Next week, I'll return to my usual commentary on the intersection of social media and technology... :-)
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The Society’s prestigious awards program honors individuals, corporations, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, and media outlets that are innovating the use of social media and Internet communications technologies (ICT) in the areas of business, media, journalism and professional communications, entertainment, education, social initiatives, government and politics.
If you would like to be considered, please submit your entry TODAY. Winners will be honored at the Annual SNCR Research Symposium & Awards Gala at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, on November 3rd and 4th, 2011.
I'm looking forward to learning from this year's winners!
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How will the Internet evolve over the years ahead?
What are the most pressing challenges for the evolution of the Internet?
That was the topic of a recent panel discussion sponsored by the Internet Society held at a recent Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) meeting in Quebec City in July 2011. Being a strong advocate for an open Internet, I found myself listening to the audio recording on a recent car trip... and admittedly found myself rather concerned by the challenges outlined by the panel participants.
With the Internet no longer being simply the "research network" it once was and now being "critical infrastructure", it's a vastly different world with both commercial and government interests wanting to control the network. What are the competing interests? Where is it all going? What may we lose in the evolution?
The session lasted for about 45 minutes and is definitely worth a listen if you are interested in where this critical network known as the Internet is heading...
P.S. Slides are also available, but they are just a few slides served to frame the discussion - the meat of the subject is all in the audio recording.
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That is at the heart of John Battelle's great piece yesterday, "We Need An Identity Re-Aggregator (That We Control). I've written at some length over the years about the re-emergence of online "walled gardens" and the need for us to maintain our own identity on the web. I've also spoken about this on any number of FIR reports I've submitted... and to me John really nails it with this paragraph:
The downsides of not owning your own words, on your own platform, are not limited simply to money. Over time, the words and opinions one leaves all over the web form a web of identity - your identity - and controlling that identity feels, to me, a human right. But unless you are a sophisticated netizen, you're never going to spend the time and effort required to gather all your utterances in one place, in a fashion that best reflects who you are in the world.
As he notes further on in the piece, even if you link to your contributions on one of those services, should that service disappear all your content is lost.
Over the past few months, I've been trying to change my behavior a bit and revert my own writing to how it used to be. I'm trying to post messages on my own blogs FIRST and then linking to it from the other services.
Even this post... I could have left it as a comment on John's blog, or as a reply inside of Facebook or Google+... but instead I am posting it here it is on a platform that I control.
It's hard... the various services make it seductively convenient just to have all your interaction within the walls of that service. And I certainly do have some level of conversation within those walls. But for longer content - or commentary that I want to preserve, even in the form of links to other sites with some comment, I'm trying to do more of that from my own sites. Kind of like how "blogging" was back about 5+ years ago before we got all caught up in these new shiny services that we all enjoy so much.
Meanwhile, I, too, would love to have a "meta service" along the lines of what John suggests...
Image credit: jeremybrooks on Flickr
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There's an identity war going on out on the Internet right now... there are multiple aspects to it... but the key is that:
it is a battle for control of YOUR identity!
Think of any website you've visited lately that has offered you the ability to "Login with Facebook" or "Sign in with Twitter".
It's simple. Easy. Convenient.
And dangerous.
Because in embracing the convenience of such services (and I am certainly guilty of this myself), we surrender control of our identity to the identity provider.
But that is a broader topic for a much longer piece I want to write...
Right now I want to touch on the point:
What if the "identity provider" won't let you use what you consider your "real" identity?
What if the identity provider requires you to use your "birth name" (or "real name") instead of the name that everyone knows you as?
Welcome to the world of pseudonyms... persistent identities used by people instead of the names they were given at birth.
Pseudonyms have been with us for eons... as noted above, authors and entertainers have long used them. In fact, a pseudonym was involved with the founding of the United States.
And this pseudonymity is exactly what is at stake in what is being tagged as the "#nymwars" on Twitter.
This latest battle in the much larger war really began back on July 22nd, when Kirrily Robert, a developer (and former co-worker of mine) who has gone by the pseudonym "Skud" for many years, was suspended from Google+ for not using her real name and took to her blog to publicize this fact. There have been literally hundreds (and maybe thousands) of articles on the topic posted between then and now... with the most recent wave being about Google CEO Eric Schmidt's comments that Google wants you to use your real name because they want to be an identity provider... and do things with that "real identity" of yours.
This battle isn't just about Google+, though. Facebook would also like you to only use your "real name" and to have you assert only your "real" identity.
I could go on at great length about why this is a bad idea, but would instead point you to this excellent but lengthy piece:
Read it... and then go back and read it again. A powerful piece laying out so many of the reasons why pseudonymity is important.
And a key point is:
Pseudonymity is NOT anonymity.
There is an entirely separate discussion to be had around true anonymity... and the value therein - or not.
But that is entirely different from the idea of a persistent identity that one uses as a replacement for one's "real name".
Should we not have the right to use the name that people know us by on these services?
The response, of course, is that using these services is optional and you can, of course, choose NOT to participate in Google+... or Facebook... or whatever other service requires you to use your "real name".
And obviously that is an option.
But what if many of the conversations I want to participate in have moved to one of those services? What if all my friends are sharing photos using some new service... and I can't because I'm forced to use a different identity than what I want to use?
What if I am an author or entertainer and want to engage on that service with my fans through the persona I use?
What if that service is the only way to communicate out of my country or region and using my real name may get me killed?
Pseudonymity matters.
Control over our identity matters.
The ability to control the identity we choose to use on services on the Internet matters.
The war for our identity will continue to rage... will the victor be the organizations who control the services we want to use? or will we retain the right to control our identity?
Your choice...
Other good articles worth reading:
Image credit: koisny on Flickr
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WOULD YOU LIKE TO HELP?
The CrisisCommons group now has a page up at:
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Hurricane_Irene
with information about how you can get more involved - see the "Open Data" block on the right side for current volunteer projects.
One such effort is a map of shelters and incidents that will evolve as shelters are set up - volunteers are needed to help put existing maps of shelters onto the map.
Another effort is media monitoring being done by Humanity Road.
The CrisisWiki is also gathering resources about Hurricane Irene.
If you aren't in one of the affected areas (where you may have much more direct things to worry about), all of these are great ways that you can help out from afar!
If you have some time to spare today or over the weekend, please check out the CrisisCommons page to learn how you can help!
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Go on, check it out... scroll down the Techmeme page... I've not honestly seen another day quite like this.
A zillion posts lionizing the man who, love him or hate him, has so disrupted multiple industries through his leadership of Apple. As Walt Mossberg wrote, Steve Jobs is very much still alive, but his resignation as CEO of Apple does indeed mark the end of an era. Tim Cook may have effectively been the CEO of Apple since January... and he may indeed be an excellent CEO to lead the company forward...
But he's not Steve Jobs.
No one truly can be.
I've been impressed by the many personal stories being written this morning. Among them:
I'm sure many more will be written today and in the days ahead. Including this post, of course.
I can credit Steve Jobs for my start in computers. In 1977, my friend Dave's father bought one of the first Apple II computers. There we were... two 10-year-old boys playing with this amazing machine. People may not remember that the first Apple II was a true "hacker" machine. In a box somewhere, I still have the original Apple II manual, because it was truly a thing of beauty... you could find out everything about every single memory location and everything else you wanted to know about the computer. It was a wonderful way to learn.
In retrospect I suspect that that first manual was probably much more of the Steve Wozniak influence, as the next version of the computer, the Apple IIe, had the much simplified manuals that came to be part and parcel of "the Steve Jobs view" of the simplified user experience.
But that first Apple II set me on a path of learning about these things known as personal computers.
Entering high school in 1981, the school had just received its first Apple II computer. I can remember it sitting there on a lone desk in a room that had all the other components of a DEC PDP-8 and other devices in it. The teacher responsible for the computer lab, Dan Ryan, let a group of us "play" with that one computer... and as the lab grew to include more Apple computers, our "computer club" learned more and more. They were amazing times.
In fact, my first job with computers was helping out two summers at the high school - as a high school student - helping teachers learn about these computers. I remember some who were very enthusiastic ... and one in particular who was so frightened of the machine (although I've long since forgotten that teacher's name.)
Apple also is responsible for a career choice that really led to where I am today. In the summer of 1990, I was working as field technician at a remote research station on top of the Greenland ice sheet. It was a six-week gig that I had literally stumbled into by walking into an office at UNH while unemployed and having a friend say "hey, the guys upstairs are looking for people to go to Greenland". And there I was.
While there, though, I had met this whole corp of people who spent their summers supporting field experiments in Greenland and our "winters" supporting field experiments in Antarctica (where it's summer). Competition to get into this group was fierce, but there was someone there who was willing to help me get connected... and as a single early-20-something, there was a great amount of appeal!
And then I received word that Apple had funded a grant proposal I'd submitted a few months back to start up a non-profit in New Hampshire that would help other nonprofit organizations learn how to use computer technology. Apple was donating several computers, printers and other devices to help me start this organization up.
So I put aside that Antarctic idea, returned to New Hampshire, started up the nonprofit... which ultimately led to other positions that brought me 20 years later to where I am today.
In fact, I write this post this morning on a MacBook Pro, the corporate laptop Voxeo distributes to all its employees. While my household had a mixture of Windows, Linux and Macs, it's evolved to where it's all just Macs... and a Linux server. My iPad2 is right next to me with my list of things I planned to do today. My iPhone is in its holster on my belt... having just moved from my armband where an app helped track my 4.5 mile run this morning.
Yes, I've helped fund Steve Jobs success. :-)
But there's a reason for that... and it goes back to that vaunted perfectionism of Steve Jobs. For the most part, Apple's devices "just work".
When I moved from a Dell laptop to a MacBook Pro back in 2007, I had a very simple demonstration I would do for my Windows friends:
I closed the laptop. I opened it back up. In moments, I started typing.I closed the laptop again. I opened it back up - and started typing.
I repeated this several times.
Certainly at the time this was not something that worked well on most Windows-based laptops. (May still not work well... don't know.) It was a little thing, but a HUGE timesaver!
Sure, there are reasons for things that "just work"... a closed system with proprietary hardware that is more expensive than other options. A fanatical obsession with CONTROL over every aspect of the system.
But in the end... it just works. Not all the time... and not every device... but for the most part.
One of Steve Jobs' greatest gifts to the industry was showing that:
user experience matters!
And the industry as a whole has seen the demonstration by Apple of what can be accomplished when you focus on the user experience.
I could go on... about how the iPod and the rise of podcasting has enriched my life... I could talk of the excellence of Jobs as a presenter (I loved Om's reference to him as a thespian)...
... but I will close by simply saying:
Thank you, Steve.
You've led Apple through an era of disrupting several industries... helped many of us in so many ways with your products... and taught us so much.
Thank you... and best wishes for what is next.
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While in Facebook today, I noticed this box appear on the right side above the sponsored ads:
Now, I've subsequently not seen that box anywhere when I've been in Facebook, and I can't for the life of me remember precisely what page I was on when I saw that box.
It's curious that Facebook would do this... just randomly show me one of the status updates I posted a year ago. I say "curious" only in that it's not clear how I would really interact with that post. I mean... would I be so overwhelmed by nostalgia that I would click on the comments or likes to see what comments were left on that post? Maybe... but that seems a bit of a stretch.
I didn't dislike having that box appear in my sidebar. It was actually more interesting than seeing the ads that I usually ignore (and obviously interesting enough to write a blog post about ;-). It was just strange... since I'd never seen this before.
Have others of you noticed this kind of box appearing inside of Facebook?
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If you live in New Hampshire (as I do) and are interested in all things related to social media: blogging, podcasting, digital marketing, Twitter, Facebook, and so much more, PodCamp NH is happening tomorrow, Saturday, August 13, 2011, from 8:30am to 5:00pm in New Hampton, NH.
The schedule of sessions so far has been posted (tip: note that the schedule box has both vertical and horizontal scroll bars - there are simultaneous session tracks), and I've seen from Twitter that a number of great folks are already planning to head up that way.
The latest PCNH blog post has some more info - including that over 70 people have already registered! It sounds like a great event... and so if you are here in the Granite State or one of the surrounding states, please do head on over and check it out - and join in, too, because PodCamps are by design a place for people to collaborate and be involved.
P.S. Alas, I am not one of those 70 people going as I have other family plans tomorrow... but I'm looking forward to getting to one of the PCNH events one of these years...
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