Oliver Thylmann

Bitcoin is on an upswing, both in terms of valuation as well as volume (see Bitcoin Report or Bitcoin Charts). But what are Bitcoins?

I first read about them from the Launch Newsletter L019: Bitcoin the P2P Currency. Most importantly the article said:

Bitcoin is a P2P currency that could topple governments, destabilize economies and create uncontrollable global bazaars for contraband.

The article provides a great overview and yes this system is really interesting. Another good one is in german from Der Spiegel.

There are a few problems though. Because bitcoins are theoretically anonymous (they can likely be tracked with some work), there is now a site where you can buy drugs, called Silk Road, run on TOR. Great writeup right here.

Now comes the bad side. Adam Cohen thinks it is a scam. He talks about a deflationary spiral, on which Bitcoin actually has a counter argument. The argument is also countered in the MIT Technology Review article titled: What Bitcoin is, And Why it Matters. Still Adam Cohen raises some very valid points in his Quora post.

For me it is still largely unclear of where this is going, but it surely is something to follow.

After an email to Robert Scoble, Mark Zuckerberg has written an oped for the Washington Post. He is going into detail about what they have learned and what they will change in te coming days/weeks.

Sadly he is missing out the biggest problem the diggerati who have left, e.g. Leo Laporte or Jason Calacanis (ok ok, also done for marketing purposes, but that’s just Jason ) or Ryan Block, have. The problem is the steady and slow erosion of privacy.

What once was, no longer is just for friends. Just take a look at this fun post showing how the defaults have changed.

And that is the true problem. The defaults are changing. Actually they are not changing so much in Germany where all the recent changes were all opt-in, but that is more in relation to the flack Facebook got in recent weeks here.

All I really want is to share stuff with family and friends and keep everyone else out. Sure people can find me via my name or email, but that does not mean it needs to be shared, just to be found when searched for. But why is my friendslist public or my likes? I don’t understand. Just check out FB Privacy Checker. It will ask you to log in, but more or less to just know who you are on Facebook, getting your user id. They just want access to your public information.

So now check what the Privacy Checker shows me.

Scary isn’t it? I’d love for somebody to prove me wrong and show me the privacy settings to change that. I actually don’t even want to show up on somebody else’s friends list. If I ever plan to share my friends list with the public it will be with people who also do that and on my own site based on open standards.

Hence my privacy settings are easy. Everything friends only please. Give me a like button on a website but it should only tell my friends I liked something and not the website or some public.

These thoughts and more actually resulted in an interesting conversation I had with @taospace about why we have the problems we do with facebook and not with google. I still suggest you read Jeff Jarvis’ post on defining “a public” as people use in facebook.

Here is that conversation:

• othylmann: I sadly doubt facebook can do the right thing as long as their business is advertising and our data is perceived as valuable for that.
• taospace: Yes. Now substitute Google for Facebook and it’s even more scary.
• othylmann: the difference is that google needs to get content online and this means working with us all. More content = more ads = more money
• othylmann: for facebook the don’t have this logical chain. More users just means more costs. Unless they can use their information.
• taospace: Very good point. Still people are trusting Google to handle their content (mail, docs) for free as well so there is some of that.
• othylmann: yes and no. They do not have to break our trust to make money. Facebook currently has to because they need to use the data for ads
• taospace: Google infers Facebook-style info too. No need for permission that way. Why wouldn’t they use it for growing revenue?
• othylmann: my social contract with google is different and they need my content and behaviour more than my private data.
• taospace: But doesn’t that just mean Google is smarter about doing the same thing but ends up in the same place all the same?
• taospace: Agree that FB has no choice. I think Google will end up there as well, purely through market forces.
• othylmann: google is organizing information. Facebook was mention to allow me to connect to friends and family. Adv. has no business there
• othylmann: google will try to make sure that whatever profile we gave with google is the information we are willing to share publically.
• taospace: True, but content+behaviour leads to mostly same data as FB’s. You+me see different social contract, but what about Joe Average?
• taospace: Adv. has no business in private data, agreed. Users perception of what is considered private is a problem though.
• othylmann: they see that even more. Ask your wife if she wants goog profile, whether she believes all her likes and friends in fb are public
• othylmann: and that’s the thing. In fb you believe stuff is private and not shared with advertisers. But yes there is a lot of learning to do
• taospace: If she is told what info is public she’ll of course be upset. If she was told what info is inferred she’d be just as upset.
• othylmann: possibly but I am not sure. But yes, that will still lead to problem for google eventually. But it’s in their interest to be nice

This also lead to a side conversation on launching a new social network and whether people would be paying to keep their data private and not having you rely on advertising. This again turned into a bit of a discussion of how much people value their privacy, but that again is another post.

All in all, it should be clear that I have been thinking about this and am very much with Jeff Jarvis on some points and with Thijs obviously with whom I had many great conversations about these fun subjects. This is tricky but Facebook needs to open up to monetize (or so they believe) and this goes against what they want out to do.

Of course as Mark points out in his WaPo piece: If people share more, the world will become more open and connected.

So we really shouldn’t be suprised if stuff on facebook is suddenly public. Take a look at Evil which samples public cell phone numbers from facebook, something the users surely didn’t intend to do. Maybe I should really delete my Facebook account afterall. Not to protect myself but to protect those of my friends that are less tech savvy. The problem is that at least for friends I would need an alternative. Currently none exists that is truly closed and private short of installing my own Noserub instanz.

Oh, and while we are at it, what about this? Removing stuff from Facebook that says how to delete an account? Read the comments people.

Never mind. This is complicated. I am really looking forward to what Facebook suggests the solution is. I want stuff closed damn it. That is what Facebook was about. Public stuff goes on Twitter, Public Profile on my Homepage.

It is starting to get annoying. Both Google and Apple are just too good at influencing people’s thinking that I needed to post a few more than 140 characters.

Google just started to push the newest release of Android, 2.2 or Froyo for Frozen Yogurt, to owners of the Nexus One. Sadly @teemow is currently on holiday so I cannot take a closer look at it in the office, but it is surely nice.

To start off here are the two amazing posts I have read on Android 2.2, Google I/O and the iPhone/Apple:

• Sayonara, iPhone: Why I’m Switching to Android
• Post I/O Thoughts by Gruber

I am trying to start of by commenting on a few of the points from these posts.

Let’s start with Flash. As I already sent on Twitter, Google is a quasi Adnetwork. Their business is in pleasuring agencies and advertisers in general. Pleasuring consumers is just something they have learnt is the best way to get to the more important point. Agencies are using Flash for ages. They have the right people internally. Those are Flash Designers/Flash Developers and they do not know HTML5 and actually have the wrong skill set in many cases to learn HTML5 efficiently. Google NEEDS flash to work on Android and they couldn’t care less about draining battery there. If they go to an agency and say: “Let’s do a million dollar deal for some campaigns via Admob.”, the client answers: “But I really like the idea of iAd.”, they now say: “Sure, you can do that, needs a bit of training, might be interesting, but while you do that, just use us because you can just use your Flash Developers because we know Flash.” Easy sell. Done.

Power drain can be dealt with over time. Actually it just a temporary problem and Google is doing that for the long run.

Tethering is supported by the iPhone too but the network does not want it. Did you ever tether your laptop to your iphone and look at the bandwidth usage? Just Dropbox starting a sync will pull down megabytes that are not happening on the phone. It is absolutely clear that networks do not want Tethering enabled by default. And everybody that complains about AT&T network problems should shut up about Tethering very quickly because it would surely not improve the situation! I would be surprised if the Mifi functionality would arrive anywhere outside of the Nexus One, meaning on the network specific phones.

Still, the Mifi bit is wonderful and Apple should do that. Especially with the iPad they should. I do believe that they don’t to keep good relations to networks. This is actually also the problem with OTA iTunes, meaning streaming your library. This puts strains on the network. I actually do believe that while it is super geeky and fun, it is three years away to being really usable. For now the priority (if you do not need the press buzz) should be low. Especially if DLNA is continuing its growth, you will have DLNA Harddisks at Home and just need to open up your DLNA device to the outside and you can stream from your home.

But .. Apple is chasing Google. At the same time, Apple and Google are chasing Nokia in many things! There is one and only one reason why Android sells so well. It is the best touch screen open source thing that can be licensed free by the carriers who can then adopt it to their liking. That’s why the Nexus One didn’t sell. Carriers sell phones. Not manufacturers. Carriers/Networks will push them through all the channels they control and make it sell no matter what is on there. Google has noticed that and changed how they sell their phones.

As for the advertising platform. Come on people. Steve Jobs is just protecting his own market because you know what, GOOGLE IS TAKING OVER THE ADVERTISING WORLD AND CANNOT BE STOPPED! At least hardly by one player alone, which is why we are using a more distributed model at Adcloud. It’s just economies of scale. But that’s another post. I do believe Apple is delusional though in how they approach it. But let’s see how it goes. I applaud them for doing it themselves and not caving in to Google.

On the other side, of course Apple is doing stuff for their own good. That’s the point in being a business. You can just hope that you can align your own good with that of your other stakeholders. For Google that seems to be working. For Apple it works in the sense that people want great stuff that works without a flaw.

While Google’s Cloud-to-Device system is nice, I do see security experts drooling about getting fun stuff into Android and taking it over. But still, the entire cloud thing needs to be dealt with by Apple. I presume they will, but not sure how, especially keeping it easy.

But there is one positive note to leave at the end. There are two companies at the moment that are almost printing money that are in the phone space: Google and Apple. As Gruber said Microsoft seems to be left in the dust but would have the money. Back to the two big ones. Google bleeds cash via it’s advertising systems and with Admob it quasi owns the Display (Doubleclick), Text (Adsense) and Mobile (Admob) Market. They just need to make sure that everything is connected to the internet to make more money. As we love stuff on the internet, this is good and good for the mobile ecosystem. Apple on the other side gives us amazing products that just work, asking for a premium for them. See something? Nobody is killing anyone here? Google needs size. They actually need the more normal people rather than the geeks that are raving now. Geeks don’t click on Ads. But it’s the first step. Apple needs to remain focussed on their closed system that works.

As the first article said, Jobs is becoming a bit draconian but I do believe that is what is needed for the iPhone. As much as a love the Android as a Geek, I do know the new iPhone will work and work really well.

On top of that, both Google and Apple have the money to really innovate, to just hire people because they might end up doing interesting stuff. They need to and that is good. I thank Google for putting pressure on Apple and Carriers (Mifi stuff) but really hope that Apple will not cave and do the same thing they did last time: license the OS, starting copying the Windows system for distribution, … . That can’t be it. I have almost only Macs in the office and that is because they just work. Support costs are simply lower. They might not have all the features of others but they just work. I want that in my phone even more so.

Oh how I love what is currently coming out of Google. I mean Pubsub Hubbub is already nice, and now WebFinger, with Brad Fitzpatrick again. Brett Slatkin seems to be in on it too and Techcrunch has a good rundown on what this is about.

I still remember having used Finger (and Gopher to be exact ) in the early days. Especially when studying physics it was nice just taking a look at whether somebody was on his computer or something. So this is perfect to be extended to the web.

Here is a good intro as well as an implementation guideline on Hueniverse. Seems to be easy enough. It doesn’t allow for real portability but that is really why you should have your own domain anyway and give that one out and have WebFinger on your own Domain, so that you can move the underlying system around.

So another thing to monitor. Grrr…. fun stuff coming out.

More and more people are starting to talk about one little startup: DropBox. Just as an example, in June the German Netzwertig gave it rave reviews and made many people ask for an invite. One of the shortest praises came from Simon Waldman:

Online storage that just works, they say…and you know what, they’re right. Beg to get on their beta list.

I have to admit, that it is one of the few applications that are still running on my Macbook all the time. Simon does have some very good additional tips in that post, like Evernote and extra small Moleskins, but more on that later. Now on DropBox. I already wrote about it here and have now been playing with it for some time. So long actually that I was still in the beta group that got a 10GB storage box

The application is remarkably easy to use and running seemlessly in the background, simply telling you whether it is in sync with your ownline storage or not. It also has versioning and a restore feature. I just restored a folder with 68 images because I am going to friends today and might want to check out those pics there. I have to admit that I ma not yet sure how they pay for all of this because it means you have unlimited storage when you are clever. e.g. upload 1GB movie, delete, upload another, delete, restore the old one, … you will never go above 1GB but have endless movies in there. Of course they can limit the time of the backups but still. It is a wonderful feature though and makes the entire system a lot more interesting.

Above that they have some special folders, like Photos, which will give you a gallery for all folders below that. Upload fotos in there and very easily share via a hidden folder similar to how Picasa does it. Not sure if I am totally happy with that but hey, it’s survivable and it’s your choice if you want to share fotos like that. I really do presume though that a large part of the people out there will start using DropBox to keep their PCs in Sync, and with more people using it, DropBox should install the option to find out who else is on DropBox through an address book sync, allowing me to easily share stuff with people already on there.

The bad side is just that you will otherwise need to invite somebody, who will have to install the app, and that makes it cumbersome. But if you are already using it for yourself for some time, … then it gets interesting. This is where DropBox is moving. I am using it for a long time now, and if you want an invite, I have a few left.

wm stream, originally uploaded by owt.

Ok, we got it. Due to only having one TV Card at the moment, we needed a workaround. We now have EyeTV running on a mac, together with CyTV. CyTV then streams whatever comes in via EyeTV to the Network and in the meeting room the old G4 has VLC and shows the stream coming from the MacBook. Other users internally can obviously also tune in.

MacBook, originally uploaded by owt.

sadly it is not mine. But hey, it stays in the family. And you know what, I could keep myself from turning it on, which will be a joy of its new owner.

I just watched this little bit of TV history where Jon Stewart is interviewed on CNN’s crossfire. The guy has always been brilliant and remains brilliant after seeing it. Good one! Go watch: IFILM – Viral Video: Jon Stewart’s Brutal Exchange with CNN Host -
technorati tags: comedy central, jon stewart, Crossfire, CNN

The new Globetrotter, originally uploaded by owt.

This is a picture of the new Globetrotter store in the center of cologne. You can try out your kayak or your scuba gear down there in the pool, or see where heat leaks out of your jakes in a big fridge with cameras… lots of cool stuff. great store!