Running on Copyright Infringement

Jackson Browne filed suit against John McCain, the RNC, and the Ohio National Republican Committee for using "Running on Empty" in an Obama attack ad without the artist's permission. Browne, a liberal, objected to the ad and the Ohio Republicans say they pulled it right away so they don't understand what all the fuss is about. Duh, guys, it's called politics. Oh right, and copyright law, something which McCain explicitly promises to protect from nasty pirates in his Technology Policy statement.

Re-engineering the Internet

During a workshop at IFTF this week,  I offered a forecast  that there is at least a 50% probability of a fundamental re-engineering of the internet. Here's a bit of detail on this forecast and why I think this last week has been a critical turning point.

Playlist my way? Not quite.

At first glance, Universal Music's new "Playlist Your Way" program may look like the company is finally catching on to one of the things that fans and digital music mavens have wanted for a long time: options.

Does Corporate Venture Investing Work?

One of my clients is a large global company trying to beef up its ability to source core innovations that go beyond new combinations and packaging - basic science and technology that will help it deliver new value over a sustained period.

Opening up their innovation process is clearly an important step, and as we have explored many of the potential vehicles for building a more networked R&D model, the idea of a venture investing fund has moved to the forefront of my thinking. If, as open innovation holds, many of the best ideas are outside the company, I can't think of a more aggressive way to scan, secure and inject them into an existing company.

But as the Wall Street Journal reports on Google's efforts in the area, corporate venture funds have a lot of inherent problems and a mixed record.

The Ephemeral Web

At its heart, Web 2.0 is about data and sociality. Data, because it thrives on content that's machine readable therefore easily re-purposeable (think mashups), and social because human networks and informal categorization systems (tag-based taxonomies or "folksonomies") provide much of the metadata that helps up navigate, filter and organize it.

Social philanthropy or feel-good outsourcing?

The New York Times has a piece on Serebra Connect, a freelance computer work marketplace with a social philanthropy twist:

Spoofing Facebook in the Name of Politics

Telepresence as a Driver for Presence

Last year, I gave a talk at a major design expo on the future of presence. I argued that we need to be keenly aware of the historical relationship between new communications technologies and long-distance travel. Right now, the coincidence of high-definition, immersive videoconferencing and high fuel prices has many people excited about the potential for substituting telepresence for travel.

Me as a Word Graph

Wordle is sweeping it's way across the web, and while I've been a reluctant aficionado of tag clouds, this Java applet can turn any arbitrary set of text, web page, or del.icio.us feed and turn it into an -attractive- tag cloud. Yes, attractive is the operative word.

Here's the tag cloud of my del.icio.us feed, and I'm shocked at what an accurate fingerprint it is of my research interests over the last year.

Welcome to Digital Mobs

A husband writes an impassioned letter on one of the popular Internet bulletin boards denouncing a college student he suspects of having an affair with his wife.  Immediately, throngs of people join in the attack, and within days the numbers grow to tens of thousands, with “teams of strangers hunting down the student, hounding him out of his university, and causing the family to barricade themselves inside the home."  http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/03/.

New report on the U.S. innovation system

The Institute does quite a bit of work these days on the future of innovation and innovation systems. So I was interested to see a report by the Information Technology and Innovation Forum (ITIF) on the U.S. innovation system. (It also caught my eye because long ago I took a sociology of work class with one of the report's authors.) From the press release:

Capsule Review of Clay Shirky's "Here Comes Everybody"

Oh, the irony.

I've been trying to read Clay Shirky's new book on social software and online groups, "Here Comes Everybody" for about the last 3 months. However, everytime I crack it open and start digging into this very thoughtful and fast-paced critique of the group economy, I am interrupted by some incoming email or IMs (the original Gen X-er social networks), tweets, or the recollection of some unfinished Wikipedia edit or blog entry.