Ross Mayfield's Weblog

The eBay Way of Giving

A rare interview in BusinessWeek on the Omidyar Network and their unique philanthropic model:

..."I don't see why we ought to make an artificial distinction that says for-profit is all about making money and only nonprofit is about helping people," says Omidyar in an interview in the library of the network's offices, which sit amid the thrift shops and antique stores in blue-collar Redwood City, Calif.

What influenced Omidyar most in this decision was the inspiration he took from watching eBay users learn to trust 125 million total strangers. Disabled people on public assistance turned into self-supporting entrepreneurs; Guatemalan villagers started selling their handwoven wares to people on Park Avenue. Says Omidyar: "You have to ask yourself, is it really true that business can only be about making money? And is it really true that if you want good things to happen in a community it has to be through a nonprofit?"...

Before a bunch of entrepreneurs who only produce borderline social goods flood them with business plans, a modest warning.  They are not giving anything away.  The level of due diligence they applied to an investment in Socialtext was on par with a later stage venture investment.  Part of what works with their model is applying private equity discipline to drive effectiveness.

MIM vs. SMS

With respect to my friends like Joi who believe that Mobile IM (MIM) will surpass SMS, because of benefits like presence, I have to disagree. 

Media selection theory suggests that replacing an adopted modality takes time and even then the old modality remains.  Unless the costs force it to, IMHO, as saturation of advertising and other forms of spam produce group flight (read: email -> RSS).

Presence can be a social construct when the tool doesn't make it explicit.  You can message someone to say you are late, or message someone else who knows who you are holding up.

And besides, in some places they use SMS more than the web.

The side note to this point is that while traveling in Europe, SMS was my favorite mode to keep in touch with my wife, although it did wake her up once.  What's nice about the Treo is they use a chat-like interface for SMS to group threads.  They are all just messages.

Democratic Ukraine

It may have been the Baltic States that started the Former Soviet Union on the path towards independence an democracy, but Ukraine demanded it with passion.  In the first democratic election, turnout was 90%. 

Now election results are in doubt and there is talk of a coup.  It doesn't help that Putin tried to appoint the incument through endorsement. Many Ukrainians, particularly in the more urban west, will see this as a fight for independence, not just democracy.  This revolt will not die.

London Blogger Dinner

Perhaps the best time I had last week in London was a blogger dinner hosted by Alan and Lee.  Great conversations.  You can check out My Pics, James', Dave's and Beth's.

I hope to return the favor as folks cross the pond.

Lunch with Linnar

I had lunch with Linnar Viik, the "father of the Estonian internet" in Tallinn the other week.  Linnar has played a key role in the public, private, non-profit and academic sectors.  I knew him when he had a company that worked with me to develop the President's website.

As we sat down, Linnar said he had to put some money in the parking meter.  I expected him to get up, but instead he fiddled with his phone and said, "done."  That's when I knew things have changed more than it appears since I last visited.  40% of parking meter payments are made this way. What's more, he whipped out a iBook and took advantage of the free wifi (everwhere) to show me some great stuff his companies and students had developed.

His main current occupation is with the IT College he founded, which pragmatically trains 500 developers and administrators.  Linnar has also been active in eGovernment, beginning with the Tiger Leap program that ambitiously brought the Internet to every single school and has played a role in advancing e-government.

Linnar is actively involved with mobile technologies with MobiSolutions, a market outreach of Estonian students who as early as 1999 implemented mobile voting as spectator event for conferences and mobile  interactivity for live entertainment events as Depeche Mode and Elton John. Among the things his companies have done is a group blog for Hello Kitty in Japan that lets users message and audioblog from their mobile devices to create a shared voicemail.

Check out the demo video of Kick Ass Kung Fu, a student collaboration:

Kick Ass Kung-Fu is an immersive game installation that transforms computer gaming into a visual, physical performance like modern dance or sports. The game lets you experience Kung-Fu movie action and aesthetics by merging the real and the virtual with a perceptive user interface.

Sony is practically giving away video sensor Eyetoys ($50 including a game for the PS2), expect this interface to grow in use.  This, of course, kicks a little more ass.  Plus, people outside the gaze of the system can contribute by sending commands via SMS to manipulate virtual objects.

Being an innovator in a small country comes with a responsibility broader than your own private interest.  Linnar has accepted this from day one and has played a big part in advancing his society.  Its a model we could all learn from, as while you may not come from a small country you can advance your local community and have fun along the way.

Global Bloogel

Its fantastic that Blogger has gone multilingual.  An internationalized blogging platform that is localized in 9 languages will have tremendous impact (Socialtext is internationalized so far, btw).  But this is Google, which the world increasingly trusts as its knowledge base, and is doing great things, but you have to wonder what can be done about language discrimination.

Its less a matter for Blogger, but with Google, small languages will not be supported when development is driven by market forces alone.  Regulated development would of course be disaster.  But if there is an area to call for open source in search this is it.  Enabling localization, and perhaps even machine translation, according to social incentives could bring our world together in ways we cannot design. 

Then again, if vertical information assembly (coding) isn't open on a global platform, we always have the horizontal.

Trust and Transactions

At dinner tonight I had an interesting conversation about the difference between Americans and Europeans.  One theory put forth is that Americans focus on transaction volume and efficiency while Europeans focus on the strength of relationships.  With enough transactions you gain economies.  With trust underpinning transactions, you gain similar economies.  Its hard to say which system is "better." 

In other words, in the US its easier to transact with strangers and more deals get done.  In Europe people invest in people, usually when there is a strong social context.  Anglo cultures have a dearth of social capital, which makes the UK an anomaly.  There isn't the same quarterly pressure to transact, but there is a level of transaction efficiency which combined with language and cultural affinity makes it an easy entry point for American countries. 

This dearth of social capital is part of the reason that social networking has exploded in the US and UK.  But something else is at play.  Part of the transaction efficiency in the US is that social networks are more transparent to begin with.  You can get a sense of the community you want to deal with through a modicum of research.  Unlike in other cultures where money is a bit older and networks are more familiar if you are part of the family.  Its not just that gaining trust takes more time, but learning who to trust is structurally more complex.

Global Recession

Its great that you can travel to and within Europe for pennies this time of year, but when they are converted to pence its another thing.  Dan points to the Dollar's slide relative to the Euro at record levels as market judgement of what Bush holds for us.  At the same time, European and Asian economies seem to be faltering in recovery.  Inflation is becoming a real problem because of commodity prices (energy), particularly in the US. 

I'm mostly posting this as a note to self about when my sentiment changed about the global economy.  I think we are heading into a global recession and I hope I can look back on this post and find I was wrong.

Embracing Diversity

Today I had the opportunity to visit a high school in Tensta, just outside Stockholm, as an excursion of a workshop.  Its known as a poor neighborhood with an unusual high ethnic mix.  The architecture reminded me of Soviet construction.

But what's happening here is an interesting experiment in embracing diversity and turning a problem into an opportunity.  They have purposely increased the level of diversity by including exchange students from such places as a private school in Long Island.  They are redesigning the physical space to include a better environment for a shift in curriculum to include more group work.  They are also providing laptops to all students.

The results so far are encouraging, but this kind of change management takes 4-7 years to truly measure.  When away from the tour group, I witnessed the cafeteria interaction which seemed the same as any west or east coast high school in the US.  Just kids from all backgrounds goofing off and being real friends.  Aside from the anecdotal stolen laptop, the kids of course took to the technology in constructive ways (despite their attempts to lock them down to prevent file sharing).

Similar experiments are happening for urban renewal throughout the US.  But in white bread Scandinavia, and nationalist ethnic hate nearby, this is something to watch and learn from. 

First Snow

Arrived in Stockholm last night to their first snowfall.

I have a backlog of posts to write, best I have been able to muster is moblogging.