Monthly Archives: December 2012

The Web We Lost

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When you see interesting data mash-ups today, they are often still using Flickr photos because Instagram’s meager metadata sucks, and the app is only reluctantly on the web at all. We get excuses about why we can’t search for old tweets or our own relevant Facebook content, though we got more comprehensive results from a Technorati search that was cobbled together on the feeble software platforms of its era. We get bullshit turf battles like Tumblr not being able to find your Twitter friends or Facebook not letting Instagram photos show up on Twitter because of giant companies pursuing their agendas instead of collaborating in a way that would serve users. And we get a generation of entrepreneurs encouraged to make more narrow-minded, web-hostile products like these because it continues to make a small number of wealthy people even more wealthy, instead of letting lots of people build innovative new opportunities for themselves on top of the web itself.

via dashes.com

Open for all, closed for a few. Beneficiaries I mean.

Google???s looming hegemony

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Large utility companies worry about Google. Why? Unlike those who mock Google for being a “one-trick pony”, with 99% of its revenue coming from Adwords, they connect the dots. Right before our eyes, the search giant is weaving a web of services and applications aimed at collecting more and more data about everyone and every activity. This accumulation of exabytes (and the ability to process such almost unconceivable volumes) is bound to impact sectors ranging from power generation, transportation, and telecommunications.

Consider the following trends. At every level, Western countries are crumbling under their debt load. Nations, states, counties, municipalities become unable to support the investment necessary to modernize — sometimes even to maintain — critical infrastructures. Globally, tax-raising capabilities are diminishing.

via mondaynote.com

The reason for the concern, and the solution to the decay of State actors is, Google’s information collection and analysis capability which may become essential to assessing the PPP risk (despite always being underwritten by the tax payer).

NZ Rejects International Telecommunications Treaty Changes

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The ITU has a role in supporting theexpansion of telecommunications infrastructure, andimproving access to this infrastructure for developingcountries. But telecommunications infrastructure and thedata that travels over it are two different matters, and theexisting governance systems work well.

via scoop.co.nz

Spoken like a true structural separatist!

Internet humbles UN telecoms agency

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In the end, the ITU and the conference chair, having backed themselves to the edge of a cliff, dared governments to push them off. They duly did. And without even peeking over, the crowd turned around and walked away.

via news.dot-nxt.com

Another one bites the dust. While this report may romanticise the event, it’s another power struggle lost by incumbents to the masses.

Mannequins May Give Info About Your Holiday Shopping Habits

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Well this is creepy. You already know you???re under surveillance when you enter your local department store but did you ever think the store would enlist mannequins to keep an eye on you? A few locations are testing out specially fitted mannequins that aren???t made for spotting shoplifters but use facial-recognition software to give owners data about their shoppers??? age, gender, and race. 

???Any software that can help profile people while keeping their identities anonymous is fantastic,??? said Uch?? Okonkwo, executive director of consultant Luxe Corp in what???s probably the opposite of what most of you are thinking about this right now. It ???could really enhance the shopping experience, the product assortment, and help brands better understand their customers.???

via themarysue.com

Valley of the uncanny dolls.

US patent lawsuits now dominated by ‘trolls’ -study

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For the first time,individuals and companies that do not themselves make anything -commonly known as “patent trolls” – are bringing the majority ofU.S. patent lawsuits, according to a study by a California lawprofessor.

The sharp increase in this type of lawsuit serves as amilestone likely to exacerbate the tension over patent issuesand increase calls for patent reform and scrutiny of the system.

This year, about 61 percent of all patent lawsuits filedthrough Dec. 1 were brought by patent-assertion entities, orindividuals and companies that work aggressively andopportunistically to assert patents as a business model ratherthan build their own technology, according to a paper by ColleenChien, a law professor at Santa Clara University.

via reuters.com

Innovation, really.

The Hobbit Contract

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There are a couple of reasons why I???ve decided to break our rule and write about the contract.  First, it seems fairly clear (to me, anyway) that Tolkien wrote the Shire (where hobbits live) as a close analog to pastoral England, with its similar  legal and political structures.  For example, the Shire has a mayor and sheriffs, and there is a system of inheritance similar to the common law.  The common law fundamentals of contract law have not changed significantly since the time that the Shire is meant to evoke, so it makes sense that the contract would be broadly similar to a modern contract (and likewise that we could apply modern contract law to it).  Second, reading the contract it seems likely that a lawyer (or at least someone who had read a lot of contracts or did some research) had a hand in writing it.  We will not have to struggle to find legal issues to discuss here; they pretty well leap off the page.

via lawandthemultiverse.com

Designing for the social customer

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Last night I wrote, in the context of customers:

  • They want to be treated like human beings, not account numbers.
  • They want to know they can trust the people they do business with.
  • They want to know that the people they give their business to actually value their business.
  • They want products and services that are fit for purpose, made available at a reasonable price.
  • If and when something goes wrong, they want to know the facts. Quickly. Without window-dressing.
  • They???d like to know what is best for them, so they???d like to talk to their friends and relatives about it.
  • They???d like to know what their friends recommend, and they???d like to recommend things to their friends.
  • They???d like help when something turns out more complicated than they???d expected, or when they???re trying to do something different.
  • And they???d like to know that they???re being treated fairly.
  • In exchange for all this, they are willing to give their custom regularly and loyally. As part of a trusted relationship. Where people buy from people and people sell to people.
  • In exchange for all this, they are willing to become customers.
via confusedofcalcutta.com

In the end, it’s trust.