Marc's Voice

pdf’s of my Textbook and my Manifesto!

So I finally found out how to trick Blurb’s BookSmart and get a pdf of my textbook.  And here’s the pdf of my manifesto!

This is a happy day for me!

Now folks can read what I have to say without having to pay $60!  And THEN if you love what I have to say - THEN you can buy a copy of the dead tree version (kudos to Cory Doctorow on that strategy!)  It’s taken me THIS long to get here.  How symbolic that the day I start to move my boxes into storage and REALLY move out - is the day my data moves out of it’s BookJail and into the cloud!

These pdf versions have a watermark in it and no covers - and I had to add one blank page to each book to  normalize the ”two-up” Acrobat reader display and get the pagination right.

That means that the page numbers will be one off by one from the TOC.

But besides that - this ROCKS!

Everyone can now have a copy of my textbook - and a copy of my manifesto - for free!

How to build the Digital City textbook

I’ve uploaded the final (draft3) version of the textbook I’ll be using to teach my class at CWRU this fall.

It’s course # EECS 396 - which is part of the EE Computer Science dept. at Case Western Reserve University.  I’ll be teaching on T-Thurs afternoons - for 15 weeks.

I am TOTALLY looking forward to meeting CWRU’s best and brightest!

This diagram shows off the many elements of our ’software infrastructure’.  They’ll be a Digital City ID system, which will merge SAML and Open Stack standards together - and keep everyone happy.

They’ll be shared servers, filled with jobs, events, businesses and services - with Open APIs for all to use.

They’ll be all sorts of on-line interactive multimedia content - which will fuel the sustainable business model - which is primarily focused at workforce development.

There are webcams and what I call ‘location pages’ - which will utilize eVectors Pages + system.

And you’ll notice these ‘bureaus’ which will be the focal node of every node.

Blurb has a ‘preview’ mode which allows you to see a few pages.  I’m gonna KILL these people if they don’t get me a pdf OUT of their BookSmart tool - which right now is acting like a BookJail - locking me into their proprietary platform.  I am so pissed off that I can’t share the content of this book with everyone via pdf.  Time to call Blurb - again.

Tried to post my eBay listing on Facebook, but…..

So I’m selling my 1982 Checker Marathon taxi and I tried to use this feature on ebay to cross-list it in Facebook.

However I got…………..

Strategy for the Plain Dealer

I noticed a conversation going on - in my Facebook feed about changing the copyright laws to permit newspapers to keep their content ‘exclusive’ for 24 hours.  I’m amazed by the sheer audacity of that idea and it turned out that someone I was just introduced to - Connie Schultz - had come out in favor of this idea.

So since I’m moving to Cleveland and these are going to become my issues, I thought I’d weigh in on an alternative approach to helping out the Plain Dealer.  After all it’s not the copyright laws that are broken, but the newspaper business model.  In fact I could argue (and others have) that copyright is broken for a number of OTHER reasons, but I won’t go into that now.

What I do want to do is try and come up with some creative ways that the Plain Dealer can achieve profitability and sustainability in these crazy times.  Followers of this blog may recall me doing this for MySpace and I’ve also pitched similar ideas to the NYTimes and the BBC.

So here goes……….

All brands need to have their own platform. They don’t want to be subservient to Facebook, MySpace, Google, Yahoo or Microsoft.  They want to ‘own’ their own social graph, have direct relationships with their customers and engage with them - both in cyberspace as well as meatspace.  And this is where newspapers can do a much better job - than say ‘a search engine’ company or social network.

To become ‘a platform’ newspapers have to stop thinking that the 4th estate gets special treatment.  This is business and they have to stop whining immediately. No special treatment, no changing of the copyright laws in your favor, no special anything.  If you wish to invest in investigative journalism (as the Plain Dealer did recently - exposing a huge scandal in the County Commissioner’s office) then it’s up to YOU to come up with a business model that’s sustainable and which can support your various endeavors, overhead and infrastructure.

To become your own platform means that you’ll offer a full-fleged portal 2.0.  Now I’m not talking about selling smiley faces, t-shirts or travel vouchers, but a new kind of ‘digital lifestyle aggregation’ dashboard which would combine:

- social networking, media sharing, blogging, commenting, rating, etc.

- UGC (user generated content) and media channels

- widgets, Facebook apps and support for the Open Stack

- on-the-ground promos, contests, volunteerism and job training - tied into on-line content projects

- software infrastructure - that other software developers can use.

I’ll start with the last point.  Open APIs (application programming interfaces) allow other software develoeprs ot build on services, content and people that YOU the Plain Dealer have on your servers.  Instead of trying to lock-in your customer base, you gladly offer it as a platform for others to build on.  This is what Facebook does, what Google helps out and what Microsoft wishes developers would do more of - with their APIs.

This is the hottest area of software development and I need to only point to the NY Times and the Guardian (in the U.K.) as examples of how newspapers are making teh transition over to becoming their own platforms.

So why can’t the plain Dealer become a platform?  You could become world class experts on the history of R&R and classical music, on cardio issues, on burning rivers and the Underground railroad.  There is so much that Cleveland has to offer the world, why limit yourselves to just NEO?

And what I’m really talking about here is moving beyond just advertising revenues.  The Plain Dealer’s platform could offer a premium service with real bite - with real value added services and content that people would pay for.

I also think that the Plain Dealer has to become a full fledged media company and either merge with a local TV station or go independent and roll out full fledged IPTV - “create your own show” tools for ALL your constituents.  This is where the on-line media world if going and why shouldn’t the Plain Dealer be a leader?

The Plain Dealer needs to become an Internet brand - to go beyond what Cleveland.com is and embrace the open web.

I could go on forever - but the point is that it’s NOT about changing the copyright laws and asking for special treatment. If the Plain Dealer can’t sustain itself, it’ll go the same route as the auto industry, the housing market and oh yah - the world of investment banking. Nobody is immune and the 4th estate has been replaced by the blogosphere.

The trick is figuring out how to justify the on-going costs of excellent investigative work by reporters like Mark Puente.  And Congrats Mark - on those series of stories - they rocked!

Goodbye California

After 21 years the pool is closed, we’re packing our boxes and we’re outa here.

Over the years I’ve been privileged to work with a lot of people.  Roger Jones - the photographer of this shot - was the first.  Roger was an early employee at MacroMind, helped me build MediaBand, Mediabar and our AOL work.  I’ve watched Roger (and his wife Susan’s) kids being raised along with mine and he’s one of the guys I’ll miss.

Antwerp train station

I was in the Antwerp train station, but nobody wanted to sing Do Re me with me!

Back home packing, but that won’t stop me from blogging! June ‘09

Packing is exhausting.  But I’m looking forward to change.

Its too bad that Fred Vogelstein (or Wired) doesn’t understand the nature of the open stack and walls and reduces everything to a battle between Facebook and Google.

Makes for exciting copy, but he’s just plain wrong.

This is exactly what’s wrong with our industry - everything is viewed via money and fighting for market share.  BOTH Google and Facebook are doing great things and we’re better for them.

Its NOT about who’s making more money or who’s gonna ‘win’.  It’s abut the experience and functionality they deliver to us - and there’s plenty of room for BOTH Google and Facebook as they BOTH deliver great experiences.  Period!@%$#%$^#&^%#&%$

Congrats to Kevin Marks on leaving Google and moving on. Change is good.

HealthDataRights.org

Apple Red pill poppers @1M

Not only is the iPhone and Apple still the cherished alters of the cult-like admiration of the ‘fanboys’ - but it was confirmed today that their numbers stand at a mighty 1M.

These folks will stand in line and buy one of everything Apple ever sells.

This reminds me of ‘back in the day’ when that # stood at 100k.  In 1985 when the Mac only had 512k RAM, had no software to run on it and was barely a cult mahine - 100,000 people bought one of everything Apple put out.

I was one of those fanatics.   My how times changes things.  Or is it still the same?

Blogging from Dewey’s in Shaker Sq. - #1

Did you know that Shaker Sq. is the second planned shopping center in the U.S. - circa 1929.  We’re living two blocks from here.  Killer Hungarian, Brazilian, Moroccan and Yuppie fare… and a first run movie theater.  I’m happy!

Did you also know that the first ATM was in Columbus, Ohio?

Are you having fun?  Cause I sure am!

It’s important to keep things fresh and real - and they certainly are here in Cleveland, NEO.

Social Networking is getting through into the world of call centers “”When done properly, social network-based customer service interactions drive increased intimacy between company and customer.“  That’s the theme of the  reason why I’m here in NEO; connecting cyberspace to meatspace to help alleviate human’s fears of computers, train them in viable work skills for the future and build a software infrastructure to support social media and networking - everywhere.

We’re developing a pilot ‘distributed architecture’ here which will innovate the world of workforce development from the bottom to the top.   It’s start with a dashboard we’ll give away and lots of new kinds of ’software infrastructure’.

Here’s me and Susie Sharp - one of the rain maker’s in NEO, with my two books.

One is the theory, the other the practice - which will be used as  a textbook for the class I’m teaching at CWRU.

As soon as I know the course # I’ll let yah know.

One coolio thing I’m gonna do is conduct a number of the classes virtually and make these lectures/classes available on YouTube, blip, Meta-Cafe, Facebook, MySpace, etc.

This is important as I’ll be on the road in Amsterdam, Cali, Wash D.C. - and probably Kokomo, Indiana.

Instead of trying to explain to vendors what they could to with our platform - we’re gonna show them.

Meanwhile…..

It’s too bad that NVidia doesn’t quite grok how important Android is. They probably need to keep Microsoft happy as they’re battling Intel.  They can’t afford to piss them both off!

In this analysis of Yahoo’s turn around, there isn’t ANY mention of the software Yahoo offers, except some allusion to a new home page. This is perfect evidence how this industry thinks software is about making money.  Somebody better clue them in - that software is about changing the world, not making money.  IMHO

I’m sorry the Gillmor gang is over and I’m sorry I can’t make it to Steve’s conference, but I wish him the best of luck - on everything.

Congrats to my homebody Doc - on the launch of Cluetrain at 10.

The Way Matt works

Falcon rising

ContextVoice

The Internet of Things

Glue API

Open Data from the NY Senate

OK folks

That’s the end of this blog post.

I’m gonan start changing my blogging style - to reflect my life.

Time for Hungarian.

My own thoughts on ‘Unite’

As usual my homeboy Chris Messina transcends his ego and brings us an in-depth analysis of Opera’s new baked in client side server and ’social sharing’ functionality: Unite.

Chris adeptly rips a new asshole into the ignorance of our tech community to not focus in on the real issues which Unite highlights and which are staring at our collective souls.  To summarize:

1.  Its not enough to billow and rage about ‘user’s controlling their own data!  That is so, so, so, so….. 2007ish!  Nowadays we must focus on the BENEFITS to openness, why owning your data is BETTER and EASIER and (IMHO) why we need to prove these benefits to other vendors so that THEY can benefit as well.  If we don’t have an ecosystem where ALL benefit - it ain’t gonna happen.

Take COMCAST for example. Here’s a schizophrenic company that on one side is metering bandwidth and about to define what destroying net neutrality is all about, while at the same time running cutey videogame-like TV commercials of an integrated DLA-like environment and sponsoring Joseph Smarr and John McCrea to help us build our open stack and change the world.  COMCAST desperately needs to be shown the BENEFITS of working with others, not locking users data in and they need to keep on the trail of making up for Plaxo’s PAST transgressions.

Joseph and John have been doing a great job at that repentant task, but we all know that at any time the bosses can come in, lock up that Plaxo data and help Haliburton and SAIC send us back to the stone age.  So until its painfully obvious that open systems, cooperative cross-vendor efforts and an on-going open web are the ONLY courses to take - we have more work to do!

2. Microsoft Live Mesh, bit torrent, Dave Winer’s Frontier platform and all sorts of ‘client side’ servers have shown that distributed architectures are a piece of our future.  So having one baked into Opera seems coolio.

But as Chris points out “why do we care about Opera, if its not even open source?” We might as well use Live Mesh!

IMHO Unite should be a plug-in for all browsers. But then that wouldn’t help Opera’s installed base - right?

3.  I won’t even go into the other issues that Chris brings up; but owning the namespace, lack of OpnID support, filtering and proxying and the other requirements that Opera demands to use Unite - make it a non-starter.

The real issue is: ‘where’s Michael Arrington or Eric Schonfeld on these issues?”  “What’s up with GigaOm?”  Whatever happened to blogger intelligence and insights - in regards to this product launch?

4.  Hearing that Unite supports Activity Streams say a bunch of things to me:

- there are good things in all dark clouds

- Activity streams is the buzzword du jour

- Unite may have some sort of future in our distribted world

Anyway - back to building cities in Northern Ohio.

Just found out that Craig Newmark, Paul Buchheit and Don Knuth are all alumni of CWRU - where I’ll be teaching.