Connected Conversations

An incredible blend of technology, talent, and inspiration. Enjoy!

1. technology, 3. et cetera

It is exhilarating news that Google is going to step up to bat against China for the case of freedom of information. I think that Jonathan Zittrain has a great take on the situation:

My hope, and expectation, is that Google engineers who might have been a bit halfhearted about implementing censorship mandates in google.cn could be full-throttle in coming up with ways for Google to be viewed despite any network interruptions between site and user. There are lots of unexplored options here. They’re unexplored not because they’re infeasible, but because most sites would rather not provoke a government that filters. So they don’t undertake to get information out in ways that might evade blockages. Here, Google would have nothing more to lose, so could pioneer some new approaches. Circumvention of filtering (or other blockages, for that matter) tends to happen on the user side of things, seeking out proxies like the Tor network, or anonymizer.com.

I love how Zittrain examines the situation from a strategic perspective, with moves and responses. I also find it provocative to consider what a massive organization like Google could do to help Chinese citizens workaround government filters.

But I think that Zittrain does not follow his chess game to its ultimate conclusion. If Google can help a large minority of Chinese citizens to get unfettered access to information, the Chinese government will press the US to enforce its policies. Presumably, Google can win the spy-vs-spy tech game with China. But China has a lot of political chips to cash in to try to win the support of the US government to rein in Google.

Already, the State Department is recognizing that this issue is extremely important (although they have not yet announced a policy or substantive statement). But when push comes to shove, will it support Google in its battle vs. China?

I certainly hope it does. Go google!

1. technology, 2. politics Censorship, China, google, Jonathan Zittrain, policy

So, happy new year! (Sorry for such sparse posting here on weiksner.com.) Good news: we’ve made enough progress with customers, product and fundraising that social feet is hiring! It’s a cool position if you are a ninja with the browser and are interested in emerging social tech like OAuth, Facebook Connect, Open Social, etc.

Read the whole job description, consider applying and pass it on here:
http://socialfeet.jobscore.com/jobs/socialfeet/wantedfrontendengineerwithuxsensibility/bv5Kv2-GOr3PI5eJe4aGWH?Board=weiksner

I am having fun with the recruiting process, so I may post some thoughts about it in a future post. Cheers!

1. technology facebook, Facebook Connect, hiriing, OAuth, OpenSocial, opportunity knocks, socialfeet

How copyright shapes, and is shaped by, the values we wish to promote in culture and society? Should copyright promote a society of consumers or a society of producers? How has technology changed the very paradigm that copyright was envisioned by our founders? Lessig’s lecture is a tour de force.

1. technology, 2. politics

I’ve recently moved, and as “the person in charge of administering the network,” I undertook a project to re-vamp my phone service. Why? Here are my requirements:

1. The call quality must be terrific
2. I must be able to use a cordless phone for calls at home
3. I must be able to make and receive calls using a normal phone number
4. I want to be able to receive calls on my computer when I’m on the road
5. I want to make it easy for people to contact me even though we have poor cell coverage at our house
6. I want to pay as little as possible

Pretty formidable list! To make this happen, you have to understand that the main problem is getting a phone number linked to an SIP. In a way, phone numbers are kinda like buying URLs. Then you have to pick at VOIP provider, I found this great resource, which helped steer me to callcentric. In totality, here’s my solution:

1. Get a Google Voice account (sadly, invitation only–but free if you can get one!)
2. Get a CallCentric “dirt-cheap phone number” (and avoid the 911 fee) — only $2.95 per month
3. Buy a VOIP box (here’s mine: 1-time $70 charge or less if you search around)

That’s it. OK, there are a few drawbacks that might annoy some people. With the current set up, I have to use my Google Voice’s web interface to launch outbound calls (i.e., I can’t directly dial from the handset.) You have to have a Google Voice account, which is a show-stopper for most people. Also, the set up of the VOIP box is unnecessarily complex but at least well documented. Mitigating this problem, we have another more normal Vonage line that has regular dialing.

But on the plus side, people can call my Google Voice number and get me whether I am at home or out and about on my cell! Through google voice, I get free SMS’s and my voicemails are transcribed into emails for free. And the call quality is indeed terrific. My landline is a fashionable Palo Alto (650) number. Best of all, I now have unlimited calling for $2.95 a month!!!

1. technology DYI, Google Voice, lessons learned, phone, SIP, Voice over Internet Protocol, Vonage

Fred Wilson wrote an interesting list of 10 characteristics of great companies. My contribution was suggesting an 11th characteristic: “Great companies fail repeatedly - and learn from their mistakes. ” But even more importantly, check out this classic Michael Jordan ad that is the inspiration for that idea:

My transcription of it:

Michael Jordan talking: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and missed. I’ve failed over and over again in my life my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Gives me tingles to watch it!

1. technology, 2. politics, 3. et cetera FAIL, Fred Wilson, great companies, Michael Jordan, top 10

A few months ago, I posted this analytical piece arguing that itunes should charge less to earn more. Interestingly, this software designer has experienced in real life what I was theorizing about. He reduced the price of his software package from $40 down to $10. Guess what? He only made $4,000 at the $40 level, but he made $58,800 at the $10 level. Yup, he experienced 15-fold increase (1470%!) in sales volume at the lower price level!

Check out the entire post for more details and analysis. It’s pretty interesting, and I think useful advice for anyone who is in the digital goods business.

1. technology digital goods, economics, follow up, pricing

Peter Thiel, founding CEO of PayPal and early Facebook investor, has written an controversial and interesting essay “The Education of a Libertarian.” The controversial part is where blames the death of “capitalistic democracy” on welfare and women:

“Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.”

But interesting part is where he proposes a realistic utopia for Libertarians. In particular, he proposes that “seasteading” is the best hope for a libertarian utopia since it is “more realistic than space travel” and less “imaginary” than an escape to cyberspace.

(As an aside, he presents a novel argument that current financial crisis was created by too much government rather than unfetter capitalism. He thinks that the crisis was “facilitated by a government that insuranced against all sorts of moral hazards.”)

He acknowledges that his past efforts to promote libertarianism have been less effective than he’d like because his was just “preaching to the choir.”  So, if you can’t convert everyone to libertarianism, who needs them?  Retreat to cyberspace for the time being, then to islands in the sea.  But ultimately, we ought to have a separate space pod for each Libertarian — that is utopia indeed.

Regardless of your political ideology, I think that this essay is provocative and worth reading in its entirity;.  Enjoy!

1. technology, 2. politics 2. politics, cyberspace, Libertarianism, outer space, Peter Thiel, United States

I am excited to announce that we are hiring a Lead Developer at SocialFeet.com. I think the tech challenges are interesting, and that the financial upside is large. Here is a brief quote of the tech challenge:

From a database perspective, you have transient streams (not just persistent relationships), continuous (not one-time) queries, sequential (not random) access and unpredictable data arrival patterns. From a UI perspective, you have ajax-y goodness a la Google Wave to manage synchronous and asynchronous messages in a small, yet highly contextualized, footprint. We have to define new standards and APIs for activity stream capturing and publishing. And our service has to scale not just to the total number of page views on our network of sites but to the number of interactions on each of these sites.

To promote this, we’ve posted our job description at Craigslist, Techcrunch, LinkedIn and other places. I’m now blogging about it, and we’ve tweeted it and posted it to Facebook. But the definitive place to check it out and send people who might be interested is:

http://www.socialfeet.com/2009/06/developer/

Please pass the link on to anyone you know who might be interested in working for us!

1. technology Craigslist, facebook, jobs!, LinkedIn, socialfeet, TechCrunch, twitter

Funny video. Ironically, though, these particular kids seem to be doing just fine.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEqir1Mh7Pk&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

1. technology, 2. politics education, kids, protest, videos

Key people from Youtube (Steve Grove), Facebook (Randi Zuckerberg) and Twitter (Chris Sacca) talk about “Government 2.0“. Very interesting commentary about who is driving the show: it’s Obama and then a bunch of small protestors, etc., from around the world. An interesting 50 minutes.

A good question at the end about what is the new role of the fourth estate. But no good answers to the problem of outreach vs. accountability.

1. technology, 2. politics 2. politics, Chris Sacca, facebook, future, Randi Zuckerberg, twitter, youtube

I was just invited to use aardvark, a match making service for questions and answers using instant messenger. It lets you tap into the expertise of the friends of your friends. I think the results speak for themselves. Here’s the transcript to my first question:

My Question: “Do you know of any applications of facebook connect that have ‘gone viral’?”

Kelly: here’s a list of all of the implementations: http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Facebook_Connect_Live_Sites
the geni.com implementation is really cool
Citysearch has shared that users voluntarily publish 94% of their reviews back to Facebook
and most Connect implementations have a publish-to-click ratio of 0.8 to 2.0 (meaning, for every story a user sends to FB, approximately 0.8 to 2 people go back to the original site)

Kelly is a manager who works at Facebook, and I got these statistics from inside the Facebook connect team–within 3-4 minutes of asking. Sweet!

And so today, I returned the favor. I was asked to answer a question about “education”. I was skeptical at first, but I firgured, hey let’s give it a whirl. Here’s the transcript of that conversation:

Niko: Who is passionate in New York about educational technology? or online tutoring?
Me: One company I know about is called imentor
I learned about imentor through a board member, Matt Klein, who is also the ED of Blue Ridge Foundation.
Niko: Blue Ridge Foundation is just what I was looking for. Their portfolio companies are a godsend to the community. I’m a student at Columbia/Harvard. Would Matt Klein be the best person to talk to regarding the vision of the firm?
Me:I met Matt Klein very briefly in a large conference. He seemed very knowledgable and nice - I would think you could approach him directly.
Niko: Thanks a million. This aardvark thing may just be a huge hit.

I agree - aardvark is amazing. I have 9 more invitations - post a comment with your email and include three topics that you are knowledgeable about and I’ll send you an invitation. Cheers!

1. technology aadvark, facebook, Instant messaging, Online Communities, reviews, social networking

Mary Meekers slides usefully put a lot of economic data in usable form. Since a lot of it is generic economic trends (well-organized but not novel), I’d like to comment on a few of the more interesting slides on the trends in digital business. Here are some interesting questions that her slides raised for me:

• Slide 54: Social networks have lowish penetration (<40%), but super high growth (>50%)
• Slide 62: Social networks have “the opportunity to get in the middle of the conversation”. This insight resonates with my past research on SNs.
• Slide 78: Implicit question: what will the social advertising eCPMs be if the Internet average is $1.98?
• Slide 82: Implicit question: to answer the previous question, we have to know how EFFECTIVE a social ad will be. Will social ads be better, similar or worse than the top kinds of ads: paid search engine ads, organic SEO and email marketing?
• Slide 85-86: Are display, clicks or performance-based models for advertising most appropriate for social ads?
• Slide 87: What products will be most promising to target for social ads?
• Slide 108-115: Can social ads be used as effective strategy to enter new international markets?

Finally, I think that these slides show that the recession will accelerate the shift from offline to online advertiser and commerce. If social advertising can be shown to be effective, it will likely see rapid adoption despite being new.

Here is the entire deck for perusal. Enjoy!

Economy Tech trends in 2009 by Mary Meeker (Morgan Stanley)

View more presentations from Ouriel Ohayon.

1. technology Advertising, analysis, Internet marketing, Mary Meeker, Morgan Stanley, Search engine optimization, social advertising, social networking, trends

I find this funny because I just recently started using twitter. But for the rest of you that have “yet” to discover twitter - is this video funny to you?

1. technology twitter, videos