Lisa Padilla on Media and Culture

This week I attend the largest technology conference I have seen to date. Typically held in Geneva, the International Telecommunication Union Conference (ITU) was held in Hong Kong December 2006. Held once every 4 years, this event has drawn over 150,000 attendees from all over the world. Those who know me will understand the sheer nirvana I am experiencing in connecting with people from so many countries all discussing and understand opportunities to extend technology and improve social conditions. Very few people I spoke with in the US before the event even knew what the ITU was, including me, so I learned that the ITU is the telecommunications committee for the United Nations (UN). This morning, among a diverse and experienced group of telecommunication leaders in a panel on this first official day of the event, were Andre Smit of Cisco and Didier Philippe , President of the Micro-Enterprise Acceleration Institute in Switzerland, who is working with HP. They spoke about the conver...

Mashery made headlines last week at Web 2.0, not by presenting but by being present. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=19&entry_id=10700 Mashery launches with two versions of it's service, "free" and "pro". The free version offers a place online for people to find a company's API, along with documentation and peer support. Also cool, this version includes an integrated forum, wiki, and blog (and you only need one login). The pro account, which typically runs around $1000/month, includes extensive metrics (such as precisely who is using the API and how much), issuing of developer keys, security features and server load protection. You can, however, sign up developers for your community with the free version. I think this service has so very much potential in aiding companies in being successful, in fact, if it had been around in 2000 I bet there would be fewer professionals returning to the Midwest waning "I used to be in that th...

When asked about the latest trends of hosted office applications and how they are built, Marco Boerries (SVP Connected Life, Yahoo!) said at the DowJones VentureWire Consumer Technology Ventures Conference ( pics ) this morning that he did not think it mattered whether these were built in AJAX or Java, what was important was the “openness” of these services. For the office, things like open document formats and rich text editors would continually grow in importance whereas consumers will be mostly about getting media and being able to open it. His response to a question from the audience about open source applications and their future was tepid. Boerries feels that the value chain created by companies such as Microsoft, Intel and Dell is a huge inertia to overcome but the fact is that we do use fewer Windows applications than we did 10 years ago and he looks forward to more Linux-based solutions. “Less time in front of the PC, more time in front of the phone,” says Boerries. Time that...

Yesterday I attended the ACM West conference in San Jose. Most of the attendees were from the Public Access community. One session I attended was on the topic of Youth Media, mainly with regard to camps, outreach programs and intern training through public access TV stations. i was struck by the community element, something I feel is missing in most of the competitive, fund-seeking world of Silicon Valley startups. But there are some really great programs out there, and some great volunteers and production professionals looking to share learning about video broadcasting. As example, the Youth Media session began with no moderation or leadership -- they actually didn't show up. So the group looked around, quickly and without question nominated a moderator and turned the session into a very productive roundtable discussion. I'm not sure that would happen as readily at a technology conference. Later in the evening I met with a couple of people at a Halloween party thrown by my fr...

Stowe Boyd is someone who attends a lot of conferences on technology, all around the world. He is widely regarded as an expert in social and business applications. I caught him for a few minutes to discuss his thoughts about the first annual Office 2.0 Conference ( pictures here ), it's relative success to similar conferences and the building and selling of enterprise software. He raised a good question that wasn't covered at the conference and that was in essence "If we're talking about Office 2.0 software and that it's the future, what elements of Office 1.0 are not going to survive in the future enterprise?". I was less enticed by the OpenID presentation and it's potential for adoption and more interested in the ideas IBM presented about longer-term document management and protection. Early adopters like Stowe and me, might be picking up one-off feature applications like signature managers or even 30boxes.com, but we agreed that those will fold into l...

On Saturday night this week I witnessed something interesting. It was the Live Billboard Project in San Francisco. It wasn't interesting because it was effective. It seemed to sell nothing more than the concept alone. What was interesting was that it arrested the attention of hundreds of people on Mission Street. When I came upon them, they were standing completely silent, staring up at the building. I wondered at first if there were a band performing on the roof, but I found that not to be the case. I'm all for performace art (not really) and for experimental advertising (if it sells). Calvin Klein did a live billboard about a year ago, and models danced around above their store in the clothes. That probably sold a few more clothes. But on Mission Street, the cafe scene meets gymnast act meets lack of purpose, seemed to mesmerize a group of people, again, to complete silence. The only sound beside the cars passing by was a man on the opposite corner telling everyone that the ...

In the end anyway. Says the article : Sept. 28, 2006: HP announces the resignation of General Counsel Ann Baskins, who helped oversee the leaks probe.

My favorite acronym for a great deal of time has been " API ". It was one of the only things that made me feel better to hear after the past 5 years hearing overly-used terms such as AI (as in not so), SEC (as in investigation), and IPO (as in not currently planned). API said to me, "We're going to make this easier for you. We're going to get this software into your hands and continue the growth of the information age." And engineering managers prided themselves on having one if they were tuned in to the sales and distribution goals of their respective companies. Here is an example of the Google Maps API: There are hundreds, if not thousands of APIs, written. Yet not that many are used. Why? Several reasons, and one being that engineering teams need to stay on bug fixes and developing new features to meet competitive demand. But I hear Oren Michels is working on serving that very problem. His new company, addressing the rush of Web 2.0 services, is calle...

Around this time last year. Ikanos sold 6.4 million shares of common stock at $12 per share to maintain a competitive position in its market space ( IPTV ). Now, they have bring out a fifth-generation FX family of VDSL chipsets optimized for use with IPTV, believing that this will be the enabling technology to drive fiber first to the home while overall adoption of IP-centric storage and networking technologies will eventually do the same for fiber to the business. I spoke with Jeff Schwartz, of Disruptive Strategies , who believes that fiber is still on top, beating out copper "every time". Mr. Schwartz is a person with more mobile knowledge than most and provides PR services to some lucky and up and coming businesses from here in the valley. I recently read that Ikanos has entered into an agreement to acquire Doradus Technologies , a startup developer of digital signal processing technologies that can be used in areas such as IPTV. Further research from the 451group says ...

I write to you frustrated and discouraged in hopes that you might shed light on a 'cold prickly' feeling I have. We could agree for the sake of my inquiry, that just as many people in the information movement, I struggle with the selection of who to read, who to agree with and my own voice in the blogosphere as it rises to capture it's own A-Listesque audience. To make a difference. A positive one. Frequently identified by others as a having a positive, energetic, and nearly Polyanna-like position, I am concerned to find myself presently disenchanted with our collective efforts to expose and analyze media's growth and expansion and its effect on our societies. Is it the liquid bombing threat this week in London? Dave Winer taking little Liz Henry to task about sexism? The howels of pain from inside AOL? The inspiring conversations I have with people at conferences that fade into oblivious memory weeks later? I've approached several industry pundits and challenged th...

Ed Leonard, CTO of DreamWorks, is on stage talking about making CG animated films, stating that generally over 200 people work on a film like this. The 1500 scenes in Over the Hedge took the equivalent of 15 million man hours. If I tried to convince my 10-year old that I'm "at work" this evening, I'd have a hard time selling it. We're watching clips from the cartoon, listening to the process of story telling and creation of characters. She'll benefit from those 15 million hours like many of us, for much of her life to come. She might pay for it, but she'll only pay for it once. The summary of those companies who were granted the AO100 status was made with one word: Consumer. That sounds like the result of what investors have been saying to those running such companies, "Where's the revenue?" Enterprise targets, even prosumers are ok, but they need to be 'sumers of some sort. The money must change hands. Up and coming companies are rightf...

A few pictures from the OhmyNews forum to keep you busy while I'm editing video and notes from the conference: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisap/sets/72157594202449442/ What a great experience.

2nd Annual OhmyNews International Citizen Journalism Forum 2006 Beautiful live webcast, by the way. In this 20-country representated conference, Craig Newmark is currently speaking following up Dan Gillmor's opening keynote. Mr. Gillmor talked about citizen journalism and how it's not just blogs, not just technology. “Technology is the least important aspect” He says it’s about journalism (i.e. thoroughness, accuracy, independence and transparency), those components are more important. What's coming? Gillmor says "The Daily Me." My news the way I want it assembled. The wisdom of crowds . Getting together and producing results that teach everyone. Not just hardware, he adds. It’s the software too. The alphabet soup...RSS, OPML, API, etc. Technologys enabling mashups and so on. He also suggests a journalism project using maps where he suggests that we ask people in the communities to put on these maps the problems that exist with the community or city infrastruct...

The story continues, as net neutrality legislation moves through the Senate. I'm not sure the ease of offering subscription TV is a win for most in the long run. However, this is just a stepping stone I believe to the inevitable release the big companies have on the rest of the media generators. From the article: Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe and Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, tried to add further protections by barring discrimination of content or service based on origin, destination or ownership, but it failed to get a majority vote. The final tally was 11 to 11. "That means for the first time we are going to have a two-tiered Internet," said Snowe, who bucked her party. "Broadband operators will be able to pick winners and losers, they will be able to choose the Web sites of their choice." 11 to 11. That says to me that maybe 1/2 of the people understand the future impact of laws like these, which designate the mouthpieces that will teach o...

A quick snippet of Mike Arrington at the Under the Radar Conference (2006) voicing what's happened with Web 2.0. Find a satisfying bit of humor, here : http://www.jumpcut.com/view?id=0359B34A031611DB817A865CEB87FBE1

The link below is my daughter Cameron's podcast . She was 9 when she recorded this show -- her first. She talks about music, geography, and politics. Still the most fun I've had podcasting so far. Click here to listen

A respected collegue recently asked me for advice in terms of advertising barter with a company he wants to be connected with. The company is AlwaysOn. The alwayson-network.com houses a great database of movers and shakers, and his company sells email marketing software. Since users, even business and other consumers when they are shopping, are numb to the skyscapers and pop-up instrusions, though people buy through them, eventually, sure, after millions of eyeballs pass by them without thought. When you search for something you want, the results are vendor web sites and editorial (left column) content. More and more, there is greater credibility in the user-generated, specialized left column content, opportunities to connect directly on a theme or feature. Left column. Get in there. It's going on .

BloggerCon is being webcast live! Right now! Check it out . Very nice. I can listen at my desk. Fantastic. Thank you Dave and thank you Brian Oberkirch for those sweet tunes. Find it here : http://smartstr.wm.llnwd.net/smartstr_liveces Don't forget to fill out the survey about the conference so that future shows are the best they can be.

I signed up for a rash of unconferences last month, v/bloggercon, UTR, Barcamp SF and others. I love the people who come to these conferences, fewer ties and more people from different walks of life; a better respresentation of the "users". And while some of the commercializing gets out of control, I still believe that the capitalists and organization drivers are in the right place to move their products. They are gauging response with people who have time and inclination to try their products, getting direct feedback and finding partners, distributors and customers for mostly all of the right reasons. There has been an argument posed that the unconference is for the users , not for the companies. But, as a user, let me be hardly the first to say that I want to learn about the companies, their technology and how I can use their products ( email me here if you want to show me your stuff). I want to see it. I do. I'll use your pen or wear your t-shirt too, technology is co...

Last night I had dinner with the CEO of an IPTV-focused shopping service and we talked about many things, including cross-platforming his service, and it's unique business model, onto the Internet. "The Web bores me," he said. With a background in film, the former TiVo and EA employee was relaying a concept I heard repeatedly at Under the Radar. It is the notion that the challenge of software as we mourn the death of Web 2.0, evidently a violent one per Mike Arrington, is to stop creating 6 billion new devices with new models of use (phone navigation versus Web navigation versus cable system menus and so on) and rather, to marry compelling services with the standing behavior of the consumer. Serve the buyer. My dinner accompanyment stated that their company's system (one I'll talk about once it's out of stealth mode) "allows users to do more without learning a new technology or menu structures". At the other end of this argument are companies like Un...

Live from the show...complete with American Idol-style text voting enabled by Mozes (cool, Andy!), Broadbandsports.com, Flukiest, Grouper and Tagworld presented in the first session of the Digital Media track. These companies focus on the "showing" of video and pictures. Stowe Boyd (panelist) highlighted a Burst Media statistic that 3 of 5 teenagers on social apps once a week and mentioned the end of traditional network broadcast. Other panelists included a representative from Adobe Systems/Macromedia's Corporate Development department since 1993 and Stephen Horowitz, Media Group at Yahoo! Yahoo! launched a user-generated video upload service (currently free, like many others) on May 31, 2006. Mr. Horowitz talked about the previous fear of cannibalization, which has been a trend with the head content providers, and loss of broadcast revenue anxiety changing to a monetization-friendly model. No hints on how. This everything-is-free thing really makes me suspicious and scar...

The beginnings of technology adoption bring together wide groups of interested parties. This is a good thing. And a serious challenge for organizers of events such as vloggercon in San Francisco (2006). I missed day one of the show but heard terrible things about missing the mark for attendees from respectable tech people who had attended. I hoped for the best and went for day two anyhow. My conclusions were that a clear perforation should have been made between technology and consumer attendees. The technologists were bored. The newbies were asking for help. Hands-on, tutorial style help so that they could learn to vlog. Rather, there was far too much social stroking and talking about "What an important thing called vlogging is, man," and how "We all need to join arms and make a big happy people fence" like that old Coca Cola commerical. There were questions from the panelists like "Why do you vlog?", "What it is that you are passionate about?"...

Where is the aggregate social network, for Pete's sake! Not so long ago, I talked with John Merrells from sxip about unified registration and the compilation of user identities across the digital land but surely right behind that is the need to also aggregate other personal and professional information contained within the deeply specific preferences and data contained in social network services. I was so excited to see GoingOn get it on, and out and public, but when I come to the site, and few people are actually there or participating yet -- we must assume they are reading blogs from their various readers, writing their own blogs from their various blog publishing platforms, doing their 9 to 5 thing but not at, as the name leads us to want, "Always"-- and not at the same time, "On." Where is the social network aggregator? I log in once, it has multi access like individual systems do, but it's multi-system. I 'm abreast to the changes in blog and medi...

"The net neutrality crowd calls this nonsense and argues that setting up a fast lane on the Internet will only wreck its open and democratic character." That's from Jessica Holzer's recent read from Forbes.com, an article about the 135-page bill in legislation right now to allow telcos the ability to deliver video in ways the rest of us won't be able to (yet). Don't worry. It won't be like that forever. "The defeat of the amendment, on a 269-151 vote that fell largely along party lines, more or less dashes the hopes of a big coalition of Internet companies and Democratic groups that strict "network neutrality" regulations will become law this year, since such legislation has only slightly better odds of passing the Republican Senate." You can hear JD Lasica's comments on net neutrality during NPR's All Things Considered , aired yesterday.

I am finally reading JD Lasica's Darknet, an educated vigilante conversation accessible to understanding even to those who aren't in the space. And for those who are, it's a nice chewy account of what's been and what can be in the underground Internet. JD's approach is like no one I know; he's a little off and it gets your attention. Lisa likes the slightly offbeat. I first learned of Lasica while working with Marc Canter (founder of Broadband Mechanics; who can't love this guy to whom we owe thanks for Ms. Pacman, Macromedia Director and an anti-orthodox project process which has often looked chaotic but nearly as often produced brilliant work). Read Darknet and send me comments about the Internet underground, the communal digital pockets you like. More colonization.

eWeek says: For those who wish to take advantage of all of Vista's new features and run a full-blown version of the forthcoming OS, a so-called Premium Ready PC will require at least a 1GHz processor, 1GB of main memory and 128MB of graphics memory, along with a graphics processor that meets numerous requirements, those familiar with the plan said. To be sure, Vista will run on most PCs produced in the last several years. So-called Vista Capable PCs, Microsoft is expected to say, will require an 800MHz processor, 512MB of RAM, and a DirectX9 capable graphics processor, the sources said. Most recent PCs meet Vista Capable requirements. But in order for Vista to display its most advanced features, namely its three-dimensional Aero interface, a PC must meet Microsoft's Premium Ready guidelines, the sources said. Forced upgrades are brutal. But they say that we'll be able to use Vista without upgrading our computers, just not be able see its true colors (at least on half of the...

My client this week is attending the largest conference in their industry. For this, I have been preparing materials and redesigning their website. As happens sometimes at the last minute with websites, software didn't come through in time (they aren't a start-up remember) and we missed the launch. Yet all of the executives and materials are at the conference. And the website launch goes into a list of Post-Conference Tasks. There is no contact form, no tracking, no optimized keywords, the list goes on. My demand generation dream just turned into a nightmare. I half want to go to the conference and tell everyone I see, yes I'm the marketing manager but that's NOT my design. Yes I have materials to send to you on their products. No, they won't look like anything you've seen from the company. Yes there is an 800 number, but no we can't post it yet. For a moment, I miss the light stepping start-ups, get-it-done-now environment. Not the 4 page change control doc...

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This is Vincent who provided me a sober conversation about some of the challenges of software building. More commonly discussed at this conference ( http://onhollywood.goingon.com ), this being the last day, has been the power of advertising and marketing and it's role beside software development, adoption and all of the journalism surrounding technology. The most fantastic discussion thus far and by far was with David Nordfors ( http://www.innovationjournalism.org . This current focus within journalism and within the ever-growing grassroots, user generated media is to me the most interesting thing happening in the industry. I guess there are other discussions of interest right now, we still see content management or advertising conferences. But I feel a real fire inside the media meshing; the large, powerful and sometimes threatened traditional journalists and the perhaps more street aware, tapped in but less committment-oriented bl-/vl-/phloggers (photo bloggers). I had the plea...

I am lucky to attend this week David Nordfors’ 3rd Annual Innovation Journalism conference at Standford University. Opening day was peppered with defining and aligning attendees, many European-based fellows. What is "Innovation Journalism", or InJo, and is journalism innovative? Business editors say that "innovation journalism" is the same as "business journalism". Science editors say that "innovation journalism" is synonymous with "science journalism". And then so on. InJo. Hmm. I guess my assumption has been that, today, we are all innovative, at least in relative to a great percentage of our species. What are we really talking about? Web 2.0 (what Ross Mayfield called "bullshit" yesterday). Hmm. So the importance of accuracy in our terms is crucial and that's why we spend so much time trying to get it right. Web 2.0 and mashups are terms for technology solutions that have been around for several years. Concepts and se...

Podlunch at Sinbad's in San Mateo. March 2006.

Here are some pictures from the studio in the Bay Area. I cut and mix and edit and broadcast and publish, all from a very neatly organized room of production nirvana, though I can work almost anywhere.

Stowe Boyd's New Visionaries pilot video series is to launch on Podcast.com . Stowe talks with some of the most interesting people coming up and pushing along in technology. Great stuff.

Here's a comprehensive, though sort of low-res chart posted on Flickr by Michael Arrington. Online storage provider comparison