Techdirt At Supernova

Grok Headline matches for Techdirt At Supernova

Techdirt: Selling On eBay As A PR Tactic

Techdirt: Selling On eBay As A PR Tactic 12/19/2003 02:34 PM
"It just won't stop. If you have something odd or strange to sell the trick is to put it up on eBay. Not just because it's the marketplace where many people go, but big or weird items on eBay are like an automatic ticket to press coverage. So, despite the fact that it's been done before, a town in Arizona is trying to sell itself on eBay. Basically, eBay has become both a selling platform and a publicity platform."

TechDirt Customized News and Analysis

TechDirt Customized News and Analysis 08/17/2004 11:11 AM

Congrats to Tim Bishop and the folks at TechDirt. Nothing like making money - huh?

Techdirt:Who Do You Trust, The Wiki Or
The Reporter?

Techdirt:Who Do You Trust, The Wiki Or
The Reporter? 08/28/2004 06:38 PM
Mike from Techdirt tries to explain Wikipedia to Mr. Fasoldt and receives insults in return .. Dr. Gizmo is going to get himself fired by going around advertising his ignorance .. Who Do You Trust, The Wiki Or The Reporter?

techdirt.com/articles/20040827/0132238_F.shtml
track this site | 4 links

Techdirt predicts lower per track music
prices

Techdirt predicts lower per track music
prices 12/19/2003 02:32 PM
I am of the same opinion that Single song music prices may be headed somewhat downward. It cannot get much...

Techdirt:Compare And Contrast Blogs And
Reuters On Joe Trippi's Speech

Techdirt:Compare And Contrast Blogs And
Reuters On Joe Trippi's Speech 02/11/2004 03:48 AM
calls out the difference .. the full scoop .. Techdirt

techdirt.com/articles/20040209/1755235_F.shtml
track this site | 5 links

Supernova Three

Supernova Three 06/10/2004 12:49 PM
Really looking forward to Supernova 2004 on June 24-25 in Santa Clara. The first Supernova was where we decided to found Socialtext, so its always dear to my heart. The last one introduced me to one of my F500...

SuperNova

SuperNova 06/02/2004 12:53 AM
Our Decentralized Future.

I'll be speaking later this month at Kevin Werbach's Supernova conference in Silicon Valley. Looks like the usual intriguing event.

[Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

Me too!  Should be KEY - I'd recommend everyone to come!

Here comes Supernova

Here comes Supernova 06/22/2004 08:42 PM

As you all are probably well aware of - yet another industry event (at least OUR industry) schmooze fest is coming up this week.

Kevin Werbach has assembled quite an array of pundits, practioners and CEOs. The overall theme is decentralization, but some highlights of this year's agenda include:

- Syndication Nation - with Dave Sifry, Tim Bray, Scott Rosenberg and Paul Boutin sounds like a winner. I'd love to hear what Bray thinks about Technorati's model.

- my old college buddy Robert Poor will be there. Always a treat to see him. He's the CTO and co-founder of Ember. Robert and I went to school together - over 28 years ago.

- it'll be great to meet Niklas Zennstrom - I heard he couldn't enter the country!

- I wonder what Doc's panel on Fighting the Distrbuted Wars will be like?

- The concluding session on back channel loops with Dan Gillmor, Loic and Liz Lawley sounds hot - but I gotta also check out Mr. Shawn Hardin (of AOL Broadband) and see what he thinks he's doing. He's the guy who decided NOT to hire us - after spending over two years trying to help out AOL. I guess his success at NBCi gave him reason to ignore us.

- I like the idea of concluding the conference with a backchannel rap - as that's how the conference continues 24/7/365. That and an on-going Wiki and mail list.

- and last but not least the Digital Identity panel which I'm on should be fun - even though I'd LOVE to be finding out how they're building 'the Matrix'. I get to find out about sxip (which I still can't pronounce) and what people think about FOAF and our FOAFnet efforts.

The whole scene kicks off with a pre-dinner tomorrow night - which has over 110 people signed up. And Joi gets all the credit and he's not even showing up. Now THAT's what I call marketing.

David Weinberger is also not coming.

SuperNova '04

SuperNova '04 05/06/2004 01:38 AM

Supernova 2004, June 24-25 in Silicon Valley. I usually dodge conferences, but for Kevin Werbach and Supernova 2004, I'll make an exception. In fact, I'll be moderating Kevin's Syndication Nation panel discussion on Thursday morning. The central question for panelists: Is there more to syndication than reading 300 blogs at once? [Paul Boutin]

I really hope I can make it to SuperNova.

Supernova Notes

Supernova Notes 06/24/2004 09:14 PM
I’m spending the day at the Supernova 2004 conference; the main reason being a plenary panel on syndication with Dave Sifry, Kevin Marks, and Scott Rosenberg. Some notes on the conference, and on conferences...

Supernova 2004

Supernova 2004 06/25/2004 03:46 PM
le blog officiel sponsoris/parrain .. supernova 2004 weblog .. IT Conversations .. blogging

supernova.typepad.com
track this site | 6 links

Another Super Supernova

Another Super Supernova 06/30/2004 05:48 PM
I'm back and catching up after Supernova, which was spectacular this year.  Other than the flaky WiFi connection (grrrr...) and some other annoyances, it really went as well as I could have hoped.  When a couple dozen people are still in the room, talking, half an hour after the conference wraps up, you know you've made an impression.

Thanks to everyone who helped make Supernova 2004 a success.  If you weren't there, check out the blog for notes and analysis.

We'll be doing something slightly different next year.  All I can say right now is that will take all that's great about Supernova and make it even better.  Stay tuned for details. 

Blogging Supernova

Blogging Supernova 06/24/2004 09:16 PM
Supernova has been a blast so far. Was taking dilligent notes until I realized that the zen master was here. Here is Heath's transcript of my panel. So I'm playing in the Eventspace and IRC...see you there....

Supernova live

Supernova live 06/22/2005 01:50 AM
C-Net has put up its page where the Supernova videoblogcasts (and more) will occur. I fly out there tonight and start vblogging tomorrow morning... [Technorati tag: supernova2005]...

Supernova 2005

Supernova 2005 06/22/2005 02:43 AM

Supernova 2005 starts today in San Francisco. I can't wait.

To the extent I blog during the next few days, it will be on the Supernova 2005 Weblog. And we'll have lots of other great user-generated content on our Community Connection. If you're not attending Supernova in person, that's a great way to follow some of the action happening here at the conference.

Critiquing SuperNova

Critiquing SuperNova 06/25/2004 08:30 PM

The peer-to-peer connections enabled by backchannel communications is the way for conference attendees to get to know each other.

The virtualization of conferences means that we can engage 24/7/365.

Perhaps better speakers, better interaction and less lying would create better experiences.

Sergey at Supernova

Sergey at Supernova 12/12/2002 02:36 AM
Google co-founder spoke at the Supernova Conference this week. Doc Searls blogged it live (scroll down to "Sergey Brin"). Some interesting thoughts....

[Supernova05] At Supernova

[Supernova05] At Supernova 06/22/2005 01:50 AM
I'm at the Supernova conference from which I'll be doing video blogging for C-NET and Knowledge@Wharton. C-NET's coverage is here. The video bloggery is here. [Technorati tag: supernova05]...

FC Now: Schwartz Kicks off Supernova

FC Now: Schwartz Kicks off Supernova 06/22/2005 02:39 AM
Here at the Supernova conference in San Francisco, Jonathan Schwartz is making a case for executive blogging. Schwartz is the president and COO of Sun Microsystems, and he's also probably the highest-profile exec in the Fortune 500 to maintain a...

Supernova 2005 bl0gcast

Supernova 2005 bl0gcast 06/22/2005 02:07 AM
Follow the Supernova 2005 conference from San Francisco via the blogcast -- short video interviews with panelists and attendees -- at http://supernova2005.news.com.

Supernova 2005 bl0g

Supernova 2005 bl0g 03/22/2005 03:33 PM

I'm pleased to announce that the Supernova 2005 weblog is now up and running. You can subscribe to the RSS feed here.

The blog is an integral part of Supernova, which is coming up June 20-22 in San Francisco. Over the next three months, I'll split my time posting here and on the conference blog. As Supernova approaches, we'll be adding additional features and participants to this blog, which is powered by our friends at SilkRoad. We'll also unveil additional online community tools that enhance and extend the physical event.

Frankly, I can't imagine doing a conference these days without a blog. Yet I still see lots of events, even those focused on emerging technologies, that want everything to be a hermetically sealed box around the conference venue. The success of Supernova, along with other "extended" events like ETech, SXSWi, and PC Forum, should be pretty convincing.

The unofficial Supernova.org closure FAQ

The unofficial Supernova.org closure FAQ 12/24/2004 12:46 PM

Lot's of people are now on the search for torrent sites after several of the most popular and well publicized sites were shutdown. It is understandable why as the heat had been turned up by the MPAA. I find it sad that they did not stand up and fight though.

It's tough to stare down the end of a gun barrel that has a 100 lawyers behind it ready to litigate you into financial ruin. I am sure at some point we will get a site willing to fight and find out the legal standing of torrent sites.

The FAQ contains a list of alternative sites and information on the closure. [www.silentdragz.net]

Supernova 2004 video

Supernova 2004 video 06/05/2005 10:58 PM

Jonathan Marks, who attended Supernova 2004 from the Netherlands (and will be joining us again this year), put together a fantastic short video with highlights from last year's conference.

The video gives you a bit of the flavor of the event. And the fact that Jonathan put this together on his own gives you the flavor of the kind of people who attend. I like to say, "There is no audience at Supernova; only participants." This is a perfect example.

Check the video out here: (Quicktime | Window s Media)

Supernova 2005 Website

Supernova 2005 Website 02/05/2005 10:16 PM

We've just launched the new Website for Supernova 2005. Go check it out! Registration, speaking info, and more details are coming soon.

I'm really excited about bringing together deep technology insights and amazing people with Wharton's high-level business visibility. I hope you can join us in San Francisco, June 20-22.

ProNet: Supernova workshops

ProNet: Supernova workshops 06/22/2005 01:55 AM
Congrats to Kevin Werbach on organizing yet another successful Supernova. Having been lucky enough to attend the first two West Coast editions, it's great to see the gathering getting stronger by the year... Yesterday I was part of the workshops...

Supernova: Social Spreadsheets

Supernova: Social Spreadsheets 06/28/2004 03:12 AM

Phil Windler has a report from an interesting panel at Supernova....

These are some comments and thoughts from a panel called "The Network is People." Esther Dyson, Ray Ozzie, Mena Trott, and Christopher Allen were the panelists.

Spreadsheets were amazing because they sit in the middle, between calculators and the corporate accounting system. They let people not just change the numbers, but to change the models and to build new models. The power of the spreadsheet is the power to persuade people (some might say "beat them into submission"). Spreadsheets are as much about group interaction as presentation software is.

Social networks have a problem in that they let you record relationships, but they don't give you power to control interactions. They provide too many opportunities for "friend inflation." They don't accurately reflect people's real social networks. What we need is a "wiki for transactions." We need a way for users to manage their workflow in a flexible way--a spreadsheet for social interactions.

Would you rather have ten networks with 700,000 people in them or 700,000 networks with ten people in them? This is an interesting question. Linked-In is the first. Blogs are the second.

[Phil Windley]

Esther's idea for a social software spreadsheet are right on. She wants someone to be able to author their own sequence of events to 'script' their own social software actions. Sort of like roll your own LinkedIn.

She said this right after folks were attacking the entire premise of explicit social networking - saying that it was too artificial for expressing real-life relationships.

But I say that without explcit social networking - we'll never be abel to deliver Esther's social software spreadsheet.

Supernova pre-conference bl0gs

Supernova pre-conference bl0gs 06/15/2004 11:50 AM
Kevin Werbach's Supernova Conference has set up blogs for the panels. (Disclosure: I am consulting to one of the conference's sponsors.)...

supernova 2004 webl0g

supernova 2004 webl0g 06/22/2004 09:57 PM
be sure to check out the typepad moblog, too, where you can send your pictures

Supernova '05: "Perspective: Jonathan
Schwartz"

Supernova '05: "Perspective: Jonathan
Schwartz" 06/24/2005 09:23 PM

Since yesterday morning I've been hanging around at Supernova and I've been taking some fairly intensive notes, but I've not yet had the opportunity to write any of it up. Over the next hour or so, I hope to put up some of my reactions from the last day and a half of the conference. I'm a little unclear as yet whether I'll be posting the full notes that I've been making for each part of the conference. I guess we'll see. They're not always of the most enormous value.

For people who don't know, the core idea behind Supernova and the concept of the conference i decentralisation and the effects of network. I guess the metaphor is of the aftermath of the exploded centre, where top-down governance and control gives up its power (by choice or by force) to the new many-to-many network where power and agency operates at the edges. The conference takes that fundamental concept and looks at its application across a whole range of different subject areas - from social software and personal publishing, search, telecoms, gaming, business, media as well as around meta-areas like how individuals deal with this radically different vision of the world. I think by necessity this creates a kind of weirdly diverse conference that attracts radically different types of people whose relationship to each other isn't always easy. So you've got the business people, the alpha geeks, the legislators, the military, the policy people and the academics talking about things from very different angles. Which means that any individual part of the audience is likely to be frustrated at some points, bored at other points and insanely fascinated for the rest of the time.

I'm going to start with a brief bit of coverage of a discussion between Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems and Kevin Werbach of Supernova. The two major areas of this discussion were really about about whether or not Web 2.0 was a reality (the answers to which were relatively anodyne) and a much more interesting discussion about future business communication with weblogs.

I kind of take my life in my hands a bit every time I go off on a discussion about weblogs after six years of writing this site, but sometimes it really does seem that there genuinely still more that can still be said around the edges. Here are a few really telling quotes (probably mistranscribed) from Schwartz that I noted down during his piece:

I've learned a lot of things. If you think about what a leader does, you're fundamentally a communicator. You have to be able to communicate to the marketplace to the people who report to you - there is no efficient way of doing that than using the network - using the internet. If you want to be a leader, I can't see you surviving without a blog. It's like being a leader without having e-mail or a mobile phone. You still find them very occasionally, but it's moving away. It's very rare.

Authenticity is absolutely paramount. Getting poeple to write your blogs is ridiculous. It's like hiring people to read your e-mail. You might be able to get away with it, but it's kind of like pushing a rock up a hill...

When I first heard Schwartz talking in these directions, I genuinely didn't know what I thought about it. In my experience weblogs inside organisations don't tend to be terribly interesting or useful and only a limited number of people participate with them. I was going ready to treat his comments with a similar scepticism (particularly given some of his earlier comments about authentication and the future of the web which were pretty banal), but he blew my suspions out of the water with some of his later comments. When challenged about whether he was only talking about communicating with the company internally or doing it in full view of the public, he said something really interesting.

For a start, he said that in the near future he wanted to start doing all his communications via his weblog. Then he moved on to addressing this internal / external dichotomy. He mentioned a particular case where particularly good employees had their names and photos put up on an intranet celebrating their achievements. Instead of this he suggested that it should be done completely in public. He said that some people had suggested that this might mean that the staff concerned would just be poached by other companies but he responded that good people would always be open for poaching. And here's the interesting bit - he said he had no interest in an internal weblog, that he wants it to be completely transparent and that while he was aware that this approach and celebrating his employees achievements in public might to his competitors knowing what he was doing, it also meant that their employees could see it too - and they can then use that to decide if he's a more attractive leader with better policies and a vetter vision of the future.

This is a view of the world that I really like - it doesn't limit your ability to have particular specific projects operating under the radar, but it's an acceptance that large-scale strategy and communications about your company as a whole is never secret. And rather than treating that as a weakness or as a problem, it turns and faces it directly. It let's people see the way you run your company and encourages people to question and interrogate it - creating a virtuous circle of improvement and self-awareness inside organisations that raises the whole level of the debate. For everything else you might say about Sun, this is a noble idealistic and inspiring aspiration. Very cool.

[You can read my very rough notes on this interview as it happened her e.]

Headed back to Supernova again next week

Headed back to Supernova again next week 06/18/2004 03:42 AM
I had told myself no more geek and/or digerati conferences this year. Too much money spent (and too little coming in) already. Also, I sometimes find being at the conferences difficult because, unlike so many other people there, I don't have anything to sell. I don't have an idea or product that I am trying to promote. I just like to learn. In addition, I'm pretty shy -- I've sat next to Esther Dyson, sat behind John Gilmore, and had lunch sitting next to David Weinberger, all people I admire tremendously, and barely exchanged a word with them. However, when the opportunity to do a little work for Mike Masnick of Techdirt at Supernova 2004 came up, I jumped at the chance. Reporting is a role I am very comfortable with, and something I enjoy doing. Plus, Supernova 2002 was the first tech future conference I ever went to, and it was one of the best. Kevin Werbach has a pretty good finger on the pulse of technology, and he is very well connected. In the depths of the tech recession, he brought together a lot of very smart and interesting people to talk about the future of technology, and there were some great moments. Certainly a lot of the themes that were discussed at that first conference have blossomed since - decentralization, citizen journalism, (lousy, IMHO) social software, and a world of pervasive connection to the internet (it was the first conference that I went to besides the Wireless Planet conference that had Wi-Fi, or 802.11b as we called it back then). Supernova was also the place where for the first time I got to see in person a lot of the people whose writing I had been reading for years, which was fun. It was where, in spite of my shyness, I made friends with two of the nicest journalists in technology, Mike Masnick and Glenn Fleishman, and met one of the most prominent journalists, if not the cheeriest, Dan Gillmor. It looks like this time Kevin has assembled another interesting group of smart people as speakers, and looking at the wiki, I imagine that Supernova 2004 will be a reunion of sorts, as well as an opportunity to see and hear a bunch of new people. I'm looking forward to it, to seeing some of you again, and to learning and reporting back on what I...

Guess Who's Coming to Supernova, Part I

Guess Who's Coming to Supernova, Part I 02/10/2004 02:47 AM
One of the best things about doing a conference like Supernova is the opportunity to assemble some of the most fascinating, insightful people I know in one room. It makes me excited just to attend!

The speakers for this year's event are looking particularly good. He'll be there. And her. Oh, and his dad (aka this guy). And we're just getting started....

I guess Meg's not coming to Supernova

I guess Meg's not coming to Supernova 06/21/2004 02:56 AM

Word s that I don't care about*
In Technology

RSS, Atom, Typepad, Movable Type, Blogger, blogs, weblogs, XHTML, software, Google, feed, any number like "2.0" etc., and computer.

* Right now, with the caveat that maybe in the future I will care about them again but maybe not.

[Megn ut]

I was thinking of doing a bunch of "micro-content" dinners on my roadshow at the end of the summer.

No one would be allowed to talk about status quo bloggy kind of issues. We'd only allow discussions of FOAF, OpenReviews, OpenEvents, Openmedia, OpenReputations, OpenListings, PeoplesDNS, PeopleAggregator, DLA kind of issues.

New kinds of everything, but not blogging.

Supernova early registration deadline

Supernova early registration deadline 05/11/2004 04:32 PM
Supernova 2004 is just six weeks away. This Friday, May 14, is the deadline to save $300 on registration, so sign up today!

I'm pretty excited about the lineup of speakers, including:

• Industry gurus such as Ray Ozzie, Esther Dyson and Clay Shirky.
• The new president (and heir-apparent) at Sun.
• The Bush administration's top telecom policy official.
• The elusive head of disruptive VOIP startup Skype.
• Creators of amazing blogging, syndication, and collaboration tools.
• Leading visionaries in fields like grid computing, software-defined radio, and social network analysis.
  

And frankly, the attendees are just as impressive -- and as important to the Supernova community -- as the people on stage. Unlike some conferences, Supernova is highly interactive: during, in between, and after the official sessions. We use blogs and other social software tools to create a parallel "virtual event," enhancing the experience for those present and providing a window in for those who aren't.

OK, gotta get back to work nailing down the final pieces of the program. Stay tuned for more info here and on the forthcoming Supernova 2004 blog.

Supernova Imaged by Hubble Telescope

Supernova Imaged by Hubble Telescope 09/05/2004 10:26 PM

Stealth Disco attack at Supernova

Stealth Disco attack at Supernova 06/25/2004 03:35 PM

Lois Le Meur (zat crazeee Frenchman) has just gone up to the stage to photograph James Seng (zat creazee guy from Singapore) stealth discoing...

The backchannel is happening now that bandwidth is working. Come on in at IRC Freenode #supernova.

Move coverage of this disruptive event.

Save the date -- Supernova 2004

Save the date -- Supernova 2004 01/07/2004 05:24 PM
Supernova 2004, my conference on the decentralization of software, communications, and media, will be held June 24-25 in the San Francisco Bay Area.  The first two Supernovas were incredibly successful, and this one should be the best yet.  Stay tuned for more details.

Supernova Party in Santa Clara June 23

Supernova Party in Santa Clara June 23 06/19/2004 06:08 AM

This is a pre-dinner/party for Supernova 2004 at the Santa Clara Westin June 24-25. (But you can come to the party if you're not attending the conference!) Joi will be in Tokyo, but with us in spirit -- and perhaps more directly....

Location and Time

Mayuri
2232 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA 95050
Tel: (408) 248-9747

Wednesday, June 23
Cocktails at 6:00pm; dinner starting at 7:00pm

See the wiki for more details and to sign up. I can't make it, but am trying to sort out a way to be there virtually. ;-)

Supernova '05: "Apps. for a Mobile,
Connected World"

Supernova '05: "Apps. for a Mobile,
Connected World" 06/24/2005 09:22 PM

Hm. So I spent a good forty-five minutes yesterday writing the next post in my series on Supernova '05, only to lose it catastrophically when Safari collapsed under the weight of 150 open tabs. So this will probably be a slightly shorter version of that post. It may also benefit from having had more digestion time. Who knows.

The first panel of the day was "Applications for a Mobile, Connected World" and featured Lili Cheng of Microsoft, Caterina Fake of Flickr, Amy Jo Kim of SocialDesigner.net, Mena Trott of Six Apart and Evan Williams of Odeo. The area that these people stake out between them could probably be summarised as individual-focused social software, weblogs/personal publishing and amateurised media distribution. All these subjects are very close to my heart and many of the people on the panel are my peers and friends. So again, I should probably throw out a quick warning about perspective and potential bias from the start.

Looking back on the panel, it basically fell into discussions about three main areas: (1) The individual's creation of media, what it means to them and how it can be supported; (2) The effects of taking that personal creation and embedding it in a wider social context - what new things become possible; (3) The role of human psychology, trust and trusted networks in the whole enterprise.

Discussion about individual creation really started with some comments from Ev - probably doubly appropriate because both his work with Noah Glass at Odeo and his previous life at Blogger confront these issues head on. He started off the session by saying, "at Odeo we're here to enable lots of the ideas that we saw with blogging and to take them to a new medium". His starting point was the individual's participation in media in general and their ability to create and share media of their own. As an example of how that could be immediately harnessed, he cited the work that Amazon undertook in enabling participation and the enormously positive effect it had on their business.

Between them, Caterina, Amy Jo, Mena and Lili focused more on the individual's desire to express their identity online and to capture memories. Caterina pointed towards Friendster as the moment when the idea of creating a digital presence for yourself suddenly stopped being strange, alien and geeky. She said, in a comment that I personally found very resonant, that "When I first started weblogging, people thought it was very strange".

Amy Jo picked up on this idea of expressing identity, saying that user-generated content - specifically in her case focused on games - was an incredibly important form of expression and that it was appearing at a whole range of new and interesting registers from overtly publishing in weblogs to the more tacit expression through playlist sharing on services like iTunes.

Mena really brought memories to the fore. She stated that she wished she had a record of everything that had happened in the first twenty-seven yearas of her life like she has since she first started weblogging. She revealed that she takes a picture of herself every day as a hook to hang her memories around - saying that she could see immediately her mood and her background and her surroundings and very quickly get a sense of what she was feeling at that precise moment, even years after the fact... Although there was a bit of scepticism in the backchannel about this concept, Lili Cheng supported it very rapidly by talking about how important she felt it was to capture as much information about what you were doing as possible (presumably connected to her work on Wallop and/or to Microsoft's stuff around MyLifeBits). Her position was really interesting - saying that it was very difficult to know which memories you were going to come to cherish in the future and that having these records gave you a structure to narrativise around.

Later, in the question and answer session, an audience member expressed their anxiety that their weblog wouldn't be there in twenty years time - that it would get lost somehow - and said that they would find that 'devastating'. Mena answered that with a really interesting characterisation of SixApart as a company that 'held memories' for their users. She said they took that responsibility very seriously.

In terms of the social dimension, the panel focused on two major areas - the increasing desire to communicate in small groups of real-life friends and the larger implications / possibilities of being embedded in space where your actions became part of something larger and more powerful. Caterina was particularly interesting. She talked about how one of Flickr's major selling points was the sharing aspect and that this is what differentiated it from the other photo-publishing services online. She pointed out that 80% of all photos on Flickr were public. And she moved on to say that many technologies developed entirely new possibilities when connected to social networks. Her prime example here was the folksonomic tagging approach that Flickr and del.icio.us have pioneered - and she pointed out that this was generating an entirely new way of organising and categorising content online. This wouldn't have been possible with the substrata of the social networking functionality.

Mena and Lili were the particular evangelists of the power of communication within small groups rather than to the world at large. One quote from Mena rang particularly true:

"One of the biggest things that I've been able to see - this whole idea of inward conversations - smaller audiences really matter. I believe that this internal-facing weblog is really important - the kind of conversaiton that you're goign to have with smaller audiences is different to conversations you have in public. We really realised this when we bought LiveJournal this year. An audience of six people really matters to a lot of people.

Lili took this even further by talking about the qualities of the conversations themselves, pointing towards a concept of 'energy' and suggesting that this quality was something that she was now able to move into the rest of Microsoft's work:

"Sometimes you want to find a critical mass in really small circles. What's most important is whether I'm having a dialogue with people which feels like it has energy?

At this point, Ev Williams came up with a point to balance this discussion, talking a bit about his time at Blogger again:

"Of course there are a lot of people out there who only write for strangers. We used to put everyone's name under their posts and people used to really protest. They didn't want people in their every day life seeing stuff they'd written online.

But probably the biggest focus of the panel, and a recurring theme of the conference as a whole was the concept of 'trust' and what it meant. This was a more heavily contested area - related to the idea of social networks and small groups but understood differently by different people. Caterina made a particularly nice high-level and inspiring comment about trust that I enjoyed:

"It's trust that enables us to go out in the world. It's the thing that makes the internet possible."

A slightly more formally expressed and nuanced position (but perhaps a less practical one to implement) came from Amy Jo:

"You don't build trust by 'throwing crap up on your website', even though a lot of the work that people are doing is foundational in building trust - personal control in who sees what. Trust is contextual - I trust my husband to be a good man and a good guy, but I don't trust him to get the right kind of bleach. it's contextual, it's not global.

Finally - moving on from the concept of trust - one other interesting comment came from Ev Williams when talking about the future of podcasting. I'm not completely sure that I agree with it. It was in response to a question from audience about the future of podcasting. His response:

"The future of podcasting is not on the pod but on the phone - and it takes these ideas not only to a new medium but to a whole new audience".

I've heard this particular sentiment from a lot of people recently, but as yet it seems to me entirely unproven. As I understand it, radios on phones have - on the whole - not been an enormous success to date - whether that's because of implementation or use cases is unclear to me at the moment. But podcasting to phones also feels like something whose time is further off, when the handset has been more substantially abstracted from the concept of voice / data connectivity. But that's all speculation, and probably a good point to end this particular batch of notes.

[You can find my full notes from the session here]

Supernova Remnant Still Spewing Energy
After All These Years

Supernova Remnant Still Spewing Energy
After All These Years 06/17/2005 03:48 PM

Grok Description matches for Techdirt At Supernova
GrokA matches for Techdirt At Supernova

Techdirt At Supernova

The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry: