If you are interested in current digital technology and creativity developments, or have something to contribute about the importance of good design principles in interactive media, then check out iDesign: design for life on September 18th, at London’s Southbank Centre, Purcell Room as part of this year’s London Design Festival. There’ll be an exhibition and debates to examine the impact of digital interactive media on all of our daily lives, and how our collective digital future will pan out. Tickets can be bought here.
Archive for the 'mbites' Category
The Industry Standard, my former magazine, appears to be considering re-launching. Its six years since the death of the “newsmagazine of the Internet Economy”, but at least it left a good looking corpse. Many people still respect the kind of in-depth investigate coverage it brought to the Internet industry.
Quite why owners IDG are considering bringing it back is beyond me. Time-Warner pulled the plug on Business 2.0, a similar title, only last week.
A web-only format is more likely than a print magazine. And since blogs are now ‘the thing’, it would be odd not to incorporate those., We’ll see….
You may have picked this up elsewhere, but here’s a brief announcement for mbites readers. I am the new Editor of TechCrunch UK & Ireland. Some may know that I helped launch the site for the first time late last year. I also resigned after what I perceived at the time to be unnecessary editorial interference from the US site in a UK editorial issue. It’s hard to explain it all now, but all I can say is, hell, you had to be there…
However, after a long “time out” I am back again and happy to say that TechCrunch has decided to show its firm commitment to this market and to editorial independence. For my part, it’s great to be editing the site and I want people to be re-assured that TechCrunch UK & Ireland is here to stay.
The other sites I have been working on recently – including mbites.com – remain personal projects, but I will do all my ‘news breaking’ and heavy blogging about the Web 2.0, tech and startups business on TechCrunchUKI. I’ll also be contributing to TechCrunch US.
To contact me:
Email: mike [at] mbites dot com
Mobile: +44 77 2029 1095
Skype: mikegbutcher
More info on me: http://mbites.com/contact
Last May, at the PSFK Conference London 2007 I gave a talk on how media owners are on a race for survival against technology companies that put the power to publish in the hands of the ‘audience.’ Here it is, including my embarrassing stall half way through where I need to go get some water:
I HATE blog posts that apologise for the lack of updates. Like, who cares?! Either blog or don’t blog. Just don’t apologise. However, I do find that these days I update my Twitter microblog more than this blog! And I have been working on other stuff other than blogging lately. And thinking. However, I will be writing about the Brunch Bites event last week soon. This week I have been working with Seedcamp to help young Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0 startups get off the ground and doing a lot of writing to profile the startups involved. It’s been a fascinating experience. I’ll publish more info later…
I’m in Edinburgh today for the TV Unfestival, an unconference about TV, as an adjunct to the Media Guardian TV Festival.
Now for all networks it seems…
I just need to blog this while it’s still in my head. I’m sure others have come to the same conclusion in a more erudite manner, and posted longer pieces. But I’m starting to wonder if the “User Generated Content” revolution, which was supposed to be taking over the world somewhere around about now, may not hit the heights it was predicted to. Why? Because social networking could well take over from where content creation left off. Ok, that is a massive generalisation. Of course that won’t happen for all demographics all of the time. But think about it. Even the biggest bloggers of the last 2 years – Robert Scoble, Loic Le Meur etc – are now producing almost as much content and getting possibly more interaction inside social networks than they did out on the wild-web or blogosphere. Of course, I’m referring in large part to the enormous pull of Facebook right now. But I’m also thinking that it’s specifically proprietary social networks, such as Facebook or Twitter, which are not open platforms in the way blogs were, that will have this effect. We all have a limited amount of time. If the former Live Journal member or Blogspot Blogger switches to Facebook, then they are going to spend a lot of the time which they used to create content now socially networking (writing on walls, checking mini-feeds, staling people’s statuses etc). I’ll try and add more to this later…
UPDATE: I added more in my comment below.
Thanks to the “Facebook Isn’t Private, and 7 Other Things You Should Know” post I have taken the main points about its Terms and Conditions and summarised below. It makes for gritty reading.
1. The terms can change at any time of Facebook’s choosing.
2. Facebook is legally for personal use only (only actual people can create profiles. And you’re not supposed to profit from it. A profile for a business technically would be banned/deleted).
3. A single, individual user account (you can’t – under their T&Cs – have two accounts on Facebook)
4. You’re giving up a HUGE license (posting content gives Facebook a license to do whatever they want with your content).
5. Applications are NOT guaranteed safe (In other words, “installer beware.” A malicious application developer could break through Facebook’s security protocols and expose your info. That would probably be difficult to do, but Facebook wouldn’t have to take the blame).
6. Disputes are arbitrated under Delaware law in the US (If Facebook does something horridly wrong and you want to sue you can’t because you’ve already agreed to “final and binding arbitration”)
7. You surrender “all submissions” (If you give them a good idea for Facebook it becomes their property)
8. Privacy is NOT guaranteed: “[W]e cannot and do not guarantee that User Content you post on the Site will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Site… …Please keep in mind that if you disclose personal information in your profile or when posting comments, messages, photos, videos, Marketplace listings or other items , this information may become publicly available.”
If somebody hacks Facebook, steals all your content and contact info you have no remedy against Facebook.
John Dvorak is an old-fashioned tech jounralist in the US who thinks we’re going to have another dotcom bust:
“Every single person working in the media today who experienced the dot-com bubble in 1999 to 2000 believes that we are going through the exact same process and can expect the exact same results—a bust…Today everything from YouTube to the local church has a social-networking angle. And this doesn’t even consider the actual social-networking sites, from MySpace to LinkedIn to Facebook to even Second Life. This scene is totally out of control and will contribute to the collapse for sure.”
Marshal Kirkpatrick is a startup guy and a former TechCrunch writer who nails this rubbish to the wall:
“I say: Social networking is an emerging utility that combines the functionality of blogging’s self publishing with the usefulness of email list serves. Social networking services make these activities more accessible than ever before… Why on earth is this man considered a leading voice on tech? I’m guessing that it’s because he speaks to the potent paranoia of much of the aging population – afraid in the face of a changing, confusing world that they will face humiliation if they bet on new tech, that they will be unemployed if things take a downturn or that they will lose their self-righteous know-it-all credentials if this new economy does succeed.”
Recent Comments