Email Dashboard

I’m excited to be participating in the Defrag conference this year.  It’s Nov 3-4 in Denver.  Here’s some more about the conference.  There’s a really interesting group of people at Defrag – all involved in figuring out innovative ways to deal with the varied set of challenges faced due to a constantly shifting technology landscape and an always-increasing sea of information.  Eric Norlin has pulled together a diverse group of people in a format that allows plenty of time for deeper discussion than most conferences have.  The agenda features a bunch of great speakers and topics. I’m on a panel discussing "Fixing Foundational Information Channels" with a group of people working on better ways to share, present, and consume information. If you have ideas for interesting areas of discussion for that panel, please comment – I’m hoping we can go a level further than much of the common discussion in these areas that revolves largely around incremental changes to existing applications and platforms.

For anyone interested in attending, today (Aug 15) August 31 is the last day for early bird registration prices.  You can get another $100 off by entering "dh1" as a discount code here.  I hope some of you are able to make it to the conference, and I look forward to brainstorming on some good discussion topics in advance of the event.

"What would happen if MicroSoft or Yahoo or a MicroHoo went to the 5 top
results for the top 25k searches and paid them to leave the Google
Index ?"

Mark Cuban, 5/14/08

"Carl Icahn presented an alternate slate of directors … Since early 2000, Mr. Cuban has been the majority and controlling owner
of the National Basketball Association franchise, the Dallas Mavericks. …"

5/15/08

Nice.

Facebook just released a feature that suggests people you may know, described well in this Inside Facebook post.  This feels like the biggest step Facebook has taken to get closer to the type of introduction functionality that is at the heart of LinkedIn and  going there seems like a very obvious next step for Facebook.

A quick rundown of the new functionality first. A sidebar entry on your homepage rotates through a couple of people who you share friends with like this:

and the see all page shows you lists of people who you share friends with. 
A lot of the people are just people who you share hyperconnected Facebook friends with (Jon Staenberg knows EVERYONE!).  But it’s also very interesting to see people who you share friends with in completely different social circles.  I’ve definitely had a few, WAIT A SEC, HOW DO THEY KNOW EACH OTHER?!? moments.

My experience browsing the lists is that about 25% of the people suggested are people I actually am friends or acquaintances with, but just haven’t added on Facebook.  About 50% are people I am familiar with, but don’t know personally.  And the remaining quarter are people I don’t know at all.  Basically, a perfect platform from which to launch LinkedIn-style introductions.

I’ve written about contact segmentation in social networking in the past.  This is something that is going to be more important in social networks as boundaries of friends, business colleagues, and online acquaintances start to blur.  Facebook is giving a nod to that with their Privacy Changes and Friend Lists.  But as Facebook and other networks break down the tenuous walls around friends and contacts, having context about the nature of these relationships is going to be more important, and that’s something we’ve been working on.  The ClearContext Contact Exporter lets you extract and export sets of contacts from groups of Outlook folders, allowing you to export everyone you’ve invited to parties onto Facebook or groups like your investment contacts into LinkedIn.  But now that the roles of these social networks are overlapping more, it’s more likely to have both types of contacts in both places, so having richer information about the strength and nature of your relationships known by those sites will become more important – and analyzing email interactions is a good way to figure that out.  In our upcoming ClearContext release we’ve already added more contact-focused interactions directly into messaging workflow, allowing you to work with groups of contacts related to specific contexts or projects.  As we continue to be overwhelmed by information and and ever-increasing number of ways to exchange that information and interact with each other, it’s a really exciting time to be working on intelligent solutions to help people survive in this new era of hyperconnected communications.

Update:  One of the most hyperconnected folks around, the lovely Adriana Gascoigne, just wrote about how much she loves Facebook for virtual networking.   She’s not alone on that by any means, and that is exactly why I think we’ll be seeing functionality like Facebook Introductions soon.

Doc
Searls, Dave
Winer, Jason
Calacanis, Howard Lindzon,
and many others
have been writing about privacy and data ownership issues on Facebook. But I haven’t seen a comparison of policies
showing how Facebook actually stacks up against other players in the space.

So, I decided to take a look and see what policies are
actually in place around the web. Following
are links to privacy and terms of use policies for a number of social
networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace), major web service provider (Google,
Yahoo, MSN/Microsoft), blogging (WordPress, SixApart) and user-generated review (Yelp, Flixster) sites. For each of them, I focused on two specific
items:

1) What is their policy on sharing your personal
information?

2) What rights do they require you grant them to content
you create on their site?

Most all of them have similar policies in place regarding sharing
information for legal reasons, but not all of them explicitly and unambiguously
state they will not share your personal information with
marketers/advertisers. And only about
half explicitly limit the license granted on your content only for use in
providing their service.

Here’s an overview:

Privacy:

Best: LinkedIn, MySpace, Google, MSN, WordPress, SixApart,
Yelp – these sites have clearly stated policies not to share your information with
third-parties

Rest: Facebook, Yahoo, Flixster – these sites may share personal
information with marketing partners and advertisers without your consent

Data Rights

Best: LinkedIn, MySpace, Google, WordPress, SixApart, Yahoo
(photos, graphics, audio, or video) – these sites utilize your content in a limited
manner as necessary in providing their service

Rest: Facebook, Yahoo (Content other than photos, graphics,
audio or video), Flixster, MSN, Yelp – these sites require you grant them a
license for potentially much broader usage of any content you put on their
sites (in the case of MSN, granting the rights to the public rather than just MSN and in the case of Yelp, potentially preventing you and your friends from creating your own database of reviews you posted on Yelp)

And here are the actual links and excerpted text from the
sites:

Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/policy.php

We share your information with third parties only in limited
circumstances where we believe such sharing is 1) reasonably necessary to offer
the service, 2) legally required or, 3) permitted by you.

http://www.facebook.com/terms.php

irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully
paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly
perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part)
and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or
otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to
prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content

LinkedIn

http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=privacy_policy

· We will never rent or sell your personally identifiable information to
third parties for marketing purposes

· We will never share your contact information
with another user, without your consent.

http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=user_agreement

royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable license to use this
information in the course of offering the LinkedIn service.

MySpace

http://collect.myspace.com/misc/privacy.html

MySpace
will not disclose personal information to any third party unless we believe
that disclosure is necessary: (1) to conform to legal requirements or to
respond to a subpoena, search warrant or other legal process received by
MySpace.com, whether or not a response is required by applicable law; (2) to
enforce the MySpace.com Terms of Use Agreement or to protect our rights; or (3)
to protect the safety of members of the public and users of the service.

http://collect.myspace.com/misc/terms.html

a limited license to use, modify, publicly perform, publicly
display, reproduce, and distribute such Content solely on and through the MySpace
Services.

Google

http://www.google.com/privacypolicy.html#information

Google only shares personal
information with other companies or individuals outside of Google in the
following limited circumstances:

We have your consent. We require
opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information.

http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS

By submitting, posting or
displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide,
royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate,
publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which
you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for
the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the
Services

MSN/Microsoft

http://privacy2.msn.com/en-my/fullnotice.aspx

Microsoft does not sell, rent or lease its MSN customer lists
to third parties.

http://tou.live.com/en-us/default.aspx

However, by posting or otherwise
providing your submission, you are granting to the public free permission to:

• use, copy, distribute, display, publish and modify your
       submission, each in connection with the service;
• publish your name in connection with your submission;
       and
• grant these permissions to other persons.

Yahoo

http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/details.html

Yahoo! does not rent, sell, or share
personal information about you with other people or non-affiliated companies
except to provide products or services you’ve requested, when we have your
permission, or under the following circumstances:

• We provide the information to trusted partners who work
       on behalf of or with Yahoo! under confidentiality agreements. These
       companies may use your personal information to help Yahoo! communicate
       with you about offers from Yahoo! and our marketing partners.

http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/utos-173.html

· With respect to photos, graphics, audio or
video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas
of the Service other than Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute,
reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on
the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made
available.

· With respect to Content other than photos,
graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly
accessible areas of the Service other than Yahoo! Groups, the perpetual,
irrevocable and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, reproduce,
modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such
Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other works
in any format or medium now known or later developed.

WordPress

http://wordpress.org/about/privacy/

WordPress.org will not rent or sell potentially personally-identifying and
personally-identifying information to anyone.

http://wordpress.com/tos/

By submitting Content to Automattic for inclusion on your Website, you grant
Automattic a world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce,
modify, adapt and publish the Content solely for the purpose of displaying,
distributing and promoting your blog.

SixApart

http://www.sixapart.com/privacy

We do not share your information with unrelated third parties for their
direct marketing purposes.

http://www.sixapart.com/general_terms

By uploading, placing or posting Content through this Site or
the Services, you grant Six Apart a world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive
license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the Content solely for the
purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting such Content on Six Apart’s
Internet properties.

Yelp

http://www.yelp.com/faq#personal_info

We do not sell, rent, share, trade
or give away any of your personal information, unless required to by law.

http://www.yelp.com/static?p=tos

By posting Posted Content on the Yelp Site, you agree to and
hereby do grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant,
Yelp, its contractors, and the users of the Yelp Site an irrevocable,
perpetual, royalty-free, fully sublicensable, fully paid up, worldwide license
to use, copy, publicly perform, digitally perform, publicly display, and
distribute such Posted Content and to prepare derivative works of, or
incorporate into other works, such Posted Content. This license is
non-exclusive, except you agree that Yelp shall have the exclusive right to
practice this license to the extent of combining your Posted Content with the
Posted Content of other Yelp users for purposes of constructing or populating a
searchable database of business reviews.

Flixster

http://www.flixster.com/userAuth.do?privacy=

We may share your information with third-party service
providers including advertisers to help us provide or improve the service.

Flixster may share profile information in a personally identifiable
manner and aggregate usage information in a non-personally identifiable manner
to advertisers and other third parties in order to present to members more
targeted advertising, products and services.

http://www.flixster.com/userAuth.do?tos=

However, by uploading, posting, emailing or otherwise
transmitting any User Submission to Flixster or on the Site, you hereby grant
Flixster a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable, perpetual and
irrevocable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, prepare
derivative works based on, perform, display, publish, distribute, transmit,
broadcast and otherwise exploit such User Submissions in any form, medium or
technology now known or later developed, including without limitation on the
Site and third party websites.

There has been a lot of talk over the past couple of years regarding the impact of new technology that focuses on the delivery of software – SaaS/web-based vs more traditional packaged apps.  Other debates revolve around the merits of proprietary platforms vs. open-source technology. 

A lot of that to me simply distills down to questions of economics and implementation.  Important questions from a business perspective, no doubt, but often times not nearly as fundamentally important questions as they are made out to be.

Looking at a lot of categories of enterprise software, I think a more important question is the impact of closed vs open systems.  By closed in this context, I’m speaking of systems that live internally within corporations.  A few of the categories where this has major relevance include SFA, CRM, Collaboration, and Knowledge Management.  For many years, software providers have been trying to help companies maximize the utility of information within their organizations and streamline the way that information is used by people to get things done.

In many of these categories, there’s currently a broad chasm between "internal" apps that look at information within an organization and apps that are built on top of data that lives on the web.  These used to be very distinct silos of information and activity.  However, with the way people now work, these areas are starting to overlap – a lot.

If traditional enterprise software providers aren’t careful, much more lightweight applications that pull little pieces of data out from the enterprise from lots of different places will quickly become more powerful and relevant than the big, deep applications currently in place within the enterprise.

Jason Calacanis writes "I’ve never bought into it since anyone can be on the A-list if they blog intelligently for a couple of months/years."  I’m not sure what exactly his definition of A-list blogger is, but is that really true anymore?  It seems like the volume of blogs, and especially the number of "pro" blog networks out there, has changed the landscape significantly. 

Now, I suppose it might still be true to a degree, especially if someone focuses on writing and linking a lot on a small set of topics covered by an established set of bloggers.  But that’s just more of the same, which is already imo a pretty big failing of a lot of the "A-list" bloggers, many of whom just regurgitate the same stuff a bunch of other "A-list" bloggers are talking about. 

In terms of original content on a wide range of topics, I think it’s really much harder than Jason claims to rise above the noise.  There’s definitely a lot of good stuff being written out there, but I feel like it’s getting harder, not easier, to find.

Looking solely at the tech blogging world and techmeme in specific, what new blogs have emerged as
significant voices in the blogging world over the last few months?  While I’m sure there’s some confirmation bias here, the only one that really pops to mind is Marc Andreesen.  And he’s a very special case for obvious reasons. 

With the growth in volume of blogging, are there really so few new bloggers writing quality content that a bunch of established "A-list" bloggers writing slightly different takes on the newest iPhone or Apple OS happenings is the best stuff out there?   I doubt it.  But the way the blog ecosystem works, there’s a self-reinforcing effect that highly incents bloggers to write on the same topics that already established bloggers are writing about and link to each other.  That trend keeps discussion in the blogging world a lot less interesting and diverse than it could be.