Click here to view the embedded video.

I have watched similar events in my lifetime; the civil rights movement in the U.S., Prague Spring, Wounded Knee, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of apartheid in South Africa, and the Tiananmen Square Protest. But, one incident stands out quite vividly in my memory, the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. I was in 8th grade, 14 years old I think. Vice President Hubert Humphrey was about to receive the nomination of the party for the Presidency of the U.S. I still think he would have made a good President. Instead, we elected Richard Nixon. To place this political convention in context, four years earlier Lyndon Johnson had steamrolled Barry Goldwater with over 61% of the popular vote. And now the power brokers of this political machine were preparing to win the presidency again. Outside in the streets of Chicago, however, the people had other ideas. A very unpopular war was being waged by the United States in Southeast Asia. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was not yet producing inclusion for the disenfranchised. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in April of 1968 and Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June of 1968. Other massive riots occurred that summer in the U.S.

The riots of Chicago in 1968 are particularly memorable for me because they were well covered. All of the major news organizations were present and the eyes of the world were upon them, both those in power and those in the streets. Then the chant began, “the whole world is watching!” And, we were.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Today, I am not watching the events in Iran on television. Major television networks were slow to pick up the story. And now, the Iranian government is taking the camera away from big media. I am watching through Twitter. If this is new to you, there is a pretty good post on Mashable about how to use it to watch the unfolding events in Iran. Currently, my client refreshes about every 30 seconds and chirps 40 and 50 new messages at a time from #iranelection. Pictures, video, and reports are coming through from people on the streets in Iran by the second. The Iranian government is trying to stop it but it is hard to gather up devices that can be carried in your front pocket. A cell phone is all that is needed to report to the world. Other people in the world are watching and suggesting ways to keep the channels of communication open.

The right to be free is powerful. People have and are giving their lives for it. There is a change in this event, however. The people of the world are talking and listening to each other. A communication revolution is underway. Common people see their brothers and sisters trampled and will not remain silent. The whole world is watching and tweeting.

(cross posted to my personal blog http://www.digitallymark.com)

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Robert Scoble has weighed in. I think Scoble raises some excellent points in this post. I have wondered lately if large corporations can really handle social computing. There is too much risk. And in the interest of full disclosure, let me say that I am a Product Manager on a social computing platform at Microsoft. I spend a lot of time thinking about risk. He is tough on IBM, Oracle, and Adobe but toughest on Microsoft. I think he is daring Microsoft to do it but daring Microsoft to do it in the right way. Take the risk, he is saying. He backs Google only to the extent that they will know how to use the technology but hints at what the future of Twitter will be if Google buys them…oblivion. They will chop the code up and use what they can to further their own initiatives but Twitter will be no more.

So, what is the risk? We cannot control community. We can only enable it. This is anathema to a corporation.  It appears to work at cross purpose to the reason for a corporation to exist. We have built a business culture that is founded on the idea that control comes from the top down. We currently operate under an Industrial Information Economy as opposed to a Networked Information Economy. Yochai Benkler speaks about this in length in his book, The Wealth of Networks. The world is moving on but corporations are having trouble keeping pace. Oh, did I say it’s about the risk? It is really easier for the corporation, under the old model, to buy things and chop them up, thereby gaining the assets and eliminating the competition. Corporations know this model and can explain it to their stockholders. How long will this last? It is like sweeping back an incoming tide with a broom.

Twitter provides a wonderful window into the world. With the right infrastructure (translate no more Twitter Whales) it could be an amazing tool. What if Microsoft just bought it and let it be what it is? Wouldn’t that be amazing? Oh, and stockholders…..thar’s gold in them thar tweets.

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This week, President Bush signed the Pro-Copyright law. We now have a copyright czar. For me, having a copyright czar reeks of dystopian new-speak that would make Orwell proud. Why does copyright need a czar? How about potentate or terminator? Why czar? Oh well, I guess it fits with other recent efforts. We have a drug czar in our war on drugs. How is that war going? Are we winning? I don’t think so. I think we’re running neck and neck in that war with the war on poverty, i.e., we’re losing. Come to think of it, do we have a poverty czar?  Apparently Hillary Clinton thought it was a good idea but it never got any traction. For whom would this czar act as overlord, the rich? This would just get awkward…no future in it.

Lawrence Lessig published an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, In Defense of Piracy.

“How is it that sensible people, people no doubt educated at some of the best universities and law schools in the country, would come to think it a sane use of corporate resources to threaten the mother of a dancing 13-month-old? What is it that allows these lawyers and executives to take a case like this seriously, to believe there’s some important social or corporate reason to deploy the federal scheme of regulation called copyright to stop the spread of these images and music? “Let’s Go Crazy” indeed!

It doesn’t have to be like this. We could craft copyright law to encourage a wide range of both professional and amateur creativity, without threatening Prince’s profits. We could reject the notion that Internet culture must oppose profit, or that profit must destroy Internet culture. But real change will be necessary if this is to be our future — changes in law, and changes in us.”

Where is fair use? Where is reason? Let’s hear from our Presedential candidates. Where does Joe the Plumber stand on this? Not a mention, not a whimper, it just doesn’t rise to the level of attention that would draw conversation when considered in the same field of priorities as war and global economy crisis. It’s too bad. The future of human communication is on the line but it hardly even draws a headline.

I encourage you to contact your congressional representatives and let them know that ths law is wrong headed, detrimental to free exchange of information and elitist.

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I first heard of Gever Tulley and his Tinkering School a couple of months ago on the NPR news program, All Things Considered. Any body who wants to put power tools, fire, and knives into the hands of children is ok in my book. I wanted to know more. I did a search and found that he had done a TED talk. I think the nine minute video is well worth the time but the part that is germaine to our study here is his fifth item. He encourages kids to violate the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). He mentions in his talk how he has  the children do this:

1. buy a song on I-Tunes
2. write it to a CD
3. rip the CD to an MP3
4. play it

 but he doesn’t say what the conversation is that accompanies the activity.

I suppose that’s a reasonable approach. Such a conversation is probably best left to a child and their parent. I wonder, however, how many parents are actually prepared to have a conversation like this. I suspect the percentage is low. It is an intriguing thing that he introduces into his talk. It is quite subtle. Most parents know something about gravity, sharp things, and fire but how many know anything about the digital environment? Tulley is teaching parents something. You would not let your child get beyond the age of six without having a safety talk about fire. How about the DMCA? Would you even know if your child was sitting in the next room breaking the law?

Maybe you like the law and maybe you don’t. Maybe you would allow your child to break it and maybe you wouldn’t. But shouldn’t you be prepared to talk to them about what it means because they know enough to do it and so should you.

><><><>< Mark

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Hot, Flat, and Crowded

One of my co-workers called my attention to the fact that Thomas Friedman has published his new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded. The interesting thing, I think, with this publcation is that he has left chapter 18 for a future release and we will write it. He says of chapter 18:

In it I hope to include the best ideas and proposals sent in from readers: ideas about clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation; about petropolitics and nation-building in America; about how we can help take the lead in the renewal of our country and the Earth alike by going Code Green.

The book was publshed yesterday and already there are six contributions to the new chapter. Not only do people have opportunities to contribute ideas but we can also vote on whether we like or dislike the contributions. Surely there will be self promoters, nut jobs and trolls but I also expect there will be bona fide contributors.

This business model intrigues me. The comment box is followed by a pointer to the statement of privacy and terms of use. It makes very clear that you are no longer the owner of your content once you click submit. It says:

By submitting a comment I agree to the posted Privacy Notice and Terms of Use without limiting the following: I agree that my comment may be incorporated into the text of any and all future electronic and print editions of Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution – And How It Can Renew America by Thomas L. Friedman, resigning all ownership and rights to Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

So, if a contributor is passionate about environmental issues, does the prospect of getting an idea published in a volume associated with a Pulitzer Prize winning author make for a fair bargain? I think it may. The contributor can increase exposure to the idea in a way that they may never be able to achieve through blogging. On the flip side, Friedman finds an opportunity to extend sales of his book beyond the end of the typical run. It is an interesting approach to monetizing user generated content.

-Mark

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So the story that most people know is the story of free or open source software. This is market share of Apache web server-

-one of the critical applications in web based communications. In 1995, two groups of people said wow, this is really important, the web! We need a much better web server! One was a motley collection of volunteers who just decided you know, we really need this, we should write one, and what are we going to do with what — well, we’re gonna share it! And other people will be able to develop it. The other was Microsoft. Now if I told you that 10 years later, the motley crew of people who didn’t control anything that they produced acquired 20% of the market and was the red line (refers to second largest share on graph), it would be amazing! Right? Think of it in minivans. A group of automobile engineers on their weekends are competing with Toyota. Right?

But in fact, of course, the story is it’s the 70% (refers to top blue line), including the major e-commerce site — 70% of a critical application on which web based communications and applications work is produced in this form in direct competition with Microsoft, not in a side issue — in a central strategic decision to try to capture a component of the net.

This got me curious. How does this happen? Is it really just a motley crew, a group of random people drawn together in the interest of building a Web Server? Well, it may have started that way but it no longer is. They now operate under what is called a meritocracy. They call this government by merit where newcomers are considered as volunteers who are looking to help rather than people who are coming to steal power.

Being no conservative resource at stake (money, energy, time), the group was happy to have new people coming in and help, they were only filtering the people that they believed committed enough for the task and matched the human attitudes required to work well with others, especially in disagreement.

Meritocracy enables various roles: user, developer, committer, PMC Member, PMC Chair, and ASF Chair. Anyone can rise in status and reputation by adhering to the “Apache Way”.

· collaborative software development

· commercial-friendly standard license

· consistently high quality software

· respectful, honest, technical-based interaction

· faithful implementation of standards

· security as a mandatory feature

There are no conservative resources (money, time, energy) at stake. People can give as little or as much as they like. Here is a fascinating model of collaborative production that centers upon reputation and recognition. This does not mean that those who participate cannot profit from their reputation within the Apache organization. Many do. That profit however, is extraneous to the workings of the Apache Software Foundation itself.

Can this approach be applied to other digital media? I think so. Of course there may be variations but the creation of a culture that is narrowly focused upon a particular outcome can be driven by cooperation and recognition. Wikipedia is certainly an example of this. Slashdot, one of the Webs oldest blogs is regulated by a system that thrives on participant reputation. Could a movie be produced under this model? Could news be published? How about books? All yes, I think.

And yet in the face of compelling evidence, organizations like the Philadelphia Enquirer cling to the old business model. Old ways die hard. 150 years of an industrial information economy will not be supplanted by a digital information economy over night. There are conservative resources, particularly money, at stake. For those who refuse to see reality, the outcome will be irrelevance. But that’s ok, there will always be a place for them to begin within an area that interests them as a user.

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Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten told Next Generation this week that Microsoft will soon begin to delete some Xbox Live Arcade games from the service. The rationale is, to put it nicely, paper-thin: To “focus on quality over quantity” and “make it easier to find the games you are looking for.”

I am surprised by this in light of what I have studied about the long tail. It seems to make sense in the context of that theory, that once an item makes it into inventory, it just stays there. Why would they pull a title?

Kohler seems to be overly defensive of the long tail but I suppose this is understandable if your editor in cheif is Chris Anderson. In the interest of full disclosure, I work for Microsoft but not in the Xbox division. I work for Microsoft Learning. But back to the question, why pull a title? Kohler is a bit vague on this point and perhaps that is because his source was not giving him a lot of information. He mentions that there is some concern about the user interface being confusing. I don’t believe that. Microsoft has plenty of developers to fix a problem like that. Kohler goes on to defend the long tail by saying:

Now, you guys know me. I’m a free-market, laissez-faire kind of guy. I think it’s important that Microsoft is free to do whatever it damn well pleases with Xbox Live. That’s because I believe that, ultimately, Microsoft will learn that it’s doing the wrong thing because companies that get it right will succeed in the marketplace.

Only I’m not entirely confident about Microsoft’s competitors, either.

Finally, Kohler gets to the root of his anxiety in the final two paragraphs.

Perhaps these three companies really do believe that digital delivery will usher in a brand new democratic, infinite-arcade era of gaming. But let’s not kid ourselves. The reason that Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are so excited about digital delivery is that it represents a future in which one company — them — has absolute control over the sole content distribution channel.

And that’s a future we should be very worried about.

I understand the concern he expresses, that the gatekeepers will stifle the democracy of innovation. Unfortunately, Kohler does not offer an alternative. He lays fear, uncertainty, and doubt at the feet of his readers and leaves us there.

Here are questions I have. Do Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft have a new model that optimizes the long tail? Is there a point at which the long tail does not make sense and it pays to chop it off? Pay is the operative word here. We are dealing with corporations after all and they are by law beholden to their shareholders to make money. Have they found a way to further monetize what they found in their study of Chris Anderson’s theory?

I had a chance to sit in on a lecture of Jonathan Zittrain at the Berkman Center about ten days ago. He did his stump speech for the speaker circuit that supports his new book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. By the way, Jonathan Zittrain is hugely entertaining. He makes the mundane sparkle. If you do get a chance to catch him on the speaker circuit, go. But I digress. Zittrain speaks of the “dark matter” of the internet, a generative force that impels creation. It is who we are as humans. We long to congregate, communicate, create, and share. It was in this spirit that the internet was created. Amazingly it, the internet, has managed to survive despite some huge vulnerabilities. Among those vulnerabilities is the desire of corporations to control this mighty social engine. But that, as Mr. Kohler might leave us to believe, is not the only vulnerability that threatens the democracy of innovation.

The days of idyllic cooperation appear to be coming to an end. Spam is rampant and pervasive. Gatekeepers like Comcast and Sprint vie for dominace over the wire. By some accounts, the music industry is dead and in response, other content providers like Viacom, Disney, and Microsoft seek to clamp down on piracy and place ever more stringent restrictions on re-use of content. The number of security incidents on the internet are rising significantly. So, the question is, can the Internet survive the urge to regulate? Will this desire for control and regulation squelch or kill the generative nature of the internet?

Zittrain offers suggestions for how we can ensure the continued resilience of this wonderful invention. But the time to act is now. The future is in our hands and is for us to decide. How and what it will become is up to us.

I am beginning my first read of the book this weekend. Based on the lecture that I heard, I have confidence that time spent with this book will be well invested. I believe that what I will find is a reasoned response to the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that Kohler expresses.

- Mark Shea

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- Mark

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