Are You Paying Attention?

Engagd among the top 5 apps in Australia

2008-06-20T01:54:00.004+10:00

Ross Dawson has published a list of the top 60 web apps in Australia in the BRW this week. At number 5, our very own Engagd.com - the engine that powers Attention Profiling for the web at large as well as Particls version 2.

This is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the development team. A huge thanks to Ashley Angell, Paul Jones and Jon Cianciullo who have been working tirelessly to manage, build and polish the Engagd platform.

Particls itself came in at 21. That will change of course once we launch the new version!

Thanks to Ross for his hard work compiling the list and including us.

Ashley went to Sydney to demo Engagd at the celebration party. By all accounts it was a big success. Somehow he made a developer platform interesting for a non-technical audience. Good work my friend!

Nominate Faraday Media for Cool Company awards

2008-06-13T02:13:00.002+10:00

If you think Faraday Media is 'cool' don't forget to nominate us for the Anthill Cool Company Awards.

Does asking for a nomination make us uncool? Hopefully not :)

Faraday CEO One of the 30Under30's

2008-06-04T22:42:00.004+10:00

There are only a limited number of start-up founders in the world, even less who sets his or her mind to change the very fabric of the internet. Chris is one of them.

When Chris and I founded Faraday Media, it was of extreme importance that just being another startup was not enough. We had to do something meaningful. Something significant. Not happy with fame or glory, we wanted to grow as people - giving back to a medium which had fed us for long time. To take the internet to a new place, just like Google had done nearly a decade ago. Its been a long road for Faraday, and while it hasn't always been easy, Chris' drive and aspiration has bought us to new and extraordinary heights, time after time after time; often at great personal sacrifice. I could never ask for a better CEO, or friend.

It's no secret that Chris and I are the best of friends and it makes me very happy, to congratulate him on being selected as one of the 30Under30's for Anthill, the leading entrepreneurial magazine in Australia.

From the website:

At 26, Chris Saad is one of Australia's most impressive young web entrepreneurs. His theory and practice around web standards - specifically 'DataPortability' and 'Attention Management' - have gained significant traction and are set to have a profound impact on the evolution of media in the digital age. Saad has co-founded several web-related companies and organisations, most prominently Faraday Media in 2006, of which he is CEO. Faraday Media is developing Particls, a technology that learns user habit and taste and delivers relevant information to them via news crawler, SMS, email, flash visualisations, etc. He also co-founded the Media 2.0 Workgroup with 14 industry 'commentators, agitators and innovators'. There's no shortage of ideas or energy in this digitally-minded entrepreneur. One to watch in the years to come.

Make sure you click through to the Article, subscribe to the mag and read the other 29 profiles!

This is recognition to a man whom has dedicated and sacrificed so much for the greater good, a true philanthropist. Well done Chris, you are definitely deserving of this prestigious award and will no doubt be one of many in the years to come.

Personal Reality - Personal Media

2008-06-02T06:47:00.003+10:00

I have written on my personal blog about what I am starting to call "Personal Reality".

As I wrote there:

Personal Media includes your friend's shared items. It includes the comments you leave on blogs. It includes Social Media. But it also includes private updates. Updates from your Intranet. Updates from your family. Updates from broadcast media. Updates that matter to you - no one else.
Personal Media is about recognizing that people are social and private. They are interested in personal experiences.

Check it out.

Flow on News Sites

2008-06-02T05:02:00.005+10:00

NineMSN Program Manager Paul Keen has written about a new NineMSN site feature that has the potential to dramatically improve the news reading user experience on their site.

They call it the "What's Happening Now" module. Think Facebook News Feed for a news site. It logs and lists events such as new stories, first comments and other changes to the site in 'real time' in a reverse chronological order.

This is another example of how flow based presentation can improve visibility and usability when it comes to consuming large quantities of content/interactions.

Well done to Paul and the NineMSN team for this innovative approach.

VIDEO - Discussing Personal Relevancy in Amsterdam

2008-04-07T05:06:00.002+10:00

Learning from the Future at the Next Web with Chris Saad from Maarten on Vimeo.

You can also watch the DataPortability keynote on Christian's blog.

Chris Saad speaking at 'The Next Web Conference'

2008-03-15T15:28:00.003+10:00

Good news - I will be in Amsterdam speaking at the Next Web Conference on the 3rd and 4th of April - are you coming?

Here's a bit of info about the conference from the website:

The Next Web Conference is THE European conference for industry thought-leaders, leading web-companies, innovative Startups, visionaries and real Web savvies. This third edition will be held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on April 3rd & 4th, 2008.

VIDEO - More DataPortability and Me Videos

2008-02-28T08:15:00.003+10:00

Video Inder - Microsoft (on Soapbox)

Robyn Tippins - Yahoo

John Breslin

Daniel Lewis

Deepak Singh

Mike Reynolds on Explaining DataPortability to Vendors

Mike Reynolds: What DataPortability means to me

AUDIO - First DataPortability Steering Group Teleconference

2008-02-21T06:46:00.003+10:00

Last night (PST Time) we had our first Steering Group Teleconference. It was great, productive call with lots of outcomes that are currently being implemented. We also agreed to meet in a similar way every 2 weeks.

Listen to a recording of the call hosted here on John Breslin's blog.

Thanks to everyone who organized and participated.

VIDEO - DataPortabilityAndMe - Chris Saad Responds

2008-02-14T13:53:00.003+10:00

As part of the ongoing DataPortabilityAndMe conversation, I have posted my series of videos answering the questions posed... here they are!

What does DataPortability mean to me?

How will DataPortability change the way I use the web?

How would you explain the value of DataPortability to Vendors?

How would you explain the value of DataPortability to End-users?

What would you like to see from the DataPortability Project in the next 12-24 months?

I want DataPortability

VIDEO - Some DataPortability and Me videos

2008-02-14T08:11:00.003+10:00

A number of DataPortabilityAndMe videos have been released already - have you made yours?

VIDEO - DataPortability Meetup in San Francisco

2008-02-14T07:59:00.001+10:00

DataPortability San Francisco Meetup Feb 7th 2008 from dataportability on Vimeo.

VIDEO PROJECT - Share your thoughts about DataPortability

2008-02-07T07:27:00.000+10:00

Time to continue the conversation about DataPortability... this time using video.

We want to hear your thoughts about DataPortability recorded as a short video. We hope to share these videos individually as well as compile them into a single video to help the community understand expectations, goals and themes that are emerging in the discussion.

Here are the questions we'd like you to answer.

What does DataPortability mean to you?
How do you imagine DataPortability might change the way you use the web?
How would you explain the value of DataPortability to Vendors - those that store the data.
How would you explain the value of DataPortability to Users - those that create and own the data.
Ideally, what would you like to see from the DataPortability Project in the next 12 months? 24 months?
What else would you like to say? Make up a question and answer it!
Finally, if you agree with the sentiment, please say "My name is [your name] and I want Data Portability" at the end of your video.

If you can, please try to limit the video to a maximum of 5 minutes.

We'd like to compile these for February 20th. Please make sure you get your video in before then!

To submit the video, post it to one of the video sharing sites and tag it 'DataPortabilityAndMe'

I look forward to seeing what the community has to say.

Special thanks to Daniela Barbosa, Chris Messina and the Evangelism Action Group for this idea!

Dissolution of Social Networks - AUDIO

2008-01-16T12:05:00.000+10:00

My lovely wife (who is an Economics and Business teacher coincidentally) sent me a Podcast today which really blew me away. It's an interview with Andreas Kluth (San Francisco correspondent for The Economist) talking about real and virtual campfires, and predicts the dissolution of standalone social networks as we know them.

Anyone interested in the next generation of internet technology really needs to listen to this podcast. Its clear, concise and really gets at the heart of many social graph issues and human behavior.

Dataportability Soon at a Cinema Near You - VIDEO

2008-01-15T20:22:00.000+10:00

DataPortability - Connect, Control, Share, Remix from Smashcut Media on Vimeo.

This amazing video was lovingly hand-crafted by Michael Pick, from Smashcut Media, to outline and demonstrate what Data Portability is all about. If you've been under a rock and haven't heard of the Data Portability Workgroup, this ought to catch you up real quick. ;)

It's amazing work. Thank-you for your great work Michael.

Individuals from Plaxo, Google and Facebook join DataPortability.org Workgroup

2008-01-08T16:46:00.000+10:00

We are proud to announce the inclusion of Joseph Smarr (Plaxo), Brad Fitzpatrick (Google) and Benjamin Ling (Facebook) to the DataPortability Workgroup.

Plaxo, Google and Facebook together represent the key players in the competing approaches to Social Networking platforms and Data Portability.

Their joint support of the DataPortability initiative presents a new opportunity for the next generation of software - particularly in the fields of social software, user rights and interoperability.

The DataPortability Workgroup is, among other things, actively working to create the 'DataPortability Reference Design' to document the best practices for integrating existing open standards and protocols for maximum interoperability.

This means users will be able to access their friends and media across all the applications, social networking sites and widgets that implement the design into their systems.

We look forward to their contribution to the conversation.

More about the DataPortability initiative:

Our Philosophy: As users, our identity, photos, videos and other forms of personal data should be discoverable by, and shared between our chosen tools or vendors. We need a DHCP for Identity. A distributed File System for data. The technologies already exist, we simply need a complete reference design to put the pieces together.

Our Mission: To put all existing technologies and initiatives in context to create a reference design for end-to-end Data Portability. And, to promote that design to the developer, vendor and end-user community.

Besides these new additions, the WorkGroup includes, among others, Chris Saad (Faraday Media), Stephen Kelly (Peepel), Ben Metcalfe (Consultant to Seesmic and Myspace), Chris Messina (Citizen Agency, Microformats), Daniela Barbosa (Dow Jones), Phil Morle, Ian Forrester (BBC), Kristopher Tate (Zooomr), Paul Keen (NineMSN), Brian Suda, Emily Chang (eHub), Danny Ayers (Talis), Robyn Tippins (Yahoo!), Robert Scoble (PodTech).

For more information:

Please visit the DataPortability site.

Read/Write Web Coverage

Techcrunch Coverage

Top 3 Privacy issues for DataPortability on Social Networks

2008-01-07T19:54:00.000+10:00

I was asked some questions by Ouriel Ohayon to help with his upcoming presentation at Tel Aviv University. I thought I would share my answers here as well.

He asked me what I thought were the top 3 concerns for Privacy on Social Networks in a DataPortability enabled world

My answers...

Perception: Privacy Concerns are somewhat over-exaggerated - just like with any new system/approach. If I email you, you get my email address. Why wouldn't the same thing happen if I 'friend' you on a social network. The question is not if Robert Scoble had a right to get the data and the data of his friends - the question is why Facebook won't let him.

Update: I forgot to mention here that if email addresses and spam are the issue - then moving away from email addresses as a means for uniquely identifying users should help solve the issue. As Chris Messina says, we should be using OpenID instead of Email addresses for login and uniqueness checks.
Control: "Privacy" is just a subset of a broader issue of "Control". Facebook and others can give lots of Privacy but ultimately give very little Control. A whole set of other Control features are needed including DataPortability support. Facebook and others like to pretend they are protecting users - but actually they are just protecting their business model. Open will always win though.
Language: Privacy is a very poor, out-dated word. In a social world privacy is less of a concern than complexity and information overload. We need to move onto more practical words such as permissions and trust. Words that let users act.

Welcoming Robert Scoble to the DataPortability workgroup

2008-01-03T21:49:00.000+10:00

As many of you know, Faraday Media has long been a champion of user rights. We believe the user has an absolute right to own and control their personal information.

As such we created and promoted APML as an open standard very early in our company history. We then started the DataPortability Workgroup. A group dedicated to championing the cause of other open standards by putting them each in context as part of an end-to-end solution stack.

Since then, we have been both gratified and spirited by the support from the worlds thought leaders on the subjects of open standards, social networking and web-based software.

I'd now like to welcome Robert Scoble to the list of supporters and workgroup members. Robert is also a fellow member of the Media 2.0 Workgroup and his tireless efforts to demonstrate how being open, transparent and social can scale to celebrity scales always influences the conversation and helps to shine a spotlight on worthy companies and causes.

Be sure to check out Robert's recent troubles with Facebook data access and my post to the DataPortability workgroup welcoming Robert and summing up the DataPortability position.

2008 - Data, Semantics, Attention

2007-12-25T09:30:00.000+10:00

As 2007 rolls to a close, bloggers have started predicting the hot trends of 2008. Data, Semantics and Attention seems like a consistent theme.

Here are some highlights:

Richard McManus (here):

Semantic Apps will become popular in 2008, due to their ability to get better content results and make better data connections. Think search engines like Hakia and Powerset, wikipedia-like efforts like Twine and Freebase, and apps that use semantic technologies under the hood.

We look forward to being involved with the Engagd platform and APML.

The big Internet companies will surprise us all by embracing open standards, and attempting to compete with each other with features instead of data lock-in (OK, this could just be wishful thinking!).

We have already seen Mozilla move in this direction with Weave. Google with OpenSocial. Hopefully 2008 will see true openness with use of existing standards such as those listed at DataPortability.org

Marshall Kirkpatrick says (here):

The value of recommendation engines will become all the more clear; the era of data will be celebrated.

People engaged in the new web will do some really awesome stuff that we'll all be in awe of.

He writes in a post about the future of RSS:

For anyone who reads feeds, though, prioritization and personalized recommendations are two things that hold a whole lot of promise.

In 2007 both Bloglines and Newsgator were among the companies who moved towards implementing a simple, open Attention Data standard called APML. A wide variety of other companies began experimenting with other methods of systematizing and automating prioritization and recommendation as well. Expect this to be even bigger in 2008.

Web 1.0 was about Pages, Web 2.0 is about People, Web 3.0 will be about data.

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins dedicates a whole section to APML (here):

You're going to see bigger partnerships emerge, along that same token, between the APML movement, the OpenID movement, and the big dogs like Microsoft, Facebook and Google. Remember that whole privacy debacle called Beacon? At some point real soon Zuckerberg is going to realize that to keep that very vocal minority of people who like privacy quiet, he's going to need to give them better ownership of their profile and attention data - APML and OpenID will provide ways for this to happen.

Josh Catone writes:

OpenID will be adopted by more startups and larger web companies, but most people (mainstream users) still won't use it - that's a couple of years off.

Perhaps DataPortability will help drive the value proposition.

Alex Iskold writes (here):

Implicit applications, which monitor our habits and automatically infer our likes, will rise.

Looks like 2008 will be an exciting year!

Look forward to working with you all in the near year.

Ma.gnolia rolls out APML support

2007-12-20T10:17:00.000+10:00

Ma.gnolia, the web's favorite pure social bookmarking site has launched their APML support today.

They have used Engagd as their APML provider. Engagd made it possible for Ma.gnolia to integrate APML support with a couple of simple API calls. The rest of the text analytics and APML generation is done by our servers.

This is a great day for the cause of DataPortability and the growing ecosystem of tools that respect user rights by allowing us all to export useful attention data from various silos. They join Cluztr, Newsgator and others who have already announced or integrated APML support.

It was a pleasure working with Larry and Todd the Ma.gnolia founders, and I'd also like to thank Chris Messina (fellow DataPortability workgroup member) for the introduction!

For those unfamiliar with APML, here is a blurb from the official APML site.

"APML allows users to share their own personal Attention Profile in much the same way that OPML allows the exchange of reading lists between News Readers. The idea is to compress all forms of Attention Data into a portable file format containing a description of ranked user interests. "

You can learn more about their implementation on their blog.

Calling all developers: Time to get the graph back!

2007-12-20T10:02:00.000+10:00

The DataPortability Workgroup is sponsoring an initiative called 'GraphSync'. Here's a snippet from the site:

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it...

Pick a silo of proprietary social graph data
Write some open source code to extract the data
Place that data into the open formats listed below.
Link to the code repository on the DataPortability Wiki.
Win the love and admiration of a grateful community

So the idea is to build something much like the LinkedIn/Facebook/Spock 'Import your contacts from Gmail' feature in an open-source way. Instead of importing from Gmail, the hope is to get data out of social networks, IM buddy lists and more and store it in open standards.

Jump onto the site, join the google group and get into it. Please don't forget to re-blog or tweet this to help spread the word.

More at www.graphsync.com

Microsoft puts a price on your Attention Data - $4999.80/year

2007-12-15T12:45:00.000+10:00

USD$4999.80/year - that's how much Microsoft values your Attention Data.

As Dallas writes on his blog:

If you would like a free copy of Windows Vista, then simply go to http://wfp.microsoft.com/.

The catch? You have to allow Microsoft to watch your every move for 3 months, and there are also some other requirements (below). This of course isn't for everyone, some people wouldn't care less and some would definitely have to think ten times about it before going ahead.

I really don't know how I feel about this program, since my privacy is worth quite a bit. Will they be tracking websites I go to, software I use, content I post on websites? In a world where spyware software exists to calm the ever increasing paranoid attitude of the public, how would a program like this be treated by the masses? While I am fairly confident that my online security is safe with Microsoft (credit cards, etc) do I really want to put my digital life on the line for the small price of one software product? Kevin - Notebook Review

What do you get?

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit and 64-bit DVD)
Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007
Microsoft Money Plus Premium
Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008
Microsoft Streets and Trips 2008

Requirements?

First off, you have to be an American resident and over the age of 18 years.
You must own the computer you will be using.
You are required to fill out a survey at the start, and then every 2 weeks.
The automated program is offered to Windows Vista and Windows XP customers only.
The survey feedback program applies to all versions of Windows.
Microsoft, comScore, and MarketTools employees are not eligible to participate.

Matthew Hall (aDB) from Twitter has worked out the exact value of this bundle of software for me (thanks Matthew!)

Well here's the numbers I get from Best Buy :
Vista Ultimate Complete $399.99
Office 2007 Ultimate $679.99
Microsoft Money Plus Premium $79.99
Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008 $49.99
Microsoft Streets and Trips 2008 $39.99

Total Bundle Value at Best Buy $1249.95 - for 3 months of your Attention Data.

Interesting hey?

From Russia with Love

2007-12-13T22:30:00.000+10:00

With some hilarity, I present: Russian computer program fakes chat room flirting.

Internet chat room romantics beware: your next chat may be with a clinical computer trying to win your personal data and not your heart, an online security firm says.

I find this both hilarious on a number of levels, but it illustrates so perfectly about how valuable (as users of the interwebs) our attention data is. It's so valuable that some smart people have written what can really only be described as a Trojan horse for attention data!

PC Tools senior malware analyst Sergei Shevchenko says the program has a "terrifyingly well-organised" interaction that could fool users into giving up personal details and could easily be converted to work in other languages.

"As a tool that can be used by hackers to conduct identity fraud, CyberLover demonstrates an unprecedented level of social engineering," he said in a statement.

"It employs highly intelligent and customised dialogue to target users of social networking systems."

This is not some script kiddy. Or some backyard Javascript peddler. This is some serious hardcore natural language processing prodigy who has the temerity and the wits to make a quick buck by collecting social and personal attention metrics. I can't condone his actions; as I do find it highly immoral (and unethical) but I can definitely see why someone would do such a thing.

This also highlights the need for the general public to be more conscious and aware of their attention data, how to obtain it, how to control it and how to move it. It clearly demonstrates the value of the data we allow companies and products to collect about us with little or no hesitation. We allow these companies to collect whatever they like, without even letting us have a glimpse of what inside their walled gardens.

It's long past due that we all stood up and asked them to open the doors.

It's time we all started demanding Data Portability.

Facebook launches ClosedSocial

2007-12-13T07:44:00.000+10:00

So... instead of out-opening Google's OpenSocial (often referred to as OpenWidgets), Facebook has instead launched a campaign to further distribute their proprietary app platform into other networks. Is this ClosedSocial? Or maybe ClosedWidgets?

Come on guys. This is getting pretty silly.

Chris Messina, a fellow member of the DataPortability workgroup, has the right idea. Blogs are the ultimate social network.

There are plenty of tools, but the result is the same - they are tool agnostic
They have a friends list (blogroll and registered members)
They host and drive conversation (comments)
They have all manner of 'apps' built for the sidebar
They use the web as their platform
They are totally customizable
They are totally distributed
The activity is aggregated via Techmeme, Technorati and others
The list goes on...

Are blogs back? Let's hope so.

Facebook Stirring Up Anger For Disabling Accounts

2007-12-12T13:06:00.000+10:00

According to Techcrunch:

"As if Facebook didn't have enough to worry about, now it may have a growing customer service problem on its hands. Facebook members whose accounts have been disabled - some with good reason, some not - are increasingly frustrated with the company's opaqueness when it comes to trying to figure out what they did wrong. They find that their accounts have been turned off and access to the site and
all their data is denied, sometimes without so much as a warning. Facebook's customer service reps, who can only be reached via e-mail and are understandably overstretched, are apparently not very responsive."

Facebook is turning into a textbook case of why users must own their own identity and data.

2008 will be the year of the Portable Social Network, the DNS of Identity and the rise of the lifestream.

Stay tuned...