Archive for the ‘Social Media & Semantic Web’ Category
Integrating MongoDB Into BitNami’s MAMPStack
Friday, February 3rd, 2012This article is for all you OS X Lion-based Mac developers who use BitNami’s MAMPStack and dream of being able to add a NOSQL database engine, like MongoDB, to the stack. If you are not running Lion, then there is no reason to proceed. Read more »
Tags: Databases, developers, GPL, MongoDB, MySQL, NOSQL, PostgreSQL, project management, RDBMS, smartups, SocialWeb, SQL, startups
Posted in Social Media & Semantic Web | No Comments »
The Emerging Global Brain and the Internet’s Future
Thursday, January 5th, 2012A few interesting posts and seemingly-unrelated themes have been circulating around Google Plus for the past few weeks or so. These thoughts have, I believe, been spurred on by the impending threat of the insanity of the SOPA and PIPA legislation.
I see the issues of Internet censorship, access rights, and content reuse as part of a much larger phenomenon that many people are unaware. Whereas the Internet has been a revolutionary force in humanity’s communication capabilities, facilitating numerous societal, cultural, political, and economic changes, I believe that it is the emerging evolutionary changes fueled by the accelerating growth in technology that will bring about the most radical and fundamental transformation.
Let me lead you through my thinking. Read more »
Tags: evolution, freedoms, Singularity, SocialWeb, Synaptic Web, Web 3.0, Web of Data
Posted in Entrepreneurship & Leadership, Social Media & Semantic Web | 5 Comments »
Making the Stream More Intelligent
Saturday, December 17th, 2011We’ve all heard the term CMS — Content Management System. These systems broadly fall into the blog platform category although they can often be more than simple blogging engines. WordPress and Drupal are the two most famous open-source CMSs.
The current Web has moved past the point where personal blogging is a big focus into the realm of real-time (RT) social interaction. Most content is now generated and shared via RT social networks than on CMS-based systems. However, unlike a CMS’s focus on content, the RT social networks’ focus is on users and their Streams. Read more »
Tags: API, Bottlenose, developers, founders, smartups, SocialWeb, USM, Web 3.0
Posted in Entrepreneurship & Leadership, Social Media & Semantic Web | No Comments »
Putting the Tech Back into Social Web
Saturday, September 17th, 2011This article was originally part of the fifth installment to my smartup series. As I believe the message best fits in its own article bucket, I’ve placed it here instead.
I want to address an odd trend–although it’s not yet clear if this actually is a trend. Over the past several months, I’ve heard similar statements from several unrelated Internet startups—the notion that they are not tech startups.
Instead of thinking of themselves as tech startups, they believe they have a higher-calling, claiming to be some flavor of socially-focused company. This may be the result of more and more non-tech-oriented business people forming Internet-based startups, but whatever the cause, in my opinion, it must be nipped in the bud. Read more »
Tags: FOSS, founders, leadership, project management, smartups, SocialWeb, startups
Posted in Entrepreneurship & Leadership, Social Media & Semantic Web | No Comments »
Building the Social Web: the Layers of the Smartup Stack
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011<Smartups Series Part 5 of 5>
As a Social Web architect and an open source advocate I frequently write, think, and promote the notion and ideals of the Open and Social Web. My work in the areas of user-centric control (identity, privacy, data portability, and rights), federated Social Web models, future-of-money projects, and W3C standards groups has shaped my views presented here.
Soon after publishing my 4-part smartup series (almost a year ago), I began to think about key parts of what has become this article. I’ve had bits and pieces of this article jotted down in various places. Over the past three months, the ideas have coalesced into a cohesive framework. With a recent and lengthy process of helping a potential smartup try to find its foundation, I’ve been motivated to assemble, clarify, and share my views on what I call the layers of the smartup stack. Read more »
Tags: API, developers, FOSS, identity 2.0, leadership, Linked Data, privacy 2.0, smartups, SocialWeb, standards, startups, Web 3.0, Web of Data
Posted in Entrepreneurship & Leadership, Social Media & Semantic Web | No Comments »
Cybernetics, the Social Web, and the (Coming?) Singularity
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011Over the past year or so, I have been doing a lot of thinking, reading, and ruminating about several topics: the outdated thinking of Web-2.0 startups, the need for a revolution in the microblogging space , what identity in the Social Web is really all about, and the meaning of a truly user-centric Social Web. As I’ve been furiously writing about these topics, in the back of my mind, I’ve been wondering where all of these advancements may eventually lead.
Whereas you will find my insights and thoughts about the Social Semantic Web strewn throughout my website, this article is an attempt to extrapolate a few of those ideas in a more provocative and profound–if not frightening–way. So, you have be forewarned. Any resemblance to reality may be greatly over exaggerated!
Tags: Linked Data, nature, science, Singularity, Synaptic Web, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Web of Data
Posted in Entrepreneurship & Leadership, Nanotechnology, Social Media & Semantic Web | 5 Comments »
Is Surrogate Blogging via Google Plus a Good Idea?
Saturday, July 9th, 2011I recently came across this discussion on Google Plus (G+) about Kevin Rose’s decision to stop using his personal blog in preference to G+. He is now redirecting all visitors to his blog to his G+ profile. Within G+, well-known tech leaders such as Bill Gross and Paul Allen (not of Microsoft fame) have both indicated that they are seriously considering doing the same thing.
What does this mean for blogging? Is this a bad portent for blogs? Is it wise to use a surrogate platform owned and controlled by a third party for your content creation and sharing platform? Read more »
Tags: data silos, identity 2.0, Linked Data, microblogging, privacy, Web 3.0
Posted in Entrepreneurship & Leadership, Social Media & Semantic Web | 8 Comments »
Subverting the Open Web: Schema.org’s Scheme to Control Structured Data
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011When the initial news about Schema.org hit the Twitterverse two weeks ago, a few people asked for my opinion. Being the responsive, diligent, social-media maven that I am–who has close to zero free nanoseconds–I took a pathetically-cursory look at Google’s announcement and at the Schema.org website and quickly tweeted back this less-than-thoughtful response. Read more »
Tags: data silos, Linked Data, SocialWeb, Web 3.0, Web of Data
Posted in Entrepreneurship & Leadership, Social Media & Semantic Web | 3 Comments »
Who Should Own the Internet?
Thursday, April 21st, 2011The genesis for this article came from reading this interesting piece by @novaspivack about his honored invitation to participate in the e-G8 Forum—a gathering of global Internet leaders to be held right before this year’s G8 Summit in Paris. Nova asked his readers what they thought were the key issues to communicate.
As I began to compose a response to Nova’s query, it soon became clear that I had too much to say for a blog comment and decided that it was more fitting to write an article for my own site and then simply point Nova to it. Read more »
Tags: data silos, Facebook, freedoms, identity 2.0, leadership, privacy, privacy 2.0, SocialWeb, Web of Data, WebID
Posted in Entrepreneurship & Leadership, Social Media & Semantic Web | 1 Comment »
How Many Streams Can You Kayak At Once?
Wednesday, March 30th, 2011About a year ago I started to feel the peer pressure of the Stream universe. I wrote about the issue of yet-another-stream phenomenon (YASP), stating that:
YASP…is that somewhat exciting but ultimately frustrating realization that there is yet another social networking, microblogging, curated, real-time, threaded-conversation service that you might have to join so that you don’t get left behind.
In essence, every week we are bombarded with the newest, hottest, social networking startup that is touted as being the next big thing. A number of us rush to sign up, hoping to get in on the closed beta. Read more »
Tags: data silos, SocialWeb
Posted in Entrepreneurship & Leadership, Social Media & Semantic Web | No Comments »


