Disruptive Conversations

It was five years ago today that I started using Twitter as what would come to be known as "@danyork". October 24, 2006. I remember the date purely because "10/24" in the US way of writing dates is an über-geeky number (1 Kilobyte or 2¹⁰). Yes, I remember things like this.

My recollection is that Chris Brogan sent out invites to a whole bunch of us bright-shiny-object-chasers and we all joined this new service called Twitter. This was before Chris became the rock star that he is today[1] and in a much simpler time when all of us who were exploring this new world of "social media" were reading each other's blogs, listening to each other's podcasts, commenting on each other's content and generally interacting in a community of people seeking to understand where we could take all these technologies and tools. Anyway, Chris invited a bunch of us... my Mac Twitter client tells me Chris was Twitter user #10,202, I was #10,312, Doug Haslam was #10,396 and Jim Long (newmediajim) was #10,496. (Just some of the names I remember from that time.) It was a playground where all of us were trying to figure it all out.

The explosion was to come shortly thereafter.

After all these years, though, I still stand by what I wrote in some posts way back in 2007 and 2008:

• The 10 ways I learned to use Twitter in 2007... (aka Why and How I use Twitter)
• Revisiting "the 10 ways I learned to use Twitter"... and adding "Attention Lens" and "Presence"
• Business Week's "CEO's Guide to Microblogging" - and my part of the Debate Room piece (and my contribution)

A friend asked me on Twitter today: "Is Twitter really worth it, or a distraction?"

I still say that I find value in Twitter pretty much every day.

It has become part and parcel of my daily routine and how I interact with people on the Internet. It has become how I distribute info about content I write. It's how I learn of new things to pay attention to.

I still follow my general policy I laid out back in 2008 about whether or not I follow someone... and I'm still finding new and interesting people that I follow pretty regularly.

I do not though read the main feed very diligently... I may dip in from time to time... but most of my focused reading comes from various searches that I run on keywords of interest. I also use FlipBoard now and then on my iPad to browse when I just want to see what's going on.

It's been fascinating as the boundaries of our lives continue to blur to see who we use Twitter and all of these tools.

We're all collectively engaged in a grand experiment in openness. And brevity. What becomes of it none of us know.

All I can say is that I'm very much looking forward to seeing where Twitter and all of these services go over the next five years!

P.S. And yes, Twitter remains my daily practice with "brevity". Certainly a challenge for a writer like me ;-)

[1] And I mean this in a good way. Chris is a great guy and I'm glad we got to become friends over the years. His path has taken him to some pretty great heights and it's been great to see!

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I have been amazed - and I can't for the life of me understand WHY this is going on.

For my VERY infrequently issued email newsletter, A View From The Crow's Nest, I've seen probably 50 subscriptions over the last month from email accounts with very bizarre names - both names of email address and also the first and last names of the users. They pretty much all have come from accounts at:

• hotmail.com
• tom.com
• 163.com
• sohu.com
• yeah.net

Now, in looking at those sites... outside of hotmail.com, they are all Chinese-language sites.

Did my (English-only!) blogs get on some list for people to read in China?

... and some % of those people decided to actually subscribe to my (again, English-only) email newsletter?

I find this hard to believe, particularly when Google Analytics shows NO increased visitation to any of my sites from China or Chinese-language browsers.

Is something else going on here? The IT security part of my brain was spiked into high paranoia by the patterns in the last names that were entered into the subscription form. The vast majority of these "last names" were either:

• andeson
• aifseng
• billaa
• John

And the "first names" make no sense as an English name. Here's a screenshot showing some recent subscriptions (with, yes, some info deliberately hidden):

This pattern continues for several more pages.

Now, I have no real knowledge of the Chinese language. Is this perhaps a translation of Chinese characters into Roman letters by the iContact email service I use? i.e. are these perhaps legitimate subscription requests where the info is getting lost in translation?

My first thought before I realized all the sites (sans hotmail.com) were Chinese was that this was spammers subscribing to my newsletter from free email services.

But why?

I couldn't (and still can't) figure that out. What good would it do for a spammer (or other attacker) to subscribe to my email newsletter list?

Or are the subscription records bogus anyway? Are they the byproduct of attackers trying to probe the security of the signup forms? To see if they could exploit a SQL injection attack or something like that?

Or is something more widespread going on? A Google search on "aifseng", for instance, shows that "word" paired with other nonsensical (in English) "words" on a host of other sites.

Did I miss a memo about some security issue going on? Or is this the case where something is getting lost in translation?

Any ideas or info out there?

Image credit: maddercarmine on Flickr

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Can we please have some grammar? ... and maybe some coherent sentences? Please?

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It's not the technology... as that is in so many cases the easiest aspect. Download a tool like Audacity to your computer and start talking into your built-in mic. Boom. You're done. Or point your phone's video camera at someone and press the record button. We've got a zillion different devices that will record audio or video.

It's not the post-production... although that can take some time depending upon the level of "professionalism" you want to give to your podcasts. Some people are fine with just posting raw "(wo)man-on-the-street" interviews up with little or no post-production. Some people want to do some editing, add intros and outros, etc.

It's not the on-air voice (the "talent")... as there are many podcasts out there that demonstrate that you don't need to have the proverbial "radio voice" to still have a show that builds a community of listeners. Of course, having (or developing) a good voice does help, but it's not the hardest part.

It's not the marketing of your podcast... the world of social media has made it so much easier to get the word out. Good shows will spread virally and people will learn about what you are doing. MANY tools out there to help spread the word.

It's not the story or the outline of what you will talk about... although admittedly this CAN be one of the harder aspects - to craft the outline of what you are going to do over a period of time, to think about the audiences, to figure out what story you are going to tell.

No, the absolute hardest part of podcasting is none of those, although all of them can be challenging in different ways.

Instead the hardest part of podcasting is...

... keeping the podcast going!

It's easy to start a podcast... it's far harder to maintain a podcast.

To keep doing it... week after week after week after week after week after...

For every podcast like For Immediate Release that has been diligently going on week after week for over five years now (just passed episode #621) or the VoIP Users Conference that has been going on for 4+ years, there are a hundred other podcasts where the hosts had brilliant ideas, the best of intentions... yet didn't keep the podcast going.

The Internet is littered with the remains of thousands of podcasts that started... (and yes, the same could be said of blogs).

One of my own is amidst those remains... from 2005 to 2008 I produced and co-hosted Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast. It was great to do and we built up quite a strong community of listeners. But then jobs changed... life changed... new kids came into the world... and so we ended the show's run. I keep thinking about bringing it back... but I'm conscious of this "hardest part" of podcasting. If I do bring it back, I have to be ready to commit to bringing it back on a regular basis.

THAT is the hardest part of "podcasting".

Keeping the podcast going.

IF, of course, you are trying to create a "show" that is ongoing. If you are just putting up some audio interviews... well, those might just be "downloadable audio files" and not really a "podcast", per se. Or they might be a "podcast" that has a predetermined lifespan... such as for an event or conference. There are many such podcasts around an event or date - or for a set series of topics - and they are great for what they are: a "body of work" with a defined beginning and end.

But if you are trying to create an ongoing show that attracts a community of listeners... then this "hardest part" comes into play. When I've been consulting with clients about starting up a podcast, I stress this fact again: it's easy to start a podcast, but far harder to keep it going.

Are you ready to commit to the long-term run of the show?

To do it week after week after week after week?

THAT is the hardest part of podcasting.

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When did Facebook copy Google+ and add the feature that you could stop receiving notifications for a specific post? As the image shows, I just noticed it yesterday:

Very nice to see as there are certainly times when I have "Liked" or commented on a post and then not really wanted to see the zillion other comments that people have left on a popular post.

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Have you been tracking the insane degree to which Amazon.com is utterly disrupting the traditional publishing industry? Have you been paying attention to how incredibly the business models and the players are changing?

As an author of multiple books who has been published through the traditional publishing industry (ex. O'Reilly, Syngress, Sybex, QUE) and who still has a zillion book ideas in my head, I've obviously been paying close attention. For those of us who write, it's an incredible time of opportunity... and choices.

The 800-Pound Gorilla

Amazon.com is at the heart of the disruption and the opportunity. I first started watching Amazon closely about 5 years ago or so when I learned of CreateSpace, Amazon's "do-it-yourself" publishing site where basically anyone can upload a PDF, choose a cover (or create your own) and... publish your book into Amazon.com! The cool thing is that your book shows up in Amazon listings just like those from the traditional publishers.

1. Write your book.
2. Export to PDF.
3. Upload to CreateSpace.
4. Start Selling!

Boom!

That's the sound of the traditional publishing industry business model going up in smoke...

In the years since, CreateSpace has of course expanded into ebooks and Amazon's rolled out many other services helping authors get their content out.

Now, of course, to do it on your own is not quite that simple. Traditional publishers provide some key assistance to authors:

1. Editing - a critical piece of writing a book
2. Design - of the cover, the book, graphics, the typefaces, etc.
3. Marketing - promoting the book across many different channels, advertising, etc.
4. Distribution - getting the book out to where people will buy it

Editing, design and marketing are all areas where you can find people to help you... and the distribution is the whole point of what Amazon.com, Smashwords, Lulu and a zillion other sites will now help you with. Sure, the traditional publishers can help you with distribution out to brick-and-mortar bookstores... but how are those doing these days? (The sad subject of another blog post at some point.) For some authors those bookstores may be a market... and for them the traditional publishers may be necessary. For other authors starting out - or writing for more niche audiences, the "indie publishing" route may work better.

Amazon's Latest Move

This month brings news that Amazon is signing authors to its own publishing imprint and there are two great articles out analyzing what this means:

• GigaOm: Publishers: What are you doing while Amazon eats your lunch?
  
  
• New York Times: Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal

Mathew Ingram's GigaOm piece, in particular, is useful for all the links he includes to other articles and information. The NY Times piece also had this great quote from Amazon executive Russell Grandinetti:

“The only really necessary people in the publishing process now are the writer and reader,” he said. “Everyone who stands between those two has both risk and opportunity."

The time has never been better for authors to be able to get their content published. We've had this world of "blogging" now for over a decade which has let anyone publish their thoughts online... and services from Amazon and the others have let you get into "print-on-demand" so easily.

And ebooks! Look at how the way people consume books have changed just in the last few years....

But of course there is an entire industry that was used to being the gatekeepers of that content: publishers, agents, bookstores...

Some Traditional Publishers Get It

I should note that some publishers certainly "get it", have seen the disruption and are doing what they can to both survive and thrive in this new world. The primary reason why I signed with O'Reilly for my latest book, Migrating Applications to IPv6, was because the entire idea behind the the book was for it to be an "ebook" that could be constantly updated as we as an industry learn more about IPv6 application migration.[1] O'Reilly has long been paying attention... they brought out Safari Books Online many years ago... they have their excellent Radar blog/site that indeed includes ongoing commentary about the disruption in the industry... and they sponsor the annual excellent Tools of Change for Publishing conference. I wrote earlier about how O'Reilly makes it so easy to get ebooks onto your mobile devices.

O'Reilly is a stellar example of publishers who see the changes and are looking at how to be part of that wave. There are others, too. The smart ones are evolving.

Some Traditional Publishers Don't

Others aren't. As both the GigaOm and NYT piece mention, some of the traditional publishers are instead fighting tooth and nail to hang on to some relevance.

I loved Mathew's ending paragraph:

Here’s a hint for book publishers: take a lesson from the music industry, and don’t spend all your time suing people for misusing what you believe is your content — think instead about why they are doing this, and what it says about how your business is changing, and then try to adapt to that. Amazon is giving authors what they want, and as long as it continues to do so, you will be at a disadvantage. Wake up and smell the disruption.

Wake up and smell the disruption, indeed!

If you are an author, have you been following what Amazon is doing? Have you self-published any work? Or are you considering it?

Image credit: babblingdweeb on Flickr

[1] To be entirely clear, another HUGE reason for signing with O'Reilly was because of the marketing they could do on my behalf to their existing channel of techies, early adopters, etc.

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A ton of online communities of moms are dying this week. After three years, the "MomsLikeMe.com" websites are shutting down on Friday. From the FAQ:

All of the MomsLikeMe sites will permanently shut down on Friday, October 14, 2011. At that time, everything that currently appears on the site, locally or nationally, will no longer be accessible.

Why? The standard lame corporate-speak:

The market has evolved substantially since we launched three years ago and there are many new and different ways for people to connect and engage. We feel we can better serve this community through the many new and exciting digital initiatives we will be developing and rolling out in the future.

The reality is that the site is entirely owned by Gannett (publishers of USA Today and many other newspapers and sites) and for whatever reasons they have decided that it no longer makes sense to operate this site. Perhaps they weren't seeing enough ad revenue. Perhaps it wasn't hitting whatever "metrics" they wanted to hit.

Regardless, it is shutting down - permanently - in 2 days. Finished. Over. Done. Gone.

And you can see in the comments to the blog post announcing the shutdown the collective "WTF?" of all the moms who had participated in the site. (Note, of course, that you can only see these comments until Friday, at which point they will be gone, too.)

We've seen this movie before. Remember back in April 2010 when Ning shuttered all its free communities? Or in September 2010 when the Vox blogging service shut its doors?

This is not a new story...

People invest hours and hours of time in a service operated by a company.
Company decides to shut down service... or goes bankrupt... or gets acquired.
People lose the community and/or the content they created.

At least Vox provided a way to export your content and Ning provided an upgrade path (for a fee).

Gannett says the site is dead... and THEY OWN ALL YOUR CONTENT. Again from the FAQ:

Can I take posts or other data posted on MomsLikeMe and use if for other purposes (e.g., post it on a blog, elsewhere on the web or publish it in a book)?

As outlined in the Terms of Service, the information that has been posted on MomsLikeMe is the property of Gannett.

Translation: You lose. We own it all.

Of course, just to rub salt in the wounds, the FAQ answer right below that is:

Can Gannett take posts or other data posted on MomsLikeMe and use it for other purposes (e.g., post it on a blog, elsewhere on the web or publish it in a book)?

Yes, as outlined in the Terms of Service, Gannett has the legal rights to re-use public information posted on the site for other purposes.

Translation: You lose. We own it all.

Unfortunately, the good folks who invested their time in the communities of the MomsLikeMe.com sites are learning a harsh lesson in the realities of the NOT-Open Internet. When companies control the platforms and services - and don't provide a way to export or move your content/data - you are entirely in their control. And if they decide to shut the service down...

... you lose.

The same issue can be said of Facebook (which itself has an insanely onerous Terms of Service), Twitter and so many other services. Google+ is also that way... but right from the start they have provided ways for you to get your data out of the service should you want to do so.

This is why we need to be concerned about issues around the "openness" of the Internet and about "data portability". If we choose to host our content - or a "community" - on a particular service:

• Who owns the content?
• Can you move the content if necessary?

We need to be looking at ways to ensure that we are in control of our own content and our own destiny... and not the companies and organizations that may run the services we use.

It's too bad Gannett couldn't have done more to help all these folks who have invested so much time to move their content elsewhere... that would have been the charitable and "right" thing to do.

Alas, they did not... and the moms who invested all their time lose...

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NOTE: I already had the iPhone app installed on my iPad and after "upgrading", the app repeatedly crashed and wouldn't open. Following advice online, I deleted the Facebook app from my iPad and then installed it again from the AppStore. It then worked perfectly fine. It would seem Facebook missed something in the upgrade process.

Once launched, the Facebook app gives you a nice view of your NewsFeed and your list of friends available online for a chat:

Touching the "menu" button in the upper left corner - or simply swiping your hand to the right - displays a left-side navigation menu with easy access to different parts of Facebook:

I found the app very easy to use and very "iPad-like" in that it used many of the common gestures and motions of many other iPad apps. (Such as, for instance, pulling down the NewsFeed to refresh it.)

One piece that was particularly cool was the visual representation of what used to be called "Places". If you click on "Nearby" in the left menu you got a map showing you your location and who has checked-in nearby. You can of course pinch and expand to zoom in and out of the map. In this image below I zoomed out to see all of the US and I could see who has checked in around the country:

Of course, this only works if people actually do check-in and, as you can see from this map, only a small number of my friends in the US actually do use this feature of Facebook. Still, it's very cool to see how it looks in the iPad app.

I've only started using the app today, but so far I've been quite impressed. Very nice use of the iPad display space, user interface, gestures and more.

If you have an iPad and are a Facebook user, you can get the app through the AppStore (note my comment at the beginning about "upgrading"). If you have already tried it out, what do you think?

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Courtesy of a post by Jeff Pulver on Facebook, hopefully while he wasn't walking, I learned of this "etiquette project" by artist Jay Shells to post various street signs throughout Manhatten with various etiquette messages on them. The one most relevant to social media is, of course:

PAY ATTENTION WHILE WALKING

YOUR FACEBOOK STATUS UPDATE CAN WAIT

Having been almost walked into on several occasions by people intent on typing something into their phone, I can thoroughly agree with the sentiment!

The article on AnimalNewYork.com about Jay Shells also includes a brief video interview with him about the campaign.

Fun to see.

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Good summary of his design views... and also a fun trip into seeing a much younger Steve Jobs.

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