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Found and web 2.0 and featured post and government and social networking and wikinomicsDon Tapscott on 29 Sep 2008 05:05 am

Technology and the US election

I’ve written several times about the impact of social networks on this year’s US Presidential election - see here and here. And let’s be honest, the use of such networks and new web 2.0 technologies has been dominated by Obama. He’s embraced social networks like no other candidate in an attempt to connect with young voters and build transparency and a real sense of community action into his candidacy.

Here’s more evidence: Obama’s VoteforChange.com is touted as a non-partisan Web site encouraging people to get out and vote (yes, even though the name of the URL is his campaign slogan). It’s a rather simple program that helps users find out where and when they can vote. But here’s the genius—this kind of transparent, easy-to-use online system is a great way to tap the Net Geners - some of whom might be first time voters with questions as to the process, and others who simply want a more accessible and transparent leader… And who do Net Geners vote for?

In short, the site does three things:

  • It helps young people register to vote regardless of who they are voting for.
  • It’s the first initiative of it’s kind to make an antiquated process more web friendly, and the interface is intuitive and easy to use.
  • It educates young voters about their polling locations and helps then understand and get involved.

Obama isn’t explicitly telling people that he has the best value out there - he’s simply providing a trusted source of information. One more example of how he’s tapping the web 2.0 to show what he’s all about.

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Found and web 2.0 and software and Technology and Wireless NetworksSachin Balagopalan on 13 Apr 2008 11:41 am

A “Just In Time” Moment


If you own a cellphone (almost everyone does these days!) you may or may not have noticed a subtle change in the way we utilize our cell phones versus a traditional land line. During the pre-cellphone days if you were making plans to have lunch with your buddy for example, you would typically call on your land line and the conversation may be something to the effect of …

Joe: “…I’ll meet you at the restaurant at 12:00 noon”.
Bob: “Ok I live only 10 mins from the restaurant - I’ll see you at noon”
Joe: “Ok - I’ll be coming from the office so if I’m a little late just wait for me…”

That same conversation on a cell phone may go something like this …

Bob: “… it’s 11:50, I’m about to leave for the restaurant. Where are you?”
Joe: “I just left the office 5 minutes ago and I’m in my car- running a little late - I’ll be there at 12:30″
Bob: “Ok I’m only 10 mins from the restaurant so I’ll leave around 12:20 - see you in a bit…”

If you haven’t figured out my point yet ;-) cell phones are not just used for “conversations” but we also use them extensively (most of the time unknowingly) to plan our lives in real time. My example is rather a simplistic one to illustrate how Bob was able to optimally manage his time using a cell phone by not having to leave his house at 11:50 and waste time at the restaurant waiting for Joe.

The New York Times has a piece titled “Can the Cell Phone Help End Global Poverty” that sort of puts this in real context. The article focuses mainly on tech companies like Nokia employing “human behavior researchers” across the planet to collect data on usability trends among the various demographics - especially the poorer segments in Africa and Asia.

There were a few points however in the article that I found interesting like …

Cellphones, after all, have an economizing effect. My “just in time” meeting with Chipchase required little in the way of advance planning and was more efficient than the oft-imperfect practice of designating a specific time and a place to rendezvous. He didn’t have to leave his work until he knew I was in the vicinity. Knowing that he wasn’t waiting for me, I didn’t fret about the extra 15 minutes my taxi driver sat blaring his horn in Accra’s unpredictable traffic. And now, on foot, if I moved in the wrong direction, it could be quickly corrected. Using mobile phones, we were able to coordinate incrementally. “Do you see the footbridge?” Chipchase was saying over the phone. “No? O.K., do you see the giant green sign that says ‘Believe in God’? Yes? I’m down to the left of that.”

For those of us who had an Operations course in college may remember the “Just in Time” concept discussed in the Inventory management chapters :-) - the concept made popular by Toyota where parts for manufacturing cars are ordered on a need by basis rather than stocking the assembly line thus eliminating waste.

It’s an interesting analogy especially when put into context….

A “just in time” moment afforded by a cellphone looks a lot different to a mother in Uganda who needs to carry a child with malaria three hours to visit the nearest doctor but who would like to know first whether that doctor is even in town. It looks different, too, to the rural Ugandan doctor who, faced with an emergency, is able to request information via text message from a hospital in Kampala.

…fishermen off the coast of Kerala in southern India, finding that when they invested in cellphones and started using them to call around to prospective buyers before they’d even got their catch to shore, their profits went up by an average of 8 percent while consumer prices in the local marketplace went down by 4 percent.

I’m usually pretty skeptical when I hear about corporations claiming to do good by “empowering” the poor and down trodden with their products when they can’t even afford three squares and a roof over their heads. I mean just look at the numbers - It is estimated that there are over 2.8 billion people across the planet that are impoverished. That’s a huge “opportunity” for a company with something to sell that will in turn impact their bottom line. However the more I think about it, the best course of action to help the impoverished is to indeed empower them with the latest and greatest technological advancements. People may be poor but they certainly don’t lack ambition nor intelligence - as is the case with the fisherman in Kerala, India. Encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship at the grassroots level is probably the best way to help the poor and if that means the corporations make a profit so be it.

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Found and Business and Technology and Chris DeWolfe and eBay and Google and Marissa Mayer and Mark Zuckerberg and meg whitman and Microsoft and MySpace and News Corporation and Niklas Zennstrom and nokia and Nova Spivack and OReilly Media and Radar Networks and Rupert Murdock and Semantic Web and skype and Steve Ballmer and Userplane and web 2.0 and Web 2.0 SummitMark Coker on 15 Oct 2007 08:28 am

Web 2.0 Summit: MadeIt, Nokia’s new phone, and Zennstrom’s disappearance

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O’Reilly Media’s Web 2.0 Summit kicks off this Wednesday at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. A who’s who list of Web 2.0 digerati will converge for three days of deal making, partying and more deal making.

If you didn’t have the budget to nab one of the $3,595 tickets for the event, fret not - VentureBeat reporters will be on hand to bring you frontline dispatches.

In preparation for the event, here’s a quick preview of what’s expected during the week, which includes some product launches by MadeIt, Userplane, Radar and Nokia.

mark_zuckerberg.jpgmarissa_mayer.jpgsteve_ballmer.jpgFacebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Marissa Mayer and Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer will all be speaking — and ears will be perked for the latest on reported acquisition talks between Microsoft and Facebook, and Google’s response to this.

EBay’s Meg Whitman will be speaking Thursday, right before her company’s Q3 earnings announcement the same day. Friday’s Wall Street Journal had an article about eBay’s struggle to juice its slowing growth rates. We also hope the moderator asks her questions about the departure of Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom, nikzenn.jpgand about eBay’s associated $900 million write down. Speaking of Mr. Zennstrom, the Skype founder curiously disappeared from Web 2.0 Summit’s list of speakers sometime over the last few days. As recently as last Wednesday according to the Google cache, Zennstrom was listed as a speaker at the conference, where he was to participate in a session entitled, “Show Me.” Oops. Today, all references to Zennstrom are removed from O’Reilly’s conference agenda.

rupert_murdoch.jpgchris_dewolfe2.jpgWednesday evening, MySpace will host a dinner with News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdock and MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe. We hope he speaks about his pending acquisition of the Wall Street Journal, and how he sees his new media properties meshing with his old media properties.

Several companies are expected to show off their latest Web 2.0 wares.

madeit.jpgThursday night, at a party promoted here, MadeIt.com, a new Web 2.0 online invitations site, will make its public beta debut. MadeIt.com plans to take on market leader Evite.com by adding social networking features to “keep the party going” after the party’s over, such as online photo sharing, video sharing, slideshows, story sharing, message boards and widgets. The company was founded by CEO Stephen Weir and his advisor, Jonny Hendriksen. Weir tells VentureBeat the company has been self-funded to date with about $80,000 in capital. The company is looking to do a seed round of up to $300,000 in the next three months to get to proof of concept stage, at which point it may seek a Series A. However, it enters a very crowded sector, filled with the likes of Socializr, Renkoo, Skobee, MingleNow and the related events sites such as Going.com.

nokiaconnecting1.gifOn Wednesday morning at an invitation-only breakfast, cell phone maker Nokia says it will introduce a new N series handheld computer that promises to marry the mobility of a multimedia device with the Internet (yes, this is frustratingly vague, but we don’t know anything else). Other handheld computers in N Series family combine many of the features of an Apple iPhone - such as Internet browsing, photos, videos, games and maps, without the phone part.

userplane.gifUserplane, which provides hosted communications applications such as chat, messaging and voice recording for online communities, plans to announce Userplane Feeds, a collection of free APIs so that developers can build the applications into their own sites.

radarnetworks.pngOn Friday, Radar Networks’ CEO Nova Spivack, who in a previous life founded EarthWeb, will unveil and name the company’s first Semantic Web application, most likely an online personal data organizer, according to a July feature in the recently shuttered Business 2.0 magazine. The San Francisco company, which is backed by Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital, Leapfrog Ventures and angel investors, has been in stealth for a few years, yet has been been aggressively promoting its business, technology and ideas for the Semantic Web for quite a while (this is one of those “pseudo stealth” companies, promoting itself in public relations pitches to media outlets, even as it feigns secrecy). Friday’s anticipated announcement will also mark the start of the private beta for the not-so-secret service. In addition to naming its first product, the company says it will announce a strategic partnership. Stay tuned for later this week when VentureBeat’s Chris Morrison reports on Radar Networks’ product launch and tells us if the company’s first Semantic Web application is ready for prime time.

We’ve noticed a couple passes listed for sale on Craigslist here and here, or you can always crash the conference and join the unofficial Web 2.0 Summit LobbyCon unconference in the lobby of the Palace hotel.

Mark Coker is a contributing writer for VentureBeat. He’s founder of Dovetail Public Relations, a Silicon Valley technology marketing firm. He has no clients among the companies mentioned in the story, nor among their competitors. More on Mark at http://www.linkedin.com/in/markcoker

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