Moyers' PBS documentary on "The Net at Risk"

Bill Moyers' PBS documentary The Net at Risk is now free to view online. The program covers topics including the growing connectivity gap between the US and other developed nations, net neutrality, municipal networks, and media concentration. The site has ancillary material like viewer discussion and commentary.

Telephone regulation

Confused by the comings and goings of AT&T and telephone regulation in the United States? Stephen Colbert explains it in this video. Still confused? Check out our short history teaching note.

QEDWiki -- develop mashups in the browser

IBM's QEDWiki is a powerful development system for building Web mashup applications.

Dion Hinchcliffe has prepared an eye-opening screencast demo of QEDWiki in which he builds a mashup of an address file and Google Maps in just a couple of minutes.

The impressive drag and drop development system runs in a single browser window. It provides an example of the power of AJAX in a browser, and makes one wonder how far AJAX can go in duplicating the functionality of local applications.

Business risk: Talkr.com, a terrific service, is in trouble.

Talkr.com illustrates the attraction and risk of mashups. Talkr.com is a text-to-speech service for blogs. It allows users to click to listen to particular posts or to subscribe to an RSS feed of the spoken version of the blog -- it automatically turns the blog into a podcast.

The audio version is valuable in at least two ways -- it makes the blog accessible to blind people and you can listen to it while away from your desk -- while driving, exercising, etc.

Adding audio to this blog took only a few minutes -- the power of mashups!

That is all good news. Now the bad news. Talkr.com is up for sale because they are not generating enough revenue.

This is another illustration of the business risks we talked about in an earlier post.

Outsourcing applications -- a university example

The Economist published an article on corporate use of consumer and other services. One example they cite is Arizona State University, which is using Google Mail and plans to use other Google services.

I create list servers for the students in my classes. Last semester, 3 out of 60 students used their CSUDH email addresses. This suggests that we are spending a lot to offer a service that only a few students value.

But, should CSUDH outsource our email and other applications? We cannot run servers as efficiently as folks like Google or Amazon, but, even if a service provider is cheaper and more reliable, can we depend upon them? This is a business and contractual decision as much as a technical and cost decision. I listed a few pros and cons in this teaching note.

Podcasting inside the organization

For examples of podcast applications inside corporations and other organizations and discussion of implementation and buy-in strategy, check this podcast by Michael Geohagen.

Geohagen's presentation was recorded at the Podcast Academy, a good source for podcasting information -- technology, applications, business -- in general.

Podcasting in higher education

For a discussion of the use of podcasting in teaching at Duke and Harvard, listen to this podcast from the Podcast Academy, a good source for podcasting information -- technology, applications, business -- in general.

An excellent example of open access publishing

The University of Michigan Press has a new Digital Culture imprint which will publish books free online while charging for the printed version. The first book is an anthology of The Best of Technology Writing 2006, a thoughtfully edited, eclectic collection of articles from publications like the New Yorker, Wired,The New York Times, and New Republic.

The publishing model worked for me. I was able to read enough to convince myself to purchase the book -- many of the articles seem interesting and relevant. I will also have students read selected chapters on line, and expect a couple of them will also end up buying the book.

If you are interested in open access publication, you will like Peter Suber's blog.

Best Google research presentations of 2006

Here are the "top 20" presentations at Google research. I've not looked at them yet, but some must have relevance to IS teaching and research.

Talkr.com, a text-to-spech service

In our introduction to audio processing, we spoke of various audio applications, including text-to-speech. Talkr.com offers a text to speech service for blogs. Using this service, you can now listen to any of the posts on this blog. You can also establish an RSS feed for an automatically generated podcast of the blog entries. Setting this up took only a few minutes -- one line of HTML sends the permalink for the blog entry to the Talkr.com server which generates the audio file from the text.

What are employers looking for?

Students often ask what employers are looking for in hiring new grads. Information Week columnist Stephanie Stahl says successful job seekers will have business sense along with IT knowledge, and Jason Fried of 37 Signals describes his hiring criteria in an audio presentation.

Best tech videos

Best tech videos is a collection of videos of conference presentations and screencast demos and tutorials. You can watch or download them.

Business use of consumer services

The Economist has an article on business use of consumer services. One could argue that consumer products and applications, not military or business, are now driving technological innovation.

One example cited in the article is Arizona State University which is now using Gmail and plans to use other Google services. ASU IT director Adrian Sannier explains why he made that choice in this blog entry.

Paying to seed a user community

J. C. R. Licklider described the importance of communities of common interest rather than common location in his widely influential 1968 paper on The Computer as a Communication Device. Today we have many examples of the importance and value of user-contributed content and community. But, people's time and attention are limited, and starting a successful community is difficult. Yelp.com has experimented with paying early users for reviews of restaurants and other local businesses.

Would you be willing to contribute content in an area you know about for a small fee?

Global wealth disparity underlies Internet disparity

We have discussed global disparity in Internet backbone deployment, cost and usage rates. North America, Western Europe and the rich Asian nations are the "haves," and the rest of the world ranges from "have not" to "have almost nothing." A recent UN study investigates the distribution of world wealth (as opposed to income), and, not surprisingly, finds high correlation with the Internet disparity we observed in class.

Amazon Web services

We have talked about data centers and mashups or composite applications. Amazon has exposed application programming interfaces for its applications and will also store your data at their data centers. All you supply is the business idea. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos describes their services in in a short video or you can read more in this Business Week article. Amazon Web services could be used for Internet, intranet or extranet applications.

Parking garage mashup

We've been talking about mashups and hosted applications. The city of Santa Monica has a parking availability site that mashes Google Maps with online counters at the gates of city parking structures. This would be particularly useful if accessed from a mobile device while driving to the parking structure.

Backbone speed trends

We have been talking about backbone growth and speed increases. A NetworkWorld article summarizes Ethernet improvement over time and describes coming standards of up to 100Gbits per second. The article reports that Equinix data centers are seeing a doubling of traffic every 12-14 months and that YouTube is now serving up to 25Gbps and will soon be up to 75.

Fiber is the future

In the long run, most of us will have fiber to our homes and other fixed locations. The cost of installing fiber is generally estimated at about $1,000 per home or building. You can see why it is so costly in this description of a Verizon fiber installation. (Incidentally, it is at the home of spreadsheet co-inventor Dan Bricklin).

While retrofitting old construction is expensive, the cost of installing fiber in a new housing tract or other new construction is relatively low and the maintenance cost is less than that for copper infrastructure.

The OECD reports that, as of June 2006, over 37% of broadband connections in the Czech Republic used fiber, 26% used fiber in Japan and 7% in the United States. (Of course the US and Japan have many more broadband connections than the Czech Republic). Many feel the deployment of communication infrastructure will impact the quality of life and economy in a nation.

While installing fiber is a daunting task in the United States, critics argue that the telephone and cable companies are slowing progress in order to maximize profit and minimize investment. Critics like Bruce Kushnick argue that US phone companies have already been given over $200 billion ($2,000 per household) in rate increases and tax breaks in return for commitments to install fiber which they reneged on. Kushnick recently stated his case in a PBS documentary on The Net at Risk.

Combination Wifi-cellular phone and service

T-Mobile announced a combination Wifi-cellular phone and service. You make and receive calls using Wifi when at home or at T-Mobile public hotspots. When you are out of range of a Wifi radio, the phone automatically switches to the cellular network. If you leave home while on the phone, the transfer is automatic and the call is not interrupted. T-Mobile has Wifi hotspots in Starbucks coffee shops, Hyatt hotels and other locations.

They are calling this "the only phone you need" because it will work well inside your home where cellular reception may be poor and outside. Calls are unlimited and the cost is fixed.

If you use your telephone for applications other then telephone calls, it may not be the "the only portable device" you need -- they are selling telephone service, not open Internet connectivity.

Would you consider this service yourself? (Check the prices before answering). What do you use your telephone for beside phone calls? What might you use it for in the future? How did you like the T-Mobile web site?

The New York Times covered the announcement in this article.

TV is changing

The LA Times had a front page article on the flood of copyrighted sporting event video being posted on Youtube. The networks are ambivalent. On one hand, their "property" is being distributed for free, on the other, it is good publicity, the image quality is poor, and the videos are of limited length.

But what of the future? How is a program televised today?

• A network crew produces the show.
  
• Where relevant, they include paid references to products in the show (product placement).
  
• The network publicizes the show.
  
• The network distributes (broadcasts) the show.
  
• Sponsors produce commercials.
  
• Sponsors pay the network to distribute the commercials.
  
• We watch the program when it is broadcast or record it if digital rights management software allows that.
  

How might it work in the future when we all have high-speed Internet connections to our homes?

• The sponsor produces the show, and includes periodic announcements that the show is "brought to you" by them.
  
• When relevant, they place their products or others in the program.
  
• They put it on Internet servers.
  
• We watch it at a convenient time.
  

Who wins in the latter scenario? Who loses?

A datacenter in a shipping container

Data center real-estate, cooling and electrical power are very expensive. Sun Microsystems hopes to cut cost and save power with their Blackbox data center in a shipping container. They estimate a cost 1/10 that of an equivalent traditional data center with ten percent less power consumption and a setup time of one week -- just connect it to the Internet, electrical power, and water for cooling. For comparison, check this traditional data center in a building.

Take Sun's cost saving figures with a grain of salt, but the idea of a portable, preconfigured data center is interesting. Google is rumored to be working on one too -- read about that here and this followup.

Read more on the blog of Sun CEO Jonathon Schwartz.

OECD broadband statistics

The OECD just released statistics on broadband connectivity per 100 habitants. The US ranks 12th, but the OECD did not report on cost, speed or symmetry. It is interesting to note that fiber to the home or premises is creeping up in Japan, Korea, Scandinavia and the Czech Republic.

Why contribute content and what is the Gross Contributed Product?

I recently learned about Levelator, a new program for audio processing. I tried it and found it to be effective and easy to use -- a terrific addition to my audio tool kit.

Levelator was written by Bruce Sharpe and his son Malcom, and, like much Internet content, it is free. What motivated the Sharpes to spend the time to develop Levelator and why did they contribute it to the community? I don't know, but one clue is the fact that they are distributing it through the Gigavox network, which grew out of IT Conversations, a volunteer organization for podcasting IT-related conferences. IT Conversations editors and audio engineers were all volunteers, so it may have seemed natural for the Sharpe's to contribute their software.

My personal reaction to Levelator may also help with the "why" question. I spent about two hours testing Levelator and creating a teaching note -- an example of its use. I will use the note in teaching, and I also posted it on the Levelator Forum so others could use it. What did I gain from that effort?

The teaching note has no monetary value (the program surely does), but it is "capital" since I can use it on my job. Someone else using it would make me happy -- I would get a kick out of that at no additional cost. Creating the note was also fun. Even small creative acts are enjoyable, although there is usually some tedium in the execution. Reputation building provided another motivation -- in a small way, I am now a contributor to the community of Levelator users.

The bottom line is that the payoff was sufficient that I contributed two hours of my time. In return for creating and contributing the teaching note:

• I had it for my own use.
  
• I had the pleasure of knowing some members of the community might use it.
  
• I had the fun of creating it.
  
• My reputation was slightly enhanced.

But, I am not unique. The Internet is a platform for millions of small contributions like mine as well as large ones like that of the Sharpes. At the low-effort end of the scale, people click "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" on a video or song, forward an interesting email to a person or list, or vote in an online poll.

More effort is required of those who post millions of reviews of books, restaurants, movies, videos, and other products every day. Others, like the Sharpes or the Wikipedians or the Linux and Apache developers, contribute much more. These large and small contributions add up. How many millions of hours did Internet users contribute to the online community yesterday? What is the economic value of those millions of hours -- how does the Gross Contributed Product compare to the Gross National Product? What will it be in ten years? Might this non-market economy one day rival the market economy in importance? (Stay-at-home mothers and grandmothers might ask the same thing). If so, what are the implications for organizations or management or the entertainment industry? (Writing a new teaching note is more fun than watching most TV programs).

This is reminiscent of the Wikipedia. Neither the government nor the market economy could create and maintain the Wikipedia, it could only be done for free -- a cool paradox. If this sort of thing seems interesting, check out The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler or listen to his talk on IT Conversations or at UC Berkeley. Of course you can read about him and his ideas on Wikipedia too. Going further back, I talked about incentives to cooperate in a 1992 academic journal article called Systems for Finding People.

Higher education applications: Cyberone and Berkeley Webcasts

We have discussed the applications and implications of the Internet for higher education. Most of our class felt that watching Vint Cerf's lecture The Internet Today and Tomorrow on the Net was better than being there. Universities are putting increasing numbers of courses online. For example, UC Berkeley offers a growing list of webcasts and podcasts of courses and special events like distinguished lectures. (The courses may also be streamed from Google).

I have been following Professor Charles Nesson's Harvard Law School course "CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion." Cyberone is relevant to our course. For example, the course covers ways the Internet facilitates collaboration and explores the implications of collaboration technology for organizations and the economy. It is also interesting that the course was intended from the outset to be open to the general public along with Harvard Law and Extension students. (The Extension students meet in Second Life). The Wiki and projects they create, student notes, lecture videos, etc. are all online with Creative Commons license. The instructor hopes this material will influence public opinion.

Is this the future of the university? Would you rather hear a lecture on the history of intellectual property law by me or by a Harvard law professor who specializes in the area? Professors struggle to involve students and elicit participation. Professor Nissen took a similar approach in his Evidence course, and, in a three week period, the students accessed the course Wiki over 10,000 times. How's that for participation?

Follow these links for more information on the course:

• Course home page
  
• A trailer pitching the course. (Modern persuasion).