Global Neighbourhoods

Techdirt: Publisher Attempts to compete with Google book scan plan are lame. I agree

One of the many Mikes at Techdirt has an interesting post about how traditional bo publishers, uncomfortable with Google scanning and making searchable the content of all books have started to try to compete by offering excerpts of their own books--with a high level of restrictions on usage attached.

Techdirt thinks these efforts are pretty lame and I have to agree. Naked Conversations was not the first effort to use blogs in support of an authoring effort but it was the most comprehensive until that time.  Our publisher John Wiley wisely went along with Scoble's plan (it scared Hell out of me at the start) to publish early drafts of the entire book on this blog. While there has been some scraping, by the bad guys, there has not been a single case that we know of involving the plagiarism that publisher's so dread. More important, while no one knows any precise figures of who influenced people to buy our book, my guess is well over 90 percent of sales have resulted from some connection with the blogging experience and sales have been pretty good.

While rumors that Scoble and I have become wealthy from naked Conversations are greatly exaggerated, Cory Doctorow, one of blogging's most brilliant bloggers told Forbes Magazine, "I've been giving away my books ever since my first novel came out, and boy has it ever made me a bunch of money."

It seems to me, that Google's scan will not hurt book sales, but will help them. Reading books on computer screens, or in Bubble Jet output form, is just not as good as in the book. One of our dirty little secrets about the Naked Conversations experience is that the actual chapters we published, were not as well read as the interviews or the daily banter on the topics we were covering. The chapters ran from 3,000 words to 10,000 words, and that is just too long for people to read on a computer.

Technorati Tags: techdirt, corydoctorow, googlebookscan

MeetUp's Local Neighborhoods

MeetUp, the "click and mortar" company that let's you find where people who share your interests actually meet up in the real world has been around for a while.  I subscribe to the Palo Alto version, where on an average week there are some 425 meetups within 25 miles of the city.

What is amazing to me is the diversity. Here's a thin slice sampling of what's happening this week in the area.:

The Antioch Military Families and Friends Meetup Group

Developing The Spiritual Path With Sivan Garr

Rudy Giuliani for President - Bay Area

Married Men's Actualization Meetup Group

The San Jose Warcraft & World of Warcraft Meetup Group

Video Game Contest Meetup

The Los Gatos Art Modeling Meetup Group

South Bay Ruby on Rails

Spread The Fire Bible Study

Bay Area Single-Again Indians

To me the diversity is something amazing. If you go to the site and read a local list you can see how a significant slice of your area's population is self-organizing along the lines of shared interests and it is very cool.

I always hope that no one misreads a line and goes to the meeting above or below the one they want on the list. This is to me what the localized version of what Global Neighborhoods is all about.

There is nothing like a face-to-face meeting and hopefully there never will be. But now, through the Internet and social media we can meet people all over the world who share our interests. We may not be able to meet them all face to face, but there is something very heartening to know there are others out there who share a part of what we are about. 

It is remarkable how diverse each of us is in other ways and yet we can now come together online. damn, I gotta get this book going.  It keeps getting bigger in my mind but the pages are not being fruitful, nor are they multplying.

A customer tells a Jet Blue horror story

Responding to my previous post complimenting Jet Blue on its transparency, Don Raimondi has left a long and painful comment about how he, his wife, his child and father-in-law, not to mention his luggage were all recently abused by at least one Jet Blue employee--Jessica of the company's West Palm Beach Claims office.

Having recently gone through my share of lost luggage, I feel Don's pain. I don't know him and recent experience has taught me to assume nothing is true until I hear from the others side, but his story rings true to my ears.

Oh Jet Blue Jessica, you are invited to chime in with your version of this story, but I think you need to go some distance to drag in a police officer to threaten a customer and reduce a child to tears when all it appears she wanted was what Jet Blue should have provided--the luggage they were traveling with.

As for Jet Blue in general, I would also be grateful to hear an explanation of why this family was treated the way it apparently was.

Technorati Tags: jetblue,

Lunch with Floyd Kvamme

I had the good fortune at the Tech Policy summit to find myself seated next to E. Floyd Kvamme (pronounced Kwammee) who is Partner Emeritus as the legendary VC firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He was also a co-founder of National Semiconductor.  What I respect so much about Kwamme is that he became a VC back in the days when VCs loved and understood risk.  Back then they bet on technology and teams and yes, they knew it was a bet. They usually lost most times they invested, but when they hit it out of the park, it was a grand slammer.

Kvamme and I talked about the Silicon Valley of the early 80s, but that was not what made it so interesting.  It seems that much of his time and passion  is serving as co-chair of George W. Bush's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. For long time readers of this blog, you know that I am not quite what you would call a Bush supporter. I look forward to the day when we can call him ex-president Bush.

Kvamme talked about how he knows George Bush as an individual and what a shame it is that people don't have the access to see what a fine and decent person he is "as a human being." He talked about Vinod Khosla, who had been my client when he was a youthful co-founder of Sun Microsystems, my first startup client as a young PR practitioner. Vinod's political views remain quite liberal on social issues, as they had been when I talked politics with Vinod more than 20 years ago. But Kvamme had dragged Khosla into US Department of Energy circles, as an expert on global energy reform.

The point of this reminded me of an era that was so many years earlier.  When people who feel like I feel could sit down with more conservative contemporaries. We could argue with great passion into the a.m. hours of the night. But somehow we could part as friends.  We understood that we both sincerely cared about our country and doing the right things and yet disagree on such a fundamental basis.

I'm not sure when such discussions became angry and ugly, but they did.  We on the left find happiness in talking with those who see it our way as do the conservatives.  Every four years, we compete for the votes of what few people there are hanging out in the political center, then we go back to our corners.

Maybe it's time to change back to the way it was. Or maybe, it never was that way and i like to remmeber my own personal history through a romantic lens.

Walt interviews Jonathan Schwartz

Walt asks: the Sun Micro CEO what its policy is.  "To lower the cost of the network at all points." Good answer.

Jonathan is a great story teller.  Talks about how electricity was used only by JP Morgan and the richest people on Earth at first and then was made affordable to almost everyone in the world.  Schwartz wants it to be open and affordable to everyone.

Schwartz is not advocating a national broadband policy, but recognizes that nations who have it seem to provide better service.  Schwartz thinks government has a role to play and it needs to look at the issue.

Schwartz likened Sun's broadband policy to the automotive industry where double decker buses, which moves massive number of people doing the same thing, going toward the same destination.  They also want to help smaller companies by offering the option of cool cars.

Scwartz: the Internet is a place that allows all people access to the same information at the same time.  Instead, the SEC says you have to go somewhere like Businesswire. As we move forward, the Internet should be a vehicle for satisfying the regulatory requirements of full and fair disclosure for public companies instead of say the Wall Street Journal, where Mossberg works.

Schwartz: the Journal may have a more inciteful look at the news, but Schwartz is referring to the Sun requirement to release timely nfo.  Jonathan wants to do it on his blog.

Jonathan says his blog is just another voice in the marketploace.  People want more choices. Jonathan is asked how much time he spends on his blog.  As he told us in Naked Conversations "It fills a lot of the void, while he's waiting for a plane or on hold in a phone talk.

The only time Jonathan gets edited s right after an earnings release.  Then the lawyers take a look to be safe.

Asked why he's straddling the fence of national broadband policy.  A great answer: "For fear of what happens next."

Walt notes that Jonathan wants government to study other countries.  Jonathan notes that some of these countries are not democracies.

Question from Dan Farber.  It's Sun's 25th birthday. How do you define "blog?" Your's seems more like a company newsletter.  How do you define it.  Jonathan says Sun't marketpl;ace is a highly tactical marketplace.  I am talking to Sun customers and I talk directly t them.  I don't get distracted by discussing things out of my domain.

Question on strategic initiatives.  J: energy efficiency is a huge issue for us. urrently cheaper to FedEx a pedabyte of data to Beijing by FedEx than over the Internet. The tape doesn't use energy when it is not being used. We are doing it because it makes business sense, not just because we support the environment.

Schwartz was among my favorite interviews for Naked Conversations.  This is the 4th time I've seen him speak.  It seems to me he has one of the fastest and broadest minds in any room. He has a great deal of my respect.

Live @ the Tech Policy Summit: Mossberg interviews Cicconi

I just arrived at the Tech Policy Summit in San Jose where Walt Mossberg is about to interview AT&T muckymuck  James Cicconi.  Darknet author JD Lasica has just handed a copy of his book on how Hollywood is usurping people's right to remix and share their digital property to previous speaker Cong. Howard Berman who could learn something from it.

Cicconi is telling Walt how technically hip digital Neanderthal Ted Stevens is and Walt is challenging him.

Walt wants to know why AT&T should choose what people add to their network.  Cicconi says device manufacturers use varied technologies and the carriers should decide what we users get to plug into what. Cicconi argues that the devices are subsidized and therefore the carriers should have a say for that reason.  If consumers want choice, then the subsidy needs to go away.

Walt:  I don't have to ask permission to take a Mac and plug it in with an ISP. Why is it that AT&T and Verizon get to decide what handset plugs in and why not the user like with computers.  Cicconi keeps smiling and is using many words about customer satisfaction so AT&T has to eliminate devices with limitations for their own good, to ensure everything works properly.  Cicconi notes that Apple Computer, mentioned by Walt follows and end to end strategy for quality of end user experience. Apple exercises a higher degree of software control.  Cicconi says what carriers are doing is better than the government doing it but he doesn't seem to have anything to say about endusers being the decision maker.

Walt asks for Cicconi's view on Net Neutrality.  C: Within limits Net Neutrality is a good idea.  Argues that ATT won't bar any consumer from connecting any device to the network. We are constantly chasing after the hypothesized abuses.  People want to restrict how we manage our own backbone traffic where we have invested billions of dollars.

Walt: Why does the US suck at bandstream?  Why is it better in Japan, Korea and "god.. France....FRANCE. " Why can't we do that? Cicconi: Variety of reasons.  US competition just heating up in last five years. C: we have to build out all areas at once, so that's why we can't even get Manhattan running fast. Walt: would it be better if we got government off your backs: Cicconi does not really answer.  He talks about having to negotiate with all US communities simultaneously.

National Broadband Policy.  Cicconi thinks we should have one and then AT&T will not have to negotiate with every town. It also means carrier lobbyists will be able to influence congressman and save lobbying money.

NOTE:  I'm taking pictures ut forgot to bring my cable to connect them.  I'll add pictures in later.

Facebook's astounding Stats

I must admit that for someone writing--or at least trying to write-- a book on social media, I've been slow to immerse myself in Facebook. But my sense is that it is growing in popularity because ofits ease of use and because it is designed to let users subdivide into what I call Global Neighborhoods.

I poked around a bit over the weekend, in part, because two young members of Infopresse that I met last week in Montreal had absolutely gushed about it. What I found over the week end really impressed me but that is probably old news to almost anyone this side of Methuselah.

But what really took my breath away were the stats revealed by Carolyn Abram on the Facebook Blog. Users have grown by nearly 300 percent to 18.5 million since last July.  Half those users log in every day--making Facebook about eight times better read than the New York Times. There are more than one billion [no typo] photos on the Facebook site.

Boy am I ever going to have to write about Facebook in Global Neighbourhoods. If you are a marketing professional and you continue to ignore stats like these, my urgent advice is pay attention.  A whole generation os absorbed in the social media and if you overlook them, you may have a future career in the restaurant service industry.





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Shel Holtz, Guest Posts on Strumpette--thrashes Amanada soundly

Amanda Chapel calls herself a satirist, but I've never been so sure. The great satirists I've known--Jonathan Swift and Mad Magazine, have used humor as a weapon to reveal truth. Amanda, all too often, seems to me to be using harshness and even cruelty. She often seems to me more like she's talking trash then serving up satire.

Last week, she apologized to Jeff Jarvis in a post after being admonished by blog fountainhead David Weinberger. Well sort of.  After calling Jarvis all sorts of nasty names, she wrote that Jeff should realize her insulting him on a well-read, and often-quoted blog is nothing personal. Most of us think that being held up to public ridicule and scorn is quite personal.

The very next day Amanda fired a volley of very cheap shots at Edelman blogger Phil Gomes.

Then, to continue her bipolar behavior, she graciously turned over her blog space over to Shel Holtz, perhaps the highest road, social media player in the PR industry.. Shel did a devastating job on her by calmly, rationally dissecting Amanda for the savage and inaccurate shots she took at Gomes for the crime of moving from LA to Chicago, supposedly to be closer to a particular woman.

Amanda is someone who lives at or near the top, which makes her often go over it. She reminds me of my favorite quote from TS Eliot: "Only those who risk going to far can possibly know how far one can go."

Amanda goes too far.

Personally, I think it's a shame. She's a Hell of a writer and seems to me to be extremely knowledgeable about the innards of the PR industry.  My experience as a recovering publicist is that it is too self congratulatory while knowing very little about relationships with the public. I think it can use someone to poke it in the eye and Amanda has gleefully volunteered for the task.

To that degree Amanda provides a great service and her blog is one of the most provocative reads on my RSS list. She tells me she likes being called provocative.

It seems to me, she could serve everyone better if she lay down her broadaxe and learn to use a scalpel. She would score more points if she attacked issues and the abundant lame practices in the PR industry and singled out individuals a whole lot less.

Waiting for the Tsunami

I've talked to a good number of people in the last few weeks, many of them living and working in a space that is far away from what we call the blogging community. This is as it should be.  I try to speak to audiences who are not insiders, who are rying to figure out just what is happening with this blogging and social media stuff and how they can adjust whtever it is they do to what is happening.

I recently have come across some steadfast doubters, a mainstream media executive who believes that the reduced classified ad revenue is just a down cycle, that will come back up; a recent commenter who still believes that blogging is just a fad, a resident of one of North America's most sophisticated cities, who believes that blogging may be fine for Silicon  Valley, but will have no impact on the global enterprise where she runs marketing.

And I heard a lot about how blogging is just kid's stuff.  This is a subject upon which I could write a book.  In fact, it is a subject on which I am writing a book.

I have lots of time for people who do not yet understand blogging, who are struggling with how they can adapt to it, who are trying to fathom, just what it is their kids are doing on their cell phones, who are trying to figure out why the integrated marketing campaigns that have worked so well for so long are not working so well anymore.

But at this point in time, after what has occurred, after what has been written, I'm just not going to argue with people who are Hell bent on becoming socially and technically and culturally obsolete. As my Church of the Customer friend Ben McConnell advised when I interviewed them for Naked Conversations,, "don't bother trying to convert the atheists. Work on the agnostics."

My favorite atheist comment came a while ago after I gave a talk to marketing and communications executives. After my talk, the owner of a mid-sized PR agency in New Jersey came up to me and very directly said: "Let me tell you why you are wrong. Record profits.  That's why.  We had record profits last quarter and we are going to have them again this quarter.  And we completely ignore blogging."

I have an image of this New Jersey atheist walking along the beach, enjoy the sunshine and tropical breeze completely unaware of a tsunami gathering height and velocity and heading toward his beech at a speed too rapid for him to avoid.

Welcome to the world, Sebastian Garcia!

Scrapblog's Carlos Garcia and his lovely wife Marguerita have a new son--Sebastian Garcia. Sebastian arrived with the correct number of toes and fingers and is reportedly in fine health. You can see him with his dad mom and big brother Lorenzo here.

Mazel Tov, Carlos, mi amigo.