Writing
725 posts on careers, communication, technology and civic life, since 2005.
Yesterday I saw a post about StructuredBlogging on Bryght’s Blog and on Kaliya’s blog and they piqued my interest. I was kinda surprised that I (or we) hadn’t heard about this conference before it happened because the concept of making blogs even more useful by structuring them with more machine readable data is really great. So I just poked around a bit on the Structured Blogging site and now I am thoroughly intrigued.
Throughout the NYC mayoral campaign I kept on talking to people about how much Bloomberg was spending on “list development” and how outrageous the amount seemed. It was $5 million in May! Well the NYT ran a story earlier this week exposing what the money was going to : [Voter] Lists like this usually include voters’ personal data – the magazines they buy, the cars they drive, their political affiliations. But as the cost of compiling Mr. Bloomberg’s list inched up toward $10 million, not even aides to President Bush, who perfected this sort of voter identification last year, could figure out where the money was going.
Friendster caught some flack recently for “re-inviting” people who had not responded to previous invites from their friends. The temptation is strong to abuse email addresses of people who have not opted in to your site or list. Friendster spokesman Jeff Roberto called this a misconception. “We’re not in the business of spamming,” he said. The campaign, he added, was a one-time mailing to people who were once invited but never joined the network. I would like to point out that a generally accepted definition of spam includes: any commercially oriented, unsolicited bulk mailing perceived as being excessive and undesired. I would add: or any advertising email that comes from a source with which the recipient does not have a pre-existing commercial relationship.
“You have to be smart about how you use e-mail,” said David Strom, editor in chief of Tom’s Hardware Guide, a technology review Web site. “Otherwise you let it ruin your life.” This recent article from the New York Times struck me. As a virtual worker who interacts with my coworkers, clients and other business associates almost exclusively by email, i really don’t feel buried under it. Which is not to say I am not addicted to it. Checking email is one of the first things I do in the morning and one of the last I do most nights. Perhaps the single greatest reason why I don’t suffer from the stress detailed in the article is because there is not much “one-up-manship” in my email exchanges, nor the competition embodied by so much corporate emailing (according to the article).
Big guns in the software industry are massing behind OpenDocument as government customers show more interest in open-source alternatives to Microsoft’s desktop software. Oh how those words (from a CNET/NYT article last week) danced across the screen to my delight! I have been waiting for, and wondering when(and even nudging in the case of the NYC Council) government purchasers were going to get hip to the benefits of open source software and open data formats in this county. You have customers like Massachusetts asking for choice and the ability to play vendors off each other, and at the same time, you have vendors looking at an opportunity to compete on a Microsoft control point.” I followed this development a few months ago (can’t find the link)and hoped that it would open the door to open source government procurement policies, and it looks like it might be.
Just saw an email from Matt Thompson up in Canada (met him at WebOfChange , even video cast ). Matt just did a video for the SaveTheInternet.com campaign. The video is fantastic. Uses great visuals including clips from the Daily Show, news reel footage and animation all linked with a strong voice over narration (by Matt).
After about a week we are back. Our site is now upgraded, and we’ll be blogging again!
The CivicActions blog is taking a short break. We should be back in time for the holidays!
On saturday I attended RootsCampNYC , and unconference dedicated to debriefing on the elections with a decidedly technological flavor. I shot some video with a Samsung SC-210 digital video camera (that I am returning tomorrow because it doesn’t play well with Mac despite what the box says.) The video above is a short interview with Sanford Dickert. I’ve got a few more videos up on YouTube .
Is it about privacy or transparency? Or just colossal failure of judgement? On Monday, AOL admitted making a 2-GB file with the search records of 658,000 people available for public download — exactly the sort of information the DOJ sought, and failed, to force Google to provide under the guise of protecting children. Recall that AOL, MSN and Yahoo all buckled to the pressure and released the information. The AOL data represented 1.5% of the search users in May, who were identified by number and not username, but whose vanity searches and map directions give them away. Reportedly, law enforcement officials are scouring the data for potential malfeasance. The Blogosphere was aflame last night.