Three hot topics.

Report from last night's session. We did the usual hour's worth of software demos and then switched over to three topics that are much on my mind:

1. How to integrate blogging with radio (not Radio). We talked about this at length. As other people talked I realized it is not about technology. There is no magic formula that will make the two worlds connect. Chris says let's hear what they think, and I say let's see. Two different senses, one visual and cerebral, and the other auditory and soulful. The answer, as it often is, is people. A roundtable of intelligent bloggers, like Washington Week in Review, or The Capital Gang, but staffed by writers who work in blogspace, and done on the radio, once a week. Chris is our anchor. I want to do this at BloggerCon, and every week, starting asap.

2. Blogging and the New Hampshire primary. Citizen bloggers covering the candidates for US president, follow it where it goes. First step -- clearly -- go to NH myself and find some candidates. Luckily I'm speaking at Dartmouth on May 9. I'll go looking for presidential hopefuls. With my camera and some questions. I'll try to explain weblogs. And here's another way to proceed. Are there any people in NH reading this site who think weblogs could make a difference? We need a citizen's committee for evangelizing the concept. Everyone who hears it goes Hmm, that might work.

3. BloggerCon, otherwise known as Weblogs in Meatspace. In October a conference in Cambridge about weblogs as writer's medium, from a historic and technological perspective. Computer industry conferences have done a great job of the latter, at best a superficial job at the former. I want librarians, lawyers, historians, executives, musicians, producers, pundits, scholars, educators, personalities, politicians, and more.

BTW, Philip Greenspun came to last night's meeting. I expect he will write about this discussion as well. In fact, during the discussion he made some notes on his blog using my keyboard and mouse. As always the discussion was informal, and the minds alive and interesting.

[Scripting News]
10:28:53 AM    

The Register reports that the Chronicle has fired tech columnist Henry Norr. I've known Henry for 20 years. An exceptionally intelligent and honest analyst. What a loss for the Chronicle and the tech industry. [Scripting News]
10:28:28 AM    

About big-time blogging:  William Gibson 'gives up blogging'. But here's Esther! [The Register]
10:27:04 AM    

London's Soho to get blanket 802.11 cover for voice, data. Stitch this, Vodafone, T-Mobile, BT etc. [The Register]
10:25:13 AM    

Tech books to enter public domain. O'Reilly & Associates limiting its own copyright protection [InfoWorld: Top News]
10:24:35 AM    

Talk to me about this landscape, please!  Wired News: Where Real, Cyber Worlds Collide [Hack the Planet]
10:23:33 AM    

IBM, ScanSoft pair up for speech software. Though the companies sell competing products, they strike new deals and expand existing ones with the hope of expanding the market for speech technology. [CNET News.com]
10:21:22 AM    

Commentary: Linux questions and answers. Linux will go mainstream in the data center in 2003. Why? Because it delivers Unix reliability at Intel prices and has strong support from vendors like HP, IBM, Oracle and SAP. [CNET News.com]
10:20:28 AM    

Use of disk arrays for secondary data storage rising, survey says. Consulting firm Peripheral Concepts said a growing number of companies are storing snapshot copies and other secondary information on disk drives. [Computerworld News]
10:19:32 AM    

Interested in the thinking behind digital networks?  David Isenberg talked about his idea of the stupid network. He's looking for operating models instead of business models, because when the network is stupid enough, it's not really a business any more. Everybody knows what end-to-end is. Not a single interesting application was brought to us by telcos; all of them came from users. VoIP is great, SIP is great, SIP-based Windows Messenger is great. End-to-end breaks the telco business model, because it subsidizes the network and physical layers using application revenue. The paradox of the best network. Competition at the pysical layer does not work because it's a pure commodity. Alternatives: monopoly, government agency, customer ownership; not mutually exclusive. He calls the Ethernet switch in your house the last mile; I'm not sure why. There's a very small connection between the very fast backbone and the fast LAN. Some scenarios. #1: Telco lock-in, no common carrier. #2: Lots of clueless competition (telco act of 1996). #3: Government agency. #4: Customer-owned part of the network grows all the way back to the backbone. Office networks don't need an ROI calculation (really?), so maybe access networks don't either. It takes smart people to build the stupid network. He's a big fan of fiber, but it looks like only government can do it. [Hack the Planet]
10:18:51 AM    

PC World: Dell, Good Technology Tease of Deal. Dell Computer and Good Technology are hinting of an important partnership they'll announce next week. The prospect of Dell's fast-growing Axim handhelds wed to Good Technology's wireless synchronization service could benefit both products, analysts say. [Tomalak's Realm]
10:17:08 AM    

Week ahead: Networking oasis. Networking players pitch tent in Las Vegas for this year's NetWorld+Interop confab next week, with Cisco's John Chambers slated to speak. Plus, more tech earnings. [CNET News.com]
10:15:38 AM    

Sun touts technical computing roots. The company starts promoting an effort to return to its high-performance computing roots, as it aims at the weakened SGI and the ascendant IBM. [CNET News.com]
10:14:55 AM    

Blog as internal communication when small decentralized work groups is the organizational structure.  Google eats own Pyra dog food. Weblog designed to foster internal communication [InfoWorld: Top News]

10:14:16 AM    

Pundits weigh in on Apple's music plans. Service tipped to become "big Kahuna" of online music [InfoWorld: Top News]
10:11:23 AM    

Awards boost for Nintendo. The Japanese games veteran has swept the board at the well-regarded Edge magazine gaming awards. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]
10:10:41 AM    

Internet Radio Makes Bigger Waves. Access to niche genres and hometown stations from far away proves appealing: More than 100 million listeners have tried Web radio, with the number of regular monthly users tripling in the last three years, according to March ratings. [Wired News]
10:10:15 AM    

Big Win for File-Swap Services. A federal judge's ruling allows Morpheus and Grokster to avoid the grim fate of Napster. But the Recording Industry Association of America vows the fight is not over. By Joanna Glasner. [Wired News]
10:09:39 AM    

Online Anonymity Comes Under Fire. Verizon's loss in a court battle to keep an ISP customer's identity out of the music industry's hands will make it harder for people to stay anonymous online, privacy advocates say. By Katie Dean. [Wired News]
10:05:37 AM