Speaking at Digital Hollywood today

I'm flying down to SoCal today for Digital Hollywood, where entertainment meets technology.

I'll be speaking at 3:45 pm on this panel at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel:

Personalized Media Platforms: Widgets, User Generated Media, News, Music & Blogs
Jim Brady, Executive Editor of washingtonpost.com
JD Lasica, Co-founder, Ourmedia
Derrick Oien, President, Intercasting
Jessica Stoner, V.P. Business Development, Pandora
Michael Jones, CEO, Userplane and VP, AOL
Leonard Brody, co-founder and CEO, NowPublic.com
Ted Cohen, Managing Partner, TAG Strategic, Moderator

I know Leonard, Michael, Derrick, Jim and Ted, so this should be fun.

Update: Actually, it was a lot of fun -- very lively and engaging, as "Ted" panels tend to be. If you're interested in some of the tidbits and takeaways from the panel, I just posted them on my Twitter feed. Not sure if the panel discussion was recorded or not.

May 5, 2008 at 12:01 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

Maker Faire photos

Here are 33 photos taken at the Maker Faire — a celebration of geeky, whimsical craftsmanship — at the San Mateo Fairgrounds today.

Scott Beale has many more here.

May 4, 2008 at 11:41 PM in Amusing, Current Affairs, Photography, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Israel's Web 2.0 scene

Social marketing expert Ayelet Noff talks about the social media and Web 2.0 scene in Israel during this 9-minute video interview I conducted with her during our blogger posse road trip to Israel. A former New Yorker, Ayelet is a rising star in Web 2.0 circles in Tel Aviv and helped us with all phases of our trip. (Apologies for the lighting — this was the first interview I did on my Samsung hi-def camcorder.)

Watch video in H.264 MPEG-4 on Ourmedia
Watch in Flash on Ourmedia
Watch video in Flash on Veoh (with ads)

May 2, 2008 at 01:43 PM in Israel, Podcasts & interviews, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

13 ways of talking to a programmer

Lisa Williams at IdeaLab blog: Thirteen Ways of Talking to a Programmer, including specs, wireframes, mashups and code freezes.

May 2, 2008 at 10:39 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

How to find the right domain name

At the IdeaLab blog, Dan Gillmor writes about the value of finding the right domain name and he points to a couple of free services I hadn't heard of:

MakeWords is a "name generator" -- essentially, you plug in keywords and it gives you suggestions. The flexibility is impressive. You can tell it how the domain name should start or end, and you can get refinements from a long list of keyword themes, as well as affixes by theme. For example, I searched on "California" and refined it with a "travel" theme, and got a list or allegedly available names that included farescalifornia.com, flightcalifornia.com, getawayscalifornia.com and tripscalifornia.com.

NameBoy is another generator. In my experience it's simpler to use, but much less nuanced. You type in a primary and (optional) secondary word, and it spits out results.

April 29, 2008 at 12:45 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

Public media: Are you on the map?

How are new mapping tools and geotagging technologies being used to unite communities and tell important stories from around the globe? Find out how you can make your mark on the new media landscape at the 2008 Beyond Broadcast conference on June 17, 2008 in Washington, DC.

Beyond Broadcast has become an annual destination for makers, scholars and policy experts exploring public media for a digital, participatory era.  The theme of this year's conference is Mapping Public Media. How do mapping and visualization tools reveal shifts in the public media landscape? Panels, presentations and demos map the emerging landscape. (Alas, I won't be able to attend.)

Early bird rates for registration end on Wednesday.

April 29, 2008 at 12:01 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Web 2.0 Expo photos & highlights

Julia French, who represented Sprout and Oracle Trampoline Systems, at this week's Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

I spent one day at Web 2.0 Expo this week, jotted down some notes, take a couple of dozen photos, then headed back home to rest, per doctor's orders. Here are a few highlights:

Marc Andreesen

Marc Andreesen, co-founder of Netscape and Ning, offered an interesting historical overview of the browser in a talk with Web 2.0 co-host John Battelle. The word "browser" is no longer so apt. "Who browses on the Web anymore?" he said. But when Andreesen developed Mosaic, and then the Netscape browser, none of the conventions of how we get around the Web had been invented yet. So Andreesen invented the browser. He and his team invented bookmarks, knowing that something better would come along (although here we are, 15 years later, and still use bookmarks). He recalled that they needed a way to populate an online shopping cart and then check out, so over a single weekend he and Web pioneer Vint Cerf invented cookies.

Today, he pointed out, we are still not only using the browser but adding all kinds of adds-ons and widgets to it to conduct social networking, to use media, to play music and so on. While instant messaging is slowly declining, young people today are using social networking to communicate with each other. "The browser may last another 15-20 years before the next big thing comes along," Andreesen said.

In the short term, he told Battelle, Ning supports the concept of data portability, giving people control over the media and content they create. "Import and export to your heart's content," Andreesen said.

Jonathan Zittrain

Oxford University's Jonathan Zittrain, whom I interviewed for my book Darknet, has a new book out that echoes the chief themes of Darknet: The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It.

Zittrain told the assembled movers and shakers of the tech world, via a videotaped appearance, that we're suffering from a collective complacency, that there's an assumption that we'll always be able to "hack our way to a better future." For 30 years we've lived with the metaphor of reprogrammable desktop computing, where we controlled what our machines did. "I see that era drawing to a close with pretty big implications," he said.

We've begun a steady migration to appliances like the iPhone or iPod that have third-party applications carefully controlled by a central gatekeeper. "I see that structure as the structure of the future," Zittrain said, with alarming implications for freedom and innovation.

"The open application environment is being throttled one bit at a time," he said. "I'm concerned we'll wind up in a world where we won't even know what we've lost."

Sounds like an important book, I'll be ordering it. (Though too bad that Amazon.com doesn't recognize Darknet as a book with a very closely connected theme, much more so than the other "related" titles.)

Quick hits

• Here's a piece I wrote at the IdeaLab blog about Web 2.0's blogger lounge vs. the traditional press lounge.

• Some of the most interesting companies I bumped into in the exhibition area:

    - MindTouch, a wiki-like platform for the enterprise.
    - Oosah, a way to find, organize and share photos videos, photos and music anywhere on the Web.
    - Profy, which launched Wednesday, a new blog and social networking platform.

• 6 new startups at the SF Launchpad. I generally don't pay much attention to these, since they pay ($5,000? $10,000?) for these high-profile spots.

• Facebook now has 70 million active users and is the sixth most trafficked site in the world. More than 20 million applications have been built on the Facebook platform since it opened up less than a year ago. (I probably have half of these on my profile page.)

• Dave McClure's T-shirt: "Microformats.org -- We do it with class."

April 26, 2008 at 07:54 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Web 2.0 and NewComm Forum

I'm under the weather but hope to attend the New Communications Forum in Sonoma on Thursday and Web 2.0 Expo on Wednesday or Friday. (Hope springs eternal.)

With Web 2.0 we finally have a conference site that gets it right, with links at the top of the home page to photos, news coverage, blogs and "live Twittering." Nice.

Here's the keynote session I'm scheduled to lead on Thursday at 8:30 am. Alas, Leonard won't be able to join us:

Breakfast Keynote Conversation with Len Brody & JD Lasica
Who Cares About Newspapers & Citizen Journalism? Search, Social Networks & the Real Future of the News Business

This session will explore how the media, communications and entertainment industries are quickly changing as online and interactive models take over. The evolving audience is growing interested in participating and contributing their voice as the old business models of traditional media fade. Consumer choice and media consumption habits are changing and expanding, due to the rapid integration of new technologies into our lives (iPods, gaming consoles, broadband, DVR). Consumers are left with little or no time for traditional outlets. How is the rise of user-generated content shaping the future of media? What issues of credibility arise as user-generated content gains more control over the digital landscape? What are the principles, techniques, tools, and business models that shape user-generated content?

April 22, 2008 at 08:25 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

Tools the alpha geeks use

We're winding up our Innovation Israel tour of Israel's tech community today, and I'm in awe of some of the Silicon Valley alpha geeks I've been traveling with this week. (Here's our group blog: Travelinggeeks.com.) Especially loved spending quality time with Robert Scoble, Susan Mernit, Cathy Brooks, Sarah Lacy and Deb Schultz.

So I thought you might want to take a peek at some of the software applications and Web 2.0 tools (on the Web and on the desktop) that these folks use on an almost daily basis. Sorry, no hardware comparison; Scoble would win hands down.

Robert Scoble
Scobleizer

Firefox (web browser)
FriendFeed (social media sharing)
Google Reader (RSS news reader)
Techmeme (a tech news dynamic link aggregator)
Twitter (social network)
GoogleTalk (live chat on Windows)
Gmail (email)
WordPress (blog software)
Flickr (photo sharing)
Skype (communication) 
Facebook
Qik (live video streaming and hosting)
iTunes (music)
TweetScan (Twitter add-on)

There's more, but those are the main ones.

Craig Newmark 
Craig from craigslist's blog

Firefox
SSH (secure shell)
Pine (email client) 
TypePad
Twitter ("curse you, Robert Scoble!")
MovableType (blog software of Huffington Post and MyBarackObama.com)
SmugMug (photo sharing)
YouTube 
Bloglines (RSS reader)
Skype
iTunes

Susan Mernit
Susan Mernit's blog

FriendFeed
Twitter
Techmeme 
Bloglines
Facebook
Flickr
del.icio.us
Gmail
MovableType 
Pandora (music player and collaborative filtering)

Cathy Brooks
Otherthanthat

MovableType
TypePad
Firefox
Seesmic (record and share short video clips)
Facebook
FriendFeed
Socialthing (digital life/social news feed)
Gmail
Twhirl (a Twitter client)
Adium
Flickr
Skype
Flock
AppleMail
YouTube
GoogleTalk

Deborah Schultz
Deborah Schultz's blog

Firefox
Twitter
NetNewsWire (RSS news reader)
Seesmic
Adium
Skype
TypePad
Twhirl
Skitsh (save items to your desktop)
Techmeme
Flickr
Facebook
FriendFeed
Viddler & Vimeo (video sharing)
Foxytunes (music)
del.icio.us
Magnolia (social bookmarking)
Dopplr (social network for travelers)

Sarah Lacy
SarahLacy.com

Firefox
Facebook
TypePad
FriendFeed
Zimbra (web email)

Renee Blodgett
downtheavenue.com

Firefox
NetVibes (RSS news reader)
Facebook
TypePad (blog platform)
Skype
Outlook (email)
ClearContext (an Outlook add-in that manages information)
Yahoo Messenger (instant messaging)
YouTube

JD Lasica
socialmedia.biz

Firefox
Twitter
Google Reader
Facebook
TypePad (blog platform), but switching to WordPress
Gmail
Google Talk
Flickr
del.icio.us
Skype
Ourmedia (video sharing and media publishing)
Veoh
SpinXpress (private file sharing)
ImageWell (image capture and resizing/cropping tool)
iTunes
Activewords (PC-only productivity tool)
Snapz Pro (Mac-only screen and video capture)
Flock
Dopplr
LastFM
iChat

Will now start:

FriendFeed
Foxytunes
Seesmic
Magnolia

Pretty cool list. Want to add your own favorite software applications? List them in the comments.

April 17, 2008 at 01:16 PM in Israel, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (15)

A blogger posse in Israel

I’ve been swamped over the past two weeks readying for a last-minute trip to Israel. I’m honored to be past of a blogger/citizen journalist delegation heading to the Holy Land.

The trip was arranged and paid for by the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest, which covers California and the greater West, though we’ll be paying for some items. The goal is to meet and mingle with some of the best and brightest in Israel’s tech field.

Here’s who’s going: Robert Scoble, Craig Newmark, Susan Mernit, Cathy Brooks, Deb Schultz, Jeff Saperstein, Brad Reddersen, Renee Blodgett, Sarah Lacy and the consulate’s Ishmael Khaldi.

Some of the places we intend to hit: Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, of course, Peres Center for Peace, Weitzman Institute, the Marker conference, Matam (Israel’s oldest high-tech industrial park), the Garage Geek Party, a blogger dinner with high-tech luminaries organized by the super-nice Ayelet Noff, the Bedouin village of Khawalid — and, I’m hoping, Hebron and Bethlehem in the West Bank. We won’t be posting minute-by-minute updates because of security concerns in some cases, but expect tons of videos and photos.

With the help of Chad Capellman, I set up my first WordPress blog (and liked the process quite a bit more than TypePad, which SocialMedia.biz still uses). I may move this blog over to WP soon. So here’s our group blog:

TravelingGeeks.com (yeah, I came up with the name).

It’ll be interesting to see how all this works out, and whether the Israeli government thinks the output was worth it. (On the question of paid trips I like the bloggers’ approach: Let’s disclose the arrangement and maintain our independence by writing what we’d like.)

But a far more interesting thing to look for will be: How will these bloggers communicate their journey? Most will publish to their individual blogs (TravelingGeeks will attempt to aggregate these posts through RSS feeds, so they needn’t post directly to the group site). Others will post to Flickr (with the tag innovationisrael). Others will twitter. Scoble will go nuts, as usual, with multiple media streams, including live streaming at Qik.

Some will emphasize the visual, through video, SLRs and point-and-shoot cameras, while others will write mostly text. Some will think about leaving long, substantive posts that can withstand the test of time while others will dash off quick tweets. Some will try to post whenever they’re in range of wi-fi, while others may wait until the sanctuary of their hotel rooms late at night.

We’ll kick this off this weekend. It will be a live experiment in group dynamics, personal media habits and gadget hound one-upsmanship.

And it should be a hell of a lot of fun. I fly out in the morning.

April 9, 2008 at 03:15 PM in Citizen media, Israel, Podcasting, Social-media, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (6) | | (0)

Front Porch Forum: The Internet gets local

At MediaShift, Mark Glaser has a Q&A with the founder of Front Porch Forum.

We are a society that lives more and more in our technology-induced bubbles. When we go outside, we wear an iPod; we talk on cell phones while driving. In urban areas, we might never meet our neighbors unless there’s a fire or earthquake. But can technology also help bring us together in our physical communities, and help us get to know our neighbors?

Front Porch Forum (FPF) is making a valiant effort to do just that, offering up closed email forums that are strictly limited to people living within each physical neighborhood in Chittenden County, Vermont. Rather than being free-wheeling, anything-goes forums, FPF has been able to build more civil discussions by having people include their full name, street name and email address with each post. And users rave about how the site helps them connect with neighbors, find a lost pet or a good landlord, and even complain directly to local government officials. ...

April 3, 2008 at 01:10 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (3) | | (0)

Beyond Broadcast 2008 coming up

Not sure if I'll be able to attend, but this looks worthwhile:

Beyond Broadcast 2008: Mapping Public Media will be held June 17, 2008, at American University in Washington, D.C.  

Hosted by the Center for Social Media, the conference's theme this year is  "Mapping Public Media," and they'll be using mapping and visualization tools to examine shifting forms, functions and fiscal strategies for public media projects. Panelists will examine the role of media in informing and mobilizing publics, and the rise of both citizen and data-driven news. They'll also be featuring demonstrations of how makers are using participatory tools like Google Earth to create dazzling interactive maps for public knowledge and action. Register or look for a detailed agenda here.

March 31, 2008 at 11:11 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Two cool collaboration tools

I've mentioned these two companies in the past, but they're worth another look for anyone interested in Web 2.0 collaboration tools.

Yugma, based in Minneapolis, is a web meeting, desktop sharing and collaboration service that does what tools like Webex do except they cost 10 times as much, are sold as separate pieces, and are professionally installed and managed. A quick, DIY Web download, Yugma is sold in a “Freemium” model: a subset of free-forever features, a larger set that is free for an evaluation period, and then sold inexpensively thereafter. Says PR rep Ellen M.: "I installed it on my PC and on my mother’s, and have already saved myself two hours of driving by remotely ('Leave the mouse alone!') setting up her new email account."

Two people on a Yugma conference can:

• see each other’s desktops and files
• control each other’s desktop applications using remote keyboard and mouse, a la Gotomypc
• draw diagrams for each other (“whiteboarding”)
• highlight and draw lines and circles on shared documents (“annotating”)
• pass files to each other
• chat
• schedule Yugma meetings
• speak to each other with microphone and earphones

Ten (20, 30, 50…) people on a Yugma session can:

• speak to and hear from other participants
• change presenters during the same session
• record the proceedings

Best of all, Yugma is a lightweight Java client that can sit live on your desktop like instant messaging. Whenever the mood strikes, you can tap your friend’s virtual shoulder in Sydney and share what’s in front of you, just like people used to do in a real office.

SightSpeed of Berkeley, Calif., is a high-quality, affordable Web-based videoconferencing application.  It helps businesses conduct online meetings across town, across country or across the globe.  For instance, the company is based in Berkeley, but CEO Peter Csathy (whom I interviewed for my book Darknet when he was president of MusicMatch.com) lives and works from his home in the San Diego area, using SightSpeed's video communications tools.

SightSpeed lets businesses conduct multi-party videoconferences, record calls for playback later by those not able to attend a “live” event, share files during a video conference and connect a spontaneous video call between registered users with one click.

March 31, 2008 at 06:29 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (3) | | (0)

Legal issues surrouding digital publishing

The Media Law Resource Center, in partnership with the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society and the Stanford Professional Publishing Courses are producing a Conference, May 15-16, 2008, on  the emerging legal issues surrounding digital publishing and content distribution. You can register here and get more info here.

March 31, 2008 at 12:03 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Online chat gets an upgrade

NY Times: Online real-time chat is getting an upgrade, courtesy of sites like Vivaty and Meebo.

March 30, 2008 at 05:56 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

'Reinventing Local Media'

Terry Heaton, one of the wisest observer of the personal media revolution, has a new book coming out, "Reinventing Local Media: Ideas for Thriving in a Postmodern World." The book is a compilation of the essays Heaton has written over the past five years, during a time of epochal change in the world of communications. It's more than 500 pages long and fully indexed.

Says Terry: "It's my hope that it will be one day be used as course material in colleges and universities everywhere."

The book will be available, likely at Amazon and other online distributors, within a month. The price is $24.95.

March 30, 2008 at 05:42 PM in Books, Media, New media, Television, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

The Future of the Internet conference

I won't be able to attend this, but if you're in the area, this looks to be a great gathering:

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School presents a 10th Anniversary Conference on the Future of the Internet, May 15-16, 2008, at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

The two-day conference will include discussions about the future of the Internet, from security to politics, from identity to democracy, from education to innovation and more. Academic researchers, policy experts, lawyers, entrepreneurs, corporate leaders and anyone concerned about the future of the Internet are invited to participate.

March 28, 2008 at 12:45 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

Blog coverage of the Tech Policy Summit

Andrew at Capitol Valley summarized the highlights of yesterday's "Social Media and Tech Policy" panel at the Tech Policy Summit in Hollywood.

More blogger coverage of the conference here.

March 27, 2008 at 05:11 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Heading to Tech Policy Summit

I'm flying to Los Angeles early Wednesday to moderate a panel at the second annual Tech Policy Summit (I'm on their Advisory Board). Here are the details:

Panel: Using Social Media as a Policy Tool

Panelists:

• Ellen Miller, co-founder and executive director of The Sunlight Foundation.
• John Earnhardt, senior manager of global media operations, Cisco Systems. He is the "chief blogger" for the company.
• David Kralik, director of Internet strategy at American Solutions

Where:  Renaissance Hollywood hotel

What it is:  Tech Policy Summit is the only executive conference of its kind that brings together prominent leaders from the private and public sectors to examine critical policy issues impacting technology innovation and adoption in the United States and beyond.

The agenda is here (PDF).

Update: The session went quite well -- could have run longer than its scheduled 75 minutes. I did a video interview with Ellen Miller and will post it soon. A podcast of the panel discussion should be up in about a week.

March 25, 2008 at 11:36 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

Open-sourcing the sports car

My friend Britt Blaser, founder and CEO of Open Resource Group, passed along word about a fascinating fellow named Claudio Ballard, an inventor whose obsession with automotive perfection is matched by his commitment to small, high-quality U.S. manufacturers. Claudio hosted a reception the other night at the New York Auto Show. (Said Britt: "They're throwing a Bloggers' reception, not a Press reception, because they know it's a new world.")

"Claudio and his team enthusiastically embraced our suggestion that the car's design be an open & collaborative project. This is a first, where our oldest industry, cars, can be designed using our newest medium, online collaboration," Britt said.

Doc wrote about the Icon GTR Roadster (pictured above) here. (When was the last time open source made you drool?)

Its a beautiful thing, and so hot it’s scary. It packs more than 800 horses in body that barely outweighs a Miata. It will rocket you past 200 miles per hour, and carve around curves on a suspension that’s as close to Formula One as you’ll find off a speedway.

They’re only producing a hundred of them in their first run. They are also interested in input as well as interest from fellow enthusiasts. This is the open source part of the story, and one of the big reasons I’m interested in it.

No price listed (hey, if you have to ask ...). Designed and built in the USA. Count 'em, 800+ horsepower.

Britt provides this background:

Claudio Ballard is an authentic American inventor and visionary. He's also a computer guy who always wanted to own a Shelby Cobra. When he had the chance to buy one, he decided he'd rather invent a new one: a Cobra for the 21st Century. Last summer, Doc and I started a conversation with Claudio about how the community of auto and open source enthusiasts might play a role in the development of an iconic car and an iconic company. The Collaborative Design Initiative is the result.

From Claudio's message:

The Iconic Motors Collaborative Design Initiative (CDI) will be a continuing conversation about the best way to conceive, equip and produce cars right here in America, using the very best suppliers: little companies that normally serve the space and aeronautical industry and the people who custom-build race cars. And we'd love for you to contribute your own ideas! Using Digg-like polling, we'll float the best ideas to the top - you will, not me. If one of your ideas wins, you'll be rewarded monetarily and recognized publicly.

OK, I've got a green streak, but at the same time, I'm a testosterone-fueled guy. The Iconic Motors website is here.

March 24, 2008 at 08:00 PM in Digital life, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

Diigo: Highlight and share the Web

Social bookmarkng 2.0. Here's a video that looks at the new Diigo, a research tool and knowledge sharing community. "Don't just read. Highlight and annotate the web!"

March 23, 2008 at 12:34 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

Hopes for wireless cities fade

NY Times: Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade as Internet Providers Pull Out.

March 22, 2008 at 11:02 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Toward a universal identity on the Web

San Jose Mercury News: Toward a universal identity on the Web. Facebook is growing up and could finally become a social hub that adults find indispensable.

March 21, 2008 at 02:45 PM in Social networks, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

StrangerFestival to spotlight talented youths

I probably won't be able to attend, but one of the most extraordinary European festivals of the year looks to be the first StrangerFestival, coming to Amsterdam on July 3-5. The event will feature video workshops, expert meetings and awards. Says project leader Tommi Laitio:

StrangerFestival gives thousands of young people an opportunity to show who they are and what they are into. If you know young people with talent and something to say, this is their chance.

After Amsterdam, the festival will move to various museums, galleries and cultural centers across Europe. Sounds fascinating. Here's a two-page promotional PDF about the event. Spread the word.

March 19, 2008 at 10:21 PM in International, Video, Web/Tech, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Digital convergence comes at a price

Right on, Larry Magid! (whom I've met a couple of times at the usual tech conferences).

In the San Jose Mercury News: Inconvenient flaws of digital convergence. Excerpt:

The good news about the Apple-Lionsgate announcement is that it will finally be possible to buy a commercial DVD and watch it on something other than a TV set or a PC. But, typical of Apple, the only non-personal computer hardware it will support is, of course, from Apple. I have nothing against iPods, iPhones and Apple TV devices but would like to be able to choose whatever hardware I want, thank you very much.

No, thank you, Larry. The libertarian corporations-can-go-no-wrong types who write tech reviews just don't get this. It's patently anti-consumer. More Magid:

The problem here isn't so much Apple, but the studios' insistence that any copies made of DVDs be embedded with digital rights management (DRM) encryption to limit what users can do with their content. I know the argument - if you remove DRM, you open the floodgates to pirates. But guess what? The floodgates are already open.

While DRM makes it inconvenient, if not impossible, for most honest PC and Mac users to back up their DVDs or make copies to watch on other devices, it does nothing to stop professional thieves. Just take a trip to China or many other countries to see how easy it is to buy bootleg copies of commercial DVDs on the street. And when it comes to Internet distribution, there are tools out there that make it possible for pirates to remove encryption, which is why people who have the skills and the desire to download bootleg copies of videos have no trouble doing so.

Personally, I've never ripped a commercial DVD but I've spoken with people who do it routinely and then share those copies via the Internet or college networks. But just because I haven't ripped a DVD doesn't mean I don't want to. I'm writing this column from a hotel room in Washington, D.C., where - if I ever get some time - I plan to watch a DVD on my laptop. I would have preferred copying that DVD to my laptop's hard drive or my portable media player to watch at my leisure but the industry makes that too difficult. In fact, the only way to do it is to obtain software that, according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, is illegal to produce and distribute (though it does exist).

Hulu, Fancast and services that bring movies and TV programs to PCs are certainly laudable, but even they have some serious limitations. To begin with, it's not convenient to watch that streamed content on a TV set. Also, services like these strike me as revenge against TiVo and other personal video recorders. Those of us who have such devices have become accustomed to skipping commercials but, as far as I know, you can't do that with these streaming Internet services.

What bothers me most about these services is that you have to have a live Internet connection to watch the programs. You can stream but you can't download. That's fine when I'm at home but it didn't do me any good last week when I spent five hours bored out of my mind on a cross-country flight.

This is exactly what I predicted in Darknet: A streaming media paradigm is one where we're once again consigned to the role of passive consumers — exactly what Hollywood wants.

March 17, 2008 at 11:46 PM in Computing, Gadgets, Mobile, Television, Video, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

NYC announces Internet Week

New York today announced the first weeklong Internet Week festival, which will take place June 3-10. The participating organizations and companies include Nokia, the Webby Awards, The Onion, Comedy Central, Advertising 2.0 Conference, Billboard, Conversational Marketing Summit, Flavorpill and PaidContent.org.

March 17, 2008 at 10:37 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Digital Hollywood 2008

They've just announced the lineup for the spring edition of Digital Hollywood, May 5-8. Looks solid, but I probably won't make it down there this year.

March 17, 2008 at 10:30 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Newsweek's 'Revenge of the Experts'

Newsweek: Revenge of the Experts. The individual user has been king on the Internet, but the pendulum seems to be swinging back toward edited information vetted by professionals.

In my view, it's never been an either/or proposition, but Newsweek is engaging in wishful thinking if they believe that the move to user-created material is a fleeting proposition.

March 17, 2008 at 02:05 AM in Citizen media, Media, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Qik: Stream your life from your phone

Been watching some of Scoble's spur-of-the-moment videos on Qik. Says the site: "Go live with your life by streaming anytime, anywhere — right from your phone. Be an eyewitness, capture those first steps, or whip up your own streaming video blog."

Certainly this should be of interest to citizen journalists and others covering live events.

March 15, 2008 at 06:37 PM in Citizen media, Video, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | | (0)

Bloggers get meta at SXSW Interactive

David Sarno at the LA Times' Web Scout blog: Bloggers and bloggers and blogs, oh my! (LA Times photo of Mahalo Daily's Veronica Belmont and her posse.)

Sounds like quite a change from just two years ago, when I was one of only a handful of videobloggers at SXSW. (Here's the 2006 video interview I did with Craig Newmark and some other folks at SXSW.)

March 15, 2008 at 04:35 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Media companies embrace peer-to-peer technology

Associated Press: Media companies embrace peer-to-peer technology.

The technology best known for pirating movies, music and software online is increasingly being adopted by businesses as a cheap way to get video content to customers.

A number of start-ups are embracing so-called peer-to-peer technology and have persuaded some big-name media companies to use them to deliver legal content.

First, it's not "so-called" peer-to-peer technology, any more than blogs are "so-called" blogs.

Second, the AP incorrectly reports:

The P2P programs used by Pando and VeriSign are quite different from BitTorrent and eDonkey. They don't let consumers distribute their own content.

Not true. I've been using Pando to distribute video content with colleagues for two years.

March 15, 2008 at 04:07 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

Social media rules SXSW '08

Geary Interactive: Social media rules SXSW '08.

Although social media currently resides at the periphery for most online campaigns, I see it rapidly approaching the center. And as it does, there will most certainly be new and different analytics methods developed to better capture the essence of what makes social media efforts a success — or failure.

March 14, 2008 at 11:25 PM in Social-media, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | | (0)

The social media resume

Paper resumes are passe. The New York Times has the word on multimedia Web 2.0 resumes.

March 10, 2008 at 09:27 PM in Digital life, Social-media, Web/Tech | Permalink |