The following is a natural for Structured Blogging
Seems like Toshiba is launching a software product that allows users to take a photo of a barcode and get data back with reviews on the product from, yes, you guessed it – BLOGS
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/01/08/toshiba-to-get-blog-reviews-to-mobile-shoppers/
courtesy of digg.com
So I went to the Battle Over Books event at the New York Public Library. What a great time. Lawrence Lessig was in rare form and the debate over the Google Print project was outstanding. Allan Adler, who held his own during the discussion, even recieved some applause from 5 or 10 people in the room (packed house like the Who Owns Culture event). Special guests included Steven Johnson, who moderated the Who Owns Culture event and Emily, who recently returned from another amazing trip to the Far East.
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003200.shtml
But there were two big highlights of the night:
1. I saw Krista P who I used to work with at K2. I haven’t seen her since 2000 when I ran into her at a restaurant while I was working at Deutsch. We caught up a little bit. Krista – my email address is sean at seanbohan.com
2. I got to hang out with Emily, Toby, Ace, David and Salim. I have been developing a reputation as a flake lately thanks to the ridiculous amount of work I am doing. Leaving events early, not showing up for BBQ’s, etc. I haven’t had a chance to hang out with Emily and Toby since the summer, so it was fun to see a good debate and then grab a drink and just talk. Advertising, structured content, identity, credit, context, disaster preparedness, tennis… we were all over the map.
And it was cool to meet Salim, a fellow gnomedexer and the CEO of PubSub (search the future!). He is working on some really cool stuff (very web2.0-y) with a big announcement in the future.
Ace, as usual, is full of advice: “You gotta get out more”.
I hate it when he is right.
1. The Forbes anti-blogging piece was crap
2. Dave Winer is LiveBlogging the Microsoft announcement today, along with bunch of other guys.
LiveBlogging is tough. Its tough on the guy trying to capture everything being said. Tough to add your opinions to what is being said. And tough to keep track of the crowd.
I learned this the hardway at Gnomedex ’05. I asked no questions, kept my head down and tried to keep track of the stage and the room. I didn’t intend to liveblog, I was just trying to take notes for myself. JD had pointed out on his blog what I was doing and it clicked… I am writing for me but sharing with everyone. As a result I spent hours digging through what the other Gnomedexers were writing about (and podcasting and vidcasting). I wanted to see the other SIDES of the story.
Its tough on the guy live blogging.
Its even tougher on the event organizers/company you are liveblogging. Because you give up control. Because you are letting the cat out of the bag. You cant spin the message or the events the way you used to. You are being held to a higher standard, in both content and presentation.
25 minutes into it, all we’ve heard so far is marketing hype. They haven’t shown or said anything new yet. They need to read my How To Demo document. The people in this room are tough customers.
-Dave Winer
Cause we all have a little Dave in us. And now we let him out
Isabel Walcott blogs about big telcos trying to crush the VOIP (and other markets) while they are still infants. She is rightfully frustrated. Not because she is a huge fan of VOIP, but because she sees it as both a ‘DUH’ move on their part and another restriction on the users.
In my opinion, its about control. Any market leader/monopoly/entrenched player wants control. They want to control the eyeballs, lives, assets under management, click thrus, attention – whatever they think they ‘own’ they want to control.. They want to control the conversation. They want to control what you say about them. They want to control what you do on their networks. They want to control their revenue model (at all costs).
GTE was a client of mine in the 90s. Before they merged with Bell Atlantic. They LOVED being a phone company. The data guys LOVED doing data stuff. I would routinely hear guys say something to the effect “I’ve been doing this for years and the business has never been this hot”. The problem was, after 100 years of creating the technology and owning the wires and everything you could do over them, THE GAME WAS CHANGING AND THEY REALIZED THEY HAD NO CONTROL (caps intended).
Their business model, the revenue model and their margins are being squeezed, and disruptive tech/behavior like the web, VOIP, blogging, and napster all violate their control. BigOldCo’s play catch-up, add new DRM or controls, get their lobbyists to pay off the legislature to maintain their monopoly and move on to finding new ways of getting back to the good old days.
And some pissed off user finds a way around it.
Cluetrain doesnt jive with BAU (bizness as usual). They get it (dont think for a second they dont get it) – the difference is THEY DONT LIKE IT. And they are as active in looking for a way around our _disruptions_ as we are in circumventing their controls.
I have more faith in the people on the network (us) than the people running the network (them).
So to sum up – yeah, I think Isabel is right – it is ridiculous.
So you can make your own for a pitch to VC’s!
http://www.forret.com/tools/mememap.asp
PSFK has a great post (how did I miss this one???) about Cory Doctrow releasing his book Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town as an RSS feed. Basically the feed releases a chapter of the book on a regular basis, starting with the first chapter when you subscribe to the feed. Subscribing to a comic book, a novel, a podcast radio serial…
Of course, I already subscribed, just to see if it works out (reading a book thru the feed) . I am not sure if the book would be better released as an OPML file (structured data – see Marc Canter’s post). But it is still another pretty cool application of RSS.
Doctrow is a big proponent of Creative Commons (he has released all of his books under a creative commons license) and is a European rep for EFF. He is also one of the authors of BoingBoing.
Link from BoingBoing
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/10/20/corys_latest_novel_a.html
Surfarama’s post (which PSFK pointed to)
http://www.surfarama.com/?p=242
Great post from Mark Cuban concerning the video iPod launch this week. Cuban is involved in the creation (HDFilms, HDNet) and distribution of content (Landmark Cinemas, DVDs, and a number of syndicated TV properties).
Its not inconceivable that just as DVDs have surpassed box office in revenues and the theatrical release has become a commercial for the DVD sale, the network TV broadcast could become the commercial for the download sale. I dont see download sales surpassing advertising revenue, but I do see it as likely that the download sales could more than compensate for any advertising market weakness brought on by ratings erosion and / or changes in how ads are delivered on TV. I also think it wont be long before we see an ad or two in front of the show that will further increase revenue.
This move (the Video iPod release coupled with ABC making its content downloadable) is a big step. This creates a video podcasting opportunity for microbroadcasters going forward. Similar to the way Podcasting became a phenomenon:
the device (iPod or any other)
+ plus interested users
+ broadband
+ a distribution platform (the internet)
+ cheap tools to ‘roll your own’
=
the potential of ‘everyone a broadcaster’.
The barriers to entry are falling. Talent and a voice is more important these days than having an AVID. Look at what Amanda Congdon and RocketBoom are doing – they are producing their own show, ON A DAILY BASIS. Microbroadcasting. Systm, NerdTV, Rocketboom – all examples of we-media, citizen media, personal publishing. Not a big production. Small, fast, personal, interesting, fun.
And congrats to RocketBoom for the debut at a Steve Jobs presentation:
Phillip Greenspun has a great post asking:
For photographers who want to show off and video fans who just love their TV, the Creative seems like a better value due to its vastly bigger screen and higher resolution. What do folks think? Will adding video to the iPod be any more significant than adding video capture capability has been to little point-and-shoot digicams or cell phones?
So Ace, what do you think? Archos, Creative or iPod. Hipster cred says the iPod, but the Linux guy in me loves the archos.
lets keep this civil and in the comments, OK?
I rarely use the 4 years of high school french that I didn’t learn to describe something, but VG Map fits the bill (see title above).
VGMap is a new library created by Eyebeam R&D that allows designers, developers, and mapping geeks to overlay data on top of Google Maps in a richer way than is possible using their standard system. It is called VGMap because it adds vector-drawing capability to the already-awesome GMap API.
This is another example of we media. Users taking google’s maps, APIs and home-grown ingenuity to do something cool. The Eyebeam guys have combined GMaps with Flash (ooohhh vector goodness) and released a spec and set of ActionScript libraries for doing it yourself. Sharing is one of the tenets of Web2.0.
A description of Eyebeam:
Eyebeam engages cultural dialogue at the intersection of the arts and sciences. Its goal is to forge an understanding of the relatedness of these practices, which are becoming increasingly significant engines of cultural production. Eyebeam amplifies the flux and hybridity of the art/science intersection by openly fostering the parallel strands of EDUCATION, RESEARCH, PRODUCTION, EXHIBITION with its public and peers. It implements this mission by:
> Providing educational programming and access to cultural resources to the community.
> Facilitating research and development of innovation in cultural production and technology.
> Enabling artistic creation by providing access to technological and cultural resources.
> Expanding and informing the critical perception of art, culture and media through exhibitions and public programs.