If you find yesterday’s bailout of Bear Stearns by U.S. regulators to be more than a little hypocritical, well, join the rest of us. The so-called free market once again showed how it is anything but free, and that any absolute power—in this case the power of greed—corrupts absolutely. But where is the lesson that should be learned by an investment sector that ignored the need for risk management? By its actions, the U.S. government is showing that there is no lesson to be learned, or no penalty to be given. It also shows that in spite of its right-wing rhetoric, the “freest” world economy can and does interfere with the marketplace. Ironically, that’s good news for environmentalists. Now that the U.S. government has set this precedent, the right’s self-serving arguments about non-interference in free markets no longer apply. And now everyone knows it.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that the financial market place should be done away with or should be allowed to meltdown. What I am saying is that this week’s events clearly illustrate the role regulatory controls play in a complex world. There is a lesson here, but it is not, unfortunately to the free markets whose actions precipitated this crisis—they’ve been spared that rod. The lesson is to people and governments everywhere. We are reminded by the Bear Stearns fiasco that they do have the obligation, power, and right to use whatever regulatory levers exist to both save the economy, and save the environment. After all, what is more important, the financial health of rule-breaking investment firms that benefit the few, or the long-term health of the environment that benefits everyone?

The box that speaks and yet says nothing is obsolete. So says IDC.

If you're looking for the best place to put your advertising dollars it looks like TV is no longer the place. According to IDC, it's the Internet. That's where consumers are spending most of their information-gathering time.

IDC is one of the leading global providers of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets.

In the off chance you are one of the three remaining Torontonians who have yet to join Facebook, then just ignore this posting. If you are not, well, read on.

Tonight at 6:00 the MaRS Centre on CollegeStreet at University will play host to one of the most anticipated social-networking events to take place in this city: FacebookCamp. Here is the schedule:

6:00 - Social/Mingling
6:30 - Introduction (Roy Pereira, Refresh Partners & Andrew Cherwenka, Trapeze Media )
6:40 - Best Practices around Product Design and Viral Marketing (Meagan Marks, Facebook)
7:30 - Anatomy of a Facebook Application (JayGoldman and MichaelGlenn, Radiant Core )
7:50 - FBML Overview (Sunil Boodram, Trapeze)
8:10 - FQL Overview (Craig Saila)
8:30 - Updating the Facebook Profile (Colin Smillie, Refresh Partners )
8:50 - Demo: .Net Sample Application (Ricardo Covo)
9:00 - Demo: Carpool by Zimride (Rajat Suri)
9:10 - Demo: Ogrant by Shachin Ghelani
9:20 - Wrap-up & drinks

The event is brought to you by organizers Andrew Cherwenka (Trapeze Media), Roy Pereira (Refresh Partners), and Colin Smilie (Refresh Partners)

Hope to see you there.

Rumour has it that this video was put out by Microsoft to sink long-time gaming rival Sony's PS3. Does it work?

Mark Evans interviews Craiglist CEO, Jim Buckmaster.

Some notable quotes:

"People can assemble their entire lives off the site."

Q: Someone estimated that Craiglist could make 20 times its revenue if it were slightly more aggressive.

A: "The way we do things is actually a lot more fun than worrying about making more and more money."

"Classifieds is an enormous business... it is moving on line. The Internet is a spectacular medium for classifieds."

"The newspaper business is about twice as profitable as the average business in the U.S."





And more...

"eBay acquired a pre-existing stake in the company in 2004... they have been a good partner."

"The one thing we may worry about is what government might do around net neutrality."

"The number of users and page views keeps doubling every year."

An interesting metric: 175,000 pageviews /kwh

Stuart MacDonald begins day 2 of MESH 2.0

This morning's keynote is from Richard Edelman, global CEO of Edelman PR.



Here are a few memorable quotes from Edelman:

"PR best used creates a runway of trust."

Every year Edelman does a "trust barometer."

Persuade companies to give up control of the message. "Too much control, not enough credibility..."

"Free media (read blogs here) is so much more powerful than traditional media."


I hate it when PR people are sincere and likable, it messes with my world view.

Chevy Tahoe... they benefited from not putting their fist down and by letting the discussion run its course. If you are in trouble... in the soup, let the soup cool off before you put your finger in it.

The example of Michael Scoble at Microsoft... mid level is best to start. Let the mid levels talk.

"The word spin has no place in our company." "It is the single thing that has the most potential to harm our company.'

"I don't want to be a spinmeister!"

Austin Hill

Further news from this session - the conference web site, http://meshconference.com has this posting about Austin Hill:

Now, this is cool: Austin Hill and Ron Dembo are launching a program called Dark Green PC that will use open-source software to help people reduce the amount of energy used to power personal computers. Hill said the key to making Dark Green a success is making it a social and fun activity by letting people broadcast on Facebook, on their blogs, etc. how much energy they’re saving. The question is how much energy could we save just by turning off our screen savers: Hill said if 100 million people installed the software on their computers, it’s equivalent to planting 13 million trees, or taking nine million cars off the road, and not building 200 power plants. “This is an example of something small that can have a huge impact,” he said. Dark Green is looking for a open-source project leader, and hopes to have some early code developed by the Fall.

Tom Williams


His shoes

I'll come back to this segment of the day later but before then let me leave you with some quotes from this session.

"Return on generosity" "Inspire Forward" Want to be part of "moments of inspiration" "We become obsessed with a solution before we understand the problem." "There is so much skepticism around good intentions."

"We are still seeing the "failover" of Internet 1.0" Being able to have "Human agency" "Just because it is online doesn't make it good." "Consequences of your permanent record"

The MaRS Centre, Toronto, at 8:00 AM, Wednesday May 30th.

It is a perfect morning for the start of the MESH 2.0 conference - not that we'll want to venture too far away from the darkened MaRS auditorium. Today's speakers include TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington, Deborah Kaplan from ZeroFootPrint, and, of all people, money-manager turned Liberal politician, Garth Turner. In between their talks will be a host of others all riding the wave of Web 2.0.

The audience is part of the mix of course. As Time Magazine noted, WE as in people power on the Net, are a monolithic force of radical change-makers who are disinter-mediating traditional media and politics in a way that no one truly understands. Yet. In spite of the hype associated with such ideas there is truth in the assertion. Companies that were cutting edge in the first Internet era are struggling to reinvent themselves. Cultural institutions who basically ignored the first Internet wave are now doing back flips to position themselves as change leaders. Some will succeed. Others won't.

The reason I like MESH is because it is not a traditional tech conference. The founders - all industry experts - came together to re-imagine what a conference would look like in a post-barcamp world. MESH 1.0 embraced that ideal. It looks as though 2.0 will do the same.

I'll be doing as much blogging as I can today, but I really want to absorb the major ideas presented here and have some time to reflect before discussing them on this site. Stay tuned.


The MESH 2.0 audience


Stuart kicks off MESH 2.0


Michael Arrington, TechCrunch


How many people filter the MESH conference, through their cellphone cameras


Micahel Arrington explains, patiently I thought, how to get covered by Techcrunch

Tomorrow MESH 2.0 kicks off. I have to admit to being more than a little curious about what great ideas will surface this year. Last year I live blogged the conference. I might do a little of that this year but I really want to take the time to dive into MESH's zeitgeist a bit more. Until then, here are some thoughts from last year's MESH by RadiantCore's Jay Goldman:

I asked some audience members to send me their thoughts on the conference for posting on Gagglescape. Jay Goldman of RadiantCore, one of the BarCampTdot organizers, offered the following:

Some thoughts on Mesh:

- I've been to many conferences that were planned in much longer amounts of time, most of which where chaotic and disappointing. Stuart, Rob, Mark, Mike, and Matthew did a wonderful job of pulling together an informative and interactive two days in a remarkably short amount of time.

- The network connectivity, especially on day one when they had many of the ports blocked, could have been much better. Conferences for the tech crowd need gobs and gobs of bandwidth almost before they need anything else.

- The mix of tech and marketing folk was fantastic and made for some excellent networking. The two sides of the fence are often divided by great chasms where collaboration and mutual respect go to die. Mesh really helped to build some bridges, at least in the Toronto area.

- I liked the mixed streams of sessions because it made it easier to plan my day.  It would have been interesting to also cross the streams and have some panels made up of marketers and technologists -for example, I would definitely have attended a debate between Steve Rubel and Chris Messina on the relative merits of blogging as a marketing and information (...read more...)

Matt Thompson, director of Save the Internet's award-winning "Independence Day"video, joins City TV's New Media Specialist Amber MacArthur; online expertKris Krug; and consultants Mark Kuznicki and Jason Roks to talk 'net neutrality' at nextMEDIA: The Future of Digital Content, Canada's premiere event for digital content producers. The sister event to the Banff World Television Festival, nextMEDIA takes place June 8 - 10, 2007 at the Fairmont Banff Springs in Banff, Alberta.

Dubbed the ‘First Amendment of the Internet' in the United States, ‘net neutrality’ has been called "THE central issue in the development of the architecture of the media platform of the future." It aims to ensure the public can view the smallest blogs just as easily as the largest corporate Websites. Although the issue has yet to gain the same momentum in Canada as it has the United States, that could all change if a report by the federally appointed Telecommunications Policy Review Panel that recommends changes to the Telecommunications Act is implemented.

Some readers have asked why the site changed last month. Why the news feeds? Where are the blogs about the Web 2.0 world? Let us explain. Our editor has been collaborating on a social-networking Web application that may well change how creative workers manage their information sources and digital media. The thrust of that work will eventually find its way to gagglescape.com to guarantee its relevance in an increasingly Web-centric future. These are, as they say, interesting times.

The downside of all this is we haven't had time to update the site on a daily basis. Don't fret though. We are ramping up our blogging over the next month while also working on a major rethinking of the site's design and functionality. Stay tuned.

A reminder for Gagglescape.com readers. Tonight is M.I.T. Enterprise Forum night.

CLEANTECH ENTREPRENEURS TELL THEIR STORIES - 6 Successful CEOs Give Us Ideas of How and Where to Invest.

Join the MIT Enterprise Forum of Toronto for an informative panel discussion from five players in the industry.

- Jim Harris - Managing Partner of Cleantech Innovation Institute.

- Windrush Energy recently signed $300 million work of power purchase agreements and is one of Canada?s premier Wind power start ups. J.C. Pennie is chairman and CEO of Windrush and the former Chairman of several public companies.

- Cimatec Environmental Engineering is Canada’s leading public company in indoor air quality. Andrew Roblin is President and CEO of EMS and former President of University Avenue Funds.

- Regen Energy CEO Mark Kerbel

- BioFuels - CEO of Biox Corporation Tim Haig

- David Prue - Founder of the Worm Company

Each of our speakers will give his perspective on what has worked, what hasn't, why he made his decisions at the time, and what he would do differently with the gift of hindsight.

Using the unique format of the Enterprise Forum we will have each panelist digging into the comments made by the others, trying to uncover additional information that will assist us all. Group questions will follow.

See http://www.torontomit.com for more information.

As we in Toronto wait with much anticipation for the second coming of MESH, our fellow geeks in California are engaged in a conference of their own: Web 2.0 Expo. Gagglescape's good friends David Crow and Jay Goldman were there presenting on opening day. Generally, the buzz from the event is positive.

That said, some reviewers are talking about having Web 2.0 conference burn-out. Turns out that big sponsors are taking over some panels and the vitality of social-networking's early days is being lost to a creeping commercialization. Here is what Venture Chronicles' blogger Jeff Nolan has to say:

In short, I’ll leave this thought with you conference organizers: panels and sessions have a default mode of boring so go through the extra effort to select a panel, and more importantly, a moderator that will shake the bag a little and give it some edge. Panels don’t just inform, they should question everything, challenge the panelists, and create controversy and conflict where there should be none. And don’t give moderator slots to your sponsors just because they are your sponsors. If a panel doesn’t end without a little name calling, then what’s the point?

Ah, the early days of any new phenomenon pumps up the early-adopter hero quotient making saints of some and pillories others. I've been through a few of those cycles and can understand the excitement. Commecialization of a good idea is important though. The development of ubiquitous social-networking methodologies could well be the greatest facilitator of societal change that the world has ever seen. That requires that we use the tools of development and distribution that the free market has perfected. For that I can live with a few predictable panels.

Here are a few links about the conference:

• David Crow


• Web 2.0 Expo Power


• Putting Webware on (...read more...)

I really enjoy finding powerful analogs between simple concepts and complex phenomenon. You know what I mean - like discovering that the process of designing cities shares similar characteristics to the growth slime molds (Ask Steven Johnson about this). The site Website Optimization offers a compelling example.

In this case it is the comparison between the actions of a male grain beetle looking for sex (honest) and the average Internet user looking for information. (Pirolli, P. (2007). "Information Foraging Theory: Adaptive Interaction with Information." New York, NY: Oxford University Press.)

It turns out that the patterns generated by the two behaviours are similar.

Switching when Information Scent Drops

Pirolli found that participants tend to not flit between web sites, but have more transitions within websites than without. Plotting the average scent ratings (rated by a panel of experts) of all the web pages visited, Pirolli found the reason why people switch to another site (information patch). Initially the information scent is high, but when the information scent falls below the average information scent in the pages encountered, users switch to another site or search engine (see Figure 3). Pirolli also found that starting with a high information scent was associated with longer runs at a web site (stickiness).

The High Cost of Low Information Scent

Web sites tend to be organized in hierarchical tree-like structures. The deeper and wider a site, the more costly the "false alarms" of low information scent become (see Information Scent). In fact, small improvements in the false alarm factor associated with individual links can have dramatic effects on the cost of surfing large hypertext collections (see Figure 4). In the example below, when the false alarm factor exceeds 10%, the search cost of following unproductive paths (backtracking, traversing up and down trees) goes from linear to (...read more...)

Skype's streaming-media offspring Joost.com (still in Beta I might add) signed its first big deal with the main stream media yesterday:

CBS is the first national broadcaster to ink a deal with Joost, but it isn't an exclusive deal. CBS will be distributing content on a number of web portals as well, including AOL and MSN. The company also hopes to strike a deal deal with the new News Corp/NBC joint venture. As you would expect, CBS will be licensing shows that have already aired on television. Early titles will include the original CSI, NCIS, and the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

The deal charges Joost 90% of any ad revenue generated by the service.