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Last week at Web2expo I gave a 10-minute keynote on the new vocabulary needed to understand where the web is going - most of this comes from sociology and anthropology. If you've been following my blog, you'll recognise this inculdes ideas from my Twitter in Theory post, from the Flow Past Web, from one on Digital Publics and of course from the Tummler post. Here's the video:


And here's the presentation, which uses Prezi's mindmap-as-presentation software:

This weekend, Adam Penenberg wrote a post at Techcrunch Let’s Kill “Viral”: It’s Time For a New Word in which, after being ridiculed by radio hosts over the title of his book 'The Viral Loop' he says:

The problem, I think, is the word “viral,” which comes from biology and was retrofitted to cover the phenomenon of word-of-mouth—or on the Web, so-called “word-of-mouse”—dissemination of ideas. I propose we kill it and replace it with something better.

Now this is a topic I've spoken and written about before, but I think Adam is missing the point again.

As I said then, if you behave like a disease, people develop an immune system. I don't think changing the name is enough - we need to change practice too. Viruses are exploitative - they hijack normal reproduction to propagate their genes at the expense of the host. This is an accurate metaphor for the kinds of scammy social applications that Mike Arrington described in his Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell post this weekend, aimed at the same app developers I was talking to originally in 2008.

When I read Adam's interview with Caterina Fake it was obvious that Caterina's expert Tummling was key to Flickr's growth, and it didn't fit Adam's 'Viral' framing. Caterina says:

But a game built for adults, where communication could come more freely, would mean the social interactions would be much more fruitful.

They also have this exchange:

Penenberg: There's both a good and bad side to virality. Products with viral hooks that are so strong they coerce people to sign up--in order to achieve a huge initial viral rush--are obviously bad. Not only do they alienate users, they don't lead to a sustainable business. On the good side, you have organic growth, which comes as a natural byproduct of something that spreads simply because people like it--eBay, Hot or Not, and Flickr. I can't think of an antonym for it.
Fake: How about brute force growth?
Penenberg: That's good. Maybe we should trademark the term.

Clearly Adam is struggling with his stale metaphor here, trying to come up with better terminiology. When I mentioned this on twitter, Caterina responded with

Things on the internet grow fungally, not virally. The metaphor is completely wrong.

and

I was a former member of the SF Mycological Society. Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of mycelia, underground...

Which fits perfectly with my organic reproduction metaphors.

So lets keep the term 'viral' for explotatative applications that violate trust to reproduce against the interests of their hosts, and we can use organic terms like 'fruitful', or if we insist on alliterative euphony, 'virile videos', 'fertile films' and maybe even 'philoprogenitive photographs'.

Almost 800 years ago in 1215, a group of Barons pinned King John down and got a written list of rights, some of which are still British Law. This week, by contrast, Baron Mandelson plans to revoke rights by government fiat. Lets compare. Magna Carta:

(20) For a trivial offence, a free man shall be fined only in proportion to the degree of his offence, and for a serious offence correspondingly, but not so heavily as to deprive him of his livelihood. In the same way, a merchant shall be spared his merchandise, and a villein the implements of his husbandry, if they fall upon the mercy of a royal court. None of these fines shall be imposed except by the assessment on oath of reputable men of the neighbourhood.

(38) In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.

(39) No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.

(40) To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.

(61)[...]We will not seek to procure from anyone, either by our own efforts or those of a third party, anything by which any part of these concessions or liberties might be revoked or diminished. Should such a thing be procured, it shall be null and void and we will at no time make use of it, either ourselves or through a third party.

The Digital Economy Bill is not so clearly written, but:

(1) This section applies if it appears to a copyright owner that—
(a) a subscriber to an internet access service has infringed the owner’s copyright by means of the service; or
(b) a subscriber to an internet access service has allowed another person to use the service, and that other person has infringed the owner’s copyright by means of the service.
(2) The owner may make a copyright infringement report to the internet service provider who provided the internet access service if a code in force under section 124C or 124D (an “initial obligations code”) allows the owner to do so.

Which sounds like it's 'own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it' to me.

124H Obligations to limit internet access
(1) The Secretary of State may at any time by order impose a technical obligation on internet service providers if the Secretary of State considers it appropriate in view of—
(a) an assessment carried out or steps taken by OFCOM under section 124G; or
(b) any other consideration.

Not 'lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land' or 'proportional' or 'assessment on oath of reputable men of the neighbourhood', just 'any other consideration' the Secretary of State feels like.

302A Power to amend Part 1 and this Part
(1) The Secretary of State may by order amend Part 1 or this Part for the purpose of preventing or reducing the infringement of copyright by means of the internet, if it appears to the Secretary of State appropriate to do so having regard to technological developments that have occurred or are likely to occur.
[...]
(5) The power may be exercised so as to—
(a) confer a power or right or impose a duty on any person;
(b) modify or remove a power, right or duty of any person;
(c) require a person to pay fees.

Again, the Secretary of State can make anyone do anything, or pay anything, without due process, preserving livelihood, lawful judgment. It's the exact opposite of the 'anything by which any part of these concessions or liberties might be revoked or diminished' being 'null and void and we will at no time make use of it' clause.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'll take the drafting of Geoffrey de Mandeville and the other 24 Barons from 1215 over Peter Mandelson and Sion Simon.

For a thorough legal discussion, read Lillian Edwards post, then sign the petition and join the Open Rights Group.

A quick perusal of Apple's iTunes store and you will be overwhelmed with choices of photo editing applications for your iPhone and iPod Touch. Adobe has just released Photoshop.com Mobile that lets you quickly and easily edit and share your photos with simple gestures directly on your iPhone.


Simply take pictures with your iPhone and either edit them on the device itself or save your photos at the free Photoshop Account. Signing up is easy, then you can upload, store and share all of you iPhone photos, saving you space on your iPhone.


Some of the editing features:
-crop, rotate and flip
-adjust exposure, saturation, tint and black and white
-sketch, soft focus
-various effects (vibrant, blur, blow, warm vintage)

Adobe has done a great job of filling a void where there wasn't one before. This is one of the better photo editing and storing applications available right now on the iTunes store, and it's all free. It definitely Kicks Butt!

One interesting observation I've made with the iPhone is that the device, the plan and all the associated applications have helped me part with money even faster than I ever could before. For starters I pay more than I did for the Blackberry, I use it far more than I ever used a mobile phone before and I purchase a huge number of applications and songs that I didn't before.

Now I can even use my iPhone to purchase airline tickets, books, groceries... whatever! Sometimes I come across an app that can help save money. RedLaser just happens to be one of these great applications. Using the camera device in your iPhone (first-gen, 3G and 3GS) the application scans the barcode of any item and tells you about what item you've scanned. It then searches Google Product Search and Amazon for the lowest online price for that item.



This is a great iPhone application that lets you shop smarter and be confident that you've made a smart purchase. The app will also keep an inventory of what you've scanned and email a list of products.

Unless I need it, I usually don't carry my iPhone with me when I travel out of country. The charges associated with data and long distance calls are outrageous. I've used the GPS map feature on my iPhone to find my way around a new city, but at a huge cost.

Thanks to Dubbele's Mobile Street Maps, you can now pre-download an entire map of a place you will be traveling to. It works where Google Maps isn't accessible, or when you have data turned off (Flight mode) on your iPhone. Even without internet access you can still search for locations. The Dutch company has applications for a huge number of cities, over 400 to date. Some are free apps and some cost up to $2. It will pay for itself every trip, and once you've downloaded it once, it's on your iPhone until you delete it!



You won't have the GPS location of where you are but using these maps will help you get around without the worry of paying extra for the data.