Dana Blankenhorn

A Broadband User’s Manifesto

John Cooper of MetroNetIQ did some serious work on my recent piece called Free the Bits.

He combined it with other, similar rants by such figures as Bob Frankston and Robert Cringely, then created two important pieces of work.

The first is a Declaration of Independence for Broadband, which sets forth what he calls some Principles for Connectivity Independence. 

1. 1Complexity v. Simplicity.
2. Professional Operators.
3. Local involvement.
4. Corporate Sponsorships.
5. Popular Culture Buy-In.

Then he expanded the work with a Version 2.0 , expanding on this theme:

• A new opportunity for connectivity independence has emerged
• Connectivity is vital to individuals and communities
• Big business and government have been slow to adapt
• The system that would give us ubiquitous broadband is broken
• The system no longer acts in the best interest of the citizen: we need a Plan B
• A national dialogue on connectivity independence is needed
• Political will is necessary to make a paradigm shift
• Collective action is key to changing the paradigm
• Cities, Chambers, and Neighborhoods have roles to play to create a new network
• In a highly dynamic environment, a portfolio of small players is less risky than a handful of large players
• Community cooperatives are a compelling alternative to large corporations
• Natural systems use collaboration and competition to deal with uncertainty, so can we with connectivity
• Infrastructure is only a path to applications, which provide solutions and value

And concludes:

We should start the national discussion with this declaration and these principles for connectivity independence.

This is great as far as it goes. Some thoughts follow:

Thoughts on Creating an Audience

Due to some misundstandings with Hylton Joliffe at Corante, I launched this blog a few months ago and no notice was given my Corante audience.

Thus, I started from ground zero.

The result has been an interesting experiment. I have had to rebuild my audience literally from scratch.

It has not been easy. It is much tougher to get attention with a blog in 2006 than it was in 2002, when I started.

In the interests of "science" let me state I have some assets not all bloggers have. I have a newsletter, A-Clue.Com. I belong to some mailing lists which sometimes republish my stuff, and to which many important people belong.

But it's still tough. As of 4 PM today, for instance, I had 120 site visits. Sounds pitiful, but I've gone through days where I posted three-or-four stories I thought were first class, and had just 19. Half of them were me.

Typepad lets you check referrer logs, and see where your users come from, as a standard part of their package (which, at under $12/month, is dirt-cheap). What I have found is most come from Google, from searches. And nearly everyone comes in to a specific item, not to my "home page." This, too, is an important lesson.

More such lessons are to come, no doubt.

Meanwhile, let me offer some lessons I exchanged recently with the great Doc Searls, whose blog is considered among the most popular and erudite in cyberspace. Without quoting from what was a private e-mail correspondence, let me state that Doc responded to a note I sent by stating that his blog is the best-known thing he has ever done, yet he has done many things which drew far more readers.

Following is my reply:

BellSouth Plays Hardball to Spite its Face

BellSouth, soon to become part of AT&T, is starting to play a peculiar kind of hardball with Georgia home developers.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports the company is telling them that if they dare sign a deal with another communications company (like cable) to provide services in their development, then BellSouth will never, ever, ever "provision" that neighborhood with phone lines.

According to the paper, developers are taking this nonsense seriously.

When we opened our sales center, the carrier we chose had not yet installed lines," said Rick Mildner, chief operating officer for the developer (a project called Tributary at New Manchester)

"Even though the BellSouth line went right by, they declined to provide service. When I called, they basically said, 'Well, sue us.' "

Does this matter? Very much. You've heard of taxation without representation? How about taxation without service?

The Purpose of Patents

The Congress shall have Power...To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Let's look at that again. The purpose of patents and copyrights is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts," and to secure "for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right" to writing and discoveries. (Graphic from O'Reilly's excellent policy page)

In other words, if it's not promoting the creation of more, it's not right under the Constitution. And these rights are held "for limited times by authors and inventors."

Do corporations write? Do they really invent?

The time has come to re-focus patent law, and copyright, on the Original Intent of the framers. If it's not aimed at creating more invention, it should not be compensated. If it's not going to the author or inventor, the money should not flow.

• Do patent hoarders -- companies that buy patent rights for the sole purpose of suing people who are actually making use of knowledge -- encourage or discourage the creation of more?
• Should patents be written so broadly as to compensate failed businesses, after they fail?
• Does allowing corporations to hold patents or copyrights (as opposed to writers or inventors) serve any useful purpose under the Constitution?

Techdirt Gets Something Wrong

This is such a rare occurrence that it deserves a headline, and I hope the folks at Techdirt feel complimented -- not insulted -- by the headline.

What they've got wrong is this -- a story headlined Judge Says You Can't Edit Movies You've Bought.

The case at issue involves some Utah companies that were editing DVDs on religious grounds, then re-selling the edited DVDs to rental shops.

Yes, these companies bought the DVDs in question. But they weren't enjoined for editing them. They were enjoined for re-selling the edited copies.

See the difference? It's legal under the Betamax decision for you to tape TV shows. But it is illegal under the same decision for you to change those shows, then sell them, especially when consumers may think they're the originals.

Grey Album, fine by me. Grey Album that is re-sold as White or Black album -- bad. Grey Album that has all the f-bombs taken out of it, and is then re-sold as the original, by a third-party -- worse.

Open Source Covers the World

One of my regular themes here is how the open source process and Internet values encompass far more than even their advocates are willing to suggest.

That is, they cover the world.

In line with that, let me put two columns together (sort of a mashup).

First we have Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus complaining about bloggers who don't like Joe Lieberman:

While Lamont and the bloggers who back him devote their energy to defeating Lieberman, Connecticut has three competitive House races where Democratic challengers have a chance of beating Republican incumbents and helping take back the House. Wouldn't those be a more productive way for Democrats unhappy about Bush and the war to channel their anger?

We'll pass for a moment on how Marcus is, in effect, telling Goldwater Republicans to support Jacob Javits. What's most wrong here is the assumption that "the bloggers" are a unitary "movement," with "leaders" who tell all the other "bloggers" what to do. Markos Moulitsas is the poster child here, but he's not a blogger -- he runs a Community Network Service (Scoop). To call Moulitsas a blogger is to call Slashdot a blog.

Then we have Doc Searls, writing about a completely different topic, TPFKATA or The People Formerly Known As The Audience:

First, I don't think of my readers as an "audience", or as a "community". They are readers, and some of them communicate with me. Most of them communicate with others, sometimes through their blogs. There is zero sense of "mass" about any of it, nor a sense of alone-ness there.

Second, if there is a "there", it's the category of publishing we call the blogosphere. Yes, communities do arise within it. Some are stronger than others. At Bloggercon a couple weeks back I was impressed by the very real sense of community among the organizers and participants in BlogHer. And I deal every day with development communities through my work as an editor for Linux Journal. I have even become involved in some, such as the development communities involved in moving Independent Identity forward,  These communities are very real, and also very productive, in constructive ways.

That is, unless you don't consider technological progress constructive.