Tim Berners Lee finally gets a blog!
Tim Berner's Lee, creator of the Internet has started a blog using Drupal - the software behind etribes Life. Nice to see that he approves of our choice!
etribes Life launches into Paris orbit
Thanks to everyone who came to the etribes Life launch last night in Paris. It was great to have you all there and great that you all enjoyed it so much!
We ended up with over 120 of the Les Blogs attendees coming along - which was something of a miracle, given that we didn't put the date on the invitation.
I hope we gave a reasonable insight into what etribes is and what we're planning... if not, feel free to contact me on luke at etribes.com.
For all of you press-minded folks - I enclose a press release about the launch... enjoy!
Its ok - found it!
Don't panic - thankfully Marc Canter has saved the day by mentioning 'structured blogging' - which (though I'm yet to discuss it with him) is what I think opens up blogging to the wider market... He also forecast the death of 'RSS' as a term - which is right because it means jack diddley to humans (as opposed to geeks). So three cheers for Marc.
Les Blogs - there is something missing...
Les Blogs is fascinating in many ways... but it's very internally focussed. Nobody's talking about the 90%+ of people who don't blog OR the 75%+ who don't know what a blog is.
I can feel the buzzing of something in my bonnet...
Blogging remains the domain of writers and journalists - i.e it's a media/campaigning thing. It's not about making personal publishing to the web free and easy - which is what I what I think most people really want - i.e the ability to post news, ideas, pictures, events, adverts up for other people to see.
Maybe this'll enter the conversation tomorrow... but I have a niggly feeling it's off the radar...
etribes - Live in Paris!
So we're gearing up to launch the Beta version of etribes Life (this site itself is a LifeSiteTM) at Les Blogs in Paris (see excited post below). We're inviting all les bloggeurs, journos, company execs and technology "evangelists" at the event to join us for a complimentary drink at Bar Panoramique at the Hotel Concorde Lafayette. It's on the 33rd floor of the tallest building in Paris - so it's just about good enough for us! There's more information here... if you're in Paris - do come along!
(p.s. I hear there's going to be a break-dancing competition later on, so bring your kneepads)
When is a blog not a blog?
This is what we've been asking ourselves this month. While. professionally, most of my contacts have blogs or at least know intimately what blogs are, privately, 80% of my friends don't blog and around 30% are too embarassed to tell me they don't know what a blog is for fear that I'll ridicule them in mine. The fools!
For all their air of popular culture, blogs are still a minority activity for people who like writing - yet, here I am, offering 'etribes Life' accounts to everyone I know and, you know what, they are simply delighted to accept. That is, as long as I don't call it a 'blog'.
I get the feeling there are thousands of non-bloggers out there just waiting to start blogging without realising it. They just need a service with another name. There's so much in a word...
Les Blogs here we come!
I've just booked my place at Les Blogs the up-coming blogging summit in Paris. Very much looking forward to meeting people and telling them all about etribes Life... Oh, and listening to what they have to say, of course!
I'm especially interested to talk with investors, exclitable bloggers and journalists - so if you're there and you want to meet up - email me @ luke at etribes.com.
e-democracy without the tears
I attended the Hansard Society's e-Democracy event in London on 9th Nov. It was the usual odd mix of local authority staff, dot-comers, political activists and eager politicians. The keynote speech by Stephen Coleman of the Oxford Internet Institute included lots of interesting facts and figures about how slowly people have responded to the Government's urgings to get politically active online.
He seemed to say that, by using the Internet cleverly, we might get people interested in politics. As anyone who has ever run an online community knows - you'll never interest anyone in anything they aren't already interested in by using the Internet - because you've only ever got around 5 seconds of their attention to do it in!
Personal Digital Identity
You only need to spend 5 mins with Simon Grice to understand why Personal Digital Identity is going to change the way we live. For anyone not familiar with PDID (or Simon, for that matter) it's essentailly the ability for someone to digitally control their personal data and to restrict who can access it to those that need to access it.
Midentity is one of the companies that will change the way we manage our data and is leading the way in Europe, while Plaxo and others are doing the same across the pond. I give it 2-3 years before my mum hears about it - which is a pretty good yardstick for when it hits mainstream consciousness.
