“Social Networking 3.0″ was on the agenda this afternoon at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit. This one was a “must watch” for me, as will be Dan Farber’s later today on “The Democratization of Media.” You can follow along with the conference’s live Webcast here.

Moderator Charlene Li, senior analyst for Forrester Research, was joined by Travis Katz, senior vice president and general manager of MySpace International; Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook; Rich Rosenblatt, CEO of Demand Media and former MySpace executive; Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning; and Karl Jacob, CEO of Wallop. Dan blogged the panel on Between the Lines, and, as he says, most of the discussion focused the future of social networks. I was most interested in the comments concerning social networks and identity, attention, and intellectual property.

On the identity front, Charlene Li stated the truism that maintaining identities across different social networks is “a pain,” and wondered when the social networks we see today will become more open. Facebook’s Dustin Moskovitz recognized that portable identities are necessary, but didn’t go into particulars of how Facebook is or will be addressing this. Rich Rosenblatt said they talk internally at Demand Media about “the portable profile,” and says Demand Media is working on letting users log in with a single profile then select from a mix of options as to where they want to be. (My impression was he was not talking about navigating out of the Demand Media environment.) MySpace’s Travis Katz is interested by the notion of OpenID and a single, portable identity, but thinks it’s “complicated” to make it happen. And Gina Bianchini challenged the notion that social networking users want a single, inflexible identity to follow them around: “Your wakeboarding social network is fundamentally different from your independent journalist one. People in the real world have different sides of themselves that they show to different groups, different people, different communities.” She makes a good point, and I think the digital identity community is on top of that nuance. Though Tantek Çelik Twittered me to ask about their plans, if any, for using microformats as an open portability standard, sadly I didn’t get the nod from the microphone handler. [Update:] See Fred Oliveira: “A good start: A few social networks already have microformatted data on user profiles (Last.FM, Dopplr, Twitter and Cork’d), meaning any other network could easily consume this data when you sign-up, saving you a load of trouble - which is exactly what Dopplr (being smart as it is) does. Now if other networks would tag along, that would be superb.”

Travis Katz, Dustin Moskovitz, Rich Rosenblatt, Gina Bianchini, Karl Jacob

On the attention front, in response to the question “Where’s the money going to come from?” the panelists answered with nearly a single voice: targeted advertising. But transactions based on user desires and intentions are on the radar as well:

Travis Katz: the advertising model on social networks is going to be here a long time. Other models will probably emerge too. MySpace is looking at ecommerce models. You always feel better buying from a trusted source. When you talk about transactions between individuals, there’s a commerce opportunity there too.

Karl Jacob: Wallop is all transaction, no advertising. We believe there’s a world down the road where you buy the things you need to dress up your profile and the applications you want to use. Akin to the ringtone market.

Gina Bianchini: If I had to choose between the ringtone market and targeted advertising, I’d choose targeted advertising. There’s a huge opportunity to bring what is happening with AdWords into social networks. If you take a monetization model that’s working today and generating significant amounts of money, and apply it to a market that is only going to get bigger and more sophisticated as far as targeted advertising, it gets very interesting.

Finally, on the subject of intellectual property, when asked what was missing from the social networking ecosystem and what he would invest in if given the opportunity, Rich Rosenblatt commented on the need for what I would call a “third estate” of media: outside the copyright and use limitations of the products of the big studios, labels, and publishing houses, and yet a step above one person’s photos, films, etc. made primarily for personal use. A class of media produced and designed for Web distribution. Gina Bianchini challenged the notion that “amateur” media can’t comprise this third estate:

Rich Rosenblatt: We’d like to see more content actually made for the Internet. There are two layers of content. Studio generated (lots of trouble and fighting there), and user generated but not usable (one guy’s photos of himself). We’d like to see content that more than a few people want to see.

Gina Bianchini: I would argue that that’s happening today. On YouTube some of that gets lost in the crowd, but put it in a community of really interested people, and it’s very powerful.

Rich Rosenblatt, to Gina: But if you could buy wakeboarding content for your wakeboarding social network, wouldn’t that be great?

Gina Bianchini: From my perspective, one of the benefits of social networks is you and your friends can watch your own stuff. Another benefit is the good stuff rises to the top. I would rather have the material be truly user generated.

Karl Wallop: the good content and the good applications will all come from the current and up and coming generations of users.

I have long thought Creative Commons moves us significantly closer to this third estate media ecosystem, but doesn’t quite take us all the way there. John Palfrey points this out in his post today on blog scraping and the ongoing licensing/compensation gap.

alwayson, alwayson2007

Colette Vogele tipped me to the results of the International Podcast Survey (PDF), including the fact the survey indicates just 13.8% of podcasters are women.

Next Monday's issue of the National Law Journal includes an article (Juror Blogs Complicate Trials) about the uneasy marriage between ubiquitous publishing and communications technologies and the courtroom, specifically in the context of jury duty.  It points out that jurors increasingly are posting about their experiences to their blogs, texting one another (and no doubt at some point Twittering).  WiFi in the courthouse is more and more common as courts update their facilities and try to make jury duty more tolerable.  And it is of course possible to publish one's thoughts through a myriad of other means even in the absence of on-the-spot WiFi.  While these developments are busy blindsiding the legal community, Bob Kelley of the Florida Jury Selection Blog (quoted but not linked in the piece) is on top of things:

"Any lawyer who does not inquire during jury selection about a juror's Internet presence — whether it be a Web site, a blog, an account on MySpace or an account on Match.com hasn't done their job," said Kelley, who regularly asks potential jurors such questions.

Kelley goes on to observe "[t]he Internet is invading the court in a thousand ways . . . ."  Much like electricity.  Or air.  (Well, depends on the courtroom of course; I've been in a few where these weren't a given.)  The people formerly known as the audience apparently serve on juries, too.

Did you see that Michael Geoghegan and Gigavox Media have put out a WordPress plugin that helps streamline the process of obtaining release agreements from podcast guests?  The plugin automates the creation of a click-through agreement.  Here's an example; no legalese included.  (In other words, they're giving folks the rope; hanging optional.) 

It seems to me something like this would be a great Google Apps addition.  People frequently proceed on handshake understandings (or less), even when something important is on the line, because the process of entering into a sufficiently definite and enforceable agreement is too cumbersome and slow to be tolerated in today's world.  (See, or hear rather, Rob Welch's interview with Colette Vogele.)  But:  what if there were a widely available, cheap/free tool that helped users create and manage click-through agreements?  And what if all the usual associated paperwork and recordkeeping worked instead like Google Docs and Spreadsheets?  We'd be a leap closer to the sort of network-leveraging legal infrastructure that hums along beneath the action in Cory Doctorow's Eastern Standard Tribe.

Hard on the heels of a Texas district court's recent decision to dismiss claims against MySpace, Howard Bashman spotted a recent Section 230 decision out of the First Circuit that continues in this vein, and emphasizes the clear judicial trend of applying Section 230's protections to Web sites acting as neutral hosts of a third party's wrongful acts (excluding infringement, which is the province of a specific provision of the DMCA).  Courts seem to have little trouble reaching this conclusion when dealing with text based communications, but I'm curious to see what will happen when a case involving a podcast or videocast commenter comes up.  Per its language, Section 230 immunizes providers and users of "interactive computer services," defined as:

any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.

The provision most of these cases turn on provides that:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

(Emphasis added.)  An "information content provider" is "any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service."  I emphasized "provided by" in the language above because if a site exercises a sufficient amount of editorial control over the third party material, this can lead a court to conclude it is no longer wholly a third party contribution and render Section 230 inapplicable.

My take is that all manner of Live Web phenomena should constitute "interactive computer services" for purposes of this statute, but I wonder what wrinkles will flow from things like:

• site and/or user direction of what submissions get priority display or distribution (e.g., digg; current.tv),
• defendants that otherwise would not be eligible for Section 230's protections (e.g., radio stations) but trigger the statute's application by adding (almost as an afterthought) a Web-based component to their otherwise non-Web dependent offerings, and
• mashups that build on user submissions.

 Loading …

If you're interested in some terrific audio examinations of several of the topics (ir)regularly covered here, be sure to check out these current offerings:

• on attention, the "Who Owns 'You'" panel from Supernova 2006, at IT Conversations
• on digital identity, the PodLeaders interview with Kim Cameron (if digital identity is your thing, you probably already listen to The Story of Digital Identity too, I hope)
• on the future of DRM, TalkCrunch talks with Yahoo! music executives

Also, we did a this WEEK in LAW with Jason Calacanis and spent a good deal of time on RSS and implied licenses (or lack thereof).  I relistened to the show yesterday (we recorded back in November), and have to say that even where our approaches and philosophies may differ, I thoroughly enjoy and respect the hell out of Jason.

Don't get me wrong:  I want an iPhone, and will own one just as soon as is humanly possible.  But the thing that most surprises me about the device as I've followed along with the coverage is the extent to which Apple appears to be leaving Live Web opportunities on the table with its "breakthrough Internet communications device."  Where was the Live Web in yesterday's product introduction?  Largely absent, except for the fact the device can sync other people's podcasts and videocasts.  I kept wanting to see:

• A video camera to accompany the still camera, and
• Integration with .Mac, iWeb, GarageBand and potentially other companies' Web services — e.g., integrated tools for text blogging, photo blogging and/or sharing, video blogging and/or sharing, and podcasting.

Hopefully you can at least call up the iPhone's keypad for text entry while using Safari?  Unlike say Helio, Apple seems to see the iPhone as a device primarily of consumption, not production.  Which is a bit off, if this Internet communications device is to be truly "breakthrough."  It's further inconsistent with Apple's iLife approach, which is all about easy alternatives for publishing one's words, photos, audio, and video. 

It's interesting that while the iPhone will affirmatively incorporate Google Maps, it apparently will treat Gmail as just another POP3 service, and relegate Blogger and Google Docs and Spreadsheets to the status of just other Web pages (though depending on the Safari functionality, that may work just fine).

For more iPhone critiques, see Dan Warne, Top 10 things to hate about the iPhone, and DKS Weblog's Jared, Oh Magnificent iPhone.

Updated, 1/10/07 6:20 p.m.:  Wow, so it seems those negotiations about Cisco's iPhone trademark have broken down.  In the most litigatory possible manner.  (Thanks, WGC.)

Updated, 1/12/07, 9:01 p.m.:  More from Marty Schwimmer (My Annotation of 'How Apple could Fight Cisco') and the Wired GC (iTalk, iPhone, iSue) on the trademark issue. 

Also, if the iPhone isn't for the hard core webophile, and if it isn't for the hard core company (wo)man, then who is it for?  "Everyone else" is a fully sufficient answer, and it'll probably lure plenty of the others to boot.  I like this line from David Pogue:  

Predictably, the torrent — and I do mean torrent — of iPhone commentary from the citizens of the Web is practically outflooding spam this week. Most of it comes from people whose shirt fronts are practically drenched in drool. …

The California Supreme Court's opinion in Barrett v. Rosenthal issued today, and, as was widely anticipated, the Court reversed the appellate decision that was under review.  Although the case involved a newsgroup posting, today's decision is nevertheless excellent news for bloggers, and brings California law in line with that of other jurisdictions that have likewise found Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to be a shield for Internet publishers against defamation claims related to the statements of third parties.  The Court concluded (PDF) that the mere fact a publisher may be on notice of the potentially defamatory nature of third party material does not destroy the applicable statutory immunity:

The great variety of Internet publications, and the different levels of content control that may be exercised by service providers and users, do not undermine the conclusion that Congress intended to create a blanket immunity from tort liability for online republication of third party content.  Requiring providers, users, and courts to account for the nuances of common law defamation, and all the various ways they might play out in the Internet environment, is a Herculean assignment that we are reluctant to impose.  We conclude the Zeran court accurately diagnosed the problems that would attend notice-based liability for service providers.   [Slip opinion, p.26]

The Court further wisely decided that Congress intended Section 230's immunity to apply equally to "distributors" and individual users of interactive computer services, or, more precisely, that no meaningful distinction exists:

As Rosenthal points out, the congressional purpose of fostering free speech on the Internet supports the extension of section 230 immunity to active individual "users."  It is they who provide much of the "diversity of political discourse," the pursuit of "opportunities for cultural development," and the exploration of "myriad avenues for intellectual activity" that the statute was meant to protect.  (§ 230(a)(3).)  The approach taken by the Batzel dissent would tend to chill the free exercise of Internet expression, and could frustrate the goal of providing an incentive for self-regulation.  A user who removed some offensive content might face liability for "actively selecting" the remaining material.  Users in this position, no less than the service providers discussed by the Zeran court, would be motivated to delete marginally offensive material, restricting the scope of online discussion.  Some users, at least those like Rosenthal who engage in high-volume Internet posting, might be discouraged from screening third party content.  Although individual users may face the threat of liability less frequently than institutional service providers, their lack of comparable financial and legal resources makes that threat no less intimidating.

We conclude there is no basis for deriving a special meaning for the term "user" in section 230(c)(1), or any operative distinction between "active" and "passive" Internet use.  By declaring that no "user" may be treated as a "publisher" of third party content, Congress has comprehensively immunized republication by individual Internet users. [Slip opinion, p. 33]

This is a good decision for blogging and online discourse in general, one that helps ensure defamation claims can go forward where and against such parties as may be appropriate, without unduly chilling speech.  Kudos to EFF for its involvement.  More coverage from Professor Volokh, [updated, 11/21/06, 3:09 a.m.] Professor Goldman, Evan Brown, Peter Lattman, Danny at Beltway Blogroll, and Dan Gillmor.

It remains to be seen whether Section 230, which applies to the "Internet and other interactive computer services," will be found to apply to podcasts and videocasts.  As I read the Act's definitions it should, but you never know.

Fighting back from its own PR nightmare, Edelman has posted, as part of its Earshot podcast, audio from its mandatory, firmwide Edelman University course on Ethics in Social Media Communications.  It's a fascinating presentation by Rick Murray, President of Edelman's me2revolution group (who ironically doesn't appear to have a blog…), somewhat because of the palpable discomfort and regret involved, but mostly for how it puts the company's money where its mouth is on the transparency issue.  There's some interesting discussion of the updated, FCC approved WOMMA guidelines and the role they stand to play in controlling (or eliminating) the degree of related regulation.  And the new Ethics 20 Questions strike me as a great tool for helping not just corporate communicators but all online publishers (from institutional to individual) ensure the integrity of their offerings.

Reuters held a Newsmaker Event in New York recently it would have been interesting to attend; but for it being on an inconvenient coast I gladly would have gone:

PUBLIC FIGURES, PRIVATE LIVES -

A panel of experts debate how far the media should delve into the private lives of public figures

*Do celebrities and politicians have a right to private lives?
*Where does the public interest argument stop?
*Are families fair game?
*Why are we fascinated by the famous?

Panel:

Floyd Abrams, noted First Amendment lawyer
Bonnie Fuller, Chief Editorial Director, American Media, Inc.
Hilary B. Rosen, CNBC/MSNBC, Media Industry Consultant
Gary Morgan, CEO, Splash News/Paparazzi
Jacob Weisberg, Editor-in-Chief, Slate.com

moderator: Paul Holmes, Reuters

Coverage from Reuters, Culture Kitchen, BC Beat, and Jossip indicates there was much discussion but little consensus concerning standards in the online and offline/old media and new media arenas, and "quite of bit of talk about First Amendment/copyright/privacy issues and how they apply to old and new media." 

Meanwhile, Jason Lee Miller discusses how courts have shown their willingness to apply defamation laws in all applicable contexts. 

And just last night in San Francisco, bloggers, podcasters, and journalists converged for a Social Media Club Roundtable "on what is the right thing to do to properly disclose interests and conflicts of interest."  Here's pre-event discussion from Chris Heuer and Mike Arrington, and Chris' post-event recap.