Category Archives: news

The DeviceOsphere – coming soon to a world near you.

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At the MIX06 conference the most provocative and exciting idea I heard was from Tim O’Reilly who also posted about this today on his blog. Tim suggests that we are on the verge of the evolution of a sort of *deviceOsphere* (I think this is my term not Tim’s), where the staggering amount of device data gets collectively shared in new mashup style applications.

Think of a traffic map where thousands of drivers are sharing in real time their personal observations and auto measurements (e.g. ONSTAR and GIS system data) about weather, road conditions, CRIME events, alternate routes, pictures, suggestions for restaurants. A moveable data feast where the conversation never stops and includes thousands of observers/reviewers.
Flickr has shown that people really want to share photos with the world. This notion gets really exciting when you broaden the idea of “content available to mashup” to include ALL the digital content that often simply swirls around in it’s own little world. Transportation road cams, navigation data from individual cars, camcorder and cell phone feeds and crime reports are only a few things that generally just swirl around in a limited space and are discarded or relegated to obscurity.

O’Reilly’s suggesting that this data store, combined with the collective intelligence of the burdgeoning online community, could generate masterpiece applications. And the best thing is that it’s not going to require a Leonardo Da Vinci to do it.

Pure Water for All

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This water purification system sure looks promising and Kudos to Rotary for working to promote it.  Using simple, low cost methods it can purify water using only ceramics and gravity.   A higher tech but also inspiring approach is  this machine promoted and invented by Dean Kamen of Sedgeway  and other invention fame.
Clean water is among earth’s greatest challenges to humanity since disease is often spread via unsafe water supplies in the developing and undeveloped world.
Hey FOX news – some might even want to hear about these innovations in between the latest celebrity gossip or missing upper middle class party people.

MIX06: Timing is everything?

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Today Microsoft announced more delays in VISTA. This jived in an interesting way with several conversations I had with former MS employees and some high level geeks with big companies attending MIX06. Most expressed frustration at how s-l-o-w things tend to move at Microsoft, and all seemed very enthusiastic about the explosive potential of Web 2.0 *approaches* which encourage experimentation, speed, and flexibility, and platform *independence*.

I’d suggest that the LIVE initiative at MS is very exciting and has great potential in every way …. except …. protecting Microsoft’s core cash cows of Office and XP (make that Longhorn…Avalon….no VISTA!)

So, who ya gonna call to fix this MS?  Google? No way – not enough chairs to throw over there, and most are beanbags anyway. Yahoo? Hey…now there’s a Web 2.0 play….if I were Ballmer I’d look very hard at ways to buy or partner up in a long term big way with Yahoo hoping their culture would help invigorate some of the bright but sometimes seemingly… demoralized or disinterested…. MS teams. The problem? I think Jeremy posted that he’d leave Yahoo if that happened and that would NOT be good for Yahoo or Web 2.0 in general.

McCarran ROCKS with free WIFI

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It’s SO frustrating to pay 9.95 for an hour or two of access when you are travelling through an airport that I think most don’t do it.  Here in McCarran Las Vegas it’s free and I love them for it.

Airports like Salt Lake, that CHARGE for internet, should reconsider their strategy and either offer this as a great perk or use some ad supported model.   I’m happy to say I helped establigh free WIFI at my local airport Medford Oregon (MFR).   Portland’s PDX also’s got it and my email complimenting them was well recieved.   Tech people should try to send positive notes to airport administration about free WIFI – this helps them keep it going.

MIX06: Day 3. Where IS everybody?

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Hey, if I can get up early anybody can.   The RSS session just ended and I’m encouraged by what look like excellent RSS aggregation features coming.    But as with many things here it’s not clear exactly when and where.    I’ve had a chance to play on some machines with the OS Longhorn
wait…I mean Avalon  No – VISTA!     Even the MS people here are sometimes using the wrong name for it.   Note to those who hire marketeers to rework the obvious into the obscure – SAVE YOUR MONEY!

I like the look and feel but on the 3 or 4 machines I’ve used there’s a sort of small performance lag that makes VISTA with IE7 feel clunky.   Connectivity here is just fair but I don’t think that was the problem.  I’m hoping this will be corrected with coming performance tweaks and that it’s not due to what I understand is VISTA’s massive use of  system resources.

I’m seeing a difference again in that MS is planning for the media rich / entertainment centric world where a lot of web development, especially at Google, seems focused more on speed and simplicity.  I *definitely* think much of Microsoft is underestimating the importance of delivering online information and experiences with utmost speed and simplicity, though I think the LIVE team is really “getting it” about this and other aspects of the evolving internet ecosystem.  But I think the LIVE folks are the new kids on the Redmond block, so I wonder if they’ll be cut loose to do what needs to be done?
MIX06 poster, Las Vegas

Myspace at MIX06. CTO Witcomb “We’re hiring!”

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MIX06 threw a nice party at the Venetian’s “V” bar last night.   I enjoyed meeting Abner Witcomb who is the myspace CTO and a very personable fellow as well.  They are planning a LOT of hires and he was asking folks to send along any good prospects to him or the recruiting team.

I did get a chance to ask about filtering and content issues but I want to digest his answer a bit more because I think this topic is very complex.  I was surprised to learn that EVERY submitted picture is reviewed by a human because the porn filters simply can’t catch everything, and they see this review as essential quality control, especially since advertisers do not want association with porn.
WitcombJoe

Here in Vegas there seems to be a rule on club and bar coolness that says you try to use no more than four letters in the name.  Top clubs are PURE (Caesar’s Palace) where Yahoo had a nice party back at November’s Webmasterworld  and TAO (Venetian) where Microsoft picked up the tab on Monday for food and drinks.  TAO actually bills itself as a “Religious” nightlife experience …. sheesh…only in Las Vegas.

Web 2.0 Panel at MIX06

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mix2panel.JPG

You couldn’t have picked a better panel for Web 2.0 than here at MIX06. Tim O’Reilly, who was/is the closest thing to Mr. Web 2.0 until perhaps Michael Arrington who was also on the panel along with Jeremy Zawodny from Yahoo, Royal Faros of Microsoft’s new messenger initiatives (which look really neat), and Ebay’s Adam Trachtenberg.

Of course as with all things Web 2.0 one left more confused than before the session, but that goes with the territory these days. Monetization is unclear even for companies that are cited as “successes” in the space such as delicious and flickr.

My favorite quote of the conference was Arrington to the Canadian Yellow Pages company asking how they could morph into a 2.0 company. “You are dead!” he said, I think meaning that UNLESS they changed their old style, usurous advertising fees, yellow page publishing empire would be overrun by Web 2.0s. He even felt EBAY was at risk, feeling they are protective of their 1.0 status.
I’m not so sure about that – in fact I’m increasingly skeptical of Web 2.0 as an easily monetizable phenomenon even as I am more convinced than ever that it’s a profound change in communication, information, and global community.

Web 2.0 at MIX06. Mike to Yellow Pages “You are DEAD!”

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You couldn’t have picked a better panel for Web 2.0 than here at MIX06. Tim O’Reilly, who was/is the closest thing to Mr. Web 2.0 until perhaps Michael Arrington who was also on the panel along with Jeremy Zawodny from Yahoo, Royal Faros of Microsoft’s new messenger initiatives (which look really neat), and Ebay’s Adam Trachtenberg.

Of course as with all things Web 2.0 one left more confused than before the session, but that goes with the territory these days. Monetization is unclear even for companies that are cited as “successes” in the space such as delicious and flickr.

My favorite quote of the conference was Arrington to the Canadian Yellow Pages company asking how they could morph into a 2.0 company. “You are dead!” he said, I think meaning that UNLESS they changed their old style, usurous advertising fees, yellow page publishing empire would be overrun by Web 2.0s. He even felt EBAY was at risk, feeling they are protective of their 1.0 status.
I’m not so sure about that – in fact I’m increasingly skeptical of Web 2.0 as an easily monetizable phenomenon even as I am more convinced than ever that it’s a profound change in communication, information, and global community.

Mix06 = Web 1.9

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OK I’m starting to grok the conference and the MS role in 2.0 …. maybe….. I got a chance to ask Tim O’Reilly to help me interpret Bill Gates’ answers to Tim’s excellent questions to Bill at this morning’s keynote. Most important to me was this simple question:
“Does Microsoft ‘get’ Web 2.0?”.

“parts of it…” was Tim’s excellent summary of the situation I see unfolding before me here at MIX.

I’m seeing good stuff – maybe some great stuff once I have a chance to play with some of the new applications like ATLAS and Windows Presentation Foundation – and I’m seeing enthusiastic MS folks who know they must come up with great aps and must overcome the Google “coolness” challenge in the developer community, but I’m not feeling anything like the energy at Mashup Camp where developers were simply on fire with new ideas that embraced the new Web with the excitement of the early years when the internet wasn’t about money, it was about … profound innovation and change.

So this is Web 1.9, and if I were an MS shareholder I think I’d be OK with that. The path to Web 2.0 riches is VERY unclear.

Mixed feelings about MIX06

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OK, it’s still WAY too early to tell, but I can’t help but feel a bit like this conference is Microsoft *pretending* to care/respect the changes swirling about and typically called “Web 2.0” rather than *really* caring.

In response to O’Reilly’s request for an appearance at his November conference, Chairman Bill said “maybe it’ll be Web 3.0 by then”. I think this remark was telling in that Bill sees all this as “more of the same” rather than what many would describe as a significant shift in direction – the beginning of a world of ubiquitous connectivity, community, and voice.

Are blogs and mashups just clever little devices or are they a window into human info evolution? I’m kind of thinking if you belive the former you should tie your rowboat to the USS Microsoft ship of change but if the latter you should be cautious and just … keep … rowing and fishing for the exploding number of competing technologies that seem to be adapted more specifically for and with respect for the implications of Web 2.0.

But jeez, I haven’t even been to the party yet at TAO, the Venetian’s monstrous nightclub. That’ll change my perspective….?….