Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

The most interesting conversation to come out of SXSW for me was Sarah Lacy’s unfortunate interview with Mark Zuckerberg. Paul Carr (by the way, welcome to Twitter Paul!) captured the moment succinctly

Sarah Lacy (SL): “Thank you - thank you all so much. Now let’s hear it for this guy - Mark Zuckerberg everyone! So, I wanna start by asking - as I did in my book - why do you think Facebook… which I use like all the time - is so great?”

Mark Zuckerberg (MZ): “Well…”

SL: “What I mean is - what is it about Facebook that has attracted not just me but millions of other people like me to sign up?”

MZ: “Terrorism.”

SL: “I totally agree. Can you say more?”

MZ: “Sure…”

SL: “Can you believe this guy? Wow - I mean his answers are so short - seriously I think he’s the biggest loser I’ve ever interviewed. Hey Mark, can I tell the story about the first time I allowed you to be interviewed?”

MZ: “Sure… I guess.”

SL: “Ok, so, like, I’m interviewing Mark - and we’ve been talking for like twenty hours and Mark was like ‘I need to pee’ and I was like ‘that’s so interesting and sexy’, tell me more and he’s like ‘no I really need to pee’ and I’m like talking about my book and like the next thing I know he’s peed all over the floor and it’s like so cute and hilarious.”

MZ: “Thanks for sharing that.”

(Audience break into spontaneous standing ovation, in awe at Zuckerberg’s razor sharp retort. Fat guy at the front screams and faints. Twitter crashes.)

SL: “Ok, so getting back to Facebook, I wanna ask you about privacy and Facebook Beacon.”

MZ: “Ok, well, let me say that Beacon isn’t something we’re really focussed on as a company right now - I mean it’s like not something I’ve even really heard of. What people don’t understand is that it was developed by our platform team and not our advertising team - so really it’s not advertising at all. I mean, in the Lebanon, kids are actually using it to interact with Coca Cola which - and this is unbelievable - makes them realise what they’re missing by not being in America and that’s why there will never be another nine eleven. But we’re not the only company delivering world peace through invasive advertising, we’re just one of the people in the space. We want to focus on building the platform for world peace and let others build on that.”

SL: “Ok, stop talking now. Jeez! It seems to me anyway, that Beacon is not really the issue. In fact, I shouldn’t have even mentioned it. The big issue is the news feed, what can you say about that?”

MZ: “Well, it’s just something we’re not really focussed on having to explain right now.”

SL: “Ok, that’s fine. Now - last night you told me you were gay and like to fuck squirrels - can I tell that story?”

MZ: “Er…”

SL: “Ok, well, I guess I should have let you make that announcement, gosh darn I’m so ditzy (giggles). So what’s it like to be rich and to have journalists, like, really want to sleep with you?”

MZ: “It’s just not something I’m focussed on right now.”

SL: “How about if I do this?”

(Lacey begins to fellate Zuckerberg but, remarkably, is able to keep talking….)

SL: “Well, sure, that makes it so much easier.”

(Three rows of fat guys at the front of the room orgasm as one at the incredible comedic timing of Mark ‘Bill Hicks’ Zuckerberg as Lacey switches position for a reach around.)

SL: “Ok, well, that’s all we have time for - if you want to know more about how awesome - but dorky - this rich guy is, I guess you’ll all have to read my book. It also has the story about how I famously poured water into Serge Brin’s laptop on my show at Yahoo.com. That was sooo funny. And when I hyped Kevin Rose on the front cover of Business Week and then sold a book to Penguin on the back of it about overhyped web 2.0 companies. Don’t worry, Mark, I’ll give you a discount. And I’ll even throw in a copy for your girlfriend. What’s her name?”

MZ: “Uh…”

SL: “Ok, great! Well thank you very much Mark - it’s been a really insightful conversation on one point five billion levels. And, to the audience, I just wanna say thank you both for staying.”

Session ends.

Paul’s original post from which I stole all of his content can be found here. Please subscribe to his blog. He’s hilarious!

As a result of the poor interview, Mark called for a second interview which Jemima Kiss articulates very well.

To his credit. Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged that a lot of people were frustrated by the wasted opportunity of yesterday’s keynote interview with Sarah Lacy. He did the interview on the condition that she was the interviewer, so whose to blame there?

In the rather more tropical surroundings of a safari-themed bar, Zuckerberg announces that he thought he’d drop by “because yesterday’s keynote just wasn’t enough fun“. That media training has really been paying off.

“One of the big pieces of feedback from yesterday was that people didn’t get a chance to ask enough questions. People were more interesting in product development and technical questions - I’m really interested in those issues like scalability but we thought we’d open up for another 20-30 minutes today.”

So in the midst of the developer garage, what did his home crowd really want to know?

Data portability is a big issue. Zuckerberg said that he wouldn’t necessarily commit to signing up to the same open standards as the other big social networks. “Beacon is a first iteration of that approach to help people share information. We are philosophically aligned with this openness and efficiency in the community but, at the same time, we don’t know what other people are doing and whether our policties are aligned.”

Robert Scoble got kicked off the site (albeit for just one day) because he appeared to be scraping data, rather than ’sharing it’.

Balancing the advantges of data portability with people’s privacy concerns is tricky: “We think sharing information is good, which is why we started this whole platform thing. But these are some of the questions that need to be worked out.”

Music: Is music a focus for the site? Not especially. The site didn’t predict how causal games like Scrabulous would take off (Zuckerberg plays it with this grandparents, aw). The great thing about having a platform is we don’t need to be editorial.

“We don’t need to say what will be the right applications because the market will sort that out for us, and the people that build the great products and applicatiosns will be able to build the great companies.”

It’s a very clever business model, because it lets the users determine the trends and leaves all the R&D to external companies. Nice.

Spam: Facebook will be cutting down on application spam, as he said yesterday: applications will be encouraged to focus on the level of proper engagement they have with their users rather than the number of installs, and the more popular apps will be able to send more invites.

China: He also said that he doesn’t look at time spent on the site as an important metric: Zuckerberg thinks that, like Google, the site should make communication more efficient and help people do what they need to do.

Facebook is looking at the issues of moving the business into China, said a very confident and relaxed Zuckerberg. He’s very open about it forom the start: “Making sure that people’s private information is private is a really important thing for us to do,” he said, explaining that there are only really two options in China; either have the government censor your site and impair the performance of traffic to it inside the country if it doesn’t like you, or have servers inside the country which will be shut down if you don’t follow their policies.

“There are ways to position these things make decisions and set them up to create minimal exposure,” he said. Now that China is on the verge of overtaking the US as the world’s biggest internet market, this strategy is increasingly important.

And has it been a strain for you, Mark, being under such scrutiny because of the success of Facebook? He’s now the world’s youngest billionaire, according to Forbes.

“That’s an interesting topic for a develop garage! I have a small group of really good friends and going through this whole experience of building the company has often been a strain but has helped build interesting friendships.”

Jemima’s original post from which I mercilessly stole her content can be found here. Jemima is also one of the few bloggers that I’m subscribed to, so make sure you’re tuned in. She has her finger well placed on the UK digital pulse.

I’m not sure I like either of Mark’s two options to expand into China. I don’t like the idea of filtering content on behalf of the government, full stop. But what’s the alternative?

Also, check out Rebecca Caroe‘s post on the BIMA blog about panel put together to discuss online advertising for newbies.

James Corbet made a wild assumption which I’d like to address. In summary, James blogged that I violated a friend’s privacy by streaming live to the Web using a mobile video service called Qik.

I’ve pasted James’ blog post along with the comments left by other bloggers. I’ve done this because James doesn’t have email subscription to posts which means commentators aren’t informed of other comments being left. I really wish all blogs had this feature, including TechCrunch.

James said

So you’re out with a group of friends in a pub, enjoying a few drinks, letting your hair down. As you do. And then one of them pushes a camera phone in your face and starts streaming video live to the web. And immediately announces the fact to 518 other people. Not only that but he’s oblivious to your protestations and pleas to stop.

I don’t mean to pick on Segala’s Paul Walsh because I’ve certainly enjoyed and appreciated his video coverage of events like the inaugural Irish Digital Industry Association Dinner in Dublin recently. But Paul is a guy who writes regularly about online privacy and is CEO of Segala, a company developing technology which, among other things, is designed to help you find websites which follow best practices for privacy and copyright.

However, it seems to me that during last night’s broadcast Paul crossed the line by invading the privacy of at least one friend. If someone asks you to stop, puts their hand in front of the camera and looks clearly uncomfortable when you refuse is that not a blatant violation of their privacy? I don’t presume to know Paul’s friends so perhaps I’ve misread the situation but if someone did likewise to me I’d be very tempted grab their camera phone and dunk it in my drink!

Comments left by other bloggers

In particular, the live aspect means there is no opportunity to undo the posting of something you immediately regret doing. I can imagine a similar problem with Shozu when people are out on the tear. Qik Content Labels? “Warning, this video may contain scenes of drunk people”

Posted by: Conor O’Neill | Feb 6, 2008 12:26:35 PM

Damn, that last line would have been a much better post title than mine! Yeah, I only bring the issue up for discussion because I think it’s something that we’re going to have to be increasingly concerned with. As I say I thoroughly appreciate informative videos like Paul’s other ones and your Cork OpenCoffee ones and Pat Phelan’s travel ones, etc. But I’m thinking ahead here and realizing we’ll probably have a few QIKers at the Irish Blog Awards and similar sociable events this year and wondering if we’re going to have people streaming video from inappropriate situations? What are the ground rules? What etiquette applies?

Posted by: James Corbett | Feb 6, 2008 12:47:48 PM

It’s a discussion that has to happen and I think it’ll be a major issue as services like Qik are adopted by the greater web community. Over time, though, people will become comfortable with such invasions the same way we don’t think twice now about the plethora of CCTV cameras watching our every move.

Posted by: Eoghan McCabe | Feb 6, 2008 1:09:17 PM

Having had people shove cameras into my face and say “Can I put you on my Flickr?” I’m pretty used to this, but there is a time delay between the act of recording and the act of uploading. Qik, and others like it, destroy that delay (as you point out), and without immediate web access - like in a bar - you can’t delete something that fast, and even if you could it would be already online. Once on the the Internet, always on the Internet, right? Mind you grown-up, ‘digital savvy’ people in a bar will pale beside what will happen when more nefarious people get hold of this mobile tech. Interesting post!

Posted by: Mike Butcher | Feb 6, 2008 2:20:59 PM

My response

@James - I think you’re right. We do face a potential problem and a lot of care should be taken when streaming live to the Web. I’ve since removed my videos of last night but for different reasons.

Please note that everyone around the table were aware up front, that I was going to stream live. In fact, I spent about 5 minutes trying to change the SIM from my iPhone to the N95 so I could do it. With this post in particular I think you should have asked if anyone genuinely didn’t want to be filmed.

Some people put their hand in front of the camera when in fact, they love it. No, I’m not saying that no means yes or maybe

Do you use Qik and if so, do you worry about the privacy you just happen to capture in the background?

[Update. After actually seeing the paper for myself, I can tell that my blog wasn’t ‘awarded’ anything as the title of this post suggests. It was featured in Blogspot of the week, which I’m just as happy with.]

I’m absolutely over the moon about this. We all like our egos stroked from time to time and I’m no different to anyone else. This is particularly true because Segala (or I) have never been nominated and therefore have never been in with a chance, to win an award. Segala has purposely stayed below the media radar until now. My partner in crime, Asheesh Dewan and I have spent the guts of €1m on our new business model and technology so that it would be fit to take to investors. I’m hoping that 2008 is the year that everyone will be talking about Segala and our method of enabling more trust on the Web.

To win best blog of the week by the Irish Times is a great start to 2008. My thanks go to Damien, my new Head of Communications for suggesting that I decouple it from the Segala blog (notice I didn’t say Marketing Director, that’s old school). I must admit, I felt liberated when I started writing here. It’s as if I felt that bit closer to you, as a reader/contributor. Kamrul also did a great job building it within 2 days of Damien’s suggestion. Let me know if there are any features you particular like or dislike or if you think I should implement something.

Read more…

I wrote a blog post recently entitled ‘Facebook doesn’t spam you, your friends do’. In the comments, I thought I’d argued the point well, by demonstrating with examples, how to disable email notifications. This wasn’t to be the case as Michele and Joe continued to disagree with my view.

Today, via Twitter, Christine Lu complained about receiving silly email notifications even though she no longer had a ‘Fun Wall’. So, I gave her a couple of tips to resolve the privacy issue. I seem to do this quite alot, so rather than continue to type them each time, I’ve decided to write a short tutorial in the hope it will help more users manage the noise to a level that suits them.

Email Notifications

Let’s start with email notifications as that seems to be a bone of contention for a lot of people. Facebook notifies you by email whenever actions are taken on Facebook that involve you.

Each application has its own email notification settings. From your home page, select edit to view the settings for each application.

Selecting edit will take you to the screen below. Click edit settings on the right of each application to change the settings for that application.

Selecting Edit Settings will present you with the screen below.

As you can see from the screen shot above, it’s possible to switch off email notifications. It’s also possible to switch off other forms of notifications such as news feeds.

You can reach the preferences page via unwanted email notifications. The screen shot below shows what a typical email looks like. Most people probably ignore or delete their emails, which is why they don’t know it’s possible to put a stop to them.

Scared of people seeing you in a compromising position?

Facebook’s privacy settings are the best I’ve every seen on any type of platform or application. They’re so granular you can display pictures to certain friends, whilst hiding them from others. You can choose who can see your wall or status updates and who can’t.

Below is a screen shot of your home page. Choose privacy at the top of the page so you can set these preferences.

When you’ve selected privacy, the privacy page will display as you can see from the screen shot below.

Without going through the entire page, I’ve highlighted what I deem the most important; pictures, videos and personal contact information.

Facebook notifies you each time a friend tags you in a picture or video. But if you’re still worried about being caught running down the high street dressed as a chicken, there are precautions that you can take (apart from the obvious; don’t get caught).

1. You can remove the tags as soon as you’ve been notified by Facebook.
2. If this still makes you feel uncomfortable you can always change your preferences so that only your friends see pictures and videos that you have been tagged in.
3. You can even make sure that nobody sees any pictures or videos that you have been tagged in.

Note people who are not your friend, are unable to tag you.

Everything within a private group remains private to members of that group. However, as soon as you tag a picture or video, they become public. I’ve had a friend caught out by this feature.

Do you want people to find you?

Your profile is set to open by default. This means anyone can search for and find you. Your profile may even appear in Google search results. You can either leave your profile completely open, or, you can decide exactly what information you’d like displayed. You can even make your entire profile private, so that only your close friends can see it.

As you can see from the screen shot above, you’re in control of what people see, not Facebook. They leave it open because to close everything by default, we’d end up with a very boring static Web site. It certainly wouldn’t be ’social’.

Show your friends, hide from your colleagues

Some people may not want to be completely open with everyone. If, like me, you like to keep certain things private, such as your wall, status update, pictures, groups, friends, posted items or personal information, then these preferences will be of interest.

Below is a screen shot of the page where you can completely block individuals whilst displaying specific information on an individual basis. You may want to block your boss, show a limited profile to your line manager and allow your work colleagues to see everything.

As you can see from the screen shot below, it’s possible to display as much or as little as you like to specific people.

I haven’t gone through all of the preferences available, but you should be well versed by now and be able to protect yourself from SPAM coming from your friends.

Conclusion

1. You own your data.
2. You are responsible for controlling how much of your data is seen and used by other people.
3. Facebook does not SPAM you.
4. Your friends SPAM you.
5. If you don’t want your friends to SPAM you, ask them to stop or change your preferences.
6. If your friends don’t stop or you are too lazy to change your preferences, remove them from your friends list.
7. Facebook is responsible for protecting your data so other organisations can’t harvest and SPAM you.
8. If you don’t like any of the above, leave Facebook and read a book

Before I ask the question, I’m 100% behind any initiative that supports open standards and best practices. Segala’s entire business model is based on it. I also support the idea of being able to port your data from one application/platform to another application/platform.

Ok, so now that I’ve got the disclaimer out of the way, what exactly, is the DataPortability group going to do?

I’ve noticed that the Web site provides hyperlinks which point to pages which say ‘contribute to the various standards communities‘, but those pages just point to a list of links which point to wikipedia entries.

Then you have Robert Scoble’s video (opens in a different window) on the main index page. The explanatory title says ‘Watch Robert Scoble explain the DataPortability story’, but all I see is Robert talking about his removal from Facebook. It doesn’t tell me what the DataPortability group is going to deliver apart from goodwill.

I’m not against this group or the ideas they hold dear to their heart, but unless they actually put something more meaningful together, they’ll continue to have circular conversations that everyone is in agreement with. Getting organisations to agree to the concept isn’t good enough in my experience.

My recommendation

What I’d like to see, are some best practice guidelines which organisations can sign up to. Perhaps create a Trustmark (visual badge) to demonstrate their commitment and conformance to those guidelines. Otherwise it’s just a one-way conversation with no proof that organisations intend to permit the seamless portability of users’ data.

I still don’t want Facebook to change my email address to text as that’ll make it way too easy for companies like Plaxo to harvest and SPAM me. Please note that I’m not referring to Robert here. I believe he used a test account to demonstrate a point. Plaxo is in the rong, Robert just made a silly mistake in my opinion.

Remember that Facebook is protecting users by not allowing people to easily port information, whether that was/is their motivation or not. If none of us have the answer, how can we expect Facebook to make such a massive change over night.

Protecting our privacy and enabling us to extract our data from an application are two entirely different things.

Now I can see why Plaxo were busy harvesting personal contact details belonging to users on Facebook, without anyone’s permission. They were looking to bump their numbers to increase their valuation. Robert, I’d love your take on this now.

For those of you still saying that it was ok for Robert and Plaxo to do this.

1. I gave my personal contact details to Facebook.
2. I did not give them to any individual.
3. I did not give any company or any friend permission to disclose my personal contact details to anyone.

My friendship was violated whether some of you think it was right or not.

Some people hide their personal details from the world because they only want their friends to see them. Did Robert respect their decision by not harvesting their details with the view to giving them to another company?

According to the New York Times

AN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Plaxo, a site that helps users keep their friends’ contact information up to date, is considering a sale of the company for as much as $200 million, media reports said on Thursday.

Plaxo is seeking as much as $100 million and has hired Revolution Partners to advise it on a deal, the New York Times reported, citing people briefed on the offering.

Private Equity Hub, a blog edited by Thomson Financial editor-at-large Daniel Primack, said Plaxo was considering an unsolicited offer of about $200 million, but had not retained any bank to advise it.

Officials from Plaxo and Revolution could not be reached for comment.

Fast-growing social networks like privately held Facebook and LinkedIn might be interested in acquiring Plaxo despite its “flat growth” in 2006 to 2007, said Michael Osterman, head of messaging research and consulting firm Osterman Research.

“It might make sense for a consumer-oriented social network (like Facebook) to acquire a business-oriented social network” like Plaxo, he said.

Osterman said he expects more social networking sites to acquire each other over the next 18 months as these Web sites seek to expand ways in which users can stay connected to friends, family and business contacts.

Microsoft Corp took a small stake in Facebook for $240 million last year, and could also be a potential suitor for Plaxo, according to Osterman. LinkedIn has been the subject of buyout speculation, including reports it was at one point a target for News Corp..

Emily Riley, an analyst at Jupiter Research, said a sale would make sense for a “mid-tier” social network like Plaxo because it is difficult to survive independently unless without unique features or loyal customers.

Plaxo has raised over $20 million in venture capital funding to date from backers including Sequoia Capital, Globespan Capital Partners, Cisco Systems and DAG Ventures.

The company helps users synchronize address books and calendar data. When a friend changes their phone number or other contact details, the site automatically updates that information in a user’s address book.

Plaxo programs also work in conjunction with popular e-mail and messaging systems, such as Microsoft Outlook e-mail and AOL’s instant messaging.

Plaxo said in mid-2007 that it had signed up more than 15 million users, although the number of currently active users is unknown.

(Reporting by Anupreeta Das and Ritsuko Ando, editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Source: New York Times

If this is true, can anyone defend Plaxo now?

I’ve been interviewed about my opinion regarding Web 3.0 on numerous occasions and thought it was time to write about it here as a way of drawing a line in the sand for future reference. It was actually Jason Calacanis’ twitter message about his definition that inspired me to put my thoughts on paper, so to speak.

According to Jason

Web 3.0 is defined as the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform.

I remember saying something very similar quite some time ago, but I’ve since changed my mind. There must be more to it than that. Before getting straight into Web 3.0, I’ll start by providing my brief definition of Web 2.0.

From a technology perspective

Web 2.0 can be described as technology which enables end users to create content on the Web more quickly, easily and cheaply. Examples of such technology include blogs, wikis and platforms such as flickr.

From a marketing perspective

Enabled by technology, Web 2.0 can be described as consumer behaviour influenced by consumers. We no longer live in an era where brand owners are in total control of their own marketing. Consumers now find it quicker, easier and cheaper to communicate their opinion about products and services, which in turn, influences other consumers.

What is Web 3.0?

One thing is for sure, it has got to be something more than the ability to do all of the above, better. Let’s call that Web 2.5 service pack x. Gifted individuals who deliver higher quality content is incremental and continuous in my opinion. So I don’t think we should draw a line in the sand to define a specific milestone for people’s ability to do something better.

Jeremiah Owyang thinks that Jason is right just because Google appear to have a similar opinion. He says

By chance Jason’s definition completely matches what Google (his competitor now) just launched. Because this is a Google product, could we expect search results to favor Google products that are correctly optimized to be found over Mahalo or Wikipedia?

Jeremiah’s first commentator responded by saying

To give something a label like web 3.0 there has to be some major innovation behind it. Minus Googles credibility this product is not bringing anything new. This is more like baby steps in that direction.

I agree.

According to Udi Manber on Google’s official blog to which Jeremiah refers

The web contains an enormous amount of information, and Google has helped to make that information more easily accessible by providing pretty good search facilities.

What a load of crap. Google doesn’t ‘make information any more accessible’ than Excite did during the 90’s. It certainly doesn’t provide ‘pretty good search results’.

The only thing that Google has done for search is turn it into a mass of untrustworthiness. What they do well is mix organic search results with those that have been paid for. What’s worse, is that Google gives precedence to the highest bigger.

Don’t get me started on Web sites that are created specifically to market products they don’t sell, but instead, redirect you to Web sites that do sell them.

Google could just as easily provide more information about Web sites to allow users make better-informed decisions based on the suitability of content on each Web site. The only information it provides (admittedly the only information that any search engine provides today) is the title and description. How do you know which ones to trust? The answer is, you don’t!

My definition of Web 3.0

There is a philosophy enabled by a technology that’s not yet understood or utilized properly and I think the realization of that, should be referred to as Web 3.0. That philosophy is called the Semantic Web. The technology can be described as ‘interoperable metadata that lies beneath each Web page’ (for the techies it’s called Resource Description Framework). It’s not all about RDF, but it is pretty central to the conversation.

By reading additional metadata about Web sites, Google could provide end users with more information from the search results. Wouldn’t it be useful to know which Web sites are appropriate for minors, accessible to disabled users or mobile friendly? Wouldn’t you also like to know at times, which Web sites adopt advertising and marketing best practices, adopt privacy best practices, or have been independently verified by a medical authority?

This is all possible with the aid of metadata. That’s what I call better content discover based on trusted search results. The problem is, search engines such as Google choose not to read it.

That’s what I call Web 3.0

[Update: 00:50] I forgot to mention that Jason and I have discussed a possible collaboration. I believe there’s a place for Mahalo. I also think there’s a need to improve all major search engines (including Mahalo) based on open standards.

I picked up an interesting concept via Sam Sethi’s twitter today. It involves implementing white lists using OpenID and FOAF profiles to help resolve the issue with online identity.

I don’t wish to commentate on OpenID or FOAF. I do however, want to voice my concern over the misuse of the word ‘identity’ and how it is being associated with OpenID and other so-called solutions to solve identity.

OpenID , is a central register of user names and passwords. So, rather than having say, 10 different user names and passwords for 10 different Web sites, you create an OpenID account and associate it with the 10 user names. That is of course, assuming the 10 Web sites support OpenID by connecting to your account.

FOAF stands for Friend of a Friend. The FOAF project is creating a Web of machine-readable pages describing people, the links between them and the things they create and do.

According to Steve Ivy to which Sam refers in his twitter message

In less than a nutshell, the DIG is using the relationship data in their members’ FOAF files to build a whitelist of users (identified by their OpenID) who can comment on the site.

According to the image on Steve’s blog, which I think he borrowed from Tim Berners-Lee (looking at the file name when I save it)

OpenID Login proves identity

According to Dan Connolly from the W3C

As Simon Willison notes, OpenID solves the identity problem, not the trust problem.

I have to take issue with their use of the word ‘identity’.

OpenID does not prove identity. Identity has a universal meaning to just about everyone on the planet. So why is there so much confusion on the Web?

What is Identity?

When asked for ID by a car rental company for example, you know without fail, that they’re asking for either your passport or drivers license.

Why? Well, because before you were issued with a passport or drivers license, you had to prove ‘who’ you say you are. You did this by getting a trusted third party such as a solicitor or police officer who knows you, to verify your identity. Your identity as confirmed and documented by a trusted third party, was then sent to the appropriate authority for final processing.

Going back to OpenID, you can setup an account under any name and associate it with any number of profiles. None of this information is verified by anyone. Does this prove you are who you say you are? In other words, does it prove your identity? The answer is no. It does prove your identity if by that you mean something entirely different to what the vast majority of the population already believe identity to mean.

I have only witnessed one person articulate the same opinion as me and that’s Saul Klein. Saul understands identity, he co-founded TRUSTe which is the most widely recongnised Trustmark for privacy on the Internet. Saul articulated his opinion about identity after a Garlic presentation at Essential Web, where he was on the panel to whom Garlik pitched. I was on a different panel but was dying to quiz Garlik about their terminology.

How to solve the problem

Just like we do with passports and drivers licenses in the offline world, we can have our company and personal details verified by a trusted third party such as Experian or Equifax. I chose these companies because they already hold personal details and credit scores for most of us.

We could then associate that verified information with a technical solution such as Content Labels (known as POWDER by the W3C for political reasons), FOAF or some other kind of Certificate which can be recognized by a browser or other tool. Only then can you solve the ‘identity’ problem. By default, it would mean we’re half-way to resolving the trust issue at the same time.

If you consider the passport scenario… Experian and Equifax act as the solicitor or police officer who knows you. The Content Label/Certificate authority act as the passport office by issuing the proof of identity.

I once wrote to all my LinkedIn connections informing them of my decision to no longer update my profile, whilst asking them to connect with me on Facebook if they genuinely wanted to connect.

So, here I am again with another social network to avoid. I’m no longer accepting invitation requests to connect on Plaxo, or any other social network for that matter. I simply don’t have the time to update profiles or maintain communications on each one. I only use Plaxo for backing up my contacts anyway, full stop.

As I’ve previously explained, Facebook is my shop window into which you can see who I am, who I know and what I stand for. You can also see what I look like dressed as a Chicken running down Oxford Circus at 12am. That is of course, assuming I’ve enabled you to see those comprimising pictures using the extremely granular privacy settings.

Until now, I’ve accepted connection requests only from people known to me or known to people I trust. However, in order to make BIMA, Segala and me more accessible, I’m now opening up my network to anyone who wishes to connect with me.

Why anyone? Well, because if I’m not connected to an individual or company, it’s very likely I should be if they’ve come across me via a blog, twitter, event etc. Should some nut case end up in the circle of trust I’ll simply remove them. On Twitter I voiced my intention to which Paul Jacobson replied

@PaulWalsh If you open up to everyone then that means the rest of us aren’t special anymore … 05:37 PM September 18, 2007 from im in reply to PaulWalsh

I hope Paul doesn’t think this now that I’m opening up the small gates which hold back only a few unsuspecting Facebookers. The truth is, I’m connected to 469 people on Facebook. That doesn’t even come close to the number of people I know. I’m sure there must be a few people who know me but who are (until now I hope) unknown to me. The same applies to everyone, you can’t know everyone who knows you. So, maintaining my network is quite easy for me.

I’m pretty confident that either Facebook or a third party developer will enable us to build communities out of our network. For example, I’d like separate communities for BIMA, Segala, Jaipur, Digital, Events, Programmes I advise on, etc. There’s likely to be an overlap which is fine, but at least I’d have the ability to communicate with them separately.

I don’t think I’d create communities for business and personal because then you’re forcing yourself to say who’s a friend and who isn’t, which in my opinion, goes against the grain of the social graph.

It’s much easier to open up your network after studying it whilst closed, than it is to close it and end up kicking people out.

Read in-depth article about how I perceive and use Facebook.

So, if you wish to connect on Facebook, then feel free to to do so now.

Are you fed up receiving SPAM? I know I am. I’m a little tired of receiving unsolicited email but I accept it as something we must put up with. In fact, HTML vs plain text is currently being debated amongst the W3C advisory committee, during which, some suggestions are being made about a new standard to combat spamming. One suggestion is to use Content Labels.However, I’m not prepared to accept unsollicited email from large brands when I’ve asked for it to stop. I’m really fed up with easyJet because they continue to bombard me with offers even though I hate their service since they sellotaped me to a wing as part of their cheap flights deal.

After a serious amount of digging around my archive I managed to find an old easyJet email amongst the crap I failed to delete. Thank God it contained login details!

I have 2 issues with easyJet:

1. In order to unsubscribe to its direct marketing campaigns, even if you’ve never subscribed to begin with, you need to login to their site. Now, you’re not likely to remember login details if you never subscribed to their service, are you?!So, they couldn’t possibly make unsubscribing more difficult. I’m pretty sure there’s a UK direct marketing best practice that encourages marketers to make it easy to unsubscribe. I’d even say that I’m relatively certain this is a legal obligation – with respect to the use of my personal data.

/>This point is bugging me even more. Looking at my easyJet preferences I noticed that the “I do not wish to subscribe to eOffers” option isn’t ticked. In fact, I’m 100% certain that I never subscribed!! So, why am I still getting this crap?

Perhaps we need to create a best practice or code of conduct through the Content Labels Web site…

So, is there any case law about the misuse of personal data collected on a Web site? Privacy statements in Ireland are black and white but it couldn’t be more grey in the UK.

Should I sue them?

easyJet staff, if you’re reading this, please please please leave me alone!