November 2005 – Cubicgarden.com…

Being a geek girl in a male dominated geek world?

Ok i'm late to the party, but its time to reclaim the word Geek! I mean have you looked at the Flickr Geek clusters recently? I'm sorry but all the people I've known who are self described geeks do not have terriable dress sense and are really passionate and interesting people. The killer thing is also that Geeks usually hold down a good job and earn quite good salarys.

So I can not work out for the life of me why all the geek girls I've met are single? And from talking to them its not because there not trying. Someone female and single who would rather be annoymous sent me a link to the Geek girls are sexy photo pool. Then compared it to the Geek boys are sexy group. Yeah she's right, the boys are letting down geek culture. Not good, even I'm not doing my part. But it gets worst… I was sent a link to Geek guys are sexy. Something needs to change…

Cafe Geek now thats a concept worth exploring…

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Last nights Geek Dinner with Molly, was fantastic…

Thanks to everyone who turned up and made the Geek Dinner with Molly the best yet

Everything went so well I'm actually still up with a big smile on my face, but am speechless in what to write at this moment. I'll fill in the details tomorrow. Till then you can catch all my photos here on Flickr. And all public ones here and here. Interestly, I'd not seen the Tim O'reilly geek dinner photos till now.

Ok so some observerations from yesterday
No matter how early I get to the venue someone will beat you. Even a full 45mins before the start of the Geek dinner with Molly, there were about a group of 8 guys drinking and chatting. The group included Don from Amazon.
Name badges are a good idea. Some people liked the idea of the sticky badges, others didnt. But it was great for me as I can now look through the photos and remember everyone name (for example Elly). But it doesnt stop there, it helps me go and speak to everyone at least once.
I need to rotate round more. There were some people who I spent a bit of time with and then there was Sheila, who I swear I spent about half the night talking to. We had some quite amazing and open conversations about being geek, relationships and a ton of other stuff. Fantastic but not ideal when your the host. Next time Sheila, I'm going to have to pass on my contact details so we can chat over email or something.
Find a venue where you can control the noise level. It was hard work for Molly and Andy shouting over the hogs heads background noise. But next time, we will be in a different venue. Imp also offered me a mini PA system if I need it next time.

Talking of Improbulus, I had a couple of interesting conversations with her about privicy and security online. I used my audioscrobbler experience as a example. When audioscrobbler first came online, I thought its cool but do I really want everyone knowing what I listen to? At the time it was a no. But I've come to realise that if you dont realese the information yourself with a little bit of control, someone other company will do it for you, and you will have even less control. Imp disagreed, which is fine and I like think shes right, but in my experience the opposite is true. Its just more amount of how much your willing to pay for your privacy and if its more than the next company. I remember quickly reading some advice to newbies online guff guide, and they were recommending that you do not let online sites store your card number because usually its store in a database with little or no security. Once again in my experience this has been true.

Imp's post also reminded me of a conversation which me, her and Shelia had about taxonomies and folksonmies. I couldnt go into details at the time because I really needed to circlate around and give out sticky labels for names badges. But trust me, Imp and Shelia were not done yet and I'm looking forward to talking about it more next time. Hey if you guys are up for it, we could do it at the scoble geek dinner?

Anyhow back to the geekdinner…

Fatbusinessman has created a group photo pool for Molly's Geekdinner. Should have thought about doing the same myself, good call Fatbusinessman.

More observations.
I should pick less technical people to do the dinners for. I got a feeling Molly being a designer really opened up the geekdinner to a range of people who may not have gone if it was Tim O'Reilly. Nothing against Tim or Scoble, but I'm thinking its best if I leave Hugh to do that category of people and I should focus on people like Molly. I mean we had many developers as usual, but also quite a few designers and even a librarian and architect. Everyone was fully at ease to express there geeky nature. And there's nothing better than hearing another person express there passion for something which the mainstream of people would see as kind of weird. I wont go into my post about being a self described geek but its quite interesting and quite relavent.
I'm sure I've seen you before? I must have said that too many times yesterday, I'm going to have to think of someother way to say the same thing. But I did finally meet Rachel Clarke and I was actually right, I had meet her before but at a different Geekdinner. I also met Pixel Diva (love the site design by the way) again, its been such a long time that I forgot what she looked like, but I knew I had seen her before. I seem to never forget faces, just names. Once I heard her voice and that strong accent, it all came back.

This was the last Geekdinner for this year by myself, but dont worry I'll be back in the new year with a new venue and more interesting guests. Don't forget Hugh's arranging the big christmas geek dinner with Robert Scoble which I'll be attending in the usual London tech lovey fashion. If your woman with a partner the girl geek dinner is well worth checking out.

If you are male and wish to attend this event you must bring a female with you or be brought by a female. NO FEMALE NO ENTRY!

Which I personally feel is fine because these events are usually over run with men and this is a good way to achive some balance. I have not quite convinced Sarah that we should go, but I'm working on it. If anyone of the beautiful woman I met yesterday have no partner to bring with them, please drop me a email.

I've just learned that there is also a Molly podcast which I guess the interview was about. Its titled the worst podcast ever because of some podcast disaster with a Sony Minidisc recorder. Interesting Hugh's comments about the BBC…

If this was the BBC, I would just cover my tracks, cut out a few seconds, and tell my boss that I grabbed a great clip of Molly. But in the spirit of podcasting, I let the tape run out in mid sentence.

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mashingtonpost and the backstage.bbc.co.uk meetup

Taken from the BBC Backstage mailing list

The Washington Post has launched a remix site for their content – unofficially called the mashtingtonpost.com

Adrian Holovaty introduces it on his blog

This is great news for all, but means backstage now has real competition. Luckly our content is so much better *wink, wink*

I would not be suprised if others follow suit, but the big question is if either the BBC, Washingtonpost or anyone else makes the big step to syndicate fulltext via RSS for non-commercial use. That would be a commitment to its audience and remix culture.

Talking of which, you will be happy to hear there is a Backstage meetup now. The full details are available here on the backstage blog and of course on Ben's personal blog.

December 12, 2005 – 18:30 – 23:30 – Backstage.bbc.co.uk Meetup – at Yorkshire Grey Pub 46 Langham Street London, W1W 7AX United Kingdom

I've added it to my eventful calendar which you can subscribe to if your interested in events like this.

But dont forget to get yourself signed up here before its too late.

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At long last me and Sarah are back online

Well at long last Demon have hooked us up. I'm crossing my fingers that it will still be up tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. I only noticed when I got back in today and the ADSL light was not flashing any more. As before the 1meg connection was automaticly upgraded to 2meg and actually the upload speeds seem really good from Woolwich when compared to Beckenham.

I'm however waiting to see if Demon or BT will actually phone, email or even text me to say I can now finally use the broadband connection. Who wants to bet its going to be never…

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Project house moving almost complete but no ADSL

The project house moving is almost complete. Me and Sarah a little more decorating to do this week and next weekend and we should be pretty much done. However Demon or BT is not being very helpful about Broadband access. On the 15th November there was Broadband as Demon said there would be, then the next day it was gone! Now all I get is a ADSL sync error, indicating that there is no broadband at all. Yeah really sucky, and of course Demon blame BT and BT are not returning or answering any of my calls. So for a short period (hopefully) I have no Internet access at home.

However I just wanted to say, the Geekdinner this Thursday is still on. Nothing has changed, just because I dont reply to a email for a while does not mean I'm dead… Also my work place has started killing the process signtuare for GAIM, so I'm not on instant messenger much either right now. I have ways around it, but choose not to use them for now. Anyhow hope to see you all Thursday at the Hogs Head.

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Listening to the next net generation

The teen demographic uses the Web constantly and in very sophisticated ways. They don't want to pay for very much, but if you can find something they will pay for (like ring tones), they tend to spend a lot. Safa Rashtchy, managing director of Piper Jaffray, interviewed five seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds about their relationships with technology.

Oh my goodness you have to hear the end of this podcast enclosure, what Teens want – starts at 15:20 mins and lasts about 8mins. Cant wait to hear the whole thing on IT Conversations really soon.

Generally the thoughts is free is good and there's some thoughts about spyware and advertising. Someone did mention paying artist of the music via iTunes but generally there was no thoughts beyond free download. Although you can listen to it and shake your head in shame, I dont. I use to think exactly the same way. Now at least I'm a little more aware of the issues and the cultural shifts. I'm sure the teenagers on stage will alter there views a little over time. But honestly its refreshing to hear the younger generation talk frankly about there habits.

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Reach and that leap faith which is required

There's quite a few times when I have been suggesting or recommending a way forward, and the other person has looked at me with a blank stare. Its not because words coming out of my mouth are not reconisable but the concept is a step too far. I have a few good examples of this but one which comes to mind which other people may hit home with a lot of people is the net phenomena.

I remember explaining to people that I would buy real stuff online.

See this is the thing, it was back in 1996 when realistically most people had only heard of logging on the super information highway (yeah I remember those words too). The concept of buying online goods which would be delivered to you, was a step too far for quite a few people. Honestly, I dont actually remember when Tesco started delivering grocery'sexplanation online but it seemed quite logical to myself and started using the service as soon as I left my parents home in 1999.

I dont know if the leap of faith is correct, as it seems to have many religious views attached to it. Maybe mini mind shift might be a better explanation?

Another example which is bang up to date and may divide a few people. AV Content online can be delivered cheaply without a advertising or subscription model. Some people will agree and some will disagree. If you disagree, you may be familiar with concepts like P2P, TVRSS, IPTV, etc.. But have not actually fully experienced there effects. Hey a small percentage of you may say the statement was actually hogwash and what actually is cheaply anyway? And I would say, at this stage, it requires a leap of faith or a mini mind shift to see the potential which is only just around the corner.

The biggest leap of faith at the moment which I keep having to explain is Reach. When talking about blog and RSS spaces and always say something about the niche audiences, the longtail and always reach. When you use full RSS syndication and/or P2P distribution, website metrics break down and you have to rely on Reach instead. Theres a issue with Reach, it requires a leap of faith as theres no actual metric for reach (yet).
Its very painful because the arguments away from Website metrics are very clever and make sense when you look at the current landscape of the web 2.0. I mean why would you ever syndicate full text content in RSS unless you believed in (or at least thought about) Reach or cared so less about the content?

I'm just reading Malcolm Gladwell's Blink now and theres something which is somewhat related on page 176.

We like market research because it provides certainty – a score, a prediction;if someone asks us why we made the decision we did, we can point to a number. But the truth is that for the most important decisions, there can be no certainty.

Another leap of faith, The public aspect of Social software can actually beneficial to you and everyone using the software. Its all about communities and I mean a leap of faith beyond Social networking sites and online forums. I'm talking about shared data with benefits yourself and everyone else. Why else do people use Flickr, Del.icio.us, Reader2, etc? Its napsteration effect, which you need to have faith in. By each person serving there own greeds, they also serve the community effect.

Personally like Reach this is so easy to understand, I wonder why it requires any leap of faith at all. But that's the nature of these things. One persons step is another persons marathon

While still thinking about leaps of faith, heres a couple other things which require that same mind shift at the moment. Creative Commons, Free Culture and Open Source. Like reach you need to buy into it somewhat before it starts making sense. Open source is quite lucky because it has quite a vocal voice and has many good examples to prove it actually works. Creative commons is well on the way, while Free Culture as defined by Lessig and others still requires a certain leap of faith.

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What ever happened to Wonderland?

The Dragons, elite business experts standing next to a wall

Update: Although I'm blogging about Wonderland, i dont think much about the content. But I'm not its target audience. I'm writing mainly about the concept and the business of Wonderland not the magazine's content. It would be like me saying Red or Cosmo are not good. I'm entitled to my views but being outside of the target market makes it difficult to judge fairly. aka, do not buy Wonderland just because I blogged it please.

Almost a year ago the BBC series Dragons Den finished its first run. I enjoyed every moment of it and am happy to hear its back on our screens (and online via imp of course). But it makes you wonder what ever happened to those other business ideas which received funding? (Yes the BBC should do a run up on what happened next…maybe even just as a podcast, iptv or something for those people interested) Specially the very much debated Wonderland magazine.

Well after a short dig around, I found a couple of things. A interview after appearing on the Dragons Den. Actually Startups.co.uk has a few interviews with previous Dragon Den entrepreneurs.Then the big news, from this page. Its actually on the right hand side of the site and reads.

By Kate Boulby

Wonderland, the new luxury glossy mag from BBC2 Dragon's Den joint winner Huw Gwyther, went on sale yesterday.

The magazine will initially be priced at £4.95, with a starting print run of 140,000 copies. Publishers eventually hope to sell up to 100,000.

Targeted at both male and female readers, Wonderland will cover everything from fashion, film, music and product design to stage and art. The first issue also features an exclusive interview with The Aviator's film production designer Dante Ferretti.

Dragon Den, which was shown earlier in the year, featured contestants pitching business ideas to the expert “Dragons”.

So I plan to drop into a large WH Smiths and see if I can actually find a copy, get a real feel for it myself. Hopefully I can find a copy and post a few pictures online, till then the flash animation has been updated and restyled so at least its not so ugly, and gives you a rough idea of how the magazine looks.

Finally found it in the local WH Smiths

More photos can be found in my wonderland tag stream.

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Go Digital Special Tim O’Reilly Podcast

Tim describes his joy of being at the BBC

Quoted from a internal email sent to quite a few people in the BBC World Service after Tim's invite to the BBC and his interview on Go Digital

Last week we delivered an extra edition of Go Digital through it's podcast stream, and the email response it's generated has been huge! In our last programme we featured an interview with CEO of O'Reilly Publishing and Open Source guru Tim O'Reilly and we decided to put out a tidied up 'full length' interview (17 mins) in addition to the main programme.

The response has been overwhelming, and over the weekend the programme has received around 10 times it's normal weekly email bag, without exception every response in favour of the extra content.

This demonstrates one of the real benefits of the podcast medium, that instead of simply regurgitating radio programmes for Podcast, being able to deliver something different that adds value to our regular broadcasts is something I think our audience will really appreciate.

Well this pretty amazing would you not say? I knew Tim Oreilly was a great speaker but 10x the usual response asking for the longer version or saying how great the interview was. This strikes me as a really compeling reason why podcasts work. There simply not bound to the time limits of radio and they can be super niche or serve the longtail. Actually a few of the emails outlines this perfectly.

Cameron Walker wrote,

Instead of setting the shows up to a set time, like in what your used to on Radio and TV. Podcasts can be from half an hour to an hour to 1.5hrs

Jean-Pierre Morissette from Montreal wrote,

Thank you so much for this idea. The content of this interview was so good that it was a real gift to be able to listen to it all. I call these significant moments.I opens new perspectives, new ways of looking at the world around us to listen to comments like these.

Comment from John Barton in the UK,

Just listened to the exteneded session with Tim O'Reilly.Great use of the technology. The ability to allow the speaker to extend beyond the normal programme time boundary and really get into his topic was well worth the effort. As I use a podcast agregator I got the feed automatically and was able to enjoy this bonus session without any additional work on my part. Looking forward to other extended sessions

Jim Puls from Chicago wrote

Well, I very much enjoyed your interview with Tim OReilly. I found myself stopping the podcast from time to time and backing it up to take some notes. A few months ago I didnt know what a podcast was, and now I find it enriches my life greatly. Its Saturday afternoon in Chicago, and Ive done my chores, and its time to listen to some radio … what I want when I want it. Just before Go Digital I listened to Ockhams Razor from Australia

and added in a email to myself.

As I noted in my email, you and your colleagues are carrying on in the long tradition of informing us all, and deserve our thanks for doing that.

Edwin Boatswain sums the podcast up nicely with,

Thanks for the extra content. It was a nice surpise when this turned up in the feed. I think the edited version of the interview captured his thoughts well, but it was good to hear the whole piece.

NerdTV from PBS do a simlar thing already. They produce 3 different cuts of the same interview. I download the entire show and listen to it while working but now and then glance over at the video running on my laptop. But I have never downloaded the nerdy or juicy parts cuts, i guess its not a big deal when I can simply jump around with the slider myself. Obviously the entire show isnt for everyone and a juicy cut would make a lot more sense if your only generally interested. I wonder how many people listen/watch each version?

Like one of the emails said,

While it's understandable that you have to edit down a given interview to fit into a time slot, it seems like a real shame to have whatever was left on the (virtual) cutting room floor to disappear forever. Personally, I'd very much like to see such material made available in the future (where it's deemed to be of sufficient interest/quality, of course).

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Bit Torrent, as the middle man?

All I can really say is these guys observations of TV are pretty damn sharp…

Interesting story about how Channel 4 in the UK are pushing for more secondary new media rights from their independent programme producers. I've talked about this for ages, but essentially it can't be beyond the wit of programme producers to hire an ad sales team, and go direct to their audience. They are currently missing out on a large slice of the revenue pie, this would enable them to get some of that. In these early days, call it an online exclusive, create a buzz, sell it to a 'traditional' tv network later. You know when your time is up when you get called 'traditional', huh?

The BBC also gets the retouch treatment, which could become a viable solution for the BBC when geoip finally falls apart. Matt's original screenshot and the new updated screenshot.

Theres no douht we need to deliver to the rest of the world and subscription, advertising, drm and geoip are not the solution. Well to be fair advertising works up to a certain point (i'm sure google will be exploring this more in the future).Geoip works for less-savy internet downloaders, but as we know obfuscation (as in security through obfuscation) is a bad idea and its really a problem waiting to happen when you least expect it.

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The serious side of pledgebank

I've been aware of pledgebank for a while now and its seems like a really good idea. First through this one about setting up a EFF for the UK. But just recently I was asked if I would pledge to the global mentoring pledge.

I will mentor a minimum of two people in the developing world in the area of my skills base and expertise (media, communications, broadcasting , democratic media building, participatory media, community video). I will do this for free for a minimum of six months (in my free time). The mentoring will be in person or via email/skype and the mentoring connections will be established by a website and database that I am willing to take responsibility for creating but only if 250 other people will mentor a minimum of two people in their skills.

My first thoughts was to add my support to the 108 people who have already pledged. But then I stepped back and started really considering what this means in time, effort and self management. And in the end opted to sit it out. Its a huge commitment and I would really hate to let other people down because I could'nt spare the time to do this correctly. See thats the thing too, if I was going to pledge to do this, it would need to be done correctly and faithfully. I certainlly should not enter into a pledge like this lightly, not that I'm saying anyone else is. But good on Lucy for setting this up and props to Tom Steinberg for its inspiration in setting up Pledge bank. Who knows maybe now I'm subscribed to the RSS, maybe I might find something which I will pledge.

I hope Pledgebank links to details of how pledges go once they go live. As I would like to keep an eye on how Lucy's Pledge progresses.

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The Fall out over the Sony Rootkit/DRM

The backlash against the SonyBMG rootkit and DRM has been one heck of a rollercoaster ride which doesnt seem to be ending anytime soon. Here's some highlights in case you have missed them. interlaced with some Cluetrains.

A couple of lawsuits have been filed against Sony for breaking there EULA.

Then Sony issued a patched which is impossible to find (everything sony is impossible to find on there site to be truthful) and does not actually remove the DRM, well what do you expect?

Talking about the EULA, some very interesting clauses and points to consider when buying your next CD

Sony's Exec, Thomas Hesse (President of Sony's Global Digital Business) replied to the whole issue of Rootkits and DRM by saying What users dont't know cant hurt them… (A must listen by the way!). And echoing Miles thoughts, Apple and Microsoft must be pissing themselves with laughter. Thomas Hesse has some balls saying what he said and the bloggers will have the last say about his ridiculous comment.

#14 Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.

New virus uses Sony BMG software, yep that very badly written code for the RootKit has been lerverged for a virus which hides via Sony's Rootkit.

The complete list of SonyBMG Rootkit CDs at the EFF

Apple Anti rip software found on the same Sony BMG CDs. Usual discussion on Slashdot about Mac users and will Sony bring DRM to linux too?

The power of the blog outlines what's been already seen by in other areas like the Kryptonite lock. When will the mainstream media actually pay attention to what there children are reading online?

#6 The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.

#94 To traditional corporations, networked conversations may appear confused, may sound confusing. But we are organizing faster than they are. We have better tools, more new ideas, no rules to slow us down.

And of course some fun, Sony I download your music

At long last, Sony halts production of 'rootkit' CDs

Sony BMG Music Entertainment said Friday that it will suspend production of CDs with copy-protection technology that has been exploited by virus writers to try to hide their malicious code on PCs.

The decision by the music label comes after 10 days of controversy around the technology, which is designed to limit the number of copies that can be made of the CD and to prevent a computer user from making unprotected MP3s of the music.

Security experts blasted the technology because it uses “rootkit” techniques to hide itself on hard drives and could be used by virus writers to make their malicious code invisible. The first remote-control Trojan horses that took advantage of the cloak provided by Sony BMG surfaced this week.

“We are aware that a computer virus is circulating that may affect computers with XCP content protection software,” the record label said in a statement Friday. “We stand by content protection technology as an important tool to protect our intellectual property rights and those of our artists. Nonetheless, as a precautionary measure, Sony BMG is temporarily suspending the manufacture of CDs containing XCP technology.”

Lets hope thats the end of XCP and its rootkit. Somehow, I know it wont be.

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Did Apple Sabotage the ROKR? Do we really need to ask?

The unofficial Apple blog suggests that Apple may have shock-horror Sabotaged the Motorola Rokr. Wow I thought this was actually well established by now? I remember hearing a interview with some quite high managers at Motorola who explained they did not even know there product had been launched till the actual launch. Then of course Jobs did the usual, look here's the rokr here for one moment but look over here trick. I would be interested how much time the Rokr got on stage compared to the Nano. Anyway, this is all so much more interesting when you read what Microsoft are saying about the Xbox 360 playing Ipod content. Enough said really…

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IMDB for BBC Programmes

Been out of the loop for some time due to no internet access at the new house and general recovery stuff. But Ben Metcalfe has a nice summary of the new innovation happening in the BBC, IMDB for BBC programmes it is but its so much more exciting…

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