Genius consultant Nancy White sent the link below over the onlinefacilitation email list. It's a blog item by Tris Hussey about the importance of having a technical fallback when you're setting up an online meeting. She also suggests that Flash conferencing tools are emerging as a solid alternative to ActiveX alternatives. (I personally think multimodal alternatives are better and more reliable - e.g. conference call + chat + wiki. You could toss in a PowerPoint or other presentation which can be distributed in advance.) [Link]

Miguel de Icaza sold Ximian to Novell, a company that's betting its future on Open Source as the viable alternative to Microsoft. Says Miguel, quoted in an article published at technologyreview.com,

“There are a lot of motivations in the open-source community, like the freedom to choose software platforms and the chance to innovate,” he says, referring to the global community of programmers who write software that others are free to download and modify. “Now one of my motivations is that I’m being paid to do this, and I have to deliver products.”

Teresa Ferguson interviewed Chrysta Bell and Duth Rall on KUT Radio today. I was taken with Chrysta's sultry vocal stylings. Originally from San Antonio, Chrysta's been on the Austin music scene for a while, and was one of the lead vocalists with 8 1/2 Souvenirs. She's also got film connections - she was in Sammo Hung's 1997 Once upon a Time in China and America VI. Now she's making music with David Lynch; I'm looking forward to the result... I imagine it'll be an extension of the Angelo Badalamenti/Julee Cruise soundtrack music for Twin Peaks. Or not. [Link]

Portland IndyMedia has an interesting analysis of the media's role in misleading the American public about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Probably no surprises for anyone who's studied the relevant history and given it some thought, but timely given the role of media in selling the Iraq war. Complex issues here worth debating – I know there can be compelling arguments for secrecy and disinformation in certain contexts. It would be worthwhile to debate whether and when it's appropriate to mislead, what the public's role (if any) should be with regard to life or death military decisions. Remember Colonel Jessep in A Few Good Men? You can't have democracy if you don't trust the public's ability to handle the truth, though the IndyMedia site acknowledges that the government and military will be secretive. However

the press claims to be objective, factual, and free. Far from being independent, though, the corporate media acted as the government's agent in furthering the official narrative, attempted to squash any dissenting facts, and questioned the 'patriotism' of those who raised concerns. This complicity has continued to the present day, not just with the story of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but with many subjects, especially war. Parallels with contemporary corporate coverage of the current "war on terrorism" are easy to find.

I love The Big Lebowski, even though it's brought a torrential rain of bad jokes into my life, and reminded me how I was tormented by a particular football coach who dared me to correct his incorrect pronunciation of my name, Lebkowsky, and when I did, dubbed me Lebowski forever – a nom de fuckup that Freaky Pinky would never let me forget. But I digress... the good news is that David Edelstein has revisited The Big L. in this piece in the New York Times. Requires free subscription, as ever.

Large corporations are learning to pay as much attention to blogs as to other forms of media. According to Clare Hart of Factiva, quoted by the Guardian Unlimited,

After a doctor, the person we would most trust is the average person who's 'just like us' – a company CEO is eighth on that list. It's the same for news sources about companies. After specialist business magazines, we trust family and friends and colleagues; journalists are sixth.

So it's a pretty shocking piece of research that shows we trust people who we feel are like ourselves and are not out to promote something. That is why blogs have such power. We trust them, and if we disagree with an opinion, we normally have the option of adding our say.

No sooner had I responded to John Barlow's invite to join the new social networked called Multiply than I got an LOL message from Adam Greenfield, who had just post-mortemed the social network thing. Adam refers to

the strongest indictment of all, which is something that I call the "so-what factor": you've spent all this time on your social-networking site of choice, building out a profile and establishing threads of affinity, joining groups and posting testimonials. So what? What's the return on your investment? What have you gotten for all that effort? In my case, the answer is clear - very little but headaches.

I guess I'm not disappointed because I don't have high expectations for social networks. I certainly don't see them as viable business unless they're placed in a specific useful context. LinkedIn is the one system that might make it as a business, because it's very focused on support for business relationships, and forming the kinds of connections that have value people will pay for.

Got a note from J.D. Lasica about The Open Source Media Project, with a pointer to Marc Canter's notes on implementation:

First we'll start off with upload sites - which will enable folks to start getting their stuff into the 'archives'. Then we'll provide Jukeboxes and Image Albums (much like what's in the gutter of my blog) that have built into them these huge repositories.

Bascially we're making sure to make it REAL easy for folks to utilize media in their everyday lives, school and work.

As a King Kong aficionado, I appreciate this: the Empire State Building will honor the late Fay Wray tonight by dimming its lights for fifteen minutes. [Link]

Adina Levin read much of the manuscript for the book Extreme Democracy, an anthology of perspectives on democracy in a network society edited by Mitch Ratcliffe and I. (The book itself will be published online soon, and a revised version will be published in book form, probably next spring). [Link to blog] | [Link to wiki]

Conversation, debate and deliberation is important in a democracy, but citizen conversation alone doesn't make policy. There are two missing steps. First, citizens need to relearn to organize. The conversation needs to translate into action - effective advocacy for specific policy, or campaigning for specific candidates. Second, government officials need to learn how to listen. Today, politicians check polls to see what voters think. Tools like Technorati will give politicians a richer view of the opinion of particularly active citizens.

Mitch Ratcliffe and I have been editing a book called Extreme Democracy, and now we're putting the book online. We've put the Preface, Foreword, and first 8 chapters online today, with more to follow. (The version of the book that's published will be different, partly owing to comments we get from the online verison.) Joi Ito posted a pointer today. Without Joi, the book would never have some to be (long story).

I've been looking at a new "artificial social network" (aka "yet another social network") called Multiply, which allowed me to import my orkut contacts and invite 'em, something I thought was a little weird (should they have something to say about that? - well, maybe not, it's just an invitiation... but isn't orkut going to be pissed? probably.) I made the import anywhere, and over 80 people confirmed. Several others sent me messages - sick of social networks, don't like the canned but supposedly "personal" message, or just want to know if this is the one that'll be worthwhile. Bala Palai reminds me that it's not the utilities, but the people that matter, and I say that you have to be able to connect with the people, so if the system slows to a crawl at full load or the interface is gnarly, you don't find the other actual humans. What I do like so far about Multiply is that it was reasonable easy to create a phot album ... and photos are what make social networks cool, in my opinion, so the easier to upload and the easier to find and view, the better. (flickrmay be the ultimate photo site; it'll be hard for Multiply to beat it.)

My friend Boris Anthony, a very capable web designer based in Montreal, blogs about some of the work he's been doing, including his overhaul of the Extreme Democracy site for Mitch and I. The design collaboration also included Adam Greenfield, who created the logo. [Link]

Cliff Figallo is blogging his experiences networking via LinkedIn. Cliff was director of The WELL during its richest years as a virtual community, and has consulted on whole tons of huge online community endeavors ("social interaction on the net" - think AOL, or Salon's Table Talk). It's great to see him blogging away! [Link]

From the responses I'm getting, it feels like the enthusiasm that was dampened by the dotcom bust is building again. Seems like in my field - social interaction on the Net - there is renewed interest coming from many different directions. Organizations looking to get smarter, software developers innovating in the social networking arena.

John Gilmore is suing John Ashcroft et al over the right to travel without showing identification. The fabulous Bill Scannell, who is kind of like the P.T. Barnum of civil liberties cases, has created a web site with everything you need to know about the case, and then some. [Link]

I nabbed this from Emily Reich's weblog:

OSN2004 will be a summit meeting where you will have a chance to hear from and interact with many of the pioneers in the field of online social networks as well as some of the current trendsetters now exploring the latest technologies and applications.

Novice attendees will have the opportunity to get hands-on experience with some of the latest OSN technologies and tools in a series of safe, supported, activities and virtual “field trips”.

Experienced users will have the opportunity to engage in direct exchanges with developers and providers to co-create an agenda for new features, developments, and enhancements for the next generation of OSN applications.

Those with leadership responsibilities in their organization for communication, stakeholder engagement, marketing, education & training, outreach, and collaboration will get up to speed on what’s new, what’s important, and what you can use NOW to leverage OSN tools.

OSN2004 attendees will receive a CD with all the material shared during the event as well as additional ‘director’s cut’ materials you can use to create and support your own OSN applications from Rheingold Associates and Group Jazz - the leaders in training and consulting in the field.

Interested in presenting? Group Jazz and Rheingold Associates invites you to submit a session idea for the second Online Social Networks conference. Your session proposal should fall into one of the following three focus areas:

1. Online social networks in organizations - Who is using them and why? What challenges and opportunities do they present? What are the practical applications of OSNs?
2. Online social networks for personal social and business use - How are individuals using OSNs?

3. Online social networks in the political arena - How have political parties and politicians used OSNs to raise money, explore issues, and mobilize at the grassroots level?

Submission of proposals: no later than 30 August 2004
Notification of acceptance: September 2004

Interested in participating? Register online today!

[Please pass this along to anyone you think would be interested in presenting or attending! Thanks!]

A bunch of us who've been thinking about online artificial social networks have been known to sign up for each one that comes along and try its features. Each one is a little different, and a couple (Tribe, LinkedIn) have proved to be useful.

When invited to the new site Multiply, I dutifully signed up and looked for stuff to try. There was a feature I hadn't seen elsewhere before: I could import my contacts from other social network sites (Orkut and Friendster), so of course I had to try that out. It worked, and next thing you know, Multiply was spamming all my Orkut contacts with a brainless marketing letter supposedly written by yours truly, only I didn't see it until someone said no, no way, and noted the cheerful Muzak inanity of the message sent in my name. Then others wrote me to say that they were getting multiples of the same message. I made a belated attempt to figure out the site navigation, and while it had looked good initially, I started finding holes - glitches in the information architecture and a persistent dataase error.

A lot of people were talking about Multiply, ultimately, and each time somebody asked me if it was worth an investment of time, my response was a little more dismal. Finally, today, I decided that Multiply really does suck, so I killed some of my data there and tried to find a way out. Finding none, I posted this image as my headshot (and you're welcome to do the same):

Other people are taking time to dig for the histories and predilections of the Multiply founders, but several folks I talked to had the right idea... let's stop going to artificial social network sites and make use of the opend, stable, useful tools we already have for networking over the Internet, witout going to a one-size-fits-all website. Portal strategies keep coming, and keep failing. People like to roll their own.

Earlier today I received an email from Rob Lemos of cNet News... he'd seen my name and email as a MoveOne adherent - my name was exposed because of a misconfiguration and Google's robust search.

Not a huge deal: anybody who reads Weblogsky knows that MoveOn and jonl are in the same karass. What's funny, though, is that somebody unsubscribed me from MoveOn's emails. Laughable, because Moveon notified me that "I" had unsubscribed, and I was reconnected in a couple of keystrokes... far less effort than it took someone to unsubscribe me. [Link]

"This is extremely disturbing," said one subscriber, when contacted through e-mail. The subscriber asked that his or her name not be used. "I'm not sure if I should be worried or not, but I am," the person said.

Bobby Lilly just sent me a pointer to this article published by cnet last month. David Hornik talks about seeing one of many panels on blogging and social software and realizing they're all pretty much the same panel with the usual suspects. His take on the panel is pretty funny:

"Welcome blah blah blah relationship capital blah blah blah social contracts blah blah blah media businesses blah blah blah identify the rabid fans of the iPod blah blah blah utility media blah blah blah this is the future of the Web blah blah blah RSS blah blah blah spam blah blah blah killer app blah blah blah business model blah blah blah advertising model blah blah blah Is this a product or a feature? blah blah blah A feature doesn't make a business blah blah blah leveraging relationships blah blah blah decentralized system blah blah blah privacy concerns blah blah blah profiling people blah blah blah.

"Social networking is blogging dumbed down for the masses blah blah blah tribecaster blah blah blah widget blah blah blah What is the connection between social networks and blogs? blah blah blah the most efficient media platform ever blah blah blah read-write, not read-only blah blah blah All software is about people blah blah blah put this stuff in context blah blah blah monetizing relationships blah blah blah a new dimension to the Web blah blah blah I met my wife on Match.com blah blah blah.

"Network diversity is good blah blah blah reputation management blah blah blah open standards and open platforms win always blah blah blah it's group voice blah blah blah social context blah blah blah The entire Web is a social network blah blah blah Join me in thanking tonight's moderators blah blah blah Goodnight."

In the last couple of weeks, I've been in several conversations about Multiply, a social network site that is new and slightly buggy. Judith Meskill told me she'd talked to one of the Multiply principals, and their intention is to create a social network space, not for geeks, but for average Internet users who want to share notes and photos. That's a reasonable focus. If they can make the site more useable, they might have some degree of success.

Otherwise there's not as much innovation as there could be. A couple of sites that do stand out: flickr, an excellent site for exchanging images as well as words, and LinkedIn, a site that focuses specifically on business networking.

But the panelists Hornik mentions are all doing innovative stuff, too. Marc Canter is working on Open Media, Dan Gillmor has just published a book on weblogs called We the Media, and Ross Mayfield is CEO of SocialText, a company that offers business class wikis to companies and nonprofits. Innovative stuff is happening, so I can't completely agree with Hornik's contention that the social software world is "stuck on itself" and not moving forward.

Last night we attended the premiere (actually second public showing) of Criminal, an independent film featuring John C. Reilly, Diego Luna, and Maggie Gyllenhall. Reilly and director Gregory Jacobs were at the showing and answered a few questions. The film itself was a tightly-plotted, fast-paced drama about a career criminal on the trail of his biggest deal ever with a new partner in tow. Reilly's been stealing films for years as a character actor, but here he has the lead role, and it's a star turn, the kind of performance that wins awards. (Okay, kind of cliche, but I haven't written film reviews in years, and this review is really just an excuse to show you the image I captured with my cellphone. I wasn't the only one... I saw several folks holding camera phones in that focused way.)

I'm leading a discussion with Bruce Sterling on the WELL, focusing mainly on his new novel The Zenith Angle, a technothriller set in the wake of 9/11. We had a bit of a slow start because it coincided with a trip to Zurich, where Bruce is spending a few days teaching media and industrial design at the European Graduate School. Other faculty include DJ Spooky, Sandy Stone, and John Waters. Must be a helluva place.

Zenith Angle is not a futurist piece; it begins with 9/11 and explores how our construction of reality changed that day.

Five years after 9/11, the USA is a deeply polarized society with alienated allies and practically zero diplomatic credibility. The least whisper from the Al Qaeda camp is pored over and valorized; they're crazy, but they're successful. The emptyhanded USA with its witch-hunts for nonexistent WMD looks simply delusional. You'd be hard put to find a Mexican, Canadian or Briton with the least belief that the Bush Administration means anything it says.

This enormous setback came because of the loss of two and one-fifth buildings. We really need a better word for this struggle than "terrorism." People in the US were once pretty frightened about Communist subversives, but very few Americans are genuinely frightened about Al Qaeda. We just resent them furiously, we lost all sense of perspective. Americans aren't terrorized by Al Qaeda, but in 9/11, Americans got jolted into an unthinking revanchist rage that revealed the American state's deep political weakness.

Many people claim insight in to Google's business plan, but I think Jason Kottke's nailed it, and it's really more than business. Google is building a kind of operating system, or at least acknowledging Tim O'Reilly's thought that the Internet should be seen, and used, as an operating system, not just a computer network.

"Sell side advertising" is an idea that's been percolating for a while, finally articulated by John Battelle based on some thoughts blogged by Ross Mayfield, who talks about "Cost per Influence" or CPI. This is a micro-content/micro-payment strategy that requires a bit of technical thinking to create standards for complex secure tracking and validation. I wouldn't say it's an easy problem, but it's doable. The idea is that ads are shared. Scenario: I see an ad at Battelle's site that's a good fit for Weblogsky, so I replicated it at my site according to parameters that Batelle has configured, and when someone clicks through at my site, I share the payment from the advertiser for the impression with Battelle. Next step is for someone to develop the technology, figure out how to secure it, and build a clearinghouse. (Thanks to Joi for the pointer.)

Frank Sanache, the last living Meskwaki Code Talker, died last Saturday. The code talkers helped win World War II, and were unrecognized until recently for their remarkable service. (Suggested by Freaky Pinky.) [Link]