Month: August 2013

Remember Tent.io? Apparently the founders have renamed their service hosted version of Tent (that would be Tent.is) as…Cupcake? Yes, seriously!

“Tent.is is now Cupcake, has upgraded to Tent 0.3 with new infrastructure, and has new service plans. Your username has changed from username.tent.is to username.cupcake.is. Official Cupcake Blog”

Truthfully I wish they would have picked a better name (as naming your service after a food is…um…delicious?) but at least they are attempting to expand beyond a simple “alt-Twitter” client.

To my knowledge there are only 2 apps by third party developers for Cupcake/Tent (one for iOS as well as Android).

Note: Hopefully more developers will sign up as there is a thriving market for freemium social protocols/services/etcetera as App.net has proven (the latter which boasts over 250 apps).

Whether you speak geek or English, you have to admit that IFTTT (which stands for “If This, Then That”) is necessary good for netizens traversing the World Wide Web.

Sadly IFTTT is one of the few online kingdoms out there trying to build bridges between realms in an age where every digital empire is trying to build thicker walls, deeper moats (filled with lava!) while surrounding themselves with fire breathing dragons (aka lawyers) threatening to devour and destroy anyone on behalf of the King/Queen (aka CEO).

Although IFTTT does allow users to connect numerous services to each other (even frenemies like Instagram and Twitter), there are a “few” missing (at least to me) that the team should consider adding in the not-so-distant future.

• Runkeeper: So I can easily share my stats upon App.net and Tumblr (among others)
• Droplr: To automagically back up images and videos from Instagram, Vimeo, etcetera.
• Pandora: Because not everyone wants to stream everything they listen to upon Facebook
• Other News Agencies: NY Times is not the only thing people read nowadays

I could list a few more services but then again IFTTT would start charging me to use their service.

Note: Speaking of charging, IFTTT should require a premium for sharing items within 60 seconds (instead of 900 seconds…er…15 minuets).

A long, long time ago on an iPhone that’s never too far away a man named Dalton Caldwell startled the geekosphere with an audacious proposal that lamented how ad agencies disguised as social networks were ruining the socialverse.

Like any self respected geek I read his proposal, wished him luck and went along my merry way as I had other vanity concerns to deal with which included:

• Why Twitter only displayed the last 3200 tweets
• Why Facebook started prostituting my name with pseudo endorsements ads
• Why Google+ (a social network that I loved) wouldn’t allow me to change my username from 107553987488096350949 to Darnell or DarnellClayton (to make it easier for friends to find!)

Fast forward a month (or was it two?) and my social vanity scenario was:

• Twitter still did not provide archive access (**note:** Twitter provided access later on in December of 2012, but only through your computer)
• Facebook refused to provide an opt out for “Sponsored Ads” so I refused to use their service
• Discovered that Google+ would only verify profiles of celebrities and people they deemed important

I quickly realized that while social networks are often built with excellence, many seemed to ignore creating certain options or features sought out by their beloved masses.

As an individual I was nothing more than a stone in the sand to the social overlords; I was part of the scenery but not deemed worthy enough to offer valuable input to make “paradise” better.

Dissatisfied with my current scenario, I finally decided to give App.net a try due to 2 reasons:

• The price was reduced from $50/year to $36/year or $5/month (which justified signing up) and…
• The @Darnell username was available! 🙂

One month turned into 10 months and as my first year of App.net (or ADN as it’s referred to by many) approaches I’ve been reflecting on why I stay.

While I find App.net digital culture much more conversational compared to other places, the main reason I stay is because App.net values the input of their members.

Whether it’s profile verification, 2 factor security (to help keep hackers at bay) or expanding the character count, the App.net team is responsive towards requests from members and über geeks (aka developers).

App.net also doesn’t become jealous of developers providing a superior experience (quite the opposite), so I do not have to worry about an app’s future performance suffering due to jealousy from corporate overlords.

Although I will not be giving up other social networks, App.net has become “a new hope” in the socialverse and my guarantee that if ad wars between Twitter, Google, and Facebook take a turn for the worse (which is very possible if the world enters another recession) that I’ll at least have one place online where I can express my views digitally.

If Google were a galactic Star Trek empire they would be the Borg.

Not because of their pursuit of technology or the fact that they assimilate companies (or even whole industries), but rather due to Google’s unique ability to fight against rivals upon multiple fronts without losing strength.

Compare and contrast that with Microsoft who fights (or rather defends) multiple fronts and yet is losing upon most of them.

How is it that Google is able to secure the gold, silver or bronze in most arenas that they compete in while Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, etcetera have to focus just to stay ahead?

Perhaps the reason is that like the Borg, Google is persistent and (most importantly) enjoys failing forward in order to achieve their ultimate goal: to organize all the worlds information and make it useful to…them.

Take social networking for example.

Google launched a website called Orkut many geek eons ago which (at best) was a failure outside of India and Brazil.

Despite Google’s attempts (or lack thereof) to revive Orkut, the phenomenon known as Facebook swept the world and made Orkut obsolete in not only India and Brazil, but in every other country as well.

Google in typical fashion panicked, rushed out Google Buzz and Google Wave only to watch them both implode, respectively.

Note: Excuse my Caprican but can someone tell me what the frak was Google Wave?

Learning from their past failures and seizing upon the drama surrounding Facebook’s confusing privacy settings, Google launched Google+ which is poised to steal Twitter’s silver crown in 2013 or 2014.

Note: Google+ currently boasts north of 190 million active users, not the 343 million cited by “analysts.”

Despite public failures Google didn’t give up on dominating the socialverse and now is in a position to threaten everyone but Facebook (at least for now).

Compare Google’s persistence with Apple and Microsoft who both shuttered Ping and Spaces, respectively, only to never return.

A similar story for Google can be found in other arenas such as:

• mobile: Android struggled against iOS (and Symbian) when it first was released but is now the most popular mobile OS on Earth
• browser: Chrome went from being a niche geek browser to a mainstream option “overnight,” and is now threatening to oust Firefox as the alternative browser behind Internet Explorer
• email: Gmail no longer plays third fiddle to Yahoo or Hotmail/Outlook, as Google now owns the largest email service on Earth (and no, Facebook email doesn’t count due to its limitations)

To sum up everything nicely, Google is winning because they are determined to produce “a better mouse trap” than rivals, are are not afraid to fail along the way in order to secure the gold medal.

Despite Google’s tenacity, they are not invincible as a few companies have already proved (although that is another discussion for another time).

Testing out the Drafts app! Seeing if I can use it to post upon Posthaven via Markdown.

Well then Nancy, that makes 2 of us!
 

 

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After Saving The Phone Metadata Program, Rep. Pelosi Finds NSA Privacy Infractions “Disturbing”

Timed contrition has a certain air of the false. Today Rep. Pelosi of California stated that she found a report on the National Security Agency’s history of massive, continuing privacy infractions to be “disturbing.”

As quoted by Politico, Rep. Pelosi states that “Congress must conduct rigorous oversight to ensure that all incidents of noncompliance are reported to the oversight committees and the FISA court in a timely and comprehensive manner.” She also noted that the NSA’s lack of reportage to Congress concerning its infractions are troubling.

Let’s contextualize this. Here’s the Washington Post, which broke the story that the NSA had racked up an impressive 2,776 privacy “incidents” in a 12-month period, and that the rate that the NSA was breaking the law was increasing:

The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance.

Given this, I would argue that simply stating that the NSA should be subject to increased oversight is a flat claim. It means nothing, given that the NSA refuses to tell those that oversee it what it is doing, something akin to the petulant child who breaks a lamp and hides the pieces before his parents find out.

So for Rep. Pelosi to state that the NSA should report its “incidents of noncompliance” is somewhat laughable. From the Post:

In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has authority over some NSA operations, did not learn about a new collection method until it had been in operation for many months.

So, there’s that.

However, we have a case of irony that we should open, and drink from, because in this situation it is too rich a vantage point to abstain from. The Post — if you haven’t read its full report, do so now – states that the NSA committed “serial telephonic data collection” that broke the law. One such case “involved the unlawful retention of 3,032 files that the surveillance court had ordered the NSA to destroy.” Those were kept, with each file containing “an undisclosed number of telephone call records.”

That this is the sort of revelation that Pelosi finds troubling is humorous, as she was the key voice in the House for keeping the NSA’s phone metadata program in place. The Amash amendment would have passed if she had not thrown her weight behind it. So her efforts to save a key piece of the NSA are circling back and troubling her.

In fact, I don’t think that the good Representative is troubled at all. I think that her statement is nothing more than padding for her left flank. By dressing down the NSA publicly, Rep. Pelosi can claim to be on the side of civil liberties. Yet she’s doing so while protecting those violate them.

If Rep. Pelosi is as disturbed as she now claims to be, let’s see what sort of legislation she moves forward to curtail the NSA’s programs that are breaking privacy laws daily.

Top Image Credit: Curtis Fry

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