Archive for March, 2008
by Isabel Hilborn
March 28, 2008 at 4:55 am · Filed under
Law and Policy, Social Platforms, Society and Culture, Supernova08
In the one-girl’s-trash-is-another-girl’s-treasure category, Microsoft announced a deal to allow LinkedIn, Facebook and some other lesser-known social networks to scrape Hotmail address books to look for friends.
Some for-profit industry commentators went along with Microsoft’s PR hype, like OnlineMedia Daily. Others, like ZDNet’s Steve O’Hear, were more skeptical.
In other news, Google is bringing the issue of protecting human rights at the cost of the company’s market share to a shareholder vote - adequately reported by Joseph Hunkins at WebGuild. The two proposals up for a vote are that Google would strictly control censorship and data sharing to protect human rights, and that Google would establish a Human Rights Committee to monitor these issues. Google recommends no to both proposals, and they’ll be able to point to the fact that their shareholders voted these proposals down as an excuse for not doing them.
The approach is an attempt to justify Google’s capitulation to anti-democratic policy from countries like China - behavior that they’ve been called to task for engaging in because of their “do no evil” mantra. The sad thing, to me, is that giving a question like this to shareholders: “Should we do the right thing even though it means making less money?” is giving it to the wrong party to decide. Shareholders don’t say no to profits.
It’s the users who should be asked, and the users who can decide to abandon the Google ship if they see objectionable, hypocritical behavior. Insofar as a choice to deny human rights may alienate Google users, the stock prices could fall on a “no” vote — but most of the time issues like human rights in far-away countries can’t compete with great technology and brand. An effective boycott is unlikely, a yes vote is unlikely. Perhaps “do no evil” and “make money in China” are fundamentally incompatible. Perhaps a mantra change to “do no evil except in countries led by repressive dictators” is in order?
by Christopher Carfi
March 27, 2008 at 11:45 pm · Filed under
Supernova08
This week is Net Neutrality week on the SuperNova ConversationHub. What is “Net Neutrality?” Here are a few resources and links that can provide the basics.
A Definition of Network Neutrality
“Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since its earliest days. Indeed, it is this neutrality that has allowed many companies, including Google, to launch, grow, and innovate. Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet. In our view, the broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online. Today, the neutrality of the Internet is at stake as the broadband carriers want Congress’s permission to determine what content gets to you first and fastest. Put simply, this would fundamentally alter the openness of the Internet.”
Source: Students for Net Neutrality
Net Neutrality - An Overview Video from Public Knowledge
(Permanent link to the Publc Knowledge Net Neutrality video)
Now, that said, there are cogent counter-arguments as well, mostly from a “let’s keep the government out of as many things as possible” view. One point of view, from Will Richmond in the comments here. Richmond:
“I’d remind everyone of three critical things.
First, there is no substantive evidence of broadband ISP bias today, so while it’s tempting to reach for net neutrality as a preventive medicine, suspicion of nefarious intentions is not a sufficient basis for government intervention. Start down this preemptive road and you’re quickly on the slippery slope of unchecked government intrusion into our daily lives.
Second, for those who don’t think it’s appropriate to give big broadband ISPs the benefit of the doubt, let’s not forget that they privately financed the multi-billion dollar investments required to bring broadband Internet access to virtually all American homes. There’s been no government funding of this massive infrastructure build-out. It’s all a result of the free market system at work. And the record speaks for itself, there’s no evidence that ISPs have bias against anyone to improve their economic return.
Third, let’s not lose sight of the fact that multi-billion dollar content and technology companies are behind this net neutrality push. How ironic is it that this community of ardent free marketers should now be looking to the government to preemptively impose regulation? Would they want to be pre-judged as bad actors, requiring preemptive government intervention in their industries? No chance. They want the government as far away from their operations as possible.
I’m far from an apologist for big cable operators and telcos. I know their warts as well as anyone. And I’m not against regulation when it’s appropriate. But I am opposed to it when there’s no evidence to warrant it. Such is the current situation with net neutrality.”
(N.B. And, for a more humorous view, here’s an Ask A Ninja video on Net Neutrality. And, for the record, I too would like some backup singers.)
by stuart_henshall
March 27, 2008 at 12:43 am · Filed under
Supernova08
I thought I’d start my first post on Supernova by reflecting back to the first one in 2002. I was there and blogging for a little while (5 yrs plus about me) and my connected world was opening up. It was one of the first conferences I attended that had laptops open and WiFi up everywhere. It should have been a gloomy time for an initial conference, however for most of us in the room it was an empowering time and we were all part of the core theme “decentralization”.
We still see it in play today. Decentralization vs Centralization. A critical uncertainty from a scenarist point of view. Both are right, both are possible. Given the technology emerging the question is how can we be better prepared. Afterall, the future is unpredictable. As it’s been said; it’s also already here and unevenly distributed. Supernova is a place to dive into that tension.
I came at this topic then and still now with a “people to people” or “P2P” world and network view. On one side I’m as frustrated today by progress. I still don’t “own me” although I can share a lot more about “me” in a more friction free environment. In the years following 2002 I found myself spending much of my time on VoIP and Identity solutions and continuing to use the tools blogs, social networks, wikis, presence, WiFi, mobiles, that made us both more independent, interdependent and connected. In 2002 this was reinforced as Howard Rheingold keynoted his book “Smart Mobs” which began the conference looking at what people do and are doing.
Yet something is wrong. On the technical side we imagined the explosion the empowerment of the edges and we failed to see the stresses, the behavioral changes and the time it would take to become part of the network. Google was still tiny at the time. Skype wasn’t envisaged and Facebook wasn’t even a neuron. As prophesied in 2002 we’re becoming more connected; probably more transparent and with it likely to have many new neuroses. There’s still money for the behavior guru’s.
However, the pace of change is both glacial and rapid. Supernova isn’t about technology, it is about people. I think it’s why I have both such a fascination for both how things work and what “we” - “people” use it to do. I am an advocate in each organization for adopting new tools and just trying it out (with a value hat on!). The larger problem is many organizations don’t encourage it.
Whether a learning journey, or just a simple visit to another company most of us still learn best by doing. It’s also hard when we are not all born networkers (a better word here might be connectors). We also learn by hearing the stories of others. It why a good listening and following strategy in social media can pay real dividends. Just like the “What’s your Supernova strategy?” at a personal and corporate level, prototyping these tools (social media, SDK’s, etc.) and technologies can get you an early grip on what they can do. Given network effects it’s bad news being late.
So there’s some things you could do for yourself prior to Supernova if you have never have. Consider putting 20% of your time into stuff that’s new.
1) Start a blog. TypePad or Wordpress
2) Begin Using Google Reader
3) Open and bookmark what you read on Del.ico.us
3) Get a Twitter Account
4) Get on Facebook
5) Buy an iPhone
They certainly aren’t mandatory; however Supernova will at least give you an excuse to dive into them and stuff that is “new” and stuff that was “maybe hot” a year ago (Spock?) and already disappeared.
The big question for business remains how do I make money? I’d listen and watch how people are creating value. Understand how new value is created at a personal level in networks, at intersections, and when on the move (mobile). Then consider if you are really looking in the right place, in the right country, at the right networks. It still what I spend a lot of my time doing.
Since 2002 a lot has changed. Cross border / international collaboration for independents has never been easier to do or support. And the need to interconnect grows. So does the personal need for keeping track and sharing status. Correspondingly we may or may not think about privacy, security and the law. One thing I’m certain of… our future will be decided by networks. The question is. Who’s is it? How will it be governed? And what will our roles be?
I think there will be different points of view at Supernova. That’s what you want to be looking and listening for. After all an organization or a network is basically just a conversation.
by Howard Greenstein
March 26, 2008 at 2:37 am · Filed under
Infrastructure and Communications, Society and Culture, Supernova08
I had been taking it for granted that programs to get computers to the developing world, such as One Laptop Per Child, were a great thing. And, certainly they are. I’ve also been taking for granted that people who want to learn about what I’m writing could read this blog, or my personal one. However, there are millions of people in the world that are illiterate, or visually impaired, but could benefit from more and easier access to information.
This morning at a panel at the “UN meets Web 2.0” event, I’m learning more about the challenges of connecting people all over the world. More blog posts on that to follow, I hope, but this morning I wanted to call out one item I heard from Mr. Emdad Khan, CEO, of InternetSpeech.com. I heard him discuss “Net Echo,” a system that allows browsing of the net, accessing email and even getting news via a voice interface over the phone.
Mr. Kahn said “Information is “money”, and the largest source of information is Internet, but a lack of computer or computer skills can be a barrier to people obtaining the information they need.” He says that PDAs an computers can’t bridge the digital divide in some cases, because those devices don’t reach the very bottom of the pyramid. Here’s a statistic - only 15% of global phone users have Internet access, and there are 500MM computers vs 3 billion phones.
Net Echo, which I only saw as a demo, allows audio-based browsing of major portals such as Yahoo and MSN, reading (and dictation of) email, and news alerts, all via a voice interface.
In addition to the developing world, the elderly, the visually impaired, and others could benefit from this system. I’m even thinking that this might be a way to get information when you’re on the go (though not when driving, that could be really dangerous!)
I’m looking forward to learning more about this system, and where in the world it’s being used to help distribute information via voice when text and words aren’t enough.
by Shannon Clark
March 25, 2008 at 2:34 pm · Filed under
Monetization, Network Theory, Supernova08
For most of my life the US dollar was strong, the exchange rate with other currencies changed but did so normly only to a small degree, minor shifts for the most part and if there were dramatic shifts they tended to be due to a crisis in the other country, not on the part of the US. The Dollar was worth more than a Canadian Dollar, the Pound was worth more than a US Dollar but typically only about $1.50 or so, and when it was first launched, the Euro was worth less than the US Dollar (I should have invested in Euros as rather quickly it reached parity with the US Dollar).
But in the past year, the US Dollar has fallen, fallen considerably and dramatically and seemingly there is little end in sight. The Canadian Dollar is now at least at parity and is with increasingly frequency worth more than the US Dollar. The Euro is now worth considerably more than one US Dollar.
As I write this $100 US is worth about 50.5 UK Pounds or about 64.75 Euros or about 102 Canadian Dollars.
On the eve of 9/11 a US Dollar was worth 1.10 Euros, today it is worth 64.75.
To put this in another way, on 9/11 if you earned $100,000 a year the equivalent income in Europe would have been $110,000. today an income of 110k euros would be $170,000 US at today’s exchange rates.
Someone who in the US earned $10,000 a month in 2001, would have had to earn 11,000 euros. That same 11,000 euros would now be the equivalent of earning $17,000 a month here in the US. That’s the same as getting an extra $7k a month, or roughly speaking getting a 70% pay raise.
70% if nothing else had changed, if you had started at the same salary in 2001 but decided to get paid in euros not US dollars and hadn’t gotten any raises in that time.
So what has happened? Why has the US Dollar fallen so much, so quickly and with for the most part little awareness on the part of the general US citizens?
There has been a similar, but not quite a dramatic change in the exchange with the UK Pound. Someone who had earned the equal of $100k US in Pounds in 2001 would now have a dollar equivalent salary of about $125,000.
In the case of Canada in 2001 the US Dollar was worth over $1.55 Canadian, someone earning $100k in the US would have had a Canadian salary of $156,000 Canadian. At current exchange rates that would be about $152,000 US, though earlier this year the US Dollar had fallen to as low as being worth $0.90 Canadian.
The change over time is not quite a dramatic against the Japanese Yen, from a dollar being worth 120 Yen in 2001 to being worth about 100 Yen today.
The US Dollar to Israeli Shekel has fluctuated widely since 2001, in 2001 $100k US would have been about 430k in Shekels, now that same level of earning would be about $125k US.
In short for most of the current century everyone in the US would almost certainly have more buying power had early on in this century they had gone to work someplace outside of the US and earned in a currency other than US Dollars. Comparatively speaking people who were at nearly par in terms of levels of earning and income in 2001 have now moved into very different levels of income and buying power.
This is always a bit tricky, to a degree there are other factors that have to measured, better than gross income is likely a comparison of actual take home pay, though since taxes in many countries of the world help cover health care costs unlike here in the US (but here in the US many people receive health insurance and other benefits from employment that don’t show up as earned income) full comparisons are complicated.
But to keep it relatively simple in most cases US incomes on the world stage buy far less today than they would have just less than 7 years ago. Nice (very nice) new car for cash less in most cases.
However though we’re entering into a tough year perhaps, if the financial press is to be trusted, for the most part few parts of the typical American life have gone up by a comparable amount. Gas prices at the pump have risen, here in San Francisco they currently are hovering around almost $4 a gallon for premium, but that continues to be a couple of multiples cheaper than in most of Europe and earlier this year they were down closer to $3.00 though at around these prices about a year ago as my old post shows. In my lifetime the price of gas has gone up considerably, when I had my first car over 16 years ago I recall some days when gas was $1.00 a gallon or less, but that was rare.
Since 9/11 however and even before then the US has been taking a wide range of steps, accelerated since 9/11 which I think are at the root of why the US Dollar has been falling relative to other major currencies. In combination these steps plus a marked decrease in the competence of our government and how it has managed our economy have combined to make the US Dollar something fewer and fewer people want to rely upon as the unit of transactions or the measurement of wealth.
Here are a few of the steps and why I think they have reduced the collective buying power and wealth of the US. And yes, here is where I will start introducing a “networked economics” perspective to this discussion. I’ve been blogging and writing from this perspective for a few years now, here is a post on the value of “used” markets for just one example.
ame
- Much greater friction at US Borders. To visit Canada or the US used to require a drivers license, now it requires a passport. Visiting the US as a tourist was routine for most of the world, now it requires far greater friction, potentially fingerprinting and a much slower and more stressful process. Entering for business, not just tourist reasons has also gotten much harder. In just the past few months major musicians and authors of recently published books have been prevented from entering the US due to “morals” clauses.
ame
- Slow to non-existent visa process has reduced foriegn engagement with US Universities. When highly respected, tenured tracked professors are denied a US Visa (Tariq is instead teaching at Oxford), when scholars are denied entry to participate in major academic conferences being held in the US, we have a serious and growing problem. And as a result schools have trouble attracting and retaining foreign graduate students, and post-graduation those students have more difficulty in getting US work visas.
ame
- Combativeness of US Government both literally in terms of waging two active wars (and a range of other actions across the planet) and more figuratively in terms of enforcement of trade rules and barriers. By withdrawing from countless global treaties (and/or refusing to even negotiate) from Kyoto to the Geneva Convention. Increasingly the US is taking positions on a range of issues that are counter to those of our trading partners - from genetically modified foods to whether or not we trade with Cuba. And we are maintaining trade policies that result in very strange policies - our tariffs on sugar which result in the mass use of corn syrup in US packaged foods to cite just one of many examples (though one of the more egregious). And increasingly we seem to be seeking to force our laws onto the rest of the world - trying to tie our (highly debated) lengthy and particular copyright rules to WTO negotiations.
And there are many other examples.
As a result of all of these factors I think the US in the past decade has become more isolated, more closed to the outside world even as the rest of the world (Europe in particular) is growing less isolated and more connected. The “eurozone” is now far larger than the US. When it is hard to engage with the world - both for US citizens and for non-citizens with the US the result is a much lessened need to use US dollars for those interactions, a much lowered attraction to using dollars.
And that, more so than a public call for a “strong” dollar (as some recent WSJ opinion pieces have called for, ironically by a Bear Sterns economist) is why the dollar has been and continues to fall - the US is decreasingly relevant as a global market and participant because we have increasingly chosen to make it very hard to do business with us, to even engage with us to start to do business.
When we seek to impose our morality on the world - having a “morals” test for even short term work visas, such as for a musician to perform at the Grammy’s something is seriously wrong. When our government seemingly is making political judgments about who can teach even at private universities we lose much more than just an academic voice - whether or not you agree with that particular voice we are shutting out a reasoned engagement with the world.
From a networked economic perspective a unit of currency is a link - a link to that issuing central bank. Using that currency either directly or indirectly (by choosing to engage in trade and contracts denominated in that currency) is embedding a link to that central bank into those transactions. Both parties do so when they feel comfortable with that relationship for the duration of their transaction. With all the barriers we are imposing to engage with us, and simultaneously as we continue to diminish what we sell to the world, we reduce considerably why various people would choose to lock up a relationship with our central bank for a long time.
In short as we erect physical barriers, legal barriers and cultural barriers to engage with the rest of the world we are removing nodes at a rapid pace who might choose to conduct business denominated in US dollars.
For more on my theories of Network Economics, see my blog, Searching for the Moon.
by Kevin Werbach
March 23, 2008 at 9:16 pm · Filed under
Supernova08
Jerry Michalski led a stimulating and wide-ranging discussion at our Supernova mixer earlier this month in San Francisco, looking at the business implications of a networked world.
March 2008 Mixer Discussion -- Business in the Network Age:
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by Kevin Werbach
March 23, 2008 at 9:16 pm · Filed under
Supernova08
At our Supernova mixer in San Francisco earlier this month, Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research led a thought-provoking discussion about the significance and future of social networks.
March 2008 Mixer Discussion -- Leveraging the Social Graph:
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by chrisbrogan
March 21, 2008 at 10:40 am · Filed under
Infrastructure and Communications, Supernova08
Computing networks and social networks alike need a new casualness factor, and I’m calling for it now. In the case of computing, I want mesh networks like what comes built into the OLPC platform to propagate. I want network security to shift to zone and application in most areas such that we can have simpler collaboration. We have tools to protect us. We have protocols and security to keep the most critical parts of business networks secure. Free up the REST of the network for simpler connectivity and open us all up for the way work gets done these days. (One word: porous).
Social networks? Break open, loosen up. I want 2 profiles max for the rest of my life: business buttoned up and casual. (Okay, for me they’re the same, but that’s just to prove a point). But I don’t WANT to add a headshot, tell you how old I am, tell you which movies are my favorite, and then dump my gmail inbox into yet another server to see who else followed the lemmings to sign up (do my 4600 gmail contacts make me look fat? Lots of social networks buckle when I try to import them).
In the next bunch of months, I want a disassociated profile, a portable friends array, aggregation of lifestreams akin to FriendFeed but faster, and I want to have second-stage promotion of quality content (aka filtering) such that if seven of my friends say this article by Marshall Kirkpatrick is the BEST, then I want THAT to rise to the top of my RSS pile, instead of staying nestled into the rest of the blog posts.
Is any of this not do-able? I don’t think so. Supernova would be a great place to throw down and discuss all this. Don’t you agree?
by Kevin Werbach
March 21, 2008 at 8:40 am · Filed under
Supernova08
The theme of this year’s Supernova is “Challenges for the Network Age,” because I believe we’ve reached the threshold of a dramatically new environment for business and society. We’ve moving from the Information Age to the Network Age. In the Information Age, computers and communications networks produced a global village and astounding gains in economic productivity. The Network Age incorporates those advances into an environment where anything connects to anything, anyone to anyone, anywhere, anytime. We’re not all the way there yet, but we’re far enough along to start seeing the effects. And that means we must confront both the inevitable conflicts of the great shift, as well as the inherent contradictions of a networked world. Only by doing so will we see the paths to durable innovation and business opportunities.
The Network Age poses ten basic challenges for all of us interested in the future of technology, media, and communications:
- Scarcity and Abundance
(Both are sources of value, yet they cannot coexist.)
- Choice and Coordination
(Users are in control, but don’t they need guides to avoid being overwhelmed?)
- Aggregation and Fragmentation
(Network effects mean that the big players get bigger, but at the same time, markets increasingly specialize and personalize.)
- Stability and Disruption
(True innovation requires disruption, but disruption can be painful and costly, especially where investment and trust are significant.)
- Behavior and Rationality
(People don’t always act according to models of rationality, especially when connected to one another, but our economic frameworks assume they do.)
- Complexity and Simplicity
(Complex adaptive systems produce emergent behavior and growth, but simplicity is a virtue… in both life and information technology.)
- Openness
(Everyone agrees it’s good, even essential in a networked environment, but no one can say what exactly it means, or how much openness is beneficial.)
- Governance
(How much do networks and their users need to be managed or protected, and where do those controls come from?)
- Scale
(The local is different from the global, whether the subject is enterprise collaboration or usage patterns or cloud computing infrastructure.)
- Sustainability
(How to build organizations and systems that endure, especially in a world whose delicate ecology is itself a form of scarcity.)
These issues manifest themselves in a series of choices about platforms, services, standards, business models, and investments. We’ll drill down on many of them at Supernova. If you are a large enterprise, these are the strategic questions you must address to thrive or even survive in a changing environment. If you are an entrepreneur, these are the parameters for your business model. If you are a technologist, these are the optimization constraints for your architectures and system designs. And if, like me, you’re simply curious about the future, these are tensions that will define the world we live in.
Supernova 2008 is built around these ten challenges. I’ll be posting about each of them at greater length in the weeks to come. The choices involved are especially difficult because the environment is evolving. The infrastructure is moving from PCs and the telephone network to mobile devices and broadband, while the software stack is moving from client-server Web browsers to cloud computing grids delivering dynamic objects, and the user base is increasingly comprised of Millennials who never knew a pre-network world. The good news is that times of great transformation are also massive opportunities.
So… are these the right challenges to pick? Are the questions really this difficult? And is the Network Age really as big a deal as I think it is? Supernova is an ongoing conversation among thought leaders from several communities: entrepreneurs, business practitioners, executives, investors, technologists, academics, and policy advocates. It’s a conversation that doesn’t start or finish with the physical conference, and isn’t limited to our speakers or attendees. Your reactions and responses to the ideas driving Supernova 2008 will help us all gain greater insights. I welcome your comments.
by Howard Greenstein
March 21, 2008 at 2:55 am · Filed under
Infrastructure and Communications, Society and Culture, Supernova08
Greetings, I’m Howard Greenstein, and I’m glad to be back here posting on the Conversation Hub, as I did last year before Supernova. I’m a social media and social network consultant, and have been in the internet and online world from the late 80s. Today’s post from me is a literal response to the theme of Supernova being “Challenges to the Network Age.”
I was recently thinking that in the 20 years I’ve been in business I’ve been hearing promises made about technologies that are just around the corner to connect everyone with everything. With Wi-Fi in every laptop, cell phones on almost every hip, and the promise of smarter smart phones and everywhere-you-need-it network access in every cell phone commercial, I was starting to believe the hype about connectedness. It’s going to be a Jetson’s type world, very soon!
Then reality hit me in the face. Today I’m working in a “business center” that blocks access to my outgoing mail server, instant messaging, and Voice over IP. They also block virtual private networking software that would allow me to get around their restrictions. (I used to have a phone that allowed me to use it as a modem to get around this kind of stuff, but since I went iPhone Apple and AT+T let you do that.) Also, the business center didn’t have an AT+T cell signal. No VOIP on my computer. No Cell Phone. So I’m in a business center where I…can’t do business.
This is not a rant about how I can’t get online. I hope you’ll see that, even for me, a “road warrior” who is “always connected” and “constantly on the network” it isn’t even close to easy some days to do what you want to do.
The current networking promises on the horizon include 700Mhz Cell networks where we can bring our own devices, WiMAX networks in our cities to replace or supplement wired broadband, and even more.
Some of the things I’m hoping to learn at Supernova are
- What’s working for others to help them do business in the networked world?
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- How close are we to some of these promised innovations? and
- What’s not on my radar yet that I can wonder about for the next few years?
Like, for example, “where’s my flying car?”
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