Openness and Social

Networking
Openness in social networking, business
communications and cloud computing.

by Colin McAllister, (cc) 2009

Lecturing at SWINBURNE (Sarawak Campus)
PDF: http://www.scribd.com/doc/14999326/Openness-and-Social-Networking
PPT: http://www.slideshare.net/cmcallister/openness-and-social-networking
 The Components of
Openness
Philosophy = Cluetrain Manifesto
Service = Social Networking
Infrastructure = Cloud Computing
 Contents
Openness and Freedom
Open Business Communications
Growth of Personal Communications
Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing
Experiment with Social Networking
2009 Developments in Openness
Conclusion and Actions
Copyright, References and Disclaimer
 Openness is Not
Proprietary Protocols – DECnet, Prodigy
Walled Gardens – The old Facebook
Invincible Monopoly – The old Microsoft
Product Lock-in by licence, DMCA laws,
DRM software, or closed source software
Draconian Laws – Technology is a frame
of mind, not electronic gadgets and
industrial processes. Ref. Martin
Heidegger 1953, translated 1977
 Openness and Freedom
Internet Protocol is an open specification.
Open Source Software is successful.
Corporate appeals for openness from:
Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Six Apart.
The Cluetrain Manifesto exhorts openness
in business communications.
Open Content and Creative Commons
United Nations' Article 19
 Corporate appeals for
openness
Google wants to make information "universally
accessible and useful."
Facebook wants to “make the world more open and
connected"
Anil Dash, of Six Apart,“With a name like 'Movable
Type', we've always been keenly aware of the
importance of freedom, as that name echoes both the
birth of the printing press and the creation of
independent media that an individual can control”
 United Nations' Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right
includes freedom to hold opinions without
interference and to seek, receive and
impart information and ideas through any
media and regardless of frontiers.

UN http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
U.K. campaign http://www.article19.org/
 Without Article 19
there is no freedom of opinion,
expression, or communication of
information and ideas. Bloggers,
journalists, activists and others are
unjustly imprisoned, tortured or dead
because of videos or opinions that they
posted on the Internet.

Photos of prisoners from various web sites

 Open Business
Communications
The Cluetrain Manifesto (Levine et al,
1999) is a list of 95 theses, which define
an approach to marketing
communications that is open and
trusting. It advocates that business
messages should be more personal and
less “corporate”.
In 2009, the Cluetrain Manifesto can
guide businesses and individuals in their
use of social networking websites.
http://www.cluetrain.com/
 The Cluetrain Manifesto
The Cluetrain Manifesto (Levine et al, 1999) is a
list of 95 theses on communications.
The 1st thesis, “Markets are conversations”
values organic communication networks.
47th thesis “They [companies] need to resist the
urge to "improve" or control these networked
conversations”
http://www.cluetrain.com/
 Growth of Personal
Communications
1989 Compuserve has 100,000 users
1995 Internet has 16 million users
2007 Internet has 1,300 million users
2007 15 million active bloggers
2009 Internet has 1,600 million users,
24% of the world's population
2009 Facebook has 30 million users
2009 Twitter has 6 million users
 Web 2.0 Software
Web 2.0 encompasses almost any web-
based service that doesn't rely on static
HTML pages, according to Tim O'Reilly.
Web 2.0 has standards for rich
communications features
Better user interfaces for updating and
linking websites
Mash-up of data from multiple sources as
a single presentation
 Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is a style of computing in
which dynamically scalable and often
virtualized resources are provided as a service
over the Internet. (Wikipedia)
Internet companies are reorganising to provide
cloud computing as a product
Available services are: Amazon’s EC2, Google’s
App Engine, Mozilla’s Weave for the Firefox
browser and open source EUCALYPTUS
 The Value of Social
Networking
Supports personal and professional
networking and free exchange of ideas
Encourages collaboration at a human
level on a global scale
Organises an overwhelming volume of
information in an interesting way
Grows virally via friends of friends
Generates over US $ 1 billion advertising
revenue annually
 Experiment with Social
Networking
Start a personal or professional blog.
Join a social networking website
Act with caution to protect your privacy.
Add friends. Share photos and web links.
Join in or create new discussion groups.
Post your resume/C.V. on LinkedIn or Xing
Create a social network on Ning or a CMS.
Facebook Profile
Xing Discussion Groups
Ning Social Networks
Delicious Social Bookmarking
Use Friendfeed to merge your
social networking streams
 2009 Developments in
Openness
The Open Cloud Manifesto is signed by IBM and
other computer companies
Microsoft appeals to Apple for openness
Oracle buys Sun Microsystems, vendor of open
source software
Facebook joins OpenID Foundation
Facebook announces Open Stream API
Facebook hires ACLU civil liberties lawyer
 Microsoft's Appeal for
Openness
'Openness is central because it's
the foundation of choice.'

said Steve Ballmer of Microsoft,criticising

the closed architecture of Apple's iPhone
at the Mobile World Congress, 2009.

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/21/1318253
 The Open Cloud Manifesto

“This document is intended for

CIOs, governments, IT users and
business leaders who intend to
use cloud computing and to
establish a set of core principles
for cloud providers.“ co-authored
by IBM and rejected by Microsoft.
http://www.opencloudmanifesto.org/
 Conclusion and Actions
Evidence of success for open standards
Openness is a mission of ICT companies
Social networks grow by viral marketing
Personal caution can improve privacy
Industry standards can improve service
Develop a new attitude of openness
Join and use a variety of social websites
 References

“Use the Cloud to Get a Clue.” A discussion

of openness in communications that could
change the way you use the Internet.
Focussing on: The Cluetrain Manifesto, Cloud
Computing and Social Networking. With four
pages of references. Developed at Curtin
University (Sarawak).
Available on www.scribd.com as UseCloudGetClue.pdf
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4998137/UseCloudGetClue
 Copyright
Slide show and images (cc) 2009 by Colin
McAllister, lecturer at Swinburne University of
Technology, Sarawak, Malaysia.
email:colin.mcallister@ymail.com
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed
under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share
Alike 2.5 Malaysia License.
To view a copy of this license, visit:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/my/deed.en_GB
 Disclaimer
As well as it can expressed in the time
available: This presentation does not endorse
any commercial names, trademarks, images, or
otherwise that it contains. They are used only
to illustrate general technology trends, not the
specific attributes of any one company or
product. Opinions herein are personal
expressions and do not represent an employer
or any company or organisation.