You may have seen this story already, about a Bezos investment vehicle putting an undisclosed sum of money in 37signals, a firm that resolutely repelled all funding boarders before.
My post is not about Bezos or about 37signals, but about the comments this story has attracted.
Soon, we are going to have to figure out the answer to an emerging question, one that could have profound implications for how social software is created, funded, consumed and recommended.
Just who owns social software?
We spent the weekend with my mother-in-law down in Chichester. She lives in a wonderful flint cottage, quintessentially English in every respect. Including its garden.
Of late she’s been thinking of moving home, mainly to switch from living on four levels to living on one. She’s a talented artist and sculptor, and is very meticulous in everything she does. Including her preparations for potentially moving home.
Which brings me to the reason for this post, the kernel. A seed.
Her house has been home to her for nearly three decades, and over that time she has made the garden her very own. Now, as she considers moving from there, she’s been preparing.
Preparing by using diverse means to create transportable copies of her favourite plants. The fig tree that miraculously produces giant fruit in an English climate. The rose bush that has a scent all its own, to the point it probably deserves bottling.
What she’s been doing is using seeds where appropriate, cuttings where appropriate, even seedling plants as needed. And planting them in stand-alone pots with the right earth and conditions. Planting them with love and care and devotion, and enjoying watching them grow.
And I thought to myself, what a simple yet elegant example of extreme nonrival goods with low reproduction costs. This is how snowballs and kernels work. Sure there is an economic model there and money to be made. People sell seeds and seedlings and cuttings and plants. And things to feed them and nurture them and look after them. And even pay people to do different aspects of all this.
People make money because of plants rather than with plants. Exceptions exist, and you can pay enormous sums for the exceptions. But they are exceptions. I can try to specialise in bonsai or orchids, or pay others to help me.
“Because of rather than with”, as Doc has instilled in me. And “my choice”. Two phrases that the DRM hawks would do well to learn.
We’re seeing a shift from:
Seen the movie. Bought the video. Got the Tshirt. Got the fridge magnet.
To
(co-)Shot the movie. Mashed the video. Designed the Tshirt. Made the fridge magnet.
Interesting.
This may be familiar to most of you, but it was a revelation to me. So I thought I’d share it just in case.
Malcolm and I were chatting this morning, and the subject of comment spam came up. Both of us had noticed that of late, there had been a profusion of comments that made perfect grammatical sense, had no links, avoided mentioning sex, drugs, rock’n’roll ringtones or organic growth, and seemed to be an extract from something somewhere. The names and reference points of the “sender” were well-formed as well. In fact there was only one problem with all such comments; even the most extreme flight of fancy was inadequate in making a connection between the post and the comment.
You’ve probably had the same experience. Malc’s view of what was happening was interesting; the spammers are trying to get approval for the innocuous comments in order to “teach” the spam filters that they are Orl Korrect. And once that status has been consistently established, the games begin.
Makes sense to me.
I’m glad my faith in the “system” in India was not misplaced. The sledgehammer was inadvertent indeed.
Thanks to Chukti, I now have quotable information from the authorities in India. It appears that some truly inflammatory material was published on one of the blog sites and an emergency response team was activated as a result.
There is no value in my detailing what the inflammatory material was. Suffice it to say that it was enough to call for a DefCon Five in Indian internet terms.
And that’s where I pick up the story:
The
matter was immediately taken note of by our CERT (Computer Emergency
Response Team) and the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) was informed
of it. The DOT took up the matter forthwith with the search engines and
instructions were also issued to all Internet providers to block the two
impertinent pages. Because of a technological error, the Internet
providers went beyond what was expected of them which in turn resulted in
the unfortunate blocking of all blogs. Department of Telecommunications
have now clarified the issue and the error is being rectified and it is
expected that normalcy in respect of blogs will soon be restored.
Service is being resumed, albeit slowly.