Saturday, March 06, 2004Dave Winer (in a long reply to Marc's question about why Tivo hasn't taken off): "I can't get my dad to use an RSS aggregator even though he's a news junkie. No one there is scared of technology, which is Scoble's theory. It's something else. They don't see why they need it."
This is the question for evangelists: how do you get people to see that they need something they don't yet know they need?
[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
That's an interesting question: "how to clue people into the inevitable?"
We faced a similar dilemma in the 80's. I was convinced that videogame technology (hi-res graphics, video, animation, music and sound effects) would become as mainstream as ASCII text. We called it creativity tools and it eventually became known as multimedia.
So how did we get people to pay attention to what we were doing - when everyone was focused on black screens with green or amber text?
Well one thing is - whenever we threw a party I made SURE that folks got in front of a screen and SAW it! Same thing with our trade show booths. We were the folks rocking out - playing slamming music, gettign everyone to come by and check out - the future.
So I'd suggest that TiVO setup kiosks and stations in shopping malls, street corners, train stations and so whatever it can - to show the TiVO experience. And throw a few parties - every once in a while!
With disruptive technology - like TiVO and PVRs - it's also helpful to have LOTS of early adopters all singing the same song. We were lucky with multimedia - as SO MANY people had something to gain by it's acceptance.
But TiVO seems to be slugging it out alone. They need to figure out to get all of US working for them. Hmmm - let's see - I think that's called open source and open standards.
Partnerships, acquisitions, and new service launches continue to heat up in the social networking space — Are all of these moves in the “best” interest of the communities these YASNs serve? I hear echoes of dana boyd speaking of “context” and “best” as being “in the eye of the beholder.”
SAN FRANCISCO, March 1 /PRNewswire/ — Tribe Networks, a company
pioneering a new approach to the online classifieds business through its popular Web site http://www.tribe.net, today announced a partnership with CareerBuilder.com, a leading online career site with over 16 million monthly unique visitors and more than 400,000 continuously updated jobs. Through this relationship, Tribe.net’s users will be able to access CareerBuilder.com’s job postings from over 25,000 top employers and leverage their own social and
affinity networks to maximize job search efforts.
According to CareerBuilder.com’s “Plans for 2004” survey completed in
December 2003, 40 percent of workers said they plan to change jobs this year. Workers also revealed that the top three methods they use for finding new positions are newspaper classifieds, online career sites and networking — making the relationship between Tribe.net and CareerBuilder.com a natural fit.
...“Our mission is to give people a better way to leverage their own networks to connect with life-changing opportunities big and small,” said Mark Pincus, CEO of Tribe Networks. “By partnering with CareerBuilder.com and joining its network of partners, we can offer a critical mass of local job listings that matter to our audience.”
That's 3 today for Tribe.
Amazon's RSS feeds show up the format's current weaknesses. When you are organizing things you usually have a miscellaneous category for stuff you are not sure where to put.... [David Galbraith]
More argument for new kinds of micro-content.
When I first heard of Atom - I hoped that it would provide a facility for extending the world with new forms of micro-content. But (unfortunately) Atom hasn't provided a mechanism or process for creating new namespaces to support new kinds of micro-content.
David Galbraith argues for price fields in RSS for Amazon items in the post (above.)
But the problem doesn't stop with Amazon items? Why lose critical time and location meta-data in an Event post? Or ingredients meta-data in a recipe? This is madness!
Tucows documents Blogrolling.com's OPML support. [Scripting News] [Ted Ritzer: BizBlog]
Once the tech docs start to appear - a merger becomes real. Congrats again to Jason and Ross.
How long do we have to put up with this?
I don't necessarily believe in guns, but shouldn't we have a Constitutional Amendment allowing for the smoking of weeds? It's God's gift to us.
Jabber, Inc., the leading commercial provider of XMPP-based presence and messaging solutions, is adding a wireless instant messaging (IM) client suite to its product portfolio, making the company's product suite the pre-eminent offering to bridge mobile and desktop instant messaging users. This month the company is releasing clients for RIM, PocketPC, Smartphone, Symbian and J2ME compatible devices. Jabber, Inc. currently has gateways available for connectivity to WAP and SMS devices.According to Jabber, Inc., each of the available clients connects wirelessly to the Jabber XCP server, making them technically interoperable with other IM and presence networks. Additionally, the company reports that due to the flexibility and extensibility of the Jabber XCP platform, mobile users will ultimately have access to a wide range of real-time enterprise messaging applications across an extensive spectrum of devices and networks. Each wireless client initially offers text-based IM and presence management features, while the RIM client also offers group chat functionality, otherwise known as text conferencing. ...
The RIM, PocketPC, Smartphone, Symbian and J2ME clients are currently available for evaluation, with general release scheduled for April 1, 2004.
The push for mobile instant messaging has been going on for a while now, but seems to be reaching critical mass now in terms of deals. This is just one announcement among many. The OMA is trying to push standardization, OpenWave announced the other day it was integrating MSN Messenger into its suite of products, and Canada's OZ just landed a big deal with T-Mobile USA. There's lots of players in the space already, as I wrote a year ago in a post titled Forget Mobile Instant Messaging as a Business Plan.
But reading that post, I can't believe that a year has gone by already! There just hasn't been as much progress as I would've expected. One would think a year is a long time, but Europeans are still sending billions of SMS messages and the Americans are still only slowly starting to get a clue. (I still regularly get short 30 second calls from people here. JUST SEND ME A MESSAGE DAMMIT.).
I guess it just has to do with the network and the phones. I've had a GPRS Symbian phone for over a year now, but most people are stuck on basic black and white handsets. Maybe this will be the year where Mobile Instant Messaging starts to compete against SMS?
I'm sure Jabber is hoping so... It'll probably be another year though. Oof.
-Russ By russ@russellbeattie.com. [Russell Beattie]
Not only do I think XMPP and moble will take off for messaging - but I have a sneaky feeling that within the NEXT year - we're gonna see all sorts of other new uses of Jabber.
Here's a hint: "what humans do you know - who have static emotions? Static set of friends? Just one set of opinions - which never change?"
Wouldn't a system for dyanmically expressing friends, feelings and ideas - be more appropriate for social networking? And wouldn't Jabber be perfect for that system?
ReplayTV 5504. ReplayTV is a first-rate, networkable DVR with easy recording, multiple ways to jump within programs, and progressive scan output. [PC Magazine: New Product Reviews]
Yah - just without the "Skip Commercial" button and the "Share Shows" feature.
I wonder if we'll ever find another company to help the "Fair Use" battles for us?
Microsoft’s Inner Circle & Swarming…
Posted Mar 5, 2004, 3:13 PM ET by Judith Meskill
CNET News writers Ina Fried and Michael Kannellos report on Microsoft’s TechFest in — Microsoft wants to know who your friends are. They talk about Lili Cheng’s ‘Inner Circle’ concept which maintains, updates, lists, and monitors your top 20 email contacts. Your inner circle — not the people who write to you and often go unanswered, but the people that you reach out to and communicate with most consistently. Lili Cheng says that Inner Circle’s set of rules would be based on our behavior.
This article also makes brief mention of Microsoft’s ‘Swarm’ project — “the effort is basically akin to a mailing list for short cell phone messages. A group of friends can subscribe to a list. When someone wants to let the group in on some info, he or she sends a text message to a number that redirects the message to the phone of everyone on the list.”
Where is your ‘inner circle’ most effectively reflected? In your email and instant messaging contacts? On your weblog ‘blogroll’ or in your news reader feeds? On your cell phone’s itemized calls list? In your ‘skype’ roll? In the maillists or IRC channels you frequent? In the multitudes of YASNS you have joined? In your photo albums — online or offline? A combination of the above? None of the above? All of the above?
Who are the current creators of the ‘super’ application that will help track our ‘inner circles’ across all forms of communications — modes and devices? And then how will we control or ‘own’ these invaluable aggregated snapshots of our most intimate groups? [The Social Software Weblog]
All I wanna know is: "where's Jacob Miller?"
I convinced the folks at Tribe.net to start a company blog.
You'll notice I'm posting to this blog. Others will as well - such as Mark Pincus - company CEO, Paul Martino - co-founder and company CTO and others - like Walter Thompson - the big cheese of community affairds at Tribe.
I think this is important - not just 'cause Tribe is supporting RSS and Jabber (and soon FOAF.)
It's important 'cause this is a real example of REAL corporate blogging - with a company conciously using the blogosphere to get their message out there.
YASNS: ICQ Universe
Is danah a doctor - yet?
YASNS: ICQ Universe (Clay Shirky). 
March 05, 2004
YASNS: ICQ Universe
AOL’s ICQ division is launching ICQ Universe, a social networking service built on top of a buddy list.
The FAQ is filled with all sorts of interesting notes, including:
A.The ICQ Universe Lobby is for users waiting to be invited to the ICQ Universe. As long as you’re listed in the lobby, you cannot interact with people in the ICQ Universe. However, you can encourage people to invite you by filling the Why I should be invited box or request to join a recruiter’s part of the universe. People who are recruiting are listed in the lobby.
This takes the AOL Lobby/LambdaMOO closet pattern and adds it to the YASNS world — an entry space where you’re in the system, but not yet part of the social world.
The dynamics of the “Why I Should Be Invited” box could be amazing, since it will be people lobbying for inclusion by people who aren’t, by definition, their friends. It preserves the “Friend me so I can get onto Orkut/Friendster” pattern, but raises the bar for inclusion in possibly competitive ways.
A. You cannot delete a friend completely, since this would break the chain of connections between people in the universe. However, you can change the relation to No longer a friend.
Q. What does No longer a friend mean?
A. When you change your relation to No longer a friend, this person no longer has the options of a friend. He/she can no longer post testimonials, characterize you or have a relation to you. His/her info card will still appear in your universe, but it will show the relation of No longer a friend. Your info card will also appear in his/her universe, and the relation will be No longer a friend as well. Only you can change your relation back into something more friendly.
This seems to mean that once a connection is made, it can never be broken, only re-characterized. I can’t imagine why they would do this, unless they think it’s necessary for social density, or they want to make calculating friend-of-a-friend networks easier by making connections permanent.
The reference to you not being able to change the “chain of connections” suggests that ICQ regards your social connections as being owned by people connecting through you (and owned by ICQ as well), something almost unimaginable in the real world. “Can you introduce me to your ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend?” “Uh, no.”
I predict disaster here, but interesting disaster.
A. The relation you have to a friend is not necessarily the same relation that this friend has chosen to you in his/her universe.
If you don’t approve of a relation that a friend has stated to you, you have two options: one is to ask the person who wrote the relation to change it. The second is to change your relation to him/her to No longer a friend.
Somebody finally copies the LiveJournal pattern, instead of the stupid Friendster pattern, where a relationship is a set of mutual pointers, instead of a single transaction.
Loveliest of all, though (paging dr. boyd to ER), is this little goodie at the end:
A. You cannot completely remove your card from the ICQ Universe, since this would break the connections between your friends as well as prevent them from navigating via your card in the ICQ Universe. However, you can make yourself unavailable and then your card will turn black. Any information about you will no longer be displayed on your card, as well as it will no longer be possible to send you messages or invitations from within the universe.
To make yourself unavailable, click on the text link under the Logout button.
To leave the ICQ Universe, click the text link at the bottom of the Lobby page indicating if you wish to remove yourself from the ICQ Universe Lobby.
If you wish to rejoin the ICQ Universe, go to the Welcome page and click Join Now. The system will recognize you when you log in and you will once again appear as available in the ICQ Universe.
It’s like an e-mail pyramid scheme: Don’t break the chain!
The mind boggles at an SNS that make registering with the service an irreversible act.
GRUUVE social software meets blogging. yes, it's YASN. here's gruuve.com
looks clean, bone simple, and it works. very thin on features, at this point. didn't examine the tos in detail but a quick read seemed a bit "better" than others. [lineofsight - photography, information technology, surfing, art, blogs, etc]
Gotta put this here - just to remind ourselves - we're not done yet. Not everyone is as famous as Google or hip as Clay Shirky, Joi ITo or danah boyd - but there ARE lots of things to learn - still.
Hanging out on Flickr reminded me of that.
:-) Now danah are I are in sync!
The fact that:
 |
Jiri Slovacek male, 23, single Czech Republic |
and
 |
Ricardo Capitanio Martins da Silva male, 23, committed Brazil |
.....are the leading conenctors - totally fascinates me! How come? Why? Their brilliant understanding and manipulation of the system is signs of things to come!
I'm reminded of some Tom Clancey novel - where the stock market is played and the servers shut down simultaneously - which leads to world war outbreak of course!
What if all our explicit social networks went down? Would we all resort to telephone again? Or even worse - Shopping Malls?
I kind of think of every blog or message post I make - as a sort of homage to the telephone pole torn-up signage posting - or bulletin board thumbpost - in a laundry room.
Except this time - all the pre-precut telephone numbers tilted 90 degrees - for ease of tearing off - are my memes.
:-)
Here's danah's post.........
I logged into Orkut today and was pleasantly surprised to find that the first two connectors were neither Joi nor Marc. Instead, they are two men from outside the States (Brazil, Czech Republic) with a relatively small cohort of friends (73, 19). This is intriguing.
Now, i know that there are games being played, so i checked out their friends. Almost all are from their countries of origin and most have relatively few friends. Now, this would make sense in a normal model, but i'm curious who these central bridges are - how are they playing such a significant role on the network?
I also received an email from Marc Canter encouraging people to make more friends so that he can be more of a connector. This was a kind reminder of how fake the data really is.
Since it's fake anyways, i encourage all of you geeks with times on your hands to play. The trick to being the biggest connector is not a game of collecting people. It's a graph theory game. You need to bridge the most disparate groups as well as connect to the hubs strategically. Remember: it's an algorithm of average path length. Thus, you don't want exceptionally long path lengths factored into the average. But, if you bridge the hubs and the disparate groups, you've reduced the average for everyone.
Anyhow, i've got to get back to work and should not focus on this instead of writing, but it's a really fun math problem that i'd love for someone to solve. What is the algorith to minimize your average path length? Given the data, what strategic connections need to be made for a newcomer?
[apophenia]Orkutworld (1.34MB mp3). Hilarious.
(via danah via Cory via FilePile via Kevin via Mighty Mighty Spatchtones)
Anytime Joi osts an MP3 - I listen. This time it sounds like an echo from Clay.
This bulletin went out yesterday.
Hello, Tribe Moderator!
In a few days, Tribe.net will add a new feature that allows your Tribe's members to automatically download discussion threads to a computer, or publish them on a Web site. These RSS feeds will be available for all Public and Moderated Tribes -- RSS is a data format that allows people to easily share and syndicate online content.
Offering members an RSS feed for your Tribe has several benefits:
- Members receive the latest messages from a discussion *as soon as they're posted.*
- Anyone can post the URL for your Tribe's RSS feed in an email signature or on other networking sites, which will bring in many more participants.
- Members can offer RSS feeds in their blogs, so your Tribe will be read far and wide.
If you make an RSS feed available, your Tribe's content may appear:
- On Web sites that carry RSS feeds
- In other people's blogs
- In newsreaders (software that downloads RSS feeds to a personal
computer)
Once we roll out this feature, all Public and Moderated Tribes will default to having their RSS feeds enabled. Private Tribes may *not* be distributed via RSS.
If you don't want to syndicate your Tribe's discussion board, click the "Manage Tribe" button that appears on the right side of your Tribe's main page. On the next page that appears, uncheck the box next to "Syndicate this Tribe's discussion board," then click "Submit" to save your changes.
Any questions about this new feature? Read the RSS help text that appears in your Tribe, or send a line to help@tribe.net, and we'll get back to you.
Best,
-- The Tribe.net Team
Congrats to Paul and Bryan and the team at Tribe.net. Leadership is what it's all about!
TiVo to top 10 million subscribers in 3-4 years
TiVo has posted some enthusiastic projections regarding their membership. Now that they've past the 1 million mark, they're projecting 3 million by the end of 2004 and ten million in just a few years after that.
I'd be surprised if they hit these marks, the sector is quickly becoming overcrowded with cheaper options. [PVRblog]
OK - here we go folks. Time to start counting installed base - again.
One of the things that has befuddled me - is why TiVO hasn't taken off more? I mean - it totally changed my life. Why haven't mroe people picked on it - faster?
I think it's backlash - in general to all teh hype and shitty products foisted upon us - by the so-called "Interactive TV" world.
Old enough to remember TeleTV? How 'bout John Malone? Or the Orlando tests? Now here's a hard one.....
Old enough to remember NAPLIPS? How 'bout Columbus, Ohio and Qube?
Sure - Janet Jackson's nipple helped, but seriously folks - why hasn't TiVO taken off - faster? There's something to learn here.
ben.vierck.us
12 inbound blogs, 12 inbound links (Last updated 18 hours 12 minutes ago)
. ben.vierck.us
12 inbound blogs, 12 inbound links (Last updated 18 hours 12 minutes ago)
... very often and until I read that I had totally forgotten about Orkut. What happened? For my part, the entertainment value was lost after twenty or so times of drilling down through friend networks to discover that Joi Ito and Marc Canter are the root of all friends. ...
(Link created 18 hours ago)(Cosmos)
[Technorati Link Cosmos for Marc's Voice]
I'm in jail again - just for the record. For the 10th time (as far as I can recollect.)
Danah Boyd: What I want in an RSS tool.
I'll be honest. 1300 blogs is breaking me. But, I'm pushing through it. I wanna see what I learn from trying to swim in such a sea of information.
I'm having a ball and learning a ton (and building some awesome relationships with people like Danah).
[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
I agree with many of danah's posts. Most disheartening is that she'll probably NOT see this post!
My life changed when I starting using aggregator's exclusively. Sure I missed sites - like Ain't-it-Cool-News and GoodMorningSiliconValley (as they didn't have RSS) - but I did enable myself to follow LOTS of what folks were thinking about - and this is a big big world!
So as we move forward - the types of features that danah requests (you'll have to go read it to see!) will become important value added differentiation. If for no other reason - so some VC can have someplace to invest his/her money!
Oh yah - now imagine all that control over images, MP3s, videos - the whole kit and gaboodle!
- - -