02.28.06
Posted in Social Media at 11:27 pm by
Richard MacManus at ZDNet has a rather complete feature comparison of the major ‘personal portals’. Unlike the rediculously forest of links, ads, and meaningless info from portals gone by these might actually be useful. Why? Because the user is in charge of what they see. These are sites like Microsoft’s Start.com and Google’s Personalized Homepage. Both offer the option to include useful bits of premade code (Microsoft calls them Gadgets, Google calls them Modules) that you add to see only what you want to see.
The reason that these personalized web pages are taking off now is that we have content that is able to be syndicated in an agreed-upon format: RSS with XML underpinnings. It’s exciting to see but after playing with both sites for a bit I’m a little underwhelmed. If I really wanted to know what the weather was like I’d look out the window. And a dedicated RSS aggregator is (so far) much better than what they’re offering.
But places, however, offer open API (application programming interfaces) so that developers can take the ball and run with it. I’m curious to see how far they can go.
Anybody else using one of these personal pages? Is it useful?
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Posted in Social Media at 11:02 pm by
CNet has a great little read about Geekcorps and the work they’re doing in emerging nations. From the story:
Initially, the payoff on these projects comes from the fact that certain tasks–getting information on vaccines and scheduling transportation, for example–are made easier. But over time, the idea is that technology can better help establish a middle class and, ultimately, greater social stability.
“Someone with an income and a job is the most dependable person you can find,” Vota said. “He is going to be the first to ask for a level playing field.”
It is so easy to take for granted the infastructure that allows a lifestyle where we can waste time with Legos or worry about customized web browsers.
I’d be really interested in doing something like this (some internships are as short as one month – the perfect amount of time for a paid sabbatical) if Howie were a bit older. I might have to brush up on my C++ though. 
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Posted in Social Media at 3:44 pm by
Bunchball is a new site in beta (aren’t they all) that is trying to do something pretty neat: it lets you embed their Flash games on your site. That’s right- distributed flash content for your own use.
There’s been much discussion about casual game portals and whether or not their a good idea. Bunchball seems to be leaping that problem and embracing the remix culture: don’t hide stuff behind a walled garden and force users to come to you – chop up the pieces (what Pete Cashmore calls microchunking) and let people use it however they want.
I’m still a little curious on how the revenue model will work. After all, even Flash games take resources to develop. But it is an attractive idea for site owners.
On a tangent, what would a mutednoise game look like? Too long, with flickers of humor but little redeeming value?
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02.26.06
Posted in Social Media at 11:52 am by
On the Innovation Forum Dominic has a great collection of links that hint at the growing entrepreneurial bend happening at the corner coffee shop.
Internet cafes are emerging as an important place to get work done, hold meetings and network. Since writers, designers, developers and anyone else who can work from their laptop are going to show up, you can even recruit talent, publicize your project and even demo your product for potential users and investors.”
Sound a little utopian-hypish to me. However, I can see that finding the right idea-watering-hole could potentially be promising. And it reinforces the point that simply be online does not make a person plugged-in:
At the same time, it reinforces a point that many smart writers about the relationship between the Internet and physical places have made: Web access (and especially wireless access) doesn’t make place irrelevant, it just changes the criteria people use for deciding which places they’re going to work in.
Ultimately we need real time communication with all the facial ticks and voice inflections because we effeciently get a true sense of what is being said. Sometimes we need to be social creatures. The web is not a replacement for that; the web and all its applications are enablers for social context.
Now if there was only someone who could take a list of Salt Lake City coffee shops, provide a ranking based on user reviews, combine it with known wifi hotspot data, and put it all into a Google Map mashup that would be great.
Hmmm… an afternoon project?
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Posted in Social Media at 10:44 am by
In a head turning statement, Dave Goldberg, chief of Yahoo Music has said that
Record labels should try selling music online without copy protection.
Whoa. While its been blatantly obvious to anyone reading this site for any length of time hearing from a ‘bigwig’ is a little shocking. He goes on:
Rights management restrictions have created a barrier for consumers … making it a hurdle to transfer music to portable devices, and creating incompatibility between music services and MP3 players.
Immediately afterwards Goldberg was set upon by a rapid pack of lawyers and never heard from again.
So consumers have turned the corner in opposition to DRM, the marketplace (i.e. Yahoo) is voicing concern… How long till the four labels still standing switch?
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02.21.06
Posted in Social Media at 11:56 pm by
What a day for videos! First we discover how Windows and Apple cover their devices in C.R.A.P. Then we learn that copyright is too long. Now some stuff for your paranoid bone.
It’s been almost exactly a full year since I first mentioned the upcoming movie, A Scanner Darkly. Now comes a brand spanking new trailer as the movie finally gets ready to hit the big screen.
I understand the original book was about how the war on drugs had been taken too far at the expense of personal liberties. It looks like the movie version lowers the drug pretense and instead plays upon recent events, like warrantless wiretapping.
Anyone else excited to see this movie?
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Posted in Social Media at 11:19 pm by
Hot on the heals of describing how DRM = CRAP comes another uber-mutednoise video. This one, from Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights, provides a great initial perspective at why copyrights were initially created.
For discussion on the clip you can pop over to Lawrence Lessig’s blog.
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Posted in Social Media at 11:10 pm by
DRM is CRAP – oh, not that crap… Content, Restriction, Annulment, and Protection according to ZDNet’s Executive Editor David Berlind. A great little video with a very good message about just what DRM really is.
:upper:
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Posted in Social Media at 7:48 am by
Awhile ago I uninstalled Quicktime from my laptop. Recently, I rediscovered the Copyright Criminals short but was dismayed that it only came in quicktime format. The reason that I hadn’t reinstalled Quicktime was because of Apple’s insistance that it be downloaded and installed with iTunes and iTunes has had issues. Thankfully, there is an official spot on Apple’s site were one can download just Quicktime.
It seems that ‘bundling’ is a growing trend. When I was updating to Adobe 7 trying to get it installed without the Yahoo! toolbar was actually kind of tricky.
What other software installs like this? Does it annoy anyone else?
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02.20.06
Posted in Social Media at 4:47 pm by
From the little-late-but-never-sorry file: As announced on Boing Boing Songbird, a Mozilla based music player/browser has been released. Of course, it begs the question of whether the world really needs another media player. There’s a posse behind songbird (which include x-winampers, you know, before it was bought by AOL and sucked). They think you do:
People should have more choice about music and video formats, and where they get their music. Imagine what your experience of the web wold be like if IE connected only to microsoft.com. That’s what digital networked media players are like today. Fairplay [Ed. Note: Apple's proprietary DRM] is the 8-track of our generation, and those formats may become obsolete a lot sooner than people using those services realize. Songbird can connect to any a la carte media store — downloadable music, radio, video, P2P networks, and classes of services that haven’t been created yet. Services like iTunes — where everybody has to shop from the same store — are like walled garden online services back in the early days. AOL, Prodigy. That’s how we connected to the ‘net then. Songbird is to iTunes what the Firefox browser is to those old, limiting online services. It opens up the whole internet to you as a music browsing experience.
Downloading now, news at 11.
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