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Friday, April 11, 2008

The web around me

Gapingvoid did a webcomic about why he deleted his twitter account. This is interesting to me. Lately I have been less active on my blog. I know this has to do with being engaged. I spend a lot of time with Kate. Even when I am sitting at my computer, I cannot just whip up a good blog entry. It takes time and a lot of effort. What I want to say is just not on the top of my head. It takes a little drilling for me to get to.

I have a twitter account. It is an interesting communication tool and it is worth using for me. It just not the same as a blog. I spend much of my time just deleting messages. Most of the time I am using it on my phone. While it is entertaining, it really makes the rest of text messaging less useful to me.

Twitter at its best feels like a really good short blog, cutting through all the crap. The problem is that is rarely feels that way. Most of the time it is just people talking too much. It seems like less worth my time than reading blogs.

I am not sure if I stopped twittering I would write or read more blogs. Twitter is like a lot of web 2.0 things, I like it, but I will it was more useful.

Labels: blog, flickrpost, gapingvoid, Twitter, web, Web 2.0

- Rich, 8:07 PM

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Wishing for better

Life
Originally uploaded by earthdog.

A few years ago, when web 2.0 was a new term and not beaten into the ground, an Apple Engineer told me that Apple does not understand the web. His example to me was iTunes. At the time he told me that he wanted iTunes to be more like Flickr and less like a retail store.

At the time I remember him being right. As time has gone on, he has become more and more right. I feel that iTunes is a good program, but it is missing the chance to be a great program. It is missing the chance to be a true music portal. It is missing the chance to be a true media portal.

Over the past couple of months I have really be into podcasts. The problem is that I use three different computers, My laptop, my desktop, and my work computer. WIth iTunes now I have three different lists of pod cases. A different lists on each computer. iTunes is an internet system. I should be able to have a single podcast list no matter what computer I am on. Even if I do not have all the podcasts set to download on each computer.

I have an account on iTunes, but there is very little I can do with that account. Instead of creating a killer web app, Apple has create a store front. Many people might say that is all they need to created. If Apple created a killer web app they would have a way to increase their sales. It would be easy to see the benefit of sharing my iTunes collection with my friends. Being able to share information with myself would be a great tool. Now I have the same podcast on one than one machine.

I really think the web is the future. Software is going to be replace replaced by services. Hardware needs to take advantage of those services. Apple is both a hardware and a software company. They have made an incredible comeback over the last couple of year. I think they are leaving a lot on the table by not understanding the web.

Labels: apple, iTunes, podcast, social network, web, Web 2.0

- Rich, 3:44 PM

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

The blog grave yard

The other day I did a search for how many dead blogs are there? I am interested in this because I have been looking at old Sad Salvation entries. There are lots of blog entries I point to blogs that are no longer there. That made me think about dead blogs and extinct blogs. The difference between the two are is that dead blogs are still sitting there in cyberspace not being updated, extinct blogs are missing from cyberspace. I know I am making up these terms. I feel that dead blogs and extinct blogs are different from each other and should be seen that way. If you have better terms for these things let me know.

I found an blog post about dead blogs that points to an article about dead blogs. I think that both of these things are pretty interesting. There is no shame that the rate of growth of blogs has slowed. I think we have not entered the second phase for blogging yet. I think the story of blogs and the impact on society is far from over. I think that is the important thing. Even if there are a lot of dead blogs out there, what matters is that readers still find blogs to read.

Everything on the web should be permanent, but it is not. There are hosting fees and URL registration fees. If you do not keep those things up your blog will go away even after it is dead. The information can be lost. Now my blog points to sites that are no longer there.

Now, everything comes with a blog. Almost Every social network site has a blogging feature that goes along with it. Sites from MySpace, Last FM, to OK Cupid have blogs. I cannot create enough content for the blogs I already have. There is no way to create a new blog for every site I sign up for. As web 2.0 kicks in, a new phase of blogging is going to start. I think that this blogs are going to different than the last generation off blogs. I think the users will be less invested in them and they will go dead at a much faster rate. I also think there will be a lot more private friends only blogs with social network sites.

I think we will see more changes if micro blogging like Twitter catches on. I think we will see a different level of blogging. I think we do not know what changes that will bring.

Even if there are a lot of dead blogs, blogs are not going away. Even if the rate of growth of blogs have slowed, it does not mean the change created by blogs is going away. The promise of blogs is that anyone can get their message out there. If you are good enough people will read you. I think the Huffington Post is a great example of how blogs have changed the world. Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer did not have to create a magazine or get a show on a cable network to get their message out there. I think this revolution will not end even if the trend of everyone having a blog ends.

Labels: blog, dead blog, web, Web 2.0

- Rich, 3:41 PM

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Censorship, Social Networking, Nation States, Web 2.0, and Flickr

There is currently a big hoopla over at flickr about Censorship of photos at Germany. It appears that you cannot turn off the Safe Search filter in Germany

Note: If your Yahoo! ID is based in Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong or Korea you will only be able to view safe content based on your local Terms of Service so won’t be able to turn SafeSearch off.

This has caused a big dust up at Flickr. There are lots of users that are upset about this. It seems to be going past the level of people who think "any content filtering on the internet is censorship" crowd. There seems to be a lot of average users who are up in arms about this. Flickr is all about sharing photos. It is easy to see why people are upset.

This is a great story, because there are lots of stories here. The ones that are the most interesting to me is how Flickr SafeSearch works. It is an all or nothing filtering system. You cannot mark why something should be filtered. Content is not marked for sex or violence, you cannot mark things not work safe, you cannot mark things based on appropriate age range. It is only marked for Safety Level.

1. Safety Level

* Safe - Content suitable for a global, public audience
* Moderate - If you're not sure whether your content is suitable for a global, public audience but you think that it doesn't need to be restricted per se, this category is for you
* Restricted - This is content you probably wouldn't show to your mum, and definitely shouldn't be seen by kids

The second story is how Flickr reacts to these things. With a community bases site things spread like wildfire. This fire has been burning for 18 hours. The users are all over the place why this happening. There seems to be no answer of why this happening. It is true that this has been happening while Flickr is on a world tour rolling out in new countries in new languages. It sounds like a bad way to launch a product. Right now the users are fending for themselves. There is no voice of the company saying why these things are happening.

All of the recent censorship issues at flickr seems this way. The users are on their own to speculate about why things happen. Flickr seems slow to respond of why things have happened. I think they need to show the users more of how the sausage is made. I think it would be better for the users to know how the company is going to react. At last we would not be in the dark.

The last interesting story here is about the future of world wide social networks. I think this story is just the tip of the iceberg. I think we are going to start to see the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 in these kinds of censorship stories. If I just posted all of my photos on my website and those photos broke some German law, it would be very hard for Germany to act against me. They might block my website, but they cannot shut me down or have my message taken off the web. They would have a hard time taking me to court. If I am using a service like flickr, Germany have a much easier time using the force of law against that company. They have a much clearer path to shut them down or sue them to take action.

I am not sure what other web 2.0 companies do. I am not if any of them have a real global reach. I am not sure what would happens to people who break German laws on YouTube.

I think there are more of these stories to come. I think we are going to see more companies have to chose between their users and local laws. It will be interesting to see this play out. What will Flickr do? What will other web 2.0 companies do? What is the right thing to do and what will be done?

Labels: censorship, flickr, Germany, law, social network, Web 2.0

- Rich, 5:03 PM

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Censorship, Community Filters, Parental Controls, and Flickr

flickr still not fixed?
Originally uploaded by violet.blue.

There has been a lot of blogging lately about Flickr and Censorship. Flickr is the favorite photo site of much of the blogging crowd. Flickr was the first photo site that understood social networking and community. It gave them a big head start over everyone else.

One thing that gets a lot of attention is when people think that Flickr is censoring them. Last month there was a big dust up when Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir had one of her photos deleted. The photo could be restored but none of the comments could be restored. Her are Rebekka's final thoughts on the flickr event.

I want to say here that I loath calling what Flickr is doing censorship. I was always thought that censorship we denying someone their right to free speech. To truly deny that you need force of law, force of violence, or force of economics. Flickr has none of these things. There is nothing stopping a Flickr user from posting their photos someplace else. Flickr users are not a captive audience, they can go anywhere else on the web to see photos. A business can set their standards what ever way fits their business model, as customers we can vote with our wallets. Censorship to me are things like insult laws and journalist getting killed.

Yesterday I read that Violet Blue received a message that her account was being moderated. Some of her photos were being blocked by safe filters on Flickr. Over the last few months on flickr I have noticed that a lot of photos get blocked by these filter. Few of the blocked photos are pornographic. Many I cannot figure out why they are being blocked at all. Violet Blue is a sex writer, but most of her photos are not unsafe. Some are risque, but she has some good questions about why they were blocked.

To be honest, I have no problem with Flickr blocking photos. They have a business they need to run. They need to create a landscape where families feel welcomed. They need to be able to offer their service to the wider world. I understand why they want to have some rules.

My problem is with how vague the Flickr Community Guidlines are. They want people to figure it out themselves. This worries me some. I feel in a situation like this you have to spell out users rights. This means that as a member of the community I can complain if I do not like the political or moral message of a photo. I do not have to respect anyone's rights. Every photo I don't like I can say it should be blocked.

The Flickr Filters page is a perfect example of this.

How do I know if I'm doing the right thing?

What an excellent question.

Flickr will never be able to provide a comprehensive list of what content should fall in which bucket. This is simply impossible to do on a global scale.

That's why we wrote the Community Guidelines, to give you a sense of the sort of things that are allowed or not, and what will happen if you publish content that doesn't follow those guidelines.

The most important thing for you to remember when you're moderating your own content is that Flickr is used by millions of people of all ages from all over the world. We're relying on you to use your best judgement about whether or not you think the content you publish would be offensive to anyone in this enormous public space. If you even have a hint of a doubt, you should use a different safety level.

The other simple question is whether or not you'd feel comfortable showing the content you publish to a child, or your mother, or someone you're sitting next to on a bus. If the answer is no, the content should be restricted.

If it turns out that you judge "the right thing" poorly, the community will probably speak out. If we receive complaints about your content, we will take action, in line with the Community Guidelines. You really should take a moment to read them.

Hey, I want some guidelines. I want to know when I am on the wrong side of the line. Flickr is a world wide community. Anyone in the world can see my unfiltered photos. That means that standards should be easy to set. Either I can have a woman in a bathing suit, which would be fine in the US, but considered wrong in Saudi Arabia or I cannot.

There are two things I want from Flickr:

1) Better defined guide lines. If you are going to have rules you need to protect your users rights also. You need to give me the right to political photos and social photos that other people might find offensive.

2) A tool to report photos that are behind the SafeSearch filter that seem they should not be there. I have seen photos of cats, apartments, and cars where I have to click through the safe search filter. I would like to be able to report when I think the safe search filter is wrong. I would like other people to request this of Flickr also.

I found this via Thomas Hawk.

Labels: censorship, filter, flickr, flickrpost, not censorship, rules, Thomas Hawk, Violet Blue, Web 2.0

- Rich, 12:15 PM

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Sing Your Life

The other day I was describing Midomi to Eric. For him these website is a version of hell. It is a web site where you can listen to amateurs sings acapella versions of songs. If you want to, you can record your own versions of the songs and post them on the site.

I can best describe this web site as an old fashion time suck. The kind of time suck that have become an art in the age of the internet. I keep on searching for more and more songs. There is something about listening to these songs that is just addictive.

For the most part cover songs are about truth. There is some other truth to that song that you never heard before. Really good covers makes you think something totally different about the original version. It is not that these versions have showed me any new truth about these songs. Most of the tracks you hear either how much the people love the song or how they really want to sing it well.

Every couple of tracks I hear something, like the person is almost showing me new truth. They are not quite there, but they are close enough for me to listen to another 10 songs or so. Every time I am about to give up, there is one more track, that track that grabs you, that track that puts a smile on your face and makes you think this is not so crazy, that track that makes you think you will find that special thing you are looking for. After that track I listen to 10 more.

I know this site is not for everyone, but I also know that some of my friends will fall under Minomi's spell.

Labels: audio, midomi, music, recording, singing, song, Web 2.0

- Rich, 7:40 PM

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Who is Reading Sad Salvation?

On the Sunday edition of the Mercury News there is a tease banner of 'Who Is Reading Your Blog?' The story is in the Perspective section. The column is about how people are obsessed with who is reading their blog, looking at their photos, watching their video, and visiting there myspace page. Views are one of the main currencies of the web. The numbers of views you get is the amount of attention we are getting.

I do not worry too much about who is reading Sad Salvation. I figured out a long time ago that I am a not going to be an A, B, or C-List blogger. I have always seen myself as a K-List blogger. My technorati rank is around 400,000 and I do not see it going up anytime soon. For whatever reason, I do not appeal to a mass audience. I know that people are reading it because I am getting comments from time to time.

I am obsessed about views when it comes to Flickr. Views are my main driver. I care that my median view does not drop. It has been slowly climbing this year. It seems to be stuck between 40 to 38. I have a group for photos that I think should have 100 views. For some reason I get the most reward out of people looking at my photos.



There is one quote in the story which I found interesting.

One concern, however, looms on the horizon for all those creators: In a world where everyone is busy churning out videos, blog entries, and podcasts (and counting the number of people who tune in), do we run the risk of having no one left to watch?

Yes, I spend much more time working on Sad Salvation than I do reading blogs. I spend much more time working on my photos than I send on looking at other people's photos. I am more focused on me than I am on other people. I guess that is part of why I like being a blogger.

Labels: blog, flickr, flickrpost, sadsalvation, technorati, views, web, Web 2.0

- Rich, 4:25 PM

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Comments, Censoring, Photos, & Flickr

Flickr = Censorship
Originally uploaded by Thomas Hawk.

Thomas Hawk is making a big deal about Flickr deleting a photo and the corresponding comments from one of their users. He says that Flickr deleting the photo and the comments is censorship. I will step outside my usual idea that only the government can truly censor someone. Flickr/Yahoo cannot keep Rebekka from posting the photo someplace else. They cannot keep the users from commenting someplace else about this photo.

I will say that if any internet user expects to own the comments, they need to own where the comments are being placed. My blog does not have an end user license agreement. I am the person who backs up my pages and my comments. That is the only way I can really control it. Flickr is not a co-op. I do not have an equal say on what happens and I do not have a say if they think I broke the rules. Flickr is a business and I am their customers. Like business and customer relationships, there is asymmetrical power.

I will not make fun of Thomas Hawk for his protest. He is trying to change the way Flickr does business by applying pressure. This often can change how a business works. I as a customer thinks the best thing I can do it take my business elsewhere if I have a problem.

In the end this is not a rights issue. Flickr is well within its rights to do what it did. Since they are not a monopoly we can all take our business elsewhere if we choose.

Labels: censorship, comment, flickr, flickrpost, Thomas Hawk, Web 2.0

- Rich, 8:23 PM

Monday, January 29, 2007

Tags, They Are It!

Flickr, del.icio.us, YouTube, Vox.

Which web site/tool has the best tag system?

What do you like about tag systems?
What do you dislike?
What would you have as part of a tag system?

I have been thinking about tags lately. I have the feeling that people do not see all the ways other people use tags. I am trying to understand.

Labels: tags, web, Web 2.0

- Rich, 8:47 PM

Saturday, September 16, 2006

What is Web 2.0

I was at the SFlickr meetup and ... was asking people for a definition of Web 2.0. At first no one could define it. I said that web 2.0 is just tags. The were only one succinct answer, Web 2.0 web sites are focused around user contributed content.

I was struck at how easy that answer was. If I think about the Web 2.0 sites that I use, they are about about user content. Look at YouTube, Yepp, del.icio.us, dodgeball, Upcoming.org, and Flickr. All of the interactions on these sites are about users sharing information. There is nothing to share information about if there is no content.

I think something has changed in the way people have been using the internet over the last two years. About four years ago users started to take control again. Now websites are trying to fine way to give users control in ways that are useful. I think that is what Web 2.0 really is.

Labels: content, Dodgeball, flickr, tags, upcoming.org, web, Web 2.0, yepp, you tube

- Rich, 5:24 PM

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Yelp Moment

I had a very strange Yelp moment the other day. I was having lunch at my favorite lunch time pizza shop, Giovanni's and the head guy walked up to me. I have been going there for years so we know each other well enough for small talk. I can only assume that he is the owner.

He talked to me about seeing a review I wrote of his restaurant. He said that someone was trying to sell him advertising. He brought up the web page and saw my face smiling back at him. I am happy he liked my review. I gave the place a 4 out of 5.

Before that moment I did not think about my reviews having my face attached to them. This means I should only review places I love or will not go back to. There are some places I do not live, but I go there often enough. I do not think suck a public review would be a good thing. Just something to keep in mind.

Labels: Giovanni's, lunch, review, web, Web 2.0, Yelp

- Rich, 5:42 PM

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Dodgeball

I have been using dodgeball for more than four months now. I can say that it has been useful a total of once. That is crap. Most of the time Dodgeball is good for showing me where my friends in San Francisco are hanging out. I am not going to just get in my car and drive 50 miles because I got a text message.

The system is set up to be used in a city, not in an area like the Bay Area. It would be nice for the text messages to tell me what city the venue is in, instead of me having to figure it out on my own.

The other problem is that few of my friends around San Jose use it. I have no idea of how to get more of them to use it. I guess them knowing what coffee house I am hanging out in is not such a big draw for people. I have friends who are signed up but never use it. I am not sure how I can get them to use it.

I hear (third or forth hand) that Buzz Anderson says Dodgeball is the perfect geek social tool. You can tell people what is going on without them having to commit to anything. I guess I want it to be a bit more useful. Right now it is doing nothing to help my social life.

Labels: Buzz Anderson, cell phone, Dodgeball, San Francisco, SMS, textmsg, Web 2.0

- Rich, 4:31 PM

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