Catching up on my Office, in the April 24 episode Ryan announces Dunder Mifflin Infinity 2.0, complete with enhanced social networking functionality. Dwight asks why the site needs social networking at all (great question). Ryan enthusiastically explains, “It’s all about creating a one-stop consumer experience…you’re chatting with your friends, you’re talking about the latest music, about the election…all of it is happening in our virtual paper store.” Sound like satire? The real irony is that this episode aired during the Web 2.0 Expo, where I met dozens of companies who were not too far removed from the reality underscoring this joke. Don’t get me wrong, there were some very exciting companies with super cool widgets (e.g., Sproutbuilder) and efficient ways of improving collaboration in the workplace (e.g., GroupSwim). Stay tuned for chi.mp, which will change your daily routine as you manage all your online profiles in one place - brilliant. ConfIdent Technologies lets you securely manage all your logins with one login, no password required. And AppVoyage is a sweet mobile platform allowing you to get the data you want in real time on your phone. There were lots of great companies like this, with real services that will improve our interaction with the web. However, there were also scores of dreamers believing that their ad-supported content based revenue model would win the hearts and minds of consumers and advertisers alike. What’s really shocking is the VC’s are funding a lot of these eyeballs now, dollars later strategies. I think the explanation for why anyone would make that bet again now 7 years later is two-fold: 1) it’s a helluva lot cheaper now to get a web-based company off the ground, and 2) nobody is taking these companies public, so it’s only the professionals that are taking the risk, and not as big of a risk as they did before. Regardless, I heard some stories about VC’s asking dumb questions and clearly not understanding the space, which means it’s still the Wild West in Web(2.0)land, and Silicon Valley is still a place where there’s more funding than they know what to do with. I know a few companies with actual products that are selling, so let me know if you’re looking to invest in something besides numbers of registered users.
Social media magnates Mike Liskin and David Preciado are the brainchildren behind this trade show schwag recycle center on wheels. The day after the fateful meeting I was in Mike’s apartment in Los Angeles. He was sitting in his kimono and white socks sipping mate and expounding on the profligate nature of trade show giveaways and the opportunity to convert them to good use. Mike recruited Marjorie Kase, Andy Sternberg, Kyra Reed, and me - Daniel Hartman - to join the cause. So on Earth Day 2008, the Schwagineers set sail for the Web 2.0 Expo. You can follow all the action at the Schwaggin’ Wagon blog, join the Facebook group, and follow in real time on twitter.
The Jerusalem Post had 2 articles this week about Israel Defense Force (IDF) members posting photographs and videos of classified military information on Facebook and YouTube respectively. The Post found dozens of pics on Facebook of interiors and exteriors of bases, air traffic control towers, weapons systems, undercover forces training, etc. The Defense Ministry told the Post that anyone caught posting classified info would be court-martialed.
As an example of the issue, the Post quotes a message from the “Reshef Battalion 402″ group: “Guys, so that we won’t be accused in the future and so that we can’t say ‘we didn’t know,’ I’m asking all of you who are posting pictures to select pictures carefully - over the past few months it has come to be known that intelligence agencies and terrorist groups enter these types of Facebook groups on a regular basis, download the pictures and analyze them to gain intelligence about force strength and deployment, weapons use, and IDF plans for certain units. I’m already undertaking some ‘clearance’ of pictures that aren’t supposed to be here. Apart from that, feel free to go mad in this group, just make sure you don’t upload any maps or anything.” There seems to be only harmless pics there now but click through for a second if you want to see Facebook in Hebrew.
Thankfully the IDF was onto this before the Post’s investigation- a special unit scoured Facebook and found shocking leaks, causing an order issued from the highest levels of the Defense Ministry to every member of Israel’s security services to be extremely cautious about what they post to profiles, sites, and blogs. But they acknowledged a particular problem with Facebook - that it is entirely open and searchable and difficult to monitor since they cannot search the profiles of each of the hundreds of thousands of Israeli accounts. Thus the control must come from the soldiers themselves. To that end, there are at least 2 big groups created by soldiers themselves to stop the leaks: “Guarding our IDF” and “Can’t you see you’re helping the enemy,” but the Post’s investigation reveals that more control is urgent.
If you search YouTube for “Israel Defense Forces” it won’t be long before you find some pretty shocking stuff, like beatings and executions and a lot of anti-Israeli sentiment in addition to training and promotional videos. Here is a nice one that’s been viewed 175,000+ times, seems not to reveal anything too highly classified:
