Monthly Archives: May 2007

Non-programmers Program

Google just released a web-based mashup creator and hosting environment. The editor accepts HTML, CSS, and Google-specific XML tags. These tags provide access to google feeds such as the Google Calendar and Base. The example we just saw built in front of us took six lines of code and plotted locations on a map. Pretty impressive. This can be hosted at googlemashups.com or you can make a gadget for iGoogle.

It is very similar to Yahoo! Pipes and Popfly in intent, but not in focus or implementation. Of the three web-based mashup creators this one is the least graphical (being almost all text) and is the most developer focused. Google has a history of starting with developers and then making things easier overtime. The most obvious example of this in my mind is the evolution of KML’s relationship with Google Maps. Last year at Where 2.0 it was announced that hosted KML could be display in Google Maps. Very dev friendly, less consumer friendly. This was the predecessor to Mapplets (Radar post), a much more accessible way of loading external data sets onto Google Maps.

O’Reilly Radar > Google Mashup Editor Launches

this is a cool trend.  I got my eye on you, you company’s who are trying to make it easy for the average user to join in the deeper UGC craze.

I CAN”T wait to see how this is picked up on the teen and U13 scene.

technorati tags:, , , , , ,

Blogged with Flock

Online Community Party

1. Your party needs a reason to celebrate.
2. Your party needs good planning.
3. Your party needs a place.
4. Your party needs a host.
5. Your party needs basic rules.
6. Your party needs a bouncer.
7. Your party needs an invitation.
8. Your party needs a few introductions.
9. Your party needs an event.
10. Your party needs a way for the attendees to pitch-in.
11. Your party needs multiple ways to participate.
12. Your party needs variety.

Your Community is a Party Waiting to Happen | Common Craft – Social Design for the Web

Lee’s analogy of an online community to a part y is great.  Go read it.  Then don’t roll your eyes when I use the same analogy in my next discussion about building communities and I use it (with footnote to Lee).

technorati tags:,

Blogged with Flock

Oh, Canada!

This post could also be confessions of an American in Toronto. I will start by saying it is very, very nice here in Canada. Toronto specifically is very similar in look and feel to Chicago and I felt right at home instantly. I am connecting with all of my friends from SXSW and meeting all kinds of new ones as well.

Yesterday, about mid-afternoon at the Mesh07 Conference, I became hyper-aware of how much I can embody a stereotypical American and became a bit down about it. In the day preceding, I had talked to many delightful Torontonians about dozens of things – politics (Canadian, American and international); health care, environmentalism; civic duty and a citizen’s responsibility to participate fervently in all of the above. My head was swimming with the conversations (I was also in my normal post-lunch thought coma, for full disclosure).

I was put over the edge by a panel of “youth” in the afternoon. They were to tell us what the youth were up to online. I have been to and even facilitated many of these panels before and almost thought I would bypass it for another talk, but I decided to pop in for a bit. The panel was made up of 6 late teen, early twenty-somethings, many with ties to a youth global action site, TakingITGlobal. As they introduced themselves and the amazing pedigrees they all already had, my embarassment of our US counterparts increased. 21ish and been an OCM or youth engagement coordinator for years? Currently thinking about corportate philospohy on philanthory or usability issues? Yikes, we are drooling neandrathals in the states comparably!

I seized the opportunity to finally ask a question to learned teens/young adults regarding tech and their lives and asked about how they engage with advertising. They gave contradictory answers, saying don’t use pop-ups (who does still?) because they are annoying, but then countering that the more annoying ads are sadly the ones they remember. Still, I ended up ducking out early to catch the last 10 minutes of another panel, yet thoroughly impressed with the young people of this country.

I was thankfully able to talk to some of my northern friends later that day and find out that the panel was a bit stacked. There was only one gal on the panel who was an average Canadian gal, and I remembered her online habits and comments conformed nicely with our youth. The others were just amazing do-gooder kids that, while they should be applauded and definitely paraded in front of people to show the capabilities youth can achieve, were in no way representative of canadian youth in general. Candaian kids are not bionic people. They are normal, cool, fun, silly, chill and only sometimes brainiac kids and teens, just like our kids. phew!

I chatted with one woman today from Ottawa, but now living in Toronto, about all of these thoughts I had yesterday and she thought that a possible that the kids from the more rural or small towns have more of a sense of duty and responsibilty to change the world (or their town) because the national “helping” mentality is more concentrated in those places. Canadaians are nice, but they are still privy to the go-get-em attitude that all bigger cities implant into their residents.

Thankfully my traffic on this site is not high enough to be terrfied of the flood of comments this post could possibly warrant. This is my disclaimer that I am enamoured with Toronto and all the people I have met so far from this city, and if my comments/thoughts are pedantic and general, I promise that I am fighting to change them as we speak.

technorati tags:, , , , , ,

Blogged with Flock

Mesh Conference in Toronto: Day 1 Notes

5.30.07

Mike Arrington – TechCrunch

next wave is virtual reality
people are going to be spending more time in these worlds
second life is getting bigger and better
myspace is prolly here to stay – but doing everything wrong
facebook here to stay and get the medium more

pay per post – potentially non-disclosed positive pr in blogs

startups/entrepreneurs –
low risk – pirates of the new day

passion being the most important key to success in blogging

———

In between sessions… i found out about

kinsa – canadian

kids internet safety alliance

sounds like a COPPA in canada

they had a successful marketign campaign lately – rubber rings
getting more involved in marketing their message lately – more billboards
———

Web and Philanthropy

Tom Williams – CEO of GiveMeaning.com, an online community for people who want to change the world.

Austin Hill – founder of Zero- Knowledge Systems

changing the way privacy works
TED – change makers conference

Stages of Interacton online:
Access > Security > Engage > Identity

- Have a huge number of people who have satisfied the first 2 – moving to the final 2 stages

how do you mobilize the web to make communtiy and make something happen
- ecommerce/philanthropy still in an intro phase
- beginning to see people change/blend diff technologies

question asked about kids and bullying and how it works out
- talk of transperancy and ethics of kids habits online (perm record)
- incredible good ne for giving them the tools to make a difference in their world
- let them make the mistakes and and interact ratehr than being passive – they will learn about being a memeber of society

give meaning gives all of their money to cause
- supported by ad revenue

******talk to them about their ad server*******

CommunityLending – soon to be launch community lending platform

best practice is to change form company to audienc eand make audience to audience

zerofootprint - reducing our footprint
- darkgreenpc – shared computer resources
- broadcasting the amount your are saving form powering down your pc

dealing with credinibility and how to establish

——-

Using Web for Good Panel

Zero Footstep – Donna Kaplan

Allow you to see you carbon footstep
How your changes impact in a larger sense
How your changes and others impact the world in aggregate

transportation
food
home/office
consumption
waste

uses default values

see your and compare to:
- other users
- average in other countries
- use and footprint in regards to different resources (water, tress, etc)

Can set goals, brag, link up with other users

Built in Ruby

Been around for 2 years as a company
- NFP works to try to affect the actual change
- create frameworks through which you can change your impact

Funding
- charge a hosting fee (1 cent a user)
- funding/donation
- have Zero Footstep Energy

Children’s version
- Working with WGBH in boston – made character/mascots

Air Canada promotion

Canada Helps – Owen
- Charity.ca gone
- non-profit org to help facilitate online giving
- someone working on a civic footprint tool

—–
The Always on Generation – What are young people doing on the web PANEL

TakingITGlobal.org

hugh
- old ocm for takingitglobal
- millenium act
- privacy issues

erica
- usability issues

laila
- tellus – corporate philosphy on philanthropy and youth
- human kinetics – how tech has influenced health

adam
- youth engagement coordinator
- engaging local island youth to get involved

my possible questions
- what tools do you use to “do good” are they online? if one doesn’t exist, what should it have? or do you just make one yourself?
- what do you think of the criticisms that many have toward youth and their meda consumption – multi-tasking, but not able to critically analyze
- do any of you use twitter

erica asked who knew:
ytmnd.com
what furries were (not many hands were raised – hehe)

very self referencial
ideologcally evasive
different than the 90′s – not culture jamming

what ways do they influence
- ability to connect
- skype as method of communicating
purchasing power
- question from audience – are youth actually buying online or are they thinking about their purchases and just consuming
    - not alot of purchasing going on online – but they don’t feel guilty

they consider 150k alot of users (16k canadians)

tech in the classroom
- interact with us, don’t just talk at us
- we need things in real time
- need constant access
- ask a librarian online/IM
- need simplicity

advertising online – how you interact with it, what works and what doesn’t?
- no pop ups –
- dove was effective – all online – viral and WOM
- do your due diligence on terminology – “i’d hit it” mcd’s
- flashy ads
- creative/video
- most annoying works
- just absorb it without thinking
- appeal to emotionss and make them think

Is the web fostering global action
- there is a need to be more creative about acting locally
- huge response from US on takingitglobal

are there unfounded concerns that adults have
- get your first life straight before you worry about your second life
- if you have a good kid, you dont have to worry so much

technorati tags:, , , , , , , , ,

Blogged with Flock

Proposals to Execute Pedophiles Making Headway in US

“given the appalling nature of the crime, the severity of the harm inflicted upon the victim, and the harm imposed on society, the death penalty is not an excessive penalty for the crime of rape when the victim is a child under the age of 12 years old.”

Digg – Proposals to Execute Pedophiles Making Headway in US

I am about to start posting TONS of posts after none for awhile, but I aw this on Digg and thought I would share.

technorati tags:, , , ,

Blogged with Flock

Transparency and Me

There has been a great deal of talk lately on the concept of “transparency” – in businesses (Wired did their cover story on it a couple months ago), in management and I have been noticing more and more that early tech adopters are becoming more and more transparent.

My AIM and Skype ids let everyone know about when I am online. My tweets on Twitter give me the opportunity to give a play by play of everything that I am doing all day (if I use it). Trackbacks let me see who reposts my blog on their site. I just joined Me.dium yesterday, which lets me see where all the other me.dium users are browsing and converse with them if I desire (they see me too, tho).

Companies are jumping on this transparency train too. Google just gave us access to our search records, but they have had them for a while, especially if you downloaded their toolbar. I just downloaded the AdaptiveBlue plugin that gives me a semantic web experience, but tracks my habits.

What is strange to me is that while I champion and fight for clarity of understanding around privacy issues with children, I have simultaneously relinquished most of my own privacy, mostly because I see it as an illusion. I allow so many parts of my identity to live online and protect only what is truly dear (my family info, my beliefs, my SSN :) ).

I am sure this has occured to most “cybers” lately, but it struck me today as a big thing for some reason. Thoughts? Lord knows I will probably find them out somehow, if you are as transparent as I am.

technorati tags:, , , ,

More estimates on mobile ad rev in the future

Online ads created the dotcom bubble and bust in the late-nineties, and much later started to match those original revenue predictions. Will mobile ads follow the same path? Companies that dominate the ad, media and Internet worlds are placing their chips like Microsoft’s acquisition of ScreenTonic and AOL’s purchase of Third Screen Media. But how big will this market be – it depends on who you listen to.Here, take a look:

* AOL’s CEO recently made headlines for saying the market for mobile ads will grow to $5 billion over the next 5 years, so by 2012, from $500 million to $900 million currently. He said those are market figures. (It is still not clear if that data is just for the U.S. market or global market.)

* eMarketer agrees and says that brands spent $421 million on mobile advertising in 2006 in the U.S. and will be spending nearly $5 billion on mobile advertising by 2011 in the U.S.

* ABI says that global mobile marketing and advertising is estimated to reach $3 billion by the end of 2007, and will increase sixfold to $19 billion by 2011.

* Informa Telecoms & Media predicts worldwide mobile advertising spending was $871 million in 2006 and will be $11.35 billion by 2010.

GigaOM » How big will be the mobile ad biz? Depends on who you ask

technorati tags:, ,

Blogged with Flock

Change.org gets political

Change.org is a site created to mobilize those interested for political action, setting up groups and networks around political figures and even collecting donations for a cause or a politician.

Users can create groups to represent their cause, or find others to join based on tag words that indicate the issues others care about. Once you’ve found a cause, you can join members in their rally to action, participating in discussions and organizing things like a march or lobbying campaigns.

Members can nominate and vote for candidates to support or oppose, and even start a donation for a candidate as well, which will be sent to the candidate along with a letter describing what the donation is for, and where it came from. Users can also start email and calling campaigns by selecting the actual legislative body to target, and writing a letter that can be shared with the community.

Creating more inclusive and effective ways to organize the community around a political cause, garnering support for specific candidates, utilizes social networking in a potentially powerful way. Considering the upcoming presidential campaigns, it’s no surprise that sites like Change.org are sprouting up for raising awareness and playing on the influence of online social networks. Change.org seems to offer a lot of the resources needed to actually make a bit of a difference.

Others in this space include Knover and Open Congress.

Change.org to Launch Internet Grass Roots Site

technorati tags:,

Blogged with Flock

Mobile media portals

Many Americans use their cell phones mainly to make calls and text. For those who do attempt to surf, the mobile Web experience is a challenge at best. And for advertisers, buying mobile remains laborious.

However, AOL last week acquired mobile ad network Third Screen Media, Boston, less than two weeks after Microsoft landed Paris-based ScreenTonic. Earlier this year Yahoo! launched its own mobile network.

Why is mobile media so hot? Analysts point to a confluence of factors, including rising adoption rates, improving technology and even the ongoing acquisition fury in the online ad business. eMarketer, New York, claims that while just $421 million was spent on mobile media last year, that figure could hit $4.8 billion by 2011.”

Mobile Web is starting to reflect the overall population,” said John Hadl, CEO at mobile consultancy Brand in Hand, Santa Monica, Calif., whose clients include Procter & Gamble. Although research places the user base for mobile Internet in the neighborhood of 30 million, “a mass audience is starting to build,” said Hadl. He said clients who have tested mobile campaigns are seeing solid results and are starting to come back for second and third buys.

The medium has a way to go. But analysts feel that specialty firms like Third Screen and ScreenTonic, which have spent years building mobile publisher relationships and working out the ad kinks, are in a favorable position to capitalize on the growth—particularly when aligned with portals like AOL and MSN. “They’ve hacked through the jungle already,” said John Gauntt, an analyst at eMarketer.

Another driver may be the ongoing merger/acquisition mayhem in the online ad business, where formerly low-profile firms such as DoubleClick and 24/7 Real Media are commanding staggering prices. “Now is the time to get these assets before they get into that10-figure range,” said Gauntt.

New Media: AOL, Microsoft Lead Mobile Media Charge

technorati tags:, , , , ,

Blogged with Flock

Making kids exercise, because it’s what you do

Got a little couch potato?

Check out fun summer activities for kids.

This was the footer to my friends email to me written on a Yahoo email account.  Now, I love my gmail because it allows me to make all the words that are in my email and doesn’t put an often cheesily written ad at the bottom exclaiming the virtues of shopping online.  But I noticed this footer, clicked through and am now blogging about it.  Good job Yahoo for finally putting something on the footer that matters.

So, onto my diatribe… active kids…

I have seen alot of articles and commercials lately that equate a child playing computers or video games or watching tv as fat and lazy.  While this is true in some cases, it’s not the fault of the computers, games and tv, it the fault of the child and the parents.  Our media consumption is just that, something we consume.  We should train ourselves and our children to know when enough is enough and when there has been too much.

I am on my computer from relatively minutes after I wake up until mintes before I go to asleep at night, and most of the day in between.  But I have trained myself, like a good human, to also eat, bathe, exercise and converse with fellow citizens in some way in addition to my media consumption.  Since I have been working from home, this has been more highlighted.  When you leave the house for work or school, you inherently start moving.  Hopefully you continue that movement and try to capitalize on it by riding a bike, walking to your destination or even choosing to park further away to make you walk.  Maybe your job has walking involved, even if it’s climbing the stairs or walking to the printer.  I don’t have to do any of that at home, so I build it into my day, because I know moving and exercise is important. 

My point is, I don’t think kids are learning this in some households.  Just as you have to teach them the reasoning why eating potato chips and cake all day is a bad idea (and it is, if you don’t know that), you also can’t try to scare them from said potato chips and cake all together (because they are delicious and you should eat them sometimes). 

You have to teach them that moderation of their media is also something they need to watch for.  Playing video games for a couple hours will not make your child fat and lazy.  It will probably help your child in infinitely more ways.  But if you don’t explain the reasoning to them, and just punish them from the media, you haven’t done them justice.  They will rebel, as any respectable kid would, and end up playing the game more and STILL not know that there is a reason behind why gaming all the time is a bad idea.

I was a camp director at CyberCamps for a few years.  I taught intro game design, Flash, 3D animation, robotics and other computer skills to rooms of 25 8-15 year olds at a time.  The first day was always the most interesting for me, because their parents dropped them off with me and the kids wanted to bee-line right for the computers.  Oh, the fights I would have with the bold kids who tried to reason with me that their parents paid me to have them on computers, not playing tag.  The silly children didn’t understand that tag was just the format I used to introduce social skills to them.  By the end of the week, they were begging me to shave time off their game design modules so they could play one more game of kick ball or cards with their new friends.  Many of them who figured out my motives actually thanked me by the end of the week for making them realize that you can having computer AND non-computer activites was more fun and interesting, not the opposite.

So please stop demonizing media for lack of comprehensive parenting.  Computers, video games and TV are all cool and make our lives richer and interesting.  Don’t take them away or make them “bad.”  Make sure your kids ALSO have non-plugged-in things that are interesting and that they learn moderation in all things, and I think you will find they will become better people all around.

technorati tags:, , , , , ,

Blogged with Flock