« September 2003 | Main | November 2003 »
October 31, 2003
Beyond circuit-switched thinking
Telepocalypse:
"The abandonment of the circuit-switched world for all communication
that isn't both real-time and two-way is seriously overdue."
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 3:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 30, 2003
From networks to devices
According to a Morgan Stanley report,
the mobile phone infrastructure market is going to plunge. Left
unsaid is the other side of the equation. As the locus of value
moves away from the core network infrastructure, it moves into the
devices at the edge.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 1:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 29, 2003
Michael Powell in the eye of the beholder
Arnold Kling thinks FCC Chairman Michael Powell is misunderstood, and smarter than people give him credit for. I agree.
Of course Arnold, a conservative economist, cheers Powell for following
the neoclassical economic orthodoxy of Friedrich Hayek, while I see him carrying on the legacy of Al Gore.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 10:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A biiiiiiiiiig number
Infoworld: "The amount of new information stored
on various media such as hard drives has doubled in the past three years, to five exabytes of new information produced in
2002, according to a study released Tuesday by the University of California, Berkeley." (via Ross Mayfield)
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 10:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 27, 2003
Did I mention that I...
Did I mention that I love my new Treo?
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 26, 2003
Lessons from Dartmouth
Naval Ravikant at Ventureblog has a good analysis of what Dartmouth is learning from its extensive deployemnt of WiFi and VOIP.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Billy Tauzin's MPAA
The New York Post is reporting that
Congressman Billy Tauzin will take over from Jack Valenti as head of
the Motion Picture Association of America. I think this is good
news for defenders of openness and competition in the digital economy.
First, Tauzin will leave his powerful position as chair of the House
Commerce Committee, where he is an effective advocate for the interests
of the incumbent telephone companies. Second, he will replace
Jack Valenti, whose supreme talent is his extraordinary gravitas.
Billy Tauzin is a partisan street fighter. A very skillful,
exceedingly well-connected street fighter, which is why he's getting
this plum job. But someone who everyone sees as an advocate for
one set of interest groups.
Valenti is able to float above the political fray. His aloofness
suggests that what Hollywood thinks is good for the movie industry is
obviously good for America. As the front man of Hollywood's
crusade for copyright absolutism, he has made an extremist position
feel downright reasonable. Tauzin can't do that. He may win
his battles, but it will no longer be a secret that a war is going
on. The same dynamic is occurring with the departure of the
thoughtful Hilary Rosen from the Recording Industry Association of
America.
The last, best hope to turn the tide in the conflict is for more people to realize that Larry Lessig is
a centrist on copyright. With Billy Tauzin running the MPAA,
perhaps the real policy spectrum will be easier to perceive
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Beyond the phone network as we know it
Technopocalypse: "The obsolescence of the PSTN will be caused not by cheap traditional voice run over the Internet, but by services the PSTN cannot ever deliver."
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 25, 2003
Master of the Universe?
First, Wired names Clay Shirky "The Tech Node," and now this.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 1:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 24, 2003
The Meat Market
I'm in Washington DC, at the annual American Association of Law Schools
Faculty Recruitment Conference (aka "The Meat Market") interviewing for
jobs as a law professor. Wish me luck!
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 22, 2003
Moving forward on VOIP
According to Telephony magazine:
I need to think about this some more, but my initial gut feeling is that the proposed approach won't work. There's a reason it's called the inter-net. It's a network of networks. If the law chases particular network configurations, it just pushes companies to engineer around the rules. Just look at how the death of Napster has shifted P2P file-trading to more decentralized systems like Kazaa.
I'm not sure what's gained by dividing the VOIP world up into these
three categories. If a network is truly private, not
interconnected to the outside world, like a secure intranet behind a
firewall with no traffic going outside, why would the FCC even think
about regulating applications on that network? Anything that
touches the public Internet (i.e. everything but the first scenario)
touches the public switched telephone network at some point. And
"evolving peer-to-peer networks" can be in either category.
It sounds like the FCC is trying to update the distinction in its 1998
report to Congress between "phone-to-phone" and "computer-to-computer"
VOIP. I was very involved in drafting that report, which I'm
convinced was the right approach at the time. However, the basic
framework is ultimately untenable. All computers are phones, and
an increasing percentage of phones (including all wireless ones) are
computers. Many things that are neither computers nor phones,
like Vocera's clip-on badges, are
now VOIP devices. The point of the end-to-end principle is that
the ends of the Internet are malleable.
If the legal requirements change when an end user swaps a computing
device labeled "phone" for one labeled "computer," the rules will
fail. The real issue here is that basic voice service is going to
be deregulated. There is no way to put the VOIP genie back into
the bottle without destroying it. Owners of monopoly
infrastructure (both physical and logical) should still be regulated,
because otherwise they will prevent competition and innovation at
higher levels. The link between that regulation and voice phone
calls needs to be broken.
The question is whether the FCC will use its skill and creativity to
take the great leap forward, or will essentially dither until Congress
is forced to pass a new Telecommunication Act in 2008 or 2010. A
new statute is the right answer, because the old law is fundamentally
tied to the outdated old communications paradigm. But we won't
get a new law any sooner even if Congress starts now, because of the
interests involved. What's at stake now is the path of the
communications industry over the next five to seven years. VOIP
could kickstart the economy and the technology sector during that
period, but only if regulators do the right thing.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 21, 2003
It's worse than I thought
A Reuters story on the FCC's impending adoption of broadcast flag requirements for digital TV:
"The approval, expected as early as next week, would be another step along the long road to the higher-quality, crisper digital signals, which have been slowed because of worries about piracy, high-priced equipment and limited available programming.
An agency spokeswoman declined to comment on when the five commissioners would vote on the issue.
Consumer advocates have warned that consumers will have to buy new DVD
players if they want to play programs that have been recorded on
machines that recognize the digital flag. But agency officials stressed
that that always happens when new technology hits the market."
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The party of the people?
Interesting David Brooks column on what's wrong with the Democrats (via Lessig).
Whether or not John Edwards is the answer, he's posing the right
question: Why do a majority of Americans feel they can relate to
draft-dodging child of privilege George W. Bush, and not Al Gore or the
current Democratic contenders? It comes down to trust, which
isn't something you can create in focus groups.
I think Edwards is right that the Democrats need a candidate who "real
Americans" feel a natural affinity for. As Bush shows, though,
this isn't just a matter of biography. It's also not enough to
have the right candidate if the rest of the party doesn't change.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 5:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Socialtext Workspace 1.0
Socialtext, a startup I'm on the advisory board for, launched version 1.0
of its commercial and open-source products today. Socialtext
adapts Weblog and Wiki tools to facilitate bottom-up collaboration in
organizations. I'm excited about what they're building. Go
check it out.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 11:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
More on the Minnesota Vonage ruling
My law-school classmate Andrew McLaughlin writes that:
Welcome to the blogosphere, Andrew! To your point, we can only hope. I actually think the Minnesota decision could lessen the immediate pressure to adopt a rational framework at the federal level. Judge Davis effectively preserved the status quo, in which VOIP services are de facto unregulated. The ones upset about that situation are the square-state Senators worried about universal service funds, but they haven't made much noise since the FCC turned back their challenge in 1998. What's much more likely to provoke FCC action is a patchwork of states attempting to regulate VOIP. Partly because it puts in place an outcome contrary to the one the FCC generally supports, and partly because it's state regulators stepping into what the FCC feels is its turf. Don't underestimate the power of that second factor.
Meanwhile, my friend and sometime business partner Jeff Pulver is advocating a
five-year moratorium on VOIP regulation, analogous to the moratorium on
Internet-specific taxes. Sorry Jeff. The FCC gave you your
moratorium when it released the "Stevens Report" in 1998. There
are plenty of good reasons not to require VOIP providers to contribute
to universal service subsidies, or to keep them out of the ball of
twine that is traditional telecom regulation. None of them are
reasons to put off the question for half a decade.
I fear that if a moratorium such as Jeff proposes were adopted, we'd
have much more regulation of VOIP at the end of the five years.
At that point, incumbent telcos are likely to be on or over the verge
of bankruptcy, blaming VOIP all the way down. They would have
five years to get those square-state Senators and their constituents
chomping at the bit to end the evil VOIP "subsidy." And I have to
tell you -- whomever is running the FCC in five years won't be more
favorable to VOIP than Michael Powell.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 11:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Arrgh!
I just wrote a long piece about the Greg Easterbrook affair. Just
before I was ready to post it, I hit the wrong key and wiped out the
whole thing. Grrrr. No time now to reconstruct it.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 10:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 20, 2003
The coming identifier boom
ITU Telecom 2003: "Mockapetris
has coined his own new 'Mockapetris Law' that foresees the doubling of
electronic identifiers every 12 months. 'We’ll see more DNS growth in
the next five years than in the last 20 put together,' he predicts."
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 17, 2003
LazyWeb request: RSS readership tracking
Can someone please build what Brian Peddle describes here: a tool for generating stats of RSS syndication feed readership?
I have no idea how many people read this Weblog, because much of the
audience seems to come via the RSS feed. I have no doubt this
will become more common in the future. I hardly read any blogs
that don't offer syndication feeds, because they are so much more
efficient for skimming lots of different sites. Dave, Scott, Dave, or BenMenAnil, you listening?
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 3:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I almost became a fan again
I grew up as a baseball fan. Went to 10 or 20 Dodgers games a
year from age four to college. Then the greedy owners and greedy
players conspired to destroy my team, and destroy the game
itself. They killed the baseball fan in me. I continue to
watch from time to time, and take in a game now and then, but it's not
the same.
This year, with the Cubs and Red Sox in the playoffs, I almost became a
fan again. Now they're gone. Maybe next year.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 12:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Broadcast flag bad
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is waging a campaign against
the "broadcast flag," a proposed requirement that devices incorporate a
form of digital rights management to protect digital TV streams.
The FCC is considering rules to mandate the broadcast flag in digital
TV sets and other equipment. This is a dumb idea on many levels -- it
will do little to stop unauthorized distribution of digital video
content, and much to create confusion among users and
manufacturers.
The EFF's action center has resources to send your comments on this issue to the FCC and other key policy makers.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 12:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Treo bliss
I just used my Treo 600 as an MP3 player for the first time, while
taking my son on a walk. Got a 512 meg SD card for $156, plus the
PocketTunes application, and I'm groovin'. It's not an iPod, but
100 songs in your pocket ain't bad when the same device is also your
phone, organizer, camera, and wireless email tool.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 10:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
What is Internet infrastructure?
Stratton Sclavos of Verisign distills the essence of the SiteFinder controversy in his CNet interview:
"The reason Site Finder became such a lightening rod is that it goes to
the question: Are we going to be in a position to do innovation on this
infrastructure, or are we going to be locked into obsolete thinking
that the DNS was never intended to do anything other than what it was
originally supposed to do?"
There is a subtle but essential misunderstanding here. Innovation
can and should happen in Internet infrastructure, but there are a
handful of core elements that must remain open and radically simple if
the Internet is to remain, well, the Internet. These include
TCP/IP, SMTP, HTTP, BIND, BGP, and the DNS (especially the .com
registry). Any change in these protocols should be very carefully
vetted through a consensus-based process.
The key issue that Stratton misses is that a few simple and
non-proprietary core connectivity protocols make innovation possible
elsewhere. Take Internet routing, for example. Akamai and
its competitors built content-delivery networks that fundamentally
changed the way a high percentage of Internet traffic moves through the
network. But they did it on top of the core protocols, which
remain unchanged. Innovation took place, but without breaking the
fundamental underpinnings of the open Internet.
The debate about spam, where many people are proposing mandatory
authentication as a solution, illustrates the same confusion.
Breaking email to fix spam is like breaking the DNS to "fix" mistyped
domain names. That's why I like Tim Bray's suggestion to use relay servers for spam prevention. Like Akamai, it leaves the basic infrastructure unchanged.
Lack of innovation at one level promotes innovation at another
level. As long as the global Internet community knows that SMTP,
IP, and the domain name system will remain stable, it can build
wonderful new things that leverage that base. At the same time,
the guardians of the core infrastructure, which includes large network
owners, Verisign, and standards bodies, can focus their energies on
ensuring that the infrastructure can scale. Because the DNS today
does do something different than it was designed for: it supports a
global network used by billions of people and facilitating billions of
dollars in economic activity. And that's the greatest innovation
of all.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 16, 2003
Spectrum matters
Intel's Sean Maloney at the ITU Telecom 2003 convention: "Spectrum is going to become more important and people need
to get involved. The public needs to pay far more attention to spectrum
allocation than it does."
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 2:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Minnesota VOIP case
The US District Court in Minnesota has released its opinion (PDF)
holding that Vonage's voice over IP service may not be regulated by the
state as a telecom service. Here's the key language:
"The
process of transmitting customer calls over the Internet requires Vonage to “act
on” the format and protocol of the information. 47 C.F.R. § 64.702(a). For
calls originating with one of Vonage’s customers, calls in the VoIP format must
be transformed into the format of the PSTN before a POTS user can receive the
call. For calls originating from a POTS user, the process of acting on the
format and protocol is reversed. The Court concludes that Vonage’s activities
fit within the definition of information services."
I have a hard time seeing how this will hold up. Essentially, the
court found that Vonage was an information service rather than a
telecommunications service because it engages in protocol
conversion. That's not a good distinction on which to base a
regulatory distinction as important as this one. Signals get
transformed inside communications and data networks all the time.
I come back to my conviction that the FCC needs to step in and come up
with rational rules for VOIP, or the courts will make a hash of
things. The Minnesota case may be a good outcome in the short
run, because it doesn't make sense for individual states to impose
obligations on VOIP at their choosing. In the long run, though,
stability and
clarity must be the foundation of the regulatory system. That's
ultimately the only way to keep VOIP out of unreasonable and
unnecessary requirements.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 2:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
New issue of JOHO
As usual, lots of great stuff in David Weinberger's latest JOHO. A few samples:
"[M]etadata doesn't scale. And that means
that the Internet will never be a unified "information space"
that can be searched and utilized transparently. It's always going to
be lumpy, local and tribal."
------
"It is essential by the nature
of publishing and essential to the purpose of building a public domain that
works escape the control of their creators."
------
"The Dean campaign in particular has figured out how to crack
the nut of mass-ness. How do you connect a single candidate to several million
supporters in a meaningful way? You don't. You enable the supporters to connect
to one another."
I particularly like that last one.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 1:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Verisign selling NSI (not really)
CBS MarketWatch: Verisign to Sell Network Solutions to Pivotal Private Equity
Wow. $100 million, of which only $60 million is cash, for 85%
of an asset
they paid $20 billion for. I wonder if the recent SiteFinder
brouhaha had anything to do with this. The deal must have been in
process before SiteFinder launched and was suspended, but I have to
believe the imbroglio affected Verisign's willingness to sell.
Verisign wants to be the key player in Internet security and identity,
which requires trust. NSI was increasingly a drag on that
image.
So, who the heck is Pivotal Private Equity? According to this, they
are a subsidiary of a Phoenix-based real estate investment firm.
Both Verisign and NSI's former parent SAIC clearly understood the
importance of the domain name system, and had the resources to play the
high-stakes political and business game it is at the center of. A
private equity firm that sees NSI purely as a financial asset to turn
around may be tempted to make deals that are damaging to the Internet
and Internet governance, without fully appreciating the
consequences.
UPDATE: Reading Verisign's press release more carefully, I see that what they are actually selling is the registrar function of NSI (the one that registers domain names for end-users), and not the registry function
(managing the central .com database and associated core
infrastructure). At first glance, separating the two functions
would seem to remove a key conflict of interest that has dogged NSI for
some time. On the other hand, freeing Verisign from the registrar
function might allow it to extend its efforts, like SiteFinder, to
leverage the true monopoly element of the current domain name
system.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Blogs and journalism
Jay Rosen's great list of 10 ways weblogs are radical for journalism.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Old new thinking in Telecom
According to BusinessWeek,
Microsoft has a brilliant solution for the telecom industry's woes:
instead of selling dumb connectivity, sell value-added services.
I have a little secret for you. Every carrier has been saying
this for at least twenty years. No one, with the possible
exception of Level 3, wants to be a "dumb pipe." Yet the only
"services" that have taken off so far are ringtones, SMS messaging in
Europe, and wireless data apps in Japan.
The problem isn't the lack of standards, which is what the BusinessWeek
article seems to suggest. It's a conflict between edge and
center. My new Treo has
lots of great services like Vindigo that I willingly pay for. I
spent $400 on the device itself, and more on an expansion memory card
to play MP3s. The problem is that hardly any of that money goes
to Sprint, the telecom operator. And with voice over IP, WiFi,
and the inevitable unbundling of phones and wireless networks, Sprint
will get squeezed even more.
The money today is in the apps on the edge, hardware, and of all
things, dumb connectivity. The first one explains Microsoft's
presence at the Telecom Show, the second one explains the large Intel
and HP booths, and the last one is what carriers don't want to
hear. If you talk to US mobile phone subscribers, though, I bet
you'll hear far more complaints about coverage and network speed than
lack of services or high prices. The first user-facing telecom
company to execute the Dell/Wal-Mart model -- being the efficient
commodity provider -- will make a killing. (Partly because they
will kill their competitors.) Not that this is an easy
task. Legacy billing systems and legacy culture are huge hurdles
to overcome. The "services" alternative, though, is a
mirage. The few exceptions like NTT DoCoMo only prove the rule.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
So how do they make up the difference?
The Register: "According to a Yankee Group survey of 25 incumbent and alternate
operators across 16 European countries, two thirds of operators expect
traditional voice services to account for less than 50 per cent of
their revenue by 2006."
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Competition as the problem, not the solution?
Eli Noam discusses the "New Volatility" of telecom at the ITU Telecom 2003 show (via Isen.blog):
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 15, 2003
Mobile syndication
One of the cool things I'm doing with my new Treo is reading RSS feeds from blogs and other news sites, using a Palm app called Hand/RSS.
News aggregators make even more sense in a mobile context than on a PC,
because browsing the Web is much harder on a handheld, low-bandwidth
device.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 2:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
First Thoughts on the Treo 600
Here are some reactions to my new Treo 600. I've only been playing
with it for two days, so this is more a stream of observations than a
thorough review.
To cut to the chase, I like it. The little things really stand
out. With its
excellent hardware and software engineering, the Treo 600 is what
Apple would build if it were a telecom equipment company. Of
course,
therein lies the challenge for Palm. The Treo, like most
groundbreaking Apple products, is expensive, and its comparative
advantages are qualitative and experiential. One the
early-adopter geeks like me all rush out and buy one, it will be a
challenge to crack the wider market.
Specific comments:
- It looks smaller than it really is. The illusion is striking. When I took the device out of
the box, it looked about half the size of my old Treo 300. It's
actually narrower but longer, heavier, and slightly thicker. I
don't care. The subjective experience is what's important, and
that's where good industrial design comes in. - Subtle user-experience tweaks abound. The keyboard now has
well-labeled "home" and "menu" keys for those common Palm
functions. You can create "favorites" that launch calls,
applications, and Web links by holding down a key on the
keyboard. There are several new and modified preferences elements, such as the Sound item with built-in ringtone manager.
- The "fit and finish" is outstanding. It just feels solid. Everything from the
tiny caps on the screw wells on the back to the soft blue backlighting
of the keyboard screams quality and sophistication.
- Runs faster than the slow-as-molasses Treo 300, though
functions like searching through a big address book (mine has over 2000
contacts) are still not instantaneous.
- Web connection speeds on the Sprint CDMA network seemed a little
better than with my Treo 300, though not radically different.
This will probably vary based on location and Sprint's 1xRTT upgrade
schedule.
- The
five-way navigation pad does allow you to avoid using the
stylus most of the time, which is a welcome change. However, most
non-bundled software (e.g. Snappermail) doesn't take advantage of it yet. The
built-in Web browser does, but awkwardly. For example, to scroll
down a numbered list of options, you pus the pad to the right (not
down). To use the browser "back" button you click down to the
bottom of the screen, then to the right to the "back" icon, then
click the select button (instead of just clicking to the left). Some of
the other applications support the nav bar for some functions but not
others (e.g. scrolling down), which is annoying.
- The camera is nicely integrated. Sending a photo as an
email attachment is a one-click selection after you capture the
image. You can also add photos to people in your contact list, or
make a photo your background wallpaper image. The image quality isn't
great,though pictures look better when you transfer them to a PC than
on the Treo's 160x160 screen.
- I don't love the keyboard. Early reports were that it was
as good or better than the one on the earlier Treos, despite being
smaller. I find it hard to get my (admittedly big) fingers onto
the right key quickly. This may get easier as I use the device
more. Given the form factor, Handspring probably made the best
tradeoff they could. - One of the four function buttons below the screen is assigned by default to power
on/off, duplicating the power switch on top of the unit. This
replaces the button for the Web browser on the previous Treos, which for me is a pretty
important function. It was easy enough to reassign the button
back, but I wonder why they felt the need to change it. - The
sound output (for ringtones and so forth) is excellent, much improved
over the original Treo. I'm ordering an SD memory card so that I can
play MP3s on the device. - If you've used a previous Treo, you
know that Handspring did a nice job integrating the phone and PDA
features. Nothing really different here from the earlier models, but
if you've used other phones you'll like the way this one works.
- What I didn't like:
- I actually find the Treo 600 less comfortable to hold up to my ear
as a phone than the older Treo 300, despite the much-reviled
clamshell. On the other hand, it does look and feel more like a phone
when you use it that way. - The
screen is slightly
off-center to the left, though not enough to cut off any pixels. Not
sure why, though this is apparently the way all Treo 600s are, not just
mine.
- The
stylus is harder to pull out than the previous Treo, because the top is
more smoothly recessed into the back.
- The Sprint Vision services (ringtones, games, screen savers,
etc.) need some work. I couldn't preview the ringtones before I
bought them, and only after downloading one and being charged, was I
told that (allegedly) the Treo doesn't support MP3-format
ringtones. Which begs the question why they are offered on
Sprint's own service. - Despite
all of Handspring's subtle efforts, the fact is that the screen and
keyboard are small for what they do. I noticed that I was getting a
headache from focusing in on the Web browser screen on a half-hour
commuter train ride.
- As
noted, integration of the five-way navigation pad isn't
universal. This should change as software vendors release
updates.
All in all, as expected, the Treo 600 is the best smartphone on
the market today. It's an excellent phone, a good PDA, a serviceable wireless
email and Web device, a decent cameraphone, and with the expansion
slot, your choice of an MP3 player, a WiFi/Bluetooth node, or a
location-aware GPS device. If you only want to carry one electronic device in your pocket or purse, the Treo is for you.
So, should you buy one? Well, it depends. It ain't
cheap. You can get a Treo 270/300, which has about 80% of the
functionality (though much less of the cool factor), for $99 or less.
The Treo 600 weighs in at $449 with activation from Sprint, or $399 if
you upgrade from a previous model. If wireless email is essential to you, get a Blackberry. If you make tons of phone
calls and rarely use PDA features, you're better off with a smaller
phone-only device. If the camera is what excites you, get a Palm
Zire 71. If you want to do lots of rich media stuff, get a Clie
or a PocketPC phone. The laws of physics mean there will never be One Device to Rule Them All.
Me? I wouldn't want to carry anything else.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:37 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Another VOWLAN piece
The New Red Herring notices voice over WiFi.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Danny O'Brien's thoughts [1]on O'Reilly...
Danny O'Brien's thoughts on O'Reilly Foo Camp and public vs. private discourse.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Howard Rheingold's take [1]on RFID,...
Howard Rheingold's take on RFID, over at the Feature
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 14, 2003
Looks interesting
State of the Commons 2003/2004 (1.2 megabyte PDF)
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A photo from the Treo 600 camera
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Weblog best practices
Mena Trott: "As we work on Movable Type, we want to integrate what we've learned
during the past year of TypePad development. We believe that for
comments and TrackBacks to be most efficient, they should be embedded
within the page that contains the original weblog post."
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
VOIP and universal service subsidies
FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin asserted today
at a telephone industry conference that voice-over-IP providers should
contribute to the Universal Service Fund. The FCC is going to
take up regulation of VOIP in the next few months, and this will be a
key issue.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Feed Discovery Markup Language
This is what Jeremy Zawodny was referring to yesterday.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 6:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 13, 2003
Comments are all messed up
I fiddled with the order of some of the posts today, and it caused some
comments (served remotely by Haloscan) to associate with the wrong
posts. Sorry -- I don't know to fix this.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 5:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Issue #1 for the Democrats
According to Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren, interviewed on
Salon, "Today's two-income
family has 75 percent more income than the one-income family had a
generation ago, but by the time they make four basic payments and their
taxes they have less money to spend than their one-income
parents." One consequence of which is that "Being a parent is the
best predictor that a person will file for bankruptcy."
Here is a long-term realigning issue for American politics. (One
which I happen to appreciate particularly well because I'm a parent in
a two-income family.) The traditional story is that people become
more Republican as they get older and wealthier. But lower income
taxes and better crime prevention aren't the key issues for those
parents going bankrupt. Whomever can address the issue of
economic security for today's twenty-, thirty-, and forty-something
working families will have an important piece of the 21st-century
governing coalition.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 5:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
First thoughts on the Treo 600
Here are some initial reactions to my new Treo 600. This is not
an organized review; it's my running notes as I play with the device
and notice things:
- It looks smaller than it really is. When I took it out of
the box, it looked about half the size of my old Treo 300. It's
actually narrower but longer, heavier, and slightly thicker. I
don't care. The subjective experience is what's important, and
that's where good industrial design comes in. - Subtle user-experience tweaks abound. The keyboard now has
well-labeled "home" and "menu" keys for those common Palm
functions. You can create "favorites" that launch calls,
applications, and Web links by holding down a key on the
keyboard. There are several new and modified preferences elements, such as the Sound item with built-in ringtone manager.
- The "fit and finish" is outstanding Everything from the
tiny caps on the screw wells on the back to the soft blue backlighting
of the keyboard screams quality and sophistication. I
could almost feel the rich Corinthian leather beneath my fingers.
- Runs faster than the slow-as-molasses Treo 300, though
functions like searching through a big address book (mine has over 2000
contacts) are still not instantaneous.
- Web connection speeds on the Sprint CDMA network seemed a little
better than with my Treo 300, though not radically different.
This will probably vary based on location and Sprint's 1xRTT upgrade
schedule.
- The five-way navigation pad does allow you to avoid using the
stylus most of the time, which is a welcome change. However, most
non-bundled software doesn't take advantage of it yet. The
built-in Web browser does, but awkwardly. For example, to scroll
down a numbered list of options, you pus the pad to the right (not
down). To use the browser "back" button you click down to the
bottom of the screen, then to the right to the "back" icon, then
click the select button (instead of just clicking to the left).
- The camera is nicely integrated. Sending a photo as an
email attachment is a one-click selection after you capture the
image. You can also add photos to people in your contact list, or
make a photo your background wallpaper image. The image quality isn't
great,though pictures look better when you transfer them to a PC than
on the Treo's 160x160 screen.
- I don't love the keyboard. Early reports were that it was
as good or better than the one on the earlier Treos, despite being
smaller. I find it hard to get my (admittedly big) fingers onto
the right key quickly. This may get easier as I use the device
more. Given the form factor, Handspring probably made the best
tradeoff they could. - One of the four function buttons is assigned by default to power
on/off, duplicating the power switch on top of the unit. This
replaces the button for the Web browser, which for me is a pretty
important function. It was easy enough to reassign the button
back, but I wonder why they felt the need to change it. - The sound output (for ringtones and so forth) is excellent, much improved over the original Treo.
- What I didn't like:
- I actually find the Treo 600 less comfortable to hold up to my ear
as a phone than the older Treo 300, despite the much-reviled
clamshell. On the other hand, it does look and feel more like a phone
when you use it that way. - The
screen is slightly
off-center to the left, though not enough to cut off any pixels. Not
sure why, though this is apparently the way all Treo 600s are, not just
mine.
- The
stylus is harder to pull out than the previous Treo, because the top is
more smoothly recessed into the back.
- The Sprint Vision services (ringtones, games, screen savers,
etc.) need some work. I couldn't preview the ringtones before I
bought them, and only after downloading one and being charged, was I
told that (allegedly) the Treo doesn't support MP3-format
ringtowns. Which begs the question why they are offered on
Sprint's own service.
the market today. It's an excellent phone and PDA, a good wireless
email and Web device, a decent cameraphone, and with the expansion
slot, your choice of an MP3 player, a WiFi/Bluetooth node, or a
location-aware GPS device. If you want all of those capabilities in one
device, the Treo is for you.
The little things with this device really stand out. With its
excellent hardware and software engineering, the Treo is what
Apple would build if it were a telecom equipment company.
So, should you buy one? Well, it depends. It ain't
cheap. You can get a Treo 270/300, which has about 80% of the
functionality (though much less of the cool factor), for $99 or less.
The Treo 600 weighs in at $449 with activation from Sprint, or $399 if
you upgrade from a previous model. If wireless email is very
important to you, get a Blackberry. If you make tons of phone
calls and rarely use PDA features, you're better off with a smaller
phone-only device. If the camera is what excites you, get a Palm
Zire 71. If you want to do lots of rich media stuff, get a Clie
or a PocketPC phone.
Me? I wouldn't want to carry anything else.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 2:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It's here!
| Oct 13, 2003 | 12:26 pm |
 |
Delivered |
|
VILLANOVA PA |
|
No signature required - |
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 12:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Apropos of my comment on syndication standards
Jeremy Zawodny reports from O'Reilly's Foo Camp:
"I left a bit early (noon) on Sunday to head back, but not before a
meeting in which we managed to hammer out some RSS stuff that will be
discussed quite soon. More on that later."
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 11:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Trotts latest project
SixLog: "While we do plan on integrating comment registration into Movable Type
Pro (which we'll be talking about in more detail very soon)...."
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 10:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Another hint: experiments show that it isn't water proof
| Oct 13, 2003 | 7:42 am |
|
On FedEx vehicle for delivery |
|
KING OF PRUSSIA PA |
|
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Luv that RSS
I'm now subscribed to 206 syndication feeds. (I could sign up for
many more, of course. These are the sources I find particularly
interesting and unique.) RSS and its progeny are the best thing
since sliced bread. When I see a new blog or news site that
doesn't prominently display a syndication link, I get annoyed.
There are two major hurdles that the blog/syndication community needs
to address. First, the "diversity" of RSS/RDF/Atom/Echo flavors
is a bug, not a feature. It's like the original browser war days
of 1995-96, when every release from Netscape and Microsoft would add new
HTML tags, only some of which were in the W3C spec, and W3C kept
proposing its own new tags that no popular browser supported.
Second, we need really good aggregators, both standalone and
Web-based. There are some pretty good ones out there, but we're
still at the Mosaic stage, not Netscape and IE.
Come on guys. This could be the first real evolution in the Internet user experience in ten years.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A new anti-spam idea
Tim Bray offers the first first concept
for paid email I've seen that might actually work. The basic idea
of using an economic mechanism to prevent spam has been hashed over
many times. One big problem with such mechanisms is that they
break the decentralized, open architecture of email. Tim's
solution is to have intermediaries that serve as relays and collect the
money. The endpoints wouldn't have to change.
I still don't see such a mechanism becoming ubiquitous. There is
still the question of getting such a system to critical mass, and
various implementation problems. But for active email users
(like yours truly) I could imagine it becoming then norm instead of
challenge-response systems.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Clay Shirky: File-Sharing Goes Social
As usual, trenchant analysis by Clay.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Pulver on Skype Hype
Jeff Pulver: "One should thank the Skype team for an application which is helping to
introduce a new generation of people to the killer app of the
Internet...Voice."
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Closer
| Oct 13, 2003 | 3:32 am |
|
Left FedEx Ramp |
|
LINWOOD PA |
|
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 11, 2003
The new toy is coming...
| Oct 11, 2003 | 7:03 am |
|
Arrived at FedEx Ramp |
|
PHILADELPHIA PA |
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 4:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 10, 2003
Ah, now it makes sense!
Jeff Taylor
of Reason Magazine: "To recap, the law says your cable modem is a
phone, except when you use it as a phone. Then it is not a phone." (via
Arnold Kling)
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 4:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Blogs for buzz marketing
Marketing Sherpa: Nokia Tests Viral Marketing Via Bloggers to Launch New Phone
Wow, I didn't know there is a marketing company with project devoted
entirely to recruiting prominent bloggers to talk up their clients'
products. Not that I have a problem with it. As long as the
buzz marketing is done with sufficient transparency, it puts pressure
on companies to deliver products that are actually cool. If the
Nokia 3650 phone sucked, giving it to bloggers would be like putting
Gray Davis in one of those carnival dunk tanks.
I'm surprised more companies don't realize that the real influencers
aren't reporters at big publications and tech news sites, but the
bloggers who build an plugged-in audience based on quality and
word-of-mouth.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 2:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The coming digital ID battle
So Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds heard someone
from the music industry say its legislative goal is to mandate digital
IDs for Internet users. The idea is that this would function like
a driver's license, allowing users to be tracked and punished for
downloading copyrighted material. This shortly after a New York Times column called for much the same thing.
Digital ID seems to be bubbling up from several sources at once:
- The technologists are pushing it as a central element of the Web services vision (via the Liberty Alliance and various Microsoft initiatives)
- The businesspeople want it to enable efficient tracking of goods and people (via RFID)
- The telcos want it to tie together legacy and IP communications (via ENUM)
- Hardware vendors want it for security (via the Trusted Computing Group)
- Governments want it as a tool to fight crime and terrorism
- A host of others want it to address problems like spam.
Add the music industry to the list. All these digital ID systems
are different, and most of them aren't interoperable. But it may
be only a matter of time before there is pressure to hook together
whatever forms of identification do catch on. The lesson of the social
security number is that IDs for one purpose inevitably spill over to
others.
I'm not a cyber-anarchist. The idea of digital ID itself doesn't
give me the willies. I really have no problem with Amazon.com
knowing a lot about me, or airline ticket agents asking to see my
driver's license. What worries me is the possibility that we'll
get digital IDs to solve one problem, and they will be applied to
something totally different. I'm sure many of the people who
support some identification mechanism to cut down on spam wouldn't want
a similar mechanism to police music downloads... but it's the same technology.
There's a restaurant we go to in South Philly. Great Italian
food. Packed every night. Funny thing, though. They only
take cash. And supposedly, when they file their taxes, they never
report a profit. Cash is anonymous and untraceable, which allows
for abuse. There are many transactions where cash isn't accepted,
or where it sets off scrutiny. I'd hate to see cash go away,
though, because there are cases where it's used improperly. Just
as I'd hate to lose the convenience of credit cards, despite the
privacy and security risks they create.
There will soon be significant battles over digital ID. The
danger is that they won't be seen for what they are, but as isolated
fights specific to a particular industry or situation. The
essential objective should be balance -- anonymity vs. identity,
openness vs. control, unification vs. segmentation. Too far in
any direction, and we'll suffer unintended consequences that far exceed
the benefits.
Unfortunately I won't be able to make it to Digital ID World next week, which will no doubt address these issues.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 9, 2003
A negative assessment of the FCC's broadband efforts
BusinessWeek: "Based on this latest court ruling, it seems more likely that little of
substance from [FCC Chairman] Powell's controversial three-year crusade to change the
face of telecom in the U.S. will survive."
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 10:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Reed Unleashed
Naval Ravikant summarizes Reed
Hundt's keynote this week at a wireless conference. Reed (my
former boss) is one of the best public speakers I've ever seen, and it
sounds like this presentation was typically provocative.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 5:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 8, 2003
Can the Dems ever recover?
So 62% of Californians voted for
a Republican gubernatorial candidate (48% of them for Ahnold), and 35%
for a Democrat. This in a state that was so Democratic in 2000
that candidate George Bush didn't even bother campaigning there.
I love the energy around Howard Dean and his Net-savvy tactics.
I'm outraged at the constant distortions and recklessness of the Bush
administration, which will eventually come home to roost. Yet I
can't help but feel that It's Over for the Democrats as we know
them. In 2004, and maybe for a long time to come.
The Republicans have always had a structural advantage in access to
money. During the Gingrich years they seized the high ground in
the realm of ideas, and routed around traditional media with a dominant
mass communications infrastructure. Under George W. Bush, they
have solidified their control with an evangelical confidence that the
Right is right, whatever the costs of achieving its goals.
Post-9/11, the Administration became convinced its interests were
necessarily synonymous with America's interests. The Democrats
have nothing to match that fervor.
Now, of course, the California recall wasn't a rerun of Bush vs.
Gore. Schwarzenegger won because many California Democratic
voters decided he would act like a Democrat on key issues they cared
about. But he had the chance because a majority of the state was
more enraged about Gray Davis' inaction during the energy crisis than
the manipulative actions of Enron and other companies with close ties
to the Bush Administration (and Schwarzenegger, it turns out).
Politics is about telling stories and getting people to care. The
Republicans have better stories, and they are doing a better job of
making people care. They are also abusing power and money for
partisan ends, but that wouldn't be enough by itself. Those of us
on the other side of the political divide (including a large number of
moderate Republicans) need to understand that we are losing the war,
not just the battles.
We need a new narrative. The Clinton-era narrative won't work any
more. It brought the country eight years of extraordinary
prosperity, but it is irredeemably tarnished by Lewinsky and
Whitewater. And we no longer live in the pre-Internet world that
nurtured that narrative. It's time for new ideas. We need a
narrative that helps the Second Superpower recognize that it is the
Hidden Majority. For only then will the next American political
realignment occur.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 2:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
More VOWLAN news
Dartmouth has announced it will use Telesym's software to offer voice over WiFi to its campus community.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 1:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Score one for the VOIP guys
A federal court has barred the
state of Minnesota from applying traditional telecom regulation to
voice over IP service. It's not immediately clear what the basis
was for the decision. Regardless, this will put more pressure on
the FCC to clarify the legal status of VOIP.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 10:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Esther on ICANN and Verisign's SiteFinder
Esther Dyson: "ICANN was created in 1998 to democratize policymaking on the Internet."
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 6:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 7, 2003
TV's Tipping Point
A speech by BBC Director of New Media Ashley Highfield. (via PaidContent.org) Can you imagine an American broadcast executive saying anything this radical?
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
FCC and VOIP
The FCC's Technological Advisory Council will be meeting October 20, with a focus on voice over IP.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 3:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
...or Maybe Not?
WiFi Networking News questions whether voice over WLAN will be significant. It will be (see previous entry).
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 2:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The end of cellular?
Mitsubishi plans to launch a VoWLAN (voice-over-IP-over-WiFi) mobile phone in March 2004. (Via Gizmodo)
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 2:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Blogging for votes
The official BushBlog is
online. That settles it. This will be the Presidential
election in which the Net finally makes a difference.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 12:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Patent-related changes to Internet Explorer
Microsoft has responded to the successful Eolas patent lawsuit by changing Internet Explorer
to make it harder to embed applets in Web pages. Glad to see that
strong intellectual property rights are producing so much innovation.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 12:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
9th Circuit Throws Out FCC Cable Modem Classification
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned
the FCC decision classifying cable modem offerings as an unregulated
"information service." It's the second straight victory for
consumer groups challenging controversial FCC actions, following the
stay of the new media ownership rules.
I haven't yet had time to digest the implications of the court
decision. It will certainly be appealed, and there is no
guarantee it will be upheld. If nothing else, this adds further
uncertainty to the legal environment surrounding broadband. Wall
Street has made it quite clear that regulatory stability and
predictability, more than anything else, are the essential precursors
for further investment in telecom. And legal uncertainty can only
delay cable operators deploying voice over IP in a big way.
That doesn't mean the court decision was wrong. I'm just worried
that we're in for more years of confusion and regulatory gamesmanship
rather than real investment and market competition for broadband.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 12:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 6, 2003
Yom Kippur
Pardon me, while I fast and atone.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Matt Ha [1]ughey on micropayments...
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Roland Piquepaille on the smart...
Roland Piquepaille on the smart sensor Web
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
BloggerCon coverage
As one would expect, lots of good reportage and commentary from bloggers who participated in last weekend's BloggerCon.
Heath Row's typically voluminous notes
Ed Cone's thoughts
Kevin Marks on live event DIY Webcasting
Makeoutcity conference highlights
BlogCritics roundup
Jarrett House North running notes
David Weinberger's comments
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 5, 2003
It's all bits
Lawmeme column on
Blaudio, a "concept app" to turn any digital content into audio
files. This has interesting implications for legal systems such
as compulsory licenses to deal with digital music.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 4, 2003
Jeremy Allaire on WiFi smartphones
Jeremy is thinking through the value proposition for intergrating WiFi with mobile phone handsets.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 11:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 3, 2003
Have fun folks!
It's great to see the enthusiasm Dave Winer has brought to this weekend's BloggerCon.
I can't go because of a combination of the cost and the fact that Yom
Kippur starts Sunday night. But I wish Dave and his fellow
organizers success. I look forward to following the conference via the
blogs.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 11:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Unfair and unbalanced... but effective
Jack Balkin reports on a study showing how media propaganda has worked to sustain support for the US invasion of Iraq.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 11:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
An open spectrum vision
The always-brilliant Peter Cochrane on the future of mobile networks. He sees unlicensed, extremely high frequency picocells succeeding where 3G networks are failing.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 10:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
End of Openness?
Clay Shirky warns that,
with the spam-death of email as we know it, we may have seen the
high-water mark of openness online. Don't ignore Clayssandra --
he's onto something.
Like Clay, I love email. Use it incessantly. Can't imagine
how I ever lived without it. Can't see myself ever using older
(telephone) or newer (IM, collaboration software, RSS feeds) mechanisms
with the same enthusiasm.
On the other hand, like Ray Ozzie, I've seen for some time that email
won't scale the way it increasingly needs to. I wrote an issue of Release 1.0
two years ago describing collaborative bottom-up knowledge management
solutions (including Groove) optimized for some of the business
functions that email handles badly. I wrote an article for Slate a year ago saying that spam and worms would kill off the open email we know and love. And I realized in August that the SoBig worm might be the beginning of the end.
And yet, and yet. I can't bring myself to be a pessimist. When my friends like Clay and Larry Lessig
point out how the glorious openness of the Net is being snuffed out, I
can't find any holes in their arguments. I reject the congenital
optimism of people like George Gilder who think technology will solve
all our problems (as long as government gets out of the way). I
just keep coming back to the pragmatic conviction that we will muddle
through. The question is how much time and money and effort will
be wasted along the way.
What gives me cause for hope, if you can call it that, is the power of
pervasive internetworking. GM and Goodyear can't buy up and tear
out the Net like they did the LA trolley system, because the Net is
everywhere. The content industries can delay the arrival of
digital distribution and make a mess of things with poorly-considered
digital rights management schemes... but not forever. Verisign
can break the domain name system for its financial gain... but it won't
end universal IP connectivity, and that will ultimately make it
irrelevant if it abuses its position of trust.
Email will lose its glorious universality. We won't expect that
anyone can send anything to anyone else. But email won't
necessarily go the way of Usenet. Usenet was a subculture; email
isn't. For all the spammers and free-riders, there are more
people and organizations that, often for their own selfish reasons,
want email to survive.
Have we passed the high-water mark of openness? Probably. But the
graph needn't look like a Bell Curve. We can still have an
Internet that is the most open, dynamic communications medium in the
world. And if we fight for them, there are other opportunities
for true openness on the horizon, like unlicensed wireless. What's other choice do we have?
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 10:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 2, 2003
Leonardo Chiariglione: The Digital Media Manifesto
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Ozzie on the death of email
Ray Ozzie: "If you're doing a critical process in e-mail now, you won't be doing it there for long."
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 4:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 1, 2003
The FCC's Three Top Priorities
WirelessWeek: "'It's spectrum, spectrum, spectrum' for the
commission's agenda in the coming months, [FCC Chairman Powell] said."
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Links to check out later
No time to read these now. Time for blog as post-it note.
Comparison book shopping on Amazon via cameraphones (Textually)
Suggestions for Tokyo visitors (Gen Kanai)
End of the Web as We Know it (David Hornik)
Metadata Bubblet (Due Diligence)
The Input Spectrum (Tim Bray)
Coffee Cleared of Charges (Rael Dornfest)
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Bottom up Web services plumbing
Jeremy Allaire proposes RSS-Data for, well, incorporating data into RSS feed.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
SoftEdge
Hanging out this morning (and moderating a session) at RVC SoftEdge in New York. Which thankfully has a wireless connection. It's a half-sister conference to Supernova, also operated in partnership with Pulver.com.
--------
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack