Billions With Zero Knowledge

In light of Mike Arrington’s and TechCrunch’s lawsuit against Facebook for $25 million based on Facebook’s use of Mike’s image in social ads someone needs to shed the light on the real issues of privacy on the Internet.

Given my history of working on privacy issues, and the fact that Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly is a friend I am going to be appearing as an expert witness supporting Facebook on this issue.

There are many real privacy issues on the Internet and this isn’t one of them.  By attempting to derail Facebook in their quest to take over the world, slow down their recruitment of top Google staff and distract them from focusing on providing more real privacy controls for the Internet Mike has opened himself up to a counter suit, damages and exposes TechCrunch to serious liability.

The issues of privacy are not to be laughed at.  I think this video on the challenges of maintaining privacy in today’s world showcases the true dangers that Mike’s lawsuit distracts Facebook and other Internet leaders from dealing with.

On Mon 31 Mar 2008. [8] Comments

Yossi Vardi, one of the grandfathers of the Israeli tech industry has this dire warning on the dangers of local warming and how this could be affecting Canada’s seeds of innovation.

If you are a blogger, tech executive or part of Canada’s growing tech community & glued to your laptop - this is an important message to listen too. The propagation of our particular blend of species depends on our ability churn out not only successful entrepreneurs but also churn out other types of seeds of innovation

Thanks TED for spreading Ideas that Matter

On Sat 15 Mar 2008. [3] Comments

Sometimes a crash is a great excuse to load new software.

With many people away on vacations, busy checking to see if the BACN is done or working hard, I often wonder what people would change on the Internet if they could reload the software and change how everything works.

What would you change on the Internet if we were to start again?

Thanks to Hugh for the tip.

On Mon 27 Aug 2007. 1 Comment

Despite appearances I haven’t been in hiding purposefully in recent weeks. This simple clear instructional video on hiding notwithstanding.

The day to day activities of startup life as an investor and leader of a team have made finding the time to keep up my regular style of posting difficult. I normally like to dig into a topic with a bit of depth (as my long time readers have kindly suffered through) but I am finding too many interesting items that I want to cover. With too little time to do many of them justice with original content, I am going to be making a few minor changes.

I’ll be writing less and posting more often with short links to content and discussions I find interesting.

I’ll add my 0.02 cents where I feel I can add a dash of personal perspective, but I am not going to be authoring a lot of new, deep original content for a little while.

On Mon 16 Jul 2007. 1 Comment

There is so much to post about while attending the TED conference. I’m swamped catching up with friends and having the most interesting conversations. There is so much to post, I’m not going to try to cover it all right now, but will try a few bite size postings throughout the next couple of days and week.

I coudn’t not post this great video that my old friend (he was an advisory board member at Zero-Knowledge Systems) Larry Lessig just showed as part of his presentation on creating a read/write culture.

Fanatastic presentation. A few highlight comments from Larry,

• We can’t kill the remix culture, only criminalize it.
• We live in the age of prohibition where we are teaching our children that epxressing themselves using others media (remix) is illegal but widespread leading to a dilution of the respect of law.
• It won’t last. The read / write culture that our technology has created now empowers today’s youth not to be just consumers, but creators and we can’t go back.

Larry showed a few great examples of the creative remixing culture that I wanted to share.

Hilarious. This video was done by the artist Johan Soderberg.

On Thu 8 Mar 2007. [2] Comments

The startup that Alex Eberts and I are working on, Project Ojibwe is looking to hire a talented Python wrangler.  Our preferred team member will have experience with Python web frameworks (preferably Django) and experience with database, web services and web application architecture.

I’ve always wondered why if all markets are conversations, that the job market where we hire the people to make our products begins with a process that is as impersonal as asking someone to drop their pants.

So we are going to start an experiment in conversational recruiting. (Thanks Shel)

If you think you can add something special to our team, and are interesting in learning how we are building a fun, kick ass product that will help change the world then please start a conversation with us.

While we want to see your CV we are more interested in who you are through your work and in your own words. 

Introduce yourself to us, show us your work, send us a screencast, or a video of you telling us why you want to be part of what promises to be an incredibly rewarding adventure with our team.  Show us your online blog, open source contributions, Flickr fetish or the communities you contribute too.

We want to get to know you, not just what is on your CV.

You can send us large file attachements by using YouSendit and any screencast, video, sample source code, or other portfolio material (along with your CV) to pythonwrangler<@>project-ojibwe.org. 

This is for a full time position in Montreal.

To help start this conversation we decided to have some fun and have prepared this video for you.

Although we aren’t discussing the details about our project publicly just yet, we have ensured in keeping with the modus operandi of stealth companies we are fully buzzword compliant.

Here is a version of the video with our buzzword compliance filter activated.

Here is the full job description.

Sr. Python Wrangler & Developer
Project Ojibwe, Montreal’s hottest new startup, is looking for an experienced Python developer who wants to work in a fun environment with other motivated, talented developers.

We are creating an original idea that we hope will change the way people think about social networks and online communities. We are a small team that believes in creating mind-blowing web apps that have a positive impact on the world, avoiding meetings as much as possible, iterating quickly, and having fun at work. We’re looking for a senior python programmer with architecture experience and a positive attitude to help us bring our baby to the world.

Project Ojibwe will be coming to a browser near you in Summer 2007. The web community project is a funded startup founded by a team of Canada’s top Internet entrepreneurs.

Essential experience includes 3+ years of python development, architecture of large-scale web applications, database design and HTML/JavaScript, a sense of humour, an understanding of creating passionate users and a preference for getting things done.

Useful experience includes Django development and web service design.
Candidates will be expected to demonstrate their ability to stand out from the crowd. Creativity and a willingness to showcase your talent will be required of the successful candidate.

This position is full-time and not contract. Please, no recruiters.

Interested candidates should contact us with a resume and portfolio by email.

Développeur Python expérimenté.

Project Ojibwe, une des startups de Montréal les plus en vue de Montréal, est à la recherche d’un développeur Python expérimenté, ayant envie de travailler dans un environnement amusant, en compagnie d’une équipe motivée et talentueuse.

Nous travaillons sur un concept original qui, nous l’espérons, changera la manière dont on considère les réseaux sociaux et les communautés en ligne. Nous sommes une petite équipe qui pense que des applications web radicales peuvent changer positivement le monde, que moins il y a de meetings, mieux c’est, qu’il faut faire des itérations rapides et qu’il faut s’amuser au travail ! Nous sommes à la recherche d’un développeur Python expérimenté, ayant une expérience en architecture logicielle, et surtout ayant une attitude positive qui nous aidera à accoucher de notre bébé !

Project Ojibwe sera prochainement sur vos navigateurs, aux alentours de l’été 2007. Notre projet de communauté web est une startup fondée par une équipe d’entrepreneurs les plus actifs du Canada.

L’expérience indispensable est d’au moins 3 ans de développement en Python, architecture d’applications web à grande échelle, conception de base de données et HTML/JavaScript, un sens de l’humour, une compréhension de comment rendre les utilisateurs passionnés, et un goût prononcé pour “getting things done”.

Des connaissances de Django et en conception de services web sont un plus.
Nous attendons des candidats qu’ils fassent vraiment la différence, qu’il fassent preuve d’une forte créativité et d’une volonté à démontrer leur talents.

Ce poste correspond à un emploi à plein temps seulement. Pas d’agents de recherche d’emploi, svp.

Envoyez vos candidatures par courrier.

On Sat 24 Feb 2007. [19] Comments

I have recently made an investment in a new startup in Montreal being created by two great entrepreneurs who I’ve become friends with. The project is in the Internet video space and one of the trends that it involves is the growing army of pro-am videographers.

I liken it to 1994-95 when my brother and I were running our Internet Service Provider. At the time anyone who could format an <a href> was offering to put every laundromat and corner store on the web for a couple hundred dollars. In fact a little tidbit for interested Montrealers, I like many ISP entrepreneurs did some of this work myself. My very first commercial website I developed while running my ISP Infobahn was Mix 96 the Montreal radio station. I registered the domain name www.themix.com for them.

Some great web developers got their start this way (I was not among them), and others did it for a summer job or a part time hobby.

Similarly with the explosion of tools, sharing sites and cheap high quality hardware there are a growing number of videographers, video podcasters and amateur filmmakers who will be helping companies use video in new and interesting ways. New marketplaces will emerge around video that don’t necessarily involve Googleplex’s video advertising ambitions. (Or other advertising supported video plays).

My favorite site for photo’s, iStockPhoto has already begun to carry videos offering amateur videographers a way to sell their stock videography.

I think that we are just at the dawn of the Internet video age and that there are a lot of interesting new ways to build businesses that incorporate video.

When I was looking for examples of amateurs producing interesting videos and content, this was definitely not what I had in mind.

CAUTION - A LITTLE DARK HUMOR AND ADULT CONTENT. (It was just too funny not to post)

(Via Adam Curry - Thanks for the Laugh)

On Sat 17 Feb 2007. 1 Comment

I like to draw cultural references from all sorts of places to make my posts more fun.

As I pull together source material I have begun to realize that some of the references I use may be dated (I often forget my true age since I either grew up too fast starting companies at an early age or more accurately never grew up and like to pretend that I’m still a kid) either way I realize that many of the people using the Internet today may have no idea who Roman Moroni is - and why his massacre of the of the English language is so funny (from my earlier post No Fargin Iceholes Allowed).

Thanks to the Internet - this is easily fixed. Meet Roman Moroni. (Youtube link for the RSS enabled)

I would be remiss not to include a link to my favorite children’s television show that was my inspiration for my post on community production. For those not familiar with The Electric Company - I was making reference to the fact that with communities you’ve got the power. (YouTube link for the RSS enabled)

As a storyteller - I love how easy it is to tap into the Internet to find resources that help to shape or craft a story.

On Thu 23 Nov 2006. [3] Comments

Respect.

On Wed 15 Nov 2006. No Comments

On Tue 31 Oct 2006. [4] Comments