• Darwiniana » Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S.
  why regulations and excessive interference from governments backfires in the long run
  (tags: regulation government US data internet traffic bypass intelligence legal)
• What Apple Knows That Facebook Doesn't – Umair Haque
  (tags: platform innovation facebook apple Marketing business Strategy umairhaque)

• Adobe gets an e-earful, and listens | Underexposed – CNET News
  customers talk to the company, not the (ineffective) other way round…
  (tags: VRM adobe customers communications online)

• Launchpad Chicken: MobileMe and sync trouble | Outside the Lines – CNET News
  (tags: apple synchronisation mobile applications tools scale blackberry exchange)
• The Microsoft-Novell Deal and Trust in Princes
  there is some truth in that but I'd disagree that all FOSS people who cry EVIL when marketing or business is mentioned are ignorant of either. Some of them speak from experience and knowledge of both…
  (tags: opensource business sun community geeks)
• More Bad News For iPhone 3G | Tech Watch | Fast Company
  (tags: apple iphone problem security legal)
• TiddlyWiki – a reusable non-linear personal web notebook
  (tags: applications wikis tools opensource web2.0 productivity ajax browser notes interesting gtd)
• talks.cam : Electronic health records: which is worse, the UK system or the US System?
  (tags: privacy health medicalrecords healthcare US UK system data patients)
• Internet Explorer 8: More secure, private, and reliable
  (tags: privacy microsoft browser)
• Microsoft's newest browser may help privacy
  (tags: microsoft browser privacy online)
• Business and open source: Oil and water? | The Open Road – The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay – CNET News
  (tags: opensource business development technology Culture)
• Mozilla offers do-it-yourself mashups for all | News – Digital Media – CNET News
  (tags: tools interface mozilla firefox mashups applications)
• ProjectVRM Blog » The buyer’s envelope, please
  not sure what to make of this…
  (tags: vrm marketing amazon kickback affiliate)
• Ubiquitous Interfaces, Ubiquitous Functionality at Toolness
  interesting
  (tags: interface functionality tools design Programming UI mashup browser mozilla keyboard Mine!)
• Does open source need consolidation? | The Open Road – The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay – CNET News
  consolidation can happen on the side of the user who chooses what suits him best. otherwise, it is reducing diversity and therefore innovation. reinventing a wheel might make it a better wheel in a different way and that's not to be sniffed at, especially as it's powered by geek dedication
  (tags: opensource diversity innovation consolidation user invention)
• Born Digital arrives on bookshelves | Berkman Center
  (tags: digital natives research online youth generation berkman)
• AirBed & Breakfast: Better Than a Cheap Hotel
  (tags: hotels accommodation VRM sharing community social travel web2.0 bed)
• Don’t Post The Evidence Unless It Supports Your Case
  (tags: ning applications communications TOS platform techcrunch behaviour widget business web)
• Marketing Moves to the Blogosphere – washingtonpost.com
  i guess
  (tags: blogging Marketing web2.0 socialmedia communications business)
• Royal Pingdom » Linux popularity across the globe
  rather interesting.
  (tags: linux ubuntu opensource distribution statistics visualization adoption world internet)
• Engrish Funny: Engrish Pictures That Is Your Funny Engrish
  the people who did icanhascheeseburger.com
  (tags: lolcat funny English)
• Analyzing News with Graphs and Tag Clouds | Development Seed
  (tags: news meta data measurement journalism cloud tags)
• TheStar.com | Ontario | Bus firm calls online car pool illegal service
  this is a clear case of the demand side supplying itself. but the supply side is getting nasty. Will VRM cause similar reactions? Most likely.
  (tags: VRM bus businessmodel customers Canada law service)
• Hearts and Minds
  (tags: change strategy urgency business innovation)

Now and then I give OpenID a go but I do find it cumbersome to say the least. In an experimentation fit I used it to sign in to Plaxo, and every time I log in, it’s a several step process. So much for saving the user time and effort.

MindMeister mindmapping software has an OpenID option for signing in. I thought – ooh, it would be convenient to just put in my OpenID and not worry about yet another username/password etc. Perhaps there is something to this. I even remembered my OpenID URL…

But no luck this time, this is what I got.

Additional Information: Because your OpenID provider didn’t send all the information we need in order to create your account please fill out the fields to the left.

Arrgh! Why put an OpenID sign-in option on a page, if the website doesn’t actually accept it?! The point of OpenID should be not only about the convenience of signing-in process but also about my ability to decide what information is provided throughout. FAIL.

cross-posted from VRM Hub.

• Survival-of-the-Fittest Innovation
  become implementor of innovation? I mostly agree about not relying on 'consumers' for innovation but therein lies the fallacy. we are not consumers only and innovation is often user-driven. A particular kind of user, which is what business fails to understand.
  (tags: business innovation implementation consumer users user-driven)
• Danny O'Brien's Oblomovka – Independence day
  couldn't agree more
  (tags: opensource security cloud privacy data internet future politics)

This month’s VRM Hub meeting will be on 28th Thursday, 6-9pm, in Chelsea. Sign up here.

Waffle Bike is a fully weaponized waffle making device complete with call to prayer public address system:

• How your printer tricks you into buying ink and toner when you don't need it.
  brilliant!
  (tags: printers technology hardware hack money tips toner lifehacks cartridge ink)
• Psychological profiling on the Web | News – Security – CNET News.com
  the idea is fine, just let me apply the functionality to my own stuff, not somebody else doing it to me and my data.
  (tags: emotion socialnetworks identity profile online security privacy)
• The Eternal Value of Privacy
  absolutely! "The real choice is liberty versus control. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy."
  (tags: privacy security onilne liberty surveillance freedom rights wired bruceschneier government)
• Innovator's Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work
  (tags: book reading innovation disruption business Strategy)
• Micro Persuasion: Tiger Woods Responds to Fan's YouTube Video
  (tags: funny youtube sports golf games)

• BBC NEWS | Technology | Legal milestone for open source
  glad to see this
  (tags: opensource copyright software legal creativecommons license)
• The Patry Copyright Blog: End of the Blog
  (tags: copyright google trends failure blog DRM lawyer technology patry depressing)

• Google's troubling YouTube ad experiments | Technically Incorrect – CNET News.com
  (tags: YouTube Google advertising video)
• Vint Cerf calls for Internet speed limits | News – Digital Media – CNET News.com
  (tags: broadband comcast internet speed netneutrality)
• The Linux desktop, Macs, and barking dogs | The Open Road – The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay – CNET News.com
  this is annoying. marketing is NOT what attracts people to Apple! Linux doesn't need more of it, it needs better design and easier use. Sexy design comes from being able to do intuitively and without clutter. marketing has nothing to do with it.
  (tags: linux apple design usability marketing stupid opensource)
• One open-source project dies while another is reborn: Linspire vs. Chandler | The Open Road – The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay – CNET News.com
  wrong, marketing doesn't make people use things. usability and usefulness does. open source stuff may be useful and better but not very usable, yet, to non-techies.
  (tags: opensource usability useful marketing)
• The cloud of unreliability | Outside the Lines – CNET News.com
  always puzzles me why the 'cloud' means some BigCo providing storage… surely, the internet is the nodes and that is each and every one of us. Soon we'll have web servers in our pockets, so why not look that way rather than to the tech behemoths. go figure
  (tags: cloudcomputing failure trends nodes network individual web internet)
• T-Mobile to launch open development platform to challenge iPhone | Negative Approach – CNET News.com
  let's see how fast they can catch up and keep up with Apple. seems good news…
  (tags: mobile phone development platform opensource iphone)
• Nullriver Software : Products : NetShare for iPhone
  (tags: iphone software proxy sharing tools modem application)
• Apple kills NetShare: No more iPhone-as-modem | The Open Road – The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay – CNET News.com
  this is bad, potential dealbreaker for me.. hopefully, no mobile operator is doing this in the UK.
  (tags: iphone shopping mobile applications aple)
• Apple boots $1,000 app from App Store | One More Thing – CNET News.com
  if I were to get iPhone, I'd need something like NetShare app to be able to use it as modem with my laptop. typical that a mobile network operator is trying to limit such use.
  (tags: iphone shopping applications apple modem functionality)
• Cybersecurity lessons from the Civil War | News – Security – CNET News.com
  (tags: security history military hackers cryptography communications internet attack)
• Innovation: It's all in how you see it | Business Tech – CNET News.com
  (tags: innovation enterprise corporations failure ecosystem opensource)
• White Apple Logo Screen of Death Stops iPhones in Their Tracks – iPhone Atlas
  another bug in iPhone
  (tags: iphone apple problem product)
• Judge leaves gag order intact on subway card-hacking students | News – Security – CNET News.com
  deja vu all over again, this time instead of the government, it's a clueless enterprise.
  (tags: encryption cryptography RSA hackers security subway students)
• Barriers: Twitter vs. TiVo | The Pervasive Datacenter – CNET News.com
  excellent point. one of the reasons most successful web apps are learnt by playing…
  (tags: users web2.0 twitter TiVo applications usability accessibility adoption)
• All your cloud-stored data floated away at 'The Linkup' | Negative Approach – CNET News.com
  (tags: cloudcomputing data storage failure trends)
• Google's Keyczar designed to make cryptography easier
  (tags: cryptography google keyczar applications tools)

Copyright law has abandoned its reason for being: to encourage learning and the creation of new works. Instead, its principal functions now are to preserve existing failed business models, to suppress new business models and technologies, and to obtain, if possible, enormous windfall profits from activity that not only causes no harm, but which is beneficial to copyright owners. Like Humpty Dumpty, the copyright law we used to know can never be put back together again.
- William Patry, Google’s senior copyright counsel in End of the Blog

• Internet Famous: Julia Allison and the Secrets of Self-Promotion
  (tags: internet reputation fame wired promotion online marketing)