Judith blogs about Imeem:

The only description Ms. Glassberg [who wrote the PR] gives us of stealth-mode Imeem is: ”...The software will provide social networking capabilities and other features along a distributed network…”

Also mentioned in this venturewire is Ted Malone, a new member of the Imeem team formerly from TiVo, who is quoted as saying that a beta version of the Imeem software will be released before the end of 2004.

I reviewed WiredReach some time ago: a peer-to-peer based social networking approach. But this area is ripe for competition, especially with regard to presence and real-time communication opportunities.

Trust me; I have talked these ideas up with literally dozens of the existing competitors, and NO ONE IS LISTENING. They continue to be focused on email and portal based approaches, because they are easy and "everyone has email" and "we don't want to create a new client."

I believe the company that dreams up a cool integration of buddy-lists, mobility, proximity, meetup-ish blending of on and offline interaction, and RSS aggregation of people's online persona (profiles, blogs, comments, dossiers composed of the stray bits we leave behind everywhere) will really be onto something, and will make today's out-of-content, portal-based solutions look immediately ancient and unweildy. The right critical mass of features could induce the mildly interested early adopters to drop what they are doing at LinkedIn or Tribe.net, and stream onto a better paradigm of online networking: namely, real-time.

I gotta talk to these folks. Anyone out there in a position to introduce me?

As another go at the fear-of-instant-messaging marketing approach being used by IMlogic, FaceTime, Akonix and others, check out the message in this piece:

Matt Hicks

[from IMlogic Launches Free IM, P2P Blocker]

IMlogic Inc. on Tuesday launched a free tool to let enterprises detect and block the use of instant messaging, peer-to-peer file sharing networks and voice-over-IP applications within their walls.

Called IM Detector Pro, the software provides a first step for organizations to get a handle on the extent of such traffic flowing on their networks and to decide how to best manage it, said Dave Fowler, IMlogic's vice president of marketing and strategic alliances.

With the use of IM and P2P increasing, corporations can face risks of sensitive information being disclosed, employees illegally sharing copyrighted files, or viruses and worms entering their networks, Fowler said. Meanwhile, they must meet corporate governance requirements to prevent security breaches.

[pointer from Lee Kelsey]

Ernest Miller continues his indefagitable invective around the fools (in this case, The Motley Fools) who really don't get why the INDUCE ACT is dangerous. The flapdoodle about the iPod being at risk is really not the point:

Ernest Miller

[from Are the Opponents of the INDUCE Act (IICA) Claiming that the Sky is Falling?]

It isn't the iPod that is at risk, it is the small company's non-DRM'd wireless iPod clone that is at risk. The biggest threat is to the innovative next-generation iPod from some company that no one has heard of yet that the RIAA will quash long before it can sell millions of units and make us all wonder how we survived without one.

Hiawatha Bray is being really dumb, again (he's well known for that).

Hiawatha Bray

[from For geeks, it's a big misunderstanding]

Outlawing plainly criminal activity seems a worthy use of a senator's time. But this bill, in the view of Hatch's critics, would pretty much end technological innovation in America. Indeed, they predict that Hatch's bill would ban digital music players, outlaw home videotaping, and force cats and dogs to sleep together. Well, never mind that last bit. But you get the idea. This bill is bad -- really bad. Or so its opponents say.

He goes on to at least admit that Hatch et al are unscrupulously using children as a foil for their real agenda, which is music and movie company profits:

There's some cause for all of the hostility. Hatch and a bipartisan band of cosponsors have touted the legislation with a greasy, disingenuous claim that it's about protecting America's children, and not the record industry's profits.

But then Bray goes off the tracks again, arguing that the geeks that are screaming that the INDUCE act will limit innnovation are wacky. He waves his hand at the iPod example: iPods could be deemed illegal under INDUCE since they lead us to illegally copy music. The average person cannot acquire 10,000 songs legally, after all. And his assertion that the Business Software Alliance supports INDUCE, and therefore the high tech and innovation crowd shoudl too -- Not!

While he says nothing specifically about the potential of the Act to end peer-to-peer instant messaging or related benign purposes, he does close with this:

But what are the substantial legitimate uses for Grokster or Morpheus or Kazaa? Virtually none. The file-swapping programs are used almost exclusively by thieves, who rob recording artists of billions every year. Shed no tears for them. Weep instead for poor Orrin -- not a bad fellow, but misunderstood.

This guy is nuts, and with a pulpit like the Boston Globe to shout out from, way too many people are going to hear this muddied and reactionary drivel.

Hatch's PR blitz has gaffed a whale, here.

[Pointer from Copyfight]

The furor about the stupidity of the Induce Act continues to mount. I point your attention to the fantastically (obsessively) annotated transcript of the act over at The Importance of.... Note that the CNet piece is entitled "Senate Bill Bans P2P Networks".

The act is really dumb (as Ernest Miller proves in his interlinear commentary), but may have the impact of making all P2P technology illegal, since it could act as an inducement to the little children, who would potentially break copyright and various moral laws as well. This is the most egregious example of prior restraint, ever.

Today, in the Lenz Blog, I saw a few really dumb comments about the act.

K Lenz

[from A Balanced View of the INSANE Act Proposal]

If the proposal can come up with an answer to these questions, possibly requiring adding some language to restrict its application to Internet P2P software that is specifically designed to resist enforcement attempts by copyright holders, it might be better than the Japanese approach of just arresting creators and sort out later if it was actually illegal what they did. Sinking this proposal would not change any risk under existing rules of secondary liability for copyright infringement.

And anyway, it's not that big a deal. Even if development in the P2P area gets shut down in America, there are still some free countries around where research won't be stopped. The result of that research will flow back to the U.S. over the Internet, leaving the legislation without any measurable effect on the availability of P2P software there.

Potentially every IM system is impacted (to the degree that it can be argued that they are P2P), and a wide variety of useful tools like Groove, Shinkuro, WiredReach, and thousands of others, leaving aside the targets of the Act, like Kazaa, Morpheus, etc. This is a sledgehammer approach to hitting a pesky mosquito -- don't get me wrong, the mosquito is carrying malaria, but this is not the way to fight it.

The Induce Act has got to be fought. Write your Senators and Congressional representatives, and tell them to block passage of this act,