One Large Network

If you haven’t checked out LinkedIn Labs, get on it! The site hosts a small set of projects and experimental features built by the employees of LinkedIn. They are billed as ‘low-maintenance’ experiments by the LinkedIn team, but they yield some very powerful help to the networker or job seeker. There are a number of really interesting tools that you can use such as:

• Integrating LinkedIn directly into Google Chrome
• Viewing your connections across the timeline of your career
• Getting your personalized LinkedIn Today headlines read to you on your mobile phone
• And many more…

I found Resume Builder, the Hackday Winner of March 2010 to be the most useful for me. You can “build, save & share beautifully formatted resumes based on your LinkedIn profile.” Providing you have a well defined LinkedIn profile, you will get some impressive results.

I was really interested in InMaps, which is classified as ‘LinkedIn Analytics‘ and enables you to “visualize your professional network, clustered in realtime based on their inter-relationships.” Unfortunately I was a very early adopter of LinkedIn and have been methodical about growing my connections and my network is now too large to be mapped. Cool idea though.

Related articles

• 2 Tools To Turn Your LinkedIn Profile Into A Neat-Looking Resume (makeuseof.com)
• 12 Awesome LinkedIn Infographics in 2011 (hubspot.com)
• HootSuite Integrates LinkedIn Company Pages & Groups (mashable.com)
• How do LinkedIn Advertisements Work? (pcworld.com)
• Sonar Connects New Contacts via LinkedIn (nyconvergence.com)

Way too funny.

Unless I”m really missing something (which is always possible) is there a reason why Netflix doesn’t have social media outlets displayed prominently (if at all) on their site?

I made my weekly trip to Wegmans to do my grocery shopping with my pal Inkyung. We got talking about what we had on our lists and when the subject of meat arose I mentioned the outstanding experience I had at Liehs & Steigerwald in Syracuse. I went to the cloud to show her the site but it was blocked by the Wegmans network. I switched over to my AT&T network and, sure enough, was able to access their site. Interesting. I wonder what other competitors they’re blocking.

INTERNET By Stuart Caie

Below is a short paper Julia Allis and I developed for IST 618 – Survey of Telecommunications and Internet Policy taught by Professor Milton Mueller. It takes a look at the Open Internet Coalition. Enjoy!

About/Policy Agenda

For our lobbying organization, we chose the Open Internet Coalition. Founded originally as “ItsOurNet Coalition” in 2006, the Open Internet Coalition rebranded with its current name in 2007 (Crum, 2007).  The Coalition is a group of corporations dedicated to keeping the Internet open to all producers of Internet content, affordable and available to everyone, and maintaining a high quality of service through a competitive marketplace (Open Internet Coalition). The organization’s policy agenda commonly refers to what it calls the ‘Four Opens’ – open devices, open applications, open services, and open networks (Paczkowski, 2007). Part of their policy, ‘network neutrality’, is an agenda item that the organization and its members have vacillated on throughout the years.

Despite their noble-sounding mission, the organization has been criticized of clubby, behind-the-scenes operations when pushing their policy agenda to the FCC (Lasar, 2010). Despite actions like these, the organization has a well-oiled public relations machine capable of balancing the bad press they receive for their back-room dealings with very visible end-user oriented campaigns such as their ‘Protect the Net’ campaign.  This initiative was launched at last year’s Computer Electronics Show and targeted consumers and entrepreneurs (Crum, 2010) (Hart, 2010).

Net neutrality is a hot item on the Open Internet Coalition’s policy agenda. In tracking the organization’s lobbying and its members’ actions independently on that topic, some interesting patterns emerged, namely member companies acting counter to the organization’s interests on the same issue. This is discussed in greater detail later in the paper under the How Its Policy Agenda Relates to the Self-Interest of the Members section.

Despite a seemingly limitless supply of resources and influence, Josh tried unsuccessfully for two weeks to get any official documentation from the Open Internet Coalition. We thought that with world-class organizations like Google and Amazon on their roster, we’d get world-class service and a world-class document or two clearly defining and articulating the organization’s agenda. Despite repeated attempts, we received nothing. This brought up questions surrounding the cohesiveness of the organization as well as its dedication to its mission. It certainly brings into question the organization’s transparency, something they try to create the illusion of. If they’re going to ignore the innocent information-gathering request of a student, what will they divulge to the press or other bodies making inquiries?

Membership/Supporters

The Open Internet Coalition is a who’s who of Internet titans and membership organizations – Amazon, American Library Association, eBay, Facebook, Google, Match.com, PayPal, Skype and Twitter to name a few.  Its membership also counts non-profit organizations with an interest in freedom of communication, such as the ACLU, Free Press, Educause and Internet2, and library organizations including the ALA and ARL.

From Comments Of The Open Internet Coalition (January, 2010):

“The Open Internet Coalition (“OIC”) represents consumers, grassroots organizations, and technology and Internet companies working in pursuit of a shared goal: keeping the Internet fast, open and accessible to all Americans. We support a process that results in common sense baseline rules to ensure that the Internet remains a key engine of economic growth, innovation, speech, and global competitiveness. The Coalition spans the political spectrum, standing together to protect an open Internet.”

How Its Policy Agenda Relates to the Self-Interest of the Members

All the organizations which comprise the core of the Open Internet Coalition’s membership have a vested interest in maintaining net neutrality.  Fundamentally, they all benefit from an open architecture that “allows worldwide users to make decisions about what businesses and which voices succeed and fail in the Internet ecosystem” (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010).

However, due to the diversity of the membership, the particular benefit they derive from net neutrality varies.  These can be broken down by type of organization.

Entrepreneurs and startups rely on net neutrality to “develop new online products and services with the guarantee of neutral, nondiscriminatory delivery to users.“ (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010)

Existing businesses “leverage the power of the Internet to develop innovative product lines, reach new consumers across the globe, and create business models.“ (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010)

Small businesses “…rely on the open Internet to grow and to increase their sales.” (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010)

Social networking sites exist for the purpose of online communication.  Their profits typically rely on ad revenue, which is severely affected by any practice that drives away membership. Furthermore, they are vulnerable to public response to the content their users put on the site.  Data transmission regulation could function as a form of discrimination against undesired content.

Online video providers such as Amazon.com, Netflix, and Blockbuster.com “provide high quality video content that competes with traditional video offerings from the network operator” (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010) and could tempt network operators to discriminate for competitive advantage.

Non-profit and NGO organizations are concerned with safeguarding First Amendment values.  “These values are at risk because of potentially discriminatory policies implemented by a handful of companies that provide access to and from the Internet.” (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010)

Because of the large number of organizations making up the OIC’s roster, conflicts of interest sometimes arise. After internal disagreements, the OIC opted to abstain from a stance regarding net neutrality legislation developed in 2010 by Rep. Henry Waxman, because certain parts of the legislation supported the interests of some member organizations but not others (Jerome 2010).

In fact, the member organizations sometimes find themselves working unilaterally against the interests of the group as a whole. In August 2010, the a lawyer named Lazarus attempted to broker “closed-door” talks between Verizon, AT&T, Google, Skype, and the OIC, in hopes that internet service providers and internet-supported companies could come to terms outside legislative avenues.  These talks went poorly, and ended when Verizon and Google revealed that they had been negotiating their own arrangement.  Notably, Google is itself a major member of the OIC, but in this case represented its own interests rather than the coalition. (Gustin, 2010)

Works Referenced

Coalition, O. I. (n.d.). Open Internet Coalition Facebook. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/openinternetcoalition?v=app_4949752878

Crum, C. (2010, January 7). Open Internet Heavily Promoted at CES: Open Internet Coalition Encourages Petition Signing. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from WebProNews: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/01/07/open-internet-heavily-promoted-at-ces

eBay. (2010, May 24). eBay Sends Letter Supporting Genachowski with Open Internet Coalition. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from eBay: http://www.ebaymainstreet.com/news-events/ebay-sends-letter-supporting-genachowski-open-internet-coalition

Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition. (2010, January 14). Comments Of The Open Internet Coalition. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from The Open Internet Coalition: http://www.openinternetcoalition.com/files/OIC_NN_Comments_FINAL.pdf

Gustin, S. (2010, December 1). Google, Facebook, Twitter to Feds: Man Up on Net Neutrality. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from WIRED: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/tag/open-internet-coalition/

Gustin, S. (2010, August 9). Google, Verizon, and the FCC: inside the war over the Internet’s future. Retrieved February 14, 2011, from DailyFinance.com: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/company-news/google-verizon-fcc-war-over-internets-future/19605776/

Haselton, T. (2007, July 11). Open Internet Coalition wants unlocked iPhones for everybody. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from ars technica: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2007/07/open-internet-coalition-wants-unlocked-iphones-for-everybody.ars

Jerome, S. (2010, September 28). Sources: OIC not supporting Waxman net-neutrality bill. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from The Hill: http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/121493-sources-oic-will-not-support-waxman-net-neutrality-bill

Krigman, E. (2010, August 13). Open Internet Coalition to FCC: Don’t Wait for Congress. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from National Journal: http://techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2010/08/open-internet-coalition-to-fcc.php

Open Internet Coalition. (n.d.). Open Internet Coalition. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from Open Internet Coalition: http://www.openinternetcoalition.org/

Ou, G. (2010, January 19). Improving on Amazon’s Net Neutrality proposal. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from Digital Society: http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/01/improving-on-amazons-net-neutrality-proposal/

Ou, G. (2010, April 19). Open Internet Coalition opposes Open Access. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from Digital Society: http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/04/open-internet-coalition-not-your-fathers-title-ii/

Paczkowski, J. (2007, July 31). Of Course We Could Just Blame the FCC for Our Refusal to Bid and Still Come Out Looking Like Heroes. Retrieved February 14, 2011, from All Things Digital, Digital Daily: http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20070731/spectrum-auction-google/

Schelmetic, T. E. (2010, November 8). Policy Management – Open Internet Coalition Issues Statement to the FCC. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from TMCnet: http://policy-management.tmcnet.com/topics/policy-management/articles/115108-open-internet-coalition-issues-statement-the-fcc.htm

Silver, J. (2010, August 5). Google-Verizon Deal: The End of The Internet as We Know It. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-silver/google-verizon-deal-the-e_b_671617.html

The Open Internet Coalition. (n.d.). Collection of Comments to the FCC on Net Neutrality. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from The Open Internet Coalition: http://www.openinternetcoalition.com/index.cfm?objectid=3A9109DE-89F9-11DF-A6BC000C296BA163

Aufbruch - Breakup By dolorix

It’s been a rocky relationship, and now it’s over. You really thought doubling the monthly rate would keep customers around? Later.

I’m gonna give BackBlaze a shot ….

stop! by StartTheDay

Because we’re connections, it doesn’t give you the right to automatically add me to whatever email list you send out. I’m not interested in:

Peruvian, Greek, or Brazilian vacation properties (or any real estate properties), healthy relationship retreats, secrets of Executive Leadership, any seminar (be it web or otherwise) on accountability or anything else

I’m also not interested in in joining your real estate club, your investment banking forum, invites welcome or whatever LinkedIn group you’re starting.

I’m pretty aware of what’s out there and, believe me, I have no problem finding it on my own.

So time Machine/Time Capsule or whatever it’s called worked for about a month before it went kerplunk. I’ve exchanged it TWICE already (soon to be a third – they want me to mail it in ‘for review’).

Dear Apple Computer, Inc. – I’m still a fan of yours but I really don’t have another computing choice. I’ve invested practically any computing time I’ve had control over with you. It’s been about 18 years now. What happened? Was it the iPhone? The Intel chip? Things haven’t been as good as they used to be. I remember when you worked without a hitch.

Now I’ve had to turn my backup over to Mozy. Which is equally lame. I think it backs up my stuff but I never get any confirmation that its been completed. I contacted customer service and it took them  over a week to get back to me only to tell me to ‘upgrade and/or reinstall’. Whatever. Now I get this. I’m ready to go back to painting on cave walls.

Longtime Yankees owner George Steinbrenner died today. Often a polarizing figure, Steinbrenner built a behemoth of a sports empire. He always set the bar as high as possible – failure was unacceptable. It’s been great being a Yankee fan under his leadership. I think he’s taught a lot of people what winning means. Always intense and always classy, he will be missed.

Longtime Yankee announcer Robert Leo “Bob” Sheppard died on the 11th.

According to an Interior Department report, staff members at an agency that oversees offshore drilling accepted tickets to sports events, lunches and other gifts from oil and gas companies and used government computers to view pornography. Awesome!…Not. Read the rest here on Yahoo.