A nice piece on the challenges and opportunities that are part of social software design from Gentry Underwood.

Here's some excerpts:

The problem: "...for all of the press and fanfare, most social software is, well, socially awkward. " "...design is profoundly awkward for more nuanced social interaction. " "...most social software tools are clumsy and ineffective at smoothly facilitating interpersonal interaction.

The opportunity: "...From an historical perspective, we are still in the early days of social interaction design." "...social software is pretty far from mature" "...there is ample opportunity to produce something truly new."

Success requires: "...different skills than those employed traditionally in software design." "...a deep understanding of the unseen elements of relationships, power dynamics, and cultural rules in social systems."

Here's a link to the original article

And here's a video of him giving a talk based on that article:

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Discussions about privacy are muddled. That's because people are often talking at cross purposes.

It turns out that privacy is virtually impossible to define.

And to further confuse matters, we think we care about it. But when it really comes down to it. We don't.

To begin to make progress in understanding privacy we first have to recognise that we relate to privacy at two distinct levels. At a societal level and at a personal level.

Yet another threat to society At the societel level the concern is about government spooks and megacorporations. Pouring over your data and watching your every move. This is a very real concern. But... It's impersonal. And filed away in our heads under "Yet another threat to society." In short people don't feel it acutely enough to actually alter their day-to-day behaviour. Even though they kinda know they should. So, in a practical sense its just as if people don't care about privacy.

This time its personal The erosion of privacy at a personal is very different. I hold that privacy cannot be usefully defined at this level, except to be defined by the breach. By instances of social embarassment. By those moments when social spheres collide with messy consequences. Facebook has gone further than most in bringing this reality to light. At its best Facebook is a serendipity engine. At its worst its a privacy trainwreck. To restate that. When we are pleasantly surprised we call it serendipity. When we are unpleasantly surprised we call it a breach of privacy.

'Privacy' is a red herring Its all very subjective and context sensitive and this is why I say that at this level privacy as a notion is not amenable to definition. And it distract and confuses us, making it difficult to see what is really going on. Its better to reframe the situation. And recognise that people don't care about privacy. What they really care about is social embarassment. They want the happy accidents that are the upside of social collisions without the messy consequences that are the downsides. Of course, this is not possible with Facebook. Its a double-edged sword. You can't have one without the other.

The Future I suppose someone will eventually find a way give the consumers what they want. The upside without the downside. What will it look like? Who knows, but it will likely be a new platform that doesn't have these problems baked in. *****Timely example******** Facebook 'reconnect': The latest Facebook innovation illustrates this baked in double-edged sword... serendipity engine / privacy trainwreck scenario perfectly. Facebook 'reconnect' prompts users to reconnect with ex-lovers and dead friends.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

The number one facebook blog www.allfacebook.com has a guide for sale that show you how to manage your privacy settings on facebook.

The Holy Grail of Facebook Privacy is a simple guide to protecting yourself on Facebook and making sure you never end up with an embarrassing situation that could have lasting repercussions, potentially even costing your job.

It runs to 24 detailed pages. This is not for normal people. Normal people will not buy this book. Normal people will not read a detailed 24 page guide to navigating the privacy setting on facebook. Normal people will not keep updating and curating setting at the level of detail required as their social networks morph and grow. Facebook privacy is not attainable by normal people. The settings are just too complicated and detailed. They are too offputting and require too much attention and curation.

Here's how it easily compromised by you:

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Twitter almost solves the biggest baddest puzzle of our time. But its not there yet. Twission shows us one way to go about solving that puzzle.

So what is the biggest baddest puzzle of our time. In short, too much of a good thing.  

Information overload. We live in an age where we are easily overwhelmed by the constant flood of high value information.

Information makes you smarter. Until it becomes overwhelming. Then it makes you dumb.  

Drinking from the firehose is not the best way to quench a thirst.

1.  So how can we cope? Well, Twitter helps a lot. It delivers the first part of the solution. It enforces brevity. And that's good.

2.  It also deliver the second part of the solution: Finding what is relevant to you. By using friends as filters.  

3.  The third part of the solution? Real-time search of real-time discussion. This is why Twitter purchased 'Summize.'  

4.  The final part of the solution. Is real-time search within the bounds of 'friends as filters' This delivers real-time results most relevant to you. This is what Twission aims to provide.

Check it out. Twission.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

The 10 principles are stolen directly from Nassim Nicholas Taleb article in Today's FT. Taleb, a veteran trader and dinstinguished professor. And views economies as complex adaptive systems. So it'll come as no surprise that I'm a fan. He has also published two very famous books in The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable and "Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets" The original article is here. Its already very short and sweet. I highly recommend it. If you haven't clicked through yet. Here's an even shorter version.

1. What is fragile should break early while it is still small . Nothing should ever become too big to fail.

2. No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains. Whatever may need to be bailed out should be nationalised; whatever does not need a bail-out should be free, small and risk-bearing.

3. People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus. It is irresponsible and foolish to put our trust in the ability of such experts to get us out of this mess. Instead, find the smart people whose hands are clean.

4. Do not let someone making an "incentive" bonus manage a nuclear plant - or your financial risks . No incentives without disincentives: capitalism is about rewards and punishments, not just rewards.

5. Counter-balance complexity with simplicity. Complexity from globalisation...needs to be countered by simplicity in financial products.

6. Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning. Complex derivatives need to be banned because nobody understands them and few are rational enough to know it.

7. Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence. Governments should never need to "restore confidence". Governments cannot stop the rumours.

8. Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains. Using leverage to cure the problems of too much leverage is not homeopathy, it is denial. We need rehab.

9. Citizens should not depend on financial assets or fallible "expert" advice for their retirement. Citizens should experience anxiety about their own businesses (which they control), not their investments (which they do not control).

10. Make an omelette with the broken eggs. This crisis cannot be fixed with makeshift repairs. [Apply these principles and] we will see an economic life closer to our biological environment: smaller companies, richer ecology, no leverage. A world in which entrepreneurs, not bankers, take the risks and companies are born and die every day without making the news.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

The news. Facebook, once again, got smacked on the wrist by its userbase.

Zuckerberg has indicated that the swift and negative reaction to their recent efforts to amend the terms of service had helped him realise it was now time to deal with this. Facebook plans to prevent this happening again.

They've presented their plan as 'Facebook opens discussion on a 'bill of rights' for the governance of their userbase.'

What this really means: The reality is that this intervention will affect the SOCIAL DYNAMIC on Facebook in a very significant way. This intervention will: 1. Defuse 'Stop Energy'. 2. Clear the way for 'Forward Motion'.

More on 'Stop Energy' and 'Forward Motion'.

'Stop Energy': Most types of collective action organize around 'Stop Energy'. Facebook users have mobilised and engaged in 'Stop Energy' to great success time and again. Its the only effective power available to the users of Facebook. Or any large-scale informally organised collective. Rerouting 'Stop Energy' into a pseudo-democratic consultation process will effectively quench its power. As an act of political hegemony if would be described as the employment of a bureaucracy to make power seem remote and tiresome to engage in for the typical user on any particular issue.

'Forward Motion': ''Forward Motion' is very difficult to initiate or progress in informally organised collectives. However, 'Forward Motion' is the raison d'etre of formal organisations and firms. Facebook, like any other formal organisation is a lean, mean and very effective machine at mobilising 'Forward Motion'. Naturally, Facebook will leverage this ability to drive forward the Facebook agenda.

Political hegemony: At large scale, collective action is best mobilised by a simple coordinating signal. And best extinguished by efforts at large-scale collective conversation. Facebook now reroutes collective action into collective conversation. Its a master-stroke of a political hegemony. Its a classic 'bait-and-switch'.

Nice stroke, Facebook.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I proposed the simple idea of 'internet only' 'new banks' back here in "My friend the economist and my dumb question."

Since then Buiter, Stiglitz, Soros and Romer have proposed similar schemes. New banks: Did I get the scoop? Did you hear it here first?

But the really good news is that Marc Andreesen is now pushing the idea. Why is this good news? Well, Marc Andreessen could carry this idea.

Andreessen's got all the right credentials ie he is a wunderkind of the industry of wealth-creating technological innovation and has none of the wrong ones ie he is not of the wealth-destroying financial innovation industry.

And Obama and Andreessen are already personally acquainted. Can Andreessen carry this simple idea to move Obama? I hope so.

And I hope it can be done in time to demonstrate the Irish leaders that there is a smarter and simpler way. Talk about 'new banks' 50 minutes in. Transcript below. But note that as always Andreessen give great value entire way through.

Good banks, bad banks, doesn’t matter. What we need are NEW banks. And I actually think what we need — and I think the valley can play a role in this, I think there should be a new wave of financial institutions that should be created from scratch today. And they should take the role. So instead of trying to unwind some big bank that’s underwater, and hundreds of billion dollars insolvent, let’s create a whole bunch of new ones. And by the way, let’s have them all be new and online. So instead of having all this infrastructure and all these old systems and these ATM’s and all this stuff, let’s do purely online, purely Internet banks. Purely virtual, much lower cost structure. Because it’s going to take — even if you can figure out a way to fix the old banks, it’s going to take a long time. I mean it is a very complicated and involved process. They are deeply broken in very fundamental ways. Create a new bank. I mean a bank is a simple concept. You can create a bank in software.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I wrote about my idea of 'My friend the economist and my dumb question' here on 23rd January. I'm now in very good company. From Willem Buiter at the Financial Times on January 29, 2009 "The 'Good Bank' Solution"

There is an alternative solution to the problem of valuing the toxic assets. It would not involve nationalising the existing banks. Instead the state would create one or more new ’good’ banks - all state-owned and state-funded to begin with.

From Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz on 02 Feb 2009 at Davos. "Let banks fail" reported in the Telegraph.

“the government should allow every distressed bank to go bankrupt and set up a fresh banking system under temporary state control rather than cripple the country by propping up a corrupt edifice”.

From George Soros on 04 Feb in the WSJ "We Can Do Better Than a 'Bad Bank' "

... about $1.5 trillion is likely to be required to recapitalise the existing banks properly. This money could be leveraged a lot more effectively if most of it were injected into the new good banks, unencumbered with the toxic waste of the existing banks.

From Paul Romer in the WSJ on 06 Feb "Let's Start Brand New Banks"

Everyone agrees that the United States urgently needs a few good banks. Turning bad banks into good banks is a difficult and risky way to get them. It's simpler and safer to start entirely new banks.

And from Willem Buiter again at the Financial Times on 08 Feb "Good Bank/New Bank vs. Bad Bank: a rare example of a no-brainer" rounding up the ongoing discussion:

I claim no authorship or originality for the ‘good bank’ proposal. The idea is obvious and no doubt was floating around the blogosphere and elsewhere as soon as the magnitude of the insolvency disaster in the banking sector became apparent.

The US, the UK and several other continental European countries are at risk of emulating Ireland, where the government first guaranteed all the liabilities of the banks (other than equity) and only after that began to nationalise the banks. This leaves the Irish government today in the not too enviable position of having to choose between sovereign default and bleeding the tax payer and the beneficiaries of normal public spending to make whole all the creditors of the banks.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I want to tell you a little about a friend of mine. He's got a PhD in economics and has been lecturing for years. From time-to-time I say to him: "Can I ask you a dumb question?" He always replies with a wry smile "Answering dumb questions is practically my job description." We had one of our chats last night:

ME:

I keep hearing:"Strong banks are essential to our economy." But surely, they should be saying: "A strong banking system is essential to our economy." The 1st statement leads us towards bank rescues and nationalisations. While the 2nd gives us more options.

My friend the economist:

Yes that is more accurate. In fact, I was studying in Finland in 1992 as a series of banking collpases swept across the Nordic countries. Many of the possible options were tested with varying success. Go on..

ME:

Well, I don't know if this option was available in the past... Why not establish 2 brand new internet-only banks in Ireland. And capitalise them with the €15bn. For that, you get 2 new banks. Each starting with a clean sheet. Free to borrow. Free to lend. The advantages are you get a banking system. You avoid nationalisation. You embrace pure competition. And no money gets thrown into a black hole.

Economist:

Yes. Pure internet banking wasn't an option in 1992. It could constitute a banking system. Such new banks would be able and eager to lend. The old banks could continue to deal with cash. But if they do crash..?

ME:

If a physical branch network is important. Co-opt the post office network. Or the credit union network. If internet access is important. Support internet cafes. Such an approach would be a snug fit with the government's policy of support rural Ireland and the roll out of the national broadband scheme...

Economist:

Sounds like it could work. But you know the old joke "If you want 4 opinions. Ask 2 economists"

So that's it. My dumb question to you is "Why not?" I'm hoping you can help me understand our options a little bit better.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Its a classic Irish problem. You love that cosy little pub. Especially on a Thursday night. But last time you were there. It wasn't cosy. It was crowded. Which is a whole different kettle of fish.

Arthur used this example to draw attention to a certain paradox of deductive reasoning - of the idea that there always exists a "best solution" that can be determined by logic. The El Farol problem cannot have a standard, generally agreed, "rational" solution. There cannot be one strategy, the best strategy, that everyone can use. If everyone uses the same strategy for deciding whether or not to go to the bar the bar will be either full or empty each night. Everyone would lose all the time.

So in summary: If everyone acts rationally. Then everyone will lose. And the pub will go out of business. What society needs. Is for everyone to act irrationally, in accordance with whatever personal hunch they have at that time. And then, everything will work out in the end. And society will be able to support a vibrant pub scene. Now this makes perfect instinctive sense to an Irishman. But I can't begin to tell you what heresy this kind of thinking was to your typical economist.

In the Challet and Zhang financing game, the choice between A and B does not involve going to a bar but selling or buying stock. When one makes financial speculations one has to buy before everybody is crowding to buy (thus driving the price up) and to sell before everybody starts selling (thus driving the price down). Thus, the big winners are always managing to be part of the minority. There has been a lot of interest in developing the mathematics of this game. The reason for this interest is not only practical, physicists trying to get rich, but also theoretical. The models have yielded surprising features showing under which conditions cooperation appears spontaneously in a group, and the field also proved to be a generalization of the type of game theory simulations modeling the Darwinian evolution.

So there you have it. A common problem. Some lateral seemingly irrational thinking. And a surprising solution. Of wide ranging applicability. Very Irish. Don't you think? With thanks to David Lane, a sometimes co-author of W. Brian Arthur, for referencing the Irish connection to "El Farol Bar Problem" during his keynote at the Innovation in Complex Social Systems conference yesterday and to Damien Mulley for getting me a ticket.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I've been thinking about the way things change. And the way they stay the same.

I've been thinking about the way we think of their physical body as a fairly permanent structure, while we also know that our bodies are undergoing constant renewal. As they say there's a whole new you every 7 years.

But the new you is easily recognizable to almost anyone who knew the old you. Which means that we ought to see ourselves not as an immutable, permanent structure, but more like a standing wave.

Kinda like this one on the Eisbach river running through Munich's Englishergarten. But what is true for the individual. Is true for society and its structures and organisations. Multi-national corporations have emerged and remained highly recognisable as structures and entities over long periods of time.

The same is true of social, political and legal systems. Even though all the people that made up these social institutions have been replaced over and over again the system, like a standing wave has kept its essential recognisable character.

Institutions appear permanent and solidly fixed. But what we are actually seeing is a robust standing wave. Ever changing. Robust and dynamic. Most of the time. But also predictably susceptible to unexpected collapses. Permanent, robust, ever-present institutions are not as solid a rock but as collapsable as a wave.

I also like to think that the tradition of periodically rebuilding the Ise Shinto Shrines in Japan touches on this view of permanence. The Ise Shrine is a wooden structure that has existed for thousands of years because it is periodically dismantled and rebuilt in a meticulous manner.

Making the Shrine forever new and forever ancient. The Shrine stands as a demonstration and testament to the fact that lasting permanence can be supported on the back of a standing wave of social and cultural traditions. So maybe, the next time we are thinking of building and maintaining something robust and long-lasting.

Maybe we should consider adopting a standing wave as a metaphor. Instead of a rock.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I'm currently reading and re-reading.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Your a Web2.0 company. You are genuine and authentic. You want to create instant emotional connection. No cheese

.

If it's easy, it must be cheesy. Right? Wrong!! Dopplr shows that way: On the anniversary of a trip, it issues you an email reminder.

Cue flashflood of fond memories and reminisces.

That's pretty goddam simple. And a massive ROI for a genuine and authentic service. And. Its easy to access for EVERY Web2.0 company.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result: Albert Einstein

How many attempts have Yahoo made at breaking into social networking? Yahoo360 anyone? Yahoo Mixd? Efforts to buy Facebook? And now Yahoo Mash has closed after less than a year in operation.

If you've tested your assumptions and found them to be false. Try some new assumptions...

Community is organic, not mechanic

So what did these other guys do differently? They understood that community is an organic entity that emerges bottom up. MySpace identified bands with a need to get the word out through friend-of-a-friend networks. Facebook identified students with a need to get to know who's who when thrust into an whole new social scene. MySpace and Facebook identified latent communities and gave these latent communities the tools to let them nurture themselves into existence. Without this realisation, a social network is just a shiny new tool that is about to start rusting through neglect the moment it has been created. Yahoo never got this. They never understood that a community emerges through an organic process. They have never reached down to nurture the relationships that prime the emergence of community.

Electroconvulsive therapy

Yahoo wasn't always insane. It has lost its way. Yahoo have had a lot of smart people working for them over the years, but it must have been like some kind of Tower of Babel in there. Somehow none of that cleverness seemed to be able to make its way through the commitees and into the products. Case in point: Caterina Fake of Flickr fame was one of the key people to show the world how to do community on the web in the first place. She also ran the Technology Development group, known for its Hack Yahoo! program, a stimulus to innovation and creativity, and Brickhouse, a rapid development environment for new products. When you've had that kind of instinct, experience, talent and set up on your side. And your still not producing anything that makes any sense in the social networking space. Then, there is something seriously wrong with the system. At the very least, it needs rebooting. It may well be time to roll out the gurney, electrodes and conductant tape...

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Mike Butcher just written a post about the case of a 15 year-old Welsh girl getting herself into what could have been a very dangerous situation as a result of a relationship she developed with two men via the social network Netlog.The rest of Mike's piece explores Netlog's role and responsibility with regard to this drama. The reason I'm referring to it here is that it is also a good example of how the online predator/prey relationship typically operates. In the case Mike refers to, the 15-year-old Welsh girl pretended she was 18 and befriended 19 and 20-year-old Turkish guys via the social network Netlog before running away from home to meet them. The thing is that the truth about how the predator/prey relationships works is highly counterintuitive. If you follow your instincts you would guess or assume that typically the predator poses as another child in order to lure in and entrap their unwitting victims. The fact is that in most cases the minor is often seeking out and collaborating with and sometimes deceiving the adult. This is an uncomfortable notion to say the least. Uncomfortable enough to make it a taboo subject. But the facts bear it out. And are laid out by the world's foremost quantitative scientists studying this field. Its just over a year since the top researchers on child online safety gathered to deliver their research at Just The Facts About Online Youth Victimization: Here's some excerpts from the transcripted video inserted below: 04:50 Dr. David Finkelhor,

The predominant sex crime scenario, doesn’t involve violence, stranger molesters posing online as other children in order to set up an abduction or assault. Only five percent of these cases actually involved violence. Only three percent involved an abduction. It’s also interesting that deception does not seem to be a major factor. Only five percent of the offenders concealed the fact that they were adults from their victims. Eighty percent were quite explicit about their sexual intentions with the youth that they were communicating with ... So for example, Jenna – this is a pretty typical case – 13-year-old girl from a divorced family, frequented sex-oriented chat rooms, had the screen name “Evil Girl.” There she met a guy who, after a number of conversations, admitted he was 45. He flattered her, gave– sent her gifts, jewelry. They talked about intimate things. And eventually, he drove across several states to meet her for sex on several occasions in motel rooms. When he was arrested in her company, she was reluctant to cooperate with the law enforcement authorities. Many of these cases have commonalities with this particular instance. In seventy-three percent of the crimes, the youth go to meet the offender on multiple occasions for multiple sexual encounters. The law enforcement investigators described the victims as being in love with or feeling a close friendship for the offenders in half the cases that they investigated. In a quarter of the cases, the victims actually had run away from home to be with these adults that they met online. So this is very different, I think, from the predominant impression that one might get from how these cases are being presented in the media. And also, I just think the inferences people make. And then I think it has a lot of implications for prevention just to go to that point. We can talk about some of these things in greater detail. But first of all, we think it means that our prevention messages really need to be directed at teenagers themselves in language and format and from sources that they relate to.

13:44 Dr. Michele Ybarra,

First, things that we assume to be true did not seem to be worn out by the data. For example, we assumed that if adult men are meeting young women online, deception must be involved. We assumed that if young people are posting and sending personal information to other people, this must place them at greater risk for victimization. The data suggest that the vast majority of young people who are meeting adults online are not deceived and instead, knowingly, at least as knowingly as a young person can, consent to this relationship... Over and over, our assumptions turn out to be not reflective of the experiences that youth tell us. This is important because if we’re to keep young people safe, we need to understand what truly puts them at risk and what the risks truly are.

Of course we should continue to do everything in our power to tackle online predators. But the research shows that is only part of the problem. We need to remember is that children, by definition, need to be protected from themselves. To rework that choice phrase of Clay Shirky's, we need to remember that 'a youth is its own worst enemy'. The truism that 'a youth is its own worst enemy' is useful as it helps us remember that tackling an internal enemy is always a hard problem. It reminds us we need to take a different approach. Its a reminder that cuts through and clarifies the task we are faced with. People will clamour for us to treat the symptoms. And even champion us when we do. But the phrase 'a youth is its own worst enemy' can help us to focus on the class of problem we have before us. And remind us that the only way to solve the problem is find a way to tackle the root cause.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I've got this cool new idea. Yeah it's a social network for X. We KNOW people like X, right? And we know people love social networking, right? So my idea is to put them together? Brilliant. Right? Yeah, I know we've got competition. But that just validates the market right?

Its not really a social network as such. Its really all about X. Okay it has some social networking functionality in there too. I mean you have to have that these days, right? But is not really about that. Its about our really fresh new approach to X. It's an approach that's never been done before. Well. Not exactly in the way that we are doing it anyway. It could be quite revolutionary so we're not really ready talk about it yet.

Our service has no social networking features because it is not a social network. That's not our thing. There are others that provide those services and good luck to them. That's not to say that we won't serve social networks as customers. In fact we are happy for them to use the valuable data we will provide to enhance their services. But we will NOT be confined to servicing the needs of social networks alone. Our data will in fact be used by all sorts of services that make up the entire internet ecosystem. For example merchants like Amazon, Ebay, Travelocity would find our services especially useful. But we're not just talking about Amazon and Ebay here. A whole multitude of online sellers big and small could use our services. We thinking we can actually reach out to the high steet with this. Its a massive, massive market.

...the flighty ones, they think they know about all kinds of things but actually know very little. They flit from thing to thing. They've always got this great idea. They are basically just headline people. They've read the headlines. But they have no depth. They are just. really. tiring. people. to. hang out with.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Back in April, I wrote 'search is dead' and used the phrase 'discovery is the new cocaine' a phrase I picked up from the discoverio guys at the Web2.0expo.

Web2 is about participation, but what comes after that? We think it is all about Discovery, the art of helping users serendipitously discover content and people that they did not know they wanted to know. Discovery is what makes people come back again and again, interact, and explore.

So the guys made the slideshare homepage with presentation they gave at SXSW. Its brilliant and insightful and may just change the way you look at things.

| View | Upload your own

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

For quite some time Google has been feeding us the nonsense line that your IP address is not personally identifying. The absurdity of this stance is almost blinding but the reality has been brought into sharp focus by the to-ing and fro-ing in the ongoing Google-Viacom case. Here's how the excellent Kaila @VortexDNA characterises it:

Google: "You don't need to have any privacy concerns about the IP addresses that we store as they aren't personally identifying. Viacom: "Okay, then, give us your user logs." Google: "No! That's a violation of privacy!" Judge: "But you just said.."

The judge understandably confused has elected to assign more credibility to the claim that Google has been making before getting sued. The only problem is, they were actually telling the big lie BEFORE being sued! Now you would think that the upshot of this would be that Google's weasel words would now be biting them in the ass. I'm sure that's what the judge expected to be the outcome. But no that's not the case...the fallout from this lands squarely at your feet. How did that happen? For that I'll pass you over to Mashable: From Mashable on recent developments in the Google-Viacom lawsuit

When you first read about the Google-Viacom lawsuit, you never thought that it would affect you directly, did you? Think again.

Unless you've been extra careful to only watch non-copyrighted videos on YouTube (yeah, right), Viacom could sue you. No, it's even worse: they could actually win

However, and interestingly enough, the court denied Viacom's request of YouTube's source code, which means that the big company - Google - got protected, but the little guy - us - got screwed.

How about that? They say sh1t rolls down hill.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I'm simply reposting from 37 signals here. I loved the title of their post and reused it. Other than that this is just a reminder for myself really. From 37 signals.

Allocate your fear properly

When it comes to building a web app, some things create more fear than they should.

Fear: It won't scale Truth: You're not going to be Google overnight.

Fear: Too many bugs Truth: As long as they don't wipe the database, you can live with most bugs for a while.

Fear: Too few features Truth: You can always add features later.

Fear: Never go down Truth: Once-in-a-while downtime won't scare people away.

Fear: It's too simple Truth: Simple solutions are fine if they get the job done.

Fear: They'll copy us Truth: It's about the execution, not the idea.

Fear: We must sound serious Truth: Trying to sound serious all the time makes you bland and unremarkable. It's ok to be playful and have personality. So get a grip.

Yes, these things matter. But some people get hysterical over these issues before they even deserve to be on the radar. If you fear one of the above issues, make sure it's due to a genuine risk and not just something that's giving you a mental stiffy.

Otherwise you may be wasting time chasing phantom problems.

The flip-side is that you need to recognize genuine threats even if they're boring issues.

Things like these are a lot more likely to actually cripple your chances of success:

Taking forever to launch.

Running out of money.

Not solving a real problem.

Designing a confusing UI.

Obsessing over the wrong things.

Trying to do too much at once.

Never ignore real here-and-now threats in order to focus on maybe-in-the-future threats.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »