The 463: Inside Tech Policy

Recession Has Hit Bottom, Kids, Move Along...

Interesting result from some very quick tinkering with the Facebook Lexicon application that measures use of terms in wall postings. You can see here that I measured "hired" (in orange) vs. "laid off" (in blue)...

We previously played with Lexicon back in December and had fun trending words like drunk, baby, hockey, and Wii. In that same note we mentioned that Facebook is working on an even more powerful Lexicon, but, in the meantime, I'm not sure why more people don't use version 1.0. Ben Bernanke, take note.

Oh, and follow me on Twitter.  More fascinating (and other) Lexicon uses to come...

Three Dot Lounge

Random thoughts and bon mots...

According to a DailyKos poll, New Yorkers and San Franciscans are more popular to Southerners than the French. But not by a lot.... Wired writes about how the National Federation of American Hungarians -- which has spent the last few decades working for the "liberation of communist and oppressed countries" suddenly took opposing patent reform as a cause.... There is something very strange about the whole "#amazonfail" issue that makes me wonder if we've heard the last of it... Stacey Higgobotham at GigaOm contends that European Commission actions against the company Phorm are, "in the case of privacy on the web, ...a welcome interference in the business of targeted advertising."...

Man stabbed at Dodger Stadium. Why not change the Dodger colors to Silver and Black and get over with it?... Without getting into a debate about metered broadband, consider the value proposition of buying an old-school disc (or Blu-ray) versus downloading a movie if it is implemented at your house. GigOm did (Higgobotham again).... The person who works to solve Google's immigration "problems.".... Lots us said about Twitter and even more is said on the service. But, little is said by it. Here's a sit-down with the two founders.

Geeks Held Hostage: CTO Watch Day 74

Steve Hamm of Business Week narrows the National CTO finalists down to two today. And, based on what we currently understand the job description to be, both would be excellent picks.

They are Padmasree Warrior, the chief technology officer of Silicon Valley networking giant Cisco Systems (CSCO), and Vivek Kundra, who holds the same title in the government of Washington, D.C., the sources say.

The two candidates offer President-elect Obama a clear choice of skills. Warrior, who previously was CTO at Motorola (MOT), represents hard-core technology expertise. Kundra, who was named to the D.C. post in 2007, has held similar government positions in the past and has a reputation for using technology to make government more open and inclusive. Neither the Obama transition team nor the two executives would comment on their potential selection by Obama.

The President-elect is expected to announce his pick for CTO in a matter of days. One of the sources says the selection is being held up because it's not yet clear how the person selected as CTO will interact with the government's chief information officer, a position now held by Karen Evans, and with the new cyber-security czar, another position that has not yet been filed.

Kundra has been on the tip of most lips since the Post ran a flattering profile on him earlier in the month.

One caveat that Hamm doesn't raise: There is some talk that the Obama team might yet pick someone with more of an "academic" background (as opposed to business management). Ed Felten of Princeton has been on numerous short lists and would fall under this category.

And, in other appointment rumor news, former Symantec CEO John Thompson has moved from CTO speculation to Commerce Secretary talk. That would be a great spot for him.

Random Links

I rarely do straight-up links posts. But, it's an unbusy moment in an exceedingly busy time, so here is a snapshot of what's interesting (to me):

• Kevin Martin's free wireless, porn-free "broadband" plan took another turn in a long, winding road today, when he told Ars Technica today that he's dropping the porn-free element in a last ditch effort to find success before he's replaced.
• Speaking of tech policy regulatory epics, I think we first started writing about Australia's net filtering efforts almost exactly a year ago. There has been "another government bungle" in a series of many that will cause a slight delay in the scheme.
  
• A UK minister said this (among other things) over the weekend: There is "the need for “child safe” websites – registered with cinema-style age warnings – to curb access to offensive or damaging online material.”
  
• Chris Soghogian of Surveillance State lists his tech policy predictions for 2009. They are worth a read, but if you want the summary in two words: defensive pessimism. We'll see if a lack of faith in political leaders and big companies pays off for Chris in a years time. (smile)
• Tech bloggers really do spend a holiday weekend arguing over what constitutes the authority of a "Tweet" (or a Twitter post). They really do.
• Carrie Brownstein (ex-Sleater Kinney guitarist) has a quite delightful blog via NPR.
• The Internet-enabled TV.
• The best gadgets of the year from Gizmodo.

2008 in Your Words

Tis the season for big think pieces and lists on what It All Meant in 2008. Fortunately, you'll find neither here.

Instead, I thought it would fun (and easier!) to poll the collective Zeitgeist (sorry Google) of Facebook for 2008's trends. I used Facebook's "Lexicon" service which has been relatively ignored since it launched last April. Lexicon is a competitor to Google Trends -- which has been a object of affection on these pages for a couple of years). The service charts words that are posted on Facebook profile walls.

First, the economy is on everyone's minds. And, this chart shows that there is little disconnect from the government approved recession and the one that people are feeling and discussing. The searched term is "recession"...

The real world manifestations of this is that more and more people are glumly discussing lay-offs than happily mentioning pay-checks. "Laid off" in blue and "paycheck" in yellow....

Oh, yes, there was an election this year, right? Below is unsurprising track of it. Obama in blue, McCain in yellow and Palin in green....

This is a tech policy blog. Yet, none of the familiar terms here were broad or interesting enough to resonate on Facebook. Still, the below gives you a hint of what Facebook users value. "Privacy" in blue and "censorship" doesn't even show up on the chart.

Here are the sports that people cared about in 2008. Obviously, football (blue) gets the benefit of being a term that hits three different sports around the world. I was surprised that hockey (purple) held up reasonably well. I did once hear that some crazy percentage of Canadians were on Facebook and this would seem to prove it. Basketball is green and baseball yellow.

What about the two hottest gadgets of 2008? The iPhone's (yellow) 2.0 3G launch boosted it over the summer, but the Wii (blue) wins overall.

I've long suspected that Facebook current most-favored utility is as a venue to share baby photos with friends you never see anymore because you are too busy as a over-streched 30 and 40-something. This would trump its previous top utility of being a venue to share photos of you and your 20-something friends beer-bonging the previous night. This chart may or may not prove my theory, but it's interesting, nonetheless. "Drunk" is blue and "baby" is yellow. BTW, check out how "drunk" shoots up around New Years and "baby" shoots up approximately a month or so later. Coincidence?

Despite the year's turmoil, "happy" convincingly trumps "sad". Happy holidays to all.

[Note: You can see a recently updated version of Lexicon here that breaks out all sort of interesting demographic and quasi-cross tab information. However, you are not allowed to create your own search terms -- as of yet].

Going to Court, 2.0 Style

(Jim Hock) -- Add one more reason to love Facebook. Now it’s even recognized in official court proceedings in Australia as a way to get to scofflaws. A story today in the Telegraph reports that a judge in the country was persuaded by a mortgage company’s lawyers to allow them to serve documents over the Internet – via Facebook – to a couple after repeatedly failing to serve papers to them in person.

The paper reports that the lawyer came up with the Facebook plan after it became clear that a couple did not want to be found after they failed to keep up repayments on a $150,000 (£44,000) loan they had borrowed from a mortgage provider.

Wait? It's December?!

As a great philosopher once said, "time keeps on slipping, slipping into the future." Or maybe it was the lyrics to a song played through millions of dorm room windows in the '80s. I can't remember.

But, what I can remember, albeit barely, is the many tech policy relevant occurrence and blog-worthy thoughts that ran through my head in the past few weeks that never surfaced on this dear site. If your last few weeks was also a blur, here is a review (in no particular order)...

• The tragic Lori Drew cyberbullying/suicide case turn an even sadder turn in it saga last week when a court found Drew guilty of computer fraud. As many, many Internet wags have pointed out, the rule that was broken here was MySpace's terms of service (Drew misrepresented herself). The New York Times looks into the implications of this. And, Mike Masnick points us to a object lesson in how unworkable this precedence is.

BTW, here is a case where Facebookers -- while not exploiting this incident -- are happy to bring it up in the context of how their service enjoys relative protection against anonymity.

• Andrew Noyes culls through the Obama-published list of donors to the transition committee and picks out the tech donors. Eric Schmidt gave the max ($5,000). But, I still don't understand why he didn't give to the Obama campaign in the general election. Maybe the president-elect asked him the same thing on the campaign plane in the waning week or so of the battle.

• Obama made many more transition appointments with tech policy implications.

• Speaking of Google, that was some NYT article this last Sunday about who (if anyone) should watch the Google gatekeepers as they make decisions on what content should and should not be made accessible in the face of conflicting international laws, customs and moral standards.

• CNET is running a special section of their site called the White House Reboots. In this case, I don't think it's hyperbole. (Though, too much space is paid to the ubiquitous CTO speculation that bothers me so). One notable point about CNET these days: I think their new tech policy hire Stephanie Condon shows a heckuva lot of promise and impressively immersed herself in this strange niche. There are far too few full time tech policy reporters these days and it is a valued service that CNET provides by having someone cover this space on the ground in DC.

• One recent Condon item was an interview with CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro on free trade that is worth reading. When you have the drama of the aforementioned MySpace case and the spector of Internet censorship to ponder, techies tend to forget about the importance of free trade on their real live paychecks.

• The free, porn-free wireless "broadband" plan that is being pushed by FCC chair Kevin Martin will be discussed again on December 18 says today's WSJ. Adam Thierer is not a fan: "It still just kills me that Martin is going to so much trouble for such a pathetic plan. We are talking about essentially a glorified dial-up service here! I think the title of Tom Evslin's piece over at Circle ID today really says it all: "Free, Slow, Censored Internet: A Bad Idea."

• Roy Mark breaks down the realities behind all the false shockiness about Microsoft's lobbying against the Google/Yahoo deal that died a couple of weeks back.

Off Topic: All You Need to Know About Our Great Nation's State of Mind

Beverly Hills Chihuahua is number one at the box office for the second week in a row. This chart from the Indexed blog explains why:

Not the best news for Oliver Stone's new flick.

Reading List...

I recently asked for recommendations on blogs and sites for tech policy goodness that may have escaped my attention. A few readers have asked for a summary -- so here goes...

--Jim Puzzanghera of the Los Angeles Times goes far afield and recommends the The LA Times Technology blog. I kid. I like the blog a lot. Among the several writers, Puzzanghera posts about tech policy issues and Jon Healey covers digital media issues as well as anyone.

--Chris Soghoian tips us to his blog "Surveillance State". He notes that "while privacy/security is my main area, I do write about tech policy a fair bit." Chris is currently a student fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for the Internet and, incidentally, has an interesting post up on the current happenings with Berkman's Internet Safety Task Force.

--Not sure how I missed this one before, but I was tipped to Roy Mark of eWeek's tech policy blog, "On the Mark." It's now required reading.

--Robert Canon tells about "Cybertelecom" and says that it is primarily a website -- with associated blogs. Cybertelecom is a not-for-profit educational project focused on Federal Internet law and regulation.

--And, Robert Guera helpfully tells us "that the DC-based Freedom House is covering issues related to internet freedom. Their program website isn't up yet, but they are producing a news letter and delicious feed that could be of interest."

--Guera also recommends Ismael Peña's ICTology as a good site that covers "ICT4D" and tech policy.

Thanks all! And, keep the recommendations coming.

A Cry For Help: Other Tech Policy Blogs

I am a big critic of the circle jerk that often occurs among a niche community of bloggers who constantly refer back to each other with praise and hat tips. But, I also find myself going back to the well of a select few blogs in my feed list that must number in the low hundreds.

So, I ask: Anyone have favorite blogs that cover tech policy that aren't obvious and/or are relatively undiscovered treasures?