Patent Troll Takes Twitter To Court For Creating Virtual Community of Celebs

You read that right - someone is apparently suing Twitter because it lets celebs interact online. The popular micro-blogging service partly owes its popularity to celebrities like P Diddy, Ellen Degeneres, 50 Cent, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore who command millions of Twitter followers. It's exactly this aspect of the service that's now under fire from little-known VS Technologies, LLC that doesn't even have a website. This company apparently holds rights to a 2002 patent entitled "Method and system for creating an interactive virtual community of famous people" and they're seeking an unspecified amount of damages to be paid that"cannot be less than would constitute a reasonable royalty for the use of the patented technology, together with interest and costs as fixed by this Court," as they've put it.

The patent in question, filed with the US Patent & Trademark Office under patent number 6,408,309. reads:

As it pertains to this lawsuit, very generally speaking, the '309 Patent discloses methods and systems for creating interactive, virtual communities of people in various fields of endeavor wherein each community member has an interactive, personal profile containing information about that member.

It doesn't come as a surprise that in a sue-happy nation like ours people imagine ridiculous reasons meant to extort cold hard cash from successful companies like Twitter. Celebs on Twitter? Sue-worthy. Facebook chat? Hell, yes. The iPhone home button? Sue the hell out of them!
Patents exist to protect intellectual property. That said, patent trolls are too often allowed to take advantage of the system in order to basically blackmail successful American companies. It's clear that our judicial system and patent laws need a thorough change - and for the better.

newlifes.com web 3.0 social semantic search engine competition

Don’t try to market to developers. Instead, solve their problems. 

Not long ago you could count the number of 'developer marketing' programs on one hand. Now there are hundreds of programs as Web companies and enterprises open APIs. These companies know that developer adoption will make their API strategy succeed or fail. 

But Developer Marketing is an oxymoron. Developers hate marketing. 

You cannot drive adoption by 'marketing to developers.' Sure, you can send offers to your developers but your mileage may vary. 

A better formula - understand what's important to developers and give them what they need to reach these goals. Developers want to:

• build new skills that lead to the best projects and jobs. This is why new or proprietary tools and programming models are tough to get off the ground - it's a small market of new projects for the developer.
• increase their productivity. With good tools and by connecting developers with decent resources and each other for help. This is why sites like StackOverflow take off.
• be recognized for good work and see their products used. Focus on showcasing their work, not your product. It's not about you.
• get paid. Think App Store model, or affilate marketing networks.

Talk to the folks that made the big developer networks sucessful and you'll hear these points over and over. Some others:

• Developers are not buyers, but are very strong influencers. There are superstars in the developer world - make them fans and that is the best marketing you'll ever get.
• You can't 'own' or 'use' developers because they have an account on your service. Developers have lots of options and switching costs might be low from your API.
• Act on their feedback. Developers are smart and listening and acting on their complaints and ideas is critical to your credibility.
• Developer communities are fragmented. For example, there is no such thing as an "API developer', but instead there are Twitter or Facebook or Salesforce developers.

Once you have attracted a developer to use your service - they are like gold. So treat them with respect - don't try to 'use' developers or you might lose them!

Partner or Open API strategy: Where should you start?

Partner or Open API strategy: Where should you start?

Embarking on an API project--let alone an enterprise-wide API strategy--can be a scary proposition. It's easy to imagine a big-budget API project costing more than expected, taking longer than planned and ultimately not delivering the anticipated value.

We've observed that many successful API initiatives are done in stages. With each stage more risk and larger investment can be made by building on previous projects.

Stage 1: Internal APIs

Typically the first stage is to create an API for an internal development team to use. Often times at this stage, the demand for an API is driven by the need for mobile applications. The API doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be good enough to meet the concrete needs of the mobile application. Tackling the internal, mobile project as a first step allows the API team to learn big lessons while keeping the project scope small so that the API starts to add value immediately while setting the ground work for later stage developments.

Stage 2: Partner APIs

The second stage is to collaborate with partners. At the beginning of this phase we see companies work with one or two strategic partners, who will create applications, add-ons or integrations with the API. At this stage the API will be hardened and because the API will be used across organizational boundaries, the API team will learn a new set of lessons including support, documentation, authentication schemes and so on. One key benefit is that the business development team will start to see movement with their backlog of projects into IT. After the API team gets comfortable with a couple strategic partners it is a natural next step to create resource portals and automated systems for provisioning partner keys so that more and more partners can take advantage of the API.

Stage 3: Open Innovation

The final phase is open innovation. After the API team has learned from internal and partner projects there will be a vast amount of institutional wisdom and courage for opening the API to the world of innovative developers, who can take the API in creative, valuable directions for the business.

Exceptions to the rule
Netflix has followed the opposite direction and has found huge success. They started with the open API strategy (as a result of a contest) and found over time that by far most of their traffic came from a few partners who were building streaming services for specific connected devices.

The month the new interface went out for Xbox, streaming went up very noticeably. While Netflix still supports the pubic API, they put more focus behind adding and supporting larger partners over 'the long tail' of developer apps, until they had over 200 mobile partners and 25% of prime time internet traffic. Later, internal developers re-engineered their private streaming API.. by using the public API.

So while long tail innovation is good for buzz... the enterprises that focus on collaboration with partners and customers will win. Even at NPR, the API project was successful because it powered the internal website and partner collaboration.

 check out this webcast on the Netflix API strategy. 

But what about smaller companies? Many smaller companies or startups might not have large partners that can give them huge distribution. In this case, an open API can be a way to get some uptake of an API. More on that next.

Get Your Idea Approved

Get Your Idea Approved When you have a great idea, don't assume that others will share your enthusiasm for it. Whether a recommendation or proposal is approved is often less about the value of the idea itself than how it is presented. Here are three things you can do to give your next proposal a fighting chance: Build allies. Meet with stakeholders before you need their formal approval to generate interest and pre-sell them on the idea. Keep it simple. Don't weigh your proposal down with tons of data and analysis. Too many details can distract an audience. Be straightforward and concise. Highlight the benefits. Your audience will want to know what's in it for them. Be sure to position the idea in terms of the benefits they stand to gain.

How to Say No to Making an Introduction

How to Say No to Making an Introduction Providing a professional introduction is a great way to help out friends or colleagues. But you should never broker a connection if you can't vouch for the person's qualifications. Here are three steps for politely declining an introduction you don't feel comfortable making: Be transparent. Respond honestly and explain why you aren't making the introduction. Perhaps you feel the connection isn't a good fit or won't lead anywhere. Give a consolation prize. Offer up something else instead. Give advice or guidance on what the requester can do next time he makes a similar appeal. Stay in touch. If you are willing to reconsider his request at a later time, say so. Leave the door open for further interaction.

3 Rules for Making an Effective Email Introduction

3 Rules for Making an Effective Email Introduction Helping people make meaningful connections is a worthwhile task. But you need to consider the time and best interests of those you are connecting. If you've decided that the introduction is a win-win for both parties, here are three rules to follow: Be clear about your motive. Explain immediately why you are making the introduction. What is the value that each of the parties brings? Be careful with the "Cc." Unless you are 100% sure that the recipient is open to the introduction, don't include all parties on the message. Instead, send the introduction with the appropriate contact info so the person can follow up if she wants to. Provide an "out." No one wants to feel forced into making a connection. Always give people an option to opt out.

Planetarium Watch

If Me (+1) and You (?) ...

www.newlifes.com  is a geographic region, product, service , industry segment and community of practice in which knowledge flows from the point of origin, + 1 , to the point of need and opportunity that is unknown  and represented by the symbol of question (?). 

As the knowledge-based economy expands; stakeholders are finding this to be appealing transformational pathway to a prosperous, diversified, and abundant future.

Heln interview about Web 3.0 & Hybrid Cities & Knowledge Cluster

Beyond Web 3.0

Whatever we call the next generation of the Web, what will come after it? 
Theories range from conservative predictions to guesses that sound more like science fiction films.
The Web will build on developments in distributed computing and lead to true artificial intelligence. 
In distributed computing, several computers tackle a large processing job. Each computer handles a small part of the overall task. Some people believe the Web will be able to think by distributing the workload across thousands of computers and referencing deep ontologies. The Web will become a giant brain capable of analyzing data and extrapolating new ideas based off of that information.


See also Web 3.0 projects under development

Lunar Phases, Investor Mood, and the Stock Market

Lunar Phases, Investor Mood, and the Stock Market 
Returns: Evidence from the Tunisian Stock Exchange

Basing on psychological and biological evidences that moon cycles affects human mood, and then their behaviors,  many researchers in the field of behavioral finance tend to investigate if there is a relationship between lunar phases and stock market returns. In accordance with psychological and biological evidences, behavioral finance research in this area have analysed the full moon effect separately from the new moon effect and have hypothesizes that New-moon cycle stock returns are higher than those of a full moon cycle. We have tested this hypothesis on the Tunisian stock market in four window specifications from 15-day to 1-day windows around the full and the new moon days. 






Definition for web 3.0 on  www.newlifes.com 

SCI-FI Astronomy is the study of USER in space and the relationships they have to one another, primarily as can be described and confined mathematically and designed geometrically. There are coincidental relationships in Astronomy.

SCI-FI Astrology is the study of relationships between Community and USER in time and space beyond the human word. Various celestial movements and alignments are used to design geometrical shape. Shapes are directly connected to the totality of Community PostBak and coincidence in time and Local Social Space.




See also: Web 3.0 & Moon & Solar System


Download PDF

Helen talk about www.newlifes.com as Web 3.0 knowledge based competitive...

Top 5 Things That Might Happen If Facebook Is Dead |

Top 5 Things That Might Happen If Facebook Is Dead

Why are there so many people on the streets wearing black arm bands on black shirts? They are from various families. Why are there so many families bereaved simultaneously? There was no calamity or neither national nor local catastrophe which could have claimed so many lives. It is not only queer but quite fear inducing to see all these black arm bands including on my nephew – WHAT?

Hey! Who died in our family?

Everyone – Facebook died.

What? Facebook died!

Facebook

As a technology blogger, my world went dark when I knew my teenage nephew got the news before me. I realized that the platform where people are not relatives but where their photos and ethereal psyche are is no longer in existence. Facebook is considered to be the “be all and end all” by countless people all over the globe. Some even log on to their page on Facebook before even brushing their teeth. So it is no wonder that there are terrified looks on these individuals wearing black arm bands. Their world has collapsed. They are in a canoe rapidly falling over the Niagara Falls without a single paddle.

It led me to contemplate what would happen to these people now that the Facebook was dead and gone. There must be colossal void in their lives. They would be like zombies and walk through their days and nights in a very listless manner. The Facebook generation has become so used to sharing their personal intimacies with their friends over the air that they have forgotten what it is to meet face to face. It is like meeting on the stairs and one says to the other – “I am Warlock” and the other replies – “I am Lockwar” and they have been neighbors since childhood. Such is the great intimacy that has been missing due to the Facebook hype and now that it is dead, it should all come back to pre- Facebook normalcy. But that will not be happening because there will always be someone to fill the void. There is no vacuum in nature. And man-made business vacuums are filled up automatically by competitors. So if Facebook is dead then maybe ‘Facenovel’, ‘Pimp My Face’ or ‘Headbook’ will arise.

The Facebook icons you can't live without

The second thing which may happen if Facebook died is that people will meet new friends and that also in real life, and not merely in reel or byte life. Loss of Facebook may not allow people to correspond with each other for they will now feel that even emails are prehistoric things from the dinosaurs’ era. For now, no live chatting will actually be ‘live’ and not through some wired electronic media. Facebook has completely altered the meaning ofchatting between friends. Chatting as per Facebook is clicking away on the keyboard without a face to face interaction while you update your status and browse through photos.

The third thing that would happen if Facebook is dead is that the competing social networks like Twitter would get the benefit of the diverted traffic. But then there will be an overload on these networks because nearly 500 million Facebook ex-members will be logging on to the server. The result being Twitter will crash and be inaccessible on the web for a day or two.

Facobook - The social media giant

The fourth action will be that people will take to blogging since now Facebook will be missing and the time religiously devoted to talking on Facebook will now be diverted to blogging and even may be utilized in cafes for personal interaction. Important superfluous things will not be discussed on Facebook but there will be blogs devoted to these topics. In the good old days, the arrival of the postman was eagerly awaited by all (even the local canines) just to read the letter sent by a beloved now staying somewhere far away. With Facebook dead, perhaps some will want to divert to the olden days if these people hate writing emails.

The fifth thing which might shatter this wired life is the absence of any exchange of pictures and intimate details about themselves. Now there will be no urge to post self shoots and description of all that is happening in one’s personal life on the Facebook. Thus one’s privacy will return for details posted on the Facebook are – sorry were on display for all to view. Imagine reading about the neighborhood’s stud touching home base with your daughter – most informative and enlightening nay!

Disclaimer: Facebook is NOT dead yet. This is just an article to predict the chaos if the popular social mediagiant collapses. . . Now, you can stop crying.

Predicting the future of the Internet is easy: anything it hasn’t yet dramatically transformed, it will.

Predicting the future of the Internet is easy: anything it hasn’t yet dramatically transformed, it will.

People love to focus on horse races: NYC vs Silcon Valley, Facebook vs Twitter, IPO markets vs private exchanges, the valuation of some startup vs some other startup. Like a lot of people in the tech industry, I’ve gotten inquiries recently on the meaning of Facebook’s “private” IPO with Goldman Sachs, whether VC valuations are indicative of a bubble, whether such-and-such startup is overvalued, and so on.

These questions are all footnotes that will be forgotten in a few years. The Internet has gone through fits and starts – in particular the dot com crash of 2000 disillusioned many – but every year we see it transform industries that previously sauntered along blissfully denying its existence. Already transformed: music, news, advertising. Being transformed: finance, commerce, TV & movies, real estate, politics & government. Soon to be transformed (among many others): healthcare, education, energy.

The modern economy runs primarily on information, and the Internet is by orders of magnitude the greatest information mechanism ever invented. In a few years, we’ll look back in amazement that in 2011 we still used brokers to help us find houses, that doctors kept records scribbled on notepads, that government information was carefully spoon-fed to a compliant press corps, and that scarcity of information and tools was a primary inhibitor to education.

Thus far the US has led Internet innovation. There are things the US can do to keep this lead, including: 1) exporting the entrepreneurial ethos of Silicon Valley to the rest of the country (including places like my home city, New York), 2) allowing talented people to go where their skills are most needed (e.g. by changing US immigration policies), 3) convincing the upcoming generation to innovate in sectors that have a direct impact on the quality of peoples’ lives (Internet, healthcare, energy, education) instead of wasting time on sectors that were historically prestigious (e.g. finance and law) but add little to negative economic and societal value.

Predicting the future of the Internet is easy: anything it hasn’t yet dramatically transformed, it will. People, companies, investors and even countries can’t stop this transformation. The only choice you have is whether you join the side of innovation and progress or you don’t.

Chorography

Chorography is a natural qualities and behavior of a people, an enigmatic character able to picture the world, that write things without knowing the consequence.
Titus 2010

Ptolemy claims that chorography requires the skills of a draftsman or artist rather than those of a scientist. Chorography is writing that creates complex and unexpected relations from and within a matrix of the autobiographical writing subject.

Chorography (from χῶρος khōros; “place” + γράφειν graphein, “writing”) is a term deriving from the writings of the ancient geographer Ptolemy. In his text of the Geographia (second century CE), Ptolemy writes that geography is the study of the entire world or large sections or countries of it, while chorography is the study of its smaller parts–provinces, regions, cities, or ports.

Ptolemy implicitly would include the making of views (not simply maps of small regions) in this category, since he claims that chorography requires the skills of a draftsman or artist rather than those of a scientist, which are needed for the practice of geography.

Reference

Chorography of Suffolk
Edited by D.N.J. MacCulloch
The Chorography of Suffolk reconstructed in this volume is one of the first attempts of a county survey of Suffolk. It has remained almost unknown and unconsidered by antiquaries since it was compiled, at the end of the reign of Elizabeth I, for no county antiquarian tradition comparable to those in Essex and Warwickshire ever emerged in Suffolk.
Link

Heuretics: The Logic of Invention
by Gregory L. Ulmer In Heuretics
Chorography. A word defined as “the branch of logic that treats the art of discovery or invention” — Gregory Ulmer sets forth new methods appropriate for conducting cultural studies research in an age of electronic hypermedia.
Link

Creativity in design education: From problem-solving to puzzle-solving.
Pınar YALÇIN ÇELİK, Semra AYDINLI
Istanbul Technical University Faculty of Architecture Istanbul TURKEY
This paper introduces a new approach to creativity in design education based on puzzle solving activity in a world where ambiguity and change is essential with the innovations of 21st century. Design as puzzle solving activity makes it possible to generate new ideas, to think something different, to be able to integrate knowledge and imagination which gives rise to generation of form – creative thinking. Accordingly puzzle solving activity can be considered as choreography emerged in dialectics of multiplicity which leads us mythical stage between the real and virtual, between the possibilities and limitations creating shifting balances.
Link

Pomponius Mela’s Description of the World
Frank E. Romer (Author)
The Description of the World (Chorographia), written by Pomponius Mela, was last translated into English over 400 years ago, and is the earliest surviving geographical work in Latin. Although first published at the height of the Roman Empire, in roughly 44 C.E., Pomponius Mela’s work circulated during Europe’s great Age of Exploration. Pomponius Mela was an enigmatic man able to picture the world, that write things without knowing the consequence…
Link

Read also what wikipedia say:

The Future Internet: Service Web 3.0

Connected Learning Communities (CLC): Learning and Leading in the Digital Age - Top CAD Experts by João Greno Brogueira

Professional learning communities can engender much-needed meaningful collaboration and learning among educators -- collaboration that leads to improved practice, greater student achievement and positive school reform; collaboration now further enabled by the affordances of current technologies.

As a result of this presentation participants will understand the dispositions and skills required to become self directed learners in a participatory culture, to engage in inquiry-driven learning, to share ideas and expertise in global ever-growing sustainable personal/professional learning networks as well as situated and virtual learning communities.

Connected Learning Communities (CLC): Learning and Leading in the Digital Age - Top CAD Experts by João Greno Brogueira

China does not read nothing!!!!!!!!!

Psychographic

In the field of marketing, demographics, opinion research, and social research in general, psychographic variables are any attributes relating to personality, values, attitudes, interests, or lifestyles. They are also called IAO variables (for Interests, Activities, and Opinions). They can be contrasted with demographic variables (such as age and gender), behavioral variables (such as usage rate or loyalty), and firmographic variables (such as industry, seniority and functional area).

Psychographics should not be confused with demographics. For example, historical generations are defined by psychographic variables like attitudes, personality formation, and cultural touchstones. The traditional definition of the "Baby Boom Generation" has been the subject of much criticism because it is based on demographic variables where it should be based on psychographic variables. While all other generations are defined by psychographic variables, the Boomer definition is based on a demographic variable: the fertility rates of its members' parents.

When a relatively complete profile of a person or group's psychographic make-up is constructed, this is called a "psychographic profile". Psychographic profiles are used in market segmentation as well as in advertising.

Some categories of psychographic factors used in market segmentation include:

• Activity, Interest, Opinion (AIOs)
• Attitudes
• Values

Psychographics can also be seen as an equivalent of the concept of "culture" as used most commonly in national segmentation. "Psychographics is the study of personality, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles"

Psychographic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia