Marc Canter provides Jyri's objects of sociality
Marc Canter is very pleased with what he has seen on Gnomedex in the past days. In his recent posting Open Source Infrastructure he sums up a list of microcontent initiatives that will be the building blocks of our digital lifestyle and presence.
Meanwhile at Reboot Jyri Engestrom gave a great talk on social networks. It is my own fault that I missed it to go hear somebody else, but my partner Elmine was in the room and very impressed. Through her eyes and also by reading Jyri's presentation (which Olle said is actually an almost literal version of the actual presentation Jyri gave: short good high-impacting message) I meanwhile have made up for not being there, I hope.
Basically Jyri's reasoning goes like this:
Relationships revolve around something, an object. This can be an artefact or a date a job or whatever. But it is a thing through which a connection is build between people. When it disappears the relationship will become hollow as well. Shared context this reads in my mind, but then that little sliver of it that is the focus of your interactions with somebody else. In YASNs such an object is often lacking, and that is why they fail. Then the YASN itself becomes the object of sociality: people competing on who has the most contacts etc. However that is a game only temporarily worth playing.
I can't stop thinking that Marc's microcontent is a list of objects of sociality, and hence indeed a good way to build our digital lifestyles, as it is bound to create, sustain and feed relationships. Probably this is what Marc had in mind all along, and what I intuitively felt as well. But now I see an explicit link between microcontent and relationships where I could not formulate that coherently before. Thanks Jyri, for providing me the means to share Marc's enthusiasm.
1 Comments and 2 Trackbacks | PermalinkSouth Korea Big on RFID
Even if the lame and over-used example of the self-restocking fridge is used as an example again, this is interesting news:
South Korea is investing $800 million in RFID.
Chin, the Korean minister for information and communication has said that the South Korean government thinks RFID will be at least as big as mobile phones.
The Korean government, which said RFID will replace barcodes, is building several research and development centres in the country for different technologies. RFID production is planned for next year in the northern city of Songdo and will receive funding between 2005 and 2010.
They already had pilots using RFID with tracing beef, ammunition stocks, and tracking luggage at an airport.
Add geo-tagging and IPv6 to the mix and you have geographic and object-centered micro-content for people to play with and build relationships on. Opens up a new realm of possibilities.
Source: ZDnet (via Jim Downing at Smartmobs)
Technorati: SouthKorea, microcontent, RFID, geotagging.
0 Comments and 0 Trackbacks | PermalinkLA Times Wikitorial Experiment
Last week the LA Times started an experiment with letting users edit editorials wiki-style. To apparant surprise of the LA Times editors some of the visitors started misbehaving. As a consequence the LA Times pulled their wiki of the web again, mere days after they started the experiment.
Others have commented on how the LA Times should not have been surprised: a lot of netizens are a pain, and have made trolling their mission. Dan Gillmor called it a sad victory for the trolls. Bryan Alexander at Smartmobs suggests this might be an example of the tragedy of the commons. I think there might be something completely different at stake here. Maybe the LA Times did not think long enough about how to embed this experiment in their usual web presence and community of readers.
In my experience wikis work best if two aspects are taken care of. Focus, and most importantly community. The free playing field a wiki offers is a great boon if those who use that playing field feel connected to eachother. Then social self-control and responsibility taking will kick in.
The openness of wiki is partly a myth. In the wiki spaces I have seen flourish and flounder over the last few years this always has played a role. Without focus or community wikis fail.
Jimmy Wales had much the same message at Reboot the other day, stating that saying that anyone can edit Wikipedia is really more PR than actual fact. It is a tight community of contributors that keep Wikipedia alive and kicking. Their mores amongst eachother define the degrees of freedom anyone has within the wiki space, and what behaviour will be tolerated. It takes an actual community to be able to use a commons, when that breaks down or is absent the tragedy occurs.
My own local news paper has offered a commenting function on all their articles for quite some time now. To get to the articles, however, one has to register as a reader first. After that registration you are free to leave your comments unmoderated. This creates just the right barrier to keep the trolls out. (Whether it is wise for a newspaper to put all their content behind a barrier is a different discussion however).
By installing that barrier, the local news paper has limited the access to their space to the actual readership of their on-line news. Thus is turns their readership into a group that is more defined than a bunch of strangers. What has the LA Times done to ensure that the people accessing the wikitorials actually felt they were a guest, instead of an anonymous stranger that just as easily could trash the place?
Another point raised has more merit I think, and that is the question whether wiki-style editing was the right format to begin with. Editorials are about opinions, and wiki is more suited towards collaboration, than towards the exchange of opinions (disregarding forking that is, which also happened in the LA Times experiment, and a useful habit in Wikipedia). In this case I don't know. How does that work at the South Korean Oh my news, which is in large part a product of citizen journalists? What do their op-eds and editorials look like? How do they come about?
All in all I it is sad that this experiment turned out the way it did. At the LA Times some people undoubtedly stuck out their necks for this. And undoubtably the cynics already told them that this would happen, and they will regard this outcome as proof in point. I have a feeling that if the experiment had been prepared differently it would have worked out better. A shame really.
[UPDATE] Jeff Jarvis follows much the same reasoning as I do. He also adds that news media are too much in love with themselves to really bring out the potential of this experiment, as they won't let the people decide what is a hot topic. I recognize that from the media in the Netherlands. I come across stuff on the tv-news and in news papers that I have already seen or heard a week before. A journalist friend of mine last Friday told me that most news media think it is only news if they have carried it themselves, regardless of how many other sources already brought that story. Also increasingly press coverage seems to be about the press coverage something gets. Metablogging but then different :)
2 Comments and 1 Trackbacks | PermalinkRSS Reading Strategy Revisited
Today David Weinberger admits he can't keep up with reading.
I would like to. I really would. I like it and I like you. But we're now well past the point where any of us can keep up with all the blogs worth reading from the people worth keeping up with. Even with an aggregator. I just can't do it any more.
The truth is, I probably haven't read your blog in weeks. Months maybe. And I don't expect you to have read mine.
Well, I don't read all of his and your stuff either. Don't stop writing however! Because I do value the conversation I feel we are continuously involved in, even if that sounds silly when both of us don't read the other's half of the conversation.
As I said before in How do you use RSS?, I don't read everything that ends up in my feed reader. I skim all postings unsorted to get a general feeling of what's up in 'my neighbourhood' of the blogosphere, and some other parts of 'town' as well. I look for patterns, for what we all are talking about. If something is important to a number of you, enough to write about it, than it might be important for me too. That is when I might start reading individual postings, to see if it is relevant to me now.
I also have a list of questions and points that are already relevant to me. That is the stuff I write about, and I also read all individual postings that seem to be relevant to that. I don't feel guilty about that, as David seems to have done.
It is the way things work. First you get a feeling for what is up. You contribute what is relevant to you and on your mind in the here and now. And then engage those in direct conversation that seem to hold interesting views on the stuff that is already on your mind, and the stuff that they brought to the table and attracted your attention. Sounds familiar doesn't it?
It is what we do meeting on town squares, in the pubs, the salons, at parties, at the family dining table. It is what happens in communities of people. And the 250 people whose thoughts are in my feed-reader are my social community in much the same way. I don't feel guilty when I skip a pub visit (although I used to do ;) ). I am sure that the party was great, and the conversation excellent. But it is not about the conversations I miss out on. It is about the value we create in the conversations we do have, and making the most of that. That is what counts.
So when you come up to me and ask if I have read your posting xyz, the most likely answer you'll get is "no, but I remember seeing a few items about that pass by" or you will get a real genuine "yes". Chances are then that I've already linked or bookmarked it, commented on it, written about it, e-mailed or skyped you, or referenced it face to face.
(picture by macsteve)
2 Comments and 0 Trackbacks | PermalinkScoble is Pushing the Membrane
Robert Scoble was one of the key note speakers at the Reboot conference last week in Copenhagen. Like some 1500 of his colleagues at Microsoft he blogs frequently and openly on issues that are work related. Not always does what he blogs fit well with his company, he can be very critical of his employer, or with his readership (he defends controversial MS issues just as energetic as he criticizes other points, although sometimes he comes back on that gracefully). How come that this doesn't backlash at him?
Being a blogger-in-residence with a company, blogging is like pushing a membrane. A membrane that seperates the organisation from its environment. Where marketing and pr often really increase the distance between company and environment (thickening the membrane), blogging seeks to penetrate the membrane. The membrane can be seen as the collective cultural and behavioural aspects that make up the company and make it different from the rest of the world. Pushing against the membrane will result in resistance; the membrane is flexible but it is still a barrier of sorts. Pushing too hard might make the membrane snap back in your face. That is when you know you may have crossed a boundary within the organization that others don't feel entirely comfortable with.
Key is what happens when that membranes hits you in the face. If you have a good social network in place, that carries the trust that you as a blogger also have the interest of the company at heart, and the conviction that any issues can be discussed openly and securely within the company, then that network will help you cushion the backlash of the membrane. It will lead to reflection within the organization on how to move on.
If you lack such a social network, then chances are you find yourself without a job real soon, as happened to that guy at Google. A clear case of not having invested in your relationships within the company, says Robert Scoble.
A membrane, with both its elasticity and resistance, as a metaphor for the cultural border/divide between an organization and its environment is I think a useful one. It gives expression to something all employees, and customers for that matter, might recognize to some extent. For companies and employees thinking about starting an external weblog associated with both a person and a company, it makes sense to think about the membrane beforehand. Not to lay down rules in advance, but to make sure that there is continuous feedback from colleagues to the weblogging employee, as well as to ensure that there is a space to talk things over when an issue arises. Only in this way can you make sure that the weblog lets the authentic voice of the author ring true as well as conveys the values of the company in question.
David Wilcox taped interviews on video during Reboot and talked some more with Robert Scoble about membranes.
(tag: reboot7)
1 Comments and 1 Trackbacks | PermalinkThe True Impact of Social Software
During the excellent Reboot conference there was naturally a lot of talk about technology. The true impact of social software of course is not the technology (though a lot of fun to play with!), but in the way these tools help us build new relationships and strengthen existing relationships with other people (and that got a lot of attention at Reboot as well). Previous systems like e.g. corporate intranet have the information or content (terrible word) as a central aspect. People are more or less anonymously feeding the system in such cases. Putting distance between people.
Social software tools are all smaller than us, we control them individually. And instead of us feeding the information systems, the tools start feeding us. It brings people closer. In my mind we haven't really begun to see the impact of that, though the atmosphere on Reboot, and the way e.g. bloggers describe feeling their world opening up before them is an indication of what is to come.
click image to see (1.6MB)
David Wilcox, whom I finally met face to face in Copenhagen, shot some video interviews. Also of me, where I explain the above a bit more. In the photograph you see him interview Lee Bryant about social tagging, while Gunnar Langemark is listening (both a pleasure to meet as well).
Thanks David, it was great meeting you!
Tag: reboot7
1 Comments and 2 Trackbacks | PermalinkvSkype beta
Via Skype Journal (an initiative by a.o. Stuart Henshall and Phil Wolff) I was alerted that last Tuesday vSkype went beta. This is a video conferencing application that builds on Skype.
After installing and adding the webcam usually attached to the desktop to my laptop (it will probably become a standard thing to pack from now on while on the move), Maarten Schenk (Blogologie, Six Apart) and I played with it tonight. Video is a bit slow and shaky every now and then, and sound quality wasn't very good at some points, but it works, and probably will get better. It is in beta after all.
It seems they brought this thing from idea to market in merely 8 weeks!
The vSkype website boasts that you can add up to 200 people to your video conference, for free. Another neat feature is the ability to share application windows, or even your whole desktop.
In the comments on the Skype Journal article it is suggested that vSkype is not truly peer to peer, but a client/server tcp app. It also mentions an earlier released peer to peer app called Video4Skype, released two weeks ago. Will play with that as well.
0 Comments and 0 Trackbacks | PermalinkBuurtvaders
I am showing the inner workings of social software to Abdoul Hansali of Buurtvaders. First item on the menu: weblogs.
0 Comments and 0 Trackbacks | PermalinkPlazes Works
Last year spring I met Felix Petersen at the very first BlogWalk meeting and he told me about Plazes, which he created, a service that provides social networking services based on your geographical information. I never had much use for it, except for having a neat location indicator at the frontpage of my blog.
The real fun and power of Plazes became evident yesterday evening/early this morning.
Martin Roell and I were taking a last drink in the lobby of our hotel, when both our Plazes launchers indicated that there was someone else there too.
As there was only wifi in the lobby, we thought the Mac user behind us would be the one. Turned out he wasn't. I took a look at the profile of 'reinvented' and saw that he was Peter from Prince Edward Island. I remembered that Rob Paterson once mentioned him, and also that Rob had asked Dina to meet Peter at Reboot as well in the comments of her blog. So I (and Martin as well, without me knowing) send him a message.
Sure enough a few minutes later Peter entered the lobby. A great, wide ranging, conversation ensued. Turned out Peter had wifi coverage in his room, which was near the lobby.
Without Plazes this conversation would not have taken place, we would have missed out on it by mere metres. So kudos to Felix and Stefan!
Still wondering what is social about social software? I'm not.
Both Peter and Martin blogged it as well.
1 Comments and 4 Trackbacks | PermalinkDoug Engelbart Demo
In 1968 Doug Engelbart demonstrated the computersystem he and his team were working with. This famous demo we saw tonight, as a round-up of the day. Doug was life on a video connection (established by Ross Mayfield it seemed) introducing the demo himself.
Great to see how old-fashioned it was, and how modern it is at the same time. Using tv cameras to capture what computers projected on small cathode ray tubes, and then projecting that on computer screens, a mouse (they came up with the name) that looks like some communist Eastern German version of what we use today. But the programme demonstrated had hyperlinks, (joint) text editing, mind mapping, conceptual maps, directory structure, pretty sleek head sets etc. Fun to watch. But 40 years is a really long time for this stuff to get mainstream!
Below two pictures of Doug Engelbart now and then.
[UPDATE] Ross Mayfield took pictures of Doug Engelbart during our videochat. On the screen you see us at the venue in Copenhagen, while Doug is talking to us:
Tag: reboot7
0 Comments and 1 Trackbacks | PermalinkMore info on Reboot?
You can find out more about what is happening at reboot at this moment:
Technorati tag reboot7
And also the wiki at the reboot site is used for realtime reporting.
Up on irc.freenode.net on #reboot7 there is a running commentary from those in the room. (And Robert Scoble is showing it live during his talk right now)
Doc Searls
What is the business model behind blogging? It is better to see it as a useful expense.
2 Comments and 0 Trackbacks | PermalinkReboot 7
Currently listening to Thomas Madsen-Mygdal opening the Reboot 7 conference. Lots of familiar and new people here in Copenhagen. Looking forward to two days full of inspiring conversations on new models for organisation, networks etc.
More to come during the event.
(the picture is from the metro this morning. No driver, great view of the tunnel)
Weblog by 
Lilia Efimova *
Gary Murphy
Sebastian Fiedler *
Thomas Burg *
Terry Frazier
Dina Mehta *
Stuart Henshall *
Spike Hall
Phil Wolff *
Jim McGee
David Gurteen *
Elmine Wijnia *
Julian Elvé
Denham Grey
Ian Glendinning
Paul Goodison
