Google Friend Connect

1. Google Introduces Social Bar
   http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/02/12/google-introduces-social-bar
2. Google Friend Connect
   http://www.google.com/friendconnect/
3. Blog example using Google Friend Connect
   http://blog.go2web20.net/Ref1
4. Xoopit adds Facebook data to Gmail
   http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/02/hands-on-xoopit-pokes-gmail-adds-it-to-facebook.ars
   

I'm not jumping on the bandwagon yet; however, I think Google Friend Connect shows good innovation. In many ways it is a reaction to Facebook Connect, but Google, I think, aims at an audience with less technical knowledge. I think that this could be a great step forward. Instead of building a closed space to network, Google Friend Connect essentally lets any site opt in to the network and form a new node. The tools seem more straight forward than Facebook's and allow even the average blogger to leverage the service.

I once spoke about the idea of collaborative reading of a site -- i.e. when you visted a site you might be able to see coments, highlights, margenalia, your friends left on the site. Diigo does something similar right now as a browser plugin, but lacks the ability to tie into a ready list of "friends." I still need to play with Friend Connect more, but if it could allow me to filter content and see just comments by my friends, I think that would be a great step. Further enhancements to allow highlight- and margenalia-sharing among friends would be awesome additions.

Of course, one last way this service would be greatly enhanced is if I could keep all of my Facebook friends. While Xoopit does not focus on Friend Connect, it does bring together Facebook and Gmail in a great new concept. Further (optional) integration with Facebook would be, in my opinion, a win for Gmail and Friend Connect. I do understand wanting to keep a competator a bay; however, as old affrim goes: "keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

Facebook Turns Five

1. Facebook Clocks Fifth Birthday
   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7868403.stm
   
2. Facebook is Five
   http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/02/facebook_is_five.html
   

Facebook turned five on February 4th. There really is not anything new to report, and most of the articles are simple summaries of Facebook's development. I liked the above BBC articles. One looks more at the history of Facebook, and the other details some of the challenges Facebook faces in monetizing its traffic.

Update: 2009-02-13
Why Facebook’s Future Is Mobile
http://gigaom.com/2009/02/10/why-facebooks-future-is-mobile/

With 25 million mobile users, one blogger suggests targeted, location-aware, paid advertisements could be the trick to balance the books.

Sexting

1. Teens who `sext' racy photos charged with porn
   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100252658

I did say a lot was happening recently, didn't I? This is one last new trend I think interesting to investigate. Without too much of my opinion, sexting is a new trend developing as individuals (especially high school students) text message (SMS, multimedia message) friends pictures of themselves in a sexually revealing manner to flirt with/tease one another. Legally, however, these photos may be illegal given the age of many participants. Some prosecutors are charging youth with child porn felonies for sending or receiving such messages.

The NPR story is new, but this trend is a bit older than this blog. Below I pasted some previous notes from older stories on this topic. These notes where written at the beginning of December and represent an amalgamation my interpretations and quotations from the respective stories.

• http://voices.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2008/12/sexting.html
• http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/sextech/teen-voices.aspx
• http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/sextech/PDF/SexTech_Summary.pdf
• http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/12/11/2008-12-11_kentucky_fried_chicken_trio_photographed.html
• http://www.ypulse.com/tag/sexting/

Technology adds distance? Makes more brazen?
One other comment on what I think links the sexting stuff and the KFC story together - the teens on the Today Show sexting story talked about the distance technology adds into the equation, allowing them to do more brazen things than what they would do in real life. I talk about this a lot when I speak on cyberbullying - the girls aren't thinking about photos being passed around or imagining themselves in a room full of teen boys looking at them as they took the photos. Just as the KFC trio didn't think about a co-worker watching them bathe. Technology does make it easier to flirt, bully, share and do other stuff you wouldn't do face-to-face.

• "Sext Me." NBC - 4 KNBC: Video (Los Angeles, CA) December 10, 2008, Local: NewsBank Access World News. . (Video)
  

Just because a message is meant to be fun doesn’t mean the person who gets it will see it that way. Four in ten teen girls who have sent sexually suggestive content did so “as a joke” but many teen boys (29%) agree that girls who send such content are “expected to date or hook up in real life.” It’s easier to be more provocative or outgoing online, but whatever you write, post or send does contribute to the real-life impression you’re making.

Once post can never delete:
Facebook policy, account termination leaves messages, photos, etc.
What control does a consumer have? What control should they have?
Restricting Access, Making redistribution criminal, etc.

The computer mediated communication theory says the absence of social context clues is the major distinction between computer-mediated communication and face-to-face conversation. The theory emphasizes that participants in a computer-mediated conversation often lose attention easily because there is no one physically present to stop them from doing so.

• Sonya Cisneros. "Sunday night 'sext' messages ruining traditional booty calls." Daily Skiff, The (Texas Christian University) (Fort Worth, TX) March 20, 2008, State and regional: NewsBank Access World News. .

The Law and User Content

1. YouTube Copyright System Gone Mad, EFF Prepares to Sue
   http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2009/02/03/03readwriteweb-youtube_copyright_system_eff_action.html
2. EFF Legal Victories
   http://www.eff.org/victories/
3. Free Culture, Lawrence Lessig
   http://www.free-culture.cc/
4. YouTube, AP, Hurting Fair Use
   http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/02/05/youtube-ap-hurting-fair-use
   

YouTube's automated copyright violation identification system, ContentID, has gathered increased attention recently. As Lessig writes in his book, Free Culture, the decision about whether a work violates copyright or is "fair use" used to be made almost exclusively by people, usually a judge. Increasingly, however, this decision is made by computers. YouTube anxious to avoid lawsuits is inclined to take down any borderline content rather than "risk it." Indeed, even innovators/artists you have a legitimate fair use claim may be hesitant to distribute a video lest they be forced to prove that fair use claim--the cost of which is often so prohibitive that the content is more easily taken down.

The video mentioned in the NYT is of a young girl playing the piano and singing Winter Wonderland (a song which incidentally would be in the public domain, but for the US congress retroactively extending copyright in a somewhat constitutionally dubious way: see Eldred v. Ashcroft and the Copyright Term Extension Act).

As these decisions about fair use--whether in the case of user-content take down or digital copy protection on books, music, and movies--are increasingly made by uncompromising machines and not judges/humans. And as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits disabling copy protection technologies, a large part of our historically "free culture" is greatly threatened.

I highly recommend Lessig's book, which has an excellent discussion of what is at stake in this "copyright war".

Location (Again)

1. Did Google Just Kill All the Other Mobile Social Networks?
   http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2009/02/04/04readwriteweb-did_google_just_kill_all_the_other_mobile_social_.html
   
2. Google Latitude: Ready to Tell Your Friends (and Google) Where You Are?
   http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2009/02/04/04readwriteweb-google_latitude_location_aware.html
3. Google Maps Goes Social
   http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/02/04/google-maps-goes-social/?mod=rss_WSJBlog?mod=
4. Tracking Friends the Google Way
   http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123371579418246547.html
5. Privacy fears over Google tracker
   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7872026.stm
   

I still do plan to write on internet divisions created by language, but there was been so many other news stories recently, that that post may have to wait a bit. One new product release generating substantial media attention is Google Latitude. It is a mobile social networking application that runs on (smart) cellphones.

Latitude lets user "check in" and display their location to friends. Mobile social networks are not new (Brightkite, Loopt, and others), but release of automated, location aware technology by a large Internet company is. The user benefits of connecting with a friend who is in town or happens to drop by the same mall where you are is a desirable feature. Likewise, location aware technology is important for Google searches from mobile devices. Thus, if I search "gas" Google could potentially tell me several gas stations in my vicinity and their prices. This location aware technology can be much more accurate than past systems which simply included a zip/postal code to narrow the results.

While PC-based social networks often rely on email address as the unique key, mobile networks might rely on phone number in the future. (Or, as in the case in Japan, where each cell phone has a unique email address that the user chooses this email address may be used. This incidentally is how the Japanese social network Mixi is used, and many Japanese, not having a home computer, primarily access Mixi from their cell phones.)

Adding such additional information into Google's hands worries some. Such data, along with browsing habits gathered from those using the Google Toolbar, search history, shopping data from Google Checkout, etc. creates an ever more complete and revealing picture of users. Currently the US lacks comprehensive laws on how this data may be used, how long it may be retained, and what may be gathered in the first place. Truly this data can be put to beneficial use by refining search results (mobile and PC-based, by integrating location data from mobile phones with the id of a desktop searcher, for example); however, this data could also be put to nefarious use. Without constraining innovation, I think at the very least Congress might act to require company's to disclose in an easily understandable and forthright manner the data gathered, its retention period, and an easy data removal process.

Internets: Division through location, langauge

1. Japanese Social Media Prism
   http://asiajin.com/blog/2009/01/31/japanese-social-media-prism/
   
2. AP IMPACT: Fake 911 calls difficult to prevent
   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100121162

Network Neutrality advocates promote the web as the largest source of free information and argue it must remain that way. Promoting network neutrality in 2007, now President Obama stated, "one of the best things about the Internet ... is that there is this incredible equality there." (CNET) But just how "equal" is the Internet?

I recently posted on CNN blocking international viewers from watching the American Presidential Inauguration. This is not an isolated example. Thus living outside, I cannot use Hulu, Pandora, Amazon UnBox, a long list of US radio stations, and many other services. Similarly, outside of the UK I cannot watch BBC content on the new iPlayer. Outside of the US or Japan anyone can purchase a stream to watch MLB Baseball games live, but within these two countries they will not take your money. In some cases, the division is intentional: as more and more of the "free" web content is ad-supported, providers are looking to restrict it to targeted markets. In other cases, intelectual property law prevents providers from showing content abroad.

iTunes provites an illustrive example. Apple operates a different store for every country. A song released in one country may not be available in another. Likewise iTunes can charge different prices in different locations for the same content. The first restriction may be demanded by content providers; the second is simply in iTunes best interest. Unless a user has a credit card (or gift card) from another location, he/she is barred from entering another country's store. Even then the iTunes Terms of Service expressly forbid access to the service outside of one's country and warn that violation could result in account termination, although I have not heard of this ever happening.

Users in different locations have access to different content and services. Google and other reflect this distinction by running different crawlers in different countries. Thus an identical search on www.google.com, www.google.co.jp, or www.google.co.uk will produce different results. Google.com redirects users to one of the other countries site's based on the users IP Address. This is a numeric identifier that identifies each computer on the Internet. In the same manner that phone location can be faked (see NPR story), so can one's IP address; however, this is not something the average user usually can do.

Through this technologal division and langual divisions (to be dicussed in the future) users are left with access to differing pieces of the Internet (even when wishing to pay for content). Thus it the Internet fractures into many internets.

Other News

1. Ditching Car OK with Net transit planners
   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98841963
   
2. Outdated Security Threatens Web Commerce
   http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/outdated-security-software-threatens-web-commerce/
3. Separating Real from Fake on the Internet
   http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/separating-real-from-fake-on-the-internet/
4. Police 'encouraged' to hack more
   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7812353.stm
5. Virtual Battle of the sexes (Video games and gender)
   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7796482.stm
6. Internet Ready TVs usher web into living room
   http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123111603391052641.html
7. UK email law 'attack on rights'
   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7819230.stm
8. Tip of the Week: Reading Electronic Books
   http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/technology/personaltech/08askk-003.html
   
9. A Software Populist Who Doesn’t Do Windows (Ubuntu as threat to Windows in Developing Countries)
   http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/11ubuntu.html
10. So Plugged in, Yet So Disconnected: Field Notes From Wired America
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/books/12masl.html
11. For Inauguration, Google Plans a Party to Cross Party Lines
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/technology/internet/12google.html
12. The Value of a Facebook Friend? About 37 Cents
    http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/are-facebook-friends-worth-their-weight-in-beef/
13. The High Security Risk Attached to Obama’s Belt
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/technology/internet/12blackberry.html
14. Obama: A New Force In Publishing
    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99316463
15. The Brain, Your Honor, Will Take the Witness Stand
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123205921925787437.html
16. Gaza Conflict Plays Out Online Through Social Media
    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99043190&sc=emaf
17. Broadcasts to mobile devices to start in 22 cities
    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99141613
18. The Art of Making Online 'Friends'
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123128017588258741.html
19. Keynes' Economic Theories Back In Vogue
    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99442205
    

Some abroad disenfranchised

1. Googling the Inaguration
   http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/01/19/guest-blogger-googling-the-inauguration/?mod=rss_WSJBlog?mod=
   
2. Inaugurating Social TV
   http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/inaugurating-social-tv/
   

CNN merged together its live feed and Facebook status updates in an attempt to let users communicate with each other while watching the US Presidential Inauguration. Unfortunately, living abroad, I was blocked from participating. Despite advertising to the contrary, it seems CNN felt the need to block everyone outside of the US from view its live stream. Thankfully other news organisations did permit international users to participate, and I was able to add the social component through direct interaction with Facebook, Skype, and IM.

I think that this event underscores another nasty challenge in the current legal landscape of online video and music. Many services restrict themselves to certain political regions. If the Internet broke down walls and permitted equal access to everyone, recent efforts by some have started to rebuild these (yet inperfect) walls.

Not So Much Read Together: DRM and Amazon

1. Apple cuts copy protection and prices on iTunes
   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99048006
   
2. Amazon takes on Apple with copy-protection-free music
   http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2008-03-25-sony-music-service_N.htm
3. The Rise And Fall Of The Music Industry
   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99312293
   
4. The Futre of Reading
   http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/11/19/the-future-of-reading
   

Amazon found, by many accounts, good success in a competitor to Apple with its DRM-free music store. Unlike iTunes which is restricted to the iTunes player and hence the iPod/iPhone for syncing, Amazon MP3's may be placed on any device. In a recent move, Apple will also be moving to offer DRM-free music.

How long will it take until the eBook industry catches on? Despite its success with DRM-free music, it is arrogently following the iTunes path with eBooks. All Kindle books are DRM protected and cannot be moved to another device. I predict in time we will see another competitor (perhaps Apple, itself) offer DRM-free eBooks (a number of iPhone users report that they enjoy reading on their iPhones).

Time will tell, but I fast see the desire of consumers to control their own data. Consumers seek data that is not restricted to a specific device or format. Once I have purchased a song, movie, book, etc. let me listen, view, read it whereever and however I like. As Cloud Computing inititives grow, the company (probably Microsoft or Google) that can provide the most interfaces to other services is bound to prevail. When I purchase any online content, it should ideally be stored in my online 'cloud' space. While some online storage services have not found success in the past, I think that this collaboration and interaction could tip the scales. As recent economic trends have demonstrated too clearly, companies can go under and when a company holding my DRM protected content does, I lose all the value of my purchases.

Update: January 21, 2009

Just got this update:
Shortcovers, Iceberg Put Latest e-Books On Your Cellphone
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123198329968084069.html

Two two iPhone applications will start selling eBooks for the iPhone. These applications will include old classics along with new-releases. In addition, the article mentions that Apple already has "has hundreds of e-book offerings" in their App Store. No word on the copy-protection status of these eBooks yet.

Facebook and Issues of Trust

1. There’s something going down on Facebook. Pay attention.
   http://squaredpeg.com/index.php/2008/12/18/facebook-pay-attention/
   
2. Facebook nudity policy draws nursing moms' ire
   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98941323
3. Trouble in Twitterland
   http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/01/twitter_arrives.html
4. Gaza crisis spills onto the web
   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7827293.stm
   

I'm behind on news, sorry. Here is a reflection on a few older stories.

I have been wondering a lot about online community. This has become a buzz since social networking, social bookmarking, blogging, etc. became mainstream. Yet, communities exist in other contexts, some of which are older than the newest Web 2.0 craze. Wikipedia, Open Software, Community/PC Support, IRC Chat Channels--all of these provide levels of social interaction, and some may consider their members to form a "community."

The socialological issues of definition aside (for the moment), one of the largest issues confronting communities online is identity. Recent news reported a college recuriting group creating fake accounts on Facebook and founding various Class of 2013 groups. Twitter had 33 accounts hijacked--including that of the US president elect.

Another large issue is differing norms. As recent dissent against Facebook banning pictures of nursing mothers has shown. Strictly speaking, this is where the issues a definition of community come into play. Tonnies writes of community (gemeinshaft) arrising from a "consensus of wills" and shared experiences. He contrasts with with society (gesellschaft) which derives from compromise and the application of rational will. The issue confronting Facebook and other social media sites is how to transition from community to society. Once Facebook communities were relatively isolated and their members, typically college students, did share common experience. Now, however, as the user base grows (and ages) the needs and wishes of their users vary more greatly. There is less common experience between a married, nursing mother and an unmarried, college student. And still less to a high-school male athlete.

Conflicts between user fractions are inevitable. Political conflicts are only one example, but it has become a very real example during the events in Gaza. As the BBC reports, users have found intense discussion, profile defacing, and hijacking of user accounts as fractions argue their points of view.

I am very interested in how the ideas of "online community" develop. Any thoughts?

Read and Watch Together

1. Digital Planet (BBC) 5 Jan. 2009
   http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/digitalp/digitalp_20090106-1232a.mp3
   
2. Bill Burger - Copyright in a New Light (IT Conversations)
   http://feeds.conversationsnetwork.org/~r/channel/itc/~5/504738233/ITC.TOC-BillBurger-2008.02.11.mp3
3. OpenSophie
   http://webcast.oii.ox.ac.uk/?view=Webcast&ID=20080303_235
   

Digital Planet reported on new technologies to allow users to watch videos at the same time and comment in real time via chat. This is similar to ideas already being developed with BluRay players having NIC connections (missing source). It seems once more individualized pursuits are quickly becoming social on the web.

Authoring and reading present further examples. South Africa recently has challenged authors to write novels one chapater at a time and distribute them via cell phones (Digital P.). Eventually this movement's founder hopes this will spark community as many users read and author content.

Bob Stein (Sophie) sees a similar future in reading whereby readers would comment and share marginalia (not necessarily in real time) with each other.

However, it seems a major bar to this type of collaboration is the current state of intellectual property law. It suggested that with social video platforms could enable a class to watch and comment on video simultaneously. The same could happen with course texts and Sophie. However, currently I think IP law presents a bar to such work.

Bill Burger talks about the need for publishing to change and presents new authoring paradigms such as wikipedia, wikitravel, and encyclopedia life. WikiTravel actually allows users to order print versions of its site for specific destinations. One could imagine a future in which a travel itinerary is submitted and a custom book is printed and bound on demand.

Burger, however, envisions a future in which licensing agreements are ubiquitious but content appears "free" to users. Users, he says, will be local to tools and not content. I respectfully disagree. I think the movement is to content not bound to specific tools. AmazonMP3's and iTunes recent changes in licensing and removal of DRM technology underscores this theory. Users want protability and not to be bound to specific tools. Finally, I predict that users will be willing to pay for this portability. Users will seek not to buy new tools, but to leverage existing devices (computers, cell phones, etc.).

*Digg web annotation feature allows a similar sharing of marginalia as users read online content.