I chatted with Chris Shipley (you can listen by clicking the podcast link below) as she was getting ready to launch Demo 2009 where 39 companies plan to introduce new products. Shipley gave me a sneak preview of what to expect including a new screen capture product from Citrix Online (of GoToMyPC), some “hard core development platforms,” and consumer technologies including a live streaming web service for individuals from Avaak.
There will also be a new netbook computer “that fits in a space between an iPhone and a laptop” and a product that is “putting a financial framework around your home” helping you manage that asset.
And one company is, quite literally, a life saver. Silverstone Solutions will introduce technology to make it easier for people needing kidney transplants to find matches.
The economy, says Chris Shipley, will result in a Demo that is “more concentrated,” which is a nice way to say that it’s smaller than the Demo six months ago. Reasons include companies going belly-up as well as others that have had to delay their launch because of cutbacks in engineering resources.
Still, says Shipley, it’s a “great time to be innovating in the marketplace. It’s a time to be putting products to market that are about helping people do more with less” and “it’s still a flight to quality.”
While Demo isn’t nearly as large or as glitzy as the Consumer Electronics Show, it’s a lot more fun to cover because what it lacks in size, it makes up for in heart and soul. It’s a chance to meet with entrepreneurs who — in some cases — are putting everything on the line to try to realize their dream. Some, like the founders of Palm — may get wealthy from their efforts. Others will go on stage, announce their products and soon find themselves having to shut their doors. And, being entrepreneurs, some of them will come back to another Demo to try again. Even during good years, launching a tech product is a risky business. In a recession, it’s an act of faith.
Rafe Needleman, Daniel Terdiman and I will be at Demo, blogging and Twittering as new products are unveiled.
Also check out Rafe’s preview of Demo09 and Daniel’s answer to the question of whether shows like Demo are still relevant.
Listen to my interview with Chris Shipley (5 min, 6 sec)
Facebook’s decision to open up its policy making to user input is a very nice gesture but it’s not exactly on par with the American revolution or the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday that from now on the company will post proposed changes to its terms of service and other policies for member input. If more than 7,000 people comment, the policy will be put to a vote and the result “will be binding if more than 30% of all active registered users vote.” Based on Facebook’s current 175 million user base, that’s nearly 53 million people. What isn’t clear is what happens if voter turnout is less than 30% which seems pretty likely given that not all Facebook users are as passionate about terms of service as the thousands who protested Facebook’s last attempt to change its policies regarding its rights to re-use user data.
Zuckerberg made it very clear, however, that he’s not turning over the keys to the boardroom. It affects issues like data ownership and privacy but not the company’s products and services. “There will be hundreds and thousands of product changes going forward, and that’s not what we’re talking about. This is about the rules and framework,” he said in a press conference
That brings up more questions than answers. If, in the opinion of some, a product change threatens user privacy is that considered a change of policy and if so, is it subject to review and a vote?
Of course it’s easy to be cynical about what a company does in response to widespread user anger and it’s tempting to call this a PR stunt. But I think there is more to it than that. Facebook is a Web 2.0 company and its officials seem to be trying to figure out what it means to run a company where users, not professionals, provide most of the content. In some senses, Facebook is a media company but unlike newspapers, TV networks and even most blogs, its contributors aren’t employees or contractors. It’s those 175 million members. When I contribute an article to a newspaper or website, I understand that I’m giving up some rights to my intellectual property. But when I post something to my Facebook page, I feel that I alone should have control over my intellectual property rights.
Zuckerberg says he agrees but even in its just proposed Statement of Rights and Responsibilities Facebook is a little fuzzy on this issue. Clause 2.3 now reads, “For content that is covered by intellectual property rights (like photos and videos), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use, copy, publicly perform or display, distribute, modify, translate, and create derivative works of (“use”) any content you post on or in connection with Facebook.” However, unlike the last proposed data retention policy it also says “This license ends when you delete your content or your account.”
That statement is already generating some negative comments on the very page where it’s posted now that Facebook is encouraging users to comment on proposed policy changes. But that’s the whole idea – the company floats a proposal and lets users weigh-in on what they think. Only a few hours after the new policy was posted, there were more than 400 comments from 287 people. That’s a lot of people but it’s not even a measurable fraction of the site’s membership It will be interesting to see how many comments are added over the 30 days before the issue can be put to a vote.
In the mean time, I’m going to keep my eye on Facebook just as I’m keeping my eye on President Obama’s pledge for more transparency in government. The comparison between the governance of our country and the running of a social networking site isn’t perfect because the issues are different and, with Facebook, the stakes aren’t nearly as high. Still, Obama and Zuckerberg deserve both credit and scrutiny.
Disclosure: Larry Magid is co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety education group that receives financial support from Facebook and some of its competitors.
All of the hoopla about Facebook’s controversial user policy sidesteps the point about what social Web users really need to know about protecting their privacy and intellectual property.
The latest controversy erupted last week after a blog trumpeted an otherwise largely ignored change in Facebook’s terms of service that would have granted Facebook an “irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license” to use your material and “use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising.”
Needless to say, the privacy and users’ rights community and a lot of bloggers were justifiably alarmed. The Electronic Privacy Information Center reportedly was on the verge of a federal complaint until Facebook decided to rescind the change Tuesday night.
But there was another clause in that short-lived policy that — depending on your reading — either clarifies or contradicts the rest of it. The legalese that gave Facebook perpetual rights was “subject only to your privacy settings” and those settings are hard-wired to limit exposure to your material.
Video – How to set Facebook privacy settings
The site’s privacy settings, in most cases, don’t even permit you to expose your information to everyone on the Web. By default, the settings typically show your profile and other data only to “My Networks and Friends.” While that might include a lot of people, it doesn’t include the entire world. So if Facebook is subject to its own privacy settings, it would be very limited in its right to distribute content from your page to anyone outside your network.
These settings can be modified, but most of them can only be tightened. With a few exceptions, you don’t even have the option to make a lot of your information available to the public at large. One exception is media files such as photos and videos, which, by default, can be viewed by “everyone.” But you can use privacy settings to restrict who can see your photos all the way down to specific friends or even “only me.”
The problem with Facebook’s privacy controls is that a lot of people don’t know about them, and even those who do might find them unintuitive to use. Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly agrees that the company has work to do in this area, and said they are developing a privacy wizard to make it a lot easier to set your controls.
In the meantime, you might want to hover your mouse over the ”Settings” tab near the upper-right corner and select Privacy Settings. There you’ll find options to control who can see your profile as well as other information about you, such as your “personal info,” status updates, photos, videos tagged of you and who your friends are. You can control who can see your profile within Facebook and you can turn off access to public search engines such as Google. There are plenty of other settings, including ones to control who can write on your wall and who can comment on notes, photos or other elements of your site.
Settings vary according to what you’re trying to control and, because of the confusing user interface, you might have to hunt around a bit. For example, to change the privacy settings on your own photo albums within the Privacy Settings area you would have to find the fine print under Photos Tagged of You that says “Edit Photo Albums Privacy Settings” or navigate from the Applications tray at the bottom left corner of your browser. That “privacy wizard” they’re working on can’t come a moment too soon.
Another relatively unknown feature is the ability to create multiple friends lists and assign different privileges to people on different lists. For example, if you want only certain people to know your cell phone number you can create a list like “good friends” and another called “colleagues” to make that information available only to people on those lists.
Be especially careful when it comes to third-party applications. For example, I use an application from Eye-Fi that automatically syncs my photos to Facebook and Flickr through my Wi-Fi network. When I review cameras, I often take ugly and stupid test pictures and, if I’m not careful, those pictures can be automatically loaded to my Facebook page for everyone to see. But my most embarrassing moment was about a year ago, when I tried out the New York Times Quiz on a day I hadn’t read the paper, only to have my low score posted for all my Facebook friends to see, including my editor at the New York Times.
Regardless of how you configure your privacy settings, there is a reality of the social Web that can’t be configured away. Any digital information that is posted can be copied, captured, cached, forwarded and reposted by anyone who has access to it. Even if some embarrassing photo or information is up for only a few minutes, there is the possibility that someone might copy it and send it around. And — as many people are painfully aware — friends can become ex-friends. So even if you’re reasonably careful about who you let on your page, you never know what they might do with the information you post.
I’ve long been a fan of microfinance or microlending where a small loan can make a big difference. To date, I’ve made several small investments via both Microplace.com and Kiva.org. And, in addition to doing good, I’m doing well. Kiva doesn’t pay interest but it does make it easy to give gift certificates. Microplace, in the past, paid up to 3% interest but today announced a fund that’s paying 5%.
Have you checked bank and CD rates lately? 5% is great compared to the rates paid by most banks and money market funds.
The money is loaned to poor people — mostly women — in various parts of the world. The portfolio that now pays 5% goes through an organization called Micro Credit Enterprises which makes loans to the working poor in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Cambodia, Ecuador, Honduras, Indonesia, Mozambique and other countries. And a little bit of money can go a long way. Nelida Espinoza Flores, a 38 year old Peruvian, for example, borrowed $115, to buy jello and other snacks. According to Microplace, she spends about $5 a day on supplies which results in between $10 and $13 in sales. › Continue reading…
You might recognize Sprint CEO Dan Hesse from those black and white commercials. When I met with him last week at a hotel bar in Oakland, Calif., two women at the next table certainly did. They treated him like a celebrity.
I wouldn’t go that far, but he does appear to have a good handle on the mobile industry and what Sprint–the No. 3 cell phone service provider behind AT&T and Verizon–needs to do. And he knows more than a little something about phone companies, having spent 23 years at AT&T, including a stint as CEO of AT&T Wireless Services. It’s too early to know for sure, but it seems as if Hesse could be Sprint’s comeback kid.
I started the conversation on a high note by asking him about the recently announced Palm Pre smartphone, which will be available exclusively from Sprint when it’s released later this year. Not surprisingly, Hesse was “extremely enthused” about the phone, which won CNET’s “Best of CES 2009” award and high initial praise from me and many other journalists. › Continue reading…
The site, which was first launched in 1997, is the place for all things British royal, including pictures of Her Majesty and the rest of the family, art from her various palaces, and historical information about the royals.
New to the site are embedded videos from the official royal YouTube channel, including one from 1940 that has the sound of the then-princess speaking on a BBC children’s show. Other videos cover her coronation and more recent activities.
A section on the “royal household” includes everything you need to know to work at one of the palaces, including online applications for full-time positions and summer jobs at Buckingham Palace.
I spied an opening for a trainee butler and didn’t notice any requirement that you be a British subject. In case you wonder how she pays for all these employees, the section on “royal finances” details income and expenses, including the disclosure that “Head of State expenditure” for 2007 and 2008 was 40 million British pounds, or nearly $57 million. › Continue reading…
I’m almost always saddened by news of businesses being forced to close because of the economy, but I’m glad to see the apparent demise of JuicyCampus.com.
The site, according to a blog post from its founder Matt Ivester, is shutting down because “in these historically difficult economic times, online ad revenue has plummeted and venture capital funding has dissolved.”
I’m not shedding any tears for Mr. Ivester. What he refers to as “lighthearted gossip of college life” was, in many situations, vicious innuendos, hateful messages, and downright lies. In covering the site for CBSNews.com, I saw postings that went so far as to call someone a willing slut and publish her cell phone number and address.
Last year, Ashley Rose, a junior at the University of California, Irvine, told CBS News’ The Early Show about a posting on the site that said she had “engaged in oral sex with four men in one evening.” Ms. Rose said she was able to deal with these innuendos because, “people who are friends with me know the truth about the type of person that I am.”
I’m a strong believer in free speech and perhaps JuicyCampus did have a First Amendment right to encourage people to anonymously post whatever they wanted to say about others, but just because something might be legal doesn’t mean it’s good. In looking at the site last year I saw postings that were sexist, racist, hateful, and homophobic. Maybe they were just online versions of fraternity pranks but, whatever they were, I think the net is better off without them.
It’s no wonder that some student government associations, according to the Associated Press, asked their administration to ban the site from campus networks. It’s not often that students call for banning speech, but even though I’m not sure I agree that that was the best tactic, it was certainly understandable.
I don’t know why it took so long, but Microsoft has finally fixed Vista. Only it isn’t calling it Vista. Instead the company is working on what it’s calling a new version of Windows, Windows 7. The operating system isn’t commercially available, but is likely to be out by the end of the year.
I don’t know how much Microsoft plans to charge for the upgrade once it’s officially available, but the company should give it away free to anyone who bought Vista or a PC with Vista preinstalled. Even though there are some new features, Windows 7 strikes me mostly as a bug fix. It speeds up Windows and fixes one of its most annoying “features” and makes one particularly useful change to the user interface. It seems to me that anyone who paid for Vista is entitled to this upgrade.
Microsoft has launched a free, public, beta test of the software, but to participate you must download it by Feb. 10. It’s not for everyone. Microsoft strongly recommends that “only experienced computer users sign up” for the beta program. Displayed on the screen is the caveat, “For testing purposes only.” The beta will expire in August, but should be replaced by a newer beta or the real product. If you’re game, you can download the beta test of Windows 7 at Microsoft’s Web site › Continue reading…
