Marc's Voice

“Open is the new Black” continues to spread

NOTE: This is a post I did awhile ago (but had to push to the back burner - as we’re shipping a large site right now.)  

It was created when I was editing the video of a speech UI gave in Rotterdam in Sept.  The cameraman was pointed at me the entire time and missed the slides, so I then edited the presentation video and laid the .ppt slides on top of it - and came up with this video - which is yet another version of my treatise “How to build the Open Mesh”.  Anyway - in this speech I mention that if you type “Open is the new Black” into Google - I come up.  Here’s what I say about it - in the speech:

“That’s our SEO - come up with a good idea, and Google will remember it.  That’s the ultimate SEO = quality of the idea.”

There’s plenty of evidence out there that freeing users from lock-in and opening up the data of a system - is a good thing.  Providing APIs to that data is enabling what Fred Wilson calls ‘Content APIs‘ and that’s also a good thing.  I have a chapter in my book about “persistent ubqiutous content” on just this very subject.

So we’re seeing open permeate throughout our world and raising it’s head in lots of interesting ways.

My friends David Recordon and the Plaxo dudes (Joseph and John) along with Chris Messina have a IPTV show called “theSocialWeb.tv” and it’s probably the best thing out there to highlight the status, trends and memes of this world and which dives deeply into the geeky issues surrounding “open social networking”.

But in fact - it goes beyond just social networking.  Social features will soon be built into all software. That’s something else Fred Wilson is figuring out.  So we’re seeing him (and his VC cohorts) start to invest in all sorts of open platforms and products, but they’re missing a crucial element to the game - contributing back to teh community.  So that’s why I created the post “Taking advantage of open for proprietary reasons“.

Yahoo has finally launched their underlying ID layer - almost four years after I first asked Jerry Yang and Dan Rosensweig for that.  Over the subsequent 3.5 years I was told “it was coming”, “yah yah - we’re gonna do that“, “yah sure - we’ll have APIs for MyYahoo” - but yet as of this writing we still don’t have two-way APIs into MyYahoo.

The BBC seems to be getting their open act together - and building their own underlying ID layer under the leadership of Eric Huggers.  They’d better - they promised us Open BBC almost four years ago.

Microsoft has launched their Open Live Mesh Cloud thingie - Azure.  And Facebook and MySpace (though clerarly closed meshes) are opening up - in their own way.

iGoogle appears to be positioning itself as a key aspect of Google’s “digital lifestyle aggregaton” strategy.  With clean integration with OpenSocial, Reader, Gmail and (one would assume) ALL the suite of Google apps - iGoogle will soon be the state-of-the-art dashboard which I talk about in Chapter 6 - “UI Objects” - in my book.

But that doesn’t mean that NetVibes is going away - they’re starting to white label.

And lord knows what’s gonna happen once Clearspring and Gigya start running ads in their widgets.  That is one of the key milestones of our monetizable distributed business model.  And heaven help us once Twitter declares their business model next year.   Or FriendFeed starts to ‘experiment’ with ads.  Watch for stampedes of new proportions.

Some call it the open stack.  Others are bent on user identity oriented focus or an enterprise approach.  It really doesn’t matter.  Open will come in a myriad of sizes, shapes and packages.

Yes indeed - Open is the new Black.  Everyone is doing it, in their own way - which is EXACTLY how it’s supposed to happen - to build an open mesh - where others can come in and participate.

Key milestones coming up:

- a panel we’re doing at Digital Hollywood on Oct. 28th in LaLa - which rocked

- Internet identity Workshop - Nov. 10-12 in Mountain View, CA

- a panel we’re doing at LeWeb8 in Paris on Dec. 9th.

Until then - stay tuned and just keep chanting this:

“Open is the new Black” - on the BART

“Open is the new Black” - on University Ave. Palo Alto

“Open is the new Black” - on St. Marks in the Lower East side.

“Open is the new Black” - at Canter’s deli on Fairfax.

“Open is the new Black” - aht the public gahdens in Bahstun, on the Swan boat.

“Open is the new Black” - at the So. Kensington tube stop.

“Open is the new Black” - at the Janpath market in Delhi.

“Open is the new Black” - in Akasaka at the Hostess bars.

“Open is the new Black” - in Christiania in Copenhagen.

“Open is the new Black” - at Grey Area in Amsterdam”

“Open is the new Black” - at the Cafe San Marco in Trieste (where James Joyce went every night for 20 years.)

Engaging with the Beeb

I wrote a post on a Erik Huggers post on open standards - and sure ‘nuf - a BBC blogger named Nick Reynolds replied in detail to my post.

So in the spirit of open conversation, here are my replies to his replies.  This sort of fluid conversation could be happening on Twitter, FriendFeed, Identi.ca, Pownce or any number of IM systems - hopefully all flowing over XMPP (and front ended by services like Meebo.)  But these posts will reside on my domain and Nick’s blog domain.

Nick seems like a nice chap so I’ll quickly drill thru the things he pushed back on:

1. Nick uses the term “wrong information” but he’s often referring to my opinion - and I get to have my opinion, so that’s not called “wrong information”.  You may consider me wrong and call me on it, but the facts of Flash, installed base, moving an changing standards and overall audience uptake is actually something I’m pretty experienced on Nick - and my opinion does mean something here.

It takes a single man to move a mountain and one of teh things I’ll be repeating overa nd over again - is that the BBC is in a unique positiont o do what Microsoft did, what Google is doing, what Barack Obama is about to do.

Change the world.

2. Let me rebuke some of Nick’s pushbacks:

“…if the BBC can get rid of Flash, let alone Silverlight and Quicktime…

I don’t think Erik Hugger’s original blog post said that the BBC was going to “get rid” of Flash. It simply said that the BBC was going to adopt some open standards like H.264 for its video and audio content on the web. 

Nick - I didn’t say that you WERE going to get rid of Flash (heaven forbid) I was extrapolating over the notion that if you DID get rid of Flash (you’ll notice my usage of the word “can”) then how coolio would that be?  But dude - but you and I and the whole world knows that it’ll never happen. 

That’s one of the underlying themes of my message to Mr. Huggers.  Leadership is a risky thing, making changes in the world of digital video formats - is a hard road to tow - and just because the BBC supports OGG or whatever - doesn’t mean doodly squat.  Sure it’ll earn you some brownie points in some innane “things to do to be open” guide - but what I’m HOPING for is for the BBC to take REAL leadership by the horns - and make some REAL changes.

Hear me brother?

3.  Those changes have to come in the role of open social networking.  There will be 10+ huge centralized social networks which will cross borders and one at least for each langauge, nation or religion.  In this world of behemoths there will be 10,000’s of niche vertical networks, very much like the networks the BBC runs.

Into this world has come ‘meta-networks’ like Ning, Flux, Kickapps and what our PeopleAggregator platform can build.  We need to make it real easy for Reggae enthusiasts (or whoever) to form networks of their own as well as ‘meta-groups’ which would connect ACROSS Facebook, MySpace, Ning or Bebo.  Reggae folks should be able to communicate, post, import/export, sync, or whatever with Reggae folks - wherever they are.  That’s one of the things I’m hoping to pitch the Beeb.

If you could get meta-groups working right - within the Beeb’s suite of web sites, well then BY GOD we can do it - everywhere!

4. I was referring to user experience when I said “no one cares if YouTube uses Flash or OGG” - but Nick responded back about a colleague of his named James Cridland and a BBC mail list.

Dude (that’s American for ‘my kind sir Mr. Reynolds’) - what I was talking about are humans, normal people, end-users - in general.  And THEY don’t give a dam about what’s under the hood - as long as it works!

Nick does astutely differentiate tactics from strategy and he seems to grok the compromises we all face when having to play along with the BigCos.  That’s even MORE why we need the BBC to step up, as most of us can’t even fathom the power the Beeb could exert by implementing HALF of my suggestions!

5.  There’s a difference between supporting OpenID and being a reliable server and actually USING OpenID.  Also clearly the BBC is not a government unit - then what is it?  A Royal decree from her Majesty or simply an act of Parliment?  Call it Trust, call it whatever - you DON’T have the issue that the rest of us have. You just have your OWN issues.

You (the BBC) have your own category - again that’s the POINT!  You can do things to change the world - and I just wanna make sure you DO!

6. Nick asks in an earlier post ‘Freedom - Open Source - show me how!’.

Well Nick let me take this opportunity to help show you how:

6a) I’ll start off by expanding the notion of  open source to mean open data, open standards, open ideas - the whole idea of being open.  Don’t get hung up on giving away software for free or LAMP.  Focus on what can be done when you give anything away for free - like the Beeb’s archives.

Or what it means when you support OGG or an open format - which sends political repercussions throughout the tech world.  So wielding an “open hammer” can do some serious damage if it’s aimed right.

Clearly Nick’s got his arms around the big issues - especially when it comes to protecting children (I’ve got five) and the subtle dance going on with the movie and music industries.

All the MORE why I say that the Beeb can brandish it’s stick - and get some REAL change effected!

6b)  Nick ends his post asking “do any fo you out there have a clue how we’re gonna get all this copyrighted materials - away for free?”  So heres a practical answer:

- for the next five years - just do what you can.  Get as many titles right’s cleared - as you can.  Build up the infrastructure, associated apps and services and show off the benefits of ‘open data’ that you can.  Just go for it!  Build up the Open BBC.

- at the same time build your own compelling experiences which leverage this ‘open data’.  How ’bout the history of Rock & Roll?  Or the fully documented, living breathing record of every major war - ever.  All connected by detailed, interactive timleines (remember the Doomsday project?) Or how ’bout an interactive British Royalty geneology tree?  Click on a  time and a place in the tree and get the full monarchy node.  Show them (Hollywood) what can be done with persistent ubiquitous content - when everything is a URL.

- now go out and build up meta- communities tied to tags, phrases and affinities - which have associated networks and groups.  Then make sure that much of this content is available with a universal translator - so that people around the world can get sub-titles or voiceover versions - that they can understand.  eg. build a global community of meta-networks.

- now it’s five years later, only 10% of yous archive is on-line and being utilized in interactive apps and servcies - but it’s enough.  The floodgates will open and everyone will CLAMOR to have their songs, musicals, films and books incuded in your prestigous interactive hypermedia encyclopedias.  That’s the way Hollywood is. They’re not too smart upfront, but they recognize a trend - real fast!

6c) You probably don’t know - but I submitted a proposal to the BBC about utilizing our platform to add social features to BBC web sites.  The idea is that by utilizing one platform you can normalize all this common stuff - like sending messages, reviews, comments, taggfing, contests, etc. across ALL your web sites.

Maybe this conversation can get that project - on track.

6d) I wrote this book and in it I extrapolate that the BigCos of the world will leave enough ‘crumbs’ on the table that we ‘the small guys’ can live.  They way that happens is thru open standards around ways of connecting disparate networks together.  YOU my friend (the BBC) can be the catalyst of this revolutionary approach to ‘open social networking’.  If you can connect disparate BBC sites together, we can do that ACROSS disparate vendors.

7. Nick apparently is an employee of the BBC and involved with their blog.

The BBC blog has all sorts of great stuff flowing thru it - and just getting your hands around HALF the stuff the BBC does - is quite a task.  Apparently there are over 35 CMS’s utilized to build and maintain the 300+ web sites run by the BBC.  Can you imagine the task of integrating all that - over the next 10 years?

Well that’s the job of Eric Hugger’s FM&T group has in front of it.  First things up - an identity layer to connect them all together.

That’s being built by Zac xxx - a veteran of the Web 2.0 wars.  Zac’s team will build the infrastructure - now the question is “will Eric pull the trigger and connect these sites together?”

Cross site promotions, underlying ID account, user tastes which drill targeted content, affinity groups that go meta - as well.

Couple all that to the entire archive of everything (or just about) the BBC has ever produced and THEN you’ll have an idea why I’m making sure to engage with the Beeb - and get them thinking ‘open mesh’.  The BBC will define ‘persistent ubiquitous content’.

And now back to bicycling around Amsterdam.  I can almost hear the fiddler fiddling as the world’s economic powers crumble.  All those poor un-employed investment bankers!  Boo hoo hoo.

And while Mr. Hirst is selling off his artifacts, I’ll be viewing a real artist today  - Van Gogh.  Oooops - did I just imply that Damien Hirst isn’t an artist?

Well clearly he’s got his :15 minutes going on right now - at least Sotehby’s and a bunch of Russians and Arabs think so.

What does Google’s Open Mesh look like?

I’m finalizing my book “How to build the Open Mesh” and Mary Hodder suggested that I add some Appendices on how various BigCos are building THEIR versions of the open mesh.

So here is Appendix - A.

---

Most of the infrastructure, services and applications that Google offers work all by themselves and are not dependent upon anything else.  Google has launched OpenSocial and built Google Friend Connect.

Google is a leader in OpenAPIs and keeping the data to themselves.  So they have been very careful when providing APIs into social graphs or their Friend Connect service.  We have a long way to go before OpenSocial’s APIs are done.  They will eventually enable any software product to embed ’social features’ into any container,  legacy app or content.

Imagine maps that know where your friends are, search that knows what your friends are  searching for, Calendar, Reader and Gmail that use social features to organize your life.

Google’s grid, apps platform, iGoogle, YouTube and many other elements of it’s ‘platform’ will all become important pieces of the open mesh.  It’s not necessarily a bad thing that they don’t have some over arching approach, as long as all the elements work fine by themselves.