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Loco Luco and the Bassnectar beat of the digital tribes

“Loco Luco”
onelucaso@gmail.com

Un-digitize, people, it’s time for some spice! Lucaso here to give you the low down on what’s hot ‘cross my network. And it’s not just hot, it’s bad ass (and pssst… cool was so, like, 1993)!

Just recently back from the land of burning art and desert star beams, I start this weekly column with a run down of the network that helps continue the vibes of Burningman year round: tribe.net.

When I should be checking my feeds and getting caught up on the tech world, I’m usually off surfing the tribe network. There’s nothing new, per se, going on within the tribe.net architecture (P-Air, tribe’s biz dev guy, told me about a few new tribe mobile ideas in the works, but only ‘cause I asked about kite surfin’ first ;). Other than new advertising in the tribe threads, it’s pretty much the same as it’s been since they launched the new profiles six months ago.

Werd. So what’s the deal on tribe? What makes it so bad ass? Number one: real world crossover. This network isn’t confined to the online world. It has moved so far beyond the need to be jacked-in in order to access it, that its presence is felt at parties, clubs, restaurants, businesses, etc., all over town. You name the place, I guarantee tribe has come up in conversation and the “network” has been accessed (this is where tribe mobile would come in handy).

Last night at a street fair I had a conversation with a wicked juggler, an amazing vocalist, a delicious designer, and a cutie from Santa Cruz. Today, I’m linked to all of them: the juggler is down with a performance gig I’m thowin’ next month, the singer wants to play a holiday show together in December, the designer is making a pair of superstar ‘lucaso’ wristbands for me, and let’s just say I’ll be visiting Santa Cruz in the very near future.

The tribe network makes those little creative brainstorms that come up in conversation a reality. The community and network exist outside the matrix, and tribe is the tool that connects the community and helps to organize those creative ideas. Yea… the damn thing works for us, we don’t work for it. oh, yea, and it’s free.

It is community without borders. Your people. Your Family. It’s like a family reunion that you want to go to. It’s the power of creation; creation of identity, of community. You can create your own tribe or join others. It’s opening the newspaper and all the news is written by your friends. It’s your PR and word of mouth campaign to the tenth power.

Yea… that’d be one stop shoppin’.

Here’s your spice:

-Profiles (you are encouraged to shamelessly promote yourself too): Ali*kat, ZigZag, Dee, Astrogirl, Buddhamonkey, Argon: on and off the grid, that’s who they are (yes, some of their mothers even call them that now too). They are the creation of themselves, independently and creatively designing their own identity/brand/business and doing it in super star fashion. Yea… that’s bad ass.
-Tribes (groups with threads): “West Coast NYers,” where you can rag on all those softy west coast, new-agers while simultaneously praising the west,“Wireless Future” and “Social Software Intellectuals,” where you can debate and share tech ideas or show off your latest find, “Travesty Revue,” where you can keep up with your favorite debaucherous cabaret act and all the gals. And, of course, if you’re feeling a bit lonely, you can always hit the “Flirting Shamelessly” tribe, for, ya know, flirtin’.

Werd. I gotta split. Astrogirl just tribe-mailed me a hot tip: Bassnectar’s new CD is out and it’s bad ass. Check the Bassnectar tribe (http://bassnectar.tribe.net/) for more details.

-lucaso

Posted by Tom Foremski on October 4, 2005 12:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Runnin' the Corridor: 2 Weeks On the Digital (and REAL) Highway

by lucaso
onelucaso@gmail.com

Damn. Weekly column and I already skipped my second week! I’ll try to make up for it by sharing some of the primo spice from my amazing two weeks of nomadic adventure. (yea, I shoulda been mobloggin’, but I’m not hooked up like that yet) .

The west coast corridor is bad ass. The beauty of the tribes matches the beauty of the landscape. Having grown up in the east, I’m blown away by it all. I still love a stint in NYC, DC, New England and, of course, Philly. But, really now, ain’t no Catskill, Blue Ridge, or Whitey gonna stand a chance next to the mighty Shasta, Hood, or Whitney.

Anyways, two weeks of travel through my network of digital tribes (and REAL mountains) begins now:

REWIND. San Fran two weeks ago for Web 2.0.

I walked into the hotel lobby at the end of the day to see the post-show deals being worked out. Folks were hunched over cocktail tables conversing in hushed tones, the glow of laptops reflectin’ in countless pairs of eyeglasses. Yea, not exactly my scene (where’s the DJ? Yes, we CAN close deals while listenin to killa’ grooves, y’all).

My one question: where’s web culture 2.0? Ya know, the stuff that happens when you’re not geeking out? This is the leadership of the next generation of innovation. Where is the creative culture that goes with that innovation? What is the culture of our creative class?

BOOM! Off to the afterparties.

First stop: Yahoo RSS party (As an RSS guy, I had to get the new RSS metrics in person) Nothin’ too funky, of course (it’s yahoo afterall), but the numbers were good to see. Bottom line: lose the RSS! It’s time to stress what this technology can do for people, not what it’s called. Leave the geekspeak to the geeks and let’s cross the chasm and get people using these amazing, emerging technologies. Yea, old topic

MOVING ON: Time to shake the tech off and get physical. Off to the SF BM decompression party to get down with the cutie from Santa Cruz, dancing the night away with Ka’nal.

HOME for a little biz in God’s country: Portland, OR:

I got to sit in on the FreeRange board meeting (damn, they got vision... and its MOBILE. Bad ass!) I ended up betting the new head of Apple Germany that Apple’s big announcement would be the vidpod (and, thanks to Tom, I won! Heeheehee… now I have a sponser!). Then it was back to the arts world to start rehearsals for a performance piece I wrote, “Under the Harmony of Heaven” (based on Maxim Gorky’s “The Lower Depths”) We will perform it Nov 4th for “Suono Angelica: The Language of Harmonics.”

Whew… breathe….

BAM! On the road again:

This time travelin south to LA for the Beverly Hills art fair with my good friend (and amazing sculptor)Taji. We were very blessed to be accompanied by the beautiful, sassy, and sultry painter Lily Noches. Taji rocked the show, earning third prize in sculpture and selling four sculptures, while Lily kept me sharp as I interviewed some of the more striking artists there: John Hung Ha and Gabe Leonard

And if all that wasn’t enough, I still found time to stroll Venice, boulder Joshua Tree, and party with a super lawyer who sues giant corporations for posioning you and your children. Yea, bad ass.

The ICING ON THE SPICE:

A stop at the Light Space Gallery in Venice to visit with the lovely and talented Star Simone and have a chat with gallery head and uber-talented artist Dean Chamberlain.

HOMEWARD BOUND:

Two weeks of a vagabond existence, filled with incredible inspiration and amazing encounters, and now it's time to get home. Autumn in the NW is divine and I'm looking forward to soaking up the earth energy before headin' out again, next time makin' dat mobloggin’ thang happen!

Holla'atcha next week (or two ; ) !

-lucaso
onelucaso@gmail.com

Posted on October 24, 2005 7:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Updated with more comments! The most important rules for today's workforce bar none

By Tom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher

My three rules of today's workforce:

--Carry and use your own cell phone/number for business

The workforce now is mobile and temporary even if you have a salaried job. You need to be in control of the center of communications: you.

--Carry and use your own email address even at work

Otherwise your contacts and the relationships you build can be severed when you leave a job, and that is an investment that you have a right to maintain--as does your employer.

--Carry and use your own health insurance

Because otherwise, you will be stuck in a job that makes you sick just to keep the health insurance.

[I've followed these three rules for years...]

From Mitch Ratcliffe: Ratcliffe Blog

http://www.ratcliffeblog.com/archives/2005/11/new_rules_for_2.html

To Tom's rules, I'd add:
Incorporate and work on contract rather than as an employee.

This allows you to negotiate the same kind of stock compensation while allowing you to keep your business costs, even the ones you can't get compensated for at work, on your own taxes while increasing the flexibility you have as a working person.

Carry and use your own hardware, building tech expenses into your compensation.

This prevents lock-in to a job through access to technology. Sure, you may have to work with a less impressive laptop, but you're also forced to think more like the people who really buy computers, software, services and so forth.

Update #2 thanks to Neville Hobson at NevOn, via David Newberger-The Geek Guy Rants

Create a blog and establish your personal presence in the new marketplace
In this new age of global inter-connectivity, linking and influence, a blog is a prerequisite if you want to build your own credibility, be found easily and connect with others. Forget the static website. Forget the fancy brochure. Do a blog. It works - I speak from personal experience.

Join a business network like LinkedIn or OpenBC
However you actively use these or not, they can help establish your individual credibility and provide avenues of contact with others for mutual benefit.

Anybody have any more?

Posted by Tom Foremski on November 20, 2005 6:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

Concerts by the Sea in Pacifica this Sunday

Silicon Valley works too hard and works all the time, it is Always On. We must remember to take some time out and enjoy our existence as social and cultural beings.

So please mark your calendar for the following event on January 29, Sunday at 5pm at Pacifica Performances Sanchez Concert Hall in Pacifica.

Allison Lovejoy and colleagues will be performing classical works as part of a competition organized by the San Francisco Concerto Orchestra. Doors open at 4.30pm and tickets are just $10. Bring the kids, everyone under 18 is free.

Posted by Tom Foremski on January 27, 2006 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Welcome to the Conversation Age! All conversations may be monitored...

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

(From my ZDNet blog post: Nakedness, overload and other maladies of the Conversation Age .)

Conversations are good, they are good for your company's bottom-line if you become involved in those conversations. And monitoring the conversations in the blogosphere and selling the results to corporations, as companies such as Technorati do, is a great way to figure out who is bad-mouthing your company and also, it is the cheapest and most effective market research you can buy.

The involvement of many tens of millions of people in the blogosphere, all involved in online group discussions from just a couple of people, to many tens of thousands--is a marketers' gold mine. All those conversations that might have happened over the garden fence, or in the cafe, are now public and searchable.

And Technorati and many others, will analyze the links, the authority of a site, and report to their corporate customers on the "conversations" around a product, service, company or individual.

This is not a bad thing if it leads to highly hyper-personalised marketing. That way, I would be targeted with what I needed--say new shoes. And I would be subject to fewer advertisements littering my psyche.

But this will never happen. Fewer adverts because of better targeting would be a false promise, it is like the promise of the paperless office, or the Leisure Society from labor-saving devices. So therefore, naked conversations are a bad thing--(let's go semi-private pronto).

Continue reading "Welcome to the Conversation Age! All conversations may be monitored..." »

Posted by Tom Foremski on March 7, 2006 12:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (1)

Dressing and driving right, to make the right deals...

Lucaso pointed this out, a great article from the San Jose Mercury about Silicon Valley and Hollywood:

When he's in the Bay Area, Tom McInerney, the 33-year-old co-founder of San Francisco online video site Guba, zips around in his ``low-end'' 325i BMW, the 2003 version. In Hollywood, he powers up a Porsche 911, the 40th anniversary model. His home in San Francisco is a Victorian. His L.A. digs are a bit splashier: a Beverly Hills penthouse perched across the street from the William Morris Agency.

From: To win deals, tech firms go Hollywood
By John Boudreau

Posted by Tom Foremski on June 6, 2006 1:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MingleNow - social networking that mingles online and offline

I just got an early briefing on an interesting idea for social networking coming out of BlueLithium, the online advertising agency headquartered in San Jose, CA. It's an idea developed in Blue Lithium Labs, the R&D component of the business, to solve some social networking problems of their own.

"We've earned a reputation for hosting some great parties and we wanted to put some of that experience to work in this venture," says Dakota Sullivan, chief marketing officer at BlueLithium.

This is the overview: people register with MingleNow and say where they hang out, which bars, restaurants, clubs, etc. The site will have a very large national database of nearly every social place. Users will also be able to create their own places such as a corner of a college campus, or a camp at Burningman.

"There will be a page for every place that exists in the real world and you'll be able to see pictures of the people that go to that place," says Mr Sullivan.

Continue reading "MingleNow - social networking that mingles online and offline" »

Posted by Tom Foremski on June 12, 2006 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Hot new vidstars mix with hipsters and geeks at vidblogging fest

By Lucaso for Silicon Valley Watcher

All right, so Vloggercon in San Francisco this past weekend was hot... and not just 'cause RocketBoom's Amanda Congdon was there, dig? Either the geeks are getting hip or the hipsters are going geek... either way, a new era of media is taking Hollywood and traditional video media by storm.

And why not? You've got a camera... you've got a story to tell... you're a superstar! And, now, the tools to distribute your video are here, such as YouTube and a hundred more free vidhosts.

New media superstars, like Congdon, are well on their way to becoming international celebrities (Rocketboom's audience is as large as some small cable channels after only a year and a half) while Hollywood scrapes to understand what's going on.

We've seen the blogging phenomenon put a dent in traditional print media. Now, imagine that same dent in traditional television media. That's what's happenin', dig?

Lucaso in the balcony at Vloggercon. Photo by Scott Beale of Laughing Squid.

Ok, so back to Vloggercon...

Hot 'cause we're now seeing some cultural integration, as evident by the crook in every geek's neck when 88slide's host Rachel walked into the conference hall (look out Amanda!). A new age of diversity is coming to geekland and we'll be seeing more young, new-media superstars popping up on the radar over the next year as well as some old school geeks stepping into celebrity roles.

I overheard Stowe Boyd chatting with a friend as he left the conference: "... one of the weird things is having all these people I don't know come up to me and talk to me like they know me."

Hot 'cause vloggers are working together as a community, sharing media and ideas for the good of the whole. Despite the integration of Hollywood energy, the overall vibe of Vloggercon was one of collaboration, passion, and love (yes, there was a hug fest in the closing session).

And one of the main concerns of this community is how to balance the incoming Hollywood energy with the grassroots nature of videoblogging. A token capitalist in the room asked how we're going to make money through video blogging, while the token socialist asked how videoblogging would help non-profits reach larger audiences.

At any rate, the money is coming. Rocket Boom's recent Ebay advertising success is a testament to sustainable new media ventures. Look for new video blogs, and new media superstars, to have a huge impact in the year to come.

Here's a few folks from the conference I dig:

- Noah and the 88slide crew are doing a great job with their daily quiz show.

- Jumpcut is making headway by allowing users to re-edit the trailer of the new Linklater film, "A Scanner Darkly."

- And for a little sex, drugs, peace, n rock n roll(and yes, you can swear on video blogs), check out RocknRolltv.

(Note: I also chatted with Amanda Congdon at Vloggercon... look for the interview coming soon.)

Lucaso is Silicon Valley Watcher's roving culture editor - reporting on the culture of the emerging communities.

Posted by Tom Foremski on June 14, 2006 1:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Why is there no British Google? A top British politician asks...

A reader (www.elleeseymour.blogsite.com) writes:

Belated congratulations from over the pond. Bloggers in the UK do not have sponsors but advertisers, what advice would you give to them about this? I would like to write a post about it tomorrow, so a response would be appreciated.
Also, what are your views about this story in The Times about why the UK cannot develop the Yahoos and Googles cyberspace company. I think you will find this of interest.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2222386,00.html

Thank you Ellee. Let me address the article in the Times, written by George Osborne, a British [politician and shadow chancellor, which means he is in the Conservative party and part of the "shadow cabinet" of senior Tory politicians.

Here is the intro:

We may have invented the internet but it's the Americans who have colonised it. It's time to stake our claim WHY IS THERE no British Yahoo! or Google? Why are we not home to fast-growing community websites such as MySpace, the fifth most visited site on the world wide web? The internet may have been invented by a Briton, but it is a sad truth that not one of the leading internet companies is British. I am in Silicon Valley to find out why, meeting not just the people who run these internet giants, but also the venture capitalists who turn their bright ideas into great businesses. I want to know what we can do to make sure Britain has a slice of the future.
There was nothing pre-ordained about America dominating the online world. Many of my contemporaries at university packed in traditional jobs in the 1990s to launch start-up companies and claim their stake in the internet boom. Now almost all have gone back to careers they left behind.

Continue reading "Why is there no British Google? A top British politician asks..." »

Posted by Tom Foremski on June 15, 2006 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Marketing or Representing? Which term is less loaded?

me

The term "marketing" is broadly used but it carries a lot of baggage such as "spin" and "selling."

Yes, marketing means so much more than the commonly understood term--it is how product development is monetized. But in many uses of the term "marketing" there is an uncomfortable implication that there is some kind of persuasion or manipulation going on, to sell something for which there might very well be no actual need.

"Selling refrigerators to Eskimos," or "taking coals to Newcastle," are examples of sayings that describe this issue. Marketing often seems to be about the use of persuasive marketing/selling techniques rather than the meeting of real needs--not that the two never coincide.

That's why some people are uneasy about doing "marketing" or "selling" because of cultural associations that seem to be more about smoke and mirrors rather than creating value. For example, many times I have had people tell me that the iPod is rubbish because it is "just marketing." As if "just marketing" can be applied by anybody, as if it can be bought off-the-shelf. Clearly, that is not the case, but that sentiment serves as an example of a less than positive attitude towards the term marketing.

Also, the term marketing doesn't seem to fit easily within the culture of the emerging generation of Silicon Valley Web 2.0/Internet 2.0 startups, (and older companies too). Those companies constantly talk about communities: customers, developers, consumers, etc.

But, do you apply "marketing" to those communities...? Within such a context, the term "marketing" feels uncomfortable, awkward, and even inaccurate.

Continue reading "Marketing or Representing? Which term is less loaded?" »

Posted by Tom Foremski on July 7, 2006 12:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Om My God! Mighty fun evening with GigaOm and Sharpcast

The place to be Wednesday evening was the GigaOm and Sharpcast launch party. Renee Blodgett did a great job in getting the in-crowd to turn up at club Mighty. I got there late and found the place hopping. The band was too loud for me (the marketing manager's band, not a good idea, if I'd wanted to see a band I'd pay ten bucks) but I had fun hanging outside. Lots of great conversations...

Update: Apologies directly from the Sharpcast guys, from Allen, “We did get the message to turn down, though not until the end of the first set (from on stage you really have no idea how loud it is in the house) - but we did come down in volume considerably at their request and we didn't get any more complaints after that. We certainly weren't going for ear-shattering volumes! Apologies….”

Now I feel like an old codger... :-)

Sharpcast is a cool application, I just signed up for the beta. It gives you access to your photos from any computer or mobile phone and keeps everything synced up automatically. Sounds useful. I wonder how long it will take Yahoo's Flickr to offer such a feature?

Here are some photos courtesy of the indefatigable Dan Farber, senior VP at Cnet/ZDnet and one of the best journalists/editors covering Silicon Valley and beyond.

T+OM.jpg

T+OM!

More of his Om-ness...

Continue reading "Om My God! Mighty fun evening with GigaOm and Sharpcast" »

Posted by Tom Foremski on August 10, 2006 1:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The unguarded thoughts of the digital haves...

The most compelling content on the Internet, by far, is AOL's release of search terms linked to individual users. This is a glimpse into the human condition that goes way beyond anything else we have seen, beyond Dostoevsky, Dickens, Balzac, Melville or anybody else.

AOL apologized for releasing the data into the public domain--a huge database of 21m search terms with each search term linked to a unique numeric code representing a specific user account, along with the date of each search. The result is a narrative that tells stories that are unguarded, and are sometimes truly disturbing.

Over the past few days, several web sites, such as AOLPsycho.com and AOLStalker.com, have sprung up and hundreds of volunteers have begun to catalog the data and flag some of the more extreme search terms, along with the users who query them. There are sometimes violent and sexually extreme terms and phrases. But also, there are the many mundane search terms, that reflect an ordinary life, occasionally punctuated with extreme drama...

It all makes for incredibly compelling reading. These are the thoughts of people when they feel safe there is nobody looking over their shoulders.

In one instance, it looks as if a wife and a husband are using the same computer, each hiding their extramarital affairs from the other, then later looking for help online to deal with the pain of failed relationships.

These are real soap operas, tracked over a period of months... from the excitement of first meetings:

"how to get rid of nervousness of meeting a blind date 23 Apr, 12:27"

Then disaster:

"if your spouse has an affair should you contact the other person's spouse and let them know : 07 May, 09:58"

And the same user account asks:

"i had sex with my best friend and now he treats me differently :26 May, 13:58"

Even though AOL used numeric codes for each user, discovering the identity of some users wouldn't be hard--if someone wanted to try. That's because people search on their own names (ego surfing) and also search telephone numbers, social security numbers, . . . and names of (ex)loved ones.

There is a tremendous amount of rage in some of the search terms, a search for revenge when relationships fail that can be disturbing to read. And so are some of the searches for underage sexual images.

Are these the musings of an idle brain, maybe a drunken brain that searches for things it wouldn't under sober circumstances? Are searches for under-age sex, or how to murder someone in a gruesome manner, just fantasies expressed within a search box? Or are they plans waiting to be executed?

Most probably they are fantasies because otherwise we would be awash in blood, dealing with a Sodom and Gomorrah of cinematic proportions every day. Yet our daily experience shows us that the vile fantasies expressed in some AOL searches, are rare in reality.

What the AOL data shows us, is that the search box has become a collector of the only true expression of whatever is happening in our heads--at the very moment of creation, at that specific point in time ...(within the heads of the Internet-enabled population).

Has the search box become a modern age confessional box--yet without the promise of redemption?

The unfortunate thing is that now, everyone will be on guard. All will think twice and thrice about what is typed into the search box. Because it could all come out into the open.

AOL's data shows us something else: Google (and YHOO, MSN, etc) has a treasure trove of search data, all linked to millions of users, much larger than AOL's database. Google saves every piece of data it comes across and puts it all on backup tapes and stores it in a very secure facility inside a mountain. A Google senior executive told me this more than two years ago. When I asked, "what will you do with the data?" I was told, "we don't know."

Google's search data can be seen as a chronicle of the human condition over a period of time, within different societies. Google has a collection of billions of thoughts collected from millions of people at (nearly) the exact moment of thought-creation, all pegged in place and in time.

Google's search term database is eaily the world's largest repository of the unguarded thoughts of the citizens of the rich, developed world. It contains information that could not be gained in any other way.

No survey of people's thinking could uncover such content because people answer questions according to what they believe they should say.

GOOG has the means to gain an incredible insight into the human condition. Can it keep the data safe from being released into the wild? Maybe. .. If it can keep the data from others, it can mine that database to its advantage--an extremely powerful, competitive advantage.

- - -
Please see SVW: The Future Transparency of the Past or why you should get used to living in a glass house...

AOLPsycho.com for a community approach to document some of the personalities of AOL users.

Also, AOLStalker.com

News.Com: AOL apologizes for release of user search data

AOL's disturbing glimpse into users' lives

Posted by Tom Foremski on August 15, 2006 2:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The future transparency of our lives and poisoning the database

Anybody who runs a blog or a web site usually peeks at the search terms that visitors input. It's fascinating stuff because sometimes you can find clues to breaking stories or emerging issues/trends.

And looking at the AOL search term database that was recently released, you can see how people use the search box to make statements, as much as ask questions. The AOL search information is fascinating reading because it represents unguarded thoughts and feelings that could not be collected in any other way.

However, I find it hard to belive that AOL believed it was innocently providing the world with behavioral data and protecting users from being identified. Yes, AOL assigned a numeric code to each user accounts search history, rather than user names. But there is plenty of information in the search terms to identify some of the users.

Now, people will be far more guarded in their use of online services. Surely AOL knew that the data could identify some users. Anybody, even the newest of newbies could look at the search data and see how it could be used to identify people. Yet AOL went ahead and released the information.

Maybe some at AOL wanted to warn others that even if a company says it is not collecting identifiable data on its users, it is not true. People ego surf, they Google their dates, they check up on colleagues and ex-lovers online, they search on phone numbers, etc.

The AOL incident has placed Internet users on notice that their lives are transparent, even in unguarded moments, even when searching for something, anything, even when companies say they are not collecting identifiable data.

One response is to be very careful what you search for. Another response is to poison the database, to create a smokescreen, to use aliases/avatars, to make sure that the data collected online contains only a sliver of the real person.

Yes, it is more work, but you can never know how such information could be used in the future. You can never know if the political climate changes, and some people become persecuted for their past search terms.

And this data never goes away. Google, for example, keeps every search term, keeps a copy of every web site it ever indexed--it never throws away a single byte of data it encounters. And others are doing the same thing, and others have to comply with government regulations in keeping data for many years.

Your every click and keystroke online is being collected by many different organisations, and that means that at some point it will be possible to track it all, and identify most of it. Welcome to the future transparency of your life.

Posted by Tom Foremski on August 16, 2006 12:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Promonet lets bloggers/podcasters use licensed music for trade

By Lucaso for Silicon Valey Watcher

Recently, I've been helping out at IODA, a hip music company in the SOMA area of San Francisco. IODA(i.e. Independent Online Distribution Alliance) distributes indie(and not so indie) music across the web to a host of service providers... itunes, rhapsody, etc.

Their catalog is massive and growing (about 2,500 labels and close to 200,000 tracks) and they've recently begun a promotional service that allows bloggers/podcasters to use their music in trade for including a sales link to the artists' commerce site.

Promonet allows you to preview tracks, download artist's information, and generate HTML code for your blog/podcast. It's a great way to use licensed music in exchange for promoting your favorite artists(always a good thing!).

I created this podcast using Promonet. Enjoy!

Oh... and if you sign up for Promonet, tell them Lucaso sent you! ;)

Get the podcast feed here

produced by Lucaso using cleared music from Promonet

Continue reading "Promonet lets bloggers/podcasters use licensed music for trade" »

Posted on August 26, 2006 1:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Deep in the betterprop cut... The clef of your dreams... Whadda ya mean I don't need the code?... New kids on the block(from ole parents)... N a bit of psycedelic sheep!

By Lucaso for Silicon Valley Watcher.

Betterpropoganda is a hot site and an even hotter podcast! August's mix features a killer live cut by DJ Olive. Yea... and Sept is only a few days away!

Alright, this is a little freaky but totally makes sense. Take a quick music quiz and find the partner of your dreams based on your musical "personality." Is there a Gogol Bordello--Django Reindhardt--Bassnectar--Seu Jorge--Dangermouse--eDit-- sweetheart out there for me? Ahh... a sound match.

Back in the day(uh, yea, like last year), ZigZag and I were wondering why the hell there wasn't a site like this already. (You mean we really have to learn code?) Now, Piczo is here... and forget about coding your mainspace page(well... you used a profile generator anyways, didn't you?) Piczo is drag and drop, ajax friendly and hot, hot, hot...Ooooo.... and the kiddies are luving it!

Speaking of kiddies, good ole SixApart's got a new one called Vox. They're taking web publishing to another level with their latest web app in invitation-only beta right now. Imagine typepad, youtube, flickr, music sharing and (fill in the blank) social network in one UI.

Ok, and if its time to dust off the ole screen saver and load up some thing a bit more psychedelic and interactive, check out electric sheep. This screen saver lets everyone round the world vote on which sheep gets to sleep and which get to dance. BBBAAAAHHHHHHdddd ass!

Posted on August 26, 2006 3:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

reMix Culture: music Splice(d), imeem

By Lucaso for Silicon Valley Watcher.

I keep running into great, web-based, media editing and sharing applications. And it makes sense: its more fun to share the process of creative collaboration than to edit by yourself! But I wonder how many of these will be around in a year? Or pehaps they will become more localized and we'll see more apps with less users.

Splice is a new online music editing applicaiton and social media sharing site. From Splice:

"Splice gives anyone, anywhere the ability to collaborate on music right through a web browser. Users can upload or record sounds, make songs, listen to other user's songs, make remixes, make friends and a whole lot more."

I also recently signed up for imeem. imeem is another social media sharing site where users gather around(you guessed it) a meme. What's great about imeem is they also have built in IM and a more powerful software download available.

Posted on August 26, 2006 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Cooling Man: A cheap shot at a carbon-spewing Burning Man?

The San Francisco Chronicle has an article on coolingman.org, created to calculate the carbon/pollution emissions of those going to the annual Burning Man arts and culture festival 2hours out of Reno, Nevada.

Add up your car mileage to get there and back, plus electric generators and anything else, and you get a total in carbon/pollution emissions.

Then, like corporate America, artists will be directed to mitigate their pollution by purchasing greenhouse gas "credits," or "offsets," by investing in alternative energy that doesn't use fossil fuels: solar or wind power, methane capture from landfills and livestock. Tree planting also qualifies.
Burners are asked to pay $5 to $10 per ton of personal pollution to the nonprofit Trust for Conservation Innovation in San Francisco, which parcels the donations among various renewable-energy projects nationwide.
The money collected from 65 Burning Man participants so far -- $1,000 -- will help pay for a wind turbine that powers a casino on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota. It's the first American Indian-owned wind power plant in the nation.

Whoopee! Pay for electricity for a casino...!

IMHO, coolingman.org could be used as a cheap shot at the Burning Man community. It's not as if Burning Man goers have a choice of vehicles to get there, there are no electric cars or other more fuel efficient ways of getting there. Same goes for most other activities that would be done anyway, anywhere else, and that don't have easily available green alternatives.

And buying "offsets" makes it seem as if everything is OK. It can offset actual measures being taken to reduce emmissions at the festival. If a yellow smog sits above Black Rock City is everything cool even if it were *all* offset? Clearly not because Burning Man should be a showcase and an example of doing things the right way.

It is safe to say that the people that go to Burning Man are much more aware of the environment than most other groups that I can think of as a group. The policy of leave no trace, for example, is something which is practiced every year.

Burning Man's Black Rock City becomes one of Nevada's largest cities for one week a year, with more than 30,000 people living on harsh desert plateau on which nothing grows. It comes out of nothing and goes away to nothing.

And in that week it becomes a festival of creativity and abundance. There are several daily newspapers, more than fifty radio stations. If you go, you will see structures, art, and performances that you cannot see anywhere else in the world at the same time.

There is no commerce--except for coffee and ice that can be bought in center camp. There is nothing that is "sponsored by Microsoft" or any commercial message at all. Just being away from the constant commercial tugs at your mind is incredibly refreshing.

Most that go there, are working in groups throughout the year on ambitious projects, theme camps, and welding/building incredible structures.

These activities teach teamwork, they teach how to collaborate, how to deal with difficult people. And to work without any payment or even named credit--but contributing sweat, time, and money towards a common group goal.

Although it attracts people from around the world, Burning Man is very much a San Francisco Bay Area/Southern California festival.

And as such, the people that go there are living in an area that has great sway on technology, culture and the arts worldwide. Thus the influence of the Burning Man awareness of how we damage the environment becomes translated on a global scale.

Cooling Man could be used as a cheap shot to point to the carbon-release of activities that make Burning Man happen--without recognizing the positive effects on the environment that this community creates through their daily practice of awareness.

Link to BURNING MAN GOES GREEN

. . .

Burning Man Bingo (Thanks Kat!)

Posted by Tom Foremski on August 26, 2006 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

diggrz: DJs spin not speak; Musical dating; Bake a cake for Amanda she's coming this way . . .

[diggrz: a tag for arts and culture trends and events - in and around Silicon Valley - a new feature from Silicon Valley Watcher]

By Lucaso for Silicon Valley Watcher
Lately, I've been deleting music podcasts because I'm tired of hearing a DJ's voice, even for the track listing.

If I wanted to know the track info, I'd look it up on the chapter list in iTunes or read the playlist. Save the chatter for the new Skype wi-fi cellie and let the music of the podcast speak for itself, dig?

If a picture is worth a thousand words than a song is worth at least 999. So, with that in mind . . . here are two of my new favorite podcasts: BetterPropoganda and Memekast.

BetterPropoganda is an established digital music portal and Memekast features guest DJs doing live mixes. Both are electronic/breakbeat/dance focused, and even if you're only dancing in your chair, they're still hot.These two podcasts have taken over my iPod by giving me 30-40 minute sessions that are mixed live and uninterrupted... perfect for repeat play.

Music to meet people by . . . Similar to Last.fm, Mog lets you discover "people through music and music through people."

Not enough video sharing sites . . . Dabble lets you search, collect and organize your favorite web videos. What's different about Dabble and other video sharing sites? Hmmm ... the UI?

Dave.tv, another video sharing beta. The difference with Dave.tv is that you can create an entire broadcasting channel to put it anywhere on the web.

Amanda is heading this way. . . Yes, old Rocketboom anchor and videoblog actress Amanda Congdon is headed west. You can check out her trip across the states at Amanda Across America.

. . .

Come back to Silicon Valley Watcher for more diggrz: arts and culture and events posts throughout the week.

[diggrz refers to the nomadic lifestyle offered by mobile digital technologies and gadgets - creating a "nomadig" culture. The diggrz name is also a tip-of-the-hat to some of the ideas of the Diggers, a democratic group that arose in 1649, out of the English revolution .

The Diggers were a radical group that cultivated and protected common lands, and sought to create egalitarian, self-sustaining communities. The Diggers would have found kindred spirits in today's software engineer culture, and the focus on creating commonly owned technologies through egalitarian open source community projects. - Tom Foremski]

Tag: diggrz

Posted by Tom Foremski on September 19, 2006 1:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Silicon Valley Watcher - reporting on the business of technology and media

Former Financial Times journalist Tom Foremski and team reporting on the business of technology and media . Silicon Valley is becoming a Tech Media Valley.

Culture Watch Archives

October 4, 2005

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November 20, 2005

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March 7, 2006

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June 12, 2006

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June 15, 2006

Why is there no British Google? A top British politician asks...

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August 10, 2006

Om My God! Mighty fun evening with GigaOm and Sharpcast

August 15, 2006