Marc's Voice

Politics versus Technology

This is my last post of the year.

It was painfully obvious during the recording of today’s Gillmor gang that creating a meta-identity standard will be 2% technology and 98% politics.

It’s already 2005 around most of the world by the time I post this - so but as usual (as Steve Gillmor says) “I get the last word in.”

So I just wanna say to Dave Winer, Kim Cameron, Craig Burton, Phil Windley, Drumkmond Reed - Papa Doc Searls and Mr. Steve “Dan’s his brother” Gillmor - that we CAN do this.

We can put Microsoft’s past behind them - and use them to help us build the mega meta momma backplane we talked about.

I really like Kim and he seems sincere and we can’t blame him for his employer’s past transgressions. Just like we can’t blame Scoble either. Neither of them worked at Micreosoft during “those days” - but they work there now - and it’s incumbant upon us to work with them - to help them change - from within.

As I said yesterday I’d like to nominate Dick Hardt and his Sxip Networks technology to lead this effort forward. Sxip can be a ‘mini-backplane’ of sorts - that can then plug into Kim’s mega meta momma backplane he’s talking about. I really think it’s possible that 2005 can be the year that this all comes together.

By meeting the requirements of the 7 Laws of Identity (can’t wait to hear the final two - Kim) and by balancing the needs of a centralized DNS with the pluralism that is required for uptake - we can help bring the era of ‘Social Computing’ to fruition (thanks Kim for that one…..)

Sxip Networks was designed for the type of KISS developers need to support digital identity that can become pervasive. Sxip is beholden to nobody but us. And I am not neholden to Sxip. I recieve no money from Dick and company. I just dig the shit out of what they’re doing.

So it’s a Ho Ho Ho and a three cheers mate (sorry Simon you didn’t make it) and here’s to a brand new year - and a brand new round of efforts at singing (in tune) “Kum Bah Yah” - my lord.

Personal Presense Portals

Ton Zylstra’s got a coolio rap on the future of blogging and what he called Personal Presense Portals. Which kind of brings up Attention.xml and MeNow - but I won’t go there - now.

I met Ton in Amsterdam - I just love his faceroll on his page.

Needless to say - he’s my kind of guy.

[via Sen No Sen]

I guess everything Marqui does is NOT OK

Robin Good tears them (or at least the folks who issued the SEO white paper) a new one…..

And Eric Rice agrees…..

Tee Hee Hee - and we’re not firing them for saying so……

One small step for ourmedia, one giant leap for built-in content

JD Lasica has announced that a start page is now available - as evidence that ourmedia.org does exist.

It’s been a long hard road we’ve been tolling and our thanks go out to Boris Mann and Bryght - for helping us get there.

We aren’t live yet - but we’re working on it.

Here’s JD’s post…

I just posted a Welcome message to the Ourmedia.org site, since we’re getting some traffic after the two writeups in this week’s Business Week. So we’ve taken down the log-in module.
[NewMediaMusings]

Nokia 6630

On Malik likes his. I wonder if I can trade out my 7610 for a 6630? Charlie?

Here’s Om’s post….

It is hard for me to imagine that I am carrying around in my pocket a computer that is as powerful as my first generation Pentium powered AST desktop, I wrestled with back in 1995, typing out scintiallting stories about memory chip prices for Quick Nikkei News. It seemed breezy enough, running the now forgotten Windows 3.1. With some kicking around, the TCP/IP stack on it worked for me to get Internet access as well. Fast forward by ten years, and the new Nokia 6630 packs a mightier punch - a 200 MHz ARM 5 processor - in a small but lethal package. The Nokia 6630 is based on Symbian OS. It is a tri-band phone for GSM 900/1800/1900, EDGE and WCDMA networks. Weighing 127 grams and measuring 110 x 60 x 20.6 mm, it is world’s smallest megapixel phone for GSM and WCDMA networks. It has everything you would normally want in a good smart-enough phone. Clearly, this is the best 3G phone on the market, especially given that how the others are so clunky and well ugly! It is light enough that sometimes I forget it is sitting in my pocket. (more…)

OpenEvents it is

I’m delighted to see Scott McMullen use the term Peter Caputa and I came up with - for some sort of open standard for events. As new kinds of micro-content emerge, separate domains are evolving centered around entrepreneurs who live, breath and sleep with these new kinds of micro-content.

Scott McMullen appears to be one of the Events nerds…..

Greetings from sunny San Diego.  Morning after posting Google/Internet Archive, Meet Mr. Event we threw the kids in the WRX and headed south for some R&R with friends and family.  So now that I’ve snuck into the local wifi cafe I’m very gratified to discover more people, projects, and conversations about this events vision.   For sake of clarity, from now on I think I’ll start using Marc Canter’s OpenEvents moniker — seems like the same/right philosophy, and appears to still be a green-field project.

Here are just a few additional links I’ve found related to OpenEvents vision, although I haven’t had time to fully dig through all this yet:

• EventsML, an IPTC effort for an XML vocab standard for, "event publishing, event planning, and event coverage."
• ESS  the "Event Share Specification" for, "assisting in the publishing and distribution of event (e.g. meetings, conferences, holidays) information."
• WhizSpark’s broader thoughts on social networking and events
• CivicSpace are some veterans of the Dean campaign building a, "…platform that empowers collective action inside communities and cohesively connects remote groups of supporters."
• Who What When Where XML is headed up by Hanan Cohen, who believes, "people should be able to publish where and when they will be, and others should be able do discover those facts and arrange to meet them."

Among many others!  I haven’t yet digested the comments/trackbacks/new info, but clearly people are looking and addressing events from many different angles and biz models. And it’s all "just software," so it’s doable.  Hard part is herding cats, aligning interests so collaboration, real work, and follow-through happen.

Still getting my mind around all this, but I’m looking forward to continuing to connect with interested and engaged parties.  But my main event right now is quality time with family until the new year, so I think I’ll idle my mind and keyboard until ‘05.  Have a great holiday if you’re still reading this!

[Scott McMullen: eHick]

Yahoocalifragilisticexpialidocious

Adam Rifkin is at it again - riffing and Rifkining and polluting the otherwise pure universe of Google.

Up until Adam’s post - clearly Googlecalifragilisticexpialidocious was the leading candidate for world domination.

Ho Ho Ho and a Happy New Year.

The best thing about identities - is that there are so many of them

We used to use that line when we referred to standards.

Wishing that the world would coalesce around a single standard:

a) ignores the fact that there is Microsoft. So choose your category wisely and stay under the radar, as Microsoft - no matter what - will come up with their own thing. In the case of subscription formats - they actually PRECEDED RSS with something called CDF. But since it failed, that gave Dave Winer an opportunity of getting RSS going “user the radar” until it was too late for Microsoft to stop him.

b) assuming that there will ever be a single digital identity standard - is wrong. Kim Cameron raps out his beliefs - which he calls “The Fifth Law of Identity”. I totally agree with Kim that a meta-identity format is needed to brdge and connect together all of these disparate systems.

c) is rather naive and clearly sees the digital identity space as one thing. It’s not. What digital identity is to the FOAF nerds or Tantek Celik’s XFN cult is completely different than how the i-names folks or Sxip Network sees it. And I haven’t even brought up the enterprise wonks - lile PingID. Or the god head Craig Burton or his nemisis Kim Cameron. We all see this space as something completely different.

So - by definition - we (at best) can at least hope for some sort of meta-standard.

God bless the meta-directory gods.

UPDATE: Craig Burton raps it our succinctly - like only he can.

The law of pluralism is contrary to the laws of customer control. Let’s be clear, the law of pluralism requires operating system independence–by definition. This means the Microsoft Identity Archtiect is calling for a system that is not necissarily Windows centric by design. This–of course–is the only way such a system can really work–but consider the implications.

A cross platfrom identity metasystem sun-spot hot and–with the other laws being discussed here–changes everything.

[Craig Burton: logs, links, life, and lexicon]

Sell side advertising

the head lemur raps it out.

How we geek out in SF

Rebecca Eisenberg (and her husband Curtis) are starting to get out again. But it’s not like Cyborganic days - no - nowadays we use blogs to promote our parties. And please notice Pierre’s hat. And Kaliya’s smile.

Here are three of my favorite peeps: Steve Gillmor, Dan Farber and the legendary A-List Microsoft Blogger - nobody less than - his highess - Robert Scoble.

I had the honor of watching over Robert’s coat and bag until someone came along and pushed it aside. I also had the honor of teasing Steve Gillmor over whether the lower case semantic web would establish clear meta-data standards for podcasting - faster than the uPPER CaSE heretics.