Justin Baum

Facebook, Twitter and 2008 data portability questions still chapping my ass

The question is no longer Myspace or Facebook. It is now Facebook or Twitter. Those two sentences are enough to get anyone to close a browser window. But wait! Up until now the resounding, and easy answer, has been "BOTH!" Unfortunately that question is about to get a lot harder to answer as Facebook prepares the launch of their new homepage. Which is essentially a play to become more Twitter like. With Anderson Cooper and everyone else blabbing about Twitter, and the Twitter experience being adopted rapidly by a more mainstream audience I can't blame Facebook at all. It is the right move. And I gotta say, I am excited about their new design. As the above Read/Write Web post describes, FB will start to look more and feel more like a stream of tweets or other aggregate sites like FriendFeed. The focus is now even more on "the feed." It's what a lot of people don't know they want yet, and FB is just showing them the way. The irony is that this new tweak to the FB experience will coach and prepare users to take the plunge to the stripped down purist (better?) approach of Twitter.

I already struggle with when to update my status on FB verus when to just post to Twitter. What is beautiful about Twitter is that it boils down the cultural shift that has happened with communication and technology into it's essence. A simple, reductive scaffolding for no rules, many to many communication from which endless amounts of interesting things can be built. Thats the opposite of Facebook, a lumbering monolith. Yet FB has come about as close as you can get to nailing profile centric social networking, and I love it. What Facebook has realized is that being profile centric (myspace) is no longer relevant. Being feed centric is 2009. Neither site will ever replace the other because of how meaty FB is and how stripped down twitter will remain (hopefully!). Oh god here we go again... back to 07/08 and the multi-profile fragmented/fractured nature of our lives on the social web. THE HUMANITY!

Cranking up my wambulance for some whining here. As FB and Twitter rolled up a lot of momentum recently a whole horde of music people I dig started popping up on both sites. If you know me or check out the occasional DJ mix I post to my podcast you know the cast of characters I speak of. This has been a blast. I forgot how geek dominated the landscape of the social web, or at least my corner of it has been for the past 3 years. So many lulz and good info came along with these new found friends on twitter. But with all those new tweets came the need to filter. I have ranted about filters and findability on here before.

So I am sitting here staring at Tweetdeck and the various columns of different sets of friends that Tweetdeck so nicely allows me to create. Ive got a list of famous people, a list of SF party folks, music/DJ types, super nerds, serious bros, the list goes on... But what really chaps my ass is that when FB relaunches their new homepage I am going to want the same exact filters / lists on there as well. And I am going to have to MANUALLY re-create them. Wouldnt it be great to be able to sync or import/export these filters. What happened to the great data portability movement of 07/08. Is the summer of love over? When do the users get to reap the benefits? It seems as though we are still in the early land-rush stages of the social web. Its unfortunate but I think some of these common sense elements of the social web experience that don't exist now could be years off. We have got some leveling off to do. Maybe its generational? Good old http://www.brianoberkirch.com planted this seed in my head a few months back. Zucky is of my generation. But he stands amongst some old Karl Rove like characters in the forest of tech. It will be interesting to see what happens.. to say the least.

As my friend Rey Flemmings likes to say - Its ALL about filters. The problem is filters are increasingly becoming important on the social web. Not being able to get them in and out of various sites is going to make situations like rabidly using twitter and facebook a total pain.

Feb08 Track Allowance DFA DC Recordings Joakim Holy Ghost! and In Flagranti

Hey... so I am going to post my favorite DJ tracks every month with samples courtesy of Junodownloads. If I'm not making mixes I should at least be sharing the tracks Im feeling, right? Facebook readers click through to see the flash audio player.

• Morten Sorenson - "Start Something (40 Thieves remix)" - Solid throwback jam with a smattering of catchiness and some vocal samples you might find on a Morgan Geist bit. Not exactly a big stand out track, but functional party starter or transition tune.
• IN FLAGRANTI - "I'm Sorry, I'm Terribly Sensitive" - This guy must have had a few bad nights in the red light district. The vocals are what I would expect to hear in a tranny bar if I was to accidentally injest hoarse tranquilizers. The pouty protagonist laments the displeasures of love and romance over a typical In Flagranti dark-disco bit. Very Tenderloin.
• WOOLFY - "Oh Missy (Whatever/Whatever remix)" - This song is just rad. I love the hook. I almost played it out already, been stuck on repeat. Have a listen. DFA doing no wrong lately.
• MARKOWSKI, Vincent - "Dirty Capsules" - More SERIOUS drums and bass at house/disco temp that I have come to rely on from DC Recordings. You could mosh to this or do the hipster hair flip. You choose!
• Scotty COATS & WES THE MES - "Double Fisted" - Actually, this just about falls in the same category as the above DC recordings track. Major bass line. The distinguishing factor is that the whole track sounds like my head got dunked in water and now Im hopping one leg trying to empty my ear. Some how this is a good thing? I dunno, have a listen. Go DFA!
• THEY CAME FROM THE STARS I SAW THEM - "Moon Song (Holy Ghost remix)" - I heard this first on the EPIC Aeroplane mix for Resident Advisor. Space flight by way of restored vintage american cars with a disco ball for a moon is the best way to describe it. But not in a Kavinsky Coachella way. In a "I never go out, but have a lot of italo stuff on vinyl and don't like MP3s."
• Matthew DEAR - "Pom Pom (The Juan Maclean Acid Overhaul dub mix)" - A preview of the absolute awesomeness of Mr Maclean's new album. Driving acid licked track with the bombastic deep voiced vocals he is known for. Proclaim it Juan.
• KARMA - "Beach Towel (I:Cube Cosmix Marathon remix)" - MASSIVE slow burner. Starts out as what seems to be a typical Balearic fair but then in comes the i:cube TECH and things get REALLY interesting. This is a beautiful winding morphing lush tune.
• ROMAN IV - "The Apple Tree & Me" - Ever wonder what would happen if you fused together a tech-house master and some throwback drum&bass vibes ah-la Dilon&Loxy / Cylon records? You would get this. Rinse-able.
• Joakim & The Disco - "Love & Romance & A Special Person" - What planet does Joakim live on? Seriously... Something just isn't right. In a good way. And this track is LACED with it. Alice in wonderland love story.

Hulu vs. Boxee and why networks should wake up and look at Netflix

I haven't written about this yet, but things just got really interesting today.

First some context, skip it if you know the story. Hulu is a great site that offers full lenght TV shows from major networks at high quality for free (ad supported). Boxee is a media center application (think Tivo for web / bit-torrent content). People tend to run boxee on small computers hooked up to their TVs. Up until recently Boxee provided a lovely way to access Hulu's content on the big screen. Pressure from whomever controls Hulu's content (the major networks) forced them to block access of their content by Boxee. DRAMA.

Today two interesting things happened

Boxee, the strapping young lads that they are, came back at the networks with a total Haymaker. Boxee, laughing in the networks face, provided rudimentary access to Hulus content through their built in web browser (it doesn't look like a browser, but thats essentially what it is). Hulu is just a website after all, right? Oh what a BURN. Hulu responded by doing the only thing they could do. They blocked Boxee entirely. Why? Because if they don't, some dinosaurs at the networks would pull the content plug on Hulu and they will bleed out in their fragile early stages of life.

Remember that scene in the movie Dune when the gross guy with boils pulls the "heart plug" on some pour soul? Well the networks are the boil covered gross guy (Baron Harkonnen) and the innocent soul is Hulu. SPOILER ALERT for the movie and this whole debacle: The boil covered gross guy dies in the end. I think his uncle was the music industry?

The networks have a serious win with Hulu. People love Hulu. But the monetization pheromones in the air have caused them to possibly flub it. The networks are essentially saying - we would really prefer if you hulu users watch our content on a tiny computer screen and not your TVs, please turn off Boxee and go back to your web browsers. The irony of this logic is that Boxee is essentially a glorified web browser. And the further move to block Boxee from Hulu's RSS feeds reinforces the networks misunderstanding of the entire medium. To them watching Hulu on Boxee feels WAY to much like regular old TV that they aren't making enough money on or in control of. Networks, Im looking at you... hasn't the success of Boxee, iTunes, Tivo and other "have it my way" solutions spoken to you at all? You won't have a TV channel forever. You are only as good as your content can throw you. And do you know who is going to throw you like a 90 mph fast ball in the coming years? People like BOXEE! Make friends.

Back to the flawed logic of Hulu blocking Boxee's access. There is nothing stopping me from opening up my favorite run of the mill web browser and blasting Hulu full screen all over my living room on my flat screen. Are the networks going to kick down my door and tell me to stop until they figure out how to mOnEtiZe it? When the future is obviously staring them in the face why do they insist on going the route of the music industry? For the love.

Lets look at Netflix. They are kind of like Hulu. They offer content from a lot of different people. They just implemented their streaming media-center-like software on a bunch of different platforms, xbox360, OS X, Windows, etc. Granted they have a different relationship with their content providers than Hulu, its an example of how to do it right. The future, forget it, the NOW, are these Hulu, Boxee, Netflix-streaming style experiences. Networks, why bother fighting whats already here? Stop being surprised when these young bucks whip past you at 90 miles an hour. Soon your time will be up as a TV channel. Im sure smart people at your organizations are already telling you its here. Embrace the change, stop stifling innovation, and get some smart people to figure out how to make money. We just want to watch your content, and your content is increasingly going to be all you have.

Jet Lag Fodder

Coming off of an intense 3 weeks of work. Just went through that typical cathartic culmination of effort we are conditioned to endure from the first book report on. One of my favorite moments in film is from Apocalypse Now. The scene when Captain Willard kills Colonel Kurtz in a psychedelic and ritualistic sacrifice is amazing. The image of Willard rising from the swamp popped into my head tonight after some chatter at work about the economy and what we need to do at TBG to ensure we continue to make it through unscathed (relative to the hardships people are facing out there). I got riled up and couldn't help defile one of my favorite cinematic moments by turning it into an embarrassingly geeky war cry.

The first night of this NYC trip I found two things in my feed reader that really helped pull my head out of the economic mud. One is about the past and one is about the future.

Past:

The first is narrated motion graphics piece about the history of the internet. Really well executed short form storytelling. I was reminded of a lot, and also learned a lot too.

Future:

The second is an interview on Bay Area public radio with futurist Paul Saffo from Dec 31st 2008 about, well, the future. He navigates a REALLY wide rang of equally depressing and positive subject matter with a quick wit, sense of humor, succinctness and candor.

Together these two pieces of media paint quite a picture and definitely did not help me beat the jet lag.