At Le Web 3 (formerly Le Blog), Shimon Peres has just held a Q&A session. (I missed his presentation itself because, having not eaten for 36 hours, I opted for breakfast.) Instant standing ovation. I was surprised that an Israeli was so warmly greeted, which shows what I know.

Le Web has turned out to be a seminal conference. 1,000 people from 36 countries. Lots of networking. Very high energy. (And almost all male speakers.)

I speak this afternoon, presumably on “Blogging Our Way to Democracy.” I completely rewrote it this morning and will rewrite it again this afternoon. And then, after I talk at 5pm, I will rewrite it in my head over and over. [Tags: leweb3 shimon_peres israel ]

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I’m at the Reykjavik airport, waiting for the flight to Paris for Le Web (formerly Le Blog, and before that Le Usenet and, originally, Le Cuneiform). It’s 1:30am (or “6:30am” as they say in Icelandic). I love Iceland, and not just for its physical beauty and for putting letters together in impossible combinations simply for my amusement. No, I love Iceland because there’s free wifi in the airport.

Tired? Moi? Not a bit! Why, if I were tired, would I be willing to generalize about a country based on 50 minutes in its major airport?

Later: In Paris. At the conference. It’s packed. Lots of great people here. I’m too tired to blog. Or talk. Or sit upright… [Tags: leweb3 reykjavik iceland]

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The U of North Carolina social software symposium has a wiki with session notes and more… [Tags: unc social_software ]

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Alla Zollers notes that we can tell a lot about a community by looking at its tags. E.g., delicious.com is clearly IT heavy. “Relevance is socially constructed,” she says. I.e., what is relevant changes over time depending on who interacts with it and how they interact it. “Communities form around tags.” [As always, I’m just taking live notes and missing lots.]

Lilly Nguyen thinks of tagging as peer production of knowledge. People think about taggging in terms of production but not use. We have sociological tools that explain some of these but they don’t seek up with Library Information Science. Use of tags is not just about findability and refindability.

I say that I agree that finding and refinding doesn’t cover it. I sometimes tag because I feel like I’m contributing to a tag stream that’s creating knowledge, along with all the human motivations we have for doing things (reputation building, validation, etc.).

Barbara Wildemuth asks why people would use (not create) tags other than finding and refinding. Lilly says she uses tags to discover, to browse, which is different than finding.

Lilly says she worries about tagging overloading us. Someone says we’ll fix it eventually. Lilly says, “So fix it!”

Thomas says that he feeds delicious.com for social reasons—he knows people pay attention to it—but he searches through Yahoo MyWeb because it has features that work better.

Cliff Lampe wonders where the line is between finding systems and recommendation systems. (Thomas likes Ma.gnolia.com.)

Gary Marchionini points out that people tag also because the act of tagging helps memory, just as taking notes does.

Thomas points out that people tag with terms they’ve most recently interacted with.

Jackson Fox says that we transition terms over time. E.g., after tagging pages as “web design” for a while, he started instead tagging some “graphic design.” So, when he goes to find info about color theory in ten years, if he doesn’t remember he used to call them all “web design,” he’ll miss them. The tools don’t handle this well, he says.

Now Jackson gives his official talk. He says content is very personal. When content creators tagged their own material at lulu.com (where he works) and found out that others could see those tags, they were livid. Then they calmed down and saw they could connect their content with others. Is it a folksonomy if the taggers are the content creators? How do you avoid spamming?

Thomas: Creator’s tagging doesn’t fit within folksonomy, but it can be a type of seeding.

I say that if a site made the author’s tags visible next to the readers’ tags, it’d stimulate anti-author tags.

Jung Sun Oh says in her talk that we don’t know whether people tag based on their own mental models or based on the terms in the source they’re tagging.

Terrell Russell says he’d like to help people figure out what they know by seeing one another’s tags. If you make the tags and concepts visible and put them in the middle the room at all times, you’ll begin to converge. Thomas says Cameron Marlowe at Yahoo has built something like this. He says that in one instance, people were removing tags about themselves. Nicole Ellison says that in some organizations, you don’t want to be tagged a particular way because it might drive people toward you. Zeynep Tufecki says that people care a lot about their identity; she’s reminded of research about identity in prisons and other places where you don’t have control over that. Jackson says that on the other hand, you can build social capital that way. Amanda Lenhart points to the identity brouhaha at FaceBook as an example of the dangers. Cliffe Lampe suggests pairing it with a reputation system. There’s discussion of whether such a system would result in only positive assessments. Lilly worries about mistakes staying with your forever; Terrell says he’s working on tag decay. Fred Stutzman says this is a social attribution system, but tagging boils things down too much so it’ll be harder to discover what we don’t know about a person. Terrell says that he’s aiming at skills areas. Laura Sheble says it might be helpful to have a way to respond. Also, it’ll be interesting to look at the edge cases, she says. [Tags: unc taxonomy folksonomy everything_is_miscellaneous ]

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1. Interesting discussions all over the place.

2. People working for progressive change for the sake of others, aware of the possibilities of the Internet not only for making them more effective, but for invigorating our democracy.

3. A community that has not come together quite this way before.

4. The possibility of real change in the real world for real people. [Tags: rootscamp rootscampdc politics]

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Few women Democratic challengers won. This session is trying to figure out why. There are about 25 people in the session, more women than men. Marc Laitin of Wired for Change will present data he’s gathered. Then the group will put forward cases and hypotheses so that Marc can adjust his statistical model. The aim is to figure out why women did so badly, because, as Jackie Bray says, the solution can’t be to run more men.

Marc’s data show there was definitely a skew against women challengers. But is this what always goes on? There’s some historical analysis that shows, surprisingly, that being a female has not worked against candidates. If so, then something was going on this year. This year women raised more money than man. But women did even worse in close elections.

The discussion is often arcane (to me) about political factors I’ve never heard of. Some I do understand: Was security the dominant issue in these issues? Did the National Repulican Congressional Committee target these races? Was the advertising especially negative? Were conservative Democratic women recruited? Were women with particular types of credentials recruited? How many had held office before? What do the campaigns say were the causes of their loss? Are there commonalities among the voters? Did women fare worse with independents? Is there any correlatio wit the Republican women who lost? Anything about the primary? Many many more factors are raised…

I ask if statistical analysis is the right way to go given the relatively small sample and the number of possible influences. Marc (who has an admirably warm and serious demeanor) answers that there’s plenty of qualitative work to do, and it’s undoubtedly being done, but statistical analysis may surface information otherwise hidden.

Jackie ends by saying that the women’s loss is a part of the story we need to be telling.

Fascinating. [Tags: rootscamp rootscampdc politics women democrats]

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I’m at the second day of a Bar-style RootsCamp in DC. (Bar camps are unconferences, initially inspired by FOO camp.) It looks about 200 people are here today at the space made available by the National Education Association. It’s generally (entirely?) a progressive group. Young. Well-mixed by geneder, not as well by race. Some political consultants but mainly (I think) organizers…hard-bitten optimists.

The big schedule board up in the hall is pretty much full with topics ranging from experiences using electronic tools to help labor organize to a discussion of why Democratic women candidates did not fare well.

I’m at a session about coalition building. People from America Votes are at the head table. America Votes is a coalition of 32 progressive organizations, including Emily’s List, Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood and MoveOn.org. Its inaugural year was 2004. But the organizers don’t want the session blogged so that the exchange can be frank. (Official notes wil lbe posted.) [Tags: rootscamp rootscampdc politics ]

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The panel consists of me, Brent Olson (ass’t vp, regulatory policy, AT&T) and Link Hoewing (ass’t vp, Internet and tech issues, Verizon). Paul Deninger of Jeffries Broadview and TechNet (yay) is the moderator. [I’m typing this while on the panel so my coverage will be worse than spotty. BTW, I’m the only one in the room with a laptop open.] [There was one exchange I found particular clarifying. Click here to jump to it.]

Brent from AT&T says that Net neutrality is an elusive concept but it generally means “how to respond to the changing nature of the Internet.” It started out as being about whether providers can block access to sites but now it means allowing providers to enhance their service. He says AT&T is the main DSL provider. “We are a price leader in this market and we’re committed to making more broadband available to more people at a lower rate.” They’re investing in fiber. “But our customers don’t just purchase broadband. They purchase broadband Internet access.” That means they expect to go where they want, send the emails they want, and use the services they want. “If we didn’t do this, our customers wouldn’t buy it. So it would be foolish” to block access or degrade experience.

He signs on to the FCC’s Four Principles (Martin’s revision). [But the principles don’t say that all services and sites will be equally accessible.]

He asks us to imagine there’s a company that wants to improve the performance of the Internet. E.g., Akamai. They help video unspool smoothly, etc. That’s ok, right? But that’s what AT&T is talking about offering. “We’re talking about entering into commercial arrangements—not unilaterally charging someone but entering into mutually beneficial arrangements.” [Distinction without a difference.] As consumers become more sophisticated in their use of the Net, providers ought to be able to offer more sophisticated pricing structures. It wouldn’t be good to build a high performance “Ferrari” network and charge everyone higher prices even if they don’t want it; nor do we want to build a “Yugo” network that goes slowly. One size does not fit all.

The key going forward, he says, isn’t neutrality but flexibility. YouTube and Google succeeded by doing something new. [But discriminatory pricing means that the garage shop won’t perform as well as the established companies that are paying for better delivery.] Net neutrality will deny users choice and will hurt innovation. [I missed how it hurts innovation. Sorry.] Net neutrality would “freeze the network architecture in place” just when it needs innovation. [I don’t trust the telcos to design the new network architecture. We have distributed processes in place.] “Let everyone in the ecosystem continue to innovate while keeping a watchful eye through FCC oversight.”

Brent of Verizon says technology is attractive to members of Congress. He says they understand it now because they have Blackberries and cell phones. [Yup, devices that conect them to the tubes of the Internets.] Net neutrality is within the framework of broadband policy. Brent is more optimistic about broadband deployment in the US than most of are. Wireless subscribers are going up rapidly. People are shifting to broadband rapidly. Wireline access for traditional telephone service is going down. Verizon has been losing several hundred thousand lines every month as people switch to other types of services.

Broadband is very competitive, he says. You can get real competition when there are only two competitors, especially in the early stages of the market. There are more competitors in more areas, “in some places up to four providers.”

Verizon is remaking its network by providing fiber to the home. They’ve now run fiber past 3M homes (i.e., 3M could sign up). By the end of the year, they plan on doubling that. Fiber deployment in the US is happening faster than in other countries, he says.

Verizon recognizes that upstream matters. That’s why fiber matters. E.g. the 15Mbps service has been selling well among gamers. (Verizon offers 50Mbps services in some areas.) Yes, he says, Japan has higher average speeds: 12Mbps.

The Senate bill supports the four principles and Verizon agrees with that. They think it will work because the FCC will enforce them and the market will make it work also.

He cites Dave Farber to support his view.

He concludes by saying that Verizon is losing lines into homes so it’s highly incented to provide great and open service.

I’m going to say that it boils down to the fact that the providers’ interests don’t align with the promise of the Internet. Thus, I don’t trust them to re-architect the Internet. We have a distributed, design process that does that. If discriminating among types of packets helps without degrading service then, frankly, I don’t care. But I don’t believe the providers will be able to resist the temptation to prefer their own services because that’s their business model: Sell content and services. We need to separate access from content/services.

Paul makes a few comments. Rather than thinking of the Internet as a Studebaker that needs updating (as one of the speakers said), why not think of it as a highway? Brent says that different people want different things. AT&T wants to be able to offer all those things and not do one size fits all because that means everyone pays the same price. Competition protects markets.

Randall of AOL says that the debate needs facts. He doesn’t believe the future of Internet innovation requires the carriers charging people tiered access. Those fees will be a spit in Verizon’s ocean. His guess is that it drives Verizon nuts that there are VOIP providers who are offering telephony that competes with Verizon’s. Paul says, “Isn’t it all about VOIP?”

Link says they have a competing VOIP service that runs on other people’s networks as well as theirs. Also, their SuperPages offering has to work on everyone’s network.

Me: I don’t want the highways to be designed by Halliburton, Yugo or Ferrari. We have a process in place—open and distributed—that works.

Link: But the backbone providers have always been in the design process.

Me: But they’re selling access to bits, not services and content. That’s the right model.

Paul: This debate came about because DSL is data via telephone lines…

Brent: The comms industry is getting complicated. The FCC said it’s no longer right to try to fit them into the old shoebox. [Missed some of this. Sorry.]

Q: There’s no such thing as Net neutrality in the wireless business. Whitelisting and blacklisting goes on already over cellphones and PDAs. And “on deck access” [I don’t know what that is.]
A: Brent: An EVDO card lets you go anywhere on the Internet, except for some capacity constraints.

Jonathan: People don’t use those devices the same way, so there isn’t the same consumer pressure.
Me: You shouldn’t be allowed to call it the “Internet” if you block access.

Randall: I had this discussion with the attorney general (?) of Texas who said because we (AOL) were blocking access to child porn sites, we can’t call it the Internet. I said, fine, we’ll explain to the market what we’re blocking.
Me: Then you weren’t offering the Internet. The Internet is a set of protocols that guarantee that all packets can move across all networks without prejudice or preference.

Q: Does David want to go back to ArpaNet days?
A: Me: No, I want all bits to be treated the same. That way the ends (not the middle) can provide services.

A: Randall: The providers shouldn’t filter bits. There should be competition among services for this.

Link: All of us recognize that we’re in the market to provide connectivity that works as it always had. If users don’t want to access services we want to market, they won’t. E.g., if we have fiber throughout a neighborhood and people would want to have a priority set for that. Net neutrality wouldn’t let people do that. A: (me) If I decide to set up the same service but I’m not Verizon, will you prioritize my bits the same? You can’t because you don’t even know that my bits are a medical service. So, you’re prioritizing your own bits (even if customers want it). That crushes competition.

Q: What business model?
A: Brent: No one really knows
Why can’t we harness what we have, responding to consumers.

A: Me: It should be a commodity business. Bits are the ultimate commodities. If the incumbents are ill-suited to do that, they should fail at it.
Link: Unbundling didn’t encourage a lot of investment. Now we’re getting networks built. The market will likely continue to be competitive.

Paul: Hope for both sides: No matter how the legislation comes out, the FCC in its one intervention maintained neutrality.

[Tags: massnetcomms net_neutrality digital_rights]

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Jonathan Frankel, a lawyer with WilmerHale (which seems to be related to Hale and Dorr)wants to let us know what the Net neutrality debate looks like to Congress.He says there isn’t much room for learning or for advocates to educate lawmakers. Most of the discussion is hollow on all sides. Platitudes and slogans. There isn’t even a consensus in DC about what Net neutrality means, because it’s a theoretical debate at this point. There’s one instance of a rural provider blocking VOIP but the FCC came down on them like a ton of bricks and he hasn’t seen other instances since. Right now, the Internet’s “third party” content adds value to the providers’ real value stream, TV programs. [I am, as always, paraphrasing.]

Both sides are guilty of using scare tactics to get the Hill’s attention. Pro Net Neutrality folks say that some medical Web sites will be slowed or blocked. AOL’s experience shows that customers won’t be satisfed with wall gardens and any provider that restricts access will lose market share. [Really? How about the one that offers “family-safe” content? Or “school-quality” information?] The quality of service guarantees won’t degrade anyone’s experience and will make video and VOIP better, he says. The fact that consumers aren’t buying the fastest connections available is a practical reminder that for the average user the current level of delivery isn’t affecting their experience. [Say what? Give us more bandwidth — symmetrical — at a lower price and see what the market demands as satisfactory performance.]

On the other side, the providers are exaggerating “a little” by saying they need to charge content providers for quality of service to afford to build out access.

He’s wary of legislation ahead of facts on the ground. The 1996 telcomm legislation was a “disaster” because it didn’t address the real facts about revenues. The Snowe NN amendment is too specific about when discrimination could be allowed. It should wait until there are real facts and an actual record. E.g., in a few years it’s possible that “third party content” [that’s you and me, sister] might compete with the TV shows the providers sell us.

Sen. Ron Wyden has put a hold on the Stevens bill because it has no NN and the leadership has told Stevens they won’t bring it to the floor unless he can guarantee the 60 votes required. Frankel doesn’t think anything will happen until after the election. If the Dems gain control of the House, the telcos may soften on NN because they want to get the other part of the Stevens bill passed (the franchising part ).

[Tags: massnetcomms net_neutrality digital_rights ]

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[massnetcomms] Randall Boes of AOL on Net Neutrality

I’m at the Massachusetts Network Communications Council’s annual meeting. MassNetComms is an industry association with members rom the full chain of network companies, from chip makers to “content providers” to security companies to telcos. (I was invited at the last minute to be the only non-telco on a panel talking about Net neutrality.)

Randall Boe, general council of AOL, in his keynote wants to set the record straight about Net neutrality. [I’m taking notes and paraphrasing. Accuracy is not guaranteed, although I’m doing my best.]

He says that the NN folks were all in favor of regulation when it came to the Time/Warner AOL merger. He says Networks providers have to have the right to control their netowrks because it’s private property. That includes controlling the content that goes across the network. When there’s limited competition, “you have a little bit of a different shade on that network.” “But if you build the network, it’s yours.” The market will solve the problem for you quickly if you make the wrong choice.

The government almost never gets it right, he says. Everyone has an incentive to keep the government out.

The US is last in the top 15 countries for broadband penetration, he says. The problem is that there isn’t enough competition. The lack of competition results in higher prices, abusive pricing by providers, and inefficiencies.

He lists the four network freedoms [initially outlined by Michael Powell of the FCC]. Consumers are entitled to “lawful content of their choice,” “entitled to run apps and services of their choice,” to “connect devices that don’t harm the etwork” and to competition. [It’s not a mere nicety that we are not consumers.]

The NN debate has been spurred, he says, by the fact that providers aren’t getting enough return on their investment. They claim that this is because, in part, of “millionaire free riders.” The network providers say content providers are free riders. Randall isn’t sure that’s right, but, he says, anoother way of looking at it is that content providers provide the value that drives people to broadband. [Yeah!] “There’s synergy there. It’s not just parasitic.” The network providers, he says, could be considered free riders on YouTube’s, Google’s and eBay’s content.

Consumers want access to everything. If providers start charing Google for faster lanes, then maybe Google will go elsewhere. And we don’t want to be charging people for everything. [Yeah!]

He closes by pointing to the fact that users are creating content. How could you pick the winners so you could charge them more? Even if you could, why would you want to? What would the advantage be for consumers, providers or content providers? [A more balanced presentation than I’d expected.]

[Tags: massnetcomms net_neutrality digital_rights ]

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