just don't see Honestly.com working out. I don't think we need it.. it's not solving a need in our social and work interactions. And I think it sets up a bizarre social contract that one ups the weird one found at LinkedIn. LinkedIn has other value, but I don't see anything at Honestly.com that would transcend the general or specific people review problem to make it valuable in other ways.

Living the Contradiction

Clay Shirky and Spot.us are doing a survey on objectivity in journalism. More info here from Amy Grahan.

If you register, $5 will go to a charity (automagically -- apparently -- matched to your IP address -- I'm traveling for a conference and my $5 went to local event coverage where I am). You can share what you think (anonymously.. they won't share your name with the answers).

Below are my answers.. upon doing the survey I realized I did want to share.

Is objectivity in journalism even possible? my answer (chosen from their list of possible answers): It's not possible. Let's stop pretending

Can you explain your thoughts on the subject? It's not possible to be truly objective... however, i do believe it's an ideal to strive for... and that information collectors should be trained to strive for it simply as a personal stance when they collect information.. but also trained to look for their own leading and biased behaviors that will change the collected information.

Articles often don't share the wording of the questions asked of subjects in articles.. they just share the answers. And depending on the way questions are asked.. it's easy for a subject to be led or mislead to an answer that isn't natural or that leads to a very subjective conclusion that readers cannot see.

Fairness is the real goal in articles and other kinds of reporting.. but in order to replace 'objectivity' with 'fairness' as a journalistic goal, I believe we would need to develop a whole school of 'fairness in reporting' the same way 'objectivity' has been articulated and taught to journalism students to date in Jschools.

Is striving for objectivity in Journalism a good thing? my answer (chosen from their choices): Always - it's required

Yeah.. I get it's a contradiction to say that journalists and information collectors should strive for objectivity even as they also are trained to strive for fairness and to filter out their own natural biases. The reality for me is that even when I collect information, mostly as I do usability studies, I know my biases can show through, that the framing of questions can radically alter the answers from subjects, and that in the end, I have to do my best, though there is no human on the planet who can perfectly seek information and attain perfection in the results. Therefore I have to be honest about these imperfections slipping into the work product. I think the same is true for journalists.

Information collection is a tight-rope walk... it's about trying to stay above the bias while balanced in fairness. No one can do it perfectly.. but fairness in journalism is the ultimate goal I believe, followed by the physical embodiment of the objective stance, even as journalists and other information collects realize they can't be truly unbiased. It's as tricky as high wire work.. and I think information collectors and reporters need to respect what this is about.. to maintain the balance while making the ultimate expression in their reports focused on fairness.

At the 30,000 foot level, all collecting and reporting work is subjective. Collecting information, choosing what is fair, what is worthy to include in a report, what to reveal about a reporters' questions and stance involves personal decisions and judgments. In a usability study, I always include in my reports the questions and tests, so that readers can evaluate for themselves what I've done in my report. This is not typically done in journalism reporting.

Maybe the new fairness in journalism should combine a sense of personal objectivity as a behavioral stance at information collection, fairness in the choosing of who and what to investigate, fairness in what ultimately makes the published report, and disclosure of how the reporter did these steps. It means bringing forward the reporter into the context of the story.. but maybe the new fairness is about holding reporters more accountable within the story. Since the internet allow articles to go on with as much backup as possible, this kind of accountability disclosure wouldn't cost anything but the reporters time to add in a little context about who they talked to, what they asked and how it was done. And it would radically change the conversation about what is going on in journalism as an objective or subjective medium.

Rant on Aggression Is Our Filter (for Now)

On Friday, Clay Shirky was on NPR talking about why NPR doesn't use nearly as many women sources as men.

I love listening to Clay talk and he's a dear friend. And of course in the NPR On The Media interview, he and the host discussed the irony that *he* was on to discuss this.. instead of a woman. But since he wrote this post: A Rant About Women, about how his women students weren't nearly aggressive enough about promoting themselves as "arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks," NPR decided to have him on their show.

Basically, while I like that Clay and others like NPR are discussing this issue, I disagree with one part of his blog post and his interview answers on NPR about why NPR has a lack of women as sources, or why women aren't getting the jobs men get, or why women aren't as successful.

Aside from the fact that news producers are responsible for finding good interviewees (not interviewees finding news producers) which was the NPR story focus, I have a real problem with the idea that *aggression* is the appropriate filter for quality and relevance. It's not that I think Clay is advocating for aggression as our filter but rather he's accepting it without question. It's just that this Aggression Filter is so implicit that we all accept it without question.

What is the Aggression Filter?

Depends on the circumstance, but it almost always involves someone having to be aggressive in some way in order to be taken seriously and noticed, either through some sort of online or public yelling, or outrageous actions or marketing language spewed out to get people's attention. Often it's a deep loud voice when in person (this favors men) and could involve various ways that people get into something, like the agenda to speak at a conference or camp (diving head first into an agenda wall is going to filter for people literally willing to hurl their bodies at the speaker's wall or who have big bodies to muscle past others). Or it could be the person who gets someone to recommend them with ridiculous language, or gets some other loud-mouthed social media guru to speak up for them. Whatever it is, it's often behavior that could be quelled by peer pressure and social norms that look past the loud behavior to focus on what people do that qualifies them. When the standard for getting noticed is all about marketing language and yelling loudest, pushing through physically or behaving with obnoxiousness, we have a filter that only notices aggressive acts to the exclusion of good work and quality offerings.

As the internet+social media self-promotion machine amps up what was already a problematic Aggression Filter for finding value, we further reinforce our already broken system for how we find interesting, relevant people to talk about ideas, speak at events or create anything of quality or fill jobs.

I don't believe there is any correlation between aggression and quality of ideas, products, new startups, books, jobs or anything else. Yelling loudest to self or otherwise promote just means the yeller is loud and an obnoxious, pompous jerk (Clay and I definitely agree on those descriptors).

The Aggression Filter is what needs fixing. We need filters in tech that de-emphasize aggression to find what is interesting, innovative and risk-taking in any strata where people compete for value. The future of tech innovation depends on it, and so do women.

However, that said, I do very much agree with Clay when he says that women don't dive into uncharted waters with the confidence that men do. I see men all the time donning a new title for themselves for which they have little experience, and then plowing ahead to find the people with experience who can help them learn or do the parts they don't know. Many men may not even say anything about their lack of experience and just fly by the seat of their pants willy nilly. For example, a new startup founded by a guy might find him claiming the CEO role, and then hiring a COO to run the finances and operations. He may never have been CEO before, but he just takes the challenge. Most women I know want to make sure they have all the possible requisite experience under their belts before facing a daunting title like CEO. And if a funder suggests that maybe a more experienced CEO should be brought in, women are often quick to give up the reins. Not always true, and there are prominent examples where this hasn't happened... but often I see this abdication by women in one form or another.

What's key for women? Being willing to take the risk, fearlessly face criticisms, jump into the unknown and ask for the help needed to get things done. What shouldn't be key? Aggressive behaviors bordering on "jerk."

For now, I'm going to call my desired value-set the Thoughtful Risk filter.

What is the Thoughtful Risk Filter?

It's a filter for finding acts and people who take risks, that then includes evaluation of the thoughtfulness or usefulness of the product, book, job-seeker, pundit, prospective student, startup or company offering. In other words, just risking isn't enough, we want to see something of value.

Another example of the differences that fall along gender lines I've noticed comes in hiring. When I hire male engineers, I find they often overstate their qualifications and skills, and not just by a little. Hiring women engineers, I find that they almost always understate what they bring to the project. So I normalize. And I often find that in a room full of those men and women I've hired, they are pretty equally matches (when normalizing for years of experience).

I'd like to see women take leaps more often by founding startups, and see tech development, startups and VCs think smarter about how to build something of value via a Thoughtful Risk Filter, not through the Aggression Filter, which is what I see so often as the proof point for figuring out who gets money and who doesn't. With so many aggressive guys pitching so many alpha-male VCs, and the subconscious, unexamined Aggression Filter in place, we get a lot of garbage funded. Often the premises getting funded are utterly silly, and we all have to wait around 2-4 years for the users, founders, press and the funders figure out "this dog don't hunt."

People taking thoughtful, planned risks is where it's at. I'd like to see more women thoughtfully risking in the future. But in order to do that, we must shift what we value going forward and encourage people to perform for a Thoughtful Risk Filter. However without more women in partnership roles at VC funds, or pressures from Limited Partners (those who give money to VC funds) we may not see this change soon in the tech development ecosystem. But a value shift in the community would likely put pressure on funders.

People in the tech ecosystem can model, teach and support confidence in women to risk thoughtfully, even if these women fear criticism, or the exposure of their weaknesses as they do it. But if we don't value thoughtful, insightful risk over aggressiveness displayed by the "arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks," no matter whether it's a startup funding pitch or a job recommendation, we won't get people performing for a Thoughtful Risk filter.

When aggression is our filter, we burn people out, often women but men also, and fast. It's not pleasant or life sustaining to constantly be in an environment where aggressive measures are the gauge for what has value. Worse for women, it goes against the way we socialize with the world in communitarian ways over competitive ways. Though I don't think most men like it long-term on an endless loop either. We squander good people when we use aggression as our standard, and in the end, get less quality innovative work than we need.

There's a reason Caterina Fake posted this photo below from the Hunch white board stating rules that support a less aggressive and more thoughtful workplace, and it's not just because people work better with defined work times, breaks and single tasks on which to focus. It's because expecting people in a work environment to "do everything at once" and "stay the latest in the office" and "email at all hours" which many start ups do, encourages aggression as a filter for defining who on a project is worthy, who has control and what the best ideas, the best people and the best work are, instead of the most thoughtful, most useful and most well executed work for innovation.

(image by Caterina Fake)

I get that we are far from living with a Thoughtful Risk value set in tech (whether start up or established environment) as a rule, but we need higher minded goals and to convey these values through social pressure in our interactions. Just playing along with the current Aggression Filter value set only steers away women from tech opportunities, keeps women lower down the ladder, and our products just aren't as good without diverse inputs, nor do they speak to the majority of customers who are in fact women. I realize not everyone plays the aggression game in Tech, but most do in some way. Aggression Filters will only shift with conscious effort and social pressure by us to value Thoughtful Risk Filters.

It's us who can make it better for women in tech, as well as better products, services and companies as a whole because we decide to change what we value. We are responsible for enabling a system that supports aggression and we are responsible for changing it to something better.

Information Technology meets Medical: Why We Should All Be a Little Worried

Today I had what I would say was an anecdotal experience regarding data privacy.. calling my OBGYN to make my annual appointment. I ended up using their new website and giving various personal data, only to figure out that they have no privacy policy for data, that the data was going to a third party, and that in trying to make an online appointment, all I really got after sharing data was an email form to request an appointment.

So, here's the scoop.

In calling into the doctor's office, I got their voice system which has always required lots of number punching to finally get through to someone to make an appointment. It's better than 10 years ago where you could literally never talk to anyone in their offices and would just punch numbers endlessly until leaving them a message. That would be followed by a return call that you would invariably miss, having to start the process over, to get another call back.. all to just make an appointment.

Anyway, calling in today only requires two selections, before being told my call was in line to be picked up after approximately 6 minutes of estimated wait, OR I could use their online system. Whooppee! I could make an appointment using what I imagined was a calendar with available timeslots to book appointments? So here is Golden Gate Obstetrics (GGObgyn) big chance to show how they are using information technology to help people organize this process of getting an appointment better and faster!

Super cool!

Er... NOT. So. Fast.

Following the voice system at GGObgyn, I go to http://goldengateobgyn.medem.com/ which redirects me to http://www.ggobgyn.mymedfusion.com/:

The branding all over the site is "Golden Gate Obstetrics" so I'm thinking: okay, this is their site, even though it's got some other root domain name (mymedfusion.com).. in other words, Golden Gate Obstetrics is responsible for my health info, and I just need to get in to see their calendar and choose a time or something. So I go to "create an account" (Note below I've made screen shots of the *second* account I made, called 'testacct' to see what was going on a second time.. since the first time when I made an account for myself, it went by quickly and I wasn't suspicious until the end of the very end of the process):

I put in my name, SS # and DOB and email. After submitting, I was brought to this form (screenshots are in two parts as it was a longer page):

As you can see, there's enough data request there for someone to do some damage if they wanted to. At this point I was getting a little concerned about where this data was going, but keeping in mind GGObgyn's history where getting staff on the phone to make appointments is so difficult, I went ahead and submitted my data.

The screen instantly took me to a logged in state, saying "we are now your Health Record provider" which I found totally freaky. I don't want them to be my Health Record provider. I just want to schedule an appointment. All this, without requesting any sort of email verification or other checking... just gave me an account. At that point, I could go make an appointment:

To say the least, I was shocked. So I just put in all this personal information, dinked around with forms etc, to be given a glorified email form to request an appointment? With structured data about which day of the week I want the appointment? How about a calendar with available time slots? So I could just pick based upon my availability? No... it appears they are going to email me back or call me with times so we could go back and forth over schedules again, in email? Really? This is the promise of information technology for scheduling? I mean aside from the privacy issues, I really felt like I'd been had in terms of my time sink for their silly email form.

I notice there is no help or privacy statement on any of the pages in their system (and I clicked on all of them), and the "ask a question" page is all about medical stuff, not using the website. But I figure GGObgyn is responsible for this site. So I call them, and after a lengthy wait, get the appointment receptionist. And I ask, where did my data go? And she says she doesn't know, but they own the site, so therefore my data is safe.

This seemed reasonable given the interface on the GGObgyn website was so incomplete with so many important things missing (like a privacy statement as I entered in my SS # and DOB and address, etc. or even a privacy policy in the footer somewhere, or a help page, or real contact info), it had to have been done by people who don't normally develop websites.

I asked if the receptionist could give me the privacy policy, or tell me where my data had gone, and she said she would pass me to the "online manager" named Olivia. Olivia started off my telling me she sits on the system "all day long... as account requests from users to join their online system appear on my screen.. I look the patient up and put through the approval if the new user is in fact a patient."

ME: "Really? because my account approval seemed instantaneously to happen on my screen."
Olivia: "Oh yes.. I did that."
ME: "Wow.. you're fast."

Then Olivia reiterated to me that she's there literally every minute at work approving patient account requests.. because she manually approves all new accounts and also is there to pass along requests of appointments.. etc. And she was sure there was a privacy policy somewhere on the system. Her description of the account approval process sort of contradicts the fact that I could make an account called "testacct" and get right into their system without any approval but I didn't bother mentioning that. I just wanted to know where my data had gone from my first real account made with them.

After that, she could only talk about how to use the system from her perspective, not mine. In other words, Olivia had no idea what regular users face (ie, There is no privacy information, as I typed in my personal data, and no real idea other than from reading the URL in the address bar that maybe a third party was collecting my data, etc. Reading address bar URLs is something most users don't do.)

I told Olivia she literally wasn't getting the problem, because she just kept repeating to me how she uses the system (as an administrator over user accounts and for appointments where, I'm guessing, she has to be seeing an administrator version of the Medfusion system or some kind of much more powerful interface than the one regular users see when they log into the system). So she said she wanted to pass me to their office manager, Laura, who said, as she picked up the call:

"Mary, i've been listening to your call with Olivia" ... er.. okay.. no one disclosed to me that my call with Olivia was going to be monitored by others listening in. Unsettling. And possibly illegal. But whatever, that's really the least of my concerns here.

I told Laura there was no disclosure to me in advance of having a third party get my personal data.. and after Medfusion had it, I had no way of finding out what they are going to do with it.

I asked Laura about GGObgyn's ownership of Medfusion, but she replied that Golden Gate Obstetrics *did not* own Medfusion as the receptionist had told me. Instead, GGObgyn used them because they could not email "using Gmail or AOL" about appointments because that "wasn't safe." I was thinking really? Because having a website where my data just goes to third parties with no written privacy policy seems pretty unsafe.

So she explained that every page on their site (see all the screenshots and look hard for it!) have some sort of key symbol in yellow (it's not on any of the screen shots I took of the site, and I took shots of every page on their site), which if i click on the key, "will take me to their privacy policy." Okay.. so ignoring the obvious question of why they have a yellow key to signal a privacy policy (totally not intuitive from a user perspective), I look all over all the webpages that I can get to from the left side navigation, read them to Laura, and confirm that I cannot find the key.

Laura replied, "Well I can't help you anymore, because this is a waste of our time.. if you didn't want to put your information into MedFusion then you shouldn't have."

ME: "But your voice system told me to. And your name is on the website, and you aren't really disclosing that you are giving my data to a third party, MedFusion or telling me what they or you are going to do with it."

Laura: "Well, I can print the privacy policy and fax it to you."

ME: "But I don't have a fax machine. Can't you email it?"

Laura: "No.. maybe i could scan it and send it in email, but I'm not sure... and there isn't anything else I can do anyway." (It was clear she was trying to end the call.)

ME: "Er... Okay." (And then I hung up.)

A few hours later while writing this post, looking at the GGObgyn site, I noted that they added a privacy policy to the left side navigation, though that policy doesn't govern anything about what I entered into the GGObgyn site because it wasn't there when I gave my data. Medfusion and GGObgyn are under no obligation to keep my data safe or private, based on that policy.

No help or contact pages appeared afterward.

The privacy policy, which I read through, has a few issues. First, it starts off just saying "we" .. and my question is, We Who? I mean.. is it Medfusion? or GGObgyn? Me and GGObgyn together? Or someone else?

At the end of the privacy policy, it says under a section called OUR NOTICE OF PRIVACY PRACTICES:

By law, we must abide by the terms of this Notice of Privacy Practices. We reserve the right to change this notice at any time as allowed by law. If we change this Notice, the new privacy practices will apply to your health information that we already have as well as to such information that we may generate in the future. If we change our Notice of Privacy Practices, we will post the new notice in our Center, have copies available in our office and post it on our website.

So basically, they have to follow the policy, but can change their privacy policy at any time and it's retroactively applied to my old data and old terms? Well, I can see why GGObgyn wouldn't even bother having a privacy policy before because essentially, I have no rights over my data anyway.. because they can just change my rights whenever they want to suit themselves? I feel really good about my personal and medical information held by Golden Gate Obstetrics now.

And then, under COMPLAINTS:

If you think that we have not properly respected the privacy of your health information, you are free to complain to us or to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights. We will not retaliate against you if you make a complaint. If you want to complain to us, send a written complaint to the contact person at the address shown at the beginning of this Notice. If you prefer, you can discuss your complaint in person or by phone.

So.. GGObgyn seriously expects me to complain to the USDoHHS? Why do we have to escalate this to a federal agency? Why can't they discuss it directly with their patients? I would rather just start by telling GGObgyn (which as you can see from the above dialog was incredibly successful, but they really ought to be open to hearing from their users about issues). In looking at the complaints section of the GGObgyn privacy policy, I note that I can contact the person listed "at the top of the privacy policy." Except, surprise! There is no one listed at the top of it. In fact, I don't even really know who "we" is in the policy language. So.. I guess I won't be contacting the "we" in this policy.

If I did want to complain about a privacy policy and questionable data usage problem, frankly I would use the Federal Trade Commission form because the FTC governs these things (see their most recent list of cases here where they go after companies that fail to protect user data and medical information, including the recent CVS case where they violated financial and medical data privacy rules). I have zero confidence that the Office of Civil Rights at the USDoHHS would even have a clue about privacy and my data on a website.

One thing.. after the GGObgyn privacy policy appeared, no one from GGObgn emailed me, or called me, to say that it was now up on their website. Of course, they have all this contact info and my name in their patient files and in their online system that Olivia who runs their website presumably could pull up very quickly and easily send me an email telling me to look at the policy.

I would also recommend that businesses like Golden Gate Obstetrics use the FTC page on Protecting their user's data and privacy which is very helpful when trying to figure out how to present privacy info on a website.

Frankly, I have no way to alert anyone at GGObgyn to this blog post, or to my thoughts on the subject, other than to call back, sit on hold, and talk with the three people I already discussed this with, who were ranged from unhelpful to hostile. Since GGObgyn doesn't seem open to discussing their websites problems and the fact that the cat is kind of out of the bag now with my data going God knows where into various company's hands, I'm posting this example of how companies, particularly *medical* entities, with no experience or understanding of information technology systems and websites need to use extreme care, and not assume that office staff trained to run a medical office has any idea what users need or will face with a website collecting personal or medical data.

I hope people at medical or other data collection companies will realize the importance of protecting user data and being straight with us about what's happening to personal and medical information. My experience is just one, but if this becomes representative of people's experience with their medical providers, we ought to be very worried.

Note: I took a look, when writing this post, at ratings for Dr. Wiggins, whom I really like and have enjoyed having as my doctor. You can see from the ratings at Health Grades that Dr. Wiggins is well liked by patients but the appointment system and her office staff.. not so much. I hope GGObrgn does an overhaul on all their office administration and website that interacts with patients before they venture further with information technology as tool for communications.

Transparency Camp West: Observations

(image by Beth Kanter)

First, Kaliya Hamlin has written a great post on how to manage an unconference so that participants get the most from the event, and feel connected to the topic and solving a particular problem set as well as make stronger social relationships for future potential workings (in this case Transparency Camp West, held yesterday in Charlie's old cafe plus a few small conference rooms at Google in Mountain View).

I attended Transparency Camp West (#TCamp09) from Saturday Afternoon through Sunday's brief closing. It was structured more like a BarCamp or FooCamp (with minimal facilitation) than an unconference using the Open Space method (pdf) (which has a bit more social and activity facilitation and structure). I attended TCamp because I'm interested in, as well as want to help with, Transparency which I feel strongly is a very good thing for government to engage in.

The first Barcamp was formed as an alternative to FooCamp, O'Reillly's "friends of oreilly" camp held at their headquarters annually (note I have attended FOO and really enjoyed it.) That first Barcamp had the social cohesion that forms around the shared hurts which many there felt as insult and exclusion, because of an unfortunate and ill-worded blog post about FooCamp inclusion. So that particular Barcamp's lack of facilitation wasn't an issue. (Note that I didn't personally feel the insult because I know the people who run FooCamp and knew it wasn't directed at me personally. Yet I felt it for the other young folks there who couldn't understand whether they were the ones being called out as unworthy to attend Foocamp and therefore felt hurt. I spent a fair amount of time that first and second day of the first Barcamp consoling young developers, explaining that I didn't think they were the targets of that Foocamp blog post either.. but they were hurt anyway. And hurts do bring a certain cohesion.)

But subsequent Barcamps have suffered from the lack of a Beginning and Ending. They have a start and a finish, but they don't really begin in any formal way, where a facilitator helps the event process and participants to plan the event agenda, announce each session proposal, and then push for documentation of learnings, nor do they have an ending where the participants are brought back together to share learnings and insights, and close properly as a social group who may, hopefully want to see each other again one day. Barcamps often just start. Organizer announces a wall. And that's it. Dive in. Left socially flapping in the breeze.

When I've attended Barcamps in NYC or Austin or SF or other local barcamp styled events, I've alternately been pleased to see everyone show up and many present something interesting, and yet dismayed by the lack of social cohesion or shared learning and evolving that I know from experience is possible at an open space style unconference. This is especially true for the wall-rushing of the Bar/Foo style, which is great if your 22 and male, and want to dive head first into a pile of bodies to get your slot. But if you're not (and say female or not 22) then you would likely really enjoy the ability to announce one at a time your session without having to dive ass in the air into the sweaty bodies just to get your slot. Filtering agenda creation through that process has nothing to do with whether a session will be any good, and everything to do with 22 y old male "f-u" culture.

But think about an unconference as a story: there is a beginning, a middle and an ending when it's done well.

Open Space unconferences provide that social structure, without filling in the content. The participants do that. It's still an unconference but it's got social support in a way that Barcamps don't.

So why does it matter that Transparency Camp was more Barcamp than Open Space? Because it felt like they squandered the opportunity to get the most out of the participants brainstorming solutions and connecting socially around the tough problems that many, most notably the Sunlight Foundation are attacking. In fact, I didn't realize until the end of the event that there was any particular leader leading the event (I missed the beginning because I thought it would be really hard to get in but in fact the event was in a huge cavernous space with tons of room and comparably few people.. sparse even.. though the break out rooms which were tiny were often packed -- that said, I missed their beginning and only heard it later). At the brief ending, when the leader said, "Anybody have anything to say, or any criticisms?" to that giant cavernous room with a few people milling about at the end, it felt so awkward. No.. I'm never going to share anything under those circumstances. Certainly not criticisms.

::shudder::

I think he was a little out of his depth in terms of facilitation experience. Though I did love the singing he did to call everyone back into the ending time.

One thing the FooCamp/BarCamp method sets as an expectation is that everyone will "come present something amazing." Well, not everyone has something amazing to present. Or is an expert. But what TCamp had was a bunch of smart people in the room interested in a particular problem set: transparency of data.

I did work for a congressman long ago for 4.5 yrs, 1.5 of which was in Washington, but I'm a technologist now. I work with hopefully-structured data and make algorithms and create systems and interfaces.. I don't work in government currently -- hate bureaucracy -- but I do want transparency in government and so I'm strongly aligned with the Sunlight Foundation's mission. In other words, I gave TCamp a day and a half of my time as a non-expert in current government transparency to try to help as a civic gesture, not because I do it for a living.

So why not instead use Open Space, which sets the expectation that some will present amazing things, but the rest will attack a problem from different angles in a discussion format? This is a subtle, but very important social distinction about session formats. However, including both session formats requires an Open Space facilitation method to get people thinking in the direction of question and answer, not presentation broadcast and competition, so that they are socially aligned to work together, but also not so structured that it takes the life out of the budding, thoughtful ideas these participants might come up with around the problem-set.

In other words, it's a balance: structure and openness. This balance is cultivated in the Open Space, camp process where there is a real opening and closing plus announced sessions. Also important is the social evening event between the two days, where all organizers of the event should attend to give even the this time heft and importance as an integral part of the communal event, as well as to receive informal feedback on how things are going. Aside: when I walked into the TCamp evening event and saw none of the organizers there, and a sea of people I mostly didn't know, I though.. oh it's not that important to be here and I'm tired and want to go home and eat something simple and light and just chill. But before I saw that, I was fully prepared to spend the evening continuing to socialize around the Transparency Camp problem-set.

(image by Joseph Boyle)

I really enjoyed Dan Gillmor's session on governmental dissemination of information in an open, and individuated media world. Dan is thoughtful and sincere in his desire to chronicle and assist with the transformation from broadcast to social and individual media as we navigate this new world, especially around government data. I also liked the session on Lobbyists which was hilariously and spontaneously focused on how to understand and better map their activities. The session on transparent data, by Natalie Fonseca of Techpolicy, and how far should it go in exposing personal, governmental and corporate data was great.. though the strides were likely lost to Twitter's short horizon of maintained tweets. I do hope someone took notes about what we discussed and posts them. And Esther Dyson's session on genetic data sociality and exposure was terrific, if not totally on topic about government data transparency.

One last thing, overall I enjoyed TCamp and would attend again. But there were a number of incidents where I saw people puffing themselves up as they presented things (sometimes great, sometimes ill conceived) or otherwise talked in sessions (the amount of reactionary eye rolling confirmed for me that I wasn't the only one surprised and dismayed by this behavior across sessions). It may be that in order to be a technologist / player in Washington or other governmental locals, that being pompous is a job requirement in order that the old guard in WDC or California take you seriously. But considering the problem set: transparency for the common man, I felt there was some irony in this behavior. And since some of it came from Sunlight folks, it made me worried for them. I know we could do the typical Silicon Valley thing where some engage in something stupid, and we all don't say anything and two years later they fail. But Sunlight and these other orgs don't have two years to figure out that this behavior is counterproductive. They are non-profits and there is a public good to what they do, and they need to deal with this now, not figure it out in two years after no-one has said anything.

Thankfully Sunlight has people like the extraordinary Ellen Miller and the very thoughtful Esther Dyson, whom I hope can help school these youngsters in the idea that self-puffery gets you nowhere in Silicon Valley, or for that matter outside the Beltway or Sacramento. Not to mention it makes it very difficult to listen well. Simply presenting something without your own ego inserted in front of the presentation or your contributory statement is the best way to get us all to say: WOW, what a great idea.. I want to help too! And since what you are presenting is interesting, you must be smart too!

That said, I was very impressed with Sunlight's Policy Director, John Wonderlich, who was thoughtful, socially pleasant, listened well and didn't seem to have any personal agenda to advance his own ego and stature. Maybe he even pets small children and dogs on the head and helps little old ladies cross the road as he walks to work each day too, I don't know, but Sunlight could use more people like him because he really added to every session in which I encountered him, both in terms of smart thoughts and socially to make people feel comfortable with the thoughts and ideas being passed around.

Celebrity Worship in the Post-Modern Internet

Doc Searls in a post on celebrity, black holes and productivity comments on celebrity as a form of coasting. Below is my reaction. I think there is more to it. Let me know what you think.

I've been talking about celebrity a lot since Thurs afternoon re: MJ, FF, EM, etc. Doc and I discussed this a month ago in depth too. I've been trying to figured out for the past year what the hyperdrive of microcelebrity is on Twitter that so many run after. And then the real celebrities hit twitter en masse and the hyperdrive of real celebrity is there as well. That drive diminishes at times one's ability to have a real conversation because some of those diving into conversations have agendas like trying to get the attention of the perceived AList (whatever that is.. oh yes.. the high follower counts, goosed by the twitter suggested follower list, provide us with a definitive answer... thank the gods).

But the triple-hit celebrity death match on Thursday drove me to my thought which is that most people need to follow, most people need something to worship, and most people have given up serious religion (of the type where you spend like 20 hours a week in church and the pope or the ayatollah or the supreme leader or whoever is your celebrity representative communicates with god for you and leads you and makes the decisions and you worship him to get to god because you can't talk to him yourself).

Michael Jackson and other celebs are the replacement for that sort of seriously time consuming difficult religion, because media and post-modernism make it easy (where premodern means god is above man, modern has everything equal: god, man, nature, and post-modern means nothing is more important than you). If nothing is more important than the individual, but he/she needs to follow something bigger than the self out of insecurity or whatever and there is very little ritual left post-old-style-religion to set people on their own course of confidence, productivity and humility in the world, and you have the media machine the past 100 years that now includes internet and self-publicity on things like twitter, well.. you have the perfect primordial soup to grow the MJ, etc worship replacing organized religion we see now. And of course, the celebrity version is so much easier and more fun, kind of like fast food.

Doc is right, celebrity worship is a tremendous form of distraction, but I would argue most don't have the confidence, discipline, or for that matter the interest in spending their time on more constructive things. While most are capable of much more, there is safety in worship. That's why the church/temple/mosque of old was so effective. It filled the rest of your time after work and set the order that god was first, then the supreme leader as the physical manifestation, then puny you, so you would worship up the hierarchy. Oh, and you were given a structure to think about life and death. Which is frightening to many. And there was a structure for work and discipline, however messed up these organized religions have been over the centuries.

In Post-Modernity, celebs fill the worship channel, effortlessly, where the celeb hierarchy is the order and the media connects you. Microcelebs are the long tail of this channel. Nothing going on with the top? Well.. there is always Guy Kawasaki or iJustine. And if you as the worshiper can get nearer to the celeb so much the better. People used to say: god is my savior. Now they say, "I remember exactly where I was when I heard MJ died." It's a way of placing yourself close to the worshiped thing.

Not to mention that you don't have to think about death if you go with the celebrity distraction mechanism, except when Farrah and Michael and Ed McMahon leave us, at which point people seem to just increase the worship but don't really have to face facts about their own lives.

It's utterly silly, and of course the internet and socialmedia send this tendency and need an order of magnitude higher than before. But I think it's a rat-brain need for the masses to worship something, and celebrity is the post-modern fast-food solution.

Opiates anyone?

Mobile Engineering: Why Coders with Old World Discipline Have the Advantage

A month or so ago, someone (I can't remember who) said to me that mobile engineering was hard for web engineers to do because it was so different. I've worked over the nine months on product development for several mobile applications at Apisphere, and more specifically the last couple of months seen coding for handsets up close. I can see why those who are great at coding the front end of websites that will go out to people with beefy computers might have trouble coding for tiny devices with limited memory, harddrives and processors. Even smart phones are no competition for the latest desk or laptop.

Working with engineers on Android, iPhone and Blackberry apps, where GPS data is involved, and each of these phones' quirks are being exposed, I've come to realize there is much more to this than just the difference between webcoding and mobile engineering. I started in tech in the 90's working on boxed software. Huge projects with 60 engineers making things for big machines of the time. Those kinds of projects required enormous specs, Market Research Docs (MRDs) and Product Research Docs (PRDs), etc. When I later switched and started writing algorithms for web apps, building little classification systems, and working closely with engineers on web apps creating the information architectures and meaning on sites, through interfaces and algorithms, I didn't think all that much about the differences between installed boxed software and web development, other than the specs I was writing were far smaller and we iterated a whole lot more on the web development in tighter cycles, and often the usability was built in a bit more from the beginning instead of bolted on at the end.

But now seeing development for mobile and creating mobile apps, I realize engineers who learned to code way back when have a huge advantage over web and large app engineers who've never been forced to economize. Those early coders know what it means to optimize for tiny amounts of ram and hard drive space, to create truly elegant code that is compact, efficient, and doesn't take over a device or machine.

In contrast, I find my Firefox usage often pushes my laptop out of control as javascripts go crazy on tabs in the background. Those pages were written by programmers unschooled in the art of system management, who may believe the system resources are unlimited or worse, dedicated *only* to the running of the browser+their webapp. They don't even seem to know they ought to be considering users and their resources based upon the pinwheel of death I regularly experience. I'm often climbing through FF tabs on pages open for work and play as I go through my day, trying desperately to locate that one tab that's going crazy, pushing FF to 125% according to Top. When I get it shut down, after massive frustration and system hangs, waiting to see if the next tab is it, I realize another tab is out of control. And so on until I get my machine back.

Building mobile apps, there is no way we can put that sort of strain on a smart phone, much less a little tiny phone. At this point after watching 9 months of mobile development, I'm realizing the preferred mobile developer is someone who has hardcore coding experience with languages like Java and C++/C#, who had to optimize for old computers with minimalist ram, hardrives and CPUs. People who code as if their program will be the only one open or up in a browser need not apply.

In fact, I would say that older coders with this sort of discipline will often have a distinct advantage over the young new web-only coders, and will be the ones who help us move mobile forward as a viable industry. Of course, those who embody all of these skills for all environments will have the best chances to work in mobile going forward, as I see mobile delivery of webpages as also key to this industry.

The Life of a Tweet

Twitter (and the ISchool -- or one of my poor brethern -- I have a masters from UCBerkeley's iSchool) seem to be in the tweetsphere over one ill-found tweet tossed off by a student and found by her summer internship employer likely via search.twitter.com. For background, you can see this: FattyCisco.com. The poor girl is likely humiliated and horrified over what she thought was an innocent and also, likely, a fleeting thought that didn't really reflect how she felt overall.

We've all had those momentary thoughts where when we are ambivalent, we toss something out of our mouths and once it's out there, we think, wow, that doesn't even ring true or, it did for a nanosecond, and now it's changed, or gee, that's about 5% of the way I actually feel about this. But out of mouth, truly ephemeral (unless recorded in some form) is different than written down and searchable in the grand database of the Googlezon and search at twitter. Or maybe it's just a joke.

This is one of the problems with online communities and specifically twitter:

You don't know who's listening, and because of search tools, you are findable beyond your follower list
or your "community" of known tweeters (ppl you @ with or read) unless your account is private.

I don't think we have at all sussed out what it means to tweet in the long term, or what the power of the tweet is, or where the tweet goes and what sort of life it has beyond the first few minutes or hours of it's life in the Twitter / client context.

This is another example of something that happened recently:

A PR exec going to Memphis to meet with a client, Fed Ex, insulted the client on the way to the meeting. The clients wrote a letter to the PR company and him, his bosses, and cc'd everyone at Fed Ex as well. Ooops.

The problem is, tweets go to those paying attention at the moment, those who may save tweets in clients (i leave my twitter client open and check it now and then as I have time -- right now I have 15k tweets from the past couple of days), those pivoting on a single user, those searching for key words, those looking a related conversations.

But when you tweet, in your head, you're often just thinking about those you expect to read it, like only a few your followers paying attention at the time. What happens with some tweets (some reading by some followers) is not what can happen with all tweets.

The interface and interaction at Twitter's website doesn't lead you to believe that what happens most often there will happen in incendiary examples. And different twitter clients (an android or Iphone app for example) don't lead you to understand the permanent nature of tweets, through use, that say, search.twitter.com might, as you see something you deleted appear there anyway.

It takes experience with all these different modalities to inform you because there is no advance disclosure or warning of the elasticity of a single tweet.

What is most interesting is this pushes me to think harder about what the interface of "aged information" online looks like (and I don't mean google search results that move from page 1 to page 3 over time).

And I have to ask myself what it would mean to have what Judith Donath discussed on the panel, Is Privacy Dead or Just Very Confused, moderated Saturday at SXSW by danah boyd. Judith discussed having some kind of a "mirror" for you of your digital self that would reflect all your online presentation and communications and expression... just so you might get a sense of what you show people and what you project at a moment in time. Right now it's really hard to gather that sense of yourself. Right now, you don't really see it in any sort of complete way. But others see pieces of you digitally represented at different times. It would be like re-disclosing for yourself what you've done, discovering how others view you, in slices or on the whole, in order to see the effect you have. It would probably be helpful to know what had reach and where, and what was for now at least, forgotten.

But frankly, the privacy implications of that are huge as well. So, I'm thinking. No answers on that one yet.

Trademark Tyranny by Jones Day: We Don't Like Your Stinking Linking Expression

So it turns out that Jones Day, the utterly clueless lawfirm, sued a small real estate reporting company, BlockShopper, for talking about Jones Day the normal way we all do online: with the name of a person or thing, linking to that person or things website underneath the name. The settlement agreement (pdf) says future linking must to changed as so:

... instead of posting "Tiedt is an associate," the site will write "Tiedt (http://www.jonesday.com/jtiedt/) is an associate." (The agreement also calls on BlockShopper to say that the lawyer in question is employed at Jones Day and that more information about the attorney is on the firm's Web site.) Via Wendy David at Slate

The first way is perfectly normal and the way everyone does it online. The altered version required by the suit is just silly. No one does it that way.

Though some do some creative linking expression like so:

Clueless bullies with no thought but for their own pride

and

Federal ninny making decisions who doesn't get trademark, the web, linking expression or his own ass from a tale pipe.

Groups like EFF, Public Knowledge, Public Citizen and Citizen Media Law Project tried to file an amicus (friend-of-the-court) brief but federal district court Judge John Darrah rejected it. And he denied BlockShopper's motion to dismiss before trial.

The only reason Jones Day "won" is because they are big, litigious jerks who found a judge that doesn't get social norms on the web. 15 years of social norms. Across the world wide web. For hundreds of millions of people.

PS. just in case Jones Day is worried (per their ideas in the suit that linking to them means the public could be confused), or anyone else is wondering, this website is not connected in any way with Jones Day.

Happy Data Privacy Day!

Apparently, last night the US House of Representatives passed HR 31 declaring January 28, 2009 National Data Privacy Day. 402 votes in favor, none opposed. Jolynn Dellinger of Intel Corporation, working with Congressman David Price and Congressman Stearns, spearheaded the effort.

More info for today's events at The Privacy Association.

She's Geeky

Hey.. She's Geeky is a few days away, and you can still sign up.

The list of great women attending is here: She's Geeky Attendees and Registration

Really looking forward to interacting with all those awesome girl geeks on Friday and Saturday at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View!

She's Geeky Again! Jan 30-31, 2009

The second She's Geeky will happen at the end of this month! The first was held 14 months ago in Mountain View at the Computer History Museum, and this year it will happen there again.

Here are all the important links to get you going:

Website: http://www.shegeeky.org
BLOG: http://shesgeeky.org/sg/blog/
WIKI: http://shesgeeky.org/wiki/

Registration:
on site: http://shesgeeky.org/sg/register/
on eventbrite: http://shesgeekybayarea.eventbrite.com/

Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=5010135719
Event on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=53885344492
LinkedIn Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=39189

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/shesgeeky

PLEASE be sure to register for one day $59 or two days $108 and get the early bird price.

Let's face it, this conference is just covering costs with those prices... if you are only able to come on a weekday, you'll be able to come Friday, and if weekends are all you can do, Saturday is it, or even better, come both days!

Also, check out this totally great video shot at the last She's Geeky:

Eniac Programmers Documentary at Computer History Museum

Check out the notice below about the documentary showing on October 22, 2008 about the Eniac Programmers. Should be a fantastic night!

The Computer History Museum Presents
An Evening with Jean Jennings Bartik - 1945 ENIAC Programming Pioneer
7:00pm
Computer History Museum | Hahn Auditorium
1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94043
Wine provided by The Mountain Winery
To register: click here or call (650) 810-1005.

We hope to see you at this celebration of pioneering women in computing -- an event 60 years in the making!

Kathy Kleiman, Historian & Executive Producer, ENIAC Programmers Project
eniacprogrammers.org

About ENIAC Pioneer Jean Bartik. Jean Jennings Bartik was one of the first programmers of the groundbreaking ENIAC computing system in 1945. She later assisted in converting the ENIAC system into one of the first stored-program computers.

Born on a farm in Missouri, the sixth of seven children, Bartik always went in search of adventure. Bartik majored in mathematics at Northwest Missouri State Teachers College (now Northwest Missouri State University). In 1945, at age 20, Bartik answered the Army's Ballistics Research Lab's call for women math majors to join a project in Philadelphia calculating ballistics firing tables for the new guns developed for the WWII effort - she joined over 80 women calculating ballistics trajectories by hand (differential calculus equations) - Her title: "Computer."

Later in 1945, the Army circulated a call for "computers" for a new job with a secret machine. Bartik jumped at the chance and was hired as one of the original six programmers of ENIAC, the first all-electronic, programmable computer. She joined Frances "Betty" Snyder Holberton, Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum and Frances Bilas Spence in this unknown journey.

With ENIAC's 40 panels still under construction, and its 18,000 vacuum tube technology uncertain, the engineers had no time for programming manuals or classes. Bartik and the other women taught themselves ENIAC's operation from its logical and electrical block diagrams, and then figured out how to program it. They created their own flow charts, programming sheets, wrote the program and placed it on the ENIAC using a challenging physical interface, which had hundreds of wires and 3,000 switches. It was an unforgettable, wonderful experience.

On February 15, 1946, the Army revealed the existence of ENIAC to the public. In a special ceremony, the Army introduced ENIAC and its hardware inventors Dr. John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. The presentation featured its trajectory ballistics program, operating at a speed thousands of time faster than any prior calculations. The ENIAC women's program worked perfectly - and conveyed the immense calculating power of ENIAC and its ability to tackle the millennium problems that had previously taken a man 100 years to do. It calculated the trajectory of a shell that took 30 seconds to trace it. But, it took ENIAC only 20 seconds to calculate it - faster than a speeding bullet! Indeed!

The Army never introduced the ENIAC women.

No one gave them any credit or discussed their critical part in the event that day. Their faces, but not their names, became part of the beautiful press pictures of the ENIAC. For forty years, their roles and their pioneering work were forgotten and their story lost to history. The ENIAC Women's story was discovered by Kathy Kleiman in 1985. Bartik will discuss what it means to be overlooked, despite unique and pioneering work, and what it means to be discovered again.

In conversation with Linda O'Bryon, Bartik will also discuss:

* Leading the programming team to convert ENIAC to one of the first stored-program machines (and working with Dr. John von Neumann on ENIAC's first instruction set)
* Working in "Technical Camelot" at the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, as programmer of BINAC and logic designer of UNIVAC
* Sexism and stereotypes at Remington Rand and her first-hand experience with the abuse of women and the misuse of technology
* Friends and pioneers computing history should not forget, including tributes to Betty Holberton, Kay Mauchly Antonelli, the other ENIAC programmers, Dr. John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert
* Some pieces of advice to live by.

About the ENIAC Programmers Project. Founded in 1997, the ENIAC Programmers Project is dedicated to recording, preserving and sharing the stories of women computer pioneers. Its founder, Kathy Kleiman, discovered the ENIAC Programmers as a passing reference in an computing pioneer's autobiography, sought them out, researched and recorded their oral histories. Her nomination of Jean Bartik for the Computer History Museum's 2008 Fellow Award led to this special recognition -- after 60 years!

The Computer History Museum's VIP reception honors Jean Bartik and recognizes the ENIAC Programmers Project's long quest to make a feature-length documentary about the women of ENIAC, WWII Rosie the Riveters who invented many of the concepts of modern programming!

To learn more about this inspiring story and opportunities for documentary support and sponsorship, please go to www.eniacprogrammers.org or contact Kathy Kleiman at Kathy@eniacprogrammers.org.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The ENIAC Programmers Project
Honoring Computer Pioneers and Preserving Their Stories
Feature-length documentary "Invisible Computers: The Untold Story of the ENIAC Programmers" now in development & fundraising.
www.eniacprogrammers.org

Obama New Yorker Cover Remix

Based upon the Kevin Drum/ Washington Monthly suggestion, I remixed this week's New Yorker Cover based upon Barry Blitt's Illustration. It is much funnier with the thought bubble and McCain. I think it will be easy for people in the current climate to misunderstand the original. But the remix makes it easier to get that it's supposed to be funny.

Girl Geek Dinner, Zivity Sponsor Recap, Part I

(Part 1 of a 2 part post.)

It's been 10 days since we held an alternative event for women who wanted to attend something for girl geeks, but didn't want to be at an event sponsored by, with speaker from or with photographers by a porn company, Zivity because it felt like Zivity was trying to use credibility of girl geeks just after their founder took off her shirt in a video at the top of Techcrunch. Many women I spoke with were amazed at the lack of understanding of this by the Girl Geek Dinner organizers.

In discussing this event with people the last few days, it's become clear that what we: me, a couple of women who blogged this, as well as numerous women and men who expressed support for our criticism of the GGD event, understood a few important things that weren't public.

When people found out how hard we'd tried to meet with the GGD event organizer, to discuss this before it became a controversy, and what our perspective was verses just the blanket view that we opposed the event in conjunction with a particular sponsor, they really supported the view that we held, which was that we'd tried to talk about it first, were forced to go increasingly public, and that we had a supportable point that women at work, and networking events are included in this, should not be involved with porn, porn companies or photographers paid for by porn companies. And they really supported that we held an event, however last minute, as an alternative, to the GGD event.

I've also learned a bit more about the situation, that I wasn't aware of at the time, which I wanted to share. And I wanted to tell what happened at the Girl Geek Revolution event (that name is, as I mentioned earlier, tongue in cheek, because we really felt we had to have a revolution in order not to have porn related things at work).

So.. here's what I know about the events the past couple of weeks surrounding the Girl Geek Dinner event:

* I was sent an invite to the Girl Geek Dinner event, by @bayareagirlgeek on Twitter on June 16th.

Looking at the website then (Located here, but it's been updated from that time three weeks ago; I saw then that Zivity was a sponsor, but later their sponsorship was removed, the link name was changed to remove "zivity" at the end of it and the title the link was created from, and the language around Zivity sponsored photographers was lightened up.) The event, slated for June 26th in SF, showed Cyan Banister, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Zivity, as a speaker, as well as talked about the Zivity sponsored photographers in the post describing the event.

* Several of us responded on June 16th to the tweet from @bayareagirlgeek, not knowing who it was who was behind the event and the tweet, saying we were uncomfortable with Zivity as a sponsor because it's a porn company and that didn't feel very supportive of women. We didn't hear anything back:

* Again, not realizing who had organized the first Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner that I'd attended on January 31, 2008, I left a comment on the BAGGD blog post announcing dinner #2 on June 26. My comments appeared to be posted, but then later the blog said they were "under moderation." Two other women posted comments, but none of our comments were posted, and appeared based upon the interface to have been deleted. We weren't sure what happened, but discussed this with the "@bayareagirlgeek" in our tweets on twitter, to get the person using that Twitter handle to discuss this with us, as we tried to resolve the issue (see the Summize list of tweets going back to the original invite, and open the "show conversation" links to view the complete conversation.)

* On June 17, I decided to post the comments I'd tried to leave at the Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner post to my blog, because I felt really strongly about what was happening, and that porn, in a work environment was not good and would make many women feel uncomfortable and unsupported. And I felt that Zivity in particular, because of the Techcrunch stripper video, was using GGD to get girl geek cred. Those comments are here, and while they didn't comprehensively cover the issues and tell everything that was going on at the time, because they replied specifically to the BAGGD blog post, they were meant to catch the attention via the link (many bloggers follow their inbound links) of whoever had written the post so we could discuss the issues.

* On June 18, I checked back at BAGGD blog and the comments had all been removed and the interface said nothing was "awaiting moderation." But I did see in very small type Angie Chang's email as the organizer. I was really surprised, because Angie and I had been through a similar set of things before.

In 2007, Women 2.0, an organization I believe Angie co-founded and which runs an annual pitching contest for women entrepreneurs, called Women 2.0 Napkin Business Challenge. That contest required that *only women under 35* be allowed to participate. I had tried to leave a comment on the corresponding blog post at Women 2.0 in 2007, but it was not approved. Note also that while this post now says there are 46 comments, they are currently invisible on that post now for some odd reason that probably is a technical glitch though because many of them are critical, and Angie seems to have a history of not publishing criticism by others on her blogs, it could also be that she simply told the interface not to post them anymore. I have no idea.

I wrote a blog post to publich my comments not published at Anglie's blog about the Women 2.0 pitch contest excluding women 35 and over.Angie responded in comments at Napsterization saying she disagreed with me that this was a problem. My thought was first-time women founders need help, no matter their age, and age discrimination in any event was a real problem.

Ten or so months later, Angie pinged me, asking to meet because someone (can't remember who but Eve Phillips formerly of Greylock and currently of Chirp comes to mind) had suggested that I wasn't unreasonable, and that she really ought to hear what I had to say about Women 2.0 (btw, I also spoke at an event Women 2.0 held 2 years ago).

We had coffee in early 2008, and I explained why I really felt that first time women entrepreneurs needed the confidence boost, and the support of an organizations like Women 2.0, as they go out to pitch VCs for money for their startups. This year, for the 2008 contest, Women 2.0 removed the "under 35" requirement, and made the contest open to any team with 6 or less founders, where 50% were women. Though I couldn't attend I thought that was terrific and congratulate Women 2.0 and Angie for opening up to all women the opportunities the pitch contest gives.

So, knowing in June 2008 that Angie was organizing the Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner, and had likely produced the blog post and tweets, I pinged her in email, to say that I'd really like to get together to talk about this issue.

After that, I also talked with two other women, who told me they had already pinged Angie, asked to talk on the phone or meet for coffee to talk about the same issue with GGD. That I know of three of us reached out to Angie sometime between the 16th and the 18th trying to talk with her.

* June 20, Angie replied to two of us, requesting to meet on the 21st. Since I was leaving the night of the 21st for NYC, and we were having a 100 degF heatwave, I suggested that instead of meeting at 1pm as Angie suggested, maybe we could do 10am? I both phone texted Angie, and replied in email, as did Kaliya Hamlin, about meeting Saturday for a total of 6 messages between us to Angie offering the option of meeting at 10, 11 or as a last resort, the 1pm time Angie had proposed. I was an hour away from the proposed meeting site in Berkeley, but despite having a busy day and workout planned, not to mention packing and a red eye, I wanted to see this discussion happen. Kaliya also spent the day waiting around for the meeting, skipping working out, and other errands, as she too was just about to leave for a conference in Southern California.

I also found out about the Valleywag and San Jose Mercury News blog posts. (Neither posting showed up in my RSS feed tracking links to my blog).

* June 21. We heard at 4pm Saturday from Angie, who disregarded all the messages to her, but proposed Sunday the 22nd at 11am. By then I was on my way to a family 30th wedding anniversary, and then headed to the airport. Others were off to meetings and dinners, but I replied and suggested we do a phone call (with me in NYC) for 2pm EST/ 11am PST and Mary Trigiani meeting in person with Angie.

No reply was received to our suggestions to Angie's proposed meeting time and no phone call took place.

* June 22, as I was in NYC, I met a woman who was part of Girl Geek Dinners in London, and friends with Sarah Blow, founder of the entire organization (loosely affiliated as it is, though it it branded the same around the world). This woman, as did approximately 20 other women who were attending Personal Democracy Forum in NYC, told me during the PDF party they were appalled that GGD was having a porn company sponsor and sending photographers, and most had read my blog post, seen my tweets or heard about the issue. They all wanted to do something constructive to voice opposition, and expressed support for my efforts. I asked all to write blog posts about their understanding of the events.

* June 23. I received an email from Jackie Danicki who spoke with Sarah Blow, founder of Girl Geek Dinners. Apparently Sarah Blow was "annoyed" with the Zivity GGD situation, and "made GGD remove Zivity as a sponsor."

Because of this, I decided to do a blog post to share this new information as well as more completely explain the entire situation to that time. This post, More on Girl Geeks - Yes, Zivity - No was much more direct in analyzing the situation compared to my previous post that had been just the comment I'd intended to leave on the BAGGD blog, and just responded to their announcement of sponsors and the dinner/speaker event.

* June 24, I pinged Angie again about doing a call with us. She replied that she was "taken aback" by our reactions to the dinner and Zivity's involvement, and would rather chat on Friday, *after* the Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner, on June 27. I'm not sure what she expected, but as we were trying to talk with her, the dinner was approaching and I felt that the only way to get my views across and mobilize support against the combination of Zivity and Girl Geek Dinners was to blog it publicly. We didn't seem to be getting much direct talking done. In my post, I had directly addressed the issues of what Zivity is, and why I believed it was a bad choice to have them sponsor the event, speak and send photographers because that was the only option I had at that point.

* June 25, at the Structure 08 conference I bumped into Calley Nye, and later in the press room, she asked me very directly if I'd like to do an alternative event. I did but definitely didn't have time to do it myself. I told her if we did it together, I'd do it. We went to work on holding our own event, in order to have an alternative event that didn't have Porn photographers shooting the attendees. And more importantly, to make the point that porn and it's associated issues don't belong at work.

Part 2 of this will be posted in the next few days and I'll link to it here when it's up.

Quick update on Zivity

SEE UPDATE AT BOTTOM.

Cyan Banister has written Calley Nye to tell her to tell me that Zivity was never a sponsor of Girl Geek Dinners. Okay.. all I can go on is this: Zivity was listed as a sponsor, or implied as a sponsor on the GGD SF site. I believe they removed it later, and I got email from the London GGD folks (who founded GGD) that they asked the SF folks to remove Zivity as a sponsor.

Wha? Cyan didn't realize this blog has comments? You can reach me here, and leave a comment. Or you can blog about it on your own site. Or you can read this blog, find the email, and tell me directly if you don't want to use social media tools to tell me.

Since Zivity, a social media porn company, is unwilling to use social media tools to set the record straight, well, I'm mystified but updating you to say, I *think* Zivity is denying they were a sponsor of the Girl Geek Dinners, but they won't say it publicly or to me directly.

In any event, we are still holding our Girl Geek Revolution (without the porn site speaker/photographers in attendance) at a networking event tonight at Sugar Cafe. Why revolution? Cause you gotta have one to get the porn outta your work, apparently.

Come have fun, network with girl geeks, eat a cupcake and have a cocktail. More info here at Calley Nye's blog.

UPDATE 7/3/08:

Note: I went back and found this tweet, written by BAGGD (@bayareagirlgeek on Twitter), to announce the event. And in their own words, they describe Zivity as a sponsor:

A few days after the event, I learned from a documentary filmmaker, Cianna Stewart, working on a piece on Zivity, that Cyan had told her that Zivity had in fact paid for the photographers directly. So to my mind, they *were* a sponsor of the Girl Geek Dinners. This is akin to when an event is held, and a sponsor pays a vendor, say the lunch provider or a cocktail party provider, at an event directly. But they are listed as a sponsor in the event web page, and they are posted as a sponsor at the event through some signage. But that sponsor does not write the event makers a check.

So the idea that Zivity would send me a message through a third party, to tell me they had never sponsored Girl Geek Dinners, "never written a check directly to BAGGD" as evidence of this, and therefore I had the story wrong was, to my way of thinking about events, meant to mislead me and Calley Nye into thinking they had never been a sponsor. In fact, Cianna Stewart did confirm for me that she had seen the Girl Geek Dinners web page, and noted that Ziviity was originally listed as a sponsor below Facebook, but also later saw that Zivity was quietly removed from the sponsor list after our blog posts criticizing the combining of a porn company's sponsorship with GGD. Cianna also told me that Cyan/Zivity told her the sponsored photos would "belong to" Girl Geek Dinners. Which means Zivity paid for something at the GGD event that was akin to sponsorship.

Additionally, I went back to look at an early email from almost three weeks ago, when we were trying to meet with the Girl Geek Dinners organizer, Angie Chang, who describes "the Zivity and Girl Geek Dinner partnership" in an email to us. To my mind, a partnership, when you just invite someone to speak, is not necessary and people don't usually describe speaking arrangements that way. Lots of us speak at events and have no partnership with the event organizers. A partnership for an event is pretty much always around some kind of sponsorship, regardless of whether the money is paid directly to the event organizer or involves payment to a vendor who performs a service at the event, or a media sponsorship where a sponsor and event organizer essentially exchange advertisements about each other. In all instances, these are sponsorships.

So to me, Zivity *was* a sponsor of Girl Geek Dinners, and it was disingenuous at best, and lying at worst, for Cyan and Angie to claim that Zivity "never sponsored" GGD.

Come Tonight: Girl Geek Party Without The Porn Company

Tonight in SF at Sugar Cafe, 6-9pm.

More info here at Calley Nye's Blog. Food sponsored by She's Geeky!

We're calling it Girl Geek Revolution (okay that's a bit tongue in cheek, but apparently here you have to have a revolution to get a Girl Geek networking event without a porn company as sponsor, speaker or sending their photographers to use their photos for who knows what -- but I'm sure when they stick them on flickr or their own site.. they'll be playing up your girl geek reputation and name to help legitimize their porn company).

Re: Zivity, the porn site. I checked out their site with a friend's login. He told me "...yeah.. it's a porn site by my standards." He went on to say that it's more analogous to Playboy, as in, you can see naked girls, posed in retro pinup style, with just a little twat showing, and while he thinks most men who watch hardcore porn (he characterizes that as video of one or more people actually having sex) will think it's cute porn.. and hopefully catch women they know there so they can tease them into going out with them, especially if they work with them, but they won't really use it because it doesn't have the porn they really want day-to-day, if they use porn, which is more hardcore.

That said, when I looked, I did note that it was basically full of Playboy style porn. Or like my friend's company in Berkeley, who for the past 10 years has done retro porn. That company gets real homemade "porn" from the 50s, 60s and 70s, mostly like Zivity's stuff. And he does well.. it's a beautifully done site, making him around $200k a month for the past several years. Anyone can submit and he approves and styles the pages. He's a designer by trade, so everything looks like the Zivity site.. which is.. very well styled.

However, there is a big difference between my friend's porn site and Zivity's porn site: Zivity lies to me in their tagline, by saying "It's not porn."

Red flags. Sorry.. I just don't like to be lied to.

And, they want it both ways: they want to say, "We're women founded (1 of the 3 founders is a woman), and support women by sharing the money, via our social network for porn but we're not porn!" That's nice.. better than many porn sites do with their "models."

But it's still porn, which is defined as, "Sexually explicit material meant to arouse people" according to the dictionary both online and at my house. It doesn't matter if you style it nicely.. it's still porn.

The other way Zivity wants it is to be not thought of porn, but rather to trade on Girl Geek cred, by sponsoring, speaking at and providing a photographer to the Girl Geek Dinners. They want to be "in the community" of geeks and use our reputations to gain legitimacy at a work event, for their VC funded company. They want to seem like a woman founded company (33% wouldn't even cut the Women 2.0 pitch contest requirements) but Zivity's management is publicly stated as being all male, which is very similar to most porn companies where the men sell the women's images (straight men in porn don't get paid a lot and aren't what sells.. it's the pretty women that get you the cash.. hence Zivity's decision to just post women "models"... men may come later but I'll bet you it's gay men.. whose porn also brings in lots of cash).

But oopps, their founder (and former CEO CMO) Cyan Banister (someone asked me if that was a real name, or a made up porn star name... don't know if it's made up or not.. sorry) took her shirt off at the top of a Techcrunch post. Exposing the lie that it's really a porn site. And using her body to get to the top.

And we are supposed to respect that on a business level, and lend our geek cred to this company that lies to us in their tagline? Don't think so.

Once Zivity decides to be honest, and just state that they are a porn company, and not use the porn to get legitimately geek press or work events to stand next to people and insinuate credibility as a VC funded startup just like everyone else (the porn just makes them different, and not at all appropriate for work), I might like them again. But until that changes.. I don't trust Zivity at all.

More on Girl Geeks - Yes, Zivity - No

Just a quick update to my last post.

Apparently the founder of Girl Geek Dinners, Sarah Blow, made GGD SF remove Zivity as a sponsor. I was told this from someone I met at PDF2008 who emailed her, which she forwarded. I didn't hear this directly. But it does explain why I had seen Zivity sponsorship there as a sponsor at the GGD SF website when I wrote about this originally.. and then it was gone without explanation. Couldn't figure out what happened.. but just got word of why it's gone. Blow didn't like Zivity sponsoring.. apparently she picked up on Zivity using the GGD sponsorship to buy cred with GGD.

A thought about the many women who work in jobs where they would prefer to not be sexualized at work because they are working with their brains don't have the power or control over their situations some of us do.

For example, I worked with a woman who was a single-mom legal secretary, w/ 7yr old son, severely mentally and physically retarded, who desperately needed the office provided insurance. The person I watched harass her, chose sex as the tool, knowing she was in a week position. It's the same as a child molester choosing the weakest kid around to go after because that kid doesn't have a good support network. Catholic priests come to mind, where there are many cases where they would pick a weaker kid over another stronger one to abuse.

The problem is, the weakest are vulnerable, without protections and standards for behavior. I wish it weren't the case, but I also recognize that when people can abuse someone, sometimes they will. Which brings us back to my point around GGD, which is that people feel bad about speaking out (I'm witnessing all the people telling me in person how upset they are about this GGD dinner/Zivity and yet, I'm one of a few writing or talking about it publicly. I'm trying to get them to blog about, but they are scared of being pinpointed as the woman who whines about this. I don't want to be that either, but someone has to say something).

And people who feel bad about it are often also the ones coerced into doing something they don't want to do... like allowing themselves to be sexualized at work, to be forced to be "hot" first and maybe then be good at their jobs, worth funding, worth hiring for a leadership role. It's unfortunate that we live with that in our culture. But why put women even more in that position, with a Girl Geek Dinner originally to be sponsored by Zivity (sponsorship has now been removed by the founder, as I mentioned above) with Zivity speaking and taking photos.

By going to the dinner, it feels as if you are asked to support and agree with Zivity in this implicit way... to put up with the photos thing (where do the photos go, and you have to ask: who owns them and when do they show up on Zivity's blog to show how cool they are associating with Girl Geeks?). It's just bad for professional women to be put in this position.

What's interesting about Zivity is that they want it both ways: tech company with woman founder, girl geek cred, sort of a "we're just like everyone else so don't segregate us for being in porn" thing, and at the same time, they really work the porn to get as much publicity as possible. Cyan wants geek cred, and wants to take her shirt off for Techcrunch and did their thing at Techcrunh40 where they walked around with company promotion on their breasts and ass. In the end, they are a porn company, and if it's okay for them to sponsor/speak/photograph Girl Geeks, then why isn't it okay for Girls Gone Wild to do the same? And how bout Penthouse and Playboy?

In the 70's Playboy tried to sponsor a lot of women's groups and events, but most wouldn't take the money because those women felt it was "blood money" derived from the objectification of women sexually, and here were those groups trying to make a place for women where they didn't have to be "hot first," where they wouldn't have to be sexualized at work, where they could be successful the way men can be, and it didn't have to be about their bodies first.

So one founder of Zivity is a woman. Have you looked at their team page? Of the three founders, one is a Cyan, but she's not CEO, and there is only one other woman at the company (user experience analyst). It's not like they went out and aggressively hired women engineers. They are like any other porn company.. mostly all men, exploiting women, to make money. They share 80% of their income with the women? How generous.. just a bit more than Suicide Girls. But isn't it really just the same thing?

Girl Geek Dinner Yes; Porn Sponsor No

I just left this comment on the Girl Geek Dinner Site, but my comment is "awaiting moderation," so I'm posting my reply to their post here:

Glad to see you are doing another girl geek dinner.

I wanted to pass along my thought when i saw that Zivity was sponsoring the dinner and speaking.

I'm guessing that they got a lot of flack for the CEO taking of her shirt at the top of Techcrunch from women in SV. Seeing that hardly any women get a Techcrunch feature, many women, myself included, concluded that the message was the way to get on TC was to take your shirt off. I thought the video itself was funny, but it just didn't belong on TC and sexualizes the business of creating a startup by women. It just feels uncomfortable.

Then seeing that Zivity was hosting and speaking here.. I'm guessing that they were trying to get back into the good graces of tech women by doing this.

About 10 women have commented to me today (at Supernova) that they are appalled by Zivity and Girl Geek Dinner collaborating.

It's not that we object to porn, just to the using (or appearance of using) girl geeks to get back their cred. Even if that’s not what's happening from their perspective, the rest of us who would like to *not* be sexualized and objectified in our work lives really find the Zivity association disconcerting.

I hope you aren't being used, but I also won't attend on Thursday night because I don't want to support Zivity.

One other thing not in my comment: I would not want to have a Zivity photography taking photos of women at this event for Girl Geeks. It's a professional event.. and further promotes in this context the sexualization of women at work. It would be fine at a fun event.. but not this dinner.

Associated Press C&Ds Rogers Cadenhead, Gets Boycotted by Bloggers

What's going on is this: Rogers Cadenhead received 7 C&Ds from the Associated Press, because he quoted from their articles in Drudge Retorted. My view in looking his quotes is that they fall absolutely under fair use (they are all within the range of a paragraph quotes from 39 to 75 words) per Saul Hansell of NYTimes.

Jeff Jarvis, Culture Kitchen and others have been reporting and opining..

AP has said: "when we feel the use is more reproduction than reference, or when others are encouraged to cut and paste" they will go after people, but Saturday, Jim Kennedy of AP backed off some and said the C&Ds had been heavy handed and they would review their blogger policy. And now, their executives have decided to suspend the earlier decision to go after people like Rogers Cadenhead due to links to their articles (um.. those bloggers were doing AP a favor linking..) and quotes. But at least according to other's reports, AP hasn't withdrawn the C&Ds from Rogers.

Jim Kennedy also said they want bloggers to use "summaries" of their articles, not direct quotes (huh? Fisking is impossible and quotes are key to getting at issues!) and therefore will keep the C&Ds in place because they "... feel the use is more reproduction than reference..."

I've been watching this with a lot of consternation the past few days.. I think AP is wrong here, and until they remove the C&Ds and agree that quotes are fair use, I think the blogosphere, and the IP crowd are right to push back and call for things like boycott.

Richard Kastelein of Atlantic Free Press created Unassociated press and has even come up with a badge for the boycott:

Culture Kitchen is reporting on the boycott here with a great summary of events.

Updated: Jeff Jarvis reports on the giant hole.

Alice In Wonderland Remix

Luv this remix (noted on Cartoon Brew) by Nick Bertke. He says 90% of the music is remixed from audio from the Disney (1951) film. You can download the mp3 here.

If I Had Twitter

IF I HAD TWITTER (The Twitter Song)* **

If I had Twitter
I'd tweet in the morning
I'd tweet in the evening
All over this LAN
I'd tweet out danger
I'd tweet out a warning
I'd tweet out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this WAN

If I had a cell phone
I'd txt in the morning
I'd txt in the evening
All over gsm
I'd txt out danger
I'd txt out a warning
I'd txt out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this closed-source nightmare of overcharging dinosaurs

la la la

If I had a photo
I'd flickr in the morning
I'd flickr in the evening
All over this land
I'd flickr out danger
I'd flickr out a warning
I'd flickr out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land

Well I've got Twitter
And I've got a cell phone
And I've got flickr'd photos
All over this open web
It's the tweet of justice
It's the txt of freedom
It's the datasharing love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this LAND

* words and music adapted from Lee Hays and Pete Seeger

** corny parody of online culture by me.

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.

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.

Revolution is Not An AOL Keyword

Eddan Katz wrote this piece: Revolution is not an AOL Keyword, and I acted as his editor, 5 years ago. We posted it to the bIPlog on the first day of the war in Iraq.

We had a real uphill-behind-the-scenes fight about it at the Journalism School, where the blog was then hosted, because some of the other folks on the blog thought it wasn't really under our mission to publish something about the war and culture and the internet. But we convinced them; we knew we would get it published when John Battelle, one of the profs, lent his support for us. And it got slashdotted. And Revolution was made into a tshirt. Which was all a blast after working on it all night messing with the language and placing links ... some of which are broken but I think it matters to keep them intact and original. I think the linking is a kind of expression in this piece.

Eddan and I thought up what Napsterization could be here at this blog, but in the end only I've posted to it. I still wish Eddan would, and maybe someday he will. He's really great.

Anyway.. here is Revolution. I got all misty-eyed when I reread it and moused the links, because it's passionate and it means something, even if some of it is a little out of date. Cause the war ain't over. I can't believe it. I just didn't think things could get this fkedup. But as Robert Fisk says, The only lesson we ever learn is that we never learn. Right on.

Revolution is Not an Aol Keyword*

You will not be able to stay home, dear Netizen.
You will not be able to plug in, log on and opt out.
You will not be able to lose yourself in Final Fantasy,
Or hold your Kazaa download queues,
Because revolution is not an AOL Keyword.

Revolution is not an AOL Keyword.
Revolution will not be brought to you on Hi-Def TV
Encrypted with a warning from the FBI.
Revolution will not have a jpeg slideshow of Dubya
Calling the cattle and leading the incursion by
Secretary Rumsfeld, General Ashcroft and Dick Cheney
Riding nuclear warheads on their way to Iraq,
Or North Korea, or Iran.

Revolution is not an AOL Keyword.
Revolution will not be powered by Microsoft on
The Next-Generation Secure Computing Base
And will not star Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee
Or Larry Lessig and Martha Stewart. Revolution will not promise penile enlargement.
Revolution will not get rid of spam.
Revolution will not earn you up to $5000 a month

Working from home, because revolution is not
An AOL Keyword, Brother.

There will be no screen grabs of you and
Jeeves the Butler one-click shopping at My Yahoo,
Or outbidding a shady grandma on eBay for
That refurbished iPod 20-gig.
MSNBC.com will not predict election results in Florida
Or fact-check the Drudge Report.
Revolution is not an AOL Keyword.

There will be no webcast of Wil Wheaton boxing
Barney the Dinosaur on the dancefloor at DNA.
There will be no mob- or wiki- blog of Richard Stallman
Strolling through Redmond in a medieval robe and halo
As St. iGNUcious of the Church of Emacs
That he has been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Survivor, The Osbournes, and Joe Millionaire
Will no longer be so damned relevant, and
People will not care if Carrie hooks up again with
Mr. Big on Sex and the City because Information
Wants To Be Free even while Knowledge Is Power.
Revolution is not an AOL Keyword.

There will be no final pictures from inside the
World Trade Center in the instant replay.
There will be no final pictures from inside the
World Trade Center in the instant replay.

There will be no RealVideo of 2600-reading,
Linux-booting white hat hacktivists
And Mickey Mouse in the public domain.

The theme song will not be written by Jack Valenti or
Hilary Rosen, nor sung by Metallica, Dr. Dre,
Christina Aguilera, Matchbox 20, or Blink-182.

Revolution is not an AOL Keyword.

Revolution will not be right back after
Pop-up ads about eCommerce, eTailers, or eContent.
You will not have to worry about a
Cookie in your browser, a bug in your email, or a
Worm in your recycling bin.
Revolution will not run faster with Intel inside.
Revolution, dude, is not getting a Dell.
Revolution will increase your Google rank.

Revolution is not an AOL Keyword, is not an AOL Keyword,
Is not an AOL Keyword, is not an AOL Keyword.
Revolution will be no stream or download, dear Netizen;
Revolution must still be live.

*See generally Gil Scott-Heron, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

Posted by Eddan Katz at March 20, 2003 05:45 AM

Real Life Demonstrates and One Hopes The Virtual Might Follow

On Monday I had a sort of intense, momentary experience that happened on a sidewalk in Menlo Park, reminding me of my blog post on Facebook and Slide, and a comment a friend of mine made recently.

That friend said that in my Facebook/Slide post, where I said that "young boys" with little social skills and little mentoring were making social applications that are antisocial at times, was maybe an unfair characterization. When the sidewalk incident happened, I realized I'd witnessed the public demonstration of what I was talking about in the Facebook post, and that I wanted that to happen with the young guys in my prior post that make online products for others.

So what happened on the sidewalk? I was walking toward the door of my friend's office building, and within a couple of feet of the door, a guy, maybe 16, driving his bike kind of recklessly and fast and weaving in and out of people brushed past me. Two guys who were maybe 70, in Bermuda shorts and short sleeve button down shirts and sandals yelled at him, "Hey, you almost hit that lady, you're being an asshole, you can't do that in our town." At which point they grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him off his bike, and then he denied it, and I was at this point, inside the glass doors but could hear everything, but they told him he had to ride in the street and forced him to get off the sidewalk. It was so confrontational, as I was lost in my own thoughts and then jarred out of them, that I felt kind of embarrassed. But as I walked upstairs, and met this same friend mentioned above, I told him about what just happened. And then I said, sort of surprised, that well, this was kind of the in-person demonstration that would be nice to see at any of these companies where your social software behaves antisocially. In other words, older men who understand the value of good behavior can teach that well to younger men.

Well, I also want to explain in response to my friend above, about why I said what I did about "young boys" who need some mentoring from older men. One reason I feel comfortable saying this "group" verses another has a problem, in this case, is that while I know it's possible for "young girls" to make antisocial software, I ask, have you ever heard of that? I never have. There are very few women coders, compared to vast number of men coders, and most of the women coders I know gain the confidence to build their own companies or software systems a little later in life, if they ever do at all. Women are socialized to think they can't or shouldn't create or speak out aggressively or publicly criticize and it takes some living often into their early 30's before they are willing to put themselves out there and take a huge personal risk like building a product or company. I mean, why is it that factories in poor countries (Asia, South America, Eastern Europe are all reported to do this) only hire women under 25? Because they are looking for docile workers and you just don't get that with young guys.

At the point all coders are a little older, they tend to be more socialized, and also, at least in my experience verbally express more desire to build tools that take better care of the user. But it's the young guys I'm worried about coding social software, because they are more likely to have ego and aggression without experience. Which is a scary combination. Like the guy on the bike. I realize it's not politically correct to say so, but I wanted to talk specifically in that post earlier about Facebook and Slide about where I think responsibility lies for the social problems that have come up on Facebook with apps like those made by Slide. And to ask for help from older men, who fund these young guys, to help with the problem.

And that was my point. I hope this clarifies.

Data Sharing Events Coming Soon!

There are two new events coming up for the Data Sharing group (we met last August in great camp type open space event where many interesting things developed, came to light, got solved, etc.) I'm on the advisory group, and will definitely be there and would love to see anyone who cares about attention data, both the control aspects at a site, as well as ownership issues, get moved forward in a community oriented way there as well.

Also, Mitch Ratcliffe wrote a great post today on these issues which you should totally checkout.

Here is the write up from the Facebook group entry:

* A Data Sharing Workshop at the Downtown San Francisco State University campus on April 18th and 19th.

* Data Sharing Summit 2 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View on May 15th. (This is immediately following the Internet Identity Workshop May 12-14).

Hopefully at the first event some more clarity will emerge about how to actually do and get adoption of data sharing technologies. The second event we can see progress (it being a month later) and may have more 'decision makers' considering data sharing implementations and vendors that have ways to do it.

The goal of these events is to work together to build consensus around and get adoption of emerging data sharing standards. As with the previous summit, the upcoming event will follow the open space (un)conference format. The agenda is created on the first day of the event, allowing everyone to participate in the discussion.

Although Marc Canter was a key organizer of the first Data Sharing Summit, he has stepped back and his involvement is just one of group of advisors:

* David Recordon, Six Apart
* Joseph Smarr, Plaxo
* Chris Saad, Faraday Media
* Mary Hodder, Dabble
* Luke Sontag, Vidoop
* Kevin Marks, Google
* Marc Canter, Broadband Mechanics

The events will be produced by Kaliya Hamlin and Laurie Rae, who are collaborating with the Data Portability community and the SFSU Institute for Next Generation Internet.

We would like to invite you to attend one or both of these events.
Please go to http://datasharingsummit.com or to go ahead and register right away to to our Eventbrite page to register. We will be charging admission to cover the costs required for organizing these events.

The Early Bird rates are as follows:

April 18-19 Workshop
* Regular, $110.00
* Independent/Startup/Non-Profit, $80.00
* Student, $50.00

Workshop One-Day Only:
* Regular, $65.00
* Independent/Startup/Non-Profit, $50.00

April 18-19 & May 15:
* Corporate, $200.00
* Independent/Startup/Non-Profit, $140.00

May 15th Summit Only:
* Corporate, $100.00
* Independent/Startup/Non-Profit, $70.00

The Early Bird cut-off dates are April 7, 2008 for the Workshop and May 7th, 2008 for the Summit. Prices will increase by $50.00 after the cut-off dates.

We can bring you this event at such a low admission fee because 1/2 our costs are paid by sponsors - both small ($200) to the large (several thousand). PLEASE contact Laurie Rae at laurierae@datasharingsummit.com if you would like to sponsor.

Please contact us if you have any questions identitywoman@datasharingsummit.com & laurierae@datasharingsummit.com

We look forward to seeing you in April and May.

Trashing Our Social Relationships (with Porn) to Get Your Numbers Up

Ok, there's a lot in that title. Let me explain (though I did blog about this earlier).

First, yesterday at the Supernova / Wharton event, in Jerry Michalski's session on business and social media (can't remember exact title) we spent much of the time talking privacy, online communication, games and social networks (er, social graphs but i really hate the fad where we make up a new word for something that is already working just so we can dink around with a new set of conferences, etc. but I digress. Though I would point out that one friend who attended SGP said the women at the event all seemed to get it, and then men all wanted to run calculations on our "social graphs" entirely missing the point. Oh well.)

At the end, Jeff Clavier, who apparently was at the Social Graphing conf/camp in San Diego earlier this week, gave a wrapping up of what happened. He mixed in a little of his perspective due to his investing in apps on Facebook, and threw in some perspective on the Stanford class that did some experiments on Facebook apps and their results. One example Jeff gave was about an app maker from the class had gotten 5 million people to click into his app (though they all immediately disappeared just after) in 5 weeks (correction, not 5 days -- as Jeff said to me later, correcting this, "damned French accent" because many of us heard "5 days").

I had to wonder, why would five million people do that? What's the benefit to them? Apparently the app maker, some young guy, is thrilled (and it sounded like Jeff might want to work with him or even invest). His experiment (with all of us, the greater Facebook community, as guinea pigs) worked for him, though I'd guess it wasted 5 million people's time, for a couple of minutes each.

I commented about the aspects of Facebook applications inadvertently trashing our relationships, at times, in order to get their numbers up, and using deceptive practices and features to do it, and said it thought it was really uncool. But there wasn't time to explain what I really thought, or the background of why I think this, and so, here we go:

Ok, imagine you get some sort of email message from a friend in Facebook. This is a real friend, someone you do business with and/or socialize with and maybe have known for a long time (as in, a lot longer than Mark Zuckerberg has been out of his teens and been (on paper) counted as a billionaire). Or maybe it's someone you work with (note that there's a lot of caselaw around sexual harassment.. so accidentally sending porn spam to people you work with or work for you, or you work for, doesn't seem like the greatest thing you would want to do either).

The message asks you to click into Facebook, at which point, you are asked to "install an app" (and, why? Just to read a message do I have to install an App? Oh yeah, this is about getting the applications numbers up ... so you do it, because you want to see your "real" friend's message). Then, once installed, you are taken to Slide's Fun Wall App, which shows you some porn, and says, "Click Foward to see what happen."

See this screen shot of the first round of porn spam I got (NSFW btw so be careful opening it).

I almost clicked "forward", but scrolled around past the fold. Turns out, if i'd clicked the "forward" button, Slide would have forwarded that spam to EVERYONE I KNOW in Facebook. All 500+ of them.

Now, let me explain who everyone is. Yes, of my 500 or so contacts, maybe 300 are in the tech community (and as such, expect early-adoptor screw ups and experimentation). But 200 are not. About 10 of these people are people I grew up with (we've been together as friends since nursery school). They don't know what the "tech community" is, much less care. Some of these people are religious and I would venture have never seen porn before or it's very rare in their lives. They aren't early adoptors. They expect that any communications are going to be real, and not some tech community experiment to figure out some thing that later promotes some business/VC investment, in order to see how the world of advertising can advance.

Or, take all the people I do business with, or the people who I work with, or work for me, or I work for. It would be just great to send them some porn spam. Or my brother and sister. They would luv to get porn spam from me. Not. Or how about my extended relatives in Europe? I think they are ripe for a little porn spam. No?

So.. I unchecked all 500+ contacts that Slide had checked, and wasn't able to view the message further (what was going to come next after I was asked to hit the "forward" button). So I figured out one profile I could link to who was a friend, and then forwarded the message there, "...to see what happen."

Well, guess what? Nothing "happen." Except that the message was forwarded to the one person I left checked. In other words. It's trick porn spam, features courtesy of Facebook and Slide.

So I sent in complaints to both companies (neither have contacted me back after a month -- guys, it's a social network, you know how to reach me.. give it a try!!)

After a while, I called people in each company that I knew through the tech comany. And was appalled at the responses I got. Now, these are people I know socially, and they gave me the real answers, but with the expectation that I would not attribute to them. However, I am confident that their answers reflect the culture and real value sets within these companies.

Facebook pointed the finger at Slide (the app maker in this case), and said, "There is nothing we can do. We have no control over the apps people make or the stuff they send." Oh, and if I wanted Facebook to change the rules for apps makers? I'd have to get say, 80k of my closest Facebook friends to sign on a petition or group, and then they might look at the way they have allowed porn spam to trick people into forwarding, but until then, there would be no feature review.

Slide said that they thought Facebook was the problem, because as the "governing" body, Facebook makes the rules and "Slide wouldn't be competitive if they changed what they do, and their competitors weren't forced to as well." In other words, Slides competitors use the same features to get more users (or trick more users as the case may be) and Slide didn't want to lose out on getting more users with similar features, regardless of the effect the features have on us and our relationships.

Also both companies told me that blogging doesn't affect them, because they don't read blogs. The only thing they pay attention to are Facebook groups. Because they don't look at problems that a single person discovers.

So in other words, a person with a legitimate complaint needs to have massive agreement and numbers in a Facebook group before these companies will even discuss a problem.

And, Slide and Facebook are willing to trash our relationships (real relationships) in order to get more numbers.

Now, note that many of the folks who sent the various porn spam (not just the ones in the photos above) sent very apologetic notes, because they were mortified that they had send their contacts porn spam.

Think about that. Your social networking / application software tricks you into doing something terribly socially embarrassing and you have to apologize? Wo. That's really messed up.

In other words, your social networking software / applications are, gasp, anti-social.

One guy in the Supernova / Wharton session yesterday asked how many people were in my Facebook list, and when I said 500, implied that most regular people have say, 50-100, and therefore it's not a bad problem. Well, I'd say each relationship is probably pretty important and this is an appalling justification for these applications and social network's feature sets and behaviors.

So I have to ask, if these young boys (Zuckerberg, the app makers in the class at Stanford, etc) are so clueless about relationships and social protocols, that they would build apps and a system that promotes bad behavior like this, where are their mentors? Where are their funders (who presumably have some input and sway into what's going on)? Why aren't Peter Thiel and Dave McClure or even Jeff Clavier (who sounded like he was trying to or has invested in some of the guys from the apps class at Stanford) advising these people that while they are experimenting, that these are real established relationships, and Facebook is now mainstream, and therefore the apps can't do this to people? I mean, it seems logical (and has happened in cultures around the world for millennia) that older, wiser men would advise young, clueless hormone driven boys how to act in the community. And what of Max Levechin? I mean, he's kind of in the middle, age wise, but shouldn't he know better than this?

Is the desperation for fame and money so great, that people would simply eschew social concerns in favor of ratings which then equal higher company valuations, and more billions on paper? Or do you want your claim to fame to be: "At least 15 million minutes wasted" from your experiments on Facebook (as I would imagine the Stanford student described above could claim)?

I guess the answer is yes, and so my response is, I can't trust Slide, or Facebook. Nor do I have respect for their founders if this is the way they handle themselves and their companies.

And where are the advertisers who might put pressure? The ones on the page I show above (not all the porn spam trickery I got, but the first batch) are Toyota and Gartner?

I deleted all my Slide apps after my last blog post, a month ago, and since heard from maybe 20 people in person that after reading my post, they'd done the same. But I guess we don't count, since we only have a few people concerned.

I hope the folks who attended the session yesterday at Wharton have a better idea as to why I find this upsetting, and upon hearing that more "experiments" with Facebook apps are happening, why I might get worried and distrust the process, the results and the motivations behind them.

Note: I am aware that Facebook did recently force apps makers to default turn "off" the checked names in forward (as far as I can tell from my own analysis of Facebook and via other blogs explanations). But I have yet to receive replies to my original support notes to these companies, and feel confused about an unspoken, barely there response. It's as though after barely changing one thing aspect of a feature, in order to mitigate the problem, they want to sweep it all under the rug. But I don't feel confident that these companies either care about the spam problem, the porn problem or the social abuse problems they are allowing.

For now, the answer for me is to use Facebook minimally and Slide not at all. Interestingly, at recent social gatherings I've mentioned these issues. At almost every one, people have said they are getting off Facebook and not going back, for precisely the reasons I mention above.

I guess that's the only way to make an impression on Facebook and Slide. Shut down your own use.

The NY Times on Girl Geeks: They are Fashion, Not Technology

The
NYTimes Stephanie Rosenblum has an article in today's *Fashion* section on Girls in Tech. Wo. Not in the *Technology* section. In Fashion.

Sorry, Boys, This Is Our Domain talks about how girls are coding up more content online: webpages, web art, blogs and podcasts.

And then they decorate it with an image of a girl at her laptop with a devilish tail. But instead of asking one of the girls they interviewed to make the artwork, they ask Adam Strange to do the art for the article:

So when they interview people like Doc Searls, Loic Le Meur or David Weinberger, all of whom are very smart about tech, those articles are in the tech section or business, but when they talk to girls, who for the record, are far more technical in this article than these three tech experts, girls are put in Fashion. I've never seen coverage with Doc or David or Loic in fashion. Maybe they should be there depending, but they aren't put there by the editors that I know of....

This is not about David or Loic or Doc (all extremely supportive of women in tech, btw), and certainly they don't choose the section the paper puts them in, but rather the way the editors and writers at the NYTimes see them, verses the girl geeks in this article.

My point is that the NYTimes puts men who talk tech and trends or social impact in tech/biz, and women who code web art / pages in fashion.

Can you tell I'm pissed? WTF?

However, the number of women in tech isn't great (Which is why we need more articles in the Tech section about this people!)

The article says that less "...than 15 percent of students who took the AP computer science exam in 2006, and there was a 70 percent decline in the number of incoming undergraduate women choosing to major in computer science from 2000 to 2005, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology."

Chaos, In Pakistan and Silicon Valley

Today are the Pakistani elections. Why do I say chaos? And why also in Silicon Valley? And how are they at all connected?

As Amra Tareen, who is in Pakistan covering the event, says in her report about the elections:

As the day progressed more people started to show [to the polling stations], people were staying back home enjoying their morning off and due to concerns of violence. In the last 24 hours gunmen in Lahore and surrounding areas have killed 8 people and injured 40.

Check out this ballot from Pakistan, which Amra explains:

For example PML-Q (Musharraf's party) has the symbol cycle, PML-N (Nawaz's party) is represented by the symbol Tiger or a Lion and PPP (Benazir's party) is represented by the arrow. People caste their vote by placing a fingerprint and a seal over the symbol.

I've been helping Amra, a friend in the Silicon Valley for 4 years, with her company All Voices. Amra is from Pakistan, though she spent some of her educational years in Australia, including getting an engineering degree, and then went to Harvard for an MBA. She was also a VC in Silicon Valley for 6 years. Now she has founded All Voices with Erik Sundelof and the help of a great team of engineers and other folks.

I'm still working on Dabble, but I just find what is happening at All Voices so compelling, that I wanted to help her do this. She's raised VC money for a news and a conversation site that is meant to foster discussion from people around news events.

And how many Silicon Valley founders go to Pakistan to cover the elections, to kick off their companies?!?!

That's incredibly unusual, and to me, shows tremendous passion and guts about both the company, and her desire to see Americans and Middle Easterners talk about what goes on in their world. Anyone can talk, but she specifically wants to see these two groups getting to know each other on a more personal level, as opposed to say, an AP report.

So what is the chaos in Silicon Valley? Well, it's not on par with the Pakistani Elections, but the alpha All Voices is out, and people are commenting, talking about the election (finding a few bugs too!), making events, posting videos and photos, and it's the first big exposure the team has dealt with.

The site is pretty simple, really. The idea is that events happen in the world, and an event within AllVoices can then be assembled by pulling in news stories, photos and videos by news sources or blogs and say, creative common's licensed Flickr photos.

But you can also make an event, which is really more factual in nature, than opinion, about whatever has happened in their world. Then you might blog or add photos or videos to your own event, or you could add those elements to events made by others or the system. For example, Amra has put video here and here and here of the people in Pakistan talking about the election, onto the event she made noting election coverage. After you make your event, the system will match blog posts, articles, images and video to it, and more folks can come along and share eyewitness stories, comment, ask questions, etc.

All this gets put onto the map and front page which lists recent and active events.

So when others come to the site, they can find your stuff based on where it happens as well as by searching or by finding your list of activities via your profile. Amra's election reporting is, of course, located in Pakistan on the map.

The sites definitely is an alpha, where there are bugs and things. Her engineers have been working on this for about 6 months, and it's really great to see what they've done.

As I said, I've helped with a little consulting on the side. Normally, I wouldn't blog about things I offer consulting for, and normally I'm too busy with Dabble, but I think this site and Amra's work has the potential for so much social good, I'm breaking my own rule.

So take what I say with a grain of salt due to my work and bias. Go visit the site yourself and decide if you think it's worthwhile. But more than anything, I encourage you to get involved in supporting Pakistan as it hold its election. Pay attention, comment, blog, make a stink, but support democracy and the people of Pakistan as they stake a claim for their future!

Fiber Optics in Sherborn Massachusetts

I'm visiting with some friends in Sherborn Massachusetts. They previously had dial up internet access, but sometime in the last two years, everyone (3,000) in this town, as well as more surrounding towns, got fiber optic lines put in by Verizon.

They have 5 mbs of downstream service for $35 a month, and if they pay $7 more per month, they can get 15mbs. It's rocket fast, so fast, as my host says, "it's too fast to take advantage of much besides video and VOIP because no one else has a fast connection to talk that fast with you." But it still rocks.

Everywhere I go in the Bay Area, work, home, friends offices, public places.. I wait for every website, video, voip connection, etc that I use. It's just amazing the contrast here. And every window I look through in my host's house has gorgeous forest and fall colors .. it's at least 100 yards to the next house., and all the houses here have that sort of spread. How do they do it when we can't get this in the denseness of Berkeley, San Francisco, Mountain View?

I'm sure the telcos that took $200 billion from the FCC and then didn't install fiber optic service have some excuse, but it's BS. They just need to install it since we paid for it, and then we can all move on.

James Cicconi of AT&T On Net Netrality

James Cicconi, Senior Executive VP Legislative and External Affairs for AT&T was at Esme Vos' Muniwireless conference yesterday, spewing what I would kindly call the greatest of spin, and unkindly as BS.

Net Neutrality is not about people telling network providers what to charge for tiered service. That's bull. Net Neutrality says that video packets, no matter where they come from, will get through at the same rates. Same with text or photos or VOIP or anything else. The network can't under Net Neutrality distinguish and discriminate because it doesn't like where something came from or the place the packet came from didn't pay the telco's any money to prioritize the packet.

To quote muniwireless (emphasis is mine):

It's Day 2 of the Muniwireless Silicon Valley Conference and they have an executive from AT&T talking about municipal wireless networks.

AT&T has not changed its tune. It is still against cities using public funds to compete with private enterprise and believes that communications should be left up to private firms like AT&T.

James Cicconi, Senior Executive VP Legislative and External Affairs for AT&T claims that there is no duopoly and there is enough competition in the market for telecommunications services, so cities should stay out.

What is AT&T's position on net neutrality?

Net neutrality is a challenge for all companies. You spend billions to deploy your assets and net neutrality means someone telling you what you can do with your assets - what you can charge, tiers of service, etc.

"All bits should be treated equal" is a problem for network engineers because one bit is porn another bit is heart surgery, another is email, yet another is voice, another is spam. That everything should be moved equally end to end is ludicrous. It's a more costly way to do things. It's not efficient, according to AT&T.

AT&T cannot build and maintain assets quickly enough to meet the demand. They are spending $19 billion this year. Some of the demand is driven by video. What happens when people start delivering high definition film? They can't build networks fast enough! What's the answer? Effective traffic management.

The antitrust laws can deal with the problems of net neutrality (side note: unfortunately these are not being enforced today). Why should AT&T want to degrade traffic? They will go to someone else (side note again: in a duopoly, you've got Comcast which has been blocking Bittorent traffic).

I don't know about you but where I live and work, we have two choices: AT&T for dsl or Comcast for cable internet access. They are both Mid-band services, and not great but better than dialup. And we pay exorbitantly for them compared to other countries.

So of course they want to take their AT&T/Comcast duopoly and spin Net Neutrality as being all about people interfering with their pricing models for tiered service when it's really all about prioritizing packets. They want to divert attention from the reality which is that they want to put their videos through first, their media, their VOIP or media/VOIP from people who've paid them off. Instead of letting users have what they want. The telco's want to own the pipes and the content.

It's wrong and we can't let the telcos win on this.

It's Not So Black and White, These Issues of Gender and The Tech Community

Today at She's Geeky, during the session with Jodi Sherman Jahic of Voyager Capital and Patricia Nakache of Trinity Ventures, we talked about a lot of different things.

Patricia and Jodi are really wicked smart, accomplished women, both of whom have engineering degrees and MBA's, who articulated some of the subtle and complex issues we face as women in the tech community, or as technologists starting ventures or as business people trying to figure out what is going to happen next in markets and with funding.

Jodi had a great list of the four things that matter for VCs when assessing an investment:

technology risks
market adoption risk
financing risk
execution risk

And we spent some time on board composition, funding questions, how people become VCs, why they may have different backgrounds than entrepreneurs (they often have MBAs) and why VCs don't necessarily want to fund MBAs (in other words, being different is good because getting an MBA is a risk-averse step and they want to fund risk-takers). I really liked that last one, because I've heard from time to time from other women founders that they can feel intimidated by the pedigrees many VCs have (often Harvard or Stanford or other Ivy League schools) and yet, it's a plus to not be just like them. The answer is to have as much diversity on your team (the founders, the rest of the team, the investors, the advisors and the board).

Another thing I brought up were a couple of stories I'd experience when working through funding issues.

One was about how a year ago, with a VC who has a small fund and targets companies at the stage Dabble was then, who decided not to fund us. About a month ago, I saw him, and asked to tell me why, for real (at the time I got a sort of "non-excuse"). He said that, and I do think he was sort of thinking aloud, that well, he thought at the time I might not stick with it. And I asked why, what did that mean. He said that when a founder is by themselves (no cofounder), he often assesses whether he thinks they'll quit, and he realized as we discussed it more recently that he had a sort of idea in the back of his head that I might quit easier than a man in my position. He knew this was wrong, but he hadn't thought it through until I pressed for feedback, and he'd only been willing to tell me this after the target size and stage of his investments didn't match where we were.

I think this is one of those things that isn't really black and white. I mean, of course I'm angry by the idea that this why he didn't fund us, but at the same time, I really appreciated that he was honest with me, and that it became a learning experience for him as well. That he learned he had a stereotype he didn't see in himself previously. My hope is that he thinks about it and stops himself the next time he finds himself thinking this sort of thing. I don't think he's a bad guy, and in fact, I think the better of him for sharing it and noticing the problem, for agreeing that it was wrong and he should do better.

I think that's all you can ask of someone, because frankly, we all have our stereotypes, our biases, our prejudices. They aren't going to go away unless we can face them, and it's hard to face them if you can't discuss them or bring them out into the open. Women are just as much a problem for other women as men with these issues. And one thing VCs for sure face, as Jodi pointed out, is a lack of upside for being honest. She said one motivation is that a VC will shy away, because they don't want to miss the chance to do a Series B if they pass on a Series A with someone, and tell them why. If they instead hedge on the reasons, they keep their options open. But she encouraged women to ask anyway for feedback, because it does help with what you are doing.

But I have to say, with the man in my story above, if later he wanted to do something with me, I wouldn't say no. Because I believe he's open to change and learn, and to figure out how to do what he does better, with a more diverse crowd than the men that so typically start companies in Silicon Valley.

Anyway, regarding the black and white nature of these issues, or lack thereof, Mike Swift of the San Jose Mercury News wrote up She's Geeky, with this article, and as many reporters do, wrote up my story in two short sentences causing it to seem more black and white:

A venture capitalist who rejected Mary Hodder's start-up for funding later told her he did so in part because Hodder had no male co-founder, and he thought she would quit because she's a woman. Hodder didn't quit.

And while I appreciate the need for this way of telling it, and it is technically true, I also think the issues are more complex. If we chastise folks for having "bad thoughts", we won't air them and make it better, and they will sit, just under the surface, keeping anyone but the default culture from succeeding.

I believe that Silicon Valley culture is pretty open and accepting of people. I'd suggest that compared to many other industries, it's a better place for a woman to start a company or work again type than most. But the reality is many people in positions of power and authority -- often men but sometimes women -- have some variation on the thought themes that keep people out.

But I also think we need to support our geek sisters, make better networking and figure out how to up the numbers of women VCs, women founders and women engineers. Or our products and companies will suffer, and our ecosystem will remain stilted and in some ways, closed.

Legacy Media Gloats About Fake Steve Jobs Outing

There's been a lot of gloating over the outing of the author of the blog, Fake Steve Jobs (see article below this link for gloating), which has been written by Dan Lyons, a Senior Editor of Forbes and where Brad Stone of the New York Times broke the story yesterday.

The interesting thing to me is that legacy media in NYC thinks that they are so clever for finding Lyons, or at least Lyons and his friends think this, when lots of bloggers on the west coast have spent months speculating and looking for FSJ. They even have pointed out how geeky the new media people are because they were doing things like checking the headers of email from FSJ, which appeared to point to a Boston location but that was all they got.

Brad Stone figured it out because he looked through Manhattan back channels to find a book agent was shopping a book proposal from FSJ (a few months ago, the book is due in October), and because the agent was telling publishers that the writer was a "the anonymous author was a published novelist and writer for a major business magazine," he could compare the FSJ writings with Lyons blog and figured it out.

Well, the point is that if you are part of legacy media, and more specifically, are in Manhattan, you probably have access through your network to other media entities in Manhattan. (Note that Brad Stone doesn't live in Manhattan, but as a member of the Times, I'd consider that very strong "local" access.) Of course if you get a clue through people you know that tell you about the FJS publishing package and mysterious writer status, you figure it out this way. No bloggers out in the hinterlands have that sort of access to be able to put this together.

It reveals both positives and negatives about legacy media, that bloggers have know for a long time and that legacy media has tried to sweep under the rug now and then. Bloggers over the past few years have pulled back the curtain on legacy media, and legacy media is now better for those conversations. But it's hard to break any story like this without both online and off-line access. You need both, and so it's not so much that Brad Stone of the NYTimes did the breaking, but rather Brad Stone, person with access Manhattanite and local connections to the publishing industry who broke the story. Could have been anyone with friends in publishing who figured it out.

But to say that it's "ironic" that a legacy media journalist was the FSJ and legacy media broke it may be true, but it's gloating at the same time. And it's that gloating attitude that got legacy media into trouble in the first place, and made the public so angry with them, after things like Jason Blair and Stephen Glass. So it may be a small victory, but often what legacy media doesn't understand is that there isn't a battle. Many conferences over the past few years have devolved into an either or battle where public demonstrations of these attitudes come out. But both sides need each other and if one went away, the other would be in deep trouble, at this point.

Bloggers drive a lot of traffic back to legacy media, as they discuss news print stories, and journalists get a lot of stories out of blogs (I first noticed this five or six years ago when my intellectual property stories started to get lifted a couple days after I published them.. by.. the New York Times. They added to them, but they took the arguments, the phrases, and never said a word about where it came from. I noticed this same thing with other IP bloggers like Law Meme and Copyfight as well.) News reporters report and bloggers opine. Bloggers opine and poke and reporters go looking for more.

We also need reporters who have access, not so much of the example above, but with access to important things, in order to get good information out. This is critical for the democracy and the reason reporters are given special dispensation in the Constitution. But reporters also need not abuse that power through gloating or arrogance.

This isn't about getting over on new media by the legacy guys. Many legacy guys have become new media guys.. Lyons and Stone each have blogs and write on the daily. The much more interesting story is how legacy media is using new media tools, changing their habits (like writing anonymous parody blogs !!!) and how everyone is interacting on and off-line to get better knowledge as well as entertainment. I have to admit, I have loved reading FSJ the past year. It's been totally entertaining.

Check this out: Fake Brad has come on the scene. Maybe a little less than FSJ-clever, but it is amusing. And ironically, it's amusing partly because it makes fun of legacy media arrogance. And as Geek.com notes, FSJ and FB may be the start of a whole new genre.

Consumer Comes Up Again: We Need A Better Name

Pete Blackshaw, CMO of Nielsen BuzzMetrics, made a group on Facebook called "Consumer Generated Media." I posted to the group's wall the first post below, objecting to the use of the word Consumer. He replied and I replied. In the meantime, Ted Tagami saw my first post the consumer generated media group and made "People Generated Media" into a new group and so far, 70 people have joined.

I think we really need to put our heads together to come up with a term that isn't consumer, prosumer, amateur, maybe even user (even though I like being one), to describe the production of media by anyone. Maybe it's producer but it doesn't feel specific enough to the idea that it's not professional. Don't know. But it's comes up again and again, and I think it needs to be solved.

ORIGINAL POST

Mary Hodder (Berkeley) wrote
at 11:35am on August 6th, 2007

Hi Pete,
Why do you use the word "consumer" for this group?
Why not "user generated media" instead?

Consumer sounds like we are baby birds, where you poor undistinguished junk down our throats, and in exchange, we poop cash.

I'm a user, a producer, a thinker, and I when I make media, I'm conversing with it. I'm a customer of some companies, but I'm not a consumer, mindlessly taking anything any legacy media company will scoop down my gullet, sending them money in exchange.

I think you should seriously reconsider the use of this term, here and elsewhere. It's demeaning and intentionally used to condescend to those of us who create media non-professionally.

Thanks,
mary

Pete's Response:

Respected blogger and Web 2.0 innovator Mary Hodder left a thoughtful message on my wall questioning my use of the term "consumer" versus other terms, and I thought I'd post both my response and her original post below (sic, it's above to keep it in chron order). It's a good, and important, conversation, and I welcome any thoughts.

Mary,

Great, thoughtful note – as always! Every once and a while I get taken to task by someone for using this term. Four years ago I was at a “future of media� conference at MIT and I was practically thrown out of the room for using the term.

Still, I’m quite passionate about the word consumer -- have been since I was kid soaking in lessons from a cost conscious, value-seeking, injustice-fighting mother of seven kids. My favorite show while growing up was “Fight Back,� hosted by consumer advocate David Horowitz. I’ve always read “Consumer Reports.� When I started PlanetFeedback, a consumer feedback portal, my tag line was “Viva consumer.� (We even had a “Consumer Manifesto.") While some may see it as demeaning, I see it as empowering.

That not to suggest the other terms – citizen, user, people, we, participants – don’t work as well, and I certainly use them here and there. We should all be sensitive to context. And I don’t deny for a second there’s a broader conversation going on that transcends so many of the issues and themes I write about in the marketing zone.

But at the same time, I really don’t want to confuse folks about my core focus and intent via my blog, this Facegroup page, my ClickZ article, or even in my present work. My target audience is marketers and the business community, and the word “consumer� is deeply woven into the fabric of their everyday vernacular…at least for now. I’ve sought to use language they can understand and relate to, and I know it’s working on many levels.

I also wonder whether against the backdrop of escalated skepticism and consumer distrust toward marketers, we may need to overcompensate on using more explicit labels and transparency tags to achieve clearer understanding in the marketplace. With all the co-mingling, mashing, remixing, reshuffling, co-creation, and occasional co-optation between seller and buyer (or, in the case of PR, messenger and recipient) such clarity of language may the world seems less fuzzy. Consumer may border on the conservative, but it does drive clarity.

Let me also confess that aside from my mother’s influence I also have a strong P&G bias. The word “consumer� is like religion at P&G, and I’ve carried that religion with me in all my pursuits. I am proud to say I am a “Consumer focused marketer,� and when I say it, folks generally understand what I mean. When I applied to P&G out of business school, I sought their deep expertise in “consumer understanding� and figuring out “unmet consumer needs.�

The same logic applies to why I focus on the term “media� versus content. I settled on the term “media� out of my ups and downs of trying to sell the vision and idea of listening to companies. No one really understood what I was talking about until I started to emphasize the word "media." My goal has been to convince marketers that both positive and negative word of mouth was having a big impact on their brands. But while everyone intuitively got the concept of word of mouth, it always carried a connotation of being touchy-feeling, ephemeral, fleeting, and non-quantifiable. One, it suddenly occurred to me that the term “media� was perfect. CGM, while not like a impression you just buy, nevertheless acts like “media.� It leaves a digital trail, and those comments impact the awareness, trial, and purchase behavior of other consumers.

Anyway, happy to continue the conversation. It’s a good one, and I wouldn’t rule out my evolving on the topic over time.

I wonder what William Safire would have to say?

Pete

Post #2
You replied to Pete's post 3 hours ago
Hi Pete,
I appreciate your answer, and the passion and connection you feel to the word, consumer.

I think my objection partly comes from the variable ways I see people using the word at events, conferences, online etc. I was at a conference of mostly PBS people at Channel 13 in NYC a year ago. There were older, very established people in the room who objected to my use of "user" onstage while I talked, who insisted on consumer. I asked why, and one man very gruffly replied that the people didn't know how to make good media, only the professionals did. He was very condescending toward people who unprofessionally made media, and said they were simply consumers. That's it.

I've seen people as recently as the Web 2.0 Expo use the term onstage presenting technologies. I've continuously seen it in print used to separate the people who consume the media from those who produce it.

The interesting thing for me about social media is that it's not just about media, as in, a single discrete piece of media produced, and then another, and then another. In the other world, these might have been newspaper articles, that people would read. In the new world, these could be newspaper articles, blog post reactions, videos made by anyone, etc. But between these discrete chunks of media is an implicit, socially derived media that we can trace or understand, follow and engage with as dribbles of more media.

Almost everyone at some point in their online lives probably makes some sort of social media, even in the rating, recommending, tagging, posting, linking, emailing, editing, discussing, IMing, of discrete pieces of media (most often delineated by a single URL to each piece, but also sending the media removed from any URL.. either way, the chunking and adding happen.)

Whether they make the chunks is another story. Only a small portion of the total edits Wikipedia, creates a video, writes a blog post, records sound, or whatever. Any many are very bad at it. But that's okay. Some will learn and get good and may go on to work professionally. Some will get good and add to their professional lives with their media creations.

But using the word consumer, with so many from legacy media having so much trouble with the notion that anyone can publish now, and with so many more who don't subscribe to "consumer" doing publishing, makes the word really difficult to parse for a common meaning for all of us.

The guy at PBS was very clear in his use of this word. He uses it intentionally, because it is condescending.

I would like to see us work here, if this is the right place, to come up with better terms. Some object to user because of drug use connotations (though from what I can see, we are all pretty addicted to information and the internet, so i don't think we are that far off there). Some object to prosumer because it's clumsy and does really get at what we want.

I think we are looking for a word that we all haven't thought of yet. I've talked a lot about with with super-word-smith Doc Searls over the past 4 years. And we are stumped.

But still, I think we need to find the words to describe more accurately what is going on, and distinguish it with the old sort of consumer. Yes, consumer rights, consumer reports, consumer advocacy are good, but they wouldn't need to so much if so much of what being a consumer meant to companies and marketers was about dumping products down consumer's throats so they could poop cash.

The internet gives us a way around this mode of interaction, and I think we need to name for it.

Email Has Evaporated As a Social Tool

Yes, I still get the occasional social email. But I looked through my email over the last week, and I have two (yes TWO) social email. The other 5,000 or so are business (though I have even talked with VCs using Facebook and IM recently), or mail lists about things I'm interested in, Google Alerts, or spam.

But nothing much social, nothing of pure fun.

Email I think it's safe to say, is 99.9995% over for me as a social tool. And that makes it a whole lot less fun.

Now I use Facebook, IM, Twitter, blogging and commenting, txt messaging on my phone, MMS on my phone, the phone itself for things social, Dabble to see video recommendations from friends, and Flickr for my friends photos. Email is a pure notification and mail list tool.

Yesterday I got a demo of the new Plaxo from Mr. Plaxo (Joseph Smarr) and the "open Facebook" as Techcrunch called it. Was really interesting because it pulled everything into one place, everything except Facebook and personal phone messaging that is. I'm trying it out on my own now.

Harry Potter on The Pirate Bay, Pls C&D Me!!

So, I just realized I probably know Mark S. Seidenfeld, mentioned on Techcrunch today. I believe I worked with him at my first job out of college and would love to catch up with him. I tried looking him up on the Scholastic site but they don't list General Counsel or make it easy to reach people.

So, here's the deal, if I link to Techcrunch on their C&D story, who linked to Torrent Freak, I'll be linking to the linkers who linked to the linkers who pirated something. Harry Potter, in this case.

This reminds me of when I was C&D'd by Diebold for linking to the linkers who linked to the linkers... blah blah which produced a C&D from them. It was all totally bogus and just a form of shutting down speech, but as I said, I'd love to get an email from Mark because I'd like to be in touch.

Whatever works. Mark, my email is mary at hodder dot org. Ttyl.

US Internet Speeds are Really Slow..

Via Dave Farber's IP list from Press Etc:

Average broadband download speed in the US is 1.9 Mbps. It is 61 Mbps in Japan, 45 Mbps in South Korea, 18 Mbps in Sweden, 17 Mpbs in France, and 7 Mbps in Canada.

I've talked about this before.

Americans are falling further and further behind, in socializing with technologies like high speed interent access as well as cell phone tools and service that are much more dynamic than the rest of the world has. This is due to terrible public policies around these technologies and selfish companies who provide the services in monopolisitic ways.

Two to four years after I first talked about this, we are further behind than ever. It's appalling but you can read about the $200 billion scam on the US by Verizon, QWest and the Bell companies here.

Getting Real

Bob Lefsetz explains why the music industry is even worse off than I thought, pushing them deeper into the hole they've been digging for years. They are so far removed from what is real and passionate in the art of music and in how people connect to the artists that this must seem perfectly reasonable to them, from a business point of view.

This summer in the east hamptons there will be a 5 concert series, costing $15,000 per ticket which buys entry into all five shows, with Prince, Billy Joel, James Taylor, Tom Petty and Dave Matthews.

He aptly compares this concert series to Mitzvahpalooza where Long Island defense contractor David H. Brooks spent $10 million dollars in 2005 on his daughter's bat mitzvah, and hired Don Henley, 50 Cent and Aerosmith among others to play two floors of the Rainbow room in NYC for the event.

Bob's right, it's disgusting for the fans, not to mention the idea of the artform, as well as commentary on the state of our society, which has gotten so gluttonous and cynical that even to people who can't afford it, which is most of us, this kind of thing seems reasonable and in no way a slap on the soul of music as an artform.

IIW Project Recap

Today at the IIW (internet identity workshop) at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, I took notes on the presentations of the projects in existence for more than 6 months. They are below. But I also noticed that they all said they did the same set of things, to make their own projects play with all the rest. Yes, they all have slight variants, like one or another is in php, or java, or ruby, or whatever. But they talked about trading identity bits around like they would send around email. And let's face it, we all have different email clients written in different languages, but the email itself moves around regardless of that.

So I'm wondering what the real differences are. If this is a matter of semantics, between projects, I'm hoping that by the end of the conference (Wednesday afternoon) they've all combined and will work for a less confusing and more aligned identity space.

I had the sense, while taking notes, that each project was slightly restating the same terms, so I aggregated them below. But this could have been buzz word bingo, for all the similarities we were hearing about each. Help us out here, tell us why we really need all you!

Notes start here:

1. OSIS -Dale Olds, Johannes Earnst

Open source identity selector
Johannes
Kim Cam
Dave Winer
Michael Graves
Early 2006 met to work on this and it became what is now called cardspace
Aligned multiple distributed systems for trust
coordinated MS cardspace project spec for making it open source
they want to do more with open implementations but don't endorse standards per say
want to collaborate multiple systems into something interoperable
steering committee / working group
they've worked on a bunch of the projects that will be in the speed geeking session

they focus on:
interoperability of standards, meaning of data, and types of information
determine relying parties and help make agreements for that
help determine consistent user experience

2. SAML, Liberty Alliance, openLiberty, and Concordia - by Eve Maler
federated identity means distributing identity tasks and information across domains
XML Based frameworks standardized at OASIS for marshaling security and ID info and exchanging
SAML is about assertions about subjects
Comes in layers
-- assertions get used by protocols to get used by certain tasks
-- specifies single sign on

History: SAML, Shibboleth and Liberty framework have converged over time
Shibboleth is now part of SAML2 as of 2005
Liberty is == to SAML

LIBERTY ALLIANCE = 150 governmental agencies, businesses, orgs and agencies
mission: foster a ubiquitous interoperable privacy
dev. open tech standards
human to application standards
Liberty people service: groups and roles are defined and shared
they are starting to offer

CONCORDIA PROGRAM
initiative to make umbrella standards to harmonize identity protocols

3. CARDSPACE - Mike Jones, MS
About bringing about convergence in identity space with MS and other partners
Care about threats to online safety
Criminal situation is bad
Try to bring usable, safe DI to users
Think about claims made by an issuer by a subject
7 laws of identity
-- Consistency is very important
usability, usability, usability

Microsoft Open Spec: cardspace.netfx3.com

4. THE HIGGENS PROJECT - Mary Ruddy
higgens is a species of tasmanian long-tailed mouse
open source
user centric and privacy centric
interoperable system for authentication
-- example where no password is required
doesn't share some info.. let's users choose
powered by interoperability framework
-- interoperate with lots of situations: financial, employment, etc
multi-protocol
all tokens/protocols/ systems
modular

5. OPEN ID - David Recordan, Bill Washburn
interoperable, single sign on
control URL in OID 1.0
added / extended to support iNames last summer

Single sign on
FOAF support - ex. could pull in AIM list
consumer level light weight ID
90 million Open IDs
(including every AOL/MS user)

problems: yes.. but solutions will be discussed here

Bill Washburn - openID Foundation
foster and promote openID for user centric ID on the net
Dick Hardt
Scott Kveton
Johannes Earnst
Drummond Reed
David Recordan
Arthur Bergman

join!

6. SHIBBOLETH / INTERNET 2 MIDDLEWARE - Bob Morgan (Univ WA)

They focus on attributes - work with Higgens
Shared identity with more than just handle style login - need more assertions
Education focused - work with universities

iiw2007

David Weinberger: Everything is Miscellaneous

Salim Ismail and I are hosting a blogger meetup for David on May 9 in SF. Details are here.

25 books to the first bloggers in the room! And David will sign and give a talk.

Come!

BOB is so ALIVE

So, secretly. Who is your favorite guilty pleasure read in the blogosphere? Mine is Bob Lefsetz. Actually, I've subscribed to his email list the past few months, which is easier because he only posts once or twice a day and I really want to read it the minute he puts it out. He's HILARIOUS.

I have been blogging about the music industry, IP, security and privacy, the napsterization of anything but in particular digital media, and how stupid legacy media is for about 5 years. So it's not like he's telling me anything I don't already know. But he's just so DAMN'D funny that I can't help it. He's so totally alive and passionate about music, the music business, the integrity of some people and the loss of control by others. And he podcasts about it too, like the Stubhub/Ticketmaster thing.

SoI love reading him, the minute he puts anything out, because he totally believes! It's great stuff.

Don't expect to see anything you haven't read on the music business before, but do expect to be completely and utterly entertained.

Thanks Hank for turning me onto Bob.

Teach Your Children Well

The Kathy Sierra situation has now been in full meltdown in the blogosphere for two days. I've been talking with Doc Searls a bit about why I'm so bothered by this situation.

I know that the people Kathy named did not themselves write the posts or comments that are most disturbing. But I have a lot of trouble with their inability to acknowledge that by participating, or hosting, or linking to two group blogs, Meankids and unclebobism, where their fellow posters wrote misogynistic and racist things, posted photos like the one with Kathy and a noose, and by fostering an environment that allowed the perfect troll to get out of control in the comments, they allowed a kind of condoning relationship to those words and photos. I understand Jeneane was in the hospital for the second blog's life-span, but she hasn't really said much about the first.

Chris Locke thinks you own your own words. I understand that as far as not censoring or editing those you host. But I think Chris and Frank Paytner had a responsibility to not just slink off, when the posting got rough, deleting the blogs altogether, but rather to acknowledge what went wrong and condemn it publicly, not condone it in its absence.

Some of those blog posts are still out in caches, out of context and without their full data attached. Earlier today I saw a post reprinted here attributed to Frank Paynter. In fact I think it was written by a "Rev Ed" who posted to Meankids (with links to Listics, Frank Paynter's blog) -- Bloglines has the cached version. It's a terrible, racist, misogynist post that should have been condemned by the rest of the bloggers on Meankids. And it may have, but with the blog deleted, we can't know that right now. I hope that Frank Paytner is keeping all the data about the activity and will share it with us. Or at least with someone like Doc who I would trust to make sense out of it and lay it out for us. But that needs to happen now.

In some ways, by having most of the blog posts "disappeared" we are all in a situation where we cannot go back to the evidence to look at it. Rather, we can only imagine what happened. Which I think leads to something far worse: people talking about something they can't see and judge for themselves. It's like having a Baptist preacher denouncing the Passion of the Christ in the news, and then seeing the movie and feeling disappointed because it wasn't so bad .. you know he disagreed, but frankly, it's not the end of the world. In other words, our imaginations can really run away with us, when we hear a generalized story. Which leads the the unknown taking on far more power than it should. Getting the facts right is really important here. It's not that I'm saying that Kathy didn't get some pretty awful stuff. She did, but I think we need to know what it is and who exactly did what to judge it correctly. Otherwise, we just imagine and conflate and get it all wrong.

So figuring out who spoofed Alan, who "Rev Ed" is, and who Joey is, would be very helpful, and knowing what they said and did specifically would be helpful as well. I'd really like to see the whole blogs, first hand.

I don't believe we should condemn the folks that Kathy names yet, but I do think we should look hard a why they didn't condemn the behaviors that took place right in front of them. That's what I have the problem with. I believe this lack of responsibility and leaderships is why we will continue to see people behave this way in online communities with no word from those around them. Until the leaders condemn it, and everyone else feels safe calling it out as bad behavior right when something happens, and we have established what social norms we'll tolerate that are reasonable, we won't stop this from happening again.

I'm also sorry to say that I had no idea that Michelle Malkin has had these sorts of things written about her, photoshopped around her, or directed at her. Because I don't read her, I didn't know. But it's equally as appalling as Kathy's situation.

It's time men and women in the blogosphere took back the network and repeatedly and publicly condemned this sort of behavior. Let's take back this power from cyberbullies. Andy Carvin proposes Stop Cyberbullying Day for Friday and I'm all for it.

Making the Mean Kids Bad Isn't Going to Help

What the meankids did was not good: tolerating posts from some of their members that were bad and making a playground for bad comments. But let's not make them bad, let's make their actions the target of judgement. My experience with them, Jeneane Sessum, Frank Paynter, Chris Locke, is that they are good people, though my experiences have been limited. They made a mistake in creating a community blog that Frank, Jeneane and Chris have all acknowledged went out of control. A very bad one, and one that will cost them a lot.

But let's take this opportunity to include them in the conversation about why making fun of *who people are* is bad. Of course in most cases it's fine to make commentary, parody or other fun *what others do*. But there is so much hatred of women in the tech community, just under the surface and it peaks out it's head in some really ugly ways. Before joining the tech community, to mention Kaliya Hamlin's point on the deeply geeky list, many of us had not thought about gender differences and never focused on them. But in this community, it's a festering problem.

Let's use this opportunity to discuss this and make it better.

On a list with some other cc's, I said this to Robert (and Maryam) Scoble earlier today:

Robert,
I understand your pain and feeling that people who behaved badly shouldn't be in our communities.
And you or anyone else is under no obligation to associate with anyone.

But I do believe that rather than throwing people out, we will do a lot more to have a frank and open
conversation about what is right, and invite people to stay and learn from those mistakes.

Banning people really is the start of the meankids going off to taunt the rest of the kids, because they've
been punished. I don't want any more of that.

I want people to stay, and understand why this is so hurtful, and learn how to express themselves,
with humor if they like, without taunting others over race, religion, gender or anything else.

I'm asking to have that frank conversation. Maybe it's too early because we are all pretty pissed,
but let's do that. Because exclusion will for sure breed more of this.

mary

Robert replied that he was really angry but coming around to this view.

Kathy Sierra: Stepping Back after Abusive and Violent Threats

Earlier today when I read Kathy Sierra's post, I was really stunned and very sad to see it. She has had death threats and abusive behavior directed at her, both in the comments of a blog (seems to have been removed) called Meankids.org and on what sounds like a spinoff: unclebobism. (Also, these abusive acts manifested in comments on her blog, and in email.)

Those two blogs were made to vent and the commenters on the blogs took things way too far. It's a slippery slope, making a publication that is mean to make fun or be a little nasty. How nasty is too nasty? And how far do the writers let the rest of their direct community of readers go in extending the fun?

It's really sick and chilling to have this happen to Kathy, who is one of the kindest people I've met. And very smart and reasonable. I can only imagine the cumulative effect of all the communications coming toward her over a month period, that would lead her to cancel speaking engagements and want to drop out of this community for a while.

After seeing her post, and the rest of the community rally around her (yea! great job blogosphere!) I searched for cached versions of meankids and unclebobism because I wanted to see what was up. I know the people who started those blogs and I wondered about how bad it could be. Well, I was disheartened to find some really nasty stuff about the Scobles that I would put in the racist, misogynist and vulgar category. By people I respected! Not funny at all. Just really mean. So I can imagine based on those words that whatever they said about Kathy wasn't good, and their readers took it as a cue for the worst.

Leading a pack of rabid animals is not something to be proud of... I hope people will think hard before they decide to create an online community like meankids again. I don't think mean speech should be illegal, but I do think the rest of us have responsibility to condemn it if we see it getting destructive and to protect the targets. And of course, threats are illegal.. so I'm happy those sites removed once they went from mean, to threatening abusive acts.

I hope Kathy sees, over time, that the vast majority of people are good, and that we will support her and stand up for her, and not let abusive and violent people win over the good she contributes to our community.

Women 2.0 Gets It So Wrong

First off, I really hate all this 2.0 naming. Why plant yourself in a time that is on the verge of obsolescence? Women 2.0. What can I say? Are we software that needs an upgrade?

Anyway, Women 2.0 is running a pitch contest (great idea), but for the rules way down at the bottom which say:

Women 2.0 Napkin Business Challenge Eligibility and Rules

The business plan must represent the original work of members of the team. You can submit as many business ideas on napkins as you want. You may have a team of up to four individuals. At least half of the team must be female and at least half of the team must be under 35; else the majority shareholder must be a woman and under 35. This is a Women 2.0 and Entrepreneur27 production after all.

Nice. So Mike Moritz and Tim Drapier are the prizes (meetings with them for another pitch). And the judges are mostly women, over 35.

Isn't the issue that women who are first timers need a lot of help getting started in terms of making a startup, pitching and getting funding? And, there are so few women anyway. Why on earth would you limit it? If you are really concerned that the few women over 35 that might submit ideas are going to wipe out the few women under 35, why not divide them into categories by age?

There is so much to know as you make a startup, and you need experienced people around you to clue you in, because almost none of what you really need to know is written down or even bloggable.

My best learning experiences have been with people who have a lot of experiences with the VC community, who can explain how things work, the quirky hand done ways of VC land, and what the various relationships are between people, and just how connected they are in what appears from the outside to be invisible.

I also am well aware that women over 35 are often seen as invisible in our society. If women are only valued for their looks (not how I see the world, but there is certainly a large percentage that treats women this way, and they aren't only men), then a woman over 35 is a stereotypical 'fading bloom.' And a women over 35 making her first company, pitching for the first time, in this Byzantine and fairly undocumented world around funding can be very difficult, because people may well be seeing right past her.

I don't believe I've had this experience myself, and maybe that's because people don't see me at about that age. Or maybe it's because of other things.. I don't really care. The bottom line is for women who are older, it's more difficult.

The thought of going to Sand Hill Road and standing up for yourself and your ideas can be intimidating. VCs meetings can be hard. One VC interrupted me 12 times (after the third, I started making tic marks) to say that with his startup (10 years before) they never had to do anything social. And he didn't belive in it now and why on earth was I even thinking about it? I don't mind defending what I work on, but you really have to have it very together, and often they actually don't want a real answer. They are looking for the right code words to provide comfort that this is a good investment. If you don't speak the way they understand the world, you will not be taken seriously. They also may be looking for push back instead of inclusiveness if they challenge you, and women when they first meet someone are often reluctant to push back without more relationship building. Right there in the first 5 minutes of a meeting, that can be a confidence undermining event for both parties. Women do communicate differently than men, and it doesn't change at 35.

One adviser I have talks about how Silicon Valley (or Silicon Village) is run on fear and greed. Greed comes first, but fear trumps all. And listening to the years of stories does make that world more understandable and feel less scary, more like something you can work with in an acceptable way.

Anyway, my point is, Women 2.0 needs to focus on what the barriers are: going out the first time with your first company. Doesn't matter whether you are 25 or 70. It's going to require a support network and information no matter your age. Women do have different needs than men, and we do behave differently in these situations. We tend to network differently, and that can be a barrier as well.

Women 2.0 isn't helping by institutionalizing and making acceptable agism. On top of everything else women face going to Sand Hill, that's just not something we need, especially from our own.

Update: I took this photo at Mesh07:

All the more reason I think this post was necessary to point out that first time women entrepreneurs and not young entrepreneurs are the ones who need help. I don't care if it wasn't towing the party line. Age discrimination isn't right.

Dylan Does Seuss

The Napster Nation at work.

Dylan Hears a Who:

SXSW Ramblings

Ramble alert.

Ok.. people I missed who I wished were there:

Liz Lawley
Halley Suitt
Caterina Fake
Salim Ismail
Emily Davidow
Jerry Michalski
David Isenberg

That's all I can think of at the moment. But I remember missing more! Pls come next year!

Ok.. the hotels.

We stayed the Hilton Garden (around the corner from SXSW and the main Hilton) which had just been bought, renovated partly and had a gym with 4 (four!) treadmills which no one wanted to use and 1 (one!) eclipse machine, which everyone wanted to use. Nice distribution guys. Oh, and the two broken bikes didn't help.

But they had free internet access. But it was only for one night.

Then we stayed at the big Hilton across from SXSW. Very convenient. But, they charge for their gym (supposedly because they have attendants.. which I could care less about and just need an eclipse machine thank you). And they charge for the wifi.. which I paid for, and every third page (yes!!! was so messed up!!!) redirected my browser to a Hilton ad.

Ok... I paid $10 for wifi, and it was slow as molasses. So I would load up a bunch of pages, do email for a while, and go back to find that 1/3 of the pages had been hijacked by Hilton. I'm already staying there.. so do I really need an advertisement? I mean come on. I paid already. I showed it to Kaliya who was totally appalled. What a rip off. Needless to say, I didn't buy it for the rest of the stay. So for three days I kept getting my computer at 1am or 8am, and going to the lobby to get the free, fast, ad-free wifi. Which was annoying as hell.

I won't stay at the big Hilton ever after that. Esp since the big Hilton is literally double the price. I'd rather get a free gym and wifi from a cheaper hotel than pay more, and then pay again, and again. And again. Stupid.

Ok.. so the BBQ, with Joyce and Lili rocked, as did all the fun parties, the people (every day I'd be walking around Austin and see like 80 people I knew.. was totally fun), the interesting talks, etc.

So, the only thing that wasn't so convenient was the rain. Which had massively affecting the party schedule for lots of people, and then delayed planes on the way out.. mine to Oakland was delayed for hours, when we were checking in, so Joyce said, hey, just take my plane to Las Vegas and then go to Oakland, which got me there 25 minutes earlier than my other flight. Yea!

SXSW is My Favorite Conference

It's really just spring break for geeks.

Yum.

RE: Women and Conferences

This again is one of those CC the world posts. Earlier today, a list I'm on for women in tech had this subject line: re: women and conferences.

Someone asked:

I wonder why is this is the issue on which the most energy is expended on this list? Is the future of women in technology truly tied to the numbers of us speaking at conferences?

I replied (and a bunch of folks asked me to blog this reply):

I think it's an important part of what goes on, speaking. There is a feedback loop:

Speak -> be seen as a leader in the topic area and eventually be considered in leadership positions
Be in leadership position - > be asked to speak because of that leadership position in area

If you aren't in the loop you aren't as important as others with similar skills sets and expertise in the eyes of those who fund, engage for consulting, hire for leadership positions, take in PhD candidates or whatever it is that requires discernment between people.

It's not that anyyone has to speak, but it would be great if more women were speaking, because it brings an additional layer of diversity that right now is lacking in many labs, financial firms, development perspectives (the focus of software and websites, etc) and in their leadership circles.

Girls also need strong confirmation through repeated messaging from parents (mothers and fathers) as well as others who can relate to kids but are in leadership positions. Most people are very bad at visualizing. Example: when you go to Ikea they set up a room, so you can see it in person, instead of being asked to visualize something based on items inside a cardboard box and line drawing with measurements. Good contractors even mock up a kitchen in cardboard and shims so the owners can "live" in it to see the traffic and usage patters.

Girls need that same help with leadership. Boys get that help much more often, which is why they can visualize it better.

My dad, when I was little, took me to work all the time. He was a CEO in a company with several hundred people onsite and 45 offices around the world that he established. He used to let me help him write his speeches. I grew up believing I could do that, because he showed me how. And on the weekends, he actually enjoyed spending his time doing things like digging up the sewage system in our backyard and replacing the pipes, or rewiring our bathroom, both of which I did with him, as his assistant, and after a while he let me do the stuff with him as my assistant. I know I'm lucky and unusual to have had those experiences, as well as a mom who was managing partner in her lawfirm as an example, and not everyone gets that.. but I think the "speaker" issue is a huge code word for "...My God, we need to get this together for girls whether they want to be engineers, CEOs, Scientists, Exec Dir.s of Non profits, VCs or whatever." In other words, if girls want it, let's make it possible for them.

Last night I went to a tempura party, and there was a Phd in neuroscience from UCB there, and I asked what she was doing when she's done at the end of the semester. She replied that she would teach because having a lab is out of the question. She didn't want to play the games the boys play to raise all the money and compete in those ways to lead her own lab. %$#@^$%&

This is what I hear from women who would like to start a software company, about VCs. It's too much to play those kinds of games without some mentorship and help, and we need to make it easier. I don't think it's that women don't want to compete, they just want the competition to be about something, not just an arbitrary game to weed out the people with no patience for that game.

I know there are many issues, but speaking is one piece of this puzzle.

We have discussed it so much here (on this email list) and elsewhere that it's loaded with subtext and frustration and expectation and desire and to some degree, the wish to just force the issue through exposure, shame (on conference givers) as well as educating them, and brute force. It may not be the best way, but I think this is some measure of what is happening on our list, where people spend a lot of time talking about the number of women speakers.

My two cents.

This is one of those CC-the-world posts

So, my sweet Mac got smashed. I'd maxed out the 1 gb of ram a year and a half ago, and was constantly both backing parts of it up (my movies and photos mostly, a few key documents, but it's maxed out on those things too) and either deleting files or removing big video files to the external drive I have in order to make room. What a pain. I've needed a new computer for a while, but I was trying to hit a particular milestone before I bought a MacBook pro. Well, once the corner got smashed a few days ago, that was it. I had to do it because it won't close. And it's acting really funny in that I can't seem to get it to shut down properly or backup the past week or so. Yikes.

I was on the Apple site, comparing prices with other sites that sell Macs, and figured out I could do better with Apple, by $350, but the remaining question was: which harddrive? The one it comes with is 120 gbs, at 5400 rpms, or you can upgrade to a 160 gb, 5400 rpm, or (and this is very tempting, in that I edit a lot of video on my laptop) a 200 gb HD with 4200 rpm.

The only person I could think of who I could call and possibly get a recommendation at 8:45am on Saturday morning in order to press the "buy" button now is Doc Searls. So I rang, and he picked up from the UCSB Newspapers 2.0 conf (yeah.. I told him I'm waiting for Kitchen 2.0 or Carburetors 2.0 conf. I mean WTF.. why is everything 2.0.. I'm so tired of 2.0. And he agreed that even though it had been named months ago, it was all a bit tired, that 2.0 thing. How about if we just talk about stuff and include social interaction and the web as part of all universes now that it pretty much is, online?) Anyway, Doc says, Dan and JD are here, and we start in 7 minutes. I said I need your one minute assessment of harddrives for MacBooks (Doc is the one who got me to get the external harddrive I have now, which is really an internal harddrive, in a case, for a mac.) A second passed and he said, I know nothing.

Then another second passes, and he's off on a tear telling me that having more room means having faster access so the rpm speed matters less, and when he got his HD that was bigger at 5400 rpms he thought it was faster than his smaller HD with 7600 rpms and that there isn't that much difference but on the other hand the fragmentation of the drive matters much more in terms of performance and so using the defrag utility regularly is key and then some stuff about heat and the machine came up as well as density of the information and corruptibility and so actually I should in the end, considering all all that, get the 200 gb HD with 4200 rpms. 1 minute.

So I ordered. Hit the buy button. We hung up. And Doc went off to talk about Newspapers 2.0. Whatever that means.

Thanks Doc. That was perfect.

Oh, and I'm going to frame my old cover because I do really like it:

Putting Order to the Chaos of CES, Not to Mention Making New Media Proud

at the Bloghaus. By Podtech.

John and Linda Furrier and Maryam Scoble rock for putting it all together.

Wow. Made the chaotic CES scene fun and cool. And the video uploading.. 80 mbs up and down. It rocked!

An example of their work, vlogging the CES 2007 Keynote: Ed Zander, CEO Motorola:

Bloghaus is the best!

Learning Mandarin

I talked with my mother this morning, and she told me she's been taking Mandarin since June. My parents travel a lot, and spent the month of September in China. She said that it was really hard learning the characters (she knows 6 languages, but they are all European, latin based languages). But walking around in China , she could converse and understand people.

One interesting thing, she said she started out online with the Rosetta Stone system, and lasted a month. She is on dialup a lot, because of their travel schedule, and lack of easy wifi networking on their window's machine (I suggested a Mac to solve that, and the digital photo sharing issues they also have). Rosetta Stone just wasn't set up well, she thought, for a dial up user, because the files were so big and the assumptions were all about the always-on mindset. And there were no "hooks" for her, since her lack of experience with that kind of language didn't give her the cultural context to frame the language around it.

She hit on the idea of trying the SF public library. They have an apartment in SF so it was easy. She buzzed down, and took a course that was made by a professor at Hayward, who set up the structure entirely around cultural explanations and frameworks so she hooked right in, figured out what was going on, and was speaking in simple terms in two months. Then the trip to China, with some small successes in conversations with people there. And now she's really excited about learning more.

She still says the character recognition at her age (68) is hard, but she's really into it and planning the next trip over there.

The Future of Video

I'm moderating a session today at 10am on the Future of Video at the Web 2.0 Conference:

Future of Video: We Just Wanna Watch, Or Do We?
Mary Hodder, CEO, Dabble
Josh Felser, CEO, Grouper Networks
Mike Folgner, Jumpcut/Yahoo
Tod M. Sacerdoti, Founder and CEO, BrightRoll

YouTube has done a terrific job of leading the way for video 1.0 online, where watching is everything. But as people get more comfortable with watching video online, the old broadcast relationship they had to content changes, and they start to want more. What do users need for video 2.0 where watching is just a part of the story, where remixing and online editing, arranging, playlisting, searching, and most importantly, discovery through other sources are expected by users? What are the barriers and what is being done now to make regular users into power users, and give everyone more control and access than just watching in an on-demand style?

Come join us if you are at the conference. Should be a great discussion!

Update: Here is a Wired blog post on the session.

The Best Blog Post goes to....

Sorry.. that was left over from the Vloggies.

Guy Kawasaki says this is one of the best blog posts, and as a truffle and wine lover, and someone who loves fun media, well, I say WOW! too.

Look now, look now!

The Amateur Gourmet: Chutzpah, Truffles & Alain Ducasse.

One Web Day! It's here!

Celebrate how the internet has changed our lives and made it better with people around the world!

Okay, that's a lot of explanation points, but the internet has made my life so different than it was before. And so much better.

First wave was email and research, in 1992, when I needed Supreme Court case law from the Cornell Law School website, or a news article from Dialog, or bulletin boards. Oh freedom from the law library for every little task!

Second wave was IM, more email with many more people and the web. Instant. Communication. Conversation. And all that primitively laid out info on the web. That was never so easy to get before.

Third wave was blogging (which has totally changed my life the most of all these waves) and lead me to research the live web, search algorithms based upon human behavior in many different types of circumstances and make my company. And introduced me to a whole huge circle of friends and colleagues.

Right now I'm staying with a friend in Amsterdam who I first new on the web. She's amazing. And her husband. Both of whom sustain themselves very nicely through their online blogs, which are entire businesses where the storefront, or office space, as it were, resides on these blogs. Partly our friendship bloomed out of respect for each other's work, visible online. And partly because our work on the web led us to meet in person and gave us a rich foundation to start our first conversation. About fashion. And online advertising and how we each hate marketing, are geeks, but wish the right shoe ads could show up in the right places, without violating our privacy.

Well.. it's One Web Day.

Tell your story on your blog, on the One Web Day wiki, or anywhere you like. But let people know how much richer your life is because you can communicate over the collapsed barriers of time and space the internet allows.

I'm going to be in London filming a proclamation from the Lord Mayor on One Web Day.

Throw up your own video at Blip.tv, tag it "onewebday" and it will end up in Dabble here: One Web Day video page.

Or throw your video up at whatever video hosting company you choose, tag it onewebday, and we'll do our best to get it posted to the One Web Day video page right away.

See you later today in London!

One Web Day Announcement

I'm on the Board of One Web Day -- celebrating the internet once a year.

Here is the official announcement:

OneWebDay, "Earth Day for the Web," First Global Holiday to Celebrate How the Web Has Changed Our Lives Taking Place Sept. 22, 2006

Craig Newmark, Craigslist and Scott Heiferman, Meetup, to Kick Off Activities

New York, NY--Sept. 20, 2006—OneWebDay, an "Earth Day for the Web" www.onewebday.org, the first global holiday to celebrate the web and how it has changed our lives, is planned for September 22, 2006 (and every September 22 thereafter). As with Earth Day--an inspiration and model for OneWebDay--individuals, organizations and communities are celebrating in a variety of ways.
Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist, said: "OneWebDay reminds us that the net really is a democratizing medium, that everyone gets a chance to participate. If you want, you can stick your neck out and speak truth to power." Scott Heiferman, co-founder of Meetup and Fotolog, added: "The internet is under-hyped. It’ll only continue to re-shape lives across the globe. Surely it deserves a day. OneWebDay is a day for more people to think about how the internet can help solve problems for people around the world."

OneWebDay is creating an historic, grassroots event to mark the launch of OneWebDay. CNET Networks' Webshots (www.webshots.com), a global photo-sharing community, is working with OneWebDay to enable the largest global, online photo collaboration. Web users are invited to post a digital photo on webshots.com and label it “onewebday.� OneWebDay will then create a visualization of the web made up of these photos posted by millions of users around the world. This will show the power of online collaboration.

"The internet has become such a ubiquitous force in our lives that it's easy to forget how it has changed the world," said Susan Crawford, associate professor at the Cardozo School of Law, the architect of OneWebDay. "When people around the globe can 'see' the web, we'll think about how the web helps humans to work together and how much it means to us," Crawford added.

Events are happening across America and around the world: So far, we have events happening in Austin, TX; Belgrade, Serbia; Boston, MA; All over Canada: Chambolle-Musigny, Burgundy, France; Champaign-Urbana, IL; Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA; Chicago, IL; London and other places in the UK; Los Angeles; Milano, Italy; Naples, Italy; New York, NY; Phillipines; San Francisco, CA; Second Life; Slovakia; Sofia, Bulgaria; Tokyo, Japan; Vancouver, Canada; Vienna, Austria; Westport, CT updates at: http://www.onewebday.org/wiki/index.php/In-person_Events

In addition to the webshots.com giant collage, online activities in conjunction with OneWebDay include:
* Tell us the wackiest way you've used craigslist and if your story is selected, you will win a prize and get to share your tale on OneWebDay. Send your story to volunteer@onewebday.org.
* Join others celebrating around the world by making a OneWebDay video, post it to blip.tv, and Dabble.com will make it available for the world to see.
* Encourage your friends to take one web-related action that helps someone else: Teach someone how to edit a wiki, start a blog, or post a photo online.

Newmark of craigslist fame, Heiferman of Meetup. NYC Council Member Gale Brewer, and Drew Schutte, publishing director, WIRED, will speak at an event in New York.

Council Member Brewer said: "One of the key ideas behind OneWebDay is increasing public web access around the world. I'm proud to have been an active promoter of this effort in the City's parks and public spaces. More importantly, the Internet opens up the world to so many people, particularly our young people."

"WIRED has reported on and been inspired by the web from its infancy. We recognize its power to connect and influence. We are honored to be part of One Web Day to recognize the critical role the web plays in our lives," says Schutte of WIRED.

OneWebDay, Inc. has been formed and is seeking nonprofit status. It has an independent Board of Directions. The Board includes: A-list bloggers (Doc Searls, David Weinberger, David Isenberg, Mary Hodder), business executives (Don Telage, David Johnson, Rick Whitt), a NYC PR person (Renee Edelman, Edelman), a key researcher (Gregg Vesonder, AT&T), and a former state AG (Jim Tierney, Maine). Its president, Susan Crawford, is committed to working on this holiday for the next 10 years. OneWebDay is supported by Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, Cardozo Law School, Union Square Ventures, Edelman, DFJGotham, CNET Networks’ Webshots, CIRA, and individuals.

Thought Fashion: Are You In or Out?

It's true. I peeked.

Yes, I downloaded the AOL files. And I peeked. Why? Because I wanted to write this blog post and I wanted to see for myself what sort of gestures people were making as they searched for porn or socks or how to bury their pet birds or wives they'd just killed. I also needed to see the form the data was in. And I'm a voyeur just like everyone else in and around this story, and I wanted to rubberneck my way into other's private intellectual spaces.

But it's not right. The part where I and every news outlet, blogger, reader and looky-loo has been engaging in, judging people by their searches, making assumptions and behaving as if we ourselves have never made any searches or expressed any thoughts that would not look funny to someone else.

It's also not right because the data is personally identifying. Reporters have been tracking down people based upon their searches. It's not that hard, if you yourself are a good searcher.

What was it Bob Blakely said? About how "dragging all human behavior into the public is literally totalitarian." He is the chief security and privacy scientist for IBM's Tivoli Systems. "If you erode privacy, you erode liberty, because people don't tolerate things going on in front of them that they don't approve of." I was struck by how succinctly he answered the question that is always asked of people who object to the government or some other large and powerful entity as compared with you: What do you have to hide? If you're not doing anything wrong?

Every article on AOL's mess up that says something like AOL's Disturbing Glimpse Into Users' Lives is buying into this whether they know it or not. Thank you CNet for reaffirming our intolerance.

Let's get clear on the definition of "aggregated" data. For us geeks, we use this term often, as we reassure those whose data we work with that aggregation means we are removing anything personally identifying, and placing it with other user's data, so that it's just a pile of anonymized data that could never be distinguished by the person. An example might be the aggregation of all the searches on "dog," where who did them is removed but we know that 38 people searched on that term during a particular hour and day.

But users don't think that way. They hear the word, aggregated, and they think the data handlers are aggregating everything the system may know about just them, specifically and personally, and lumping it all together. Talk about miscommunication. And it terrifies the non-geeks.

What we really should be saying is that the data is "anonymized" and therefore you are safe. AOL's data was not safe because it was not anonymized, and for users, it was their definition of aggregated.

The AOL data which lumped each user's searches together with a user ID over three months, making profiling and finding them easy, meant that AOL provided enough data in some cases to indicate a lot about who the data related to very specifically. Leading to judgments by the rest of us. About the people who do or think things on the edges of society.

And why is this wrong? Because it hurts people. It makes them feel defensive about their own thoughts and ideas.

So, well, if you aren't doing anything wrong, what *do* you have to hide? Well, everyone has something they do or think about that would be an edge thought or that in one context would be in the middle, but in another, must be defended as it resides on the edge. And that would be disapproved by someone. Something the rest of society might not tolerate.

Intolerance leads to the totalitarian. We, the human race, have been intolerant since the beginning of time. What we are intolerant of is a moving target depending on the fashion of the day. In the 30's in some places it was fashionable to be intolerant of Jews and gays. In the 40's it was Germans and the Japanese, and in the 50's communists and socialists. In the 60's it was civil rights proponents and hippies and in the 70's liberals. In the 80's we were back to communists, and in the 90's it was Hispanics (remember all the state propositions outlawing them from medical care?). And what is it today? Islam? Are thoughts you think today and the cultural references associated with them that are in the middle going to fall to the edges in the next decade?

We have used the fear of all these intolerable people and their thoughts as excuses to hunt for more proof of their intolerableness by surveilling everyone in society and searching through all the detritus of our lives. With digital data more available, we think we can find the proof we need in these edge thoughts. And then we will persecute the people having them. And what better way to do it now that the internet, ISPs and heavily used search systems can provide one or another level of very personal, thought data. Search terms, or a database of intentions as John Battelle has talked about so much, are one slice of your data that tell a lot about you. And if we can get it in a neat little file, machine readable and searchable and quantifiable, then well, why not?

If you believe that sacrificing freedom to keep freedom is the way to go, then you probably don't see any problem with demonizing people who have thoughts you don't like. Especially if those thoughts are in the form of passing gestures such as search terms plugged into a browser.

But until we decide (or default) into a Minority Report society (and change our constitution), we are not yet convicting people for thinking things. Everyone has had the thought that they'd like to kill someone once or twice in their lives. But people, the vast vast majority, don't do it. The idea that we demonize someone for searching on this, which is a gesture I would put into the fleeting thought category for almost everyone, is taking an edge thought, which we all have from time to time, and putting it firmly under the scrutiny of the middle. I believe we really only want to find people who make serious plans to hurt others, or actually carry it out. That is what our law it based on, and the premise of our society. But to track everyone, their searches, their every digital gesture, and expose it in one or another ways is going to be troublesome. And it begs a question I've asked before: is your digital identity your personal intellectual property? Is your Google identity yours or someone else's? And by extension, is your clickstream a personal expression (carefully chosen and shaped by you)? In other words, can you copyright your clickstream and exert ownership?

There are at least two choices. One of them is to do what we are doing now: have ISPs and search services collect this data, and when asked by the government, have it turned over. But that means the data is still in many ways secret. Of course the companies don't want the data getting out because it is proprietary. And neither does the government, because they don't want anyone to know quite how much is out there about you, in case you are trying to cover your tracks or you want to defend yourself. But having all the data, the government has the upper hand. And secrets are powerful. How do you show, if you are being accused of something based upon your searches, that everyone else searches on those same things too? That it's actually a social norm? If you can only ask for your own searches to defend a case against you, and not everyone else's, in order to compare yourself to it, you won't be able to argue social norms which judges rely heavily on when making decisions.

But there is another choice. And that brings up the Attention Trust premise (I'm a Board Member) which is that people own a copy of their own data, no matter where they do things: Amazon.com purchases, Google searches, or AOL clickstreams, or anywhere else you might land in a browser on your computer. As a co-owner of your data, you can take it anywhere and do what you wish. There could be many business models built upon this data controlled and shared by users. Google takes all the data they collect and plugs it into AdSense. If lots of users took their own data and made it available voluntarily, a new and more 'open source' style AdSense could be created.

But much more importantly, something like Steve Gillmor's Gesture Bank, where users opt-in their clickstream information, in an anonymous form, exists to open up this kind of data. The Bank will make the aggregation of anonymized data available to anyone for any purpose. While this may lead to businesses working from this pool of searches and clicks, it also means that a growing pool of data is there to show the edge thoughts and potentially unpopular ideas people may exhibit. The pool can be used to defend against totalitarian efforts to single out in secret those who are out of fashion politically. Which may turn out to be you. Or someone who uses your computer.

That I think is far more important than an open source AdSense, though a business built upon this data would likely justify and make a better case for us to have a Gesture Bank of ideas and thoughts that support political freedom.

Seth Goldstein and Steve Gillmor already offer Root. net users the opportunity to put their data into the Gesture Bank if they wish, though any person can contribute to this anonymous pool of user data. And for that matter, attention streams can be sent to multiple services.

And, at the October 4 Attention Conference, Steve and Seth will announce Attention Soft. Stay tuned.

Dabble Blog Goes Live

The Dabble Blog has long been inside our invited beta pages, and not accessible.

It's now public, as we move toward opening our site. We'll be putting all kinds of things on it including news about Dabble, development issues and interesting things we see people doing when they use Dabble.

But we'll also use it to point out cool media and users doing interesting things, and post videos (we aren't a hoster.. we link to hosters and act more like a guide to video, made by users, as well as straight search and browsing).

Check it out.. it's cool!

Totally like whatever, you know?

See the excellent poem below by Taylor Mali. Or listen to it at Soapbox, part 2, at the very end of 24 minutes of excellent political discourse, clips from the last several president's inaugurations, and literary eloquence. Mali gives an outstanding reading. Very entertaining and fun.

20 years ago, one of my friend's mothers, an actress who disassembled the emotion behind every word, and then reconstructed it in new and real ways that always seemed so much richer than what had existed before, hated it when we said "like." I remember she wouldn't allow us to say it. Got upset every time. Said we weren't committing to our words. And what was the point of speaking if we couldn't commit to our words? Once in a magazine, I remember an interview with her, where the opening paragraph describing her said she had the courage to live the contradictions of her life. I remembered all those years of her berating us over and over for "like" and "whatever" and "you know?" when I saw the article, and again hearing Taylor do his reading in Soapbox. I agreed with her, but I felt too tentative then to have the courage she had. It was hard for me to give up the words that let me off the hook a little. But she and Taylor are both right. If you're going to do anything worthwhile. You have to commit in your words to yourself.

Totally like whatever, you know?
By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com

In case you hadn't noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you're talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you're saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know?

Declarative sentences - so-called
because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true
as opposed to other things which were, like, not -
have been infected by a totally hip
and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don't think I'm uncool just because I've noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It's like what I've heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I'm just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?

What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down
with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally . . .
I mean absolutely . . . You know?
That we've just gotten to the point where it's just, like . . .
whatever!

And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness
is just a clever sort of . . . thing
to disguise the fact that we've become
the most aggressively inarticulate generation
to come along since . . .
you know, a long, long time ago!

I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.

Core Values at Bloggercon

Mike Arrington is doing the next Core Values session at Bloggercon IV. I want to wish him well, and note the information from the Core Values session at Bloggercon III that I led, because I think that session was extraordinarily productive.

In fact afterward, many people kindly said that they felt it was most useful and interesting, because they left with something tangible (the list) and they really liked that rather than me telling them what the values are I see online, or that I feel are important myself, I just asked questions, and let them come to the conclusions about the values they share and the controls they felt should exist to support those values. They appreciated the light touch guiding them to find and develop their own conclusions.

Here the list the group of 80 made during the session, of what they feel are core values for the blogosphere:

Things we value:
Democracy
Non-exclusivity
Attribution
Transparency – disclosure
Innovation
Personalization
Accessibility
Honesty
Creativity
Knowing who people are
Editorial Independence
Connectedness
Anonymity

Things we devalue:
Power law economics
Lack of Attribution
Anonymity
Wuffie-hoarding
Links for money

Good luck Mike! I'm sure you'll take us to the next level. I hope the last sessions list is useful as a starting point.

Where are we? Rise of the Videonet

At my session today at Supernova, with JD Lasica (Ourmedia) as our moderator, and Jeremy Allaire (BrightCove), Jonathan Taplin (USC Annenberg Center), and Robert Levitan (Pando), I mentioned some stats and ideas, and I said I would blog those items. The are below.

The first two sets of stats focus on video hosting sites (places where users can upload video) and their use, as far as uploads and user visits or traffic. The third set of data reflects trends in the types of video we see users making and posting online, with an example or two of that kind of video.

1. Users per day/Uploads per day on a few sites we have seen info about:

ClipShack : 2200 users per day. (source: AdBright).

Google Video: 12.5 million users in month of April. (source: Washington Post).

Grouper: 8 million users per month (source:
PR News but on Alexa, that traffic appears to be a one time spike, where their traffic seems to hover around 3 million users per month) and 500,000 registered users (source: Alexa).

Ourmedia: 28,000 users per day (source: AdBright).

Vidiac: Streaming 2 million videos per day and 3 million users per month (source:
Silicon Beat Comment by Adam Beat)

Vimeo: 20 thousand users per day (source: USA Today, 11/21/05) and 50,000 registered users (source: Vimeo's about pages)

YouTube: 50,000 uploads per day, serving 50 million videos per day, with 6 million users per day (source: You Tube Fact Sheet).

2. There is a list ranking the top ten video sites by market share or traffic, published by Hitwise), May 24, 2006. (Several of the traffic stats found in articles, press releases, advertising, etc., also credited Hitwise for the numbers):

1. YouTube 42.94%
2. MySpace Videos 24.22%
3. Yahoo! Video Search 9.58%
4. MSN Video Search 9.21%
5. Google Video Search 6.48%
6. AOL Video 4.28%
7. iFilm 2.28%
8. Grouper 0.69%
9. Daily Motion 0.22%
10. vSocial 0.09%

3. At Dabble, we are seeing different video genres coming up over and over. Users, as opposed to top down TV video producers, seem to work in areas that are accessible and interesting to them. They are not just copying mainstream production styles. The list below is in no particular order as far as prevalence or audience viewing. We just see them a lot:

1. Mini tv show-style -- It's Jerry Time or Ask a Ninja
2. Videobloggers: telling their own life stories like Ryanne Hodson
3. Genre guys: snowboarding or car videos
4. Commentary: Rocketboom or the Bush Blair video.
5. Indie film shorts like Four Eyed Monsters
6. Random.. silly.. funny.. ridiculous... ephemeral Tag: momwalksin tag: lipsync
7. How-to's that actually show you how to do something in detail or teach: French Pod Class
8. Remixs and mashups: The Presidency Then and Now or Matrix Reloaded or Brokeback to the Future.
9. Interviews like those at GETV.
10. Parodies like the 8up commercial.
11. AMV or anime music videos: Loveless
12. music videos - lipsync sitting at the computer, dancing around with music playing, that in effect, remakes the artists own music video into ones the users like, that stars themselves. Here is Hips Don't Lie.

Anti-Copyright and Anti-Fair Use: The Broadcast and Audio Flags

Broadcast and Audio Flags are provisions in Senate Bill 2686, up on Thursday. They are bad for users, bad for balanced copyright, bad for fair use, bad for innovation, and bad for new companies (including Dabble).

This is about incumbent media companies fearing the internet, much like the RIAA in 2001, and trying to get the government to protect them against digital media, instead of working with it to create new business models.

Call your Senator (there are some numbers below provided below in an except from an EFF email.

I just called Senator Boxer's office (212 number is below, or SF: 415-403-0100) to register my opposition, and I noted that Boxer's office takes phone comment anonymously. Interesting.

From EFF:

* Action Alert - Tell Your Senator To Take Out the Flags

The Communications, Consumers Choice, and Broadband
Deployment Act of 2006 is a monster name for a monster bill
-- in its latest form, it contains 159 pages of densely
plotted telecommunications reform. But while politicians
struggle with its major clauses, the RIAA and MPAA have
piggybacked their own agenda: the broadcast and audio flags,
which restrict innovation and legitimate use of recorded
digital radio and TV content. Your call today could force
the flags to find a home of their own.

The Committee markup of this bill is on Thursday, and your
Senator is on the Commerce Committee. One last push from
you could get Congress to remove the entertainment industry
mandates from the bill.

IF YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES

Please call your Senator (numbers below). Here's a sample
script:

STAFFER:
Hello, Senator Lastname's office.

YOU:
Hi, I'm a constituent, and I'd like to let the Senator know
that I don't think the broadcast and audio flag provisions
belong in S. 2686, the Communications, Consumers Choice and
Broadband Deployment Act. These are anti-consumer
provisions, which would give the FCC far-reaching powers,
and give the entertainment industry a dangerous veto over
new technologies. I hope the Senator will insist on
excluding these provisions on Thursday.

STAFFER:
Okay, I'll let the Senator know. Thanks.

Chairman Ted Stevens (AK), (202) 224-3004
John McCain (AZ), (202) 224-2235
Conrad Burns (MT), Main: 202-224-2644
Trent Lott (MS), (202) 224-6253
Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX), (202) 224-5922
Gordon H. Smith (OR), (202) 224 3753
John Ensign (NV), (202) 224-6244
George Allen (VA), (202) 224-4024
John E. Sununu (NH), (202) 224-2841
Jim DeMint (SC), (202) 224-6121
David Vitter (LA),(202) 224-4623
Co-Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (HI), (202) 224-3934
John D. Rockefeller (WV), (202) 224-6472
John F. Kerry (MA), (202) 224-2742
Barbara Boxer (CA), (202) 224-3553
Bill Nelson (FL), (202) 224-5274
Maria Cantwell (WA), (202) 224-3441
Frank R. Lautenberg (NJ), (202) 224-3224
E. Benjamin Nelson (NE), (202) 224-6551
Mark Pryor (AR), (202) 224-2353

Respecting Open Space

Open space, in the camp conference style, requires some key elements to work well. I'm noticing after watching two different events develop that they may be missing what is important about Open Space.

A couple of months ago, I attended a conference on the east coast. The organizer told me he wanted to do an Open Space day, the day after his event. That day arrived, he bailed, and there were six of us who actually attended. And he insisted that I go, even though I really have a lot of other things to do. The Open Space day was meant to brainstorm ways to organize Net Neutrality support.

After the event, others who attended it suggested that Bar Camp a failure. Well.. I totally disagreed. They thought that somehow, calling an open day "Bar Camp" would make it happen.

They had a wiki with about 22 names on it, and a stellar group of people slated to attend. They had great space, in a lovely lawfirm with wifi, and everything we might need. What they didn't have was a leader to organize the space. Although one person who attended in the middle of the event suggested that if things weren't working, he could vote with his feet. And he would if he wanted to do so. Though considering there were six people in the room, it sounded more like a threat: you don't do what I want to today, or I'll leave. So everyone started doing what he wanted. The point of course of "the law of two feet" is that you don't stay somewhere where you aren't learning. But that applies to Open Space where there are maybe say 100 people, and multiple rooms where you can move and not be disruptive, not six people where you are an integral part of deciding what is happening. But with such a little group, that misapplication of that particular Open Space principle further caused the day to deteriorate as a camp. What little emerging leadership was happening was killed right there, though he wasn't wiling to lead. He just wanted everyone to do things his way.

Without a clear leader, supporting a basic framework for a day of sessions or some kind of plan, just didn't work. It wasn't the concept of Bar Camp that failed. It was a failure of the people proposing it and carrying it out.

Anyway, I'm wondering how Open Space is going to work at the Identity conference at Harvard, where today and tomorrow are regular top down conference days, where the broadcast model is followed. On Wednesday, there will be an Open Space day, led by Kaliya Hamlin and Jon Ramer. (I'm not attending this event, as I have too much work to do, but I'm noticing a trend here....)

I know the Open Space day is happening, more due to the Identity list I'm on, than the event web pages. After there was discussion on the list, I asked about the lack of information supporting the Open Space day on the website, and Paul Trevithick and John Clippinger did add a little information about the day on the session page, to let people know it was even happening. However, I had suggested on the email list that they make a page for the attendees to show that they were attending and add the speakers to the schedule and speaker's page. They did not.

The point I'm making is that I think people who do top down, broadcast style conferences are interested in what's happening with camps and Open Space, but they don't understand the dynamics of them or Open Space sensibility, and so in applying top down controls and information styles to their camps, they potentially harm the good that can come from the camp. And since the leaders of the camp are not traditional speakers, the organizers of the larger top down conference probably think they don't need to list the camp or Open Space leaders as speakers on the larger conference site because the camp facilitators aren't speaking in a traditional way. But this is not true. Listing them is critical to fostering the process of the day.

For example, we know from past successful camps that having a page where attendees say they are coming is key, because the agenda is made the day of the camp. Therefore, people choose to attend because other interesting people will be in the room, not based upon pre-arranged sessions. Secondly, the leaders of the day are key. They have to balance the right amount of support for the Open Space while leading just a little so that attendees make the agenda the morning of, and that things are pulled together at the end of the day. People choose to come, or not, based on who will be leading.

Currently, the leaders of the identity Open Space day are not on Harvard'sthe speaker list, nor does Harvard's the schedule note them, even though speakers the previous two days are listed on the schedule with their corresponding sessions.

I believe the Open Space day will go well due to Kaliya's and Jon's attention, because at least Kaliya has done this before (I don't know about Jon's work with Open Space) and understands well the dynamic needed to make this kind of day work. But the fact that the Open Space day at Harvard's Identity Conference has not been adequately supported with proper information at the event website shows the lack of respect for the dynamics of this kind of event. Since there is no sign up page, they will likely have a vastly diminished attendance compared to the broadcast conference days. A signup page might have actually brought in more people if they'd opened it up to more than just the attendees the first two days. In fact, bringing in new people to understand Identity in technology development is very important and this is a missed opportunity as well.

I do wish them good luck with it, but I wish that the Paul and John, with control of the conference website, understood better why what they have done with both the attendees of the open space day and the leaders may not help the day succeed as well as it should have. They can't blame the camp style for this, but rather themselves. If they day succeeds, it will be in spite of these problems, and due to Jon's and Kaliya's personal networking and leadership for the day.

idmashup06

Net Neutrality for the Little Guys

USA Today interviewed me and some other folks the other day. The article is here:

Internet Fast Lane Plan Worries Small Companies by Michelle Kessler.

Basically, it's that part of AT&T's and the other telco's new internet pricing plan, where they would charge the provider of the material to send their material through to subscribers, that is the problem.

As I've said before, we didn't make the internet to turn it back into cable tv.

The New Someone Is The Old Someone Else - Characterizing Company Cultures

For the past two years, I've been joking that:

the new yahoo is the old google
the new google is the old microsoft
the new microsoft is the old IBM
the new IBM is the old novell

part of the joke is about reputation and standing
in the cycle of being loved, then successful, then vilified
and/or bloated, then obsolete.

i kind of wonder if this still stands this way, two years later.
things have shifted a lot over this period.

frankly the new yahoo is just out innovating google for now..
but that could change.. and google is being very backward with
social things.. trying to just "engineer" everything as if there
was nothing subjective in the world, only objectivity (and the
attendant stats that back those objective understandings up.

i definitely hear a lot more 'evil' stuff about google than
before, remarks about the incredible bureaucracy at yahoo,
which might put them further down the chain now, and
how IBM, with their patents going out open source, is getting out
front again as an innovator.

what changes a company from one category to another?
these aren't even defined, and are totally in the realm of folklore..
as these ideas are more about cynicism and schadenfreude
and simplistic impressions than anything all that real.

and yet, every time i tell the joke (more in the past than recently)
people laugh a lot. so there must be something there.

We Didn't Build the Internet to Turn It Back Into Cable Tv

You know, the kind of cable TV where big entertainment companies pay off cable companies to get their channels on your set top box?

Congress didn't accept it, so net neutrality lost.

So we are keeping the system that started a year ago. It's the one that will make the internet like Cable TV.

It's critical to innovation, our companies (mine is Dabble.com) and to freedom of speech that we have a neutral net, where anything can move across it, where there is no fee to get some piece of information through to someone who wants to see it.

This isn't about tiered pricing. This is about who's packets paid the telco's fees.

This is about Hollywood keeping us from speaking, because if I'm watching my friend's video, I'm not watching Disney. Hollywood stands to benefit the most, after the telco's who charge the fees.

And Disney can afford to pay off the telcos to pass through their info, but my friends can't.

I'm going to Vloggercon today!

Hope to see you there, though you should know they are sold out!

It should be a great event. I'm speaking tomorrow on the Mashups and Remixing for Vloggers Dave Toole, Josh Leo. JD Lasica, David Dudas and Jan McLaughlin.

But we talked yesterday about making it an audience discussion, which I think is much better than a panel.

Josh Leo's We Are The Media, three times in one week!

I also suggested we play Josh Leo's video from the first Vloggercon because I think it's a great representation of user generated content, mashups, and for many other reasons, it's representative of the interesting and entertaining things going on online. In fact, I played it at the Culture, Commerce and Public Media conference during my session last Monday on User Generated Content with Kenyatta Cheese, Sam Klein, Dave Marvet. I also played the first two minutes of Kent Bye's Overview of his Echo Chamber Project, as an example of news and commentary video made by users, The Guinea Pig Dreaming video, and the Bush Blair Endless Love remix. I wanted to show the audience there (typically from archives of TV, PBS or other libraries of video projects) that users were doing an interesting variety of things.

That last one got a really big laugh.

I also played Josh's We Are the Media Video again yesterday at The Hyperlinked Society conference at UPenn and the Annenberg School of Communication. The point is, digital videos are a series of edits, and each edit, with an in and out point as hypertext, is like a video map, of links. Since it was a conference on links, I wanted to show a couple examples of linking that working in ways other than what everyone there was talking about.

I also showed some Attention Trust data, with a visualization of links a user might use to see where he goes day to day.

Anyway, if we play Josh's WATM video again tomorrow, that will be three times in a week. It's that great. You should check it out.

Haven't we been here before?

Digital Maoism vs. Voice

Isn't that much like the issues we've looked at over the past few years:

Wikipedia vs. Britannica
Bloggers vs. Journalists
Remix culture vs. TV
Flickr vs. Getty Images
Wiki's vs. Blogs

All the talk this past week about Jaron Lainer's essay, The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism is another one of those 'or' things that keeps coming up around the internet. (Or Internet with a capital 'I', if the NY Times is your style guide.) As an aside, Sam Klein of Wikipedia at the on Monday, asked everyone to please (smile) stop calling it "the wikipedia." It's just "wikipedia." Ok, back to Wikipedia. So Wikipedia is not a replacement for Encyclopedia Britiannica. Instead, you use one for some things (I use wikipedia for finding links because Google's search results for many kinds of items are too polluted and unhelpful) and a reference like Britannica (well, not Britannica, but I have lots of other traditional old style references) for things that those top down, traditional reference sources cover better.

We use reporting from professional journalists for reporting, access to places individuals can't get into, and some kinds of news, and blog posts for voice, commentary, and some kinds of news and reporting. We use remix video for humor, smaller stories and short form video, and TV for long form, high production video. We use Flickr for the stream of photo images that comes from our friends and for some kinds of reporting, and we use Getty for.. well.. they are hard to use. So we don't buy a lot from them. Wikis are used for the collection of information around a topic or event, blogs are used for voice and commentary. Collective tools are used for collective action, and voice tools are used for voice.

The thing is there are choices, based on purpose, goal, need, process and style. And the choices are based on nuances that the arguments above cannot reasonable reduce to an 'either or' situation. A single thing is not meant to work in all instances. And the beauty of the internet combined with information technology is that together they give us lots of choices. Both for production and consumption.

I think the rest of the folks who responded to Lanier's essay did a great job of discussing the subtler ideas and arguments, so I'll let those stand as they were terrific. There is no need to restate the idea that some of Lanier's criticisms do not necessarily apply to Wikipedia, or that some others do apply, in specific contexts, but that wikipedia is supposed to function the way that it does.

I just wanted to point out that online, as everywhere else in life, we make choices, and the idea is to choose the best thing for the circumstances, not to expect that all things will work in all circumstances. The internet is no exception.

Net Neutrality

First, watch the video. And then the other video. And this other video. Yah. It's worth it.

Then, check out David Isenberg's most terrific eTel talk about your freedom to connect.

And check out Save the Internet. They have tons of great information.

Then read below. Here's how I see this:

Another way of looking at this issue of net neutrality is... remember the old Highway system. Where El Camino Real on the peninsula in the Bay Area used to be a toll road, where you would not get mugged and the road was nice and fast, but it was expensive. And the Alameda (parallel to ECR) was the slow road, which wasn't taken care of, where you would likely be ambushed and was free?

Well, that's what the telcos would like us to see when they talk about two tiers. And think about what that kind of road system does to the economy of information? It's not very democratic is it? This isn't just a small or large bag of potato chips. Or dial up and broadband. It's about whether we support basic services for all people to get information. Cause if you are on dialup, you are missing much that is useful and interesting about the internet.

Secondly, the part that's different about the types of information that would be available in the slow cheap road verses the fast expensive road (dialup verses high-speed bandwidth) is that the packets would be treated differently.

The perverse part of the telco's proposal is that packets of certain types (VOIP and video, for example) that paid an additional toll, would get to you faster than those that didn't pay.

So it's not just the user who has to pay for the speed of their service, it's that the other side, the content maker, would also have to pay for you to get fast packets on a fast road. Disney and Viacom will pay their side of the tolls, but can PBS? Can little joe video blogger pay? Or will he get the same deal as the

What that means is is that the Hollywood and bit content producers would have the edge over the average person who wants to get a message out. So if you have a fast connection but joe blogger didn't pay, well, sorry, those packets won't get to you quickly. Instead, even though the user paid for faster service, they would not get all packets at the same speed. The content maker who didn't pay would have their packets come through slowly. And of course, the slow speed service buyer, who asked for a video from the content maker who didn't pay the toll would never see that video, it would be so slow.

AO Hollywood

I'm at Always On Hollywood, speaking on Thursday at 3:45pm. We're hearing Peter Hirshberg (one of Dabble's advisors and a great video story teller) talk about online video and things people are doing when they create and play online. People are eating this up -- it's a great time. I'll find the videos and bookmark them shortly.

Blog Spam from Netscape, and Netscape's Inability to Deal With It

I keep getting blogspam notifications (more than 500) after a Netscape blogger keeps trying to post what looks like automated blog comment spam with a link payload to my blog. They are here: http://mywebpage.netscape.com/ followed by pizdetcc/refinance.html (if you go to this link, it redirects to a search site for refinance and mortgages, but i don't want to publish the link, even with a nofollow).

I emailed Netscape at their policy2004@netscape.net privacy policy address. They have no abuse address, and their Terms Of Service doesn't say anything about how blog spam creation is against the TOS. So, my only option was to email the only address about any policy on their site, to let them know they are hosting spammers and not only do they not know, but it's not against the rules at Netscape.

Well... they wrote back. See below for the full correspondence, but they responded that I should contact MY HOSTER for MY BLOG. Wo.

Netscape is hosting blog spammers and this is their answer? Talk about not getting it.

Below is the original email, and their reply:

From: policy2004@netscape.net
Subject: Re: spam from your user at http://mywebpage.netscape.com/pizdetcc/
Date: April 21, 2006 6:57:11 AM PDT
To: mary@hodder.org

This mailbox is only able to address inquiries related to Netscape Network privacy. For assistance with your blog, please contact the hosting company directly.

Regards,
Netscape Privacy Team

-----Original Message-----
From: mary hodder
To: policy2004@netscape.net
Sent: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 09:14:53 -0700
Subject: spam from your user at http://mywebpage.netscape.com/pizdetcc/

TO: Mywebpage hosting

I have gotten hundreds of blog spam in comments and trackbacks
from one of your users.

NOTE: I read your TOS and there is no where in there to report abuse, or to tell users
that "blog spam" is against the TOS. This needs to be changed so that blog spam is made illegal by your TOS.

Below is a notification I received from my Blog's software (my blog is called Napsterization) where your user is spamming me. I have received hundreds of these attempts to leave comment spam, where the payload is a link to that uses commercial site.

Please block this user.

Thanks
mary hodder

....................
An unapproved comment has been posted on your blog Napsterization, for entry #291 (Blog Comment Spam - A New Low and So Bizarre). You need to approve this comment before it will appear on your site.

Approve this comment: =17465&blog_id=1>

IP Address: 196.40.43.74
Name: misty
Email Address: foloolk3@potran.gu
URL: http://mywebpage.netscape.com/ pizdetcc/refinance.html
Comments:

I like your website alot...its lots of fun... you have to help me out with mine...

--Powered by Movable Type
Version 3.2
http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/

Tonight: "Email -- Should the Sender Pay?": EFF Fundraiser, Debate Between Esther Dyson and Danny O'Brien

Details below about this event at EFF.

At eTech, Esther and Annalee Newitz were talking about Goodmail, innovation in spam control for email and the controversy with EFF and others around this topic. I asked them both about stats. What I wanted to know was how much (number and percentages) email is spam, how much is non-profit email, how much is educational, and how much is political speech?

My feeling was that with those kinds of stats, and an agreement that we would let the IRS decide who should get free email if we instituted a pay for send system, we could give this a try. The issue with the IRS is this: they give tax exempt status to entities who are non-profits, some political organizations and others, and if an organization has that piece of paper from the IRS, we should exempt them from fees. The additional step for political organizations might be that we also use state and federal Fair Political Practice Commissions that also have organizations categorized. But with these kinds of certifications and exemptions from fees, we could try, innovate, experiment with different email systems that might help us solve some of the spam issues we currently have online.

One thing, when I was having this discussion with Esther and Annalee, I realized that I don't really get spam. This, even though my email address is on the front of my blog. I'm sure the spam is coming in like crazy, but because the ISP that hosts my hoster is clearing away some, and then my hoster clears more at the server level, after which the remaining batch has to go through the specific email system I have set up with my settings and training about what is spam on his servers and then I have more clearing going on at the email client level on my computer, I see about one spam email every week or so. It's rare, especially considering I get 1000 email a day. So I hadn't thought for a while about what a problem this is at the email level. In fact, I see far more spam blog, or splog, spam, via comments, trackbacks and in posts and through live web search, than I do in email. So my sense of the problem was really underwhelming for email and overwhelming for live web stuff.

Anyway, come to the debate tonight, to hear the arguments for and against!

Roxie Cinema
3117 16th St (Yahoo! Maps, Google Maps)
San Francisco, California

* "Email -- Should the Sender Pay?": EFF Fundraiser, Debate
Between Esther Dyson and Danny O'Brien

In light of AOL's adopting a "certified" email system, EFF
is hosting a debate on the future of email. With
distinguished entrepreneur Mitch Kapor moderating, EFF
Activist Coordinator Danny O'Brien and renowned tech expert
Esther Dyson will discuss the potential consequences if
people have to pay to send email. Would the Internet
deteriorate as a platform for free speech? Would spam or
phishing decline?

WHEN:
Thursday, April 20th, 2006
7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

WHAT:

"Email - Should the Sender Pay?"

WHO:

Danny O'Brien

Danny O'Brien is the Activist Coordinator for the EFF. His job is to help our membership in making their voice heard: in government and regulatory circles, in the marketplace, and with the wider public. Danny has documented and fought for digital rights in the UK for over a decade, where he also assisted in building tools of open democracy like Fax Your MP. He co-edits the award-winning NTK newsletter, has written and presented science and travel shows for the BBC, and has performed a solo show about the Net in the London's West End.

Esther Dyson

Esther Dyson is editor at large at CNET Networks, where she is responsible for its monthly newsletter, Release 1.0, and its PC Forum, the high-tech market's leading annual executive conference. As editor at large, she also contributes insight and content to CNET Networks' other properties. She sold her business, EDventure Holdings, to CNET Networks in early 2004. Previously, she had co-owned
EDventure and written/edited Release 1.0 since 1983. Recently, Esther authored a New York Times editorial called "You've Got Goodmail," defending a sender-pays model for the future of email.

Mitch Kapor

Mitchell Kapor is the President and Chair of the Open Source Applications Foundation, a non-profit organization he founded in 2001 to promote the development and acceptance of high-quality application software developed and distributed using open source methods and licenses. He is widely known
as the founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3, the "killer application" which made the personal computer ubiquitous in the business world in the 1980's. In 1990, Kapor co-founded EFF.

WHERE:
Roxie Film Center
3117 16th Street, San Francisco
(between Valencia and Guerrero)
Tel: (415) 863-1087

See the link below for a map:
http://www.roxie.com/directions.cfm

Local Muni are the 22 and 53 (both at 16th & Valencia), 33
(18th & Valencia), 14 (16th & Mission), 49 (16th & Mission).
BART stops one block east at 16th & Mission.

Public Parking is available on Hoff Street, off of 16th
between Valencia and Mission at very reasonable rates.

This fundraiser is open to the general public. The suggested
donation is $20.
No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Please RSVP to events@eff.org

Adaptive Path is the generous sponsor of this fundraising event. Founded in 2001, Adaptive Path is a leading user experience consulting, research, and training firm that has provided services to a range of clients, including Fortune 100 corporations, pure-Web startups, and established nonprofit organizations. The company is headquartered in San Francisco. To learn more about Adaptive Path, visit the company website at:

To learn more about the DearAOL campaign against AOL's planned system:

For Esther Dyson's editorial, "You've Got Goodmail".

The Conversational Middle: Maturing of the Blogosphere

On Saturday at Kinnernet, the last session I attended before leaving was led by an Israeli guy named Uri Baruchin who asserted that something had changed in the blogosphere, and we were starting to have a problem because a meme (my word, not his, and it's what I called it as I disagreed in the session) would not spread so fast in the blogosphere now that A-list bloggers were waning in link counts (a popularity scale because it uses a single digital social gesture, the link, and does not weigh at all the many other conversational gestures of a blog over time -- that would require multiple digital social gestures and a much more complex "algorithm" than just counting links). He was worried that the number of smaller discussions required to spread news would make the blogosphere as a whole less effective in broadcasting news, and somehow this meant there was some loss of power bloggers had been holding and was now waning.

I disagreed with his thesis, and gave some obvious statistics but also some ideas. First, I said that the blogosphere's purpose was not singular. This goes for both individual bloggers and on the whole, if there can be a "unified purpose," which I don't think there is because there are too many different kinds of blogging. Remember blogs are tools, and each person takes it and uses it in whatever way makes sense, which probably means there are 33+ million slightly different to extremely different variations of blogs now.

Anyway, back to disagreeing with the "unified purpose" idea. So, if you look at this from one view -- through the State of the Blogosphere reports put forth a in October 2004, where counts for the NY Times and MSNBC were in the neighborhood of 17 or 18 thousand links, and top 100 bloggers like Boing Boing and Instapundit had 6 or so thousand links.

At that point in time, Technorati tracked 4 million blogs and 400 million links, and now, a year and a half later, Technroati tracks 33+ million blogs and 2.2 billion links. In January, 2006, the NY Times has 55,000+ links and CNN has around 53,000+ but Boing Boing has 18,000+ and Instapundit has 5,600 links (the are no longer the number 2 blog, as that position is now held by Engadget at 15,600+ links) you can see that while the blogosphere has grown 7x and the links 5.5x, the inbound link counts of the top blogs and media has grown 3x.

Also, take into account that Technorati changed its methods of link counting last August, after several things occurred (Robert Scoble complained about its link counts in comparison to Bloglines which counts every link since it started counting, and I had reported on how link counting worked across 5 services and then other's reports of frustration with the Top 100 and A-list counts where sparce posters' links were favored over frequent posters' links). So Technorati changed from counting just links on the top pages of a blog (those posts that linked but dropped off the front pages were dropped from link counts) to any link that had occurred in the past 6 months. Technorati still counts one link only per blog, no matter it's location on the blog posts or blogroll, no matter how many links come from one blog, but all link types age out after 6 months. So these statistics for the later time frame are different and not exactly comparable, but let's do it for the sake of argument here.

So, what does this mean? Well, since there are 5.5 times more links in this 1.5 year time frame, I believe it means that there are more links made to non-A-list bloggers than bloggers further down the power law curve about , that are in what I call the "conversation middle of the power law curve" (the curve for specifically link counts), than those A-listers at the top are receiving. It means to me that while a year and a half ago, when I explained the conversational middle to people like Peter Hirshberg and Francis Piscani and thought it was far more interesting than what most people were discussing then (the top of the power law, or the existence of the power law curve at all), that now there is some evidence that as the blogosphere goes main stream, it is moving more to the middle, at least as link counts go, to more personal conversations rather than pointers to a few top media sites or the blogs that are act more like broadcasters. The broadcast model for links in blogs means that many more links went to a top blog, than they were able to link back to, because it was just physically impossible. Those top bloggers are 1-to-thousands in their distribution, and yet for inbound links counts, they have thousands of inbound links as opposed to far fewer outbound links to others.

From February 2003, here is one distribution curve showing bloggers inbound link counts in the Shirky article on power law curves:

But the conversational middle, then, and now, is both say, 12-to-12 for distribution and receiving links, or 50-to-50, or for larger blogs, maybe 500-to-200, depending on the size of the conversation verses those listening and linking back. And now the mainstreaming of the blogosphere supports this hypothesis more.

As modified from Chris Anderson's Long Tail article here is a representation of what I'm postulating:

The top of the power law curve has been referred to as the A-list, and certainly last summer, when Blogher discussions erupted at the last and well packed session of the day, and so many women expressed extreme anger and frustration at Technorati's link counting methods and particularly the there was a lot of interest in figuring out ways to reveal topic communities lower down that power law curve.

At Blogher, I suggested we work on something that would show not just a few bloggers in topic areas that were at the top, but rather sift the entire blogosphere, using as many as 22 different metrics, though some are not currently available but tool builders were welcome to build some of these out, to show "conversationalness" and "influence over time" instead of the "popularity" of link counts as the Top 100 or Top 500 that was subsequently built by Feedster, currently shows. Lots of people responded with lots of interesting ideas on the subject of how to approach this. A system like this could more accurately reveal the conversational middle, to make it much easier for more than just the participants in smaller communities of say 50, to find and expose their interests and conversations. This would also, for some of the women at Blogher, make them feel more validated or exposed as leaders in their topic areas (not politics or tech stuff), or if that was not their interest, make the Top 100 less validating and congratulatory of those who by virtue of being on the list seemed dominant, which clearly was their desire.

The idea that bloggers are not passing memes as effectively because there is less influence by broadcast style bloggers, even though more small conversations are experiencing more links going blogger-to-blogger, further down the power law curve, is silly. If people are genuinely interested in something, and have something to say, they'll blog it. These conversations occurring in the middle pass and discuss memes just as before, but the linking and diffusion of the conversation is evidence of a more mature, and interesting use of the internet, not less so. And now, if a meme crosses lots of blogs in the blogosphere, I believe it's a sign of far more interest by people, than under the earlier broadcast mode of meme spreading in the older, more early adopter blogosphere. And this certainly isn't a problem. The internet as a medium is more supportive of spread, edge conversation, than the amassing of top down broadcast distribution. The act of blogging is the act of subverting old broadcast methods of communication.

The maturing of the blogosphere with less broadcast distribution and more conversation between people spread far and wide is a welcome and more democratic way of bringing together people who want to discuss like interests. Certainly there are still bloggers who are more highly read with more inbound links that resemble broadcasters in some ways, and who PR people will continue to try to manipulate, but still, there is a shift to conversation with more symmetric linking, and that is positive overall.

Our next challenge now is how to see how small conversational communities and the attendant tools that sift these conversations can use more than one or two digital gestures, and create topic awareness of blogger groups with more than just the early adopter or blog-tool favoring metrics that post categories or tag indicators do now. These metrics too are subject to power law curves and the current uses of them one or two at at time only reflect top bloggers, or early adopters, just as link counts did before, emphasizing them over the conversational middle. When the tools of exposure change, the conversational middle will become accessible and apparent not just to those in and around a particular conversation but to those outside it.

Can you say 'it's only water' if you're in the Middle East?

I arrived in Tel Aviv, at 11pm, and around midnight, my taxi driver dropped me at the Dan hotel, instead of the Dan Peninsula as I'd asked. The man at reception was very sweet. It was midnight, and he couldn't find my reservation, and started looking for alternatives. Eventually he wanted to know again where my reservation was supposed to be and I told him the Dan Peninsula. We figured out the problem; he called a cab. I asked for some water. And he said, "For you, I'm going to bring you two glasses." After drinking them, I said, "Thank you so much." He said, "It's just water." I replied, "Can you say 'it's just water' if you're in the Middle East?" He smiled.

Israel is really an intense place. I didn't consciously think about it as an experience for travel or a country when I bought my ticket. Afterward, I was going to cancel up to the last minute because of my work, but everyone at home said to go anyway, that we were at a stage beyond where I was needed for a few days, and I should just do it. So I left them.. and it was only about 5 days away, before I'm back in the US and doing my regular work again. It's kind of hard to turn down a trip to Israel that once you arrive is all arranged.

It's a beautiful place. The road to Jerusalem is like Tuscany. The Sea of Galili (which is really a lake) and the surrounding green hills, wildflowers and farms are like California, (except for the guns a few people sport). I'm at Kinnernet, a camp conference made by Yossi Vardi, talking with people about their projects, my work, what's going on in the world of tech, and playing with robots and gadgets. It's held at a place on the edge of the Lake. There is snow on the Golan Mountains, to the north which I can see across the Lake through the window of my room. Jordan is over the next hill.

It's also been an opportunity to look up my relatives, some of whom disappeared in WWII but some of whom are alive and living in Slovenia. I can't find the main person I wanted to, but I did find some people in Jerusalem I can email later to keep researching. Being here and seeing the Holocaust museum was not depressing, as my hosts suggested it might be. Instead, I felt like I was more connected to my family and had a better understanding of what they experienced. That has been the most changing feeling I've had here.

The food in Israel is amazing. I wasn't expecting the croissants to be so good. Like Paris. Or the artisan cheeses and salads to be so subtle and delicious.

People have made art projects and are playing music, a woman who designs unusual kites is flying them in a field, and there are loads of interesting 'projects' much like Burningman without the dust and naked people around. It's a laid back environment, and maybe a much needed rest after working around the clock for months.

At one point, someone told me about how the evening news reports nighly on the water-height in the Lake of Galili. The water level doesn't look low at all, but it's a big concern. People talk about the snow melting on the Golan mountains, and we splashed water in the Jordan River. These were mythical places in my mind, coming from the US. Somehow the myths ended up there, through a combination of media and some religious references, but seeing these places and hearing people speak so matter of factly about them was dissonance inside me. Snow doesn't melt in a mythical place. I was listening, but also feeling the myths unravel.

The Live Web

Newsweek put up an article late last night on The New Wisdom of the Web, which I'm in, and quoted mentioning the "live web." This idea is something I got from Doc Searls, who told me he first heard it from his son Allen Searls. I have to thank Doc for all of our conversations about this. He is kind of an information shaman, and very wise about the web.

I do think that the difference between the web of 5 years ago, and the web now, is very much the liveness of it. The static web is email and static webpages.. and the live web is all about change, time and people conversing across time and place online.

We also put this up on Dabble, for our invited beta. We expect it won't be long before we can throw open the doors.

Dabble Announces Private Beta

We're pleased to announce our first private beta, and we'd like to invite you to join! Just send us an email address so you can be part of one of the most exciting online video communities on the Web. OK, the most exciting!

Dabble is a video remix community that makes it easy and fun for people to create, browse, and find video online. We provide the tools that put you on the other side of the lens, whether that’s a digital camera, cell phone, or video camera. Once you log in, you can:

* Drag and drop the Dabble bookmarklet into your bookmark bar so that you can easily link media you find on the Web or in your inbox to Dabble.
* Gather and organize your own videos, your contacts’ (people you know) videos, and all of the videos in the Dabble database.
* See you contacts online and share your favorite media bookmarks.
* Track the most popular tags and browse tags for new video.
* Organize your video play lists, and check out your contacts’ playlists.
* Ask for video if you can’t find it, look for film festivals to submit video to and see what others are looking for in our Ask section.

Upgrading to Web 2.0

Yes.. folks, it's time for your upgrade for the internet.

So.. I met these very sweet folks from Dalla, Texas at SXSW at a party late Saturday night, and I asked what they did. They said, we're web designers, and right now we're working on upgrading all our clients from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0.

So I asked, what does that mean? And they said, well.. they have all these clients who haven't changed their websites in years and years, and now, with this concept of an upgrade, are open to improving and spending the money.

Well.. that just changed everything for me.

I thought Web 2.0 was some amorphous, meaningless, ridiculous term that no one could possibly take seriously except those VCs who write checks for fancy executive conferences. And a term that when used seriously, would tip you off to the fact that they didn't know it meant nothing and was silly.

But shoot. Now I get it. This term means something to IT consultants across the land, as they work with their clients to take them from the static web to the live web (my terminology, not theirs.. I don't think any of them will ever use those terms).

But it makes so much sense, and now I don't hate the term. I feel like well, if this is helping little mom and pop shops get a few people into better, more usable websites (we hope... they kept mentioning ajax over and over, plus blogs and wikis, and my highest hope for them is that they do it well, making things more usable for their client's users) then who can hate that? How can we begrudge them this terrific opportunity to explain the new social web to their clients, simply by putting it in terms of a software upgrade they can understand. I mean.. they all went from IE 5 to IE 6, yes? Well.. now it's Web 1.0 to Web 2.0.

So I now have complete respect for "web 2.0" in this context. Live long and prosper.

And now there is a certifier. How handy. (Note that 'humor' is one of the things that will get you certified by the Certifyr.) Too bad I didn't get their cards to send it along.

Attention or Eyeballs.. Attention or Intention.. Attention or Identity

"The eyes are the window to the soul." - Unknown
"If the eye is a window to the soul, then, the heart is the doorway to love." - Unknown.
"The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

What's the difference between the static web and the live web?
Participation.

What's the difference between consumers and users/amateurs?
Participation.

What's the difference between attention and eyeballs?
Participation.

What is attention? Lot's of people have discussed it, including Nick Bradbury, Steve Gillmor and Seth Goldstein, all of the Attention Trust. I'm on the board too, but my interest in joining it was a little different, though I believe in the core idea just as they do. To quote Seth's blog: "Attention is the substance of focus." The idea for the Attention Trust is that "users own a copy of their data" or attention stream or intention stream or whatever you want to call it. I'm going to leave the intention debate to others because while I agree with John Battelle, that these kinds of recordings can form a sort of 'database of intention' it's not my interest in this post to pick that apart.

Caterina Fake also blogged about this idea of users owning their data.

Etech's theme this past week was attention, though I don't think anyone there except maybe Michael Goldhaber really got anywhere near the idea that the difference between the eyeballs of old (10 years ago) and the attention question is really about participation, at least as far as users collecting it on themselves and reusing it, or sharing it as they desire. Not to mention the digital social gestures that people can now make, and collect, through participatory media online that go much further than the simple mouse over or clicks that were all that could be collected before. Now the aggregate of both, clicks and gestures that are much more participatory in nature are richer and much more meaningful, and quite a bit different than "eyeballs".

And what is participation? As far as the AT, it's about user control and choice, and an absolute right to participate. Or not.

Surprisingly enough, since last August, when the AT was formed and announced, it's been just so easily accepted by anyone asked, from the top to the bottom of those "database of intention" makers, that you should own a copy of your data. They own one copy of course, but we really thought it would be much harder to gain acceptance of this ideal. And yet, here we are. Pretty much everyone has said, "...er, yes, users own a copy of their data." The hard part is, how, how much, when, in what way, will all these companies share a user's data with the users.

So the reason I joined the AT board was because I feel strongly that users should own a copy of their data. But I also feel strongly that users should be able to keep that data private, have complete control over their copy, and shared control over other copies depending on circumstances, and those users have the absolute, unequivocal right not to participate in the attention economy, at least as far as sharing their own data goes, if they are asked to by some vendor or company or other entity. No question.

If Visa wakes up one day and decides to tell me I must give them my attention stream or kiss my credit card good bye, well.. the AT would need to step into the middle of that one pronto. I cannot abide by that sort of coercion, and so, my real interest in the AT is making sure that it's as much an advocacy organization for user's privacy and security from coercion, as it is for making a place for people to come to learn about how to own and user their own data and possibly interact with entities that might trade them for it, or share the rewards of turning over leads for marketing.

Omidyar, the foundation established by Pierre Omidyar to fund both for profit and non-profit ideas, has given the Attention Trust its support to explore this idea of having a non-profit, independent group supporting user's rights.

I'm also going to work with EFF (and hopefully EPIC and Markel) to make sure the AT work and the recorder tools are the most user-friendly and affirmative of user-control, privacy and security as possible. I would also appreciate any help from people in covering this as well, so if you have thoughts, please send them to me in email to mary at hodder dot org .... or comment below.

Tonight there is a talk on attention, at SD Forum if you want to come check out some attention ideas. I encourage you to attend if you are interested and in the area.

"Consumers In Charge"

I'm at PC Forum, speaking later today about "me media." There are some people using the term "users" while on stage, but in the halls and at meals, as well as from many onstage, there is a lot of use of the term, "consumer." At one point, I'd heard it so much, that I said I disagreed with that terminology to someone. After-all, the guy using it was talking about funding some company that was all about users publishing their work. He said, "... whatever, they are consumers...".

This conference feels very cynical overall, and the terminology is one of the main reasons though there are others. It's like the difference between the eyeballs of old, and attention: it's the participation. And people who participate are not consumers.

There was a guy on stage yesterday that Esther Dyson kept trying to get to say that the users could create on his site, and he finally blurted out, ".. we just let them think they are creating...". (You know there was a publicist in the back of the room saying "Take him out. I repeat. Take him out" to a sharpshooter on an ear radio somewhere. In fact there are tons of publicts and PR folks here.. many more than last year.)

It's too bad because "Users in Charge" is a great topic and Esther and company have put in a lot of work to frame these issues thoughtfully. But most of the attendees can't help themselves... they can only think of consumers buying things, being fed something packaged and consumable and neatly branded from these companies and making boatloads of money, with seemingly little care for the users, the experience or anything else.

Part of the issue is that many of the most interesting thinkers on this topic are at SXSW, where I was for a couple of days before coming here. I'm sure things would be different if danah boyd or Doc Searls or Joi Ito were here talking about users and participants.

Course, there has been a little fun:

My response to Techcrunch/Crunchnotes regarding One Web Day

So.. Mike Arrington posted this on the One Web Day dinner coming up: Is there a point to this that I am missing?

He doesn't understand that getting big political behemoths to take a look at why net neutrality is critical is really hard. So, for those of us not in the digerati, Susan Crawford created One Web Day, to get non-geeks to pay attention to how the web has changed our lives, and how unhelpful CEOs like the one at AT&T (who totally don't get it, I mean how does he even send email? much less surf the web !?! or for that matter tie his shoes?) who thinks there should be tiered pricing for every little thing, and those who serve lots of data should pay extra. I mean, dude, they do pay extra already. They pay a lot for their hosting .. and we the users pay a lot.. and geez.. isn't that enough? Or do the servers of data need to pay yet again? It's a triple pay, he's proposing. It's ridiculous!

Oh, and did I mention he wants to make the video and VOIP protocols move really agonizingly slow? Unless they come from him and his buddies. Okay, dude, it's my choice, what I click on! I don't want you altering my clicks, my internet experience... hands off!

Anyway, okay, back to Mike. So Mike doesn't understand One Web Day and I can understand that... I mean.. it does appear namby-pamby at first. But then.. think about all the bureaucrats in countries all around the world that are just starting to get a handle on all this internet stuff and still haven't even read Techcrunch yet. And if mister AT&T-clueless has his way, Mike will have to pay even more for all of those new readers to see Techcrunch, because Mr AT&T wants to charge Mike for people to see him, on top of the hosting Mike already pays for, and the charges the readers already pays to get access.

So.. One Web Day. It's for people who are not digerati.. but still.. we need geeks to get in there and spread the meme. So we proposed a dinner.. for Susan, to make her case and meet some folks on the west coast who can help with that. She's smart, she gets it, she's not namby pamby. She just cares about making the web free and accessible. For Techcrunch. For Mike. For all of you. So suck it up and sign up for the dinner. And you too Valleywag. Thanks.

One Web Day dinner in SF, March 9 2006

Next Thursday night, there will be a One Web Day dinner in SF.

Susan Crawford will be visiting and we want to roust interest in this annual event that will take place September 22nd. The event will focus on the "one web" we have not (no tiered pricing! and no keeping people away from what they choose to click on!) and on the ways the internet has changed our lives.

It's a great cause and we'd love to have you there.

Please join us, by adding your name to the wiki!

Info from the wiki is also here:

OneWebDay is coming up on September 22 all over the world. Let's have a party to plan it.

Please join us. This is an informal gathering of anyone who wants to celebrate the Web! how much fun is that?

Location and Time
Cha Am Thai
701 Folsom St. (at 3rd)
(415) 546-9711

Thursday, March 9, 2006
5:30-9:00pm -- come whenever you can

Parking at Museum Parc Garage (entrance at Folsom between 3rd and 4th Street)

To RSVP, edit this page to add your name to the list below. If you are unable to add your name, please email your RSVP to volunteer@onewebday.org. The restaurant has limited places available, so please RSVP as soon as possible.

Cost:
$20 per person. Includes full Thai dinner and non-alcoholic drinks. Cash bar.

Earlier Today at Mashup Camp

Someone came up to me this morning, pointed to Doc Searls, and said, ".. is that Doc Searls?"
I said yes.
He said, "Does he have a blog?"
"Kinda.. " I said. "Maybe you should google him."

The New Gossip

In IM, gossip would travel.. person to person.. slipping below the surface, and it might take days or weeks for something to be passed around, depending on what it was. We might post a photo or say something about ourselves on our blogs, but it would be rude to post some gossip on our blogs that wasn't about ourselves.

Now, for the tech community, with ValleyWag, gossip is explicitly written down and searchable later. Which makes our community more explicit for us, whether we want it that way or not.

In some ways, information that we all knew true is now out there publicly, and it's easier because things can be acknowledged and we move on. On the other hand, there is information that is probably encouraging more people to be mean and difficult, because it's out there explicitly too.

It's changing things; people are shifting their behavior. The contours for what we share just shifted with it. Circles are getting tighter in some ways and looser in others.. and people are watching out more for things they want to keep close. The community has changed and it will change more.

Love What You Do, Do What you Love

Paul Graham says it in a rather lengthy way, here.

Duh. I mean, I'm not trying to be sarcastic. But really, 4 years ago, I stated that from that moment on I wouldn't work on anything I didn't love, and I would only work on things I loved. (I needed to say it redundantly, because it felt wobbly inside, saying it out-loud. I was terrified.) As soon as I said, it I knew I could never go back. A door had closed. The old way was over and no longer reachable. I could not understand the old way of thinking any longer. The new way had clarity, passion and intensity.

It doesn't mean I don't do a lot of hard, trying, difficult, long work, but I have to say, the overall goal, the project, the commitment, must be something I love. And frankly I haven't worked for a second in the past four years. And I work all the time. Because it's not work. Down with work that you hate! Do only work that you love. And the work will pour in, you will have more choices that you know what to do with, the quality will be high, the satisfaction will be high, your life will change, and your free time will become so much more satisfying.

In fact, I used to watch the clock to know when to quit the old kind of work I did. Now I'm afraid to look at the clock at all, because I have so much I want and need to do. I was recently at an event in NY where this woman spent an hour telling me how passionately she wanted to do some particular thing with her life, and when I said, "...you've got to quit everything else and start now to do it!" She backed away from her passion and made a million excuses about why she couldn't do it. It was all crap, and I think she knew it, but she was scared. Sometimes it's easier to be comfortable than it is to be healthy.

Love what you do, do what you love. I think it's pretty simple. Be healthy. Don't give in the fear. Do what you love.

Notes from James Surowiecki's Talk at Intelligent Television

Intelligent Television conference info here.

1. Openness bridges all of these mechanisms: open source, p2p, shared work.
2. Intelligence is distributed rather than centralized: the knowledge is spread out in many locations
3. Bottom up works better than command and control mechanisms
-- people are better at understanding their own needs than the top
4. We are better off casting wide rather than narrow
-- don't know where the info is much of the time
5. Open access to creativity, knowledge -- benefits are greater the more people are involved
-- when people learn more, we learn more.. it's anti-rivalrous
6. Be very hesitant to filter who belongs to community
-- don't keep people out
7. People act better the more info they have

8. The internet allows us to become technically able to do so much more
-- distributed info and aggregation are so much more powerful
-- possibilities are immense

9. Different ways to tap into open systems
--obviously people using open systems to make money
-- Innocentive.. people go to register as a 'solver' where 10. You then get access to a problem set
----- if you solve a problem, you get a prize, but he company owns your solution

11. Systems that allow people to give ideas and innovation a piece at a time are interesting, because lots of people contribute. Prediction markets and prices work this way.

12. Can profit from an open content system.. leave everything open and free and then make money from talking about this stuff..

13. People find pleasure from the value of competition
-- from contributing to the growth of the pool of knowledge

14. Many of these systems are inefficient, because in a strict sense, they are redundant..
but the point is that even though this is the case, if we expand our ideas of efficiency, it's tremendously efficient.

15. What are the challenges to these systems?

Internal
-- problem with model in that a network or self organized model, it's difficult for individuals to contribute due to echo chamber effects...army ants .. work in ways where they do just what the ant is doing ahead of them.. if they start walking in a circle.. they actually die.. worry that if humans imitate others.. we will degrade because nothing new happens.. group loses collective intelligence.. drawing knowledge from just a few
-- challenge is to keep the ties in the networks loose.. and open and flowing

External
-- profound counter to our most deep seated ideas around authority, knowledge and expertise -- people have a fundamental desire to pick "the expert"
-- traditional need to develop a product, and then show it after it's out.. instead of working with people all along..
-- traditional needs to develop IP are challenged

16. Arthur Miller in the Harvard Law Review just wrote an article saying that what we need now is 'common law' for ideas.

17. Tom Bergeron -- host of dancing with the stars on why people like this.. because it is about
"wholeheartedly uniting our skills is the basis for all human interaction"

18. Collective systems may work better when there is an answer people think they can find, verses when a lead user or expert may be better at finding the right thing.

19.. Our imagining of the 'genius' is the failure to see that works of art are actually based on others ideas ... works of art always borrow from other works of art.

Mash Up Camp Progress

So, Mashup Camp is moving along. To recap...

Dec 15, David Berlind said the idea in a meeting we were in, and later Doc Searls and I agreed to help.

Dec 22 David wrote about it on his blog, announcing it. Lot's of folks blogged about it and very very interested.

Jan 9 The domain was purchased and website set up with lots of help from Ross Mayfield.

Jan 13 After much discussion and coordination with very helpful people like Ross Mayfield and Lauren Gellman, of Stanford's Center for Internet and Society, I managed to get the Computer History Museum (thanks to Peter Hirshberg too!). To date, without a venue or time, we had 245 people out of 250 spots signed up.

On Jan 16, we "sold out" and started a wait list.

I think this is the fastest organized event I've seen, with this breadth of people and concerns. There is a fantastic group of people, including all the mashup developers and folks from big API provider companies like Apple, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Intel, Amazon, etc.

Now David and Doug are working on getting lunches and the evening event paid for, the site details and costs worked out (big thanks to the Museum for donating the site at a non profit rate, since this is a community event and costs $0 to attend -- consider joining the Museum here). Others are helping to get some hotels lined up for out of towners, and people are thinking about sessions they might lead and dinners.

Dave McClure's Top Ten Reasons Why Web 2.0 is Like Disco

The Top 10 Reasons Why Web 2.0 is Like Disco:

#1: Feels great, but don't want any pictures caught doing it.
#2: Nobody quite sure what it is, but everyone wants to try.
#3: First learned how to do it at [foo | bar | summer] camp.
#4: Lots of parties, alcohol, and women with big hair.
#5: Can fool most people if you can just do [ajax | the hustle].
#6: More about having fun than doing something useful.
#7: Open source, free love, & fashion from the 70's.
#8: People are remixing it all the time.
#9: More popular it gets, more people trash it, more popular it gets.

and last but not least:

#10: Done best when you don't give a damn what anyone else thinks.

Microformats and Media

Last night I attended a sort of meet up for people Tara Hunt had invited me to, to talk about microformats and media. She had wanted to start with photos, I think because of Riya, but it became clear after talking a bit that similar elements apply to rich media whether the piece being discussed was a photo or a video or an audio piece. The group started out mostly on computers trying to do a group chat, but I didn't have a computer, so I tried typing notes on Josh Kinberg's computer, but the software wasn't recording everyone's comments and it wasn't all that constructive.

I pulled out my notebook (I hadn't brought my laptop) and started writing a short list of elements that are common across all media types, in terms of what elements users publish over and over either on services like Flickr (and other photo sites) or Blip.tv (or other video sites) or audio sites like iTunes. At this point, everyone put away their laptops (funny how the paper can trump the computer once in a while, and while I don't really do paper, except for my notebook, it works for me at times like this). We centered around the notebook and the common document we were discussing, which consisted of a growing list of my notes:

If you want to know who attended, there are photos on Flickr. But the interesting part for me was realizing what we could make with this microformat, for users to publish with, for the publishing tools like Structured Blogging, which takes microformats and makes them into something bloggers can publish through plugins or through other tools that will be built later.

Microformats, as Tantek explained, need to have a page on the MF wiki that shows use cases that cover 80% of what users do now (as a rule of thumb) though arguments can be made for less, if they are really useful (like tags which are much lower across all users). On the Microformats list, the way Tantek and Ryan run it, it's been hard to tell what they meant by examples. When they would make these requests for examples, and I would then look at what people post for the examples, it didn't make any sense to me. But after talking, I think I understand what they want.

It's like the difference between taxonomy and folksonomy. Microformats come out of bottom up user generated use cases. Where as media metadata formats like SMIL and MPEG come out of top down committees. Not that they are bad, we are using those top down formats too in my other work. But as with taxonomy and folksonomy, so with microformats and top down metadata. They both have value and they each come from very different use cases and points of view.

We agreed that the Media metadata page had examples, and yet, it was overgrown, needed pruning, focused on metadata from the top down, instead of examples of what users do now. So last night Tantek explained what they meant by examples specifically. For example, we need to literally cut and paste a blog post from a user that can be used as an 80% use case, to show something as an example. Fair enough. So now, we need to add these examples in a constructive way, in order to argue the media format elements and microformat need for media publishing. We can think about a short list of elements that users use most of the time, when putting some media online, whether it's a photo at a service, or on their own blogs, or a video or audio piece.

Those elements (from my notes last night) are in the first list, becuase they reflect what I see online, though I will go find stats and use cases to back these up, or argue that the 20% useage of something enriches the whole community and so how far that argument goes -- tags are an example of that.

Base elements:
* Title
* Html URL
* Media URL
* Tags
* Description or quotes (subsets of the object: a video quote and tags/description associated with it, a region annotation note for a photo, or the quote of a podcast and tags/description -- the detail for these subsets exists in the 'more info' section below)
* Creator
* License (defaults to copyright, if none exists, but it's there, by US law, and many other areas of the world)

and for audio and visual:
* Duration

Other info:
(This is not the same for all types of media, and is published by users in very limited ways in practice, or is captured from the device or service or in some way, invisible to the user, and therefore often depends on a service to pick it up.)

The second piece is figuring out the elements and schema that lie around those 80% use cases.

I don't think this is so hard now, despite how chaotic and crazy media metadata can be, where some of that is reflected on the media metadata page. Though that page is a very good attempt to organize the chaos. But I now have a picture of how to make this happen in my mind, that is simple, and gets us to a place where we reflect what users do in practice, bottom up. So, based on my notes last night, I'm going to try to fulfill Tantek's requirements, and see how far I get with it. Will update here with pages as they happen.

A Map of the World, Charted by Stereotypes

This map of the world, charted by stereotypes was generated by Google searches and reflects the impressions of search results. The aggregator of this information is Google Blogscoped. Via Issac Mao.

Doc Searls on Corpuscles and Hearts, Among Other Things

Doc, as interviewed by Irina Slutsky at GETV.

"The Granddaddy of us all...." It's funny. Check it out. It was done right after his talk at Syndicate.

New Canadian Copyright Law Book is Under CC Licensing, Royalties Go to CC

Professor Michael Geist writes about In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian Copyright Law (all chapters available for download):

Of possible interest - with the Canadian government nearing hearings on proposed copyright reform, 19 Canadian copyright professors today launched a new book examining the bill and copyright law in Canada from a public interest perspective. I served as editor with the contributing professors representing ten universities from across Canada. In a first for major legal title in Canada, the book is being published under a Creative Commons license with all royalties going back to CC.

The book is divided into three parts. Part one includes three essays that provide context for Canadian copyright law. Part two features 11 essays on the current legislative proposal with several pieces on TPMs, education and copyright, and ISP issues. Part three looks ahead with pieces on copyright term, user rights, fair dealing, extended licensing, and crown copyright.

Nice!

Metrics for Weighing Blogs

Last week I spoke at Bill Flitter's eBig monthly meeting on Blogs and RSS. My talk was about metrics and weighing blogs. Shel Holtz recorded my talk (thanks!) which is here (warning, giant mp3 follows that link) or see it here at the Hobson and Holtz Report.

All things mechanical..

...seemed to fail or their failures became apparent yesterday.

I got a beep on my phone indicating voice mail, but there was no ring. So I got into VM and found there were 50 messages from the past two weeks. Took me 20 minutes to listen to them. Thank you Cingular.

And if you called me in the past two weeks, I'm sorry, the calls were apprently not all ringing through and for those who left messages, neither were they getting to me quickly. And now they magically are again. Thank goodness for small favors. I guess it's a favor when you pay for service and you actually get it?

And the DSL, from SBC Global.. spotty to non-existant for most of the day yesterday.

And my car, at the shop for a regular checkup.. they replaced some sort of dual oxygen censor.. and now it appears one of the new censors was bad. So I have to go in again. But the 'check engine' light that came on yesterday while on the bridge was not fun.

Lastly, Firefox and moveable type 3.2 are not cooperating. Third time this has come up with the new version.. I otherwise love the new 3.2, it's organized, easy, and thank god they made it possible for me to customize the new entry windows.. so that it can exist at a reasonable size. But they have no info yet on keywords (what are they, how do they work, are they like categories, can i display them.. so i'm not using them til i can figure out the value). Hopefully, after three attempts, I'm still hoping to get this and my other post on Andrew Rasiej up there.. after all.. the election is tomorrow!

By the end of this day, I wished I'd stayed in bed.

Lisa Rein's Songs from the Commons

songs from the commons
on MondoGlobo.net

All songs have one or another Creative Commons licensing, and sez Lisa:

The purpose of this show is two-fold.

On the one hand, I am featuring CC licensed music from the various libraries of it online. Explaining more to artists about how CC-licenses work, and demonstrating that more and more artists of increasingly professional quality are becoming involved in the Commons Revolution.

On the other hand, this show will provide a step by step basic understanding of Copyright Law and how the big cases affect the public, so they can understand better when new cases are decided by the Supreme Court in the years to come.

So basically, if you want to spend five minutes a week learning about Copyright Law, in an attempt to begin to understand what the hell is going on with these landmark cases and how the average person is ultimately affected, while listening to cool music in-between, then you’ll like this show.

This week's focus: The Copyright Bargain {{{MP3}}}

It's hard to move forward in discussing the current copyright situation without first learning a bit of background about the original intentions of the Founding Fathers when they created Copyright and added it to the Constitution. This show will discuss this briefly, and then, in contrast explain the current state of Copyright today.

Great cause and the music is awesome! I especially like Human Nature.

Foo Bar Stuff

There is foo camp and there is bar camp. Feels like the adults are at foo camp, making deals, and the kids are at bar camp, making cool technology. Foo camp is by invite, for those who don't know, put on by O'Reilly as a business event for what appears to be deal making. Bar camp spontaneously ignited about a week ago making a place of anyone to show up and talk geek.

Bar camp has been really fun, energetic and free (donations by Dave Sifry and Stewart Butterfield for food and drinks, among other folks giving to the event, though Dave and Stewart are at foo camp). It's full of great ideas, great technology, enthusiasm, collaboration, the door is open and anyone can come in. It's spontaneous and youthful, exuberant, cutting edge, inclusive and very friendly.

A big thanks to Ross for playing janitor in the Socialtext offices. And to all the sponsors for their last minute donations. Nice!

I don't really care about this whole issue of who gets to go to foo camp, except to the extent that some bar campers have been upset by it. A few guys lashed out over the last few days on blogs and in conversations (those who feel strongly are all boys, whereas bar camp girls have barely noticed foo camp... it doesn't appear to exist for them... however, there are awesome girl geeks here, about 10 of whom are in the other room hacking together a new mobile app that totally rocks! And a bunch more in the back deconstructing drupal.) I don't think it's productive for the guys to complain, nor is it the point.

The issue was that Tim O'Reilly exposed his algorithm for selecting foo campers. The last part, called the bozo filter excludes people without telling them because they are annoying or possibly because another person complained about them in the past. It seems to have hit a nerve with a group of younger hackers, because they feel a sense of unfairness about it, as though it might get directed at them at some point. The other issue was the perceived threat to exclude anyone from future foo's for talking about the lack of invites. It just made a number of people feel badly.

The whole foo / bar rivalry is unfortunate and should fade away. Hopefully, next year's bar and foo will focus just on the opportunity to get together and have fun, hanging out with smart people and learning stuff, and for bar campers, hacking up some really great stuff.

My favorite IM from yesterday..

11:40 PM
Bad time - @ wedding drunk

Yes, mobile IM will take you anywhere.

The Speaker's Wiki

It's really coming along, and as I discover more and more amazing folks with terrific expertise, I think this project has a chance of changing speaker's lists at conferences. So far there are 108 people speakers!

Many more people have been adding and updating themselves. As I find people I add them too.

And pivoting on categories gets some interesting people. Look at DRM or municipal wireless or photography or open source (wow.. that one has gobs of amazing women!)

Please keep adding yourselves, comment on others as speakers and list events in the speakers area.

Also, check out the Blogher story about how they found their speakers.

WARNING

I'm interrupting regularly scheduled programming to warn about eBay fraud. Two friends in the past five days, experienced techies, were solicited for sales, after they were the second highest bidders (one wonders if the first bidder was real and realized the scam, or they were a set up to create the scam on the #2 bidder).

One was for $2300 and one for $1800. The first one I found out about (Sunday) was a situation where my friend got an email saying the first bidder couldn't complete the transaction, so the seller wondered if she wanted the item. They did the whole email thing outside the eBay system, instead of using the inhouse mail system. She thinks the seller may have hacked eBay to get her outside email, and then, wanted to do a cash payment through Western Union instead of using paypal or escrow. Many crazy payment suggestions later from the seller, all of which she nixed, until she realized it was fraud. She lost no money, but all the reply addresses on his email were set to appear as if he were using the eBay email system, but underneath, it was his own email.

The second case is nearly the same, but this person actually lost the $1800 today.

I hate paypal, but frankly, use that, or escrow, or a credit card to protect yourself. eBay has become really crazy for honest users. The reputation system is so pressurized for 'perfect' feedback, that it's very hard to leave anything but 'perfect A++++++++ best transaction every conducted' feedback, which for me means the person drove the item straight from Kansas to Berkeley to hand deliver it. For regular UPS, I'm more inclined to say things like 'things were normal, nothing weird happened, good luck!' The alternative to the perfect feedback is only something really really bad. There is no in-between, so it's harder to tell if the person has the 'perfect A++++++++' rating that flaky behavior is coming until you experience it yourself.

Good luck!

Blogher: Getting it by being a listener

I was thinking today that really, I have to give Scott Rafer, Jay Rosen and Mena Trott a lot of credit. Different reasons. But I give them a lot of credit.

All three showed up to Blogher and listened. All three of them weren't so busy that they came late, or left early, or had other plans.

Jay flew out from NY to check it out, and he asked a lot of questions, was genuinely interested and warm, and really cared about what people had to say. He does this everywhere I see him, but a lot of other bloggers who report didn't show up at all, and so, I give him some credit for wanting to know first hand how things are a little different for female bloggers than they are for men, although not always. And he was there to figure out the subtleties around these differences, to learn.

Scott, as CEO of Feedster, could have been too busy making deals or come in late and leave early or yaking on cell, but instead he came down from SF for the Friday night dinner, spent time talking to folks, listening mostly, as I observed each time I saw him engaged with attendees in a very quiet, respectful way. And saturday, he was there early, stayed late, never discussed Feedster in a session, and listened in really such a nice way.

I didn't see any other management from any other blog search companies. Yes, Technorati sent Niall Kennedy, its community manager. But it's not really the same as sending the decision makers to hear first hand what's up with people, to listen and take in the subtitles, to allow people to tell them in their own words what they think, instead of getting the filtered version from others, 2nd hand. Over 50% of the attendees had never been to a conference like that before. It was their first shot at it. They aren't geeky. They aren't early adoptors. They are the future target market of many online companies.

I think it's really important to hear how attendees aren't well informed (read it this way: companies online overall do a really sucky job of communicating with users on those company sites, and designing services that make sense to people other than geeks and early adopters. This audience was misinformed because they have never been given good information from most of these companies). They also have intense emotions, expectations and connections to blogging, blog search and discovery and blog tools, because it is their mode of self expression, a tangible route to freedom and something they spend serious time engaged with. How this happens for these attendees was often deep in the subtext flowing underneath their statements. Getting that subtext was important. I haven't seen many blogposts that conveyed even a couple of those subtexts.

Mena I only saw Saturday, but she spoke from the heart, during the opening session, and otherwise, that I could tell, listened to what people had to say. She talked about not really wanting to be CEO after a while, because she was 26 (subtext: why in the world does she even have to defend this, and she's right) and being happy to have Barak run things while she evangelized the company. She talked about being a woman in public view and being criticized publicly (often it appeared to be for the same stuff men never are criticized for, when they form and run companies).

But I give those three credit because they took the time, spent the money, and came down and mostly listened, only talking once or twice to share their personal, helpful or heartfelt observations and experiences. It was very very cool. I could name a list a mile long of people who make, or hope to make their companies successful based on these types of attendees, that didn't show. Their companies would be better for having have showed, without an agenda, ready to listen and take it in.

The Speaker's Wiki: I need your help!

I just blogged the Speaker's Wiki in my previous post. But I wanted to explain a little more about it and what it is.

First, it is an open wiki for anyone to post themselves or another speaker. There is an alphabetical list of speakers, but that presumes you know who to look for or have the time to read through peoples information by name. However, with Categories, conference organizers can find people with expertise in art or law or who are researchers or CEOs (yes.. many executive conferences want CEOs or high level executives to talk). I encourage you all to add new categories (which are really tags) to allow people to be found this way.

I've seeded it with about 50 women, but I want men and women to be put themselves up. The goal is to show conference organizers that when they are looking to have a panel or talk on an area that there are many folks to choose from. I will be adding more men, but this effort comes from a need we discussed at Blogher, where organizers often say they can't think of any women who are expert enough to talk, or they just chose those they could find in their usual circles.

I want to broaden the circles, get more voices out there and make more opportunities for all of us. The wiki is also an effort to make information explicit and easily edit-able by anyone, that in the past has often been locked up in Speaker Service Bureaus. Those are often about money, but there is a kind of power in speaking. People chosen to speak do interesting things or are in high level positins, which they are asked to discuss. This is followed by those at the talk who blog it or come up to ask about future projects and ideas, further causing those speakers to become known as thought leaders in their fields. And then, they get asked again to speak, lead projects, join advisory boards, etc. Also, often men ask to speak but women don't know to ask, or don't feel invited, or don't know about the events to begin with, so organizers need to reach out a bit if they want to cover more than the white male perspective. It's a fine perspective, but we also have the whole rest of the world out there with interesting things to say.

The speaker's wiki is one way to get us moved beyond the rut we are in, with too few speakers asked to talk over and over, and not enough new voices. And it is a way to find people based on their expertise, verses having to know them by name. Once a potential speaker is found, there is an opportunity to find out more by going through the usual word-of-mouth channels.

So go add yourselves or others you think want to speak!

Also, a HUGE thanks to Socialtext for hosting this wiki, contributing once again to the community by sharing their wares for the public good!

Update: if you are having trouble getting in to the wiki, email me at mary at hodder.org.

Blogher: Observations, gratifications and goals..

Saturday at Blogher was an amazing experience. And high in contrast to my usual experience with the conferences I usually attend, which are mostly men. Men's conversational style at events is often competitive and not very sharing of information. Over time, I've learned to share information and develop strong ties with many of those men, without competing, but rather by having interesting conversations. But at Blogher, which was 80% women, my style of conversing at my usual conferences would not go over, even if not competitive. This was a much more collaborative scene, and listening proved to be the most interesting thing, and the best way to connect with all the many amazing women there.

Although. I did talk. In the morning session during the session that was essentially about inbound link counts for bloggers. After 45 minutes of intense anger and frustration from many audience speakers in the room toward Technorati link counts and top 100, I suggested we create a community based algorithm, based on more complex social relationships than links. It's something I've been working on for few months, trying to frame, about what this problem is and how we might solve it. But it's a complex issue and I'm also busy. So it's taken a while. However, my blog post is almost done, and I do plan to put it up in the next day or so.

So.. the first session was a debate about "playing by the rules" which refers to the inbound link count rules, where A-listers who've been around for a long time have so many links, and get the most attention and credibility due to the Technorati Top 100 list.

I pointed out to them that 4 or so years ago.. when there were only 100k blogs, that a relatively small group of people all linked to each other in blogrolls, and so those blogroll links are sometimes old and the networks dense, for A listers, and yet, Technorati doesn't do anything to express a blogroll link that is years old from a current blogroll link. They simply scrape the front page of a blog, and treat all links, old or new blogroll links, and current post links, as the same and then count them, for their rankings.

People in the audience didn't realize this, and I could see it was helpful to know more. But then I suggested the community algorithm. People really liked that idea, because it gives us a constructive way forward to find new ways to express conversation and influence in the blogosphere.

In the afternoon closing session, which was far less angry and much more about appreciating the amazing experience of spending a day with hundreds of women who blog, many people again spoke. It was there that I suggested that we make a speakers list. Then when conference organizers say they have mostly male speakers because they can't think of anyone else, or that male speakers lists are due to a lack of interesting others to invite, we can point them to the wiki and say, there are women who are experts in their fields do interesting things and they should be here speaking! Now, there really is no excuse.

This list, made on a wiki donated by Socialtext (thank you, thank you, thank you!!!), has been seeded with a few women I know, or met at the conference. However, it is far from complete, and I need the community's help to get it going.

Please list yourself, male or female, and list categories so that you can be searched by areas of expertise. Look at the profiles already there for examples.

I feel strongly when there are problems, that we identify them, and express frustration, but that soon after, we get to work on fixing them. I hope these two ideas get us closer to moving toward many industry conferences with more accomplished and amazing women who represent other points of views, and other ways of accounting for the blogosphere than inbound link counts.

An Answer! Chris Anderson Writes About Sellers at the End of the Long Tail

Chris wrote a post a couple of days ago, in answer to a series of questions I wrote in the fall. I asked about sellers further down the curve. Not Ebay and iTunes and Amazon, who are themselves at the top of the curve, but selling stuff down the curve, but actually the sellers themselves that exist down the curve, as well as selling content down the curve. I could only think of a couple of examples.

Chris answers.. here, where he says that most of the sellers are either at the top of the power law as sellers of tail content, or they are slicing bits of their businesses into small subdivisions of themselves to sell content. He suggests that the following is happening, where there are:

1. Long Tail aggregators (that include both the head and tail of content and products)
2. Niche suppliers/producers (who get aggregated by someone else)
3. Filters (which help people find what they want)

Update: Chris notes here that there are some sellers operating down the niche including companies like CDBaby, CountryTracks.com, TheLoveOfMetal.com, DownloadPop.com and AudioFader.com. Chris makes the case for those kinds of businesses here.

Nice!

Blogher Speaker's Session

I'm here in the Blogher Speaker's session, held the day before the conference. Notes are posted on Donna Mill's blog: SoCalMom.

I must say, this is impressive. I know of no other conference that holds speaker sessions (there may be some but I've never heard of it, so please leave comments if there are some). Almost all the speakers came, and the presentations by Elisa Camahort and Lisa Stone were great. I'll update this post with notes from Donna's post, but frankly, every conference I attend could use something like this, were the organizers give the results of the survey from attendees as they registered (context about who's coming and what they care about.. talk about knowing your audience), common sense tips about speaking and the guidelines for running sessions.

The handout, which is not yet online, but will be, should be given to speakers everywhere.

One other tip during the session on how to live blog: don't wear organic deodorant on days like tomorrow, use the one's with aluminum .. just for tomorrow.

And.. they quoted Doc Searls post about Jonathan Schwartz at Always On who was too even, and needed to be more animated, have more fun. The suggestion to us was, have energy, have fun.!

Tag: blogher

Campfires and Story telling

Britt Blaser wrote an interesting piece on corporate blogging, extending the metaphor of campfire story telling, and the properties he sees in it as why we trust its "talk to accept its steady, unadorned, agenda-free tone as trustworthy."

It's something I've been thinking about, as I started writing about it (offline) a couple of months ago to describe why people need to tell stories and what the relationships, expectations and processes are that cause us to speak in a certain way. But I was thinking about it in terms of individula users and their desire to share their experiences and connect to each other in deeper and more real ways. But Britt makes the analogy about corporate blogging, where he suggests that our ability to share information at low transaction costs online means that we won't accept a stilted style or broadcast mode. We'll just change the channel to someone more authentic and conversational. He suggests that the style of speaking around the campfire is deeply embedded in our primal brains and that when people, corporate bloggers or otherwise, take that tone, we are much more prone to listen.

I think it's more than tone, but a process we engage in with talk that is conversational, where everyone has an opportunity to speak, there is not so much a competitive flavor but rather a contemplative one in the interaction. Also, we take turns and listen to others, which also reinforces the egalitarian nature of the experience. The ideas and stories are more about shared experiences, regardless of whether the teller was with the others when the experience occurred. I'm not sure the actual details of the story matter in the long term, except in the moment of the telling, as listeners half listen for truth or in the case of a narrative willingly suspend disbelief and half listen to the development of the story, emotional buildup, and shared connection to the speaker. The details serve to support the moments of entertainment, emotion and connection, but in memory, it is the shared connection and warm emotional experience that we remember, more than most of the details.

If corporate blogging can succeed in revealing who people are inside the company, really, with all of our foibles and quirky eccentricities that make us authentically human, then we might want to sit with people in companies to share our stories together. But part of the success of the campfire is equality in the sharing, as much as the tone during the telling of the story. And I'm not so sure that corporations on the whole would be willing to show that unkept, unmanaged side of themselves inside as they share information campfire style with outsiders who themselves are revealing this sort of thing.

Blogher is sold out!

I'm leading a discussion on investing and entrepreneurship with Denise Howell and Patricia Nakache. I was hoping the investor panel at Always On yesterday would prompt Denise and me to figure out a discussion post to get the conversation going before our discussion on the 30th at Blogher. Denise and I conferred afterwards and decided the panel was so unpalatable (trying to be generous here) that we wanted to make sure what happened at AO didn't happen at our discussion. We'll keep working on a post to put up to get the discussion going online previous to the conference.

Lisa Stone writes about the list of speakers at Always On, color coding it to show that the number of women speakers is really low, and pointing out why Blogher is one solution to the problem of conference organizers being unable to think about speakers other than men.

I think another solution is to come up with a list of interesting women doing amazing things. I've been working on that list, but would love to get comments below with suggestions. I'll try to post the list this weekend.

The Digital Media Exposure Scale

I'm at Always On, and there are interesting hallway conversations going on. Dave Sifry and I were talking about exposure, or, how much you expose online the people you come into contact with in person. The other night in the EFF panel discussion, I said that if I know someone is online in a medium, I have no problem putting them online on my blog or using Flickr or whatever the appropriate thing is. In other words, if someone is online in text, I will talk about them by name on my blog in text. If someone puts themselves online in pictures, I will too, by name. Same with rich text. If they aren't online, I might put them up, but not attach their full names or information that would make it possible to find them.

Additionally, I noted that people think of media reuse differently depending on the type of media. Text is least likely to be a problem if cut and pasted, photo reuse is a little more of an issue, but sound and video is most concerning for those putting their media online. And so using some judgment around the ways we reuse each other's media. However, I also think this will shift as we see more examples of remixing, and get comfortable with having our stuff remixed, even in ways we don't like, and realize the remix is a reflection of those remixing, and not those who made the original media, and cease to care so much. In other words, the richer the media, the more we are concerned about our own images or how other's reuse our media.

This came up because Dave walked up and we chatted about some of the AO sessions, and he shot a little video of me describing a point from a session yesterday. And we talked about how we each assume that we can do this with the other, because we are already online and put ourselves out there.

Dave made an interesting point that those of us with companies doing social media need to think about what we will do, what happens when we have our first big scare. Some stalker does something bad with the information we put up online, using some service put up by these companies, to do something uncool that is scary for people. As more people beyond the early adopter crowd take to blogging, social photo sharing, vlogging, podcasting, etc., we are more exposed. The good part is, people in these companies are all are pretty connected to each other, so we can quickly talk about it, and hopefully adjust for the bad actor behavior to solve the problem. But we haven't had our first big scare yet, and that will happen, and cause us to rethink our online behaviors and the services that are out there helping us filter information. It will even out, but we are still early and naive in this business, and we need to be sensative to these issues.

Vlogpod

Doc Searls talks about his first podcast (it's my video and Doc's podcast mixed):

(3.29 minutes, 320x240, quicktime format, iMovie, shot on a Canon SD300)

Brad Templeton Interviews Esther Dyson at the Hillside Club

Last night in Berkeley. Great talk. Audio should be available soon (will update here with a link).

I took about 3 minutes of video, and edited it into this simple piece. But the complete talk was great. About 70 people came, including Esther's mother, who recently moved to Kensington/Berkeley.

(3.38 minutes, 17.5 mgs, 320x240, quicktime format, edited in iMovie)

danah makes me ::giggle::

Which evil nation state are you? (similes for Microsoft, Yahoo and Google)

She sez "...it's not so very nice... but"

Check it out. ::giggle::

FAB: A missed opportunity to tell a great story, but what incredible assumptions and presumtions people have about this new kind of fabrication of personalized manufacturing

I'm in this book group, called 'netheads' where we read books about networks, network effects, digital culture and new technologies. We've been reading Fab by Neil Gershenfeld, who is a prof at MIT.

He started a class on fabricating your own stuff.. and instead of the 10 students he thought would sign up, 100 signed up, making things using computerized fabrication and CAD tools, and some other things, in a fab-lab. He later got copies of the lab exported around the world. The book relates what he observed, taught and learned, with people basically thinking along the lines of personalized, remix culture (which we usually see in digital situations) applied to what is normally considered to be mass-market manufacturing, in the one-size fit's all model.

The book is repetitive, and not very well written at times. And the way he tells different students' stories is frustrating, because sometimes people come up with amazing things, like the computer interface for parrots, or the scream machine, and you really want more, in-depth information about how they did it, what the interaction is in the thing they made, how they figured it out exactly, and lots of detail about how they worked with the lab etc. instead of a glossing over in a page or so description. It feels at times that he is jumping from one 'cool' think to the next, of is focusing on personalities instead of the beginning of a really interesting social phenomenon.

I really wanted deep thinking, connection and comparison between earlier self-manufacturing and this current version, and some analysis about how people make the leap from consumer to self-manufacturer. Instead, I got these quick hit stories where I had to figure it out myself to some degree from the skimpy information, but I know there is much more behind it and it felt missing from the stories and analysis.

But the assumptions the people in the book take on are radical. Just like we (online digital people) wake up every day presuming we can both make code that remixes other code, or remix digital information, or that we can write and rewrite whatever we want online, remixing others' words to create something new, assuming this is normal and possible, and just another everyday thing, so do the folks who have access to fab-labs presume they can remix the material world, and assume it's normal. I was imagining, in reading the stories of people's inventions, finding those things in Walmart. Would never happen. This stuff is too customized, too personal, too handmade, and too useful to find its way into some marketed, glossy mass-production type store.

Also, what is interesting is how people assume they are capable of this. 100 years ago, people manufactured their own things, but at some point, we gave that up. The vast majority would never think of self-manufacturing. But with computerized fabrication labs it's possible to think we can do this, just by watching others in a fab-lab or similar workshop, having them teach us, sharing information one-by-one and thinking in a remix mindset that takes you beyond the consumer, manufactured frames we are born into now.

It's extremely politically subversive stuff, amazing and exciting. It's really too bad that Gershenfeld isn't a great writer, who could transcend his own fascination with being cool, to find what is so changing about these labs, the communities that build up and fall out and build again around projects and creators personal assumptions and shared information and learning. Because what is in the subtext that he never really brings to the surface is potentially transcendental for our culture.

It also reminded me of what I learned from my father when I was a kid. He was the CEO of a company for 25 or so years, and yet, he would take the opposite of those skills and experiences, in spare time, where he and I would do things like replace a sewage line, or rewire the bathroom, or replace a garbage disposal. Or make a rabbit hutch for my rabbits and ginnea pigs, or build a playhouse. I don't know that I could fabricate things yet that they did in the fab-lab, but because of my experiences with my father, I believe I can do a lot of things that I hear others say they can't do. The possiblity for me is there, and I think the fab-labs extend that possiblity to lots of people for manufactured kinds of things. The fab-labs offer an incredible change in personal assumptions for people.

Setting the Scene

The past four days, I've been in Chicago, north of the city actually, in a nice leafy green suburb visiting friends. The original plan was to be there for 2.5 days, but they had a family emergency (the grandmother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer three weeks ago, and after operating, the doctor said she might live a few months. But yesterday they had an appointment with a world renowned oncologist, and at the same time, the babysitter got sick Monday.. so they asked me to stay for Tuesday while they went with grandma to the research center. The good news is, new doc has some treatment that gives her a fighting chance!!)

So.. the girls and I went out for the afternoon to the forest preserve (a beautiful long narrow preserve, that stretches north / south for miles where we biked for hours), shooting video of them, to edit into a present for their grandmother. They directed the editing process, chose titles and colors, arranged photos and chose the music (we'd already done this Sunday with some beach footage so they were ready to go and very excited about this new craft could do.)

Here are the results of their work.. they loved the process, where they could direct the story, creating a little movie with whatever they wanted. I also showed them Rain and Octopus, which they insisted on screening over and over. I showed them Flickr, and all my photos, as well as the photos and video I took at the 'parents only' engagement party their parents had for a friend Saturday night at their house. They were taken with the idea that they could see what went on, even though they stayed with their aunt and uncle for the night. They were captivated by all of it.

While I was in Chicago, I missed a couple of things until today when I could really read through my aggregator:

This will be the lore we tell the younguns.. when we're old, about how obtuse some people's reaction to digital media was.. back in the day: Bloggers need not apply.

This is the lore right now: Zits on the tragedy of a single telephone line for the whole family.

And, William Gibson on Remix Culture: God's Little Toys

Our culture no longer bothers to use words like appropriation or borrowing to describe those very activities. Today's audience isn't listening at all - it's participating. Indeed, audience is as antique a term as record, the one archaically passive, the other archaically physical. The record, not the remix, is the anomaly today. The remix is the very nature of the digital.

The Train of the Blogosphere

Jessika Hjarta left a comment on my blog here.. which, I have to say, felt a little bit like comment spam because it was so general and resembled the comment spam (which only shows up in the backend as i have good filter, but there is a ton of it) that spammers try to leave. But I looked at her blog (personal journal and opinion style) and decided she was just saying she liked my blog, which I very much appreciate. But then Doc IM'd me and asked if this comment on his blog was spam. Same type of comment from Jessika, saying 'nice blog,' with a link to hers. We decided to write her a note, to see what was up, and it turns out that she sincerely liked both our blogs, is interested in topics around technology and the web, and she's relatively new to blogging. Next thing we get email asking about what an RSS feed is, as she listened to a Gillmor Gang podcast, and then asked Doc, what's a podcast?

I remember when I first discovered of all this stuff online... it was really exciting, and finding people who could help me understand more of it was great too. People online who were blogging were just so nice and interesting, and I'm really happy to pass that help along to someone else who's new and trying to figure out what this all means. And check out her blog. It rocks, has a cool pinup-y style that's really beautiful, and is another great voice for the blogosphere.

Video for Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

Michael Parenti, creator of and artist at Artificial Eye and the exiledsurfer of Istanbul, has made a video based on Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, by Cory Doctorow.

Nice riffing Michael.

Welcome to The Vlogosphere

It is different here. I'm dipping in my toe, have been since December.. and really, I've only made one vlog post myself. I learn both from watching others and doing this myself. The read/write nature of video is very very different than text or the genre of blogging.

What's interesting to me is how I'm now discovering the vlogosphere as I once did with the blogosphere about four years ago.. back when there were maybe 100k blogs... I had no idea what I was looking at because it was all mysterious then: the format, the linking, blogrolls, and the people, online trust and references. There were nuggets of magic, people who came through asynchronously to share and converse both information and points of view that were personal, passionate, deeply held and often far more expert and full of breadth than legacy media. I was taken, I knew there was something there.. but I couldn't figure it out until I started blogging at bIPlog and realized the linking was creating many trails of conversation; it was writers following those links, extending the conversation still further, that was making something totally new and exciting and relevant. Yes there were and are diarists, essayists, as well as others who put out bad information, and so I'm speaking here of those who blog about topics in a conversational way only. A blog is a tool as we've said a million times.. so let's not go back to that old skirmish. The point is, there are some kinds of blogs that create a conversation in blogging, through discussion and links and comments and still more posts, that are compelling, and give free speech a big push over the old analog world. Fast forward through four years of arguing the stupidity of blogging verses journalism because we don't need to go through that again either. We know they are complimentary and different, and need each other to survive.

But now.. vlogging as a low-transaction cost production medium, with reasonable bandwidth and storage costs, and vloggers with time and interest are creating a new kind of story telling that is very different than the text blog entries I can search, skim and remix aggregated by various services like Technorati, Feedster, Pubsub and Blogpulse. Vlog-posts are little movies, or a post wrapped around a little movie. One cannot link from within a movie, but one can reference, remix, explore. I know at last count there was a directory of vloggers that listed about 200 of them. So it's small now, but considering the power of video and the time it takes to make vlog-posts.. it's a pretty good start. I also thing there are probably many more folks online making video.. that aren't included there.

The ways we determine conversation in vlogs will be more along the lines of visual and aural references. Even if we had a transcript to search them, we would not get context or what is shown visually or in the sound beyond the words, nor would we get the references from one piece to the next, as we can now mouse over a text blog's links to see intended references. Vlog references must be viewed in order to see them. So conversation in media, just like in the analog world, for now, will not be tracked by counting hypertext links or key words. It will be different, and I wonder how we will show those vlog-posts conversing or remixing media in meaningful ways.

As I discover vloggers, get to know their work, see what they are thinking about as they explore and forge ahead with their vlogging work, I find myself presented with similar sensations of discovery and mystery as I did when I first was discovering blogs. And yet, because it is a video medium, the experience is different, I'm making the references between their pieces and the referenced subjects in my mind, I'm taken into a story that is not skimmable but rather gives me sound and visual narrative as a complete picture, where I see clips that may quote from others, but are no different in presentations from any of the other clips that may not be quoted. This kind of recognition was something I did in my early days of blog reading, making connections. But it was easy for all those aggregation services to make the connections for me, as they counted up links and made searchable key words in the texts. But who will be the Technorati or Pubsub of vlogging? What will we do with this medium to transform it from an industrial art that cannot be recognized computationally except by humans?

It's a whole other kind of media literacy, of understanding digital sharing of borrowed work, of seeing what remix and re-expression is about. This is true both for us, as viewers and makers of video, and for the computers we want to aid us in searching and discovering video and video conversation.

I also wonder, will broadcast and narrative legacy video producers claim that vloggers aren't 'real' in the same ways journalists have about bloggers? Or will we have learned enough to get past that to the much more interesting question of where the relationships between the top down and bottom up content with lie and how they might get on .. whether and when it will be complementary or contradictory?

Thank You

For the honor of being nominated to the Technorati AO 100.

It's nice that people think of me as a trendsetter. It's an amazing and great list of people to be associated with.. including John Battelle, who has been a sort of mentor to me, and with whom I worked on a couple of projects at UCBerkeley, including our first blog, bIPlog, and been amazingly sweet in helping me with my projects since then. I really like John's work, because whatever he does, he does really well.. it's high quality, and then he polishes it at then end. I wish him well on FM Publishing.. his new venture, which will shine, I'm sure.

And to the rest on all five lists, who are friends and people I admire for doing interesting, thoughtful stuff.. thanks for the inspiration!

You can only say yes, to Yes!

Or at least to Mark Pincus, who invited a group of friends and bloggers to see the film, Yes. Sony, which is distributing the film, seemed less sure than Mark about having this group view the film. But the event went well, starting off with a couple of Youthspeaks.org poetry readers -- kids around 18 with really good stories to tell -- then followed by the film and then hanging at a waterfront bar. Mark is pushing legacy media into distributed, uncontrollable, scary blogspace. A place they need to go, and this showing was a dipping of a toe in the water.

The meeting.. of the two lovers in Yes!

The film is definitely arthouse material, where all the dialog is in prose rhyme, but it actually works. And the subject exists in many layers of misunderstanding: personal domestic marital conflict, friends and more conflict, the Oriental and the occidental conflict, among others. It's well done, mostly, though it could use a little editing, as well as tightening of the story in parts that feel unfinished, like the plotline around the goddaughter. But it's worth seeing, for really great cinematography, great acting with Joan Allen (also awesome in the Upside of Anger), and Simon Abkarian, and beautiful locations. It's a gorgeous film.

Photos from the event are here.

yesfilm

For the Love of God, or Transparency, or My Sanity... or Bacon is the Soul of Brevity

Could everyone please cut down the blogging, just a tad?

I mean, there is so much going on. Geez. I know! How about we take even license plates and odd license plates, and promise to only blog on the corresponding even and odd days? If you own two cars, then pick one as your blogger license plate and stick with it.

You know, editing is a kind of respect for your audience. Kevin Marks made his Bacon movie only 16 seconds, but it took work, he says. If it were a podcast, it'd be 20 minutes.

For my sanity. Please. It's kiling me. I have three hundred feeds to read, and about 14 hours a day of work, and I have to work out, and meet with people, and socialize a little. And cook something to eat, maybe sleep. And I have to get it all done in only 24 hours. And you would all be helping enormously if you would just cut things down a smidge.

Brevity. It's a saving grace. Run with it.

The Heterogeneity Issue, Part II: Working Inside or Out

After my first post on this topic, regarding Poptech!, the subject noted there as having a conversation with me about women speakers at conferences, talked again with me about our conversation. That conversation, as I discussed it there, and as we had it originally, was very short, and not terribly nuanced. But I wanted to point it out in the post not because of him or what he really thinks about these topics or diversity and other voices, but because I felt that it represented the short attention many people give to the subject of having other voices join in at some institution or event. I think often this is all the attention people give to the subject, and so the conversation was applicable in that way.

This all may sound cryptic, but let me explain.

The original conversation was short, and simply noted his thought that he saw people complaining about a lack of diverse voice at Poptech! and elsewhere, and thought those people who complained should consider making their own venue to show what they felt was missing. Having discussed it quite a bit more recently, he's noted that this isn't a simple statement, but that he's always felt, with technology development, with social issues, with large and powerful companies and institutions, that effecting change that really mattered was best done from the outside.. rather than working from the inside. He has often done outsider disruption and development, and felt this was a reasonable response. And so the remarks, while short, really had a lot behind them. They were loaded with his experiences of being a disrupter himself, and he thinks that people who want change should do the same: work from the outside to make change happen.

I think the issues are more subtle, and considering that we are talking about women speaking, require some analysis of the dynamics of women and men and conferences.

First, men tend to ask to speak, whereas women don't call conference organizers to ask for a speaking spot. Combined with the lack of thought about who speakers are on many organizer's part, beyond who they see already speaking at events (who tend to be white males), the result is that mostly white men are signed up or asked to speak by the organizers of events. This happens unless they break through their own frames and references about who spoke at past event to actively seek other, different speakers.

Also, women speakers are fewer in overall number, at least in technology fields, and with family and other demands, even when going for those speakers, it's harder to get them than with male speaker who will show up for the conference or speaking engagement regardless of other obligations. However, my experience in organizing a conference was that men who volunteered or we asked, would mention family or other work constraints but they would shift them for the opportunity to speak.

And if there are submissions or requests involved for the conference, women will also not necessarily feel invited to submit or participate in a paper or research demonstration, whereas men almost always feel they can submit or participate.

Additionally, if working from the outside, in this case, means creating a whole new conference, as the person noted in the earlier post suggested, there is a huge undertaking and commitment there. It may be that this is the best ways to effect change, but can most people do it? Is there room for another conference, will people attend yet another conference, will the organizers be able to finance the first conference and want to take on that risk, is it realistic to apply what might be called hacker ethics around technology (roll your own or DIY or just, hack up some new code over the weekend) to those who might make change in conference diversity by making a new conference?

I think making change from the outside is an option, and certainly, Blogher is an attempt to do this. Blogher is finding lots and lots of different speakers, but also, it's not an established conference, and the topic is centered around online communications and blogging, which is less broad than say, Poptech or Web2.0, which focus on the much larger scope of technology, development and cultural trends, as well as their own individual twists of theme. The result for Blogher is that it's attracting people interested in blogging, as it should, not focusing on these larger themes. Therefore, it's not much competition for Poptech or Web2.0.

It's an extreme undertaking, making a new conference, and not many people have the skills or know how, or for that matter, can set aside everything else they are doing for a couple of months, to make one. It is, in effect, making a new business, and very few people want to take that on, even if it does mean effecting change in ways they think should happen.

Instead, it may be more realistic for us to consider speakers with other backgrounds at existing events.. to leverage what has already been created.

Emily Davidow and Deb Schultz have entered the room

Emily is blogging here, and Deb is blogging here.

Congrats on the cool blogs!

Connecting...

I read the Larry Lessig article in New York metro, because Julie Leung pointed to it, where at the bottom, John Hardwicke, the plantiff in the case against the American Boys Choir lawsuit, comments on the need for readers to help get a law passed that will keep the state from giving immunity to charitable institutions in sexual abuse cases.

All of this connecting and pointing and commenting happened in 24 hours.. and it's old hat for those who've blogged or played with RSS and link search for years. But remember. It's amazing, and it's never existed before, that people could connect in these ways we are now taking for granted. Taking things like this for granted is good, because we implictly build these practices into our social interactions, but don't forget also that what is so valuable about the internet can be lost, if those who would regulate it and limit it have their way.

So follow John Hardwicke's request for support, but support the medium, the place, the technology landscape that supports these connections, too, by standing up for freedom on the internet. The freedom to connect. Or we'll lose our the ability and freedom we have now to find and connect with each other, and so the promise of better connections will be lost.

One way to do that is to write your congressmen and senators, your state representatives, and tell them explicitly that you support municiple wireless, open networks, and balanced intellectual property laws. Every little bit helps.

Trapsing around from wifi to wifi

I'm working at the corner of University and 12th Street in Manhattan. I was in a diner for three hours.. but they have no power.. however I was seated 4 feet from the wifi Verizon grey rubber thingy. So my batteries ran out. And I moved across the street to Buona Sera, which has a plug.. and a direct line of sight to the grey thingy on top of the Verizon pay phones. Except when a truck drives by and gets stuck in traffic.. blocking the grey thinging.. and then I fall off IM and everything else.

Drat. It's never perfect. Though Buona Sera staff did tell me they would be hooking up their own wifi soon. And then, I'm going to camp out here always.

Flickr Add-ons

Yes, I do love my Flickr. And yet, there is one small thing I'd like.

Oh Please Flickr.. and Yahoo. Please add spell checking to your list! Now that I spend time blogging in Flickr as well (my 14th blog, eek!) I find I need this.

Titles and tags I've got covered with my uploader. But I need my posts checked. And that's something I put directly on the Flickr site.

Save me from myself, Flickr. Or at least my typos. And I'll love you forever.

The Open Media 22

At first I thought about not participating in this awards contest. But I decided that I would do so if only to nominate people who've done really cool things, teach me daily about open media, or push the boundaries and change things for the better over time, though they may not be so obvious. Or maybe they are. But they aren't all on the Technorati Top 100 list for inbound linkage or at every conference panel.

My reservations about this process and the awards generally include:
1. Aren't things in online media just a little young for awards at this point? I mean, only one or two of the companies associated with the people below have revenue of any consequence, much less are profitable and the internet is changing so fast in such a short time, what is the value of spending time on these awards?
2. I think of awards as something people who've spent maybe twenty years doing something and they are about to retire get. As it is, this crowd is constantly invited to talk and show leadership and authority in demonstrable ways. So do we really need to give out awards at this point?
3. On the other-hand, much of what has been in development for a long time isn't necessarily where the coolest and most innovative work is going on.. so my list is not a reflection of what I think really matters right now or who's most innovative at the moment, with the exception of one or two.
4. Most importantly, isn't this just a popularity contest for the nominees, categories and contest makers? We're likely to nominate who comes to mind, which are the people we see (online or in person) most often right at this moment in time. I tried to think about people who've consistently done thoughtful and innovative work, including the hard and unglam stuff that none-the-less is important, not just those with notoriety. Though a few of them are also my friends (and one is an employee!!). So take it all with a giant grain of salt because there's no way this is objective. These are the people who teach me things that I find valuable, stick their necks out for the good of open media or have made something I value.

As for the categories. Well, they seem very very limited, and redundant. What about artists that are creating open media arts, the push the boundaries.. like Illegal Art, or DJ Spooky, or DangerMouse. There are many more. And what about emphasizing non-text open media. By implication, the categories are open to all media, but they tend to give terms that are most associated with textual media.

The contest may not be entirely open to all who participate in open media, in the sense that by requiring the blogging of votes, means that you must have a blog to participate.

Regarding the contest makers, right now the blogpost tag structure means that we must link to something, instead of nothing, to make a tag and get it scraped, and be included in the contest. In order to have the links resolve to something that makes sense in the blog posts, we will most likely link to the companies involved instead of to an open source, open media webpage aggregating the nominees, because that doesn't exist.

Many bloggers have told me they specifically don't use tags in their blog posts even though they'd like to because they don't like linking repeatedly to a company in the tag structure. Right now their blogging tools don't allow them to make a tags page for their own blog's tags, something that essentially nullifies the link but allowes the link to be clicked to somewhere useful. They can make the tag link point to any website, but as long as there is a link requirement, they feel uncomfortable about the current situation and won't use it until it changes. For these users, there will be less participation. Maybe it doesn't matter so much, but if this is discouraging for some, the pool of participants is reduced, composed of bloggers who tag, and therefore the pool of nominees and winners may not be as representative or interesting for open media, which is a much larger universe than that of the blogosphere.

Pioneers: industry luminaries who created the vision of open media and continue to shape it.

Rebecca Blood
Clay Shirky
EFF

The Tool Smiths: web service entrepreneurs and companies building the open media tools (blogs, social software, wikis, RSS, analytic tools, etc.).

(Question: isn't the concept of open media at odds with the concept that everyone in this category is an entrepreneur or company? Can't open source, non-proprietary, non-company open media tool makers be on this too?)

Matt Mullenweg - wordpress
Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake - flickr
Dave Winer - rss
Natalie Glance - Blogpulse
Creative Commons

The Trendsetters: the influencers driving and evangelizing the adoption and applications of Open Media.

Liz Lawley
Craig Newmark
danah boyd
Donna Wentworth - Copyfight

The Practitioners: the top bloggers in politics, business, technology, and media.

Lisa Rein
Jeff Jarvis
John Battelle
The many-2-many gang

The Enablers: the venture capitalists and investors backing the Open Media Revolution.

Esther Dyson
Omidyar Network
Joi Ito
Reid Hoffman
Yahoo - for not always understanding but at least they are paying cash on the other end for stuff that matters.

AOTechnorati100, OpenMedia, OpenMedia100

Follow up on the Gender Guessing Game

I was telling a couple of people the other night about my experience playing the Gender Guessing Game. They had played as well, and we compared notes. Anita Wilhelm and I both guessed correctly in our two tests, but we managed to do this in very different ways. Since the test only gave 5 minutes to figure it out, and two IM's had to be conducted at the same time, in order to guess the male and the female IMers, we each used very different strategies. Anita decided to just make general conversation, with the idea that girls are more tentative in the nature of their answers to questions but they explain a lot more. She said that the boys don't give any extra information and were more definite. She said it was obvious, using this criteria, who were boys and who were girls.

Since I felt under pressure to get answers quickly, and to start the test right when they gave me the IM's, I decided at the last second to ask them a series of questions about going out on a date, to see how they would manage the situation. I asked what they would do if they went out on a first date with someone they thought was really hot, and they wanted to sleep with them, and the opportunity was there, would they. In each case, the girls said no, they would want to go out more, but the boys said that no they wouldn't, but with caveats. The caveat was that if they knew they didn't want to see the date again, and could do it without any problem, they would sleep with the date. Based on that it was easy to figure it out, though the 5 minutes did fly by trying to get the answers.

So I was a little dismayed with myself, that I resorted to such stereotypes and this dating line of questioning to figure out gender, rather than Anita's more subtle route of just asking random questions to look for response style and tone. In retrospect, it was kind of funny to do it, but it also shows how easy it is to rely on stereotypes, even if those stereotypes are not true all the time. Using them allowed me to effectly figure out gender, very fast. It was sort of the Blink method, in a way, to just get a hit on something to understand it very fast, even though it's not at all deep or nuanced.

So when I told Anita and the others the other night, they thought it was very funny, and that I should report on what had happened. I'd love to hear how and what others did when participating in the study. I'm sure others used more interesting ways to determine the gender of someone in 5 minutes of IMing with them.

cc: on Meetup

I sent this to a mail list I'm on, but decided to blog it too. It was feedback on Meetup's new pricing structure which asks for $19 a month or approximately $240 a year from each group:

Maybe people *should* pay for Meetups, but the current structure and pricing does tend to encourage either loose groups or small groups to go elsewhere and not pay, and the fact that people are having more fun after they switch may be a problem too.

At the Flickr Meetup the other night, Mike, the organizer, introduced himself and then a bit into the conversation, mentioned that the usual Flickr Meetup had approximately 7 people show up each month.

Then he said that there was no way he was going to pay the $240 a year, for 8 people total, when an email list would do, or he could get a hosted website for $150, or better yet, a free google group for free, except that he doesn't like the interaction there. He was quite adamant about it, as were the other 5 or so people around him, nodding in agreement about the fees at $240/yr being a huge problem.

As it turns out, about 70 people went to this one (photos), and so I asked Mike about the increase in numbers, and he said most of the attendees Monday had never been on their Meetup list, but when it got posted to Upcoming.org, it became much more popular because you don't have to login to see the event location, people can leave comments about the event that resemble Flickr comments, and since everyone in this group was already into that mode... there was lots of activity that made the event look like it was going to be fun with a lot of different people.

I asked whether he would consider doing a tip jar, or asking participants each month to pay, and he responded that he just wanted to enjoy the event and not have to hit everyone up for money, (especially doing so monthly, though he like the idea of a yearly fee because he said it would be much easier to manage and ask for donations). Asking for money sort of ruined it for him, since he already had to put in the time to organize it. I also asked if he would pay $40 a year, and he said absolutely, but that $240 a year was ludicrous.

And he mentioned that no one asked him about the new fees, but as meetup has his contact info and he is a Meetup organizer, he though they ought to have asked organizers for input before charging.

There is one last problem: when and if structured blogging becomes easily searchable and reliable, people will list meetups on their blogs, and others will find them through Google, Pubsub, Technorati and Feedster. At that point, all of Meetup's current value will go out the window, because people will be able to find each other based on location, topic, tags, etc. much more easily than they can now, so Meetup should probably consider some additional services that structured blogging can't cover in order to remain relevant.

Also, see this photo of Flickr getting a massage.

Paris, etc.

First the update on comments: they are still not working. Sorry. Still struggling with typekey, though I believe I've got the correct URL in their system and the correct typekey code on this backend. Ugg. Shouldn't this be easier?

So, Paris was lovely. I have to thank Loic and Geraldine for the conference. They pulled it off well, even if I was a little tired at the end of the end of the day, and wished for something other than panels. They brought us to beautiful places, with delicious food and spoiled us with a good time and lots of lovely new bloggers to meet.

Had a wonderful time hanging out with Halley, Doc, Caterina and Stewart, Lo�c and Geraldine, Paolo and Monica, Neville, Hugh, Gaby who tells great stories, and lots of others too numerous to mention. There is something wonderful about being in a city like Paris with a bunch of friends for a couple of days, for what is essentially a road trip. You can't really work, you can't do your normal stuff and there are no real worries temporarily.. except where to go next together. It's very light, very fun, and we spent time sharing delicious food and practicing our erratic French. We spent loads of time laughing too.

At one point, Doc, Halley and I found ourselves on the street, near a patisserie, buying bread and amazing butter, and being so hungry, we just ate it right there. I'm sure the French were appalled. Only Americans eat on the street. But then, there is no way we could ever measure up there anyway, so why worry. And yet, the snobbism is useful, because it does mean that they demand a level of quality in their experience (and get it!) for everything. But it is also out of touch with the realities of internet life, where just being a snob doesn't get you anywhere. You have to have good ideas and do something about them. Just being a snob about every little nit-picky thing is kind of obsolete in light of the flat hierarchy of the internet.

In fact, though, the butter was so good I brought home three packages. I was thinking of cooking something like a chocolat flour-less cake, as I also brought home some 80% dark stuff and it would be so good with that butter, baked softly. Okay, I'm a food snob too. You know. Food is not scalable. And certainly food production in the EU, which is still pretty small production, is amazing and proof of that point. Partly it's because their soil is 5 to 7 (updated from 100) times as old as California soil, so the minerals taste much more subtle, instead of our big, blow-out-your taste-bud flavors here in CA. Flavors are at a lower wattage in the EU, clean and fresh, but they are far more complex -- you can taste what the cows who gave the milk and creme to make that butter were tasting.. and it's so so good.

When going through customs, I list each food item by name, often because I push the limits of what is allowed to bring in. You aren't allowed to bring in meat, and so my giant tin of cassoulet was a mystery to them, and they mumbled something about meat, and then moved on. The package was all in French. Who knows what confit means (it's duck and is in the cassoulet) and so they went on to puzzle over the butter (who brings back butter?). Two years ago, from Italy, lost in my custom's list of wine, vin santo, chocolates, cheese, nougat, dried beans, dried fruit, olive oils and balsamics, was some bresaola, some sprek, and some prosciutto. I checked the box that said I had meat. And they waived me through because they didn't see meat on the list. I guess it pays to be a snob in that case too. And very precise about it.

Comments on Panels are Dead

Sorry but comments aren't working for some reason.

Here are things people emailed about that post:

Elisa Camahort:

Mary. I'm torn. Having been to some of the same conferences you have I know what you mean. When panels go bad, it's stultifying.

However, I'm totally unconvinced that Option #2 you mention really works, with most moderators I've observed anyway.

I like Option #3...would love to try that one!

Anyway, wrote more about it on my worker bees blog. You can click through via my name.

Esme Vos:

Yes it is totally mind-numbing. What's even worse than panels are panels filled with people who use Powerpoint to do vendor pitches. I am always asked to chair panels at conference on wireless broadband and I lay down very strict rules for my panels: no PPT unless absolutely necessary (for example to show a map of the city's Wi-Fi coverage) and NO vendor pitches. I interrupt people now when I see they are going down the vendor pitch route. I start asking them questions about their municipal projects, interesting things they learned, all the stuff an audience would like to know about. Then, their time is up and lo and behold! They had no time to get through the PPT slides. What a shame, eh?

Lloyd Davis:

I share your sentiments on the panel format and so do many others I spoke to at the conference - a podcast is coming soon of comments I grabbed from people over lunch - my feed is http://www.perfectpath.co.uk/index.xml but I just got in off the
Eurostar and my kids are calling for their dinner!

Have hope - several of us are trying to get such an event to happen in London before the end of the year. I'll make sure we throw your rules and Dave Winer's bloggercon guide into the cooking pot.

Buzz Bruggeman:

When I am on a panel, I routinely do all I can think to do to engage the audience in a conversation. Most of the time it doesn't work, and not for lack of trying on my part. I am not sure why. I have speculated that it is because there are just a lot of people who are more interested in listening and thinking about what you are saying than in really engaging you in a conversation!

Just a thought.

Jerry Michalski:

Mary, I was just at a conference at Berkeley that should have been really interesting, but they also smothered it with panels. Five panelists doing ten minutes each and poof, the session vanishes.

Thanks, Dave, for the link to Mary's post.

From Buzz Bruggman later:

I have thought about the topic a bit more, and think that a panel should never be more than three people tops! One should be a very engaged moderator, who actively solicits comments from the audience, and who tries to draw out contrasting viewpoints from the participants.

But the notion that the Bloggercon model fits all is just not accurate.

My response to them all:

I think my suggestion for led discussions isn't the be all end all, but one possibility, that might be right. I've seen it done successfully, when the leader knows the audience, and can draw out even the shyiest of commenters to contribute. It is tricky and means a leader has to be well chosen by the conference organizers. I'm sure there are other ways and some of you have suggested others above. But the point is, panels in broadcast mode don't work well anymore, especially when the audience is full of people who are breaking out of broadcast mode to user produced media and conversation, and a good led discussion, or something else, that we haven't thought of yet, would be radically more engaging, interesting, and productive than panels that broadcast. I do agree that presentations of research, either singly or in panels is different, and what I'm referring to above is just the panel of discussant style that seems to me to have just become worn out. So, let's figure it out and post it.

Hugh MacLeod:

I hear what you're saying about panels, though I think they provide a good enough focus/locus... Some of my best moments were the impromptu, like going off outside and having a cigarette and striking up a conversation...

I would say the luncheon the day before was the highlight of my trip. A confab of eight or so. And there were one or two stolen moments I shall remember for a while.

Joe Hall:

The trick is that it becomes difficult if not impossible to moderate a large room full of people... and we sometimes pay panelists to come talk and they are sometimes a decent part of the attraction for our audience (in the aggregate).

So, I think we need some better ideas about how to have discursive panels. One thing I've seen Kim Zetter do at the Commonwealth Club is to pass out notecards on which people could write questions... then the moderater picks ones that he or she thinks are really good and relevant (which alleviates that I-was-the-first-to-the-mic bullshit).

That's what I can find in the avalanche of email I just downloaded after returning from Paris. And now, to deal with the jetlag.

Wednesday update: here are some more....

Mike Dunn:

having been on both sides of the panel table many times over my career - you raise good points, however there is one important element that i see as needed...

the knowledge level of the combined audience - those on the panel and those out in the seats...

i remember blogon last year, which was done in traditional panel format - i didn't learn anything new, and would have gladly joined in the discussion if motivated (i wasn't) but a co-worker i brought had never been exposed to any of this, he was old school media, and he soaked it up (that is why i suggested we go)...

would he have wanted to actively participate - no way, he would have had to ask way to many - "why", "how", "can you" types of questions that would have been to rudimentary for a large % of the folks there...

he came to listen and learn - passively...

bloggercon is run as an anti-conference - with success, yet numerous folks commented that they wished certain folks speaking up would have gotten more time to talk - they were left wanting so that "quantity of voice" ruled over "quality of voice"...

so, i guess my point is - depending on the forum and audience, eliminate the panelists on high - unless of course that is what most people came to hear - a small group of knowledgeable guides sharing their experiences so others can benefit...

sorry - this is long, i should have trackbacked it, but it would have been off topic for my blog, other than the fact that i will be on a podcasting panel in may :-p

i do hope those w/ something to say at that one will not be shy and join in the fun ;)

And my response to Mike:

Mike, just to clarify, at Blogon, the rest of the organizers wanted panels and so we did them, but I went around and around with them, arguing for led discussions for at least some of it. Ironically, we did manage to get three in the afternoon, during split sessions. Though I must admit that about a month before the conference, while I was on vacation, the rest of our program committee managed to slip "semi-panels" into the led discussions... which teaches me never to go on vacation. But even so, those sessions were the most well attended part of Blogon. I do think and agree with you that led discussion require a knowledgeable audience and leader, but we had both on hand this weekend, and for a similar situation, I'd recommend a variety of formats, to keep engagement and learning high, instead of just panels in their traditional sense.

Doc Sez, Jus Gimme a Cool Drink a Water Before I Die

He compares hotels that offer free broadband connections (usually cheap ones) to expensive hotels that charge (the one we are all in costs $14.95 a day at PC Forum). And each time you close the laptop, you have to got through the arduous process of logging in again.. splash-screens, billing, slow loading.. ack!

So Doc suggests it's as if, when you stepped into the shower at your hotel room, there was a screen asking you to authenticate payment for $14.95 for water. And later, if you wanted to brush your teeth at the sink, well.. you must go through the process again to authenticate that you paid in the last 24 hours.

I think we should have a Kum-bay-ah sing-in here at the Princess by where they sacrifice the virgins (big fireplace by the pool) to plead our case for free broadband at expensive hotels.

Who Has This Phone Now?

Steve Chan, a SIMS graduate student at UC Berkeley, was in Thailand over the winter break and lost his Nokia 7610... his wife left it behind in a cab. This phone is part of a group of phones that are part of a photo metadata project organized by Marc Davis and Nancy Van House at SIMS. Software was installed in all the 7610's, called MMM-2. It organizes metadata for photos taken with the phone around the content and implied context of the photo, and the social community around the photos, either with respect to the bluetooth devices nearby or for sharing photos.

The phone has been in use by some other party, taking these two photos... the first uploaded in January, and the second two weeks ago. The MMM software uploads photos automatically, unbeknownst to the current user of the phone. Steve has tried to call the phone several times, the calls go unanswered or are hung up on, and he doesn't have much information about who has the phone, except from these two pictures and the metadata MSS collects around them. And since the user of the phone 'found it' I'm thinking about what are the ethics around posting these photos. One thing I'm thinking about is that the first photo appears to be a child, though may be a small woman and involving her causes me to question posting it, even though I was given permission to do so by people running the metadata program, and Steve emailed a bit more information, implying his permission as well. Of course, I want to help Steve, and think about this problem, but what about this? What does it mean to post a photo of a young child in order to ask for information? On the other hand, the child's photo may be more closely tied to the current user of the phone than the second, with the two adults.

So, do you know these people .. which might give some clue about who has this phone? If so, leave a comment or email Steve.

Defragging the Room

We defragged, and yet it's still a fire hazzard with so many people jammed in. Oversubscribed. So I'm here at SXSW.. the Interactive section (film is concurrent and music starts shorty, I gather) which Marc Canter just referred to as the 'bastard stepchild' of the other two sections... and the opening talk with Jeffrey Zeldman who's keynoting the fun. The room is really crowded.. totally oversubscribed even.

Lot's of cool folks are here.. Kaliya Hamlin is looking for a spot to sit.. but a little defragging of our back row seating did manage to get her a spot next to me, Dwayne Hendricks, and Jock Gill.

BTW.. Kaliya just proposed that we have a 'going to eTech party' for people torn by the bad scheduling .. Robert Scoble, Marc Canter, me... who else is foolish enough to do both in the same week?

Must say though, this is a very fun conference, arty, fun, good time, definitely younger and hipper, more forward thinking and yet with a good balance between the engineering/geeky stuff and the design/social side of things.

Speaking in two hours on trust and social software.

More Interesting Stuff This Week

Still catching up. Got no sleep Friday night, and ended up with a bad cold. In bed working.. but hopefully I'll make my meeting this afternoon. Oh and did I mention, a snow storm is rolling into NYC .. supposed to be slow moving, and so the airlines are reporting on their websites that flights may not go as planned today or tomorrow. Yeah. Did this delay thing out of here last month and now it appears I'm doing it all again. So it's snowing out the window.. lovely .. it reminded me of more things I'd meant to blog the last few days:

A podcast on the napsterization of TV (12.47 mb mp3, from Webtalk radio). One interesting point is that when the Supernova site was shut down a few months ago, it was over the distribution of movies and music, but the prosecutors didn't touch the TV aspects because of the perception that TV is free anyway and they didn't want to get into that argument. It was just easier to deal with the obvious movie and music copy-written content being distributed. They go off into podcasting about 20 minutes in.. or so.. so the title is a bit of a misnomer for the last 2/3.

Also, Adam Penenberg wrote last Thursday about the lack of attention the Wall Street Journal gets online.. because nobody can link to them. Adam and I talked about this a few months ago.. when I was at Technorati and he interviewed me for an article in August about the service. I mentioned that while the NY Times has tons of links, and is one of the most "authoritative" sources online, the WSJ is non-existent.. as far as linking and discussion attention go from bloggers, because they are a walled garden. I've blogged about it for a long time.

Adam takes an interesting view.. not about linking, though he does quote JD about the WSJ's lack of linkability, but rather the effects of this. Adam says that people are not finding the WSJ in google searches, or hearing it talked about, and so the WSJ is in danger of becoming irrelevant. And this may not be very reversible, if things continue as they are, because the WSJ.com biz model is based on the walled garden/paid subscription model. Their competitors like Forbes are free online, sans registration even, and therefore, it's allowed Forbes to get pretty entrenched as the source for online business news.

Auctions, Demos, Interesting Meetings

Okay.. done with the oscars.. not that interesting snarking on the perfect people.. anyway.. back to the rest of the last week.. though we did get the obligatory sermon about copying .. ooops, I mean the sermon on supporting the troops....

So I went to the Origins of Cyberspace auction on Wednesday at Christie's, and Mitch Kapor was there, buying the first biz plan for a computer company, the Eniac, and the first computer brochure, among about 8 items. It was a really cool experience seeing things get auctioned that way. First of all, anyone can go unless it's a popular auction requiring tickets. It's very formal, with auctioners changing about every hour. This one took about 2 hours, 15 minutes, so we had two different auctioners. There were phone banks to the sides, and phoned in bids were competing with those in the room. There were 5 or 6 people in the room who bid, including Mitch. The style of it represented a very formal old tradition, and yet there we were, looking at representations of cyberspace. Steven Levy was in the audience, as well as some other techy journalists, a few geeks with laptop bags... the woman at the front desk told me after a trip to the women's room that this particular auction had drawn an unusual crowd for them. Many of the items went for far less than estimated in the catalog, but a few went for more, with very rapid interested bidding. The Eniac biz plan was one of those sought after items.

Later that night, at the Trimtrab meeting at Google, Mitch was there, along with other folks who listened to Susan Crawford ask for brainstorming ideas for her NetDay initiative. The idea is that the net is fragile, an organic and mutable place, with lots of pressure to control it from small but powerful interests, and it's young enough that people don't yet have the experience they might need to judge whether or how much to protect the free and organic nature of it. So making people aware of these qualities and thoughts about conservation is a major goal for NetDay.

Tagging at Technorati, Flickr and Del.icio.us

Technorati's new tags page has been getting lots of play in the blogosphere.. since it went live Thursday. It's a brilliant idea, matching tags from Del.icio.us, Flickr and blog post categories as they come through RSS feeds, and then displaying those photos together with posts that match. Of course, tags like are big because people have that as a category for their blog posts... as are other categories. David Weinberger noted that blog categories aren't really tags, because they aren't usually granular the way tags often are, and so there are results like this, or or whathaveyou because people want broad general buckets to put posts in, and with a post categorized as "general" on a page on their blog, in that context, there is a kind of meaning that is lost on a page like Tags. But still... the two sets of tags along with broader categories together produce very interesting results. Also, the photos are beautiful and make the pages far more engaging to read than when they just had text. Searching for interesting serendipitous meanings that occur while glancing between the two types of information is really fun.

There is also a fourth way to get Technorati's Tag page to pick up information, and that is to use a rel='tag' link. This is done by putting a Technorati link (transparent, so other blog companies could use the links, but still proprietary to Technorati) around some words. The words the tag goes around do not become the tags. Rather, the tags are picked up in the link.. so in this example the bolded word is the tag Technorati's system picks up: < a href="http://technorati.com/tags/tag rel="tag" >words wrapped by tag href link< /a>. (note there are extra spaces in this example.. if you want to cut an paste this, remove the space just after each < so they function correctly). Though I don't think these tags will get used a lot, relatively speaking, because as the blogosphere gets bigger, the bloggers overall become less technical and won't have a clue what this is, and they shouldn't. The answer is probably that Technorati and the other blog companies should cache posts, and let users tag them on their sites as they read them.

What I'm wondering about is how quickly the spammers will figure this all out, and use it to their advantage. Currently, even though I block comment spam across my blogs, and know that Technorati, Feedster, PubSub et al, as well as Google, don't log comments or at least comment links because of the spam problem, the comment spammers try ever increasingly clever tricks. They might leave 500 comments in a hour (like I wouldn't notice) each with a different IP address, a different URL they want linked to for google juice, a different return email address, different products. All in the same blast. Removing them is automatic, but if they are clever, they'll figure out just how to get one or two through.. and if I believe I've gotten them all, they've succeeded with just a couple.

I posed the tag-span question to a friend at technorati via IM on Thursday and they indicated that since they block spam blogs, they'll block spam tags, too. Fair enough. But in this case, there are three systems, not just Technorati, that need to block spam, and with these three, the possiblity exists that partial spam could be cleverly spread out across the three, in order to come together to equal a spam situation. How long til the spammers figure this out and use it to their advantage across these different sites?

I could see a spammer putting up a photo, relatively benign and not at all spammy, but with specific tags that matched a blog post, with links to spam sites, and tags designed to match the photo tags, but not look very spammy on their own. Then, with some coordinated tagging through Del.icio.us, so that those blog posts matching the tags from photos matching the Del.icio.us links, the blog posts and photos would show up together in Technorati Tag page results. Depending on the goals of the spammers, and their cleverness, it might be very hard for individual systems by themselves to see the entries as spam, or to use the community moderation on any one system to realize what is happening. It would be in combination that the information from all three systems would constitute spam.

Part of the problem I think is in the nature of the spamming, which gains exposure through short windows of time, and has value even if a very very small percentage of viewers actually click the links or see the words. Since the Technorati pages would only show posts and photos for a short period, hours maybe, the spammers could succeed with regularly changing information. Recently, I've been getting comment spam (blocked of course from appearing on the front end of my blogs, but I can see it on the back end) for hand cream, and pet food (like we didn't learn anything from the first bubble...) from what appear to otherwise be legitmate companies that are just looking to capitalize on something they perceive as providing value even if it doesn't really. It's not just mortgages and porn. It might be harder to recognize than we think because spam is changing, and spammers are very very clever.

Disclosure: I used to work at Technorati, and I'm friends with many of the folks there.

technorati, flickr, del.icio.us, folksonomy, web, spam, Weinberger, clever, handcream, pet food

Information Overload

I've been thinking about the idea of this. Information overload. I have a friend who is exasperated by the amount of information he comes across, that he wants to apprehend and think about deeply as well as respond to in some meaningful way. And how, as he expresses this, I think back to when I felt more stressed by my own inability to think deeply about every piece of information I came across.

I think there is some parallel to when I got a cell phone.. and for years, felt all sorts of emotions about responding to calls, as if I had to pick up every one, and not give out the number too much to regulate this, and how I wanted to not call others too much, because they felt the same stress. And then at some point 3 or 4 years ago, I started giving the number to everyone, and stopped using my home very much. When I would get a call, I decided whether to answer or not, instead of the phone pushing me. And the change in perception, which was instantly there upon thinking I no longer had to respond, and instead had control, caused immediate relief. I've never felt that pressure or anxiety again.

With information, ideas, expressions online, networks of activity and the desire to watch the behavior, events, second order information tools, and my desire to write myself, in this and other blogs and in papers, I have felt that same pressure, to keep running ahead of the production of information, to keep apprehending it and then processing it, thinking about the deeper meaning, and yet there is so much, I cannot.

One thing I observe is how people who are younger seem to take in smaller, more granular bits of information, as though they are rocks skimming across a lake, touching down briefly for a bit of information before the next lift off to the next dip for something.... Kind of like a statistical survey where a study of 30 random items is conducted from a much larger corpus of data.

In a survey of 30, because of statistics theory and study, it is assumed that samples of that size give a decent portrayal of what the larger group is doing, even if that group is in the thousands. So those I see who are more immersed in the internet, tending to be younger though they all are not, who are breathing it, with far less anxiety than those who tend to be older, seem to do so by just skimming and surveying. And the difference, I wonder, might be because those older were educated by parents and schools situated in the analog metaphor, where a classic book, Lord Jim by Conrad (one of my favorites), is read over and over, in a search for multiple layers of meaning and experience. Because of this training, my instinct initially was to read the flood of digital information as closely and deeply, looking for and ascribing meaning, even if not at quite the same level as when reading a classic novel. But those who are younger, and have grown up with the flood of the digital, may be less educated toward that kind of apprehension and desire to ascribe the same kind of meaning and depth to everything, maybe because while their parents and teachers reside in analog frameworks of their own, those younger are balancing that kind of apprehension with their experience online of granular, digital bits that are skimmed. I don't know, but that feels like what is happening.

So a while ago, when I first started seeing this difference, I decided to skim, like a skipping rock, certain kinds of information and data, because I found that living with less anxiety actually allowed me to take in more and understand it more deeply. I am not sure if this is all real, or just something on the way to understanding better what really is happening as I take in this flood of data and watch people interacting with it. But I do know that I'm much happier filtering more information I want to understand by type, as I take things in, and doing surveys in the flood of digital information, instead of feeling obligated to consume every bit before I can understand something. And yet, for other kinds of information, like Conrad, or the Bruno Latour I was reading yesterday, I want the time for a depth of thought to think more about it.

I'm curious about how others perceive this and would really like to know what your experience is, and how you perceive other's interaction with the flood of information. Please let me know in comments or your own posts somewhere. Thanks!

Happy New Year!

Napsterization has been on hiatus the last two weeks.. been working, cooking, playing and traveling a bit to see very cool people.. and reading a very good book. I think this year will be very interesting and I'm looking forward to it!

Fimoculous on Lists

They don't talk about lists.. they just show you every one they can find, for 2004.

Marvel at the breadth, and if you see one missing, email rex at fimoculous. Bravo!

1001 - Exposing Your Flickr Contact's Photos

With just a small box, sheer, discreet, a thumbnail in the middle... people you have as contacts upload photos into Flickr and as they do, you see them in the little box, which I keep in the lower right of my desktop. I first tried this little app three weeks ago, sent to me by DavidX.

At first, I thought, oh, another thing to pay attention to.. and clutter my desktop. But I'm so loving this. People are out.. doing things... taking snapshots and I see them, a few here, a few there... it changes the way I see my contacts... I know who is more active on Flickr without going to the site, what they want to save or share, what they are seeing, where they are (Esther was in Russia yesterday for example, or last week, David was on the bus in SF, and Jerry was visiting his mother in Washington, and so when the photos appear on Flickr, they also end up as the top photo in a little 1001 stack I can scroll back through). I feel much more connected to them in a way I didn't so much before.. because it's immediate, because I feel that I'm seeing what they are seeing closer to the time when they took the photos. Before I would just go to Flickr when I thought about it, and it would take time to click around, and so I realize now in comparison that it felt somewhat disconnected from their experience.

Only thing, it's just for the Mac, and so far, the 1001 beta is only good through November 30th. Bad. Very bad. I'm hooked and I want this always.

24hrs of Poetry

This is an aside to the idea of napsterization. Yesterday, I went to Tom Mandel's poetry reading at the Bowery Poetry Club in NY. Today, I went to see Joe Frank at the Great American Music Club in SF.

Both were great, and if you have the chance to hear either one perform, you must go.

PubSub Launches!

Last night I attended the PubSub Launch Party at Galaxy in the Union Square area of NY. Salim Ismal and Bob Wyman threw a lovely little todo and lots of interesting folks were there, including Susan Crawford, Andrew Rasiej, Britt Blaser, Isabel Walcott, Steve Rubel and several members of his team at Cooper Katz, Tom from the Media Drop, and Francis Hwang of Rhizome, a cool art/tech org that's having a panel on Blogging and the Arts at New Museum of Contemporary Art in Chelsea Tuesday night.

Lots of fun to see everyone and hang out!

BTW, congratulations to Susan Crawford! Her post the other day on the FCC's latest silliness where they want to control everything that might fit the category of TV receiving equipment..., got slash-dotted and she had 15,000 hits all of the sudden. Check it out.

Afterward, I caught up with Susan Mernit and her husband, Spencer for a late night chat at 71 Irving.

Podolicious

I love the names that are coming up. Podio. The Poderati. iPodder.

These are variations on podcasting, named for the iPod. It's not that this new media idea can't be done on devices other than an iPod. It can. But I think people love playing with the "pod" and I have to say, I love hearing all the variants on pod.

In fact, I was thinking of getting iHodder.com or iHod.com. Just for the fun of it.

Bonus: Alison with The Temptation of Podcasting: NUTS! MUST RESIST! DAAAMN YOU PODCASTERS!!! Oh, but it gets worse...! Love it!

Idea Philanthropy

It's something I love about the blogosphere. Especially in combination with information economics. Because the more you give, the more you get back. And the more the information and ideas are valuable if they are highly shared and can be further morphed, iterated, formed and reformed in the most basic sense of what in.form.ation originated from. How 'bout that.

Summary of Core Values of the Web Session at Bloggercon

(Cross posted at Bloggercon.) Update: Julie Leung has a post on what people said in the session, and Elisa Camahort reviews it as well.

Others commented to me in person and in posts, and so this summary includes some of those perspectives, but I'm sure I'm not going to get everything. However, I hope this gives a flavor of what happened.

Also, thanks to Dave for inviting me to lead the session. I think this was my favorite speaking event, mainly because the attendees were so engaging and we exposed some interesting personal examples of edge cases and interesting issues which we all grapple with in the blogosphere.

We started out with a rule: if you mention your personal value system, that you relate it to the topic at hand, and if you go on too long about it, I might have to redirect the session to the next topic. But I was very lucky to have such a thoughtful, smart group of folks to discuss this issue, and the rule never was invoked.

I read the first couple of the items in a list (at bottom)... folks commented sharing their experiences. Periodically, I would throw out another issue. Many other issues came up from the discussants: online trust, reputation, why we care about transparency. Because people shared different needs they have as they write or read blog posts, it became apparent that different value systems come into play, and we need different levels of transparency. In reaction to some of this, people suggested either legal or technical controls. I feel that controls like this are often heavy-handed and I prefer community moderation, but didn't want to say that. I wanted to see if people would come up with that on their own, and within a half hour of discussing various control scenarios, among other things, and sharing values and the subtleties of face-to-face interaction verses online interaction, people began to express that legal and overbearing technical controls to reduce unsavory behavior felt bad. They wanted to use the community interaction to ferret out bad behavior, discuss it as it comes up, and then moderate it down. And a couple of folks expressed that they feel this currently works in the blogosphere. This is often what I see in online behavior with groups. I watched our discussion take on really interesting issues and decide that trusting the community to moderate behavior, trust and the value of information was better than heavy handed centralized controls.

We also talked about how our social norms might shift as the blogosphere grows, what it means to feel cheated by someone apparently giving their own opinion, after which we find out they are being paid to write. We want disclosure and the chance to evaluate the biases people have. We want more subtle ways to understand bloggers we don't know than simple inbound link counts, and I pointed out that top 100 lists don't mean very much to me. There was a request for a categorization system for blogs similar to DMOZ, so that we can more easily find people talking in smaller communities.

We talked about whether the values we were discussing applied to the whole web, as the title suggests, or what aspects might just apply to the blogosphere. We talked about finding new voices and how power laws might be disrupted. We also noted that with podcasting, there is a need for more than just metadata to search, so that more than just highly linked or known authors can be found based on content and topics, if the author is not known already. We also talked about the internet as a place (metaphor) verses as a delivery system for content that includes the metaphor of shipping reflecting the old analog content system, and why the place metaphor may need more thought and integration into the digital.

We described why anonymity works in some situations, and why it doesn't work in others, and why it's very necessary in some circumstances. We talked about the assumptions we make, based on certain social and informational cues online, and whether these assumptions make sense. We agreed that relationships are very important, and behind them are various kinds of trust about the person and the information, and we need trust, good information and reputation to varying degrees to maintain our online relationships well.

At the end of the session, we made a list of things we value:
Democracy
Non-exclusivity
Attribution
Transparency – disclosure
Innovation
Personalization
Accessibility
Honesty
Creativity
Knowing who people are
Editorial Independence
Connectedness
Anonymity

Things we devalue:
Power law economics
Lack of Attribution
Anonymity
Wuffie-hoarding
Links for money

I was very pleased that afterwards, some folks commented that it was a meaty discussion and they would need some time to think through the issues. I also really liked that at least half of the 80 or so people in the room were not folks I knew, but could enjoy finding new voices, as I do online in the blogosphere. Other folks said they hadn't spent any time with other bloggers discussing these issues and so very much appreciated the chance to share experiences and values around them.

Here is the list I worked from, throwing out these ideas one at a time for comment through the session:
1. transparency of relationships and motivations for writing and linking
2. transparency of identity, including pseudonymous writing
3. excellence of content—by which I mean writers honestly writing what they believe, even if it turns out to be untrue in the iterative process, versus publishing known untruths
4. editorial independence
5. linking to attribute ideas
6. systems and behaviors that encourage new voices...
-- how to deal with rankisms, like top 100s, power laws, etc.
-- can we have that for context, but have other ways to find and value new people.... to make more democracy and bring new voices out...
-- to trust others...
7. link trading? what does it mean?

One other thing: for my room -- the smallest one that seated 60 and had about 20 other people, with two microphone guys, where I could send them both to a current commenter, and get the second mic ready for the next comment -- worked well and was pretty efficient. However, in the big room, I think it might make sense to have three mics, and have speakers line up the mic runners so that things run more efficiently and smoothly. I also really appreciated having a mic, because I speak softly, and it allowed me to be calm while still moderating and not yell. Several people commented to me that they liked that quality because it felt like the discussion was never going to get out of control.

Core Values of the Web Discussion Ideas for Bloggercon

(Cross posted on the Bloggercon III blog.)

In thinking more about core values we believe ought to be brought to our online dealings—either as a practice, as guideline or in theory—I wanted to understand more about instances where people have trouble with certain behaviors. I wanted to look at why we are concerned and what we want or need in order to create trust and value with each other.

I'm interested in these things: Why we value information online; What context or peripheral information cause information to be more trusted; Why we respect people; and What we need to see visually to trust information we find online, if that is possible or desirable. We appreciate it when people help us with information we need, share insights we hadn't thought of, or give us new windows into previously closed systems or institutions.. Those types of information, presented in a particular format, largely explain why blogging is so popular and appears to be so persistent. (I’m specifically referring here to topic blogging, versus say journaling, though depending on the relationships between reader and writer, what appears to strictly be a journal to some may actually provide insight for others....)

We also appreciate it when people are honest with us. We like it when they share their motivation for publishing, or at least lead us to believe that we know what their motivation is, based on their blog's content. And we like it when we feel we can trust that they're telling us about ethical issues we can't see. The blogosphere has a history of outrage over blogs that have been less than honest about their origins, identity or economic relationships in an attempt to fool readers and linkers into believing things are other than they actually are. However, we cannot force disclosure. We rely on and trust people to tell us the truth about their economic or other relationships.

One thing we've enjoyed the past few years in the blogosphere is a relatively pure state, where people are motivated to blog, link, and connect for many reasons other than money. This is partly because it's been difficult to make money with most blogs. It's the reason that “money and blogging” have been discussion topics at previous events, and at this one, because some bloggers do want to figure out how to make money with their blogs in ways that don't conflict with readers’ sense of ethics, so that they can keep their readers. It has also been possible to blog for profit or other hidden reasons, and therefore online communities have reacted strongly when these examples were discovered.

Many blogs exist without any advertising support, and readers have expressed respect and appreciation for the idea that these blogs are as pure as possible. Because there is no monetary support for the writer, these writers are simply expressing themselves for their love of getting out opinions and ideas. Or because they love to connect with people, and to iterate ideas and talk back to media or other institutions that used to be difficult for individuals to talk back to due to the high transaction costs of mass publishing. Whether this is actually true, or real, it has been people's perception, and supporters of blogging have held up this kind of not-for-profit blogging as laudable, showing examples of how blogging has changed things for the better.

Another model, a slight variation on the one above, has also developed. In this case bloggers who otherwise appear to be operating under the intentions, ideals, and principles of the pure blog model, have taken ads that are unconnected to who or what the blog writer is, how the writing is done, or (mostly) what the subject is. This kind of blogging has been perceived as mostly pure. And those well-schooled in the cues of online communication have believed they could differentiate between when some economic or other benefit has gone to the blogger for her writing versus when an algorithm randomly placed an ad on her blog via some program. AdSense, Blogads, and many self-negotiated ads and sponsors are present on some blogs, but we see them and believe that some sense of integrity has prevailed where the blogger is not paid directly for writing, either writing a certain way, or for writing anything at all. Rather, the ads have often been dependent on readers clicking through, and thus, we haven't seen that ad model as inherently corrupt. Most bloggers I know make between $10 and $100 a month with ads, though I know a few who make thousands of dollars. However, because we can watch the quality of the blogging and because it appears to us that that is not influenced by the ad relationship, we believe we are still seeing the bloggers’ unadulterated voice, opinion, and link referrals—which is the reason we want to read blogs.

Some people may be upset about the monetizing of blogs because they feel that if bloggers have any economic interest in what they write as it is tied to a business model that rewards sales of say, a product they have written about, or if they are paid to write at all, bloggers will be less free to say what they want or believe, because their motivations for writing change. People have gotten a taste of something that didn’t easily exist before: mass distributed and searchable publishing with individual voice, and they don’t want to give that up, even if it isn’t as pure as they perceive.

Others think writers who profit from more than randomly placed ads may be steering themselves and some part of the blogosphere back to top-down media model. They don’t want to see blogs dependent on and beholden to the business side of things, as large media organizations are with other interests than just finding some measure or kind of pure truth, or having biases in ways that purport to show one view when in fact they show another, among other criticisms.

We could label blogs without any ads, sponsors or other monetization as being the pure blogs as ‘angelic,’ the ones with AdSense, etc on the side as slightly ‘heathenish,’ and the ones with actual business models as ‘devilish.’ This sort of labeling construct at times seems to underlay criticisms about blogs that make money, but I think it is unconstructive. Although it is important to bring it to the surface, to make it explicit and discuss it, if only to make clear that it's there. For those who get to define the labels, labeling values and behaviors is powerful, but purity or devilishness only reflect one set of values. People, like the blogosphere, are much more dynamic and varied than those few labels, and therefore they need more dynamic cues in online systems to tell what sort of actions are taking place so that they can make up their own minds about whom to trust and read.

Other value systems that could be applied to blogs without ad systems versus blogs that make money of some sort, could be that of a protestant work ethic or a capitalist ethic, where earning money is much admired, if done relatively honestly. Therefore, money-making blogs that explicitly tell us they do so are the heross of that framework. Or there’s the communitarian value system that values those who promote and enrich the community, those who promote the good work of others, those who share credit, those who collaborate well, etc..., There is also the leadership value system, where those who ferret out good information or push memes or are especially innovative are valued.

Another thing to consider with value systems such as these applied to what is specifically seen on a blog is that they don't take into account other ways authors benefit from blogging. This is because they only consider the direct act of blogging and not the secondary effects outside of the blogosphere inn the author's life or work. I know many bloggers who have found opportunities due to their blogs. I myself have been offered jobs, have been asked to edit books, have been asked to dinner with interesting people that I didn't know but who read my blogs, have been asked on dates, and have generally been treated very differently and much more invitingly in a wide variety of situations because of my blogs, than if I didn't have them. But because these opportunities are not openly apparent on my blog, unless I write about them, readers are not aware of these secondary opportunities. Yet they happen regularly, and have been an extremely positive benefit of blogging, though I didn't start blogging for this reason, and I don't write anything in particular to make anything happen. However, this second degree of reward is potentially corrupting, depending on the circumstances. A blogger who takes a different job might find the blog more highly scrutinized, or that there is pressure to write differently by the new boss. Jeremy Zawodny recently wrote about this after moving back to the search division within Yahoo.

So what values do we use to understand online communication and communities? How are we going to show information about our activities, so that people with different value systems can make their own decisions about our blogs and the information they come across?

Also, are the acts and cues to understand online information presented with these core values different if blogs make money in some way, versus if they do not?

I'm interested in making a list of the values we believe are necessary for blogging or are open questions to discuss in the Core Values of the Web session. I'll start it here:

1. transparency of relationships and motivations for writing and linking
2. transparency of identity, including pseudonymous writing
3. excellence of content—by which I mean writers honestly writing what they believe, even if it turns out to be untrue in the iterative process, versus publishing known untruths
4. editorial independence
5. linking for attribution of ideas

Please add to this list via comments below or bring ideas to the session Saturday.

48 Hours With Barely Any Internet

So I left CA for NY, forgot my powerbook powercord, and was able to sync for just a minute late yesterday. Had so many meetings last night and today, that I didn't get online until around 1pm today, after buying a new cable. And then my connection lasted an hour before the wifi failed and I lost connectivity. Having wonderful meetings with Peter Hirshberg, Jeff Jarvis and Susan Crawford, as well as a slew of other interesting new media folks. But alas, I had to borrow Susan's connection to check email and blog this. When I get back to the apartment later tonight, hopefully I can figure this out and get back online there. I can't live like this. Not when all the connections are online, IM, email, even skype.

Susan Crawford Proposes Net Ecology Day

No, you don't have to pick up spam up off the floor . Instead, Susan is proposing a day where we all (I'm assuming bloggers and wiki makers, because it's easy to change our web content) post a visual representation of some part of the networks that make up the internet:

The central problem that we need to solve, the central complacency we need to overcome, is the general feeling that someone is (or should be) in charge of the internet.  We need to show the difference between networks and hierarchies.

What if, on one day a year, we globally built a picture of links together?  Each person could put a dot on the global page, identify it, and then draw a line to something online that they care about.  I bet the result would be a very interesting and dynamic network diagram that we could animate.  You'd see the thing pulse and change, as some links became thicker through popularity and clusters connected all at once.  Then, for one day, people could post this living, animated network diagram on their page or blog.  Very zippy.  We could make it possible for people to show "their" part of the network -- what they had decided was important.  (There are, to be sure, a few hurdles to overcome, but don't bother me with your petty technical difficulties (PTD)).

Some visualizations could be strung together to make a movie. Interesting idea. I want to hear more.

Viral Blogroll

This clever new blog on designer shoes, etc.. Manolo's Shoe Blog, has a blogroll way down the side, below the shoe references and eBay designer shoes sales, that is totally techy. Just noticed that the first half of it happens to be Doc Searls' blogroll.

Love the shoes, too!

Ebay Gets Closer to Blogging

Look at this... it's for the sale of 2 (3 more were added) invites to a wedding in England... since the wedding dress sale last April on Ebay, where the seller of that dress was only allowed about 5 entries, this new sale has 7 entries, and there are comments. For the record, the seller of the wedding invite doesn't want to attend because she doesn't like the bride and hasn't seen the groom since he started seeing the bride two years before. Turns out a number of other invitees saw the listing and threw in their invites for the same reason, so thats why the offer has gone up to 5 spots.

Funny stuff, but more importantly, Ebay has gone bloggy!

Call Me Ishmael

Been listening to Poptech on IT Conversations. I'm hearing lots of amazing stories about technology, the environment, science, human behavior and online interaction, all while working, in-between phone meetings, working out, etc.

Speakers tell of amazing feats of swashbuckling science, man-verses-nature Masterpiece Theater style, where Richard Attenborough-esque feats of daring-do by men who get knocked down and go home wounded but not broken, only to recoup before going out to attack the world all over again, and winning out over their metaphorical whales.

It is exciting, but masculine in language, perspective and ideas framing a male-dominated world. I swear to God, it feels like I'm hearing these talks after dinner, over Romeo y Julieta cigars with the speakers, while having a bourbon on the rocks in front of a roaring fire, sitting in a leather chair, under a giant stuffed white rhino shot at dawn as he charged on the plains of Kenya while a manservant, dressed in native red dress, and a big sword around his waist, made cappuccino back at the basecamp. Oh wait, that was someone else's fantasy life. (I don't even drink bourbon.) Anyway, aside from the one (single, only) woman speaker at Poptech, couldn't they find any women scientists or sociologists or technologists to talk about their work/research/understandings framed from a less masculine point of view? I mean, I love all this stuff where the men are men, and they conquer stuff, women swooning.... The scenario is sexy as hell. A lovely romantic fantasy. These are guys you'd love to have over for dinner because they're fun, adventurous, risk-taking and they tell a great story. But giving talks on stage to hundreds of people, one after the next, at a conference where the idea is to present the changing world of technology and the social impact of it on human life and the globe as it stands in 2004, where the boys label it all, framing life in masculine terms seems seriously lacking in balance and realness. What is power but to define and label? These are powerful guys. They are labeling the world in male-dominated power structures.

But goodness, women are half the world's human population and can't we celebrate and present frames of female power structures? And what do power structures of equality look like? Could we have some contrasting labels for describing what happens in the world? You know, it's not 1922 with Hemingway in Africa and it doesn't feel real to hear the world circa 2004 described in those terms exclusively. Doesn't sound true to me. It's not my experience at all. At times some of the speakers sound like romantic throwbacks to an earlier era and collectively, it feels very much so.

Actually, I don't even care if it's women who tell about other frames, but rather that other frames are available as part of the story of our current socio-technical life. It can be men telling it. But men who are highly accomplished AND understand other ways of thinking are not all that easy to find. Where is George Lakoff when you need him?

The thing is, it's often easiest to get people who embody the other frames to expose them, and so it makes sense that often there is a call for those women who have accomplishments to celebrate by those who feel there is something missing. But it is the varied framing and labels that are really what's missing. So while it would be nice to hear from others, and I'd like to see it, this isn't about just making sure women are there, or representatives of other ethnicities etc. It's about making the picture represent what is more true in the world. The rest will take care of itself in my view.

Oh wait, the audience just asked Ben the-current-swashbuckling-speaker to tell his polar bear tale, before dinner. Good story. Cute. And he sounds damned handsome.

Oh wait, again. A speaker just announced that for Poptech 2005, Caroline Porco, Dame Julia Pollock, and some space ship guy have agreed to speak. Well, they just doubled the number of women from one to two, at least in announced speakers for next year over this year. Bravo. But I think they need to work a little harder to reframe the world as both masculine and feminine, in order to even attract women, because who wants to speak at an all male party, were the world is framed in male dominated power structures? It's demoralizing. It's like a liberal going to a conservative party. The liberal will never be taken seriously there because everything will be on conservative terms.

Reframed, Poptech might then have a better chance of getting speakers who then frame the world in more balanced ways around their own work. In addition, it would be a huge success if it led to having a number of accomplished women presenting their work with more progressive frames.

Bobo-at-Large.

So the other day, someone was at my house, and mentioned bobo's. Which he defined as people who are bourgeois bohemians, who won't buy extravagant stuff unless it has a practical purpose. And then he mentioned that these Bobo's typically like everything and so they don't just buy regular tomatoes, they buy heirloom tomatoes (we were eating a salad with 5 colors of heirloom tomatoes). They keep densely grained specialty bread in the freezer (I started laughing so hard because I had some dark whole wheat artisan bread in the freezer, with walnuts and cranberries and raisins) that costs ten dollars a loaf (mine actually was $2.39 a loaf from Trader Joe's, but still, I was totally nailed) and I admitted to keeping that, plus some sourdough in the freezer because it takes me a week to eat a loaf of bread, and in this climate, it will go stale in a day. And Bobo's won't buy a boat for $30k because that would be extravagant, but rather, will spend $30k on their bathrooms (he's not very familiar with the bay area, I guess, because I know many people here, who've spent more than twice that on a single bathroom -- though I have just painted mine, myself, for about $50 in supplies and put in some $12 Ikea lighting -- halogen! -- and added some inexpensive chrome towel bars.. but still! It's a faint yellow cream. And I refinished all the furniture myself, after buying it from garage sales...). I realize after doing some reading that there are also some counter-culture values that go along with this, but at the time, the definition I was given was purely around all this stuff. My stuff.

I have been labeled and I didn't even know this existed, a Bobo. I must have been in finals at school when that media event happened (the Trent Lott thing happened during one set of finals -- and I didn't even know he'd quit I was working so hard). But I've never heard anyone in the Bay Area talk about it. But he is totally right. Even though I like practical stuff, and do everything myself, I still have things around that fit the definition (it's actually also a delegation problem with the DIY, and too strong a sense that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, and the fact that I'm an insecure perfectionist.)

So then I looked around the house, and at myself (wearing, gasp, a suede shirt -- at least i had jeans on) and realized, he's totally right. I am a Bobo. I go OTT on many things, though I don't really shop much, never go to stores unless I need something which is rare, but when I do, I get that quality thing (the roast I made for dinner was not cooked in some cheap pan, but rather an Al Clad pan that cost a ridiculous sum -- and I admit, I have pans and knives that are really good -- though I'm not really into other kitchen gadgets -- the two that I have are like my kitchen aide mixer that is 80 years old, and came from an estate sale where it cost $2).

Anyway, you get from this confessional list that this is really bothering me. I don't want to be defined by some pejorative term, classified in some way like a consumer (I hate that term as well) of marketed products (I don't even get catalogues, that's how little I shop). And yet, I do have a few nice things, but now I question what they are here for, because I realize it is probably my ego that has been out of control, thinking that people would like more me if I had nice stuff in a way or that I would feel better with those things and it would gratify my ego and belief that I deserve nice things (the other reason I have these things is because I don't like shopping but once or twice a year, and I don't want stuff to break/rip/spoil and therefore also think these items will last longer -- back to the bobo definition of buying practical extravagant stuff that is justifiable somehow due to the practicality of it). The last example he pointed to was my 15" powerbook. Ack. It's true. I do spoil myself in certain ways. It's a combination of purchasing to self-indulge, a desire to be liked and respected, my overblown ego, and frustration when things break.

For a while I've been thinking I needed to get rid of more stuff (a few years ago I got rid of 80% of my possessions -- but I've bought a few things since then), and have less, be more practical, and live more minimally. But this makes me feel all the more transparently a faker with my things, and gives me an additional reason to divest from them, which have nothing to do with any of the things I really want, which is to be seen and loved for who I am. I guess I've felt that if I have certain things and do something useful, people will like me. If I didn't, they wouldn't.

I guess it's transparently obvious to others but I hadn't seen it or known the Bobo existed before. So I guess until I figure this out, you can refer to me as Bobo-at-Large.

In-Sourcing

My friend Ana, who just got back Sunday from 6 months of being in-sourced to India, has a few things to say about American culture. First, it's 'relax' -- apparently street lights in India, when red, say 'relax.' And she thinks we need to. She said everyone here is so anxious, zipping around and laboring on 'internet time.' Zanex in the water, anyone?

Second, when the software engineers in India who worked for her (she was the team lead on a project for a telco project for an Indian company there...) would say, 'sure, two weeks to code it' and months later it wasn't even touched, she realized that outsourcing as an issue in the US is a joke. There is no competition. We are too busy zipping around getting things done here, and there is no way they operate on that level. It's just not part of their culture.

And lastly, she noted that we eat a lot of fatty foods and part of her culture shock getting back is that as a society, we are pretty overweight. But then, she says, 'everyone looks good in a well placed Sari.' She brought back two gorgeous ones (and lost some serious weight).

My response? Six months was way too long, I missed her way too much, and I'm so happy she's back and living up the street. Thank goodness I'm so busy zipping around running on internet time that it passed quickly. Ana is one of my very favorite people I'd rather have her here coding than there.

The Tail of Sellers

Francis Pisani made a really interesting observation yesterday, when we were talking about the Chris Anderson article, during a chat about how the blogosphere hadn't post much in the way of criticism or interesting observation about the premise of the article (it's mostly just quotes or pointers).

Francis noted that the examples used to illustrate the power of selling items that range down the power law tail are actually at the top of the power law curve themselves: EBay, Amazon, NetFlix, iTunes. And yet they are profiting from sales at the other end of the curve, where more obscure items can be found. This is because the transaction costs are so low, that they can offer things stores can't because the stores must sell a certain number per month to cover the rent. But this constraint does not exist when there is no store in the traditional sense.

This caused me to think about what kinds of sellers exist further down the curve, and are selling profitably items at the tail. Rhino Records? I couldn't think of too much off the top of my head, but I wondered if the required aggregation, and the trust customers have in eBay et. al. still means that the top sellers do best selling items that range from hits to obscure products or content, or if those sellers further down with only more obscure content, and with far fewer sales, are also benefiting from this economic shift. Is it possible that the diversity of media and products can come from a diversity of companies? I also would like to know where the buyers fit into this. Do the top purchasing customers purchase a range, or at the tail, or the top? Where do the people who just purchase now and then fit into this? I would love to have figures on this as well as the product hit sales analysis, though I would imagine that most online sellers wouldn't want to give even aggregated customer information about how much people purchase correlated to where their purchases fit on the hits scale of content. But it would be interesting.

Permission Culture

See the George Bush / Tony Blair Love Duet. The one Larry Lessig has been showing for a while to demonstrate why permission culture sucks. So the lawyers who were asked, said no, "it's not funny." You be the judge. But since the lawyers said it wasn't funny, they won't give permission. That does suck, doesn't it?

Wikipedia: They've Got the Geeks, but Not the Nerds

Much has been noted about Ethan Zuckerman's study of Wikipedia's breadth and depth, or lack thereof. Cory Doctorow thinks they need to cover non-nerdy subjects. But I'd say the problem is that geeks are online, we think about computers a lot, and so it shows in Wikipedia. One of Ethan's examples:

Nigeria's brilliant author, Chinua Achebe gets a 1582 byte "stub" of an article, while the GSM mobile phone standard gets 16,500 bytes of main entry, with dozens of related articles.

The nerds, the people interested in computers only as a means to a communication, knowledge management and connecting end, need to be enticed to work on Wikipedia, to share their extensive knowledge of subjects outside 'computers as sport' or 'politics as sport' which is what the original blogosphere spent lots of energy on, and what Wikipedia now seems very focused on. Geeks being technology obsessed, and nerds being bookish, is the stereotype I'm referring to here, btw. So I would expect, following this politically incorrect stereotype, that someone interested in Chinua Achebe would either be just a nerd, or a geek and nerd combo. But if it's literary criticism and a catalogue of Achebe's work and life that you're looking for, or some such non-geeky topic, especially with an international flavor, I'd turn to a nerdy expert first and not Wikipedia.

And in the meantime, how do you get the nerds? Well, for starters, really good UI, really good social interaction, something that doesn't just appeal to geeks who code and write blogs and Wikipedia posts on mobile phone standards. It's got to work well for more than the geeks, or it's never gonna cover more than geeky topics. That's not to say that I don't like the looks of Wikipedia. But it does require a certain amount of understanding, though they have made it pretty easy. But it's not clear what happens before you do things, and when you are in the middle of editing, it's not clear what's happening without a lot of FAQ and other reading, and still, you must understand some terminology, learn about the protocols, etc. For those not technical, I can imagine the number one fear using Wikipedia would be, what if I ruin something. Well, we know that you can't ruin anything, but if that is a fear, and users with expertise and not much technical confidence feel it, expertise will not be shared. It's a hard one, because often with new systems, users are very tentative, cautious, and if they feel they might break something, they often won't do it unless someone is there to reassure. So would that mean that to draw in the nerds, we will need to teach people, one at a time?

I looked up Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and because I've read all his books, seen all the movies he's written screenplays for based on stories in his books, and seen him speak, I was disappointed. Yes, the basics were there, but the entry felt completely devoid of the richness and pleasure I've enjoyed from his work and voice. There was no mention of the movies, which can now be rented, but traveled the film festival circuit, the gravely voice he speaks with when reading, the way he answers questions from audience members very different in experience and background from him, yet he manages to connect so deeply with the questioner. No mention of the short stories, some of which are brilliant, and make beautiful use of the short format, and how different those are to experience from the long works (which are really really long.) It's been some time since I read these things, and I don't think that just liking them qualifies me to add or change the entry. But I'd love to have someone currently up to date on this add to it.

Nerds are needed to finish this project. People whose expertise is deep in subjects that have nothing to do with technology and that live around the globe, but who can provide insight and experience with the people and subjects, enliven them. I hope Wikipedia goes soon from an early adopter tool, to something nerds can pick up and contribute to easily.

Maybe the answer is, every geek needs to pick one novice user, with some expertise, and teach the system to them. Get them hooked, and sharing their knowledge.

Social Commentary on EBay

Engadget notes that the best social commentary is now on eBay:

Like new, this Master U-lock is perfect for temporarily attaching your bike or scooter to a pole or bike rack. This temporary attachment is very handy if your bike does not have a proper kick-stand.

It’s sturdy steel design and black color are intimidating for thieves who don’t have a way to open it.

Comes with two keys. Keep one with you, and the other safe at home in your desk drawer.

Backstory on U-Locks.

Call for Entries: Samping Contest from Three Notes and Runnin'

The first remix is already up at Three Notes and Runnin'.

What's the contest? Make something good by sampling the music and they'll post it to their site. Here are the details:

SEPTEMBER 15, 2004: Michael Bell-Smith and Downhill Battle are seeking submissions for 3 Notes and Runnin', an online music compilation commemorating and protesting The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Case No. 01-00412 (pdf).

In the case, the court found that NWA violated copyright law when they sampled 3 notes of a guitar riff from Funkadelic's "Get off Your Ass and Jam" for their song "100 Miles and Runnin'". The ruling reversed a district court finding that because "no reasonable juror, even one familiar with the works of George Clinton, would recognize the source of the sample without having been told of its source", sampling clearance should not be required.

Hear the guitar riff in question from Funkadelic's "Get off Your Ass and Jam"

Hear a sample of the NWA song, "100 Miles and Runnin'", which contains the sample. (hint: the sample comes in after the line "when in a black and white the capacity is two", and is looped for 16 bars).

In doing so, the court broke from decades of established sample practice by ruling that all samples, regardless of how heavily manipulated or unrecognizable they may be, are subject either to "clearance" (obtaining permission for use of the sample, usually in exchange for money), or litigation. In an instant, this act made the majority of sample based music illegal. For more, read Why Sample Rights Matter.

To protest this decision, we are creating a forum for sample-based musicians and artists to share their own 30 second songs which have been created using only the sample in question. By doing so, we hope to showcase the potential and diversity of sample based music and sound art, and to call into question the relationship between a sample and its use. All entries will be posted on this site as they are received.

Rules for Submission

1. Your song must be thirty seconds in length.

2. Your song must use only the designated two seconds of the intro to Funkadelic's "Get off Your Ass and Jam" as source material. You can slice it, layer it, loop it, stretch it, filter it, smack it up, flip it, and rub it down, but you can't bring any other sounds into the mix.

Download the sample: 1.5 second 44.1 khz 16 bit Aiff 200k

3. All Entries should be encoded as mp3s and emailed, along with artist name, email or URL, and a brief description / statement to mike@burncopy.com. All entries that adhere to the format of the call will be posted to the website.

Participants are encouraged to process the sound in creative, unconventional and excessive manners, stretching the relationship between the finished result and the source material.

Courtesy of Jason Schultz.

Hampton's Man: Burning the Man With Peace Love and Gucci

A parallel event to Burningman, Hampton's Man burned last Saturday night at the same time Burningman was getting ready to launch their burn in Nevada. 3 hours ahead they were on the east coast. But for their very first burn, with 250 people, they saw the power of the fire, the same way the 35,000 people saw it in Nevada.

Burningman was all about peace, love and public art (the cool stuff they never let you climb all over in a museum -- and like I've never seen in either NY or SF Moma). Mad Max imprinted on the art world, and the art world shifting max. But the host of Hampton's Man told me that the moment the man was set to burn, the debutants and the stuffy shirts got into the primal burn: they danced, they swayed, they threw up their Cartier clad arms to the power of the burning man.

How sweet that such a thing can alter the state of minds of people who are not on drugs but just feeling the natural beach or desert, the burning effigy, their fellow people and knowing this doesn't happen in their everyday life. No matter what coast they were on.

Burningman and Hampton's Man

So I'm on my way to Burningman to see what it's like, and will attempt to post video to this blog from the event.. taken with my Nokia 7610.

Not so coincidentally, Hampton's Man is also burning a man on Saturday, September 4th at 6:00 PM on Coopers Beach, Southampton. Hampton's Man is decidedly different than Burningman, though.

Their motto: Radical Consumption. Conspicuous Anarchy. Dry Martinis.

What is Hamptons Man?

Trying to explain Hamptons Man to someone who has never been is a bit like trying to explain crashing a P. Diddy party or getting on the list at polo to someone who lives in california and wears Birkenstocks. At Hamptons Man everyone and everything is fabulous. Just showing up is genius. It is a celebration of the human spirit and of radical expression. People come to Hamptons Man from all walks of life and all from all over the world: from above 59th street and below. From Downtown and even Flatbush. Such is the global diversity and transcendent spirit of  Hamptons Man.

Hamptons Man is all this and more: The sacred schmooze. The ritual sip of a martini. The crash of the ocean and the crash of the market.  At Hamptons Man, the everyday is left behind for the commute with nature for creation, expression, and being--- at least until the next party on our list. It is where the energy of the summer combusts, culminating in the burning of Hamptons Man, lime blazer and all, as an expression of our spirit, aspiration, and belief that that lime jacket has got to go because fashion week is just a few days away and something else is surely in.

You heard it here first, people. Check it out, as they will have videos taken with their Nokia 7610 as well, for coordinated east and west coast burns, if not asymmetric philosophies!

Where Burningman is inclusive (okay, it's now $350 for a ticket today), Hampton's man is exclusive (okay, it's free but you have to get out there)... where Burningman is free love and doesn't take money (okay, except for coffee and ice), Hampton's man is laise faire about putting Gucci loafers with linen Bermuda shorts (okay, except for the sunglasses.. you have to have cool sunglasses) ... where Burningman is a techy community art / light show (except for the fact that people trade hard for batteries), Hampton's man is all about working your "community" for the next deal (community sounds so, I don't know communitarian, don't you think, how about 'niche market' instead)....

Anyway, you get the idea. So have fun whether you're drinking martinis or beer, popping zanex or reds, it's all fun. Okay, I won't be doing any of that, but you get the idea. And I do intend to have fun. N'est pas?

Oh wait, there's more:

Where did this idea come from? Is it really OK to Have Fun in the Hamptons?

Every year during Labor Day week there is a legendary gathering and celebration of creativity in the Nevada desert: Burning Man. It is, perhaps, the greatest week long party on earth attracting 35,000 people. Back when Burning Man started, in the '80s, it was just a small party on the beach. Who are we to let all those folks out West have all the fun? So we're starting a small party on the beach.

Both Burning Man and Hamptons Man are being chronicled on blogs (frequently updated web postings), and both events are blogging one anothers activities. Come back to this location for a link to Burning Man reports and their coverage of Hamptons Man.

Go to it. If you're in the Hamptons. It's the Anti-burningman. Go to Burningman, if your in Nevada. It's the Anti-Hampton's man. But do something people! Do it now!

Ian Kallen Nails It

"Friendster's cluetrain ticket was misplaced..." for shitcanning Troutgirl for blogging. And just a couple days before, she was up all night making a new feature for Friendster, followed by blogging about what a great team they have.

Note her paper from a year ago on Semi-permeable blogging.

Registration Systems for News Sites...

Robert Andrews commented on the Online News Association maillist, and on his blog about registration systems and users/readers frustration with online news sites that each require registration. His thoughts about a common registration system are understandable, but his suggestion that we get something similar to Passport (totally creepy) or Typekey (I have mixed feelings about it; see below) are problematic. Also, Adam Pennenberg has written something for Wired this last week on news site registration, where he admits to committing "..identity theft against my multiple selves..." as he tries to remember his many registration personalities across many news sites, while trying to protect his privacy by registering as people with wildly different demographics. I have to admit, I'm an 85 year old man living in Atlanta on the Washington Post's site, and have many other identities, for the Chicago Tribune, the LATimes, the Miami Herald... and for the NYTimes? I registered eight years ago describing my black lab, now deceased, which is still my login ID. So can totally identify with his story. Maybe I'm paranoid. Although I don't mind the targeted ads at all; in fact I prefer them, because if they are good, I actually want the information. But I hate the collection of my reading habits that are potentially available for some individual, company or government to sift through and put together. What do I have to hide? Nothing. But that's really not the point. People who have nothing to hide, start self-censoring when they know they are tracked and watched. And that corrodes the democracy and the commons. And it leads to totalitarianism. That's not the democracy I signed up for.

Identity Commons and Sxip are both working on creating a common user ID that could work across websites, including registrations, blog commenting, for reducing different kinds of spam and email including trackback spam. But there are problems and they are in development, so we have to wait to see what they come up with. But there are lots of security and privacy issues, like who keeps the data (Identity Commons is doing a distributed system) and for each instance where a system like this would be implemented, you have to think about who is using it, and what do trolls or spammers or other baddies have to gain from gaming the system. The controls that keep them in check may also be collecting information on the rest of us that as we learn more about the effects of our own online activites, we feel uncomfortable with and cause us to shift our intellectual consumption.

Adam and Robert both suggest a single registration system for logging into publishers sites. It would be great if publishers used a single system, for the convenience, but what happens when someone subpoenas the records of your activities across all those sites? How do you keep people's reading habits private? Sooner or later, it will happen. It's a matter of when and how the information goes out of the hands of the collectors, and into to other's hands.

Regarding Typekey, have you used it? I've installed a bunch of Moveable Type 3-series blogs recently, and set up Typekey both for the blog's back end and as a commenter, and find the whole thing disconcerting. First, as the blog owner, I have to connect myself via the blog to Moveable Type, by registering and giving my blog info. Then with that code they've given me on their site, I install it into the configuration on my blog's backend, which the system then syncs with MT back on their end. Then users come along, and when they want to comment, the blog redirects them to create a profile with Typekey if they don't already have one, which makes them able to post on any blog that require Typekey for comments. When a comment is made, the Typekey/MT site inserts an image on the comment located at the blogpost, linking back to the Typekey commenter profile located at the Typekey site. Each time *anyone* looks at the blog, MT gets a signal or ping, because that image has been called up from the Typekey site, as part of the opening of the weblog somewhere else, so MT could collect data about not just the blog and the commenter, but about everyone who visits that blog, somewhere out in blogland. And if you visit several blogs that all use Typekey and have these images planted there, even though you haven't signed up for Typekey as a blog owner or commenter, you can in a way be tracked, your reading habits recorded and strung together.

The upshot is that the three steps that Typekey and MT create to control comment spam also allow them to collect and use lots of data, beyond just the blog owner's registration or even commenter verification. I understand that they want to provide this service, and it's free, but it's disconcerting, Their privacy policy, that I can find, on typekey.sixapart.com concerns whether they will sell my email or other personal info not available on the web, as a commenter:

What about my privacy?

We're committed to providing a service that respects user privacy. Therefore, we will not publish information that you have not chosen to make public, nor will we share your information without your explicit permission. We're not in the business of selling email addresses, and we give users the option to choose whether they'd like to send their email address to the sites which they are commenting on.

Who runs TypeKey? Is it safe?

TypeKey is a service of Six Apart. We're a well-established weblog software company, with hundreds of thousands of users and offices in the U.S. and Japan. We're committed to making sure TypeKey is reliable, safe, and secure, and we've made sure our privacy policy is as protective as you'd expect: We don't want to send junk mail to you any more than you want to receive it.

TypeKey never shares your password information with site owners, and comment information is only retained on the site you've commented on, not on the TypeKey service. TypeKey is a service for authentication and, >in the case of comment registration, we leave it up to the weblog owners to decide who can post to their own weblogs.

And their Typekey Comment Registration FAQ says this, though there is no link to the privacy policy and searches on the site turn up no privacy policy but this reference:

Using TypeKey means that all of your private information, like your email address and password, will be maintained in one place, rather than saved in weblog systems around the world. The information you submit to TypeKey is governed by a privacy policy, whereas information that you might submit to individual weblogs would not be.

Why should I trust Six Apart to not sell my data or share it with unauthorized privacy?

Because not only are we, as individuals, committed to protecting our users privacy, but, we as a corporation, will also provide a privacy policy that outlines specifically what we will do with your data. Our privacy policy is simple: We will not sell your email address or other personal information. And, without your explicit approval, we will not share your information publicly or with partners.

Fair enough, they won't share my info if I register, unless they get my permission. But what about my visits to blogs that have their profile image on them?

I did find, by googling "privacy typekey," this privacy policy and the key points for non-registered users and the collecting of info (from different sections) appears to be:

• Six Apart automatically receives and records information on our server logs from your browser, including your IP address, cookie, and the page you request.

• Six Apart receives IP addresses from all users because this information is automatically reported by your browser each time you view a web page.

So what matters here is that not only is the Typekey system capable of collecting IP address information and the reading habits on registered users, both blog owners and registered commenters, but also anyone who accesses a blog that uses Typekey with a planted profile image. I would love to see Typekey's privacy policy state that it was not collecting my IP address across blogs; that it was deleting the last three digits from of the IP from it's system; that it was not available for subpoena. I understand they might want to crunch it for a week or two after collection, but at that point, deleting it would be great. And yes, IP is personal identification. A few mistakes not withstanding, just ask the RIAA how they are finding users they are suing for providing music uploads.... It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

Services and publishers that want to create single login registration need to think about the same issues, and make better systems than the current state of Passport or Typekey, so that not just the sharing of a registered user's email is addressed, but also what happens with the collection of reading habit information internally, what they will do when they get subpoenaed for the information they collect, or when the government comes along wanting a copy of the database under the Patriot Act, etc. One of the key tenants of freedom of speech is intellectual freedom, and the freedom to read in private, without fear of surveillance, because if people don't have that, they will self-censor. And it leads to corrosion of the intellectual and democratic health of the system.

China Digital Conference Day II: Larry Lessig Keynote.

Xiao Qiang (our host and organizer of the conference): The conference is about China, but not static country, but a dynamic, changing, interconnected country. With that, introduced Larry Lessig (the following are notes from his talk).

Larry Lessig: China's Digital Future (title). 15 years ago he bought his first ticket to China, and was graduating from Law School and wanted to celebrate. His plane was to land on June 3rd, 1989. But they were diverted to the Phillipines, and eventually he made his way to Beijing. It was an astonishing way to recognize Beijing compared to the picutures on the news the previous two months. On a train from Beijing to Shanghi, on a train sitting with a professor who spoke English, and chatted about what all this meant. Lessig was proud of his heritage, traditions, but wanted insight about China. And so wanted the core ideal. But that is also a blindness. The issue of the internet upon thinking about it, may be a blindness, a core, an insight to realize.

Daguerrotype led to Kodak, which led to an expanding market. Question in the courts over whether one needed permission to take and then publish the photo. The answer was no. You were free to capture and share images, and then at that point the explosion of growth in photography took off. But if the courts decided to not make it free, things would have been different. It would have been:

D(aguerre)
M(achine)
C(ontrol)
A(ct)

So is there an insight here for China? (Onscreen:) Insight: China.

...."to steal a book is an elegant offense" -- William P. Alford. Recognizing the complexity of intellectual property. But there is blindness in China too. Cybercafes where monitoring comes up. Surveillance. Access to the internet and control of it shut it down. Cybercafes in the US are the opposite. Very strong freedom for cafes to be free of surveillance in cafes in CA. But there is blindness in the US, too. Blindness about Intellectual Property. The question is the freedom in the context of IP. The stakes of course are different. And don't mean to equate the context and weight in both situations. But do want to look at the parallel. To find what we can teach each other, find the insights. An opportunity to recognize the blindness in each other's cultures, and respectfully tell each other. In the same way that the men on the train to Shanghi thought each needed to know certain things before they could understand each other's cutlures.

Radical change. Dimensions: term, scope, force, reach.

Term: 14 years, x2, but now it's 70 years after death, and for Irving Berlin, his most famous work gets 140 years. Before, the renewal was not done half the time, so the average length of a term was >33 years. But now, the maximum is the average.

Scope: only copyright granted if you registered, but now, everything is automatically copyrighted. Which means that in the beginning of the US, only about 1% was copyrighted, so that 99% was in the public domain. So after 1976, everything gets the benefit of copyright, and the formalities have been eliminated, so that was 25% regulated before 76, is now 100% regulated. Before the Internet, courts and humans regulated. Now: the rule is regulated by technology under-which access is granted. Code. Law. Code is law.

Example, Middlemarch is a public domain book, but the Adobe EBook reader does not reflect this. You can only copy 10 pages every 10 days, print 10 pages every ten days, and read aloud. It's machine readable controls that are enforced by the system.

http://aibopet.com. This site gave info on how to hack your Aibo to "teach your Aibo jazz." Not a crime to dance in the US. Not a crime to teach your dog to dance. But when this Aibo site gave instructures, they were C&D'd by Sony for sharing the hack so that you could have your dog dance. The law protecting the code, protecting access to the code, says the maker has final say, not the owner of the Aibo.

Reach: Used to be that fair use meant that you had free use for certain ordinary uses. But now all those uses can be regulated by machines.

Dimenions: term, scope, force, reach.

Never has the law granted this much power to the few to control "creativity." Very different than when Walt Disney could be creative without asking his lawyers first. The internet squares this ability to create that Disney knew.

Gave a couple of examples including the Grey Album and the Read My Lips video of Tony Blair and George Bush which the audience totally cracked up over. Obviously they'd never seen it. A lot of clapping and giggling.

So when people ask him why he does copyright law, it's because this regulation of copyright law, when tied to digital technology ,says something about how culture and democracy could develop. And yet all the examples are illegal art. And yet none could be sustained. And each sought permission to use the materials. And in each case, the lawyers responded that "it's not funny." But the system of permission forces creators to be disaddents or comply. But if they comply, they can say much less.

So here's the core. The blindness. We see this system regulating potential. Changing the freedom to speak. To speak differently. Not broadcast democracy, or a kind of Soviet system, but as a bottom up system. Not a NYTimes democracy, but a blog democracy. A p2p democracy. The ideals of free culture. That is lost. Because the law has said that without seeking permission first, the answer is no.

Jesse Jordan, at RPI, decided he would make something to allow people to search files on the RPI network. So he tinkered with the technology to enable people to search better and produced a 1 million file network, 2/3 of which had nothing to do with music. But he got C&D'd by the RIAA, and because copyright infringement is $150k per infringement, he had $15,000,000 of exposure. So the RIAA took his $12k in student savings for making a search engine. And in talking with his lawyer-uncle who said he would help, but it would probably cost $250k. So the choice is to send the $12k or spend $250k.

In 1987, the J. M. Barrie estate had "the Little White Bird" enter the public domain. In 1928, Barrie also produced "the Boy that Would Not Grow Up" which will enter the public domain in 2023. This was the basis of Peter Pan. In 2002 Emily Somma wrote "After the Rain" about how people should want to grow up. But she was informed that she would have to wait until ALL the Peter Pan stuff is in the public domain before she can publish her work.

Another example: a film maker wants to publish his documentary with a Meet the Press clip but NBC told him it "does not make the President look good" so he was denied the clip, though the interview was about matters of national importance. So he is not using it.

And there are the Diebold memos and the C&Ds using the DMCA to force the take down of the memos at Swarthmore (and elsewhere including Berkeley).

Copyright is increasingly a feature that stifles. But this is a conference about China and the internet. Where there is a different kind of control. But we can say the same from a different perspective. There is the Yahoo France case, where the French court told Yahoo to take Nazi content down for France. In the US, there was outrage that France was regulating the internet and violating the first amendment. And yet a couple of years before, there was the iCraveTV case in the US where TV was available on the itnernet. In Canada, there was a law that allowed the rebroadcast of TV, so it was made available, but the US court said that Canada had to block US users, and the court asked how well the blocking would have and the answer was 98%. That wasn't good enough, so the US court shut down the Canadian site. So the nature of the case was different, and the content was differet, but the blindness was the same. The core blindness is the same.

The stuff is different, but teh ideal is the same: freedom. Not anarchy. Not a world where standards are not obeyed. But think about the freedom and the prosperity it produced. Not a world without intellectual property. But a world where there are limits over the control. And if we can hear others, and they can hear us, then there is a potential to understand the Kodak moment. Where the moment where freedom that comes from recognizing that blindness is in in both places.

QandA: LL: this is a message for right wing conservatives about control. People have to begin to recognize this is a political issue. When he proposed a reduction in copyright, the MPAA said that it was too much of a burden on poor copyright owners to ask them, 50 years after the origin of the work, to pay $1 to reregister.

Orvill Schell: reflect on china, how important is it for a society to have a first amendment, something to lay out free speech, before it can have it?

LEssig: train, need foundational docs. prof: docs are words, need a culture that recognizes these values first. I think it's an insanely complicated thing to figure this out. Docs have never been used here to lay out culture. Though amendments, 13th, 14th and 15th were the first constitutional laws to attempt make a change in the culture and were totaly unsuccesfull for the frist 100 years. But then when it became a social and culture movement, the change started happening. So docs might be a useful step. But it requires more than just documents to really change.

Q; didn't explain Creative Commons, and we are working on CC in China, and how this will work?
A: CC started 2 years ago, so that creators could mark content, with a some rights reserved model, with human readable, lawyer readable, and machine readable expression, that for ex, Yahoo can now read, for say, photos. Got a million CC licenses out in the first year, but now Yahoo says it's 3 million, in a year and a half. To port the legal code into different systems, and there are more than 50 countries to date, Japan, Brazil, etc., and another 25 coming, it requires making one for each system. But these the code and CC licenses rest on copyright law in each country. Working on this in China.

Q from Jang: always talk about copyright in China, but want to hear about the challenges of piracy, for video, software, my observation is that the most important thing is to cut a balance. In China it's already outlawed. But it's a "lower circus of globalization" where migrant workers who can't find jobs and then they engage in this illegal activity.

A: In the spirit of recognizing the common blindenss. We in the US were born a pirate nation. We didn't protect foreign copyrights until 1889. This was a mistake. Every nation needs to respect foreign IP. But there is a difference between "piracy" and "piracy" which is one, reselling, verses two, creatively reusing as in the examples above.

A lawyer, who said to LL, do you realize that there is a kid with 400k songs on his computer? And LL said, do you really think that that kid would actually buy that or listen to that much music? So what is reasonable? Are you really losing those sales?

You can criticize piracy, and you should, but it's also about ideas of free trade, especially with respect to developing nations. There is something about making a balance here between them.

China's Digital Future Conference

Just started. Webcast there as well. First introductions....

Orville Schell, dean of the JSchool at UCB: Now in China, there is the question, what does it mean to be Chinese? The internet is one of those places where you begin to see the discussion, weblogs, chatrooms, txt messages.

Will China change the internet? This is an old theme in China: use technology from the west but then also reject politics, value, all the things that create revolution and radical change. Can China use what it wants but keep its own identity, keeping out what it finds too foreign? He quoted John Perry Barlow: the global space you are building will naturally be free of the tyrannies you are imposing... and then noted the posting on the internet in China recently with 14 questions for the propaganda department, why they exist, posing the kind of challenge that Barlow would have been proud of.

Annalee Saxenian, our new dean of SIMS: The Politics of Standards. Some people refer to it as the politics of protectionism.... And key for future development in China: applications, content, engineering and design. And the internet.

Panels on Internet Development in China and Regulation and Control of the Internet. Here are some notes from the second panel this afternoon:

Cindy Cohen, EFF: every time there is a new tool, a free speech mechanism, it has to fight for it's survival...
regarding privacy, the record of the internet has been more mixed... on balance. Architecture as policy - Mitch Kapor. That is an important observation, because the architecture will determine people's rights. In China we see the worst story around, where greatly accelerated internet use, 78 million users in China and 4 million broadband users.
Original strategy was filtering content. But the strategies to get around those are easy to implement and widespread. So now the reaction is not so much content filtering, but a distributed system of surveillance, with systems installed on users computers and used by ISPs -- often made by US companies and government who are trying to use those things here. And the US government has started this with Kalia, and forced it onto foreign governments through standards. China has taken the lead on doing voice recognition software for the purposes of surveillance and for doing video with almost instantaneous high speed transfer.

Bill Xia, pres of Dynamic Internet Projects -- and makes technologies that can get around the surveillance systems: He says the biggest challenge in China today is not technology, but the social issues. In China, surveillance occurs during the routing of packets where the to and from are watched. Also, the government claims that they are blocking things like porn sites, but in fact when you look at the blacklists, this is not true. There is severe overblocking of all sorts of things, including sites like 3dweb.com. Fear: truth or illusion? People say they don't worry because they have nothing to hide. But it occupies people's minds. And destroys traditions, as well as changes language: traditional Chinese characters have been filtered out of the culture. He thinks that there are cracks in the Chinese control system, and the fact that there are 500k users in China of his company's system to get around the control (out of 78 million users in China).

John Battelle (moderator) asked if users feel it's dangerous to use the product. And Xia responded no for regular users, but yes for some others, but then got cut off on the next presentation.

Jonathan Zittrain: Gave a chilling effects example where a DMCA C&D letter caused Google to remove a site, where on the supply side, the links then went to the original info at chilling effects. But on the other hand, other sites are deleted entirely from French and German search sites.

On the demand side, if you go to Google.com in China, you are redirected to the University of Beijing search site. Also, some testing of sites showed they were blocked by China, as well as many key word searches like "std" or "revolution." Found a few thousand sites that were blocked, including news sites, UC Courts, British Courts, porn, etc.

Tracking filtering is becoming more difficult, because there are new forms of filtering including the client side stuff. Also, if you do the wrong search, you are blocked from Google for about 20 minutes. Including searches that are not subversive at all. Comparatively, in Saudia Arabia, it's more bark than bite, verses China, which is the opposite.

Opennet Initiative is Zittrain's latest project examining filtering, along with folks from other universities. Examples of filtering they've found: the word "ass" in any domain gets blocked, which ends up filtering the "US Embassy" site. He clearly relishes giving this example, as with the rest of the presentation. He's having a lot of fun here.

He also challenges the NYTimes to get involved, so that when things open up, they have established their brand, since they are now totally blocked in China.

Jie Cheng, associate professor at Tsinghua University Law School: talked about how the filtering standards need to be revised. The social norms are more important than what the normative law. Later at the cocktain party, she talked about how China needs to be better with filtering, so that they don't block so many harmless sites. Obviously she has a hard job, coming here to explain her country's actions and policies to this audience but she and the audience were cordial in explaining questions and positions. It's a difficult position she's in.

.........................................................................................................
Best quote of the day: Tom Vest, Packet Clearing House: "ruling a great nation is like hooking a small fish, a light touch might be best."

Revisiting Virtual Communities

This panel just finished, and here are a few noteworthy remarks:

Susan Mernit was live blogging from the panel, during the panel. Markos Moulitsas (Kos), Craig Newmark (there is a new documentary about craigslist called "24 hours on craigslist.org" and Fortune just did a story on them) and Mark Pincus of Tribe.

Mernit: Tools and technology adoption are key to what's happening with people and technology. Online communities are about people and people in turn drive technology development to support themselves and their communities.

Newmark: We've collectively managed to reach a few million people between social networks, blogs etc. but how do you get past that echo chamber.... When you grow up as a nerd, you learn what it feels like to feel left out, and when you gow up, you think about it and figure out how to include people, which is what craigslist is working on now.

Pincus: All leads aren't the same -- just like search results were too much on alta vista in the beginning, as we deal with each other now on social networking sites, we need filters and ways to qualify information so that we get better info. We also choose to expose ourselves to each other and we want to get good things back, not bad. The network is the database -- tell the network who we are and then automagically, the network will help us find a group that we could be a part of... the genesis of tribe was political - though I have no interest in public interest job. The process is the platform.

Kos: There is no fair and balanced media -- I think everyone has bias and it seeps into coverage. Fox has viewers for a reason, ABC, NBC and CBS are boring -- and newspapers lose readers for a reason, but newspapers in England are a lot more lively.

Pincus: Google has proven that if you put things in context, and clearly identify things people like it. They did tests, and people said they liked craigslist because it had no ads, but actually it's all ads, but the ads are content and they are where people expect the ads to be. If I see an ad before a movie, I'm annoyed, but I want to see them in the right categories on craigslist. We are in an age of "utility media" that moves away from "entertainment media", where it's like a free cab ride in Mexico to the time share, but then you have to listen to this ad.... Craig has proven that it's sustainable, Tribe hasn't proven it yet, but there is no reason to have it be an adversarial relationship.

Blogging and Social Networking on Ebay

By now, 2 hours and 24 minutes before the close of horseplaypublishing's auction, and 4.8 million page views later, this wedding dress has a bid price of $15,100.00 (pdf or htm). Yesterday at noon there were about 683k page views and the price was $690. The guy selling it (he's also modeling it) has written commentary as well as additional information about the auction responses, including media interviews and tons of email, after the initial post on the dress itself. His motivations for selling? His wife left him and he found the dress in the move, and he wants to get money for Mariner's tickets as well as some beer -- noble goals for any eBay seller.

I'm waiting for eBay to set up comments, trackback, and of course, links to this post from other bloggers. Actual online social networking here. And his website will be coming soon. Hopefully he does a blog himself because the writing is so funny. Though horseplaypublishing does report that, "EBay has graciously allowed me to update this page once more. So I will keep it brief." EBay has something on their hands that they may not understand the extent of, or if they do, it's not reflected on their site, but it's incredibly cool. Let users play and they'll come up with something really interesting.

18 Months of Phone Cam Photos

Done with iView. Cool. Link via Jenny Levine.

Silicon Valley Lamented

Thomas Friedman writes that the SV folks (and I think more generally representative of innovators and developers in the greater US) he just visited think we are losing our edge. Can't disagree. Various reasons are cited, including universal health care offered in other countries, tax breaks, better education of the populace, getting bogged down in political issues like Iraq and a competitiveness-and-innovation struggle between India, China, Japan and their neighbors. Apparently we are sort of ignoring that last one in the US. Too complicated to address, no?

But what Friedman totally neglects, our fearless leader marginally gets, according to Jeff Jarvis: "We're lagging a little bit on broadband technology." Try a lot. Add to that mobile and wifi culture, and an understanding of digital media in all forms, possibilities, limitations and manifestations. This is knowledge that develops from using technology, interacting with gadgets and people, communicating and creating communities of shared digital media, ideas, people, interest. You have to play with the stuff to know it. How do you build on this digital culture, which is status quo in parts of Asia and Europe, but 5 years behind for people in the US, if you don't have the infrastructure, and open standards, and a critical mass of users playing and an IP regime that encourages the push and pull of data. Those users will take frameworks of technologies in their heads, then understand it enough to build on it, innovate, make something for sale. These communities exist in Japan, Italy, the UK, Finland, South Korea, India and on and on.

Graduate classes here in the US read papers about people in those places using these technologies. Better than nothing, for sure, but how stupid are we, to have such ridiculous closed standards and IP lock-down and backward networks and pricing structures. Can you say FCC and the BF? It's our own fault really. We're doing this to ourselves.

Flashmob Supercomputing at USF Now

The project came up in a class around 6 weeks ago, where John Wichel, a grad student at USF, asked why not? By the end of class after a little arguing, they figured it was possible and put out a call for 1200 systems. Today they are flash-testing whether they can make a supercomputer that can compete with the top 500th biggest computer in the world which cost around $25 million. But this one is essentially free, because it's made up of 600+ computers lent to the project by students, faculty and the community. Mostly over the last month, he said they, the students in the class this project originated in, have been trying to figure out how to architect the software, to get all the computers connected. Some students were up all night last night still writing code. They did a lot of small scale testing the past couple of weeks until yesterday when they tested about 100 computers.

It's "super computing in a flash," says Andrew Bolles, hired documentarian for this project. A media science undergrad, he's been filming, tagging along behind the makers of this supercomputer for a month. He's doing all the editing and storyboarding too, and will make a documentary so that the makers of this project can show people what they did to pull this event and supercomputer together.

The idea has been out there for a long time, and one example is the SETI@Home program, which I've been doing for the last 5 years. Users donate their systems when not in use to SETI which harnesses the processors using highspeed bandwidth connections across the internet. The Flashmob Supercomputer in the middle of Koret Gym is doing the same thing today, all at once but all in the same location.

At the end, the project makers want to hand out CDs to laptop donators and post an image of the software to the web so that people can do the same thing with small groups of computers at home, etc. Also, they are licensing it open source so that people can modify and improve it.

The Sacred and The Profane

Profane: indecent, vulgar, crass, inconsiderate, disrespectful, blasphemous.
Sacred: respectable, venerable, holy, religious, devotional, sanctified.

Profane: Marked by contempt or irreverence for what is sacred.
Sacred: concerned with religion or religious purposes; "sacred texts"; "sacred rites"; "sacred music" [ant: profane].

Profane: fuck, fucking, fucked, fuck-you, what the fuck, fuck-the-fcc, you're fucked, fcc'd!
Sacred: f-word, f*ing, f'ed, f-you, wtf, f-the-fcc, you're f*ed, fcc'd.

Profane: the government directing the sacred and profane.
Sacred: separation of church and state.

Profane: speech oversight courtesy of George Bush.
Sacred: free speech and the constitution.

Offshoring, Education and New Technologies

Lots of talk in the last 24 hours about the outsourcing articles in SF gate (they were spread throughout two sections of the chron yesterday). A friend of mine from here is interviewing for a job in India in software development and telecommunications. The company has a bad reputation there as it went bankrupt, and the new buyers can't get people there to work for them. An interesting turn of events. Though I would say that with expectations of higher pay (average pay in India for an engineer is $7800, verses the US at $70,000) means we have to be more innovative, and concentrate on prototyping and development here in the US, and working closely with users to create these things.

But one thing to note, especially in CA where we love to make things like Prop 13 which limit taxes, is that we have disabled our educational system because we don't want to pay, and in years to come that will haunt us more than it does now, 25 years after it passed. India has a good educational system, and as one person noted,

if you look at the number of college-educated students that China graduates every year, it's close to 40 million. The law of large numbers is fairly compelling.

It's both about educating people and having a populace that is up to the minute on using new technologies, because if you use them, you'll think of more new uses, and these will in turn spawn new technologies and innovations. And the socialization that occurs with using these new communication methods is key, because it's not just one user using one technology. It's many people interacting with the technology and each other, and the network effects, which users can't see and innovate on unless they use and play with them.

This combination of overly-protectionist intellectual property law where we inhibit innovation in the long-term for short term profits, lack of use of interesting new communication methods and technologies and spending less and less on education is deadly.

Privacy and New Technology: System Openness, User Control and Good Interface are Key to Making Users Feel More Comfortable, But So Would A Blanket Privacy Policy

Ross Mayfield has a really interesting discussion roundup on his site, about users driving policy. As the discussions around various blogs became more specific, much of it centered around privacy and social norms issues, particularly mismatched expectations between users and a system's designers. Design issues at the development level are key to narrowing these, giving users control and notice, as well as a good interface to easily understand and make good choices that suit their privacy needs and intentions with their information or system expectations. But I keep returning to the feeling that, regarding privacy, we really need a blanket privacy policy to make users feel comfortable as they interact in the digital world, and on the internet. This cannot be resolved with better interfaces, user control and system openness alone, though those are key to making information technologies work well and giving users what they want on a system level, leading to more informed users, and integrity in the relationships between systems and users and their data.

Systems and companies may make some relatively small amount of money now by using collected information from and about users, for purposes other than the users intended, for use outside of their relationships with those specific companies. But instances like those discussed below cause users to feel worried and sometimes outright scared, where they then refuse to participate in a system or with a company at all, or find themselves shocked after the fact by the results of their interactions with a company or entity. Unless people feel comfortable and protected, those profits resulting from systems currently selling or manipulating user data in ways the user doesn't intend will remain small in comparison to the tremendous amount of money to be made in web services, social networks, and with all sorts of other information technologies were most users to participate because they felt safe.

Most users will not now participate in information technology systems that require a lot of personal data unless there is something they get in return, and even then, it's a subset of the total internet user population. If users really trusted that they were in control of their own data, so they knew when their data went beyond those specific company systems and relationships, and could decide when and where to participate, instead of operating in a state of uninformed fear as companies currently now offer with no or little privacy policies, and little in the way of overall government protection, those companies (and many new ones based on new technologies) using exactly this kind of personal user data could make many times over what they do now. It is short term greed that keeps companies operating as they do, which keeps users from participating, which leads to few participants out of the whole of those using the internet. And yet, one company's policy to the next is confusing and unreliable, and not something people can or want to keep track of, and the resulting confusion also contributes to far less participation. I believe the only route to real information technology development with personal data and the profits that will follow is a blanket policy that every company will have to follow assuring customers of their own data privacy. Users would feel secure and many many more would participate, and those companies would make far more than they have seen under the current (no) privacy regime.

The discussion Ross catalogued partly centered around this: Danah Boyd responded to Wendy Seltzer (responding to Cory Doctorow saying that the last twenty years have been about technology and the next twenty will be about policy). Wendy suggested that originally, she thought that technology developments bringing about privacy tensions might ease as people became more sophisticated users, but instead she saw the gap as a critical mass of users would always lag behind technology developments as they learned a new information technology well enough to overcome, accept, steer away from or rearrange the privacy breaches, and so social norms developed as a result of these new technologies lag behind. Danah replied that social norms weren't falling behind, they are instead going in one direction while technologies are developed in another, and it baffles the social norms trying to cope.

I think in a way they are both right (both scenarios can exist with the same technology depending on use and result); it's not only lagging user competency and then the attendant reactions from users that will adjust, making some mental calculation with a new technology in order to get the amount of privacy or control they need, and it's not just diverging social norms, but also other issues on the design and development end that might solve this, like notice, good interface and user control, that allow for users to know immediately, and then deal with the privacy issues as they use the new technology, instead of finding out about their loss of privacy when it's too late, that will counter these kinds of issues. Technologists can do much better with design, as could corporate policies for privacy be much better, as could users in learning new technologies and protecting their own privacy as needed. But for most people and companies, the benefits will come when users know they are protected, understand a basic structure of privacy across companies and websites, which all interested can rely on, leading to users releasing information. Interesting uses of people's data will follow while still maintaining privacy and user control.

And yet instances of technology development seem to move in exactly the opposite direction at times, leading to scares with users, resulting in less participation with systems that might benefit us all if many participated, and well designed, with privacy built into the architecture, and privacy as a given right between users and the entities with whom they deal.

John Battelle points to a particularly disconcerting social and privacy issue brought up by a new web service, Cardbrowser. Apparently, they have 17,000 (and counting) business cards they've collected from some major conferences, with no privacy policy posted and little information about whether they let those giving the cards (presumably for the purposes of making a new contact person to person, not being entered into a web-searchable database for the whole internet to search, though this is unknown because they publish nothing about their data or privacy policies) know that the cards would end up there, or allowing users to be in control of their own information, or for that matter whether the companies on those cards know. Also, what about the idea that without your approval, Cardbrowser is linking and distributing your name, title, company name, phone numbers and location, attendance record, and dates, which is information that together with other personal information in publically available databases, might lead to even greater matching and sifting of personal digital identities that people don't want out there for just anyone to see without some reason or a warrant or some kind of permission and reciprocity (as our current analog social norms often dictate).

Similar issues exist with your cell phone keeping tabs on you. There's good and there's bad in systems like that, where some users want to keep track of their kids, which may not be objectionable, but others including the companies that buy the phones for their employees may do it for reasons that are totally unacceptable. These kinds of information technologies can allow uses that previously didn't exist, and therefore, there is a lag before a critical mass of users understands what is happening and does something about it, or at least has notice that the shift has occured and can then make choices about when to allow it, or self-censor.

In the case of the tracking phones, it becomes a matter of each user knowing when the tracking is turned on, and having control over that tracking. It's a matter of notice, and a matter of interface. A good interface, on any system that tracks your behavior, your movements, your private, semi-private, semi-public and public behavior, would show the tracking, and give control choices at the time of use. But well designed systems are rare today, and it's the invisible nature of the tracking, and our relationship to the data from the tracking, that causes consternation and upset. A blanket privacy policy would alleviate many fears and open up many new information technology development possibilities as well as many customers for companies to development relationships.

Homemade DVD vs. Official Release

This story of a budding new form of fan commentary (by Emily Nussbaum/NYTimes) hints at something people would love to see: what other's care about, what it means to them, and why it affects them so deeply. Firefly, a Fox show that had a loyal following, but was often shown out of order (apparently Fox confused the audience by showing episodes 2-3, 6; 7-8, 4-5, 9; 10, 14, 1; with 11-13 still unaired) and then axed it, has been traded around on the fansites. Though it has also just been released officially as a collectible DVD (12/9/03) with three episodes never shown, extra footage, interviews, all the stuff people buy DVDs for besides the content.

But a fan, Philip Gaines, a grad student at UW in digital media, made his own fan-documentary, a two DVD-set (catch this sample) with excerpts of the show (small, fair use length), and his commentary, but offered not for sale, just feedback. It's not the slickest most sophisticated commentary, though the media clips are well done, but it's pretty interesting to see what he likes, what matters to him, "...the exquisite part about Firefly is in the bits of hope that trickle down in these character's lives."

(From the /. discussion here): (7548922)

Now, as for 'fan-documentaries', I haven't seen this yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was quite a good documentary. Who better to write about a show than one of the people who loved it?

Roger Ebert is quoted from his old Yahoo column that he'd like to see a track on a DVD where someone who hates the movie rips it apart. But the creator of Firefly, Joss Whedon thinks if he did his own negative commentary for another project where he didn't like the final results, it might spark a lawsuit by the owners of that work, and I think it would take creators with a lot of confidence to release something critical on their own DVD.

Oh, and one more thing, the NYTimes has started linking outside its own site to all sorts of idiosyncratic spots, and this article is full of them! Very cool.

Homemade DVD vs. Official Release

This story of a budding new form of fan commentary (by Emily Nussbaum/NYTimes) hints at something people would love to see: what other's care about, what it means to them, and why it affects them so deeply. Firefly, a Fox show that had a loyal following, but was often shown out of order (apparently Fox confused the audience by showing episodes 2-3, 6; 7-8, 4-5, 9; 10, 14, 1; with 11-13 still unaired) and then axed it, has been traded around on the fansites. Though it has also just been released officially as a collectible DVD (12/9/03) with three episodes never shown, extra footage, interviews, all the stuff people buy DVDs for besides the content.

But a fan, Philip Gaines, a grad student at UW in digital media, made his own fan-documentary, a two DVD-set (catch this sample) with excerpts of the show (small, fair use length), and his commentary, but offered not for sale, just feedback. It's not the slickest most sophisticated commentary, though the media clips are well done, but it's pretty interesting to see what he likes, what matters to him, "...the exquisite part about Firefly is in the bits of hope that trickle down in these character's lives."

(From the /. discussion here): (7548922)

Now, as for 'fan-documentaries', I haven't seen this yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was quite a good documentary. Who better to write about a show than one of the people who loved it?

Roger Ebert is quoted from his old Yahoo column that he'd like to see a track on a DVD where someone who hates the movie rips it apart. But the creator of Firefly, Joss Whedon thinks if he did his own negative commentary for another project where he didn't like the final results, it might spark a lawsuit by the owners of that work, and I think it would take creators with a lot of confidence to release something critical on their own DVD.

Oh, and one more thing, the NYTimes has started linking outside its own site to all sorts of idiosyncratic spots, and this article is full of them! Very cool.

Homemade DVD vs. Official Release

This story of a budding new form of fan commentary (by Emily Nussbaum/NYTimes) hints at something people would love to see: what other's care about, what it means to them, and why it affects them so deeply. Firefly, a Fox show that had a loyal following, but was often shown out of order (apparently Fox confused the audience by showing episodes 2-3, 6; 7-8, 4-5, 9; 10, 14, 1; with 11-13 still unaired) and then axed it, has been traded around on the fansites. Though it has also just been released officially as a collectible DVD (12/9/03) with three episodes never shown, extra footage, interviews, all the stuff people buy DVDs for besides the content.

But a fan, Philip Gaines, a grad student at UW in digital media, made his own fan-documentary, a two DVD-set (catch this sample) with excerpts of the show (small, fair use length), and his commentary, but offered not for sale, just feedback. It's not the slickest most sophisticated commentary, though the media clips are well done, but it's pretty interesting to see what he likes, what matters to him, "...the exquisite part about Firefly is in the bits of hope that trickle down in these character's lives."

(From the /. discussion here): (7548922)

Now, as for 'fan-documentaries', I haven't seen this yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was quite a good documentary. Who better to write about a show than one of the people who loved it?

Roger Ebert is quoted from his old Yahoo column that he'd like to see a track on a DVD where someone who hates the movie rips it apart. But the creator of Firefly, Joss Whedon thinks if he did his own negative commentary for another project where he didn't like the final results, it might spark a lawsuit by the owners of that work, and I think it would take creators with a lot of confidence to release something critical on their own DVD.

Oh, and one more thing, the NYTimes has started linking outside its own site to all sorts of idiosyncratic spots, and this article is full of them! Very cool.

Trends According to PR Newswire

Are here.

Though I wouldn't normally mention something like this, because these predictions of trends are usually rather silly, futurology (it's like astrology for tech), they did mention an interesting social trend, among the pronouncements about blogging and localism and eWear (clothing with special spots for your gadgets), which is the result of technology disrupting the analog social barriers we have known in the past that keep people with differences physically further apart than the closeness they can achieve now with internet technology:

- Us vs. Them: The flip side of going local is a greater sensitivity to what's not local -- in other words, a stronger sense of Us and Them. Globalization and interactive technologies have brought a lot of people around the world closer together and furthered international trade, but, contrary to hopes and expectations, greater exposure has come to mean more scope for negative perceptions to develop. In some parts of the world, the coming year is likely to see deeper divisions across existing fault lines-Muslim/non-Muslim, conservative/liberal, urban/rural, pro-life/pro-choice, pro-gay/anti-gay.

This is a "trend" that has been happening for years, where TV shows like Dynasty, got exported to poor areas of the world, where the result is often hatred for wasteful, self-indulgent lifestyles of the American's shown. More recently in the last 10 years, the internet has allowed people to get closer. An example might be what has happened with online social networks, like Friendster, where in the past few months, white-supremacists have targeted racial minorities with hate speech, and those targeted have simply jumped off Friendster (no links, this has not been reported that I know of in the media, but is something I was told from a person who is connected with the company). Other examples might be those in poor areas react to the wealth apparent in other locations with their associated internet sites, or those who are of one belief-system react negatively to those who show activities on the internet that are in conflict, resulting in discord.

Course sort of thing, this also works in reverse where those in wealthier areas see things in less wealthy areas that are upsetting. Example: when American's find out that Indians can get unlimited data through Hutchison/Orange for $2.00/mo (99 rupees/mo), they may want to place their data cell service in India, and then use their VoIP software to use their American phone number over that data connection.

In this case with phone prices, however, those who pay expensive prices for information services, and see cheaper services offered in other countries are more likely to get upset with American companies charging the high prices, than with the people themselves in the poorer countries. Whereas the Us - Them situation in the first paragraph has to do with people in one area upset with people in another, which is different and more socially discordant across regions. In otherwords, the situations between people seeing information across the internet about others, and getting upset due to this new information is symmetrical, but who they are upset with as a result not necessarily symmetrical.

The napsterization of the phone biz continues as does the disruption to the analog social barriers that kept us from finding out about each other as intimately as we can with the internet, across social groups and around the globe. While generally breaking these barriers down is a good thing, because we get more direct experiential information about things happening in other places, there is a darkside, and we need to be sensitive to this aspect.

Trends According to PR Newswire

Are here.

Though I wouldn't normally mention something like this, because these predictions of trends are usually rather silly, futurology (it's like astrology for tech), they did mention an interesting social trend, among the pronouncements about blogging and localism and eWear (clothing with special spots for your gadgets), which is the result of technology disrupting the analog social barriers we have known in the past that keep people with differences physically further apart than the closeness they can achieve now with internet technology:

- Us vs. Them: The flip side of going local is a greater sensitivity to what's not local -- in other words, a stronger sense of Us and Them. Globalization and interactive technologies have brought a lot of people around the world closer together and furthered international trade, but, contrary to hopes and expectations, greater exposure has come to mean more scope for negative perceptions to develop. In some parts of the world, the coming year is likely to see deeper divisions across existing fault lines-Muslim/non-Muslim, conservative/liberal, urban/rural, pro-life/pro-choice, pro-gay/anti-gay.

This is a "trend" that has been happening for years, where TV shows like Dynasty, got exported to poor areas of the world, where the result is often hatred for wasteful, self-indulgent lifestyles of the American's shown. More recently in the last 10 years, the internet has allowed people to get closer. An example might be what has happened with online social networks, like Friendster, where in the past few months, white-supremacists have targeted racial minorities with hate speech, and those targeted have simply jumped off Friendster (no links, this has not been reported that I know of in the media, but is something I was told from a person who is connected with the company). Other examples might be those in poor areas react to the wealth apparent in other locations with their associated internet sites, or those who are of one belief-system react negatively to those who show activities on the internet that are in conflict, resulting in discord.

Course sort of thing, this also works in reverse where those in wealthier areas see things in less wealthy areas that are upsetting. Example: when American's find out that Indians can get unlimited data through Hutchison/Orange for $2.00/mo (99 rupees/mo), they may want to place their data cell service in India, and then use their VoIP software to use their American phone number over that data connection.

In this case with phone prices, however, those who pay expensive prices for information services, and see cheaper services offered in other countries are more likely to get upset with American companies charging the high prices, than with the people themselves in the poorer countries. Whereas the Us - Them situation in the first paragraph has to do with people in one area upset with people in another, which is different and more socially discordant across regions. In otherwords, the situations between people seeing information across the internet about others, and getting upset due to this new information is symmetrical, but who they are upset with as a result not necessarily symmetrical.

The napsterization of the phone biz continues as does the disruption to the analog social barriers that kept us from finding out about each other as intimately as we can with the internet, across social groups and around the globe. While generally breaking these barriers down is a good thing, because we get more direct experiential information about things happening in other places, there is a darkside, and we need to be sensitive to this aspect.

Trends According to PR Newswire

Are here.

Though I wouldn't normally mention something like this, because these predictions of trends are usually rather silly, futurology (it's like astrology for tech), they did mention an interesting social trend, among the pronouncements about blogging and localism and eWear (clothing with special spots for your gadgets), which is the result of technology disrupting the analog social barriers we have known in the past that keep people with differences physically further apart than the closeness they can achieve now with internet technology:

- Us vs. Them: The flip side of going local is a greater sensitivity to what's not local -- in other words, a stronger sense of Us and Them. Globalization and interactive technologies have brought a lot of people around the world closer together and furthered international trade, but, contrary to hopes and expectations, greater exposure has come to mean more scope for negative perceptions to develop. In some parts of the world, the coming year is likely to see deeper divisions across existing fault lines-Muslim/non-Muslim, conservative/liberal, urban/rural, pro-life/pro-choice, pro-gay/anti-gay.

This is a "trend" that has been happening for years, where TV shows like Dynasty, got exported to poor areas of the world, where the result is often hatred for wasteful, self-indulgent lifestyles of the American's shown. More recently in the last 10 years, the internet has allowed people to get closer. An example might be what has happened with online social networks, like Friendster, where in the past few months, white-supremacists have targeted racial minorities with hate speech, and those targeted have simply jumped off Friendster (no links, this has not been reported that I know of in the media, but is something I was told from a person who is connected with the company). Other examples might be those in poor areas react to the wealth apparent in other locations with their associated internet sites, or those who are of one belief-system react negatively to those who show activities on the internet that are in conflict, resulting in discord.

Course sort of thing, this also works in reverse where those in wealthier areas see things in less wealthy areas that are upsetting. Example: when American's find out that Indians can get unlimited data through Hutchison/Orange for $2.00/mo (99 rupees/mo), they may want to place their data cell service in India, and then use their VoIP software to use their American phone number over that data connection.

In this case with phone prices, however, those who pay expensive prices for information services, and see cheaper services offered in other countries are more likely to get upset with American companies charging the high prices, than with the people themselves in the poorer countries. Whereas the Us - Them situation in the first paragraph has to do with people in one area upset with people in another, which is different and more socially discordant across regions. In otherwords, the situations between people seeing information across the internet about others, and getting upset due to this new information is symmetrical, but who they are upset with as a result not necessarily symmetrical.

The napsterization of the phone biz continues as does the disruption to the analog social barriers that kept us from finding out about each other as intimately as we can with the internet, across social groups and around the globe. While generally breaking these barriers down is a good thing, because we get more direct experiential information about things happening in other places, there is a darkside, and we need to be sensitive to this aspect.

Creative Commons 1 Year Celebration

Last night, Creative Commons marked their first year anniversary with a party where Larry Lessig, Glenn Otis Brown and Chris Lydon among others talked about the many, many accomplishments over the past year, and played a wonderful flash animation about CC, particularly emphasizing the export of CC worldwide. They mentioned was that all content online from the radio show, Tech Nation, will now be under a CC license, and they have had more than a million uses of the licenses over the past year.

The party was a great time to meet up with Stanford and Berkeley folks, artists and geeks, and those who support having balance between copyright and the public domain. I got to meet Joi Ito, whose sister I met at a conference last spring, and since she spoke about him in such a sweet way, I have wanted to meet him ever since. So that was fun. Also, the videoblog goddess (and otherwise all around goddess), Lisa Rein was there, taping, and presumably will have the video up on her blog soon.

Also, considering donating to Creative Commons here.

Update 121903: Check out Christopher Lydon's interview with Larry Lessig done just after the event (you can hear the last of us in the background of the audio interview). I gave Chris a ride back to Berkeley and he said he said he would get it up quickly, though he's been traveling, and he did!

Creative Commons 1 Year Celebration

Last night, Creative Commons marked their first year anniversary with a party where Larry Lessig, Glenn Otis Brown and Chris Lydon among others talked about the many, many accomplishments over the past year, and played a wonderful flash animation about CC, particularly emphasizing the export of CC worldwide. They mentioned was that all content online from the radio show, Tech Nation, will now be under a CC license, and they have had more than a million uses of the licenses over the past year.

The party was a great time to meet up with Stanford and Berkeley folks, artists and geeks, and those who support having balance between copyright and the public domain. I got to meet Joi Ito, whose sister I met at a conference last spring, and since she spoke about him in such a sweet way, I have wanted to meet him ever since. So that was fun. Also, the videoblog goddess (and otherwise all around goddess), Lisa Rein was there, taping, and presumably will have the video up on her blog soon.

Also, considering donating to Creative Commons here.

Update 121903: Check out Christopher Lydon's interview with Larry Lessig done just after the event (you can hear the last of us in the background of the audio interview). I gave Chris a ride back to Berkeley and he said he said he would get it up quickly, though he's been traveling, and he did!

Creative Commons 1 Year Celebration

Last night, Creative Commons marked their first year anniversary with a party where Larry Lessig, Glenn Otis Brown and Chris Lydon among others talked about the many, many accomplishments over the past year, and played a wonderful flash animation about CC, particularly emphasizing the export of CC worldwide. They mentioned was that all content online from the radio show, Tech Nation, will now be under a CC license, and they have had more than a million uses of the licenses over the past year.

The party was a great time to meet up with Stanford and Berkeley folks, artists and geeks, and those who support having balance between copyright and the public domain. I got to meet Joi Ito, whose sister I met at a conference last spring, and since she spoke about him in such a sweet way, I have wanted to meet him ever since. So that was fun. Also, the videoblog goddess (and otherwise all around goddess), Lisa Rein was there, taping, and presumably will have the video up on her blog soon.

Also, considering donating to Creative Commons here.

Update 121903: Check out Christopher Lydon's interview with Larry Lessig done just after the event (you can hear the last of us in the background of the audio interview). I gave Chris a ride back to Berkeley and he said he said he would get it up quickly, though he's been traveling, and he did!

Political Shifts Because of Technology

Speaking of technologies that disrupt old systems (well, that's pretty much all we speak about here, or the disruptive media output), Jay Rosen, who writes the outstanding Pressthink blog about changes in journalism and media, is the editor of a new blog called The Blogging of the President. There are several folks on the blog including Chris Lydon, who does those long but very interesting interviews with people like George Lakoff and Dave Sifry where both the interview audio record as well as Lydon's article are available together and play off each other, like an ocean, and a painting of a ocean. Both have their value, and what is reflected back is both the art, and the life of the person. David Billings, Matt Stoller, Stirling Newberry, Oliver Willis, Rick Heller and Joshua Koenig are also contributors, though I am not as familiar with them. But Rosen and Lydon's work is first rate and so to extrapolate....

Check out the blog, which focuses on both the ways new media are changing politics overall, as well as the changes in specific campaigns.

Political Shifts Because of Technology

Speaking of technologies that disrupt old systems (well, that's pretty much all we speak about here, or the disruptive media output), Jay Rosen, who writes the outstanding Pressthink blog about changes in journalism and media, is the editor of a new blog called The Blogging of the President. There are several folks on the blog including Chris Lydon, who does those long but very interesting interviews with people like George Lakoff and Dave Sifry where both the interview audio record as well as Lydon's article are available together and play off each other, like an ocean, and a painting of a ocean. Both have their value, and what is reflected back is both the art, and the life of the person. David Billings, Matt Stoller, Stirling Newberry, Oliver Willis, Rick Heller and Joshua Koenig are also contributors, though I am not as familiar with them. But Rosen and Lydon's work is first rate and so to extrapolate....

Check out the blog, which focuses on both the ways new media are changing politics overall, as well as the changes in specific campaigns.

Political Shifts Because of Technology

Speaking of technologies that disrupt old systems (well, that's pretty much all we speak about here, or the disruptive media output), Jay Rosen, who writes the outstanding Pressthink blog about changes in journalism and media, is the editor of a new blog called The Blogging of the President. There are several folks on the blog including Chris Lydon, who does those long but very interesting interviews with people like George Lakoff and Dave Sifry where both the interview audio record as well as Lydon's article are available together and play off each other, like an ocean, and a painting of a ocean. Both have their value, and what is reflected back is both the art, and the life of the person. David Billings, Matt Stoller, Stirling Newberry, Oliver Willis, Rick Heller and Joshua Koenig are also contributors, though I am not as familiar with them. But Rosen and Lydon's work is first rate and so to extrapolate....

Check out the blog, which focuses on both the ways new media are changing politics overall, as well as the changes in specific campaigns.

Digital v. Analog Cameras, or Why We Must Think More Explicitly About Public and Private Social Spaces

The NYTimes today has an op-ed piece on cell phone's with digital cameras. They totally don't get it. Yes, these phones can be invasive, but any camera could take the kinds of pictures they are complaining about. The real issue is that each time a new disruptive, and often digital, technology arrives, we, the slow moving humans who need time to adapt, have to adjust our social norms. And a critical mass of this adjustment needs to happen before most people are on the same page, in this case making a distinction between public and private places where is either is appropriate, or not, to take photos that may violate people's privacy.

In other words, a gym changing room is a private space. We don't take pictures there now, so why would we do it with a phone camera? A sidewalk is a public space, so if a picture is taken, well, you were out in public. I realize these phone/cameras make it so much easier to take pictures, etc. but the real controversy is whether people get to control the pictures taken of them. Right now, the law says the picture taker owns the picture. Paparazzi anyone? However, do we now regulate this in private spaces, such as workspaces, private business spaces such as gyms and gym locker rooms, offices and homes? Verses say, the street, the park, the city council meeting, the little league game? Some privace spaces are regulated simply because some people are kept out, becasue they represent private property, workplaces restrict certain behaviors, etc.

Without thinking about it, we humans wander in and out of private, semi-private and public spaces, and now the phone/camera is confronting us in a few cases by violating the implicit social norms we were used to before, without realizing it. My suggestion? Rather than regulating, we use peer pressure to acclimate people to respect the differences between these spaces, so that people understand explicitly why some behaviors are anti-social and inappropriate in particular kinds of spaces.

Update 12/15/03: Digital vs. Analog Photography

Glenn Reynolds has a comparison of digital verses analog photography regarding quality of the images and flexibility of use. He also suggests that if Ansel Adams had had Photoshop, he would have used it.

Digital v. Analog Cameras, or Why We Must Think More Explicitly About Public and Private Social Spaces

The NYTimes today has an op-ed piece on cell phone's with digital cameras. They totally don't get it. Yes, these phones can be invasive, but any camera could take the kinds of pictures they are complaining about. The real issue is that each time a new disruptive, and often digital, technology arrives, we, the slow moving humans who need time to adapt, have to adjust our social norms. And a critical mass of this adjustment needs to happen before most people are on the same page, in this case making a distinction between public and private places where is either is appropriate, or not, to take photos that may violate people's privacy.

In other words, a gym changing room is a private space. We don't take pictures there now, so why would we do it with a phone camera? A sidewalk is a public space, so if a picture is taken, well, you were out in public. I realize these phone/cameras make it so much easier to take pictures, etc. but the real controversy is whether people get to control the pictures taken of them. Right now, the law says the picture taker owns the picture. Paparazzi anyone? However, do we now regulate this in private spaces, such as workspaces, private business spaces such as gyms and gym locker rooms, offices and homes? Verses say, the street, the park, the city council meeting, the little league game? Some privace spaces are regulated simply because some people are kept out, becasue they represent private property, workplaces restrict certain behaviors, etc.

Without thinking about it, we humans wander in and out of private, semi-private and public spaces, and now the phone/camera is confronting us in a few cases by violating the implicit social norms we were used to before, without realizing it. My suggestion? Rather than regulating, we use peer pressure to acclimate people to respect the differences between these spaces, so that people understand explicitly why some behaviors are anti-social and inappropriate in particular kinds of spaces.

Update 12/15/03: Digital vs. Analog Photography

Glenn Reynolds has a comparison of digital verses analog photography regarding quality of the images and flexibility of use. He also suggests that if Ansel Adams had had Photoshop, he would have used it.

Digital v. Analog Cameras, or Why We Must Think More Explicitly About Public and Private Social Spaces

The NYTimes today has an op-ed piece on cell phone's with digital cameras. They totally don't get it. Yes, these phones can be invasive, but any camera could take the kinds of pictures they are complaining about. The real issue is that each time a new disruptive, and often digital, technology arrives, we, the slow moving humans who need time to adapt, have to adjust our social norms. And a critical mass of this adjustment needs to happen before most people are on the same page, in this case making a distinction between public and private places where is either is appropriate, or not, to take photos that may violate people's privacy.

In other words, a gym changing room is a private space. We don't take pictures there now, so why would we do it with a phone camera? A sidewalk is a public space, so if a picture is taken, well, you were out in public. I realize these phone/cameras make it so much easier to take pictures, etc. but the real controversy is whether people get to control the pictures taken of them. Right now, the law says the picture taker owns the picture. Paparazzi anyone? However, do we now regulate this in private spaces, such as workspaces, private business spaces such as gyms and gym locker rooms, offices and homes? Verses say, the street, the park, the city council meeting, the little league game? Some privace spaces are regulated simply because some people are kept out, becasue they represent private property, workplaces restrict certain behaviors, etc.

Without thinking about it, we humans wander in and out of private, semi-private and public spaces, and now the phone/camera is confronting us in a few cases by violating the implicit social norms we were used to before, without realizing it. My suggestion? Rather than regulating, we use peer pressure to acclimate people to respect the differences between these spaces, so that people understand explicitly why some behaviors are anti-social and inappropriate in particular kinds of spaces.

Update 12/15/03: Digital vs. Analog Photography

Glenn Reynolds has a comparison of digital verses analog photography regarding quality of the images and flexibility of use. He also suggests that if Ansel Adams had had Photoshop, he would have used it.

Rageboy Writes A Book Online

Chris Locke is using his blog and the internet to write his new book. One section, with the image linked above, is full of compelling expressions that turn back on themselves. His images are really interesting. Stuff I haven't seen elsewhere.

Rageboy Writes A Book Online

Chris Locke is using his blog and the internet to write his new book. One section, with the image linked above, is full of compelling expressions that turn back on themselves. His images are really interesting. Stuff I haven't seen elsewhere.

Rageboy Writes A Book Online

Chris Locke is using his blog and the internet to write his new book. One section, with the image linked above, is full of compelling expressions that turn back on themselves. His images are really interesting. Stuff I haven't seen elsewhere.

NEWS: Telling The Story, Getting It Out There, In Unconventional Ways, No Matter What...

Reporting in nontraditional ways, relying on digital media and new technologies for gathering the information and conveying the messages, that we don't see elsewhere is happening all over -- there are supposedly 100,000 bloggers in Iraq alone. Jeff Jarvis has this and this on Zeyad's reporting of the Iraqi anti-terrorism demonstrations in Baghdad (held earlier today).

Three albums of photos by Zeyad are here, here and here. To date, the 192 comments on his post have many Americans thanking him for his work reporting these issues. Jeff sent him the camera last week, FedEx, and it took about a week to get from NJ to Iraq. Others helped before that to get the blog set up. He's been reporting for a few months on his experiences that are often different than what American reporters show in mainstream media. Or in this case, non-existent, at least so far.

Update: Canada is apparently reporting it this evening on CTV. And the NYTimes has now done a story. As the Rocky Mountain News has also.

Update 12/15/03: The Weekly Standard has used Zeyad's reporting of the Iraq demonstration including photos. Glenn Reynolds says this incident and the ensuing reporting by bloggers and the Weekly Standard shows that this is the end of big media stranglehold over news. Also, check out Zeyad's report on capturing Saddam. Yet another scoop over big media, and the difference in reporting between that, and the NYTimes, is huge.

The difference in viewpoints between bloggers like Zeyad, who communicate that this is a huge difference over the last year where the demonstrators would have been putting their lived into their hands by demonstrating, compared to traditional media, like those mentioned above, who just referred to this as a small gathering of men, is pronouced. Different perspectives by alternate sources to traditional media through forms of personal journalism, blogging in this case, with digital camera and other tools to get those perspectives out, means disruption to traditional media outlets. And better information, choice of a range of perspectives, for those in the audience/readership is the key to this disruption. People want choice, and these technologies lead to choice of information and loss of editorial control for big media.

Iraqi Women Against Terrorism:

NEWS: Telling The Story, Getting It Out There, In Unconventional Ways, No Matter What...

Reporting in nontraditional ways, relying on digital media and new technologies for gathering the information and conveying the messages, that we don't see elsewhere is happening all over -- there are supposedly 100,000 bloggers in Iraq alone. Jeff Jarvis has this and this on Zeyad's reporting of the Iraqi anti-terrorism demonstrations in Baghdad (held earlier today).

Three albums of photos by Zeyad are here, here and here. To date, the 192 comments on his post have many Americans thanking him for his work reporting these issues. Jeff sent him the camera last week, FedEx, and it took about a week to get from NJ to Iraq. Others helped before that to get the blog set up. He's been reporting for a few months on his experiences that are often different than what American reporters show in mainstream media. Or in this case, non-existent, at least so far.

Update: Canada is apparently reporting it this evening on CTV. And the NYTimes has now done a story. As the Rocky Mountain News has also.

Update 12/15/03: The Weekly Standard has used Zeyad's reporting of the Iraq demonstration including photos. Glenn Reynolds says this incident and the ensuing reporting by bloggers and the Weekly Standard shows that this is the end of big media stranglehold over news. Also, check out Zeyad's report on capturing Saddam. Yet another scoop over big media, and the difference in reporting between that, and the NYTimes, is huge.

The difference in viewpoints between bloggers like Zeyad, who communicate that this is a huge difference over the last year where the demonstrators would have been putting their lived into their hands by demonstrating, compared to traditional media, like those mentioned above, who just referred to this as a small gathering of men, is pronouced. Different perspectives by alternate sources to traditional media through forms of personal journalism, blogging in this case, with digital camera and other tools to get those perspectives out, means disruption to traditional media outlets. And better information, choice of a range of perspectives, for those in the audience/readership is the key to this disruption. People want choice, and these technologies lead to choice of information and loss of editorial control for big media.

Iraqi Women Against Terrorism:

NEWS: Telling The Story, Getting It Out There, In Unconventional Ways, No Matter What...

Reporting in nontraditional ways, relying on digital media and new technologies for gathering the information and conveying the messages, that we don't see elsewhere is happening all over -- there are supposedly 100,000 bloggers in Iraq alone. Jeff Jarvis has this and this on Zeyad's reporting of the Iraqi anti-terrorism demonstrations in Baghdad (held earlier today).

Three albums of photos by Zeyad are here, here and here. To date, the 192 comments on his post have many Americans thanking him for his work reporting these issues. Jeff sent him the camera last week, FedEx, and it took about a week to get from NJ to Iraq. Others helped before that to get the blog set up. He's been reporting for a few months on his experiences that are often different than what American reporters show in mainstream media. Or in this case, non-existent, at least so far.

Update: Canada is apparently reporting it this evening on CTV. And the NYTimes has now done a story. As the Rocky Mountain News has also.

Update 12/15/03: The Weekly Standard has used Zeyad's reporting of the Iraq demonstration including photos. Glenn Reynolds says this incident and the ensuing reporting by bloggers and the Weekly Standard shows that this is the end of big media stranglehold over news. Also, check out Zeyad's report on capturing Saddam. Yet another scoop over big media, and the difference in reporting between that, and the NYTimes, is huge.

The difference in viewpoints between bloggers like Zeyad, who communicate that this is a huge difference over the last year where the demonstrators would have been putting their lived into their hands by demonstrating, compared to traditional media, like those mentioned above, who just referred to this as a small gathering of men, is pronouced. Different perspectives by alternate sources to traditional media through forms of personal journalism, blogging in this case, with digital camera and other tools to get those perspectives out, means disruption to traditional media outlets. And better information, choice of a range of perspectives, for those in the audience/readership is the key to this disruption. People want choice, and these technologies lead to choice of information and loss of editorial control for big media.

Iraqi Women Against Terrorism:

New Media Campaign And New Media

Jay Rosen on Dean:

With Dean, the campaign is somewhere... out there. It is not at headquarters any more, but it talks to headquarters. This is a de-stabilizing premise, and a reporting nightmare. But Samantha Shapiro in the Times magazine this week had a notion.

...What attracts so many believing people to Howard Dean is that discovery-- wow, we can shape this ourselves. What attracts a lot of thinking people to the unfolding Dean phenomenon is that politics can be thought about again. New patterns are there to be figured out.

Somehow the American nation remembers civic traditions eclipsed by the strange system we have for electing presidents. This system has been building strength since 1952, when television was new and the state primaries began to take nominating power out of the hands of party chiefs.

Haypenny Does a Campaign Blog.

But Doc Searls does the roundup on the Dean Campaign, and the parallel media universe they have created, in his post that started off talking about the NYMag cover story suggesting he consulted for them (he didn't) where he rifs through the writers who get the Dean Campaign's new media use and their development of an online community, verses those that don't.

Earlier this week, Searls talked about Loïc saying that Blogging will have the same effects to journalism as Napster & P2P to the music industry.

Traditional media sources are no longer the primary source of information. Internet news sources, especially non-mainstream sources like "blogs", are challenging the traditional rules of journalism. How is the media landscape evolving? What are the implications of this revolution for traditional media suppliers, producers and viewers? How should the mainstream media respond if it is to remain competitive in the future?

And check it out: the first congressional rss feed.

New Media Campaign And New Media

Jay Rosen on Dean:

With Dean, the campaign is somewhere... out there. It is not at headquarters any more, but it talks to headquarters. This is a de-stabilizing premise, and a reporting nightmare. But Samantha Shapiro in the Times magazine this week had a notion.

...What attracts so many believing people to Howard Dean is that discovery-- wow, we can shape this ourselves. What attracts a lot of thinking people to the unfolding Dean phenomenon is that politics can be thought about again. New patterns are there to be figured out.

Somehow the American nation remembers civic traditions eclipsed by the strange system we have for electing presidents. This system has been building strength since 1952, when television was new and the state primaries began to take nominating power out of the hands of party chiefs.

Haypenny Does a Campaign Blog.

But Doc Searls does the roundup on the Dean Campaign, and the parallel media universe they have created, in his post that started off talking about the NYMag cover story suggesting he consulted for them (he didn't) where he rifs through the writers who get the Dean Campaign's new media use and their development of an online community, verses those that don't.

Earlier this week, Searls talked about Loïc saying that Blogging will have the same effects to journalism as Napster & P2P to the music industry.

Traditional media sources are no longer the primary source of information. Internet news sources, especially non-mainstream sources like "blogs", are challenging the traditional rules of journalism. How is the media landscape evolving? What are the implications of this revolution for traditional media suppliers, producers and viewers? How should the mainstream media respond if it is to remain competitive in the future?

And check it out: the first congressional rss feed.

New Media Campaign And New Media

Jay Rosen on Dean:

With Dean, the campaign is somewhere... out there. It is not at headquarters any more, but it talks to headquarters. This is a de-stabilizing premise, and a reporting nightmare. But Samantha Shapiro in the Times magazine this week had a notion.

...What attracts so many believing people to Howard Dean is that discovery-- wow, we can shape this ourselves. What attracts a lot of thinking people to the unfolding Dean phenomenon is that politics can be thought about again. New patterns are there to be figured out.

Somehow the American nation remembers civic traditions eclipsed by the strange system we have for electing presidents. This system has been building strength since 1952, when television was new and the state primaries began to take nominating power out of the hands of party chiefs.

Haypenny Does a Campaign Blog.

But Doc Searls does the roundup on the Dean Campaign, and the parallel media universe they have created, in his post that started off talking about the NYMag cover story suggesting he consulted for them (he didn't) where he rifs through the writers who get the Dean Campaign's new media use and their development of an online community, verses those that don't.

Earlier this week, Searls talked about Loïc saying that Blogging will have the same effects to journalism as Napster & P2P to the music industry.

Traditional media sources are no longer the primary source of information. Internet news sources, especially non-mainstream sources like "blogs", are challenging the traditional rules of journalism. How is the media landscape evolving? What are the implications of this revolution for traditional media suppliers, producers and viewers? How should the mainstream media respond if it is to remain competitive in the future?

And check it out: the first congressional rss feed.

Pew Asks...

In the

...

Are you an artist -- musician, writer, painter, or other type of artist? We would like to know how you use the Internet and your views on copyright issues. Specifically, what's your opinion about file-sharing programs and their impact on the artistic community?

Via Frank.

Pew Asks...

In the

...

Are you an artist -- musician, writer, painter, or other type of artist? We would like to know how you use the Internet and your views on copyright issues. Specifically, what's your opinion about file-sharing programs and their impact on the artistic community?

Via Frank.

Pew Asks...

In the

...

Are you an artist -- musician, writer, painter, or other type of artist? We would like to know how you use the Internet and your views on copyright issues. Specifically, what's your opinion about file-sharing programs and their impact on the artistic community?

Via Frank.

Eco Gets Digital, And Yet Still Believes in the Meaning of the Book

Umberto Eco on vegetal memory:

The first one is organic, which is the memory made of flesh and blood and the one administrated by our brain. The second is mineral, and in this sense mankind has known two kinds of mineral memory: millennia ago, this was the memory represented by clay tablets and obelisks, pretty well known in this country, on which people carved their texts. However, this second type is also the electronic memory of today's computers, based upon silicon. We have also known another kind of memory, the vegetal one, the one represented by the first papyruses, again well known in this country, and then on books, made of paper.

...Before the invention of computers, poets and narrators dreamt of a totally open text that readers could infinitely re-compose in different ways. Such was the idea of Le Livre, as extolled by Mallarmé. Raymond Queneau also invented a combinatorial algorithm by virtue of which it was possible to compose, from a finite set of lines, millions of poems. In the early sixties, Max Saporta wrote and published a novel whose pages could be displaced to compose different stories, and Nanni Balestrini gave a computer a disconnected list of verses that the machine combined in different ways to compose different poems.

...Yet, with hypertext instead I can navigate through the whole net-cyclopaedia. I can connect an event registered at the beginning with a series of similar events disseminated throughout the text; I can compare the beginning with the end; I can ask for a list of all words beginning by A; I can ask for all the cases in which the name of Napoleon is linked with the one of Kant; I can compare the dates of their births and deaths -- in short, I can do my job in a few seconds or a few minutes.

Hypertexts will certainly render encyclopaedias and handbooks obsolete. Yesterday, it was possible to have a whole encyclopaedia on a CD-ROM; today, it is possible to have it on line with the advantage that this permits cross references and the non-linear retrieval of information.

...AT THIS POINT one can raise a question about the survival of the very notion of authorship and of the work of art, as an organic whole. I want simply to inform my audience that this has already happened in the past without disturbing either authorship or organic wholes. The first example is that of the Italian Commedia dell'arte, in which upon a canovaccio, that is, a summary of the basic story, every performance, depending on the mood and fantasy of the actors, was different from every other so that we cannot identify any single work by a single author called Arlecchino servo di due padroni and can only record an uninterrupted series of performances, most of them definitely lost and all certainly different one from another.