Social Software Links: The Future of the Web Edition

Gabor Cselle: “The Future of Email” Talk in Sydney

Identity Management Manifesto: via robert_francis

Burningbird: This Week’s Semantic Web, Burningbird style

Waxy.org: Memeorandum Colors: Visualizing Political Bias with Greasemonkey

slacktivist: They need help: Information — facts, reality, the rebuttal and debunking of lies — is one kind of help that the captives of unreality need. That information is necessary, but not sufficient, for those who have chosen their own captivity. What else is necessary, and what might be sufficient to help them choose not to make that choice, is something I want to continue exploring.

Planet RDF

Social Software Links: Activism and Privacy Edition

Penny Arcade! posted a comic that summarizes what many think of online anonymity and the Internet: John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory: Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad.

Up until the past few weeks, I would have agreed. But now I am starting to adopt a more nuanced view.

I don’t want to get into what has triggered the change of heart, and no – I am not anonymously blogging – my name lends credibility that I am not willing to trade. However, I have come to realize there are those who need to be able to speak out, and without anonymity cannot do so.

It’s confusing subject matter, so here are a few links of various viewpoints:

CNet: U.N. agency eyes curbs on Internet anonymity

Business Week: Busting a Rogue Blogger: Troll Tracker has been unmasked as a patent lawyer for Cisco. Now they’re both facing litigation

SSRN: Anonymous Blogging and Defamation: Balancing Interests of the Internet: It is important not to silence communication on the Internet, but it is just as important not to silence victims of defamation. Therefore, this comment argues for the protection of libel plaintiffs facing defamatory comments from anonymous bloggers.

Media Bloggers Association: Announces Libel Insurance For Bloggers – huge news for those who intend to pursue acts of journalism independently.

Must See Video: Hope2604 – Steve Rambam Pt 1 – Privacy Is Dead – Get Over It

Must See Video: Hope2604 – Steve Rambam Pt 2 – Privacy Is Dead – Get Over It

Wired.com: ‘Anonymous’ Member Unmasked, Charged With Web Attack on Scientology

Bruce Schneier: Essays and Op Eds

Time Berners-Lee’s new World Wide Web Foundation

Global Voices Online: Global Voices Advocacy: A project of Global Voices Online, we seek to build a global anti-censorship network of bloggers and online activists dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and free access to information online.

Reporters Without Borders

Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Risks Digest

Slashdot: Your Rights Online

Social Software Links: Postmodernism, Data Smog Edition

Metafilter: If information is power, then access is empowering

NYTimes: Overfeeding on Information

NYtimes: Spinning a Web of Lies at Digital Speed

NYTimes: The Rise of the Machines

Andrew Sullivan: Why I Blog

Reason.com: Every Man a Derrida

Rough Type: Googling and intelligence

Techdirt: Is Web 2.0 About Exploitation Or Empowerment?

Social Software Links for October 1st, 2008: Of Google Hive Minds and Friending Obsolescence

Links on a theme in today’s roundup.

Union Square Ventures: Why The Flow Of Innovation Has Reversed:

. It used to be that innovation started with NASA, flowed to the military, then to the enterprise, and finally to the consumer. Today, it is the reverse. All of the most interesting stuff is being built first for consumers and is tricking back to the enterprise. I suggested that one reason this is happening is that the success of a web service is more often determined by its social engineering than its electrical engineering.

Jeremiah Owyang (of Forrester Research): Why ‘Friending’ Will Be Obsolete:

Like a baby, we’re teaching the ‘system’ our language, how to walk, how to coexist in our real flesh and blood world, the ‘system’ is just starting to show intelligence. One primary example of this is the use of hashtags in Twitter. We use the # sign to tag content so it’s easily to organize and find. That one # character isn’t native to our tongue (unless when you recite your grocery list and say “hashtag”) it’s another example of us speaking machine language in order to teach the system.

For example, I started a social experiment on Sunday, where I encouraged folks to tweet related music artists using the tag “#relatedmusic” you can see the database form when you search for that term -If we had enough people do this in my -and your- network we’d be able to build a reference engine that other music reccomendations services could pull from.

Search Engine Land: Danny Sullivan: The Google Hive Mind:

As Google turns 10 years old, that important birthday sees the company more powerful than ever before. With its competitors in disarray, the Big G seems likely to grow even further. The secret to its success? For me, it’s what I’ve been calling the “Google Hive Mind. ” Rather than follow a rigid top-down master plan, the company’s direction and success has been shaped by decisions often taken independently of how they’ll benefit the company as a whole. But collectively, those decisions DO form a master plan, a hive mind that dictates what the company will do.

Phil Windley’s Technometria: Alan Kay: Is Computer Science an Oxymoron?:

One of Alan’s undergraduate degrees is in molecular biology. He can’t understand it anymore despite having tried to review new developments every few years. That’s not true in computer science. The basics are still mostly the same. If you go to most campuses, there is a single computer science department and the first course in computer science is almost indistinguishable from the first course in 1960. They’re about data structures and algorithms despite the fact that almost nothing exciting about computing today has to do with data structures and algorithms.

The Internet is like the human body. It’s replaced all of its atoms and bits at least twice since it started even though the Internet has never stopped working. Attacks on the ‘Net aren’t really attacks on the ‘Net, they’re attacks on machines on the ‘Net. Very few software systems, maybe none, are built in ways that sustain operation in spite of being continually rebuilt and continually growing.

“a Manual for our Kids to Save the Future”?

That’s what John Baichtal at his Wired Blog “Geek Dad” called Cory Doctorow’s book sci-fi novel “Little Brother”, in his glowing review posted last week.

While you can download the book for free legally from the website, I’m going to want to buy a copy for the bookshelf – it’s a great book so far.

One of the best purchases of mine these past few months was following his comic book series “Futuristic Tales” from IDW. As a sci-fi and comic book fan, I gotta tell ya, it was worth every penny.

Truth, the Web, and the moral roots of liberals and conservatives

Ben Kenobi, when he told Luke, “the truths we cling to are greatly determined by our point of view”, is looking pretty good right now.

And as Google is apt to promote the democratization of data rolls on.

As a software engineer and as a person with an interest in sociology and communications, it’s clear this presents a set of opportunities to be explored, problems to be solved. How do we learn of ‘truth’ when our echo chambers (our social networks, our friends, family, co-workers) are the best tools to keep us from the noise of modern media?

In a presentation at TED.com, Jonathan Haidt explains why Tim Berners-Lee’s new foundation is both timely and has such a hard fight ahead. The presentation reinforces that the questions I’ve been asking in some latest posts aren’t that invalid, and there is something more here to explore.

Shout out to Shelley Powers for posting about this (even if so few seem wanting to discuss) and to Antonella Pavese for the heads up on the video.

TED.com: Jonathan Haidt: The real difference between liberals and conservatives:

There are big echos of Dave Rogers in that presentation.

Bottom line – if we want to change the world, we need to start with ourselves.

Related and new at Salon today: Robert Burton: “My candidate, myself”: “Even when faced with new facts and insights, most voters don’t change their minds about their favorite candidates. A neurologist explains how they might.”. Timely.