Tristan Louis lays out how the Microsoft-AOL/TW detente could eventually lead to a Microsoft lock-in: you wanna see the movies, you gotta buy the platform. It plays nicely into what I’ve been trying to say about why Applied DRM is scary: No matter how good DRM sounds in theory (“Artists can negotiate deals with their audience…”) if Microsoft offers the only/dominant platform for securing content, then the content owners make their stuff work only with the Microsoft platform. It’s win-win…so long as you’re Microsoft or Jack Valenti.

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I went to the local monthly get-together for supporters of Howard Dean last night. These real-world meetings are arranged virtually through MeetUp.com. The meetings all take place on the same day in cities across the country, so you feel some sense of solidarity with the other 31,000 Deanies who have signed up with MeetUp.

The event packed the downtown bar where it was held. Of course, any event is packed so long as the room is small enough. In this case, however, it looked like there were 100-200 people there, continuing the event’s growth. Plus, there are now Dean MeetUps taking place in 5-6 cities in Massachusetts.

The brief presentations by the local organizers stressed (boiled down and rephrased): 1. Bush sucks. 2. Diversity rocks. 3. The Internet makes a difference. At least, that’s what I heard.

If Dean gets some traction – things are looking up in New Hampshire and Iowa – then being packed into a room of supporters in June ’03 will be an “I was there when it started” sort of memory (although, of course, it started way before then in much smaller rooms). If his campaign founders, well, it still felt good to be in a real world room with people willing to work for change.

The strength of a group is determined by the entanglement of its links. There’s nothing like the real world for tangling them links quickly and ambiguously.

It also reminded me why I don’t hang out in bars.

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Take a look at a presentation given by David P. Reed (CableLabs’ CTO and not that other David P. Reed) to the FCC’s Technological Advisory Committee in April. Slide 6 shows the ratio of download traffic to upload traffic trending down from 2.0 to 1.4 in just the months of May to September 2001. There’s no data for later than that. Here’s a screen capture of the relevant chart:

Is it reasonable to assume that the trend has continued? If so, by now, we’re uploading more stuff than we’re downloading.

Wow! So much for thinking of the Internet as a broadcast medium.

(Thanks to Dewayne Hendricks for pointing me to this document.)

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The Happy Tutor is our proxy in a discussion about how the love of humans might actually result in building a better world for humans.

I have a stubborn idea that I know won’t work. I once tried writing about it in the rhetoric of a politician because it only sounds plausible if it’s in a voice you don’t take seriously. So, here it is in PowerPoint format:

The Problem

Those who have the money to give got it by being the one’s least like to give it

Business’ Secret Prime Mover

It’s not greed

It’s winning!!!!

(Hence business’s love of exclamation points)

Solution: Competitive Philanthropy

Every corporation competes to be the most successful at giving

But what is the metric of success? It used to be money, but…

The New Business Landscape

Despite corporations’ best efforts, the Internet is affecting our culture

Internet teaches us to connect directly

Competitive Philanthropy in a Connected Market

Each corporation picks “do-able” projects that require direct connection

International aid groups and charities will arise to manage the projects

E.g., Oxfam builds water purification plants in central Africa for Exxon

The company shamelessly touts its own goodness in the voice of humility, tacitly trying to out-do its competitors

Action Items

Towns, congregations and online communities can do this, too: Let’s start.

Get Marketing to work on naming and branding the idea

Elect a president with the Vision Thing

Look, I know this is impractical, implausible and naive. It would require a change in expectations: of course a big corporation will add “lifting up the world” to its mission statement. But, expectations are powerful.

Not powerful enough to give me any hope, of course.

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See you at the Howard Dean Meetup tonight.

What’s MeetUp? It’s an online service that lets people organize real world meetings. Once a month, on the same day, supporters of Howard Dean meet in lots of cities around the country. If you want to go tonight – it’s just a meet-and-talk sort of thing – sign up at MeetUp and then show up at 7:00PM at Coogan’s, 171 Milk St., Boston, MA (map). (MeetUp seems to be quite a clue-y sort of outfit. Check the “about” page.)

Who’s Howard Dean? Oy veh!

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Excellent piece by David Spector on why the FCC’s decision on allowing the congealing of all media into one large scab is very bad news for the Internet.

By the way, David thinks he’s arguing against the World of Ends piece that Doc and I wrote, as if we were saying that the Internet will survive all such onslaughts. On the contrary, we wrote the piece precisely because we’re worried about clueless government agencies like the FCC making decisions based on ignorance of how the Net’s value is anchored in its open architecture. We wrote it because we agree with David that the Net is vulnerable.

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Larry Lessig urges us all to sign a petition:

We have launched a petition to build support for the Public Domain Enhancement Act. That act would require American copyright holders to pay $1 fifty years after a work was published. If they pay the $1, the copyright continues. If they don?t, the work passes into the public domain. Historical estimates would suggest 98% of works would pass into the pubilc domain after 50 years. The Act would do a great deal to reclaim a public domain.

This proposal has received a great deal of support. It is now facing some important lobbyists? opposition. We need a public way to begin to demonstrate who the lobbyists don?t speak for. This is the first step.

And, yes, if Larry Lessig jumped off a bridge, I’d jump off a bridge, too. But we really don’t want Larry even thinking of jumping off a bridge, so sign the freaking petition. The Public Domain Enhancement Act would have the effect of making reverting to the public domain the default after 50 years by putting up the lowest conceivable barrier against it. Great idea.

The public domain gives ideas breathing room, and we need some fresh air in this country!

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I’ve written an article reviewing the candidate’s web sites?

Extra Special: Act now and read a table showing exactly how many flags they use on their home pages!

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If you want to get together with other supporters of Howard Dean in your area, the next national set of local meetings (if you know what I mean) is the evening of June 4. Go here to get details.

The Dean campaign is making cool use of this MeetUp facility. And read the staff’s blog. Damn good.

BTW, did I ever mention that I wrote an article reviewing the candidate’s web sites? Heck, I’ll give it it’s own blog entry…

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Happy T explains where he writes his X on the Post-Modern map.

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