Paul Jacobson

So says Bev “Feisty Female”:

If you haven’t heard about the Rocking the Daisies Music Festival you’ve been hiding under the wrong rock! Now in its third year, this is the coolest festival by far and the fact that it’s eco-friendly to boot, is commendable. (Their pay-off line is PARTY HARD, TREAD LIGHTLY.)

Bev’s question for a couple people (myself included) is what I would take along to this eco-friendly music festival. These are the five things I would take along:

1. My mobile phone for updates;
2. My camera for stills and short videos to be edited and posted later;
3. Possibly my MacBook (although I tend to go a little light at these sorts of events);
4. Sunglasses, sun cream and maybe even a hat; and
5. My iPod (I know it is a music festival but my iPod has my own personal music festival for those moments when I need some familar inspiration (the iPod would probably necessitate the MacBook to charge up and sync).

Technorati Tags:
feisty female, feistyfemale, rocking the daisies, bev, eco friendly

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There is quite a bit of chatter about moving the conversation away from Twitter to FriendFeed. The advocates of this move are not just less known FriendFeed fans but some of the bigger personalities on the Web. Jason Calacanis recently declared that he was shifting his conversation almost exclusively to FriendFeed from Twitter for a week. Leo Laporte confessed that most of his attention is on FriendFeed which is more conducive to conversations than Twitter. I talked a little about this a while ago when I was using Jaiku as my primary status service.

The one big issue with Twitter (aside from his reliable unreliability) is that conversations can be difficult to track and contribute to. Tools like Twhirl help you keep track of replies and respond to posts but there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to view all the replies to a particular post in one place so other people can engage in a conversation both with the original poster but also other commentators. There are a couple services which are far better suited to conversations than Twitter: Jaiku, Pownce, Plaxo Pulse and FriendFeed are just the ones I use (although my focus tends to be more on Pulse and FriendFeed). Each of these services have proper commenting and reply features so you can view the post and the comments about the post and, in the process, track and participate in the conversation. The “@” reply mechanism in Twitter is crude and a bit like shouting out across a room hoping that the person you are replying to hears you and responds. With proper commenting and replies it is more like standing in a circle have a group conversation.

As much as the Twitter loyalists swear by Twitter because everyone seems to be using it, I have to wonder why everyone remains so loyal when there have been a series of outages and crashes and Twitter just doesn’t have the functionality other services do have. Although Twitter has multiple access points, they are not all available on an ongoing basis so using that as a differentiator is disingenuous. That being said, it would be helpful to have more developed mobile clients for FriendFeed and Pulse (Pownce has a pretty good mobile interface and Jaiku is probably has the most developed and integrated mobile application yet - it is just a pity Jaiku is pretty much closed off to new users for the time being). Thankfully popular apps like Twhirl make it really easy to track and contribute to FriendFeed items too so that may well give FriendFeed an edge over the other aggregators even though Pulse has a number of cool commenting and reply features too.

Notwithstanding my reservations about Twitter, I enjoy using it as an easy way to get thoughts out there into the ether. I do prefer to engage in the conversation on Pulse/FriendFeed/Jaiku where my Twitter stream is fed (of the three, FriendFeed picks up my new tweets the fastest, followed by Pulse). I tend to use the aggregators as access points for people who may follow me there to my content so Twitter still has value to me as an important stream of consciousness which feeds into Pulse/FriendFeed/Jaiku. Despite what many say, Twitter is really not a conversation tool. It isn’t designed for that and doesn’t do a very good job managing and representing conversations. What makes a lot more sense is to stimulate conversations on the aggregators.

Technorati Tags:
friendfeed, jaiku, leo laporte, lifestream, lifestreaming, plaxo, pownce, pulse, twhirl, twitter, jason calacanis

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NIN (aka Nine Inch Nails) has released yet another album for free download online. NIN has been doing this for sometime now. They released their album Year Zero for download using Garageband and Logic formats so fans could really get into the nuts and bolts of their tracks and remix them. They also released Ghosts I to IV in a range of options from free downloads to super duper packs with a variety of formats and options.

In May NIN did it yet again with their new album, The Slip, which was released for a free download on their site in a number of format options ranging from high quality mp3s to FLAC to WAV to M4A (Apple Lossless - the bit rate ranges between 415 kbps to 1063 kbps). There do seem to be a couple packages on the way for fans who want their NIN on CD or vinyl (or both). I downloaded the album in M4A just to see what the sound quality is like (it is excellent of course). Ordinarily I probably wouldn’t buy the album in a store if it was released in the normal way (record company … high cost … restrictive licenses … bah!). The free download makes it a no brainer for me and did I mention that the album and the PDF album art is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike US 3.0 license? This means you can make copies and share with friends. It also means you can remix their albums provided your remixes are licensed the same way (which means more sharing and remixing):

the slip is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license.

we encourage you to
remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc.

I downloaded my copy of the album using BitTorrent (I have so few opportunities to download stuff using BitTorrent legitimately that I had to give it a go). I don’t know if it is good but my download rate was in the region of 200 kBps to 350 kbps or thereabouts (small tidbit of information) so even the 262 Mbps download went pretty quickly (under 30 minutes). I have spoken about the Ghosts release in a couple talks I have given about copyright and alternative content licensing options (I talk primarily about Creative Commons licenses) and when you consider the tremendous commercial success of the Ghosts release (over $1 619 000 in the first week of sales) which included free downloads both on the NIN website and just about everywhere else you could point a BitTorrent client, it is hard to miss the commercial potential for Creative Commons licensed releases in the music industry.

This initiative blows my hair back in a good way. It reveals the tremendous potential for success that is available to artists who are reluctant to sign their way into a very tight corner in a conventional record label. I can’t help but think that the record labels are missing a golden opportunity to try out a different distribution model and perhaps even make a bucketload of cash themselves while still giving fans what they want - freely downloadable, high quality music they can share and use to express themselves. I am a fan again, not necessarily of the music (still getting back into it after a decade or more of not listening to NIN), but of the band and what they are doing. NIN has also released a Google Earth KML file that overlays downloads on the map to represent the number of downloads:

Here is a closeup of Joburg and Durban with some data on some of the Gauteng downloads:

I am looking forward to seeing what happens when NIN releases The Slip in physical formats in July. It is really interesting that the physical downloads weren’t available at the same time as the download became available. I also noticed that with Ghosts, you could only really download 5 free tracks on the site (although the full albums were available elsewhere on the Web) and with The Slip, you can download the whole thing for free. There seems to be constant innovation and that can only be a fantastic thing for fans and the industry as a whole.

Technorati Tags:
creative commons, music, music downloads, nin, nine inch nails, the slip, ghosts

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There is a debate about LinkedIn’s utility in the face of apparently growing numbers of lawyers joining and maintaining profiles on the service on Lexblog and Home Office Lawyer. This debate comes at a good time for me because I have been ruminating on LinkedIn’s value to me as a business networking tool the last week or so. My first thought is to ditch my free, personal account armbands and swim out into the deeper and potentially more rewarding paid, business account waters. At the same time I do want to see clear potential for value.

The first thing I did was to post a question on LinkedIn and on this blog about 4 days ago:

I’ve started thinking about upgrading my account from a free personal account to a paid business account. The business accounts offer quite a bit more than the personal account. My question to myself is whether I am using LinkedIn enough to justify the $19.95 per month (or even the $199.50 per year). What I would really like to see is a post or discussion about the value of a business account and what difference it makes to a user. Do I need to be a power user to benefit from a business account? Is the correct question even whether I am using it enough to justify the upgrade? Should it be more about upgrading and reaping the rewards?

In that time I didn’t receive any comments on my blog and received 5 responses on LinkedIn (not counting further interaction when I responded to the initial responses). That already says something about LinkedIn’s value to me as a networking/information/knowledge tool. If one of the goals of a service like LinkedIn and tools like blogs is to facilitate a conversation then LinkedIn is already ahead of the game. To add to this, I think it is fair to say that my blog has more traffic than my LinkedIn profile and this only enhances my LinkedIn profile’s value from this perspective. Of course there are a range of dynamics which impact on my rough analysis so it is hardly bulletproof.

Anyway, I am really curious about how I can make the most of LinkedIn and how I can use it to meaningfully expand my business network. I am not talking about adding a list of names (although I have done that to a degree) but rather how I can add a list of names to my list of connections and still have some meaningful interaction with those people, whether it be some form of work or just getting to know that person a little bit better.

A couple of the people who responded to my question on LinkedIn said that for $19.95, it is worth upgrading to the business account and trying it out. The one big benefit that I can see is that it is a lot easier for people to contact me if I have a business account because of the InMail feature. I am still a little nonplussed with a model that charges for the privilege of contacting another member I am not connected to although I am beginning to understand the value of not being freely contactable by everyone (thinking about Facebook and the regular message/invite/ninja-pirate hybrid app inundation I experience on Facebook). I have been a bit of an idiot when I have thought about the value of a paid account and this is reflected in the previous sentence. Limiting direct contact to paying members must, in part, deter Facebook-style floods of inane messages. What is probably more valuable is the ability to contact someone directly (whether you are the premium subscriber looking to make contact with a potential business partner/customer for the first time or you would like to contact a premium subscriber directly for similar reasons). Making this possible through a paid service at least means that you, as the paid subscriber, are serious about making meaningful contacts and that already enhances the value of the service all around, don’t you think? The value of a paid account beyond this seems to be to make LinkedIn a more comprehensive research tool and that could come in handy too if the results are better than results from a free account search. I am already using LinkedIn as a research tool when I encounter someone new or I am looking to contact someone new. The one little thing holding me back from taking the leap is the fact that I can’t simply downgrade to a personal account from a business account by selecting the option in my account settings. I have to email customer service to downgrade. That doesn’t sound too bad except I mailed customer service with a couple queries about the upgrade a couple days ago and haven’t received a response yet. How long would I have to wait to downgrade from a paid service to the free service before customer service agents act on my request and, consequentially, how long would I have to wait before LinkedIn stops charging me?

Leaving slow response times aside I am still pretty keen to explore LinkedIn some more and develop the habit of using it more and more. There are already a number of South Africans using LinkedIn (there are in excess of 19 000 people in my extended network in Johannesburg alone)

I ran a search on the number of people who are in South Africa and who have listed “Legal Services” or “Legal Practice” as their industry type and came up with about 500 people in my network (as I understand it, my network includes people up to 3 degrees away from me). I was quite pleased to see I am at the top of that list but who’s counting anyway. I am connected to the first 10 people or so already on that list. There is definitely a user base in South Africa already even if many of the profiles on LinkedIn are not maintained. This translates into enough potential to merit using the service. I think I agree with Maxwell Kennerly that LinkedIn’s value is not readily quantifiable either in money terms or any other measure that amounts to a return on investment in the service. As with many social networking tools, the value is a little fuzzy and yet it quite clearly exists (although you may still need to work for it).

Just the same it would be great if someone from LinkedIn’s customer service department responded to my query …

Technorati Tags:
business account, business networking, law firm, lawyers, linkedin, networking

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Ok, apparently I was a little oblique in my criticism of MyGenius the other day. It was interpreted as a positive review when what I was really trying to do was indicate my disapproval of the site from my personal perspective. So I thought I would let you know which sites I do prefer using and would give my official seal of approval to if I had an official seal and giving it mattered:

From a business networking perspective my top site is LinkedIn with Business Warriors coming in a close second. Both get to the heart of what business networking is to me: connecting with business contacts and learning more about them either for an ongoing project or a possible future collaboration. MyGenius is a little too much functionality without the meaningful interactions in my personal experience. I am sure there are lots of people who do a brisk trade through MyGenius so I am not going to malign the service. It just does not work for me.

When it comes to working online, Basecamp is the king of online collaboration spaces. I use Google Docs quite a bit at iCommons but Adobe’s online word processing app, Buzzword, is pretty darn cool!

When it comes to the social stuff I am a big fan of Plaxo Pulse, FriendFeed (really growing on me) and Jaiku. Pulse is pretty close to what Facebook used to be in terms of what it offers as a social networking site. It is also my preferred contacts service because I can point people to a single address for my public contact information and lifestream. I use Facebook but not as my core networking tool. If you don’t go for the gazillion inane apps on Facebook it tends to be a little thin. FriendFeed is my next best lifestreaming service and social interaction site. It does a fantastic job aggregating my content and facilitating really great interaction (even if very few people seems to be using it in my circle of contacts). Finally Jaiku is a fantastic aggregator and a very social place. If it weren’t for the fact that the majority of my contacts use Twitter I’d still be a religious Jaiku user. I hope Jyri and his team come up with a stunner service soon because Jaiku is a service that deserves a lot more attention.

On the short message/status side the only real option at the moment is Twitter and that is mainly because everyone seems to be there, not because it is a particularly stable service. That is its appeal. The absence of threaded comments makes it a bit of a hit and miss affair although apps like Twhirl do address that issue (thank goodness). There is a lot of talk about FriedFeed taking Twitter’s place but I don’t see that happening in a hurry. Even if FriendFeed had a better mobile presence (Jaiku is still tops there) I still see people sticking with Twitter because of its simplicity and because it has all the users. In terms of functionality I prefer Pownce and I am really starting to like Seesmic as a video conversation tool. The problem with Pownce is that it just doesn’t have the traffic Twitter has and it will not succeed the way it can because of that. You have to look at where the community is or all you have a nice looking app.

When it comes to where I put my content, I use Vimeo for personal videos and will use Viddler for my work related stuff if and when I put stuff up there. I use Flickr for my photos and have a Pro account there for a couple years. Nothing else really compares given my needs. My presentations go to Slideshare (works ok enough).

I bookmark stuff on del.icio.us primarily and also use Digg. Occasionally I’ll use Muti but I tend to go back to Digg.

As for the rest of the stuff I use, I am a big fan of the OmniGroup and use a couple of their apps for my day to day productivity work; NetNewsWire because of its integration with Newsgator (although I want to have the option of downloading images automatically); Adobe Acrobat Pro (expensive but what a wonderful app for me to have as a lawyer); Firefox 3 (Safari is good, but my preference at the moment is Firefox) and Mac goodness generally.

Otherwise if you want to see what else I have signed up for or am using, you can always check out my ClaimID page.

Technorati Tags:
basecamp, friendfeed, netnewswire, plaxo, productivity, pulse, seesmic, twhirl, twitter, vimeo, viddler, preferred services

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