An interesting and well articulated take on Personal Cloud from Vu Ha, a Microsoft engineer, states:

I believe that there is an excellent opportunity to build an open user-centered data platform that comprehensively addresses data silo and privacy issues, and thus catalyzes dramatic improvement in agent applications.

Me, too!

I recommend checking out his post.

Ximian co-founder and intrepid technologist with SUSE Linux, Nat Friedman recently blogged about a “Personal data warehouse,” stating:

What I want is a giant elastic bit bucket in the cloud, with a powerful search engine on top of it.

He goes on to describe several capabilities that he wants the search capabilities to have, essentially bringing together several disparate services available on the web today–such as face recognition (Polar Rose) and Optical Character Recognition  (OCR, the simplest form right now may be Evernote’s)–in order to make his data imminently accessible and usable.

Nat describes several other aspects, all of which in my view comprise not a single service, but a data platform. This Personal Cloud concept really cannot be delivered well by a single service provider–you don’t want it to be. Once you have your personal data in the cloud, the next step is to have a selection of relevant applications to choose from for helping you to manage your Personal Cloud. That means APIs that allow developers to offer best-of-breed services, such as face recognition, as applications that you can use with your cloud-hosted personal data.

All of that reminds me that I really need to write up a post about the necessity for data owners (you and me as individuals) having ultimate control over who can access our data (and what data they can access).

So there is a huge rift between how we work in the cloud-based, online world and our long-established storage media-centric behaviors. We accept it today, But that’s about to change.
–Me, October 6, 2009

Only a completely self-absorbed, arrogant bastard would quote himself as the opener to his own blog post.
–Me, today

In discussing online backup in the context of the Personal Cloud, I related how cloud-based sites & services like Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and Hotmail have been shifting our expectations. More and more, we expect to be able to access our stuff from anywhere. Email services are doing this even moreso, since they generally allow you to work online as well as sync up before going offline. But I omitted something that is of key importance when it comes to preserving one’s personal data. How are you protecting all your stuff that you do in the cloud?

Say you’re using an online backup service like Mozy (and I commend you for doing so), that means that you have protected the bulk of your personal data…arguably your most important data. But there is also your lifestream data.

Lifestream (noun):

In it’s simplest form it’s a chronological aggregated view of your life activities both online and offline. It is only limited by the content and sources that you use to define it.
–Lifestream blog, which is someone else’s blog

My lifestream is dispersed across many services around the web. Every day, I use Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, Delicious, WordPress.com, and a host of other cloud-based services.

The recent T-Mobile Sidekick debacle, brought to you by our always-entertaining friends at Microsoft, resulted in a lot of backlash regarding keeping stuff in the cloud. Personally, I think that the anti-cloud hysteria it has spawned is overblown. Real people were indeed affected severely, but you can find much better reasons to be wary of the cloud. For example, the future of many Internet start-ups that provide cloud services hangs in the balance sheets of venture capital firms. When a VC firm deems a start-up as nonviable, sometimes there is little time before the lights go out and whatever data it hosted for you effectively evaporates. Now what?

Backupify is one interesting service that addresses this. I’m trying it out right now to see how it does with backing up my Twitter data. (That’s the free part of their service. If I like it, maybe I’ll expand how I use it.) I wonder who else offers this kind of service…

Note I confess to having a shameless ulterior motive for posting about Backupify. (And I think that they should consider adding WordPress.com to their list of target sites.)

And now…a short recommendation for an under-appreciated service called Clipperz. I use it every day.

Clipperz is an online password manager. It can help you do the following:

• use different passwords for each site on which you have a login account (if you use the same username/password combo on some new user forum that you use for your online banking, you’re asking to get robbed)
• generate complex, secure passwords for each account you use
• sign on to sites quickly with one-click “Direct Logon”

And a lot more…

Even though I am these days mostly using a Mac, and therefore I can use 1Password, Clipperz remains my primary tool for password management. It’s both free of charge, and Free Software. Please check it out.

That’s the main point of this post. Unless you’re interested in Free Software licenses…

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Note Clipperz did not solicit me to post this. I chose to do so after seeing their upcoming “gamma” release. That same preview prompted me to send them $20 as an appreciation for the service they have provided me for the past year.

Free, as in GNU Affero General Public License

I came across Clipperz while I was still at Bungee Labs. I was doing some research on open source licenses, especially the Affero GPL (AGPLv3). I spoke about AGPLv3 in several posts around that time.

Clipperz is a perfect example of a product that should be licensed under AGPLv3. First, open source has big advantages for security-related software so that flaws can be identified and fixed quickly. Second, since Clipperz is essentially Software-as-a-Service, AGPLv3 provides the creators with protection against the SaaS Loophole (that is, someone taking their source code, replicating their service, making improvements, and choosing to keep the source code closed). Third, it means that if you’re the deeply paranoid type who doesn’t trust having someone else host your passwords, you can use the software to host the your own service. And if you have the technical chops for it, you can examine the code and determine whether it meets your standards for security.

The Weekend’s Data Loss Headlines

I went out camping in the Utah desert this weekend, and I came home to these headlines:

• Microsoft, T-Mobile Apologize For Data Loss, Offer Month Credit (Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek)
• Apple Mac OS X 10.6.1 Snow Leopard deletes user data (Richi Jennings, ComputerWorld)

Uh oh.

Predictably, the first headline incited yet another round of anti-Microsoft jeers from Apple fans. Then, the second headline put a quick, sobering damper on the party. If you were one of the people affected by either of the two incidents, what help or influence does such fanboy bickering offer when you have lost significant personal data?

Ultimately, you really can’t equate choice of vendor, platform or device with a plan for protecting your personal data from accidental loss. Furthermore, while incidents like these may be infuriating, when it comes to data loss incidents,  Pogo’s famous phrase applies: historically, I have caused most of my own incidents of personal data loss.

Whatever the cause, the threat of accidental data loss is a real thing. So how do you ensure that you don’t accidentally lose personal data?

Online Backup on the Rise, Vodafone Partners with Mozy

The popularity of online backup is rapidly growing. In my previous post, I mentioned that I now work at Decho, whose focus is to help people protect, organize and enrich their personal information. Decho operates the popular Mozy online backup service, which protects millions of consumers (and tens of thousands of small businesses) against data loss. Two recent partnership announcements–one with China Telecom, the other with McAfee–show how online backup is moving into the mainstream.

Today, Decho announced a strategic partnership with Vodafone. (Some US-based readers may wonder, “Voda-who?” Vodafone is the world’s largest international mobile telecom company, serving over 70 countries, and over 300 million customers, and, they own 45% of Verizon Wireless.) Vodafone will first offer remote PC backup, but the announcement further states that Vodafone will use Mozy to develop “a range of cloud-based services to consumer and business customers.”

The Personal Cloud Emerging

My take on the Vodafone announcement? Along with the other two announcement mentioned above, this further sets the stage the emergence of the “Personal Cloud.” As I stated in my previous post, the Personal Cloud will become the focal point for individuals to manage and safeguard their personal information. In fact, Forrester analyst Frank Gillett states that the Personal Cloud will be the key impact of cloud computing on individuals.

Mobile phones are already extremely personal devices, and as they continue getting smarter they keep getting more personal. So to me, it makes sense that Vodafone would look to the Personal Cloud to intensify that personalization. Having not been involved in any of the negotiations with Vodafone, I’ll be interested to see how they apply it beyond backup.

More Info, Press & Media Inquiries

If you would like to speak with Decho about the Vodafone news, data backup best practices, or the personal cloud in general, I can connect you with Charles Fitzgerald. In addition, I can also see about arranging an interview with a Vodafone spokesperson, or possibly Frank Gillett of Forrester.

The Latest in Cloud Computing

Every now and then, someone introduces me to an idea so novel that it seizes my attention and makes me want to become part of it. That recently happened to me with the concept of personal Cloud Computing, or more simply Personal Clouds. (If you are not familiar with Cloud Computing, it’s all the rage (and hype) in the industry…see Wikipedia’s first paragraph on it.)

The idea of having a Personal Cloud is pretty simple: all your data stays available to you over the Net–reliably, simply and securely. Forrester’s Frank Gillett defines Personal Cloud as…

An Internet-based digital service for individuals that acts as a permanent and flexible resource to 1) organize and preserve personal information, documents, media, and communications; 2) deliver that information on demand to any device or service; and 3) orchestrate integration of personal information across all digital devices and services.
“The Personal Cloud: How Individual Computing Will Shift From Being Device-Centric To Information-Centric,” Frank E. Gillett, Forrester Research.

Maybe that doesn’t strike you as that significant of a concept, but this will drastically affect our online experience and behavior. (I say “will” rather than “could” because this is one of those concepts that is so powerful as to become inevitable.) To understand how, let’s take a look at how we relate to our personal data today.

The Personal Data Condundrum

Most people store their personal data on a specific device (a computer, mobile phone, etc.). I’m talking about your various office documents; all those photos and videos that you eventually intend to get organized, upload, and share; that huge collection of music that you synch to your MP3 player. You may be able to get your email or onto Facebook from anywhere, but unless you’re both technically savvy and much more organized than the average person, a lot of your stuff is still effectively tightly coupled with one of the various devices you own.

Meanwhile, you’re probably also partly living in the cloud, where your email, social network interactions, and various other data types are both web-stored and web-accessible. More and more, this access-from-anywhere capability is becoming an expectation, yet most of us still accept it as natural that much of our data is stored only on specific devices. That’s quite a schism in behaviors and expectations.

So there is a huge rift between how we work in the cloud-based, online world and our long-established storage media-centric behaviors. We accept it today, But that’s about to change.

The Cloud Gets Personal

Enter the concept of the Personal Cloud. The idea is essentially this: with the Internet now broadly accessible from various devices, cloud-hosted services have begun to shift our expectations about data availability. Specific activities, whether accessing email or participating in social networks, are available not only through a through the browser on a computer, but also offline and in that strange in-between place of intermittent connectivity. Soon, that expectation will apply to all of our personal data–including that stuff that is still stored only on specific devices. You will stop thinking in terms of “my stuff is on my machine”, and start thinking in the simpler terms of “my stuff” (from anywhere, online and off).

When enough people make that shift in thinking and behavior, nurtured by more and more services catering to your personal cloud, you won’t think at all in terms of “my Personal Cloud.” You’ll just think of it as “my stuff.” The very idea of your personal data being inaccessible to you will seem anachronistic, akin to writing a check at the supermarket or being required to submit a form by fax.

So how far away is this Personal Cloud future? I don’t know for sure, but an odd thing is that you may already have your data available in the cloud, just waiting to be unleashed. One of the more obvious pathways to this Personal Cloud future is through online backup services. Enter, Mozy, by Decho, my new employer…

Mozy, by Decho

Mozy offers online backup for your computer at $4.95/month–unlimited capacity (or up to 2 gigabytes for free). Currently, Mozy is the best known and most trusted online backup service available. Maybe you have seen one of their commercials:

If you’re at all like me, you probably don’t back up your data on a regular basis. (I said regular, as in more recently than June.) So the idea of set-and-forget backup service that allows me to recover any previously backed-up version of a file is pretty sweet.

But there’s more to it than that. Simple, online file recovery–by version–may represent one of the first things you would expect from the Personal Cloud concept.

Online backup gets your data into the cloud, and stores it securely as your own personal asset. Certainly, there are more ways to use your cloud-hosted data than file recovery. As Decho/Mozy’s first platform evangelist, that’s what I’m working on now–finding ways to evolve personal, online backup storage into a rich, secure Personal Cloud service. So, expect to hear more about this Personal Cloud thing.

In his latest blog post,  “Competing with the singleminded,” Seth Godin speaks about

…talking with a few executives from one of the biggest technology companies in Europe,  and they were explaining how their hands were tied in moving forward on the internet.

Sounds familiar. Eerily familiar. Contextually familiar, in fact.

Having worked in connection with the telecom space for only about 6 months, I am amazed at how much of a head-in-the-sand attitude there is regarding the Internet and the cultural trend toward increasing openness that the Internet has helped to invigorate.

I wonder which company it was whose executives he spoke with…

If you were great at [online community management], I’d imagine you’d never ever have trouble finding good work.

–Seth Godin
Jobs of the future, #1: Online Community Organizer

Consider a few types of communities for which managers are needed:

• Online Commerce (like that of Amazon.com or eBay)
• Media  (like eMusic, or Audible.com)
• Free and Open Source Software (like that of Ubuntu or Fedora)
• Web Developers (my field)

In my past three roles as a “community guy” of some form or another, I have had a lot of inquiries. “How did you get started doing that?” I’ve always been stuck for an answer better than, “Well, you know, there’s not really any book about it…” (Godin again: “Since there’s no rule book…”)

Until now, you just had to start doing the community thing and learning as you go: from what seems to have worked elsewhere, from peers that you meet along the way, and from trial and many, many errors.

Enter the latest opus of Jono Bacon: The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation (Theory in Practice).

Jono is the illustrious community manager for Ubuntu, a founder of the late, great podcast LugRadio, and one of my favorite people. Although I may be a veteran community manager myself, Jono’s immense natural talent and passion is something I can only aspire to. I know of no person who puts as much deep thought, positive action, and general blood, sweat and tears into the practice of Community Management.

There is still no paint by numbers guide: every community and every community manager is different. But if you aspire to build a career in community management–are a community manager already–I encourage you to dive in and learn some of the fundamentals.

If you have not yet looked into Open Source for America (OSA), the advocacy organization recently announced at OSCON, I recommend checking it out.

The recent increased focus on governmental transparency is long overdue. In the 1990’s, we saw a trend in the US toward putting public records online. The trend reversed drastically over the last decade, as new justifications for government secrecy arose. Coinciding with the new US administration, the public is expressing a renewed interest in transparency, with increased attention to Lobby Reform. (In a representative democracy, should it be permissible that elected officials should be able to make secretive backroom policy deals with lobbyists from the tobacco, health insurance or energy industries?)

In the context of open government, the transparency of government technology must also be considered. Free and Open Source Software gets used by government. But when software can be acquired and deployed at no charge, is it going through the same security and other reviews as proprietary software? Conversely, are there times when proprietary software is unacceptable? Consider electronic voting machines. If “We The People” fund the creation of the software ran on these machines, is there any way a vendor can justify not disclosing the source code? I state these observations as questions not to open a discourse about them, but to point out that there are many issues to consider about the role of Free and Open Source Software in government. The establishment of OSA may help shine light on such issues and provide help and guidance to Federal, state and local governments.

To find out what the organization plans to do, I recommend listening to the series of interviews with various OSA board members recently hosted by my good friend Erin Quill (also my former co-presenter on–and now host of–Novell Open Audio).

I have been loving Audible.com for many years. This month, they sent out a customer survey, and I decided to respond to it.

The first two (of five) questions are:

1. How likely is it that you would recommend Audible.com to a friend or colleague? Please use a scale of 0-10 where 0 is “not likely at all” and 10 is “extremely likely”.
   (I gave them a 5.)
2. What is the primary reason for the score you just gave us?

That second question was open-ended, so I opened up and gave them what I hope they will see as a really good suggestion:

I have been with Audible for a very long time. Consequently, I get a really good deal on books compared to what Audible offers to new subscribers. Audible.com for me is part of my lifestyle.

I used to promote Audible.com a lot, but too many people told me that they think that the current pricing is not really that good of a deal.

Want people like me to promote Audible more? Do something Seth-Godin-outrageous: Instead of giving me a book credit for recruiting a new subscriber, allow customers like me to invite my friends to enjoy the same great subscription level I do. Recognize my loyalty by making me very popular with my friends. Deepen my fidelity to you by giving me a very special status among Audible.com members. Activate your network of long-time subscribers to start recruiting again by putting them in a special club! And, make it an exclusive–no one who becomes a subscriber this way gets the same invitation privileges…this special status is only for Original Members. Unless you are losing money on me every month, how could this go wrong?

Incidentally, I notice that there is no tit-for-tat for this survey. Why aren’t you giving away a single-month magazine subscription to each member who responds to this survey? If customer feedback–mine, and that of others–is valuable enough to spend your employees’ time to gether, doesn’t it make sense to incent customers to spend some time providing it to you? (The account is “thaeger,” thanks.)

I’ve made suggestions to Audible.com before, and never heard a peep back from them. Now that they are apparently owned by Amazon, I hope that they have gotten better at listening.