Netizen

Friday, September 03, 2010

Information Overload And Twitter

Image representing Evan Williams as depicted i...

Image by The Economist via CrunchBase

Twitter, FourSquare: Mobile Web Thingies
San Francisco Chronicle: Twitter Creator's Quest: Bring Order To The Chaos

There are people who argue Twitter should not try to be their email substitute. I come from another angle. I think Twitter ought to try and become our information overload engine. It should be our email, our news reader, our search engine, our social graph. It should attempt to be everything. Because I got only so much time in my day but I don't want to be missing out.

That is not to say Twitter should be the only engine. There is plenty of space for many engines. But there is something very sweet about 140 characters. But the Twitter of today is not delivering. It spent long months scaling poorly. And during those long months it totally skipped out on the adding new features part.

Sometimes I wonder if Twitter has not had the wrong CEO from the very beginning. Evan Williams should have been the Chairperson, Jack Dorsey should have been the CEO, and who is Biz Stone? The person inside the company in whom the DNA of the company exists, that person is Dorsey.

GigaOm: Ev Williams: Twitter Will Actually Help Information Overload: Williams, an unusually theoretical CEO ..... compared Twitter to email, where information overload can be incapacitating ..... “The problem with email is that it’s sender-driven, and sender-driven media doesn’t scale” ..... recipient-based media can scale better “in a world of infinite information” ..... “Google is very good at ‘I need to solve a problem, I need to buy something, I need an answer,” he said. “Twitter is more ‘I’m interested in many things, I don’t know what I need to know.’” Where Google is more likely to be gamed by a company like Demand Media ....... scaling that system so you don’t have to pay attention to everything, but you don’t miss the stuff you care about

Reclaiming My Twitter Account
Towards Threaded Conversations On Twitter
Twitter: The Obvious Missing Features
Chris Dixon On Twitter: Not Impressive
Twitter Has To Scale The Signals
Twitter Does The Deed: Ads
Twitter Acquires Tweetie: The Drama
Twitter Need Get Work Done
Twitter Needs To Eat Into Its Ecosystem
Measuring Your Twitter Influence

YouTube And Online Movies

Image via Wikipedia

New York Times: YouTube Ads Turn Videos Into Revenue: In the past, Lions Gate, which owns the rights to the “Mad Men” clip, might have requested that TomR35’s version be taken down. But it has decided to leave clips like this up, and in return, YouTube runs ads with the video and splits the revenue with Lions Gate..... more than one-third of the two billion views of YouTube videos with ads each week are like TomR35’s “Mad Men” clip — uploaded without the copyright owner’s permission but left up by the owner’s choice .... “YouTube is a big component of our display revenue, and display is our next big business” ..... YouTube will bring in around $450 million in revenue this year .... Revenue at YouTube has more than doubled each year for the last three years ...... YouTube shares advertising revenue with content partners, who may be big entertainment companies like Lions Gate or amateur videographers who have developed a following. Hundreds of these partners make more than $100,000 a year. Some, like Sal Khan, a former hedge fund manager who now makes math and science education videos, have quit their day jobs..... YouTube is testing a pay-per-view film rental service and broadcasting live events like concerts, and it just signed a deal to show on-demand Major League Baseball games in Japan...... YouTube now has 160 million mobile views a day, almost triple last year’s number. When Google introduces Google TV later this year, people will be able to watch YouTube videos on Internet-connected televisions.

My point is if it can work for movie clips, it can work for full length movies. Pay per view online is also good,but it is not great. The business model has not caught up yet with technology. Viewers should have both options. You can pay per view, no ads, or you can watch for free, ads served. Choice, it's about choice.

The Web Not Yet Ready For The Video Format
Saavn's Great Business Model For Movies

HTML 5 Browser Wars

Image via CrunchBase

TechCrunch: In The Coming HTML5 Browser Wars, The Markup Should Remain The Same: On Monday, Google made a big splash with a customized Arcade Fire video page that showed off all the cool things HTML5 can do, from video, animations and 3D rendering to gorgeous fonts and choreographed windows. .... But until then, expect to see grandstanding about which browser does HTML5 better.

Google does call Chrome a "modern browser."

Innovative disruptions have to take place before standards talk can take place. We are in the early stages.

HTML 5 is when finally the browser will have left the desktop far behind. No wonder Google is so excited about Chrome and HTML 5 and all the rest.

The Chrome browser, HTML 5 and the Chrome OS notebook: that is a package deal. Windows is so yesterday.

Arcade Fire

HTML5 Canvas 3D engine renders a flocking bird simulation that reacts to the music and mouse.

HTML5 audio plays music and keeps track of timecode.

Sequence system controls and synchronises effects and windows to the timecode.

HTML5 video plays film clips in custom sizes.

Choreographed windows are triggered by the music and placed relative to screen size.

Map tiles are rendered, zoomed, and rotated in a scripted 3D environment.

Animated sprites are composited directly over maps and Street View.

3D sky dome is used to render Street View with scripted camera control.

Procedural drawing tool allows the user to create velocity influenced tree branches.

Generative typeface triggered by keypress, uses an SVG path reader and individual canvas compositing for each letter.

Google Maps API for fetching dynamic routes to destination and checking Street View content at points along the route.

Street detection for animated trees composited dynamically in place over Street View.

Color correction by combining canvas blending modes to enhance contrast and tint.

Netizen Has Arrived: A Link From AVC

Image via Wikipedia

There is a Google Alert in my inbox that says AVC.com has linked to a post from this blog Netizen. I feel like Netizen has now arrived as a blog. This is the ultimate compliment.

Curiously I have not been the daily visitor to AVC these past few weeks like I used to be for months before that. I have been too caught up with Reshma For Congress. But I intend to visit when I can.

AVC is a great blog. Fred is a great guy. There is this amazing sense of community at AVC. It is also a NYC thing for me, a hometown thing.

A New Floor Of 1,000 Page Hits
Happy July 4 Fred Wilson, Brad Feld
Fred Wilson: An Unassuming Kind Of Guy
Meeting Fred Wilson In Person

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Twitter, FourSquare: Mobile Web Thingies

Image by The Economist via CrunchBase

Twitter Blog: Evan Williams: The Evolving Ecosystem: "Twitter is too hard" ..... we were doing users a disservice by not having a great client on each of the major mobile platforms ..... Total mobile users has jumped 62 percent since mid-April, and, remarkably, 16 percent of all new users to Twitter start on mobile now ..... 46 percent of active users make mobile a regular part of their Twitter experience.....while smart phone clients are important, there are even more people who use the mobile Twitter web site and/or SMS. We've been seeing strong growth in both of these areas..... users of programs like TweetDeck are some of the most active and frequent users ..... The number of registered OAuth applications is now at almost 300,000—this number has nearly tripled since Chirp.....we currently have more than 145 million registered users and the performance of our Promoted Products has exceeded our expectations.

FourSquare more so than Twitter, but Twitter too. FourSquare was never really meant to be a big screen web thing. Twitter can work on the web, but not FourSquare. But even Twitter, it can be argued, is primarily a mobile web thing. It is meant to be a mobile web thing.

I keep thinking in terms of the Twitter of things. (The Internet Of Things) I think most tweets sent in the far future will emanate not from people but things. Or perhaps there will be a next generation company that will focus on primarily being the Twitter of things. And the "tweets" will not be words at all.

I have been late coming to the mobile web phenomenon. That is rather curious for a Third World guy.

Apple Trying To "Get" Social Now?

This is icon for social networking website. Th...

Image via Wikipedia

New York Times: Bits: Apple-Facebook Friction Erupts Over Ping: Apple’s entry into social networking with the iTunes music social network Ping on Wednesday ..... Facebook insists that businesses that send a lot of traffic to its servers first work with the company to make sure those problems can be handled smoothly

Google's efforts at trying to "get" social are legendary. There have been so many failed attempts. Now looks like it is Apple's turn to "get" social. Google and Apple are competing on so many different fronts. Apple is not in search yet, and Google is not into hardware yet, but other than that they are all over each other. And now looks like Apple just got interested in social.

Hotmail was the first web email program. But then everyone started doing their own little email program. Yahoo got one. A few years later Google got one. The inbox did not stay with Hotmail. Social is the same way. Social does not belong to Facebook any more than the inbox belonged to Hotmail.

What happens when both Apple and Facebook try to do social? What happens when Facebook and FourSquare both try to do location? Sometimes friction happens.

September NY Tech MeetUp Needs To Feature Reshma Saujani

Image representing Nate Westheimer as depicted...

Image via CrunchBase

I have an email from Nate Westheimer from two days ago and I don't see any mention of the Reshma Saujani name anywhere. This is so lame. Nate can do better than this. There have been times before when someone who was not listed as a speaker spoke. I hope this is one of those instances.

Reshma Saujani: Innovation, Ethnic Pride, Thought Leadership
AnyClip Is Live Now
AnyClip.com: Second Thoughts
AnyClip.com: More Thoughts

One of the founders of the NY Tech MeetUp Dawn Barber first came up with the idea that Reshma Saujani should speak for five minutes at the September NY Tech MeetUp. That was back in June.

Reshma 2010: New Office: Party: June 21 Monday
Maloney's Idiotic Debate Non Stand Can Be Countered Through Use Of Social Media

Why would Reshma speak at a NY Tech MeetUp? It is about tech and it is about gender. Reshma Saujani is the national candidate to the tech sector.

Reshma Saujani "Gets" Tech
Reshma Saujani, Scott Heiferman, Chris Hughes: TechCrunch Disrupt
Reshma Saujani: South Asian Powerhouse, National Candidate To The Tech Sector
Reshma 2010 Clean Tech Event July 27 Tuesday
A Clean Tech Experience

This is about the New York tech scene refusing to play second fiddle forever. This is about the NY tech scene getting a voice of its own in Washington DC.

NY1, NY1, NY1, NY1, NY1

This is also about gender, a raging topic in tech these past few weeks.

Aliza Sherman Takes Mike Arrington To Task
Women In Tech: The Debate Rages On
Gender Talks
FoodSpotting Is The Next FourSquare
Mike Arrington Is A Sexist Pig: Say PeeeeG!
Tech, Women, Diversity
September 14 Will Birth The New Woman

Nate Westheimer to newtech-1-anno.
show details Sep 1 (2 days ago)
Hey Meetupsters!

Next WEDNESDAY, September 8th, connect with 850 fellow technologists at the beautiful NYU Skirball Center for another evening of non-stop startup thrills.

RSVP now-- this is going to be big!
http://www.meetup.com/ny-tech/calendar/14336711/

We've got an unbeatable lineup of talent for you --
Propercloth, Grovo, MeetMoi, Nearsay, Apture, JIBE, and an exclusive demonstration of Google Goggles! (More TBA)

Get your RSVP: we'd love to see you!
http://www.meetup.com/ny-tech/calendar/14336711/

The NYTM is produced in partnership with the NYU Stern Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Also, thanks as always to our sponsors, DFJ Gotham and Wilson Sonsini who help make NYTM possible (with your support too!).

See you soon,

Nate and Brandon
NY Tech Meetup

P.S. If you can't make the event, you can watch live (and again after the curtain drops!) -- thanks to our partnership with Livestream -- at nytm.org/livestream!

P.P.S. Anyone looking to launch a tech startup should check out the Founder Institute - an entrepreneur training program that doesn't even require you to quit your day job. The Fall NYC Semester is accepting applications until this Friday, Sept. 3.

P.P.P.S. We're really bummed about the scheduling conflict with Rosh Hashanah and have posted a full response on the NYTM Meetup page.

Learn more about our venue:

Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
New York University
566 LaGuardia Place (at Washington Square South)
www.skirballcenter.nyu.edu / 212.992.8484

To visit NY Tech Meetup, go here:
http://www.meetup.com/ny-tech/

Apple, Google, Music

Image via Wikipedia

Reuters: Apple And Google To Clash In Music Space By Christmas: The music industry hopes to benefit from a battle for control of the mobile phone and computer desktop between Apple and Google as both technology giants go head-to-head in a wide range of media and consumer technology areas including online TV and movies, mobile phones, software and even advertising. ...... iTunes Music Store, which accounts for 70 percent of all U.S. digital music sales..... Sales of Android-based phones have rocketed in recent months to 200,000 a day ..... Music executives have long believed having other competing powerful digital music retailers could help expand the market...... Labels have been hoping that the introduction of new cloud-based music services from Apple and Google would be a major boost for winning over consumers who want to be able to access their music libraries, discover new songs and make impulse purchases wherever they have Internet access.

Competition is a good thing. What is remarkable about the Google-Apple rivalry is the two are similar sized companies that are very loved by very many people, and by now they are competing in so many different ares. That is a good thing.

The iPhone met Android. Now I guess it is iTunes' turn to see some competition. What would Google's music service be like? All the music you can consume for a basic monthly fee is my first guess, music that you can transport from device to device using your Google account.

Android phones are doing very well and are about to take over the iPhone in terms of very many numbers. They are selling as many phone as the iPhone by now. This diversity is a good thing.

The real clincher would be if these guys did to movies what they are doing to music. The movie business is so stuck. It's not even funny. It asks to be unhinged.

A New Floor Of 1,000 Page Hits

Last month my tech blog - Netizen - suffered because I was primarily focused on blogging for Reshma 2010 at my Barackface blog. (Reshma Saujani) I have only 20 posts at this blog in August as compared to almost 60 each for the two months before that. On the other hand I have 110 posts at my Barackface blog for August. That might be my best month at any blog ever. In a way I feel very good about that output. On the other hand I consider myself someone wanting to make a full time income as a blogger while blogging not being my primary thing to do.

I hate it when people call me a writer or a journalist. As far as my political blogs go - I got two - my work can more appropriately be described as digital activism. The work is political. You are trying to impact, you are trying to contribute. You are trying to move and shake things.

My best day at this blog has been 3,000 page hits. By now I think a floor of 1,000 page hits for a day is no big deal. It can be done. I worked extra hard yesterday and already things are picking up.

I want the floor at this blog to be 3,000 page hits. I want the ceiling to become the new floor. A few weeks of work might bring that about.

1,000 is a very good number for a day. That is about 10% of what Fred Wilson's blog does.

What Just Happened? 3,000 Page Hits

News: September 2

ReadWriteWeb: Ping: First Look At The iTunes Social Network
Boxee: How Boxee Sees The Apple TV
CNet: Twitter Plans To Record All Links Clicked
VentureBeat: Reddit ‘Excited’ About Chance To Eat Digg’s Lunch
SilverLight: The Future Of Silverlight
TechCrunch: Android Users Can Now Check In To Foursquare By Using Their Voice
ArsTechnica: Plan For Nationwide Free Wireless Broadband Finally Shot Down:For four years the Federal Communications Commission tossed the idea around like a beach ball: a coast-to-coast free wireless service across the low end of the 2GHz "AWS-3" band. The service would pay for itself via advertisements and by selling commercial access to various portions of the license area. The company that proposed the plan, M2Z Networks, would commit to building out the project in a decade, and pay five percent of its annual revenue to the United States Treasury..... the AWS-3 spectrum will continue to lie fallow providing no economic value to American consumers." .... the wireless industry hated the proposal, and is happy about the FCC's announcement.
Business Insider: Yelp's First Daily Deal In San Francisco Gives Groupon A Beating
Wired: Google Testing Full-Featured Google Apps
Business Insider: Early Twitter Employee Alex Payne's Online Bank Startup, BankSimple, Raises A Big Round
WSJ Digits: Twitter Japan Tweeting All the Way to the Bank

CNN: Natalie Portman Generates Oscar Buzz For Racy Role

Washington Post: Departing Obama Adviser Urges More Stimulus
MercuryNews.com: Boxer, Fiorina Clash In Hard-Hitting Debate
Bloomberg: Burger King Agrees To $4 Billion Bid From 3G Capital
Los Angeles Times: Bernanke Says Fed Had To Let Lehman Fail

Aliza Sherman Takes Mike Arrington To Task

When a blogger links to one of my blog posts, I get a Google Alert in my inbox. This morning I have an alert for Aliza Sherman.

Aliza Sherman: Too Few Women In Tech? We Aren't Blaming Men: I helped pioneer the Web for women back in the early to mid-90s and founded the first woman-owned Internet company - Cybergrrl, Inc. - and the first organization to help women gain a foothold in the budding Internet and new media industries - Webgrrls International...... I'm a doer. I'm an instigator. I'm an innovator. I'm a leader. I create things, build things, write things. Make things happen...... we are STILL having the EXACT SAME CONVERSATIONS today as we were in 1995 ....... . In 2005, I was selected by NEWSWEEK Magazine as one of the Top 50 People Who Matter Most on the Internet ..... it is still so damn hard for women to get bank loans and venture capital ..... unless you are male and can then be considered a "gray hair" which is actually a great position to be in because regardless of your credentials, your gray hair demonstrates wisdom and seasoning. For women, gray hair signifies old, haggard, sloppy, too lazy to dye your hair, too feminazi to care about hair dye, you name it ....... Male venture capitalists tend to fund male-helmed companies. I've been told by many VC's that they funded a young man because "he reminded me of me when I was his age." ....... " "women own 50% or more of some 10.4 million businesses, about 41% of all privately held companies in the U.S." but only 3% to 5% of those companies receive venture capital funding" ....... You are part of the problem, Michael Arrington ... Not many of you have taken positive actions to make positive changes in the system to create more opportunity for ANYONE who is not white and male. ..... You just don't know how to find them, how to approach them, and how to remove the barriers for their entry even once they receive an invitation from you. You have NO IDEA..... Women get such a paltry number of venture dollars, it isn't even criminal, it is insane how little venture capital we get. And the media is dying to write about women? Open any business magazine, any tech magazine, and count the number of stories about women versus men. ....... You are right, Michael Arrington. You cannot speak intelligently on this matter. But you can help those of us who can and those of us who have ideas or projects that can change the fundamental landscape ....... Oh and while you’re at it please work on race, age, and other biases in TechCrunch and your other enterprises

When Mike Arrington says stop blaming men, this guy is assuming he speaks for men. Worse, he is assuming he is the leader of men. I am a man. Mike Arrington does not speak for me. He is not my leader. He most certainly does not speak for me on gender issues. This guy is out and out a sexist.

Complaining about sexism is not whining. I actually feel not enough women complain enough. Because if they did, things would be better for the next generation of women.

Some define positivity as not bringing up sexism as a topic of conversation. Be thankful for what you already have. Why bother bringing about knee jerk defensive reactions among men? Let things be. Focus on the good things. Smell the roses.

If he wants to help make progress on gender, the first thing Mike Arrington needs to do is stop acting defensive.

Women In Tech: The Debate Rages On
Gender Talks
FoodSpotting Is The Next FourSquare
Mike Arrington Is A Sexist Pig: Say PeeeeG!

Pages

Friday, September 03, 2010

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Thursday, September 02, 2010

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