Looking for fun and safe playgrounds - online

The first time I saw a child-friendly keyboard back in the mid 1990's I thought they were a just a natural evolution of the "My First Sony" tape recorder + microphone that my friend Sara got as a present when we were both 11.

Fast forward 20 years. I’ve got a four-year-old who can spend 90 minutes, on his own, reading stories and playing a virtual xylophone. And I’ve got a two-year-old that is more adept at using a mouse than I was at age 12.

In a world where three-year-olds can’t figure out how to ring up grandma on the phone but have no problem skyping her, shouldn’t we invest more effort in ensuring their online time is quality time?

A recent article from The New York Times (free access, requires login) caught my eye.

“Forget Second Life. The real virtual world gold rush centers on the
grammar-school set.”

An estimate from eMarketer quoted in the article: by the year 2011, 20 million children will be members of a virtual world, up from 8.2 million today.

For now most of these sites have been extensions of old media empires (Walt Disney Co. or my local version, satellite TV’s Arutz Hop) or toy manufacturers (Mattel, Lego - or in my case, Sony)

Hopefully, there will be some real grass-roots efforts here and things will begin to change.

In the meantime, two big barriers to overcome:

1) Trust: I want top quality content for my kids. No ads (covert or otherwise). And safe logins. I can take more risks with myself and my online identity, but really don’t want my kids to be exposed in any way.
2) Money: Kids (or should I say, their parents) are buying online virtual pets at Webkinz (in the picture) or paying up $5,95 a month to dress up and play with online penguins at Club Penguin. But who else out there has a proven business model?

These two factors are, of course, interconnected. Unless they rid themselves of advertising based revenue models, it’s going to be really hard to build a safe, ad-free, educationally rich and well designed (and maintained!) virtual playground.

But this is exactly where web 2.0 grassroots initiatives from enthusiastic parents (and parents-to-be) might pay off.

Justifying offline guilt

There was a notable slowdown of blogging activity during the holiday season, often preceded by a note apologizing to the readers for going offline for the next few days.
"Of course I pardon you," I anwered back the Netvibes widget on my screen.

But then, within 48 hours or less, there was a new post that started "I just had to blog about this cool thing in my skiing vacation / Christmas presents / New year's resolutions." That's okay. But what I found disturbing was that it was sometimes preceded by an apology to their children/spouse/conscience for breaking their promise to go offline.

Then again, who was I to judge them? That is, what the heck was I doing online at that horrible hour in the day? Maybe my husband's complaints about the wife who quit her start-up partnership but is still online 24/6* were justified after all?

One has to think whether we're really taking our online lives too seriously. And with that thought, sorry, but I have to finish my accounting tasks for the month, pick up the kids, and find a birthday present for my husband before he really gets mad atme. After all, he does read my blog.

*24/6 vs. 24/7: A conscious decision not to turn on my computer on Shabbat I (thankfully) made prior to the Web 2.0 era.

The Semantic Web

I watched three very smart, hard-working high-tech colleagues have a discussion this week about what "Web 3" really means.
- One said it means "finding middle ground" (i.e. we had top-down content from the same old media empires and corporate boomboxes with Web 1.0, bottoms-up, user-generated everything with Web 2.0, so something in between had to be Web 3.0. )
- The other one said that it was all a myth, just like the Web 2.0 is just a bubble, (in the good scenario) and all bull (in the worst case.)
- The third one had absoltely no idea what the other two were talking about, and stayed silent.

All three could be right. Just like all three could be wrong.

I was always assumed that it was a synonym of The Semantic Web. Here's a short intro by Digital Bazaar to get the conversation going.

Thanks, and Goodbye

It was after many, many months of deliberating that I reached decision to stop my active involvement in ResearchTrail. Many factors argued for and against staying, but two won out:

• Evolving professional interests (more on that later...)
• The juggling got too heavy to remain enjoyable, especially since there were far more important things I feared I was just about to "drop"

Letting go of your "baby" is very hard, but I'll always remain a proud parent seeing it flourish. ResearchTrail continues as strong as ever, and I look forward to see it launch very soon.

So to Judy and David, thank you for your trust and openness and friendship.

And to the regular readers of Creativivi, thanks for accompanying me in this rollercoaster. You can certainly expect more life juggling, idea bouncing, and Web & Work 2.0 explorations going forward.

In other words, stay tuned for part 2.

What frozen peas can teach us…

If you’re in the twittersphere lately, you will have noticed that some of the most prominent 2.0 figures have traded their traditional photos for… well, peas. Peas as wigs. Peas as backgrounds. Pea pods as dresses. Peas as their profile photo altogether.

To me, the mystery was solved thanks to a twitter question, and subsequent answer, by Dave Weiner yesterday

Here’s the story:

Susan Reynolds was, until earlier this month, an artist and media consultant from Washington DC. Some two weeks ago, she found a lump in her chest and found herself undergoing numerous tests (including biopsies) that would later tell her she had breast cancer. To cope with the immediate pain of the scars those tests left, she grabbed a bag of frozen peas and stuck them into her bra.

She very candidly began blogging about her experience in, which has, two weeks later, she has generated somewhat of a cult following.

As she writes in her blog,

- A bag of peas was something
everybody could relate to.
- Some people love them,
some hate them, some use them for their own injuries.
- A bag of frozen peas was a
vehicle for conversation and let people tease me instead of having to cry.
- It let people share
instead of bemoaning.

With the viral spreading and speed that only Web 2.0 can offer, today there’s a group in Flickr where you can upload your own FrozenPea “pea-vatars.” There’s also a FrozenPea Fund for cancer research started by her friends (which is due to launch tomorrow, Dec 21st).

So in just a little over two weeks, a growing list of little known and well-known bloggers alike have taken the “pink ribbon” cause and given it a funny, personal, whimsical makeover. And people are buying into it.

Case in point: Robert Scoble (Scobleizer blog) thinks about the Davos question " how to save the world?" His answer: Peas.

(photo credit: Goldie Katsu )

Time waster of the day: Dumbest Moments of the Year

It's that time of the year again. Somebody on an email listserv (yes, despite Twitter and RSS, some of us still get old-fashioned email digests with post by people we'll likely never meet face to face), sent me a link to a news story by the editors of Fortune magazine "the 101 Dumbest moments in Business"

After reading about executives who play golf for 3 weeks days while their companies are in deep sh*t from the subprime crisis, and hearing more "shocking confessions" from so-called celebs, and then worrying sick about the lead paing and date-drug-like substances that my kids might have been exposed to in the 2 and 4 years I've surely endangered them by buying them toys, I felt nauseated.

Was I the only one? What were others thinking?
I can just hear their voices...

- The Israeli: If that punk can be CEO, so can I. In fact, I already know I'm better.
- The religious extremist: Told you so.
- The Latin American Macho: Idiots. The idea is not to get caught.
- The Latin American with "Marianismo": It's the poor who always get scr*wed.
- My Jewish Mother: See, that's why it's better that we're not millionaires.
- My friends' Jewish Mother: Told you so.
- The writers of the piece: Checkmark. Now let's start our filler on "New Year's Resolutions." so that we can finally go on vacation.
- The execs, celebs and other (in)famous people covered by the story: Hurray! My name is at the top of the blogosphere/mediasphere/noiseland for today!

Feedback for Loic: Top (and bottom) five from LeWeb3

BEST of LeWeb3 this year.

1. The caliber of the people. Big names not just for the sake of their names, but for their wit and influence and variety.
2. More on the people: The openness of Martin Varsavsky, the cleverness of The Guardian’s Emily Bell, the charisma of Jason Calacanis & Ev Willams, plus, Jeff Pulver and Scoble popping up everywhere.
3. Presentation fun: Jacob Share’s DIGGs live; Robert Scoble replying to TechCrunch announcement live, and good improvisation by several presenters in light of technical glitches.
4. Israeli startups (and fellow iDrink members) take silver and bronze in the Startup Competition
5. Blogger friedly: The networking lounge, the Ad-Click booth with seats and power outlets, the guy from Google who helped me find the nearest store to get a new power supply for my dinosaur laptop, and WiFi after they fixed the first day's glitches.

And now, some suggestions for next year

1. Did you notice that none of the names I mentioned before were women? Except for a couple of presenters (and our host, Cathy), there were no women spekers (and a very small percentage of attendees).
2. Please ban “advertorials” from the keynote presentations. Some really went overboard in trying to promote their companies when they should have made it more generic.
3. Day 2 ended in what was perceived as rushed improvisation and with very few people in the room. Better call it quits at 4 and then have people mingle for coffee downstairs if they want to stay until 5 or 6. (On a positive note, I glad they gave the stage to http://www.ninemillion.org/)
4. Parties are a place where people want to mingle and dance. LaScala was loud & awkward, and as somebody pointed out, they finally got around to playing tood music, but "have you ever tried to dance to Led Zeppelin?"
5. Online updates: many people didn’t know about the wiki or official site until late in the event, and then, it was not really participatory. Would have been great to follow changes in the schedule live throught these sites.

We know Loic and Geraldine and Ouriel and the rest were stretched to the limit, but still, appointing someone else would have been great. (ehem, if iDrink sponsors me again, or ResearchTrail takes off as we'd like it to, or if I'm invited as a speaker or otherwise find a creative way to get there next year, I officially volunteer :-) )

leweb3

Instant dose of culture – The Refill

Thanks to an airport strike in Athens, I got to spend an extra night in Paris. Luckily, it’s on a Wednesday, when the Louvre is open until late (10 PM according to the tourist guides, more like 9:30 PM in real life, when le-guards start to kick you out)

This night was a treat. I had just come from two mind-guzzling days where “dudes” and a few “dudettes” from 40 countries and inflated egos spoke about collaboration, communication, design, and technology - and I needed to get away from WiFi and let it all start to sink in. My first encounter with hieroglyphics and a Sphinx and the Venus de Milo (and yes, Raphael and Delacroix and the others again), finally drove home the point:

I can relate to this. This object is trying to engage me, to have a dialogue, to have me participate (or reject it). It goes well beyond the artistry and tools (the technology and skills). It’s –you guessed it- trying to tell me a story.

After walking up and down Denon (and Sully too this time!), I went back for a final dose of chic from the Gioconda. Unlike my visit Monday, the crowds around her were gone. I followed the famous gaze, reminding myself that it wasn’t enough to just stand there and listen to the audio guide or take another pic. Perhaps there was something I could understand about the Mona Lisa by myself?

And then her smirk turned into a full blown smile.

Thank you Paris.

On changing the world

At LeWeb3, basically everybody in the room thinks they can change the world (and most want to get filthy rich on the way). There’s a lot of emphasis on change and inspiration and dreams. But what impact are they really having?

After Hans Rosling’s talk, I felt moved. I wanted to continue to act, to make a difference in one of the “220 varieties” of countries he was referring to. But then, something started to bother me: as much as Gapminder brings alive otherwise very dry facts and statistics, the access to these graphs requires certain basic level of background/education to understand (as well as the means to see them).

I tracked Hans Rosling at the coffee break to ask him about the “lowest common denominator” of the people who use these graphs. His answer, tongue in cheek, was, “kids under 12 and Heads of State.” And added “This is because neither group wants to be told what to do. They want to explore themselves.”

Hans is a good conversationalist. People burst out laughing. Then somebody jumped in with a stat on the low ratio of CEOs with MBAs, and the high correlation of CEOs with MBAs that end up in jail. More laughs.

But Jonathan Mark, who was standing nearby, understood what I had in mind. Yes, the issues in so-called “third world” countries are important to raise. But by doing this on our own, with our own language and without giving others the chance to join the conversation (or create and preserve their own), we’re just imposing our own views on the subject. We’re not attempting to share (or listen to) the voices from those we’re trying to “help” in the first place.

Jonathan is trying to change this. He’s involved in projects in Africa that teach villagers, and especially women in these villages, to continue sharing their stories, their memories, their problems. The technology is simple, and most importantly, using a medium they’re familiar and feel comfortable with: voice. Radio is the solution.

Grass-roots radio stations are popping up everywhere. Women are communicating their issues, their hopes, their solutions, their dreams. And thanks to these projects, they’re preserving their stories, their memories.

Now that’s impressive.

The New World of Personalization, and what Philippe Starck didn’t get

Jonathan Medved from Vringo built a nice case for the personalization of technology. As a presenter, he made a very nice use of slides (featuring everything from Crocs-ware to Phone-ware.) He also had some memorable quotes:

• (Quoting Efuse): “A web site is your personality in pixels”
• As an investor, I wouldn’t have given money for companies in the ringtones business 5 years ago. That's unfortunate, because now it’s a $6 Billion business” (Jon's background is in VC)
• Mobile personalization is behind the web. But it’s about to catch up.
• The phone is really a fashion statement. [Vivi’s comment: my Nokia, by this definition, en is more like a 1987 Volvo station wagon: looks old and box-like, but sturdy and safe with kids…]

The second half of the presentation was, unfortunately, solely devoted to promoting Jon’s startup, which, marketing oriented as I am, was bit over the top. But I forgive him given the intro he gave on stage when he politely disagreed with design genious Philippe Starck after the latter’s (politically incorrect? shallow? even-for-this-audience disrespectful?) comments on God and stupidity earlier that morning.

Monetization dilemmas? Stay in the middle.

A note from a packed panel this morning on "Monetization" at LeWeb3.
For the most part, the answers were pretty much the expected ones (no, nobody has found the magic formula):

• Bloggers & Content providers? Be among the top 5 in an industry in your country, or carve a big piece of a (tiny) niche. Otherwise, don't expect to make any money for blogging (or maybe enough to pay for BigMacs).
• Others? Draw users in. Keep them there. Try subscription. And of course, various forms of advertising. And remember, Ecommerce is not making a profit from the commerce itself because the logistics are so expensive; they're good for being in the middle. Try being an intermediary - to offer serivces that either don’t produce the content or don’t do the selling part.

The one piece of advice I don't necessarily agree with: sell virtual products, like that website where 13-year-old girls purchase pixelized clothes for each other. I find it rather depressing. Maybe someone will show me something that will convince me of the viability/usefulness of such?

On European Entrepreneurs, or Robin Hood 2.0

One of the highlights today was Loic Le Meur's "conversation" with Martin Varsavsky. Unlike the self-perpetuating Sarah Lacy/Kevin Rose "conversation" yesterday or some of the impolite remarks to the audience during Dave Winer/Loic Le Meur's "conversation" this morning, this was one conversacion I wished could have gone on much longer.

Martin Varsavsky, entrepreneur, investor and Spanish speaker (no bias here, of course) struck a cord when he spoke about the change in Europe's perception of entrepreneurs. Before, he said, entrepreneurs were considered thieves, bandits. Nothing more than "Ricos, llenos de mierda" [his words].

Things are changing in today's Europe, where the entrepreneurial spirit is taking off (I take his word for it; he's also a lecturer at the Instituto de Empresas). Varsavsky says that their new image is much more positive, to the extent that some consider them the new saviors of Europe. They've gone from robbers to job creators, from outcasts to cultural icons.

Reminds me of Robin Hood.