Reading, writing, blogs, media and the new workplaces

Since sometime in early 2000 I have been an entrepreneur, at times with employees and an office and for the past few years with no fixed office and either only a handful of people working with me, at present just one co-founder who also has other active projects.

In the mid-90’s I bought my first laptop, with the money I made selling off my first computer I had bought for myself, a NeXT Cube which was my computer for the first two years I was in college. It still remains both the most expensive and in many ways the best computer I have ever owned. I bought the NeXT secondhand, and even then it was about the cost of a very nice used car (if memory serves I think it was about $6000 but this was some 17+ years ago). As it turns out since owning it taught me Unix, launched my career in technology and much more it was also perhaps one of the best purchases I have ever, even to this day, made.

But the next computer I owned also had a major impact on my life, in an equally important but vitally different manner. That computer was a Compaq laptop, I think it was a 486 but I’m not actually certain now, in any case it was that laptop which granted me mobility, which allowed me to work off campus, to work portably, which started my lifelong habit of working from cafes (and while still in college from desks in libraries - do less of that now however). In short that laotop also in many ways sparked my writing habit and fit better the direction I was headed academically.

When I had bought the NeXT it was because having started to use Mathematica while a summer intern at Argonne National Lab I wanted to own a computer which was capable of running Mathemica and at the time all NeXT’s came with a copy of Mathematica pre-installed. My plan entering college was to be either a math or a physics major (or possibly a history major, even entering college I was torn in multiple directions).

However that summer at Argonne National labs working with research physicists followed by the first quarters of university level phsics and calculus somewhat convinced me that my passion wasn’t fully in either field. I loved science and math, but I was also too interested in the humanities and too interested in being rooted in the reality of the world and other people (not that academic history is all that rooted either as I would also learn later). So early in my first year at the University of Chicago I changed my courseload considerably and started along the path to a history major, not a science major. Though it didn’t fully take for a few years (in part because I had a scholorship which I anted to keep for a year or two).

But getting back to the point of this trip into my past history of computer ownership.

In the past few months I have been reading once again at my historically common pace, a pace I haven’t been keeping up for much of the past few years. Historically since I learned to read (at a fairly young age) I have read multiple books a week, some weeks at nearly a book a day pace or even faster. As a child I would go to the library and return with a bulging backpack full of as many books as they would allow me to check out at one time, and before they were due back in a few weeks I would have read them all and on returning them would check out still more books. Or I would spend hard saved allowances or money from lemonade stands and holiday presents in the aisles of the local used bookstores where I grew to know the owners and even started my serious book collecting while still young and in high school (I entered high school at the age of 13 and graduated at the age of 16).

However for the past few years I have been reading more and more content online, reading a lot of individual articles and research papers offline (printed out) but fewer and fewer books for much of the past few years. This year, however, that has shifted.

Two years ago when I moved into my new apartment, connected up a new DSL connection and bought my iMac desktop I ended up owning a printer which though networkable is both no longer configured correctly for my internal network and doesn’t have a working driver for the Mac OS X. And I haven’t yet replaced it, instead I have managed to mostly live without printing out anything for the past few years. In turn this has, perhaps somewhat negatively, meant I no longer spend as much time printing out and reading academic papers, dissertations, and other long form articles.

And in the past few years my online habits have changed many times over. A few years ago I mostly read individual blogs directly at the blog sites, or I used Bloglines to skim a vast collection of blogs I had subscribed to - but which I was never caught up with. I switched to Google Reader which remains my primary means of reading most blogs.

A year ago when I bought my iPhone I started using my iPhone and the versions of Google Reader which were made for the iPhone to read my feeds, now I read more feeds via my iPhone than I do via my regular computer browsers.

What this means, most crucially, is that while I am keeping up with my much edited down collection of blogs I read plus the posts which some of my friends share via Google Reader, I am only rarely also seeing and reading the comments which form such a vital part of many blogs. I’ve also mostly stopped participating in online discussion forums, which for many years while I was in Chicago in particular, were a vital part of my online activity.

In recent months in addition to Twitter which I started using two SXSW’s ago, I have also to a lesser degree started using Friendfeed. There I do see more discussions, though I only dip into them myself and only very rarely does anything I share in my feed there spark a discussion (even spark a single “Like” or “Comment” at all).

And my blogging which had for a while now been mostly only here at this blog has bifarcated. I’ve been blogging for Centernetworks, for the Conversation Hub of SuperNova, at the MeshWalk blog for MeshForum, and at my new blog Slow Brand.

I no longer quite know how or where to define myself online, perhaps I should start using a service such as FriendFeed but even that doesn’t capture the multiplicity of my online identities or the many different ways I work, read and play online.

So all this is to say, what do you use as your workplaces today? Now I have shifted to my primary tool being my iPhone, my secondary tool my laptop, and my desktop though useful is my third option, though keeping my media libraries and the like in sync across my many devices is also increasingly difficult.

Announcing my new blog - Slow Brand

I have launched a new blog, Slow Brand, where I will be writing about Brands, Branding, and with some frequency food.

My goal is to post there about two times a week, some weeks more often, others less. Likely I’ll alternate between covering broad issues around Brands and branding today and posts specifically highlighting food Brands with a strong emphasis on local, serious food producers.

“Slow Brand” is an homage to the Slow Food movement. My view is that to build, sustain and enhance a great Brand takes a slow, deliberate, confident and consistent approach both online and offline. An approach that today is all too rare.

Full disclosure, my new company, Nearness Function is an ad network focused on Brand advertising. As such, I am most definitely biased in my views on Brands in todays landscape. We will be working with many brands and publishers both inside the browser and outside of it.

Who we are is what we follow

Robert Scoble says the secret to Twitter success is who you follow.

And I agree with him (though I only follow a fairly carefully selected ~170 people on twitter at the moment, that is growing every week.

But this post is not about that meaning of “follow”, rather I have a theory that is a bit broader, related to a past post of mine about Time & Attention.

This afternoon as I left my apartment and picked up my mail on my way out the door, I had a new issue of the New Yorker magazine waiting for me, as I took it out to take with me I had the thought “now I’m three weeks behind on my New Yorker reading” in short in the unit of time “unread New Yorker magazines” my count went up one to three (or four if you count an issue I “only” haven’t yet read the fiction story. I have been a New Yorker subscriber since college, reading almost every issue cover to cover, skipping only the event listings and for the most part the poems. And yes, that’s a lot of words and a fairly significant amount of time I’ve invested into appreciating the magazine.

Which got me to thinking - there is a group of fellow subscribers and readers of the magazine with whom the unit of measure “how many weeks worth of the New Yorker you haven’t yet read” would be a common bond. A bond of a unit of measure which in turn, is a bond that reflects something important about us - namely one shared aspect of what we pay attention to, what we follow.

At the moment March Madness is in full swing here in the US, a few days ago my friends were buzzing about setting up their “brackets” today my friends at times are complaining about their partner’s obsessions with the games (or about the wins and losses of the teams they selected). In contrast, however, I have paid almost no attention at all to March Madness, I don’t know who is winning or losing, who made it in, who was favored, or what has been happening in the first series of games. Here is a place where I am not following what a large number of my friends are following - either directly or indirectly as a result of their partners (I use partners to be gender neutral here).

But I am deeply aware of the political calendar, in the past few months I’ve been paying active and close attention to each primary election, and likewise a fairly large portion of my circle of friends has been doing the same - some of us working directly for a campaign, some following actively via Huffington Post, some via DailyKos, some like myself via Andrew Sullivan and some by more mainstream news sources. All of us also using various social mediums - twitter, facebook, email, our own blogs and podcasts, to help raise awareness and share stories and bits of news or speculation which we find compelling. In short with the US presidential election there is a strong and common thing many of my friends and I are following. And yes, some of us at least are long time political junkies, we did much the same things the past few election cycles.

For many people in the US and more broadly in the “Western” world this past weekend was Easter and one set of my friends and family was paying attention to that, preparing for the Holy Week celebrations, buying hams for Easter Sunday dinner, painting eggs and hiding them for their children etc.

For another set of my family and friends last week was Purim, a Jewish holiday and occasion for fun and drinking and the baking of Hamentashen.

I’m not religious so I was caught a bit unaware this year by Easter and by Purim. Made aware of Easter in fact by the signs in my neighborhood butchers shop that they would be open on Easter Sunday. Shopping at a local Safeway (large supermarket chain) I also noticed that Safeway had set up as they do each year a section of kosher for Passover products and across the way had their Easter candies and products. So naturally I assumed that Passover was also soon to happen.

In a call last week to my business partner, who is also Jewish but more practicing than I am, he informed me however that Passover this year is not until April due to the once every seven years additional month which is added to the Jewish Calendar to keep the lunar calendar generally in sync with the seasons so major holidays don’t fall in the wrong seasons.

I suspect, however, that someone at Safeway had some fairly simple set of rules for the buyers - when you start putting out the Easter products also start stocking Kosher for Passover items.

Via Twitter, though also via my friends blogs, Facebook statuses, personal emails and other communications I am noting even more acutely what (and at times specifically who) they are following, what Holidays they are celebrating, what conferences they are preparing for, speaking at, planning, what albums they are waiting to be released, what performances musical or otherwise they are attending or at times what they have just bought tickets to in advance. In short I can see the many ways in which what we are paying attention to overlaps and as interestingly more and more I can see some of the multitude of ways in which it does not overlap.

And via tools such as Facebook, Upcoming.org, and yes, Twitter, I can choose to start to follow, start to pay attention to some of the same things as my friends and I can signal out to them what I am following.

My shared stories on Google Reader, I suspect, paint a different picture of me than many people might assume. Via Google Reader for the past year I have, perhaps, mostly been signaling my political views - sharing a lot of stories from Andrew Sullivan, sprinkled with an occasional tech story. I do not, however, share everything that I am paying attention to, for instance, I don’t always share every story about advertising which I am reading and following - those instead I star for my own future reference, those I might share in a more manual fashion with my business partner or some trusted advisors.

At present I am a part of, following and paying attention to many different yet sometimes overlapping worlds. Professionally I am entering into the advertising world, so I am spending more and more time and attention following that world - and I need to find more and richer sources, subscribe to more print magazines and blogs, attend even more industry related events. I continue to be interested in the wider world of the Internet and “Web 2.0″ and that too is a professional as well as personal interest, so I am aware of many of the upcoming conferences, read and subscribe to many related blogs, and frequently attend events. I’m also quite interested in the future of music and more broadly in the future of media and to that end I follow and participate in some industry discussions, attend events, read blogs, etc.

I’m also a science fiction fan of select TV shows, occasional movies but mostly of novels. So I’m also paying some attention to when various authors I like have books published, I attend a small set of science fiction conventions each year, and I am a fan of a few select TV shows (mostly Doctor Who and Torchwood). I am not, however, as tied into this world as many of my friends, friends who subscribe to monthly magazines (which in many cases they also publish and write for), friends who attend not the one or two conferences I attend but far more, friends who aren’t just fans of but are professionally engaged in the world of science fiction and fantasy.

And I could go on, I’m a foodie so I pay some attention to the weekly farmer’s markets, to restaurant openings and closings, to special events related to food, but I don’t follow it as closely as I might like. I missed, for example, that a major restaurant I had been told about a few months ago was finally opening this month in NYC, had I been paying closer attention I would have timed a trip to NYC in time to get to be there for the “friends and family” previews (my sister’s boyfriend is writing a cookbook with the chef so I’m fairly sure had I known to ask I could have gotten in, along with the “VIPs” for as one food blog called it the hottest ticket in town). Now I’ll have to try for a reservation along with everyone else each time I’m in NYC or might be.

My point with this post is to suggest that what and who we follow shapes us, it helps to define us in a very deep and powerful manner. Whether it is the calendar of events of our religion, or the publishing schedule of our favorite magazine, the rhythms of our lives are set by what we follow.

And in turn when our rhythm is in sync with that of another person the chance of our also being friends goes up. 

I would prefer, strongly prefer, to date a woman (and if you are reading this via a feed etc, I’m a man and yes, I’m single at the moment) with whom I had many overlapping rhythms. Though as well I would hope that we were not entirely in sync, that she would follow and pay attention to some things which would be new for me, and likewise that I might follow and introduce her to new events and sources. For that, I think, would be ideal - ongoing new discovery and mutual sharing of passions and interests. Over time we likely would overlap more and more - would schedule ourselves to do things together - but hopefully as well we would constantly be discovering the new as well - new people to suggest new ideas to us, new sources of information, even entire new fields of study.

Evaluating a new laptop vs refreshing old - MacBook Air vs ThinkPad X60

If you have been reading my blog for a while you may know that I have a ThinkPad X60 as my current laptop and that I have been seriously unhappy with the laptop and Vista (as well as Office 2007 and related software). At the recent SXSW conference where I mostly went without using my laptop at all (as a bit of an experiment in being highly mobile and not carrying a bag at all) when I did try to use my laptop I was seriously frustrated - in one instance it almost literally took 15+ minutes of work before I was able to actually start doing anything - and I had to shut down 5 minutes later.

While at SXSW I was also emailed an opportunity to purchase a friend of a friend’s MacBook Air - he’s decided to buy the MacBook Pro instead. Buying it from him would save me sales tax and would include the external superdrive. But it is the lower end, 80GB edition. And there are more than a few things I would have to add to the system package (AppleCare more crucially).

So in this post I am going to look at the pros and cons of my current options - and most likely won’t reach a clear conclusion. Please add a comment if you have solutions to any of my issues/concerns or if you have suggestions for alternatives I should be considering.

First note, my laptop is an extension of me - I’ve had a laptop as my primary computer since about 1994. Historically I kept most of my machines until they almost literally fell apart - driving them hard though I also have tended to buy very close to the peak at the time I could buy (not as ‘full desktop replacement” but as best weight-to-performance-to-battery-life. So each time I’ve replaced my laptop I have spent up to about $3000 - that said, I don’t really have the spare money to buy a new computer at the moment - but then neither can I afford to be unproductive or to continue to have serious issues on a daily basis.

My use of a laptop

• heavy and frequent web browsing and research. I am “online” for many hours every day, much of which is spent with many tabs open in my browser (typically Firefox) in which I am researching, writing, and monitoring
• syncing my iPhone. Most critically with my full contacts database which is, in turn, also synced up to Plaxo. Slightly less critically (since I rarely use Outlook these days) syncing my iPhone with my calendar (this is an area I hope to improve). And I do sync about 6gbs+ of music and the occasional tv episode or short film to my iPhone for later viewing. Most crucially this must include my most recent podcast subscriptions
• syncing my iPod, especially when traveling. I have 100gb+ of my music (and a few tv shows I’ve bought) on an external HD, I have about 30gb of podcasts on my local disk, I synch about 30gb of my library to my 30gb iPod Video (3gb of new content such as recent podcasts, 16+gb of content I haven’t played recently, and a careful collection of my favorite content I want to have with me)
• preparing and giving presentations. I speak at conferences, I pitch to investors, advertisers and partners. While I don’t love PowerPoint, I do have to present on a regular and increasingly frequent basis. I do not, however, do much in my presentations which couldn’t easily be done with Keynote (perhaps even could be done better)
• manage my digital photos. I don’t take enough digital photos (or videos) but I am trying to increase the frequency with which I take photos - and I have a growing collection of photos I’ve taken. I don’t yet have a Flickr Pro account (probably should do that soon) but even with one, I would still want to retain the full resolution, local copies of every photo I’ve ever taken (perhaps stored on an external drive but everything - or at least the stuff that is good enough I might use it - should be at my fingertips at any time
• manage my contacts. I have something close to 6000 contacts in multiple Outlook contacts files. While this is far too many and many are generated contacts from the testing of various systems (which analyzed my email traffic looking for people I should have as a contact) I really do know a ton of people. My contacts data about them is one of my most precious resources, in many cases complete with photo, bio, notes on when/how we met etc - and in many cases updated via sync with Plaxo (and in some cases LinkedIn as well)
• manage my email archives and search them. I currently have email going back at least to 2005 and I think with archives back to 2000 on my current laptop (in a collection of Outlook files). Like my contacts data, my email archives are key data for me - data about when I met someone, what our past interactions have been on etc. Overtime I am slowly weeding and culling my archives of the cruft (old mailing lists, commercial solicitations, spam, updates from various websites etc) but even with that process done (which it is far, far from being so) my email past holds much of my memory.
• keep up with my current email. I mostly use gmail these days, and almost entirely viw the web or my iPhone. I have multiple gmail addresses I watch (my personal address and various emails aliased or forwarded to it, and my professional email address given to only a very few people at the moment but those numbers will rapidly increase) For this as present I use Thunderbird as Outlook is far, far too flaky for me to rely on it
• Read PDFs. Mostly as part of my ongoing research and product development, I end up with a lot of PDF files to download and read. With more arriving every day. My preference these days is to “print to PDF” rather than to paper for about the past 2+ years I have almost gone without printing anything - just occasionally a travel document or contract needing a physical signature. On my ThinkPad I have a useful but not great “print to PDF” application, Macs have this feature built into the OS.
• MindMapping and notetaking. Historically I have used MindManager a great deal (but almost not at all for the past year+). More and more I have just taken notes down in simple text files when offline or when online in various applications (including as draft posts for this blog). This is far from ideal, especially as my needs will be growing exponentially in coming weeks and months. Whether I stay on Vista or migrate to a Mac laptop, I will need to get a great note taking, brainstorming, and task management/project management tool or tools.
• Offline HTML writing. I occasionally blog for other sites than this blog, when I do that I tend to write my posts in an offline HTML editor and then send the editor an HTML file instead of retyping the post or trying to compose the post online (since many conferences where I might be writing from have poor to non-existent and flaky internet access even for the press). Currently I use Microsoft Expression for this, though mostly out of inertia and from having a full copy (actually multiple copies) given to me by Microsoft at various conferences I have attended over the past few years.
• Very rarely but likely to increase spreadsheet analysis. I can crunch numbers with the best of them, but I’ve never been a spreadsheet junky. My tools of choice start with text and flow out from there - but as I grow my company I will have to make more and more use of spreadsheets over time. And likely web based alternatives won’t fully do everything (currently at least) which I need to do, though for basic collaborative tasks they are great). At least once a quarter, if not more often, I will, however have to present numbers to my board (currently small but as we close our first round of funding likely to grow). On my ThinkPad I have Microsoft Office, on a Mac I’d likely start with iWork Numbers (which I already have on my iMac) and will only buy Excel if I truly need it.
• and that is about it really. I don’t have games installed on this ThinkPad (just the basics which come with Vista but haven’t used them in years). I have other software installed but almost never run it (Visual Studio for example). Running at boot I have Skype and Google Chat - but actually rarely use either (and for that matter they are both available for the Mac as well). I have Microsoft OneNote (my laptop is a tablet) but I actually almost never use the tablet functionality - silly I know and a bit of a shame, but also very much the truth. I kinda wish I did use it more often, but in actuality I don’t (and apparently I’m far from alone). I also almost never use video playback on my ThinkPad - I think mostly because the experience even with a local file is quite poor. Instead I watch any videos (including video podcasts) on my iPhone or on my iMac desktop - which is also the machine I’ll use mostly when I buy any video content or when I test/use a service like Joost or Hulu.com or another video service.

So with all that said, how can I decide between my various options.

Scenario One - keep ThinkPad but try refresh/reinstallations

At SXSW I spoke with friends who work for Microsoft. One suggestion was that the OEM installation of Vista, especially on ThinkPads unfortunately, is not very clean or well functioning. His suggestion was to get a full install disk of Vista and do a complete wipe and reinstall everything from scratch.

This would require I backed up all my data. That I made a very complete list of all of the software I have installed (antivirus software, firefox, thunderbird, MSFT Office 2007, MindManager, etc) and made sure I had all the relevant license keys for each product as well as the current installer (or at least how to get the latest versions - or in some cases the versions for which I have a license). Then I would have to reformat my disk completely (likely wiping the IBM special partition as well) and reinstall Vista. Then install MSFT Office 2007, FireFox, Microsoft Expression, Thunderbird, anti-virus software, Skype, Google Pack, some of the key pieces of IBM software (password manager using my fingerprint scanner perhaps, power management software etc) and then migrate back my key data (iTunes, Outlook files, recourses/research, writings, photos etc.

All in all that would likely require 1 to 2 full days between the full backups, reformats and very significant post-installation patching efforts.

But as a result I also quite likely have a much cleaner installation, less cruft, likely a much better performing laptop, and might take the opportunity to structure the laptop to also dual boot with a linux installation (Ubuntu?). If I can use the full license to Vista Microsoft gave me a while back the cost for this would be minimal - but the time and effort could be considerable. And almost certainly there would be one or more issues around licenses with something I want to install.

Scenario Two - I buy the MacBook Air (used) from a friend of a friend 

This would cost me about $1800 for a MacBook Air + external superdrive. On top of that I would probably buy additional AppleCare (another $250 or so) so as to have support into the future.

It would have to be shipped from the east coast to here on the west coast - or I might pick it up in person on my next trip to the east coast in a few weeks.

To make the MacBook Air functional for me I would have to install an office suite (iWork? - which I do have a copy of for my iMac have to check on the licensing for whether I can also use that on a laptop). I would likely buy a small bit of software to help migrate my data from Outlook to formats importable into the Mac built-in applications (though I’m not sure if I want to use those apps or not - haven’t ever used them so don’t fully know if I would like them or not).

I would then have to migrate my iTunes library (always painful) and connect an external drive with my music library to the Air, probably connect via a USB Hub so I can also connect my iPhone and/or my iPod. For the iPhone I owuld have to do this AFTER contacts have been synced and I would have to set up the new connections for data for the iPhone (not sure if I also have to reformat it to work smoothly with  the Mac).

If my iTunes data import works smoothly I should have everything set up, but it not I’ll have to spend a lot of time getting iTunes set up for my use (rebuilding smart playlists etc) and I may lose a lot of key data such as timestamps of when I added data to iTunes, playcounts of files, ratings of songs, podcast subscriptions.

Likely I’ll also need to replace my current, 120gb external portable drive with a much larger but still very small external drive. Ideally at least 300+gb but very lightweight. I’d expect the cost for that will be at least $100, likely closer to $150 but I’d be happy to find that’s high. In setting up my podcast subscriptions as well as my subscriptions to tv shows via iTunes I’ll have to decide where those files come from and are stored (ideally I can do this is in a way usable via my iMac as well - but that might be tricky and some files likely should be local to the Air so I can use them when not online)

Very likely I’ll also have to spend $99 a year to get a .mac account so I can use the “back to my mac” feature to reach my desktop iMac and perhaps use the .mac account to do some data synching (though Plaxo may be sufficient for much of what I actually need done.

I’ll also then need to install a variety of useful Mac software - Skitch for example is a big draw for moving to the Mac laptop, a tool I’d expect to use fairly frequently. I knwo there are dozens of other applications which friends would suggest I use and which I would test out and decide amongst over time - apps for productivity, apps for business/brainstorming/notetaking etc. All told I would like spend a fair chunk of change on new software for the Mac laptop - whether I get an Air or another model. But, for the most part, these would also be tools which pretty clearly would be helping me get more done and be more effienct.

In the case of the Air however I almost certainly won’t install VM Fusion or Parallels as there likely simply isn’t the diskspace to use either effectively. In my current home network configuration this means that I have to give up entirely on using my current printer (for which there are not OSX or Linux drivers). So though I don’t print a lot, likely I’ll have to also plan on investing in a new printer.

Scenario Three - another model of a Mac portable 

I do like the Air’s multi-touch trackpad, I can see myself using gestures frequently. So that rules out (for now) the lower end MacBooks or a used/refurbished MacBook Pro. But I would have to give the other MacBook Pro models serious consideration. The 15″ laptop has nearly the same resolution as my current ThinkPad (one of my major concerns with the MacBook Air is that the resolution there is lower than on my ThinkPad - and my ThinkPad’s resolution isn’t high enough for me - I really like be able to have a lot of information on the screen at once. That said the clarity of the Air’s screen is fantastic and the performance of the graphics is better than my ThinkPad so video etc likely will look much better (be playable in fact).

A 15″ MacBook also weighs around the same as my ThinkPad does with the extended life batteries which I have. However the battery life is a bit lower (3 hours or is what I’ve heard but I’ll be checking with people on that). But overall it would be a great machine and would cost not a lot more than the MacBook Air (less perhaps if I can get a discount from a friend who works at Apple which is a serious possibility).

Scenario Four - another model of PC laptop - running Vista 

Least likely, as there are aren’t many other models I might want to buy but this is a consideration.

Heading to SXSWi - parties, networking and hallway chats

I fly out very, very early tomorrow morning (flight at 6am, leaving house before 4am). Like many of my travels, I have made the arrangements for this trip at the very last minute - I haven’t yet, in fact, registered, I’ll do that onsite when I get there tomorrow.

But then I’m not going to Austin for the SXSWi sessions - sure, I may stop by a few friend’s panels (or may not) and assuming I do get a pass I’ll spend some time in the exhibit halls and at the official parties.

However the reason I am going back to SXSWi is not for the formal conference. Rather I am returning for the chance to spend an intense 4+ days and nights with my peers across the geek/tech world. Friends have described SXSWi as “geek spring break” and there is certainly an element of that. If you want to spend the next four plus days seriously abusing your liver, that is certainly an easy (and popular) option.

For me, however, I am most looking forward to long conversations in hallways, conversations which start with one or two friends and quickly blossom into small groups. Last year powered in part by effective twittering groups of us roved from party to party or, at times, created our own parties when that evenings more official gatherings had ended, were full, or deemed not worth trying to get into. Most evenings (and many afternoons) this year I have parties to attend which friends of mine are organizing and hosting, but I expect to spend some part of most evenins in small group conversation.

My focus all weekend will be on discussing how new forms of advertising could work on the web - how the advertising that I want to deliver via my new company, Nearness Function, should work to offer the best value for individual users and for the developers at our partner companies. I’ll likely also be talking with a few investors over the course of the weekend, with many potential clients, and hopefully with a few potential advertising partners - there certainly will be some people at SXSWi who are at digital agencies.

SXSWi is an intense, jam packed conference. Covering all things interactive and running alongside a film conference and just before one of the biggest and most important music conferences and festivals in the US. In short for this weekend and next week Austin is where much of the creative “class” in the US (and indeed from outside the US) will be found. Friends are flying in from Scotland, Miami and most part of the US and Canada.

This year the weather reports are not entirely pleasant - quite cool and a chance of rain on a few days. So I’ll be packing accordingly, lots of layers and my first purchase after checking into my hotel is likely going to be an umbrella (all my other umbrellas have been destroyed by San Francisco wind gusts this year).

There are countless communities and guides to SXSW, I won’t try to duplicate their advice here but a few reminders - as much as for myself as for you the reader.

1. Have fun. Should go without saying but though a big, long conference is work, don’t forget this should also be fun.
2. Introduce people to each other and don’t be shy about approaching people you don’t know - or people you don’t see often enough. If you get in the habit of introducing people - even people you just recently met, it encourages others to do the same.
3. Try not to eat any meal alone. If you find yourself in danger of doing so, ask some strangers to join you - one plus of a big conference, very likely there are others who likewise don’t yet have dinner or lunch plans (or for that matter breakfast - though you’ll find at SXSW many people sleep in).
4. At the same time if you aren’t an extrovert, give yourself some time alone, some time to regroup and mentally review the activities of the past day. If you are a runner go for a run (though you might do this with fellow attendees as well). I hope that my hotel has a pool and my current plan is to try to get in a short swim each morning - exercise plus a chance to mentally regroup. I also found that at times I might be leaving one party and meeting people at another - instead of taking the fastest path there (a cab) at times walking, even if it is a mile+ away would give me a great chance to refresh and relax.
5. Perhaps it should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. Get enough to drink (water) and try to eat as healthily as possible. Yes, I plan on eating a lot of BBQ. However I will try to vary my diet, be sure to get some fruits & veggies along with my smoked meats, and I’ll be sure to drink a lot of water. This is especially important if, unlike me, you plan on drinking a great deal of the free/cheap booze that flows freely.
6. Have something to give people to be remembered by - but in turn when you get something from someone whom you want to stay in touch with try to quickly get back to them digitally. At any convention it is far too easy to end up with a large pile of stuff and have little memory of who you need to send what to. My plan is to carve out a part of each day (probably in the mornings) to process my notes and contacts from the past day and at least send people my contact info. Jotting a quick note on the back of someone’s card (and/or in a small notebook you carry with you - I’ll be using my Creative Commons Moleskin) can also be a good starting point.
7. Travel as lightly as possible. I am lucky, the hotel room I’ll be sharing is across from the conference center. As such I plan on dropping off my bags there frequently, as much as possible I hope to carry with me as little as possible (sometimes just pocket planner, notebook, iPhone, may even leave the laptop behind)

And above all keep in mind my first point.

Hope to see many of you in Austin tomorrow!

Abstractions for Metrics and Targeting - extending OpenSocial

Tonight I attended the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab event “Shaking the Money Tree of Multi-Platform Social Networks” which my friend Jeremiah Owyang moderated. It was a sold out event which drew a very diverse crowd of students, brand advertisers, technologists, entrepreneurs and analysts. The event was great with short presentations and an engaging panel discussion. During the panel discussion I asked a question, which in turn sparked an idea I am exploring in this post. In the next few weeks and months I will be engaging with many people around these ideas and I look forward to comments, criticism and suggestions about how to accomplish these two main ideas.

In the interest of full disclosure, when I asked my question tonight at the event I noted that I was not an impartial questioner - I have a stake in this. To elaborate further, the company I am in the midst of co-founding, Nearness Function, is an ad network working to bring brand advertisers to select applications - including very likely applications running in Social Networks and on OpenSocial. If both of my proposals below happen it certainly will help Nearness Function and our partners and clients - and I hope, will help the entire industry.

Tonight Kevin Marks of Google discussed three important ways in which OpenSocial creates abstractions.

1. Abstracting the Friend networks of the “viewer” and “owner”. Allowing these to queried and traversed.
2. Abstracting data persistence for applications
3. Abstracting the event (”news”) feed which the use of an application can generate

My question and now proposal would add two abstractions - to OpenSocial and likely to more of the web in general.

1. Abstract metrics
2. Abstract targeting data

Taking these points in detail, here is what I am suggesting. These are my initial thoughts - I welcome feedback and further discussions.

Abstract metrics

The web 1.0 metrics resolved around “pageviews” and later, slightly more refined around “impressions” or “uniques”. In the past few years with the rise of pay-per-click advertising both against search results and increasing elsewhere across the web, “clicks” and a resulting calculation of “ecpm” (effective cost per thousand) has been a commonly used metric for success. And terms like “uniques” and “impressions” get used a lot - though exactly how to define and calculate them is not always clear in the least. Even “clicks” have to be recalculated to take into account “ClickFraud” - i.e. automated or malicious attempts to game pay-per-click systems, often by automating clicks on links (sometimes to generate income, but more subtly to exhaust a competitor’s budget).

For OpenSocial, and for much of the web of 2008, I would suggest that we start to think about abstractions for metrics that fit this new environment.

My initial suggestions would be to define active vs. inactive states so that an application can report back when a user is active (and we define what that means) within the application. A further refinement to this abstraction would be to measure the time in each state again with uniform ways to start and stop that clock.

Additionally a defined way to count events within the use of an application potentially including a measure of where within the application attention is paid could be highly useful as well. This might start by building on similar tools that are already used to track web activity and interactions. In the OpenSocial (and widget case more broadly) one complication being how to log and report back these metrics in a standard manner.

Ideally these metrics probably should flow back to the hosting social networks, to the application provider, and potentially (and again this needs clarification) be shareable with third party providers - such as an ad network (like the one I’m building).

Abstract targeting data

In the panel tonight when I asked about this the conversation shifted to a discussion about what an ad network can and can’t store based on the terms of service of a given social network. That is important, but it missed the point of my suggestion.

Here what I would be proposing is a bit more complex than the metrics, it would be a set of abstractions around what data flows to the application (which in turn might flow to the systems used to target advertising) which could be employed for targeting. Abstractions are important because even seemingly “simple” elements can, in many cases, prove complex.

Take “gender” - in many, but not by any means all, social networks this is relatively simple “male” or “female” - however this is not always the case. For one there are often many people who leave the field blank (i.e. undefined) and in at least some networks people of another gender (”transgendered” to take one example) can specify that. An abstraction might not resolve all possible nuances - but, for example, it might require the “undefined” case (and likely an “other” case) to be handled.

The issue that advertisers, marketers, application developers and social networks all face is nearly everyone recognizes that targeting messages - if done well and reasonably - adds greatly to the impact and effectiveness of those messages (however you choose to measure that). But each party also defines what and how they think that targeting should (or could) happen in very different ways.

My suggestion would be to create some standard and abstracted ways to think about a common set of data that could be available at the point when targeting could occur. Note that this would be done in a manner that could also be kept in compliance with a given social network’s terms of service. i.e. on FaceBook that data which is shared would not be retained for more than 24hrs etc.

Here are a few of my suggestions for areas where a discussion could (and should I’d say) happen, I’m sure I’ve missed or overlooked some things - and in some cases the standard may be very simple.

• Gender
• Age - I’d suggest by ranges vs. specifics - with a standard set of ranges
• Geographic location - potentially in two parts a) of viewer, calculated from IP address etc, at time of use and b) “home” (possibly “homes”) as stated in user profile
• New user/viewer of a given application vs. returning user/viewer vs. has application installed on own system (ideally even if “own” profile is on a different social network)
• Path to current session - i.e. via internal to social network search, via link on friend’s page, via link on stranger’s page, via external search, via external deep link
• Technology - browser type, speed of connection, mobile phone vs computer vs console
• Measure of frequency of interaction (with social network, with a given application) - i.e. you could target people who use the site every day and have for the past 6 months differently from people who use that particular site only once a week. You might also want to target users who are in their first X days of using an application or the underlying social network in a different manner than users who have been using it for months.

I’m sure there are others.

The key points here is that what needs to be defined is not just the categories but some abstract and standard ways to pass the relevant data. Keeping in mind that at the end of the day the goal here would be to make:

• The user experience better by presenting more likely to be relevant commercial messages
• The advertiser purchasing opportunities to be more clearly defined so advertisers can compare apples to apples
• The developer have an easier set of tools to understand the users and to offer, if desired, opportunities to advertisers
• and for Third party providers, such as an ad network, to have at least a minimum set of expected to be available data which could be used

These abstract targeting data would not preclude additional information being used to enhance and improve results (where that data can be used if covered under terms of service) but it would help improve targeting especially for OpenSocial applications which cross multiple social networks. The final results (i.e. which specific ad to show if any) might take a variety of additional factors (which ads were shown to that user or to similar users recently, what the actions of those users were, what various advertisers are willing to pay at the moment, etc)

This is very much a work in progress. I’m sure there are some overlaps here with activities of various industry groups. I welcome suggestions, enhancements, and other comments!

Economics, live video, and The World Economic Forum at Davos

I am deeply interested in Economics, for many years now I have been researching and thinking about a Networked Theory of Economics, a goal of mine for 2008 is to write and publish my book on that topic (ideally selling it as well so it reaches a wide audience).

So at this time I am very interested in what is happening this week in Davos, Switzerland. This year, in a fairly radical move towards openness, The World Economic Forum has a YouTube channel where they are posting many videos from the press events as well as interviews with attendees and leaders at Davos. Davos has also given a number of leading bloggers full access (though some sessions are off the record, quite a few portions of the conference are on the record). Robert Scoble is wandering through Davos with his cameraphone, frequently streaming live to the web via Qik. Jeff Jarvis and Michael Arrington among others are also in attendance and posting about their experiences as they happen.

As I wrote this, Robert streamed live, I jumped into the live chat. Yup, we live in science fictional times.

I am up late here in San Francisco, as I go to sleep soon, the 2300+ participants at Davos will go on about their day, when I wake up they will likely be almost about to eat dinner and heading to parties (apparently tomorrow Google is having a big party). And I know that because minutes ago I watched live video from and of my friends at the forum, streamed live across the Internet. Of course that same video started by Robert observing the President of Israel recording two videos for YouTube, which are also now likely live on the web as I write this.

Truly this is amazing stuff. When I was growing up, in the 80’s and 90’s CNN and cable news was just getting started, though my family didn’t even own a TV, the impact of live news around the clock was just starting to have an impact on the globe. But the rest of the world was still fairly far away, phone calls cost money - especially overseas calls, and data rates were measured in baud (and computers showed mostly only text and very simple graphics - though that changed rapidly as I was in high school in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

Now Robert’s cell phone on which he was recording and streaming live video has more computational power, I’m fairly sure, than the computers I used throughout high school and even into college. He almost certainly has multiple GB’s of storage and very rapid data connections to the web (3G I assume), a screen on his phone that is far denser than the screens we used then - and a camera that records at resolutions unheard of back then - heck nearly unheard of not all that many years ago.

And though Robert notes that not that many bloggers are at Davos this year, the impact of YouTube and bloggers is to help crack open in a fairly major way a gathering that had for years been shrouded mostly in secrecy into a far more open event. Still with a lot of secrecy and I’m sure a lot of security - but also impressively interested in engaging with the world.

In watching the video which I have embedded above, I was also struck by how interesting the group of co-chairs of the forum are - world leaders past and (near)present along side business leaders from across the globe - leaders who were not just white, anglo saxon males - but leaders of large and yes powerful companies from across the globe.

All speaking, at least in this press conference in English, and all seemingly comfortable with their roles, with each other, and for the most part with the press (though the press were for the most part mostly interested in talking to Tony Blair). Personally I was most interested in everyone else on the panel except Tony Blair and Henry Kissinger. I am encouraged by the engagement of the leaders of some of the largest companies in the world in the issues which face us as a globe.

My views on Economics, in the most simple form, is that all economics can be modeled as a network over time. What this means is that value is not fixed, not inherent but deeply and tightly embedded in the economic networks we create and participate within. I have to do more and deeper research and modeling, but in general I would thus be deeply opposed to protectionist steps - and also deeply suspicious of attempts to economically isolate countries (or other entities).

At MeshForum we talk about many types of networks and especially about interdisciplinary approaches to networks. The World Economic Forum at Davos is a prime example of the power of social networks - and the vital importance, even for the very “important and/or famous” of face-to-face interactions, of shared meals and joint experiences. But the spectacle of and around Davos also highlights that there is much more going on, there are other factors - new media old and new, political networks both within countries and globally such as the UN, economic networks both within corporations and between corporations, and newer, creative networks such as the Project(red) campaign which connects individual customers, brands, an NGO of the UN, and millions of HIV patients thoughout the world. $57 million dollars is, perhaps, a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of AIDS to Africa and the world, or to the revenues of the corporate sponsors of the project, but it is also enough to have had a very real and dramatic impact on tens of thousands of our fellow humans who were suffering and now have some measure of hope.

As I live and work here in the US, in this very expensive and deeply futuristic place called Silicon Valley, even here in San Francisco which has at least a small measure of history and culture as well, it is well worth remembering how large and diverse and complex our planet is.

And to recall how small are the links which connect us all. My friends are now there at Davos hanging out, meeting, and sharing meals with some of the people who quite literally lead this world - the leaders of large corporations, the organizers of major efforts to save lives (as well as, less fortunately some of the leaders whose decisions cost lives), and the leaders of many governments (or past leaders).

They say that we, all humans, are connected by just a few steps, but also at far too many times it seems that even in our own countries, within our own cities we exist and live in different worlds. In 2008, however, I see many signs that our common links, our common, global interests are starting to be made clearer and that technology is, in part, helping more people reach out to each other - and to engage and perhaps see the “other” as also human, also worthy of respect and engagement with - even and perhaps particularly when we do not entirely agree.

MacWorld - covering for CenterNetworks

I will be covering MacWorld for CenterNetworks. Unfortunately I probably won’t be able to get my press credentials in time to get into the keynote (I may give it a shot early in the morning if I’m up and moving but I’ve been told it is unlikely).

With a press pass my experience of the conference likely will be a bit different than it was in years past when I was “just” there with an exhibit badge. A further difference will be that this year I have a bunch of friends who are working for companies who are exhibiting (in a few cases companies which they own and founded), I also have a large group of friends who are attending MacWorld and also going to the many related parties and events occurring around town all week. So this should be a different yet also fun way to experience the conference.

I am debating whether to bring my laptop or my XO laptop to cover the show. I don’t have a Mac portable - so either machine will almost certainly stand out. From a purely practical standpoint there are some arguments for the ThinkPad - but from a pure fun and engagement with others standpoint the XO wins heads down - I have yet to bring it out somewhere without drawing a crowd of people - most of whom ask where they can buy their own. I suspect even at MacWorld a similar reaction will be found (unless of course as I suspect Apple has a few amazing laptops of their own to reveal…)

So tune in tomorrow for my posts throughout the day and all week long - and follow me via twitter if you want the live as it happens coverage. (such as it is)

Advertising in Applications - a workshop series

As you may know if you have met me recently and/or have been reading my blog regularly, I am in the midst of starting a new company, Nearness Function, which is an ad network focused on placing commercial messeges, especially branding messages, inside of applications. We take an expansive view of what an application is - so we will work with web applications using AJAX, widgets, Flash applications, desktop applications (which connect back to the web), mobile applications. We are also exploring helping publishers of certain types of rich content such as podcasters and video bloggers - we’ll definitely work with media players which might play such content and as rapidly as we can build out the infrastructure we will expand the ad formats we can serve to include video ads which have had great success as an ad unit in many applications already.

As I speak with publishers (in our case mostly software companies) and with advertising agencies, media buyers and direct advertisers I have been struck by the range of experiences and questions around how to best place ads inside of dynamic applications. These questions range from debates about the formats that work to questions about what metrics and pricing models can be used to sell and track these ads. In our role as a network we have to provide solutions to the technical issues of getting the right, targeted ads in front of the individuals who use a given application, we also have to address the business needs and goals of both the media buyers, ad agencies, advertisers and publishers - all while also remaining focused on the experience of those individual users whose actions and reactions form the basis for the value of the advertising.

So, starting at the end of January and continuing on a regular basis we are starting a workshop series on Ads in Applications. This will be a long lunch to start with the first event to be held here in San Francisco at the end of January. Future events will include more lunch workshops and, I hope, some open to the public events in the evenings which will have a more traditional speaker format.

The first lunch workshop will be by invitation only. If you are reading this and would like an invitation contact me directly - please include a note about why you are interested in participating which includes your current role & company (or companies). The workshops are intended for senior people from application companies (often founders) and senior folks from the ad buying side. Select investors who have a portfolio of firms in the application space will also be welcome to participate - though they are encouraged to invite representatives from their portfolio firms. For the workshops press, including bloggers, are specifically not invited - these will be off the record, working discussions. My hope is that from these closed events we will also organize some open to the public events and/or come up with some public proposals - either for standards or as suggestions to standards efforts at organizations such as the IAB.

For the first workshop the format will be highly collaborative discussion, we will be a relatively small group and will all have a chance to both talk, listen and ask many questions. My hope is that in a few hours we can cover a range of ongoing questions and issues - including formats, metrics, measurements, definitions of “targeting”, acceptable pricing models (which both drive metrics and are in turn driven by what can be measured), how to define success, and various best practices around the integration and targeting of ads. I hope also that we have some discussion about how to disclose commercial content inside of a variety of types of dynamic applications - in many small widgets and in many types of other content what is an “ad” can not always be fully obvious.

Watch this blog for more details about the workshop and contact me directly (and/or leave a comment here) if you would be interested in attending, hosting, or helping organize these workshops.

One more reason why Comscore and other “surveys” are unreliable

And that’s being kind…

Over the past few days the CA Security Advisor Blog has been posting about the spyware which is installed by Sears and KMart when you join their “community”. Spyware which leads back to Comscore and which, in essence, tracks every single web action - including secured transactions, that the infected users take. And it is this very pool of spyware infested users which Comscore then relies upon to make sweeping statements about the traffic and online activity across the Internet.

This is not a minor issue. These seriously flawed and troubling methods result in the numbers which, in turn, get cited as fact at major events (such as from keynote speakers on stage at AdTech NYC this past Fall) and quoted heavily in the major press on and offline. Further these comscore numbers are then used to drive much of online ad spending.

On the Pho list I wrote the following analysis a few months back, I am quoting my email in the entirety,  the context was a discussion on the list (which is focused on digital music) on the Radiohead In Rainbows experiment and a comscore report that claimed that 60% of all users who visited the Radiohead site had downloaded the music without paying at all. A statement which the band itself vigorously rejected.

A few observations and further fodder for discussion.

This past week I spent the last four days at Ad:Tech NYC. (I was
covering Ad:Tech for my friend Allen Stern’s blog, Centernetworks -
see http://centernetworks.com/tag/adtech for my coverage).

At MULTIPLE times over the course of the conference, most notably at
many of the keynote presentations from senior ad industry leaders, the
comscore study was cited without question as being authoritative and
proof that most people won’t pay.

I see any number of very serious flaws in Comscore’s processes and methods.

Here are a few.

1. The underlying, basic assumption of any survey is that your sample
population can serve as a proxy and basis to extrapolate up to the
whole population. HOWEVER I think that especially online today this is
dangerously flawed. People do not act independently - instead people
are deeply influenced by the behaviors of their peers - and online
this effect can be multiplied many, many fold. In my own personal,
online networks literally dozens upon dozens of people have sent
twitters, emails, and written blog posts about In Rainbows so my
awareness of it (and the purchases of it often down to the exact price
paid) is extremely high. Amongst my circle - a very very high
percentage of people likely have visited the site,and most have
downloaded the album (and in most cases paid over $5 for it)

2. On a related front - about zero percentage of my population I
mention above are part of comscore’s surveys population. Indeed given
that they: install an explicit piece of spyware (with permission - but
inherently it is spying on your every action) in return for “server
based virus scanning, sweepstakes and helping the internet” I doubt
anyone I know would participate - nor would I allow or suggest it to
ANYONE I know or advice. Not to mention that almost certainly most
corporate security processes would not allow such technology on
corporate machines (and with extremely good reasons).

Thus almost certainly their survey population, though over 2M are
almost entirely home/personal computers (even while more and more
workers have internet access at work and use that access for some
personal use). Furthermore since they are installing tracking in the
browser they miss: people with multiple browsers which they use on the
same machine, potentially people who have multiple logins to the same
computer (parents sharing a computer with children for example),
people with multiple computers, people with multiple internet
connected non-pc devices (i.e. browsing via a game console for
example), mobile phone (such as iPhone) access.

I use multiple browsers on both my Vista tablet and my iMac desktop -
not to mention my occasional use of Parallels on the mac. I also make
extensive use of my iPhone’s web access.

3. I would need to know much more in depth technical details of how
their browser plugin works - but on Vista computers to take one very
large example by default the OS firewall will block many types of
outbound reporting by applications without authorization (but this may
happen as part of their install).

4. I find it somewhat telling that nowhere which I could find at least
on http://comscore.com could I find a means to choose to join their
survey population (they may do this deliberately in that they want to
have some “randomness” to their survey population.

BUT this implies that they are using online ads and other means to
attract people to join their survey population.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but almost all savvy Internet
users I know generally never click on any survey driven offer (and/or
never give anything accurate in an online survey). I certainly don’t
answer surveys via online ads. Nor most via emails or popups on a
given page. Occasionally I will follow up from a conference by filling
out their survey of attendees (but I would NEVER allow such a survey
to install spyware on my computer).

5. While comscore is tracking a survey population designed to measure
the “typical” Internet user (though with billions of “internet users”
this alone may be essentially meaningless on a global scale) Radiohead
never intended to reach the “typical” user.

Radiohead wants to reach radiohead fans first - mostly current fans
but also to grow and gain new fans. They sing in English so a large
portion of their fans speak English (though now 100’s of millions of
people online do not) - further while they tour worldwide almost
certainly countries and cities where they have performed in the past
have more fans than those where they have not.

With the millions of existing radiohead fans (people who have bought
their past albums, gone to their shows etc) I would guess that the
percentage who visited their website is very very high - and that the
percentage who paid is also quite high.

Shannon