Recently in Internet Category

Yesterday Robert wrote about the power of collaborative applications in the workplace.

Today I spent most of my day hearing about the power of collaborative applications in government.

I'm a bit tired to be writing about it now, but it's obvious that we're at the beginning of the end of something annoying, and the start of something wonderful.

Being able to share and easily work with others will save industries. Maybe not IT, but for creative or scientific types, open collaboration over distance is a game changer.

The U.S. is flattening. Think globalization, but white collar on a domestic scale.

Professions are going to have to change.

Think about this. What if I was an attorney admitted to the DC bar. I have a 202 area code, a mailing address in DC, and I regularly try cases before Courts in DC.

But I'm in Hawaii. I have a VOIP PBX that forwards to my mobile phone, and I spend part of my year on the beach. I do my research on my laptop with Lexis-Nexis with an EvDO card.

Now imagine if I have a partner in Texas with the same setup.

Why do I need an office?

Rules need to adapt. Thnink about it.

CNN.com had an article today that, while in no way dispensing any new information, is something that could be pretty useful for people who a) are brand new to social networking sites or b) have kids who are on or want to be on one.

"I don't want to have to worry about all the different online scandals and problems," says Brown, an education major at St. Joseph College in Connecticut. She'd like to control her personal information and keep it out of the hands of identity thieves or snooping future employers. "It's just common sense."

It sounds like her info is locked down and airtight. But is it?

Turns out, even the privacy-conscious Sarah Browns of the world freely hand over personal information to perfect strangers. They do so every time they download and install what's known as an "application," one of thousands of mini-programs on a growing number of social networking sites that are designed by third-party developers for anything from games and sports teams to trivia quizzes and virtual gifts.

The rest of the article is here, and if you fall into either of the categories I mentioned, you should totally check it out.

I feel the need, again, to make the point that nothing is free.  Not entirely.  If you want the neat applications and you don't want to pay for them they need to be supported by ads.  The ads are more effective and therefor more profitable if they are targeted based upon assumed interests and patterns of behavior.

So should you be careful?  Sure.  Should you whine and moan because your online activity is being tracked?  No, you should just stay away from sites and applications that do the tracking.

I saw this at mocoNews.net and was blown away.  It's the kind of simple, common sense stuff that gets so easily lost in the bureaucracy and over analyzing of a big corporation.

Guy Talmi is a Senior Marketing Director at Pontis, an Israel-based company that works with wireless and cable operators to help determine the most relevant marketing approaches based on a user's profile, preferences and behavior. Talmi has compiled a list of the top 10 most common marketing mistakes he sees made by the operator.

Here I'll just list the actual top 10, but you can click here to see the explanation of each over at mocoNews.

1.  Operators fail to target the right products to the right customers
2.  Free trial offers fail because of poor follow-up
3.  Introductory offers for new customers alienate existing customers
4.  Non-targeted offers look like spam
5.  Operators address churn too late
6.  Marketing campaigns may fail if not tested before launch
7.  Operators use the wrong medium to market to users
8.  Value the customer
9.  Operators miss marketing opportunities
10.  Success breeds success - if you can recognize it

When you get into the explanations it makes even more sense.
What he says in his summary, praising online retailers like Amazon for marketing based on past searches and purchases, is something that has been a little controversial.

There's growing concern among (mostly older) web surfers and purchasers that companies are keeping too much information about them.  I tend to shoot down these concerns, more vocally when referring to sites that are trying to monetize a free service, because there is a reason behind targeted advertising.  I think that Talmi would agree with me that targeted advertising and marketing, regardless of industry, can help companies save money and hopefully pass those savings onto their customers in the form of more competitively priced goods and services.

First, here's a little bit of the story that ran at CNN.com today

James Karl Buck helped free himself from an Egyptian jail with a one-word blog post from his cell phone.

...

Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested April 10.

On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter.

The message only had one word. "Arrested."

After that one-word message was sent out James' followers started Tweeting and blogging about their friend's precarious situation.  One friend even got on the ball and hired a lawyer on James' behalf.  James was freed.

Less than 24 hours after he was arrested.

This is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be given the spotlight, and I'm super excited about seeing it on CNN.com.  It's the sort of thing that can further help to spread awareness of how Twitter can function as more than just a fun tool or even a professional one, both of which are hats it wears quite well.

The only failing I see is that it can only benefit Twitter.  If, as we rant about ad nauseum,  this good press could have benefited the entire social networking/blogging community.  We're always saying that Web 2.0 (And I'm caught playing Buzzword Bingo) companies, and those that are involved in social networking especially, should and need to form an industry organization to keep themselves safe from potential regulation hell.

Let's face it - Like it or not, a negative story will wash over an entire medium like wildfire.  Did Janet Jackson's nipple focus the ire of over-reacting, zero-responsibility, whack-job, non-parents on CBS and the NFL?  I think that we all know what the answer is there. As I've said about on-topic examples and as was discussed in our interview with Dr. Patrick Moore, it's true that forming an industry organization means working with your competitors.  But it's working with your competitors so that you can be allowed to compete and to keep your own set of rules.

I won't go into much more detail, because I'd basically be reposting old info (more than I have already).

I'll close by giving big ups to Twitter, of which Andrew and I are big old fanboys.  This kind of story is what can help to elevate a technology from "fun" to "professional" to that next level where it can be used for very serious situations.  The same way that text messages and mobile phones in general have, the latter over the past decade and the former over the past 4-5 years.

Twitter, great job!  Social Networking/Web 2.0 execs - Celebrate the good but team up and protect yourselves from the bad.

As anyone who has a mobile phone will know, kidz cnt wrt well whn txtng all the time.

I think that now, the morning after, just about everyone knows that Microsoft debuted Live Mesh last night.  To very briefly sum it up, Mesh let's you sync information and files to multiple devices (Windows-only for now) via the web so that you can have access to your information from any device.

 

Rather than try and break it down myself, here is a link to Robert Scoble's rundown.

Also included are the links that he mentions in his post to even more Live Mesh-y goodness.

 

Here is Robert's write-up on Live Mesh.

Here is the link to Mary Jo Foley's "10 Things You Need to Know About Mesh."

Here is the link to Mesh on TechMeme.

Here is the link to the Mesh Team blog.

The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a star-studded hearing tomorrow on "The Future of the Internet." Witnesses include:

Opening Remarks

Witnesses

Opening Remarks

Panel 1

The Honorable Kevin J. Martin Chairman Federal Communications Commission

Panel 2

Ms. Michele Combs Vice President of Communications Christian Coalition of America

Dr. Robert Hahn Executive Director, Center for Regulatory and Market Studies American Enterprise Institute

Mr. Patric Verrone President Writers Guild of America, West

Ms. Justine Bateman Actress / Writer / Producer

Mr. Kyle McSlarrow President and CEO National Cable & Telecommunications Association

Professor Lawrence Lessig Stanford Law School

That's right, peeps! K-Mart is testifying! K-Mart! and Lessig! and McSlarrow! Oh, My!

I'm getting in line early, that's for sure. Those line standers ain't got nothin on me. Bring it.

If I can get into the room, we'll see some fun live bloggin'

Right now, across the river from me in Virginia, there is a conference on the future of Internet 2 taking place.

I'm not there. I'm not covering it, and I don't plan to. Why?

It's all academic. Seriously. There is no serious use of Internet2 technology going on that affects the general public, aka those who don't have tenured professorships or use scientific applications, in any meaningful way.

Internet2 has been languishing for years as a backwater of pocket-protector academia with all the problems and strings attached that kept the general Internet out of the public eye until the 1990s, but the difference is the stakeholders seem to like it that way. They enjoy their high-speed videoconferencing and authentication and feeling of superiority that they get from being on the "academic research" Internet2 "next generaiton" network when the real next generation is IPv6, and that the physical reach of Internet2 is only to a few college campuses. I can't get Internet2 to my home, and neither can you.

They're spending 4 days talking about something only they care about, thinking it will benefit the public when in reality it's just a huge financial sinkhole.

Even smart people get obsessed over stupid things that don't matter.

Here's a public policy question: why does DARPA still fund something that hasn't even gotten a single real use for real people or the defense of the nation? Who cares that people can have high-speed videoconferencing because there aren't P2P applications on Internet2?

That's because THERE ARE NO REAL PEOPLE ON IT. ONLY GREYBEARD ACADEMICS DREAMING OF A NEXT GENERATION THAT PASSED THEM BY.

Internet2 is DOA. Instead we've got DOCSIS 3.0, FIOS, 700mHz as a 3rd pipe and 3G, and sooner or later IPv6 will take off.

Give up and put that Internet2 government waste towards rural broadband, where people who need it could use it.

This is exactly the kind of thing that I like to point out any time someone says that Web 2.0 technologies aren't good for anything more than fun.  Tom Hadfield, who at 17 sold soccer.net to ESPN for a cool $40 Million, is designing a site that will do more "...than putting up soccer scores."

 

Tom has been instrumental in founding www.MalariaEngage.org, a site designed to spread awareness of malaria in Africa and raise money to fight and prevent its spread.  I'm not going to get into the details of MalariaEngage.  Reuters, where I found the article, does a way better job than I would anyway.

 

The article reminds me of three major things -

 

• Social Networking Sites are About More Than Just Fun

Facebook and MySpace are primarily, nowadays at least, regarded as "fun."  They're a new way to keep in touch, but not always respected as being as innovative in how we keep in touch as they really are.  There are also sites liked LinkedIn that allow you to form professional bonds.  Hadfield's new project is a very logical step in that progression.  We've seen a similar usage shift in other technologies.  Look at text messaging - In its earliest incarnation it was very much a "fun" feature that was usually used by kids.  Then it expanded to notify people of sports scores and stock quotes.  Now the FCC has announced its plan for a nationwide SMS (text message) alert system to let citizens know about things like terrorist threats.  It's the same evolution - from fun to professional to public service/safety.  Tom Hadfield is helping to do the same for social networking.  Big, big ups to Tom, and I hope that MalariaEngage.org is a huge success.

 

• Stress the Positive

Sometimes, the "positive" may seem to be "business as usual."  Like MySpace helping two people get back in touch after years and years.  To an employee at MySpace it might seem like it's no big deal, but to skeptics...it's something that could turn their head and make them think "Hey, MySpace actually helped these people do more than share photos of a frat party."  So, if social networking sites like MalariaEngage promote their successes and how they're helping it will help remind people that for every Megan Meirs that there are literally millions of people using social networks uneventfully and that there are even social networking sites that help people.  As for the latter, why does MariaEngage care about MySpace?  Well, if they would...

 

• Form an Industry Organization

As was stated by Dr. Patrick Moore in our interview with him last month, members of any industry organization are competitors.  The reason for the formation of the organization is so that these competitors can band together against common foes (like potentially restrictive legislation) so that they can focus on competing with each other to eventually drive down prices and improve the quality of their products. With a Social Networking/Media organization in place a lobbying firm could handle things in Washington ans watch out for the entire organization so that the individual members can focus on business rather than worrying about how to handle a bill that might shut them down.  Heck, I can even take us out of the realm of the serious and into comic book territory.  Sometimes the hero and the villain team up against something that would destroy the entire planet.  That way, thanks to their team-up, they survive so that they can go about competing against each other.

 

I'm sorry to sound like a broken record, especially on the last point, but it's true.  Do you think that the tobacco industry would wield the power that it does if R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris lobbied Congress individually?  I doubt it. 

 

Ranting aside, I'm really excited to see social networking make the leap leap that text messaging has just started to make.  Moving from nice to mainstream to public service is a surefire way to help ensure the longevity of a technology.

 

Here is the full article about MalariaEngage, at the Reuters.

...that sentence pretty much sums up the candidates' attitude towards technology policy.

On one hand, we have a candidate who has made great use of social media to allow his message to spread, and another who, through surrogates, uses email to send out untraceable smears and pictures of his or her opponent in funny hats. They clearly understand that the Internet is more than a series of tubes.

But, when I looked at the witness list and live-blogging from yesterday's FCC hearing on Net Neutrality, I noticed that this is a niche issue when it should be affecting all Americans. We spend more time at the computer and less on TV. Those computers bring us more and more media using new and different formats. Audio, video, blogs, text, email, social networking. These require bandwidth.

So does the exchange of information in general. Why, then has not a single candidate made broadband penetration and competitiveness a part of their campaign? I mean a major part. Seriously, folks. If Obama is the candidate of the "Internet Generation" why isn't he making it a point to push for us to be competitive with Scandanavia and South Korea in terms of the quality of our 'net connections and usage?

Where is DARPA? Are we so invested in building toys to control the Middle East and spy on each other that we're no longer interested in our great universities collaborating and communicating? If we're doing such a bad job with the DTV transition, what do you think will happen with IPV6?

Instead of concern over the quality of connection, we get shock-value news stories about MySpace or gee-whiz non-stories about how great Google is even though many of their engineers aren't even U.S. Citizens, and as many execs said at last month's Tech Policy Summit, the dearth of H1-B Visas is killing our economy and we really are losing out to other countries. There is a brain drain.

We're not training enough engineers, either. At my Alma Mater,it actually costs MORE to get a degree in engineering, but sociology is a great bargain. Why aren't there incentives for more engineers, or computer scientists? What about all these Iraq vets? Bush has stalled on Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA)'s new GI Bill because it would "hurt retention rates in the military." What about retention of intelligence (I mean the real kind, not the CIA kind) in this country?

Tech policy is national security policy.

Just a morning rant.