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Well, there is one major feature that none of them have yet: Collaborative filtering.

I've been using iRATE radio, despite its shitty interface, not because the music is FREE, but because I've fallen in love with the convenience of this adaptive filter. I really doubt that the majors will implement it though, because it subverts their ability to PROMOTE the titty-pop music THEY want to push on the masses, ClearChannel-style. If good music can simply bubble to the top, relative to each persons tastes, then the relevance of the RIAA shrinks even further.

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I found it interesting that mere days after Clay Shirky article was posted on slashdot, a program that essentially describes his solution is posted.

If you haven't read the article, you can find it here:

The Article

It's a pretty solid concept as far as defeating the RIAA for another round. I find it interesting that no matter what the RIAA does, someone always counters it. You figure they would adopt a new strategy, instead of just wasting enormous amounts of money on annoying everyone.

...for some reason it's not listed (at least, I couldn't find it) on the front page of shirky.com yet:

http://www.shirky.com/writings/riaa_encryption.htm l.

The thing about free wireless (that I love) is that it keeps the Ashcroft-types up at night worrying about anonymous "terrorist" freespeech, and it gives the telco-types and the WISP-wannabes the middleman middle finger.

Community owned and operated, adhoc wireless mesh networking will be the future of free ubiquitous access despite some peoples early attempts to coopt it. It's similar to how FedEx thought they could own the Fax business in the 80s. Can't blame 'em for trying I guess.

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Movies: RottenTomatoes, imdb, and MetaCritic have saved me dozens of hours of time I might have wasted on crap (like Matrix Revolutions, or TimeLine).

Books: Amazon, despite its evils (patents/privacy), is a very nice filter (with a few shills and idiot-reviewers). I [ab]use amazon as a filter, and then buy them cheaper new or used.

News: Popular Daily News Tidbits, Blogdex, Daypop, and slashdot.

Music: iRATE radio, and word of mouth. Need more Collaborative Filtering in this area to root out the Clearchannels/RIAAs function as a giant pusher of "cool"

Ads (aka: mental engineering): I use PopFile to filter SPAM, and Privoxy to filter out slow-loading, privacy-invading, all-around-annoying ADS. I'm still missing a proxy for my eyeballs in the real world. Soooon. :)

Cheap Products: Not a quality filter exactly, but a quantity filter: PriceWatch, PriceGrabber, Froogle, Anand's Hot Deals ...

Phew, that's a lot of linkage. Anyway, I couldn't function without these and other filters; I'd really be info overloaded.

Collaborative filtering in general has a very bright future IMO.

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iRATE automatically adapts to *YOUR* tastes in music, with very little initial effort required (you rate tunes UP/DOWN). This is the most valuable service that I could ever ask for, and that no middleman could hope to charge for.

Besides an improved GUI, I'd like to see payment options added so that the artists I end up listening to the most get a proportional chunk of my change so that they can continue making *NEW* music, instead of sitting on decades OLD copyrights.

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Well, from your prospective it shouldn't make a difference, other than with all the major phone networks either moving or having moved to VOIP, you should be seeing a large reduction in your phone bill -- at least for your landline. The phone companies are certainly seeing a large reduction in their expenses. The problem is, the phone companies are still charging you as if they were running their same old switched networks. Here's an article by Clay Shirky that explains this arguement much better than me.

On top of the phone companies' price gouging (IMHO), you are literally being soaked in federal, state and other fees and taxes. For instance, for my landline I subscribe to Sprint's Complete Sense Unlimited plan which gives me unlimited local and long distance (within the U.S.) plus a bunch of goodies for about $50 monthly. Yet my monthly bill often runs about $65. That additional $15 monthly is certainly not from using directory assistance (which is not about $2 a pop for me) or goodies not included in my plan. While I don't begrudge the 35 cents for E911 service and maybe I wouldn't begrudge the taxes either if I thought they were going to pay for something worthwhile instead of stormtroopers shooting and gassing innocent people in Florida. The FCC fees I feel are a complete rip-off. Either way, nearly 30% taxes and fees is outrageous!

Right now I am considering switching to Vonage for my landline. At $35 monthly for the same type of service plan I get from Sprint, and no added fees I think I can deal with any of the annoyances that might come with it. Now if I could find a good alternative to Time-Warner Cable for my broadband.

In real life you often get to personally meet those starving artists when you buy their wares or pay for performances; there's a real emotional connection there - not so online (usually). In Real Life you get a feelgood for supporting local artists, and you get a more meaningful "Thank You" when handing over your cash - online it's more antiseptic.

I would be 100 times more likely to pay for really great online content if:

1. I was recognized as more than a number (or a /. '*') for my contribution.
2. I had some idea of the artist's bottom line so I knew how badly they needed it vs. some other artist who's just as worthy but not as arbitrarily popular/rich. Call it an OpenBottomline, kind of like this. I don't like sending my money down paypal blackholes.
3. The content was released under a more open license that allows everyone to stand on others' shoulders, rather than the default Disney "AllMineMineMine!" copyright.
4. If there was some easy mechanism to pool my money with others to finance the creation of works we want.

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I have to say I agree with him on this. He makes several very good points about micropayments, free content, and how the Internet shifts the balance of power from publishers to consumers.

I really don't think it's just a matter of "too soon". The whole idea of micropayments is probably doomed. This presents the case far better than I could.

The most important point, IMO, is that there are cognitive costs associated with the decision about whether or not to make a purchase that don't go away as dollar amounts decrease.

That seems to be what his statement indicates, even though he doesn't mention it in his article. Marx based his ideas on the fact that a capitalist society would eventually create such an abundance that most people would be able to live at a high standard of living doing any job.

Although this seems counter-intuitive as their are many studies available now indicating that more homes then ever are dual-income, and yet despite that they seem only just able to make ends-meet. Compare this to the 1950s where it was the norm for the man to work and the woman to tend the home.

If people are working more in order to maintain the same lifestyle, how is it possible that there is an abundance available that most people don't have access to. It's becoming a proven economical law that wealth, (along with many other societally influenced things..) follow a power curve, meaning that there is a huge disparity between the average and the median due to the small number of people with huge wealth throwing the average higher then it should be.

Examples of this rule are the 80/20 or 90/10 rules in economics and social behavior. For a good article on this check Shirky's Weblog. It's an interesting read.

Anyway, back to Marx, with this much disparity in wealth, and a real infrastructure that could easily provide the masses with a high standard of living (if we all lived at the average instead of the median), would a communist revolution be possible?

I still maintain that it isn't possible, because communism goes counter to human nature. As mentioned in the article above, we save for periods of scarcity. Even if those periods never come. Bill Gates certainly doesn't need 43 billion dollars, but he doesn't give his money away because, well, what if he does?

Even so, with the increasing abundance as technological advances are made, for instance with the advent of higher automation in much of society, will the proletariat rise up to beat down the wealthy?

Probably not, but I wonder how long the masses will continue to behave like sheep...

heh..ok..Probably Forever:)

--Shadar

> Is this what blogging is about? Really? Online
> personal diaries about one's daily minutiae? There's
> got to be more effective therapies available. A
> weekly pint at the corner pub with friends, popping
> bubble-wrap, I dunno, something...

Yes, it is stupid to expect you to want to read the complete personal details of someone's dull life. He's simply promoted his weblog in the wrong place (slashdot is the wrong place for lots of things). But to his friends and family back home, I'd bet they get a kick out of reading his blog and are anxious to see whenever he posts.

The vast majority of weblogs are this very personal and small group setting where a group of 'friends' (perhaps we can use the term cohort here) are blogging about themselves to each other. It's not intended as a broadcast blog. Broadcast blogs are much less numerous than the personal cohort type blogs.

So yes, this IS what blogging is really about to a vast majority of the people out there. Outside of the cohort, very boring. Inside the cohort, engaging.

Clay Shirky has done some interesting research into this field.

"Anyone who was around the Open Source movement in the mid-Nineties could see this all the time. If you cared about Linux on the desktop, there was a big list of jobs to do. But you could always instead get a conversation going about Microsoft and Bill Gates. And people would start bleeding from their ears, they would get so mad. "

For additional info see this. It's an excellent writeup on the issues you're raising.

for business and home users.

Grid Supercomputing: The Next Push

Card's essay might be useful for someone who hasn't been paying attention to the discussion for the past five years, but other than that it's really nothing new. Others have said more and said it better. Still, it's nice to see a content creator saying these things.

I'd say the author might be correct, but not because of a lock-in effect, but because of the power law. Google is on the A-list, and it will stay on the A-list. People will prefer Google to new companies since they know about Google.

See this page.

It isn't free to produce good content. No, most weblogs don't count as good content. A journalist might charge (say) $500+ for a decent size article. You have to add hosting and bandwidth costs to that - obviously, whatever Shirky says, it's not just as cheap to serve 200,000 pages as it is 1.

Isn't it funny when you write a 'rebuttal' to an article, only to find out that the author has already covered your objections, months earlier?

Boy, that's just funny to me.

ZapMail didn't work like FidoNet at all.

FidoNet was obsoleted because SMTP email was much faster, but SMTP is now so fast in most cases that it really can't get any faster. So there's no pressure to replace SMTP with something faster.

VoIP isn't like FidoNet. VoIP is already almost as good as the traditional phone network, so there'll be no need to replace it with something better.

Actually, I just this morning read this article by Clay Shirky which covers your points exactly.

In summary, Technical and Social issues are inextricably linked, and what you're really looking for is a group of people to take on a governmental role for your website(s).

I know some cell phone companies have offers when calling within their network (no use of minutes, extra minutes, etc.), but not being able to call out of the network at all?

As someone said, the thing is dead already.

I disagree. The same could be said of FAX machines when they first came out. But, suddenly, there were several different manufacturers that made compatible FAX machines. Then you could get a FAX-MODEM for your PC. Fed-Ex even tried to offer FAX as a service.

Shirky has a great writing about the revolutionary nature of IP telephony. I think this phone is exactly the kind of thing that is needed to kick-start the process. If a few other manufacturers make compatible phones, and someone figures out how to emulate a SIPphone on a PC, the market is wide open. And the new telephone network is built out from the edges. Not as a service, but as a product.

FWIW, I'm in the telecom carrier business; we've been anticipating something like this for a while now..

In any case, Clay is wrong -- SIP phones *are* like fax machines, although they still need a central directory service (for the moment until PSTN interconnect gets sorted). Hence, the closest analogy to Zapmail in this instance would be an internet cafe offering cheap phone calls where you get to use their SIP phones.

Hence -- SIP phones ARE like fax machines -- and the providers of directory services are more like the early pioneers of the internet e.g. uu.net. and the returns to the pioneers in the SIP space should be similar.

I always find it ironic when people post on Slashdot that they never read weblogs. Slashdot is a weblog! Weblogs can be collective, personal and filled with bad poetry, or just recent news stories. They can have original writing or boobies. Weblogs are lots of things, and Sturgeon's Law applies.

Clay Shirky wrote an excellent article about this online problem that has existed since before the internet when all there was were BBS titled: A Group is its own Worst Enemy. It's a long and very good read about how not all members of a large group are equal and how the more important members need some way to "defend" themselves to protect the health of the group. Near the end of the essay he says:

Now, when I say these are three things you have to accept, I mean you have to accept them. Because if you don't accept them upfront, they'll happen to you anyway. And then you'll end up writing one of those documents that says "Oh, we launched this and we tried it, and then the users came along and did all these weird things. And now we're documenting it so future ages won't make this mistake." Even though you didn't read the thing that was written in 1978.

This sims problem is just another example of history repeating itself.

Well, I have to admit it's quite a pie-in-the-sky idea, and it would be wonderful if it could actually happen, but I wouldn't be on it anytime soon, and even so, I'd probably opt to pay. The two biggest problems with this potential idea stem from reliability and security.

Would you entrust your internet connection to the guy with a laptop and a wi-fi card in the apartment below you that comes and goes, connected to the guy with the gateway in the next building? Would you entrust the vital link that connects your business to the internet to a myriad of unknown, untrusted, insecure wireless devices to save $40/month on a DSL line? The security is terrible--virtually no way to keep your data private.

Shirky had an excellent write-up on something a little similar to this that Slashdot did a story on awhile back detailing the limitations of 802.11, contrasting "Nearlynets" vs. "Permanets."

Another problem: Global links? I doubt that there are too many people out there with their own satellites or trans-oceanic fiber lines that they'd be willing to leave open to the continent. Oh well. That, and it'd be supporting terrorism... :-)

But wouldn't it be cool if...

There is a really good article on the economics invoved by Clay Shirky.

However, there's a new component here: the "legislative" layer.

In the ZapMail scenario, individual businesses could replace the FedEx service simply by buying a fax machine; but that's only because of FCC rules which a) demanded that common carriers (the phone companies) could not discriminate against different users of the network, and b) allow any non-destructive device to be connected to the Public Switched Network. In other words, the fax machine revolution was sparked by FCC rules which created an open and equal (Lessig would call it "flat and end-to-end") network on top of which others could build and innovate.

However, the FCC has chosen a different path with "broadband" these days. The FCC has already begun to rule (and appears ready to go whole hog with more rulings) that companies which provide broadband services own their network. If we were replaying ZapMail today, that means the phone companies would be allowed to prevent individual businesses from using their network to transfer documents via fax. Customers who wanted to deliver a document would have to use either an authorized corporate partner (in this case, FedEx) or the services of the telephone company itself.

We're already seeing manifestations of this in the Internet today; Most ISP's won't allow individuals to use port 25 (SMTP) so if you want to send email, you have to use the server provided by the ISP. That service is no longer available to customers, even the ones who have already bought equipment capable of sending and receiving email direrctly.

Consider AOL's position concerning mailing lists: If you want to provide a mailing list (free or fee) service to AOL subscribers, you must either a) run your list from an "approved" (read: corporate partner) server, or b) trudge through a lengthly approval process to get your mailing list onto the "whitelisted" list. It's not a far stretch to see the day when there will be a fee to mailing list managers in order to service AOL subscribers, and that will be the end of the free mailing list.

So, the next thing to fail will be the "free" services currently offered on the Internet.

We're already seeing pressure on major business sites to get an AOL keyword associated with their site. For all I know, getting that keyword cost money. If it doesn't already, it soon will. When that starts to happen, I wonder if Slashdot will be pulling in enough revenue to maintain contact with it's AOL customers, or if Slashdot will become another site AOL subscribers have to jump through hoops (or pay and extra "access" fee) to access?

Will we see a day when on-line gamers will be required to use only the "service provider approved" gaming server, because ports to other servers are blocked? Isn't Microsoft doing something like this already on MSN requiring a Passport to access their Gaming server?

Will we soon see the day when trying to access any "terrorist" news site (like Al Jazerra) will be impossible, and accessing any "liberal" (read: non-corporate/administration partner) news site will be slow and unreliable at best? And if you're trying to get to the campaign web site of the non-incumbent candidate, well, you can just forget it.

There's more at work here than just simple economics. Without on open networking layer as we had with the PSN, there won't be the kind of telecommunications revolution we say after the AT&T breakup in 1984.

There is a really good article on the economics invoved by Clay Shirky. Recommended reading.

/ol

There's some disturbing parallels in the structure and order of Waldo's text to that of Clay Shirky's "AN OPEN LETTER TO JAKOB NIELSEN". The Shirky article is old, but the link to it was on the front page of his site recently...

Clay's pretty well known, too. This isn't as blatant as seeing Erik Wolpaw's game reviews reappear on other websites under different bylines, but it certainly calls into question Mr. Waldo's integrity...

Wait, what am I saying, this is the internet, that article is some engineer's blog, journalistic integrity is dead anyway. Carry on.

There are so many different angles to attack this issue from, and unfortunately there are more sides to the issue than we'd like to admit. However I think there are several areas that would be good to discuss:

- Closed source has more bugs, and the exploits are typically more severe.
- Actual turn around time for Closed source is much slower than open source for new features and enhancements.
- Closed source hampers IT productivity as the fear of sharing "Intellectual Property" infects and permeates many people that work in closed source environments

one of my favorite all time articles is written by Clay Shirky, entitled In Praise of Evolvable Systems

This article addresses what many people consider to be open source's weekpoint. It is however it's strongest point. This is a fantastic read and is a must in any presentation to management about open source and open standards in general.

What Linus is saying makes complete sense to me. I think the
Kernel level of Linux is the wrong place to make a political
stand like that. What has made Linux successful, and what will
make it ultimately *the* OS is it's an
Evolvable System

The fact that people can use Linux for whatever they need to is
what makes it such a compelling system. The fact that you can
tinker with it, change the source, in short make it work for you
is what makes Linux successful.

He also makes a good point, there is a difference between
allowing DRM and forcing everyone that uses the OS to use DRM
(as M$ want). There are some times when DRM is very legitimate
(Goverment Top Secret Docs, Litigation Confidential information
etc), and there are the times when I consider it to be
un-ethical (most other situations I can think of).

I have to say way to go Linus. Keep the system evolvable.
Ultimately isn't it a catch 22 anyway? If he prohibits DRM,
isn't that sort of like saying "this is my software and you
can't do XX with it".

There's a paper on weblog popularity here. (It got slashdotted IIRC)

This "drip-feeding" of features has a posibility of turning off the key users. Most early adopters are the enthusiasts, with out them, the product will flop. Right now, I've a 2.5G SmartPhone that does pretty much everything for me that a mobile could do, excepting maybe video phone, but what use is that on a mobile platform? If I were to move to 3G, I would actually have to downgrade my phone. That's not going to happen! Instead, I'll get an SDIO WiFi card that'll work in my present phone, which will give me speeds far in excess of what 3G is capable of.

Also, compare the large costs of 3G verses the near zero costs of WiFi. With WiFi, you get to use the device at home for free, yet you still have to pay 3G a fortune to use their technology at home?

This article gives some more reasons to why 3G could flop. The roaming mentioned in the submitted article is about the only thing that could maybe save it.

Clay Shirky puts forth an interesting thesis in "Permanet, Nearlynet and Wireless Data" that many of the wireless venture's models of "Build It and They Will Come" are just dumb. Interesting reading.

It was FedEx, and the business was called ZapMail. Here is a link to the article you may be thinking of.

But are they going to? And why should they?

Because the owner of the stupid patent knows that the "infringing" company also has stupid patents, the usual solution is that it gets licenced for a comparitively modest fee. The immediate issue goes away, and the proponents of the system get to point at checks and balances that make sure no-one gets ripped off.

But what happens when we get to the end of this process and we have a King Rat (a nest of rats with their tails inexorably knotted together) of tech companies that have cross licencing on key technology patents? What interest do they have in allowing participation by someone with a marginal number of links to contribute?

I think that processes such as the power law has lead to a small number of players with many links (patents). Unlike blogging, there's no incentive for the top end of town to play with the bottom end of town, and without intervention, you will see a divide where you will be unable to compete in the tech game without access to a large patent portfolio. The existing players are happy with this, because their tails cannot be cut out of the rat king without harming the others.

Xix.

I don't need 1xEV-DO at work, because work is crawling with Ethernet cables. I don't need 1xEV-DO at home, because it's cheaper to buy WiFi equipment directly instead of paying for wireless by the packet. The only reasons I need wireless data in my car are for driving directions when I'm lost, which - being male - I wouldn't use anyway, and for streaming audio, for which I have a hi-tech device called a "radio" (or, more likely, a "six-disc CD changer").

By the time 1xEV-DV gets to market, McDonald's will have WiFi and you'll get free bandwidth with your Happy Meal. (They'll sell your data to advertisers and interrupt with McDonald's ads, but, hey, free bandwidth.) WiFi destroys the business case for cellular data, just as the unregulated Internet destroys the business case for pop music, and in the long-term WiFi even threatens the core cellular business of providing wireless voice.

Perhaps the real question is whether the Cellular Telephone Industry Association (CTIA) will someday find itself where the RIAA is today - fighting its customers in a desperate effort to squeeze the last dollar from a dying business model. Time for the Free Spectrum Foundation?

I don't know whether "moblogging" will take off or not, but I'm sure telcos will make no money from it, because blogging does not require any help from the network. Blogging is like wi-fi: it's a product, not a service, so people aren't going to pay service fees for it.

Don't forget "half the world has never made a phone call" (sometimes people say more than half). This was probably true when it was originally claimed in 1994, but is far from the truth now, since there has been massive growth in phone service in many countries. Wireless networks can be built quickly and comparatively cheaply.

I'm not sure if I agree with your analysis of "evangalists". To my mind loving Amazon is indicative of someone having a clue - Amazon are one of the few companies who understand the unique nature of the Internet and don't waste everyone's time trying to slavishly recreate "old media" experiences online.

For more on this, see this article on "Amazoning the news". Most informed commentators point to Amazon as a model - how many times does Jakob pour praise on Amazon on useit.com? Derek Powazeck similarly praises Amazon in his excellent new book.

The clueless ones are the advocates of Boo and talk about developing "interactive applications" which are no more than 1MB Flash movies that have you itching for the Skip Intro button. If these people learnt to think and/or actually used the Internet we'd all be better off.

This article by Clay Shirky also covered the problems with "m-commerce" a while back. People are more interested in emailing their buds than struggling with an unusable device.

It could even recommend a movie based on what you liked and didn't like in the past -- and, by the way, it's playing three blocks away, starts in half an hour and only a few tickets are left, so would you like to purchase one now with your credit card?

This is just about the worst way to use computers. People are good at these things, and computers are bad at them.

See Why Smart Agents Are A Dumb Idea for further analysis.

Clay Shirky wrote an excellent article on why intelligent agents (like the ones Berners-Lee is describing) are a dumb idea, regardless of the underlying infrastructure. The article is over a year old but still just as relevant as ever:

http://www.shirky.com/writings/bots.html

-M

You're smart; why haven't you learned Python yet? diveintopython.org

For example, I can read web pages on a normal mobile phone. I like that, it's my own little hack, it's far from good, but it can do the job. Now, if usable web sites had been designed, we would all be able to read web on our mobile phones. Another example: Speech browsers. I'd like a box to plug into my hifi, and I want to relax in my best chair talking to my browser, having it read pages for me, playing music, etc. Both these things have been possible for years, but they require good, usable pages.

It seems to me that the evolution isn't the fastest method of getting good design, mainly because people don't know what they never see, people like to have web on their phones, but they don't know that all that is needed is for web designers to do their job properly, and so there is no evolutionary pressure for designers to do their job properly.

OK, so to the question, how do you want to create this pressure?

But, and it's a big but, ignoring Microsoft can't work until they no longer unfairly control the hardware and software markets. If merely being better than Microsoft was sufficient, BeOS would far more successful than it is today. We can and should ignore Microsoft on the day the following can be asserted with truth:

1) Hardware vendors are just as likely to create drivers for Linux as Microsoft.

2) System vendors can't be pressured successfully by Microsoft to avoid using competing products like Linux or Netscape.

3) Microsoft no longer dominates standards thru controlling the OS platform used by nearly everyone.

It would be nice if Microsoft just started playing fair. But I don't expect it. Rather I expect them to lie, cheat, and steal as necessary in an attempt to ensure dominance. Desperation is rarely pretty.

His point about web applications being the future is worth consideration. The advantages in making large databases like Amazon and Yahoo available that way are quite clear. I don't quite see the clarity of that view when it comes to editors, compilers, or games however -- though I could be wrong, I much prefer local programs on my own computer for those.

The other point he makes that is well worth considering is about the open nature of web development. Clay Shirkey did an excellent paper on this subject a while back. You may find many of the other papers on his page of interest as well.

But, and it's a big but, ignoring Microsoft can't work until they no longer unfairly control the hardware and software markets. If merely being better than Microsoft was sufficient, BeOS would far more successful than it is today. We can and should ignore Microsoft on the day the following can be asserted with truth:

1) Hardware vendors are just as likely to create drivers for Linux as Microsoft.

2) System vendors can't be pressured successfully by Microsoft to avoid using competing products like Linux or Netscape.

3) Microsoft no longer dominates standards thru controlling the OS platform used by nearly everyone.

It would be nice if Microsoft just started playing fair. But I don't expect it. Rather I expect them to lie, cheat, and steal as necessary in an attempt to ensure dominance. Desperation is rarely pretty.

His point about web applications being the future is worth consideration. The advantages in making large databases like Amazon and Yahoo available that way are quite clear. I don't quite see the clarity of that view when it comes to editors, compilers, or games however -- though I could be wrong, I much prefer local programs on my own computer for those.

The other point he makes that is well worth considering is about the open nature of web development. Clay Shirkey did an excellent paper on this subject a while back. You may find many of the other papers on his page of interest as well.

Playfulness in 3D spaces - Why Quake, written to scratch an itch, is so much better than VRML, a solution in search of a problem, and what to do about i