citizen-everything – by Dave Winer

Date: October 10, 2005 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

Dave’s post today about his sale of weblogs.com, which has been pretty well recieved (except for some folks pointing out some institutional stupidity at Verisign).

I think news, good or bad, is always received this way: “What if it were me?” And this idea fits well into people’s minds that way. It actually could be me, they think, and I think that’s great. We need more people starting projects for the community, that build the community, and then have the perseverence to stick with it, in the hope that there will be a payday someday.
-Dave Winer

Dave is saying something important. Right now, whether you call it Web2.0 (with all the acquisition and investment news in the last 2 weeks it feels a little like 1998 again) is that people are creating, making, shaping with technology for themselves and sharing it with others. The tools are becoming commodities. Its what we do with them that makes it interesting. Dave, with a small bit of technology (small in complexity – I know I couldnt build a ping server), is able to facilitate a lot of other people/businesses/investments. He should get paid for it – to go and create something else.

Rinse and Repeat. Rinse and Repeat.

The innovation isnt coming from Oracle or AOL or MS. The smarts are with the audience, and not the guys and gals on the stage. The point of this ramblign mishmash of regurgitated stuff Ace and I have been talking about for years is that its not the technology, its what you DO with it and how you SHARE it.

Citizen Media
Citizen Journalism
Citizen Developers
Citizen Makers

Bit Torrent raises $8.75 Million

Date: September 23, 2005 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

Thanks to Om Malik for this great story:http://gigaom.com/2005/09/23/bit-torrent-raises-875-million/

At Gnomdex this year a great deal of the conversation was about BitTorrent, and how the best way to legitimize it is to use it legitimately – use it for podcasts, video blog casts, spreading your own content, open source software, sharing legal and Creative Commons work – change the conversation from what it could do (piracy) to what it does do (sharing, transmitting, communicating – you know, like the internet).

Om Malik is reporting that the BitTorrent guys have just lined up financing of $8.75 million dollars. Now while that isnt dotcom money (aaaarrrggghhh!!!) it is still a nice chunka change for developing and rolling out bittorrent to the world. And while the big studios and record companies wouldn’t use the technology, with the right safeguards (like software keys, etc.) media companies could change how they distribute and share content with their users.

More and more we are seeing things like NerdTV, Systm, Rocketboom , Digg, and OurMedia– professional quality ‘programming’ (video or audio, sometimes user generated) distributed through the web. BitTorrent is a natural for this – taking advantage of bandwidth, the distributed aspects of the swarm, blah blah blah.

Can’t wait to see what comes next.

OUTFRICKENSTANDING – Netvibes

Date: September 17, 2005 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

Marc Canter blogs about the new site Netvibes. It is an example of a Digital Lifestyle Aggregator (similar to what Marc is planning on doing with GoingOn).

Check it out here: http://www.netvibes.com/

This is easily the coolest thing I have seen in a while. Its built in Ajax (like Google’s personalized homepage and Microsoft’s Start.com). The difference is, these guys aren’t a multibillion dollar public company.

This service is free and gives the user the ability :

* to create a personalized page with the content they like.
* to put together data feeds and services from web 2.0 with a very simple interface
* to access your page anytime and from any computer .

Key features of Netvibes :

* Browse, modify, and import your RSS feeds with our integrated RSS/ATOM feedreader. You can easily import an OPML file as well.
* Import, download and listen to pod casts without any additional software
* Check your mail on one or many gmail accounts, stick web notes, weather and many more features to come !

You can add feeds, move the elements around on the page (thanks AJAX), bring in your gmail, get the weather, add notes to the page and even hit your page from other machines. The guys who built it, Florent Fremont and Tariq Krim are based in Paris and do Web2.0 apps.

Tres cool. Check it out.

Don Park calls it…

Date: September 13, 2005 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

From Don Park’s Daily Habit an excellent description of a current event with historical context and he ends it with this:

I guess what I am trying to say is:

*
Webpage is not truth
*
Pagerank is not trust

The Web is appropriately named, for it can catch you as well as inform you.

Required Reading.

Amazon and Coinstar – interesting combination

Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

Wall Street Journal today has an article about how Amazon.com is joining forces with Coinstar:

The coin program may attract new users to Amazon and Coinstar. Some consumers have resisted Coinstar’s machines — familiar fixtures in many grocery stores — because Coinstar charges an 8.9% commission in the U.S. to convert coins into bills. And Amazon’s clientele has largely been limited to people with credit cards.

The Amazon program will give customers the full value of their change, as long as they spend it on Amazon. Coinstar Vice President Peter Rowan said the deal gives the company’s customers “a way of using cash online, which they couldn’t do until now. We hope it’ll drive new users.”
– MYLENE MANGALINDAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Now this isnt the coolest thing I have ever seen, but it is still pretty neat. It gives people who don’t have access to credit or debit cards (all 4 of them) access to Amazon, and will drive coinstar coin exchange traffic. I never knew Coinstar charged nearly 9% on the transaction. The really neat part of the story is the fact that the coinstar machines allowing you to add value to the cards – creating a platform for electronic currency specifically targeted to the young and the less wealthy.

Gnomedex 2006 Baby

Date: September 5, 2005 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

My favorite-conference-for-life is Gnomedex. Hands down, it is the best. Best speakers, best crowd (Lunatic Fringe), best topics, and I got to do some sightseeing in Seattle.

This week Chris and Ponzi opened up the idea of Gnomedex 2006, and floated the idea that there be 2 Gnomedexes. The response was, well, very gnomdexy. Everyone weighed in with suggestions as to where the next event should be held. Some were for the idea of 2 events, and others were against.

The fact that they would ask is the best part. Chris and Ponzi maintain the Gnomedex mailing list, keeping the tribe in touch. The gnomedex.com maintains the links and wiki still, 3 months after the conference. There is even a gnomedex participants blog that I read religiously.

My only regret is missing the first 4 gnomedexes

The First Machinima Talk Show!

Date: August 19, 2005 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

In-game machinima talk-show with random Halo players shooting guests.

Awesome post from Boing-Boing about “This Spartan Life” an in-game talk show for X Box Live HALO. The best part?

Of course, there are lots of Halo players who aren’t in on the gag, crashing through the “set” and opening fire on the apparently slow-moving and non-lethal guest, host and crew, which only adds to the general awesomeness of this thing (excellent commentary on this here).

Check out the BoingBoing article here:
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/19/ingame_machinima_tal.html

The home page for This Spartan Life is here:
http://www.thisspartanlife.com/

The Thinking Machinima blog is here:
http://www.machinima.org/paul_blog/

Create Digital Music’s article here:
http://www.createdigitalmusic.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=806&Itemid=44

Brilliant – Sony, Cingular, Ford go D.I.Y.

Date: August 12, 2005 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

http://mediameld.typepad.com/mediameld/2005/07/sony_cingular_f.html

Thanks to the guys at Media Meld for pointing to this new campaign from Sony, Cingular and Ford.

Basically, people who subscribe to this site get forewarned about 10 surprise (“Flash”) concerts throughout the year via the web or their cell phone. But here is where the cultural connection happens. The promotion contains all these details that play off of recent DIY web-culture. We get it all: a blog, a piece of software that allows us to create music Mash-ups a la Dangermouse’s Grey Album, they even throw in some podcasts for good measure.

I love it. Ford is a past client and I am doing work for Sony now. The program they have put together is great – spontaneous, web enabled, wireless, citizen media, PR… cant wait to see how this turns out.

Four Docs from PSFK

Date: August 4, 2005 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

http://www.psfk.com/2005/08/four_docs.html

Thanks to PSFK for the following:

Four Docs is launched today as a new opportunity and avenue for anyone to make and upload a four minute documentary. Hosted and run by Channel 4 (in the UK) the website also offers many guides for people planning on making their documentary.

FourDocs represents the democratisation of documentary film-making. Everyone can join in, not just those who are already making films.

This fits in with the citizen media ideas I have rolling thru my head and the really cool stuff Marc Canter and JD Lasica have been sharing on their blogs.

CMS (Content Management Sanity)

Date: August 1, 2005 Author: Sean Comments: Leave a reply

So for the threehundreth time I need to identify a CMS for a project. Because iNDELIBLE doesn’t have a ‘house CMS’, we take the client’s requirements and then compare it to the best possible solution.

Well the kind souls at CMS Matrix have put together a comparison tool for understanding the major features of dozens of CMSs, both F/OSS and proprietary.