One of the big things I love about being here in the Silicon Valley is the opportunity I have to learn about amazing tech products and be aware of the news surrounding it. Sure, you’ll get hit with the news via Twitter pretty quickly, but things just kind of move a bit faster outside of the Twitterverse and the online ecosystem. And I’d love to write about startups and emerging technology more and more, but never really had the major space to compose my message–until now.

Some of you already know (or at least guessed it by now), but a month or so ago, I was approached by Brian Solis (@briansolis) to take over the Bub.blicio.us blog and run it as the Editor-in-Chief. I have since accepted it and helped move it forward. Along with help from Krystyl Baldwin (@krystyl), Bub.blicio.us is going to usher in a fresh direction as being a blog dedicated to parties, tech, and the mysterious “bubble” –we’re going to keep writing about parties, conferences, events, tweetups, and whatever social gatherings you got because we think that the tech industry is alive and kicking. But we’re also going to be writing about technology, startups, and other companies that are living this “Bubblicious” lifestyle. If you got a great product and you think that it’s going to be a rockstar in the tech scene, then Bub.blicio.us wants to know all about it.

And no, I have not left my full-time job with my current employer, Kane & Finkel Healthcare Communications. It’s too good of an opportunity to pass up so I’m going to be balancing writing posts every day (if I can manage) versus my very demanding and interesting job. But I’m always looking for great people to help contribute to the site–if you got some interesting posts and ideas you’d like to share on Bub.blicio.us, please feel free to reach out, either in the comments or by using this comment form and I’ll get back to you right away!

Lots of great things are in the works and I’m really stoked about all that has happened. Make sure you check out the posts on Bub.blicio.us, add it to your RSS feed, and follow @bubblicious on Twitter–I love getting new followers! Oh, you got something you want me to take a look at, I’m open to that as well. Just drop me a line.

Photo credit: Ninjapoodles

I swear that Enemy of the State is fitting right now. Why? Because at the end of the movie, the lawmaker who proposed the communication bill is interviewed on the steps of Congress and when asked if the bill is dead, he replies:

In its current form, yes, but the issue is still very much alive, I can assure you, unless, of course, no one worries about national security anymore. We knew that we had to monitor our enemies. We’ve also come to realize…that we need to monitor the people who are monitoring them.

I understand that the government wants to protect American investments and its citizens, but at a risk to the way that we communicate and our freedom of speech? The Stop Online Privacy Act that is was going through the House of Representatives along with the Senate version, Protect IP Act (PIPA), are dangerous bills that should be stopped. Why were these bills enacted in the first place? Apparently because members of Congress are hearing about piracy taking place in entertainment, arts, music, and within other content structures that takes away money from hard-working Americans. Yes, I’m in favor of stopping piracy and counterfeit goods, but by giving the government, who has a political leaning automatically, no matter what they say, can very much shape the way the Internet currently exists.

Yesterday, Congressman Smith announced that he was pulling one of the most controversial provisions of SOPA: DNS blocking. Just how important is this? As noted in a VentureBeat article, if this provision were to be included in both SOPA and PIPA, it would grant the United States government the power and authority, along with copyright holders, the ability to block websites with infringing, pirating, or counterfeiting intellectual property. VentureBeat continues to explain that “One method of blocking a website under SOPA — which Smith intends to remove — includes getting Internet service providers (like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon FiOS) to block the site’s DNS record, which would prevent people from visiting those sites.“ This is absolutely remarkable that while the United Nations has declared the Internet a “human right”, the greatest country in the world feels compelled to limit access to its citizens. I’m even more frustrated by the fact that copyright holders have this control through the DNS blocking provision where they can systematically take out their competitors, vendors and partners around the world via the Internet simply by declaring that they are now infringing on their rights.

Keep up with the latest news about the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) & Protect IP Act (PIPA)? Check out my del.icio.us stack of bookmarked links curated – over 100+ articles talking about SOPA being debated now, from TechDirt, VentureBeat, Mashable, Ars Technica, CNET, and others!

 
In a nutshell, SOPA/PIPA are telling Americans that their government has the right to censor the Internet, even though we’ve told other countries not to stifle the Internet for their citizens. Although, in all fairness, President Barack Obama’s administration has come out against SOPA/PIPA because its current form doesn’t work for them. This post, penned by Victoria Espinel, Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at the Office of Management and Budget, Howard Schmidt, Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator for National Security Staff, and, perhaps most important, Aneesh Chopra, the Chief Technology Officer of the United States and Assistant to the President and Associate Director of Technology at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, states two great points about how the Internet should be managed:

Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small.

Across the globe, the openness of the Internet is increasingly central to innovation in business, government, and society and it must be protected. To minimize this risk, new legislation must be narrowly targeted only at sites beyond the reach of current U.S. law, cover activity clearly prohibited under existing U.S. laws, and be effectively tailored, with strong due process and focused on criminal activity. Any provision covering Internet intermediaries such as online advertising networks, payment processors, or search engines must be transparent and designed to prevent overly broad private rights of action that could encourage unjustified litigation that could discourage startup businesses and innovative firms from growing.

We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet.

Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security. Our analysis of the DNS filtering provisions in some proposed legislation suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity and yet leave contraband goods and services accessible online. We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk.

So there you have it, three solid technology experts who have analyzed this information has provided a clear explanation why the current forms of SOPA and PIPA are bad and will do more damage than the intent that Congressman Smith had hoped for (no matter how good of an intent he meant). In fact, I believe that the testimony of these three experts far outweighs the testimony that was given by the supporters of SOPA in the first committee hearing, which featured members from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Motion Picture Asssociation of America, AFL-CIO, and Pfizer. These are not companies that you would necessarily associate with understanding Internet technology or ways to stop it. In fact, as I mentioned in my opinion post, I believe that these lawmakers within this committee are being fed influential data that is not educating them on how the Internet really works.

If Congress really wants to put people to work, they should not put restrictions on how business is being done. This is the 21st century and more and more is taking place on the Internet. The antiquated ways of doing business are over and manufacturers and legacy brands should learn to embrace the new forms of communication and business. In fact, you might want to read this fascinating and economic-enlightening post on about how the copyright holders are really scamming Congress. Something must be done to stop these scammers and violators of US laws, but complete Internet censorship is not the answer. I would think that for a political party that strives itself for encouraging the private sector, the Republicans, especially Congressman Smith, would be in favor of having companies develop new ways to combat these issues? Maybe instead of having a negative bill, we work on one that will encourage Americans to develop new technology to help control and minimize counterfeit technology while adopting to the behaviors that Americans are accustomed to? Let’s encourage Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, and the many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to fight piracy by developing new technology to help build trust with brands and consumers so that we won’t be scammed and taken by any international website. I, for one, am glad that the House committee has decided to hear from companies that oppose SOPA/PIPA and these representatives from Reddit, Internet service provider Rackspace (who probably hosts dozens, if not hundreds, of startups on their servers), Union Square Ventures (a venture capitalist firm), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and others.

While the Internet was created here in America, it is not American…it belongs to the international community and must be treated very carefully. There are no borders within the Internet so trying to legislate it should be the last thing we want to do. So if Congress wants to be hypocritical and tell us how to live our lives on the Internet while protecting big business but not bettering the world that we hired them for, then I feel further that there’s no reason to have representatives since if we don’t have unfiltered access to the Internet to speak our minds, who do we speak out to? Our government isn’t listening to us…just to brands who want to protect themselves.

But in all the time that I’ve watched House Hunters, there’s some things that I’ve noticed appear on the episodes. It could be that it’s a 30 minute episode and there’s just not enough time, or that it just doesn’t fit into the normal schema of the show, but I think to make this a well-rounded show that is kept in touch with the time and the reality of those looking for homes, there should be some adjustments made to the series–not a whole lot and not permanently, but let’s not turn a blind eye to the trends in real estate buying, okay?

In all the episodes that I’ve watched, never have I seen a couple or an individual holding a cell phone, iPad, or mobile device. Why is this important? Well I would imagine that if HGTV had a social tech savvy buyer on the show, he or she would be compelled to use their mobile device to photograph the house they’re looking at for reference, perhaps take video, or use their iPad to research the surrounding area or find where they are on Google Maps. They might also feel inclined to ask for thoughts on Twitter, Facebook, or even Google+. Now, I totally understand that these shows are not live and are taped, so that means that HGTV doesn’t want their “contestants” (for lack of better word right now), to be leaking information about the episode that their buyers are looking at. However, when you think about it, House Hunters is more like an extension of the buyer’s experience. The three houses that they are looking at are selected to be aired probably after the buyer and the realtor have combed through the dozens of listings until they find three acceptable ones that pose a chance at being bought.

I’ve looked at the reality TV show’s FAQ section for potential participants on the show and there’s currently no mention about utilizing social media to help make a decision. I’m sure it’s probably going to be a deal-breaker for someone to come on the set and out of the three choices that they have, post things on social networks to help make a decision. But it would be fun to imagine it, wouldn’t it?

A social network that failed, but is trying to succeed

In case you haven’t heard about it, Path is the brainchild of Dave Morin (@davemorin), a former employee of Facebook, who started this new social network  about two years ago, who’s main objective is to make your social network more relevant to those closest to you, not to force you to share your life in public, like some of the other social networks out there. In essence, Path was geared towards making your social life private, but with some sharing enabled – makes sense, right? Well that’s what some people believed and when Mr. Morin launched the first version of Path, it didn’t seem to be all that appealing after a while. A couple of the tech blogs even cited the service as doomed to failure, such as TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb. I, for one, passed it off for a failed startup because I was wondering why I would even think of using a service that is already well-represented by the liked of Facebook, where I can control album control and have as many people as I want to view it, along with Google+, where I can again moderate visibility of my postings through who’s in the designated “Circle”. These questions were even broached with the folks at Path a while ago and I even went more in-depth in looking at the mainstream users who aren’t necessarily “tech savvy” as I am or my friends are.

So why would I use Path?

It’s a private social network, for one. What I see from Path is the opportunity for me to become more “social” with those who I genuinely appreciate more feedback from. While I can post things to Facebook and Google+ and receive comments, likes and the occasional +1, if these gratification reviews are from my close friends versus acquaintances, then I would value it more than normal. Plus, the ability for people to share it with their close friends allows them a sense of liberation and ability to go unfiltered and share whatever they want with a lowered fear of reprisal or exposure. Basically it’s like you’re sharing with a very tight-knit group of your friends in real life and you know that what happens in the group, stays with the group.

Another usefulness that Path offers people is that it’s entirely centered around the mobile environment. While prominent social networks like Facebook and Google+ have a wider audience, their sites are developed for website use first – only recently did they release a mobile application that people could access on their smartphones. Path, however, knew that the mobile market was growing and decided to create a site that would be entirely devoted to the mobile user. The point of Path is to share where you are going and what you’re doing. It’s quite frankly not sensible enough to share that through a laptop as you’re going from place to place. The developers knew that the best place to get real-time content from users is through mobile and when you did that, you automatically had an Internet plan that would allow you to share your content.

Just look at the Facebook mobile application: it’s not conducive to sharing with the granularity of privacy that you would want if you wanted to try and recreate the Path environment. You’d need to exert way more effort to make sure that only those people within specific friend lists would be able to view it, and what happens if you accidentally forget to post media/content to a specific list? Then it’s available for the entire world to see. It’s better to have more privacy and then filter it away later on – basically go from conservative to be more liberal.

So far, the reviews for Path have gotten better compared to the first iteration. Dare I say that the company underwent a bit of a mini-pivot after receiving some criticism for its application? Just last month, it relaunched and to some great acclaim.

TechCrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis wrote:

There is something about waking up day after day to write about people who take risks; You end up rooting for some of them. This is the case with photo-sharing underdog Path.

Just over a year ago, her colleague, Erick Schonfeld wrote that Path was:

a private photo sharing iPhone app similar to Instagram or PicPlz, except that it makes sharing photos more difficult than it needs to be.

So how much different can this new iteration of Path be? According to Ms. Tsotsis:

Morin tells me that users are sharing more things on the new Path in a day then they had on the old Path in a year — at a rate of 12 moments per second. The company is seeing 30x the number of daily active users, going from 10K to 300K in two and a half weeks. Rumor has it that it’s seeing 100k downloads a day (Morin wouldn’t confirm).

So there’s been a bit of buzz about Path and it’s turnaround and now people are clamoring to try this. With a limited number of friends you can be connected to (at this time: 150 people), people seem to find it a bit rewarding to be able to separate themselves from the noise and just go straight to a signal and share with their friends, many whom they would like to stay more in touch with intimately and without having to worry about other people “butting in”.

The design is a key to Path’s usage

In looking at the Path application on my Android device, I came across Robert Scoble’s (@scobleizer) Google+ post on the service. He basically proclaims that Path is the “private personal journal that kicks ass“. Why does he think this? Probably because of the design of the application. Mr. Scoble believes that the application is well-designed and it’s subtle but “feels good through the entire product” and I tend to agree. The user interface is smooth and easy to understand how to navigate.  I believe that the service is well-organized and structured in a way that people can find information relatively quickly and without any qualms about how to find other things to do.

Path’s problems and it’s true test

One of the biggest problems that many people will have is finding a way to overcome the Facebook and Google+ paradigm for how people perceive a social network. With over 800 million users on Facebook, why do people want to leave the network to join one where they have just another network to join, add more friends, and be restricted to 150 people that they can follow – it just seems like social network overkill. As I said earlier, we’re beginning to look to find a way to de-clutter the noise from amongst our friends — we need to find something that is valuable to us instead of all the Zynga game spam and other ads cluttering up the stream. And just how will the mainstream users feel about Path when it moves past the Silicon Valley and technology hubs in the United States? One thing that gave me pause to using Path in its old form is how will non-tech savvy individuals, like your grandparents, relatives, friends, parents, sibilings or spouse feel about the service. This was one question that I posed to Path directly a few months ago and I’m still not sure what motivation that they would get from having to understand using Facebook Connect to create another login account just to download another application where they’ll have to share their content again. It seems a bit redundant for mainstream non-tech users.

Primarily, Path came out on the iPhone – perhaps the most highest selling phone in the world today, and was rightly so to begin there. Only recently with the introduction of Path 2, did the service begin to roll out a version of the application onto the Android devices. But the two platforms are not identical: on iOS, I’m able to apply filters after taking a photo with the Path application, but on Android, this is missing. There’s a similar issue with the videos as well (I’ve heard this is coming soon), and the connectivity to social networks — apparently it works fine on iOS with Twitter, Foursquare, and Facebook, but on Android, Facebook is the given problem. Needless to say, the integration isn’t 100% perfect and there’s definitely room for the service to grow.

So where does Path go now? Can the service monetize itself? Absolutely, but not in the traditional sense of the word – it would totally ruin the user experience if, all of a sudden, you’re using the Path application and Google AdWord banners start to appear on the top and bottom of the screen. It just adds more clutter. However, if special features like more friends, added photo filters, new integration with other social networks, exporting of data, etc. were offered, then people may pay for them and that could lead to more users and money for the company.

And what about brands getting on board? I’m hesitant to think about this route because I believe that Path should be a purely consumer-focused and isolated service. Why? I don’t think that brands should be contributing to the noise by “spamming” their followers. People will not want to give up one of their 150 valuable spots. I’d imagine that if any company wanted to participate on Path, they’d need to be 100% understanding of the types of people on Path and know the content that’s appropriate there. What is tweeted or posted on Facebook, blogs, or Instagram are not 100% acceptable for Path users. But for those users that have accepted brands, businesses should take note that these users are probably worth considering brand ambassadors and fundamental fans since they’ve given one of the sacred 150 spots to your company.

Download Path to test it out

So don’t take my word about Path. Make sure you try it out yourself and make your own judgement about the service. It’s available for Android and iPhone right now.

Photo Credit: sardinelly/sxc.hu

If you don’t think that there’s no future in having television, video, and movies on the Internet, then you’re sorely mistaken, because there’s a growing movement to cut all ties with cable and instead get it all through the Internet. Perhaps it’s one of financial necessity — people probably don’t see a need to pay the cable companies more money for the triple play package anymore. Instead, they’re perfectly fine paying for a cable modem and watching shows on their laptops or computers for free — and if they want, they can use hardware like the Apple TV, Boxee Box, Roku, or a laptop to connect to their television to have it on a bigger screen. Oh, and to top it all off? Just go to a retail store these days, and you’ll be able to pick up a “Smart TV” that’ll let you hook up the Internet right to your television and instantly you’ll have access to great services like Netflix, Pandora, Hulu Plus, and more! And there’s an audience already…why, just today, YouTube announced that in 2011 alone, over one trillion videos were viewed! So at the very least, that’s got to be saying something…right?

No? Well how about the research done by eMarketer.com that says in the United States, 33% of adult Internet users watch full-length television episodes online? As you can see in the chart here, the number of Americans surveyed has steadily increased over the past four years. Why, in 2011 alone, we’re already expecting about 72.2 million people to watch full-length shows online. So why should that stop sporting events like the Super Bowl from joining this trend? There’s a huge market for them to dive right into, and for the Super Bowl who saw last year’s game watched by a record US audience of 111 million viewers, there’s a high potential for millions more to participate.

Could I be wrong? Maybe, but I think that by opening up the Super Bowl across multiple mediums and making it as accessible as possible is a wise move for the network and NFL to do. Not only will it be livestreamed, but NBC has said that the broadcast of wild card Saturday, the Pro Bowl and the Super Bowl will be available through both the NFL and NBC websites and also through Verizon’s NFL mobile app. Some might say that it’s not going to be that significant of a thing…take this blog post on StreamingMediaBlog.com by Dan Rayburn, principal analyst at Frost & Sullivan and EVP at StreamingMedia.com, for example:

Since most people want to watch the Super Bowl on TV, I don’t expect the traffic for the Super Bowl webcast to break any records. NBC has said that they average around 250,000 viewers for their SNF games, although that’s probably total viewers, not simultaneous streams and the TV broadcast for Sunday Night Football averages more than 21M viewers. So NBC hasn’t seen any evidence that online streaming of SNF has any kind of negative impact on TV viewership. Adding the Super Bowl as a live stream makes a lot of sense and I suspect NBC will also sell online only ads during the game, so there’s also the ad monetization angle for NBC to try and cover their costs from streaming.

And Mr. Rayburn is probably right, but what this could result in is more motivation for sporting events to make themselves available to Internet streaming instead of broadcast rights. Imagine soon being able to access the Olympics in real-time right from your laptop or tablet. Or what about the World Cup?

Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way? Maybe instead of looking it at NBC’s Sunday Night Football broadcasts, we need to be looking at the industry’s bigger picture: how can non-traditional television help increase viewership of the NFL? I mean, Major League Baseball has done it over the past years. And as recent as 2009, MLB has seen its subscription base jump to 400,000 subscribers who have streamed over 127 million streams (136% more than in 2008). So the fact that it’s available may make a bit more difference for the millions of people who have to work. And what about those people in countries where the Super Bowl isn’t broadcast in? The Internet will bring the game to them and with it, the chance for many more ad impressions.

But what about those famous advertisements that everyone looks forward to during the Super Bowl? Will livestreaming the game offer NBC and the NFL an incentive to charge more for the advertisements because of the potential for increased viewership? Or will they decide to make it a tiered approach and get new advertisers to pay for exclusive online commercials only? Play the cards right and NBC and the NFL could turn this into a larger opportunity and build a better community.

Until then, let’s count it down until kick-off…regardless of how you’re watching it, the post-season will be a well-watched and accessible one.

Photo credit: bionicteaching/flickr