Social networking not a business March 21, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , 2commentsAccording to the Economist:
Social networking will become a ubiquitous feature of online life. That does not mean it is a business
Illustration by David Simonds
Nice illustration. Isn’t seesmic in one of those walled cells as well? Not sure whether Flickr belongs.
Declaration of Interdependence January 18, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentFrom the desk of IKEA
- Tell no more lies. We deserve to be told the truth, and so does the public. Otherwise there is no hope of building the trusting relationship necessary for any success.
- Keep no secrets. Building up expectations with false promises of ’surprises’ is divisive and again, undermines trust.
- Relinquish control. Only by allowing truly devolved local autonomy will there be a genuine willingness to make the required sacrifices for global change to happen.
- No more grids, tables and spreadsheets. An obsessive desire to box things in is the sign of an ill mind. Let there be narrative and multi-directional discourse.
- Open source means the source code is made freely available. Where is the source? Where is the application?
- Dump the control freak. Nothing but an opportunist who won’t stop manipulating behind the scenes until the entire organisation consists of just one person.
- Have a nice weekend, there are always plenty more Mondays.
Planet Germany December 11, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , 3comments
Colleague Cathy Dobson has been writing a book for the past three years - and I just wanted to let you know that it has finally been published.
It’s about living in Germany and the first year of setting up Red Door. Well… it’s not really about that - it’s about the funny culture clashes and differences between the Germans and the Brits.
Synopsis
After a decade of living in Germany, a chaotic British family makes a New Year’s resolution to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the local culture. The process is complicated as the mother is founding a business with a German partner who is convinced that all Brits are both dysfunctional and poorly nourished. The year sees them bumbling through local festivals, getting into scrapes with authorities, and falling foul of the law, all aided and abetted by their eccentric neighbours and posse of cats. This book exposes the crazier side of both British and German culture, examines profound mysteries such as German fortune telling and sauna etiquette, and explains why dachshund owners are the most dangerous people on the planet.
Half an Hour December 9, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , 3commentsToday, December 9th 2007 the clocks go back in Venezuela - by Half an Hour.
Half an hour?
Yes, half an hour. That may sound a bit like the craziest thing a whole country has ever done in recent times but actually it’s just a reversion to the time zone which was used previously by Venezuela between 1912 and 1964 in the twentieth century.
The new official time zone of Venezuela is determined by meridian 67° 30′ west of Greenwich, in South East London, UK. This meridian divides Venezuela into two almost symmetrical areas and represents a -4:30 hour offset from Greenwich Mean Time.
So what’s the time now? Here, very near Greenwich when it’s eight o’clock in the morning 8.00am - GMT, in Caracas, Venezuela it will be half past three: 3.30am.
Half hour timezone differences will not be unique to Venezuela though, they will be in the company of several others including Afghanistan (GMT +4:30 hours) and Iran (GMT +3:30 hours) and also the states of South Australia and Newfoundland, Canada. And in Kathmandu, Nepal they are a quarter of an hour out of step with neighbours by adhering to GMT +5:45 hours!
The Minister for Science and Technology supporting the the new timezone declared
“I see it as a very positive thing that while there is light we can be in it”.
Controversial Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez also claims that people will be healthier and school children will arrive for lessons with more energy as a result of the extra half hour.
Coincidence June 26, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentHmm, Yesterday I wrote that comments are social objects too .
Now today, Roberto has closed his down, and Euan can’t turn off annoying captchas.
Open: LinkedIn to open up. MySpace next? June 26, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , 1 comment so farSome news, analysis and links from Antony Mayfield about Facebook and LinkedIn.
Open (finds, minds, conversations)…: LinkedIn follows Facebook into the open: MySpace next?
LinkedIn is to open up: a pretty essential move to ensure its continuing relevance in a world where Facebook is hoovering up professionals to its social network.
According to Dan Farber at ZDNet, LinkedIn’s founder told him:
…over next 9 months LinkedIn [will] deliver APIs for developers, ostensibly to make it more of platform like Facebook, and create a way for users who spend more time socially in Facebook to get LinkedIn notifications
Sooner the better in my opinion. Although LinkedIn has added new functionality it has never been more than a live contacts database for me.
It’s good to see Linkedin thinking about defining itself in relation to Facebook, this may add to the usefulness of both services.
As John Naughton’s article in yesterday’s Observer neatly illustrates, open platforms rather than controlled spaces look like the smart bet when it comes to social networks.
Open platforms rather than controlled spaces sounds good to me. .
That’s the goal to aim for, once you already have an established user base and an agile development team.
The link to the Observer provides a comparison of Facebook with MySpace:
But it isn’t just the age dimension that marks out Facebook from MySpace. An intriguing contrast in strategic vision is also becoming apparent. Murdoch bought MySpace because it had become one of the most visited sites on the web. The challenge for the Murdoch team was how to ‘monetise’ those eyeballs. Their solution was a traditional combination of advertising and control. (It also helped that Google paid $900m for the privilege of providing search facilities on the site.) The advertising bit is self-explanatory; the control freakery is exemplified by the Murdoch philosophy of not allowing other people to make money on his platform. In that sense, MySpace is really Rupert’s Space.
Globalisation shakes the world April 16, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentBBC NEWS | Business | Globalisation shakes the world
The speed and scale of economic change has made it increasingly difficult for governments to keep their economic destiny in their own hands.
And what is most disturbing for many people is that no-one seems to be in charge, or be able to agree fair rules for the new global economic order.
Project Teaspoon April 1, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentGoogle’s Project Teaspoon provides an original way to bypass the telecoms providers ownership of broadband connectivity, thus making a free service available via another utility which every household is connected to. This is a major breakthrough - check the installation description and diagrams here:
Official Google Blog: Project Teaspoon
Then check the date 
Fame, narcissism and MySpace March 20, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentAn insightful article by Danah Boyd about Fame, narcissism, MySpace, union busting, self-esteem based education and reality TV.
fame, narcissism and MySpace. Many-to-Many:
One minor comment - most of the ideas which Danah relates are generaliseable, so why does she need to use the adjective “American” so many times?
Owned Ideas are Different Ideas March 19, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentHere’s an interesting idea, which belongs to Geof Glass:
Owned Ideas are Different Ideas
When ideas are property, the ideas we have are different than when they are not.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
