Everyone’s buzzing today about Facebook’s plans to open up to third party applications. My first reaction — Finally!

With this change, it is expected that outside parties will (pending the approval of users) have access to the pool of user-provided information streams. In other words, stuff like Status Updates, Wall Posts and uploaded pictures will be able to take on a new life outside of the confines of Facebook.com on 3rd party applications.
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I’ve already written a few times (here and here) about DNS.

Why?

A concerted effort to drive readers away with dry technical information about internet plumbing, possibly?

No,  it’s because I don’t think DNS gets the love and respect it deserves – either for its sheer technical coolness as a massively replicated global peer-to-peer data structure, or for its vital importance to The Internet As We Know It.
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With the IBM and Sun deal we wrote about a few weeks ago now reported to be very close to happening (any minute now…), rumors are starting to swirl about another (somewhat sexier) acquisition:

according to rumor…   google may want twitter

(…and stay tuned for some interesting antitrust issues with the IBM deal – I put the likelihood that one or more parts of Sun end up getting spun off in the process at about 50-50)

We fought it. We resisted. But now we’ve capitulated to the twitter tsunami and have ‘twitterized’ digitalmissive. During the process, though, we’ve noticed something – twitter seems to ‘bounce’ a lot (network-speak for short sporadic outages).

Not surprising, given the numbers: Nielsen has February year-over-year twitter usage growth at 1,374%. That’s well over a factor of 10.

Amazing – and that’s not counting the countless tweets that will now be coming from the new and improved digitalmissive….

In the meantime, will short-term outages contribute to a backlash against the service?

And hey don’t forget to tweet this article – if the twitter’s up at the time.


Televisions and set-top boxes with embedded network interfaces are coming, that much is agreed upon.  What’s up for discussion, though, is just what the user interface is going to look like – an “internet video-only” implementation that places a premium on simplicity and system stability, or a full-featured “browser for the couch” allowing full unrestricted access to the internet.

Gordon Campbell, a 30+ year veteran of the semiconductor design and marketing industry with stints at Honeywell, Motorola, Intel, and several start-ups under his belt, calls the former approach “hogwash.”   According to a recent article, his current company Personal Web Systems (no web site yet)) plans to bring a device to market later this year allowing full unrestricted access to the web (the company also has plans to subsequently offer that same functionality to CE manufacturers on a single chip).

“This generation doesn’t want their hands tied behind their backs. They want the same experience as with a PC (on their TV)“, Campbell states.

I think he is precisely wrong.

Television web browsing has been tried many times before, with little or no success – and although today’s increased broadband penetration and (more text-friendly) HD screen resolutions suggest perhaps it’s time again to make yet another pass at it, the bottom line is that average folks just do not want a lean-forward PC experience on their TV, thank you very much.  And even if they did, there would be user input device issues to solve (keyboard on your coffee table, anyone?), challenging security issues to deal with,  and (in contrast with computer users), zero tolerance for crashes and restarts.

I could go on and on – but in short, I feel it’s a mistake to assume that internet access necessarily dictates a full PC/web browser paradigm – for example, consider twitter, skype, IM, even iTunes – all examples of succesful non-browser/non-PC dependent internet applications, none of which “this generation” would consider “hogwash”.

Once you explain to them what the word “hogwash” means, that is.  

To sum up, the consumer electronics industry has discovered the internet – and these new devices are not going to need (or look anything like) a PC or a web browser.

For better or worse, the TCP/IP protocol (and the internet it makes possible) will not remain the exclusive turf of the computer industry for very much longer – a point some in the industry are slow to see.

I know this is not a political blog. But Washington’s elected officials seems to have gone (finally) seriously digital. 

And I just can’t help myself but chime in.

I recently wrote about the Obama administration’s fervor for online social networking and viral (political) marketing.

Turns out US Congress representatives have long taken similar interest in making Web 2.0 their own. 

No matter where you stand politically, I believe this is generally good news for the technology industry, plus associated consumer software products and applications.

From mundane announcements of “one minute speeches” to instantaneously delivered results on House votes, at least since November 2007, the Clerk of the US House of Representatives regularly provides copious live updates “scraped” right from daily session inside the House chambers.

Then I got curious. Did I also miss the US Senate’s foray into micro-blogging? 

Sure enough, I did 

Although seemingly limited to Senator votes on the floor alone, Twitter has been carrying those posts at least since November 2007.

Turns out, they all nicely track back to govtrack.us, an independent Web site to “help the public research and track the activities in the US Congress.

Little did I know, D.C.’s interest in twittering created a new virtual C-SPAN if you will, sort of the “local access” approach parsed out one online message at a time.

And during yesterday’s historic session (voting on a trillion dollar support budget no less), US House representatives took to Twitter like college students (secretively, under their desks), pushing Blackberry and smartphone keys – eager to issue last-minute statements right from inside House chambers.

To top it all off, now even closed-door Presidential meetings experience their first Twitter “leaks”.

So, if this is not a political blog, why am I (still) writing about this stuff?

I am simply excited about how Web 2.0 is rapidly growing up, maturing from its early teenage “angst” appeal to a “mainstream” text and video channel – all within a couple of years.

Think of it.

As more politicians, news outlets and civic organizations thrive to adopt Web 2.0-style concepts, instant viral messaging from elected officials and others raise the legitimacy of collaborative software as a whole.

From Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Qik, or Utterz, you name it, this is good for the devices and the connecting broadband services that support Web 2.0 at home and on-the-go.

If you still think this trend is not real, the US Postal Service announced today a fiscal-year loss of at least $6 billion, due to a 4.5% drop, or 9 billion items replaced by email and other forms of digital viral communications. 

And although it is not entirely clear to me that the same $6 billion shifted into Web 2.0 software in its entirety  (most social networking and micro-blogging services are free or ad-based at best), it clearly shows a fundamental shift in how we capture and disseminate information these days.

On that note, have you twittered today?

While we’re on the subject of record long tail voter aggregation and its impact on democracy, the unprecedented accumulation of small-size incremental financial contributions during the current US presidential campaign marks another success story for the long tail of citizen ingenuity.

According to OpenSecrets.org, over 90% of an impressive $640 million raised by the Barack Obama campaign came from individuals rather than corporations or entrenched interest groups.

And the bulk of that was contributions under $200.

Amazing what a lot of a little can accomplish in its aggreate value – to the benefit of all.

On that note, for all you digital media marketers out there (opportunistically speaking, of course), the current long tail campaign donation phenomenon clearly demonstrates the significant power of consumers’ take on ”motive and opportunity”.

From digital video and online books to for-pay widgets and Twitter posts, monetizing the long tail of any of these things depends on whether they truly matter to people and their lifes.

Meaning, if “the cause” is right, wallets open up.

It clearly worked during the recent Presidential campaign. What does that mean to future branded product campaign designs?

To be sure, way way before Chris Anderson’s pointed Wired article (re)discovered the right side of the curve for us, something as old, tried and proven as democracy knew to utilize the long tail phenomenon all along; to ensure that all, not just a select few partake in shaping government at large.

So, in many ways, we’re only coming full circle here.

Who knew? Democracy as an ingenious grass-root marketing campaign.

Glad it worked so well this time.

As it stands, this country is about to (re)discover the power of long tail voting.

Not since the 60s has the United States seen this kind of voter turnout. Individuals previously ignorant to the democratic process are expected to come out and vote in what clearly is a historic election.

We, members of the digital technology and media industry, have used the long tail idea gladly and often, at least since Chris Anderson’s highly recognized Wired magazine article about “the few that dominate”.

We have since flocked to the long tail concept to describe how the aggregate number of individuals previously ignored by commercial systems can populate and popularize anything from micro blogs to amateur-produced snack-size videos, or en-gross selling of long forgotten books on amazon.com.

The same “saftey in numbers” phenomenon may now be just what it took to change the direction of an entire country.

While the latter remains a promise until proven, no matter who you vote for tomorrow morning, the former is happening as we speak.

Already a record number of those previously discouraged or put off by politics have returned from their voting duties; young, first-time voters, african-americans, hispanics, immigrants, all joined by millions of others in a common believe that its worth standing in line for hours on end, convinced that the time and cause is right.

Of course our industry’s arsenal of lingo would be incomplete if we couldn’t add to the long tail moniker all sorts of related terms.

Think discovery, collaboration, and sharing. Add hyper-targeting and monetization to understand how much the past 21 months of presidential campaigning have benefited from their first dabble with Web 2.0.

Not to mention the unprecedented number of supporting broadband connections that helped to fuel the national debate.

Still, it is not entirely clear whether any side has gained on the other in its particular ability to leverage the long-tail power of the Internet.

It just might simply be a zero-sum game.

But hey. Who’s counting?

For now, let’s go and vote!

PS: For those of you eager to combine your long tail capabilities until the very last second of the democratic process, go to Current TV and fire up your Twitter and your Digg account.

PS II: To be sure, while both campaigns leveraged the long tail power of the Internet, they also knew that a linear TV feed was still a medium key enough to agree to last minute Saturday Night Live appearances or to buy millions of dollars worth of traditional broadcasting airtime to get the message out. Shelly Palmer’s recent post makes several salient points on the deliberate old-school-ness of those decisions. Be sure to check it out.

Who knew? A Twitter feed, large on a flashy screen, during a live conference workshop Q&A.

While attending the recent Web 2.0 Expo software love fest in New York, what struck me, those Twitter posts came from audience members right in the same room, only steps away from a microphone and free to pose the same questions to everyone “organically”.

Rather than raising their “analog” hands and voices, they opted to type questions into a digital device.

Afforded seeing everyone’s “twittered” questions come in live, this seemed info overkill, distracting from the verbal live discussion unfolding at the same time.

Later, walking past the Web2Open area (set up for free-wheeling “anti-conference” discussions among peers), more participants seemed tied to their handhelds and laptops then actually talking to each other face-to-face.

All in, to get real people to engage in real meetings was never easy.  With the advent of Web 2.0, could we have added yet another layer of complication?

No doubt, despite its relatively short existence, Web 2.0 (the trend, not its name-sake conference) has had fundamental, positive impact on consumer digital life.

But during this industry conference, the community of evangelist and software architects seemed surprisingly stuck between “old world” idiosyncrasies and “new world” paradigm. (In all fairness though, some Web2Open discussion certainly did take place).

In his most recent testimonial ad,  Sprint CEO D. Hesse makes a valid point. ”Technology is only great when you know how to use it”.

Web 2.0 Expo attendees certainly know how to “use technology”.

But even to the best of us, it seems still somewhat awkward to navigate both analog and digital worlds simultaneously – especially if both are “anywhere, anytime” and “always on” to reckon with.

So, what is the right mix of “synthetic” communications and “organic” conversation at the dawn of the 21st century?

For anyone with interest in the bigger picture behind all of this, during the conference, Intel social scientist, Genevieve Bell, gave an impressive to-the-point presentation.

Wanna’ discuss this further?

Please no analog “old world” calls.

Instead, post a digital “new world” message right here.

Oh wait, why don’t we talk AND twitter ;-)