Web Development Live

As an avid Apple afficianado and advocate of all things open source, my stance on Microsoft is usually clear-cut: I don’t care for it.  Everything about Microsoft’s business practices rubs me wrong.  With that said, I was surprised to learn that Microsoft has been toying with its own little pet social network since the beginning of the year.

Well “social” might not be quite the right term for Microsoft’s baby network, which is called TownSquare.  Consider it a more elite community of Microsoft nerds.  Perhaps a better term would be the anti-social network.  Townsquare is an intranet-based social network currently open to all Microsoft employees, and shares many similarities with Facebook.

All the normal social goodies - pictures, bios, updates, feed are included on TownSquare for each user and shared with the Microsoft community.  Additionally, Microsoft employees can see when documents and files on the intranet have been updated  or modified.  The whole thing is designed on enterprise newsfeeds to compile various public information about employees on the network.

Microsoft is also sharing TownSquare with a group of select consumers who are responsible for testing Townsquare.  All the testing and restructuring can’t possibly be for Microsoft’s own good time, though; it wouldn’t surprise me if Microsoft did a revision or two and marketed the intranetwork social structure to businesses.  As one of the main features is updating users on document and data revision on the intranet, many businesses could, no doubt, benefit from such advances.

Which brings me back to my original issue with Microsoft.  What could be a fantastic tool developed by some no-name third party developer will undoubtedly be marketed for sale by Microsoft to small business owners who will buy into the product simply because it has Microsoft’s stamp of approval.  If anything, I would be delighted to see a third party developer replicate the social structure for viewing profiles and updating intranet-public documents as open-source freeware, available to all.

The entire reason I believe that Microsoft will continue to spiral downward is because the who’s who in Microsoft’s management will never be able to adapt to the new, very open style of program sharing and development, and leave behind the monopoly mindset. In the end, Microsoft will have to buy into a little Darwinian theory and adapt and evolve, or go the way of the dinosaurs.

Look closely. Just above the signature on your Idaho driver’s license, you’ll see a faint image of an old-style barn surrounded by rolling hills. That barn, a real place and part of a working farm on Blacks Creek Road west of Boise, is also in the running to become one of Ada County’s six “County Treasures” for 2008.If you have favorite historic sites in Ada County, particularly in unincorporated areas of the county, there’s still time to submit your nominations to the county’s Historic Preservation Council. Nominations are due by Monday. The council, made up of volunteers appointed by the county commissioners, includes experts in archaeology and preservation. Each year since 2003, the group has named six “treasures” - sites significant to Ada County’s rural past, or to the history of county government or even to the county’s physical infrastructure. The list in the past has included structures like the New York Canal’s Callopy Gates near Kuna. Council member and history fan Al Bolin said the gates, named after a worker on the Oregon Shortline Railroad that used to run nearby, haven’t been used in decades. Once, they protected the area from floods by diverting water into Indian Creek for natural drainage. Leslie Toombs, a planner in the county’s development services department, said that so far this year, submissions are sparse. Sometimes, to compile its list of six sites, council members refer to a county survey taken in the late 1990s, when architectural historians traveled through the entire county, street-by-street, acre-by-acre, to identify important structures. “The idea was to document what is there because the county is changing so quickly,” Toombs said. “Sometimes we go out now to see the structures listed on the survey but find they’ve been torn down, or altered, and have lost their historic features.” Being designated a “county treasure” carries no legal weight when it comes to protecting historic buildings. “The county has no means of objecting to changes, or destruction,” Bolin said. “But the program recognizes surviving structures’ historic significance and the people who have been responsible for preserving them.” The winning properties share a special metal sign during the year and get immortalized on the county’s Web site. Bolin’s own favorite “treasures” were among last year’s winners - four structures that make up the once thriving village of Ustick around Ustick Road and Mumbarto Avenue: The former mercantile, bank, car repair/sugar beet processing plant and school building. The old Ustick School on Mumbarto Avenue, now apartments, still has its original coal furnace in the basement. “With Ustick, we were able to do kind of a theme,” Bolin said. “And given that Ustick Road is being widened to four lanes (between Cole and Five Mile roads, just west of the old Ustick townsite), this seemed like a good time to bring attention to the historic parts of the area.” Anna Webb: 377-6431

Look closely. Just above the signature on your Idaho driver’s license, you’ll see a faint image of an old-style barn surrounded by rolling hills. That barn, a real place and part of a working farm on Blacks Creek Road west of Boise, is also in the running to become one of Ada County’s six “County Treasures” for 2008.If you have favorite historic sites in Ada County, particularly in unincorporated areas of the county, there’s still time to submit your nominations to the county’s Historic Preservation Council. Nominations are due by Monday. The council, made up of volunteers appointed by the county commissioners, includes experts in archaeology and preservation. Each year since 2003, the group has named six “treasures” - sites significant to Ada County’s rural past, or to the history of county government or even to the county’s physical infrastructure. The list in the past has included structures like the New York Canal’s Callopy Gates near Kuna. Council member and history fan Al Bolin said the gates, named after a worker on the Oregon Shortline Railroad that used to run nearby, haven’t been used in decades. Once, they protected the area from floods by diverting water into Indian Creek for natural drainage. Leslie Toombs, a planner in the county’s development services department, said that so far this year, submissions are sparse. Sometimes, to compile its list of six sites, council members refer to a county survey taken in the late 1990s, when architectural historians traveled through the entire county, street-by-street, acre-by-acre, to identify important structures. “The idea was to document what is there because the county is changing so quickly,” Toombs said. “Sometimes we go out now to see the structures listed on the survey but find they’ve been torn down, or altered, and have lost their historic features.” Being designated a “county treasure” carries no legal weight when it comes to protecting historic buildings. “The county has no means of objecting to changes, or destruction,” Bolin said. “But the program recognizes surviving structures’ historic significance and the people who have been responsible for preserving them.” The winning properties share a special metal sign during the year and get immortalized on the county’s Web site. Bolin’s own favorite “treasures” were among last year’s winners - four structures that make up the once thriving village of Ustick around Ustick Road and Mumbarto Avenue: The former mercantile, bank, car repair/sugar beet processing plant and school building. The old Ustick School on Mumbarto Avenue, now apartments, still has its original coal furnace in the basement. “With Ustick, we were able to do kind of a theme,” Bolin said. “And given that Ustick Road is being widened to four lanes (between Cole and Five Mile roads, just west of the old Ustick townsite), this seemed like a good time to bring attention to the historic parts of the area.” Anna Webb: 377-6431

Look closely. Just above the signature on your Idaho driver’s license, you’ll see a faint image of an old-style barn surrounded by rolling hills. That barn, a real place and part of a working farm on Blacks Creek Road west of Boise, is also in the running to become one of Ada County’s six “County Treasures” for 2008.If you have favorite historic sites in Ada County, particularly in unincorporated areas of the county, there’s still time to submit your nominations to the county’s Historic Preservation Council. Nominations are due by Monday. The council, made up of volunteers appointed by the county commissioners, includes experts in archaeology and preservation. Each year since 2003, the group has named six “treasures” - sites significant to Ada County’s rural past, or to the history of county government or even to the county’s physical infrastructure. The list in the past has included structures like the New York Canal’s Callopy Gates near Kuna. Council member and history fan Al Bolin said the gates, named after a worker on the Oregon Shortline Railroad that used to run nearby, haven’t been used in decades. Once, they protected the area from floods by diverting water into Indian Creek for natural drainage. Leslie Toombs, a planner in the county’s development services department, said that so far this year, submissions are sparse. Sometimes, to compile its list of six sites, council members refer to a county survey taken in the late 1990s, when architectural historians traveled through the entire county, street-by-street, acre-by-acre, to identify important structures. “The idea was to document what is there because the county is changing so quickly,” Toombs said. “Sometimes we go out now to see the structures listed on the survey but find they’ve been torn down, or altered, and have lost their historic features.” Being designated a “county treasure” carries no legal weight when it comes to protecting historic buildings. “The county has no means of objecting to changes, or destruction,” Bolin said. “But the program recognizes surviving structures’ historic significance and the people who have been responsible for preserving them.” The winning properties share a special metal sign during the year and get immortalized on the county’s Web site. Bolin’s own favorite “treasures” were among last year’s winners - four structures that make up the once thriving village of Ustick around Ustick Road and Mumbarto Avenue: The former mercantile, bank, car repair/sugar beet processing plant and school building. The old Ustick School on Mumbarto Avenue, now apartments, still has its original coal furnace in the basement. “With Ustick, we were able to do kind of a theme,” Bolin said. “And given that Ustick Road is being widened to four lanes (between Cole and Five Mile roads, just west of the old Ustick townsite), this seemed like a good time to bring attention to the historic parts of the area.” Anna Webb: 377-6431

Ali Campbell doesn’t always recognise Birmingham these days. The
singer for veteran British reggae outfit UB40 - at least until this
tour ends - was born and raised there and commutes to the central
English city twice a week for the band’s business. Yet urban
renewal has defeated him. His son owns an apartment in one of the
numerous new developments but Campbell gets lost in the just-opened
expressways.
“It’s so different,” admits the 48-year-old, who formed the band
with schoolfriends from the working-class Balsall Heath area in
1979.
With Thatcherism ascendant, UB40 were named for the dole
application (Unemployed Benefit Form 40) with which the members
were quite familiar. These days, Campbell concedes, the new
Birmingham wouldn’t foster such a diverse line-up.
“The vibe has changed. When we started you could take eight kids
out of Balsall Heath and they would have been a multiracial group
of kids,” he says. “If you did it now you’d have a bunch of black
kids, or a bunch of white kids, or a bunch of Indian kids, or a
bunch of Somalian kids. Birmingham was known for being multiracial
- anyone could have a good time in Birmingham. It’s very segregated
now. It’s the same all over Britain.”
Since 1979, when Chrissie Hynde saw the young band perform in a
Birmingham pub and gave them an opening slot for the Pretenders,
UB40 have sold more than 50 million albums worldwide,
with covers such as Red Red Wine and I Got
You Babe (a duet with Hynde) becoming
radio standards.
They remain a powerful live draw, often in the company of fellow
Ragamuffin tour acts Maxi Priest and the Wailers; 65,000 attended
their outdoor concert in Mozambique in 2007.
Yet they’re not immune to the online revolution hitting the
music industry.
“We used to sell records to support our tours but now we tour to
pay the rent and record in our time off,” Campbell says.
“The music business should have embraced the internet instead of
ignoring it but major record companies were always run by
prats.”
Campbell is releasing a solo album, Running Free,
filled with guest appearances from artists as diverse as Katie
Melua and Smokey Robinson. The band’s next album, 24/7,
will be released in March. It was financed by the London investment
group Ingenious Media.
Campbell prefers dealing with the private equity sector and
their spreadsheets as opposed to the music business. Yet to him the
true worth of the band’s latest album is that it continues UB40’s
return to how they first made music.
“We had a revolution in the band because we went back to
jamming,” he says. “Because we had our own studio and ProTools we
started making albums separately, like jigsaws.
“Our albums suffered because we weren’t playing as a band and
nothing was organic. People would come in, do their own thing and
then leave. Now we are back to jamming in a big room and everyone
to a man is happy. Even the crew is excited.”
Postscript: Shortly after this interview, Campbell quit UB40 to
concentrate on his solo work, with his Australian and New Zealand
gigs to be his last with the band. The group were reportedly
“disappointed” and “saddened” by his decision.

Ali Campbell doesn’t always recognise Birmingham these days. The
singer for veteran British reggae outfit UB40 - at least until this
tour ends - was born and raised there and commutes to the central
English city twice a week for the band’s business. Yet urban
renewal has defeated him. His son owns an apartment in one of the
numerous new developments but Campbell gets lost in the just-opened
expressways.
“It’s so different,” admits the 48-year-old, who formed the band
with schoolfriends from the working-class Balsall Heath area in
1979.
With Thatcherism ascendant, UB40 were named for the dole
application (Unemployed Benefit Form 40) with which the members
were quite familiar. These days, Campbell concedes, the new
Birmingham wouldn’t foster such a diverse line-up.
“The vibe has changed. When we started you could take eight kids
out of Balsall Heath and they would have been a multiracial group
of kids,” he says. “If you did it now you’d have a bunch of black
kids, or a bunch of white kids, or a bunch of Indian kids, or a
bunch of Somalian kids. Birmingham was known for being multiracial
- anyone could have a good time in Birmingham. It’s very segregated
now. It’s the same all over Britain.”
Since 1979, when Chrissie Hynde saw the young band perform in a
Birmingham pub and gave them an opening slot for the Pretenders,
UB40 have sold more than 50 million albums worldwide,
with covers such as Red Red Wine and I Got
You Babe (a duet with Hynde) becoming
radio standards.
They remain a powerful live draw, often in the company of fellow
Ragamuffin tour acts Maxi Priest and the Wailers; 65,000 attended
their outdoor concert in Mozambique in 2007.
Yet they’re not immune to the online revolution hitting the
music industry.
“We used to sell records to support our tours but now we tour to
pay the rent and record in our time off,” Campbell says.
“The music business should have embraced the internet instead of
ignoring it but major record companies were always run by
prats.”
Campbell is releasing a solo album, Running Free,
filled with guest appearances from artists as diverse as Katie
Melua and Smokey Robinson. The band’s next album, 24/7,
will be released in March. It was financed by the London investment
group Ingenious Media.
Campbell prefers dealing with the private equity sector and
their spreadsheets as opposed to the music business. Yet to him the
true worth of the band’s latest album is that it continues UB40’s
return to how they first made music.
“We had a revolution in the band because we went back to
jamming,” he says. “Because we had our own studio and ProTools we
started making albums separately, like jigsaws.
“Our albums suffered because we weren’t playing as a band and
nothing was organic. People would come in, do their own thing and
then leave. Now we are back to jamming in a big room and everyone
to a man is happy. Even the crew is excited.”
Postscript: Shortly after this interview, Campbell quit UB40 to
concentrate on his solo work, with his Australian and New Zealand
gigs to be his last with the band. The group were reportedly
“disappointed” and “saddened” by his decision.

With a writers’ strike set to kick off today, the question looming over digital Hollywood is: Can the web become the cable of 2007?

The answer might be as murky as the politics of the strike itself.

Creators may be drawn to the web as other avenues are sealed off. While strike rules at the moment seem to limit writers’ latitude, some television veterans are calling for a rethinking of writers’ relationships with online platforms.

“There is an opportunity, if there is a protracted strike, to create channels of development on the internet that are outside the big companies, and I wonder if the guilds are thinking about that,” said Marshall Herskovitz, the veteran TV creator behind Quarterlife, the television-style drama that will air exclusively online.

In a prolonged stoppage, new-media experts say, viewers certainly will be looking for alternative platforms, and initial traffic numbers could be expected to spike. Such sites as Revver, DailyMotion, GoFish and My Damn Channel could become the TNTs and HBOs of today - unknown before the 22-week walkout in 1988, a part of life after it.

“Viewers have already been watching on the web, writers are writing for the web, and networks are looking for programming on the web,” said an executive at one online-content site. “The strike will speed all of that up.”

As NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker warned this week, a strike could be a “watershed event” that “drives more people away from primetime.”

But to keep those viewers, Web sites will have to offer content that consumers feel improves on the reruns and low-cost programming on the air.

And that might be the tricky part.

Online content sites and the agents who sell to them are seeking to stake out a delicate strike position. They hope to capitalise on the immense opportunities the strike offers.

But they also want to preserve relationships that could be more critical in the long term; if agents and sites are seen as too aggressive, they could jeopardise their standing with the WGA - and future deals along with it. That means a conservatism when it comes to signing new deals.

The latest strike rules from the WGA make clear that the guild will consider writing for websites a violation of strike rules. Members who do so could be penalised, and those who aren’t yet members could be prevented from ever joining the guild.

Still, there may be more wiggle room than those rules indicate.

The WGA reportedly has told some members which websites are considered signatory companies and which ones aren’t, potentially loosening the work rules for the latter firms.

And it’s an open question whether the WGA’s restrictions are posturing or policy. “The purpose of the rules is different for the two weeks leading up to a strike than it might be three months into a strike,” Herskovitz said. “All along the guilds have been a bit overwhelmed by Internet production and at the same time winking at it because it’s too small and too invisible to be worth policing.”

The real fear for the WGA may not be that writers pen material for the internet - it’s that such material will find its way onto network airwaves.

So far, the WGA restrictions haven’t stopped some sites from mapping out a plan to seek out creators.

“We think the strike will give us many more opportunities to sign new talent in the coming weeks and months,” said Rob Barnett, the former MTV executive who now runs original-content site My Damn Channel, which features series from The Ten director David Wain and The Simpsons veteran Harry Shearer. “The dark times for old media are definitely good times for new media.”

And unlike a more binary split on television, the web is home to content that crosses genres, which might leave room for many creators. “This is much greyer than the rules on television,” one agent said. “If I’m a man on the street asking funny questions and getting goofy responses, is that considered written or not?”

Agents said younger writers who are hungry to work have been talking to them about finding work on the sites, WGA rules be damned.

Revver’s Angela Gyetvan said that the site “welcomes an increase” of viewers and creators if a strike takes hold. But she expressed concerns that the rules could tie the site’s hands as much as it did the networks.

The original content sites connected to networks - notably Viacom new-media properties such as AtomFilms and News Corp.’s MySpace - find themselves in a double bind: Not only do they have the relationships to manage, but they also need to fight the perception that they’re simply extensions of the same networks showing recycled content.

Agents expressed hope that the WGA will loosen some rules, both to win goodwill for members and encourage the alternative platforms to increase their leverage in contract negotiations with the studios.

If they do, the web might become the cable of the future; if they resist, web content might look no better or more appealing than the cable networks of yesterday - or today.