|
|
 I just noticed that rexblog is #32 on Robert Scoble’s “A-List”. I feel certain this is the first time the phrase “A-List” and this blog have ever been used in the same sentence. I do like Robert’s methodology, as it underscores the fact that the only A-List that matters, is the one that is your list. He has 772 feeds tracked in Google Reader. He tags for sharing the posts he feels like others should read. Out of 35,609 items in the past 30 days, he has shared 1,094 items. A feature in Google Reader keeps track of the top 35 feeds — the ones with the most shared items. That is Scoble’s A-List.
I’m sure my A-List would be very different, as would yours.
I use Google’s “Notes” program to bookmark articles that I want to file away. I need to go look for patterns there to determine who my A-List is.
Bonus link: I haven’t really studied the nature of A-Lists, so I’ve decided to outsource my opinion on the topic to Hugh MacLeod, who also produced the cartoon on the left.
-
A virtual cemetery for MySpace users who have died. If they didn’t use the skull logo, Perhaps I wouldn’t think this is sick.
-
Thanks, Scott. You can save me from a lot of bookmarking with this new feature.
 I’m quite honored. Kim Cameron says that while reading my weekend post about Facebook & identity, he “had a bit of an epiphany…we need a wider suite of standards that make identity useful for building social networking applications, rather than just basic identity assertions (as important as these may be). Otherwise, what can you do once you’ve pushed out the walls of your garden? Not much.”
I honored because I’d never heard of an “identity assertion” before (as important as they may be). I did know, however, that Kim is one of those people I was alluding to in that earlier post when I said I didn’t want to trivialize the serious study very smart people devote to the topic I was discussing.
Kim is Architect of Identity and Access in the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft — and he has some positive things to say about Facebook’s initial steps along the journey to the portability of identity and social network I mentioned in my first post.
Says Cameron:
“Facebook has had to provide access to the user’s information in order to become an application development platform. And I need to underline that they should be congratulated for using email (e.g. universal) addresses as identifiers. As a result, the list of friends I download from Facebook will work with any other system that is based on email identifiers and uses validation of ownership of the accounts. I think that deserves a standing ovation.
I didn’t think about it, but he’s correct: both Facebook and Linkedin allow me to upload my list of e-mail addresses so that I can bounce that network against their network — they then present a list of their registered users who are among my personal contacts. I can also download the list that I build there and synch it with my contacts later. That’s a big deal and it helped me jump-start my network of friends on each site. (It will be an even bigger one when I don’t have to do all that uploading and downloading, but can automatically synch it among all the services I use.)
As I don’t think about this stuff in such a way, I failed to recognize that networks that offer such a service are recognizing a person’s email address as a universal identifier. Linkedin even lets you enter former email addresses into your private profile so that you can allow people to find you who have your out-of-date identifier. And Plaxo is a social network built from the ground up on allowing one to assert their identity in the form of an email address and their social network in the form of a contact list with email addresses being the key identifier.
Geez, I’m having my own epiphany here.
There is another universal identifier (beyond their API and email-address-based identifier) Facebook offers for which I didn’t give them credit. One is RSS. There are many things they allow me to export from their site in the form of an RSS feed. In theory, I guess, that is their recognition that exportability (is that a word?) of content is required in the context of all those things we collectively call Web 2.0.
If you are reading this post on my weblog (and not on a newsreader via my RSS feed), you can see on the right-hand column of this page a whole series of “identity assertions” that I am able to “port” to this page from other places on the web via RSS or an API. Under the heading “rexblog nano,” you’ll see the last three “tweets” I’ve posted on twitter.com, then comes my “reader roll” via Mybloglog.com. Then you’ll see my link blog, which is merely an RSS feed of my del.icio.us posts. Below that is a feed of my most recent photos shared on Flickr.
You may think of those as “badges” or “widgets” or “flare” or whatever, but for me, they are expressions of who I am. And, frankly, I don’t want people to have to go surfing all over the place to discover those expressions. I use those other services to “assert and express my identity,” but, then, I want all those assertions to recollect themselves on one spot — right here.
I’d like to be able to display all the identity assertions I’m managing over at Facebook right here on this page, as well. Videos I post. Networks I create. Statuses I update. It will happen one day.
I’ll leave it up to the pros to figure it out. I’m just a user of this stuff. I have no idea how it works — or what it’s called.
 The first time I ever heard the word, “weblog,” it was from Doc Searls. And the first time I ever heard the word, “podcast” it was from Doc Searls (on September 28, 2004 — I blogged about it the next day).
I am a big fan of Doc’s and the things he says. Heck, I’ve listened to and internalized so much of what he’s said, I’m sure a lot of what I write here is merely channeling Docisms.
Doc also taught me to look out of the window when I fly. Because he takes incredible photographs out of the windows of airplanes, I look forward to his travels because — in “where’s Waldo fashion” — I can’t wait to see what geologic formation or natural phenomena he’ll record: I can recall photos of mud-slides, forest fires and, just recently, an awesome display of the Aurora Borealis.
I think Doc Searls sees lots of things the rest of us don’t because he looks while others don’t think to. His depth of curiosity is, fortunately, balanced by his gift for analysis and the ability to write in such a way as to convey perceptive — sometimes even radical — ideas in a provocative (but respectful and professional), non-technical and entertaining fashion.
One thing he said several years ago, when someone was commenting about all his accomplishments, was this: “Everything you know me for, I’ve done since I was 50.”
At the time, I was heading into that decade (I’m firmly ensconced there now), so I filed away that nugget and have thought of it many times since — especially when I hear about certain things that only “the young” can do.
Today, Doc turns 60. I can’t wait to see what he does this decade.
I can’t wait to learn what he discovers as he looks out the window while flying far above the rest of us.
Technorati Tags: doc searls
 Jason Calacanis is fed up with Facebook. (I’ll skip the part where I observe admiringly that Jason, who is Twittering more and blogging less this summer, knows that writing a Saturday-morning Dvorak troll post will tweak Facebook cultists into lighting-up his in-coming linkometer.) He says, among other things, “I can’t keep up with the friend requests, the requests to confirm how we know each other, the requests to tell you I like you, the requests to tell you I want your to tell me what movies you want to tell me about, etc.” In many ways, Jason’s complaint is a reiteration of the “age” debate — the fact that the DNA of Facebook’s culture is planted somewhere different than where Jason (and most people who, like, work) are today. (Fred Wilson suggests Jason not give up, yet, but he shares his pain.)
However, I believe the real problem with Facebook goes a bit deeper than the geek play that is taking place there this summer. Right now, for me, Facebook is just that: play. Facebook is a sandbox I’m playing in — but it has a long way to go before it can hope to be the world I live in.
In the search for the perfect, perfect next, next thing that will do everything and be everything and solve everything and be more valuable than Google, many in the crowd known as the Techcrunch 50,000*, are beginning to get that feeling — that wishful hope — that maybe, just maybe, in a few years, Facebook will be that thing they were using before everyone else decided they couldn’t live without it.
It should be noted, I am a fan of Facebook as I believe it is a great platform on which to experiment on a common platform many of the disparate tools and approaches to conversational media, identity, attention and community that I have spent the past decade trying to understand — by using them and, in some cases, living in them. But, as I’ve said before, unless we’re all willing to give up everything else we love about the nature of the Internet, then Facebook is not the golden fleece (or holy grail — but since this conversation was started by someone named Jason, I thought I’d head in the direction of that metaphor). Frankly, Facebook is not even close to being what will ultimately be that thing which alters fundamentally the way in which we relate and communicate. It may show us the way, but there are some important factors related to personal identity and social interaction that Facebook — or any platform that requires us to create community that is locked inside a wall — will not be able to overcome if it is to become the next be-all, end-all. As academics and others spend their entire careers exploring and explaining the phenomena I’ve just alluded to in the previous sentences, I won’t insult them by trying to use this post to trivialize the nature of identity and community. (When it comes to exploring the issues surrounding digital identity, a good place to start is Kim Cameron’s blog and his white paper called “Laws of Identity”.)
However, in a simplistic way to think of this, consider the telephone (an analogy I’ve used in the past). I have a couple of beige portable phones at home. I have no idea their brand. I have a black phone at work and we use a VoIP service, but I can’t remember the manufacturer of the equipment or the service vendor. I do remember the manufacturer and service provider of my cell-phone but anyone who reads this blog should know that.
That thing which makes the whole telephone-thing work is this: no matter what phone I use, I can reach pretty much anyone in the world who is hooked into the network — no matter what service they use or manufacturer or their equipment or the carrier or provider that provides them access to the network. No matter who the person(s) on the other end of the conversation, and no matter what the nature of our conversation, we can all connect with one another — usually in a matter of seconds — using a telephone.
It may seem strange, but back when the whole phone thing started, there was a notion that everyone should be using the same phone and the same system and the same network — and that if you had the need to talk with people on another network then, well, you should be required to get another system. If you can’t remember 125 years ago, back about 15 years ago, if you were on CompuServe and I was on AOL, then sorry, we couldn’t e-mail one-another until about 1995 or so. And if I was on CompuServe and I wanted to give you my email address, it was like long stream of numbers that no-one, even I, could remember.
Again, entire bodies of literature and academic careers have been devoted to understanding the development and evolution of standards and gauges and units of measurements necessary to enable breakthroughs — and how breakthroughs don’t occur until what works over there works with what works over here. So, I won’t attempt to recount the history of industrial design and engineering. However, those principles — laws, in some cases — are going to be in play with the development of the social web. Until my identity and network can be as transportable (some use the term “persistent”) and can follow me around from place to place and situation to situation and network to network, the “breakthrough” will not occur. Facebook may be a great sandbox to play in, but it won’t become the world I live in until my identity belongs to me, not them. My identity and network should be like an email address — it should work universally. And I should be able to take it with me.
Part of this issue may be solvable with future generations of initiatives like OpenID, which attempt to address the obvious problem we all have in repeatedly going through the process of registering on every new site we encounter.
But as it is today, the Facebook platform is not a solution. It’s just letting us play around until either they — or we — come up with the real deal.
If I ran the Internet (or Google), I would do the following: I would get with Microsoft, Yahoo! AOL and the Mozilla Foundation and Ning and People Aggregator — and every other player or wannabe player in the field of social networking, identity, attention, whatever — and agree on open standards for those things — based on the principle that they should be controlled by the user, not the silos.
(Note: To help make it more clear [and it's still not going to be for lots of people], I’ve edited the following paragraph.) I would start with the proposition that ways people manage their identity and social networks can be “branded” — and that the business part of social-networking should be about who provides the best user experience and the best solution for hosting and managing of identity and networks. In the same way that Google has solved “search” for most people, even they provide a means for me to export all of the “attention data” they collect, so, at least in theory, I can take it somewhere else if I want to, however I won’t as long as they provide the best platform on which I manage that aspect of my web use. In other words, the “platform” on which I manage my identity and networks can be up for competition, and I’ll probably continue to use Facebook as the central place to manage it: but I control the data that relates to it, myself, and if I want to use that data — and network — someplace else on the web, I should be able to do so. I don’t think Facebook would go along because, today, why should they: they own the network — they “own” the social graph or whatever they call it. Why should they facilitate others who could siphon off big chunks of their user-base? Why should they make it easy for me to transport my Facebook network and identity to another URL?
That, of course, is a rhetorical question. I know who could answer it however: I don’t know where they may be, but the folks at Compuserve will know the answer. (Translation for anyone who is not an online community geek: Compuserve, in this quip, represents a once-large ’social network’ that no longer exists because they failed to understand the whole “universal” and “walled-off” nature of identity and community.)
Later: While in my post, I mentioned Ning and PeopleAggregator, I’ve received some email pointing me to Marc Canter’s post that provides some information about the need for interoperability of social networks. And that on September 7-8, a “Data Sharing Summit” is planned to explore open standards for social networking. And, yes, there’s even a Facebook group related to it. Also, here’s a post from Jason Kottke that in a tighter fashion, explains what I was trying to say with my AOL in 1994 comparison. Last thing (for now), Ning, does allow one to export data related to a network one creates. As I often say, I’m merely a user, not a developer, but that seems like at step in the direction of “interoperability” that people like Marc Canter (who is the creator of the PeopleAggregator) has long advocated. After an afternoon of learning a bit more on this topic — thanks to some commentors and email, I predict Marc Andreessen is the guy who can “bring everyone together” on this topic. He’s got the track-record, insight, clout, incentive and, well, if you’ve read his blog, the ability to communicate why interoperability is in the best interest of all players — and users.
And finally, I am a fan of Jason Calacanis and I was only calling a spade-a-spade with that remark about link-baiting — some people who have defended Jason have misinterpreted my snark for sneer.
*Techcrunch 50,000 is a term that was inspired by (while he used another number) Josh Kopelman’s post on the nature of geek-adopters vs. real-people adopters of new web stuff.
-
From young Millennials (ages 13 to 24) to Generation X (25 to 41) to Baby Boomers (42 to 60) and older Matures (61 to 75) — enjoys reading magazines. (But no one likes those goofy age-bracket names.)
-
Couldn’t pass up linking to that headline. The device looks pure Soviet era.
-
Quote: “Google doesn’t sell any space. It sells user intentions, i.e. what’s on people’s minds. And that’s a scare resource…Wherever there’s scarcity, there’s opportunity.”
-
Read digital magazines via Facebook.
-
Read digital magazines via iPhone.
-
Quote: “In aggregate, these maps are similar to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, in that they reflect the collective knowledge of millions of contributors.”
I think all blog posts about Twitter getting funding should be limited to less than 140 characters.
The other day, I posted a flip remark about the absurd media coverage that has turned Danah Boyd’s essay, “Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace” into tripe. I was specifically referring to those who were trying to translate her academic analysis into some type of marketing strategy lesson. Danah’s important research has been misunderstood by a wide array of people who obviously didn’t read it and who then found “experts” to comment on it who did not let the fact they had also not read it slow them down from interpreting what it meant.
Danah is pretty dumbfounded at the response her essay has received. Today, she posted a lengthy response to the critiques that includes the following:
“I find it really weird when people have said that I just devalued MySpace by saying that hegemonic kids are on Facebook. Some marketers are even using my essay to say that all advertising should be funneled to Facebook. Are marketers that stupid?
I think that was a rhetorical question, so I won’t answer it.
I just had someone thank me for explaining what iGoogle is because (they said), they couldn’t figure out what it was from Google. Apparently, when you search Google for What is iGoogle?, the first page results links to a rexblog post with that phrase. So, I thought I’d provide Google with a little Google juice by pointing to the official Google answer for the question What is iGoogle?
The unofficial answer is, “Something that has nothing to do with Apple.”
 On June 22, I wrote a long explanation of why the sale of “business.com” is not merely the “domain name” story it was being spun on that day when it was leaked the company was on the market. Last night, it was announced that Business.com was purchased by RH Donnelley, the Yellow Pages company. This morning on NPR, it was still being spun as a URL story. (Another example: the lede of the Wall Street Journal article is, “The Web’s original high-price domain name has been sold again — for another lofty price.”) That’s the easy story. Hey, I own the URL SmallBusiness.com, so I guess I should shut up and agree. So I will. It was all about the domain name.
According to Rafat Ali at PaidContent.org, “the auction for the company was heated, and initially included IAC, New York Times, DJ and News Corp. IAC didn’t end up bidding, News Corp dropped out as the price went above $300 million, Dow Jones couldn’t pull it together in the wake of all the turmoil with News Corp bid, and New York Times was in there until late in the game.” (For the record, I learned about this first from PaidContent.org, who beat the Wall Street Journal in reporting it last night.)
Despite there being a real company with real revenues and earnings, I will say this: The domain name did matter as did the steadfast commitment of Jake Winebaum. While most people today know Jake as an “online” guy (back in the day, he was head of Disney’s online unit), I still think of Jake as a magazine entrepreneur. He’s several years younger than me, but from afar, I’ve always “looked up” to him as a great role model for being scrappy, determined and creative. Most importantly, however, is his ability to see a few moves beyond what is happening at the moment. We once did a project that appeared as an insert in one of Jake’s magazines, so I had the chance to be an “ad salesman” along side him as we schlepped our way through a day’s worth of meetings at a long-ago CES (he may or may not remember the project). You learn a lot about someone when you pitch major advertisers with them. I knew from the experience that Jake is not a guy you bet against.
So, yes, I love this story. Jake understood the opportunity and risk — and he lived through years of smart-ass scorn from lots of people in the bleachers who had no idea what he was doing. I am happy he is vindicated.
And just for math purposes, let me note: The $7.5 million that Winebaum reportedly paid for the domain name (although, through the years, he and others have waffled a bit on what exactly that price was and how much of it was in cash or “paper”) represents about 2% of the sales price of the company. If Jake had not spent that $7.5 million on the URL, would he have been able to sell the company sitting on that property for $350,000,000? That’s what you call a $342,500,000 question.
Later: Several additional facts came out in the RH Donnelly press release: Business.com has $50 million in revenues and 100 employees (”technologists?”). Winebaum will become president of RH Donnelly’s interactive unit. And the transaction includes “considerations.”
-
When she says, “we” referring to American Express, what exactly does that mean?
-
I think I’ve linked to Andrew McAfee’s HBS case before. Here it is in another form.
-
You are so Nashville if you find absolutely nothing in this list that is remotely witty or humorous.
-
On the way home today, I heard a story about this company on the radio program, Marketplace. Great example of social entrepreneurship. For each pair they sell, they give a pair to a child in need. Nice formula.
-
The other day I was complaining about the iPhone not having an IM app. At least someone has hacked an iSafari version. (Thanks to Mark Oldham)
If you take pleasure in the misfortune of others, you’re having a great week. Just take your pick: NBA, NFL, Tour de France, Lindsay Lohan or John McCain’s campaign (WSJ.com story).
Later: And Mindy McCready, yet again.
Spoiler: Andy Ihnatko declares, “I’m not Fake Steve Jobs.” The Wall Street Journal devotes a front-page story exploring this deep subject: Steve Jobs hates buttons.
-
Whenever I read such a “trend story,” I worry that I hang out too much with geeks. I can’t remember how long ago it was when I required all of our employees to set up an IM account.
-
Goodell tells Falcons QB and alleged felon Vick to stay away while the NFL “reviews his case.” What choice theyhave but to make him get his legal affairs in order before returning? The Pacman rule.
|
|
