March 2010
Digital Due Process
Tech companies are banding together in a privacy advocacy group called the Digital Due Process coalition, to pressure the US Congress to strengthen digital privacy laws, specifically making it more difficult for the government to access personal digital information:
Miguel Helft, Technology Coalition Seeks Stronger Privacy Laws
Under a proposed set of principles, law enforcement agencies or...
Social Business Edge: Three Weeks And Counting!
It’s three weeks until the Social Business Edge show, 19 April 2010, in New York City. So much has come together in the past few weeks I thought I would condense it all into a single post, here.
The show is subtitled ‘operating manual for 21st century business’ because it is my belief that social technologies will rework the nature of work as much as they have rewired the...
What Kind Of Articles Do People Want To Share?
Recent research on the patterns of article sharing by Ny Times readers shows that people are seeking an emotion communion by sharing pieces that inspire awe:
John Tierney, Will You Be Emailing This Column? It’s Awesome
A random sample of 3,000 of these articles was rated by independent readers for qualities like providing practical value or being surprising. The researchers also used...
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Bang: A Microsyntax for Emergency Messaging
I have proposed a microsyntax for sending and receiving structured Twitter messages during and relating to disasters. See the emergency+codes tag for all discussion.
Why Not Hashtags?
One of the problems with microsyntax based on hashtags is that hashtags are words in specific languages, so there is an immediate divergence in this case with English and French, and perhaps Creole, as well?
This...
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A Tale Of Two Companies: Verizon and Verizon
My mother recently passed away, and we are starting — a few weeks later — to start to dig out from the more humdrum aspects of that, such as switching the name on certain bills. Now, my mother and father have lived with me for over 20 years, and we pay everything out of a shared bank account that we all contribute to. But my wife, Sarah, is taking over much of the bill paying, so...
Anil Dash on Privacy Through Identity Control
Anil Dash wondered (in 2002) about what changes will come to be as publicy displaces privacy as the social norm:
Well, first, of course, social expectations will change. The fear everyone has is that we’ll all have to be nice all the time. And niceness sucks. It’s the valid part of the backlash against “political correctness”. Except that most of the people who object...
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Facebook Changes Social Contract, Once Again
A new set of changes to Facebook privacy system is being proposed. Jason Kincaid at Techcrunch zooms into the most questionable change: Facebook shifted a few months ago into making ‘everyone’ the default sharing option (see Facebook Wants To Be Twitter). Now, they are shifting the definition of ‘everyone’ to include third party apps that you haven’t explicitly opted...
Line2 By Toktumi Is Getting Bombed
I read about Line2 — an app that provides a second phone number and VOIP service to iPhone — in the New York Times the other day. Apparently, others read about it too. I have downloaded and installed it, and it seems to work as advertised, although I haven’t tried some features yet.
Apparently, someone is doing a denial-of-service attack via their sign-up process:
via...
Chris Lynch on What The Reader Elite Means For...
Chris Lynch suggests that declining readership of newspapers and the rise of pay walls will lead to strange results: a reader elite and the demise of journalism.
What The Reader Elite Means for Journalism Schools
In the wake of my last post about The Reader Elite, I had several discussions with friends in the media industry about what such an audience would mean for journalism as an...
Is There A Global Basis For Privacy?...
The European climate for online privacy is coming into conflict with US norms, as realized by Facebook, at least. The most recent flare-up is an investigation by Swiss and German commisioners regarding the way that these services allow users to upload pictures and email addresses of other people:
Frank Jordans, European privacy battle looms for Facebook, Google
Swiss and German data...
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Umair Haque Is Another New Spatialist
Umair Haque makes an economist’s argument about the devaluation of relationships because of social media, suggesting that what is going on, here, online is not as cool as the social media gurus would have us believe. He compares this to the real estate bubble:
Umair Haque, The Social Media Bubble
On the demand side, relationship inflation creates beauty contest effects, where, just as...
AOL Seed
I read about AOL’s launch of Seed (At AOL, the Google culture clash is going to be a big hurdle by Meghan Keane) as an example of Tim Armstrong’s culture clash there. He has his work cut out for him, it seems.
I registered as a potential writer there, and I guess I wasn’t surprised to see the pittance that AOL titles are willing to pay, especially considering the stupid things...
Twitter @anywhere: Taking On Facebook Connect
Somewhere in the debris of the past few weeks, I probably read something about the Twitter @anywhere announcement, but I can’t recall it. I know I read about Ev Williams’ dismal SxSW keynote, but the details slipped out of my head.
Now that I have resurfaced, I took a look at what has been said, and it’s clear that Twitter has decided to take aim at Facebook Connect:
via...
Venessa Miemis on The Social Revolution
Venessa doesn’t use the term ‘social revolution’, but she is talking about it, which is why she is going to be so good to have at the upcoming Social Business Edge event in NYC, 19 April 2010. She recently had a big epiphany about the subversive and uniting power of the social web, and it has led to a really large outpouring of ideas about the connections between us, how we...
Maxim Sex Survey: Texting Skills Matter
A recent sex survey of women by Maxim magazine has all sorts of interesting factoids — “What sounds emanating from a man during sex do you find a major turnoff?” 77.8% Crying — but I was particularly tickled by the Tech & Sex section:
How many of your hookups have come strictly through social networking? None 77.5% 1-5 19.7% 6-10 2.0% More than...
DeTumblrized, ReTwitterated
So, I have had a massive few weeks, and one thing I have learned as a life lesson is that when things get hard, the things you stop doing are the least central to your core.
While my mother’s recent health issues and her passing have had a devastating effect on nearly everyone in our sprawling family and multigenerational household — she and my father have lived with me for 20...
Infinite USB Port
At last!
02. industrial design
InfiniteUSB USB port
University
Zhejiang University, Industrial Design Hangzhou, China
Design
- Gonglue Jiang, Ke Zhao (Tongji University) Beijing, China http://www.jianggonglue.com
While the laptop is getting smaller, the USB ports are getting less and limited. But more and more devices are using USB port. So this IniniteUSB can solve this problem. When...
Apple iGroup
Apple has announced the imminent releaase of iGroup, a patented small group, geolocational social networking solution:
- Abhinav Lal, Apple patents new mobile social networking technology called iGroup
Apple has been working on this technology since 2008 - when it applied for a patent (Group Formation Using Anonymous Broadcast Information) for a new mobile technology that it is now calling...
Harold Abelson on Privacy And Reputation
In today’s online world, what your mother told you is true, only more so: people really can judge you by your friends.
Google Wave Is No Tsunami
Google Wave is not catching on, according to Hitwise (via Dan Frommer):
Google Wave has little traction since it doesn’t do something well defined that people believe they need a tool for. It’s an amorphous mess.
There is a place for an open alternative to email, but it would need to be much simpler than Wave.
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Publicy And The Erosion Of Privacy
I was unable to present my talk at last week’s Social Business Summit in Austin because of my mother’s grave condition and subsequent passing. But I had written a post on the topic that Brian Mennell put up on the Dachis Group blog today:
Stowe Boyd, Publicy And The Erosion Of Privacy
Privacy concerns seem to be constantly in the news, like the recent furor about ‘full body...
Peer News Sounds Dumb
Pierre Omidyar has backed a new news site called Peer News, headed up by John Temple, formerly the editor of the now defunct Rocky Mountain News. In a recent post by Sarah Lacy, he seems all over the place, and some of the things planned just seem plain dumb.
“We’re not trying to reinvent a local newspaper and put it on the Web,” he said. Indeed, the mission of Peer News doesn’t even contain...
Craig Newmark: Who Do You Trust?
Matthew Ingram recently chatted with Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, and asked him what was the web’s next big problem. His answer?
The question of who to trust online, according to Newmark. To solve it, he believes that what the web needs is a “distributed trust network” that allows us to manage our online relationships and reputations.
[…]
Newmark called some form...
We Are Connected, But They Call It Addiction
Retrevo published some interesting statistics from a study on social media use, but unfortunately refer to those who are most connected as being ‘addicted’. The data [via email] and the story:
Study Highlights: Twitter & FaceBook: - 48% of people check/update FaceBook and/or Twitter after they go to bed - 18% of people under 25 years old can’t go more than a couple hours...
The Limits Of Anonymity: The Netflix Prize Undone
In a rambling grabbag of an article in the NY Times, Steve Lohr mentions in passing that Netflix has shelved a second contest to improve its recomendation capability based on privacy concerns:
How Privacy Vanishes Online
On Friday, Netflix said that it was shelving plans for a second contest — bowing to privacy concerns raised by the F.T.C. and a private litigant. In 2008, a pair of ...
Publicy And The Erosion Of Privacy: We Media, 10...
I gave a talk at the We Media conference in Miami last week on Publicy And The Erosion Of Privacy.
We Media: How everyone is changing everything from KnightCenter on Vimeo.
Penelope Trunk Hates Tim Ferriss. Deeply.
The whole Four Hour Work Week is obvious bullshit, but I hadn’t realized what a jerk Ferriss is. Penelope Trunk has witnessed this all first hand: the way he slimed his way into having coffee with her, his annoying email ‘etiquette’, his worker bees spamming blogs with comments that link back to his book’s site, etc.
She ends her post, 5 Time management tricks I...
Squarespace, An Advanced Modular CMS: A Dual Post...
Background: This is the first of what is likely to be an on-going series of ‘dual posts’ with my new writing project, Hotbed. Hotbed is all about New York tech start-ups, and the shifting, swirling social scene that supports them. I plan to write a technical review of various companies’ products here, and a company profile and personal background piece on a founder of the ...
Juliette Powell on Publicy
I met Juliette Powell at the We Media event last week in Miami, and was impressed by her views on web culture. Here’s an interview with her, when she satarts by talking about… me? Well, the idea of publicy.
We Media Interview Juliette Powell from KnightCenter on Vimeo.
The notion that you can put forward a narrative about yourself in a public context — and have that...
Robin Chase on Why Car Data Wants To Be Free
Robin Chase is the founder and former CEO of Zipcar, thinks that the strnaglehold that car manufacturers have on car data makes no sense:
Driving By the Numbers
Current federal law requires annual emissions and safety inspections for all cars. A mechanic plugs an electronic reader into what’s known as the onboard diagnostic unit, a computer that sits under your dashboard, monitoring data on...
Social Business Summit: London and Austin
Thursday this week I will be participating in the Dachis Group’s Social Business Summit, speaking on Publicy and The Erosion Of Privacy (incidentally, I am speaking on the same topic tomorrow, at the We Media conference in Miami).
Dachis Group is also partnering with Somesso to hold a Social Business Summit in London next week:
On March 18, SOMESSO and Headshift/Dachis Group will host...
David Gerlernter on Flow
William James once wrote, “You can judge a man’s intelligence by how well he agrees with you.” In that regard, David Gelernter is my main man. In a recent but oddly titled piece at Edge.org (what a nice name!), Gelernter could have been reading one of my recent slide shows:
- David Gelernter, Time To Start Taking The Internet Seriously
13. The traditional web site is...
Socialtext 4.0
Watching Socialtext’s announcement this week about the newest major release of their flagship technology, I knew that had done some great work. I got the demo today, and it looks really great.
Socialtext has extended way past the baseline functionality that made them a pioneer in social technology for business. They started with wikis, and last year released Socialtext signals, an...
Digital Billboards: Very Shiny
Since I don’t drive much, I often miss trends like digital billboards:
- Matt Richtel, Electronic Billboards Called Another Driving Distraction
The billboard industry argues that the new signs are part of a larger technological and economic shift to a paperless society (no more crews hoisting and removing ads from billboards) and that they give advertisers more flexibility.
Marketing...
Scenius
[oiginally posted at Hotbed]
Brian Eno is the musician (and genius, candidly) that coined the term “Scenius” by which he meant “the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius.” (Eno is also responsible for ambient music, where he imagined a future musical genre in which melody and rhythm were not required, and then he started...
Facebook Ads: Why Such An Oblique Approach Instead...
The recent foofarah about Facebook ads (see Brad Stone’s Ads Posted on Facebook Strike Some as Off-Key) led contributor David Gallagher to an experiment:
What’s In Your Facebook Ads?
A look at Facebook’s “Create an Ad” page inspired an experiment. Facebook lets advertisers aim their messages at people in certain places or age ranges, but also at those who have particular keywords...
Patent Law Choking Innovation
- Nick Bilton, An Explosion of Mobile Patent Lawsuits
Within the last year, for example, Apple was sued by the Taiwanese company Elan Microelectronics over alleged infringement of touch-screen patents. Nokia went on a lawsuit spree, suing Apple, Samsung, LG and a variety of other mobile handset companies. Kodak sued several companies over patents related to the companies’ digital-imaging...
Life Laid Bare
File under ‘technology bound to make it’s way into augmented reality’:
- Rik Fairle, Pentax Toughens It Rugged Camera
Here’s a new trick that several vendors have added this year. In addition to face-recognition technology that can register as many as 32 faces, the [Pentax camera model] W90 includes new pet recognition that can recognize and enhance images of up to three...
An Open Global Village
I was rocked back on my heels when I read a Maureen Dowd column yesterday. She has recently visited Saudi Arabia, and in discussions with the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal about the changes coming in the near future of that country’s liberalization. After talking about women’s role in the future Saudi Arabia — there are female lawyers there, now, albeit in a...
Spolsky Blogicide Note Has Great Advice, And Bad
Embedded in a deeply ambivalent post in which he announces the end of his blogging, Joel Spolsky distills great advice from Kathy Sierra on the topic of… blogging… which he is quitting to grow his business. Hmm.
Well, first, let’s look at the advice from the incomparable Sierra, as channeled by Spolsky:
Let’s Take This Offline
So, what’s the formula for a blog...
Yammer: Giant Step Or Misstep?
A week ago, Yammer released a big upgrade to their ‘Twitter for the Enterprise’ solution. But in a very strange way.
They have introduced something called ‘Communities’ which are intended to complement their existing corporate accounts. But they way they work is confusing. Or at least I am confused.
The original model for Yammer still stands for people who want to ...
I Missed My Fifteen Minutes
Yesterday, apparently, the uploaded presentation I had given for the NYC AIIM chapter was briefly popular on Slideshare:
via email
“The New Web: Social, Real-Time, And Mobile” is being tweeted more than any other document on SlideShare right now. So we’ve put it on the homepage of SlideShare.net (in the “Hot on Twitter” section).
By the time I went to look at it,...
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Hotbed
[originally posted at Hotbed]
New York City’s tech scene is expanding at an astonishing rate these days, which raises the obvious question: why now? And, if New York has all the right ingredients to create a rich and deep technology culture, why didn’t it appear earlier?
My theory is that New York lacked, until recently, a critical factor: smart early stage investors.
The other parts of the...
First Gestures At True/Slant, And A Messifesto
The first evidence of my participation at the True/Slant content news network:
I am going to be writing about the exploding New York technology scene and related topics in a new blog at True/Slant. I am not sure of the title, but I like the ‘greenhouse’ metaphor. I am looking for suggestions.
About the beat: I am obviously intrigued with the NYC tech scene. That’s why I...
