American football is big money.  Surprisingly, though, one team – the Green Bay Packers, who play in the smallest NFL market (ever been to Green Bay, Wisconsin?) and who are still named for their first sponsor (a local meat-packing company that paid for their uniforms) have managed to remain a non-profit, community-owned company.

Mozilla – the Green Bay Packers of browser companies.  They’re the only non-profit corporation in the increasingly big money browser-building game, and like Green Bay, they have a storied and proud past – Mozilla’s history traces all the way back to Marc Andreeson and the ground-breaking Netscape browser of over 15 years ago.

With a market share over twice that of Google’s Chrome (the nearest competitor that doesn’t enjoy the advantage of coming bundled as part of an operating system), Mozilla’s Firefox browser has been quite a success.  As of late, though, Firefox has been facing some challenges: Chrome is now the fastest-growing browser out there, and Microsoft, having ‘gotten religion’ on the open standards issue, can now boast of having the most HTML5-compliant browser out there, as rated by the WC3.

So Mozilla needs the just-released Firefox 4 to be a hit – and it looks like it is, having racked up good reviews and almost 16 million downloads in the first 48 hours of its release.  As one of those 16 million, I’ve used Firefox 4 for a few days now on both Windows 7 and OS X machines (I’m using it right now, as a matter of fact).  I have to say, I like it very much – but rather than attempt a detailed review, though (there are enough FF4 reviews out there already), I’ll share just a few impressions:

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It’s not often we outright endorse a product here at digitalmissive (ok, we’ve never done it).  Well, I’m going to have to make an exception in the case of Logitech’s Squeezebox internet radio.  I’ve been loving this < $200 device for a few months now.  Even if you’re not an expat in a far-off land suffering from the occasional spontaneous craving to listen to radio from places you used to live (say, KCRW in Los Angeles, or Jersey City’s very own WFMU) without having to go turn on your  computer, this little guy is well worth it.  Turn it on, put it on your home wireless network, and you’re good to go: the radio connects to Logitech’s servers and features a pretty well-optimized interface for searching and accessing an surprisingly extensive range of radio stations from around the world.  So extensive, in fact, that you soon might find yourself playing with it, listening to Jamaican news reports or Polish pop music.  Strangely, it’s more satisfying surfing for global internet radio using a device like the Squeezebox than it is using a web browser: the fact that it’s not “a computer” makes it feel somehow more special, like the internet-age incarnation of old-fashioned ham radio.

How does it sound?  Really pretty good for the price.  There’s also an accessory pack available with a remote and an internal battery pack, but although the prospect of being able to pick up my Squeezbox and take it with me to the kitchen or the bedroom is appealing, at $50, I haven’t quite sprung for the battery yet (besides, for remote control, there’s always the obligatory iPad app). Yep, this little thing is pretty cute – and the Logitech folks in charge of aggregating radio stations over on the server side have done a really impressive job (I’m not alone in my admiration – on Amazon US, the Squeezebox averages 4.5 stars across almost 450 reviews). Now if only someone could manage to do such a good job with internet television….

First, Deanna writes about her decision to create a dedicated professional Facebook page in addition to her personal profile.  A few days later, Christoph suggests we put one up too.  These new contributors with their crazy ideas!

Well, it started looking like my years of successfully avoiding Facebook were coming to a close – I had to admit, as a way to connect with the other 92.4% of the planet that does have a Facebook account, a dedicated page made a lot of sense – it solves the key issue that’s kept me off Facebook in the first place: that I can’t imagine wanting to say the exact same thing to everyone I know (oh, I know one can set up groups and filters, but who has the time for that?)

So I took the plunge put one up this weekend.  My inner geek found the whole process strangely non-transparent, but the über-minimal Facebook user interface obviously seems to be working well for the vast majority of  (less technically inclined) folks out there.

I had to create a minimal ‘shell’ personal account in order to create the digitalmissive page – and while I wouldn’t recommend anyone hold their breath for much in the way status updates there, if you’d like to get links to digitalmissive posts as Facebook status updates, it’s now possible – just go here and like it, really like it (apologies to Sally Field).

This “Facebook” thing might just take off.

It’s almost time… In less than one week, I will become the “official” foreign correspondent of digitalmissive. As already announced, I’ll be finishing my time at the once-biggest social network Myspace at the end of March, and I’ll be sitting on a plane to Bangkok early on the very next day.  I’m taking this opportunity to go an extended trip around the world, so I have four months ahead of me, first in extremely developed 3G/VDSL/Dualband-LTE environments in Asia (Hong Kong or Shanghai), and then on to much less developed areas such as Peru, Ecuador and even Galapagos, where the currency is (still?) US Dollar, and you can hardly get mobile coverage in most parts of the country due to the great Andean mountains.  From one extreme to the other…

This trip should give me a long-deserved digital vacation and some extended time offline (after over 10 years of online-/mobile-/social network-madness), but of course I won’t be without some digital devices to play with. I’ll be taking a brand new Kindle 2 3G+Wifi with me, and will test, for example, if I can still get Whispernet (Amazon’s 3G Service, in general accessible without any monthly fee or wireless subscription) in the various parts of Asia and South America I’ll be heading to – so at least I expect to have the free 3G internet in some countries (already I’ve noticed that Whispernet makes the English language Wikipedia available in Germany, but not the German language Wikipedia page – but that’s another story…). I’ve also already tested the Kindle’s built-in browser (funny: this feature is labeled “experimental” in the Kindle OS).  Results? So far, I’ve found that the Kindle’s browsing capabilities and flash/javascript display is quite limited – not to mention the less than impressive look of a website on the E-Ink screen.  But the Kindle is optimized for reading e-books, right?

Another interesting part of my trip will be checking out the state of internet penetration in each of the countries I visit – not only by pure numbers, but also culturally and socially. And I’ve had a good start there, too: Last week I ‘friended’ my travel consultant for the Galapagos Islands, who is working from Quito, Ecuador.  At left is her and her seal friend – one of the nicer Facebook profile pictures I’ve seen

As promised, last week I took the train from Berlin to Hannover for a day at CeBIT.  This was my first opportunity to visit Europe’s largest technology exposition since moving to Berlin, and since Andreas had already made his annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas for the CES show back in January, I was eager to go – and eager to compare notes with Mr. Wuerfel.

It’s a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, of course – while the Consumer Electronics Show is limited to Consumer Electronics, CeBit’s scope is much wider: the “B” in CeBit stands for office technology (büroautomation in German), the “I” stands for information technology, and the “T” stands for telecommunications. No, the “Ce” does not stand for consumer electronics, but that industry’s well represented at CeBIT too (see the photo below of attendees trying out 3D television) – in short, CeBit covers it all.

Put another way…

• CES is a big show.
• CeBit is a massive show.

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Digitalmissive welcomes Christoph Urban! Since beginning his career in 1998, Christoph has racked up some impressive digital media credits: after helping Nestlé Germany expand its roster of consumer-facing brand websites, Christoph moved to MTV Networks in Berlin, where he spent several years helping shape the network’s online presence in Europe.  More recently, Christoph has held the position of Director, Marketing & Content for Myspace Germany since June 2007.

Retail, entertainment, and social media – Christoph’s has digital media experience across a wide range of industries, and for an impressive list of major companies.  If all that real-world experience wasn’t enough, though, notice anything these companies have in common?  They’re all multinationals.  Christoph has been bringing his international experience to the University for Applied Sciences in Berlin as a lecturer in International Management/Marketing since 2009, and we’re very happy to have him bring that same ‘pan-atlantic’ perspective to digitalmissive as well.  In fact, his background working for American companies in Europe perfectly mirrors Andreas’ background working for a European company in the US.

Like many of my friends with lives as semi-public figures (writers, activists, actors, etc.), I’ve decided that I need a more delineated approach to how my life on Facebook is managed. As many of you know, I’ve advocated (especially in my book) for a more-the-merrier approach to what you share with whom, since I feel like the cross-pollination of our lives across multiple spheres (work, family, friends) can really go a long way towards digital consciousness raising.

I still believe that deeply, but I’m having some difficulty managing my Facebook relationships with people that I don’t know at all. One of the main challenges I’ve run up against is how Facebook is now much more of a web platform/identity manager than it was previously. It connects with a multitude other services and tools now that don’t let me distinguish how I know people. I manage my information on Facebook itself with lists and assigning privileges to them, but it’s just not working for other services. I’m not able to take advantage of some new tools, because I can’t manage the flow of info, and I feel like I’m missing out on those new services. (And I’m not able to do the R&D I need to on behalf of my clients).

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I don’t get computer gaming, I really don’t.

I did get a bit curious about it, though, after finding these two World of Warcraft YouTube videos using my music as a soundtrack:

  

A fair number of musical leftovers from my past life as a composer have already washed up on the shores of YouTube (just how they’re used there is totally out of my control – for more on how I ended up as an accidental Youtube music provider, click here).  What caught my attention about these two videos, though, were their view counts: 120,000 for one, over 280,000 for the other.

The previously most-viewed YouTube video using my music is a fairly creepy clip of slowly rotating mannequin torsos posted by a UK online lingerie seller entitled “Sexy Nylon Silky Bum Panties” (“Bum Panties” evidently being a type of undergarment available exclusively in the UK).  No doubt helped by its titillating keyword-filled title, that clip has been viewed about 79,000 times – still far less views than either of these recent World of Warcraft clips has garnered in far less time. 

This begs the question: what is it about computer gaming – in particular, internet-enabled social computer gaming - that’s so compelling?

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