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Explorers examine a crevasse on Lyman Glacier in 1916. (Photo courtesy of the United States Forest Service. Archived at the World Data Center for Glaciology, Boulder, CO.)

I do not know how long the BBC has relied on an outside site to host and hold conversations about their articles. I believe that BBC’s decision — or any site’s — to fracture their content stream by choice is a bad idea.

Why? Because it makes users have to leave their site — why would they want that — and log into another site just to read and post comments about an article. As some of us do not have Facebook accounts by choice (like me), it also means that they are alienating some people from the conversation.

Fracturing By User

Whereas fracturing your own Stream by choice is not a good idea, sometimes it is the users who fracture your commenting stream.

One well-known and respected VC, Mark Suster (G+, T), has publicly stated that he does not like to announce his blog posts on Google Plus or Facebook as it fractures the conversation stream. People would comment on his post within his Google Plus or Facebook thread but not bother to reply on his blog post. He wisely prefers to have the conversation stream occur in one place — on his blog. That way it can easily be accessible to all, and moderated by him. So instead of using Google Plus to announce his newest postings, he relies on Twitter as it is suited to broadcasting about his posts.

I, too, have debated the desirability of announcing my latest blog articles on Google Plus as 95% of the comments I receive occur on my Google Plus thread and not within my blog post. I have made the observation before that Twitter is more a broadcast platform and Google Plus is more of a conversation ecosystem. Mark’s experiences and mine seem to back up this assertion.

You run the risk of giving your readers the opportunity to fracture your article’s conversation stream if you announce it on Google Plus or Facebook. To prevent that from happening while still benefiting from announcing their posts on social networking sites, some bloggers will turn off commenting within Google Plus and Facebook and ask their readers to leave comments on their original posting.

Are There Solutions?

As long as there are multiple Stream Channel providers, the reality of Stream fracturing will remain. However, fracturing your own stream on purpose, as the BBC does, seems like a bad idea. But, it is something that you can control. Preventing others from fracturing your own stream can be a little more difficult as readers can repost or reshare your content and create new channels of conversation that are divorced from the original content bucket.

It is clear that part of the issue with fracturing of streams in the blogging has to do with the outdate paradigm of blogging engines. I wrote about the need for blogging to evolve in my article, It’s Time for Blogging to Evolve. In that article, I propose a path toward making blogging a fully-integrated member in the real-time social web.

Other Articles of Mine On Stream Fracturing

Is Surrogate Blogging via Google Plus a Good Idea?

How Many Streams Can You Kayak At Once?

BitNami offers a variety of development and production stacks that make it quick and easy to set up a localhost-based development environment or even provision a production-based server with a full suite of tools. If you are familiar with the better known MAMP, offered by the German company appsolute GmbH, then you should have no issues using BitNami’s version instead.

What are the benefits of using BitNami’s MAMPStack?

First, as of the date of this article, their stack is up to date. It is compiled and built with the most recent, stable versions of PHP, Apache, MySQL, and phpmyadmin. Second, they offer a very easy-to-install PostgreSQL addon module that integrates into the MAMPStack. This provides the opportunity to use an alternative database, even leveraging PHP’s PDO extension to create a truly SQL-agnostic application. It should not be too hard in the future to add support for other open source SQL-based RDBMSs like Percona or even Drizzle. Third, they seem very responsive to their user community.

Why would you want to integrate MongoDB into your MAMPStack?

The days when a RDBMS could be the end all and be all of your backend are over. For more on this point, read part three of my five-part Smartup series, Web 3.0 Smartups: Moving Beyond the Relational Database.

In short, in the Social Web, smartups cannot use a RDBMS as their only backend tool for every job. A RDBMS is not a universal tool. In fact, RDBMSs — MySQL in particular — are overused and often misused.

Let’s Get Started!

Integrating MongoDB into your BitNami MAMPStack is a relatively straightforward process — at least if you are a developer accustomed to building and modifying your dev stacks. Reading this article will take you some time. But, once you fully understand this process, it should take no more than fifteen minutes to install and configure MongoDB to work within your BitNami MAMPStack.

How do I know? Because before posting this article, I deleted my BitNami MAMPStack using the uninstall.app application with which it ships. This deleted all the work I did in integrating MongoDB into the stack. I then reinstalled the stack and repeated the process below. Of course, I had backup copies of the BitNami MAMPStack because there is no need to redownload that. But, I did go through the entire below process. Total time? Thirteen minutes and four point six seconds — and that is with two MAMPStack server restarts. Bam!

Disclaimer: Before you begin, you agree that you have read this disclaimer and the next one and agree with them. You understand that you are entirely on your own with this process. If you are not comfortable with UNIX commands, if you have never worked within Terminal before, if you do not know how the steps listed below will affect your computer, and if you do not know how to fix any issues that may arise out of trying out these steps, then do not proceed. I am not responsible for what happens to your computer as a result of these suggested techniques. You have been warned. Proceed at your own risk.

Disclaimer 2: This process should not be used on production servers. It is only suitable for a development environment running on localhost.

A. Compiling the MongoDB PHP Driver From Source

Grab the very latest version of the MongoDB PHP Driver. Download the tarball version.

(Note: Although you can try installing the driver using PHP’s PECL command, I’ve had spotty luck with that approach in the past when attempting to install MongoDB into a third-party dev stack. The driver did not always get installed in the proper location. Sometimes it got installed in the extension directory of the default version of PHP that ships with OS X. When that happens, you have to uninstall the driver and try reinstalling it into the proper directory. As this has proven unreliable in the past, I find it easiest to compile from source then move the extension into the proper location within the MAMPStack. It just takes a few more minutes but ensures that everything is in its proper place.)

Drag the tarball out of your Downloads folder onto your desktop. Then double click on the mongo-x.x.x.tar tarball to extract the files. This will create the driver folder. Open up Terminal and navigate to that folder. Each line below starting with a “$” indicates a new terminal command. Before beginning, see the notes below the ordered list. Enter these commands one at a time in Terminal:

NOTE: You may need to change the mampstack version number below if you are installing a newer version — in other words, a version that came out after this article was posted or updated. It is currently updated for MAMPStack version 5.3.10-1 and PostgreSQL Module Addon 5.3.10-1.

1. $ cd /Users/{your_user_name}/Desktop

2. $ ls

3. $ cd mongo-x.x.x

4. $ cd mongo-x.x.x

5. $ sudo /Applications/mampstack-5.3.10-1/php/bin/phpize

6. $ ./configure

7. $ sudo make install

Terminal Notes

Step 1: Replace {your_user_name} with the name of your mac account user. It is the name that appears within the /Users folder.

Step 2: The list command will allow you to double check the MongoDB file folder name which you will enter in the next step.

Step 3: Switch to the directory that contains your MongoDB PHP Driver and associated files. Replace the x.x.x with the version number of the driver which should be the same as that listed for the folder name.

Step 4: This seems like a repeat of above, but if you inspect the folder structure of the driver download, you will see what is going on. This switches into the directory within the downloaded folder that contains the actual driver source files. It is within this directory that you run the compile commands.

Step 5: The phpize command prepares the build environment for PHP extensions — in this case, for building the MongoDB PHP Driver extension (mongo.so). You will be prompted to enter your administrator password. This is your mac user account password (assuming that you are the owner of the mac).

When the screen of output is finished, you will have a compiled MongoDB Driver extension located in the modules directory of the driver folder. Look in /mongo-x.x.x/mongo-x.x.x/modules for the extension named mongo.so. Copy that extension into the following folder in your BitNami MAMPStack directory:

mampstack-5.3.10-1/php/lib/php/extensions

Now you need to add the following to your listed extensions within the php.ini file. In the BitNami MAMPStack, the php.ini file can be found here:

mampstack-5.3.10-1/php/etc

Open the php.ini file in your favorite IDE and add this to the “Dynamic Extensions” section of the file, just below the last active extension:

extension=mongo.so

Save and close the php.ini file.

Now, before continuing on to the next step, if your MAMPStack server is running, stop it and then restart it. Visit your phpinfo page to make sure that the MongoDB PHP Driver has been installed and is active. If you don’t know what a phpinfo page is, visit this link. (I made my PHP Info Page and placed it at root level in the apache2/htdocs folder before I began this process.) Run your phpinfo page and look for the “Configuration” section in the output. Now scroll down until you see “mongo”. Check to make sure the version number is what you expect.

If you do not see “mongo” listed, or the version number is incorrect, you’ll have to start the process again — but first you will need to delete the mongo.so file from BitNami MAMPStack’s PHP extension folder. However, if everything looks fine, you’re ready for the next section below — part two.

B. Adding and configuring the MongoDB Database

In this section, we’ll setup the MongoDB backend and make sure that it is functioning properly.

Follow these simple steps:

1. Download the most recent, stable OS X 64-bit binary version of MongoDB. Double click the tarball to extract the files.
2. Create a new folder called “mongo” in BitNami MAMPStack’s root. When you are done, you will have this directory structure: mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo
3. Create three subfolders in this newly-created mongo folder, setting their permissions to 775:

   bin

   data

   tmp

   Within the newly-created data directory, add the following subfolder with permissions set to 775 as well:

   db

4. Install the MongoDB files you’ve just downloaded and extracted into the mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo/bin. Make sure you install just the contents of the bin folder within the downloaded MongoDB folder and not the bin folder too.
5. Next, you’ll create a configuration file for mongoDB. This file will tell mongo where to store data, log errors, and which directory to use for temporary stuff. In your favorite IDE, create a new file named mongodb.conf in the root directory of your mongo install ( mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo ). In that file, add the following:

   Important Note: You can copy the entire text below and paste it into your new, empty mongodb.conf file. However, before saving and closing this file, make sure there are no spaces on the blank lines between the code blocks. If you have even a single space on a blank line — or even after a command line — your Mongo server will not start up as it will believe the line with a space is a command line. It will not know how to interpret this phantom command. So, when attempting to start your Mongo server in step 6 below, if you receive this error, error command line: unrecognized line in ‘ ’, that means you have a space somewhere in this file. Find it, delete it, and try again. As much as I tried, I could not get the Syntax Highlighter to create the below text without adding an extra space between lines.

   # Store data in default MongoDB directory structure, /data/db/
   dbpath = /Applications/mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo/data/db
   
   # Set location where all MongoDB errors should be logged.
   # This should create a log file if it does not exist
   logpath = /Applications/mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo/mongodb.log
   
   # Set location of pid file; this should create one if it does not exist
   pidfilepath = /Applications/mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo/tmp/mongo.pid
   
   # Only accept local connections
   bind_ip = 127.0.0.1

   Save and close your newly-created mongodb.conf file.

6. To launch MongoDB server, open up terminal and type the following command all on one line. However, as we have just made significant additions and changes to the basic, out-of-the-box BitNami MAMPStack, you need to restart your BitNami MAMPStack servers to make sure all the changes are picked up.

   Once the MAMPStack servers have restarted, type this into Terminal — place your cursor in the box and copy the entire string as it does extend beyond the margins of the box:

   sudo /Applications/mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo/bin/mongod --config=/Applications/mampstack-5.3.10-1/mongo/mongodb.conf

   Please note: From now on, this is how you will start your mongod server.

7. Test your MongoDB install to make sure that the server is running. By default, MongoDB listens to port 27017. You can verify which port MongoDB is listening to by looking up the configuration settings of your MongoDB PHP Driver in the PHP Info page. However, Mongo’s Web-based admin console listens to port 28017. Therefore by visiting “localhost:28017” in your browser, you can see if you have a connection. If you do, you’re all set!

To learn more about starting and stopping the MongoDB server (Mongod), see this resource.

(Note: You could install MongoDB into your /usr/local/ directory and then symlink the binaries out of the /usr/local/mongo/bin folder to the BitNami MAMPStack. However, the idea in this method is to keep all the applications bundled under the same master folder — your BitNami MAMPStack. That way, uninstalling the stack is very simple. You just delete the BitNami MAMPStack folder from your /Applications directory. The method presented here also makes it easy to move this application setup to another machine. Finally, although it is normally not an issue, with this method you do not have to worry about potential problems when upgrading your OS.)

C. Download and install phpMoAdmin

We are almost finished! If you’ve successfully completed parts one and two above, congratulations! You have integrated MongoDB to run inside of your BitNami MAMPStack. This last step will provide you with a tool to manage MongoDB.

Just as you use phpmyadmin to administer and manage your MySQL databases, MongoDB has several database admin tools written in PHP. We’re going to be installing phpMoAdmin. Grab the most recent stable version.

Once you’ve downloaded a copy, unzip it if it did not automatically unzip. Next, create a new folder within Apache’s htdocs folder called phpmoadmin. Copy the moadmin.php file into this new folder.

Done! You now can access this very simple, but useful MongoDB admin tool by visiting “localhost:8080/phpmoadmin/moadmin.php” in your browser.

Alternatively, you can use MongoHub or RockMongo to administer your MongoDB backend. I suggest checking all three out and deciding which one you like best.

Why are we using phpMoAdmin? It offers the most recently-updated version out of the three and it is simple to install as it is a single, small file. For this article, it is sufficient. However, the other tools may provide better GUIs and a stronger set of features. So, you should check them out and decide which one you like best.

Don’t Forget to Give Thanks!

That’s it!

You can further expand your BitNami MAMPStack by setting up VHOSTs in your Apache config file, but that is beyond this article. If you’re interested in that, see the documentation in the /apache2/manual folder.

Finally, please remember to give back to the open source community as it provides you with high-quality, powerful software with many freedoms — and often free as in cost, too. Share this article, write your own, create a version of this article for Linux distros or Windows, volunteer time to an open source project, contribute bug fixes, thank BitNami for their services, or donate to help fund an open source project. Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) needs your support!

Now go out there and create the next, greatest Smartup!

More resources

• Learn more about MongoDB
• MongoDB books
• Blending the Doctrine ORM with the Doctrine MongoDB ODM

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.

The Internet as a Right

Today I’ve seen this article by Vint Cerf posted twice to my Google Plus Stream, Internet Access Is Not a Human Right (independently posted by Tim O’Reilly and John Blossom). John Blossom’s post and ensuing comments present a well-reasoned argument on why access to the Internet should be considered a human right. Discussing the seminal insights in America’s First Amendment (freedom of speech, freedom of the press), John successfully argues that the right to unfettered Internet access is a natural extension of these two rights.

This issue was thrown into the spotlight in the middle of last year when the United Nations’ Human Rights Council declared that access to the InterWeb was a basic, global human right. Vint Cerf, on the other hand, makes his case in his article why he believes that is an improper viewpoint.

I agree with the UN’s declaration and respectfully disagree with Vint Cerf’s reasoning. To me, however, this debate misses a larger issue — the Internet is transforming in profound ways that push this discussion beyond the simple notion of access rights.

The Internet as a Cultural and Spiritual Resource

Also floating by in my Google Plus Stream this morning was this article (shared by Kingsley Idehen), about the Missionary Church of Kopimism being approved as an official religion in Sweden.

In my rehashing of Kingsley’s post, I mused about the possible ramifications the religion of Kopimism could have in the United States on the SOPA / PIPA legislative process. I asked if, “policy makers [could] be infringing on [freedom of religion] and the separation of church and state by trying to regulate the Internet and its activities.”

In the article about Kopimism, I found this statement very intriguing:

It makes perfect sense to observe that all life comes from copying and remixing of previous life, and to therefore hold copying and remixing as higher, sacred acts worthy of reverence…People who have observed that copying and remixing is the basis for all our being deserve every bit of respect for considering those acts connected with life itself.

(Note: Here is another article on this issue, A Few Thoughts on Kopimism as a Religion)

This is an interesting perspective. Of course biological life maintains and perpetuates itself via mitosis and meiosis. Our past cells and current self can only survive via the copying and passing on of genetic information. Evolution proceeds via the copying and mixing of various genes and through creation of novel genes thanks to mutations. Copying is also fundamental to disseminating and perpetuating software, content, knowledge, ideas, and cultural memes.

Thus copying can be viewed as something that transcends the myopic view of intellectual property protection and its strict enforcement of infringement laws. Censorship and a reduction of access rights to the Internet eschews the higher-level cultural and spiritual import of our social interactions on the InterWeb.

I suppose it could be argued that copying, remixing, sharing, and disseminating are at the core of the fabric of the universe. So how is the Internet moving past the basic issue of access rights and evolving into a more holistic manifestation of our biological and universal predilections to copy, share, disseminate and connect?

The Emerging Global Brain

As the growth of computing technology accelerates at an accelerating rate, the tools and means with which our species communicates will radically change. Already at least one billion people are emotionally connected and attached to their social media networks and obsessively enamored with their smart devices. At least a billion people more covet the notion of being connected in the same way.

For those of us intimately tied into the Social Web, our connection and devices might as well be a permanent piece of our neural anatomy. In my article, Who Should Own the Internet, I make this observation:

The Internet has become our global data ecosystem. It is an evolutionary force in the speciation of humanities’ communication and computation infrastructure. As a result of the ease with which data of all types flows around the global, and with the increasing connections made to this data on a daily basis, our species is on the verge of seismic and profound changes.

In just a few decades, the Internet has grown like a developing nervous system, transcending national boundaries, shrinking geographic distances, dissolving geopolitical barriers, and binding many of us together into a single, global network. If allowed to continue its course unshackled by shortsighted power players, then it may become humankind’s most powerful, liberating, unifying, and transformational force.

As our computing and communication technologies become smaller, more powerful, cheaper, and ubiquitous, humanity will begin to merge with these tools. Currently, we have superficially merged with our communication tools, but in a few decades, we will have augmented reality interfaces in our glasses and contact lenses, various Internet-enabled sensors in our bodies, and a copious amount of micro sensors providing reams of data from the Web of Sensors—a global mesh network of sensors.

At some point, the Global Brain will come to life. It will be part organic, part inorganic. It will be part us and part our creations. It will be a universal communications binding whose existence is greater than the sum of its parts.

(Note: I go into more detail about the Global Brain in my thought piece, Cybernetics, the Social Web, and the (Coming?) Singularity)

Because of this belief, in my Who Should Own the Internet article, I put forth my view of the needs of the Internet as follows:

…the Internet [should be] granted its own rights and freedoms—freedoms to grow, to prosper, to evolve unencumbered by corporate or governmental red tape as if it were its own emerging metaphysical entity.

In the coming decades, humanity’s sojourns and journeys across the Social Web will transform as the technological and cultural seismic shift in global communication patterns and infrastructure brings use closer together and intimately connects us. The Internet is evolving in ways that may be currently hard to comprehend. If the global netizenry does not stand up for its rights and those of an unencumbered Internet, then corporate greed, myopic political leaders, and misplaced fear will prevent humanity from achieving an amazing future.

My Related Articles

1. The HyperWeb: it’s All About Connections
2. Cybernetics, the Social Web, and the (Coming?) Singularity
3. Who Should Own the Internet?

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.

No longer is it sufficient to place content at the center of a system’s model. Instead, the RT Social Web demands that users have primacy, that their content preferences, that their Stream choices and channels, are just a part of their overall presence on the Web.

Instead of blogging-1.0 styled CMSs, the paradigm has shifted to what I call User Stream Manager (USM) systems. A USM places the user at the center of the system, not the user’s content.

One such USM is Bottlenose, a self-described tool ”that helps you engage with your streams more intelligently.” Bottlenose was founded by Nova Spivack (T, G+) , a prolific Venture Producer, and Dominiek ter Heide (T, G+), a very talented developer and CTO.

I’ve been privy to Bottlenose’s development for more than a year, watching it evolve into a more robust, well-envisioned Stream management tool — a USM. Although I have not used it on a daily or weekly basis, I’ve kept an eye trained on its progress, stepping back in every so often to test its waters.

I just did so again last week and all I can say is Bottlenose will become my default real-time Stream management system. I’ve grown tired of TweetDeck, HootSuite, and other social media dashboards. Whereas Bottlenose is still a nascent platform and therefore should not be compared apples to apples with the aforementioned dashboards, it’s future prospects are greater in my opinion.

Bottlenose’s foundation embraces Web 3.0; the company lives in what I call the Smartup space. The technology and the company are leading the way toward the era of the User Stream Manager. As consummate Smartup practitioners, they’re aiming at building an ecosystem around their core technology, including the ability for 3rd-party plugins to enhance the Bottlenose experience. Add to this the possibility of an app store, and you have a smartup that not only will monetize in a smart way, but share some of their financial success with other developers.

There is a lot of low-level, amazing, and cool technology that churns underneath Bottlenose’s surface, helping to sort out the flotsam and jetsam in your Stream from the treasures. Their proprietary tech helps extract the signal in your Stream from the noise in your channels. It learns what you like and dislike. It allows you to teach it how you prefer paddling your reach of the RT social river.

Currently, Bottlenose’s oars, rudders, and keel are just in the Twitter and Facebook Streams. As it continues to evolve, hopefully adding additional Streams into the mix (Google Plus, Quora), its utility will only increase and each user’s journey down their RT social Stream will become more meaningful.

If you have not yet tried Bottlenose, it’s time for you to jump on in. The water is fine and the flow is just right!

My Related Articles

1. Flocking To the Stream
2. Building the Social Web: the Layers of the Smartup Stack
3. How Many Streams Can You Kayak At Once?
4. The HyperWeb: it’s All About Connections
5. The first article in my five-part smartup series, Web 3.0: Powering Startups to Become Smartups

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.

Now if I had heard that sentiment from two unrelated parties, I would not think much about it. But hearing that statement from several unrelated parties has made me pause and think.

The Rise of the Data Civilization

In the conclusion of Stephen Wolfram’s excellent article entitled Advance of the Data Civilization: A Timeline, he states that the “systematization of data and knowledge provides core infrastructure for the world.” Technologies have evolved over time, increasing the rate of collection, processing, and dissemination of that data to help turn them into knowledge.

To our globally-connected and insatiably data-hungry community, in my view, the Internet is perhaps the most relevant class of innovation. The Internet is becoming not only the preferred repository of most of our data but also the accelerator of the systematization of data and knowledge that Wolfram discusses. Our civilization is more dependent on data today than ever before—and that dependence will continue to increase.

As humanity races toward the Internet of Things, data–and lots of it (big data)–will be a fundamental supporting sublayer to our everyday lives. The Internet is becoming the platform on which our society, culture, and economy depends. The Internet is an essential partner in much of our current and future innovations. Don’t discount the importance of the Internet and its underlying technologies. Technology is at the core of our society’s future and your smartup’s success.

Technology as Platform, Engine, and Change Agent

All Internet-obligate companies have some type of a vision and mission, usually backed by a set of closely-held ideals that flavor their implementation of that vision. Whatever that vision may be, the fundamental foundation of any smartup is its technological platform. But as you’ll discover in the Layer’s of the Smartup Stack article, the platform does encompass more than just core code technology.

The technological platform though is at the center of, the innermost layer of, the smartup stack. Why is this the case? Because technology is the enabler of the wonderful and fantastic vision your smartup has for the world. Your smartup plans to leverage the power, reach, and socially-transmutational forces of the Internet. To do so requires that you envelope your vision with those technologies that can help bring your vision to fruition.

Whereas it is fabulous that you want to change the world, your Internet-obligate company mandates a technological base. Make sure that base is as strong as it can be. Architect it properly and build it correctly from the start.

Don’t let some branding game cloud your judgement about the key components to your smartup’s future. Remember that your company is at the startup stage. It is not at the growth to maturity stage. You are building the foundation of your vision—a vision that should indisputably be much greater than its technological underpinnings and will be if you do it right. But in order to get to that next stage, you need to come to terms with the seeds of your humble beginnings. There will be plenty of time to expand your focus, to embrace your greater ideals.

Conclusion

It is clear that technology is integral to all Social Web platforms. As smartups are Internet-obligate endeavors, they must be firmly grounded in a tech core. But smartups are greater than the sum of their technologies. The fifth installment of my smartup series lays out the greater ecosystem vision that all startups should strive to embrace. Please read, Building the Social Web: the Layers of the Smartup Stack.

Outside Resources

Here’s a great article by Steve Blank, The Startup Team. The composition of your founding startup team is instrumental to your success — or lack thereof. Technology must be represented on that founding team or you may be in for an unpleasant surprise.

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.

If you’ve carefully read my previous installments in my smartup series you will have discovered–in part–the message that is expressed here. This next installment in the series seeks to clearly present the framework of the smartup stack.

Smartups are Socially Transformative

Smartups look to operate beyond the stale disruptive technology mantra; the smartup vision is not simply a paradigm shift. Instead, smartups are best described as innovating at the intersection of technical, social, and cultural evolution. As such, well thought-out and executed smartups are revolutionary entities. They are socially transformative ecosystems.

The power that a corps of ecosystem partners can bring to your smartup’s success cannot be emphasized enough.

The layers of the smartup stack embrace the uniqueness of each smartup while recognizing the interconnectedness of the greater community. In this regard, smartup’s do not build software. Smartup’s create ecosystems. Like an ecological food web, your smartup can be viewed as an organism that is linked to and interdependent upon other organisms and system services. This mindset requires a broader view of your smartup’s role in society. A smartup’s ultimate goal is to create greater value than is captured.

No matter the grand vision of a given smartup, all smartups share the same DNA at their foundation. They are tech-reliant, Internet-obligate companies. If you need some convincing of this fact, please see my article, Putting the Tech Back into Social Web.

The Layers of the Smartup Stack

Whereas technology is at the center of the smartup stack, you will see in this article that smartups are greater than the sum of their technologies. As we explore each additional layer of the smartup stack, the focus shifts more and more to the outside. Greater emphasis is placed on the social, economic, and cultural frameworks. This will help integrate your vision into the real world. It will help bridge your metaspace creations with their meatspace participants.

Layers can connote horizontal levels upon which other material is placed or stacked. But in the view presented here, layers are rings that surround and bind to any lower and higher concentric-ring partners.

It is practically impossible to singularly architect and build each of the smartup layers without regard to their immediately contiguous layers. However, I will present each layer as if it were a well-defined and self-sufficient entity. The reality is that at all stages of building out your smartup stack, the interconnections to and interdependencies on other layers (inner and outer) must be carefully explored and considered. This is one reason (among many) why your smartup must have in-house technological expertise from the start.

As mentioned above, smartup’s do not build software, they create ecosystems. They recognize that there is great benefit to being linked to and interdependent upon others in a larger system. As many of the system services are outside of a smartup’s immediate control, a smartup must architect its ecosystem to work in symbiotic harmony with the greater Web community.

To that end, a smartup leverages and relies upon open source tools and open Web standards. As we will discuss in the section about the outermost smartup stack layer, smartups also give back to the Open Web movement in order to embrace an ecosystem approach.

The Inner most Layer: the Technology Platform

As mentioned above, technology is at the very core of every Internet-obligate smartup. The center of the smartup stack, then, is the technology platform. There are four pieces that comprise the technology platform. As previous smartup articles discuss two of these pieces in depth, I will not present much additional detail about them.

Each piece of the tech platform layer relies on Open Source tools and standards where ever possible. Although a smartup creates its own technology in aggregate, it leverages code libraries, tools, and standards to help make the process of building out their platform quick and efficient.

At this stage you will be proportioning your smartup’s time between product iteration (which means more coding), marketing your MVP, and customer development. Although you must find the proper balance between these three activities, the primary focus of this process is on building out your smartup’s foundational technology platform.

Here are the four pieces of the tech platform:

1. Schemaless Backend
2. Semantic Web / LOD Stack
3. Responsive Codebase
4. Modern Web Standards

Schemaless Backend

I’ve written an entire smartup article on the virtues of NOSQL versus SQL, so I will not repeat anything here except to say that some smartups may need to use an RDBMS as well for part of their overall data warehousing needs. The main point is that smartups are big-data players and as such they need to utilize the best technology for modeling, capturing, and managing that data. NOSQL databases are, by and large, the preferred choice.

Semantic Web / LOD Stack

I’ve also written an entire smartup article on the Web of Data. Suffice it to say that Semantic Web technologies, which some prefer to refer to as Linked Data technologies, enable the linking of data and allows for the serendipitous discovery of new connections with other datasets.

Smartups understand the value of and participate in the Web of Data. Smartups realize that data is the unit of exchange on the Web, not documents. Instead of Hyperlinks being the engine of exchange, it is Hyperdata. Data is the energy, the food, exchanged between participants in the Social Web. Semantic Web technologies facilitate the flow of information between “habitats”, between communities.

Responsive Codebase

This is the most generic-sounding piece in the tech platform layer. I will not delve too much into this piece of the tech platform layer as it deserves its own full-length article (perhaps the sixth installment in my smartup series).

There is not one preferred or recommended framework, language construct, or codebase that all smartups use. Different smartups use different code-creating tools. They pick those that they are most comfortable with and that serve their particular tech needs. However, there are some clear trends and, therefore, advice that can be offered to each smartup.

The broadest bit of advice is that Internet-coding technologies are evolving to catch up with and meet the needs of a more data-intensive world. Although a smartup CTO should use tools with which he or she feels comfortable, that does not mean that they can be complacent, that they should not spend time exploring and learning some of the newer options.

For instance, a smartup will choose an object-oriented coding style versus a procedural-coding style. But that does not mean that all smartups have to code in PHP, Python, or Ruby. There are some promising, new, convention-breaking language platforms that are the current rage in the Web dev world. One of these is NodeJS—a highly-scalable, high-concurrency, event-driven framework.

Another major smartup trend that epitomizes the Responsive Codebase mantra is moving as much of the processing away from the server side as possible (Web-1.0 and 2.0s thick-server approach). The focus is on creating what are referred to as fat- or thick-client applications. In other words, the browser or mobile device handles considerable more of the processing, relying a lot less on the server.

Another trend is the use of light-weight code libraries. When properly utilized, they allow a smartup to react more quickly and be nimble in their coding practices. As an example, one light-weight code library that my newest smartup uses is JSON-LD. It brilliantly facilitates cross-piece integration and as such can be categorized as falling into both pieces two and three in the tech platform layer.

A final smartup trend is preferred data formats. According to a recent report, 55 percent of all new APIs have support for JSON and a staggering 20 percent of new APIs support only JSON. This demonstrates the quickly-growing trend of utilizing JSON as a preferred data format (see slides 22 & 23). It also indicates that for data interchange, the reliance on XML is fading fast.

Modern Web Standards

Smartups support, adopt, and utilize Web standards. HTML5 and CSS3 are currently among the two most important Web standards. There are of course other standards, whose utility will vary among smartups, but these two should be utilized by all smartups.

The Second Layer: User-control and Economic Engine

The next layer of the smartup stack contains two sublayers that interconnect via their direct connections with the technology platform. Once again, this illustrates the importance of the technology platform as being a fundamental, foundational layer to all smartups.

These two sublayers are:

1. User-centric Rights & Control
2. Future-looking Economic Engine

User-centric Rights & Control

As I have written much about user-centric control over identity, privacy, usage rights, and data portability in the past, I will gloss over most of the details. If you’re interested in learning more about my viewpoints on these topics, simply search my website.

All smartups believe in and understand the importance of returning as much control over data as possible back to the users. They realize that it not only makes sense from the standpoint of being good social stewards, but also it makes good business sense as well.

With support from the smartup’s tech platform, users have significant power over each piece of data that they contribute, that they generate. Further support for users’ rights and control can be provided through novel, user-friendly legal contracts.

Future-looking Economic Engine

I’ve been interested in future-of-money projects and theories for sometime—particularly in how technology, specifically Internet tech, is leading to a revolution in how value is exchanged. This is why I am a charter member of the newly-announced W3C Web Payments Standards Community Group.

I believe that new micropayment frameworks and economic models are essential to not only the healthy growth and long-term viability of a truly Social Web, but also to our greater global society. The future of money and of economic self reliance rests in the emergent properties of the social-driven superorganism. Centrally-controlled currencies will eventually give rise to decentralized currencies and instead of tightly controlled and regulated markets, self-regulation via distributed command and control processes will become the norm.

Smartups are on the bleeding edge of this economic revolution. Smartups thus play an important part in helping to push new payment frameworks and economic models. They are intimately involved in evolving economic models and understanding the need for a universal payment mechanism for the Web—a mechanism that will facilitate the proliferation of alternative currencies, friction-less payments, crowdfunding, and general value exchange.

One payment framework that my smartup will be leveraging is PaySwarm. It is described as, “an open standard that enables web browsers and web devices to perform micropayments and copyright-aware, peer-to-peer digital media distribution.” I believe that PaySwarm can become one of the central pillars to any smartup’s future-looking economic engine.

The Third Layer: the Smartup Social Engine

This layer integrates with the innermost two layers of the smartup stack. The focus is more on the user interface (UI) and the user experience (UX).

When combined with the first two layers, this layer comprises what can best be described as the Smartup’s Social Engine. It is the internal platform that contains any intellectual property (IP). It is the fully-functioning application that provides the smartup’s unique product and service offering.

Although basic UI/UX considerations were made during the initial MVP testing, proving, and refinement phase, it was a Lean UI and Lean UX process. The Social Engine Layer is where a smartup spends considerable time perfecting its full-blown UI and UX. Issues such as tight integration with the the User-centric Rights & Control and Future-looking Economic Engine sublayers are addressed. Issues with proper social interaction flow are addressed.

At this level in the smartup stack, the focus begins to shift more toward the outside, toward the physical usage of the service, and not its technical underpinnings. Toward that end, pathways with which others can interact, integrate, and extend the smartups services are developed and engineered. These become the domain of the next layer.

The Fourth Layer: Outward-facing Connections

A key vision of the smartup model is to encourage and enable outside parties–3rd-party developers and other smartups–to contribute to and expand upon your smartup’s vision. To bring that goal to fruition, a smartup makes anywhere from one to three of the following sublayers available to outside parties. How many sublayers are offered depends on the type of smartup and its overall needs and vision.

The three possible sublayers of the fourth smartup stack layer are:

1. Smartup API Access
2. Smartup Open Source SDK
3. Smartup Standards Group

Smartup API Access

By and large, the vast majority of smartups publish a set of APIs that allow outside parties select access to their datasets. As discussed in the final layer section below, the use of APIs by outside parties can be a major catalyst in a smartup’s growth and success.

Smartup Open Source SDK

The Software Development Kit (SDK) sublayer is more accurately termed an Application Development Kit (ADK) sublayer. The notion behind this sublayer is that there are core codebase modules that may very well be primed for open sourcing. We will see below in the discussion of the final layer of the smartup stack why open sourcing some (or all) of your smartup’s codebase can significantly accelerate the development and evolution of your platform.

Smartup Standards Group

This sublayer is the least-frequently encountered sublayer in the smartup world. The purpose of this sublayer is to standardize key pieces of a smartup’s platform.

Above, in the second layer section, I briefly mentioned PaySwarm. That is a perfect example of a smartup opening up some of its work, exposing their efforts to the open standards process. The newly-announced W3C Web Payments Standards Community Group will focus its efforts around core working technology—mainly PaySwarm.

If your smartup has key technologies that could benefit the greater Social Web by becoming a part of an open standard, then you are encouraged to offer up as much of your technology as possible to make that happen.

The Final Layer: the Smartup Ecosystem

This last layer is perhaps the most difficult one to describe in a few paragraphs. The goal is to freely offer unrelated, 3rd-party smartups and developers tools that they can leverage to help build out, evolve, and expand upon your smartup’s original vision. At the same time, the access that you provide to your smartup’s datasets and technology allows them to create their own paths to success. This is what I term a smartup’s ecosystem.

The sublayer offerings in the fourth layer enable the creation of a motivated, loosely-organized team of volunteer coders that can and will help expand upon and evolve your technology—at least that part of your technology to which you allow 3rd-party access. The power that a corps of ecosystem partners can bring to your smartup’s success cannot be emphasized enough. This is why the ultimate goal of each smartup should be to create more value than is extracted from the ecosystem.

As an example, think of what happened when Automattic–the original makers and copyright holders of WordPress–open sourced the codebase. This led to the eventual, very-large ecosystem of WordPress theme shops, plugin developers, and consultants. It also allowed for Automattic to gain an exceptionally cheap (as in cost) and talented labor force which it continues to use to this day to help it build out the WordPress codebase. That is one of the powers of crowd-sourced software development via open source practices.

Twitter is another great example of the virtues of creating an ecosystem. In its early days, Twitter not only welcomed, but strongly supported and encouraged 3rd-party developers and startups to help expand their ecosystem. They published a rigorous set of APIs that allowed for developers to gain access to many of the datasets Twitter captured. In return, the 3rd-party developers were able to create new features and services that augmented the Twitter experience. This led to a number of successful companies that seemed to pop up over night, swirling around the core of Twitter.

Without these ecosystem partners, Twitter may very well not have succeeded. Unfortunately, as Twitter continues to struggle with figuring out how it can monetize its success, it has cracked down on their ecosystem partners in recent months, making many of them wonder if they can trust Twitter anymore. Twitter’s brilliant ecosystem strategy may be coming to a close.

Facebook was also an early creator of an ecosystem of developers. They offered limited API access, created their Open Graph ontology, and even open sourced a few of their key technologies. However, for the most part, Facebook required (and still does) that the apps of 3rd-party developers live within the siloed confines of the Facebook universe. Facebook is not a proponent of the Open Web, Open Standards, or user-centric control.

Of course, neither Automattic, Twitter, or Facebook are considered smartups. Although they do support–each to differing degrees–some level of open source involvement with their projects, they fail the smartup test with respect to many of the other smartup stack layers detailed above.

Conclusion

You don’t build a startup, you build a company. Whereas the word startup is an enticing concept, it is nothing more than a brand, it connotes nothing more than the early stages of a company. Each stage has its own specific needs and foci. Smartups are no different in this regard.

As mentioned above, many Internet-based startups do not transcend their technology but smartups have a vision beyond their technology. Even so, smartups recognize that–as Internet-obligate entities–they cannot divorce themselves from their technological foundations.

A smartup first builds a strong, foundational layer of technology upon which it then layers on additional functional components. Each of these components–also called sublayers–help push the smartup closer to its vision. To fully actualize its vision a smartup must create the conditions that enable, encourage, and support a system of ecosystem partners. In unison with its ecosystem partners, a smartup works toward providing services that empower users to pursue some of their passions and fulfill some of their goals.

Past Smartup Series Articles

Part 1: Web 3.0: Powering Startups to Become Smartups

Part 2: Web 3.0 Smartups: the Social Web and the Web of Data

Part 3: Web 3.0 Smartups: Moving Beyond the Relational Database

Part 4: Web 3.0 Smartups: the New Web Business Space

</Smartups Series Part 5 of 5>

How to Get Me Involved in Your Smartup

Interested in getting me involved in your smartup? Please see my 7-by-7 rules.

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!

Pioneering the Philosophical Study of Cybernetics

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?

Long-form Versus Short-from Content

Personally, I do not believe that G+ is the proper venue for long-form articles. The thin-columnar design would make it tedious to read posts longer than a few hundred words. It is also not currently possible to place inline graphics within a G+ posts nor “a” tagged referenced HTML links. That makes it impractical to use G+ for the creation and sharing of any long-form content.

As an example, these following major thought pieces of mine would not be practical to post on Google+:

• My five-part Smartup series, Web 3.0: Powering Startups to Become Smartups
• A Flock of Twitters: Decentralized Semantic Microblogging
• Flowing Your Identity Through the Social Web
• The Web is Not (yet) Social
• It’s Time for Blogging to Evolve

The Web of Content Versus Content Islands

Another issue with redirecting a personal URL, a blog for instance, to G+ is that you lose your Google juice. Whereas it might not be a big issue to people like Kevin Rose and Bill Gross who have significant audiences on most (all?) social networks, to a lesser-known entrepreneur such as myself, the loss of PageRank would be a significant blow to my reach.

But there is a more salient issue with redirecting a blog to G+. The draining of your Google juice may not be as bad as the orphaning of all your past content.

With a redirected site, links to your blog posts in old tweets and on other people’s sites would no longer work. This means that people would not have a way to read your past posts and articles. As even some of the largest social-media sites have closed down after awhile, what happens to your content and all your nice, newly minted links if Google decides that G+ is (once again) not the killer app they were hoping for and shuts it down like Google Wave?

But the biggest issue in my opinion is that of giving up control over your content. Although Google+ does have some facility for data portability, as an open source advocate and W3C invited expert on Social Media Federation, I do not relish the idea of giving up control over my content to a 3rd party. The Web-based Internet was created with a grand vision in mind. Concentrating the majority of social activity into a select few social-media nightclubs was not the vision of its founders.

The Web thrives on interconnectedness. If most of the content is created, shared, and discussed on a few social networking islands, then the Web’s potential to become truly social is in jeopardy. In my article Flock of Twitters (linked above), I discuss the difference between the Social Web versus social networks.

Are There Any Upsides?

Those are the downsides to relegating your blog to the back burner. The upside is this. The benefit of social networks over blogs is that an individual can follow many people at once, thus subscribing to numerous content pipes without having to visit numerous, disconnected sites (i.e. blogs). With blogging, each visitor has the option to subscribe to your feed but it is only one feed. That makes it less likely that you’ll have return visitors. RSS is (was?) a fantastic tool, but I have not had any new subscribers to my blog in many, many months.

Perhaps using G+ for shorter-form posts could noticeably increase your reach. It might even motivate people to visit your blog more frequently.

Whereas short-form content may be at home in a venue like G+, I still believe longer-form articles need a better place than G+. But, in the past, I would have posted these thoughts on my blog but instead I have written them in G+ as well. So maybe the times they are a changing.

The Future of Content on the Web

Even if the current trend is toward concentrating content into a few mega silos, the creation and sharing of content will continue to occur in some form and fashion outside of the walled-gardens du jour. Communication paradigms evolve over time, offering new content containers in which to package the same type of content.

For instance, books are still books it’s just that their containers are evolving from ridged one purpose, write once, read many treeware containers, to malleable multi purpose, write many, read many hardware containers. It may be true that what used to be primarily shared via blog posts is now being shared more in the confines of social-media silos, but this will lead to an evolution in the decades-old blogging paradigm.

Whether or not most people are aware of the original intent of the Web’s creators, or for that matter even care, remains to be seen. But as long as there are open source, open Web advocates pushing the boundaries of technology, the prospects for a real Web of Content, a linked Web of Data remain bright.

Note: A short version of these thoughts was original published just on my G+ account. But after thinking about it awhile, I decided to post these thoughts in my blog as well. It is interesting to note that even though I tweeted links to both posts, my G+ post on this topic has received eight comments (not including my replies), whereas this long-form post has so far received zero comments. If engagement is more important than control, then the social media silos will win more converts. It is clear that the current blogging paradigms are quickly becoming outdated. Perhaps this issue will spur innovation in the blogging platforms.

Over the next few hours it became clear that some people in the Semantic Web and Open Web Standards world had some initial misgivings about the Schema.org initiative. Although what I had tweeted was accurate–I am a big proponent of structured data on the Web and I believe efforts to make it more mainstream are necessary and historically have usually been worthwhile–I obviously had not done my homework and perhaps had replied too hastily.

Since much has already be said and written about why Schema.org is or is not good for the Web I will not be rehashing those debates (although I have linked to a few resources below that are in line with my views). Instead, I want to focus on the higher-level concepts of the Open Web and Open Web Standards.

Open Web and Open Web Standards

First, it is important to see the differences between these two concepts. To help understand the differences, let’s look at an example. The WordPress Blogging platform is an Open Source project. As such it can squarely be placed in the Open Web camp. Its codebase is freely available for anyone to see, utilize, adapt, and expand upon. The project is also open and very supportive of new people who wish to pitch in and help evolve the platform.

However, neither the WordPress project nor its core codebase can be classified as fitting into the Open Web Standards community. Whereas WordPress utilizes a number of Open Web Standards in its products, the project itself does not create standards for the Web.

Who then creates standards? On the Web, standards are not promulgated via for-profit corporations (i.e., Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!). They are also not promulgated by open source projects. Instead they are promulgated through standards bodies, like the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Whereas it is true that much of the W3C member base is comprised of people who are representing corporations, there is a big difference between representatives from corporations participating on standards committees and corporations getting together to push their own set of standards.

In my view, this latter point is the big issue with Schema.org. It is an attempt by three large companies, who each have significant influence on the Web, to promulgate their joint vision of how structured data on the Web should be modeled. It is not an effort by a recognized standards body whose focus is clearly to further the Open Web.

How Open is Schema.org?

Just by reading the linked-to announcement by Google in the first paragraph of this article, it is clear that the joint venture has decided to bypass much of the standards work hashed out by various Semantic Web working groups and that they are making a move to control how machine-readable data is structured—at least within their search-engine world. In particular, this paragraph makes a strong statement:

That’s why we’ve come together with other search engines to support a common set of schemas…With schema.org, site owners can improve how their sites appear in search results not only on Google, but on Bing, Yahoo! and potentially other search engines as well in the future

Further on down Google’s announcement, you’ll find this point that should raise concern:

One caveat to watch out for: while it’s OK to use the new schema.org markup or continue to use existing microformats or RDFa markup, you should avoid mixing the formats together on the same web page, as this can confuse our parsers

How should one interpret this language? To me, it sounds like this is what they are saying:

This is how Google, Bing, and Yahoo! prefer and recommend structured data be represented on the Web. In fact, if you use Schema.org’s structured-data format, your content will get preferential treatment (or at least experience unique benefits) in our search results. However, do not mix markup formats as it will confuse our parsers and hurt your page rankings in our search-engine algorithms. It is best if you simply stick with Schema.org’s markup format.

With the power and influence these three search behemoths exert on the success of Web properties, webmasters, designers, and developers might be foolish to ignore this new initiative. More importantly, if they choose to ignore schema.org, for instance by using some other format with which to represent machine-readable data, it could be to the detriment of their clients and projects.

Note: If you read the official documentation on the Schema.org site and the Terms and Conditions section, it becomes clear why observant developers have additional concerns with the trios power play.

By creating a completely new set of markup types, they are in essence subverting the Open Web as only those people associated with Schema.org (select employees of Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!) have access to alter and add new data model types. Thus, although they claim that their goal is to “continue making the open web richer and more useful,” the Schema.org’s schema is not truly open. How does pushing a currently-closed data schema support the Open Web?

The Best Way to Support the Open Web is by Adopting Existing Standards

With the launch of Schema.org, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! are thumbing their collective noses at not only the Open Web but also the Open Web Standards community. There have been literally tens of thousands of hours over the past decade volunteered by hundreds of people across the globe to develop a myriad of Open Web Standards—standards that have helped Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! become successful at what they do. With respect to this issue, prodigious efforts and solid progress have been made at developing Open Web Standards for structured data.

If Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! truly wish to make the “open web richer and more useful,” they should adopt, support, promote, and help evolve existing Open Web Standards for the representation of machine-readable data. That would be in keeping with the true spirit of the Open Web.

Outside Resources

The False Choice of Schema.org

TummelVision 67: Tantek Çelik explains open web standards for poets

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.

The Rights of the Internet and of its Users

If I were to attend the e-G8 Forum, what is the one big question that I think needs to be answered? Simple. Who owns the Internet?

If I were to attend the e-G8 Forum, what big issues would I push? Simple. I would stress two things: Global Internet democracy and Internet user rights.

What do I mean by global Internet democracy?

I’m not talking about a political movement to ensure that all peoples of the world are granted freedoms that those of use who are fortunate to live in real democracies experience—although that is of course vital to our survival as a species. Instead, I’m talking about the Internet being granted its own rights and freedoms—freedoms to grow, to prosper, to evolve unencumbered by corporate or governmental red tape as if it were its own emerging metaphysical entity.

The Internet has become our global data ecosystem. It is an evolutionary force in the speciation of humanities’ communication and computation infrastructure. As a result of the ease with which data of all types flows around the global, and with the increasing connections made to this data on a daily basis, our species is on the verge of seismic and profound changes.

In just a few decades, the Internet has grown like a developing nervous system, transcending national boundaries, shrinking geographic distances, dissolving geopolitical barriers, and binding many of us together into a single, global network. If allowed to continue its course unshackled by shortsighted power players, then it may become humankind’s most powerful, liberating, unifying, and transformational force.

What do I mean by Internet user rights?

With the recent net neutrality setbacks, discussions of the United States creating its own Internet kill switch, and the Commerce Department’s National ID initiative, informed netizens are right to be concerned about the future of their Internet freedoms.

In a free society, we should strive toward letting individuals, not governments or corporations, be in control of their personal data—an issue made painfully clear by the lack of real data portability among the Web-2.0-styled closed social nightclubs. We should advocate for the Internet rights of user-centric identity control, data ownership, and net equality for our data packets. These should be considered sacrosanct rights for all the Earth’s netizens.

There are a few promising projects in the works that address these issues. For example, the Freedom Box Project is working to create small, cheap, open-sourced personal servers that will return “power to the users over their networks and machines, returning the Internet to its intended peer-to-peer architecture”; the Diaspora Project offers users a distributed version of a Facebook-like social network; and the WebID protocol is creating an open distributed identity standard. These projects, and others in this space, need to be nurtured and given the liberty to proceed without regulation.

Collective and Connective Intelligence versus Myopic Dissonance

In my article, The HyperWeb: it’s All About Connections, I make an important point about the dangerous possibility that the Internet’s full potential might be purposely curtailed as a result of the myopic desires of a few power players:

Just like natural speciation, the continued evolution of the HyperWeb is not guaranteed. As with all evolutionary processes, advancements (innovations) may stop at a certain point.

The Web is a democratizing force that can help redistribute wealth and power. That is antithetical to most large companies interests—and a number of countries as well. Apple, Twitter, Facebook–and of course the phone and cable companies–want as much control as possible. They are fighting for control of the Web, not for the health of the Web.

It’s possible that for political, societal, or economic reasons–or some combination thereof–that the HyperWeb’s evolution may be curtailed. For instance, due to myopic business leaders, scared political leaders, or an uneducated, apathetic citizenry, humanity’s journey on the HyperWeb may not progress past Web 2.0 or Web 3.0.

The emergence of a truly Social Web will require not only policies that guarantee and protect the Internet’s freedom to grow, but also an informed netizenry that fights for its rights and freedoms. To date, neither of these prerequisites have been met.

The key message to communicate to the G8 leaders is that the world is struggling to become a global community and that a healthy, unfettered Internet may be our best insurance policy toward bringing that vision to fruition.

It is crucial that governments and corporations establish programs and invest in infrastructure that enable and ensure distributed services from identity, to micropayments, to unfettered mesh networks. It is critical that governments propose policies and enact laws that ensure user-centric ownership and control of personally-created and contributed data.

Let the people’s voices and data be freely heard and transmitted across the Internet. Let no one nation or corporation put up barriers to the Internet’s evolution no matter what the consequences may be to outdated notions of sovereignty.

Who should own the Internet? No corporation, no government, no organization, no individual. Instead, like the Earth, it should own itself.

My Related Articles

1. How the Death of Net Neutrality Effects You
2. Goodbye Google Old Friend: It’s time for the Open-Source Internet
3. Thinking Outside the Privacy Box
4. Regaining Control of Privacy and Identity: It’s up to Each Individual

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.

Too much Flow, Too Little Signal

Over the course of the past six years or so, I have rushed to grab accounts at many socially-focused websites. A number of them are no longer in existence. I must have over 50 user accounts most of which I have never used after signing up. I created new accounts for two reasons: I wanted to preserve my real name so that no one else could register it as their username; and if a given site became a huge success, I would already be a member.

The fact of the matter is that there are many Web-2.0 startups vying for a piece of the real-time, curated Stream race. And that race is only heating up. Some Stream-based startups are already running, some are about to launch, and many are just at the initial stages of building their vision of the Stream. They all desperately want your attention. They all desperately want for you to put your kayak in their Stream. They all desperately want for you to help them become the next big Internet-startup success.

In fact, in the recent few months, I have created accounts at a number of new social startups including Diaspora, Connect.me, Namesake, and Quora. More on Quora in a bit.

The number of Stream options has grown to an unmanageable level for any one user to participate in a majority of the offerings. The signal is increasing at a decreasing rate while the noise is increasing at a increasing rate. The ratio is moving in the wrong direction.

Social has Many Forms

Not all of the sites on which I’ve registered are technically Stream channels. But they all are social media sites designed to facilitate networking–in some form and fashion–across the Web.

For instance, WordPress.com is not a social network per se. It is a blogging platform and blogging is a social activity. You write a post to share your thoughts with the rest of the world via the Web. Others network with you by commenting on your post, linking to your post, or writing their own post on their blog in response to your post.

I have an account at WordPress.com primarily for the purpose of grabbing my name. As I have my own WordPress.org self-hosted blog (you’re on it right now), I have little reason to use the Automattic-hosted version of WordPress. But I felt the need to preserve my name (in the form of a unique username) so that no one else would take it.

Blogging is a Web 1.5 relic. Whereas it still has a solid foothold in the Web 2.0-space, it has not changed with the times. I make the case for the need for blogging to change in my article, It’s Time for Blogging to Evolve.

I’ve Signed up for Quora. What?

Yes, I know. After all my blog posts and tweets about the open, Social Web, Why did I sign up for yet-another-stream phenomenon? After reading this post you might ask doubly so.

To be honest, I had been thinking about the utility of joining Quora for sometime. This interesting Quora post by Philip Hotchkiss was the final straw in my decision to join Quora, Why do conversations with influencers matter?

I’m going to give Quora a try for three reasons:

1. As an occasional alternative to posting multiple-related tweets in rapid succession. Instead, I can use Quora as an intermediate format between a series of short tweets and a long-form blog post.
2. As a more appropriate place to pose questions that can generate real, meaningful debate. Posing questions on twitter seems to fail, by and large. Asking questions on my blog seems to result in the same failure, unless I first tweet about it and even then it seems that interest in the topic is lost too quickly.
3. To see if I receive more exposure. It will be interesting to see if my thoughts and ideas gain more traction on Quora than they currently do on my blog.

However, just because I have joined YASP does not mean that I have tossed in the towel, that I have given up on helping to bring the distributed Social Web to fruition. It is simply a nod to the times, a practical acknowledgment of the current state of the Web.

Please, Not Another Stream

Whereas I am giving Quora a try, the premise of my year-old query still stands. I believe that people are beginning to get tired with having to create new accounts on the next-greatest-social-networking-site du jour.

I end my Flocking to the Stream article with this thought:

As the number of streams continue to increase and as the flow rate of each stream picks up, people will grow tired of having to subscribe to, having to join yet-another-stream phenomenon (YASP).

So, I ask you here (and I’ve asked this on Quora as well), How many streams can you kayak? How much of your time and attention can you split between multiple (maybe even many) Stream services each day? How much signal are you receiving versus noise? Why should you have to rebuild your social graph each time you join a new siloed social network?

The Web is about distributed communications channels, not about cloistered communications silos. The Web offers netizens the ability to create their own communication channel. I want to subscribe to you, not to you at some social network here and then also to you at another social network there, etcetera.

How many Streams can we efficiently and effectively manage at once? How many channels can we navigate in a meaningful way. How many new social networks do we have to join to keep track of the activities of all our friends, family members, and colleagues?

My Related Articles

• A Flock of Twitters: Decentralized Semantic Microblogging
• The Web is Not (yet) Social

The issue is that the major blogging platforms do not offer the means with which users can connect their sites in a distributed, decentralized, real-time social network. Thus, Twitter and Facebook continue to dominate the social networking space.

The vision of blogging needs to change. Right now it is an old-school vision, where a blog is a little island of content that is for most purposes unintegrated into the real-time social web.

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

What needs to change? For starters, I believe that blogging and microblogging should not occur via distinct, separate platforms. I think these concepts need to be combined. I think that a blog needs to be re-envisioned as a multipurpose communications platform.

It would work like this. People could blab in 140-character (or so) snippets all day long if they wanted. But if they had more to say, they could easily do so without having to fracture the Stream by sending interested parties to their blog, to Facebook, or to another site.

In essence, you would summarize your basic idea on your own blog in 140 characters (maybe make it 200) and let each of your followers decide if they cared to see more. If they did, they could click a little icon to reveal your additional content—that is if you decided to post more content.

What would happen when a user wished to leave a comment? This would not be done via blogging business as usual. User contributions would not be via comments left on your blog, they would not be via the old-school capturing of others’ thoughts onto your database.

Instead, a user would “post” a comment on their blog and then their ideas, their rebuttals, their comments would appear in real time on your personal Stream on your blog. The user, however, would still control their content as it was posted via their site and they did not have to physically visit your site to make the comment. They could delete, edit, or augment their content whenever they wanted and any changes would be pushed to your Stream on your blog.

Think of it this way. On your blog, you should be able to broadcast any idea that you would like to engage others in discussing. If your followers wanted to say a few words about your idea, great, if they wanted to provide detailed rebuttals or contributions, they would be able to do that as well. But for each user involved in the conversation, their contribution would be made via their own communications channel, in other words via their own blog.

Why would this be of benefit? The important point is that each user’s Stream stays concisely organized in short tweet-like excerpts and that users do not have to leave their own Stream to continue more detailed conversations somewhere else. Users would not need to travel to Twitter to make pithy comments, then go to Facebook to check up on friends and view their photos, then go back to their own blog to check if anyone had posted a comment.

All Stream activity for each user would be managed in a single place, would be owned and controlled by that user, and would be located on that user’s personal communications channel.

It is Time for the Next Social Communications Evolution

Why should a user have to have a Twitter, Facebook, Quora, LinkedIN, or other social-networking account? Why can’t their blog be their personal communications channel to which others can follow in real time? Why can’t their blog have a real-time Stream dashboard that shows the updates of all those they are currently following? Why can’t their blog be their plug into the Social Web, instead of having to rely on multiple social-networking islands?

A WordPress or Drupal (or pick-your-favorite CMS) platform should offer real networking capabilities. Currently a WordPress network, as an example, is really a site that is controlled by a single entity—often existing on a single server. It is not a disparate connection of WordPress sites linked up across the InterWebs. It is just another closed data silo, not much different than Facebook.

I think the tools are already available to begin to make this vision come to fruition. With technologies like PubSubHubBub, some creative developers could take the popular blogging platforms and turn them into the next generation social network, into truly user-centric, user-controlled, globally linked, real-time distributed communications channels.

Blogging 1.0 Has Reached its Limits

Whereas I believe blogging is still a powerful, relevant technological paradigm in our socially-connected world (I am a consistent and regular user of a blog platform after all), I also believe that the current model of the blog is becoming less relevant as people migrate en mass to newer forms of communication. WordPress, Drupal, and other platforms, continue to do admirable jobs improving the tools and options available to their users. But Blogging 1.0 can only go so far. I’m afraid that it may have reached its limits.

The irony is that to announce this new article (or post) of mine, I will have to leave my blog, I will have to leave my communications channel, the channel that I truly control, and head on over to someone else’s channel and tweet about it. This is why blogging is losing some of its steam. This is why many of my colleagues who used to post frequently to their blogs have not done so in a noticeably long time. The attention has been drawn away from our personal communications channels. The eyeballs are focused elsewhere. The closed-siloed, mega-social nightclubs are winning the battle.

It is time to change that; it is time to once again leverage the power of the Web, regaining control and rebuilding the power of our personal communications channels. It is time for blogging to evolve once more, for the next stage of the blogging revolution to begin.

My Related Articles

1. How Many Streams Can You Kayak At Once?
2. The Web is Not (yet) Social
3. My original detailed article on the need for decentralized microblogging, the benefits, and some of the basic technological underpinnings that would be required, A Flock of Twitters: Decentralized Semantic Microblogging

Update

July 9, 2011: With the recent unveiling of Google+, a few prominent tech bloggers have decided to redirect their blogs to their G+ stream instead. This has created great debate. To learn more about this issue, read my article, Is Surrogate Blogging via Google Plus a Good Idea?

Outside Resources

1. A short, interesting post on using BuddyPress, a WordPress social-networking plugin suite, to build your own open source microblogging platform.
2. More than 2-years ago, Matt Mullenweg introduced the Prologue Theme, a theme used at Automattic to bring Twitter-like, microblogging functionality to WordPress. The theme has been revamped and is now called P2 (also see the theme’s official site). These three links introduce the possibility of using the P2 theme to create a super blog that could meld a regular blog with a microblog, offering a “pretty effective distributed version of Twitter.” To date, no one has done that.

After much debate, I decided to place BP Privacy in the WordPress Plugin Repository as that is the easiest place for the community to access it. Placing it elsewhere might result in it being quickly forgotten.

Please be advised that as of this post and release, I am no longer developing or supporting this plugin. Therefore, with this release ends my BuddyPress Privacy journey. BP Privacy is now in the hands of the community. It is up to someone, or preferably a team of developers, to fork BP Privacy, reshape it to their vision, and help it grow to meet the community’s needs.

This means that if you have issues with the plugin your only recourse is to read the BuddyPress Privacy Manual (start with the Site Administrator’s Guide section) or hire a developer. I am not for hire so please do not contact me. Also, I will not be answering any emails about BP Privacy, including requests for suggestions on competent developers to hire. Please use the BuddyPress Support forums instead.

Visit this link to download BP Privacy!

Even More Details

For a detailed history of BP Privacy, read my article, BP Privacy: History and Lessons Learned from Developing a Major BuddyPress Component.

BP Privacy’s Future

The current version of this plugin was to be released as v1.0 but I have reverted the version numbering to pre-release status. Therefore it should be treated as a pre-release version and not used in a production environment.

Before installing and using this plugin, you should fully and carefully read the plugin’s readme.txt file, the disclaimer.txt file, and the BuddyPress Privacy Manual that comes bundled with the plugin.

Also, please see the future.txt file which contains the roadmap features for BP Privacy’s further development. The items listed under v1.0-RC2 were originally planned for multiple version releases–some under v1.0.x and some under v1.1. These features have been gathered under v1.0-RC2 to suggest that they should be developed, fully tested, and rolled out before someone else (or some team) releases a production-ready fork of this plugin. It will take that long for a developer or team of developers to sufficiently understand the inner workings of this plugin before they can claim that their forked-version is production ready.

Enjoy and best of luck!

Note: Comments are turned on but I will not be allowing any comments asking for support as I am not providing support. I also will not be allowing through any negative comments. This is not a public forum.

It is important to state up front that there are many wonderful, helpful, supportive, knowledgeable, community-minded members in the greater WordPress community. If you are an active participant within this community, you already understand that fact.

Of course, a great community of supportive, fun-loving people does not guarantee that you will face few challenges with your WordPress or BuddyPress projects—whether that is starting and running a community, designing themes, or developing plugins.

This is the story about the challenges I have faced in bringing BP Privacy to fruition. It is just one developer’s journey and, as such, should not be construed as anything more than my perspective.

I hope that those who manage to read through this entire, long article walk away with not only a better understanding of some of the difficulties BP Privacy has faced, but also a feel for how they might want to approach taking on similar open source projects in the future.

Genesis of the Idea

In the beginning, there was an idea that BuddyPress needed privacy. Well, that idea was not present at the genesis of BuddyPress as it does not offer core privacy, but the idea was hatched in the early pre-RC2 release days of the BuddyPress project by two very active community leaders—one of whom was me.

At the inception of this project, BP Privacy had two developers. That’s right. I had a project partner. This partner was a key BuddyPress member and very interested in coding his first BP plugin. We teamed up on this project as we realized the complexity of the task at hand and that it would be beneficial to have a project partner.

We had a number of discussions about how we should tackle this project. I set up a subversion repository on my dedicated server for the project and gave him access. I started the long, tedious process of learning, really understanding, the inner workings of BuddyPress. After all, BP Privacy would not be a typical plugin. It had to interact with all the core BuddyPress components. It had to monitor and take control of output based on an individual’s desires. We both realized that BP Privacy was going to be a major, foundational component in its own right—even though it would be a third-party plugin.

However, as weeks passed into months, my project partner’s schedule did not allow him to participate. So, I told him that I was just going to get started and that he could join in at any time.

So that is the humble, less than exciting beginning of BP Privacy. It started with a two-person project team but ended up becoming a solo effort.

BP Privacy Timeline

On the BP Privacy site, I state in a blog post that this journey has been 16-months long. Of course, that was posted basically October 1, 2010. So as of the date on this post, the process is nearing 20 months. The reality, however, is that this project had its inception even earlier, almost two years ago.

Here is a blow-by-blow timetable for BP Privacy and some of the key factors and issues at each point along the way:

Project idea inception: Early April 2009. My project partner and I began discussing BP Privacy (what was at that time called BPAz or BP-Authz)

First code written: June 23, 2009. This was two months after hatching the concept. It was the point when my project partner determined his schedule would not allow him to participate. So, I started coding the project on my own.

First public beta release: December 5, 2009. Only four months and two weeks after the first code block was written, I released a very solid public beta version to the community. Note that before that public beta release, there was a small, select group of private alpha testers.

This was a very solid beta version with only a few minor bugs. It worked perfectly with BuddyPress v1.1.3, offering privacy filtering for four of BuddyPress’ then core components. But the rug was about to be pulled out from underneath the project.

Codebase and platform concerns arise: January 2, 2010. As BuddyPress 1.2 was fast approaching release, it became clear that a major BP Privacy code refactoring would be required. A good portion of the previous 4 months of work would need to be reevaluated and much rewritten. As I looked at the time commitment involved, I realized I needed to try a new approach.

Not surprisingly, this approach failed. It only raised about $175 dollars. Without a big financial boost to help me focus on BP Privacy, I had to turn my attention elsewhere for awhile.

Late spring through early fall of 2010: The BuddyPress project experienced critical uncertainties in my opinion. These uncertainties made me question its long-term health. During this time, the development of BP Privacy progressively slowed down, practically grinding to a halt in late summer of 2010 as I awaited a few, final core patches I had submitted months before to be accepted.

Due to these factors, nine months passed with very little development time being invested.

Announcement of Public Release (v1.0): September 30, 2010. I was privy to some promising developments in the world of BuddyPress that gave me hope that BuddyPress might actually weather the storm. So, after almost nine months of greatly reduced activity on my part, I went out on a limb, venturing back into the BP Privacy project on a more serious level once again.

I created the BP Privacy site and made an announcement on that new site that BP Privacy would be released on November 8, 2010. This is the first officially-advertised date given for the release of the public, production-ready version (v1.0).

A few weeks later came the news for which I had been waiting. The BuddyPress community had a shot of adrenaline and renewed hope. We welcomed the announcement that Paul Gibbs and Boone Gorges had been “promoted” to core committers.

Of course, November 8, 2010 came and went. I continued working on BP Privacy as time permitted as I patiently awaited the release of BuddyPress 1.2.7 which was finally released on December 22, 2010.

BP Privacy’s Future: See the end of this article.

Time Invested and Anticipated Returns

Projects of the magnitude of BP Privacy require a considerable time commitment. Whereas it is difficult to be absolutely precise, I have a pretty accurate estimate as to the number of hours I’ve invested in BP Privacy. My total time spent to date working on BP Privacy is 1450 hours.

What kinds of activities go into a project that would require such a time commitment? A great number of essential activities such as: emails, forum and IRC discussions, support of alpha and beta1 testers, writing and submitting core patches required to bring privacy services to BuddyPress, debating a number of these patches, studying and thoroughly understanding the inner workings of BP, keeping up to date with codebase changes in BP Trac, writing tools that were necessary in figuring out some unexpected behaviors with BuddyPress’ action and filter hooks, continuous and exhaustive testing of BP Privacy, and writing detailed documentation. Of course, all of this is on top of the actual coding of the component itself which has required (so far) two major refactorings of the codebase.

What will I earn for all of this effort? Zero. Okay, I had a total of about $225 in donations to help support development ($175 as mentioned above plus $50 received before that post). I am very grateful to all who donated, to my select testers, and to everyone who offered support in other ways.

This means that I will have earned just shy of 16 cents per hour working on BP Privacy. So, the next time you question the commitment and contribution of those who actively volunteer in the open source world, remember that number. Of course, if all the additional hours of time that I’ve donated on the BP support forums, IRC, via email, Twitter, and Skype are included, that total would undoubtably be about half of that.

Financially, I would have been better off spending that time working at McDonalds. It is ironic that the vast majority of people who will benefit from my work will not even contribute enough for me to buy a Big Mac. By the way, I do not eat at McDonalds so please don’t send coupons. In fact, I am not interested in any more donations.

Why do I have a section emphasizing the monetary aspects of BP Privacy? Because like the vast majority of people, I need to pay bills, put food on my family’s table, and save for the future. How many of you can donate 1450 hours of time creating free products or services for others to use?

I am a vocal advocate of the open source model, as anyone who reads my blog and tweets would know. I have volunteered a thousand hours plus of my time answering questions on the BuddyPress community support forums, via email, in IRC, on the phone, and via Skype. None of those hours are included in my total time spent on BP Privacy. Like many active members of the community, I give in more ways than just creating plugins.

The reality for me is that this community and its open source model does not make it possible to earn even a small part of my living in a way that I prefer—coding great-quality GPLed plugins that provide needed services to others.

As I do not take on client work–I’ve discussed this fact with people many times before–I need another means with which to recoup some of the time I have invested in coding open source software for the community. If you really want to learn more about this point, please read this post about this issue from my perspective—and read the comments for a fascinating discussion.

Lessons Learned

Here are a few lessons learned that may help other WordPress and BuddyPress developers have a better experience with offering GPLed software to the greater community.

Work on Projects that Give You Energy, Not Sap Your Strength: By and large, I have lost more energy working on the BP Privacy project than I have gained. It has been exceedingly frustrating at times. To be honest, if this were not something desperately needed for the BuddyPress platform, I would have dropped this project a year ago.

At the time I started coding BP Privacy, I was planning on using BuddyPress as the foundation of my startup, and privacy was key to that vision. So it made sense to continue BP Privacy and then release the component to the greater community once it was ready. Had I any idea how vocal the negative minority would be as they impatiently waited for me to provide them with high-quality, free-as-in-cost software, I would have canned the community release a long time ago and just worked on it for my private use.

The Vocal, Negative Minority: It is important to realize that more likely than not, the vast majority of users will be happy about your work, or at least indifferent. Unfortunately, human nature makes us more vocal when we’re displeased than when we are pleased. It is a minority of users that will be anywhere from disappointed to obsessively outraged. It will be this minority that will be most vocal. If you release your work to the community, expect to have a greater volume of “I hate you” than “I love you” feedback from your user base.

Whereas community members may appreciate your volunteer help on various support forums, and paying clients may love you, when it comes to freely-contributed plugins, don’t expect the same rosy reception.

Don’t Expect Donations: Based on the vast majority of all plugin developers’ experience, ninety-nine percent (and realistically more) of all users will never donate to your efforts. There are many plugin developers who have written about this. Here are just a few articles to shed some light on this issue. Again, read the comments to get a more balanced perspective on this issue as there are good points on both sides:

• Have you made a donation to your WordPress Plugin Developer?
• Do we do enough to support WordPress Plugin Developers?
• Open Source Motivations

The donation model is not broken, for the vast majority of creators, it never worked to begin with. I have tried many tactics to increase donation conversions. My plugins and appropriate blog posts all had obvious donate badges. But that has not made a difference. Donating to something that is freely available apparently also goes against human nature.

Plugin support: Unless you clearly and explicitly state that there will be zero support offered for your plugin (at a minimum that should be communicated in the readme.txt file) then it is your moral obligation to offer some level of support if you release a plugin to the community—which includes forking an existing plugin.

Therefore, expect there to be questions that must be answered, that user issues will take away time from your other projects, and possibly impact your paid work and family obligations. There will be users who claim they are having a problem with your plugin when in actuality it will be caused by something other than your plugin. No matter how hard you try to communicate that it is not an issue with your plugin, in these people’s minds, you will still be the party at “fault”.

It is for this reason that some plugin developers fully exercise their GPL rights. Please note that if you plan to charge for support, you should be aware of a potential issue.

Since all WordPress plugins and themes need to be licensed under then same GPL version as WordPress itself–GPL version 2–you do not technically have the freedom or right to charge support fees. That explicit freedom and right was added later in GPL version 3. (Compare the last paragraph of Section 1 of GPL version 2 to the last paragraph of Section 4 of GPL version 3).

Therefore, if you are planning on charging for support, you are operating outside the freedoms of the GPL version 2. You would be wise to seek legal counsel.

Disclaimer: You should seek legal counsel if you have questions or concerns about your freedoms and rights under the GPL. I am not a lawyer and the information presented is my opinion only.

With Plugin Popularity Comes Possible Trouble: I do not envy plugin developers with high download counts. I know that that means one of two things: they are at the first stage of the plugin’s support lifecycle where they are spending an inordinate amount of their time supporting the plugin (probably for free), or they will soon be entering the final stage of the plugin’s support lifecycle where they discontinue support and future development as their time commitment to the project cannot be sustained.

It is for these two reasons that I always donate to plugin developers whose software I use and only use plugins that I am sufficiently interested in as I expect that one day I will have to maintain them myself.

Plugin development should not be a popularity contest, he or she who has the highest plugin download count often does not win. Do not release a plugin for praise and glory. That rarely happens. What really happens is the more popular your plugin becomes, the greater the potential for you to lose control over your time. This can lead to a rather unpleasant, overall experience with your project.

Alpha & Beta testing: If you have limited time to work on your project, then it is best to make the alpha and maybe first beta version private releases. Provide copies only to those people who you believe will genuinely test it and provide you with useful feedback. It is better to have a small, focused group of testers than a horde of quasi-interested and knowledgeable testers.

The exception to this lesson would be if you have a team of developers who can share the responsibilities of managing a public alpha and beta test. But, if you are a solo developer, you could be in for a world of hurt if you set your pre-release software free for any and all to test.

Bugs will continue to be found even after you’ve released the first public version. You have to go no farther than WordPress or BuddyPress Trac to see how many bugs still exist in those stable, public products. That is the nature of all software. No matter how mature a software product, there will always be bugs, some of them serious.

Develop on a Developer-stable Version: Although BuddyPress v1.0 was the first official public release deemed suitable for general use, it was far from stable from a developer’s standpoint. This is evidenced by the fact that significant changes occurred between BP 1.0 and BP 1.1 that caused developers some grief and then even greater changes occurred between BP 1.1 and BP 1.2.

In my opinion, BP 1.2 should have been then first public release. In other words, BP 1.2 is really v1.0 in my mind. Now, with BP 1.3 close at hand, I’m concerned that developers (and possibly even users) will be faced with difficult upgrade challenges. Although, Paul, Boone, and John have been working hard to make the transition to BP 1.3 as painless as possible. So, perhaps my concerns are not valid. Whatever the reality, when the dust settles, BP 1.3 will become the first developer-stable version in my opinion.

Group or Solo effort: As should be obvious from the start of this article, you need to carefully vet your project partners. Although I had little data with which to make an honest assessment of my project partner’s suitability–the BuddyPress community was very new at the time–I nevertheless made a mistake at the start of this project. I should have quietly started by myself and only asked for interested project partners once I had some code to share and knew more about the skill sets of the various BP developers with whom I associated.

Communicate Less, Not More: This may come across as a hypocritical suggestion in light of some of the communication issues BuddyPress had last year. However, you need to differentiate BuddyPress as a developer platform and community from that of developing a BP plugin. With the former, the community is what makes the project a success. With the later, only a few key people need to be kept apprised. Communication is essential to the former, whereas to the latter it is not necessary until the plugin is released.

When it comes to plugin development, it is better to surprise the community with a new release (especially the initial release) than it is to build up their expectations. Although there is a thrill with getting validation for your efforts at the start of a project, there is no way to know what challenges lie ahead and how difficult the task may be. Interest and attention in any project can quickly turn negative if there are seemingly few results to share. Blame will always go to you, whether the issues holding up your project are beyond your control or not. This is especially true for a project that is deemed very important or possibly even vital—such as BP Privacy.

Once a plugin is released to the world, then proactive communication and vigilant project management are crucial to the project’s continued success. But before the public release, communicating less might actually help the project succeed as you won’t be distracted by the negative vocal minority.

Promised Release Dates: As a follow up to the point above, it is best to never put a date on a release. You are working on a plugin, not the core foundation of WordPress or BuddyPress where it makes sense to have project deadlines and development freeze dates.

If you do communicate a release date, do not be overly concerned if you fail to meet it. You are generously working on GPLed software that will more than likely earn you little if any for your efforts invested. You are not beholden to anyone.

Even the BuddyPress project has difficulties meeting its promised release dates. As this article can witness, there are many factors that contribute to a missed release date. Some are beyond your control. From a community standpoint, it is best if people remain patient and remember that they are getting GPLed software that provides them many freedoms of use. The software will be released when its released.

Use of the WordPress Plugin Repository: The WP Plugin Repo is a great service to developers and the greater community. You should use this service if you are planning not to exercise your full GPL rights. However, do not use the Repo for releasing alpha, beta, or RC versions. Most users will have no clue what an alpha or beta version truly means. More importantly, most will not care. If it’s on the Repo they’ll expect it to work. You should make your plugins available on the Repo only when they are ready for full public release. Until then, use another service, or your own server, to make pre-release versions available to those whom you wish to have access.

When Will BP Privacy Be Released?

Over the past two months, I have been reassessing my role in this project. As you have found out from the above history, my time commitment and investment into this project have been substantial. I’ve decided that the time required to support and maintain this project, and the energy required to do it properly, is incompatible with me earning a semblance of a living. It has also taken too much focus away from my current startup.

This project started out as a team effort but unfortunately became a solo effort. I believe that this project needs to become a team effort again—as in a team of developers, not a team of testers.

To be clear, BP Privacy was never intended to be a core BuddyPress component—even though some of you think that was the case. I am not and have never been part of BuddyPress’ core development team. I was simply an active community volunteer, support forum moderator, and plugin developer.

As most of you know, I am a staunch privacy advocate. Since my first days with the BuddyPress project, I have believed that privacy was a necessary core feature. That has yet to be realized. Perhaps part of the BP Privacy codebase can serve that purpose in the future. Although it might make more sense to refactor BuddyPress, offering true core privacy as a component.

What does this all mean?

I will be releasing the fully-functioning BP Privacy codebase over the next several days, along with a very extensive manual (35+ pages). At that point, I will end my official involvement with the project, and as such, I will not be providing any support.

The project will be in the hands of the community. It will be available for anyone to use as is, expand upon, fork, or even merge into BuddyPress core. Perhaps a group of developers will adopt BP Privacy and maintain it as a community-based project.

Because of my decision to end my official involvement with the project, I’ve decide to back tag the version I’ll be releasing, making it a release candidate instead of a public, ready-for-production version. Therefore, it will be v1.0-RC1 instead of V1.0. It also means that I will not be placing it on the WordPress Plugin Repository per the reasons I mentioned at the end of the last section. It will be available for a short while on the BP Privacy site before that site is taken down. The link will go to some yet-to-be-determined public repository. I will also be placing the link within a BP support forum thread.

By the way, for any group of developers interested, I have registered the bp-privacy distribution name with the WP Repo. I would be more than willing to assign that over to another group, if that is possible, or at the bare minimum add other committers. But be advised that I will not be participating in the project anymore.

Once BP Privacy v1.0-RC1 is out, it will be up to each person to fully evaluate the plugin and decide for themselves whether or not to run it on a production site. Although in my exhaustive testing BP Privacy works very will under WP 3.0.4 and BP 1.2.7, you must decide for yourself the viability of its use in a production environment. Thus, please be advised, no matter what you do, you are on your own until (and if) a new group of developers takes the reigns of BP Privacy and assumes support and maintenance responsibilities.

As far as the upcoming release of BP 1.3, I have not fully tested the most recent BP trunk version in Trac. Therefore, I cannot say how much refactoring may be required. I may put some effort into that, but do not wait for me. You should take the initiative and bring it up to date on your own volition.

As far as the few people that have pre-purchased BuddyPress Privacy Support Plans, I will be refunding all the monies received over the next week. But first I will focus on getting BP Privacy out the door. I will also be refunding my two, wonderful advertising partners. Yes, your ads have been up on BP Privacy going on three months (I have only charged them for the first month), but you have not received the type of exposure that you had expected. It is only fair that you get full refunds as well.

I hope that BP Privacy finds a useful life going forward!

First off, whereas it is true that two-and-a-half months have passed since the initially-announced release date of the first public version of BP Privacy (version 1.0), I never promised that a public version of BP Privacy would be released before then. I had mentioned several times in the past, and in several places, that I was hoping to release a beta2, but I never set a firm date on a production-ready, public version until my above referenced post. So comments that BP Privacy is very late (as in over a year) are not valid.

Secondly, BP Privacy will be finished when it is finished. I am hoping that is soon, but the reality is that it will be released when it’s released. You get what you pay for. I am not under contract to produce BP Privacy, I am not getting paid by anyone to provide free software to the community. This is an all volunteer effort. Attempts to goad any developer into accelerating the pace at which they are offering you free software are usually unproductive.

However, having said that, I will mention that I share a couple of the concerns expressed in the BuddyPress Theme Converts post. I may elaborate on this in an upcoming article on the history of BP Privacy and the lessons learned—to be published once BP Privacy has been released.

Note: I have received a very, very modest amount of funds via people who purchased a BuddyPress Privacy Component Support Plan at the pre-launch pricing and a marginal amount of ad revenue. I have not yet used any of those funds. They remain in my PayPal account and I may very well refund them. But these funds are not donations to the development work. They are pre-paid fees that purchase a bit of my time in supporting the plugin once released or a leasing fee for real estate on the BP Privacy site.

As I looked at his graphic, a different idea came to mind, a different interpretation of the concept in the context of the Web’s evolution. The hierarchical nature of the illustration made me think of the increasing complexity that comes with increasing connectivity. It made me think of how hyperlinks (more precisely hypertext) preceded hyperdata.

I realized that the hyper meme can be extended to the various evolutionary stages of the Web. So, I’m presenting what I call the HyperWeb.

The HyperWeb

The HyperWeb is about increasing connectivity and the increasing complexity of those connections overtime. The chart below outlines a few of the salient features that I believe best describe each stage, or epoch, of the HyperWeb. This is my twist to the traditional data-information-knowledge-wisdom concept.

Complexity is an emergent property of the increasing connectivity, not a direct result of the Web’s technical foundation and framework. But there’s a twist. There is a positive feedback loop that can cause more connections to be made as the system becomes more complex. Connectivity and complexity thus feed on one another, accelerating the rate of change and pushing the Web faster toward its asymptotic future.

The graph below shows the HyperWeb’s epochs plotted against connectivity and complexity. The straight line shows the approximate points where most people assume the various Web epochs will emerge—a nice linear, one-to-one relationship. In reality though, the HyperWeb’s phase transitions live on an asymptotic curve, they are not linear. The asymptotic curve demonstrates that the initial stages of the Web’s evolution are slow but greatly accelerate with increasing connectivity.

I’ve placed the Social Web in the Web 2.5 to Web 4.5 range. If it occurs, that is the zone in which I expect it to materialize, thrive, and then die. What’s that last point? Read on.

Whereas the Web seems far away from Web 5.0, you may be wondering what will the World look like if the Web ever evolves to Web 5.0? You might also wonder what the heck is Web 6.0?

For one possible set of answers to those questions, see my thought piece, Cybernetics, the Social Web, and the Coming Singularity.

The HyperWeb May Not Reach its Full Potential

It’s important to point out that, just like natural speciation, the continued evolution of the HyperWeb is not guaranteed. As with all evolutionary processes, advancements (innovations) may stop at a certain point.

The Web is a democratizing force that can help redistribute wealth and power. That is antithetical to most large companies interests—and a number of countries as well. Apple, Twitter, Facebook–and of course the phone and cable companies–want as much control as possible. They are fighting for control of the Web, not for the health of the Web.

You might think that the Web is already social. It is not. To learn why, see my article, The Web is Not (yet) Social

It’s possible that for political, societal, or economic reasons–or some combination thereof–that the HyperWeb’s evolution may be curtailed. For instance, due to myopic business leaders, scared political leaders, or an uneducated, apathetic citizenry, humanity’s journey on the HyperWeb may not progress past Web 2.0 or Web 3.0.

Each new Web epoch will bring opportunities and uncertainties. The changes will be transformational, reshaping global society. If the Web continues to evolve to higher and higher levels, individuals will increasingly be the main benefactors, not business or politics. As such, the vision and drive to bring each new paradigm shift to fruition will come more and more from the Web’s users and not the Web’s businesses—although revolutionary advances in technology will be required all along the way.

If society wants a truly Social Web, then people need to fight for the Web, to help push it past its 2.0 version, past its current limitations and restrictive user control. The HyperWeb will continue to evolve only if the Web’s netizens make it so.

My Related Articles

1. The Web is Not (yet) Social
2. My five-part series, Web 3.0: Powering Startups to Become Smartups

Whereas Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, and other ventures are social platforms, they are not the Web. These entities are only part of the Web—although it’s looking more and more “like” Facebook wants you to think that the Web equals Facebook.

The Web is currently not social. The social-media-driven Web is the metaspace analogy of meatspace nightclubs.

Each of these internally-focused social networks might have a globally-distributed data center, but all the activity occurs within the walls of their private social clubs. The activity in one social club is predominately isolated from the others. The activity does not freely spread throughout the Web. The conversations do not flow throughout the Web. They flow within each proprietary network with a very limited trickle of “conversation” allowed to the outside Web. Of course, this trickle is allowed out to encourage more people to come in to their closed clubs.

There is a monumental difference between social networking occurring on the Web and the Web being Social. Social creatures frequenting social networks does not make the Web inherently social. Why is this the case?

In my article, A Flock of Twitters: Decentralized Semantic Microblogging, I state:

With their closely-guarded data silos, social networks are not full participants in the Web, they are not participants in the interconnected data ecosystem. So, unlike an ecological web (think of a food web), the Web-based Internet is not as much of an intact web as it is a land of social network islands that punctuate an ocean of truly connected websites.

The Social Web, on the other hand, is a fully functioning and healthy ecosystem were all data are globally connected.

There is no disputing the fact that social is a big part of the current Web. Web 2.0 is the realm of social media, but it is also the web of exclusive, social clubs. Web 2.0 is about companies “doing” social media via cloistered social islands (called “networks”) more than it is about making the Web itself a social space.

The Web is currently not social. It’s the metaspace analogy of meatspace nightclubs. It’s filled with private social silos, which are antithetical to the Web’s vision. Each private social island is an internal network consisting of tightly-controlled infrastructure that offers its own vision of how humans should connect and interact.

Web-2.0-style closed social nightclubs are not the epitome of the Social Web. Their existence is a indication of how much further the Web has to go before it will become a Social space.

Metaville: a Non-social City of Social Stadiums

To better understand some of the points presented above, let’s look at the fictitious city of Metaville. In this analogy, the city of Metaville represents the current state of the not-social Web.

Metaville is a city with millions of residents. From the outside, it might look like a regular, American city. People regularly gather in a number of the city’s stadiums. In those stadiums, they socialize, sharing stories, pictures, minutiae of their daily lives.

The owners of each stadium are furiously growing the size of their stadium to make room for more people to join the conversations occurring inside of their stadium. Membership is often free but the two requirements are that the vast majority of your conversation must remain inside the walled colosseum and that you have little control over what the stadium owners do with your conversations.

There are a few upstart, niche arenas struggling to grab people’s attention, but even these smaller gathering spaces mimic the rules of the big stadiums.

Is the city of Metaville social? Well, there are pockets of social activity spread throughout the city but all of that activity occurs in stadiums with each stadium primarily isolated from the others.

Learn more about the differences between the Social Web Versus Social Networks

It is true that social activity occurs within Metaville. But when people leave one stadium and go to work, to home, or even to a different stadium (some of the residents of Metaville are members of more than one stadium), they leave their friends and conversations behind. Yes, sometimes they will check back in with their friends in a given stadium and sometimes they’ll get a ping from a friend within a stadium, but they don’t take their friends and conversations out of the stadiums. When they join a new stadium, they have to assemble a new set of friends, start a new conversation history.

Conversations do not happen in the streets of Metaville, or at cozy little cafes and diners. Conversations do not happen between a resident currently in his house with another resident currently in her condo. Practically all of the conversations occur within the exclusive domain of the stadiums. Sure, a resident at home can chat with one currently located in a private stadium, but the totality of that conversation is made possible by the propriety infrastructure that each stadium offers its members—and even then the conversation still takes place within the stadium’s system.

So the city of Metaville is actually not social. It is a place that has many stadiums within whose walls friends gather and conversations occur. But when a person leaves the stadium, their friends do not and cannot follow them. When a member leaves a stadium, a security guard inspects their belongings to make sure that very little is removed from the stadium.

In the realworld, in our meatspace, this is not the way life works. Our friends can come with us and even join us outside of the stadiums. Our friends can come over to our house, or we can chat with them in cafes, or on the streets, or in parks. We are not prevented from being social where ever we go.

Metaville is the model of the current Web. It has some very large pockets of social activity but the conversations and friendships do not readily travel outside of the stadiums.

This metaphor could be expanded further. Instead of Metaville being populated with a bunch of closed stadiums, it could be Metastate populated with closed cities whose citizens rarely leave to visit other cities, or Metacountry whose closed states have tight boarder-crossing restrictions, or Metaworld with closed countries tightly controlling and limiting the flow of information from its citizens into neighboring countries.

When you look at life in Metaville, you will see that the current Web is no more social than one stadium full of people, that the cafes and diners of the Web are ghost towns, that the stadiums of Metaville are more like dictatorial countries.

But All is Not Dark in the Streets of Metaville

There are a few glimmers of light shinning through the streets of Metaville, a few efforts that are counter to the Web-2.0-styled stadium construction. These efforts are focused on helping to create a truly Social Web, at allowing conversation to happen in the cafes and diners of Metaville, and allowing users to take their conversations and friends with them no matter to what unchartered locations of the city they may wish to travel.

Companies like Status.net, the startup Diaspora, and the research project SMOB all are diligently working at bringing federated services to the Web. There are also some of us that are working on innovating new, foundational technologies that will allow for distributed social interactions across the Web and offer truly user-centric identity control. For instance, instead of the limitations and non-user-centric aspect of OpenID, there is a group of us working at offering a truly user-centric identity protocol called WebID.

The Not-so Fine Line

You might think there’s a fine line between calling the Web a space filled with private social clubs and a Social space itself. You might think that it is not a big deal to call the current Web social. But for Social Web Architects, such as myself, the differences and distinctions are large, not small.

Social Web Architects are fighting for the rights of individuals to own and control their data, to have powerful yet easy to use identity and privacy tools, to freely and easily carry on conversations throughout the Web—not just within the walled sanctums of a few snooty nightclubs. We are building technologies that will link data and allow for the serendipitous discovery of new connections with other datasets and with fellow human beings—no matter where on the Web those connections and people may lay.

The Social Web is the metaspace actualization of a user-centric controlled, globally-connected conversation space across the Web. In essence, the mission of Social Web Architects is to bring the Web’s vision to fruition.

For a vision of the Web’s evolutionary epochs, and humanity’s race toward a Social Web, see my HyperWeb article.

Fortunately, the Web is constantly evolving. What it is experiencing now are the natural growing pains of an adolescent platform. Many of the current social-media nightclubs will eventually give way to a more open, user-centric ecosystem. I believe that they will have little choice as humanity inexorably races toward a truly Social Web.

Outside Resources

For two additional (one differing) perspectives on this issue, see Dave Winer’s, What I mean by “the open web” and and Stowe Boyd’s, Messiness At Scale.

My Related Articles About the Social Web

1. It’s Time for Blogging to Evolve
2. Flowing Your Identity Through the Social Web
3. My five-part series, Web 3.0: Powering Startups to Become Smartups
4. Apple’s Ping Versus the Social Web
5. How the Death of Net Neutrality Effects You
6. Goodbye Google Old Friend: It’s time for the Open-Source Internet
7. Thinking Outside the Privacy Box
8. Regaining Control of Privacy and Identity: It’s up to Each Individual

But there are two issues that I wish to address. First, only one of the six listed most influential topics on my Klout profile make sense. Second, without connecting my Facebook account, I’m significantly penalized.

These two issues have big ramifications for those of use trying to build the Social Web.

Luke, Use the Foci

About three or four months ago, I tweeted the same observation concerning the most influential topics list on my Klout profile. Someone from Klout promptly @replied to my tweet stating that with continued use, the algorithms would more accurately determine my most influential topics. But this list has remained unchanged.

I have not bothered to check this assertion, but I believe that sixty percent of my time tweeting and ninety percent of my time writing is spent on the topic of a user-centric, distributed Social Web. This is divided between generic categories of Internet freedoms (GPL, open source in general, net neutrality, data portability, privacy, identity, BuddyPress) and Web 3.0 (Semantic Web/Linked Data, smartups, WebID, FOAF, RDFa).

Yet my Klout profile does not reflect any of that. In fact, “Indiana” is one of my listed most influential topics when I would guess that fewer than 1% of my tweets have used that word.

Of course, I could be wrong. Klout can scour my backtweets a lot more efficiently and effectively than I can. It may be that fewer of my tweets are about those topics than I realize, that few people retweet any of my tweets that are about my primary foci. Perhaps I engage in conversational chatter on Twitter more often than I think.

Whatever the actual truth held within my Twitter data, I’d be very surprised if “Indiana, SEO, Design, Influence, Google” are my most popular topics. I rarely use any of those words in my Tweets or hashtags.

I do not spend my time within the dungeons of Mordor, I mean Facebook.

But it could quite possibly be that Klout is accurate, that those are my most influential topics. If so, that means that the vast majority of my time has been wasted, that I shouldn’t bother tweeting about #privacy, #identity, #opensource, #Web30, #BuddyPress, #SemanticWeb, #WebID…etcetera.

I’m of course being somewhat facetious. The reality is that I already know for which issues most people retweet and @mention me—and it is not the topics that Klout claims I’m most influential on. However, when the vast majority of my tweeting and blogging foci aren’t reflected in the self-proclaimed “Standard for Influence”, I have to wonder whether Klout’s algorithms need some tweaking, or whether I’ve got a clot in my Klout.

Interestingly, and on a side note, influence is one of my most influential topics! In my mind that evokes the image of a self-referential, infinite-looping, circular-referencing maelstrom.

An Audience with Sauron

Without connecting my Facebook profile to my Klout profile, I’m penalized forty percent—whatever that means, I don’t like the sound of it.

Although I do have a Facebook account, I do not use Facebook. I think I have four or so people whose friendship I’ve accepted and who are obviously waiting with baited breath to see what I’m going to say. To date, I have not made a single wall post. So, they will be waiting for a lot longer as I plan to never post any content in Facebook.

In fact, I think in 2010, I may have bothered to login to Facebook three times and that was only to checkout one or two aspects of its interface.

Why don’t I use Facebook? If you’ve been following my tweets and reading my articles posted to my site, you will already understand why. Facebook is antithetical to most of what I believe the Social Web is about. I’m professionally working on helping to bring the concept and infrastructure of the Social Web to fruition. Thus, I do not spend my time within the dungeons of Mordor, I mean Facebook.

Since I don’t use Facebook, some of you may ask why I use Twitter then, as it too is just another private data island. Simple. Although Twitter is a participant in the closed-silo wars, my posted content is accessible to anyone who wants to see it. In other words, they do not have to be logged in to access my Stream. With Facebook, you must not only have an account but also be logged in and be a friend of that person to see their Stream.

As I’m trying to promote the concepts of an open, distributed, user-centric Social Web, Twitter lets me get the message out to everyone—whether they follow me or not, whether they’re logged in or not, whether they have a Twitter account or not.

An Island of Misfit Toys

If Klout is to become the true measure, source, authority, standard for influence across the online world, then it needs to stop living exclusively within the social-networking private clubs. Why? Because influence occurs across the Web-based and mobile-based Internet. It isn’t restricted to closed social-media silos.

What about all of my online activity that occurs within my various blogs? Many people comment on my articles. What about the activity that occurs on forums, like the BuddyPress support forum where I’m a moderator (albeit a very inactive one lately)? What about on identica, or Diaspora, or the various niche BuddyPress sites that are beginning to pop up?

Conversations and influence flow beyond closed private data islands. Much activity occurs across the decentralized Web. In fact, for those of us fighting for the Social Web, we envision a day when most of the social activity will occur across a user-centric, decentralized, distributed architecture. The exclusive walled gardens of the Web will become a relic of the bygone, archaic Web-2.0 days.

Right now, a Klout score may best be summarized as a subjective measure of influence within a few select groups of data clubs. If a Klout score is to become the “standard measure of online influence” as proclaimed on their Twitter profile, then a user’s influence across the entire Social Web must be objectively calculated.

Shouldn’t my activity across the entire Internet be factored into my influence? Shouldn’t the activity of all of those who spend their time outside the Islands of Misfit Toys count for something? Of course.

Does this really matter? Yes.

As companies are beginning to use Klout scores to assess a potential candidate’s job application, to determine if a particular person has sufficient influence to be awarded a consulting contract, and for other inevitably unknown purposes, the accuracy and integrity of that score becomes paramount to all the Web’s citizens. Presently, too much importance is being placed on a Klout store, most likely to the unfair detriment of some.

As some company is going to win the influence-measurement war, if you care about your clout and how it is determined on Klout, provide them with feedback and the ways in which you think they could improve their service.

Update

December 22, 2010: Less than 12 hours after posting this article, my Klout Most Influential Topics list has changed since the first time I can remember. It’s still very inaccurate, but notice that the topic “Google” has been replaced with “Open Source”. A coincidence? I sure hope so. Otherwise I’m going to have to keep writing articles to get this all straightened out.

December 22, 2010 (Update 2): Joe Fernandez, the Cofounder and CEO of Klout, contacted me via Twitter this afternoon asking if I’d like to talk. We chatted for awhile about the issues I brought up in this article and some of the directions in which Klout will be heading in the near future. After talking with Joe–a very nice guy by the way–it is clear to me that they are thinking about the larger ramifications of their service and what it truly means to be the standard measure of online influence. Their task is very challenging indeed. It’s nice to know that Joe cares enough about their users to take the time to listen to feedback and communicate their dedication to continually evolving and improving their platform.

Related Outside Articles

The Read Write Web article that has brought some visitors to the post and triggered a small discussion, 4 Ways Klout Can Evolve.

An interesting though piece by Justin Goldsborough, Why Klout scares me; Hint: It’s not the tool itself

Data portability is defined as the ability to “bring your identity, friends, conversations, files and histories with you, without having to manually add them to each new service.”

Does this really solve the most important issue that users face when spelunking the depths of the social networking space?

This is the fundamental defect with the notion of data portability on the closed Web. The duplication of a user’s data across multiple networks.

While it’s great that a user has the flexibility, the freedom, even the right to take their data with them, in effect they are not taking anything with them. Users are not actually porting anything from one site to another. Porting implies the moving of an entity from one location to another, the transferring of data from one machine to another.

In reality, data portability is about giving users the freedom and ability to grab a copy of their current dataset and paste it into yet another data silo. They are not actually moving their data as much as copying it from one silo to another. So, their data is now duplicated across multiple locations.

The data silo (the social network) from which the data was copied (“moved”), does not delete the content—often even after a user requests the deletion of their account. Why? Because a member’s data, the content, is one of the most important business assets the social network owns. It is their key competitive advantage.

This is the fundamental defect with the notion of data portability on the closed Web. The duplication of a user’s data across multiple networks makes it even harder for a given user to control their identity, privacy, and Web presence.

What most people call a Web identity is simply an identifier. The true representation of an individual on the Web is what I describe as the set of all their identity graphs.

I don’t want my personal data exported, copied, replicated throughout the Web. I am for data redundancy where it’s efficient and necessary, but exporting a copy of my dataset (or subset) from one social graph to another does not make sense. You are duplicating your effort. You are splitting up–or more accurately duplicating part of–your identity graph into little pieces and then strewing them into different locations, placing them in multiple, closed data silos.

Don’t get me wrong. I am for true data portability. I’m just not in favor of the way it is currently implemented by the few participating social networks.

What I am proposing is a step beyond data portability that is even more user centric, that could make the Internet a truly open space, that would help usher in the Social Web.

What is Identity on the Web?

Before introducing my concept, it’s important to understand a key difference between my views of Web identity and the mainstream definition.

The commonly-accepted definition of a Web identity is a digital representation of a user. It is one of many possible personae that an individual may have on the same social network or among all the networks in which a given person participates. But I believe this definition discounts the individual in the equation.

In my article, Thinking Outside the Privacy Box, I discuss my philosophical views about identity on the Web. In short, what most people call a Web identity is simply an identifier. The true representation of an individual on the Web is what I describe as the set of all their identity graphs.

Enter Identity Flowability

In our service-centric Web-2.0 world of social networks where each new service is in effect a closed data silo, data portability is an important issue. What I’m suggesting is that the next focus of the Social Web should be to obviate the need for data portability.

Instead of data portability, the Social Web needs to champion the concept of Identity Flowability. Identity Flowablility is the easy movement of and control over a given identity graph by a given user.

Identity Flowablility enables a user to store any part of their identity graph in the places that they choose and then allow other sites to reference that data from those places—not copy the data from those places. Data would be semantically marked up to facilitate their auto discoverability for sharing between other sites. Access rights could easily be assigned.

WebIDs could become the cornerstone in the user-centric Social Web.

Thus the concept of Identity Flowablility is to provide each user with an easier, more efficient, and effective mechanism with which to control their entire IdentitySpace. It creates a user-centric container through which data content and privacy rights could be better managed and controlled.

How would this concept change the Social Web? Instead of the quantity of users a site has being its most valuable, monetizable asset, the true value proposition of each Web 3.0-enabled company would be the quality and uniqueness of their service. No longer would a large membership base necessarily equal a big asset as smaller, more nimble niche-market players could compete by offering superior services.

WebID: Helping to Flow and Control Identity

There is a very promising identification protocol that goes a long way toward creating the foundation of a flowable identity. It’s called WebID—in particular, a FOAF+SSL WebID. If you are interested in identity flowability, I encouraged you to learn more about WebIDs and how they could become the cornerstone in the user-centric Social Web.

My Related Articles

1. The Web is Not (yet) Social
2. Thinking Outside the Privacy Box
3. Web 3.0: Powering Startups to Become Smartups
4. Repackaging the Promise of the Social Semantic Web
5. Regaining Control of Privacy and Identity: It’s up to Each Individual
6. A Flock of Twitters: Decentralized Semantic Microblogging

Also See

An interesting six-minute video presentation graphically discussing the issues with OpenID: OpenID: Identity Service or Identity Platform

For an interesting, possible alternative to today’s closed-siloed Web, visit the Consortium for Local Ownership and Use of Data. Their task is challenging but in tune with my sentiment expressed above.

Nope. It is real. The reason is simple and practical.

This past Wednesday during the BuddyPress Developers’ Chat on IRC, it was decided that another subdecimal release of BP was necessary to provide a few fixes to some key bugs. BuddyPress v1.2.7 is scheduled to come out around the end of this coming week.

As I thought about this more and more over the past few days, I released that it is not a good practice to release a major new BuddyPress component targeted to a version of BuddyPress that will be obsolete a few days after launch. There is no way to determine how many additional changes to BuddyPress’ core files will be made over the next week—some of which could affect the operation of BP Privacy.

It would be foolish to release BP Privacy this coming Monday and then take a chance that it will play well with BP 1.2.7 when that comes out four or five days later. It could be an operations pain for my users and a support nightmare for me. So the prudent course of action is to postpone the release of BP Privacy pending the release of BP 1.2.7.

Therefore, BP Privacy will not be launching tomorrow, November 8, 2010. Instead, assuming BP 1.2.7 will be released as detailed in the link above–and that there are no major issues with it negatively affecting the operation of BP Privacy–the new launch date for BP Privacy will now be Monday, November 15, 2010.

It’s just one, short week. I’m just as eager to set this free as you are to get your hands on it. But prudence and patience must win out.

It’s Not a Total Loss

There are tangible benefits to this postponement. If you have not yet purchased a BuddyPress Privacy Component Support plan (BPCSP), this delay gives you an additional week to act. It will allow you another chance to get a great, permanent discount on support plans.

Furthermore, if you are a current advertiser on BP-Privacy.com, I’m going to give you the full month of December at no additional cost. I cannot justify having my ad clients paying for a full month but not having a full month’s worth of regular traffic. So, December is on me!

This offer for an extra month (December) of advertising will apply to the last two remaining ad spots if they are leased before BP Privacy launches on Monday, November 15, 2010.