I was really impressed this morning when I noticed that one of my favoroite bloggers -- Loic Le Meur -- had a nice summary of the Future of the Internet II Report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Loic, by the way, is the number one blogger in France.

Turns out that the Pew had a nice summary of the report, complete with byte-size bullet points. In essence, they did the bloggers' work by making it easy for anyone to quote the report succinctly. The PR world has done this type of thing of years, and it works nicely. I've known a couple of reports who made decent livings by rewriting press releases.  As best as I can tell from Technorati, some 71 blogs have quoted the report.

The moral of the story--make it easy for people to use your stuff.

So here's the summary, and let's just say that at least 72 blogs have quoted the report:

• A low-cost global network will be thriving and creating new opportunities in a “flattening” world.
• Humans will remain in charge of technology, even as more activity is automated and “smart agents” proliferate. However, a significant 42% of survey respondents were pessimistic about humans’ ability to control the technology in the future. This significant majority agreed that dangers and dependencies will grow beyond our ability to stay in charge of technology. This was one of the major surprises in the survey.
• Virtual reality will be compelling enough to enhance worker productivity and also spawn new addiction problems.
• Tech “refuseniks” will emerge as a cultural group characterized by their choice to live off the network. Some will do this as a benign way to limit information overload, while others will commit acts of violence and terror against technology-inspired change.
• People will wittingly and unwittingly disclose more about themselves, gaining some benefits in the process even as they lose some privacy.
• English will be a universal language of global communications, but other languages will not be displaced. Indeed, many felt other languages such as Mandarin, would grow in prominence.

Here's a novel idea. Music portal Sellaband lets fans to buy shares in bands. Apparently, some 250 bands have signed up with the portal. One band hopes to raise some $50,000 to fund its next recording. I'm skeptical, but its an interesting idea.

Link to Springwise: Bands funded by their fans | Update

Ken Burns didn't bring his camera to Seattle

He spoke about his upcoming series on World War II that will air sometime next year. The 14-hour series follows the lives of about 50 people in four American cities. The series is all about ordinary people -- not generals or politicians.

Here's my main takeaways:

• His style is all about story telling
• Ordinary people have extraordinary stories
• The country responded to a great challenge when everyone was asked to make sacrifices -- not just a small group like our current situation.
• The World War II generation was indeed the greatest generation

I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to this series. Hopefully PBS will replay his earlier Civial War series on of these days.

In the early 1900s, Canadian prime minister Wilfred Laurier told his fellow countrymen that the "20^th century belongs to Canada". Looks like he wa s off by a century.

Technology analyst Mark Anderson believes that Canada's time may soon be here. In a recent newsletter, Anderson identifies 14 reasons why the future belongs to Canada. Here are the key ones:

Canada looks ahead to the future

• Knows how to balance its own budget
• No military expenses to mention
• First-class educational facilities (can Stephen spell Moose Jaw?)
• Huge oil reserves
• Political stability
• Free trade and active markets
• Vibrant cultural scene
• Good business climate
• Natural beauty
• Lots of land and few immigration problems
• Benign foreign policy

I have to admit that there are times when I'd like to move back to Canada. However, it does get boring living in a place with few problems where everyone is so polite. I wonder if the Canadian dollar will again surpass the U.S. dollar. That hasn't happened since the early 1970s.

If you'd like the entire newsletter, just shoot me an email. Because of copyright considerations, I will be obligated to CC Mark Anderson. He will send you a free month-long subscription.

No I’m not quite that pretentious. I must say that our new Black and Deck cordless lawnmower works real well. It easily cuts the grass on our one-third acre lot in one recharge. It nice not coming back into the house smelling of gas and oil.

24 Volt 19" Cordless Rechargeable Mulching Mower with Bag

Lynn Terpstra, the marketing manager of Crossroads Mall in Bellevue, was awarded Bellevue's first Community Builder Award. I can't think of a better or more deserving person. She is a tireless community worker and a great friend. It was an honor to be invited to the presentation last Wednesday.

Two of the key speakers were Kevin Henry, head of Bellevue community-services diversity programs, and Barb Tuininga, manager of the Crossroads mini city hall.

They described Terpstra as the person who says yes to people and yes to bringing events and programs into the mall and neighborhood. In other words, she makes things happen. Claudia Balducci of the Bellevue City Council called Terpstra the community glue.

From the Seattle Times: Bellevue honors community builder

See Lynn Terprstra photos.

I’m going to try and check this out this weekend at Home Depot. We’re still thinking about buying a Camry hybrid later this year. This type of battery will really give that type of vehicle a real boost in power and gas mileage. Besides weighing less, it also holds a more powerful charge, it also weighs less.

More Powerful Hybrid Batteries

A123 Systems has built a powerful, lightweight lithium-ion battery pack that could lower the price of hybrid vehicles.

In a demonstration at the AABC conference in Baltimore this week, a rechargeable DeWalt reciprocating saw with A123 batteries (top) performed at least as well as a plug-in model by the same company. The rechargeable drill is also lighter than the plug-in version….

I’ve had to log on three times in 15 minutes. That’s hardly enough time to write an email.

Word 2007 is my new blog editing tool. It really is cool—simple to use and looks to be very powerful.

What kind of impact is the Web having on newspapers—an extremely cost one. The New York Times reports that help-wanted ads at the Mercury News have fallen to $18 million a year from more than $118 million. Monster.com and Craigslist.com are having a tremendous impact. 

As a result of falling revenues, the newspaper axed 30 percent of its newsroom staff. Little wonder that McClatchy wants to get rid of the newspaper when it finalizes its takeover of Knight-Ridder. Some media analysts had originally speculated that McClatchy didn’t want any of the Knight-Ridder papers with strong unions. Looks like there are other reasons at work. 

Quote

In Boomtown, but Still Stuck on a Bubble - New York Times

At its peak in 2000, The Mercury News had a Sunday circulation of 326,839 subscribers, according to the newspaper. Last September, the company counted 278,470 Sunday subscribers, a drop of about 15 percent. Revenue from the company's help-wanted ads fell to $18 million a year from more than $118 million, according to the paper. The newsroom was whittled to 280 people from 404, a 30 percent decline.

Well, maybe.

We’ve just bought a Gateway PC with the Windows Media Center OS and all I can say is wow. The dual core machine is extremely fast. I especially like the ability to record TV shows for later playback. With the Xbox Extender, we can even watch content stored on the PC on our flat panel TV. The quality is very good.

We’ve downloaded a number of movies from MovieLink and CinemaNow. I can’t say how much I relish the idea of not making trips to Blockbuster and Hollywood Video.

So what’s the downside to all of this? First the number of movies available for download is limited. This is really hard to understand. So there will be the occasional trip to the video store after all. Damn, I hate those late fees.

Second, the quality of the digital TV really drives home how lousy the quality of the cable service is. Bottom line, I can’t wait for IPTV—digital TV pumped over the Internet. IPTV offers the possibility of extremely high quality video with almost unlimited choices in channels. AT&T has started to roll it out in select markets. I can’t wait until we get it in our area.  

 Dare Obasjano has an excellent trip report  on a talk given by Danah Boyd at  the recent ETech conference. Boyd is a social researcher at Yahoo. She talked about the difficulty in taking Web services global across ethnic and cultural lines. In particular, I liked the section on why some services succeed:

ETech 2006 Trip Report: G/localization: When Global Information and Local Interaction Collide

Craig's List, Flickr and MySpace are examples of a new generation of successful social software. All three services have the following basic characteristics

• Passionate designers and users: The creators of the services are passionate about the service they've created and use it themselves. All three services were seeded by friends and family of the founder(s) who became the foundation of a strong base of passionate users.

• Public Personalities: Tom (MySpace), Stewart (Flickr) and Craig (Craig's List) put a human face on the service by directly interacting with users either in support roles or to give updates on the status of the service.

• Integrated feedback loop: Changes to the sites are driven by customer demand which is often given directly to the people building the products

Just posted on my New Media blog why I think Live.com is the newspaper of the future.

[Via Read/WriteWeb]

Latest SNS Numbers - MySpace Streaks Ahead:

A USA Today article reveals that MySpace has now reached 47.3 million members. The Blog Herald also reports that MySpace "is growing by an amazing 160,000 new users a day, according to MediaPost".

USA Today gives a rundown of numbers for SNS sites, c/o comScore Media Metrix. They note that "in the past year, the number of visitors to MySpace (from homes, workplaces and colleges) has skyrocketed, making it the Web’s top social networking site":

MySpace.com
Nov. 2004: 4.9 million
Nov. 2005: 26.7 million

Facebook.com
Nov. 2004: N/A
Nov. 2005: 11.1 million

Xanga.com
Nov. 2004: 5.8 million
Nov. 2005: 7.9 million

Bebo.com
Nov. 2004: N/A
Nov. 2005: 1.5 million

Friendster.com
Nov. 2004: 966,000
Nov. 2005: 1.5 million

Tribe Networks Inc.
Nov. 2004: 62,000
Nov. 2005: 515,000

Linkedin.com
Nov. 2004: 123,000
Nov. 2005: 354,188

Orkut.com
Nov. 2004: N/A
Nov. 2005: 83,000

Source: comScore Media Metrix, a division of comScore Networks, Inc.

For some reason, USA Today didn't include LiveJournal in their chart. According to official stats, LiveJournal currently has 9 million user accounts - but only a little under 2 million are "active". That would put LJ at number 3 or 4 in the above chart.

The demographics of SNS sites are interesting. LiveJournal users are skewed to 16-20 years and are 2/3 female. MySpace is said to be mostly < 22 yrs and general consensus is that it's a younger user base than LJ.

All of these SNS services have a very young user base, so in many ways it's a battle for the hearts and minds of Generation Y and beyond. MySpace may be winning in numbers, but recent controversy shows they can't get complacent.

[Via Cool Tools]

Smart Power Strip:

This is so simple. You plug your PC into the main socket, and then plug your printer, scanner, monitor etc into the other sockets. When you turn off your computer, the smart unit shuts the power off to the other sockets. Saves power from constantly-on transformers, saves the environment, and saves lives from electrical fires caused by overheated DC adaptors. Also works for AV equipment.

-- Bruce Richardson

Smart Strip Power Strip
$31
Available from
Amazon

OneClick Power Strip
Available in the UK from
OneClick

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - New Year Resolutions.

I’ve had the pleasure of shooting the breeze with Dare on a couple of occasions. He is really a bright guy. I really like is second resolution—Write more articles.

Writing is such hard work and takes so long to do. But he’s got a lot of great insight to share with others.

Yes, the “Man dies having sex with horse” story was the top performer, so to speak, on the Seattle Times Web site. Peter M. Zollman nails this one in his analysis of the story:

There's a serious point here, folks. I think one reason newspapers in the United States are seeing such a steady decline in circulation can be summed up in one word: "Boring." Because they're monopolies, lots of U.S. daily newspapers are flat out snoozers. Entry continued...

One thing the Web lets us do is track the popularity of content and gives us an approximate amount of time readers spent on the story. No more guessing what people really want. From what I’ve seen in Web statistics, readers want useful information that impacts their lives, or they want something highly entertaining and different. A steady diet of people having sex with horses would get boring pretty quickly.

[Via Poynter E-Media Tidbits]

New MVP's!:

Today I heard that there are new MS Dynamics CRM MVP awardees. One of my direct colleagues has obtained this award! Please join me in congratulating Rob Bakkers with this outstanding accomplishment! Find out more about the MS Dyn. MVP's here: https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvplist.aspx?Product=Microsoft+Dynamics+CRM