"I can’t think of anything that demonstrates the sovereign nature of the self better than a blog.” - Doc Searls
About the Author
Stowe Boyd is a well-known media subversive,
and an internationally recognized authority on real-time, collaborative
and social technologies. His new blog is Message.
There are a few rumours going around that Google is about to enter the IM market with a Jabber based service. (I just checked someone already owns GIM and IMOOGLE, so not sure what they'd call it). It does raise interesting questions about what they might do if they did enter the space. It would be quite interesting to be having a chat with a colleague and in a side panel of the IM window have relevant Google Ads and search results appearing based upon the converstaion content much as they do in the GMail.
Looks like someone in the UK has developed a dodgeball-ish solution, using text messaging as a means to make mobile friends, or make friends mobilely, or whatever.
My dear friend Carl Tyler has agreed (after much arm twisting) to take a turn as a guest blogger here at Get Real. Carl's thoughts can usually be summoned up at Carl Tyler's Blog, but for the next little while, he will be talking about things here, as well.
Got an email message today (just after I had upgraded to XP Service Pack 2, by the way), stating that Groove users might have issues with the SP 2 affecting Groove behavior:
Microsoft has shipped Windows XP Service Pack 2 that provides users greater protection against hackers, viruses and worms. In attempting to address these issues, however, Microsoft changed Windows behavior in a way that impacts a number of communications software products, including Groove Virtual Office. The issue: XP Service Pack 2 intentionally degrades overall Windows network performance when it senses attempts to establish large numbers of simultaneous outbound network connections. Because of this new operating system behavior, some Groove users who upgraded to XP Service Pack 2 have experienced performance degradation while browsing the Web or using other network-based applications.
A workaround for this Windows SP2 issue is now available.
The law of unintended consequences, again. Trying to counter what looks like viral behavior leads to screwing up plain vanilla application logic. Will likely impact other peer-to-peer architected products.
If the RIAA has it's way we'll soon be communicating via memos produced on typewriters. If the RIAA wins in it's various court cases. then P2P as we know it will be shutdown, but to me the ramifications could be much larger. If P2P can be shutdown because files can be shared, then we'll need to shutdown all forms of electronic communication, the internet, the telephone, e-mail, websites, all of these can be used to share copyrighted music.
Dudley and Wes Carr at 2Entwine have released the 1.2 Preview Release of the Gush instant messaging client (see Gush Blog: Gush 1.2 Preview Release).
The single biggest change is the extension of the client's existing RSS feature set with the option to create new or reuse existing PubSub Concepts aggregated feeds.
Above, I created a new feed within Gush -- of course you have to have or create a PubSub account. I did find an interesting (painful) bug in the PubSub interface -- it stripped out the quotation marks! Apparently PubSub are working on a fix, but in the meantime I recommend defining all feeds at PubSub. Apparently, this glitch has been fixed already! Once connected, all your existing feeds are pulled into Gush automatically.
Below you see the "instant messaging" feed I defined (click to see fullsize image). Note the little side aggregation on the right hand of the defined feed, which are the headlines of all the defined feeds at my PubSub account.
The guys at 2Entwine have laid out a roadmap for additional features, some of which I really, really need, like multichat, file transfer, and nested groups.
A jumble of slanted, shouting voices have overcome our airwaves, infiltrated our newspapers, filled every corner of our waking lives, and they aren't going to stop. It's affecting all of us. You may have noticed that every argument seems just a little more heated than the last--is it any surprise, when each one of has been listening just a little bit less? It's a sign of more to come.
But now, people are listening to bloggers instead. Blogging is the populist response to the media hegemony: a sea of independent voices.
John Dowdell points to an interesting little discussion on the value of Wikis. It seems that there are members of the academic community, and net population at large, that consider sources such as Wikipedia, and Wiki in general, to be "shady" at best.
The original article takes note that there is no "formal editor" in place which leads to rampant errors and misinformation. The supporters of Wikipedia contest that the very nature of the Wiki means there are thousands upon thousands of editors all auto-correcting the content.
In the discussion that pursues, an interesting aspect of Wiki is raised, namely, "I could edit it, but it will be changed back to the wrong information because people don't like the truth". This is definitely a fascinating observation of the potential to steer the depiction of "facts and history" in a direction that best suits the authors. This harks back to something from one of my first philosophy classes -- "History must be considered from the point of view of the author."
Another good observation focused on the gradient of reliability that can be seen based on topic matter. One comment noted that programming and software architecture Wikis, far less subjective than say, politics, are generally spot on in terms of content. I imagine that this is also the case in enterprise uses of Wikis, though there is a great deal of politics at work in many of those environments so it's hard to tell from here.
Scoble reduces the complexities of corporate blogging down to a short set of homilies, over at ChangeThis :: The Corporate Weblog Manifesto. He stresses truth, and getting close to the grassroots, and suggests that Doc Searls is never, ever wrong. But #19 is off tone:
Robert Scoble
#19 BOGU. This means "Bend Over and Grease Up."
I believe the term originated at Microsoft. It means that when a big fish comes over (like IBM or Bill Gates) you do whatever it takes to keep him happy. Personally. I believe in BOGU'ing for EVERYONE, not just the big fish. You never know when the janitor will go to school, get an MBA, and start a company. I've seen it happen."
I'm not exactly sure how that exactly relates to corporate blogging, but I'm sure that Robert is going to get a lot of email about "BOGU'ing for everyone".
By the way, this was my first encounter with Change This who are hosting this and many other interesting manifestos. However, all the manifestos are in PDF format, so the cost of waiting for the Acrobat plug-in to start up is noticeable -- but worth it.
Socialtext raises a series A round as Ross explains, with existing investors (Joi Ito, Reid Hoffman, Mark Pincus and Freedom Technology Ventures) -- and new investors (Jun Makihara and Omidyar Network):
This is a major milestone for Socialtext, positioning us to build upon our market leadership and fulfill a mission we began in 2002. When Pete, Adina, Ed and I founded Socialtext we saw an opportunity to build a great company that did great things for its customers as well as society. The epiphany was that this could be done with simple easy to use tools and we could foster a way of working openly that builds trust between users.
It's particularly interesting that Ross says he met Pierre Omidyar through blogging, rather than the traditional VC meet-and-greet route.
While teens and young adults still dominate the population, nearly 48 percent of those surveyed who are older than 55 year of age use instant messaging, and 43 percent of the employed populations of IM users use the product at work. And while 62 percent of the at-work users do use IM to stay in touch with family and friends, the overwhelming use is for business productivity reasons.
As a result, nearly three quarters of the at-work instant messaging users felt that its use has a positive impact on their work lives. Over a third use IM to interact with customers, and 63 percent say they send IMs to get answers from colleagues and to make business decisions.
Generally, the pattern of at-work use of IM indicates that these services enhance productivity by enabling efficient communications among colleagues. The usage pattern of at-work IM users revealed in the AOL survey is this:
Communicate quickly with colleagues (70%)
Get answers and make business decisions (63%)
Stay in touch with friends and family (62%)
Interact with clients and customers (34%)
Stay in touch with the office while on business travel (32% of mobile messagers)
Stuart Henshall picks up the banner for a social networking manifesto over at Unbound Spiral, along the lines of the "Ten Commandments" gauntlet I threw down the other day. He wants to enlarge the scope of the discussion that has been fulminating over here at Corante (the recent posts by Clay, my response, and his comments back, and the "Ten Commandments" post), and to shift the focus of the discussion toward a user-centric view point and a set of positive organizing principles, as opposed to the proscriptive "shall not's" that I started to enumerate.
I think we are at a paleolithic stage in the ascent of these systems, and a primitive Hammurabi Code -- an eye for an eye, and all that -- is probably a better starting point. Or maybe the two could go on in parallel: the Ten Commandments explicitly spelling out what SNAs must not do, and a "Sermon on the Mount" gospel that points out the direction that the technology should be moving toward.
I agree that we are at a turning point in the possible backlash against mechanistic, mass market, email-biased social networking contraptions. However, I still hold that a short and sweet set of prohibitions need to be articulated to structure the "Common Law" that needs to surround the conceptual architecture and presumed patterns of use for SNAs.
At the same time, I willingly sign up to support longer-range conjectures about the place and purpose of social tools, in general, and explicit software networking technologies, in specific. Press on, Stuart!
Stowe Boyd is dead set that e-mail will see its end sooner than later, vowing that he "hates it" for many reasons, beyond the SPAM issue. I've argued (see "Will RSS Replace E-mail?") that RSS is not entirely ready to provide what e-mail is providing us now.
Chris Pirillo provides an intriguing Top 10 reasons why e-mail will meet its maker. Here they are, abridged:
As of yet, you can’t spread a virus (or worm) through an RSS channel.
The user is FINALLY in full control of his or her subscription (entirely).
Instant organization.
RSS was crafted with repurposing in mind.
High-Impact, Cost-effective, Immediate, Measurable, and Targeted.
Entries can be changed, removed, or expired.
Users will continue to think twice about sharing their e-mail address with anybody, even after any sort of “legislation” is passed.
News aggregators will continue to evolve, but are “good enough” to start using today.
The idea of RSS, much like e-mail, is not going to disappear.
I think two one of the more interesting questions to ask ourselves are:
How will we simplify the creation of RSS channels between individuals?
How will we secure RSS channels?
There are many solutions that now provide e-mail to RSS gateways. Unfortunately, the abdication of this throne will require more than generating RSS from e-mail as that's really a different beast.
On the security front, we're right now forced to use SSL and HTTP-AUTH. Unfortunately, the support for these is somewhat limited while also obtrusive by design. I can imagine the world where I have to authenticate all 300 of my active channels and how annoying that would be for me.
Charles Barrett has been named Friendster's new VP of sales, overseeing all advertising sales at the social networking concern, it was reported this week. Barrett was formerly a SVP of sales for AOL Media Networks.
Jas Dhillon, CEO of Zero Degrees, posted a comment yesterday in an old piece I wrote in April about his company's release of an Outlook Plug-in. That piece has been attracting a lot of hits because of the Multiply mess (see The Ten Commandments of Social Networking, and related bits).
I believe that Zero Degree's email invitation approach is not "spam" and is an appropriate approach for a social networking application to use. I used the term "social spam' in the piece because I had inadvertantly uploaded all my Outlook contacts and invited them to join Zero Degrees. But, as I pointed out in the original piece, this was exactly what the tool said it was going to do. I, however, wasn't really paying attention when I hit the "ok" button. My bad. So, if there was any spamming going on, it was me doing it, not Zero Degrees.
Note that Zero Degrees is an advertising sponsor of Get Real, but that makes no difference in this case. I would make these clarifications if that were otherwise, or if this issue had arisen with a non-sponsor.
I thought I would post Jas' comment here, to help clear the air on Zero Degrees email policies specifically, and as another step toward consistent and explicit email policies in the SNA market:
Jas Dhillon
I just reviewed these blog entries on ZeroDegrees and wanted to set the record straight - also see STOWE BOYD'S CORRECTION TO HIS ORIGINAL BLOG [entry].
ZeroDegrees never on its own initiative emails out invitations to any member’s contacts - EVER. Only the member who owns the contacts can invite them to join ZeroDegrees and connect with them. The only way that ZeroDegrees could have sent out the invitations is if you actually clicked on the “Email Invitations” button – this is the last step of the invitation process. We also provide all new members who have uploaded their contacts to ZeroDegrees multiple options to "OPT-OUT or CANCEL" uploading and inviting their contacts at every step of the contact upload/invite process. Even at the last step in the contact upload/invite process you have the option to cancel by clicking on the (“NOT NOW”) button.
Our messaging is very clear and unambiguous about what happens at each step of the process. Members can always "OPT-OUT" of the process at any time.
Clay reprises my recent comments about Multiply and its email invitations, and does a very good job of making my argument more clear than I did, I think.
I’m more pessimistic than he; I believe that Multiply join messages are spam. Now spam has the “I know it when I see it” problem, so to talk carefully about it requires a specified definition. Here’s mine — spam is unsolicited mail, sent without regard to the particular identity of the recipient, and outside the context of an existing relationship.
Anyone sending me mail because I am on a list I haven’t asked to be on; without having a reason to think that I, in particular, would want this mail; and without us already knowing one another, is spamming me. In particular, ads sent to me as a member of a category, no matter how targeted, count, in this definition, as spam. You could be advertising a new brand of gin specially brewed for Brooklyn-dwelling Python hackers who like bagpipe music and that mail would still be spam.
If you adopt this definition, even just for the sake of argument, it’s pretty clear that Multiply fails the first and second tests. I did not ask for mail from them, and they are not sending me mail because they know me — they simply have my address on a list furnished by my friends. [...] I think where Stowe and I may disagree is in point #3: do I have an existing relationship with the sender of the mail?
This is, I admit, a judgement call, and to re-phrase what I think Stowe is saying, Multiply is operating in good faith as a proxy for its users. My friends have furnished my address to Multiply, and authorized the service to contact me on their behalf. Thus the incessant messages from Multiply should be thought of as coming from my friends, and not from Multiply itself.
I hope I have characterized Stowe’s view correctly; in any case, I think Multiply fails this test as well, because I think they are engaged in a new form of targeted marketing. Jon Lebkowsky’s farewell to Multiply message includes this observation: “…next thing you know, Multiply was spamming all my Orkut contacts with a brainless marketing letter supposedly written by yours truly, only I didn’t see it until someone said no, no way, and noted the cheerful Muzak inanity of the message sent in my name.”
Clay has exactly defined the boundary cases in the ethical quagmire we are struggling with here:
I have assumed that the individual adding me to their contact list at Multiply (or elsewhere) is actually an individual known to me, and therefore I would not be surprised at getting an email invitation from them. Alternatively, if the invitation is coming from a party "outside the context of an existing relationship" it *should* be considered spam. But such an activity would be spamming on the part of that party (individual or group), and not necessarily on the part of the service. For example, someone could join LinkedIn for the purpose of spamming, which would not be the fault of LinkedIn, per se.
If a SNA coopts the contact list of its users and sends unknown, uneditable, and unannounced email invitations or (even worse) unsolicited advertisements for its or other services, that should be considered spam. This is what seems to have happened in Jon Lebowsky's case, when he used the Multiply feature to invite his Orkut contacts... or so he thought. (I found that at least one of the Orkut or Friendster invitation features was not working yesterday when I was fiddling at Multiply -- maybe they are revamping while this debate rages?)
I am totally opposed to parties spamming through SNAs as in case #1, and just as opposed to SNAs that meet case #2. I stated that SNAs try to make legitimate invitation of known contacts by email easy, to increase the acceptability of use. Clay argues that social connectedness should come at a slower rate, at a higher cost:
I think the growth of Friendster, one user at a time, undermines this notion, but however hard it makes it, that is a good amount of hard. Getting rapid growth one user at a time is difficult because it is supposed to be difficult. Social systems are, by definition, inefficient, and attempts to make them high throughput end up destroying them.
This last comment can be interpreted almost as a condemnation of the teflon slick feel of social networking applications, across the board, and I think gets into the guts of the problem: when social networking applications are targeted toward supporting human scale (not mass database) social networking for appropriate (non spam) purposes within the context of existing social (not commercial) relationships, things are fine. When you stray outside of any of those modifiers, it's immoral, wrong, and possibly illegal under the CAN Spam Act.
Finally, Clay doesn't hold with my push for a code of ethics that all should accord with (along the lines of what Duncan Work at LinkedIn recently pushed in his "Bill of Rights"), arguing for a more Darwinian solution, where the malefactors will just die off. I don't know; I think the idea has legs, so I am going to try to boil down a short list of "do's and don'ts" for SNAs, and promulgate it as the Ten Commandments of SNAs.
For example, Clay suggests that every email invitation from an SNA should include an explicit and easily discovered opt-out button. I strongly agree. The SNAs may want to qualify it in various ways (opt-out only for invitations from the specific sender; for a specific period of time; or for all invitations, ever), but there should be a way to opt-out, both at the SNA's website and in every email invitation or other communication.
The Ten Commandments of Social Networking Applications (Part 1):
Social networking applications shall provide explicit and easily used opt-out features; specifically, every message sent by a social networking application on behalf of users, as marketing, or for whatever purpose shall provide a mechanism for complete opt-out, as well as a means to opt-out by email and at the SNA website.
SNAs shall not send messages to any user's contacts without the explicit consent of the user, and without first displaying both the list of contacts to which the message is to be directed, as well as the complete content of the message.
SNAs shall not expose any user's contact information or the information associated with the user's contacts to anyone other than the user without the explicit permission of the user.
SNAs shall prohibit unsolicited commercial messages through their systems, and should bar or block users that try to send such messages.
SNAs shall provide means so that users can block messages from specific users.
SNAs shall provide users an "unlisted" capability, so that their use of the system can be undiscoverable if they wish.
Well, that's a start. Other recommendations are cheerfully accepted.
Dave has a long post about James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds, which is obviously a must read, and great confirmation of the value of swarm intelligence.
Jame Surowiecki
There is no evidence that one can become expert in something as broad as decision-making, policy, or strategy...or perhaps even management. ... Large groups of diverse individuals will make more intelligent decisions than even the most skilled decision-maker.
The recent flapdoodle around Multiply has brought back the issue of "social spam" to the forefront, again, and because of the "I've Socially Spammed Hundreds by Mistake" piece that I wrote in April, I have been referenced by several recent pieces on the topic, like Clay's recent call for a boycott of social software sites that generate email invitations so easily.
I think this time Clay is wrong about the invitations being spam, but I agree that social software solutions should in fact provide a simple way to opt out.
Let me start by stating my biases:
Email sucks, and not just because of spam; but spam certainly makes email a slum these days. I am *not* in favor of spam, and actually I hate email in general.
Social networking solutions *have* to make it easy for people to invite others to join. Otherwise, the barriers to participation are too high. As I stated in the April piece, it was my mistake (operator error) to hit the "ok" button that uploaded all my Outlook contacts and then invite them, all at once, without additional steps. The Zero Degrees software specifically informed me that was what it was going to do, and then it did. If I were any user other than an analyst, fiddling with the technology, that could have very well been what I had intended to do.
It is *not* spam when a contact of yours sends you an invitation to be connected through a social software service, whether that email is manually created or automatically produced by software. First of all, the person (in principle) is known to you, and, secondly, is not (in principle) trying to sell you something, at least not like a spammer is. The charge that such emails are spam is exactly the argument that people make about Plaxo, and the reasoning is weak. (See my December piece on that.) I have maintained a very public stance on Plaxo email invitations as *not* being spam, for example, despite all the hoorah about the email invitations that they send out. Just because the person is using software to generate the email doesn't make it spam. Don't get me wrong: it might be annoying, but its not spam. You may want to filter it, just like you might with an overly familiar colleague who sends you daily emails. You might wish that certain contacts in your rolodex should have to pay you to read their emails, or perhaps keep them in your Outlook but blacklist their unsolicited emails (like I do with McAfee SpamKiller).
Of course, people can use social software to spam you. They can amass huge contact lists by asking everyone in sight to be connected, and then try to sell you toner cartridges, child pornography, or access to their contacts. This is a grey area, actually (aside from the child porn, of course) because in principle people are signing up to these services to do business. So there is a fine line between spamming people and asking for introductions. Whatever we may think about what goes on within the networks, the services will have to provide easily accessible means to block or delete contacts that are annoying. (I had a problem deleting an annoying contact in LinkedIn, for example, that suggests a fundamental flaw in that service.)
So we really need a different term for these emails, which I admit can be an annoyance, but they aren't spam. I have referred to them as "snam" but even that implies that they are spam by a different name. In the future, all these sorts of email invitations I will call "emvitations" to differentiate them from spam.
I would be happy to work with Clay and other interested parties on manifesto, challenging all social software services to provide an opt out capability, like the "don't call" list. Maybe we would even form an organization. Social software services that accord with the "don't email me" opt out policy could proudly display the organization's seal of approval.
You'll notice a significant delay after hitting the play button (after the buffering 100% zips by), because (I think) the entire video is downloaded before the play begins. This lag is really too long, but I guess streaming requires something more sophisticated than the Macromedia Flash applet.
To use this I would have to create a series of short videos, instead of one long video, because of the buffering issue. I am planning to video blog the presentation I gave in Nice a few weeks ago, as an extended entry. More to follow.
In Computer Science, there is a common quest amongst object-oriented programmers to seek out and implement design patterns (Design patterns are standard solutions to common problems in object-oriented software design). For many, computer science, and programming, is cryptic in nature. Of course, most programmers will quickly argue that it's logical and direct. I tend to agree.
Another key aspect of programming is "laziness". This is not meant as an insult, however. If you take a very loose definition of the term, it can be said that laziness breeds efficiency. And that is, in many ways, the fascination with design patterns as a whole.
Of course, it's important to note that Design Patterns are not relegatedto the darkened cubicles of IT folk. In reality, there are patterns all around us - assuming we want to see them.
Over the past few days, I've noted a couple of familiar faces digesting the whole and coming up with some interesting patterns/descriptors for the social networking space.
Ash Maurya of WiredReach describes "network patterns". He's identified three different, dominant patterns:
Individual Trusted Network - "It is important that this network be constructed bottoms-up, one relationship at a time, so that it is defined explicitly and built on 1 degree trust. Done right, the intent here is to model an individual's current strong ties."
Affinity Groups - "Groups serve to connect people otherwise not connected through the group context. People join these groups because they share a common cause or interest and are willing to collaborate and exchange ideas at a group level."
Shared Spaces - "Shared Spaces are user created groups that allow members to share content and collaborate in real-time. Unlike affinity groups though, where most content must be searched, content in shared spaces are pushed out to all members ensuring they always have the latest information."
Peter Caputa has also been busy looking at the vectors of communication. He's also identified three different vectors:
Bi-Directional Connections - "his is ideal for creating many connections quickly, because both people have incentives to create the connections. The incentive is that they can collaborate."
Outbound Uni-Directional - "The connection is defined by one person (the sender) and no approval by the receiver is necessary. This is ideal when people want to show their appreciation and respect."
Inbound Uni-Directional - "This type of connection is defined by the receiver and approval is either inherent or optional from the sender. Permission email marketing or double-opt-in marketing is the prime example of this."
Interestingly enough. These two sets of interpretations seem to talk about different sides of the same coin. Ash's descriptors are looking at the network topology (from the network's point of view). Peter's review considers the motivation and the nature of those relationships (from the node's point of view).
How would you match up these two sets of patterns?
The move to clampdown on technology creep is to get fresh publicity in the UK, as British fathers could soon be urged to switch off mobiles when they play with their children at state sponsored parent classes.
The idea is being considered under a new government initiative under Margaret Hodge, the Minister for Children, which seeks to improve family life.
Research has shown that the trait among fathers of chatting into their mobile phones while playing with their children annoys their offspring more than almost any other habit.
Over at IdeaFlow, Leslie Martinich has stumbled over another hunk-of-junk idea promulgated by self-styled social critic and genius, John Dvorak. His newest craziness is to dis Clay Christensen (The Innovator's Dilemma) and the idea of disruptive technology in general:
He claims that "There is no such thing as a disruptive technology."
I grant that much has been made of disruptive technology, but I disagree with Dvorak's claim.
I consider the work done in this field in the last 5 years to be useful in conveying information to folks who might not have spent much time studying history. Innovations (new technologies) change (or disrupt) the way people do things. And they change (or disrupt) the way businesses operate.
And leaders are better off if they understand the dynamics of technology and change.
Other terms used to describe the same phenomena include "discontinuous" or "radical" innovations. And we can find the same sorts of dynamics at work, whether we use one term or another. There is plenty of wonderful research on this topic, starting perhaps with Schumpeter, with the even scarier term, "creative destruction."
The term "disruptive" has some intimidating connotations. Perhaps it serves to catch the eye of the business leader who did not read economic history to notice what happened with moveable type, the telegraph, and 18th century navigation aids.
Leslie is far too nice to state the obvious which is that Dvorak is an idiot. It is pellucidly obvious that technologies -- like the invention of the internal combustion engine or the written word -- are disruptive. They overturn the established order -- political systems, markets, social systems -- in unpredictable ways.
"The always-on notion has led to the creation of numerous IM networks. Some analysts have even predicted the future of business would depend on IM. But why do we need to know when somebody is online? Just to say hi? Direct computer-to-computer links like IM are channels for future problems."
This led to an interesting email exchange, culminating in his relenting, basically recanting his nonsense, but not until he attempted to suggest that since I used the term "value proposition" in our conversation I was a clueless toad:
"to tell you the truth these VC phrases such as "value proposition" -- which is a completely meaningless phrase -- do nothing to help your argument.
combining these two words is nothing less than silly
I'm guessing that what you mean to use is "worth" as in I don't understand the worth of IM. This may be true. Or possibly I do understand it and reject it anyway. But instead of saying it simply you use the condescending language of Silicon Valley 20-something bullshitters trying to sound important. So how can I take this seriously?
To which I replied:
""Value proposition" is a well-understood marketing and management term, and my using it does not make me a bullshitter, 20-something or otherwise.
"Value proposition - 1. The unique added value an organization offers customers through their operations." [Carla O'Dell & C.Jackson Grayson]. "Value proposition: A clear, simple statement — resulting from a set of very disciplined choices — describing what a customer can expect from us in the way of goods and services (including quality, timeliness and innovation) and the price that customer is willing to pay." - Weyerhauser. Although I was applying the concept to a technology, the concept is the same.
I wasn't -- and still am not -- trying to be condescending, although I maintain that you don't agree with the (dare I say it) value proposition for IM."
So this is a guy with a history of trying to make his deadline by asking himself "what obviously important idea or trend can I dis now?" and thereby making his trollish readers happy. But when confronted -- which Renee is too highly-principled to do -- his arguments dissolve into mush: empty semantic arguments about adjectives not agreeing with nouns, or the like. He is the Jerry Springer of technology pundits.
So when he argues that the concept of disruptive technologies is spurious, it's just another case of backward-looking, venal, rabid anti-trendism -- a classic enemy of the future:
John Dvorak
One problem in our society is the increasing popularity of false-premise concepts that are blindly used for decision making. The amount of money squandered during the dot-com era because of "paradigm shifts" and "new economies" is staggering. People actually believed that all retailing would be online and that all groceries would be delivered to the home as they were in the 1920s, despite changes that make delivery impractical. Who cares about reality? We have a disruptive technology at work!
The concept of disruptive technology is not the only daft idea floating around to be lapped up obediently by the business community. There are others. But the way these dingbat bromides go unchallenged makes you wonder whether anyone can think independently anymore.
So, based on a logical fallacy -- because someone advanced the idea that a flawed business model was a new paradigm, therefore the idea of "new paradigm" is itself bankrupt -- he is off suggesting (again) that the concept of a "paradigm shift" (as introduced by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) is wrong-headed idiocy... I will leave that battle for another day, though.
America Online is extending its Enterprise IM plans to include a couple of new partners, namely FaceTime Communications and Akonix.
The online giant said FaceTime Communications and Akonix will be able to incorporate AIM's instant messaging and online presence technology into its products. The companies also will sell AIM's application programming interface (API) to businesses that wish to develop their own IM and presence features.
[...]
Other uses could include information retrieval. For instance, if a salesman is out meeting with clients and needs competitive information, companies can create applications to retrieve data through internal IM networks to prepare for a sales pitch.
I'm still waiting to hear how the Macromedia Central integration will work. It's been almost a year now and there has been pretty much dead silence on the matter. A shame considering the potential of that marriage.
Their decision to leave the enterprise market signaled a shift in focus for the large IM networks and helped set up a scenario for greater cooperation with enterprise software companies such as Microsoft, Boyd said.
"The business issue was formally formerly strategic, and that was because they wanted control of their brand and their market in enterprise space," Boyd said. "But now they've rethought it. … Now, they're thinking tactically."
Today, Five Across announced the release of InterComm (see CEO blog: Giving Birth), a new instant messaging and collaboration solution, and I really like the thinking behind InterComm, but the product just doesn't go far enough to displace other solutions I use or favor.
Where It Is Headed
But Intercomm is headed in the right direction in many ways.
Here you see the client in the background, with a window opened to propose a meeting time (click to see fullsize image). I like the notion of instrumenting an instant messaging client with coordinatation features -- shared calendaring, for example. But I want it to be a real shared calendar experience, not just 'proposed meetings' -- all my calendar stuff should be in there to be shared. (And I have a peeve about the clunkiness of the interface here: you have to click on the cell to represent a time to meet - there is no way to simply type in "12:15pm" or a date. And apparently, there is no way to have a meeting at 7am, at all.)
In the client, you can see that there are groups, and associated with any group (such as "Us'n") are shared notes, files, and dates. The file sharing is along the lines of that found in other solutions, like Groove, Shinkuro, Clever Cactus. Ditto shared notes, which are broadcast and then accessible through the tab.
What I would really like to see is more of a push toward "microblogging" within the context of the IM client, like the visionaries at 2entwine are doing, or what WiredReach is pushing at. Instead of a static transition from instant messaging style real-time communication to posting files and notes for slow-time communication, I would like to see more support for tempo shifting. For example, Intercomm supports archiving of chat, but chat archives can't be used as context for a shared file, or turned into a note (unless you cut and paste manually).
Maybe Someday, But Not Today
Other interesting elements (like a polling capability) hint at future directions, but without a rich, full coordinative and collaborative feature set -- shared calendaring, tasks and project timelines, and the like, the things that other shared folder style products do fairly badly and that IM solutions don't generally attempt to do at all -- its hard to see why anyone would adopt this solution today. And that's before you consider voice and video capabilities -- totally absent here -- that people are now taking more or less for granted.
The folks at Five Across have a long way to go, although they seem to have made a good start, and they are certainly pointed in the right direction. It's not enough, yet, to get me to start inviting my colleagues to start working with the tool, but I will definitely keep looking at their progress over the next few months.
You've been saying that terrorists may use VoIP services to "evade lawful electronic surveillance." But the only detailed court statistics available show that 77 percent of wiretap applications were for drug crimes, and terrorism-related offenses were so few they didn't even make the chart. Is terrorism the real reason behind your wiretap push?
I get a sick kind of pleasure (and I don't know why) about the fracas between Radicati and Ferris analysts various Lotus stalwarts over the content of a recent Radicati report that disses IBM's Workplace strategy and supports Microsoft's market approach.
What has happened is an enormous mess:
Ed Brill, a Lotus executive, posted a link to the report on his weblog, and his readers began reading it, and commenting on it.
A Radicati analyst (or analysts) posted responses to the criticisms under a psuedonym.
Various folks uncovered the ID of the Radicati employee, and traced the fact that the same email addresses were used to demand that anti-Radicati bloggers should be fired, including Ed Brill. Various IBM excs recieved such emails.
Radicati said she was surprised by the harshness of the initial response to the white paper. "I'm pretty appalled by it," she said. "We'd never seen the discussion stoop to this level [on blogs] before, particularly the viciousness in which things were discussed."
The white paper, a summary of five recently published reports from The Radicati Group, was critical of IBM Lotus' handling of its roadmap for its Domino messaging server and the upcoming IBM Workplace collaboration platform, calling it an "end-of-life" strategy for Domino and predicting that "many Domino users will migrate away from the platform."
Radicati said the analysis was based on surveys and interviews with corporate executives with purchasing decision power, and an analysis of the information provided by IBM and Microsoft.
"The people who are writing on blogs—those are Lotus diehards, IT managers and midlevel people who've built their career on Lotus," Radicati said. "They're not necessarily the people who hold the purse strings. I think that's where some of the disconnect is."
This affair provides an almost textbook example of the sort of grassroots marketing support that vendors like IBM, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems hope to gain by projecting their corporate presence into the blogging world.
At the same time, it also shows how complicated that interaction can be. To be successful, a company's community relationship should be built on honesty and trust—or at least on trust.
I am almost afraid to point out the various white papers I wrote last year, agreeing with the Radicati views on IBM's confused marketing message relative to Microsoft. In February November 2003 [Ed Brill's comment led me to correct this], I wrote First Take: Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2003, where I said the following:
Undoing Sametime: The Battle for the Enterprise
In past years, IBM Lotus Sametime was the solution to beat for enterprise instant messaging, but Sametime is undergoing a wholesale restructuring within a larger IBM product family. Built on the reputation and functionality of the Lotus Notes/Domino platform, Lotus established a leadership position for enterprise real-time collaboration, both instant messaging and web conferencing, with its Sametime product.
As a part of IBM’s move to obsolete the venerable Notes/Domino technology, Lotus Sametime – as well as other collaborative technologies pioneered by Lotus – is being repositioned as a component of WebSphere, IBM’s enterprise application platform. IBM has been reorganizing all collaborative technologies around WebSphere, to the point where Lotus has become little more than a brand under the WebSphere umbrella.
Sametime is being reformulated as two products, Lotus Instant Messaging and Lotus Web Conferencing. Note that nearly all the sophisticated real-time communication capabilities are only available in Lotus Web Conferencing. These include audio and video chat, application sharing, and other advanced features that are native to Live Communications Server.
One element of confusion surrounding IBM’s plans for real-time collaboration is the future of the two products that have been refactored from Sametime. While they are currently sold through a single license, IBM’s is positioning the two as independent products. In the future Lotus Workplace, who knows how they will be licensed or managed? IBM is unclear on this matter.
At the beginning of 2003, Sametime was clearly the market leader for enterprise real-time collaboration. However, in the past ten months IBM has worked to reformulate Sametime as a WebSphere component and is quickly moving away from the Notes/Domino platform. These activities have been the major focus of SameTime development in 2003, instead of providing new functionality.
Consider that in the same period Microsoft has brought the Live Communications Server to market, integrated with the Office 2003 release, and providing very attractive features and functionality when compared with SameTime.
In particular, IBM seems to have turned its back on the desktop, and the productivity benefits for information workers that arise through real-time desktop collaboration. WebSphere provides a portal-style integration strategy for IBM customers, and IBM seems committed to getting its customers to turn their backs on the “in-context” collaboration that naturally emerges from integration of real-time collaboration with Office tools. Even at the January 2003 Lotusphere conference, established and knowledgeable Lotus business partners were questioning the WebSphere strategy, and conjecturing that some of the technological lead that Sametime had over its competitors would be lost as the result of IBM’s strategic priorities taking precedence over product enhancement. It looks now, ten months later, as if the discouraged business partners that I spoke with were right, at least with regard to the impact that the WebSphere strategy would have on Sametime’s technological leadership.
So, although I would seem to be speaking on the side of the malefactors in this recent analyst cat fight, I have to agree with the thrust of Radicati's analytic sentiment, if not their blogging etiquette.
[7 Aug 2004 -- Note: I have struck out the references to Ferris, since I was informed by Michael Sampson that it wasn't Ferris folks, but others, including him (at Shared Space) that got all spun up in this thing.]
[7 Aug 2004 -- Also note: Ed Brill suggests that my comments regarding IBM's 'retreat from the desktop' are, at best, out of date, and at worst, simply wrong. I am open to persuasion! So I hope to interview Ed later this month, and get the walk-through on IBM's Workspace strategy and client technology.]
Along the lines of the Japanese magazine stores that prohibit cell camera users from browsing (for fear that the cell camera users will take pictures of the articles instead of buying the magazines (see story)), Lawrence Lessig writes about a recent concert where ticketholders were turned away if they had any camera, including cell cameras.
This is a stunningly bad decision, and it is going to take us down a road we've already traveled.
It ignores reality. Consider Skype, which encrypts calls from end to end. It runs on peer-to-peer networks. In other words, law enforcement can't eavesdrop -- because VOIP is, for all practical purposes, a software application.
Unless we have new laws banning the private use of strong encryption, the FCC/FBI alliance here just means the bad guys will move their communications -- if they haven't already -- to services that can't be tapped. Then, only average folks will be monitored.
My guess is that we're going to have to fight the encryption battle all over again. The government really doesn't believe in free (as in freedom) communications. This will get ugly.
Yet another case of stupidity in high places.
The inevitable attempt to take control of communication channels by those who believe that the need for collective security outweighs our need for personal liberty.
[Update: Stuart Henshall has a long post on this insanity at Unbound Spiral]
"Speed dating" ("an organised social activity in which people have a series of short conversations with potential partners in order to determine whether there is mutual interest") also makes the Oxford dictionary pages.
So too does "flash mob" ("a public gathering of complete strangers, organised via the Internet or mobile phone, who perform a pointless act and then disperse again)".
Mark Glaser writes in the Online Journalism Review about some of the changes in use and attitudes towards blogging from many different parts of the professional world. Especially appropriate to the recent discussion of Gonzo Media is this tidbit:
Grueskin starts with the assumption that bloggers have the privilege of linking to WSJ.com stories, whether it's to criticize or praise them. And he doesn't believe journalists must have an adversarial relationship with blogs.
"Many traditional journalists have come to see blogging as an either-or proposition -- you're either a blogger or you're a conventional reporter or columnist," Grueskin told me via e-mail. "I see blogging as a nascent phenomenon that is a threat to journalism only to editors who treat it as such. I think the key is finding ways in which we can each do what we're best at, and look for ways to cooperate. Truth is, bloggers depend a great deal on traditional media. But, I'm coming to find, we can depend on them."
If you think it's all about love and kindness, think again. Grueskin says traffic generated from blogs to the free features has been "substantial" for compelling stories. While he couldn't be specific about numbers, Grueskin said the links from blogs sometimes rivaled the traffic generated by links in Yahoo Finance.
For now, the little line skirmishes are interesting, almost entertaining. In the long run, however, Big Media will be pushed over the this side and a significant re-calibration of attitudes/aptitudes will occur.
One last gripe in this little struggle - all readers of RSS are not Bloggers. Seems many have taken to forcefully attach the use of RSS to the blogosphere and it just isn't (completely) so.
Mailinator Get enough SPAM lately? Have you ever gone to a website that asks for your email address for no reason (other than they are going to sell it to the highest bidder so you get spam forever)?
Welcome to Mailinator(tm) - Its no signup, instant anti-spam service. Here is how it works: You are on the web, at a party, or talking to your favorite insurance salesman. Whereever you are, someone (or some webpage) asks for your email. You know if you give it, you're gambling with your privacy. On the other hand, you do want at least one message from that person. The answer is to give them a mailinator address. You don't need to sign-up. You just make it up on the spot. Pick jonesy@mailinator.com or bipster@mailinator.com - pick anything you want (up to 15 characters before the @ sign).
Later, come to this site and check that account. Its that easy. Mailinator accounts are created when mail arrives for them. No signup, no personal information, and when you're done - you can walk away - an instant solution to one way spammers get your address. Its an anti-spam solution for everyone. The messages are automatically deleted for you after a few hours.
Let'em spam.
So for now on, everywhere I have to confirm my identity -- like when I am fiddling around with social networking tools, or signing up to get access to an online newsletter -- I will spawn a new Mailinator account.
This will lead to a serious reduction in email to my inbox, I hope.
There are interesting ramifications: I am avoiding the possibility of a single unifying identity (the "stoweboyd@persistent_until_death_domain.com") that people can use to find me right up to the funeral. So be it. I'm not sure how well I like the single identity concept anyway.
Google is truly a force that the majority of web users encounter in one form or another on a daily basis. It's dominance in the marketplace and constant push to innovate its technologies has been a comfort in many ways for many years.
Lately, however, I can't help but escape this hollowing feeling that the giant has become too enamored with itself and engulfed us in the process. Over the last couple of years, and especially in the last few months, Google has added a number of tools to its arsenal, purportedly because we, the users, needed/asked for them. What tools am I talking about? Consider:
Name Search - This is really not a tool so much as a consequence of their database. Enter your name, or the name of anyone that you want to investigate, and a quick and dirty list of online breadcrumbs is at your fingertips.
Phonebook Search - This service allows anyone to enter in a combination of name, phone number, or address and get back the Street Address and Phone Number associated (#)
Credit Card Number / Social Security Search - The newest member of the gang is actually a hack, but a serious one. By searching for credit card numbers or social security numbers, Google will show you the sites stupid enough to list that information. (#)
So what's the big deal, you might be asking. These things have been around for some time. I think the evil side of things is two-fold. On one front we have a collapse of our anonymity/privacy. As I mentioned before (see "The Many Faces of Our Digital Identity"), I've observed several different forms of Digital Identity. One method for examining those different identities is to consider the role of anonymity in them. For example, our Public Identities are the least secure in our minds as it is the information we announce to the world. On the other hand, our Protected Identities are guarded secrets that we selectively reveal. I made mention of Residual Identity as well. This was the Google-effect at work. The problem with the hooks Google provides is that it blurs the lines between our identities and personal spaces.
The other evil front has yet to surface, but lets play conspiracy theorist just once. The launch of services like Orkut which serve to map and model our relationships and interests coupled with localized searching and localized advertising (a la GMail) provides some interesting opportunities for bad things to happen. Realistically, I don't think Google would intentionally do this, but it doesn't mean that "bad things" can't happen. Already, the tools are in place for someone to re-assemble a great deal of information on anyone or any group of people.
Unfortunately for all of us, there's not much that can be done just yet. When GMail was announced we say all kinds of legal action spur out of it from privacy advocates and lawmakers. For now, we can only rely on Google's good senses and wait for the IPO to be over so this hiding-behind-the-quiet-period non-sense ends.
The number of new phishing attacks reported has risen by an average of 50 percent per month in the first six months of this year, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), which monitors such attacks.
Phishing attacks use spoofed e-mails and fraudulent Web sites to fool respondents into entering personal financial data such as credit card numbers, account usernames and passwords, which can then be used for financial theft or identity theft.
Phishers launched 1,422 new attacks in June, up 19 percent on the 1,197 recorded in May and more than 12 times as high as the 116 attacks reported in December 2003, APWG reported on its Web site this week.
A flurry of comments and discussion arising from the recent piece on blog journalism.... One reader sent in a comment (that for some reason causes Moveable Type's comment system to burp... odd), so I am posting it with further observations.
Tom Biro
[via email]
On your 'gonzo journalism' point, I think you're spot on - as a blogger, I think I might actually 'care' more, in some cases, about the overall topic that a reporter is covering in an article I link to/write about. Not to the point where I'm biased one way or another, but I believe I'm able to perhaps take the thought process and investigation that the original author performed and add some value so as to not be purely derivative (a major point of contention between mediafolk and bloggers) - or just acting as a filter. The key, in my eyes, is taking the thought process out of people's heads that bloggers aren't out for their jobs - well, not directly, at least - and that a blogger linking to your work is actually a sign of respect or a sign of critical thinking.
If I "fisk" something that you've written, it should show that I can factually disprove something you've written, or take every point you make to task. If I link to an article about a media merger, I try and add something to the point, whether it be opinion or comparison to a similar situation, etc. - which may or may not have been originally planned for the item I'm linking to. Furthermore, I'm attempting to drive readers from my blog to the article being discussed because I believe it's worth their while - AND might be something the reader mightn't of found on their own. The big issue is making sure people realize that you are stating OPINION in some cases - bringing the "I" into the post. Sometimes bloggers break news stories - it's key in those cases for people to try and follow a format that a traditional media journalist would want to link to or use as a source. If you're looking for credibility, that's a simple way to get it. While using your trusty AP styleguide might not be the only way to do things, it can't hurt.
This doesn't have to be a "battle" in any sense of the word. Thanks for writing this piece - very productive, IMHO.
It's ok to be biased, Tom. Emotional association with issues is the source of meaning and ultimately knowledge of any sort. The hypothetical impartiality of journalists is a myth, and my point was that it is this myth that will become the pivot point in the war between conventional and gonzo (blog) media.
The myth is that journalists are impartial about the stories they cover, but people cannot be impartial. Journalism is all about a certain perspective, a broadcast dynamic where the editorial board tells you what's important, and how much time you are supposed to apply to each topic on the front page. Leaving aside content -- where tone and perspective are more obvious -- the structure of traditional media is itself a statement, declaring a one-way information flow from the media out to the couch potatoes.
This central myth has to be confronted: inevitably we will all know it is false, and has never been true. It may have served a purpose when media was controlled and controllable, but now media is decentralized and decentralizing.
In today's world, we should want partiality, we should want authors who openly care deeply about their obsessions, and who put their desires foursquare in front of their audience/community.
You cannot belong by being an outsider. The new media is all about authentic voices coming from a community, engaging in an open dialogue, and belonging there. This is a transition that will be hard for some journalists to make, but ultimately, old outsiderish journalism will seem archaic, like listening to Edward Morrow broadcasts of WWII.
THE NEW VISIONARIES: REBOOTING THE WEB
[Starting in January!]
BEHIND THE SCENES sponsored by GoToMeeting
› 24 Dec 2005: Behind The Scenes [next episode - postponed for Transit strike]
› 30 Nov 2005: Behind The Scenes at Behind The Scenes
› Many 2 Many -- Liz Lawley, Ross Mayfield, David Weinberger, danah boyd, Seb Pacquet
› Blogspotting -- Stephen Baker and Heather Green
› TechCrunch -- TechCrunch
