My sister is a singer-songwriter. Her songs are great, and you can find them in the usual locations: MySpace Music, Last.fm and Facebook. Interestingly, though, she’s decided there are different purposes to each:

• Her Last.fm page contains more polished recordings.
• Facebook has those too, but also contains more rough-and-ready demos, ideas and experiments; it’s also updated the most, probably because she spends more time on it than on any other site.
• The MySpace page seems to exist because you’re expected to have one.

I wonder how common this is? Any other musicians care to comment? Is there one best place to promote yourself as an independent musician?

My flash fiction story Meaningless Battles is up on Every Day Fiction:

Rain skidded across the window, the smaller drops holding still, helpless in the path of their larger cousins, which sped forth and absorbed everything in their path. The carriage was a wasteland of raindrop-on-raindrop destruction. Alex watched for a moment and then adjusted his focus to the industrial buildings speeding past in the background, graffiti crawling up the walls only to be endlessly scrubbed off and re-painted.

Meaningless battles, Alex thought.

Click here to read the whole thing.

Meanwhile, if you’re a writer in Oxford, the third Oxford Writer’s Group meeting will take place at 8pm on November 16th, at the Magdalen Arms on Magdalen Road. Most of us will be reading an excerpt of something we’ve written, to a rough limit of a thousand words. We’d love to see you there.

In response to recent events, I’d like to propose a different kind of web service that overcomes the privacy and reliability issues with cloud web applications, while providing a solid business model for both application developers and service providers, as well as a seamless, easy-to-use experience for end users.

The T-Mobile storm

Over the weekend there’s been a storm surrounding the T-Mobile Sidekick, which is produced by Microsoft’s Danger subsidiary. It turns out the device stores the primary copy of data like calendar and address book information in the cloud rather than on each device; perhaps a fair proposition if you knew you could trust Microsoft’s servers. Unfortunately, said servers went down last week, and Microsoft didn’t have a working backup. Sidekick users suddenly found themselves without their personal information.

Is cloud computing safe?

Understandably, this has sparked a wider conversation about computing in the cloud. AppleInsider summed it up:

More immediate types of cloud services take away users’ control in managing their own data.

While Ina Fried over at CNet noted:

The Danger outage comes just a month before Microsoft is expected to launch its operating system in the cloud–Windows Azure. That announcement is expected at November’s Professional Developer Conference. One of the characteristics of Azure is that programs written for it can be run only via Microsoft’s data centers and not on a company’s own servers.

The issues surrounding cloud computing have been discussed for a while, and aren’t limited to these sorts of accidents; here’s a post I wrote in 2007 about the rights we ought to have over our cloud data. Partially because of the risks involved, and the risk of leaky data, some kinds of organizations and enterprises simply can’t use cloud computing services. (In the UK, for example, check out the requirements imposed by the Data Protection Act.) At the same time, the Sidekick debacle shows there are clear risks to end-user consumers too.

Despite this, the benefits of cloud computing are obvious, particularly for the organizations that can’t use them: device-independent applications and data we can access and use from anywhere.

Can we have the best of both worlds?

The personal computing model is relatively secure: you install applications on your computer, and they sit on your local hard drive, along with your data. Assuming there hasn’t been a security breach, or you haven’t explicitly provided access to your data over a network or through a direct action like emailing it, it’s safe.

On the other hand, because your applications and data are locked away on your hard drive, you generally have to have direct access to it in order to use them. There are remote desktop solutions like VNC, but these are clunky and fairly useless over a low bandwidth connection.

Web applications that store their data in the cloud overcome this obstacle, but lose the security of sitting on your own computer.

What if there was a halfway house between these two situations?

The personal web server that works

Theoretically, anyone can run their own web server, right now, that allows them to install web applications in a more secure, controlled environment and access them from anywhere. But there are some very good reasons why they don’t:

• You need system administrator skills, usually on top of Linux skills, to do it.
• Web applications – even relatively easy-to-install ones like WordPress or Elgg – are fiddly. There are configuration files, directory permissions and (potentially) source repositories to contend with.
• The web applications you can install on your own server are often not as good as the ones you can get in the cloud.
• When something breaks, it’s your own responsibility to fix it.
• Servers are expensive.

What if we could fix all of these things at once? Enterprises, organizations and individuals could have their own, more secure environment that would allow them to use the cloud applications they needed with fewer security risks, while enjoying the ease-of-use and immediacy that the cloud provides.

One of the reasons everyone’s leaping to copy the iPhone’s app store business model is that it just works. Sure, you’re forced to delegate root control of the phone to iTunes, and the operating system places some seemingly arbitrary restrictions on what applications can and can’t do. But the handset works, and installing software is easier than on any other platform. The truth is, most ordinary users don’t care about those restrictions. Hell, I’m a computer scientist software developer entrepreneur power user, and I’m just happy the thing works. (Context: my previous phone ran Windows Mobile, which doesn’t.)

Imagine if you could get your own server environment that was as easy to use as the iPhone. It would look something like this:

Front end & business model

• You sign up for the service, possibly for a small monthly fee, possibly for free (depending on the service provider). Alternatively, if you’re more technical / an enterprise / an organization, you install it on your own infrastructure. The platform is available for free and could be open source.
• From a secure web-based admin panel, you can add and remove users (although the platform optionally also supports Active Directory and similar standards, as well as OpenID), and install / uninstall applications from a centralized app store with the usual features: ratings, search, similar apps, etc. Installation is one-click, and upgrades are similarly seamless. (That WordPress “what, I have to upgrade again?” problem: solved.)
• Much like the iTunes app store, applications may be free, or may cost a small amount. Applications may impose licensing restrictions based on number of users: for example, the app costs $4.99 for up to 5 users, $19.99 for up to 25, etc.
• As with the iTunes app store, the application store provider takes a cut – and so does the service provider. This creates a strong incentive for multiple vendors to provide hosted services for little cost. It also effectively creates a discount for enterprise, organizational and technical users, who can bypass a service provider. The payment to the web application developer also, for the first time, creates a solid commercial marketplace for high quality web application products, while the free option allows open source vendors to distribute as normal.

Technology

• Behind the scenes, the server runs existing open source technology: Apache, Tomcat, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby on Rails, MySQL, Postgres, etc. However, there are restrictions on how applications must be structured, behave and share their data. This allows the one-click install and upgrades to function correctly. Importantly, though, users of the system need never worry about the underlying framework.
• The platform has a central data store that all applications may access via an API. This data store is fully exportable, allowing (for example) a datastore stored with a service provider to be moved to an internal setup as an organization expands. As with the iTunes app store, applications are linked to a store account rather than a physical machine, so the application licenses are portable too.

Of course, this wouldn’t replace standard web servers. What it does provide, however, is a simple cloud operating system that simultaneously works in a more secure, dependable way than existing services, would be more acceptable to many organizational users, and provides a genuine business model for web application developers.

The web is now an end user application platform, but still behaves like a lightweight document store. To obtain the level of software customization we all enjoy on our home PCs, a much higher level of technical competence is required. I strongly believe that this situation must change for the web to be a viable commercial application framework.

There were some great comments on this weekend’s guest post for Media140 about Lily Allen and sharing, so I’ve written a follow-up, exploring some ideas (and the arguments left in the comments) in a little more detail.

However, after at least a decade without tangible participation from the media industries, illegal file sharing has become mainstream. Companies, rights holders, device manufacturers and digital distributors have been engaged in difficult and important conversations for that time, while file sharers, unencumbered with that responsibility, have gone right ahead and developed easier and easier ways to share content for free. If I want to watch Up, the Disney/Pixar film that’s still awaiting release here in the UK, I can download Vuze and be downloading it inside of five minutes. To beat file sharing, any business model has to beat that experience.

Click here to read the whole article. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Just a quick note: I’m starting an Oxford writers group.

My idea is that participants will be able to upload their work to a closed online space, so that it can be read and commented on in a more natural reading environment. Of course, if people want, they can also read their work aloud at meetings, which will be held regularly. If it works, I’ll expand the infrastructure so it can be used by local writers groups elsewhere.

The preliminary meeting, which will help determine the size and scope of the group, will take place this Wednesday, September 30th, at the Gardener’s Arms pub on Plantation Road in Oxford at 8pm. See you there?

I’ve written a guest post over at the Media140 blog about Lily Allen’s file sharing stance, and the wider place of traditional record labels in the Internet economy.

If the Internet has brought us anything, it is individuality. We have the ability to publish, share and consume the media of our choice, based upon our own preferences. We are no longer happy to adhere to the conventions of broad demographic groups. This change is not just occurring in the record industry; it is happening in politics, in journalism, and across the media spectrum.

You can read the whole post here.

I’ve been thinking a lot about storytelling on the Internet.

I’m not completely impressed with how it’s been done so far. Not that the examples I’ve seen haven’t been beautiful, but their presence on the web has been irrelevant: they’ve essentially been multimedia presentations using web technologies, rather than a different medium that uses the Internet as an intrinsic part of its fabric. A great example of this is We Tell Stories, the digital fiction project that Six to Start built for Penguin a couple of years ago.

The Internet, as I’m so fond of pointing out, is a system of interconnected people: uniquely, the audience is an intrinsic part of the medium. I don’t think that’s been exploited to its full potential, possibly because it couldn’t be until recently.

I love the idea of a plot that reacts to how the audience is interacting with it and each other – not an alternate reality game, which has set goals and tasks, nor a virtual world like Second Life, but something that uses elements from the real world as the building blocks for a story in order to raise questions and get the audience talking with each other. The journeys of storyteller and audience would be interlinked in a kind of feedback loop, which emerging augmented reality software could potentially make more immediate and visceral. The story would use the Internet as a delivery mechanism, but it would be experienced entirely outside, in the real world.

The trick wouldn’t be to get people to forget it was fictional, but to reveal talking points about the real world – a kind of epic theater approach to storytelling as opposed to naturalism. The epic theater was a style popularized by Brecht (the German playwright who most famously wrote The Threepenny Opera), which dictated that the audience should never forget it was watching a play. As well as using particular styles of acting and stage production, the lights were often left on, and the audience was encouraged to discuss the events unfolding in front of them.

In digital, networked storytelling, this effect would almost be necessary due to the limitations of the medium, but could be exploited as a powerful feature. Never before has the audience been able to discuss a story on such a scale. It’s an opportunity.

Oxford Twestival is a night of musical entertainment, comedy and more in aid of Oxfam’s water sanitation project in Mali. We’ve got some great musicians lined up, there will be prizes on the night and the venue is pretty cool – anyone remember the old Point, above the Cape of Good Hope? That’s where we’re holding the event.

Here’s the details you’ll need to remember, complete with handy link to get a discount on your ticket if you buy in advance:

Oxford Twestival: September 13, 2009
The Cape of Good Hope (upstairs)
£5 in advance / £8 on the door

Okay, Twitter skeptics, so it’s got a kind of annoying name, but you don’t need to be a member of Twitter to attend, and the crowd promises to be a great mix of local artistic talent and professionals from around the area.

Every penny goes towards that Oxfam project, so not only will it be lots of fun, but you’ll also project the warm, fuzzy glow of someone who knows they’ve helped make a real difference in someone’s life.

There’s been a bit of bad publicity surrounding Twestival’s San Francisco incarnation, who kind of screwed around the DNA Lounge. Each Twestival is organized independently, and those shenanigans, while irresponsible, were unique; here’s the main Twestival response. I’m pleased to say that the Oxford Twestival’s organization has been very responsibly managed by Sylwia Presley.

I designed the following poster for BarCamp Transparency, this Sunday, July 26, at the University Club on Mansfield Road, Oxford. (It starts at 10am and tickets are free; visit the website to get yours.)

Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur, saw it and had this to say:

[..] What’s so great about TRANSPARENCY, OPENNESS and ETHICS? I’m in favor of OPAQUENESS, DISHONESTY & AESTHETICS.

We aim to please:

TechMeetup is a set of monthly technology gatherings in Edinburgh and Glasgow. It feels somehow illicit: the Edinburgh meetup takes place at the top of the Appleton Tower, a famous eyesore in the middle of the Edinburgh University campus. Piles of pizza and free beer are placed on tables, and after 7pm the doors are locked to the outside world.

It’s great fun, and interesting, and one of the brilliant ways Scotland has been energizing its technology industries lately. It comes highly recommended.

I’ll be heading up north to speak at the August 12th event about digital identities and the decentralized social web, and will be hanging around for drinks afterwards. If you’re in the area and would like to talk about these ideas, or just to say hello, please come along.

Photo credit: Appleton Tower in all its glory was captured by Patrick2978 and released under a CC Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 license.