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Twitter, DMCA Take-downs & the Prior Restraint of First Amendment Speech

cgseo — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:58:00 +0000

Last week, the big news in DMCA takedowns was the sweeping removal of Hitler parody videos . Earlier this year, it was Google suddenly wiping out six separate music blogs . Today, it's the removal of a tweet . While this might not seem like a big deal on the surface, it leads to some much bigger questions about free speech, what content should fall under a proper DMCA take-down and whether or not the DMCA is a legal method of applying censorship by any content owner. Sponsor Here's the story as told by TechDirt: The story involves a music blogger named JP, who runs the appropriately named JP's blog . Not surprisingly, JP also has a Twitter account , where he mostly seems to post links to his blog posts. One such post was about the leak of the new album by The National. That post includes a link to Amazon where people can purchase the new album... and also a link to a download of one song (in MP3 format) from the album. According to JP's blog post on the subject, Twitter sent him a message last Thursday "in response to a DMCA take-down notice". The email, he writes, read as follows: jp917, Apr 22 03:10 pm (PDT): Hello, The following material has been removed from your account in response to a DMCA take-down notice: Tweet: http://twitter.com/jp917/statuses/12499491144 - New Post: Leaked: The National - High Violet http://jpsblog.net/2010/04/20/leaked-the-national-high-violet/ JP denies posting any link to the leaked album in his tweeted blog post, saying that he will not bother filing a counterclaim to the take-down. He also links to an article in Plagiarism Today from a year ago that alleges that Twitter's handling of DMCA take-downs and counterclaims is problematic and that "there is clearly an organization issue here and that's leading to confusion." While last weeks' take-downs of parody videos may have been "overbroad take-downs of legal content" , as the Electronic Frontier Foundation asserted, this sort take-down may go an extra step, beyond constitutionally protected First Amendment speech. With the YouTube take-downs, at least there was copyrighted content present, although it may have been used according to the law in the end. In this case, according to JP, there was neither pirated content nor a link to any DMCA-violating content. While TechDirt argues that "specifically, nothing in the tweet itself is infringing -- which means that the DMCA take-down for the tweet is bogus, and a violation of the DMCA itself", we spoke with David Sohn, senior policy council with the Center for Democracy & Technology , who said that the question might not be so cut and dry. Section 5.12D of the DMCA relates to cases involving "information location tools" and "links". "One possibility here is that Twitter has gotten a take-down notice that might not stand up as a totally valid take-down notice," said Sohn. On Sohn's advice, we asked Wendy Seltzer, founder of ChillingEffects.org , what this all meant and she explained that the burden of proof lies with the person creating the content and not the platform. All the platform, in this case Twitter, needs to know is that the complaint me be valid and that, by removing the offending content, they cover themselves legally in the eyes of the DMCA. Whether or not section 5.12 D of the DMCA actually applies doesn't really matter. The introduction to her recent paper, "Free Speech Unmoored in Copyright's Safe Harbor: Chilling Effects of the DMCA on the First Amendment" (.pdf), speaks clearly to the problem we saw when first reading this story: Each week, more blog posts are redacted, more videos deleted, and more web pages removed from Internet search results based on private claims of copyright infringement. Under the "safe harbors" of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Internet service providers are encouraged to respond to copyright complaints with content takedowns, assuring their immunity from liability while diminishing the rights of their subscribers and users. Paradoxically, the law's shield for service providers becomes a sword against the public who depend upon these providers as platforms for speech. The problem with the current format of the DMCA, especially in the case of something like a communication platform such as Twitter, is that a DMCA take-down notice becomes an extremely effective means of silencing information for a legally mandated period of 10 days. In essence, it provides those who wish to silence a voice a quick and legal means of enacting what is called a " prior restraint ", something clearly prohibited in First Amendment law. "When non-infringing speech is taken down, not only does its poster lose an opportunity to reach an audience, the public loses the benefit of hearing that lawful speech in the marketplace of ideas," writes Seltzer in the paper. Twitter offered this response: "Twitter regularly receives DMCA takedown notices. We strive to balance the interests of our users and copyright holders by reviewing each notice. After determining whether the notice is compliant with the law, we also consider other factors such as whether the notice is abusive to our users, or fails to take fair use into consideration. You can read more about our DMCA process here: http://help.twitter.com/entries/15795-copyright-and-dmca-policy "We are always working to improve our transparency. Users are notified immediately when content has been removed from their account. In this situation, we responded to a request to remove a Tweet containing a link to download content from an unreleased album. After reexamining our decision, we believe this was the correct first step. If the affected user believes we have made a mistake or that the notice is in error, the appropriate thing for the user to do is file a counter-claim. "We believe that the reasoning of the DMCA claim and its origin should be transparent to both the affected user and other interested parties. We are working on further steps to improve access to this information." So, our next logical question here is: Since this post includes the email from Twitter, which includes that original link to a blog post that supposedly linked to infringing content, can it too be removed according to the guidelines of the DMCA? Discuss

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Twitter, DMCA Take-downs & the Prior Restraint of First Amendment Speech

1 Out of 5 Textbooks Digital by 2014

cgseo — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:02:09 +0000

Today, digital textbooks for higher education and career education account for only 0.5% of all textbook sales in the United States. According to a new study by social learning platform Xplana , this could soon change. Xplana predicts that digital textbooks will account for almost 20% of all textbook sales within the next five years. This will make digital textbooks a $1 billion market. Sponsor According to Rob Reynolds, who is one of the co-authors of this report and also the director of product design and research for Xplana, this rapid growth will be driven by a number of factors, including the proliferation of tablets and e-readers like the iPad and Kindle, the availability and pricing of e-textbook content and an increasing interest in online learning. According to this study, sales of digital textbooks will increase 100% year-over-year in 2010 and the continue to grow rapidly for the years to come. Factors in Favor of Digital Textbooks Pricing, as the authors note, is a major factor that will make digital textbooks more interesting for students, who often spend hundreds of dollars per semester on textbooks. Flat World Knowledge , for example, offers its e-textbooks for free and only charges students for the print versions. Currently, teachers at over 400 colleges use Flat World Knowledge's textbooks for their courses. Other e-textbook companies like CourseSmart and MBS Direct also saw very strong growth in their sales last year. Other factors in favor of digital textbooks include the increasing availability (and affordability) of e-book readers and netbooks, as well as the move towards the ePub publishing standard for e-books. It is also important to note that textbooks publishers have long seen digital textbooks as way to shut down the market for used textbooks, which accounts for close to 35% of the textbook market today and which - of course - doesn't earn these publishers a single dollar. What Will these E-Textbooks Looks Like? It will be interesting to see what these textbooks will look like. Thanks to new initiatives from Wolfram Alpha and other data and service providers, interactive textbooks could soon replace static texts. The problem there, of course, is that these textbooks are more expensive to produce than today's textbooks. The lower cost of digital distribution and the publisher's ability to cut out the middlemen (distributors, campus bookstores etc.) will help to offset some or all of these additional costs. You can find the full report here Discuss

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1 Out of 5 Textbooks Digital by 2014

People on the Move in the Social Business Industry: April 18, 2010

cgseo — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 15:45:30 +0000

In an effort to recognize the changes in the social media space, I’ve started this post series ( see archives ) to both track and congratulate folks who get promoted, move, or accept new exciting positions. Please help me congratulate the following folks: Also, my submission form has changed to a new URL, the former Google form was giving me problems, so please use this one going forward . Lots of movement in the social business category, including a few key hires at firms that get the social business landscape and quite a few submissions continuing to come in on the form. Bruce Tempkin , top blogger at Forrester and Analyst departs Forrester, you can find his blog announcement . I’ve admired Bruce’s commitment and quality of work as a fellow colleague, and wish him luck on his next ventures. He really is one of the Star Analysts out there, be sure to connect with him and clinch his sage advice early before he gets totally booked. Dr Natalie Petouhoff “Dr Nat”, is a former colleague at Forrester covering the customer experience and knows the Social CRM landscape and social support. She’s also moved on, you can find her blog , and you should connect with her as she launches her consulting career. Dion Hinchcliffe joins the Dachis Group, one of the leading consulting firms that gets social business. The Dachis Group is poised to become the next system integrator vendor and consulting firm, and I expect them to give the ‘big’ consulting firms a run for their money as they continue to hire talent, thought leaders, and stay nimble and flexible. Steve Gillmor, famed Techcrunch IT editor (and former colleague of mine at PodTech) j oins Salesforce in the strategy team . This is an extremely smart move for Benioff as Salesforce knows success of the chatter and appxchange platform is to connect with the web startups. Steve is a direct and indirect influencer over the startup ecosystem and this lays a big bridge down for Salesforce to take marketshare in the developer ecosystem. Mona Nomura joins MySpace as a social media marketing manager , her online presence will match with the youthful and active MySpace community, a key hire in the regrowth and build of MySpace. Sanjay Dholakia former CMO at Lithium is now heading up Crowd Factory as the CEO , I’ve worked closely with Sanjay and am looking forward to see the next successes he does in the future. Uwe Hook launches BatesHook focusing on business transformation agency by integrating Social Media initiatives. Maria Ogneva joins Biz360 as Director of Social Media Propel and manage online buzz for Biz360, a social media monitoring and measurement platform. Greg Hollings joins FreshNetworks as Head of Community Management Manages and heads up the community management team at busy social media agency. Glenn Conradt joins CoreMedia as Vice President of North American Marketing, Sales and Operations. Dean McBeth joins Wieden + Kennedy as the Old Spice Community Manager focused on using social media to maximize the positive perception of the brand and the effectiveness of campaigns. Ryan Turner joins ZAAZ as Director, Social Media Lead the social media practice at ZAAZ, part of the WPP network. Brett Goodwin joins MyWebGrocer as Senior Account Director focused on sales. Sabrina Suares joins MyWebGrocer as Director, Eastern Sales Talented Bob Garfield joins Fizz as Consultant in Residence, I look forward to the work he does, find his announcement blog post . Ben Grossman joins Oxford Communications as Interactive Strategist Launch concerted social communications group and serve as interactive strategy lead for digital projects from an integrated standpoint. Ariel Sasso joins DataXu as Marketing Communications Manager Growing DataXu’s reputation and presence with integrated marketing, communications and social media initiatives. Tom Edwards joins Red Urban as VP, Digital Strategy & Emerging Technology Digital & Social Media Strategy How to connect with others (or get a job): Several people have been hired because of this blog post series, here’s how you can too: Submit an announcement If you know folks that are moving up in the social media industry, submit to this form Seeking Social Media Professionals? If you’re seeking to connect with community advocates and community managers there are few resources This list, which started with just 8 names continues to grow as folks submit to it. List of Social Computing Strategists and Community Managers for Enterprise Corporations 2008 –Social Media Professionals . Job Resources in the Social Media and Web Industry Web Strategy Jobs powered by Job o Matic (Post a job there and be seen by these blog readers, these affiliate fees pay for my hosting) Read Write Web keeps announcements flowing at Jobwire , although is broader than just social media jobs Facebook group for community manager group in Facebook Jake McKee’s community portal for jobs Chris Heuer’s Social Media Jobs SimplyHired aggregates job listings, as does Indeed ForumOne Jobs for Social Media and Community Teresa has a few jobs, some around community New Media hire has an extensive job database Social Media Headhunter Social media jobs Jobs in social media Altimeter Group’s list of social media consultants and agencies Social Media Strategists and Community Managers for 2010 Hiring? Leave a comment If you’re seeking candidates in the social media industry, many of them are within arms reach, feel free to leave a link to a job description (but not the whole job description, please)

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People on the Move in the Social Business Industry: April 18, 2010

Twitter’s Entire Archive Headed to the Library of Congress

cgseo — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:05:24 +0000

The US Library of Congress announced this morning via its official Twitter account that it will be acquiring the entire archive of Twitter messages back through March, 2006. In addition to a massive printed collection, the Library already has an extensive collection of other digital assets. The Library of Congress is the biggest library in the world. The Library does extensive work with data format standards , the semantic web and other platforms for outside analysis. The addition of Twitter into the organization's offerings could foster an enormous amount of academic research. From a new kind of historical record to an unprecedented opportunity for discovering patterns of social interaction, this is big. Sponsor When the Library of Congress was founded in the year 1800, publishing was very expensive and relatively few people did it. Today thanks to blogs, YouTube, Facebook and certainly Twitter - it's a new world. Publishing is far faster, easier and more accessible today than at any point in human history. That might seem obvious, but on a day like today it's worth thinking about some more. For now there's more questions than answers with regards to this Library of Congress Twitter news. Will the archive include friend/follower connection data? Will it be usable for commercial purposes? Will there be a web interface for searching it and will that change the face of Twitter search for good? Is there any way that the much larger archive of Facebook data could be submitted to the same body for analysis of the same kind? These kinds of large data sets are poised to become one of the most important resources the Internet creates. As Kenneth Cukier wrote in the Economist's recent Special Report on Big Data , "Data are becoming the new raw material of business: an economic input almost on a par with capital and labour." Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said today that there are 105 million registered users on the service. How will those users feel about their Tweets being archived for posterity? Will non-US users be included (it is a US based company) and object? Lots of questions remain. There's no word from Twitter itself about this news but we expect details to become public during the Chirp developers conference starting in just a few minutes. Update: Twitter HQ just told us that a blog post about this news is forthcoming. It's hard to imagine a more significant milepost in social media's early march toward becoming an essential component of our social experience. Discuss

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Twitter's Entire Archive Headed to the Library of Congress

UK MP Solicits Digital Pledges

cgseo — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:00:00 +0000

Tom Watson, the digitally literate British parliamentarian and Labour PPC for the West Bromwich East Constituency, has established a series of " digital pledges " in the wake of the Digital Economy Bill in the United Kingdom. Watson was one of the primary opponents of the bill, which makes it possible for the British government to put the kibosh on pesky websites under the guise of copyright infringements. Sponsor "I want to stand on a platform that is avowedly supportive of the generation that seek to use the Internet to make the world a better place," Watson said. He's leaving comments open until April 14 and has created a dedicated site for this discussion in the hope of honing the pledges. The discussion site has a voting function and "I believe that copyright and software patent laws should be reformed to reflect the needs of citizens in the Internet age" is the clear leader so far. Given the proliferation of information-restricting legislation around the globe, we would like to see candidates in every election in every country make similar pledges. How about it? Here's a model for you in Watson's. My (draft) Digital Pledges I will support and campaign for more transparency in the public and private sector. I will oppose measures that unjustly deny people's access to the Internet. Whilst noting the acknowledged limitations, I believe people have the right to free speech on the Internet. I will support all measures that allow people access to their personal data held by others. I further support restoration of control over how personal data is gathered, managed and shared to the individual. I will use my role as an MP to support international free expression movements. The Internet shall be built and operated openly and without discrimination. I will support all measures to bring non-personal public data into the public domain. I will support all proposals that lead to greater numbers joining the digital world and oppose measures that reduce it. I believe that copyright and software patent laws should be reformed to reflect the needs of citizens in the Internet age. Discuss

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UK MP Solicits Digital Pledges

ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 10 April 2010

cgseo — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 18:45:00 +0000

There are seven new events on the calendar this week: Head over to Stanford University to learn whether the real-time Web is an imperative or insanity. Check out the Net Prophet conference in Cape Town, South Africa. There's also the Digital Sport Summit in Melbourne, Australia. And don't forget to register for ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 ! How do you like your events guide? You can import individual events into Google Calendar using the link beside each entry, or download the entire thing as an iCal (and Google Calendar-importable) file, or even view it as a world map . Know of something cool taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or contact us . Sponsor 13 – 15 April 2010: Dallas, Texas PubCon South PubCon , the premier search and social media conference, features the industry's biggest names and key players shaping the future of the Web. PubCon South will include cutting-edge panel sessions exploring tracks dedicated to search, social media and affiliate marketing, an intensive professional search and social media training program, and some of the world's top keynote speakers. PubCon South at Dallas will also hold a one-day, two-track slate of intensive educational training programs led by some of the industry's most respected search professionals. The event takes place at the Richardson Conference and Civic Center. Register here . 16 April 2010: Mountain View, California Under the Radar: Cloud Under the Radar: Cloud is must-attend event for dealmakers and heads of IT from large enterprises, SMBs, service providers, carriers and media companies who are responsible for helping their companies leverage new technology and innovation in the fast-evolving IT ecosystem. Join us for the 15th Under the Radar conference, featuring a hand-picked selection of the world's most innovative cloud startups among 350 top tech, media, telcom and finance executives. For ticket and more information, visit http://undertheradarblog.com . 16 – 17 April 2010: Royal Oak, Michigan FutureMidwest FutureMidwest is the region's largest technology and knowledge conference. Founded by Adrian Pittman, Jordan Wolfe and Zach Lipson, FutureMidwest is the fusion of two successful conferences held in Michigan in 2009 - the Module Midwest Digital Conference and TechNow. Both conferences highlighted how technology and digital tools have dramatically changed the way we do business and the effect this transition has had on companies. FutureMidwest kicks things up a notch with presentations, group breakout sessions, relationship-building opportunities and influencers who are taking action to redefine business in the digital age. Register here . 17 April 2010: New York City Seven on Seven Seven on Seven will pair seven leading artists with seven game-changing technologists in teams of two, and challenge them to develop something new - be it an application, social media, artwork, product, or whatever they imagine - over the course of a single day. The seven teams will unveil their ideas at a one-day event at the New Museum on April 17. Seven on Seven Participants include, on the technology side, Ayah Bdeir (artist and programmer), Jeff Hammerbacher (Accel Ventures/ Facebook), David Karp (founder of Tumblr), Andrew Kortina (of Bitly/ Venmo), Hilary Mason (of betaworks), Matt Mullenweg (founder of WordPress), and Joshua Schachter (currently at Google, formerly at Yahoo, and founder of delicious), and on the art side, Tauba Auerbach, Cao Fei, Aaron Koblin, Monica Narula, Marc Andre Robinson, Evan Roth and Ryan Trecartin. Conference attendance includes a half-day session where the seven teams will unveil their ideas, followed by a cocktail reception in the New Museum Skyroom. Find registration information here . April 19, 2010: St. Louis Missouri Social Fresh St. Louis The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom lines. Over the course of the day you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Ford, Best Buy, Scottrade, Hardees, CMT and many more. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off. 19 – 21 April 2010: San Francisco, California DrupalCon DrupalCon is the premier conference focused on Drupal, the award-winning open source content management framework that is galvanizing social publishing and web development today. For a registration fee of $195, attendees get three full days of sessions led by the best and brightest Drupal experts. Drupal has been downloaded over 2 million times since its inception, and project growth has doubled annually for several years. Drupal is used to deliver a wide variety of application types including blogs, wikis, community networks, digital media portals, and web content publishing and management. 20 April 2010: Palo Alto, California The Real Time Web: Imperative or Insanity? The cost of creating, sharing and distributing data in real-time has become essentially zero, leading to an explosion of user generated content. Currently, every minute: 500,000 pieces of content are shared on Facebook, 25,000 messages are created on Twitter, and 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. Over the last decades, the amount of data created by individuals has doubled every two years. How do we effectively use that data to make decisions that drive value for consumers and businesses? How much data is too much to handle? And what's the opportunity for entrepreneurs? In this event , VLAB engages with entrepreneurs, investors, and established players to separate reality from hype while examining key business opportunities. 26 April 2010: San Francisco, California Future of Money and Technology Summit The Future of Money & Technology Summit will bring together the best and brightest thinkers around money, including visionaries, entrepreneurial business people, developers, press, investors, authors, solution/service providers, and organizations who work where cash and commerce collide. We meet to discuss the evolving ecosystem around money in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking environment. Featured speakers include Jolie O'Dell, formerly of ReadWriteWeb, as well as representatives from Wells Fargo Bank, Kiva, SharesPost, Jambool, Founders Fund, Outright.com, SoftTech VC, and many more. Use discount code "rww" to get 10% off registration . 3 – 6 May 2010: San Francisco, California Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco brings together the designers, developers, entrepreneurs, VCs, marketing professionals, product managers, and business strategists - from startups to enterprises - that are building the next-generation Web. Along with a vibrant Expo Hall and plenty of networking opportunities, four main conference tracks cover a spectrum of Web 2.0 topics from business strategy to Web design, user experience, developer hacks, community building, real-time, mobile, cloud computing, user-generated content, and more. Featured speakers include Chris Anderson, Ben Huh, Charlene Li, Kevin Lynch, Hilary Mason, and Brad Stone. Register today . 7 May 2010: Mountain View, California ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 The ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 will be an exploration of the latest Mobile development trends - both the technology and the emerging business applications. Get ready to explore, think and create the future of Mobile with the brightest in the industry, your peers! As in our last Summit, The Real-Time Web, the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit is an unconference. An unconference is a participant driven conference where the agenda is created on the day, in real-time and discussions are lead by conference participants. Read about the history of unconferences . We will have two main tracks at this Summit - Development and Business - so the Summit will be of interest to managers, marketers, developers, innovators, entrepreneurs and thought leaders alike. Here's a sample of some of the topics we'll explore in both of these tracks. Geo-location services - what can you do using location as a platform ? Commerce & Marketing - as more and more consumers use smartphones, how can businesses utilize this channel? Content, Publishing & Recommendations - the technologies and best practices. Mobile Social Networking - how to tap into communities on mobile devices. Internet of Things - the emerging opportunities from sensor and RFID data. Augmented Reality - the technology and business applications of AR. Native App vs. Browser Based - Including iPhone, Android, RIM, Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian. Click here to register now , or to become a sponsor , or to help shape the conference . 11 May 2010: San Francisco, California FinovateSpring FinovateSpring 2010 will again showcase the most cutting-edge financial and banking technology innovations to Silicon Valley and the world. With Finovate's signature mix of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) from handpicked companies and intimate networking time with their executives, this conference packs a ton of unique value into a single day. Come see the cutting edge of banking and financial technology and network with hundreds of the leading financial executives, venture capitalists, press, industry analysts, bloggers and fintech entrepreneurs. Early bird registration rates are available. 13 May 2010: Cape Town, South Africa Net Prophet 2010 Conference Taking place on 13 May, 2010 at the Old Mutual Business School in Pinelands, Cape Town, this is the second annual Net Prophet conference to be hosted by the RAMP Foundation, a non-profit entity created by the RAMP Group as a means for social investment within the local Internet based economy. After a very successful conference last year, where over 400 attendees tapped the minds of leading Internet experts and successful entrepreneurs, Net Prophet 2010 will build on the same format and anticipates on reaching many more people. May 17 2010: San Francisco, California SF MusicTech Summit The SF MusicTech Summit will bring together 700-plus visionaries in the music/technology space - the best and brightest entrepreneurs, developers, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce. We meet to discuss the evolving music, business and technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive-to-dealmaking environment. Enter the discount code "rww" to get 10% off . 18 May 2010: Silicon Valley, California Founder Showcase On Tuesday, May 18th, 10 companies elected by over 13,500 registered CEO Members of TheFunded.com will present to an audience of 200 investors, founders, and members of the press. A panel of experts will critique the pitches, and voting from those in attendance will determine the grand prize winner, who will receive $2,500 on the spot and a host of other prizes. Founder Showcase guests will be treated to food and drinks, as well as informative talks by two leading Silicon Valley CEOs. There is also a networking and Pitch Table area for startups, service providers, and investors to convene. Previous investors that have attended include Charles River Ventures, JAFCO, Leapfrog, Polaris, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, First Round, Blue Run, and various angels. Over $250,000 has been raised by presenting companies that met investors at previous Founder Showcase events. Use discount code "RWW" to get a 10% discount. 18 – 19 May 2010: Santa Clara, California Social Media Strategies Social Media Strategies is a conference on social business, social marketing, advertising and optimization. Social media technologies are fundamentally changing the sales, marketing and operations process. Business are leveraging social technologies to acquire, market, and communicate with customers. This conference features cutting edge topics, keynotes, workshops and discussions that provided strategic knowledge, insights and real world examples on how to successfully plan, implement and manage your organizations social media efforts to achieve your business goals. Use the code "readwriteweb" when you register and get $100 off . 19 – 21 May 2010: San Francisco, California eCommAmerica Emerging Communications Conference & Awards (eComm) is focused on what's "Next in Telecom, Mobile & Internet Communications". It's designed to accelerate communications technology and business model innovation. Participants attend to be exposed to the latest technologies, research, companies, trends and opportunities. Day three this year is being dedicated to augmented reality. AR may prove to be as significant as the introduction of the Internet itself, moving computers off desks and out of their separate modality into our lives. Use discount code 'ReadWriteWeb' for 10% discount. 25 – 27 May 2010: Denver, Colorado Glue Glue is the only conference devoted solely to exploring the problem-sets facing architects, developers and IT professionals in a "post-cloud" world. Glue focuses on the APIs and protocols (Twitter, Facebook, Websockets, PubSubHubBub, XMPP), formats and standards (RDF/Linked Data, JSON, Microformats, HTML5), platforms and providers (Amazon, Rackspace, Google App Engine, Salesforce.com, Eucalyptus), Identity Protocols (OAuth/WRAP, SAML, OpenID, SPML) emerging NoSQL data models (Cassandra, CouchDB, MongoDB, Riak, HBase), and other mechanisms that are building the post-cloud world. ReadWriteCloud will be blogging live from Gluecon and CloudCamp, and ReadWriteWeb's Alex Williams will be moderating the "Managing Complexity in the Cloud" session. Please join us May 25-27 in Denver, Colorado. ReadWriteWeb readers can receive 10% off of registration by using the code "RWW12". 27 – 28 May 2010: Beijing, China Global Mobile Internet Conference The Global Mobile Internet Conference is designed specifically for entrepreneurs, executives and influencers to understand and capitalize on the growing opportunities in mobile internet. Though focused on opportunities in Asia, much of the conference dialogue is intended to compare and trade best practices across borders, especially between the East and West. Around 1000 industry leaders from Asia, Europe and North America are expected to attend. The conference will be in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. 28 May 2010: Beijing, China Global Mobile Internet Conference - Innovation Show & Startup Competition The Global Mobile Internet Conference Innovation Show intends to be a launch pad for innovative mobile internet startups from around the world. Innovation Show finalists will have the opportunity to present their company to an expected 1,000 investors, industry leaders, and press. Finalists will be judged by and receive feedback from a team of respected venture capitalists and angel investors. The judges will choose one company as the GMIC Innovation Show Winner. Startups must apply by April 4. 15 – 16 June 2010: New York City Corporate Social Media Summit The Corporate Social Media Summit is a two day conference focused exclusively on how big businesses can take advantage of social media to enhance their marketing/comms strategy. Featuring: Practical and relevant insights from peers who have already used social media successfully 20-plus corporate speakers (including PepsiCo, Whole Foods, Dell, McDonald's, General Motors, Citi, Johnson & Johnson), Best practice, benchmarks and practical next steps you can use to take advantage of social media in your business A tightly-focused agenda with 14 in-depth, practical workshops giving you knowledge on only the most critical business issues surrounding corporate use of social media Save $400 if you quote RWW400 when booking. Book here . 22 – 24 June 2010: Santa Clara, California Velocity Now in its third year, Velocity - the Web Performance and Operations Conference from O'Reilly Media - is dedicated to helping people build a better Internet that is Fast by Default. Join hundreds of web developers and experts under one roof from June 22-24, 2010 in Santa Clara, CA Velocity packs a wealth of big ideas, know-how, and connections into three concentrated days. You'll be able to apply what you've learned immediately for high impact results and you'll come away prepared for what's ahead. O'Reilly Velocity 2010 is the premier conference dedicated to building industrial strength sites, at internet speed. Register Now and save 25% with discount code "vel10rww". 29 – 30 June 2010: London Cloud Computing World Forum The 2nd annual Cloud Computing World Forum is the perfect event to learn and discuss the development, integration, adoption and future of cloud computing and SaaS. Building on the success of the 2009 show, this two day conference and free-to-attend exhibition will provide a focused platform for the global cloud and SaaS industry. Show highlights include: Co-located with CloudCamp London Co-located with Green IT conference Free-to-attend exhibition with seminar and scenario theatre Free-to-attend evening awards presentation Hear from leading case studies on how they have integrated cloud computing and SaaS into their working practices Learn from the key players offering cloud and SaaS services Evening networking party for all attendees 7 July 2010: Melbourne, Australia Digital Sport Summit Digital Sport Summit is Australia's premier sport and digital media event. Hear from social media pioneers who are changing the face of Australian sport. Learn how social media and mobile technology is taking fan engagement to a whole new level. Speakers on the day will cover a variety of topics including: iPhone application development for sport Convincing management of the case for social media How to monetize social media Fantasy sports Social media from an athlete's perspective With speakers representing Essendon Football Club, Cricket Victoria, Herald Sun, Football Federation Australia and more. Digital Sport Summit will take place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. 5 October 2010: New York City FinovateFall FinovateFall will return to Manhattan on Tuesday, October 5 to showcase dozens of the biggest and most innovative new ideas in financial and banking technology from established leaders and hot young companies. The Fall event is the original and largest Finovate and features a single day packed with our special blend of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) and intimate networking time with top executives from the innovative demoing companies. FinovateFall is a unique chance to see the future of finance and banking before your competition and find the edge you need in today's market. Early bird registration rates are available. Download this entire events calendar in iCal format. Discuss

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ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 10 April 2010

User Ignorance Causes Cloud Security Leak; Accounts, Passwords Revealed

cgseo — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:30:00 +0000

At 1:00 a.m. on Sunday morning I was doing routine maintenance on my personal Amazon Web Services account and instead found myself looking at something I had no right to be seeing: A database with 800,000 user accounts to the e-card site CardMaster.com . Along with that were the database passwords and back end of a major U.S. Public Broadcasting Service news show website ( Gwen Ifill's Washington Week ), including daily updates from panelists on the stories they cover. I wish I wasn't the person to find this. I founded one of Amazon's earliest dashboards. My consultancy is on Amazon's European Customer Advisory Board. But this highlights a significant issue in the cloud today: There is a whole new user profile acting as developer and administrator. We are becoming empowered with amazing tools - and being given enough rope to really hang ourselves. Sponsor Guest author Jonathan Siegel is a serial entrepreneur and founder of the cloud applications consultancy ELCTech.com as well as a handful of cloud startups. Jonathan's book, Electric Connections , is due out in June of this year. I am an early adopter, business builder and owner of a cloud consultancy. On Sunday morning I went to clear out my personal Amazon Web Services account of excess files after seeing huge usage numbers from a report by CloudSplit. For those technically inclined, I was clearing out my S3 buckets and moving the few files that I wanted to save into an EBS disk instead. My EBS disk ran out of space and I went to use a feature called EBS Snapshots. Snapshots are like a tape backup of your EBS disk drive. That's when I noticed something odd: My EBS Snapshot account was filled with hundreds of snapshots, when I knew I had only made a handful. I wondered, Why do I have access to these backups? Were these backups made by my teammates? Shared snapshots from Amazon? Or something else... What I saw were backups of Enron emails, a genomics database and then two made my stomach turn - a database for 800,000 user accounts to CardMaster.com and the database and site files for the Washington Week website. Yeah, the Enron emails are a non sequitur and the genomics database was likely meant to be public. But the other two, there's no way they were intended for the public, yet here they were - marked as public and available to me or any other Amazon cloud user. How Did This Happen? Amazon is the largest and longest running public cloud computing platform. It has pushed the boundaries of technology infrastructure for us users. In fact, it has given us tools that are more powerful than anything we previously had available in our own small datacenters. This is great, because before we needed to hire trained Cisco or NetApp administrators in order to do basic tasks as our websites scaled. This was expensive and added another step - a delay - to our deployments. Amazon's infrastructure commoditizes much of this technology into simple Web calls; paste some XML to Amazon and your website gets a full incremental backup to live-networked NAS. But as Stan Lee has warned us: With great power comes great responsibility. By giving programmers control of the network and storage, we've empowered developers to take on system administration chores. This power has come too quickly or is being digested too lightly - as my discovery has shown. In the case of PBS's Washington Week there was quick acceptance of the issue. "It was human error and nothing personal was exposed," said Kevin Dando, PBS's Director of Digital Communications. "Although we weren't aware of the issue initially, it was easily corrected. Because of Amazon's strong audit capabilities we could pinpoint the error and fix it quickly." Despite numerous attempts we were unable to reach CardMaster.com. This highlights a deeper issue in the cloud today: Despite what you may think, cloud security is not sexy. We are seeing products that address the baseline needs of cloud functionality, like Amazon's dashboard and the support sites for the cloud. They focus on the sexy: deploying mobile apps, auto-scaling, grid processing and other buzz-word-friendly features. But the dirty truth is that the cloud has a whole new user profile acting as administrator and needs a new set of tools and expectation management to ensure that little mistakes make little problems and not big ones. Remember: This is not something that Amazon did wrong. This is an intentional switch thrown by Amazon's users that allowed their data to be public to any other Amazon user. The users did not mean to hit that switch and it's unclear whether those users would have found this issue without my notification. This is the switch in Amazon's Web Console. It can be more subtle when packaged deep within cloud-assisting tools: And Why Me? A spokesperson for Amazon pointed out that snapshots were private by default and users must choose to share them. According to Amazon, "in general users understand this feature very well as this is no different than users explicitly choosing to share their data by any means." However, as we've seen, users are obviously making their data inadvertently public. Amazon said they were updating their documentation "to provide more explicit guidance on this feature," and that they would be "reaching out to the few who may be unknowingly sharing their snapshots." The question, though, is: Is it too easy to accidentally make your data public - and whose role is it to play data cop? This leads to me, at 1 a.m., and finding security leakage with Amazon's cloud customers while doing unrelated housekeeping. Look, I'm anything but an IT Security guy; I've got enough on my plate to worry about. For god's sakes, I have 6 kids! Moreover, I'm an outspoken supporter for moving companies to the cloud - and I exclusively recommend Amazon's cloud because of its reliability and features. Why is it me that finds this security issue - one that has been open since January of this year if the Snapshot dates are accurate. This tells me that there is a pattern about to be replayed: That the users on the cloud today are a motley crew. That we need more supervision and hand-holding - whether we like it or not. That powerful services like CloudKick and CloudSplit need to be encouraged to add security as a top-priority feature. And we need to budget for their services and embrace their boring, yet hyper-important role as perimeter guard and security inspector. If I were to try to keep this security problem in the bag - and avoid alerting the community - I would be fostering a sense of complacency that is antithetical to the marketplace needs. The cloud is so young that when we find a problem we need to admit it and find real, workable solutions. Since the cloud represents new ways of doing things, it gives us new ways of getting in trouble, and we need a lively forum for nipping these issues in the bud and laying a framework for ongoing success. What Now? If you are on Amazon's cloud, I can't stress enough that you need to immediately go to your AWS Management Console. Check at a minimum that your Snapshots, for every Region, are marked PUBLIC only if you mean them to be available to ALL other Amazon Web Services users. I've already checked mine. If you find data that you did not intend to make public, you need to engage your security team to remove the snapshots from the public and mitigate any data exposure. Hopefully this gets chalked on the wall as a lesson learned - and we continue our march to the cloud with a deeper appreciation of our security support needs. This isn't about calling people out. I work in the cloud and am passionate about its development. These mistakes could very well have been ones I made - or any other cloud user. To move the cloud forward we need to encourage a dialog about our new found power, new paradigms and new needs in the cloud. Discuss

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User Ignorance Causes Cloud Security Leak; Accounts, Passwords Revealed

Where 2.0: Quova and SimpleGEO Make App Building Easier

cgseo — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:40:00 +0000

If you believe in matches made in heaven then you will understand why the new partnership between Quova and SimpleGeo is just that. Developers can now harness the power of Quova's complex IP geolocation technology within SimpleGeo's framework for creating location apps. Quova announced the partnership today at Where 2.0 in San Jose, and said it will broaden its customer base and provide new contexts for its data. In return, SimpleGeo wins by giving developers a more complete solution for geolocation. Sponsor Quova specializes in IP Geolocation - a process that uses the IP address of a person's computer or mobile phone gateway to determine that person's location. The results are less specific than those provided by a GPS-enabled smartphone or WiFi, but is often the best available location data for many users. The data can be used to target content by region, or localize online searches. Quova has historically focused on the enterprise market, which is highly sophisticated and able to consume raw IP location data. SimpleGeo is a cloud-based geodata company that has been building its geolocation services since May 2009. The company, founded by Joe Stump and Matt Galligan , is unique in its focus on location-based services. It announced the availability of a data storage service, an iTunes-like data marketplace, and an API to developers today at Where 2.0. These offerings are described by SimpleGeo as a "ready-to-use platform that makes it easy to store, scale and discover geodata for use on the Web and in applications." "After discovering Quova¹s offerings, it became obvious that we needed to include their IP Geolocation data in our ready-to-use location infrastructure," said Matt Galligan, cofounder and CEO of SimpleGeo. "Quova's data will enable developers using SimpleGeo to locate their users easily, regardless of access to GPS or WiFi data. The partnership just made sense." Essentially, the partnership creates a geolocation "failover" system for developers. Applications and services can select the best available source for location data. The level of accuracy ranges from GPS smartphones, at the high end, to Wi-Fi data from

Coalition of Tech Companies Wants to Give You Digital Due Process

cgseo — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:46:44 +0000

Google, together with Microsoft, AT&T, AOL, Intel, the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a number of other organizations launched a new effort to modernize the Electronic Communications Act (ECPA) today. ECPA , which was enacted in 1986, sets standards for low enforcement access to electronic communications and other data. According to this coalition of technology companies, which calls itself Digital Due Process , ECPA has been outpaced by technological advances like cloud computing and is now a "patchwork of confusing standards that have been interpreted inconsistently by the courts, creating uncertainty for both service providers and law enforcement agencies." Sponsor ECPA: Outdated and Convoluted In an announcement earlier today, Google specifically noted that while the ECPA was originally designed to protect citizens from unwarranted government intrusion (while still giving law enforcement the necessary tools to ensure public safety), ECPA is now completely outdated. Indeed, as Google notes, ECPA became law before most people even knew what email was and long before the "cloud" became a buzzword. Today the law gives more protection to data you store locally than to data stored in the cloud - an issue the Digital Due Process coalition is trying to rectify. The coalition also wants to ensure that government agencies get a search warrant before they can track the location of your cell phone. Digital Due Process also wants to protect citizens (and its member organizations) against unnecessary bulk data requests from government agencies. As CNET's Declan McCullagh noted yesterday, ECPA is notorious for being extremely convoluted. Digital Due Process also noted that the ECPA standard are not clear (especially with regards to access to location information), that it's not clear how the Fourth Amendment applies to new services and information and that some fo the standards are simply illogical. More Resources The current law Legal analysis of the current law from the Digital Due Process coalition (PDF) Digital Due Process wants the U.S. Congress to completely rewrite the law, but to focus on a handful of issues: access to email and other private communications stored in the cloud, access to location information, and the use of subpoenas to obtain transactional data. Here are the four ways Digital Due Process wants to modernize the ECPA: Better protect your data stored online : The government must first get a search warrant before obtaining any private communications or documents stored online; Better protect your location privacy : The government must first get a search warrant before it can track the location of your cell phone or other mobile communications device; Better protect against monitoring of when and with whom you communicate : The government must demonstrate to a court that the data it seeks is relevant and material to a criminal investigation before monitoring when and with whom you communicate using email, instant messaging, text messaging, the telephone, etc.; and Better protect against bulk data requests : The government must demonstrate to a court that the information it seeks is needed for a criminal investigation before it can obtain data about an entire class of users. Discuss

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Coalition of Tech Companies Wants to Give You Digital Due Process

Report: Last Bastion of the Bookworm Becomes Internet Hub

cgseo — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 20:13:00 +0000

Nearly 15 years ago, libraries were still primarily a place to go check out the printed, bound word. Only 28 percent offered Internet access, whereas today, almost all public libraries offer access and are helping to bridge the digital divide, according to a report by the University of Washington on Internet use in libraries across the country. According to the report, "the wiring of public libraries has transformed one of the nation's most established community resources into a critical digital hub". Sponsor Every year, 169 million people visit their local public library and 45 percent of them access the Internet, according to the report. The report, which focuses its numbers of people 14-years old and older, is based on nearly 50,000 surveys from patrons of more than 400 public libraries across the country. As Seth Godin pointed out last January, libraries "can't survive as community-funded repositories for books that individuals don't want to own" and that the "number one thing they deliver to their patrons is free DVD rentals." Now, we can add "Internet access" to the top of the list, as "Internet access is now one of the most sought after public library services", according to the report. The report notes that patrons use the Internet for a variety of tasks - from job searches to civic participation to finance to school kids doing their homework - but offers an interesting stat right off the bat. Of those people using the Internet at the library, "more than three-quarters of these people had Internet access at home, work, or elsewhere." The library, it would seem, offers a respite from the coffee shop, a refuge from familial fights over the single home computer and an alternative to the dizzyingly slow dial-up Internet that so many still have to deal with. But what are they doing with this new found Internet provider? Another telling number, though, was that 60 percent of respondents said they use library computers to maintain "social connections" and we can't help but wonder if libraries are giving people a safe place to Facebook-lurk. That is, many places of employment and schools ban social networks - are libraries a way around that for workers and teens? Overall though, the report does seem to show that libraries are a "technological lifeline to children and families in need", with 44 percent of people in households below the federal poverty line using public libraries for Internet access. And while we may make fun of Facebook occasionally, social networking can be a key tool in finding employment and networking. But beyond that, we can see that employment, education and health information are among the top use cases. In the end, the report calls for continued support for a public system that seems to be the biggest bridge for the digital divide . It is certainly a shift in focus, but we hope that any hard feelings over digital taking away from the printed word don't get in the way of keeping public libraries funded. As the report reads, "The findings signal this is a moment when federal, state, and local governments should invest more, not less, in the computing capacity of the nation's libraries to help advance a wide range of policy goals." Discuss

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Report: Last Bastion of the Bookworm Becomes Internet Hub