Tech Check Daily: State of affairs
So, I’ll give you a completely transparent look at the Tech Check Daily newsroom. I’ve been dead for about two months for a few reasons: First of all, seizure. Ya, that derailed my chance at coming back in Utah. Second, Wikireview. Wikireview took literally all my time. Those out of the way, I’m going to try to go back to the february model of doing one show a day. I”m going to just do it. We’ll try to go to a weekly show at first, then back to daily.
It’s going to happen in mid-june after the iPhone launch.
Be excited.
Breakout session - Embracing voter-generated content
Wee! Breakout session time. Being from Utah, I’m pretty stoked that Steve Urquhart from St. George, UT (My hometown!) Rock it out!
Introductions - Joshua Marshall - Talking Points Memo
Eli Pariser - MoveOn.org
Moderator - Bill Allison - Sunlight Foundation
Steve Urquhart - House of Representatives from Utah
Jeff Berman - MySpace
Introductions are just about out of the way, so lets get started!
Steve - It was impossible to understand who voted on what issue, because “people would misunderstand the data.”
Currently, the extremes dominate the process, and the core in the middle is rotting. Why can the extremes dominate? Rockstar adulation, money and power to name a few. Since the extremes are controlling everything, it’s at odds with democracy. The bulk of americans can’t decide, since they’re not being pitched to. Since the fringes are the appeals, the bulk of americans are discouraged and disgusted with the current system. People with good will enter the system and are eaten by the system. Within two years, people at the PDF conference would be doing the same thing the people are doing now. Steve Urquhart started a blog, but it was to profesorial. Now, it’s an issues based wiki. Anyone can put up topics, and anyone can change what’s on there. It did help on there.
The conversation on the fringes doesn’t help. He wants to socially network in politicopia. How do we get the bulk in the middle participating?
Jeff Berman - MySpace
MySpace wasn’t started on politics, but in the same way it’s helped the Arctic Monkeys, Dane Cook, etc etc. could help people. There is a danger in relying on people outside your system, and apparently there’s some controversy between Barak Obama and some overzealous dude.
We get how myspace works. he’s demoing it, but lame.
Eli Pariser - MoveOn
We’ve got to get through the “gotcha” politics of macacaca and things like that. MoveOn tried to do an ad contest.. a “gotcha ad” contest… but admitadely the winner wasn’t too gotcha. Laughs in the room. Concern? People assuming that because user generated content appears on a site is controlled by them, and taking it out of context. Uses the phrase “new town hall.”
Running out of juice! BBL!
Seth Godin - Flipping the funnel
Oh snap… it’s seth godin. “Ted Stephens isn’t here”
“We need ugly presidents”
Seth is killing the crowd with stupid signs like “THIS SIGN HAS SHARP EDGES. BTW the bridge is out.”
Fundamental shift has happened. Ideas that spread, win. lots of pictures.
Successful democracy is about spreading ideas and causing action.
The century of idea diffusion cornered in TV. Thinking about TV helps us diffuse ideas. Seth godin is a comedian.
People who spend money on politics, make stuff work.
“TV industrial complex.” Buy ads, get donations, get elected, get donations buy ads, get donations… etc… You can ignore anything you want now because there are so many places to get info, and ignore. The problem? Too much clutter, too much noise. “Premium sausage at whole foods.” Now, there’s the Tofu department too. SO MUCH CLUTTER. Poeple are laughing. Shows a picture of a baby - WE CAN’T KEEP BRANDING EVERYTHING. It’s a 100 year old idea that is played out. We can’t keep spamming people.
We’re getting good at avoiding stuff now. The good way to get married? Propose marriage to everyone at a single bar? Instead, you could build an asset, a right etc. You could permission market instead. 91% of all the real estate brokers never contact the buyer or seller after the closing is over. Permission cuts through the clutter. Permission provides price and competitive insulation. People think they’re the most important person in the world. Get it?
Instead of marketing to everyone, create a niche. Get good at it.
Adoption curve basics. Middle crowd (early and late majority) are professoinals at ignoring people. The innovators and early adopters choose to pay attention. Sometimes the geeks and nerds are wrong sometimes. The message starts with the geeks and nerds. Get the influencers, win the world.
Hot or not reference. Seth godin is a 3.7. “Wicked big haystack, you’re the needle.” Stand for something.
How do we create movements as great as the macarena.
Cumulative advantage is the new seth godin buzzword. StumbleUpon is great! Fergie sucks, but once she’s close to number one, she’ll be number one. Opposite of long tail. Candidate to voters. “Targeting is a hunter word.” Instead, be a farmer. Most powerful non-elected official - NOT JACK VALENTI! Ralph Nader is successful after spending 0 on advertising. Word of mouth is bad, idea virus is the idea. It’s not a funnel, but turning it into a megaphone. The speech thesis.
Step one: BE AWESOME.
Step two: Tell an awesome story.
Step Three: They spread the word
Step four: Get more permission.
Buy this man’s book. In fact, buy five, and see him speak in utah!
Lunch time!
Practitioners of flat politics - Sifry
Sifry time! Snap!
Arianna Huffington is sick, but not allowed to fly, so she’s not coming here. *tear.*
TechPresident + TubeMogul press release. I’ll post about it later, my battery is going to die so i’m going to stop updating till I can find a plug.
Thomas L. Friedman - Politics is Flat: What happens when we have a dog’s hearing?
Quick sampler of three new chapters of his book “the world is flat.”
Talking about guys CEOs fear — the new activist… BLOGGERS! *OH SNAP.* Talking about grassroots praise and social entreprenuers. Politic2.0 anyone? WikiReview anyone?
Talking about an environmentalist group that stopped building 11 power plants spewing co2. Company TXU. Pretty funny. Anacedotal stories aren’t my liveblogging forte, sorry. Get more deets.
Activism is so easy, so cheap and so readily available: If it’s not happened, it’s cause you’re not doing it. That mantra gets some claps.
On to chapter two: What happens when we all have dog hearing?
Some of the downsides of social entreprenuership. Relays a story about a paris taxi driver talking on his bluetooth headphone, watching a movie and driving while the writer writes a column, rides in his taxi and listens to the iPod. Two people doing six things.
Social downsides are parital attention. The technologies uniting us are seperating us. This is interesting, but you’ve got to just get the book, because that’s what’ he’s reading from.
Liveblogging the Personal Democracy Forum
I’m live at the Personal Democracy Forum, and going to do a crappy job liveblogging. I’m more here for another company, but I always like to put my ideas / notes on the site. Thanks for bearing with.
Right now, a spoksperson for the Pew Internet research group is up, talking… stats… Interesting stats from the slide? 92 million american adults use government websites. 52 million research issues. 32 million have emailed jokes about candidates. 25 million fact checked candidates in 2006 online. 21 million have watched political videos online as of february 2007. Four million donated to candidates online in 2006. Two million write about politics on their blogs. (not me!)
15% of americans say the internet was a crucial source for their political knowledge in 2006.
Broadband growth = political spread. 1/3rd of the political internet usage growth can be attributed to broadband. Under age 35 broadband users find the internet more important for their political knowledge than newspapers.
The big question still? Local races now have the ability to be hyper covered, but will it be useful?
RIM develops BlackBerry virtualization environment
We’re sorta back. Give us some slack! In order for our new live environment to work properly (read: Lots of shows, little time) we’re testing out some new issues.
Gracias!
Google announces presentation app
Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, announced an addition to docs and spreadsheets, a powerpoint competitor for presentations. Right now, details are sketchy, but Schmidt presented it as a no frills version of powerpoint focused on collaboration. Expect more coverage throughout the day, but Schmidt breezed over it at the web2.0 conference.
Now, he’s talking about doubleclick, if he talks about the presentation app we’ll update again. Nothing new here.
Sidenote: Schmidt implies they’ll get rid of doubleclick cookies.
Schmidt: Microsoft and AT&T’s claims of anti-trust with google are false. Straight out false. “They’re are a long list of reasons why they’re wrong.”
Battelle: Let’s talk about a controversial issue: YouTube and copyright.
Schmidt: Google is OK with YouTube/Viacom, hiding behind DMCA. Schmidt talks about the ABC (australia) google 16-year-old problem.
Anyone else think schmidt is gates’ good twin (or conversely, that gates is Schmidt’s evil twin?)
Google introducing a “CYC” claim your content tool for copyright holders to police youtube easier.
Sidenote: WiFi at the convention seems to be improving.
Schmidt: “We are investing billions of dollars in capital into data centers.” “We think that more applications using that are very good.”
Battelle: What about net neutrality?
Schmidt: Not concerned about telcos and cable companies as competitors, but as partners. Of course they’re supporting net neutrality… since net neutrality created google and other small comapnies. Google could survive a problem of loss of net neutrality, but any young company founders would get screwed. We get it. Everyone claps, because yes, net neutrality helps small companies. We get it already.
Battelle: “Who do you want to acquire?”
Schmidt: Mobile companies look interesting to us. We think 3g and 4g networks have tremendous power, and the mobile space is wide open, and we’re looking at partnering with companies for the mobile web. Another area: local space. Most transactions in advertising are local advertising, geotargeted ads etc. Most search engines don’t take care of local information. Quite a few companies are figuring out local search.
Battelle: “what’s the firs thting you think of?”
Schmidt: I think of my email.
Battelle: “Gates’ glasses are smudgy.”
Schmidt: “The thing I think about at google is scaling.” Talks about his forward looking scaling approach from the mid nineties. In order to win on the internet is the scaling strategy. Scaling for google means more data centers, more resources, etc. We’re really in scalings infancy.
Google: “We’ll never track your usage. Ever.” They’re working on allowing users to export their data and get out of google, as opposed to trapping users into their services.
Battelle: Last question: On the board of apple now, wtf?
Schmidt: Apple is an amazing story, as a company, technology supplier, products, etc. Some of the best people in the world work at apple. As they watch how the decisions are made, Schmidt has been collaborating with apple. Google maps inside of the iPhone.
That’s a wrap kids! Be back later!
Bezos talks Amazon Web Services
Bezos is going to talk about Amazon Web Services, so this turns into some sort of advertorial for the next few minutes.
Here are the links, if you weren’t there to listen to the advertorial.
Keynote: Web2.0’s O’Reilly
Tim O’Reilly up on stage– apparently, it’s called “web two dot oh” so all you two point oh’s are lame.
Buzzword bingo: “Persistant computing”
O’Reilly doesn’t want to see new interfaces on old apps, but rather new apps for traditional interfaces.
Next, Bezos.