Wednesday 6 October 2010

tim.oreilly.com -- Various Thing I've Written: Tim O'Reilly's Archive

Tim O'Reilly

Various Things I've Written

Tim O'Reilly

I've started to have trouble tracking down my various, scattered writings and interviews on the Net myself, so I decided to create a page where I could find my own words when I wanted to refer to them. I figured some other people might want to look at this archive as well. If you're interested in even more than you find here, check out my official bio, my short official bio, and my personal bio.


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Recent Interviews/Articles

DC Law.Gov Workshop sponsored by the Center for American Progress -- July 2010. In this panel discussion with Vivek Kundra and Vinton Cerf, I apply the analogy of a "platform" to the concept of laws. "We need to specify less and accomplish more. We often write laws that do not achieve the outcomes we desire, that conflict, that are ignored. How can we write laws that will better enable the creativity of our citizens and to achieve the outcomes we do desire?"

The full workshop is available here: http://www.americanprogress.org/events/2010/06/lawgov.html

CBS interview with Shira Lazar -- July 2010. In this CBS interview with Shira Lazar, I talk about how government can be a vehicle for innovation. By making data available and sharing applications among cities, there are some great possibilities emerging. "There are opportunities for cities to actually work together."

Portland Oregon CivicApps Awards Ceremony -- July 2010. In this short video clip (I appear twice: briefly at the beginning and then closer to the end), I make the connection between Open Source, Web 2.0 and Gov 2.0.

C-Span at Gov 2.0 Expo -- July 2010. In this interview with C-Span at this year's Gov 2.0 Expo I explain in depth what I mean by the term Gov 2.0 and offer insights into how some of the applications could affect health care in particular.

Live Video Chat with Inc. Magazine Readers -- May 2010. This webcast covered many of the same issues as the Inc. Magazine profile, but also topical issues such as Facebook privacy. Inc. did something very clever, breaking the hour-long video into short, topical chunks. Here's one of them, in which I comment on the idea of work-life balance and the pursuit of profits vs. the pursuit of passion and meaning. I said "They don't need to be balanced, they need to be integrated."


The other short segments include:

The Oracle of Silicon Valley -- Inc. Magazine Cover image

May 2010. In his cover story for Inc. magazine, senior writer Max Chafkin profiles O'Reilly Media's history and touches on my efforts to encourage transparency and interactivity in government.

The (Tim) O'Reilly Factor -- May 2010. Publishers' Weekly interviewed me recently about the Tools of Change (ToC) conference in New York in February, 2010. This interview covers my views of the publishing industry, particularly ebooks, the devices, and the big three competing in this arena: Google, Apple, and Amazon.

"When you have a new market, it takes a while for the economic engines of it to become clear... But we already have a real economy of ebooks. Are there tradeoffs? Yes. There is some piracy, of course. But I look also at the opportunities. More than 60% of our e-book sales come from countries where we have no physical book distribution, so we have this huge expansion of our market as a result of e-books."

"That's part of our vision with ToC, to get publishers together to share what works. That's why we spend a lot of time evangelizing the idea that it's important for publishers to share data, to tell their stories, talk about innovations that work, and to be challenged."

In a more direct way, my presentation at the ToC conference itself covers the challenges of publishers in the digital era. What do publishers need to be really good at?

"I'm not saying not to be creative and innovative, but a lot of what you do (for authors) is the boring stuff. You need to be really good at production, distribution, pricing, channel management, marketing, and sales." This is one of the reasons I give for why I think that there will always be publishers.

Geek Power: Steven Levy Revisits Tech Titans, Hackers, Idealists -- April 2010. Steven Levy's review of hacker culture, on the occasion of the 25th re-release of his seminal book Hackers. Steven kindly includes me among the luminaries he discusses (even though I wasn't in the original book).

MySQL Conference 2010: Keynote Address: The Internet of Things -- April 2010. The future of data and open source: Where is it taking us in the age of the cloud? "The future is inconceivable and we need to get our brains around that future... we haven't seen far enough into the future. At O'Reilly we try to find the people who are living in the future already."

"The data itself is becoming the source of building new applications... (The future is) real time cloud based intelligence delivered to mobile apps. Build for the data based world that you can see coming."

The following two posts are the ones I mention in the address above.

The State of the Internet Operating System -- March 2010. Ask yourself for a moment, what is the operating system of a Google or Bing search? What is the operating system of a mobile phone call? What is the operating system of maps and directions on your phone? What is the operating system of a tweet? I've been talking for years about "the internet operating system", but I realized I've never written an extended post to define what I think it is, where it is going, and the choices we face. This is that missing post.

State of the Internet Operating System Part Two: Handicapping the Internet Platform Wars -- April 2010. As I wrote last month, it is becoming increasingly clear that the internet is becoming not just a platform, but an operating system. The question is whether a single company will put together a single, vertically-integrated platform that is sufficiently compelling to developers to enable the kind of lock-in we saw during the personal computer era, or whether, Internet-style, we will instead see services from multiple providers horizontally integrated via open standards.

Twitter as a Force for Good -- April, 2010. At the Twitter Chirp Conference, I lead a panel discussion with Katie Stanton from the State Department, Patrick Meier from Ushahidi, and Anil Dash from Expert Labs. We talk about how government can use technology for addressing policy issues and even manage international crises, as was done brilliantly in Haiti.

"I hope their stories will inspire you to think not just about whether you can make money... but about whether you can make a difference."

Location Debate at Where 2.0 2010 -- Mike Arrington and I chat, and though the location debate never occurs, we cover some interesting topics.

"We both agree that competition is good for people.... (But) If you go head on at a very strong opponent you are going to lose... attack where you can be strong." Mike, as a reporter, however, likes to watch the giants going at each other.

Chris Vein and Tim O'Reilly on City Data -- March 2010. Chris Vein discusses with me how releasing data to the public has generated new applications. The city of San Francisco hopes to see this kind of synergy in six key areas: Transportation, Crime, Public Safety, Commerce, Health, and Recreation & Parks.

"There is an incredible rich store of data that we have never looked at before... we are releasing that data to the public. From that release, we have seen about 30 applications... that we don't have the money to develop."

Six Years in the Valley -- March 2010. This interview with the Economist at their Innovation event in Berkeley, March 2010, covers the origins of the Web 2.0 Conference, the rise of advertising as a business model, and the core lesson of Web 2.0: that users add value. I talk about lessons from Google, the idea of applications that get better the more people use them, and what that means for the future of the web.

A particularly interesting moment came when the Economist asked me why there were so few big Web 2.0 successes. "It's too early to tell... Roll back the clock to the 80s, when there were hundreds if not thousands of personal computer software companies. And most of them failed. Would you say that there was a paradox in the software industry business model because most companies were not able to actually become successful?"

The Future of Face Recognition -- March 2010. Moritz Metz interviews me about Google Goggles, Face recognition, the future of AR and post privacy.

"I think a lot of this (face recognition) is going to become commonplace... Social apps is a huge repository of data collected online. We are going to find new uses for it... and we'll get used to it."

Open Source: Education as a Platform -- January 2010. I discuss the University as an open source platform: What are the possibilities? "When choice is brought to the marketplace, exciting things can happen."

Cloud computing Explained: An interview with Tim O'Reilly -- January 2010. I explain cloud computing and it's interconnection with mobile computing, and how this ultimately connects to government data and crucial policy decisions that enable the future.

"There are a lot of unchartered waters where everything is accessible to everyone. But I think that there are more benefits than risks."

C-Span at Gov 2.0 Summit -- November 2009. I was interviewed by C-Span at our Gov 2.0 Summit. I appear at the beginning of this video, followed by Jack Dempsey, co founder of Twitter, and others. I explain what Gov 2.0 is all about: how thinking as a platform provider can bring services to citizens using government data and the creative power of the private sector.

Interview with IBM's developerworks -- October 2008. I tell the O'Reilly Media story: its focus on innovators in the field, growth, goals for the future.

"First of all, our basic methodology, as we've developed it over the years sort of through trial and error, is that we find interesting people who are innovating from the edge. And then we just watch and see what they do. So, for example, we have an event called foo camp... we invite these guys together with no program, and on the Friday night, they introduce themselves and then there's a bunch of big whiteboards with space for talks, and they put up the talks that they want to give. And we watch that and we say, 'Wow -- what are they wanting to talk about?'"

Tim's Radar Blog Posts

More on O'Reilly Radar

  • O'Reilly Radar Posts
  • O'Reilly Network Posts

    • Follow Tim on Twitter

    More on Twitter


    Archive of Interviews/Articles

    Organized in reverse chronological order within each subject, with a brief extract from each piece so you can get the flavor without actually following each link.


    Tim's Best

    This is the list I came up with when asked by Computerworld for my favorite posts.

    It's always Ada Lovelace Day at O'Reilly (Mar 2009)
    A celebration of the women in my life and work (especially my wife Christina) who have shaped my thinking, my work, and my company culture.

    Why I support Barack Obama (Oct 2008)
    My endorsement of Barack Obama
    "I want to be clear that this is my personal endorsement, and not an endorsement by O'Reilly Media. I'd like O'Reilly to be a company where people of all political persuasions are welcomed and supported, and feel free to express their personal opinions, as I have here."

    Pascal's Wager and Climate Change (Jan 2009)
    This may be one of the most important pieces I've written.
    "In my talks I've argued that climate change provides us with a modern version of Pascal's wager... We don't need to be 100% sure that the worst fears of climate scientists are correct in order to act. All we need to think about are the consequences of being wrong."

    The Change We Need: DIY on a Civic Scale (Apr 2009)
    This is the piece where I first articulated some of the key themes of "government as a platform" - which I later fleshed out in Government as a Platform.

    Why I love Twitter (Nov 2008)
    "I soon realized that Twitter has grown up to become a critical business tool, ideal for following the latest news, tracking the ideas and whereabouts of people who will shape the future of technology, and sharing my own thoughts and attention stream."

    Web 2.0 Compact Definition: Trying Again (Dec 2006)
    A nod to one of my big influences on the industry, since What is Web 2.0 wasn't a blog post.

    Some pieces on Web 2.0 and the enterprise:

    What would Google do? (May 2007)
    (A piece I wrote a year and a half before Jeff Jarvis wrote the book of the same name.)
    "I'm interested in comparing the way these companies [phone companies, credit card companies, banks and insurance companies] act with regard to the data they collect to the way Google (or Amazon, or any other Web 2.0 giant) acts with the data it collects...Google or Amazon mines its database in real time and builds the results right into its customer-facing applications."

    Why Dell.com (was) More Enterprise 2.0 Than Dell IdeaStorm (Sep 2008)
    "Web 2.0 is ultimately about understanding the rules of business in the network era. I define Web 2.0 as the design of systems that harness network effects to get better the more people use them, or more colloquially, as "harnessing collective intelligence." This includes explicit network-enabled collaboration, to be sure, but it should encompass every way that people connected to a network create synergistic effects."

    Google, WalMart, and MyBarackObama.com: The Power of the Real Time Enterprise (Dec 2008)
    "What do Google, WalMart, and MyBarackObama.com have in common, besides their extraordinary success? They are organizations that are infused with IT in such a way that it leads to a qualitative change in their entire business...[The] general trend is clear here: competitive advantage comes from capturing data more quickly, and building systems to respond automatically to that data."

    My Tongue-Lashing from Eben Moglen (Aug 2007)
    "I do believe that the issues that I invited Eben to talk about are among the most urgent facing free software advocates today,[and I have been asking the industry to engage in a conversation about these issues since 1997, when I gave my first public talk on open source.] so it was disappointing to me to have my position that Web 2.0 provides some fundamental challenges to free software characterized by Eben only as self-promotional hype, and Google and other centralized data services dismissed as "thermal noise" in the long term trend of the computer industry towards decentralization and freedom."

    Why I love hackers (May 2008), video clip
    "(Why) I love hackers, the edges they explore, and why hackers and alpha geeks, not entrepreneurs, are the first step in technology innovation."

    Piracy is Progressive Taxation , and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution (Dec 2002)
    I enumerate 7 lessons that have emerged in O'Reilly's experience with online distribution and explain the final conclusion:
    "And that's the ultimate lesson. 'Give the wookie what he wants!' as Han Solo said so memorably in the first Star Wars movie. Give it to him in as many ways as you can find, at a fair price, and let him choose which works best for him."

    The Open Source Paradigm Shift (June 2004)
    "Paradigm shifts occur from time to time in business as well as in science. And as with scientific revolutions, they are often hard fought, and the ideas underlying them not widely accepted until long after they were first introduced. What's more, they often have implications that go far beyond the insights of their creator."
    I find it useful to see open source as an expression of three deep, long-term trends:

    • The commoditization of software
    • Network-enabled collaboration
    • Software customizability (software as a service)"

    What is Web 2.0? (Sept 2005)
    "Like many important concepts, Web 2.0 doesn't have a hard boundary, but rather, a gravitational core. You can visualize Web 2.0 as a set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of those principles, at a varying distance from that core."


    Ask Tim

    Why Is the Web the Way It Is Today? --  December 2005. In what direction could the internet have gone if it were not for the FSF/GNU movement and how would the internet have looked today? Tim O'Reilly offers his perspective.

    Is Perl Still Relevant? --  July 2005. With the emergence of .NET, J2EE, Python, PHP, et. al, has Perl lost its niche as a scripting glue language? Tim O'Reilly comments.

    When will Perl 6 ever get done? --  August 2004. It's difficult to make predictions about when Perl 6 will be released. For one thing, Perl is still and always under development; for another, there's no rush. perl.com editor Simon Cozens writes that if you have a pressing need for Perl 6, more developers are welcome.

    RepKover Binding --  March 2004. O'Reilly has good--no, great news about RepKover lay-flat binding, the very durable and flexible binding method that allows the interior of a book to "float" free from its cover and lay flat open on your table.

    Amazon and Open Source --  February 2004. Amazon realized early on that amazon.com was more than just a book site, more in fact than just an e-commerce site. It was beginning to become an e-commerce platform. Open source has been a key part of the Amazon story, and although Amazon has closed code, it has created its own "architecture of participation" that may be even richer than that of many open source software development communities.

    Did Amazon Listen? --  December 2003. After all that controversy over Amazon's 1-Click patent, what's this about them receiving a patent for new features on their ordering forms? Tim explains that Jeff Bezos never said he'd stop filing for patents, but that he'd think twice before enforcing them in a potentially offensive way.

    O'Reilly's E-Book Strategy --  November 2003. O'Reilly's e-book strategy is to build a flexible data repository supporting XML web services that will allow us to deliver content into a variety of channels. The O'Reilly Network, which offers online content in bite-size chunks, is the "smaller" part of the strategy; Safari, a database of thousands of books that you can search across, is the "bigger" part.

    Are "how to" books archaic? --  November 2003. A reader asked us about O'Reilly's vision for future books given the rate of change in technology and the growth of the Internet as an information source. Tim says "how to" books will only become more important as the paradigm shift that's taking place in computing leads us into uncharted territory.

    What happened to BountyQuest? --  October 2003. What ever happened to BountyQuest, the web site where people could post large rewards for documents proving prior art on a patent, thus proving a patented invention is not really new?

    E-Books and P2P --  September 2003. Why doesn't O'Reilly offer stand-alone e-books? As an advocate for P2P, wouldn't it follow that Tim would make O'Reilly books available for download? Tim talks about P2P, copyright, the value of giving away content, e-books as a business model, and the potential of O'Reilly's Safari Bookshelf.

    More Ask Tim

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