I'm Writing About Web 2.0

I’m going to use the Christmas ‘break’ to write a chapter on Web 2.0 for Friends of Ed. Less time to blog… Starting… now!

Randal Just Launched TechcrAUnch

My Aussie tattoo, originally uploaded by lynnmcg.

Following up from my last post, it would seem that Randal agrees and has launched TechcrAUnch for all stuff made in Australia Valley.

Sydney Awakens

Silicon Valley and its citizens are magnificent at talking about themselves. It is a very powerful form of self reflection which builds a momentum for great creativity and innovation.

I remember reading Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines before I migrated to Australia. Here’s something I have never forgotten:

‘Sometimes,’ said Arkady, ‘I’ll be driving my “old men” through the desert, and we’ll come to a ridge of sandhills, and suddenly they’ll all start singing. “What are you mob singing ” I’ll ask, and they’ll say, “Singing up the country boss. Makes the country come up quicker.”‘

Aboriginals could not believe that the country existed until they could see and sing it - just as, the the Dreamtime, the country did not exist until the Ancestors sang it’

Sydney is starting to talk about itself again - starting to sing itself into existence - after a long quietness and it is wonderful to see the gifted, committed and ambitious community that lives here.

For example, the recent Sydney STIRR looked like an inspiring evening (sadly I was in Seattle) and I hope the event continues and matures as a forum for the entrepreneurial spirit. If you like to think about the next great thing, and you know it can be made here in Australia, keep an eye on the Tangler blog for announcements for the next one.

STIRR is organised by Tangler and Atlassian, two companies that get the importance of a fertile, local community. They are doing important work and it has been my pleasure to meet Scott and Mike (of Atlassian), Marty (of Tangler), … and Mick (Tangler)… well he’s the godfather to one of my son’s and I have admired his energy and work ethic for years since we worked together on Kazaa.

On Tuesday I went to WebJam. This was less about the entrepreneurial thing and more about peer communication and sharing. It was like a real-life blog experience with beer. I had a great night and enjoyed being a part of the energy.

I met Lachlan Hardy who is one of the organisers. Hat’s off to you mate for getting 190 people to a Sydney pub to jam about cool technology - especially when you’ve only been in town for a few months. What’s next

The standout for me was Angus Fraser’s Inkoid project. Inkoid is a ‘visual wiki’ which Angus hopes to release early next year. To picture it, imagine a Google Maps-type of Ajax UX with an image instead of a map that can extend infinately through time and space. The critical feature that will make it successful is the ability to link to a specifc co-ordinate and point in time on the image. I can imagine visual blogs (imagine it on a tablet PC or an Origami device!), collaborative mindmaps, school projects…

It was equially enjoyable to see simple UI ideas rather than whole products such as Dmitry Baranovskiy’s javascript pie chart and Lachlan Hunt’s form validation UX.

I had fun talking with Alisdair Faulkner who is sharp and knows his stuff. A ‘creative cynic’ - perfect for jamming a business idea with. Although, he took the piss out of my blog photo (I don’t look like David Brent in “If you dont know me by now” do I! )

Outside of these events I have been impressed with the constellation of other people I have had the pleasure to spend time with. Randal Leeb-Du Toit has been jamming with the Australian tech community for years since he created the Australian First Tuesday events during bubble 1.0. Formerly he is doing cool stuff down at NICTA but I think he understands that a cafe can be the birth place of the next big thing.

Mark Wells is working his magic at Foxtel. It must be a challenge bringing change to an institution like Foxtel but he is pulling it off. Watchout for some of the things up his sleeve coming to a Foxtel IQ, PC and mobile phone near you!

I tip my hat to you all.

Coming to Seattle

I will be in Seattle from Saturday through to Wednesday next week. Anyone wanna catchup Phil AT morle DOT com if you do.

Missing from the New DMCA Excemptions…

Afterdawn and EFF are reporting on the recent excemptions made to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Its worth a look to see how some good carve-outs for academics and the like, but those horrid, thieving consumers are still stuffed.

This one stood out for me:

3. Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete. A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

There should be a similar excemption which allows circumvention if a user buys a music collection with some form of DRM from a store that closes down and ceases to re-issue licences.

Or is DRM dead anyway

The Little Guy in the Kazaa Case Settled Too

It’s a little known fact that when 30 record companies launched their legal campaign against Kazaa, they also sued some employees of the company. I was one of those people.

Last Friday I signed a settlement agreement with the record companies. It ends a rather yucky couple of years which began on a very hot day in February 2004 when a posse of lawyers and forensic technicians raided my home.

The claim was that I induced Sharman Networks to induce its users to infringe copyright. Earlier this year the claim was rejected by the Federal Court here in Australia and I ‘won’. The Applicants quickly filed an appeal against the ruling. I was quite confident of winning again but let me tell you – it isn’t fun to be sued and the prospect of another year or more in the black hole of the legal system was something I was keen to avoid.

So I settled. The ruling of the Federal Court in my favour stands but I have agreed to make an undertaking to the Court as follows:

Philip Morle, by himself, his servants and agents, in the course of his employment by, or pursuant to his engagement as a consultant or contractor to, any of the Kazaa Parties or any entity or any person involved in the operation, maintenance or supply of the Kazaa System and Software, not to solicit, authorize or induce users of the Kazaa System and Software to reproduce or communicate to the public (whether by making available online or electronically transmitting) any of the Copyrighted works without the license of the relevant copyright owner.

So it’s over. A full copy of the court order can be found here.

The other bit of news is that I resigned from Sharman Networks. Phil 1.0 was Artistic Director of KAOS Theatre and Phil 2.0 was Director of Technology for Kazaa. Next Up: Phil 3.0. Still in beta.

I am sad to leave one of the most committed, talented development teams and idea factories on the planet but I am very excited about the future.

Need More Time to Design

Need… time… to design my blog. Now that I am posting all the time, its fallen to pieces.

Podcasts: Where is the Conversation?

Yesterday I posted Where For Art Though Adam Curry In it, I wondered why Adam (a veritable meme of my 2005 feeds) was not on my radar in 2006. Could this be due to the feeds I had limited my horizon to or is something else going on

Since then, Adam saw my observation and pointed me to look at the Alexa chart for dailysourcecode.podshow.com to show that, apparently, Daily Source Code popularity has been increasing.

Frederic at Lastpodcast.net points out that Alexa only reports stats on the top level domain and not subdomains so these stats are for all of podshow and not for DSC specifically. So changes to DSC traffic are still unknown. And what’s Odeo doing that Podshow isn’t

But Adam, it wasn’t (and this isn’t) ‘research’ and certainly wasn’t an attempt to out some secret failing of podshow. I really hope podshow is doing terrifically well. I like your style and I admire what you do. It’s fab that you immediately challenged my afternoon meanderings.

But I am still wondering why I don’t hear much about you and Podshow in my news horizon… I look for this kind of news every day and you are just not on my radar anymore… so the question is sustained in my own mind… is it just me Or is the conversation not huddled around podshow… And if it isn’t… why

One answer to this may be that the conversation IS there but it is in the podcasts now and and not in the text blogs than I read. But that too could be disappointing, indicating that the listeners = the creators and the market is not growing.

Is there a useable podcast/vlog equivalent to Technorati that I can use to track the audio/visual conversations Anyone

Hmmm…

Disclaimer: This is not ‘research’

Evan Williams - Impressive Entrepeneur

I have been following Evan Williams’ blog since my pal Morten put me onto blogging a few years ago and told me good things about the creator of Blogger. I am always impressed with his mind which seems to have a fertile mixture of leadership, creativity, intellectualism and entrepeneurialism (is that a word ). Gush over…

Where For Art Though Adam Curry?

There was a time just before the creation of Podshow.com when I was an Adam Curry junkie. I listened to DSC religiously. Now I don’t. And I am not alone:

alexa website statistics by alexaholic

The embedded chart above seems erratic. If you see “Not in the Top 100,000″ try this link.

The stats show when curry.com was the go-to place for those who wanted to be involved with the genesis of podcasting, and now that the market has exploded and fragmented some of us have departed.

But I don’t hear much/anything about him or podshow.com on my feeds (which I just added to my sidebar using the cool Grazr - here is the OPML). Am I just tuned out or is podshow etc not getting meme action Do more people consume podcasts these days and the market is fragmented all the down the long-tail… or is the market flattening

It could be a sign that the initial innovators aren’t always the best people to take the idea forward to the next level.

Anyway, time to stop these intellectual meanderings and get back to work…

UPDATE:

Fredrik picked up my meanderings…
Adam disagreed with me…
Mick thought he doth protest too much…
I responded…