With less than four weeks to go before meshU and mesh, we’ve published the schedule for meshU. We’re really excited about the speakers coming to offer their insight and thoughts about design, development and management.
Tickets for meshU are selling briskly, and you can register here.
There was an interesting article in the New York Times a couple of days ago looking at how the Internet is eroding the lines between our public and private lives.
With Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Flickr, YouTube et al, many people are more than happy to publicly share the details of their lives – what they like to eat, where they travel, what they do for a living, their husbands/wives, their children, hobbies and interests, political allegiances, etc.
In other words, everything that used to be private is now publicly on display, which begs the question whether there’s anything still private.
Of course, it doesn’t help it’s increasingly difficult to keep private things from going public when portable devices such as cell phones and digital cameras make it so easy to record and publicly share anything. You do something stupid in public, and chances are someone will be uploading it to the Web in due course.
While I’ve led a fairly public life on the Internet given I’m been active on it since 1995, I’ve always been conscious about maintaining the line between public and private. I’ve always maintained the approach that there’s a happy balance between what you disclose to the world and what you keep to yourself or your family.
When people, for example, recount on the Web stories about their children – good and bad – I question whether everyone needs to know these details, and why people feel the need to share these things.
I recognize the Internet is an entity driving everything into the public realm. What troubles me is people are so willing to feed this public monster with no lack of details about their private worlds.
In the long run, I don’t think it’s a good thing that everyone knows everything about everybody. There are parts of your life that deserve to be private or, at least, public to a small group of friends and family.
Technorati Tags: social media, privacy
Google CEO Eric Schmidt may have told Charlie Rose that a deal for Twitter is unlikely because “prices are still high” but if Google did buy Twitter, here’s what it would mean:
1. Twitter would finally have a business plan. Google would integrate AdSense into Twitter’s search results and probably insert relevant advertising within Twitter’s stream – probably one to two for every 20 Tweets.
2. Google would still be left with about $14.8-billion of cash after spending $500-million to $1-billion on Twitter. Prices may be high – although valuations seem to be declining in Silicon Valley – but Google has more than enough cash to splurge on Twitter, still have enough cash to survive the economic downturn.
3. Evan Williams would have made his second major contribution to Google’s strategic vision. In 2003, he sold Blogger.com to Google, which made Google one of the leading players the emerging blog market.
4. Twitter’s investors – Institutional Venture Partners, Benchmark Capital, Union Ventures, Charles River Ventures, Marc Andreessen, Dick Costolo, Ron Conway, and Naval Ravikant would be extremely pleased, especially those IVP and Benchmarket, which just pumped $35-million into a start-up with lots of users but no revenue or a business plan. It would show the classic Web 2.0 business model was still alive and well.
5. Mark Zuckerberg would be pissed Twitter had slipped through his hands. If only he had offered cash to Twitter instead of Facebook shares, Twitter would be part of the Facebook empire.
6. Google would probably buy TweetDeck for $2-million to $5-million to give the leading Twitter desktop client.
For what it’s worth, here’s a list of Google’s acquisitions.
Here’s Charlie Rose’s interview with Eric Schmidt:
Technorati Tags: evan williams, eric schmidt, google, tweetdeck, twitter
Last week, Bell Canada delighted and subsequently enraged the blogosphere and Twitterrati by bringing Twitter via SMS back to Canada, and then telling people it was going to charge them 15 cents a Tweet for the privilege.
It was a public relations and social media disaster that forced Bell to quickly backtrack.
In hindsight, the most interesting part of what went down is how Bell Canada is missing from the social media landscape. For a company with more than 10 million customers, you would think Bell would be far more proactive in using social media to engage and build relationships in new and different ways.
Instead, it appears Bell Canada isn’t playing in the social media sandbox at all. I spent some time, for example, looking for Bell blogs, but couldn’t find any. On Twitter, there are accounts for “bell“, “bellcanada” and “bce” but no updates. On Facebook, there are groups for Bell employees and a “Bell Canada Sucks” group, but no a corporate consumer-facing groups.
It just seems strange for a company that communicates with consumers using traditional media and marketing/advertising tools isn’t taking advantage of social media. It seems even more puzzling given Bell’s business rival, Rogers, recently hired a director of social media.
I recognize that it’s still early days for social media, and many companies are still trying to get a handle on whether social media fits within their communications, marketing and sales strategies. And I appreciate the ROI on social media is still far from clear so many companies are trying to justify making an investment in social media at a time when they’re being cautious about spending money.
But it just seems odd that Bell Canada is doing nothing with social media at a time when it’s important to, at least, be experimenting.
Technorati Tags: blogs, social media, twitter
As some of you may know, I’ve been going back and forth about whether to get an iPhone or Blackberry Bold given I need to return my Blackberry 8800 back to PlanetEye next week.
It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster ride, fueled by advocates for both sides as well as a steady flow of device updates from my friend and wireless guru Kevin Restivo.
But I’m pretty sure that I’m going to get an iPhone. Here’s why:
1. It has a much better Web browser experience that’s more like the Web as opposed the chuga-chuga experience on the Blackberry.
2. The Apps Store. Not to suggest that I – or, for that matter – many people use many of the applications that they purchase or download for free from the App Store but it is good to have choice to pimp your iPhone the way you want. Blackberry is launching a store soon, which may help close the gap.
3. Twitter: The number of Twitter applications for the iPhone is bountiful, and they work really well. On the Blackberry, this is not the case.
4. WordPress: Not that I plan on blogging much from the iPhone but at least there’s a WordPress application ready to go when needed.
The only adoption hurdle when it comes to the iPhone is the lack of a keyboard. Sure people rave about the touch screen but I like the tactile feel of the keyboard. If Apple was smart, it would introduce an iPhone with a keyboard but Steve Jobs is never going to let that happen.
Technorati Tags: apple, blackberry, iPhone
Disclaimer: I’ve been a long-time Firefox user but always willing to experiment so when Safari 4 Beta was unveiled last week, I read a few reviews (including an enthusiastic one by Louis Gray), and then took the plunge.
After using Safari 4 for a few days – and installing 1Password to make it more functional – I have to say Safari has promise but disappoints to the point where it’s going back on shelf for awhile.
The biggest flaw is a bug when using WordPress. When trying to nsert a hyperlink into a post, the screen goes dark and freezes. The only thing you can do is exit the page, which means you could lose everything you’ve written.
The second bug involves GMail. From time to time, trying to access GMail produces an error: Bad Request, Error 400.
Given using WordPress and GMail are two things I do on a regular basis each day, these bugs are unacceptable. Of course, these bugs are puzzling given they seem to be “low-hanging fruit” that should have been caught before Safari 4 made it out of the door.
While I’m being critical, I’m not a big fan of the browser tab bars being at the top of the screen rather than below the navigation bar. (Note: I couldn’t figure out how to move it if that option, in fact, exists).
I do like the “Top Sites” feature that show your 12 favorite sites when you open a new browser tab. As well, the ability to bring back all the Web sites you visited previous by using the “Reopen All Windows from Last Session” option is much-appreciated, although it would be great to turn on the “option” so it happens every time Safari is fired up.
In the scheme of things, my problems with Safari are relatively minor. If Apple fixes then AND maintains Safari’s speed, I would seriously consider migrating from Firefox, which has performing badly recently, particularly when many browser tabs are open.
Technorati Tags: apple, firefox, safari
