December 2007 Archives

Here is a copy of the comment I left on this post: Adobe ate me baby!!.

Disclaimer: I've been a happy Omniture customer for several years and they're providing good tools and services.
Amazing that almost everybody misses the right responsible third party: Omniture. Adobe is using Omniture SiteCatalyst to gather some simple web analytics, which, as explained in this post, are not always reduced to web pages visited with a web browser. Adobe has ZERO choice about which tracking server they have to use, all they can do is use Omniture's code exactly as provided to them. They cannot change it without losing support and, in fine, reliability in the stats. If you dig a bit deeper, you will find that 192.168.112.2o7.net does not resolve to a single IP but a set of dynamic IPs depending where you are, so Adobe has really NO choice about that (such as replacing this name with a numeric IP).

This said, the only criticable thing here is the "hack" used by Omniture in naming one of their tracking servers using what looks like a non-routable local IP. That question (and furor, hysteria, whatever) should be directed at Omniture, not Adobe.

This said, since all they gather boils down to simple web metrics akin to page views, errors, time to load, etc. (aggregate numbers they use to track patterns and issues with their apps, exactly as anyone serious would do with a web site), and since the Omniture trick would not fool many F*cking Stupid Firewalls™(*) out there, I for one would argue that 1) this is definitely much ado about nothing, 2) the rest will just be an exercise in crisis communication (which, unfairly, will be more painful for Adobe than for Omniture, thanks to clueless bloggers and journalists :p).

(*) I wonder how many of those who are up in arms about the 192.168.* trick bypassing (really stupid) firewalls, are also complaining that their company F*cking Stupid Firewall™ also prevents them to surf freely on the interwebs :p.

What we have here is more interesting, to me, in terms of crisis communication, specifically here how a little technical detail can degenerate in flames thanks to clueless calls to arms and blog echo chamber (for a good start, the story even got its own Slashdot glory). The short story is that Adobe is under fire because of a dubious choice of server name by a third party—Omniture—they use to gather usage metrics from their apps.

Technically speaking I'd argue that this name would not fool any properly configured router out there, since 192.168.112.2o7.net is NOT an IP address but a domain name that resolves to public, routable IP addresses (a pool of dynamic IPs, actually, as do all generic names of tracking servers from Omniture AFAIK). So no need to fear anything harmful.

In terms of communication, OTOH, it's a very different story as we see develop. When I see John Gruber using the word "disgrace" for seemingly masquerading a public server behind what looks like a non routable local IP address, or all the comments out there mentionning "192.168.*", the folks at Omniture must be looking at this very closely. Needless to say that all Omniture's clients must be looking at Omniture even closer right now. Because, as you can see, it's them on the front line at the moment, not Omniture.

As a former (and happy) Omniture client, who've seen this "*.2o7.net" name years ago without thinking of anything wrong at the time, I'd be curious to see how this further develops.

As a side note, exactly as I wrote three years ago that web analytics were moving away from standard web server logs analysis to hosted web beacons, the same technique is now becoming common for application usage analytics, as shown by Adobe in CS3 or Apple in iTunes. Since those apps are more and more connected and using web elements (Flash movies, HTML pages) for display, it's only natural for the marketing folks to want to use the same tools for watching usage patterns. This said, one may argue that monitoring what visitors do on your web site, is different from watching what they do with your application on their computer. this is an entirely different debate (and one may want to read those fineprints again, those that say you're only licensing the use of the application :p).

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Ah ah ah, I predicted that years ago. Merry Christmas to my friends in Tilsitt ;-).

Here are my notes and thoughts (telegraphic style) about the last edition of Le Web 3 I attended this week. I went there low tech: by bike with just a paper notepad, a pen, an embarrassingly old mobile phone and a few business cards.

Overall it was a good event, great organization, nice room, good food, and a setting in size and quality speakers that our american friends might be quite familiar with but which is not that common in France. Actually I don't know if there is a comparable event with the internet as a subject and a 1M€ budget here (as a comparison, I helped in the organization of the conference Paris Web 2007 which gathered about 250 people for three days for a budget less than 23K€, but we're a non profit and didn't provide foie gras poché for lunch :p). If I have one complaint, it's that the program is way too disparate, but it's always been like that since the second edition. But most of the people, myself included, where here equally (if not more) for the networking outside the conference tracks. The real capacity that Loic Le Meur has to bring high profiles on stage in Paris doesn't automatically translate into a consistent program, and this year is no exception, with several panels completely out of track with what was written in the program (exemple : “Making your information social” with Kevin Rose and Sarah Lacy had nothing to do with the subject, same with the chit-chat with Evan Williams). Loic told me he had nothing to do with this year's program as it was all in the hands of Cathy Brooks (mon oeil ;-).

Dan Rose from Facebook claimed that users have “good control on their privacy”. Regarding Beacon, he also said that they didn't listen to users complaints, didn't respond quickly enough and did a bad job of explaining Beacon because of the simultaneous launch of their advertising program (ah, and me who foolishly thought there was a link :p). He also said that “ads work when their part of the experience” (err... I hate the concept of "user experience", even more when it's ad-ridden), that “you can't share personally identifiable information with advertisers” (scoop, Facebook next mission statement will be: “Don't be evil” —P.S. Fake Steve says it's “Don't get caught”) and finally that there is no spam in Facebook because the filter is your friends and they tend not to spam you (ahem, someone needs to tell Dan about the constant, quasi spammy, pressure of requests, as well as the folks polluting any popular group with stupid arguments about the (non-)existence of god, just to cite my two favorite itches with FB). I really don't trust those guys.

Evan Williams gave what's for me the best explanation of what Twitter is: blogging with less features and 140 characters max. But after listening to its creator, I still don't know what the hell I can do with Twitter personally. I liked the approach "Think Less" and ideas that removing featurs or putting limits can lead to interesting sites and effects, such as Fotolog — which limits postings to one photo per day, which incites people to comment more on others' pics —or what would happen if a social network maxed the number of your friends at 20 (I like this idea, it would force people to really think twice before accepting total strangers as friends!). That panel had little to do with its subject though, “persistent communication and being social”.

I was totally lost with Kevin Rose (Digg) and Sarah Lacy. It was just a chit-chat between two friends on how cool Silicon Valley is, and gossiping about the cover of BusinessWeek she made of him (I wonder how many people in the audience had heard about it and why they'd care anyway). Nothing to do with the subject of “making your information social” and almost a total waste of time.

Philippe Starck. Ah, absolutely nothing to do with the web, but at least he spoke about design, and the part about sex in design was totally inline with the subject of “what is social about design” ;-). I happen to own a lamp designed by the guy, that I like. I also heard thinks from folks who've been working closely with him, so I take his nice stance about "no product", "no consumers" and ethics with a healthy truckload of salt. The guy's fun anyway, and it's not common to see sex pics in the middle of a slideshow nor to hear that religion is an insult to intelligence in such a conference (that seemed to rub a following speaker from Israel the wrong way, I would bet most of our American friends too while the French audience applauded, speak about social divide in meatspace :p). I liked his “Steve Jobs is a genius, me I look like a genius because of the leather pants” as well as his “It's almost modern” about the Amazon Kindle that Robert Scoble handed him, describing its designers as “not confident nor humble enough to disappear behind the product”.

Rafi Haladjan (Nabaztag) was under such a heavy attack from both Matthias Luefkens (moderator of the panel on "The internet's impact on design") and Brent Hoberman that it was embarrassing.

Nelson Mattos from Google gave an interesting, although sanitized, speach about Google's corporate culture. The key drivers of innovation at Google are:
- culture — users come first, and the world is a little bigger than Silicon Valley (someone needs to tell Kevin and Sarah :p)
- collaboration — “Some secrets are more valuable when shared” (Ed Mc Cracken)
- speed — “Big will not beat small anymore. It will be fast beating slow.” (Rupert Murdoch).
Some interesting traffic figures: 1 billion people connected from a PC, 3 billion from a mobile phone. 80M emails/IM exchanged everyday on the internet. 130M € spent on e-commerce in Europe (huh, only? I must have missed something, or it's everyday).

Jonathan Medved from Vringo, besides disagreeing with Starck on religious intelligence :p, said that the mobile phone is THE platform for personalization. “A web site is your personality in pixels, but mobile personalization has fallen behind the web”. I started to lose interest when I saw that advertising was at the top of the examples (if not the only example besides ringtones) he gave. If annoying everybody around with Jennifer Lopez is a strong act of projecting your personality to the world, well, so be it. Me I love Bach to much to massacre it as a mobile phone ringtone.

For Tarik Krim of Netvibes “everything will become a widget”, the iPhone being the perfect example (but of course when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail, n'est-ce pas Tarik :D). Patrick Chanezon who was representing Google (I was surprised and delighted to see him here, we're friends and both former employees of Netscape) explained what Open Social is about: i.e. nothing to do with social networks portability as everyone seems to think it is, but just a common API for social applications. Tarik calls it "Open Widgets" (Open Nails for Social Hammers :p). Marc Canter asked VCs to stop funding business models based on lock-in (good luck Marc). Someone said that people within businesses want to use social networks but senior management doesn't grok it, saying that Michel-Edouard Leclerc (a famous French CEO who's been blogging for years) is an exception to the rule (I personally disagree with that common perception, it's the middle management which is the problem, not the upper one).

I was quite disconnected during the Fraunhofer presentation on MP3. It was as sexy as German TV :p. I got off during the music tracks, not willing to hear why the music industry is broken (it's the industry moguls who broke it, stupid, nobody else).

I missed most of the argument between Andrew Keen (author of The Cult of the Amateur) and Emily Bell (The Guardian) about “Social Media: Is it killing our society?" just to see them try to find some common ground on most subjects and kiss each other at the end. Loic seemed disappointed that it didn't turn out live into a polemic or at least a stronger disagreement.

Reading my notes, I realize that I attended Joi Ito's presentation but I have such a vague memory of it that I don't know what to say. MMORPG and their players seem cool, I'm just not interested. I'm still completely out with virtual reality worlds à la Second Life so I didn't attend the other panels about that. May be I haven't enough time on my hands nor dough on my bank account to care about it :p.

I was sorry to hear that Hugh Mcleod could not attend the conference, he's one of my favorite speakers. Sleep well Hugh!

I missed the beginning of day 2 (Nokia, compensated by the fact that I could play with a N810 later, a promising but disappointing device in its current design if you ask me), arriving at the end of the VC/investors panel.

Dan Dubno from CBS said “People here have no idea what their job is gonna look like in six months. Those are the kind of people I want to hang with.” I want to hang with this kind of guy too ;-) and I absolutely despise those people who ask what you think you're going to do in five years (those are good candidates for a post-dreaming reality wake-up call in their 30s or 40s).

J.P. Rangaswami from British Telecom was brilliant, definitely the best speech of the entire conference from my perspective (I'm too business oriented nowadays). He's using Ripplerap (Tiddly wiki) for his slides, practical for publishing online but not that great for a slideshow. Some tidbits and quotes:
“The empowerment of the individual is at the heart of the web 2.0.”
“Two ways to predict the future: invent it, or prevent it to happen.”
“Enterprises reduce standard deviation instead of allowing individuality.”
“Individual incentives kill team work.”
Enterprise apps for him are of 3 types: search, change alerts (RSS) and fulfillment (services).
“Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.” (David Weinberger)
The new generation comes already trained, you don't have to tell them how to use the tools, but learn how they use technology and import it in the enterprise.
The Company Pen: 100 years ago in banking, you were only allowed to use the company pen. This is still the same today with the company IT tools and policies.

The "Premier prix" of the startups competition went to Goojet.

Dave Winner gave a very simple definition of RSS I quite like: “automated web surfing”. He showed an interesting application of RSS he's working on, pulling a flux of photos to a TV set (someone in the audience said it was irresponsible to let your TV set burn electricity while you're not watching it).

Note on interaction with the audience: it's really too bad that we couldn't ask questions to the most interesting speakers, or that there was only one mike for a giant room of 2000 attendees :-(. Your chance of being able to ask a question at Le Web 3 were:
- 0% if you sat on the second half of the room (stairs)
- 50% if you were sitting in the front and on the same side of the only hostess holding the mike
- 99% if you were sitting in the front row
- 100% if you are Robert Scoble!

Jason Calacanis gave a quite interesting speech about web pollution (spam) and hope this can be a wake up call for VCs about putting spam protection into startup development. Not sure he'll convince them, apart by the fact that when you seek to sell your land, it's better when it's not filled with toxic waste (good imagery!). Of course, Jason claims that his new human-powered search engine, Mahalo, is entirely spam free. I like his response to some question about clueless managers: “We shouldn't waste time with people who don't understand the internet, they'll be dead soon.”

Doc Searls spoke about Project VRM. Need to look into this, I like the idea of reversing CRM and doing a better job than faceless enterprises for which you're just an ID in some CRM software.

Martin Varsavsky and Loic showed some mutual entrepreneur love for 15 minutes.

Shahram Izadi from Microsoft showed MS works on the Surface and horizontal screens. Very interesting glimpse at new directions in I/O interfaces that have otherwise not changed much in the past 40 years.

Yossi Vardi gave a hilarious presentation on “new and improved methods for organic data transfer”. I can't wait to replace my ADSL 2+ link with snails (warning, research insanities wrapped in PDF ;-p).

I did not attend the panel on TV reborn, television interests me even less than the future of music industry moguls.

Janus Friis and Loic showed some entrepreneur love for 30 minutes.

Tom Raftery from the Cork Internet Exchange gave an interesting (though at time obscure, e.g. I fail to see why burning diesel to make electricity is any green) speech on how to build a greener datacenter. Lots of food for thoughts about using the wind as an alternative power supply, and why electricity utilities may start to pay you for consuming electricity at times of weak demand to properly manage the grid.

I was very disappointed to see that David Weinberger was here and ready to talk but couldn't, because of some "misunderstanding" as Loic said. Too bad. David says it's his fault (and Loic apologizes in the comments).

Finally the UNHCR presented the Nine Million initiative to help giving refugee youth the chance to learn and play, recognizing that education and sport can improve their lives. They're asking the tech community to help: you can start by a simple link to the site, and tag it with "ninemillion".

I'm blogging this from the conference Le Web 3 using a Nokia N810. The mobile internet and ubiquitous connection aren't a piece of cake yet! I heard that the Wifi service cost them 130K€, which is a rip-off considering how crappy and slow it is. Will try to post some feedback later...

P.S. The N810 was graciously lended by Nokia for an hour. While I can see a future for this kind of device, and like the touch screen, its form factor, its keyboard, the lack of a GSM phone and the tiny tiny tiny characters on screen in the web browser won't make it for me. Surely they will grok it after a few more iterations, although I tend to agree that the screen size is the most limiting factor (I continue to prefer the comfort of a portable computer for my mobile internet use). I have to test an iPhone and a N95 now ;-).

One day a Google bot sent me a message to welcome me back to Orkut. I hadn't been there for ages and couldn't recognize the place, for all its walls were covered with some alien language I couldn't read. I then learnt that it was portuguese and the aliens were Brazilians who had taken over the place.

Fast forward six months from now, and LiveJournal's walls will be covered with cyrillic.

(And big hairy, scary bears will be wandering in its datacenter.)