The Cyberport of the Future?

The Web 3.0 craze has already hit the shores of Hong Kong. Although Cyberport was meant to be Hong Kong’s version of Silicon Valley, it has a reputation for being a ghost town. The 95,000 square meters of office space on the west side of Hong Kong Island is a 15.8 billion Hong Kong dollar (US$2 billion) government-owned project criticized by some as being an unsustainable venture.

In a first of its kind Web 3.0 conference took place at Cyberport. As the organizers put it,

in the world of Web 3.0, the Internet should know I won’t be able to watch my favorite TV show. It should automatically record it and book a time slot for me to catch up on this show. This is an example of how the Internet and Web will become smarter. What is an example of Web 3.0 with today’s technology? Earlier this year, we transmitted live and in 3D the World Cup from South Africa to cinemas in Hong Kong with the help of the Internet.

In essence, Cyberport organised Web 3.0 Asia as part of its commitment to establishing itself as a leading information communications technology (ICT) hub of the Asia, region, pushing Hong Kong's creative digital enterprises and start-ups to prepare for the next version of the web.  What struck me was the depth of speakers for the programme, including: Simone Brunozzi, Technology Evangelist at Amazon Web Services; Jon Leland, President and Creative Director, ComBridges.com; and Kaiser Kuo, Director, International Communications of Chinese search enginge, Baidu.

With this conference, it's becoming clear that the next generation of the web will not be limited in geography, but will be a multiversity of ideas and concepts.

History of Social Media

If you want to work in libraries

I've always asked colleagues why they ended up where they ended up. Each time I get fascinating, but very different answers from the next one I hear. Here's an excellent explanation and reason to be a librarian.

Multi-Touch Technology

Named as Time Magazine's 2008 listing of the 100 Most Influential People in The World, Jeff Han is one of the main developers of "multi-touch sensing," which unlike older touch-screen interfaces, is able to recognize multiple points of contact. Although the use of touchscreen technology to control electronic devices pre-dates multitouch technology and the personal computer, IBM began experimenting with touch screens as early as the 1960s. Over the years, multi-touch technology has seamlessly seeped into popular culture, with Star Trek and Tron being the most prominent. (The Day the Earth Stood Still was the most recent movie which used Microsoft's Surface program). Currently, CNN has been the most innovative user of multi-touch with its "magic wall," which received most of its publicity because of its use by news network CNN during its coverage of the 2008 US Presidential election.

What does this mean for the future of information technology? Let's take a look at Han's use of the keyboard. With new technologies such as augmented reality and locative media, human cognition itself may revolutionized and re-engineered.

Zero History

While much has been attributed to Tim Berners-Lee as the father of the Internet, Vancouver-based fiction writer William Gibson is actually behind many of the ideas behind "cyberspace." Often called the "noir prophet" of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction. While the term "cyberspace" was first coined in his short story Burning Chrome, the concept was only later popularized in the 1984 novel, Neuromancer.

Gibson's works have influenced cyberpunk and postcyberpunk writers such as Cory Doctorow. Gibson is renowned for his visionary influence on and predictive attunement to technology, design, urban sociology and cyberculture. While Johnny Mnemonic is the only direct attribute to Gibson's works, many of the ideas he presents in his novels have shown up in movies and popular culture. Yet most ironically is that he had completed his first novel, Neuromancer in 1983 on a manual typewriter. In a recent interview with the Georgia Straight, two points jumped out a me which I think is important food for thought:

(1) Immersive Media - Nearly all of the characters in Zero History and in the previous books in the series are totally at home in this message-soaked environment—not just with all the branding and marketing but with the multiple streams of information from wireless devices and RFID tags and GPS systems.

(2) Twitter Streets vs. Facebook "Malls" - As Gibson asserts, social can be overly structured. However, as he sees it, there is a difference between Twitter and Facebook.

Facebook and MySpace seemed like malls to me, as opposed to the street—whereas Twitter actually seems like the street. There’s no architecture within the template other than a limit on the length of a given post. And anyone can turn up and address you directly. It’s exactly like walking down the street. You might meet someone who’s really charming and intelligent, or you might meet a total malevolent idiot.

Linked Data at IFLA 2010

IFLA 2010 has come and gone. Although I did not go, the presentations are now online, and some are outstanding. Richard Wallis, Technology Evangelist from Talis, had a very interesting take on the semantic web. It's quite the package, with 194 slides altogether. Wallis' presentation examines some of the innovative examples of open data that such companies as the BBC is already experimenting with. Wallis argues that if libraries are to participate in the Semantic Web, MARC records will need to be the first type of library data to be shared with the open web concept.

Using Social Media Sites For Self Promotion

The rise of social media sites, such as Facebook and Digg, has presented publishers with an opportunity for self promotion that has never been seen before. Due to the popularity of social media sites, publishers have a huge group of people to promote their sites to. Using social media sites to promote blogs and websites can be accomplished with no money and just a little time.

Using sites like digg.com, reddit.com, or stumbleupon.com to push traffic to a person’s blog or site can cause huge increases of traffic and readership. Simply posting a link to a website or blog post on one of these social news sites will cause a large spike in traffic to the link posted. The key to using social news sites correctly is to post quality content. Quality content will quickly become popular on these social news sites and will push nearly 100 times the amount of traffic to a person’s site than would be pushed by simply adding a random, low quality link.

Social networking sites, such as facebook.com and twitter.com, are another avenue that publishers should take advantage of. By creating a Facebook or Twitter page for their blog or site, publishers can use the social network’s services to update readers about any updates, start discussions, and increase overall reader activity. Using these social networking sites can also help increase traffic, as people often view things that their friends talk about and are members of.

With a little practice, publishers will find the tricks needed to successfully use all social media sites to their advantage. Becoming an active member on any of these sites for a short time will give publishers a feel for the site and a better understanding of what’s needed to successfully use the sites for self promotion.

About the author: James Mowery is a computer geek that writes about technology and related topics. To read more blog posts by him, go to LED TV.

I enjoy thoughts and ideas from innovative web experts. James Mowery is one of them. A technology and social media journalist currently residing in Windsor, VA, James has been awriter for Mashable, CMSWire, and Performancing. I'm fortunate to have him as a guest blogger. If you're interested, please drop me a line, too.

The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet?

Since the time of Alvin Toffler, there have always been futurists who predict the paradigm shifts of technology and society. Recently, Chris Anderson (author of the Long Tail), challenged conventional wisdom of the web, arguing in the Wired article, The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet, that the web will become obsolete as it is replaced by newer technologies, namely mobiles such as the iPhone App.

1. Web is a shared memory -- We shouldn't see it as a technology, but more of an experience. Arguing for the death of the web is akin to record is dead, long live the cassette. It's rather shortsighted to view one format as the be all of anything. - and I don't think the app is the answer. It's the music that we're after, not the format.

2. Data is the Web - Anderson seems to suggest that the mobile is the is the way to go. Unless phone and internet companies are willing to lower the costs and expand to unlimited bandwidth, most people are still going to have to rely on the web to surf and to download. The web is more than just an "application." It's the circulation system that allows for exchange of information to happen.

3. Ubiquity of the Web Experience - If Anderson is to suggest that the web is dead in the sense that users no longer need to sit at their desks in order to enjoy the web experience, then it's a foregone conclusion. We already are mobile with laptops and similar social devices. Web 3.0 promises to open up for a ubiquitous experience in which the web is that underlying layer of technology that ties physical real world objects together into an 'internet of things'. If anything the web will be more important than ever in this development. Certainly Anderson makes strong points about the new directions that web has taken us; but for us to claim its demise and irrelevance is bit of a stretch!

Introducing Community Informatics

The application of information and communications technology (ICT) to enable and empower community processes, the goal of Community Informatics is to use information communication technologies (ICT) to enable the achievement of community objectives including overcoming “digital divides” both within and between communities. However, community informatics goes beyond discussions of the “Digital Divide” to examine how and under what conditions ICT access can be made usable and useful to the range of excluded populations and communities and particularly to support local economic development, social justice, and political empowerment using the Internet.

Community informatics as a discipline is located within a variety of academic faculties including Information Science, Information Systems, Computer Science, Planning, Development Studies, and Library Science among others and draws on insights on community development from a range of social sciences disciplines. It is a cross- or interdisciplinary approach interested in the utilization of ICTs for different forms of community action, as distinct from pure academic study or research about ICT effect on the elderly, or those living in remote locations in Developed Countries.

At the forefront of this new field of research is Michael Gurstein, Director of the Center for Community Informatics Research, Training and Development in Vancouver, Canada, which works with communities, ICT practitioners, researchers, governments and agencies as a resource for enabling and empowering communities with Information and Communications Technologies. In community informatics, the past decade has also seen conferences in many countries, and there is an emerging literature for theoreticians and practitioners including the on-line Journal of Community Informatics.

What is intriguing is that in a recent ReadWriteWeb article outlining Gurstein's thoughts, community informatics takes a micro-analytical approach in studying how information affects communities. In this instance, it's found that opening up data freely on the web actually had adverse effects. In one informatics study called Bhoomi: ‘E-Governance’, Or, An Anti-Politics Machine Necessary to Globalize Bangalore?, digitization and related digital access to land title records in Bangalore had the direct effect of shifting power and wealth to those with the financial resources and skills to use this information in self-interested ways. This type of study is a counterbalance to what many have proposed for the open data movement. Will opening up information benefit society or just a segment of society of the wealthy? It is these types of questions which will be important for the next version of the web.

The Web of Things

The Web of Things mean different things to different people. Some argue that the Web of Things will be the crucial ingredient for the realization of Web 3.0. Dominique Guinard is at the forefront of this cutting edge technology, and is researching on the very idea of connecting people and objects on the web. Keep an eye out for him. You might hear about him one of these days.

What's In Store for Web x.0?

The definition of Web 3.0 is as elusive as it gets. However, it's getting much clearer than it was one year ago. Many of the technologies in the Web 2.0 world are paving the way for the next version of the Web. The elements of augmented reality and locative media that the iPhone has shown us in its brief history is indication that the web extends beyond the digital world.

Some web experts believe that combining the digital and physical worlds requires the help of hardware devices that can layer on top of the reality the information retrieved from the cloud to a user’s accounts on various sites. Whereas the social web exists in a predominantly digital atmosphere, Web 3.0 extends to a physical realm where Internet-connected “social devices” faced with a local problem can “talk” with other artifacts that can provide their experience about that situation, or likewise offer information that may help to come up with a solution to the problem.

What does this all mean? More to come in upcoming postings.

Introducing The Social Network

"You don't get to a 500 million friends without making a few enemies."

With those epic words, the tone has been set for this what must be the most enigmatic movie of the summer. What does the world really think of Mark Zuckerberg? Adapted from Ben Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires, The Social Network adds an element of mystique to the rise of Facebook. It's been six years since the release of Facebook, so what have we learned about it? What are your thoughts about Facebook? Here are mine:

1. Socializing Has Changed - "Friending" has evolved from merely adding friends and strangers. It's changed the way we make communicate, the way we talk, email, instant message, even our phones. How do you find someone? You don't - you Facebook them.

2. Business Is About 'Stickiness' - Entire businesses have been built on Facebook. Think of the social graph, and how it's leveraged the idea of 6 degrees of separation into a new entrepreneurial paradigm. Applications like Faceconnector integrates CRM and the data produced by Facebook into entirely new social tools for business. In less than 5 years, Facebook has indirectly helped many businesses earn a lot of money; if that isn't making friends, what is?

3. Software Is Lighter - Cloud computing and software-as-a-service have forever altered computing. While the cloud has provided over-the-Internet virtual resources eliminating many services, SaaS has similarly afforded inexpensive way for businesses to use software as needed rather than license devices with applications. Why settle for a hard drive when you can upload to Xdrive? How about Gmail on the go? Facebook is not only a social network, it's an entertainment and social service.

4. Privacy Has Changed - Things have never been quite the same after Facebook. Whereas before, one had to create a homepage to get noticed, Facebook has made everyone a celebrity. This commodification of status has its drawbacks though: you no longer can hide yourself, and whatever we, where we go, has its digital traces. Sometimes, it's just better to block it out.

The Digital Roadmap Comes Undone?

In a recent Atlantic Monthly article, Michael Hirschorn proposes in Closing the Digital Frontier that we are close to an era of the "digital Wild West," that vast electronic ecology where everything that roamed online was designed to be free of charge. This has all changed, as we have entered a shift of the digital frontier from the Web, where the browser "ruled supreme," to one where the smart phone, the app and the pricing plan now increasingly controls the digital world. There are signs that this is coming to be; however, if this is fully realized, then this is nothing more than an enormous radical shift from openness of the knowledge web to a closed system of entrepreneurial reign.

Digital freedom, of the monetary and First Amendment varieties, may in retrospect have become our era’s version of Manifest Destiny, our Turner thesis. Embracing digital freedom was an exaltation, a kind of noble calling.

Hirschorn makes a good case, and the facts are there to back up the concept of a digital frontier slowly being shaped into something capitalistic. In the U.S., there are only three major cell-phone networks, a handful of smart-phone makers, and one company that has essentially endeavoured for the entire life of the Internet to combating the idea of open, or as Chris Anderson hailed, the revolution of "free." It's true - just think of how difficult it is for one to move legally purchased digital downloads.

Perhaps Apple has subtly taken on the digital battle that Microsoft had badly bungled when Google came along. We are already witnessing media companies pushing content through apps alongside (or even instead of) their Web sites. Netflix plans to send movies and TV shows directly to TV sets, making their customers’ experience virtually indistinguishable from ordering up on-demand shows by remote control. The web has truly moved to the living room TV, as Bill Gates had once predicted (although accidentally and largely incorrectly before the Web) in the Road Ahead.

This is an unnerving proposition. Is this the end of the era of browser dominance? Hirschorn points out that Twitter, like other recent social networks, is not even bothering with its Web site, choosing to instead focus on its more fully-featured smart-phone app. TweetDeck, which collates feeds across multiple social networks, is not even browser-based.

Have we truly entered the age where apps will compete and ultimately win over the web, as more authors and companies put their text, audio, and video behind pay walls? Google is endeavouring to find ways to link through pay walls and across platforms, but this model will clearly will be challenged by the upcoming changes to the web. Its long standing neutrality and impartiality regarding Adsense and Adwords has already been upended; advertisers now can choose where to place and pull their ads from websites. Google's slowly becoming the advertising matchmaker in the process. If this is really the beginning of the end for free and open access, then the digital wasteland has become undone. Will Web 3.0?

The Race to the Past

Although Read Write Web calls it the ongoing game of cat and mouse between China and Google, in my opinion, this hearkens back to the long history of colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Much of this tension stems from the Chinese government's suspicion and fear that Google is essentially bypassing Chinese firewalls and spreading Western influence into areas beyond Chinese control. Certainly, from a Western-centric viewpoint, this has always been about democratization and intellectual freedom. However, the same could be said in 1839, when the British aspired to open the doors to China for trade. Hence, the Google vs. China standoff is very much a commercial venture could very well be more about commerce than democracy. Instead of pulling out of China, Google certainly realizes the enormous wealth and lucrative markets of the Chinese, and it simply can't continue as a multinational giant by bypassing 1.31 billion of the world's population.

For that reason alone, rather than pulling out altogether, Google sidestepped any potential conflict this past winter by automatically redirecting its users from Google.cn to Google.com.hk, its Hong Kong search engine. This redirect, which offers unfiltered search in simplified Chinese, has been working well for its users and for Google, as it reports on its latest blog entry.

However, the PRC has stepped up its firmness, as government officials have made it clear that the automatic redirection to Google Hong Kong is no longer acceptable. Google's solution? Instead of redirecting users directly from Google.cn to Google.com.hk, the Chinese homepage will now simply link to its Hong Kong counterpart, which allows users to search free of censorship. As many have commented, the best Google can hope for is to find an acceptable middle ground so that it can honor its own commitment to unfiltered search results while working within the rules set by the Chinese government. And Hong Kong's Google site seems to be that solution, if not long-term, then at least temporarily.

It's interesting, and perhaps historically relevant that Hong Kong is the compromise. A landing spot for much of its history until its recent commercial success this latter part of the 20th century, Hong Kong has always been an entrepot, an entry point where migrants, travelers, and traders stationed temporarily to either evade state authorities or build support for political upheaval. In fact, Hong Kong is where the seeds of Sun Yat-sen's 1911 revolution had taken place. Almost 100 years later, Hong Kong finds itself enmeshed again between the two powers which divide the orient.

Googling for the News

In a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly, Google is intriguingly portrayed as both the destroyer and saviour of the news industry. Certainly, while Google has forever changed the way users access the news, and practice journalism, Google also realizes it needs to salvage the industry as it is crucial to its own survival as a business.

Google's goal is to reinvent business model to sustain professional news-gathering, particularly as “crowd sourcing” and citizen journalism has transformed news coverage. As one of its executives argues, newspapers never made money on ‘news' coverage, Hal Varian argues, automotive sections, real-estate, gardening, travel, or technology had drew profits where advertisers could target their ads -- not serious journalism.

What Google (and the Web) has been done is level this into one giant system for stripping away these "cross-subsidies" current, up-to-the-minute information can be searchable. (Who searches for latest movie listings from newspapers anyways?) This type of "unbundling," as Google puts it, allows users to find the one article they are looking for, rather than making them buy the entire paper that paid the reporter, "all the while allowing advertisers to reach the one customer who is searching for their product, rather than making them advertise to an entire class of readers."

In fact, as Eric Schmidt forecasts:

It’s obvious that in five or 10 years, most news will be consumed on an electronic device of some sort. Something that is mobile and personal, with a nice color screen. Imagine an iPod or Kindle smart enough to show you stories that are incremental to a story it showed you yesterday, rather than just repetitive. And it knows who your friends are and what they’re reading and think is hot. And it has display advertising with lots of nice color, and more personal and targeted, within the limits of creepiness. And it has a GPS and a radio network and knows what is going on around you.

This is already what many pundits say the next generation web, or Web 3.0, will look like. I'm wondering if Google is just holding back on the good news.