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Supernova 2007 day 2: Provocations and The Social Web
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- 6/22 11:14 AM
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The first two sessions at Supernova today, "Provocations" and "The Social Web: Choices and Voices", were particularly entertaining, though perhaps not always in the manner intended by the presenters.
In "Provocations", the first slide I saw when I walked in the door was titled "The Love Economy", and the next slide had a photo of Neal Stephenson and the cover of his book "The Diamond Age" which the presenter used to reference the cultural prediction contained therein that in the future there would be distinctly different social groups with different value sets, and they would resolve differences/conflicts using the "CEP", the Common Economic Protocol. Yes, I'm at the right conference.
Note to attendees, please stop using the question microphones as pulpits for your longwinded observations. Just blog what you have to say.
One of the presenters finally mentioned kurzweilai.net, and I thought that we might actually get a mention of The Singularity, but alas it was not to be.
In "The Social Web", Mike Speiser of Yahoo opened with the very much overused analogy to the
... early days of television, people would just stand in front of a microphone and read from a script like they did on radio
. For non-tech conferences that may be a good analogy to use, but we're tired of it. Here's what a lot of the tech-savvy crowd thinks of television.Greg Reinacker of Newsgator noted that their
system builds on the interactions of users, tries to better the experience for the next user, based on the current users' behaviors
. This focus on user driven adaptivity of a system is something that other sites have implemented, such as Amazon, but is something than many more sites could take advantage of. Lots of untapped potential there.Martin Varsavsky has one of the best summary statements for his current effort Fon:
People share wifi at home, and roam the world for free.
He followed up with numerous gems like:
... in the Spanish world, people like physical contact, they like physical contact A LOT
followed by muffled laughter from the audience. Martin continued, in reference to the conference itself:...if we had the same thing in Spanish, people would be talking to each other, not paying attention to the speakers, or maybe not just looking at their screens.
- which of course is what over two dozen of us are doing in the #supernova channel in irc.freenode.net where I also learned that apparently people like touching weathered 18 year old leather jackets.Martin also observed:
Here to my right is AOL with 500 million uniques, here to my left is Yahoo with 400 million uniques, in front of me is a lot of people that don't use AOL or Yahoo.
True enough, though I still use many features of Yahoo on an almost daily basis, like Search, News, in addition to Flickr and Upcoming.I think I may just be a Martin Varsavsky fanboy because most of the good quotes I got during this presentation were from him. Or he was just the best speaker on the panel. Or maybe both.
Martin on Facebook:
What Facebook says is that there are all these mini-crowds, we'll scale with all these mini-crowds, aggregated in this smart platform, that doesn't let you sit next to the ugly people, the people you don't like.
Martin on elitism and diversity:
The question you asked, to me the answer is, are you going to turn into an elitist person? The websites that address this will, will address it with discovery tools.
Martin on Netvibes:
In the case of Netvibes there are 10 million users building out these pages.
(he's an investor and disclosed that fact)David Liu of AOL had this to say about fragmentation:
...the fragmentation of content, the fragmentation of the diversity of the user base needs to have a higher presence, a higher relevance to the user, it makes the experience complete, it's not something we're shying away from.
- I have no idea what he meant by that. Perhaps the blogosphere can decipher it.Somehow the topic of robots came up, and Shannon Clark from the audience offered the following soundbite in reference to the bots:
The tree is falling, and something is listening, but it's not us.
Martin on Facebook again:
My take on Facebook is that it will be worth $20B by the end of next year, and will be bigger than MySpace ... and I'm not an investor.
He closed the session by tying geography into the virtual world:
...not just long tail of content, but there is a long tail of geography... they want to blog themselves through their wifi signals to their neighbors... most people live in their immediate surroundings.
Afterwards during snack time I partook of the Powerbars that Supernova offered to attendees. An excellent example that other conferences should follow: more energy/protein bars at snack time please!
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Refocusing on microformats
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- 6/21 7:16 PM
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microformats.org turned 2 this week and there is a lot for the community to be proud of. In just two years, microformats have been adopted by numerous individuals and organizations, including companies small and large, from Amazon to Yahoo. Hundreds of millions of instances of microformats are live on the web.
All in only two years.
No other technology, standard, format, not XML, not RSS, not even HTML itself has had this much adoption this quickly. To be fair, I think HTML, and the Web, and the innovations they've enabled like wikis, blogs etc. in general have lowered the barrier to rapid adoption for immediately useful technologies.
Yet there are open questions that need to be addressed.
Despite the incredible documented success, despite the rapid rate of adoption, and despite continuing to prove critics wrong, there are numerous things we not only can, but should, and some cases must take care of to truly enable and empower microformats to become as everpresent as HTML.
We have general issues that need to be resolved. We have format-specific issues (e.g. hCard issues) that need to be resolved for nearly every established format.
We need to better encourage those who work on creating new microformats to not only better follow the process, but also first make sure they actually implement POSH and established microformats before even thinking of proposing a new microformat.
As an (or the) editor of several established microformats (as well as higher level aspects like the process and the principles), with knowledge behind many of the decisions and designs etc. still stuck in my head, it's become quite clear to me that I need to dramatically step up my level of participation in order to move some of these things forward.
Therefore, effective immediately, I am refocusing on microformats.
In particular this means I am making microformats my top "work/professional" priority and will be doing whatever it takes to resolve and drive the resolution of the above-mentioned issues as swiftly as possible. My specific commitment is to resolve all documented issues to-date on the wiki by one year from today. I'll be doing my best to keep up with new issues as well, but given that there are always new issues, the most I feel like I can reliably commit to is to resolve existing issues that have been documented on the wiki (no, email is not good enough, it's too much of a mess to go through, and I've already given up on responding to all emails on the lists).
I will be, as I have been, keeping my microformats priorities in the microformats to-do list on the wiki, and working my way through them.
Thus in general, assuming there are no active threats against the community, I will be working on first helping publishers and implementers with established microformats (collecting issues along the way), then processing/resolving said issues (old ones first) and generally helping improve the wiki usability/experience of learning / using existing microformats, community dynamics including process and principles, a few key microformats in development that have received attention and demand from a number of people (i.e. not just one or two people), and finally, methodically following up with new microformat developments in general, helping folks navigate the process and iterating on it as well.
There's a lot to be done.
I encourage everyone in the microformats community (who hasn't already done so) to create a section for themselves on the microformats to-do list, and list the things they are working on and want to work on. I'm confident we will find common things to work on, and work together as efficiently as possible to consistently move both microformats and our community ever forward.
Here's to getting things done in year 3 of microformats.org.
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Supernova 2007 day 1: Industry Visions
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- 6/21 10:56 AM
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I'm really glad Nathan Myhrvold is in this Supernova 2007 opening day session, named "Industry Visions". He started with a funny quip (which I think was self-referential/deprecating):
Is there anything sadder than a past visionary?
.The previous presenter, Irving Wladawsky-Berger from IBM, had a whole presentation, that thankfully Nathan critiqued out loud what a lot of us were thinking :
Many of these slides could be from 1997
. In my opinion that should be an instant disqualification from presenting as a "visionary". Recycled generic predictions are a commodity. Conferences can do better. Get people that are not afraid to state specifics.But Nathan poked more fun at himself though, and I really admire and respect that style. I'm totally stealing this quote from him in the future:
If you really want to be a longterm visionary, have a lastname that almost no one can spell.
. I'll probably change "spell" to "type", and "lastname" to "family-name" as a nod to vCard.He also asked a rhetorical question about copyright which needs to be repeated:
Copyright is so easy to violate now. You do it without even knowing you're doing it. What do you do now, give up on copyright?
. Indeed.The only thing that disappointed me about Nathan was his pronouncement that in 2017 we'd be doing essentially the same thing, just with new technology. I think he's fundamentally wrong about that. In short, go read about the Technological Singularity. Change from 1997 to 2007 is NOT a good predictor of change from 2007 to 2017.
General critiques of the presentations so far:
- No URLs in any presentation so far.
- No licensing of slides under Creative Commons.
Both are unacceptable for a presenters at a conference which does tend to focus on discussions about the Web. Especially so for "visionaries". Enough with the vision talks, how about some visionary actions, perhaps even in and with your talks?
And BTW the 1990s called, they want their PowerPoint with cheezy graphics back.
Lastly a request for question askers, no more pronouncements rephrased as questions please. I'm looking at you Shannon.
Related
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Come to Supernova Open Space TODAY!
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- 6/19 7:08 AM
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The Supernova 2007 conference kicks off this Wednesday the 20th, but today, the day before, thanks to Kevin Werbach's generosity, Supernova is sponsoring an Open Space day at Wharton West, 101 Howard Street, Suite 500, San Francisco, California 94105. Open Space refers to a meeting style that is very similar to (though not the same as) a BarCamp, so if you've been to a BarCamp, you kinda already know what it will mostly be like.
Deborah Schultz is coordinating the Open Space day along with Kevin. Experienced open space facilitator Kaliya Hamlin will be walking us through the process/methodology at 9am today where we the attendees will together determine the agenda for the day.
As is customary, if you're interested, sign up on the Supernova 2007 Open Space wiki page.
So if you are in the downtown/SOMA/SOPA SF area, stop by Wharton West (southwest corner of Howard & Spear streets) from 9am to 5pm to see what things are like and see if you can spend at least an hour or two helping to share, discuss, and maybe even create something new with your community of colleagues and peers.
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Au Revoir Simone at Yard Dog SXSW2007
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- 6/15 6:35 PM
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austin
tx
sxsw
sxsw2007
sxswm
sxswmusic
sxswm2007
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upcoming:event=95527
aurevoirsimone
yarddog
video
vlog
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The belated SXSW2007 vlogging resumes with Au Revoir Simone's closer at their outdoor Yard Dog performance.
- License: This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 license. As thanks to Au Revoir Simone, this video is additionally licensed to them under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.
- Taken on 2007-03-17
- Location: Yard Dog, Austin, Texas
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The Pipettes rocked Amoeba, The Rickshaw Stop
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- 6/15 6:27 PM
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The Pipettes had their one night stand with San Francisco this past Tuesday and we're all quite thankful for it. After a brief free set at Amoeba Records, they held a signing session for the release of their new U.S. EP "Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me". Round two was a few hours later when they rocked the Rickshaw Stop and taught us the "Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me" finger wag and other moves. Photos and more to follow.
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The Pipettes at Emo's SXSW2007: Pull Shapes
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- 6/12 9:03 AM
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- austin
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- sxsw
- sxsw2007
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- sxswm2007
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thepipettes
emos
pullshapes- video
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The Pipettes closed their Emo's show at SXSW with perhaps their most danceable of tunes: "Pull Shapes". Don't worry about what one night stands did or did not or will or will not happen. Leave Judy at home tonight, forget your worries, and just come dance with us and the Pipettes. They'll definitely show you how to pull shapes. 7pm at Amoeba. 9pm at The Rickshaw Stop.
- License: This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 license. As thanks to The Pipettes, this video is additionally licensed to them under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.
- Taken on 2007-03-16
- Location: Emo's, Austin, Texas
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The Pipettes at Emo's SXSW2007: Judy
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- 6/12 8:31 AM
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- austin
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- sxsw
- sxsw2007
- sxswm
- sxswmusic
- sxswm2007
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- thepipettes
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judy- video
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San Francisco is a magnet for warmth and optimism. From time to time a bad apple or two shows up, acts all cool, and spoils it with their meanness, rudeness, and overall petty maliciousness. Most of the time surrounding them with warmth and friendliness can win them over and get them to let go of their issues and attitude though sometimes not. All of us know at least one "Judy" who maybe used to be a friend but has disappointed and saddened us. And those would be Judys, I say, listen to the The Pipettes:
I knew a girl and her name was Judy
She used to do things I thought were rude
But I never said anything to her face,...
I know I'm not as hard as you
but I think I can see right through you,...
Judy, whatcha gonna do?
When you're older and no one wants to know ya?
- License: This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 license. As thanks to The Pipettes, this video is additionally licensed to them under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.
- Taken on 2007-03-16
- Location: Emo's, Austin, Texas
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The Pipettes at Emo's SXSW2007: One Night Stand
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- 6/12 6:43 AM
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- austin
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- sxsw
- sxsw2007
- sxswm
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- sxswm2007
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- upcoming:event=95527
- thepipettes
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onenightstand- video
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You thought it was special. The Pipettes do not waste your time. They'll tell you in words plain and simple when you're just a "One Night Stand". Quite apropos for today. San Francisco has never had the Pipettes perform before and tonight is their first and only night here. If you move quickly, you might be lucky enough to have them twice. 7pm at Amoeba Records, and then sometime after the opening bands at their show at the Rickshaw Stop. I might even have a spare ticket or two. But move fast, this dance card is almost full.
- License: This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 license. As thanks to The Pipettes, this video is additionally licensed to them under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.
- Taken on 2007-03-16
- Location: Emo's, Austin, Texas
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The Pipettes at Emo's SXSW2007:
I Don't Love You AnymoreGuess Who Ran Off With The Milkman- created
- 6/12 12:17 AM
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- austin
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- sxsw
- sxsw2007
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- sxswm2007
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- upcoming:event=95527
- thepipettes
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idontloveyouanymore- video
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Third in the series, The Pipettes sing
"I Don't Love You Anymore"correction: "Guess Who Ran Off With The Milkman", which is either a new track since their first album "We Are The Pipettes" or perhaps a B-side I haven't found yet,yetand definitely fits in nicely both musically and in their usual lighthearted modern love'em and leave'em style. Only the Pipettes could make falling out of love sound so happy.
- License: This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 license. As thanks to The Pipettes, this video is additionally licensed to them under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.
- Taken on 2007-03-16
- Location: Emo's, Austin, Texas
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The Pipettes at Emo's SXSW2007: Tell Me What You Want
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- 6/11 11:24 PM
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tags:
- austin
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- sxsw
- sxsw2007
- sxswm
- sxswmusic
- sxswm2007
- sxswmusic2007
- upcoming:event=95527
- thepipettes
- emos
tellmewhatyouwant- video
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Second of six in a series, here are The Pipettes singing "Tell Me What You Want". If only it were that simple. If anyone could convince you that it were so, they could. And maybe a few others.
- License: This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 license. As thanks to The Pipettes, this video is additionally licensed to them under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.
- Taken on 2007-03-16
- Location: Emo's, Austin, Texas
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P.S. Dear blip.tv, I'm still seeing inconsistent file id numbers. Your embed code said 267414, but when I browse my dashboard, this video is number 262857.
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The Pipettes at Emo's SXSW2007: It Hurts To See You Dance So Well
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- 6/4 9:48 PM
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- austin
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- sxsw2007
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- thepipettes
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ithurtstoseeyoudancesowell- video
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Lots of videoblogging to catch up on, so this will be the first of six in this particular burst. Correction: I'm only going to post this one video for now, due to apparent blip.tv problems (see end of post). I got to see The Pipettes not once but TWICE at SXSW2007. The second time I was much more successful with taking some video; the sound was not distorted nearly as much (though still a little). The first pieceI have for you is their performance of "It Hurts To See You Dance So Well". I'd say it hurt to see them dance so well. Watch the video and judge for yourself.
- License: This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 license. As thanks to The Pipettes, this video is additionally licensed to them under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.
- Taken on 2007-03-16
- Location: Emo's, Austin, Texas
- Comment on this video
P.S. It looks like blip.tv messed up something with their video/file ID numbers. All of the my previous videos have stopped working because of this. Hey blip.tv, could you guys please fix this ASAP? You may have just broken everyone's permalinks to their past videos. In addition, the copy/paste code they gave me for my just uploaded video of The Pipettes above used the file id "258107" whereas if you go to my blip.tv stream you can see that the actual id "253585" in the URL which I had to copy/paste into the comments link below in order to make it work.
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