Three social media giants, three giant media announcements: Ning, Twitter, Facebook. In only seven days, these three companies have announced major changes to their products and/or business models. Is it a sign of things to come? How will each of these companies answer the question of how to turn its growth into revenue?

A quick synopsis of each situation:

Twitter. According to comScore, Twitter.com had 22.3 million unique visitors in March, up from 524,000 a year ago (excluding those who use third party apps), but it has been criticized for its inability to monetize those users, until now. Twitter is finally launching an ad system called “Promoted Tweets” that will show up when Twitter users search for keywords that the advertisers have bought to link to their ads. Later, Twitter plans to show promoted posts in the stream of Twitter posts (a controversial move), based on how relevant they might be to a particular user. You can watch a video about it here.

Fred Wilson, a Twitter board member, dropped a bomb on Twitter’s third-party developers, telling them to stop “filling holes in the Twitter product,” and start creating “something entirely new on top of Twitter.” Twitter has since purchased Atebits, the company responsible for the Tweetie iPhone app, and is renaming it Twitter for iPhone. They will also releasing an official app for the Android Phone OS. It looks like Twitter is prepared to compete with, and potentially replace the companies who have built applications around its ecosystem. So much for playing nice.

Facebook. On the surface, Facebook’s move doesn’t seem like much, but the Facebookipedia concept of creating ‘community pages’ could be an incredibly stealthy move to target advertising to users without them even realizing it.  Community pages take the concept of a Facebook “fan page” and apply them to concepts, places, and ideas, rather than brands. When prompted by a dialog box that pops up on their profiles, to “like” community pages that tie into what’s already entered into their profiles, users can connect to the community pages for their hometowns and schools, and convert the “interests” entered in their profiles to link to pages. This increases the amount of metadata for each user and makes search much easier for everyone. It seems like a win/win proposition though. Users of Facebook can contribute to, and potentially benefit from the increased access to shared knowledge via wiki-like pages, and Facebook can gain from the amount of data on each of its users in order to have better targeted ads. Note the implementation of this change also coincides with Facebook’s decision to step up its privacy policy/settings.

Ning. Ning (“peace” in Chinese) is a platform that allows anyone to set up their own social network. After over five years as CEO, Gina Bianchini resigns, and is replaced by COO Jason Rosenthal. One month later, the company decides to phase out its free product, and lays off 40% of its workforce (from 167 to 98).  In an interview, Bianchini mentions that about 13% of Ning’s revenue stream is from paid, premium services, an amount that contributes to what some are estimating to be roughly $10 million in total annual revenue. This appears, however, to be an optimistic ball park figure, and is likely to be lower since not all users are necessarily be paying the maximum of $55/month for pro services.  As stated by Rosenthal in his staff memo, “we are going to change our strategy to devote 100% of our resources to building the winning product to capture this big opportunity” – the big opportunity being the premium service, not the model supported by advertising.

Ning’s approach sounds completely different from Bianchini’s interview, which occurred not too long before her departure, and the model diverges from both Facebook and Twitter.

Although I do love the Ning platform, the recent changes to Facebook that enables users to be more ‘community minded’ will cause the orphaned communities of the once ‘free’ Ning to jump ship to Facebook, where they will continue to ‘deal’ with the ads, and Facebook will benefit from Ning’s lost revenue. Other providers, such as Posterous and Tumblr, are welcoming new users with open arms. Posterous is committing to building a Ning blog importer, and BuddyPress has politely offered helpful resources to those looking to make the transition, including a user importer as well. Even with a 40% cut in staff, a revenue stream that accounts for 13% of Ning’s overall income doesn’t appear to be enough to support the company. It’s a risky move. Here’s hoping the next generation of their product will be astounding. As for Twitter and Facebook, the focus on metadata and data mining for advertising purposes could provide them with a large number of earnings. The only difference is that Twitter is being much more direct in its approach.

We’re at a crux for social networks. These platforms have enabled communication in new ways, increased transparency and knowledge sharing, facilitated new business and educational models, and have shifted the landscape of marketing and advertising. However, without the necessary revenues to support themselves, these platforms could disappear. Do we want another bubble? What do you think about the decisions made by these three companies? Do you agree with Rosenthal’s decision in changing Ning’s business model, and is this the reason for Bianchini’s departure from the company?

Last month my colleague Laura Carrillo asked if it will be Apple or Google to own the third screen. Recent events have provided an opportunity for a third contender in the quest for the third screen: Microsoft.

Tentative talks have been underway for weeks now between rivals Microsoft and Apple to replace Google with Bing as the default search engine on all iPhones.  The last time something like this happened it was Microsoft allowing iTunes on the Windows platform in 2003.

“If you have to do deal with the devil,” says Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey, “you might as well deal with the one that needs you the most.”

From Apple’s ban of Google’s apps on its store to the departure of Eric Schmidt from Apple’s Board of Directors last August, it has been increasingly apparent that over the past couple of years that tensions in the relationship between Apple and Google have been emerging.  Finally on January 5, 2010, Google unveiled its phone, the Nexus One, and officially entered the mobile hardware market. On that very same day, Apple acquired Quattro Wireless (Apple’s second choice after Google outbid them to acquire AdMob in fall of 2009), and entered Google’s sphere of advertising. It’s now officially war.

All of this time, Microsoft has assumed the archetype of the forgotten middle child; exactly where it wants to be. With dwindling market share of its mobile OS, why would anyone expect the company to announce its entry into the mobile device market? Microsoft has also repeatedly denied any intention of entering this market, much like Apple did before it released the iPhone.

Back in 2006, Microsoft launched the Zune as an alternate and competing product to the iPod, albeit five years later. It has never come even close to touching Apple’s share in the portable media player market. In 2009, Microsoft only had an estimated 2% as compared to Apple’s 70%. With a five-year competitive advantage and Microsoft’s lack of experience in hardware, this came as no surprise to many. Windows Mobile OS also trails in market share behind Nokia, Apple, and RIM. Q3 2009 reports tell it only has roughly 8% of the global share.

Could Microsoft gain ground in these areas with a phone?

Back in 2008, Microsoft purchased Danger, the producers of the Sidekick for $500 million and subsequently formed the Microsoft Premium Mobile eXperiences (PMX) group. Mary Jo Foley also writes of the Pink Project, the codename for both the set of premium mobile services and one or more Windows Mobile phones aimed at the teen/twenty-something market.

In Q3 of last year, Microsoft launched the Zune marketplace (U.S. and Puerto Rico only) and announced in December the decision to form a new organization within the Server & Tools Business that combines the Windows Server & Solutions group and the Windows Azure group, into a single organization called the Server & Cloud Division (SCD).

Over at Engadget back in April of last year, Nilay Patel rumored that Microsoft was getting ready to launch Zune software on telephone handsets and those rumblings are still going on today.

Robbie Bach, President of Entertainment and Devices at MS, has even gone on record saying, “There are other places where Zune logically could go that we don’t get to talk about yet.” Interview transcript here.

It sounds like Microsoft has been steadily working on putting all of the pieces together.

The Microsoft user experience has come a long way. On the software side, Windows 7 OS has been touted as being even better than Snow Leopard; a far cry from Vista, which was only release worldwide three years ago. I will also personally attest to the quality of MS Surface, its tablet device, since I had the pleasure of testing it out myself at IDS10 this past weekend. Microsoft has definitely stepped up its game in the field of interaction design.

With Windows Mobile 7, Microsoft could still be a serious contender in the battle for the platform and ultimate user experience. It has almost every piece of the puzzle: an operating system, mobile hardware (potentially) to load it onto, a search engine (with an opportunity to cut Google off of an information source and subsequent revenue stream), and the marketplace to integrate everything together (even with Xbox Live).

Could it be a step towards a seamless and integrated complete user experience? Here’s hoping we’ll find out more about WinMo7 at the Mobile World Congress in Spain, beginning on February 15^th.

IMHO, I will make one recommendation to the folks at Microsoft. For Microsoft to acquire anything beyond a specialty niche in the mobile computing device market, it is going to require a concerted effort. With an ecosystem of 100,000 applications, and with over two-and-a-half years with a product already on the market, Apple has a big lead. There is a lot of ground to cover in the smartphone market. The Zune trailed the iPod by five years. Don’t let another five go by.

The rise in mobile computational devices such as smartphones and the opening of SDKs for operating systems such as Android, the iPhone, and Symbian have resulted in the proliferation of applications that have enabled users the ability to edit photos without having to purchasing expensive third party applications. Some of these are even free. For example, instead of working in Photoshop to create panoramic photos, I simply purchased a fantastic little app called Panorama for my iPhone and it uses an algorithm to seamlessly patch photos together.

However, the compromise in using a mobile device to take photos is that the quality of the camera is nowhere near that of using a DSLR. Beyond ‘face detection’ and ‘red eye reduction’, how will camera companies continue to further the computational development of their products?

Stanford Computer Science researchers have gone beyond this question and are taking matters into their own hands. Marc Levoy, professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, and his students are currently developing what they call ‘Frankencamera’, an open-source and fully programmable camera that allows computational photography researchers and enthusiasts to develop and test new ideas and applications. They believe that the camera no longer needs to be limited by the features that a closed and proprietary camera manufacturer deems fit to supply. All the features of the Stanford camera – focus, exposure, shutter speed, flash, etc. – are at the command of software that can be created by inspired programmers anywhere.

I think Levoy phrases it best when he states:

For the last ten years there’s been a megapixel war. That’s finally winding down and the asian camera manufacturers can no longer compete based on the number of megapixels so now they’re beginning to compete on one other feature. We’d like them to offer lots and lots of features that the research community is currently working on and offer those all at one; not merely when they want to compete with one another.

With support from Nokia, Adobe Systems, Kodak, and Hewlett-Packard, Levoy and his students have put together the open-source camera from a number of difference parts. The motherboard is a Texas Instruments ‘system on a chip’ running Linux with image and general processors and a small LCD screen. The imaging chip is from a Nokia N95 cell phone. They are using standard Canon lenses, but they are combined with actuators to give the camera fine-tuned software control. Finally, the body is custom made at Stanford.

Within about a year, after the camera is developed to his satisfaction, Levoy hopes to have to have the funding and the arrangements in place for an outside manufacturer to produce them in quantity, ideally for less than $1,000. Levoy would then provide them at cost to colleagues and their students at other universities.

Although far from distribution to the public, this is an incredible advancement in computational photography. One can only hope that camera manufacturers will catch word of this and will adopt their philosophy, accelerating the process with their use of capital and technology.

Failed systems. Constructs designed by humans that have faltered at some point in the process. Some might say education is the next to witness this.

Tom Brown, CEO of IDEO, questions the current economic model in North America:

I have been thinking quite a bit recently about the failure of the economy and whether we want it to recover to its pre-bust state. As I listened to the arguments for various stimulus packages, the main justification for distributing hundreds of billions of dollars seemed mostly to involve getting us to spend more by consuming more. As a short term fix this may be okay, but wasn’t it just such an unsustainable approach to growth and consumption that got us into trouble in the first place? Can we really expect to spend our way out of this downturn and somehow magically create a post-crisis economy that is sustainable?

You mean throwing money at a problem won’t solve it if the model has an inherent flaw? How do we redesign society on a macro level? How does one magically create a post crisis economy?

There is the concept of a participatory government, whereby citizens play a direct role in designing/monitoring/enforcing the rules that govern economic activity. Gong Szeto, designer and creator of YOUROWNDEMOCRACY, believes that we should redesign government as a computational platform:

Today’s technology allows for innovative online collaboration, networking, transactional, and information visualization. Integrated together in a coherent set of solutions for the citizens of democracy, it is now possible to conceive of a single-platform which is an independent non-partisan party whose sole mandate is to harness the power of these technologies into an accessible framework that will allow citizens the ability to stay informed about complex issues and to register their votes in favor or in opposition to processes in government. Transparency will lead to a stronger, more active and informed citizenry and more accountable government.

A Finalist in the 2009 Buckminster Fuller Challenge, YOUROWNDEMOCRACY is a web-based application geared to empower citizens of any democracy in the world to directly engage one another and their elected leaders on important issues on local, state, and national levels. Its goals:

•    empower collective action through citizen action
•    integrate with public citizens for immediate feedback.

You can read more about Gong’s proposal here. The concept applies today’s social networking, multimedia, and financial markets technologies to create a collaborative infrastructure that records and displays a population’s real-time sentiments. This data is measured and visualized for everyone as part of a continuous feedback loop.

I can appreciate that the idea makes issues digestible and actionable. Provided citizens are engaged, YOUROWNDEMOCRACY fosters a culture of transparency, openness and innovation. Transparency can even be a regulatory solution whereby connected citizens can act as monitors within the system. In the same breath though, transparency also means privacy issues.  Network and security issues could threaten public safety.  Data mining (especially on such a remarkable scale) and identity theft are not two phrases anyone enjoys hearing in the same sentence. With an accessible central repository of citizen data, the right data in the wrong hands could potentially be very harmful.

Scalability comes into play. Can the complete scope and needs of the people be adequately addressed using such a system? Do we have the physical resources required to support such an infrastructure. Twitter, an exemplary use of social media being used to track political events such as the post-election riots in Iran, has become a victim of its own success. It has experienced massive scaling problems due to the amount of page views per second.

There is also the daunting task of defining the parameters of the system. Should the system mimic the current infrastructure or does the change in methodology alter the system itself? Szeto’s approach is that of an independent non-partisan party whose sole mandate is to harness the power of these technologies into an accessible framework. This idea alters the current multiple party system of politics to that of a direct democracy. A changing model of governance also means a change in distribution of labour within government. Who is responsible for framing the questions asked – the government or the people? Careful understanding and use of verbiage in law is paramount. Ballot initiatives, a costly method of doing politics, have been considered to be the reason for paralysis of the political process in California and have been deemed the ‘crack cocaine’ of democracy by the Economist. Ironically enough, the original intention of ballot initiatives was to empower citizens at a grassroots level.

Accessibility is yet another concern. PM Stephen Harper recently announced the government’s intention to improve broadband internet access to rural Canada. Although this is a step in the right direction, it illustrates the point that not all citizens of Canada have equal access to broadband technologies. Those unfamiliar with the technology may not be as inclined to use it as well.

Will this design have longevity? With technology constantly evolving, would the current system, and therefore the political system (depending on mutual exclusivity of the two) be able to stand the test of time due to technological obsolescence? Would interest fade? The law of diminishing utility could mean that citizens could simply get bored of using the system and participation could simply diminish over time.

Are people truly ready, willing, and able to govern themselves?

On January 22, 2009, Encyclopaedia Britannica president Jorge Cauz announced that they will be releasing new features on Britannica.com that empower users to contribute and edit content. However, all submissions will undergo a strict vetting process, and may not make the cut. As Cauz reported to the New York Times, “We’re not trying to be a wiki – that’s the last thing we want to be.”

Now why would a 240 year old steadfast institution suddenly make such a drastic change in its approach? The answer: the bottom line. Let’s compare web traffic:

Britannica’s Web 2.0 approach isn’t exactly brand new. Back in July of 2008, Britannica launched a new version of its web site that was more interactive and full of new media resources. Members of the community were given an online home allowing them to promote their work and services, publish and share the work that they create outside of the encyclopaedia, and interact with others in the community. The site even features a ‘reward system’ to motivate users to contribute.

I see the reiteration of these ‘new features’ as a marketing ploy to retort Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales’ proposal to review revisions by new and anonymous users before posting them to Wikipedia. This editing change comes after vandals edited the pages of Senators Robert Byrd and Edward (Ted) Kennedy, erroneously stating that both had died. As if Senator Kennedy’s seizure during Obama’s post-inaugural luncheon wasn’t unfortunate enough!

Wales’ proposed new system, called Flagged Revisions, would mark a significant change in the ethos of Wikipedia, which in eight years of existence has become one of the top 10 sites on the Web and the de facto information source for the Internet-using public. Used by German Wikipedia since last May, flagged revisions provides only ‘reliable users’ with the liberty to have their material appear immediately to the general public. Other contributors can edit articles, but their changes will be held until registered, reliable users have signed off on them.

Due to a massive backlash from editors stating that the proposal is unfeasible and unmanageable, Wales is offering a compromise, asking those opposed to the changes make an alternative proposal within the next seven days, to be voted upon 14 days after that.

The convergence of the two processes is, in my opinion, long overdue. Regardless of whether or not the Nature article back in 2005 has been debunked or not is somewhat irrelevant. The point remains – everyone makes mistakes, be they accidental or intentional.

As first quoted by Alexander Pope in An Essay on Criticism, and later expanded upon by the Farmers’ Almanac in 1978, “To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer. The fact that both knowledge bases have come to their senses and have realized that a screening process is necessary is vital to the accuracy of both publications.

The convergence of these processes will hopefully also result in the convergence of error rates. However, if this does occur, and Wikipedia and Britannica will hold the same veracity, why exactly then would I pay to read one over the other? Besides, isn’t researching an encyclopaedia simply a secondary point of research to start from? If I really care about a topic, I’ll continue researching from different sources, both primary and secondary. Britannica’s attempt at finally jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon may provide them with a few more page views for now, but I highly doubt that it will be it’s saving grace.

Why would Google dump this? They claim that it was so they could focus efforts on other products, like Toolbar and Gears, and to extend the capability of multiple browsers. I wonder though, is this really the reason? Think about it. With with the ever-increasing prevalence of mobile computing, and with social bookmarking managers such as del.icio.us, will people in the near future really need to be able to access the same bookmarks on the same browser? Information is voluntarily placed in (organized?) repositories in a centralized databases with better searching capabilities from individual access points.

The other issue is without Google hosting the information any more, you will need to host it on your own, or find someone you can trust with your information. The thread on Slashdot where I picked this up is pretty funny. Chrisq makes a point of stating,

with Google you knew where you stood. They might use your info to to target advertising. They might reveal it to the government if ordered to do so. They would not be likely to sell it to spammers or pass on lists…

I do think the best line though is about releasing Windows ME in the interest of tragic comedy!

This isn’t far off.

Although it is not actually in 3D, as it is still on a screen (2D), the third dimension is still implied.

Created by LM3Labs, the technology comes from UbiqWindow and involves combining two 2D mid-air projections systems with motion systems in order to create gesture based interface for exploring the world in 3D.

Neat.

Nintendo has been a company to push the boundaries with game interactivity. Not all of their controllers have been incredibly successful (Power Glove what?), but you have to give them credit for their ingenuity. The wiimote has been incredibly successful, and the recent addition to inserting it into a wheel for the new Super Mario Kart game is exciting. Games like Guitar Hero and Rockband have captured a large portion of the gaming market in a short period of time and who doesn’t still love playing Dance Dance Revolution every once in a while? And I’ll certainly never forget the feeling the first time I received the rumble of my haptic Playstation 2 gamepad.

But kids, it’s now time to put all of those devices away. Introducing, the ZCam.

The ZCam is a consumer videocamera that can capture video with depth information: with its 3D capture abilities it will allow you to play Wii-style without using any controls whatsoever. In fact, it is so precise that it will even recognize your finger gestures to fire a weapon or manipulate your computer like in Minority Report, but without gloves or any other external device. You become the gaming device.

About the size of a webcam, 3DV Systems’ ZCam is fitted with lasers that project near-infrared light and a digital camera that picks up the light after it reflects off objects. By measuring the intensity of the reflections (by ordering the objects in the scene by layers in the Z axis), the software creates a three-dimensional map, accurate down to half a millimeter, at 60 frames per second. The ZCam can also hold a second camera that records regular color video. Combining that video with the 3-D map allows the device to not only translate your gestures but also render you as a 3-D avatar in the game. While there have been professional cameras with depth capture in the past, this is the first time that a device of such characteristics is cheap enough to be built into any game system or computer.

Even though it may not be as precise and flexible as a real full 3D motion tracking system, it can indeed provide with a new level of interactivity in video games and any application—like computer user interface manipulation.

Although I can’t see this device working for all video games, as I’m sure people will still want to use devices for driving and flight simulators, I think this is incredible technology. It was first released at CES 2008, and should be available in the second half of this year for roughly $100. Not too bad.

SeeqPod is a fantastic music flash-based site that works as a search engine. Users can search to find mp3 files that are hosted on other people’s sites. It links to content as Google would, although it does allow users to play the content from their site, but ultimately they never host any of the content. Although I’m not always the biggest proponent of Flash due to its proprietary nature, it is instances such as this that demonstrate the situational applicability of the software. But I digress.

The nature of this site, however, hasn’t stopped Warner Music from suing the “playable search” company. You can view a PDF of Warner’s complaint against SeeqPod here. SeeqPod claims its music search technology is legal because it doesn’t actually host any files. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act has a provision that protects search engines from charges of infringement when they return potentially infringing results.

Once again, the music companies have it all wrong. Why is it wrong for people to sample music before buying it? If anything, sites like this can help the music industry by allowing people to check out new bands or DJ’s. Besides, if people really want to steal music, they’re going to. It must be of one’s own volition. Due to the software used to create the site, SeeqPod doesn’t actually enable people to steal music.

Just yesterday at SXSW, SeeqPod announced the introduction of its HollaWalla music wall widget. The new widget allows fans, bloggers, events producers, bands, and labels anywhere to search for audio results, build a playlist and share it with friends or fans via email, a social network profile, any blog or website. Developed in-house, the widget enables people to make comments on each “Holla” (search result) on the “Walla” (playlist), adding a dimension of personalization throught interactive, real-time conversation within the HollaWalla application. Another great move by SeeqPod.

You can even check out their API here.

GCBC is a insightful documentary about copyright and culture in the context of Internet, and is directed by independent Danish directors Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen, and Henrik Moltke. The film goes around the world, showing the changing attitudes toward art and culture in Nigeria, Sweden, Brazil, the UK, and in the US. It features interviews with many people with various perspectives on copyright, including copyright lawyers such as Lawrence Lessig from Creative Commons, Tiamo and Anakata from The Pirate Bay, music producers, and controversial music artists such as Girl Talk and Danger Mouse who, as we all know, created the Grey Album by mixing The Beatles’ White Album with Jay-Z’s Black Album.

Even MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) CEO Dan Glickman makes an appearance. He briefly comments on the MPAA’s involvement with the raid on The Pirate Bay. Glickman states that although he knows piracy will never be stopped, they will try to make it as difficult and tedious as possible.

Amongst the most interesting segments include a trip to Russia to look at the rampant bootlegging that occurs there, the perspectives of the Nigerian film industry and the Techno Brega musical movement in Brazil, which has been using a business model for years that was originally considered to be pioneered by The Pixies, Metallica, and Phish back in 2004.

What becomes obvious progressively throughout the film is the death of the current business models used by the record industry and the lack of control which is becoming more prevalent in the current consumerist climate. The old vanguards are fighting to retain their revenue while people are endlessly re-using and recycling copyrighted material in order to create new art-forms.

I would highly recommend this light-hearted and neutral account of the current state of copyright to anyone. The link to download GCBC can be found here. Feel free to donate something to the makers of the documentary if you enjoy watching it.

According to the WBCSD, the patents are searchable by anyone through a search engine on their website and global participation from businesses in diverse industry sectors are welcome. It will be fed with initial and subsequent patent pledges by companies that become members of the Commons. Through the Commons, the patents will be made available for free use by all, subject to defensive termination.

The objectives of the Eco-Patent Commons:

• To provide an avenue by which innovations and solutions may be easily shared to accelerate and facilitate implementations to protect the environment and perhaps lead to further innovation.
• To promote and encourage cooperation and collaboration between businesses that pledge patents and potential users to foster further joint innovations and the advancement and development of solutions that benefit the environment.

Examples of environmental benefits patented inventions may provide:

• Energy conservation or efficiency
• Pollution prevention (source reduction, waste reduction)
• Use of environmentally preferable materials or substances
• Materials reduction
• Increased recycling ability

It is fantastic to see big business making such great strides to help the environment. Not only will these patents help the public domain to share economical and environmentally sustainable practices directly, but the concepts and specific information in these patents could inspire others for formulate new ideas and methodologies for other products and services.

Plaxo, Google and Facebook currently represent the key players in the competing approaches to Social Networking Platforms and Data Portability. Users could potentially take their data from the websites they use to reuse elsewhere and vendors could potentially leverage safe cross-site data exchange for a whole new level of innovation.

Among other things, the DataPortability Workgroup is actively working to create the ‘DataPortability Reference Design’ to document the best practices for integrating existing open standards and protocols for maximum interoperability.

Data privacy, however, is another issue. It is exciting though to see where this is going.

In all honesty, it doesn’t really surprise me all that much that the two organizations have dissolved their relationship of only six months. After all, Negroponte and Intel have had two very different visions, and rationales, for delivering personal computers to emerging nations (or markets rather).

Apparently, the Classmate is by far outselling the XO laptop (OLPC’s version) despite the fact that it is more expensive and offers less features overall, but has more processing power.

It is unfortunate that these two organizations are unable to resolve their differences. It seems odd to me that the two laptops are in competition with one another when they are at two separate price points and have different features. What if the OLPC program and Intel had worked together on creating another version of the XO with a better processor and more memory? (The XO would have to replace its AMD chips with Intel ones). Although this would tier the market, it would still provide lower end laptops to various developing nations. In effect, a country with high human development such as Brazil could better afford the classmate and wouldn’t need some of the features that the current XO offers (such as a turn crank or pull string). In areas of low to medium human development; i.e. most of Africa, these alternative features can be beneficial. I, however, am in agreement with Dan Herman’s opinion on the subject.

According to G. Pascal Zachary, Stanford journalism lecturer, “In today’s world the real value to a computer is it being networked… Finding a network in the poor areas is either impossible or very expensive.” Due to poor infrastructure in most developing nations, as well as the concept of connectivity by proxy with the XO, finding an internet connection will likely be rather difficult. In addition, the current trend of mobile devices becoming ‘all-in-one’ could provide people in developing nations with various modes of communication (including telephony) that would require far less electrical power and is more inconspicuous. This could help prevent theft.

On the other hand, although the implementation of technology as a form of aid within developing nations doesn’t necessarily address immediate needs, investments made in technology and in education could help those in the future once implemented.

On the OLPC website, it is claimed that the GUI (graphical user interface) embraces the spirit of the network. It is all about community and collaboration – working and playing together to learn, create and communicate. This, in essence, appears to be the goal of the OLPC program. If what is being reported about Nicolas Negroponte is in fact true, then totalitarian rule over design and implementation appears to defeat the purpose and the intended goals of the program itself. Besides, competition can only help to drive improvement. Impoverished youths will receive better laptops. Isn’t this the goal of the OLPC program – to help the children?

Care to vent about that ex who’s now dating your nemesis or are you just a misanthrope who can’t stop complaining? This parody on Facebook appears to look and function much like Facebook, except with an evil twist for everything. Profiles even include an almost Nietzschean section entitled “Why I’m Better Than You!”

However, don’t play around with Hatebook too much if you are concerned about privacy. All messages are viewable by all other users, and there are no privacy controls. This is a good thing, in my opinion, as a social networking site focusing on hatred could attract the ‘wrong type’ of individuals. As such, transparency can help protect everyone involved.

There is one problem though. Instead of an entire networking platform based on griping, you can simply install Enemybook on Facebook and save yourself the time of setting up another account. Who me? Complain? Never.

It is now 2007. Less than ten years later, machinima is reaching new heights. As posted by Xeni on Boing Boing today, HBO has decided to purchase the rights to a Second Life machinima series entitled, My Second Life: The Video Diaries of Molotov Alva. Originally appearing on YouTube on March 2nd of this year, the Second Life avatar of Douglas Gayeton has created quite the media buzz with over 450,000 hits since then. The ‘documentary’ features a mysterious resident who leaves his real life behind to search for existential answers in the virtual world of Second Life.

HBO will soon be screening the film in a Los Angeles theater in order to meet the requirements for nomination of an Oscar in the Animated Short Subject category. So far, this deal is the highest profile example of an SL-to-RL rights deal to date. This also leverages Linden Lab’s policy in which residents may retain the underlying intellectual property rights for content that they create in the virtual world.