Monday, August 26, 2002

The current 'highwater mark' on weblogs.com is 1036 updated weblogs per hour. The number of weblogs appears to be growing at a spectacular pace. While reading this infoanarchy article about the current copyright issues facing the entertainment and technology industries, a few things dawned on me: We need a name for this conflict. Some candidates might be: Hollywood vs The Valley War against copying No Winners This conflict could continue for a long time, with many casualties along the way. Don't want to be a casualty? Step away from the speeding freight train. If the Big Guys can't figure out how to collect money from online content, even with their draconian means, then neither can anyone else. Weblogs are written for reasons other than profit. They are a tool, like a wordprocessor. We better focus on what we can freely use of the internet, And finally, file trading will always be a part of daily life, similar to masturbation, most won't admit it. Weblogs and the people that write with them, copy each other's words frequently, sometimes even automatically, and have an informal crediting system of mentioning sources. RSS even carries 'source' information. This system works by power of the hyperlink. If you don't credit me as a source, then I can stop linking to you, or write you up on my weblog etc. In the end, we both know that Hyperlinks are the Currency of the Internet. Wow, an organic digital rights management system! Beautiful. Dave Winer, writer of the longest running weblog Scripting News, has often written that the Internet is "75% a great writing environment and 25% cash register". I subscribe to his religion, as I also do with to all his company's products. I use them more than any other computer product. Weblogs take up a lot of time. You have to read them. This is very restrictive, since you can't read weblogs and drive at the same time. Usually you spend that time with your cd player, mp3 collection or ... Radio. I use Radio UserLand as my weblog tool. Until today I always thought the name was wrong for the product. "What possibly can Radio have to do with writing a weblog" I thought. Radio is almost dead. Clear Channel owns most stations and is making radio sound bland and uninteresting, if not impossible for small local stations to compete against. Online radio is also battling legislation and economics that just won't make it feasible. Weblogs are words, written with these new tools that enable desktop web publishing as simple as printing from Microsoft Word. "Weblogs are great, but they're not Radio" I've even said that alound at times. Was I right? You bet your ass I wasn't. The proof has been staring me in the face all along. What I write isn't just words to be 'printed' to the web, it's a script. A script on my own personal teleprompter, my microphone is located in the upper right hand corner of my screen... Why not read my weblog postings, and attach them to the written version? Precisely what I'm going to do from now on. How does this relate to radio? Well, it doesn't entirely. Instead it opens a new form of communication, using weblogs as a bootstrap to literally lift our voices out into the open. RSS has the capability to include a file attachment (called an enclosure), that newsreaders can use to automatically process the incoming file (like when it is downloaded, and what happens after it's received). Currently Radio UserLand automatically downloads those files and drops them in a nice archive folder. Here's a scenario: For each blog post (my scipt) I record my words and attach them to the posting. On my weblog, read the posting, or click to hear me read it for you. "Perhaps You'd like to hear all of today's updates?" I'd love to set up my Radio UserLand so I could receive audio-posts automatically, or have them auto-loaded on my iPod. I could create playlists of my favourite 'voices', and listen to them anywhere. The best time to start is always the present, so I'm going to start audio-blogging for a while, develop some of the fucntionality I need, and see if this goes anywhere. Seems to me you don't have to be a professional to read your own words. It will probably even make my writing better. Stay tuned, to CURRY-FM! [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog] 2:54:09 PM

Whither blogs?. Where are weblogs going? How will they adapt to the workplace? 1. Blogging platforms are quickly growing smarter. Blogs are document centric (the post is at the core) so they can evolve toward what you think of as project / process / knowledge management tools. XML, SOAP, databases, and content management services are part of the blogging toolkit. Content syndication and RSS news readers are part of it too. 2. Blogspace is joining the infrastructure. We can build bridges to existing systems and processes. I can blog a hiring process, integrated with an human capital system. I can annotate a mySAP Engineering Change Order, linking to the transaction and to other materials. I can comment on project progress, tailoring it for different stakeholders. Some of these may happen by year end. http://www.hrxml.org/, http://www.pmxml.org/xml 3. Community tools are improving too. Social capital is getting easier to observe and measure in blogspace; no reason it shouldn't happen in your enterprise's blogspace. Every week we see new tools that help users identify what's new, what's relevant, who's the expert. We see people forming communities of interest/practice, project teams, spreading memes and tools; evidence that people are reading as much or more than they're writing.  4. Knowledge extraction is coming. Weblogs leave a trail that can be mined by social network analyzers, text miners, taxonomy and categorizers, and search engines. All of this is work that today's KM systems ask the poster to do at the time of the post. Blogs lower the effort hurdle; they're easier, so they get used. And their trail of time-stamped posts, citations and cross references, traffic logs, and syndication feeds (in XML) mean that other tools can be added when you get to it. 5. Blogs compete with MS Word and email as a writing tool. The five minute post is no substitute for the five day essay and knowledge interview. But blogs encourage lots of the former and don't prevent the latter. 6. Blogs of other content. Audio blogs. One-two minute posts. Aggregated, they make a newsradio channel. I heard a prototype this spring where one blogger aggregated the syndicated audio posts of other bloggers. Video blogs. Documenting processes, quality programs, customer presentations, class projects, slices of life.  CAD blogs. Syndicating components for peer review and comment. XML envelope blogs. Drag and drop an event, syndicated from someone's blog, to your Microsoft Outlook or Project. Drag an RFP from a blog to your CRM system. 7. Secure blogs. Create private spaces, a la Groove, but using your weblog tool. Authenticate some users, be public with others. I do this to a limited degree now, with private categories shared with engineering partners. 8. Mobile blogging. I've seen people posting from AOL IM, phones, pagers, Palms, RIMs, and 80211'd notebooks. When you have an experience worth sharing, a snapshot of that Kodak moment, you want to blog it then and there. Watch blogging capabilities migrate to the tools you carry. One last prediction. In the tradition of Coke machines with web sites, I expect my 2006 Camry to come with a blog. [aka klogs] [a klog apart] 10:46:32 AM

Free Weblog Service and a Vampire, Too. Blogger.com signed a deal with Brazilian company to have soap stars characters post their own blogs. By David F. Gallagher. [New York Times: Technology] 10:44:23 AM

Blogs for Knowledge Management. Writes Business 2.0: "Blogs are also powerful knowledge management tools...Blogging is attractive as a vehicle for personal expression because it's... [E M E R G I C . o r g] 10:43:03 AM

Weblog Policy:  A number of people at Groove have started blogs, and I'm really trying to encourage more to do the same.  The more we live it, the more that we'll learn from it, and the more that we'll learn through it as we're engaged in conversations with our customers.  And thus, the sooner that we'll be able to improve our products and services based upon what we learn.  Of course, there are many questions that arise when an employer encourages employees to operate more "in the open", and so our counsel, Jeff Seul, has taken a first pass at creating a "blog policy".  Check it out. As an employer, this gives me many things to consider.  About a year ago, many of us witnessed as an employee of one company lost his job because he allegedly disparaged the company and some of its employees online.  But it doesn't seem appropriate or possible to mandate and codify "reasonable behavior" in a policy.  On the other hand, people will be increasingly challeneged to be aware of what they should or shouldn't say online - particularly with regard to intellectual property - and maybe reminding them to be aware of this is a good thing. Furthermore, consider things like this.  Jeff says, "I've added a paragraph about limitation or suspension of website/weblog activity during SEC-mandated quiet periods. You may recall that the SEC postponed Webvan's IPO because it considered certain activity on Webvan's website to be a violation of the pre-IPO quiet period. Although we view employee weblogs as a personal activity, the SEC could potentially impose a cooling-off period on us if it considered employee weblog activity to be sanctioned by the company or something we've turned a blind eye toward. There's a risk that they could view employee weblogs to which we link (or have linked in the past) as company-sanctioned."  Fascinating. Perhaps we can learn from one another: are there any other companies that have done similar things?  Can you provide links or stories? Personal Website and Weblog Guidelines   Some employees who maintain personal websites or weblogs, or who are considering beginning one, have asked about the company’s perspective regarding them.  In general, the company views personal websites and weblogs positively, and it respects the right of employees to use them as a medium of self-expression.   If you choose to identify yourself as a company employee or to discuss matters related to the company’s technology or business on your website or weblog, please bear in mind that, although you and we view your website or weblog as a personal project and a medium of personal expression, some readers may nonetheless view you as a de facto spokesperson for the company.  In light of this possibility, we ask that you observe the following guidelines:   ·         Please make it clear to your readers that the views you express are yours alone and that they do not necessarily reflect the views of the company.  To help reduce the potential for confusion, we would appreciate it if you put the following notice – or something similar – in a reasonably prominent place on your site (e.g., at the bottom of your “about me” page):   The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.   If you do put a notice on your site, you needn’t put it on every page, but please use reasonable efforts to draw attention to it – if at all possible, from the home page of your site.   ·         Take care not to disclose any information that is confidential or proprietary to the company or to any third party that has disclosed information to us.  Consult the company’s confidentiality policy for guidance about what constitutes confidential information.   ·         Please remember that your employment documents give the company certain rights with respect to concepts and developments you produce that are related to the company’s business.  Please consult your manager if you have questions about the appropriateness of publishing such concepts or developments related to the company’s business on your site.   ·         Since your site is a public space, we hope you will be as respectful to the company, our employees, our customers, our partners and affiliates, and others (including our competitors) as the company itself endeavors to be.   ·         You may provide a link from your site to the company’s website, if you wish.  The web design group has created a graphic for links to the company’s site, which you may use for this purpose during the term of your employment (subject to discontinuation in the company’s discretion).  Contact a member of the web design group for details.  Please do not use other company trademarks on your site or reproduce company material without first obtaining permission.   Finally, please be aware that the company may request that you temporarily confine your website or weblog commentary to topics unrelated to the company (or, in rare cases, that you temporarily suspend your website or weblog activity altogether) if it believes this is necessary or advisable to ensure compliance with securities regulations or other laws.   If you have any questions about these guidelines or any matter related to your site that these guidelines do not address, please direct them to the company's Vice President of Communications or its General Counsel, as appropriate. [Ray Ozzie's Weblog] 10:24:21 AM