Apperceptions

Digital Urban Development: Rooms For Rich Media

Recently, I have been experimenting with new ways to create collaborative "rooms" for use with the Podcast Hotel event in Portland next week.  The general goal is to create ad-hoc web-pages that provide an environment where people can share media captured at the event and make it easily (and instantly) available for anyone to mash-up or re-mix and upload again for others to play with and comment on.  Of course, being a videoblogger, I want these "rooms" to have rich media feeds that I can use in tools like FireAnt.

It is easy to imagine how an enterprise system for this might be designed.  However, part of the challenge was to build on existing tools and infrastructure in order to design and build something that could be used with any kind of web page, particularly blogs like Blogger, WordPress and TypePad.

Another challenge was the the solution could not assume an underlying storage system; blogs like Blogger do not provide storage for media except pictures and those that do (i.e., Typepad) are too limited in bandwidth and storage to support significant uploading and downloading of media files.

I also wanted these collaborative rooms to be simple to add to a web page.  For the moment, this means that it should be no more difficult to use for the author/publisher than inserting a Flickr or Feedburner badge.

I used SpinXpress as the basis of a solution because it is a p2p (person-to-person/peer-to-peer) file sharing tool that allows you to form "groups" (like rooms, or spaces, or networks) where you can store files, bookmarks and comments.  You can also access content in SpinXpress via web services (i.e., HTTP) and, most importantly to a geek like me, you can extend SpinXpress functionality via Java servlets.

So I did that.  I'll leave the technical details to future posts, but basically I created servlets that add XML (XHTML, mRSS, SMIL, XSPF, etc) feeds, forms and handlers that allow one to add a "room" or "group" to a post where people can share files and collaborate.

I will demonstrate this in the very next post.  In the meantime, here is my first SnapZ ProX screencast about SpinXpress.  It just covers the most basic concepts, but should help with the conversation.  Click the pic to view the vid.

Disclaimer: I receive a small sponsorship from Outhink and have equity in the company.

Digital Urban Development

When I was a young mathematician, I worked with a person who always wrote his own textbook - his way - I must admit that they were far superior to others in numerous ways (no pun intended).  This was because he was a leader in that area of mathematical research.

Later, as we both got into personal computers and programming, his teaching and textbooks began to cover ground that many had already trodden.  Again, it was necessary to do it "his way".  Here, the benefits were less obvious.  Often, these books added a certain small mathematical twist that was interesting to a few; but I often wondered about why there was a need to write yet another book on Pascal.

One day, my mentor announced to me that he was going to write a "C" book.  I was abhorred.  I loved my K&R (still do - Kernigahan and Ritchie for those who do not know).  There is no other introductory book on the C programming language that stacks up to it.  Those who did not care for it were invariably light-weight's when it came to programming.  It's a book that I can still enjoy and benefit from re-reading today, even though I no longer program in C (or C++ for that matter). 

I told my friend and teacher this and asked him to carefully study and master K&R before adding yet another C programming book to the countless others that do not even come close to igniting the passion for this archaic language, and always relevant style and words of wisdom, that many of us had. 

This "little book" is to C programming, what Strunk and White is to writing style.

Today, I am tasked with building new communities.  But I see countless ones already and many that need help in various ways.

So why build yet another? 

Why not take all of the resources and content planned for new community development and offer it to OurMedia, as an example.  How much could an extra paid programmer or two help?  Or a graphic designer? 

We can all help guest moderate more - they are always asking.  We can participate more. 

Why develop the infrastructure for proprietary web services, when they could be integrated into others automatically?

Why build so many new communities?  Why not join others and help make them richer?

Ta-Da RSS Data Leak?

I once set up an account on Ta-Da lists.  Created a simple grocery list and then stopped using the product.  It never took hold (yet, you never know). 

I think SpinXpress faces a similar dilemma.  Once you have it setup, you need something to make you use it and see it's value or you will just forget about it.  We need to address this on SpinFlow, but that's another website and another story.

Back to Ta-Da...

During that short trial of Ta-Da, I did subscribe to my list via RSS, however, and the feed is still being pulled today.  I was experimenting with "digital lifestyle aggregation", which is Marc Canter's meme (personally I don't think the name will ever take, same with "vlogging" - but the ideas are right on!)

Except that I notice that there are new items (not grocery) showing up from other lists (and their usernames).  I cannot view the associated data, as it is password protected, but I can see the entire item name and who the people are.

So be careful on your item titles if you use Ta-Da (or anything else, like secure blogs); they will often show up in strange places and some people can add 1+1, especially if they know you (e.g., a co-worker).

I wish I wasn't so busy that I could fill out a report for Ta-Da, but I can't debug everyone's software and services and so I hope this post will make it onto their radar.

Sounds like a GUID problem to me.  It might be because the account lapsed due to inactivity and some ID number was reused?  Not so GU in the ID in that case.

No matter, I should not be seeing this personal data.

Delivering quality web services to people can be very challanging and 37 Signals has been breaking new ground with their web applications.  However, the pace of web development these days is such that testing often takes a back seat to development.

I think testing should drive development.

Collaborative Video

I posted an article on "Collaborative Video" at spinflow.org, please check it out; I'd really appreciate your feedback (or pushback!  I like that word.)

It covers a wide rage of group efforts centered around video in general and videoblogging in particular.

Here is clip from yesterday's videoblogging video conference in which Nathan Peters is discussing music and video collaboration.

Just one of the many topics dicussed.

Experiencing xLogs

Fear and loathing on the road to DLA heaven...

I regularly enjoy several xLogs (webLogs, audioBlogs, vlogs, clogs, plogs and more).  However, certain aggregators tend to push us into using only one form of interaction unless we make a real effort to engage with xLog content and creators.

If we are not careful, these aggregators could end up turning into little more than information TV's, keep people on the couch.  On the other hand, aggregators also have the potential to become to link us into quality conversations.

Marc Canter has spoken wide and far about the wonders of digital lifestyle aggregation, but we rarely talk about the challenges associated with it.  We need to address these issues in more detail.  Nothing comes free; everything has ramifications.  People need to discuss both the benefits and the costs associated with the adoption of new technologies.

On the benefits side for aggregation, many folks remember the "old days" when we were bookmarking and trying to remember to visit each blog on a regular basis, depending on the output of the author.  I tried to maintain daily, weekly and monthly bookmark folders and del.icio.us tag categories full of blog bookmarks.  What a chore!  And what a horrible (and sometimes delightful) feeling of realizing I had fallen behind on some blog that I had forgotten about or that had slipped through the cracks.

But not no mo! Now I've got RSS feeds coming outta my ears.  I love it. Now I am automatically kept up to date on all my favorite blogs.  I use Thunderbird and ANT mainly.  RSS Digest and Feedburner are also important tools.

Then came the big wave.  A flood of information began flowing through me, I felt like something out of a sci-fi book.  Terminal Man. I loved it, but also could see that there was impending overload as my feeds grew into the hundreds.

Note: People who complain about too much email should not even consider newsfeed aggregators.  It will only make your life worse.

Out of necessity, I adopted the newsreader's code of ruthlessly weeding out content that was not highly relevant to me.  Many of the feeds had an occasional good post, but for the most past, many were just full of noise.  I wanted something more after the initial "rush" of reading so many new blogs.  I was not really looking for "news", especially so much news about other blogs.

Then the "zzzzzzz-list" was born.

Many of the so-called A-listers have become just mildly interesting news regenerators and commentators.  Busy to become the "new" journalist, many have also become less and less personal, except for their opinions, of course.  Most seem to love writing about the long-tail, but are they really trying to address any element of it?  It does not seem so.

If you really want fresh and hot news, then join a mailing list.  It'll blow your mind.  I recently joined the videobloggers mailing list.  Wow!  Talk about a conversation.  That deserves a separate post.

Next came ANT and I caught the videoblogging bug.  Both sides.  Watching and creating.  More importantly: watching, reacting, communicating and creating.  Even collaborating.

I love ANTs Not TV.  In fact, I have almost completely stopped watching broadcast television.  Ok, so I still like to watch one or two old time shows on cable, but I almost always miss them because I'm doing something else.  Did someone say "get a Tivo"?  That won't help me unless it comes with the extra daily viewing time necessary to watch more than I already am.  In a way, Tivo achieves this remarkable feat by allowing people to skip unwanted segments.  This is not the issue, however.  TV is not an xLog.

The issue is that I tend to NOT "read" the vlogs that I "watch".  This is generally ok for Rocketboom or Ryanne's, but Raymond deserves a good watch AND a good read as well.  And if you're not careful, you'll miss one of his interesting snapshots.

Similarly for renegade, backinblakk and many others.

This is not a slight on ANT.  ANT is a truly wonderful application and it provides a handy button to visit a video's associated blog and make a comment.  But that's not the same as experiencing all that the creator's have to offer.

I have the same problem with new Internet Archive postings.  OurMedia helps to some degree by bringing together the works posted to archive.org under the umbrella of a blog and forum based community.

So I have to make sure that people like this are in all of my aggregators.

As a result, I am now going back and reviewing many of the old vids and podcasts and finding their xLogs to see what other wonderful things they are saying or doing and, most importantly, to interact with other xBloggers.

And me, I am an xBlogger too. "x" in the sense of what xBase was to dBase. "x" as in Malcolm X, "an unknown quantity, variable".  Today it is a text post, tomorrow a video and something else the next day (perhaps a greenthing).

What element of the long tail am I addressing?  Above all, I am an artist and so that means to me that I must define my own nitch.  Do I want others to find it interesting?  Of course.  Do I want to make money from it?  Not necessarily.  Do I want money?  I want the freedoms that I think it can help me obtain.  Is this xBlog a vehicle for that?  It might be, but it's not what drives me.  Making art from applications is what drives me at this moment.  RSS, blogs and video are all just paints on the palette.

Recently, I 've been experimenting with a new kind of blog.  Instead of a blog written for either a large or a small audience, these are written for the smallest audience possible (other than just yourself - a diary).  I have started to create blogs for just one person.

I'm sure many others have done this. This is even a bit of a return to an old medium for me.  Many years ago, I created ad-hoc web pages expressing my feelings when courting my wife.

Now I have a blog for my wife.  Not about her. For her. It's not secure or protected, but it is not publicized either.  From time to time I write short thoughts and post them for her to read.  In this case others can read it, but they are anonymous to us.

I also write private blogs for some CEO's.  In one case, I coordinate a blog that is written by several people for one person.  We post items to it and produce a "personal" on-going report where the CEO can communicate and interact with the group.  In this case, the CEO is not an author.  They make comments.

Talk about long tail.  You're own personal zine.  Not just filtered and aggregated for you, but actually written with you in mind.  Now that's personal service.

The point is, we are constantly experimenting with new ways to communicate and express ourselves, especially through xLogs.  Aggregators, while good at blending, often remove the individual flavors of the contributors.  We need to work on maintaining our interaction with content creators and not just becoming voyeurs (at least not all the time).

Shot a video. Write a poem. Paint something. Make music.  Tell a story.

And then please go over and check out someone else's xLog and interact.


Addendum: Raymond is thinking about similar things. 

Woops!  Just got a Technorati post that renegade has also written on this topic.  She shares many of the thoughts that go thoughts that go through our minds when creating content.  She also shares some of the changes that have occured in her linking behavior that I have notice too (see post on just google it for a related thought).

New Home Page

Several years ago, I set up a My Yahoo page and had used it to keep abreast of the news.  Initially, I was only interested in tech news, but eventually added Reauters, AP and others for biz and entertainment.  At some point I added the "most viewed" and "most emailed" stores to my list of news items (social networking).  Then they added RSS feeds.  But it was too late.  I had already switched to using Thunderbird as both an email and news reader.  From there it's easy to export to Bloglines. Now my home page is this blog since I can get to everything I need from here.  It has become my personal portal.  Signs of things to come: Secure Personal Internets and Digital Lifestyle Aggregators.  I intend to publish more on this over then next few days.

Addendum: 

I finally added the old news feeds from Yahoo (i.e., the "News" feeds - the stuff that's happening in the world).  And after less than 24 hours I have deleted them.  What poor quality they are.  I had forgotten how much garbage was in them (somebody in Florida is trying to have their plug pulled it appears) and most of the items have bad links (I think they retract, modify and re-issue the stories with new urls, becaure I get what appear to be dup stories, but only one leads to a valid page). 

I have come to expect a certain quality to my feeds.  Others have advocated a basic rule that I have followed: ruthlessly delete any feed that was not consistantly valuable and on topic with your interests.

I am amazed to find that the major news publishers are the ones I cut out the fastest.  I left one: the most emailed stories.  I figure if people take the time to actually email it to someone, then that is at least some kind of recommendation and better than what the media suggests as "breaking news".  Ok, maybe I shouldn't be so amazed.

ANT's Not Television

I came back from my trip to find OVER 50 NEW Videoblog posts to watch!!!  Rocketboom, Ryanne, karmagrrrl and so many others to catch up on!  PLUS new blog comments from those great folks at ANT's Not Television are announcing a new release that adds new sorting capabilities.  Oh this is just too much for one day!  I admit it.  I'm a videoblog addict!!!  Where will I ever get the time to catch up?  Remember when you had to catch up on dozens of emails?  Well, now it's video!!!

I have to confess something: while I have nurtured and evolved my RSS newsfeeds for blogs (I use Thunderbird and am also trying out Bloglines), I have never added a feed to ANT.  I just let it automatically fetch the feeds that they had shipped the first version with!!!  Even though they had a great del.icio.us directory for feeds (see also here) I never got around to checking out any new ones, what with the amount of time I already put into my work projects and my IA Tonight work.  So here comes a new version and, probably, an update to the feed list.  I was gone for 5 days and had over 50 videos waiting for me.  What's next?  100?  I still need "better radio", but I love this stuff.  Thanks to all the videobloggers (especially you ANT people).  I love what you're doing.

Free Labor

It seems that something is bothering Marc Canter to the point of his posting the same rant twice (I've done that before without even being in a lather and Marc tends to be very animated -- spouting broad reaching proclamations and constantly making wild gestures with his hands and arms -- it's easy to understand how this sort of thing can happen).

What's not so easy to understand is the reason for Marc's apparent frustration over the failing of what he terms "free labor".

Back in January, I met with Marc, Mitch and Dave to discuss Digital Lifestyle Aggregators (DLA's) and Secure Personal Internets (SPIN's). Marc and I got into a rather vigorous discussion of the "value" of "free labor" after Marc told a similar story about an earlier project that had failed to come to fruition.  Again, it was due to "free labor" not being there "at the end of the day". 

So it seems like we have been here before and the question arises as to why are we doing the same thing over and over again?  I say "we" because I've been here too.  On both sides of the fence (coin? whatever).  I've been a developer who has given lots of "free labor" to far too many projects and I have been the "producer" who often tries to get the creative talent to contribute more to projects (I'm not a 9-to-5 kinda guy).

What is "free labor" anyway?  Is it "volunteer" work?  There's all kinds of volunteer work.

Are you providing "free labor" if you drastically cut your rate or billed project hours in order to get work during leaner times?  If you get cut back in revenue, do you really cut back the same amount in effort?  I wish it were that simple.

Is it "free labor" if you "toss a little money" someone's way (especially when the emphasis is on "little") and expect them to do a lot.  Is it "free labor" if you give them a lot of "equity in lieu of cash?"

The Trott's say they lost their jobs and worked together on their own to create MovableType.  Before they started charging for their open-source product, they say they averaged 38 cents in donations for each download.  Was that "free labor"?

What if you work on several projects and get paid for some and not for others (at different times); is some of it it "free labor"?  Who decides how your time is best spent?  Are you really able to separate all that you do into nice little discrete buckets?

I think what we are doing over and over again is kidding ourselves about the notion of "free labor".  They say "you get what you pay for".  So does that mean we should not expect much or does that mean that labor is never really "free"?

On the other hand, Mick Jagger says "you can't always get what you want ... you get what you need". 

I say that "free labor" is getting the short end of the stick (and the blame).  A situation that none of us should either want or need, no matter which side of the fence you're currently on (or straddling).  What do you say?