vanderwal.net

As If Had Read

The idea of a tag "As If Had Read" started as a riff off of riffs with David Weinberger at Reboot 2008 regarding the "to read" tag that is prevalent in many social bookmarking sites. But, the "as if had read" is not as tongue-in-cheek at the moment, but is a moment of ah ha!

I have been using DevonThink on my Mac for 5 or more years. It is a document, note, web page, and general content catch all that is easily searched. But, it also pulls out relevance to other items that it sees as relevant. The connections it makes are often quite impressive.

My Info Churning Patterns

I have promised for quite a few years that I would write-up how I work through my inbound content. This process changes a lot, but it is back to a settled state again (mostly). Going back 10 years or more I would go through my links page and check all of the links on it (it was 75 to 100 links at that point) to see if there was something new or of interest.

But, that changed to using a feedreader (I used and am back to using Net News Wire on Mac as it has the features I love and it is fast and I can skim 4x to 5x the content I can in Google Reader (interface and design matters)) to pull in 400 or more RSS feeds that I would triage. I would skim the new (bold) titles and skim the content in the reader, if it was of potential interest I open the link into a browser tab in the background and just churn through the skimming of the 1,000 to 1,400 new items each night. Then I would open the browser to read the tabs. At this stage I actually read the content and if part way through it I don't think it has current or future value I close the tab. But, in about 90 minutes I could triage through 1,200 to 1,400 new RSS feed items, get 30 to 70 potential items of value open in tabs in a browser, and get this down to a usual 5 to 12 items of current or future value. Yes, in 90 minutes (keeping focus to sort the out the chaff is essential). But, from this point I would blog or at least put these items into Delicious and/or Ma.gnolia or Yahoo MyWeb 2.0 (this service was insanely amazing and was years ahead of its time and I will write-up its value).

The volume and tools have changed over time. Today the same number of feeds (approximately 400) turn out 500 to 800 new items each day. I now post less to Delicious and opt for DevonThink for 25 to 40 items each day. I stopped using DevonThink (DT) and opted for Yojimbo and then Together.app as they had tagging and I could add my context (I found my own context had more value than DevonThink's contextual relevance engine). But, when DevonThink added tagging it became an optimal service and I added my archives from Together and now use DT a lot.

Relevance of As if Had Read

But, one of the things I have been finding is I can not only search within the content of items in DT, but I can quickly aggregate related items by tag (work projects, long writing projects, etc.). But, its incredible value is how it has changed my information triage and process. I am now taking those 30 to 40 tabs and doing a more in depth read, but only rarely reading the full content, unless it is current value is high or the content is compelling. I am acting on the content more quickly and putting it into DT. When I need to recall information I use the search to find content and then pull related content closer. I not only have the item I was seeking, but have other related content that adds depth and breath to a subject. My own personal recall of the content is enough to start a search that will find what I was seeking with relative ease. But, were I did a deeper skim read in the past I will now do a deeper read of the prime focus. My augmented recall with the brilliance of DevonThink works just as well as if I had read the content deeply the first time.

Return to the Blog and Life

Things have been quiet here? Um, yes they have. The past couple years have been full of changes and struggles. It seemed that just as things were turning from a rough stretch on personal and work front, something would rise up and cripple that forward progress.

This past year it was my dad calling in June of 2009 saying he cancer of the stomach that had spread to the liver. He seemed to improve quite a bit by Christmas of 2009 as he and my mom came back to visit, which was quite wonderful. But, on the return home he started not doing well and they found a tumor on his brain. Things stopped improving after this and it became a bit of a rough road for him. Not paying close attention to my own well being it really had an impact on me. He was my best buddy and I knew time was running short.

In July of this year my dad died and while it was really hard to comprehend and sad, it was also freeing. Not only did that concern and un-noticed energy focus had shifted, but I also had the focus that the safety net of parents love, guidance, and all types of parental support had sifted from a set of two, to just one. But, I realized I still had two feet and put that energy and time back into work.

Time Spent Digging

During the past couple years during all the change and struggle, I've spent a lot of time sorting through the things I am deeply passionate about, which are many and fit wonderfully with the work I do. I have spent a lot of time digging quite deeply into social software and the whys and how it works, but more intrigued where it doesn't with the 90% of the world that make up the mainstream. I have a lot of writing I haven't posted or shared on this, but have some of it in workshops and presentations I have done in the past couple years. That will likely be finally getting posted over at Personal InfoCloud.

Over many years and as part of my formal education I have read much of the usual corpus of social theorists, whom I always finding myself having to set aside reality to embrace the theorists models enough to understand them, but then come back to reality and they don't fit as well as a whole. I've always been mindful of them, but as I have been digging back into my older frameworks of the Model of Atraction and Come to Me Web and how they helped me work through and understand interactions with information on the web and beyond to build and frame next generation services, along with helping others do the same.

This review and digging has lead me to a lot of understandings and realizations around the social web and echos all the years of building, managing, iterating, and maintaining social tools. The same problems always surface, which are the tools don't really allow humans to be social like humans are social with out a mediated interface. But there are basic understanding of how humans are social through tools as mediated interfaces that is counter to many of the ways many of the tools and services are developed and provided.

Now mixing the older Model of Attraction and come to me web frameworks for thinking with the models and understandings I have come to in the past few years regarding social software have really gelled. These ideas will be getting out there and have been the fodder for client work that is resurfacing now that the economy has become out of its dire state (for now).

About that Book

As many know I was writing a book on folksonomy for O'Reilly. That book hit a wall (no, not a Vander Wal), or a few of them and I was notified O'Reilly would not be publishing it. Early in writing it I got stumped by many things that I was seeing as they did not fit any of the social models being touted as core to understanding social in the Web 2.0 sense. It took me about 18 months to deconstruct all of what I knew, what others knew, and get to models I could use to think through some of the really strong values people were finding and the problems that people were having that seems completely counter to "how the social web works&qout;.

Following this there were many changes happening in my personal life that took attention and focus. But, at the same time the services and tools were changing drastically. Many of the really good tools that were addressing the hard problems, but not popular were shutting down. This was also happening for the tools for organizations to purchase and use internally (where my main focus has been). But, content for the book is still moving forward and I am looking for a publisher that fits well for it. Now that SharePoint 2010 has social bookmarking / tagging in it (although a really really rough interface for it) the book has much more value, so people deploying it can have a much better understanding of what is really needed to have it help remove the huge problem organizations face, of not being able to find and refind information they are sure they have when they need it. But, I am also free to blog much of what was heading into the book so it can get feedback and more eyes honing it.

Back Blogging?

Yes! I am back blogging. More non-work type posts will be here at Off the Top and work related content is over at Personal InfoCloud, but also am dropping odd bits in my Tumblr vanderwal blog. I am likely going to change the platform under this blog to something that I did not write in 2001 sometime in the next couple of months (nearly 2,000 post and categories to transfer).

Good Bye Dad

Yesterday, 1 July 2010, my dad passed away in Stockton, California. I am going to miss him deeply, but am grateful for the life that he shared, not only with my mom and me, but the many communities and organizations he cared about and worked in.

I have started a site for his memorial at tom.vanderwal.net. Please head there to leave comments and messages if you wish to do so.

Good Bye Brad

It was only four days into 2010 that the reality of life and its frailty surface to take the air out of my breath. It was the death of Brad Graham a very early blogger (BradLands) and host to the pre-SXSW warm-up Break Bread with Brad. As the article says, Brad died of natural causes at the age of 41.

Brad was one of those wonderful people who seemed to preternaturally walk up to you and say, "I know you" and with in 15 seconds of first meeting him you knew he was right. Brad was a great host when he was on the road traveling, as I joined in on Break Bread with Brad in San Francisco September 10, 2001 and in June in Washington, DC in June 2002 (he assembled about a dozen DC bloggers for brunch and was a great guest and host). Brad was great with stories that had unexpected twists and humor that would have everybody laughing until they were crying. Brad was not only in love with the theater, but one always had a feeling you were part of his always on comedy production and you were the star. He had those type of wonderful gift, you wish you yourself had and wished everybody you knew had too.

One of the things that has been really amazing is seeing MetaFilter, or more accurately MetaTalk - Remembering our friend Brad to witness an impressive outpouring of sorrow and celebration for the joy each of us shared in our life, which was Brad. This outpouring of moments of silence (indicated with a simple blank line or few and a ".") is not only a testament to Brad, but to the closeness we all felt for Brad that extends from only a few minutes or hour we would see him at SXSWi or when we were in the same town with him, but to the enduring power we have to fill those in between moments with digital intimacy to share a story, an glimpse of life, or in Brad's case most often a laugh.

I Too Miss Blogging

Ian said it best in the header for his post I miss blogging. There is so much good in Ian's brief post as well as the linked to Dan Cederholm post WoodPress. Before the thoughtless "15 ways to...", which rarely state anything worth reading. I am beginning to believe that the number lists are not meant for reading and only for SEO hits and ad revenue, which is not anything related to user experience but site owner's revenue experience.

I repeatedly am finding things I blogged years ago in Google searches when looking for answers. Sadly, at some point I had the answer and was prescient enough to blog my thoughts knowing I would need the answer in future years (sticking with that story). I have dumped a lot of snippets into Twitter that I know exist or did, but can't recover (thanks Twitter, well not really).

I really miss blogging and hoping drop things here again and stick with it (yes, been said before). There has been a lot that has taken my attention from here in the past 6 months to a year, including a separation, divorce, dad getting cancer (stomach that spread to liver), thinking we nearly lost him a couple times after collapses, economy ripping apart most of my work, and then seeing many of those things start to turn around. But, what I miss is sharing out snippets of life, understanding, misunderstanding, and half baked thoughts to get feedback.

Yes, get feedback. I know, I know! Comments are still off. Still planning resolving that, but not touching my code again. It needs time, possibly a new host, and some mapping things out.

I Love You Dad

it is in this precious life of ours
that we see
the living
the dying
the loving
the caring
the sharing
the bearing
the seeing
the believing
the comforting
the guiding
and all of the grace we can embrace

it is from these lessons
most wonderfully shared
from a father
to his son
that we do really see
the greatness in life
and the blessings within us
to live each day as a gift
not only to each of us
but to all of us
through the human bonds
of love provided
through everlasting grace

Resurfacing from Long Quiet

Yes, things have been quiet publicly around these parts. Well, that has to do with a lot of changes on the personal side of life that rolled over in the whole of things. In short our house sold, we moved in different directions, I moved office and home (with the lot of things moving to storage for a bit), been to Boston for Enterprise 2.0., moved in to my new place, been through more than my share of installation hiccups, filling in the gaps of furniture that was donated long ago, been to Varese, Italy for the International Forum on Enterprise 2.0, then to Copenhagen for Reboot (w/ two presentations), put on a full-day workshop at FatDUX HQ, returned to unbox (dig for many series of important papers), more installation hiccups, and many many meetings around the move.

Things are finally settling in to a proper flow, but every time I think that disruption of some sort raises its head (the amount of disruption is utterly amazing). I only move about a half mile from where I was living and working. InfoCloud Solutions has a new mailing address: 7831 Woodmont Avenue Suite 324, Bethesda, MD 20814. The actual workplace is nestled in Chevy Chase, Maryland (spitting distance from Bethesda).

Things are now in proper order for full working efforts and soon clicking along at a rate beyond the previous rate.

Hopefully, I will have longer descriptions blogged for the recent presentations. I am in the midst of trying to do massive writing efforts with coordinating Fall travel schedule and new clients coming on board (still room for more).

It is good to be back and settled.

DataPortability Video is Place to Start Understanding

Marchall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb has posted a good background about New Video Explains the Basics of Data Portability. The DataPortability - Connect, Control, Share, Remix video is under 2 minutes in length and explains the reasons why the DataPoratbility.org group is important. It aims to ease the pain many are experiencing as they use more social media, social web services, social networks, and/or social computing services in their personal and work life.

Control

The biggest piece in this for me is control with translates to services respecting privacy wishes among other desires around trust and control of sharing. As Tom Raftery points out With the rising interest in, and use of Social Networks (FaceBook, Plaxo et al) there is growing unease in what those sites are doing with your data, never mind the inconvenience of uploading all your data every time you join a new site. The DataPortability.org aims to include in its focus data that is "shared between our chosen (and trusted) tools and vendors".

I have been working around the edges on a project whose aim is to respect these privacy wishes. This is one of the things that really needs to be at the core of all services entering into this market segment.

Ma.gnolia Goes Mobile

On Friday Ma.gnolia rolled out a mobile version of their site, M.gnolia - Mobile Ma.gnolia. This had me really excited as I now have access to my bookmarks in my pocket on my mobile. Ma.gnolia gives a quick preview in their blog post Ma.gnolia Blog: Flowers on the Go.

What Mobile Ma.gnolia Does and Does Not Do

First, off the mobile Ma.gnolia does not have easy bookmarking, which is not surprising given the state things in mobile browsers. I really do not see this as a huge downside. What I am head over heals happy about is access to my bookmarks (all 2800 plus). The mobile version allows searching through your own tags (if you are logged in). It currently has easy access to see that is newly bookmarked in Ma.gnolia groups you follow, your contact's bookmarks, popular bookmarks, your own tags, and your profile.

Mobile Site Bookmarks

One thing that is helpful for those that use mobile web browsing is having easy access to mobile versions of web sites. Yes, the iPhone and many smartphone users (I am in the Nokia camp with my well liked E61i) can easily browse and read regular web pages, but mobile optimized pages are quicker to load and have less clutter on a smaller screen. The iPhone, WebKit-based browsers (Nokia), Opera Mini, and other decent mobile web browsers all have eased mobile browsing use of regular webpages, but having a list of mobile versions is really nice.

Yesterday, Saturday, I created a Ma.gnolia Mobile Version Group so people can share web pages optimized for mobile devices (quicker/smaler downloads, smaller screens, less rich ads, etc.). One of the ways I was thinking people could use this is to find sites in this group then bookmark them for their own use with tags and organization that makes sense for themself. The aim is just to collect and share with others what you find helpful and valuable for yourself. This group will be monitored for spam as the rest of Ma.gnolia is (Ma.gnolia uses "rel="no-follow"" so there really is little value to spammers).

Ways You Can Use Mobile Ma.gnolia

This means if you tagged a store, restaurant, bar, transit site, or other item that has value when out walking around it is really nice to have quick access to it. It can also be a great way to read those items you have tagged "to read" (if you are a person that tags things in that manner) so you can read what you want in the doctor's office, bus, train, or wherever.

I have a lot of content I have bookmarked for locations I am work, live, and visit. When I come across something I want to remember (places to eat, drink, learn, hang, be entertained, etc.) I often dump them into the bookmarks. But, getting to this information has been painful from a mobile in the past. I am now starting to go back to things I have tagged with locations and add a "togo" tag so they are easier for me to find and use in the Ma.gnolia mobile interface. I have already added a bookmark for an museum exhibit that I really want to see that is not far from where I am. When a meeting is dropped, postponed, or runs short near the museum I can make a trip over and see it. There is so much information flowing through my devices and it is nice to be able to better use this info across my Personal InfoCloud in my trusted devices I have with me and use the information in context it is well suited for, when have stepped away from my desk or laptop.

I am looking forward to see where this goes. Bravo and deep thanks to the Larry and others at Ma.gnolia that made this happen!

Hotel Brings Back Blog Sentimality from Summer 2001

This trip to Boston for the Enterprise 2.0 Conference (more on that in a post to follow) turned out to be digitally sentimental. As the cab pulled up in front of the hotel on Tremont Street, I realized I stayed in it July 2001 when it was a Wyndam. That trip was special as I had written a bit of code so I could blog from the road and then pull it back in to may hand built pages when I returned. This was a tiny travel blog tool I had knocked out in a few hours.

At that time I was writing the blog by hand in TextPad and loading via FTP. This was after I started blogging in late 2000 in Blogger, which became one person, Ev, and crashed often. I wanted a means to not have to FTP my blog post up when traveling as I was continually finding hotels blocked FTP.

This simple travel blog tool worked well. When I would return home I would copy the blog posts written in my browser based tool (a few text fields and a location drop down) and then FTP the incorporated bits into this blog. It was in October that I built out that tool into a full blogging tool, which still runs this site today. Nearly six years later I am living with my simple tool that works well for me, well I still want comments back on (a long story and a fix that may take more time than I want to spend).

This travel blog tool was also used to blog on September 11, 2001 that I was in San Francisco and not exactly sure when I was going to get back to the Washington, DC area. It is how a place brought back a flood of captured digital memories all from a tiny tool.

Down with DreamHost? Then Up with SegPub

After the security problems with DreamHost in the past day or so (many sites getting hacked as DreamHost is storing their passwords to accounts in open text files (something that should never be done)) I am getting a lot of requests from friends for options.

Look at SebPub for Hosting

Nearly 2 years ago I was getting fed up with my old hosting solution as the outages were unbearable. I needed solid open source and open standard hosting. I found some of my friends were hosted at SegPub and were loving it. After an introduction to SegPub I moved my hosting and have never been happier.

SebPub is an Australian company, which means you pay in Australian Dollars making the price relatively reasonable. The support has been wonderful, often on IM. Occasionally I will get an IM from them asking how things are going. They have kept the small town feeling with personal touch even as they have grown.

Needless to say the personal attention is nice, but the incredibly rare need to talk to them about downtime, problems, etc. is really a nice change. I can not recommend SegPub highly enough.

Getting to the Ultimate City Guide

This past week I was in Mexico City for work. My approach to the trip was filled with apprehension as I had never been there and much of the word of mouth and news of Mexico City was on the side of "express kidnappings and other non-cheery events. I pinged my Twitter friends and a couple people responded that they had been to Mexico City in the past year and offered great insights and advice (mostly not to hail taxis on the street and the usual advice for large cities (stay in busy areas, etc.)).

I did not have a lot of time to explore, but I really did enjoy my trip there. But, I was really not well prepared for the trip (mostly because it was rather last minute in a rather busy stretch of other non-related work).

The second day of my trip I felt far more comfortable as I had walked around my busy neighbohood getting a feel for it as I searched for food (there were many options, but I wanted local food not Korean or Argentinian). Walking around there were many offers for taxi rides, table dances, and flat-out prostitution offers. I had a fairly good shield of ignoring the individuals, but some were quite persistent. I found the early morning helped ground me a little better and found the buildings and architecture similar in a way to Bastia, Corsica. This tiny bit of grounding helped connect me to some understanding and provided a connection.

Most travel guide work better for me after I have been some place and preparing me for things I want to discover the next trip, than for preparing me for the first trip.

Trip Preparation and Pre-mapping

The trip was not the only trip I was not well prepared for, my trip to Berlin in Fall 2005 was much the same. But, with the Berlin trip I read and had many travel guide and nothing was really sticking (it too was in a busy travel and work schedule).

The travel guides really do not work well for me as I have nothing for the information to stick to. I have no reference point of familiarity for the information to adhere. Once I gain a foothold of perspective and foundation the information about a place starts making sense. All it takes is a drop of knowledge and the ripples of understanding and familiarity start taking hold.

What I really seem to need is that core grounding point. I have tried Google Earth and other satellite enhanced mapping systems (I am increasingly a fan of Microsofts Live Maps for this as its 3D models are quite helpful), but they still need some level of reference for the info to stick. Information combined with some 3D and 360 views of areas would help. Once I have a point I can hold onto I can then easily expand the knowledge.

The small bit of understanding makes unrolling surrounding areas and deeper understanding easier. For me the thin connection to Corsica helped put the architecture in context. This bit of context is like a Google Map showing an area then pre-loading other near and related information to unpack and apply quickly.

Personally, I like to have cultural understandings of things that are fixed and malleable. Fixed are things like phone systems (GSM) and ease of getting wifi or solid internet access, along with usual cost. Malleable are things that have options like places to eat, things to see and do, etc. Cultural components, like taking many photos in a neighborhood is something I like to understand, do people think a white guy (I was one of a handful I saw in my couple days) taking pictures of buildings and building details is a threat to them? Does this make me a sure target? Is it culturally improper?

Finding Guides that Fit Context

One of my issues is I am often traveling from a business context and need the fixed information. I find the Economist City Guides really good for the basic worklife understanding. I also have cultural (often sub-cultural) interest along the lines of use of technology, food, street art, local information design, social interaction patterns, etc., which seems to come from shared personal experience rather than printed resources.

Ultimate Guide

I think my optimal wish it to have an immersion guide experience prior to traveling, based on the location I will be staying. Then once I am in a location have information rolled out based on context, such as time to eat the food options based on my interest and level of adventure with which I am comfortable. Unrolling understanding and background based on surroundings for where I am and what is around the corner (literally and figuratively) would be fantastic.

This is a familiarity I now have with Amsterdam and parts of London. Some of this familiarity came from having a personal guide take me through those cities nearly 20 years ago. This provided me with an understanding of layout, core elements (transportation systems, cultural understanding, food, etc.), and comfort with a feel for the cities.

Most of the time I am ready for my first trip after going to a city once or have a fellow traveler guide me through their understanding of the city along with a local resident.

David Halberstam Dies In Menlo Park

I found myself saddened by the death of David Halberstam, who died in a car accident in Menlo Park, California today. It was the Summer of 1987 that I was reading a paperback version of The Powers that Be (about transformation in politics and media around in the 1950s through early 1970s). It was a book that opened my eyes as I was transforming to a real adult, but I was also reading it as I was traveling around Europe that Summer. This book is one that I consider a true favorite for its depth and ability to bring the time and stories to life.

Having rowed I also was a fan of Halberstam's The Amateurs about the quest for four rowers to make it to the Olympics.

I deeply enjoyed Halberstam's editorials and essays when I would run across them. His appearances on television crystallized the aura of a wonderful writer who thought deeply about his subjects and brought history and deeply tangled issues to light. I have yet to read his baseball books, but they are sure to be as wonderful as his other works.

I considered David Halberstam one of the greats and still cherish his works and will pass them along to the kid if he has interest in this wonderful writer.

Lessons in Identity

There is much consternation and gnashing of teeth today over the Flickr requiring a Yahoo! login from here forward, it has even made it to the BBC - Flickr to require Yahoo usernames. One of the Flickr co-founders, Stewart Butterfield, provided rationale that would have been a little more helpful up front. The reasons from Stewart are good, but are not solid value propositions for many.

Identity Lessons

There are some insanely important lessons in this dust-up. These lessons revolve around product versus mega-brand/mega-corporation; personal management of identity; and brand trust.

Product Brand versus Mega Brand

One of the primary issues in the Flickr and Yahoo! identity merging involves the love of Flickr the brand and what is stands for in contrast to the perception of the Yahoo!. Flickr was a feisty independent product that innovated the snot out of the web and bent the web to its will to create a better experience for real people. Yahoo is seen as a slow mega corporation that, up until recently, could not sort out how to build for the web beyond 1999. Much of the change in Yahoo is credited to the Flickr team and some others like Bradley Horowitz.

The change in Yahoo! has been really slow as it is a really large company. It seems to be moving in a positive direction with the changes to Yahoo! Mail (came from buying another company who got things right) and the new Yahoo! front door, but the perception still hangs on. Similar to Microsoft's operating system and software, changes to the corporation are like trying to turn a battleship under full steam forward. It is tough changing inertia of a corporation, as not only is it internal technologies and mindsets, but brand perceptions and the hundreds of millions of user perceptions and experience that are going to go through the change.

Take the hulking beast of Yahoo and pair that with a new product and brand Flickr, which is seen as incredibly nimble and innovative and there is a severe clash in perceptions.

Personal Management of Identity

There are a couple issues that are tied up together in the Flickr and Yahoo branding problem involving identity. First, there is the issue of being personally associated with the brand. There are many people who strongly consider themself a "Flickr" person and it is an association with that brand that makes up a part of their personal identity. Many of the "Flickr" people believe they are part of the small lively and innovative new web that Flickr represents. The conflating of the Flickr brand with the Yahoo! brand for many of the "Flickr" people is schizophrenic as the brands are polar opposites of each other. Yahoo! is trying to move toward the Flickr brand appeal and ideals, but again it is turning that battle ship.

The tying one's personal identity to Yahoo! is very difficult for many "Flickr" people. Even within Yahoo! there are battles between the old core Yahoo! and the new upstarts that are changing the way things have always worked. Unfortunately, with the flood of start-up opportunities the Yahoo employees who embrace the new way forward are the people who are seemingly moving out to test the revived waters of web start-ups. This makes turning the battleship all that much harder from the inside.

Second, is managing the digital identity and having personal control over it. Many people really want to control what is known about them by one entity or across an identity. I know many people who have more than one Yahoo! account so to keep different parts of their personal life separate. They keep e-mail separate from search and photos out of their own personal understanding of privacy. Privacy and personal control of digital identity is something that has a wide variation. This required mixing of identity really breaks essential boundary for people who prefer (mildly or strongly) to keep various parts of the digital lives segregated. Many people do not want to have one-stop shopping for their identity and they really want to control who knows what about them. This wish and desire MUST be grasped, understood, and respected.

Brand Trust

All of this leads to people's trust in a brand. People have different levels of trust with different brands (even if the brands are treating their information and privacy in the same manner). Flickr greatly benefited by being a small company who many of the early members knew the founders and/or developers and this personal connection and trust grew through a network effect. The staff at Flickr was and is very attentive to the Flickr community. This personal connection builds trust.

Yahoo! on the other hand is a corporation that has not had a personal touch for many years, but is working to bridge that gap and better connect with its communities around its many products (some of this works well, but much is neglected and the bond is not there). The brand trust is thinner for a larger organization, particularly around privacy and control over digital identity. Many of the large companies make it really difficult to only have one view of your identity turned on when you log in (myYahoo, Mail, and movie ratings are on and all other portions are not logged in - for example).

Conversely, there are those who would like to use their Yahoo! identity and login for things like OpenID login. Recently, Simon Willison (a recent ex-Yahoo) did just this with idproxy.net. And, yet others would like to use other external to Yahoo! logins to be used as a single sign on. Part of this is single sign on and another part is personal control over what digital parts of one's live are connected. It is a personal understanding of trust and a strong belief for many that this perception of trust MUST be respected.

One approach that should NEVER happen is what Google is doing with Dodgeball. This past two weeks I have been contacted by a few people using Dodgeball (I use this service), which was bought and is owned by Google. I was getting contacted by people who found my Dodgeball account by entering my Gmail identity. The problem is I never connected my Gmail to Dodgeball and was going to drop Dodgeball over the required joining of the identities. Google in this instance flat out failed at protecting my identity and privacy, but it does that regularly (personally believe that Google is not Evil, but they are not competent with privacy and identity, which is closely tied with Evil). Had Yahoo! done this with Flickr it would have been really over the top. [I have introduced people at Google to the Digital Identity Gang to better understand digital identity and privacy issues, which is a great sign of them knowing they need to do much better.]

Conclusion

There are a lot of tangents to identity, brand, and personal association that seem to have been left out of the equation in the Yahoo! and Flickr identity merger. A more mature approach to identity at Yahoo! would not have required Flickr members to change over, as for many the changes to value added by conflating the identities is not of interest to those who have not done so yet. For many of those that are feeling hurt it is part of their personal identity that is bruised and broken. Hopefully, Yahoo! has grasped this lesson and will treat other acquisions (Upcoming, del.icio.us, and particularly My Blog Log (among others)) differently.

Digging Out of Digital Limbo

Things are mostly back to normal here. The new MacBook Pro has been wonderful (it is a bit odd to mostly focus on it as a tool and not the center of adoration as I normally do for Apple products) and even better getting my digital life flowing again. I found some gaps in e-mail had been backed-up in an odd place and they were restored.

The gap between sending my PowerBook out for data recovery (not possible as the drive was toast) and getting the MacBook Pro in my hands, even until the time of my first full back-up was one of trying to balance new info and old. Fearful of a "perfect storm" I was pushing my digital life out into corners of the internet. I have been pulling things back in to my laptop and re-building notes from paper I jot quick bits on.

Moving Forward

I have since picked up a Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo with one terrabyte of capacity set to RAID1 across its two drives (translates to mirrored 500MB drives). This seems like an insane amount of space, but knowing I can have more than one version of a back-up (that is part of what knocked me out) and can back-up my other external drive info (where my 70GB of music is stored) provides a nice peace of mind. I am also integrating my Amazon S3 into the equation as well as my .Mac storage. I am using Apple Backup and Retrospect Express to currently do my back-ups. I want a book able image for use on my Intel Mac, which it seems to have the capability of providing. I am still looking at other options. I have been a big fan of Carbon Copy Cloner, but it does not provide a bootable image capability on Intel Macs.

This New Year

I mostly have my feet under myself this new year, oh yes, Happy New Year! Work is taking off full bore and some of the bumps from last year seem to have been ironed out and lessons learned. I had planned to do a year end book wrap-up and a first year in business as InfoCloud Solutions, Inc., but the lack of a computer pushed those ideas off the table. I do not make New Years resolutions, as I try to make needed adjustments as they are needed and try not to put them off to some arbitrary date. I will be providing one or two most posts later this week, when the pile subsides and things go out the door.

Until then, enjoy Macworld and do your backups.