Drumbeat Boston was fantastic! Thanks to everyone who came, and for those who didn’t, here is a short summary to incentivise you to attend other Drumbeat events.

We were fortunate to have the Venture Café host the event, with the help of Carrie Stalder, Elizabeth Peyton and many members of the CIC team. They have a nice recap of the event on their blog. We also worked with Rudi Seitz, and used Whimwords to facilitate conversation among strangers and friends alike.

The event itself was a collaboration between the Center for Future Civic Media, the Awesome Foundation, and of course Mozilla’s new open web initiative, Drumbeat.

The evening opened with a classic Drumbeat exercise, the spectrogram. No, not a graph (well at least not a traditional one), a social exercise involving standing along a line of tape so that our “end users” could publicly proclaim a point of view and thus we could precipitate conversation. Users stood to one end to “agree” and another to “disagree,” left with lots of space for movement and agreement percentages in between.

Some hits were “I feel remorse when I use Facebook,” “I know what Mozilla Drumbeat is,” and “the web is totally open.”

The evening continued with the announcement of the Awesome Foundation’s July Fellow, Paul Gardner-Stephen, a post-doctoral fellow at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia and founder of the Serval Project. He received funding for a decentralized P2P phone networks using Android handsets and the VillageTelco’s “Mesh Potato,” a lightweight, cheap building block for mesh networks. The project aims to aide in disaster relief situations, especially in rural areas without many cell phone towers.

The announcement was preceded by a short talk by Jonathan Zittrain on the principles of “awesome” and the benefits of openness.

The Erhardt Graeff from the Awesome Foundation presents their “signature” giant check to Dr. Paul Gardner-Stephen, developer of The Serval Project, their July fellow.

All photos by Reed Sturtevant and are CC-sa 2.0. For more photos check out this album by E Derek Smith, and the rest of Reed’s photos here.

http://hbs.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_8qWf269WeL6ZFNG

I’m an advocate for openness. This DOES mean that I think people should have access to information that they need, and have the ability to innovate in new ways, and built off of old systems (eg. Zittrain’s generativity or the idea of “remix” or “view source.”)

This DOES NOT mean I’d want to use an open-source version of paypal (an example where ‘closed’ is a bit of a necessity, or would require some SERIOUS innovation to be open in the FSF/GPL sense of the word), nor does it mean that I think people shouldn’t be able to charge for content/services/goods — whether or not it’s always a good *idea* to charge for those things is another story.

I think that good, clean, design, and simplification are NECESSITIES of technology — not afterthoughts or options to add in later. This DOES mean that I think things like ergonomics of physical devices and user experience of media are valuable assets that should *never* be subject to death-by-committee, being pushed back to version 2.0 or any excuses for lacking legitimate research in this area.

This DOES NOT mean that everyone need be using Helvetica (the canonical “simple, clean” font, for all you non-design snobs out there), agree on the same design aesthetic, or meet every end user’s needs, nor does it mean that because I value this, (despite my degree in design) I want to design it for you.

Social is important. I mean this in many, many ways. From a future-online-business-model discussion, people are always going to value content they find from their friends, online and off. Now that it’s moved online, we finally have word-of-mouth, quantified. Companies and brands are just now beginning to realize the value of this

Also, getting people together face-to-face is an invaluable way to communicate, brainstorm and build. I don’t know if any video-chat-second-life-online-VOIP will ever replace good human eye contact, and the truth is, it doesn’t have to. Meetups, Hackathons, Bar Camps and Parties can’t be replaced by a “killer app.”

Technologies can enhance the ways we connect to one another, and anyone making “social media” should embrace the fact that it’s an enhancement, not a replacement or replica. The companies (and quirky projects in people’s basements) that design systems around this will succeed, and those that don’t will fade away as clutter. Systems that allow users to build off of existing connections, and make signifigant, valuable new ones (‘IRL’ as they say) will remain relevant to people’s real lives. There are also niche markets in this space, because one person’s “media overload” is another’s “media zen.”

These aren’t all of my “guiding principles” but it’s a good list of the ones that have been on my mind lately as I’m shaping the projects I take on for the summer and the next year.

I’m trying to capture the essence of the open web movement so that it’s accessible to non-web people. I think, with the help of @msurman, @moltke, Geoffrey Macdougall, @herhighnessness, @openmatt, @alina_mierlus,@gameguy43 and many others, I’ve gotten pretty close.

What follows is a snapshot of the current Mozilla Drumbeat description on the site. I didn’t describe it *too much* in my intro because I’d like to see if my description works. Would love your feedback and thoughts.

Mozilla Drumbeat is keeping the web open.

We want to spark a movement. We want to keep the web open for the next 100 years. The first step: inviting you to do and make things that help the web. That’s what Drumbeat is — practical projects and local events that gather smart, creative people around big ideas, solving problems and building the open web.

We all benefit from the open web.

The open web is the most powerful communication tool in the history of humanity. It’s the nervous system of trade, education, governance, activism and play. It allows a single idea to achieve global impact. At its core the open web is participatory, transparent, decentralized and generative. Existing content and software can easily be spun into something new. All without needing to ask for someone else’s approval or permission.

But we can’t take the freedom of the web for granted.

There are many who would neuter or control the web we have built. Imagine an internet filled with devices you can’t tinker with and walled gardens. What’s at risk? Access. Privacy. The freedom to create and innovate.

We need to protect it. Improve it. Grow it.

Mozilla’s mission is to guard the open nature of the internet. 20,000 of us did this when we built Firefox. We took back the web. We’ve been continuing this work ever since. And it’s exactly why we’re starting Drumbeat.

Drumbeat is your chance to keep the web open and free.

Drumbeat is for anyone who wants to lend their skills and creativity to the cause of keeping the internet open. It’s a chance to for everyone — not just software developers and testers — to get involved in keeping the web open. Who? Teachers. Lawyers. Artists. Accountants. Plumbers. Web Developers. Anyone who uses and cares about the internet.

You can get involved online or face-to-face.

With Drumbeat, we’ve planted a flag. A place to gather. A place for you to find collaborators. You can start a project, or join one that’s already rolling. If your project gets traction, we’ll shout from the top of the mountain so everyone knows about it. And we’ll even fund a handful of the very best projects. You can also attend — or start — an event in your city. Events offer a place to work on projects with neighbors, and a chance to paint a picture of what you want the open web to look like in 100 years. Check out featured projects and upcoming events. Get involved now!

You’re probably also familiar with the 2006 News Feed fiasco, the Facebook Beacon fail and the fact that Facebook wasn’t profitable as quickly they’d like to have been (for those of you not in-the-know, it took til they reached 300 million users to be cash flow positive).

The News Feed and Beacon taught Facebook to push the limits of privacy to gain pageviews (and thus relevance and perchance $$) and taught users, for the first time to be wary of Facebook, regarding their privacy.

From the standpoint of “online business models,” (which is somewhat of an oxymoron) this is an interesting crossroads. To what degree can users’ data be used without violating their (own social norms of) privacy? Is (total, clear and absolute) transparency about user data usage enough to maintain users? Is policy the correct intervention? What do users want from the social web? When and why do dissatisfied users leave a service?

I don’t think the open web should have to get a day job to underwrite and support its values–so how does a company make money *online,* maintain relevance, and not infringe on user’s privacy? Will Facebook figure this out before more and more users leave?

…and to think, I sometimes claim to be the ‘only Dharmishta on the internet’

The ACLU of Northern California (and originators of http://www.dotrights.org/) released a primer on privacy and free speech entitled Privacy and Free Speech: It’s Good for Business, detailing instances where privacy has affected the conversation around a brand, both in positive and negative ways. The report advocates for notifications of privacy policy changes, transparency about the collection and storage of user data, and limits on data-retention periods. They hope that privacy will become a concern closely related to a company’s reputation. I wonder how many companies currently shaping privacy norms through their policies and actions read such research, and how to get it to the forefront of the privacy conversation.

Netflix is canceling its Netflix Prize Sequel due to user privacy concerns. According to their blog:

In the past few months, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asked us how a Netflix Prize sequel might affect Netflix members’ privacy, and a lawsuit was filed by KamberLaw LLC pertaining to the sequel. With both the FTC and the plaintiffs’ lawyers, we’ve had very productive discussions centered on our commitment to protecting our members’ privacy.

We have reached an understanding with the FTC and have settled the lawsuit with plaintiffs. The resolution to both matters involves certain parameters for how we use Netflix data in any future research programs.

Facebook will be funding a $6 million “digital trust fund” as a result of the Beacon class action lawsuit. According to Business Insider,

The foundation will be chaired by UC Berkeley’s Chris Jay Hoofnagle, Facebook’s public policy director Tim Sparapani, and privacy advocate Larry Magid.

Infochimps, on the other hand, is selling user playlists, mood updates, mobile updates, photos, vents, reviews, blog posts, names and zipcodes from MySpace.

Looking forward to writing here again, as I think I’ve finally recovered from (all the writing involved in) getting my masters and will be blagging.

*Culturally interesting (indicative of cultural phenomena or paradigms)
*Technologically referential (taking certain degree of technological understanding)
*Funny

My comments are (in the parenthesis).

! I have a comment
*$ Starbucks
02 Your (or my) two cents worth
1174 Nude club (not a number abbrv. like leet—made to look like an address so parent’s dont know)
404 I haven’t a clue (i love this one, it’s like a 404 error for a human!)
511 Too much information
8 Oral sex
9 Parent is watching
99 Parent is no longer watching (i hadn’t seen 9 as the signifier for this… maybe you have)
?^ hook up?
A/S/L/P Age/Sex/Location/Picture (picture is new since i was a teen!)
A3 Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime
AAAAA American Association Against Acronym Abuse
ACD Alt Control Delete
AFZ Acronym Free Zone
ALOL Actually Laughing Out Loud
AOB Abuse Of Bandwidth
ASLMH Age/Sex/Location/Music/Hobbies
AYV Are You Vertical? (as in, are you awake?)
banana code word for penis (not obvious?)
BD Big Deal -or- Baby Dance -or- Brain Drain
BDBI5M Busy Daydreaming Back In 5 Minutes
BDC Big Dumb Company -or- Big Dot Com
BEG Big Evil Grin
beos Nudge
BIBO Beer In, Beer Out
Blkbry Blackberry
BM Byte Me
BOB Battery Operated Boyfriend (vibrator, obvs.)
BOCTAAE But Of Course There Are Always Exceptions
BOFH Bastard Operator From Hell
book it means cool
BOTEC Back Of The Envelope Calculation
BSOD Blue Screen of Death
BTWBO Be There With Bells On (not by the way, body odor?)
BTWITIAILWU By The Way I Think I Am In Love With You
BWL Bursting With Laughter
BWO Black, White or Other (there isn’t a def. for this one, but the see also is for gay/straight male/female so they’ve got to mean race…)
C-P Sleepy
CD9 Code 9 – it means parents are around
CICYHW Can I Copy Your Home Work
CID Consider It Done -or- Crying In Disgrace (this could leave some room for miscommunication…)
Cof$ Church of Scientology
CRBT Crying Real Big Tears
CRTLA Can’t Remember the Three-Letter Acronym
CT Can’t Talk
CTMQ Chuckle To Myself Quietly
CTO Check This Out
CU See You -or- Cracking Up
CUOL See You OnLine
CUWTA Catch Up With The Acronyms (seriously?)
CWYL Chat With You Later
CX Cancelled
CY Calm Yourself
CYA Cover Your Ass -or- See Ya
CYE Check your Email
CYL See You Later
CYM Check Your Mail
CYO See You Online
DAMHIKT Don’t Ask Me How I Know That
DFLA Disenhanced Four-Letter Acronym (that is, a TLA)
DGTG Don’t Go There Girlfriend
DGYF Damn Girl You’re Fine
DINK Double Incomes, No Kids
DIRFT Do It Right the First Time
DISTO Did I Say That Outloud?
DNC Does Not Compute
DRIB Don’t Read If Busy
DWB Don’t Write Back
DWBH Don’t Worry Be Happy
DWPKOTL Deep Wet Passionate Kiss On The Lips
DWS Driving While Stupid
DWWWI Surfing the World Wide Web while intoxicated
DYFM Dude You Fascinate Me
DYHAB Do You Have A Boyfriend?
DYHAG Do You Have A Girlfriend
EMRTW Evil Monkey’s Rule The World (i think they mean the US government?)
EOM End Of Message
EOT End Of Thread (meaning: end of discussion)
EWIE -mailing While Intoxicated
FAWC For Anyone Who Cares
FDGB Fall Down Go Boom
FE Fatal Error
FOAG F*** Off And Google (meaning to go “search the web”)
FOMCL Falling Off My Chair Laughing
FRED F***ing Ridiculous Electronic Device
FWB Friends With Benefits
GAFYK Get Away From Your Keyboard
GAGFI Gives A Gay First Impression
GALHER Get A Load of Her
GALHIM Get A Load of Him
GANB Getting Another Beer
GD&R Grinning, Ducking and Running
GGGG God, God, God, God
GOS Gay Or Straight
HBIB Hot But Inappropriate Boy
HCC Holy Computer Crap
HOHA HOllywood HAcker
IDST I Didn’t Say That
IITYWIMWYBMAD If I Tell You What It Means Will You Buy Me A Drink
IKYABWAI I Know You Are But What Am I?
ILICISCOMK I Laughed, I Cried, I Spat/Spilt Coffee/Crumbs/Coke On My Keyboard
IPN I’m Posting Naked
ITMA It’s That Man Again
ITS Intense Text Sex
IYFEG Insert Your Favorite Ethnic Group
KIBO Knowledge In, Bullsh** Out
KPC Keeping Parents Clueless
LDTTWA Let’s Do The Time Warp Again
LJBF Let’s Just Be Friends
LSV Language, Sex, Violence
LTHTT Laughing Too Hard To Type
LYLAS Love You Like A Sister (finally one i recognize!)
mhhm uh huh -or- yeah (does this need a translation?)
mlm giving the digital middle finger (whoa, it’s visual…)
MMYT Mail Me Your Thoughts
NAB Not A Blonde
NIFOC Nude In Front Of The Computer
NNWW Nudge, Nudge, Wink, Wink
NWAL Nerd Without A Life
OMB Oh My Buddha
OMIK Open Mouth, Insert Keyboard (open mouth, insert foot?)
RTBM Read The Bloody Manual
RTBS Reason To Be Single
RU/18 Are You Over 18?
RUMCYMHMD Are You on Medication Cause You Must Have Missed a Dose (seriously??)
SM Senior Moment
SMIM Send Me an Instant Message
SMOP Small Matter of Programming
SNAG Sensitive New Age Guy
SNERT Snotty Nosed Egotistical Rotten Teenager
SSEWBA Someday Soon, Everything Will Be Acronyms
SSIA Subject Says It All
STBX Soon To Be Ex
s^ what’s up? (i used to use the analog version of this on notes in middle school—the hand drawn up arrow)
TYCLO Turn Your CAPS LOCK Off
WAK What A Kiss
WAMBAM Web Application Meets Brick And Mortar
WILB Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing
WISP Winning Is So Pleasureable
WIT Wordsmith In Training
WLMIRL Would Like to Meet In Real Life
YAOTM Yet Another Off Topic Message
YAUN Yet Another Unix Nerd
YSAN You’re Such A Nerd
^5 High Five