Internet

Google your name, make a movie on what you find

You know you've done it. Like just almost anyone who knows how to use a computer, I'm willing to bet you've googled your own name to see what's out there about you, and to see who else has the same name.

In the case of a sometimes actor from Los Angeles named Jim Killeen, that search instinct not only led to at least 24 namesakes, but also to a documentary about his experiences tracking some of them down and visiting them around the world.

Killeen's film, Google Me, which he is debuting on Friday on … Read more

Tim Berners-Lee audio at WWW2008

I recorded W3C President Tim Berners-Lee's press conference at this week's WWW2008 conference in Beijing.

I will write about the contents later. Click here for the audio and then click on the olive-colored play button.

Please forgive the mediocre sound quality; I record for my notes, and not primarily for broadcast. I came in a few seconds late as Berners-Lee was being introduced in alternating Chinese and English. The remainder of the press conference, including questions and answers, is in English.

Other posts from WWW2008 are here, and I'm Twittering here.

Update: I was having a glitch … Read more

Baidu's William Chang: 'No reason for China to use Wikipedia'

William Chang, chief scientist leading Chinese search engine Baidu, said it's natural for Chinese to use Baidupedia (Baidu Baike) rather than the foreign Wikipedia.

"There's, in fact, no reason for China to use Wikipedia, a service based 'out there,'" Chang said at the WWW2008 conference in Beijing on Tuesday. "It's very natural for China to make its own products."

I agree that there's not always a reason for people to use global services, especially when what they deal with is primarily domestic. But with the wiki world, I think the value of … Read more

WWW2008 - Social media in 2020 to be pervasive, ambient

A panel of social media experts believe that in 2020, social media will be far more pervasive, interlinked, and location-aware than they are now. Here are my comments as published on Twitter, with some comments following. (Reverse chronological order)

David Shamma brings up what I've been wondering: What about security? Questioner answers vegetarian question by calling for show of hands. Old tech, hurrah! Marc Davis thinks in 2020, we'll have ambient data about stuff like who around us is vegetarian when we travel And David Shamma thinks it's more problematic: we need to manage different audiences. Marc … Read more

Would Twitter Japan's success with ads translate?

As Twitter Japan gets going upon its launch Tuesday night (California time), one of the things that observers are going to be most closely watching is whether or not Japanese users accept the ads that are on the new site.

That's mainly because one of the biggest questions--or maybe concerns is the proper term--about the main, English-language version of Twitter is that, because it's ad-free and free to use, it has no obvious business model.

In an interview, venture capitalist and Creative Commons CEO Joi Ito--who helped create Digital Garage, which was largely responsible for localizing Twitter for … Read more

Twitter Japan launches, with ads

Twitter Japan launched Tuesday evening California time, and unlike the English-language version of the popular microblogging site, it will feature ads from the get-go.

In a conversation Tuesday evening, Joi Ito of Digital Garage, the Japanese company Twitter tasked with some of the Japanese localization, told me that Twitter decided to launch in Japan with ads from day one.

Digital Garage invested in Twitter as part of the localization arrangement.

"Ads are important," Ito said. "It's always harder to add ads later. So we're launching with them in Japan."

According to Ito, Twitter Japan … Read more

Live Blog WWW2008: Kai-Fu Lee of Google Greater China on cloud computing

I'm now sitting in the opening keynote of the 17th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW2008) here in Beijing, adjacent to the newly opened Olympic Stadium.

The first presentation is by Kai-Fu Lee, president of Google Greater China. He's talking about "cloud computing," the general term for developing ways to turn our computer lives into something not tied to any single device.

So far, he's been outlining what cloud computing is, something that he admits is not news to anyone in this room full of industry and academic researchers, and highlighting all of Google's … Read more

Rocketboom creator vows never to sell Twitter account

First it was for sale. Then it wasn't. Then it would be for sale soon. And now, finally--maybe--it will "not ever" be for sale.

This, of course, is Rocketboom creator Andrew Baron's Twitter account. When it was originally for sale last week on eBay, bidding for it had climbed to more than $1,500 before he pulled the plug on the auction.

In an interview last week, he told me that while he had decided to yank the original auction after discovering, he said, that the bidders for his Twitter account were spam marketers, he expected … Read more

Dilbert.com relaunches with Web 2.0 flavor

Update: I've added some comments from Scott Adams that came in by email after this posted.

How does a comic strip upgrade to Web 2.0?

The answer may well be the direction that Dilbert creator Scott Adams and his distributor, United Media, have chosen with a relaunch of the iconic strip's Web site, Dilbert.com.

Adams and United Media are now inviting Dilbert fans to the site for a series of new interactive features.

The most interesting of these is a three-pronged approach to what is being called "mashups": giving readers the ability to create … Read more