Socialstream, vers une hyperprésence des blogueurs ?

Article publié originellement chez Fred Cavazza, le 6 Avril, 2008 Avec la multiplication des services de publication / partage et la montée en puissance des outils de micro-publication (cf. Twitter au cœur de la révolution des médias sociaux ?), nous voyons apparaitre une nouvelle forme de services d’agrégation de l’activité sociale comme FriendFeed, Socialthing!, Lifestrea.ms… (cf. 35 Ways to Stream Your Life). Ces services vous permettent ainsi d’agréger l’ensemble de vos publications (bill
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Poker Social Network Site | Poker Forums | Just Like Myspace!

i have this listed on sitepoint....please bid there if interested.... Poker Social Network Site | Poker Forums | Just Like Myspace! Hi, we are looking to sell a fully developed poker social networking site. This site has a brandable .com domain (.net & .org extension available with sale) registered at godaddy, professional looking layout, many features ready to go. All that is needed is the PROMOTION of the site. ************************************** http://tinyurl.com/4rl
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IBM's Social Networking Commercial

Have you seen the new IBM commercial on Social Networking? The scene opens up with a twenty-something pounding away on his key board when an executive type person walks in asks what he is doing. He responds “Social Networking, I have 200 friends now”. The executive says “Do you know anyone that is a Six-sigma, Black Belt, Financial expert with Java, and CRM expertise”. The young man responds “None of my friends are like that”. As the executive walks away, the voice delivers the pitch for doing s
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TwitLinks: River of tech news from Twitter, no signup necessary

Filed under: Internet, Social Software, web 2.0 Over the past year, Twitter has become an increasingly important source of news and communication for technology bloggers. If you sign up for a Twitter account and follow a few of your favorite tech writers, odds are you'll get links to interesting stories they've written and articles they're reading as well as a lot of back and forth discourse between writers, writers and readers, and a whole slew of other people. It's that last part that can ma
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Alert Thingy: FriendFeed on your desktop

Filed under: Web services, Social Software FriendFeed is a service that keeps track of the activity of your contacts across pretty much every social network. The problem with FriendFeed is that people want to view different sets of contacts in different ways. There are third party desktop clients for Twitter and Pownce, for example, that let you follow along and respond to comments more easily. But when you lump those services in with less-immediate ones like Yelp, Flickr, or the RSS feed to yo
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Alertthingy: è spartano, ma tiene d’occhio FriendFeed dal desktop

Devo fare i miei complimenti allo sviluppatore per il minisito dell’applicazione: è davvero bello da vedere. Vi piace FriendFeed, e siete stati contagiati dalla recente ondata di interesse su questa web app (come il sottoscritto)? Sono sicuro che stavate aspettando un client o un’applicazione di qualsiasi tipo che vi rendesse questo “aggregatore sociale” più facile [...]
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Crowdvine versus SWIFT

Some post-Computers-in-Libraries reactions are floating in about SWIFT, the conference software purchased by ITI. (Note: before I get into this, I want to underscore what a fabulous time I had in my drive-by attendance — trip report forthcoming, I promise! — and I bow and offer my humble thanks to Cindi, Roy, John, and Kate for putting on “a really good shew.”) Jason Griffey summed up my conclusions almost to the letter. See, there was this meeting with the Otter Group. I was only at the meeti
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Still Talk Via IRC? Want To Start? Give Mibbit A Try.

How do you prefer to socialize and converse with people (and the occasional inhuman entity) on the Web in real or near-real time? Instant messaging? Services like Twitter and Pownce? If you’re anything like us here at Mashable, you dabble in each somewhat. But what if you happen to like doing things old-school? No, no, not email. That stuff’s way too slow and banal. Rather, what if you’re into that popular medium of old called IRC? Yes, IRC. Internet Relay Chat. Our own Stan Schroeder admits
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Links for 2008 04 13

mark’s research: Women are better at judging personality Study on the ability of social network users to understand/judge different aspects of other users’ personalities based on their social network profile/page. Very interesting! (tags: paper, social, judge, women) Main Page - Wikigender.org Project by OECD Development Centre about gender-related issues around the world. Focus on collecting empirical evidence and identifying statistics and measurement tools of gender equality. Pilot for G
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Jotlet acquired by Jive Software

Jotlet yesterday announced that it has been acwuired by Jive Software. Apparently talks were going on since  Office 2.0 Conference last September. Jive Software makes enterprise social software that unites employees and connects them with their customers and partners. For now, Jotlet will continue to operate as normal. In terms of integration with Jive, Jotlet will bring their calendaring functionality into Jive’s ClearSpace. ShareThis
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links for 2008-04-08

Music Video: Back in Black by Wing Probably the best cover version of Back in Black ever. (tags: video acdc back-in-black wing) 7 Ways To Create Your Own Digg Clone Digg clone software (tags: social-software cms digg) Getting things done (simply) in Leopard | Dennis Best Using GTD without GTD specific software - oh yeah, on the Mac. (tags: gtd apple howto leopard) In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop - New York Times “A growing work force of home-office laborers and e
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CIL2008: User-Generated Content

CIL2008: User-Generated Content Roy Tennant Not an overview of ways users are creating content. If you want that, go buy Social Software in Libraries by Meredith Farkas. Focus will be on user-generated content on library managed sites. Roy's tenets for user-generated content: More content is better. More access is better. Can provide more personalized service. Can foster interaction and community. We don't know everything -- we don't know all we can know about our own collections. Our user
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ONEsite Delivers Leading Social Network Scalability for Company CRM

ONEsite, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise community and social networking software, announced today the launch of its new Class A datacenter and a series of wide ranging performance enhancements to the patent-pending technology of the ONEsite Platform.“It took two years to grow through 1 million users and now we are growing at 1 million users every two months,” said Bob Crull, ONEsite’s CEO. “Our platform is both flexible and fast. If a company wants to engage their users, we have the s
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The End of the NWE: Stories of Nostalgia

Pedagogical Nostalgia Part I I cut my pedagogical teeth at the NWE. As Bradley writes, it is shutting down. I heard the same thing at CCCC. In the five years I taught at UF, I think I only taught two courses outside of the NWE. My understanding of teaching, technology, and writing came out of my experiences there: working with HTML, open source software, video projection, and few constraints regarding what I was allowed to do. I could, as Ulmer writes, invent new practices. My research owes a
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CIL2008: User Generated Content (and more info on LOC & Flickr)

Roy Tennant gave a talk on User-Generated Content to a full crowd. He's going to cover both real (photos, movies) and descriptive content (tag, ratings). He plugged "Social Software in Libraries by Meredith Farkas. Why (user generated content)? More (decent) content is better -- Let's find ways for our users to contributeMore access is betterHelp provide more personalized serviceCan foster interaction and community"We don't know everything" - Meredith Farkas More data trumps better algorithmsC
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5 Ways To Lend Money Online

With the United States’ economy flirting with the word “recession”, people are looking to get out of debt. Banks aren’t always eager to give out loans for things like paying off a credit card, and this situation has given rise to social lending. Some sites let you collect interest as the lender, and some simply give you the opportunity to help someone out. If you’re interested in lending money online, we’ve got five such services for you to look at. (more…) ShareThis --- Related Articles at M
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Anonymous (The Almighty Mishawaka Bans Social Software 12″ Mix)

I have posts coming for each of the excellent group projects in my LIS768 class. But please take a listen to this remixed take on Anonymous’ comments about Mishawaka Library Banning Social Software. http://yourlibrary.podOmatic.com/entry/2008-04-06T10_40_08-07_00 Just one example of the creativity my class demonstrated. Read more about it here: http://wrmarsolek.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/garageband-superstar/
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What’s the next big thing in HCM ? From Human Capital Assessment to Realization

It’s a question I asked to myself after having read this note from Thomas Otter who was wondering what will be the next innovation in HCM Software. Even if everything can be improved, I think that “administrative” systemes won’t experience a real revolution. In the other hand I think the pure “Human Capital” side is very promising. Even if human capital assessment systems have been existing for years, I’m not sure they fully reach their goals. This inspires me two things. When talking of ass
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ONEsite Delivers Leading Social Network Scalability for Company CRM

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — ONEsite, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise community and social networking software, announced today the launch of its new Class A datacenter and a series of wide ranging performance enhancements to the patent-pending technology of the ONEsite Platform. “It took two years to grow through 1 million users and now we are growing at 1 million users every two months,” said Bob Crull, ONEsite’s CEO. “Our platform is both flexible and fast. If a company wants to engage t
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Zusammenführen, zusammenführen, zusammenführen.

Zusammenführen, zusammenführen, zusammenführen. Ja, alles muss zusammengeführt werden, dann klappts auch mit dem Twittern. Facebook, Twitter und einige IM-Dienste hab ich jetzt mit Digsby, meinem neuen kleinen grünen Freund, gebündelt und schon geht's besser bzw. bin ich wieder interessiert an neuen/alten Diensten. Mir ist das sonst einfach zu mühsam...wie macht ihr das? zuckerwatte - 7. Apr, 21:19 über Social Software
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Social Innovation Camp

It was post-it notes at dawn for the inaugural Social Innovation Camp in London last weekend. An ‘unconference,’ the camp brought together teams of web 2.0 geeks and other bright young things to compete in “an experiment in using social technology for social change.” In fact there was stiff competition to even get in the front door of hosts, the Young Foundation. Participants were pre-selected by the quality and potential of their ideas. The camp’s website collects some brilliant ideas for soci
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Tweet Clouds let you know what it is you can't shut up about

Filed under: Internet, Social Software, web 2.0 If you're obsessed with a TV show, musician, web site, or programming language, odds are you already know it. But wouldn't it be great if someone could follow you around all day and record every single word you speak and then plot the whole thing out in a tag cloud so you can see just how much you're annoying everyone who couldn't care less about your favorite subject? That's not exactly what Tweet Clouds does. But the site does analyze all of t
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aka-aki to launch English MoSo app

aka-aki, the Berlin-based mobile social network, has launched its public beta for Germany and a localised English version of the service will launch “soon”. About 2,000 people in Berlin have been using the software during its private beta since since August 2007. The company previously raised a small seed round from FoundersLink. With aka-aki you create a profile on the site and then download the java app to your phone. You can also create and join groups that say things about your life, job
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PROLEARN Academy Newsletter 2008 - Week 15

*** New Call For Papers Digital Social Networks Call-Art: Workshop, Paper submission deadline: 2008-04-28 Digital Social Networks - One Day Workshop at the annual meeting of the German Society for Computer Science (GI), September 8th – 13th, 2008, Munich The First International Workshop on Social Software Engineering and Applications (SoSEA 2008) Call-Art: Workshop, Paper submission deadline: 2008-06-15 The First International Workshop on Social Software Engineering and Applications (
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Tech journalists who do, and don’t, twitter

Charles Cooper of CNET decided to see what tech reporters used social networking software Twitter, and which ones didn’t. Cooper writes, “I included names of some online reporters — including colleagues from CNET as well as TechCrunch — but in the main, the list is comprised of people employed by A-list newspapers and periodicals. “I don’t pretend to have come up with a statistically representative list. Call it my weekend science experiment. What’s more, some people may have crossed me up by
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Send2Press Wire Service Summary of Entertainment and Technology News: April 4, 2008

LOS ANGELES, Calif., April 5 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- The weekly news feature summary from the Send2Press Wire Service includes this week: Visionsoft PowerOut software allows businesses to conserve energy by powering down unused PCs; ONEsite expands enterprise social networking with new Class A datacenter; and Prepare Stay Defend, a California non-profit, has launched a website that empowers homeowners against wildfires. Selected News Stories for Week Ending Friday April 4th, 2008. * to re
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ONEsite Delivers Leading Social Network Scalability with New Capacity

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — ONEsite, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise community and social networking software, announced today the launch of its new Class A datacenter and a series of wide ranging performance enhancements to the patent-pending technology of the ONEsite Platform. “It took two years to grow through 1 million users and now we are growing at 1 million users every two months,” said Bob Crull, ONEsite’s CEO. “Our platform is both flexible and fast. If a company wants to engage t
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Twitterbook v2: Post Your Facebook Status to Twitter

Twitterbook has been updated! Download the new script and use it to update your Twitter account with your Facebook status. The first version of Twitterbook was released last year, and since then I hadn’t spent much time looking at social networking software, except for Facebook. At some point changes to one or both systems [...]
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Morpheus Photo Affiliate Program

I wanted to let folks know about the Morpheus Software affiliate program we have running on ShareASale, located at: http://www.shareasale.com/a-viewmerchant.cfm?merchantID=3298 We sell popular digital photo animation, manipulation, and social networking software for people to morph, animate, and upload their digital photos from the desktop to sites like YouTube and Facebook. Some info on our affiliate offer: * Payout is 45% of revenue. eCPC +/-$100. * Forget 30-60 day...
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ONEsite Delivers Leading Social Network Scalability with Dramatic Capacity Upgrade

LOS ANGELES, Calif. and OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — ONEsite, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise community and social networking software, announced today the launch of its new Class A datacenter and a series of wide ranging performance enhancements to the patent-pending technology of the ONEsite Platform. “It took two years to grow through 1 million users and now we are growing at 1 million users every two months,” said Bob Crull, ONEsite’s CEO. “Our platform is both flexible and fast. If a c
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ONEsite Delivers Leading Social Network Scalability

Social Software as a Service provider announces dramatic capacity upgrade OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla., April 2 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- ONEsite, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise community and social networking software, announced today the launch of its new Class A datacenter and a series of wide ranging performance enhancements to the patent-pending technology of the ONEsite Platform. "It took two years to grow through one million users - and now we are growing at one million users eve
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Digging up an old article on social networks that turned out to be prophetic (and a bonus!)

I stumbled upon (pushed by alexdc, I think) this old article, by Chris Allen, from early 2005 about the maxing-out of social connections (link below). What strikes me is that nothing has changed - people are still racking up the social networks (any one for FriendFeed?) and adding folks in a frenzy. Indeed, I would say since the article was written folks have been trying to get a grip on ring-fencing their networks, getting a handle on the purposes of different social networks, and trying to
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Guidelines for Bloggers

Guidelines for Bloggers Mar 31st, 2008 by ob Die MLA Task Force on Social Networking Software hat aus mehreren Quellen eine Liste von 8 Punkten zusammengestellt, die ein Blogger beachten sollte. Kategorie: MLA
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Google Throws $1M at Comsenz to Dominate Chinese Market

Another rumor confirmed: Google has invested $1 million in Comsenz, a Chinese company that provides social networking software, according to VentureBeat. That’s $4 million less that the rumors had indicated any investment amount would be, but the move does reaffirm Google’s desire to soak up more market share in the Chinese market. Additional investment in this second round of financing for Comsenz comes from Sequoia Capital China Fund. Comsenz operates Discuz, one of the largest bulletin b
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Google invests $1M in Chinese social networking company

Google has invested $1 million in Comsenz, a Chinese provider of social network software. It’s yet another move by Google to gain a foothold in China. that Google is preparing to launch a joint music download venture in China, largely to take on Chinese search engine The investment occurred in July as part of Comsenz’s second round of venture funding, and it was recently revealed in a regulatory filing . Rumors about the investment previously pegged Google’s portion at $5 million. The new
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Demand Media Plucks Pluck!

Demand Media has bought Pluck, a provider of social networking software for between US$50 million and $75 million reports Law.com...
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Demand Media Plucks Pluck!

Demand Media has bought Pluck, a provider of social networking software for between US$50 million and $75 million reports Law.com. Richard Rosenblatt, co-founder, chairman and CEO of social networking firm and domain name registrar Demand Media, said Pluck “is the next step” for both his company and social networking in general continues Law.com. The site, whose customers include traditional media companies such as the Washington Post and News Corp. along with consumer-branded Web sites, all
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TechCrunch Sponsors Rock

Thank you to our great group of sponsors who make reading TechCrunch possible. Flybridge Capital Partners, Boston-based VC with $560 million under management RaiseCapital, connecting entrepreneurs and investors online MySQL Conference and Expo, April 14-17, Santa Clara Brightcove, Internet TV and video platform Rackspace, hosting services Text Links Ads, marketplace for text-based ads OneSite, social networking software Ads-Click, text-based ads marketplace eBuddy, web-services meta i
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Zombie Seb gets Lemeurized

I gave an interview to Loïc Le Meur right after Webcom Montreal. I know it had been a long day, but still it doesn't explain why my eyeballs are largely missing from that video podcast. We talked about my experience as part of a distributed company. Listen and see how well you can handle spoken evil dead Canadian French!Loïc also interviewed Quebec edublogger Mario Asselin that day. Mario eloquently explained how he's been deploying (and helping deploy) blogs in schools, and what blogs in schools mean for parents, teachers and students. Don't miss this one!
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Austin Hill: Chasing Billions with Zero Knowledge

Zero-Knowledge Systems is a Montreal-based company that went through the dotcom boom and bust, and rebounded as Radialpoint. ZKS cofounder Austin Hill (who just started blogging - welcome, Austin!!) gave a 15-minute presentation at BarCamp Montreal on Saturday. This is my impressionistic transcript of his talk.This is normally a much longer talk. I was one of the cofounders of ZKS. I want to talk about entrepreneurialism. On my title's meaning. Not "chasing while clueless". It's that you just don't know how it will end up. It's really about finding jobs you love.People chase their dreams for various reasons. The guy who invented microfinance did not do it to get rich. I've been doing startups since I was 13, (quickly enumerates) total.net.... Around 1997 I got into privacy. I had a passion for cryptography, info security, the internet was becoming very popular for normal people. My brother, father and I started this enterprise, ZKS. The vision was empowering people to control their information. It wasn't about attacking cookies. We had a vision for remaking the internet. In the Wayback machine you can see our old mission statements. Funny, I don't remember writing this. We wanted to make it absolutely easy for people to go online and keep their privacy. There was a lot of very complicated stuff behind the scenes. Now. You have a big dream. You may think VCs are living in treehouses, throwing money out the window. I have learned how VC works. I researched everything, and sent out all these faxes.An important thing is to set your sights well. We were thinking very very big. Spreading our vision, with a lot of passion and evangelism, which helped drive our early success. Fundraising. 1M seed from angels, 5M from California VCs in '98, including the cofounder of inktomi. Series A 25M Yorkton in '99, Series B (30?)M in '01.The thing is, we did not need to raise money. But money was falling from the trees. People were desperately trying to give us money. We came up with a structure which was a coupon that said, you can give this to us now, you get money when we go IPO.You want to stage your investments. You don't want to raise your money at a high valuation with a dumb investor early on. We had an order for about 100M US, we only needed 10M. If you get money, you now have pressure to grow. We grew from 50 to 200 people. Has anybody heard of our hiring tactics. (audience member): I remember a ZKS-branded "We're Hiring" truck that would go and park right in front of other software companies' offices.There was a CEO in town, she tried to block email to ZKS. But her employees emailed us that night from home. Then we raised 22M as a Series C. All told we raised 80M$. US dollars.Thankfully we didn't put it all into stupid things. We diversified. We had this grand vision that we were to protect all the world's privacy.There are lots of types of money men. The believers. They're enthusiastic. Finding the right ones is critical. They can bring a lot to your company. The people who bring underwriting. A company went public too quick. They should have raised the 1M$ privately. A team of good VCs can be an ally. Then the gangster types, who want to take control of your company. Now. Rule #1 of startups. Bad Shit Happens. For us that was, the VC industry changed. [... ] You end up having to analyze your company to figure out what works. When you're big you can't iterate quickly. You talk about turning off entire business units. There's the edifice complex. When you walk into a new building, a lot of people feel like they've made it. There's the ghost effect when downsizing. For employees, this is bad for morale - the person they made come in all of a sudden has lost their jobs. Check your motives. If you're in this for the money, then go find another industry. When the shit hits the fan, there are easier ways. Starting a company is because there's no other way to chase your dream. Startups are a team sport. This is not swimming. Pick your team members very carefully. What really saved our company is we recruited really great people. Able to adapt and change.Develop double vision. Some people are visionary, telescopic. You need microscopic vision, too, small steps. Here's a common problem. Obvious things you don't see. For instance, watch this and count the number of times that a basketball is passed. How many? Now watch again. You're never sure what to focus on. As it turned out, we built an entire encryption infrastructure that could be bypassed by a couple lines of Javascript code. More advice. Avoid undisciplined growth. Find mentors and coaches. I'm very proud of the team we built at ZKS. My interests gradually went into community, venture philanthropy. Project Ojibwe is in stealth/ninja mode right now. It's about how we get people to aggregate with people... [short, fuzzy explanation]
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Berners-Lee slams US on net neutrality

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the worldwide web, is concerned that a lack of net neutrality could threaten internet innovation. Vnunet reports. "In a post on his blog titled Net Neutrality: This is serious, Berners-Lee explained his worry that, without net neutrality, legislation-free use of the internet by millions in the US could come to an end. " "When I invented the web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that this is going end in the USA", Berners-Lee wrote. ... Yes, regulation to keep the Internet open is regulation. And mostly, the Internet thrives on lack of regulation. But some basic values have to be preserved. For example, the market system depends on the rule that you can't photocopy money. Democracy depends on freedom of speech. Freedom of connection, with any application, to any party, is the fundamental social basis of the Internet, and, now, the society based on it. Let's see whether the United States is capable as acting according to its important values, or whether it is, as so many people are saying, run by the misguided short-term interested of large corporations.
read more [Smart Mobs (Howard Rheingold)]

A New York Times look at Wikipedia

Today's NYT take an in-depth look at Wikipendia. A major topic is the methodology for monitoring content: The administrators are all volunteers, most of them in their 20's. They are in constant communication — in real-time online chats, on "talk" pages connected to each entry and via Internet mailing lists. The volunteers share the job of watching for vandalism, or what Mr. Wales called "drive-by nonsense." Customized software — written by volunteers — also monitors changes to articles. Mr. Wales calls vandalism to the encyclopedia "a minimal problem, a dull roar in the background." Yet early this year, amid heightened publicity about false information on the site, the community decided to introduce semi-protection of some articles. The four-day waiting period is meant to function something like the one imposed on gun buyers. update (June 21, 2006): Jimmy Wales responds to the article: The New York Times gets it exactly backwards
read more [Smart Mobs (Howard Rheingold)]

Common mobile Linux-based platform

"Four mobile handset makers are teaming up with two cellular operators to develop a new Linux software platform for mobile devices,"ZDNet News reports."Cell phone makers Motorola,NEC,Panasonic Mobile Communications and Samsung Electronics,along with mobile operators NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone,expect to announce on Thursday plans to form an independent foundation to develop a common mobile Linux-based platform.They will use this platform to develop new products,applications and features.Linux,an open-source operating system,is already available on a wide range of mobile handsets". Mobile phone companies join forces on Linux
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Web Analytics Wednesday - NYC

Talking about the Power of Mobile Networks I connected with a mobile network of Web Analysts in New York tonight for their last meeting till fall. After reading about Top Ranked Web Analytics Blogs I listened to Avinash Kushik's advice on the Top 10 things distinguishing great Web Analytsts and one of those things is to belong to a virtual community called the Web Analytics Group. As soon as I joined last weekend (thought I might have been the 2000th member to join - turned out to be someone else that joined over the weekend) I was contacted by email and invited to come and meet some of the people who work with Web Analytics in my area. In fact, this is what the note said: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sorry for the short notice, but we'll be having our last Web Analytics Wedsnday in New York before we take a break for the summer. We'll be meeting at a somewhat new location, Divine Bar West. It's where we all met for drinks following Search Engine Strategies a few months ago. Divine Bar West 236 W. 54th St. (Broadway/8th) 212.265.WINE ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In another age, such a quick, impromptu meetup would have been impossible - but because of the power of social networks people all over the world got together tonight and talked about.......our work. I noticed some of the people I met with worked Remotely (they don't go into the office), and in fact, today, neither did I, opting to work from home instead. And while I could have Painted tonight I decided to do this instead. In fact, services such as MeetUp are changing the fabric of possibilities for what you can do at the last moment.
read more [Smart Mobs (Howard Rheingold)]

Global Gathering on the Commons

I never do this, but I am reproducing this press release in its entirety because of its importance: Global Gathering on the Commons Press Release By Anne MacKinnon and Charlotte Hess UBUD, BALI, INDONESIA - Recent research from all over the world offers a new approach to combating poverty and other difficult problems worldwide, an international group of scholars says. An organization of those scholars will hold a major international conference in Bali this June including a special session to make their alternative approach better known to policy-makers. Examples from all over the world show that communities can successfully set up their own arrangements for managing natural resources, the scholars say. The result is greater prosperity for both the local people and the natural resources they depend upon – such as water, forests, and fish. Yet the lessons from those communities are often left out of the mix in international discussions of ways to address poverty. Typically, anti-poverty policy emphasizes either private-property or government-controlled solutions. The United National High Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, launched in September 2005, is an example of an approach that focuses on creation of private property rights for the poor as a solution to poverty. Community management of resources offer another, important anti-poverty tool that needs more spotlight in international discussion, scholars who have researched such issues say. More policymakers world-wide need to be aware of the advantages of common property management, and include it in the “toolbox” of approaches to social, economic, or environmental problems, rather rely on only government or individual private control as the only options, these scholars say. Accordingly, the biennial conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASCP – recently renamed from the International Association for the Study of Common Property), to be held in Bali in June, will offer a special session at the conference is designed to educate policymakers in this new line of thinking, based on some 20 years of global study of local community arrangements for managing natural resources. Many natural resources crucial to human survival – like clean running water, or ocean fisheries - are difficult to lock away from anyone’s use, yet easy to degrade or even destroy with overuse. They are known in technical economic jargon as “commons.” Their management has been the focus of study for IASCP since its beginnings in the 1980s. Members of the group have researched how people can pull off the trick of making successful use, for many years, of “commons” resources that it would be very tempting – and potentially very profitable – to use up quickly and destroy. Conventional U.S. and Western European economic and political thinking would have it that “commons” resources are simply fated for destruction, on the theory that people will always act selfishly. Anything that belongs to everyone nearby just gets overused, the conventional thinking says. That’s a theory called the “tragedy of the commons,” as a line of thinking dating from the 1960s puts it. That theory sounds plausible, so people have come to believe it. As a result, many have argued for, and some governments have adopted, policies that either privatized common resources, or declared them to be state property. At the meeting in Bali this June, however, scholars and practitioners from all over the world will gather to discuss new theory on management of common resources – with evidence on how people manage those resources and how government policies and other programs can either help or hurt such effective local management. Bali itself is a prime example of commons institutions. The subaks, or traditional irrigation systems have been built and managed by farmers that have lasted over centuries. Even the cultural heritage of the island—seen in the dance, music, and art - is a treasured commons. A variety of field trips will allow participants to see this up close. For example, on a field trip to the village of Catur, participants will be shown the coffeeproducing process and learn the lessons of participatory mapping. At the Bali conference, the kick-off special session for policy makers and interested journalists will focus on the switch some governments have begun to make away from the once-popular policy of centralized control of natural resources. The new trend in “devolution” of power to the locals promises to give poor communities more rights over their resources, but there are problems in implementing the new policy that need to be examined. Speakers from China, India, Indonesia, Papa New Guinea, Philippines, and Vietnam will discuss experience with these issues in their countries. To learn more about the upcoming IASCP International meeting, regional meetings, and for references to leading IASCP scholars and publications, please contact: Charlotte Hess IASCP Information Officer International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP) Telephone: 812-855-9636 Email: hess@indiana.edu Or check the IASCP website that also includes free access to a digital library of full-text research papers documenting community arrangements to manage natural resources all over the world at. Conference details: Survival of the Commons: Mounting Challenges and New Realities, June 19-23, will be held on the grounds the Agung Rai Museum of Art (ARMA) in the town of Ubud, Bali. The conference is hosted by the Center for Agrarian Studies (Pusat Kajian Agraria of Bogor Agricultural University (Institut Pertanian Bogor). The special one-day kick-off seminar for policy-makers and interested journalists, “The Devolution of Natural Resources,” will be held June 19. Field tours will be available June 21.
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Sweden's national election and the Pirate Party

"Swedes who download free music and movies have formed their own political party and plan to field 140 candidates," Times Online reports.Further,"some 6,000 Swedes (and counting) have formed their own political party:the Pirate Party.To be clear, the Pirate Party doesn’t just represent all-you-can-eat downloaders,but downloading is the principal activity that this group, ranging from their teens to late 50s,seems to have in common."For a lot of members this is the first political party they’ve ever joined," says 21-year-old Balder Lingegard, an engineering student from Gothenburg who serves as the Pirate Party secretary and is a parliamentary candidate in this September’s national election."For some, they have felt betrayed by the political system for a long time,feeling it did not represent their interests.Others felt as if there was never an important enough issue for them to take a political stand."That "important issue" occurred last week in the form of a raid by Swedish police on The Pirate Bay, a community of more than a million BitTorrent users who use the popular technology to exchange all manner of files from copyrighted movies,video games and music to open-source software". The politics of piracy
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Checking the social networking sites

This IHT article says "when a small consulting company in Chicago was looking to hire a summer intern this month,the company's president went online to check on a promising candidate who had just graduated from the University of Illinois.At Facebook, a popular social networking site,the executive found the candidate's Web page with this description of his interests:"smokin' blunts" (cigars hollowed out and stuffed with marijuana), shooting people and obsessive sex,all described in vivid slang.It did not matter that the student was clearly posturing.He was done."A lot of it makes me think,what kind of judgment does this person have?" said the company's president,Brad Karsh."Why are you allowing this to be viewed publicly, effectively, or semipublicly?"Many companies that recruit on college campuses have been using search engines like Google and Yahoo to conduct background checks on seniors looking for their first job.But now,college career counselors and other experts say, some recruiters are looking up applicants on social networking sites like Facebook,MySpace,Xanga and Friendster,where college students often post risqué or teasing photographs and provocative comments about drinking, recreational drug use and sexual exploits in what some mistakenly believe is relative privacy". For some,online persona undermines a résumé
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Roland's Sunday Smart Trends #114

Here is my weekly selection of articles that were not mentioned here -- except if I missed them. Lost and Found in Manhattan For some people, location is everything. As a self-confessed GPS geek, Cyril Houri has a thing about knowing his x and y coordinates – the latitude and longitude readings that tell you precisely where you are in the world. But because GPS uses satellite signals to triangulate your position, it works only in places where you can get a signal. [...] So he grabs his smartphone and powers up Navizon, a system he developed that can tri-angulate his position by taking readings from Wi-Fi hot spots or cellular towers. Bingo! Source: Frank Rose, Wired Magazine, Issue 14.06, June 2006 Getting computer grids to talk to each other Grids have their own way of meshing together Grids that use different operating systems. Instead of developing individual translators for each Grid operating system UniGridS [, a IST-funded project,] developed an interoperability layer called the UniGrids Atomic Services, enabling different Grids to function as one. Source: IST Results, June 8, 2006 Making virtual worlds more lifelike Ever played an online game like "World of Warcraft" or "EverQuest" and wished the expressions on your avatar's face looked more realistic or that it was easier to communicate with other players? If so, then a team of researchers from the famed Palo Alto Research Center might be your heroes. Source: CNET News.com, June 8, 2006 Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. Source: Paul Marks, NewScientist.com news service, June 9, 2006 Trust me, I'm a robot Robot safety: As robots move into homes and offices, ensuring that they do not injure people will be vital. But how? Source: The Economist, June 8, 2006 France launches cyber-budget game The French government has launched an online game that challenges taxpayers to balance the national budget of nearly 300bn euros ($373bn). [Note: according to some comments, this game is not really fun!] Source: BBC News Online, June 8, 2006 New Net neutrality plan may ruffle feathers Internet companies that have been lobbying for stiff Net neutrality regulations might be having second thoughts right about now. Source: Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com, June 8, 2006 Here .Coms the Bride Planning a wedding on the Web is nothing new. But the tools and connections you can find today are far more sophisticated than they used to be. [Note: I've included this article not for its contents -- which are nevertheless interesting -- but for its title -- the best of the month so far!] Source: Sara Kehaulani Goo, The Washington Post, June 11, 2006 (Free registration) See you next week...
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Mobile Asia Competition 2006

[CALL FOR PARTICIPATION] MOBILE ASIA COMPETITION 2006 ORGANIZED BY ART CENTER NABI SEOUL, KOREA The progress of mobile technology characterized by mobility, connectivity, and dispersion seems to resonate with the diasporic experiences of Asians who are mobile, dispersed yet connected with each other through socio-cultural dynamics and relations. With the mobile market and its culture expanding beyond Korea, Japan, China, and Taiwan to the Southeast Asia, the need should be raised for reflecting upon the currency of culture and the urgency of new identities that are evolving with mobile technology in Asian region. Mobile Asia Competition 2006 hosted by Art Center Nabi pays attention to the role of media makers and artists in articulating and expressing the Asian mobile cultures. Artists and media makers always appropriate and challenge the given technology through creative ideas and critical practices to broaden the space of possibilities. Especially, the recent emerging ubiquitous mobile environments requires both popular sentiment and critical thoughts. Mobile Asia competition 2006 investigates the new forms of Asian identities and cultures in the creative works of artists and designers who dare to experiment, play, and wrestle with the mobile technologies. CATEGORY 1. Works made to be viewed and experienced on mobile devices (1) Game, Interactive Art (2) Screen-based arts : Animation, Motion Graphic, Documentary, Music Video, Narrative film, etc. 2. Works made by mobile phones such as camera phone, video phone. 3. Idea proposal for wireless art projects on the theme of ‘connectivity and social network’ Art project that expresses the theme of social network and connectivity while exploring new and artistic ways of using diverse personal media such as mobile phones, laptop, PDA and internet network. PRIZE The total award money is US $20.000 and the selected works will be exhibited in various on and offline venues. Category 1 & 2 (Mobile content): US $10.000 - One winner from each category will be awarded with $5000. - The works by winners and other selected works will be screened and exhibited at Art Center Nabi, ResFest Korea 2006 (digital film festival), and Korean mobile phone service including DMB channel. Category 3 (Wireless art proposal): US $10.000 - One winner will be awarded with $5000. - Additional $5000 and technical support will be offered for the realization of the proposal if the work is decided to be realized.
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A tapestry of brochures

Mirroring the social networking of people emerging from the Internet is the networking of content and the ideas the content contains. Bambi Francisco’s commentary here in Market Watch reflects on the work underway crafting new content-making methods by the online gorillas and by fresh startups where: “the foundations are being laid for online guides that cover the most common interests and the most obscure ones.” Like so many commentaries from observers on emergent Web stuff, Francisco ends up at the long tail: But unlike that massive undertaking to publish one universal reference for words, today's Web efforts aren't a comprehensive dictionary so much as a tapestry of, well, online brochures. Now some might say that online brochures have wallpapered the Web for years. That's not new. But I'm not talking about corporate brochures. Rather I'm referring to the plethora of travel guides about kayaking, surfing, Abalone diving, or hiking and other activities you might see while you're on vacation, perhaps in some remote vacation resort. I'm referring to the informational postcards or material about obscure medical issues or procedures that might be available in a physician's waiting room. I'm also talking about those gift-giving brochures or mailers from your neighborhood shops, laying out recommendations or ideas about what you should buy your father for Father's Day. I'm referring to the long tail of the Web, which many of us know takes everyone's contribution.
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P2P Data, Opendata, WikiData

[via Social Synergy Weblog] [bliki | What is bliki?] Slashdot reports about Google's launch of Google Spreadsheet. While this may be an attempt on Google's part to try and insert advertising into new online realms, the core idea of co-editable spreadsheets and sharing data is definitely worthwhile. Not many people are interested in putting their own personal data onto someone else's servers. But, co-creating public or community data, and making that data open and shareable and re-useable adds a new dimension to knowledge commons. Several similar efforts existed before the launch of Google's online spread sheets, including:

• EditGrid
• NumSum
• iRows
• Numbler
• WikiCalc

Software Defined Radio: GNU Radio

BoingBoing reports on GNU Radio: a software-defined radio that can emulate practically any traditional radio just by changing the software. With the right GNU Radio hardware, the same machine can act as a digital TV receiver (try forcing the Broadcast Flag down a GNU Radio owner's throat!), a satellite radio receiver, an AM/FM tuner, an analog TV receiver, and a military radar installation. All at the same time.
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Roland's Sunday Smart Trends #113

Here is my weekly selection of articles that were not mentioned here -- except if I missed them. Software taps experts among your friends For anyone who has hesitated before making a purchase on a Web site, uncertain which brand is preferable, Tacit Software is preparing to introduce an online service that will make it simple to pick the brains of friends and colleagues for opinions and expertise. Source: John Markoff, The New York Times, via CNET News.com, May 28, 2006 The next big bang: Man meets machine Researchers are now looking to biological materials such as bacteria, viruses, proteins and DNA to replace mechanical parts in computers. And as the age of genetic engineering matures, scientists are already borrowing techniques from software developers to build libraries of genetic information. All of these overlapping strands of scientific inquiry are known colloquially as "BANG," which stands for bits, atoms, neurons and genes. Source: TheDeal.com, via CNET News.com, May 29, 2006 Writing Your Own News Citizen journalism is not really journalism, said panelists Tuesday at a conference about social applications of technology. Rather than "self-imposed impartiality," as self-titled "recovering journalist" and citizen media guru Dan Gillmor put it, web publishing tools offer the opportunity for people to speak in their own voices. Source: Red Herring, May 30, 2006 World Cup gets interactive with 21st century technology The promise of watching the football World Cup with 21st century technology hints at a world where all media are tied together in a complete package that can excite, inform and entertain modern audiences using interactive technologies. We're not there yet. But we're getting there with the help of cutting-edge research. Source: IST Results, May 31, 2006 Telemedicine solutions to optimise healthcare When Dr Javier Marco checks his patients he often uses a computer with a videoconferencing link. Many of his elderly patients live in remote villages in the foothills of the Spanish Pyrenees and no longer travel to where he works. "They’re very satisfied. There is less inconvenience and the quality of care is better," he says. Source: IST Results, June 1, 2006 Newspapers woo bloggers with mixed results Blogs written by so-called citizen journalists are increasingly challenging newspapers for readers. According to a recent study by Forrester Research, blogs and newspaper Web sites now have the same audience share--about 17 percent--among Internet users between the ages of 18 and 24. Source: Greg Sandoval, CNET News.com, June 1, 2006 Building new cultural knowledge services with BRICKS If citizens are to access the wealth of cultural knowledge, tucked away in books, films, photographs and historical artefacts spread across museums, libraries and archives and if cultural organisations are to make the most out of their resources innovative digital solutions such as those currently being built are needed. Source: IST Results, June 2, 2006 Nokia turns cellphones into webservers Nokia has ported the Apache webserver to Symbian, in order to enable mobile phones to serve content on the World Wide Web. Many mobile phones today have more processing power than early Internet servers, suggesting that "there really is no reason anymore why webservers could not reside on mobile phones," according to the company. The technique could also be used on Linux mobile phones. Source: LinuxDevices.com, June 2, 2006 See you next week...
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Collective Action is not Collectivism

I'm not going to get into a critique of Jaron Lanier's Digital Maoism -- indeed, I agree that new notions about collective intelligence and peer production should be viewed critically and not embraced in a spirit of magical thinking -- but I find it strange that someone as educated as Jaron should fall into the same simple fallacy the Cato Institute fell for: collective action is not the same as collectivism. Commons-based peer production in Wikipedia, open source software, open source biology, prediction markets is collective action, not collectivism. Collective action involves freely chosen self-election (which is almost always coincident with self-interest) and distributed coordination; collectivism involves coercion and centralized control; treating the Internet as a commons doesn't mean it is communist (tell that to Bezos, Yang, Filo, Brin or Page, to name just a few billionaires who managed to scrape together private property from the Internet commons). Hello? Can anybody spot the differences?
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An invitation to an event against DRM

On June 10th, the DefectiveByDesign.org Campaign to Eliminate DRM is targeting Apple for action in 6 cities. An invitation to participate is here. DBD explains the purpose of the campaign: We Oppose DRM! DefectiveByDesign.org is a broad-based, anti-DRM campaign that is targeting Big Media, unhelpful manufacturers and DRM distributors. It aims to make all manufacturers wary about bringing their DRM-enabled products to market. The campaign aims to identify “defective” products. Users are being asked to stand up in defense of their existing freedoms. What is DRM? Technology that restricts users’ traditional rights in copyrighted works, often known as Digital Restrictions Management or Digital Rights Management (DRM), is threat to freedom. As a way to limit users’ rights, the adoption of DRM is fundamentally at odds with the spirit of the free software movement. Unfree software implementing DRM technology is simply a prison in which users can be put to deprive them of the rights that the law would otherwise allow them. Our aim is, and must be, the abolition of DRM as a social practice. Anything less than complete victory leaves the freedom of software in grave peril.
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Online Seminar on Benkler's Wealth of Networks

(Via boingboing) I'm about 85% through the book. It's important. This seminar adds value: Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom is a very exciting book. It captures an important set of developments – how new information technologies make it easier for individuals to collaborate in producing cultural content, knowledge, and other information goods. It draws links across apparently disparate subject areas to present a theory of how these technologies are reshaping opportunities for social action. Finally, it presents a highly attractive vision of what society might be like if we allow these technologies to flourish, as well as the political obstacles which may prevent these technologies from reaching their full potential. If you’re interested in debates on Creative Commons, on Wikipedia, on net neutrality, or any of a whole host of other issues, this is an essential starting point. We’ve put together a seminar on the book, which we hope will help spur discussion around it in the blogosphere. This is an important debate. In a (long overdue) departure from previous seminars that I and others have organized at CT, we hope to include other blogs more directly in the discussion than in the past. We’ll do this by borrowing an idea from Will Wilkinson, and using this post to link to blogs which we think make substantial contributions to this set of arguments (nb that my definition of substantial is necessarily an idiosyncratic one). The material from this seminar is also available under a Creative Commons license (the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License) for others to re-use and add to in creative ways. The seminar is available both as a PDF and as an .rtf file for easier reading and re-use. The contributions are in the order that they are mentioned in Benkler’s response. Henry Farrell argues that not only formal institutions but also informal norms are necessary for these technologies to enable proper collaboration. Dan Hunter celebrates the book, but worries that it covers too many topics, and that it’s written in language that non-academic readers may have difficulty in understanding. John Quiggin examines the underlying motivations behind the production of common resources, and suggests that Benkler’s arguments point to major flaws in innovation policy. Eszter Hargittai suggests that inequalities in the ability to participate may mean that these new technologies won’t do as much to flatten social hierarchies as they might seem to. Jack Balkin claims that Benkler’s book isn’t so much about new modes of cooperation replacing market mechanisms, as existing side-by-side with them. Siva Vaidhyanathan argues that Benkler’s book is guilty of a soft form of technological determinism, which overemphasizes the positive consequences of new technologies and implicitly discounts the less positive. Finally, Yochai Benkler responds to all of the above.
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Social Silicon Valleys: Digging Deeper Into Social Innovation

(Via Doors of Perception) Social Innovation has published a "manifesto for social innovation," Social Silicon Valleys (PDF), that's definitely worth reading: The results of social innovation are all around us. Self-help health groups and self-build housing; telephone help lines and telethon fundraising; neighbourhood nurseries and neighbourhood wardens; Wikipedia and the Open University; complementary medicine, holistic health and hospices; microcredit and consumer cooperatives; charity shops and the fair trade movement; zero carbon housing schemes and community wind farms; restorative justice and community courts. All are examples of social innovation - new ideas that work to meet pressing unmet needs and improve peoples’ lives. This manifesto is about how we can improve societies’ capacities to solve their problems. It is about old and new methods for mobilising the ubiquitous intelligence that exists within any society. Over the last two decades there has been a great deal of progress in the understanding and practice of social enterprise and entrepreneurship, which has prompted the creation of new funds and endowments (such as UnLtd and Impetus), networks of support and training (such as CAN - the Community Action Network - and Ashoka), as well as new legal forms (like the UK’s Community Interest Company). Foundations are becoming much more sophisticated about their impact on social change and a new generation of philanthropists familiar with innovation in business are looking for more effective ways to invest money in social projects that go beyond the piecemeal paternalism of the past. Here we aim to build on this progress, by broadening the focus to look at how societies renew themselves not just through social enterprise but also through social innovation more widely in NGOs, the public sector, movements and markets. The main aim is practical – and towards the end of this manifesto we set out the steps that now need to be taken to accelerate social innovation more broadly and meet unmet needs. But we also make the case for better understanding and rigorous reflection in a field that still relies too much on anecdote and inspiring stories.
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MMORPG “adhocracy”

WIRED’s 2006 Rave Award went to World of Warcraft. The award was presented at the ceremony by Joi Ito, who has written an essay for WIRED about this most popular MMORPG (massively multi-player online role-playing game) ever. The role-playing mob for this game is now over 6 million people. Ito’s insights include: The quality and the popularity of World of Warcraft has propelled MMORPGs from a subculture into the mainstream; some call it the new golf. But it’s more than that: World of Warcraft is millions of people with diverse backgrounds collaborating, socializing, and learning while having fun. What we’re experiencing with this game is similar to the “adhocracy” of many successful open source software projects. It represents the future of real-time collaborative teams and leadership in an always-on, diversity-intensive, real-time environment. World of Warcraft is a glimpse into our future. Via Joi Ito’ Web
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Crowdsourcing

[via Social Synergy Weblog] [bliki | What is a bliki?] Back in January of this year I blogged on smartmobs.com about an interesting blog posting from Jeff Jarvis. The idea that I talked about at the time, inspired by Jarvis' post was that: ...on the" individual" level, we want to control the things that we create (and, that if we can't, we'll go elsewhere). On the "collective" level, we "create as we consume" collectively, and that the "crowd" itself owns the "wisdom of the crowd". If someone tries to "own" this crowd-wisdom generated from consumption, they make it less valuable by trying to disconnect it from larger networks to control it. This shift in the way that things are designed and used was inspired by the success of open source software and the emergence of "Peer to Peer"(P2P) paradigms in ever growing areas of human problem solving. Some of the roots of these concepts extend back to work done at MIT, such as Gershenfeld's Personal fabrication ideas, Frank Piller's Mass Customization work, and Eric Von Hippel's Democratizing Innovation. Yochai Benkler also talks about commons based peer production concepts in his new book "The Wealth of Networks". Recently Wired Magazing published an article titled "The Rise of Crowdsourcing". This article looks at how this phenomenon is beginning to be taken seriously by people on all scales of the business world, from small independent business people to huge corporations and their R&D departments, television programming producers, and more. A quote from Jeff Howe's Wired article: Remember outsourcing? Sending jobs to India and China is so 2003. The new pool of cheap labor: everyday people using their spare cycles to create content, solve problems, even do corporate R & D. … Many companies growing up in the internet age were designed to take advantage of the networked world. But now the productive potential of millions of plugged-in enthusiasts is attracting the attention of old-line businesses, too. … Technological advances in everything from product design software to digital video cameras are breaking down the cost barriers that once separated amateurs from professionals. Hobbyists, part-timers, and dabblers suddenly have a market for their efforts, as smart companies in industries as disparate as pharmaceuticals and television discover ways to tap the latent talent of the crowd. The labor isn’t always free, but it costs a lot less than paying traditional employees. It’s not outsourcing; it’s crowdsourcing.
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CrowdSourcing

Wired reports on the rise CrowdSourcing: Technological advances in everything from product design software to digital video cameras are breaking down the cost barriers that once separated amateurs from professionals. Hobbyists, part-timers, and dabblers suddenly have a market for their efforts, as smart companies in industries as disparate as pharmaceuticals and television discover ways to tap the latent talent of the crowd. The labor isn’t always free, but it costs a lot less than paying traditional employees. It’s not outsourcing; it’s crowdsourcing.
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Roland's Sunday Smart Trends #112

Here is my weekly selection of articles that were not mentioned here -- except if I missed them. Your wireless future Phones that get you into concerts, tell co-workers not to call now -- or even display which friends are at a show. The next phase of the mobile revolution is about to begin. Source: Carlo Longino, Business 2.0 Magazine, May 18, 2006 New domain name -- .mobi -- could spur wireless Web Executives at Mobile Top Level Domain, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, believe that consumers would be more likely to tap into the Internet from their cellphones if doing so were easier and faster than it is today. Monday, the company opened registration for companies that want a dot-mobi domain name. Source: Li Yuan, The Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2006 (Paid registration required) Translation service teams up with Skype to reach millions To tap into the consumer market, Language Line Services, a Monterey-based telephone translation service, last week announced a deal with Skype, which provides software for making telephone calls over the Internet. Skype is owned by eBay, which has floated the idea of offering translation services to help buyers and sellers who speak different languages haggle over merchandise. Source: Michelle Quinn, Mercury News, May 22, 2006 Politicians turning to blogs, podcasts to reach out to voters Veteran politicians more familiar with turntables and typewriters are enlisting twentysomething computer whiz kids to help them brave the digital world of blogs, podcasts, and the Web as they look to connect directly with voters. Source: Associated Press, via the Boston Globe, May 22, 2006 Sensors: Living off scraps of energy Scientists have made machines that can think and drive cars. Now some are working on sensors that can harvest their own energy. Source: Michael Kanellos, CNET News.com, May 24, 2006 Nature offers guidance on organising dynamic networks Networking can be complex. Millions of interconnected nodes create inherent complexity and a growing sophistication of interactions between devices means complexity exists even when the number of devices is modest. Enter the BISON project funded under the European Commission’s FET (Future and Emerging Technologies) initiative of the IST programme. Source: IST Results, May 26, 2006 The next wave of the web Web gurus and geeks descended on Edinburgh, UK, this week for www2006. Chairing the panel 'The Next Wave of the Web' was Nigel Shadbolt, an artificial intelligence researcher at the University of Southampton, UK, and deputy president of the British Computer Society. Declan Butler asks him about the Web's progress. Source: Declan Butler, Nature, May 26, 2006 See you next week...
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Extensive article on French youth smartmobbing

(Via P2P Foundation Blog) Michel Bauwens blogged this extensive article on the youth uprising that took place in France this fall, which exhibited characteristics of p2p governance and smartmob organizing tactics: Some of these actions were announced in advance and carried out by thousands of people. But many more were carried out on the spur of the moment by smaller numbers. These “blitz actions” (actions coup de poing) or “lightning raids” (raids éclair) undoubtedly represent the most original and most promising aspect of the movement. A few dozen or a few hundred people would suddenly converge on a single point, carry out their operation, then disperse just as suddenly so as to avoid or minimize arrests. The destination was often kept secret until the last minute so the police would not know where to send reinforcements. In many cases the goal was to invade some building — a department store or supermarket, a newspaper office, a radio or television station, a postal sorting center, an unemployment bureau, a temp agency, a real estate agency, a Chamber of Commerce office or the headquarters of some political party. In others it was to block a transportation network — a train station, a traffic intersection, a freeway, a subway, a bridge, a bus terminal or an airport. Sometimes the blockage was only partial, as in the case of “snail operations” (slowing down traffic) or “filter barricades” (blocking a street in such a way that cars could only go through slowly so that each driver could be leafleted, or blocking the entryway to a building so that individuals could be talked to on the way in or out). Besides disrupting the usual flow of business, the blitzers often added creative or educative elements — writing graffiti, posting huge, difficult-to-remove signs or banners (the winner in this category was undoubtedly the 100-foot vertical banner mounted on a crane in Dijon), distributing leaflets exposing the social role of whatever particular institution they were disrupting, talking with workers and passersby, or engaging in various types of guerrilla theater. Frequently there was a series of raids, with alternative destinations agreed upon in case the original targets were too heavily guarded. And, rather new for France (which in this respect had previously lagged behind other countries), many of these actions were planned via email groups, then immediately afterwards communicated online by way of texts, photos and even videos, making it possible for the participants to coordinate their actions and for others around the country, or even in other countries, to compare and contrast various tactics they might want to adopt in their own situations.
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Henry Jenkins and danah boyd on MySpace and scary stupid legislation

Congress doesn't seem to get in a tizzy about the destruction of the Internet as an engine of innovation, but the latest moral panic about what those crazy young people are doing online has led to some potentially disastrous legislation, the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) , which would require schools and libraries that receive federal aid “to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms.” Henry Jenkins, co-director of the Comparative Media Stdies Program at MIT and author of the forthcoming (extremely important) book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, together with danah boyd, PhD student at the School of Information, University of California-Berkeley, were interviewed recently by Sarah Wright of the MIT News Office, which is providing a full transcript of the interview online "because we believe that it provides valuable information for parents, legislators and press who are concerned about the dangers of MySpace." Jenkins and boyd invite parents to write them at myspaceissues@mit.edu with their questions about this issue. Henry: As a society, we are at a moment of transition when the most important social relationships may no longer be restricted to those we conduct face to face with people in our own immediate surroundings but may also include a large number of relationships which are conducted over vast geographic distances. Over the past decade or so, we have been learning how to live in communities which are grassroots but not necessarily geographically local. We are learning how to interact across multiple communities and negotiate with diverse norms. These networking skills are increasingly important to all aspects of our lives. Social networking services are more and more being deployed as professional tools, extending the sets of contacts that people can tap in their work lives. It is thus not surprising that such tools are also part of the social lives of our teens. Just as youth in a hunting society play with bows and arrows, youth in an information society play with information and social networks. Our schools so far do a rather poor job of helping teens acquire the skills they need in order to participate within that information society. For starters, most adult jobs today involve a high degree of collaboration, yet we still focus our schools on training autonomous learners. Rather than shutting kids off from social network tools, we should be teaching them how to exploit their potentials and mitigate their risks. ... danah: The media coverage of predators on MySpace implies that 1) all youth are at risk of being stalked and molested because of MySpace; 2) prohibiting youth from participating on MySpace will stop predators from attacking kids. Both are misleading; neither is true. Unfortunately, predators lurk wherever youth hang out. Since youth are on MySpace, there are bound to be predators on MySpace. Yet, predators do not use online information to abduct children; children face a much higher risk of abduction or molestation from people they already know – members of their own family or friends of the family. Statistically speaking, kids are more at risk at a church picnic or a boy scout outing than they are when they go on MySpace. Less than .01% of all youth abductions nationwide are stranger abductions and as far as we know, no stranger abduction has occurred because of social network services. The goal of a predator is to get a child to consent to sexual activities. Predators contact teens (online and offline) to start a conversation. Just as most teens know to say no to strange men who approach them on the street, most know to ignore strange men who approach them online. When teenagers receive solicitations from adults on MySpace, most report deleting them without question. Those who report responding often talk about looking for attention or seeking a risk. Of those who begin conversations, few report meeting these strangers. The media often reference a Crimes Against Children report that states one in five children receive a sexual solicitation online. A careful reading of this report shows that 76% of the unwanted solicitations came from fellow children. This includes unwanted date requests and sexual taunts from fellow teens. Of the adult solicitations, 96% are from people 18-25; wanted and unwanted solicitations are both included. In other words, if an 18 year old asks out a 17 year old and both consent, this would still be seen as a sexual solicitation. Only 10% of the solicitations included a request for a physical encounter; most sexual solicitations are for cybersex. While the report shows that a large percentage of youth are faced with uncomfortable or offensive experiences online, there is no discussion of how many are faced with uncomfortable or offensive experiences at school, in the local shopping mall or through other mediated channels like telephone. Although the media has covered the potential risk extensively, few actual cases have emerged. While youth are at minimal risk, predators are regularly being lured out by law enforcement patrolling the site. Most notably, a deputy in the Department of Homeland Security was arrested for seeking sex with a minor. The fear of predators has regularly been touted as a reason to restrict youth from both physical and digital publics. Yet, as Barry Glassner notes in The Culture of Fear, predators help distract us from more statistically significant molesters. Youth are at far greater risk of abuse in their homes and in the homes of their friends than they ever are in digital or physical publics.
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Orkut and the Brazilian government

"Google on Wednesday said it had agreed to shut down some communities on its popular Orkut social networking site because the Brazilian government said they advocated violence and human rights violations",this AsiaMedia article says."Google agreed to shut down any sites that violated Orkut's terms of service,which forbid "any illegal or unauthorided purpose",after the company met a Brazilian human rights commission,which presented evidence that Brazilians had been using the invitation-only networking site to promote crimes and violence.Orkut is extremely popular in Brazil with about eight million users,representing a quarter of all Brazilians who have internet access". Brazil:Google agrees to shut Orkut sites promoting violence in Brazil
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Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006

"MySpace,with more than 78 million registered accounts,is but one of numerous social networking web sites and chat rooms that would be affected by proposed federal legislation to restrict access to such sites",this MIT news office article says."The new bill,an amendment of the 1934 Communications Act,would require all schools and libraries that receive federal funds to restrict access to these digital tools and online communities.Henry Jenkins,co-director of the comparative media studies program,and danah boyd (S.M. 2002),a Ph.D. student at the University of California at Berkeley and a leading researcher on MySpace.com,recently discussed the role of social networking sites for youth,the forces fuelling the new restrictions and the effects of limiting participation in new media".The full transcript is here. Discussion:MySpace and Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA).From the interview,"danah:Recent federal legislation,Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) would require schools and libraries that receive federal aid “to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms.”The proposed law would extend current regulations that require all federally funded schools and libraries to deploy internet filters.The law is so broadly defined that it would limit access to any commercial site that allows users to create a profile and communicate with strangers.This legislation is targeting MySpace,but it would also block numerous other sites,including blogging tools,mailing lists,video and podcast sites,photo sharing sites,and educational sites like NeoPets". Experts discuss MySpace issues
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UK online community websites

This BBC article says "community websites MySpace and Bebo are fighting to see who is most popular among young people, reveals research.Analysis by Nielsen NetRatings shows the two companies have regularly swapped the top spot in sites that give people space to blog and post pictures".Further,"the analysis shows that Bebo users tend to be younger than those on its rival with 54% of Beboers aged under 18 compared to 31% on MySpace.The audience on Bebo tends to make more use of the site spending,on average, one hour and 52 minutes on the site every month. MySpace members rack up only one hour 28 minutes a month".This Netimperative article says,"despite its smaller overall audience there were more under 18’s on Bebo (1.17 million) than on MySpace (0.89 million) in April 2006.In addition,two-fifths (40%) of MySpace’s audience are over 35 compared to 28% of Bebo’s.Bebo is also more likely to be popular with women,their audience is 56% female compared to MySpace’s 46%.However,when it comes to actual size of the female audience they’re almost neck and neck.In April 2006 MySpace had a female audience of 1.31 million to Bebo’s 1.21 million.These are the top 10 UK social networking sites Social sites wrestle for top spot
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Tim Berners-Lee warns of 'dark' net

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web was knighted in the UK for his invention. The web should remain neutral and resist attempts to fragment it into different services, Tim Berners-Lee said. Sir Tim was speaking at the start of the WWW2006 conference on the future of the web at the International Conference Centre in Edinburgh. Recent attempts in the US to try to charge for different levels of online access web were not "part of the internet model," he said in Edinburgh. He warned that if the US decided to go ahead with a two-tier internet, the network would enter "a dark period". "What's very important from my point of view is that there is one web," he said. "Anyone that tries to chop it into two will find that their piece looks very boring." read more on BBC News www2006 Social Wiki
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More People Living in Digital Cocoons

A new lifestyle trend is springing up in South Korea, one of the world's most advanced digital hotbeds more and more folks are retreating to their homes instead of socializing with others. The Korea Times reports. Experts call the phenomenon "digital cocooning'' because such a fad is enabled and accelerated by the digital revolution, which is occurring here in a full-fledged manner. "The advent of Internet and wireless technology is generating two seemingly conflicting tendencies - some are enjoying a nomadic outdoor life thanks to wireless gadgets while others stay nested up at home with them,'' said Park Jung-hyun, a senior consultant at LG Economic Research Institute. "The former can be called digital nomads, the latter digital cocoons, or ones who retreat into the seclusion of their homes for privacy or escape,'' Park added. "If digital cocooning represents future trends, it is understandable that such digital alienation mushrooms in technologically-advanced Korea faster than other countries,'' he said. ... Samsung Head: Most Famous Digital Cocoon? Korea's richest businessman, Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee.
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Possibilities offered by satellite navigation

"Imagine Central London has been invaded by an army of robots which are now bunkered down somewhere on Oxford Street,"this BBC article says."Your mission,and that of your friends,is to find the shop on the capital's famous two-mile retail strip that harbours the enemy's lair.All you have at your disposal is your ingenuity,and one of those next-generation mobile phones fitted with satellite-navigation and loaded with a gaming database that maps a fantasy universe on to real-world locations.As you walk into specific shops, the gaming software is triggered to display audio and video items on the handsets,clues that take you to the next location.The clock is counting down and you will have to split up to cover the ground,using the mobiles to stay in contact and exchange snippets of information.Fantasy but not fanciful. Gaming applications like this could become a major growth area in the next few years as entertainment companies look to exploit the new possibilities offered by satellite navigation". Time and place for entrepreneurs
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Anti-DRM Flashmob in Seattle

(Thanks, Henri!) At 8:30am this morning, wearing neon Hazmat gear, 25 techology activists from FSF & EFF swarmed the 2006 Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Seattle. Following the lead of the French anti-DRM activists, the new initative, Defective By Design, is signing up activists interested in getting involved in local actions to bring awareness to the crippling effects of DRM on art, literature, music or film, and free software.
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Anthony Townsend on "disaster forensics:" new ways to understand disaster response

Disaster Forensics:Leveraging Crisis Information Systems for Social Science is a PDF from Anthony Townsend, who knows what he's talking about. This is important work that we're going to need in the future: This paper contributes to the literature on information systems in crisis management by providing an overview of emerging technologies for sensing and recording sociological data about disasters. These technologies are transforming our capacity to gather data about what happens during disasters, and our ability to reconstruct the social dynamics of affected communities. Our approach takes a broad review of disaster research literature, current research efforts and new reports from recent disasters, especially Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean Tsunami. We forecast that sensor networks will revolutionize conceptual and empiricial approaches to research in the social sciences, by providing unprecedented volumes of high-quality data on movements, communication and response activities by both formal and informal actors. We conclude with a set of recommendations to designers of crisis management information systems to design systems that can support social science research, and argue for the inclusion of post-disaster social research as a design consideration in such systems.
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Nobel Field

At the Nobel Peace Center, in the new Nobel Field you will find glowing portraits of all the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates emerging from screens among many hundreds of points of light. As you approach the screen of a Laureate the honoree’s display comes alive and audio of his ideas is heard. The Field is composed entirely by digital technologies. Architect David Adjaye said of the room: What is beautiful is that we're living in an information age and for me the fabulous thing is to dissolve the hardware and to make the software speak. Because thats what's precious, and thats what's delightful about the time we are in. via Information Aesthetics
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Roland's Sunday Smart Trends #111

Here is my weekly selection of articles that were not mentioned here -- except if I missed them. Sensors Without Batteries In the future, the environment could be pervaded by sensors using the same power-scavenging techniques as RFID tags. Source: Kate Greene, Technology Review, May 15, 2006 Virtual nightclub offers teens alter egos School dances were once the training grounds for teens to learn to interact with the opposite sex. [But if] Andrew Littlefield has his way, young people will hone their social skills within his virtual nightclub, which features all the trappings of a trendy hotspot: dim lights, Jacuzzi and bouncers. Littlefield is the architect of The Lounge, an Internet nightclub that threw open its virtual doors on Monday. Source: Greg Sandoval, CNET News.com, May 14, 2006 SCAMPI trawls the internet Network traffic management is becoming increasingly important as computer networks grow larger and more complicated. A EU project has developed a combination of hardware and software to create new, open tools for high-speed network monitoring, addressing a costly bottleneck for companies wanting to extract the full potential of their bandwidths. Source: IST Results, May 17, 2006 Lenders, Borrowers Hook Up Over the Web Prosper.com and other sites provide forum for individual bidders willing to offer small loans. [Here are some examples:] A priest near Orlando, Fla., borrows $9,000 for home repairs at an annual rate of 17.75%. A second-year Harvard Business School student wants $15,000 for foreign travel and gets a loan at 8%. A stepmother in suburban Sacramento needs $4,000 to cover the legal expenses of adopting her stepson and gets a loan at 23.75%. Source: Jane Boon Pearlstine, special to The Wall Street Journal, May 20, 2006 (Paid registration required) Searching for the soul in the machine If computers could create a society, what kind of world would they make? Thanks to the work of an ambitious project that adds a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘computer society’, in which millions of software agents will potentially evolve their own culture, we could be about to find out. Source: IST Results, May 18, 2006 Winning (and Losing) the First Wired War The Iraq war was launched on a theory: That, with the right networking gear, American armed forces could control a country with a fraction of the troops ordinarily needed. But that equipment never made it down to the front lines, David Axe (just back from his 6th trip to Ir