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August 12th, 2010 - 4 Comments »

Expression Engine Should Be Free!

This isn’t the typical argument that Expression Engine should be free because it is too expensive, rather my argument is that the high price of EE slows its growth and inhibits innovation.

As far as Content Management Systems go, Expression Engine is an efficient, functional solution for both developer and clients. But unfortunately, snappy functionality isn’t the only factor you need to consider when choosing a CMS. Compare EE with two of its “competitors”, WordPress and Drupal, and you’ll find that EE falls short on a number of other issues including: price, smaller community, less updates, and an unfortunate licensing situation.

Price on its own shouldn’t be listed as an “inadequacy”. If the world’s greatest CMS charged a fee it would be well worth the extra money for the service. But there is a hidden cost to charging for a CMS. My argument is that many of EE’s inadequacies stem from its price wall. EE has a flawed business model which limits its growth and long-term sustainability. Therefore, Expression Engine should be free!

Issue #1: EE Has A Smaller Community

EE’s barrier for entry is high – a commercial license fee of $299 per install – leading most developers to seek alternative solutions. As a result the Expression Engine platform has a much slower growth rate and a smaller user base than its rivals.

If there are less people using the software, then we can assume the following. EE has…
*a smaller community of developers
*a smaller amount of people offering support in their forums
*a smaller amount of add-ons (i.e. extensions & modules)

Despite anecdotal evidence that EE enthusiasts provide, “I think the support is fine”, and “There are plenty of modules”, the hard numbers prove that Expression Engine has a much smaller user base than Drupal and WordPress. It has less developers to share support question with, and less add-ons being developed.

Issue #2: Less Updates & Less Code Proofreading

Expression Engine has been slow to release new versions of its software. (See corresponding version release dates for: EE, WordPress, Drupal.) Why is this important? Technology changes everyday – it’s important to constantly evolve.

Furthermore, in my experience it has been much easier to upgrade WordPress and Drupal installations to new versions than with Expression Engine.

Even now as the latest EE version 2.0 has been released my admin panel is still only alerting me of version 1.6.9 – which must be downloaded and manually installed on the server.

WordPress, on the otherhand, has automatic upgrades announced the day they are released.

Historically a smaller user base tends to suggest that hackers are less interested in hacking the code, but in the case of software development it also means that there is less distributed proofreading of the code  – and therefore a smaller likelihood that vulnerabilities are going to be found. To put that another way, the larger the community, the more likelihood that someone will come across a security flaw, and that the bug will get patches more quickly.

Lullabot blogger Nate Haug recently did a comparison on the level of security between EE and Drupal. His assessment begins,

You can see that ExpressionEngine has had only one security advisory over the course of 3 years. Over that same time period, Drupal has had over 80. It’s easy to draw the incorrect conclusion there that ExpressionEngine therefore is more secure.

But as Haug concludes, fewer reported vulnerabilities does not mean less vulnerabilities! It only means they haven’t been reported. Point in case Haug was able to find 3 security vulnerabilities in version 1.6.2 of Expression Engine. Secondly, Haug explains that EllisLabs quietly fixes security vulnerabilities, further leading their customers into a false sense of security.

Issue #3: Licensing & Ownership

Expression Engine is a proprietary product. And as is with all property, law determines that one particular person (in this case, EllisLab) has the authority to decide how the product will be used. Therefore, nothing stops EllisLabs from discontinuing EE development or refraining from issuing licenses in the future.

This is in contrast to WordPress and Drupal which are “in the commons” (aka. in the public domain). No single person has exclusive control over the use and configuration of these CMSs. If the lead developers of an open-source project decide they no longer want to develop the product, the community goes on, and the product can be used freely by anyone; forever, without a license, and without having to report to a central authority.

A Better Business Model for Expression Engine…

Expression Engine would be a better CMS if there was a free version!

Revenue Idea #1: Sell Support
EllisLabs insists that the price is justified because they have “a team of committed developers and technical support specialist”. In my experience developing CMSs I don’t feel that the EE community has any better support than an open-source community. EllisLabs’ stance on this issue rubs up against a very old (and famous) argument addressed by the Richard Stallman’s 1985 GNU Manifesto,

If people would rather pay for a [software] service than get [software] free without service, a company to provide  service to people who have obtained [software] free ought to be profitable.

Stallman went on to found the free-software movement which was immensely influential in spurring software innovation (Linux, Unix, Wikipedia, WordPress, Drupal, etc), and subsequently, profitable organizations that were developed to support the free software (Red Hat, Crowd Favorite, Lullabot, etc).

Revenue Model Idea #2: Sell A Fully Hosted Version
EllisLabs could give away a basic version of EE for free, while selling a fully hosted version for non-developers. (Similar to the WordPress business model.)

Revenue Model Idea #3: Sell An Enterprise Edition
EllisLabs could give away a basic version of EE for free, while selling an enterprise version. (Similar to Movable Type’s business model.)

Final Thoughts

To recap, the price of Expression Engine inhibits the project.

Looking forward, I don’t believe that Expression Engine can gain the same market share as WordPress or Drupal (at least not anytime soon -  Movable Type still hasn’t recovered from their pay wall). But, it will help develop a wider community. And it will make Expression Engine a better product.

Capitalism breeds capitalism: whereas 99% of WordPress and Drupal plug-ins are free (giving back to the community!), in addition to the $299 Expression Engine start-up, EE users typically tack on another $350 for plug-ins (Wygwam $35, Matrix $35, Playa $75, BetaMeta $40, Structure $65, SolSpaceUser $100). Why have all of these separate niche communities developing proprietary code? Let’s reuse code! Let’s work together!

—

By the way, I’d really love to hear a counter argument in favor of the $299 licensing fee – do you believe the fee makes it more valuable than if it was open-source?

March 21st, 2010 - 1 Comment »

Get stoked on Web Typography @ SXSW ’10

Samantha Warren is a typography evangelist (like the Billy Graham of font). Her talk at SXSW on Wednesday entitled “Get stoked on Web Typography” was a passionate exhortation on the art of creating and choosing fonts.

Warren emboldened the audience to be daring, “There really isn’t a long history of web typography, we are at the beginning of the web font revolution, and we can all be a part of the revolution.”

She noticed that in most of her favorite designs there was “no Arial”, and “no Georgia”. “The difference between Arial and Habano is rock & roll”, she affirms, pointing to recent album cover art from My Morning Jacket. Compare the two images yourself: on the left is the original My Morning Jacket cover with the Habano font, on the right is an example where Warren substituted the text with Arial.

“A question I often hear from designers and developers is, ‘How do you pick a font’”, she admitted. “It’s a difficult questions to answer, but I like to think of it as ‘How do you choose a pair of shoes?’ I think about the weather and my schedule for the day. Shoes just go with people!”

“This woman is wearing crocks, they are practical and they match, but they just really fit her style.”


“These are my Helvetica shoes.They go with just about anything. I’ve worn them on interviews, to dinner, or just hanging out with friends”

“Archer is a font that everyone is using these days. If you’re trying to communicate ‘friendly and approachable’, and if you want to say it the same way that Converse is saying it, then use Archer.”

Until recent years, web developers were stuck using only web-safe fonts (like Arial and Georgia!). But now sIFR and (more preferably) cufon are challenging developers to use non-standard fonts: to beautify and challenge design conventions on the web. This is Warren’s call for action: stop being so agnostic, 2010 is the year to “get stoked on web typography”.

Samantha’s slides from the presentation are on SlideShare:

Get Stoked on Web Typography SXSW 2010

…her blog is badassideas.com and you can follow her on Twitter: @samanthatoy

March 21st, 2010 - 2 Comments »

Get Dad on Foursquare, Twitter, and Facebook Mobile (from Any Phone)

In the day between SXSW Interactive and SXSW Music the private, open-bar parties of Interactive end, and the streets light up like Mardi Gras.

The other dramatic change I noticed?

When I checked into The Driskill during SXSW Interactive, foursquare altered me,

Via Foursquare: “You are checked in with 250 other people”

But one day later during SXSW Music I received a paltry,

Via Foursquare: “You are checked in with 6 other people.”

What changed? The hotel was just as crowded, if not more so during music, but it’s pretty obvious that the music folk are less inclined to geek-out. I was surprised how many of my friends, ones who even had foursquare and Twitter accounts, didn’t really understand how to use them, or how they could be valuable to their business. Also, I was surprised how many of my friends had normal cell phones where the only app was SMS.

So, I’d like to share how you can get involved with foursquare, Twitter and Facebook using any mobile phone.

foursquare

1) Sign up for a foursquare account

2) Sign in and click “Settings” -> Under Account Info click “edit” -> Add your phone number

3) Check-in via a text to 50500 (like this:  @ Starbucks ! Spending too much money on coffee.)

Extras: From the web, you can visit the mobile address on the web to check-in, or use the desktop application FoursquareX which has a cool map view and plots your friend’s avatars around your location. (note: the SMS feature is only available in the US at the moment).

Twitter

1) Sign up for a Twitter account (duh)

2) “Settings” -> “Mobile” -> Add your mobile number

3) Send an SMS to Twitter at: 40404 (or for an international numbers)

4) Go back to “Settings” -> “Mobile” to decide who you will receive tweets from, or you can set it up as DMs only

Facebook

1) “Account settings” -> “Mobile” -> Add your number and preferences, click save

2) SMS “f” (with the quotes) to 32665 (FBOOK)

3) After you receive the confirmation text your status to 32665 “@ OMG. I’m Awesome”

March 21st, 2010

Microsoft Bing: Behind the Scenes of The Decision Engine @ SXSW

The best opening slide of any panel at SXSW 2010 goes to BING:

As of March 2010, BING has 11.5% share (and growing) of the U.S. search market – which is a fairly big deal. So, how did they convince people that they needed Bing?

“We knew people were really happy with Google. So we asked ourselves, ‘How can we introduce a product that no body thinks they need?’, began Stefan Weitz (Director of Search at Microsoft). For the first time, the team fearlessly dove into these types of questions in a public panel: what followed was a degree of candor and humanness that’d I don’t think anyone would ever associate with Microsoft.

Bing and Farmville

Bing used a Cost-Per-Engagement (CPE) model (as opposed to the traditional CPM model) as a way to engage with their audience:

The fact is, more people use Farmville than Twitter. And they use in a different way, “more like a drug”. This gave the Bing team the idea to use the Farmville platform as a way to tell people about Bing. So, in exchange for learning a little bit about Bing, they offered fans some extra Farmville cash.

Bing’s results from using a CPE model with Farmville:

  • Over 72% of users who clicked on the engagement became fans
  • 59,000 users published the story to their newsfeed, extending the message across their network.
  • Over 70,070 clicks were received on published feeds; on average each published story received more than 1 click.
  • We received 400,000 new fans on Facebook within the first 24 hours

“The amount of engagement and feedback we received just from this community was enormous, because these people got exposed to us in a way that mattered to them. We’re not necessary moving past the CPM model, but there is something very important about cost per engagement”, explained the team.

Bing #Win, Big #Fail

The Bing team told stories of their triumphs: like the Bing Jingle Contest which was “something we just did as a lark”, yet resulted in a swarm of great press. #Win

But shortly after, when a group of high schoolers planned to perform the Bing jingle, the Bing team “innocently” shipped them a box of tshirts. Weitz explained the problem, “We saw this as an opportunity to engage with these students, but we went over the line. It felt inauthentic and overproduced. And when the video surfaced on Youtube we received a lot of negative press.” #Fail

5 Social Marketing Lessons From The Launch of Bing

1) You know nothing. Social media is one of the wackiest eco systems in the world, comparable to when the butterfly flaps its wing. The media circles that we gave the most attention to weren’t the same ones that gave us the most coverage and exposure.

2) When you screw up. Admit it quickly. Bing tweeted an ad for Victoria Secret’s mentioning that the girls were giving “VD advice” (Valentine’s day?). “What would have been a PR disaster 10 years ago, was covered up in 10 minutes by apologizing: ‘Oops! Our mistake.’ We laughed along with the Twittersphere and they calmed down.”

3) Have personality. As an example they give Zappos’ amazingly funny Social Media Guru video.

4) People want stories, not feature lists. The Bing team received an email from a 100-year old Cardiologist in Florida which read,”I want to thank you for naming your search engine after me.” To which they thought, “Well, clearly this person is crazy.” They followed up on the story, and met with Dr. Bing in Florida, only to find that not only was he unbelievably sane, but full of fascinating stories. The team went on to commission a documentary about his life which was shown at Sundance last year.

5) Give a Shit. People know when you’re not being authentic. People know when you’re pitching them.

The BING panel at SXSW: Aaron Lilly, Lynn Girotto, Stefan Weitz, Ian Schafer

Slides are available on SlideShare.

More information about the BING panel can be found on the SXSW site.

March 21st, 2010 - 1 Comment »

Gmail: Behind the Scenes @ SXSW ’10

Meeting the team behind Gmail felt a bit like meeting the Wizard of Oz (except without all that evil stuff along the yellow brick road, right?). Regardless of which side of the Google debate you stand, it would be hard not to appreciate the honest and insightful musings of the Gmail team. Here are just a few of the highlights from Gmail: Behind the Scenes:

*On Gmail invitations: “The invite model wasn’t a marketing idea, we were just afraid that it wouldn’t scale it. It’s interesting that now this model is being used by other companies as a marketing strategy.”

*On project management: “One thing we do to make the projects fun is give it nick names. Like, for one project it was called “taco town”!  Having nick names like this gave us a sense of community through laughter: it made it fun to say things like, “Let’s take a look at ‘spicy chilli chese’”.

*On criticism: After hearing danah boyd’s criticism of Google Buzz and Privacy at yesterday’s SXSW keynote (i.e. “google assumed that people wanted their social network in their email”) the GMAIL team admitted to their mistakes and has decided to invite her to speak at the Googleplex in the near future.

*On the power of visual persuasion: “People thought that Gmail got faster when we changed the color.”

*On the speed of Gmail: The team discussed at length their strategy to improve latency issues within Gmail. Essentially speed is always top priority: all new features go through testing to make sure latency isn’t added along with the feature. Added latency can kill a new feature. Latency (along with debugging) is one of the critical reasons they deployed Google Labs (allowing users to add/test new features).

*On technology: “We have this amazing technology called ‘work really, really hard’”.

March 21st, 2010

Trials and Tribulations of the Pirate Bay with co-founder Peter Sunde @ SXSW 2010

Elizabeth Stark interviewed The Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde via Skype at this year’s SXSW. There is a (decent quality) video that I posted here on Vimeo, and below I’ve listed a few of the highlights.

Why didn’t you come to SXSW in person?
“If I come to the US I will get so sued that I won’t get out of the US for quite a while.”

Could The Pirate Bay be shutdown now?
“No, you’d have to shut down the domain or something, but even then it’d become ‘thepiratebay2′ or ‘dotpiratebay’. So it’s really not possible.”

Are you going to end up in jail?
“No we’re not going to end up in jail. There is no question about it, we’re going to win the appeal. And if we don’t win in the appeal, then there is another appeal, and another appeal.”

Will The Pirate Bay ever release its source code?
“I wouldn’t ever want that because it sucks. But if you did you could just ask the police. It’s public info and they have it and you could talk to that person, but the person in charge of that investigation works for Warner Brothers so good luck.”

What do you do for a living since you have no money?
“We got seed capital for flattr about a week ago, until then we couldn’t afford chairs. And so now we have chairs.”

What is the future of The Pirate Bay?
“There is nothing going on our side, there is no one still working with it. I think it has a soul, that reboots itself from time to time. And as far as acquisitions, there is nothing happening. It just kind of died out.”

Is the Pirate Bay Evil?
“Not everything people do is good – people make Coca Cola and some people want it and some people don’t, but we don’t outlaw it.”

So is the Pirate Bay like Coca-Cola?
“No, the Pirate Bay is more like sugar – it’s bad for you but you can’t stop using it. Bad because you get sued for it”


March 4th, 2010 - 2 Comments »

Creative Commons Salon NYC

The first ever Creative Commons Salon with a focus on “opening education” took place last night in a spacious penthouse suite atop an office building in Soho. Three presentations, each running about one-hour, demonstrated a few ways that teachers are leveraging the power of CC licenses to make education more accessible to both students and the public at large.

Eric Frank began the night with a detailed explanation about his mission to make online text books for university students free and affordable. Frank co-founded the company Flat World Knowledge which claims to offer “online books by leading experts, peer-reviewed and free.” He pointedly addressed the problem as one that reaches beyond the frugal student:

The textbook industry is supporting a disruptive business model in which the burden is not only put on students, but is just as equally felt by teachers. In order to turn a profit the publishers push out new editions of text books – almost annually. This forces teachers to restructure their lesson plans.

Flat World Knowledge offers their books under a freemium model: the online copy is free for everyone, a printed copy runs about $40 (and all the content is distributed under a CC license). The concept was loudly applauded by the audience, but during the Q&A there were many questions regarding the credibility of the authors and the quality of the peer-review.

One key element missing from the Flat World Knowledge library is that they will never be able to share books that are already under copyright (which is about 99% of all texts). And it’s here that Google Book Search – which brazenly vows “to organize all the [books in the worlds'] information and make it universally accessible and useful” – could potentially cut deep into the future of online textbooks. With only 20 text books available at the moment, Flat World Knowledge has an ambitious road ahead of them. But perhaps by focusing on one field (whether it’s economics, foreign languages or history) they would be able to focus and lead that particular segment.

Later in the evening Neeru Paharia presented her work in developing the free online university: Peer 2 Peer University. More info about P2PU is available at the site: http://p2pu.org/

Paharia was followed by a panel of K-12 technologists/educators: David Bill and Arvind Grover – who also happen to be organizers for this weekend’s TEDxNYED event – and Kerri Richardson Redding, Director of Academic Technology at the Brooklyn Friends School. One of the most fascinating parts of this conversation was the stories from the classroom. Grover explained,

Our kids were REALLY confused about citations. They don’t really know the difference between Google and the places that Google takes you. This girl had done a wonderful job on this poetry project, and at the end of this long paper she had one citation: ‘Google.com’.

Grover teaches lessons about Creative Commons and copyright in the classroom precisely because in a multi-modal, remix society, knowing how to propery attribute a creative work to it’s original author is essential with how we communicate and share ideas. Grover continued with a anecdote about when his students were asked to be the creators,

When my students began the project they’d say things like, “I want to be paid for my work”, and “We’re going to make a million dollars!” So in this situation, as the creator, they’re quick to opt for traditional copyright.

He introduced one example of a girl who took a picture of a lock (see photo) and continued, “but then we debated whether someone will really pay money… for THIS! (referring to the picture of the lock). In his classroom he didn’t force his students to adopt a Creative Commons license, but eventually he found that his students would rather share their work and be part of something. “The biggest thing for students is being part of something”, concluded Grover, “And they – more so than their parents – came to understand that there is value in sharing content under a Creative Commons license.”

December 12th, 2009 - 2 Comments »

The Urban Screens Conference

cell-phone-discoOn December 4, the Institute of Network Culture organized the Urban Screens conference at Trouw in Amsterdam. The conference celebrated the launch of The Urban Screens Reader: the first book to focus entirely on the topic of urban screens. In assembling contributions from a range of leading theorists, in conjunction with a series of case studies dealing with artists’ projects and screen operators’ and curators’ experiences, the reader offers a rich resource for those interested in the intersections between digital media, cultural practices and urban space.

Thanks to all the speakers and participants for their great contributions to this event! The videos will be online soon, and many of our reports are already online:

November 29th, 2009

TEDx Amsterdam

Some photos from TEDx Amsterdam (and TEDx Brussels). Truly an amazing weekend. My 4-minute video TEDx video can be seen here on the TEDx Amsterdam site.

November 15th, 2009

Society of the Query

society of the query logo ccastig.comSearch is the way we now live. With the Society of the Query conference – Stop Searching, Start Questioning -, the Institute of Network Cultures aimed to critically reflect on the information society and the dominant role of the search engine in our culture. Although the focus was “the query in general”, the debate on Googliation and whether “Google is evil” was common throughout the conference. In the opening session Geert Lovink even mused, “We were going to call this the anti-Google conference.”

Below are five articles I contributed to the Society of the Query’s blog:

1) Siva Vaidhyanathan on Google Street View & Googlization
Siva Vaidhyanathan @ The Society of the Query (photo: Anne Helmond) For Vaidhyanathan the biggest problem with Google is that as it expands into more parts of the world that are less proficient, and less digitally inclined, there will be more examples of friction and harm because more people are going to lack the awareness to cleanse their record. He asserted,”We in this room are not likely to be harmed by Google because all of us in this room are part of a techno-cosmopolitan elite. Only the elite and proficient get to opt out.” [read more]

2) Lev Manovich: Studying Culture With Search Algorithms
New media theorist Lev Manovich summarized his latest contribution to the field of software studies: cultural analytics. Whereas traditional cultural analysis relies on real-world resources (human interpretation and physical storage), cultural analytics relies on the computer and search algorithms in order to discern and interpret culture.  [read more]

Society of the Query

3) Yann Moulier Boutang asks, “Are we all just Google’s worker bees?”
What Google is selling is not an ordinary service, but a meta-service, one that depends on human contribution. He likens this human activity to that of the worker bee, and the economy of Google is dependent on the pollination of these bees. [read more]

4) Does privacy still exist in an environment of search?
What most people don’t know is that EU law grants users the right to access any personal data stored about them. Joris van Hoboken’s research investigates the impact of legal norms on the users’ freedom. [read more]

5) Matthew Fuller: Search Engine Alternatives
Matthew Fuller welcomed a cast of “alternative search engines” that offer some variety to the classic retrieval model of search. [read more]

All photos courtesy Anne Helmond and her wonderful Flickr photostream.

November 1st, 2009 - 1 Comment »

eComm Europe

Some photos and my slides from eComm Europe. I’ll post the video shortly.
Chris Castiglione
Chris Castiglione
October 25th, 2009 - 2 Comments »

Using Google Maps & Google Earth In The Classroom

Longitude and latitude coordinates are like the words we use to tell a story and only gain substance when we use them in context. With a list of resources to help teachers, Google Maps and Google Earth are helping us tell stories better and bringing geographic data to life in ways that make traditional maps look more like decorations on the wall. This blog post shows how teachers around the world are using Google Maps/Earth in ways that support new competencies like visualization, simulation and play.

Original Paper (PDF): Google Maps & Google Earth In The Classroom

1. Literature

Google Lit Trips

Google Lit TripsGoogle Lit Trips is a site developed by English teacher Jerome Burg that experiments with teaching literature through maps. The site offers tips and tutorials for how teachers can integrate Google Earth into the curriculum of an English literature class.  In addition there is a small library of existing KML files that other teachers have uploaded to share with the community. One example is a KML of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath that overlays placemarkers on the map of the United States, each representing a moment in time on the epic journey that the Joad family takes from Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression.  Additionally, the labels “Day 1, Day 2, etc.” provide a time based narrative of the trip and can be used to elicit discussion in the classroom. For example, “What events occurred between Day 2 and Day 3 and why did the family travel such a short distance?”

Read the rest of this entry »

October 20th, 2009

Tim Berners-Lee in Amsterdam: On the WWW and Social Development

tim-berners-lee ccastigThe World Wide Web and Social Development Symposium at the VU University Amsterdam welcomed a variety of prominent speakers to discuss the problem: How can the Web contribute to the social and economic development in the world? The event culminated with the VU granting Sir Tim Berners-Lee an honorary doctorate for his contribution to the development of the World Wide Web.

Much like a parent in awe of how quickly children tend to grow, Berners-Lee celebrated the 20th birthday of the WWW this year with a bit of pride, but mostly astonishment as to how much it has matured on its own. He reflected on the early years when he thought the Web would always be WYSIWYG and was surprised that so many people these days, even children, have learned to use HTML.

Berners-Lee likened the consistency of the Web to “something you pull out of the kitchen sink”, noting that “the Web has everything all tangled up together: lots of small things that fit tightly and connect to the big things.” Then in order to illustrate the size of the Web he continued, “There are more Web pages than neurons in my brain. The only difference is that while the neurons in my brain are going down, the amount of Web pages continue to go up.” He asserted that we have an extra responsibility to the Web because, unlike the brain, it was created by humans.

The questions that Berners-Lee received during the Q&A were certainly the same questions that he was being asked during the mid-90s when “cyberspace” went mainstream. Perhaps while in the midst of the creator they hoped to find more definitive answers to such worn-out questions…

  • As an Internet user, how do I know what is the truth on the Internet?
  • Is the Internet safe for kids, and what can I do to teach my kids?
  • Do you feel the Internet is invading our private lives?

In line with Berners-Lee’s call for “extra responsibility”, Steve Bratt and Stephane Boyera followed-up with a brief introduction to the newly created World Wide Web Foundation – set to launch later this year – which is “the next phase of fulfilling Tim Berners-Lee’s original vision: the Web as humanity connected by technology.” The Foundation’s mission is to advance the Web and to fill the gap that impedes 1 billion+ people around the world from authoring and accessing content.

Within this context the audience viewed a trailer for the upcoming documentary about Yacouba Sawadogo entitled The Man Who Stopped the Desert (Sawadogo was present on-stage, but due to a language barrier choose to “let the trailer speak for him”). The Man Who Stopped the Desert highlights Sawadogo’s triumph in restoring food and life to many areas around the Sahara desert that were once abandoned due to draught.

At the time Sawadogo began using traditional communication to spread his innovate agricultural techniques. But the important idea that emerged here at the symposium is: as more Africans can connect, author, communicate and share these types of innovation and technology – then others can learn, and all together they can help lift Africa out of poverty.

October 10th, 2009

(me) Speaking at eComm Europe 2009

ecomm-2009-castiglioneI’ve been looking forward to attending eComm at the end of this month – Lars Rasmussen will talk about his new work with Google Wave, and others like Gerd Leonhard, and the people from Skype and Frog Design will be there.

Just got word that I’ll be giving a talk on ‘Free’ as a business strategy. I’ll post more info about the time/location shortly. But here is some info on my presentation…

Title: Sell What Can’t Be Copied
Talk Description: The concepts of ‘free’ and ‘freemium’ are excellent business strategies for getting people to use your stuff. Yet too often these ideas are misunderstood or poorly executed without a plan to monetize. How do we recognize the difference between what should be free and what should be sold?

Most business owners in this situation suffer from a marked inability to comprehend the underlying logic of the Internet when analyzing digital distribution. Digital products (digital music, videos, images and other content) live within the framework of the Internet, therefore they are subject to the logics of that context. By analyzing this context and looking closely at the influence that the Internet and blogging culture are having on online distribution, Chris Castiglione provides a definition for what should and shouldn’t be given away for free.

October 8th, 2009

Cool, I won the 1st Round of the Amsterdam Antwerp Challenge!

amsterdam-antwerp challenge castiglione ccastigJust received word that I made it through the first round of the Amsterdam Antwerp Challenge! (€100 for 100 words)

Here is my proposed business plan:

All cars manufactured today contain at least one computer. My idea is two fold: to develop sensors that connect the automobile’s meta-data to the Internet; and to allow developers to create online applications using this data. Conceptually, it is like Google Analytics, but for cars. Added feature may include networking this data to the local mechanic, friends, or other drivers. My theory is that this information will get degenerate parts changed more quickly, make the road safer, save the owner some cash and ultimately help the environment. In the future, car designers should think more like computer designers.

I will post more info when I find out. Looks like in the meantime I’ll have to get started on the second round proposal.

More info: http://www.aachallenge.nl/

September 26th, 2009

#picnic09 – Picnic Recap

Here are some pics and articles from my coverage while working at PICNIC ’09. I had a chance to sit in on an Ignite session and talk with Ignite founder Brady Forrest: Ignite: A series of Five-Minute Talks, STEIM’s Electronic Instrument Workshop and the Creative Commons Special.

September 24th, 2009

#Picnic09 : Electronic Instruments. Feel The Future.

STEIM #picnic09 Picnic Amsterdam 09A few members of STEIM, the electro-instrumental music foundation located in Amsterdam, came together at PICNIC to show the importance of music in our increasingly complex and out of control culture.

“Say goodbye to control. Say hello to improvisation,” these were a few of the opening remarks made by STEIM director Dick Rijken. He stressed that in a world of less control we need to concentrate on training our intuition. For Rijken (and STEIM) musical instruments play a significant role in developing the skills of intuition and improvisation.

STEIM’s Kristina Anderson took the stage next to highlight a variety of “instrumental objects” that challenge traditional notions of music creation. One example was Dick Raaymaker’s Intona (1992), a video in which he records a live microphone as it melts under the heat of a blowtorch – or as Anderson explained, “the sound of a musical instrument burning alive.” Other examples included works by Sonia Cillari and Tarek Atoui that experimented with digital sounds being generated from physical body movements.

Frank Balde then demonstrated how the Nintendo Wii can be repurposed into an impressive musical instrument. In conjunction with STEIM’s junXion software Balde was able to manipulate the pitch, amplitude, and frequency of a variety of sounds such as a grand piano, bass guitar and techno drums. All of this culminated in a stunning musical performance by Balde which received an enormous applause from the crowd.

Finally, Robert Van Heumen and Ariel Qassis concluded the session with their beautiful, yet haunting live performance: an improvisation piece using real time sampling.

All the projects showcased seemed to show how creativity through musical experimentation bridges the gap between the human body and digital objects. Or in other words, music is where electronic sensors and the human senses come together to create art.

August 19th, 2009 - 1 Comment »

New Media MA Thesis! (final version)

The final version of my MA Thesis is ready!

Copy What Can’t Be Sold (and Sell What Can’t Be Copied):
What Musicians Have Learned From Blogging

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Abstract:
The “crisis in the music industry” (declining profits blamed on piracy) has been presented in the media as a crisis for musicians. This thesis challenges such assumptions by differentiating between various components of the industry and by illustrating how some musicians are benefiting from, and sometimes even promoting, piracy and other types of free online content.

Studies of the music industry suffer from a marked inability to comprehend the underlying logic of the Internet when analyzing digital music distribution.  Digital music lives within the framework of the Internet, therefore it is subject to the logics of that context. By analyzing this context and looking closely at the influence that the Internet and blogging culture are having on music distribution, this thesis updates outdated concepts and presents recommendations for musicians living in a ‘post-Napster’ era.

Through a wide range of academic texts, empirical reports, interviews and case studies, I equate the current role of the musician to that of the blogger, ultimately arriving at the conclusion: successful musicians must copy what can’t easily be sold, and sell what can’t easily be copied.

Breakdown:
Intro – Explains it all
Section 1 - P2P & Music industry background/history
Section 2 – Free music, and the benefits of piracy
Section 3 – Musicians that blog, and selling what can’t be copied
Conclusion – Sums it up (duh)

August 4th, 2009

New Media & Music: an interview with the Silversun Pickups

silversun pickups (chris castigione, ccastig.com)As I was preparing for my interview with the Silversun Pickups I received a Tweet acknowledging that they had just rolled into town. Later that day I chatted with the Brian, Nikki, Chris and Joe of the Silversun Pickups before their show at the Melkweg in Amsterdam to discuss what it takes to be a successful musician in the new media climate.

You guys use Twitter quite frequently, can you tell me about your experience as a band using Twitter:
Chris: It is nice to have the photo option, it’s the best, the fact that you can just take a picture and put it out there. It’s so immediate.

Brian: It’s also, at one point we had a journal on our website and it became daunting, we were all daunted by it cause we thought we had to write these masterful paragraphs. But the Twitter thing, it’s like cliff notes. It makes it really easy.

Chris: Cos the twitter thing we can just put one line.

Brian: “hey we’re in Amsterdam.”

What was your motivation for using Twitter?
Chris: I checked it out to see what it was about and if anyone I knew was on it. And then I noticed our booker was on it, so then I kind of followed him and I was like “oh your on this?”. I didn’t touch it for 3 months, then one of our label guys found me on Twitter and was like, “lets have a meeting about this, you should do this more often for the band”, and I was like OK I’ll give it a try. And so we eventually got onto it.

Do you also maintain a Facebook accounts?
Nikki: Chris and I do

Chris: It’s definitely not a personal thing anymore. It’s like we understand people are going to come in and they know who you are through your band and so they add you as a friend. And then all of a sudden they accept you as a friend.

What was really nice about it was, on my birthday about a month ago all these people were saying happy birthday to me. I made sure to say “Thank You” to everyone and people were surprised like, “OMG my friends don’t even write on my wall.”

That was going to be my next question, it seems like it must be difficult to stay in touch with fans this way?
Brian: It does get a little overwhelming. Also, privacy is important too.

Joe: The band is an entity to itself. You have to work hard to keep it separate from your personal life.
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July 7th, 2009

I’m in the Wintercamp ’09 Publication

wintercamp-castiglione-chrisMy posts on freeDimensional and Blender* are included in the Wintercamp ’09 publication From Weak Ties to Organized Networks. A free copy can be ordered on the site, and a PDF is available here.

About Wintercamp: In March 2009 the Institute of Network Cultures brought 12 networks to Amsterdam for a week of getting things done. The aim of Winter Camp was to connect the virtual with the real in order to find out how distributed social networks can collaborate more effectively.

*my Blender article is mistakenly attributed to Marijn

More posts from me and the other Wintercamp bloggers are on the site.