Interactivity

Makes the world go round – been working in the interactive media space since 1995. Planning, building, delivering, changing…

Wild – Second Life to open up to Open Source

Date: January 8, 2007 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

Found thanks to the incredible Techmeme and Fortune.com, an article about Second Life opening up its desktop application (not the server) to the Open Source community. As a sometime resident (I dont visit nearly enough – my first life is keeping me away) this is a killer event for the developer community and the user.

Rosedale and other executives say they fully expect there eventually to be multiple virtual worlds that use Linden’s code, or that at least are interoperable with Second Life, so avatars can pass from one world to another. Says Rosedale: “Say IBM builds its own intranet version with our code that’s somewhat different from Second Life. But it’s probably not that different. A user may say ‘Wow, this virtual thing IBM’s built is pretty cool. Now I want to go the mainland.’ And we have another customer.”

Sounds like the kinda thing Marc Canter would dig.

Open source, open standards, open ID, and now… OPEN WORLDS. Taking SL out of one set of servers, distributing it, making a community of second lives – furries in one (or 100), builders in another (or 1000), designers in another,  regular folks running through all – different social mores, codes of conduct, experiences, platforms…

Article here.

Sad day… Calacanis leaves AOL?

Date: November 17, 2006 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

First the Gang ends, now it seems like Weblogs Inc founder and Netscape Czar J Calacanis is leaving AOL. When he sold his company to AOL (one of my former clients) I was psyched – someone who really got it was joining the largest online community out there.

Now it seems that with the exit (ouster) of Jon Miller, Jason is moving on. I’ve been saying this a lot lately (Dave Winer, Salim, Steve Gillmor, Chris Pirillo), but the interesting thin about this story is what he will work on next.
Story here:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/11/16/jason-calacanis-resigns-from-aol/ 

I love C-Ville!

Date: September 23, 2006 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

Found this while surfing at work today (yes, thanks to J O B, I will be working all weekends from now through early November) thanks to Adrants:

Welcome to C-Ville – Where Choices Define You

C-Ville Population

C-Ville is an all-Flash site that teaches kids/teens about the risks of smoking, why making good choices are important, and why choosing not to smoke is important short and long term.

While I agree with the message, the execution is what really stands out. From the music to the grapihcs, the video shorts used in the production, the overall look and feel just clicks. It is fun and immersive and gives users a reason to explore and click and check things out with a really open and not-intuitive-in-a-good-way navigation. The look and feel brings you in, feels immersive and has a ton of objects on each screen to play with.

From the AdRants post:

Final Cut’s Carlos Arias explains the approach saying, “Kids are so sophisticated these days so we don’t need to make the message obvious. This is a new way of communicating with youth — by not spoon-feeding them.”

Kudos to these guys for coming up with a smart design, solid execution, good message and real appreciation and respect for the user. While the site loads slow on the network here in the bunker, the video encodes are really tight and the payoff is there – it frickin works.

Civility and Responsibility in the conversation

Date: July 4, 2006 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

I will be posting a consolidated wrap-up of Gnomedex 2006 later (as soon as I can get links to the mp3 and video files for the conference) but for now…

2 things have happened post-gnomedex that need to be pointed out above all the news (how big Second Life is getting) and non-news (the discussion over Sen Edwards going to Gnomedex).

1. Dave and Blake and Us and Firefox and Gnomedex

During Blake‘s discussion on the bottom-up marketing of Firefox on Saturday, Dave asked a great question about what Mozilla would do to represent/support/show the love to users. Blake was taken aback, Dave pressed the issue, the crowd got snippy and disagreed with Dave with a couple of rounds of applause (which I think was against the rules). The discussion topic was how they spread Firefox through the community. Blake should have laid down the law (like Niall did at Bloggercon the weekend before) as the discussion leader and continued talking about Firefox marketing. Instead there was some energy-sapping back and forth between Dave and Blake and the crowd and it ended on a down note (we didnt get to spend all of the limited discussion time on FF marketing).

Dave talks today about how he and Blake kept the conversation going.

Anyway, the tale has a happy ending, imho. We’re going to work on this stuff, to help make Firefox stronger, and in the process make the users stronger, to set an example for how software can be responsive to the needs of the users.

There was miscommunication all around (Dave, Blake, Us) – but it is being addressed. This is an indirect example of Mike Arrington’s discussion at Bloggercon about civility in the blogosphere. They are working it out. I think it would have been great if Blake kept us on track with his discussion and then there was an immediate breakout discussion to discuss Dave’s question (a suggestion I am making in my freedback to CP on this years Gnomedex). Kudos to Dave and Blake keeping the conversation going (instead of festering or letting a flamewar start).

2. Scoble Banned From Second Life.

So Robert Scoble, ex-Microsoft geek blogger and new member of the Podtech team, was recording a podcast during the lunch break on Day 1 of Gnomedex in the Bay room. (I was having lunch with some guys from McGraw Hill, Yahoo, MS, and USTA at the time). During Scoble’s podcast, his son was building some objects in Second Life. Scoble is a huge fan of Second Life and has blogged and podcasted about it frequently (see TWIT or Scoble‘s blog).

Now in the past the guys from Linden Labs have let Scoble know that kids under 18 are not allowed in the main part of SL. He has let his son use his account (under his supervision) in the past. There is a Second Life for 13-17 year olds, but it is moderated for content (the main part of SL has areas with content and action that could best be described as adults-only). Linden has the rules in place because of the threats of lawsuits.
So while his son was using Scobles account during the podcast, Beth from SL basically let them know they were in trouble and Scoble’s account was going to be cancelled (he had been warned before).

What did Scoble do? Did he complain? Did he start a “boycott SL”? Did he give Beth crap for calling him on it?

Nope – he recorded a discussion with her immediately after his podcast finished. Then he blogged the following:

Anyway, it’s a good lesson for Patrick to learn. There are consequences for breaking the rules. “It’s your fault,” Patrick just said, in defense. I did tell him to do it on stage. But, even that’s a good lesson for him to learn. If his friends tell him to break a real law, that won’t be an excuse in front of the judge.

Maryam tells him “that’s a lesson for you, Daddy’s not always right.”

No, I’m not. So, now what? We have to apologize to Linden Labs and appeal their decision and promise not to break the rules anymore.

He didn’t blame Linden Labs. He didn’t cry or complain. He got caught, discussed it with the crowd (and Beth), and admitted he screwed up (publicly). Scoble has invested tons of personal capital in Second Life (through his use of the service and unpaid evangelism) as well as paying over $100 bucks for objects within the second life environment. He stood up and admitted he made a mistake – setting a great example in the process.

Take-aways?

  • Sometimes the blogosphere is less of a conversation and more like a really big and loud family dinner (where not everyone in the family gets along, or listens and someone screwed up and sat aunt Sally next to uncle Jimmy)
  • Cool people are working out issues and working on new things
  • SL has rules and enforces them
  • Personal responsibility isn’t dead (especially at the Scoble house).

Gnomedex – Second Life Breakout

Date: July 1, 2006 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

Awesome – beth from SL has been participating at gnomedex this weekend and today gave a group of us a short tour in second life.
Discussed:

Avatars

Construction

Land

Cool spaces (art gallery, fan-built MYST game, record label online with lounge for listening to artists)

Quick primer on buildinf objects in 2L

AWESOME – easily the best pres so far today

Gnomedex – Chris Messina and Tara Hunt

Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

Chris Messina and Tara Hunt (founders of Citzen Agency) kicked off their discussion with a silent keynote presentation for the Gnomedex crowd. The slides were great (and can be found here) and really seemed to set the tone for the discussion.
What is a non-zero sum game?

building out infrastructure for what we want to see for ourselves

making money and ads – hodlover form the old way of thinking

how to do it without a liquidity event

want to talk about boring things – prob where people think you need to have a success – not the case

53k – the size of our echo chamber – how do we find work that is rewarding AND makes a difference

Gnomedex – Marc Canter

Date: June 30, 2006 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

Open Standards how do we evolve – what is a standard – how do we acknowledge super geek – innercore nerds influence early adopters have something to do with the software – build influence RSS day ackn the fact that RSS was open standard that is why we are here so with rss what we do withother things not about big or small – about open and close 80s – apple vs MS – who are you aligned with GYMA (Google, Yahoo, MS, AOL and Fox)

the power is with us

gnomedex is inncore nerds

OPEN ID

cant argue against open or closed

what should be sanitized – the line drawn for services that are maintained for their own

where do we share features and call our own

every vendor needs way to differentiate

for the end users – at what point is it appropriate to be standards based, and yet at what point can we be unique to differentiate

getting in and out – portability for my data

FOAF – friend of a friend – file format or data struct

format – sharing standards but then stealing it

calendars – how to get the standards to be simple to integrate – standards comm keep adding features

real value in the data or the services?

ecopsystems and portals/ways to make money – business model for what they want to do

no proprietary file format – using standards – if people care join cal connect .org

attention and monetizing, and management – wittness in 6 months the evolution of the attention standard – makingthings available in attention.xml right?

attention economy – next big thing

for marc all about open standards

canter wants pickets when people close things up

being closed is the opposite of open

social capital person invewsts in friendships are thiers – by myspace not supporting export delet that –

what about publishers?

canter – provide compelling experiences to users

exp around it – digital lifestyle aggg – portal – if 5 pubs send out the same stuff

how do you make the economic case – do something with the open standards?

show how elegantly to move

all about the end user experience

if your clients are in the chess game – see 5, 7, 12, 25 moves ahead

inc leverage game off y and a saying they want to be open, MS swaying, google throuwing shit in the wind

giant dinos – innovative small companies are pushing process forward

open standards the bridges and causeways that interconnect these islands

80s – sw corp would have mult prod, mult features – during the bubble – all told it was ok to go pub with 1 or 2 fetures

hack up a few features – lots of small products, not products, small sets of features – standards to interconnect the pieces off the puzzle – making archipelagos –

room for small guys and we are waiting for the big guys to crush us

Bloggercon IV Wrap-up (Both Days)

Date: June 27, 2006 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

All in all this was a great unconference. The crowd was fun and engaged, the wifi was fast and the conversations were great. The overall take-away was that with Bloggercon, like blogging or participating in any event, you get out of it what you put into it. Unlike conferences where you veg out and then do all your talking in the backchannel or the lobby we were engaged _the whole time_.

The Discussion Leaders did a great job starting things off and keeping them going. Dave Winer organized the conference (with help from Sylvia Paul, CNet and a ton of others), Doc Searls saved us all from carpal tunnel as the technographer (recording the discussions in OPML), the CNET/Jake Luddington team kicked butt on the stream/ MP3 version of the event and Kevin Marks provided video for the different sessions he attended.

I am putting together a compilation of links (mp3, video, transcript) below. It would be cool if you could have a timestamp associated with the opml technography file (I do not think this is built into OPML – not required but more like a nice to have). This would enable you to synch up the audio/IRC/technograph of the event (if you even wanted to).

Unconferences are more free form and open. Fewer rules, but also more participation (and direction from the assembled – see when Dave asked us to vote on whether or not).

Day 1 Notes:

National Anthem (Dave’s kickoff)

We started with the groundrules of Bloggercon and what was expected (Its a conference FOR users BY users – no product pitches, no shilling, everyone is a participant, no audience, discussions shouldnt be too technical, everything is _on the record_)
A tradition at Bloggercon is a song at the beginning. This year we opened the conference with the Hokey Pokey.
MP3

Notes

Tools with Phil Torrone
I actually missed most of this session due to a client conference call – here are the highlights from the notes (thanks again Doc!):

Phil is a Senior Editor at MAKE Magazine and writes How-To’s (I also think he used to work with the guys at Engadget). He did a great job last year at Gnomedex (during the conference and at the Friday night party) giving presentations and demos between the panels. During his session he and the crowd discuss screencasts and their value to users. The discussion went from hardware to training to software. Buzz Bruggeman discussed how he spoke with a law firm about Wikis and how the law firm didnt get it – the firm didnt really want the lawyers sharing data amongst themselves. We then were discussing the kinds of tools folks are using for recording and editing podcasts (hardware and software).
MP3

Notes

Citizen Journalism with Jay Rosen
Jay Rosen is an author and professor of journalism at NYU. His personal blog is Pressthink.org. His bullet points for the presentation are here:

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2006/06/23/lv_blgrc.html

The main thrust of Jay’s presentation was: How do we actually do “Users know more than we do” journalism and break news with it, proving that social networks can provide kickass reporting?

Discussion covers collaborating with the readers, how the MSM is traditionally top-down. Ken Sands from a newspaper in Portland discusses how his paper has brought bloggers onto the team, podcasts from the editorial meeting, gets more horizontal and less vertical. Discussions about how the Wikipedia model, while not perfect is ‘helpful’. Also the issue of credit came up, and recognition of the role/support/contribution bloggers are making to the news process. Doc asks that the newspaper industry as a whole open their archives – its like a wikipedia over time, not another revenue stream. Discussions over how a story today is different, how it lives beyond its published date. How it is bigger than just the person writing the stories because _all_ of the perspectives have a stake.
MP3

Notes

Users In Charge with Chris Pirillo
Chris is the founder of Lockegnome, used to be a host of the Screensavers (damn you G4-surrender-monkeys) and runs my favorite conference Gnomedex. His discussion was about the user (you, me, my mom). His stance: “you have as much right to contribute to the product or service as the development team. Are you taking advantage of that right, that position?”

We talk about how sometimes we dont express our frustrations to developers to our ownwordpress or firefox). detriment (or because we dont want to criticize). We need to both call them out when we have a problem and we also need to evangelize when we find something we like (like

We then got into a discussion about user data, and what Lisa Williams calls “Roach Motels”. Users want their data, even if they might not be able to do anything with it – its giving them the choice/trusting them/having a relationship with users. We need to have a greater connection between users and developers (Dave Winer’s old saying – Users and Developers Partying Together).

We get into some discussions over blogging tools and software problems. Discuss the needs for users to be more vocal, more demanding. We get into a discussion of platform lock-in (iTunes and the iPod), Jay Rosen points out how MS dropped the ball with IE and tabs in the browser.

Bloggercon is run like a clock and this session ends on time.

MP3

Notes

Video

Standards For Users with Nial Kennedy
Nial Kennedy, ex-technorati, now-Microsoft employee lead the discussion on Standards for Users. This is meant as a discussion of what standards are, things we hate about standards, the things that we love about standards and what kinds of things that need to be standardized.
MP3

Notes

Video

Emotional Life with Lisa Williams
Lisa Williams has been blogging since 2000 and her discussion is about why people blog, whats the most personal thing members of the conference have ever blogged and the best personal experience the other attendees have had.

Some folks talk about Blogging as something that goes with their career. Terry Heaton, who consults for local TV stations on how to collaborate with their communiteis in social media efforts, talks about finding his wife dead, and how he blogged about it and how it affected him, and the response he got from the folks who know him in the blogosphere. He points out that blogging is a social phenomenon more than a technological one.

Chris Pirillo talks about he has led a pretty public and bloggish life (even before blogging was popular), and how when his marriage broke up, he took heat for it thorugh his blog (from his readers).

Others talk about how Blogging, while part of their life, is compartmentalized — they do it for work, or as their passion and dont let other aspects of their life get involved. Some dont talk about their families, or _only_ talk about their families. Doc discusses how when he ‘came out’ as a pacifist, he took a ton of personal attacks (up to maybe including stalking). He has since stopped discussing politics/pacificism for his own piece of mind. Nial discusses how he has stopped talking about members of his family on his blog.
Lisa discusses the rules she follows: “Dont blog what you dont own” – living up to the trust you have in your family and vice versa.

Some discussion of the darker side of blogging. Getting people in trouble. “Pre-firing” yourself for positions taken on your blog. “Permanent Record” and the google cache are mentioned as well as potential lawsuits which might result from what you have written.

Jay Rosen talks about how he doesnt blog about personal issues, but there is still a huge emotional aspect of blogging. He calls it his “little first amendment machine”.

Dave Winer calls it the “unedited voice of a person”.

MP3

Notes

Video

Day 1 Post Game Show with Doc Searls
Doc Searls (Cluetrain Manifesto, http://doc.weblogs.com/) does a wrap-up of the discussions for the day (Dave Winer does the technography).

Doc compares blogging to a snowball – once it starts rolling downhill it continues to grow – and once you let it go it is no longer yours.
Doc wants to know how we are going to change the world.
Chris Pirillo talks about empowering users – how he has an idea for Freedbacking.com – Free Feedback for everyone.

Kevin Marks discusses microformats. How they can free our data, and make it easier to protect and share.

Terry Heaton talks about how there is a sense that the institutions of our cultures have failed. We should be looking to building new things – not rebuilding these old institutions.

WIll Pate thinks these objects that we are talking about – RSS, blogging, video blogging need to get 500% less geeky. We are raising barriers with the geekspeak.

MP3

Notes

Video

Day 2

Haftime Show with Dave Winer
Dave discusses how developing software is hard. And how sometimes we put the people who develop the software on pedestals. Dave asks the developers in the room what they are looking for from users – what kind of feedback, what kind of loops.

We get into a discussion of jargon and language. How sometimes we use jargon as a kind of code to keep those out of the know. The ‘priesthood’ of development doesnt want to be transparent – like medicine, advertising or religion. We wrap what we do and say is words that are indecipherable to the layman. Sometimes on purpose. Sometimes by accident (or happy accident).

What happens when the people in the street figure it out – part of what we need to do is foster, encourage more transparency.

MP3

Notes

How to Make Money with John Palfrey
John Palfrey is a professor at Harvard Law and the Director of the Berkman Center – focusing on internet law, intellectual property and the power of technology to strengthen democracies. John’s entire presentation is about making money with blogging, whether it is direct revenue (advertising or sponsorship) or indirectly (improving a consulting career, connecting with new clients, getting a book deal, etc.).

We discuss making money on a hyper-local basis (big part of the conversation – both local blogs, local advertising and connecting with local businesses). Making money for non-profits. Making money on affiliate marketing deals, etc.

MP3

Notes

Building Bridges with Elisa Camahort
Elisa is a blogger and founder of BlogHer. Her discussion was about building bridges – specifically in the blogging community and conference system. There are tons of great women bloggers and speakers out there, and how do we get more of them into the system.
Discuss how blogging and conferences like Gnomedex, Bloggercon, BlogHer didnt exist a couple of years ago. We talk about how Mary Hodder, after a conference last year, set up a Wiki for women speakers (to communicate to the conference community – there are women out here and they are great for panels, etc.). Part of the discussion was about how women speakers need to get out there and let people know they exist.

Blog her is a big step towards all of that.

MP3

Notes

2008 Election with Lance Knobel
Lance discusses politics (non partisan, although there were a lot of examples used from the Dem election in 2004) and how blogging/social media can help/harm/enhance.
MP3

Notes

Video Blogging with Ryanne

Ryanne did a tremendous job discussing Video Blogging (vlogging) both from a high level and from a nitty gritty, tools perspective.

MP3

Notes

Core Values with Mike Arrington
Mike Arrington of TechCrunch discusses civility and standards of behavior in the Blogosphere. Both how we act and conflicts of interest.
MP3

Notes

Fat Man Sings with Dave Winer

Dave Winer closes BloggerconIV with a discussion of the success of this year vs. past years. Dave discusses the fact that he will quit blogging this year – maybe do something new, maybe write a book. There is some discussion of what Bloggercon V would look like. We discuss how in the beginning there were blogs (text), moblogs (mobile blogs via wireless handsets w/ cams, etc.), podcasts (audio) and now vlogs (video).

MP3

Notes

Net-Net

This event rocked. The room was energized, the discussions were great. The crowd was totally welcoming, and I got to hang out with a bunch of people who I see every day in my aggregator.

Flickr Feed for BloggerconIV

Flickr Feed for Bloggercon

Bloggercon official site.

Frappr Map for the attendees.