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Panelists: Content management, meet social networking	28 November 2007
Enterprise content management and social networking form a natural nexus that is already taking tangible form, a software executive said during a panel discussion Wednesday at the Gilbane Group's annual conference in Boston."People have real requirements to secure information, but also have a demand to interact with people," said John Newton, CTO of Alfresco, an open-source content management software maker. "We are starting to blur the lines between what's inside the enterprise and what's outside the enterprise."Panelist David Mendels, senior vice president of Adobe's enterprise and developer business unit, echoed the idea. "The biggest single shift we're seeing is from the infrastructure of content management to humans -- to how humans engage with it," he said. "The real question is, what experiences are you going to build for your end-users, and how are you going to securely connect that back to your back-end systems?"David Boloker, CTO of the company's emerging Internet technology group, touched upon security concerns as well. "When you end up in the Facebook world or the Web world, you have to ask yourself, is that information correct? Do you have to annotate it, do you have to clean that information?""There are people out there who will try to take your information or plant a worm," he added.Mendels predicted that enterprise rights management software for securing content will see wider use. "We've talked about this for a while, but I think we're really on the cusp of it starting to accelerate," he said.Beyond addressing bottom-line concerns, such as security, enterprises will soon be compelled to apply social-networking principles in a wider range of areas, said Andy MacMillan, vice president of product management in Oracle's enterprise content management division. "The Web is going to lead the way, but pretty soon, you're going to be talking about the call center, the checkout kiosk at the airport -- how do I personalize those things?"Panelists took questions following the main discussion. One audience member asked them to render an opinion on content management's adoption rate around the world.Newton said lower-cost options have diversified the roles of content management software: "We see content management being pulled into types of applications it normally wouldn't have been before.... It's changing -- it's much more democratized. It's not so much about compliance."Mendels said hosted content management services, such as Adobe's Share and Buzzword offerings, will see faster growth outside the U.S., particularly among SMBs.Panelists at one point peered into their respective crystal balls. Mendels said Adobe's goal moving forward is "creating applications and experiences that keep people in context."Ideally, he said, the current practice of jumping among e-mail programs, instant messaging services, and the phone would be no more. "We see a world where you should have all those experiences tied to one document," he said.Mendels gave the example of a person sending an e-mail that prompts the recipient to return the query by phone. "Instead of picking up the phone and calling you, the document can call you," he said.Boloker pointed to mashups, saying they represent a new "application paradigm we're all walking into." IBM is working on a drag-and-drop mashup development environment called QEDWiki, which Boloker demonstrated for IDG News Service following the panel discussion.MacMillan said enterprises must now focus on not just cataloging their structured and unstructured data, but also applying analytics against it. "I think the next big step for content management from the infrastructure layer is to turn BI loose on it," he said.But Newton's take centered more on philosophy than a given technology. The Web 2.0-social networking boom has unleashed a "wave of creativity" that stands in contrast to "introverted, left-brain thinking" types, in Newton's view. "What our industry needs to do is get out of our left-brain, introverted mindset," he said.
Review: The good, the bad and the ugly of Facebook apps	28 November 2007
Part of the social networking site's attraction is its vast array of fun and useful applications, but it can be hard to find the good ones. We highlight the best and worst for business, blogging and more.
Young gov't IT workers say tech is dated	26 November 2007
Young IT workers in the U.S. government believe technology is obsolete by the time it is rolled out and are concerned that they can't get the experience they need because some functions are outsourced, according to a focus-group report released Monday.A group of technology interns at the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) also said cost-cutting in the U.S. government limits their ability to innovate, and they raised concerns that the more veteran IT workforce isn't oriented toward information sharing, according to the report , released by Telework Exchange, an Alexandria, Virginia, group that promotes telecommuting among government workers.But the coming retirement of a huge portion of federal workers also presents opportunities that the interns were aware of, said Cindy Auten, Telework Exchange's general manager. About 60 percent of U.S. government civil service workers are eligible for retirement in the next five years, she said."They show a good perception of the way the workforce is changing," Auten said. "They focused on this knowledge gap that's going to exist with the baby boomers retiring. Obviously, knowledge management plays a critical role, but they also looked at the fact that it provides them a lot of opportunity."On the downside, the IT workers said the U.S. government is hampered by slow product and service procurement processes and that government agencies don't have proper business processes in place.For the report, the Telework Exchange interviewed 14 IT professionals who are part of a DISA fast-track internship program that offers rapid promotions. The focus groups were conducted in September. The IT workers were all part of Generation Y, people born after 1977. DISA gave permission for Telework Exchange to talk with its interns.While the focus groups raised concerns about working in government IT, they also saw several benefits. They saw government jobs as more stable as those in the private sector, they praised government benefits, and they said they enjoyed reasonable work hours and flexible schedules. The interns praised DISA's leadership for supporting teleworking options.Asked how they prefer to communicate, the group focused on e-mail and text messaging as the top tools. The interns had mixed reactions with social-networking sites, with some reluctance to admit use, the Telework Exchange said. Outside instant messaging services aren't allowed due to security regulations.The group said they prefer to find information online through search engines and through online publications. "Fifteen times a day, I am Googling something," one intern said.The young IT workers said they frequently go to blogs for information, but most often through search engines. There was "little loyalty, no name recall" for blogs, Telework Exchange said. The interns also tended not to trust some publications focused on government IT, saying they seemed to be "brag sheets" for federal executives with exaggerated successes.About half of the group used podcasts, although some saw podcasts as "propaganda," Telework Exchange said.There was also an "obvious disdain" for print publications, Telework Exchange said. "If you are reading a magazine or newspaper, it looks like you are goofing off," one IT worker said. "If you are reading your screen, [it] looks like you are working."Telework Exchange predicted that when this generation of young government IT workers is in charge, they will try to steer procurement and development processes to be more like the private sector. They will focus on information sharing and knowledge management, and they will look for employers who provide a work/life balance, the group predicted.
Billiton shareholders call for moral stand	26 November 2007
BHP Billiton shareholders call for moral stand on lucrative tradeJan Mayman in PerthThe GuardianMonday October 1 2007Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/...nuclearpowerThe world's biggest mining company is facing a revolt from shareholders who want the group to stop excavating uranium.Activist plan to use the annual meeting of BHP Billiton, which last year made record-breaking profits of $13.4bn (£6.7bn), to force the company to take a "moral stand" and pull out of the highly profitable trade in uranium, which has soared in price as demand for nuclear fuel has grown in the past decade.Led by John Poppins, a retired engineer whose family controls more than A$1m (£434,000) worth of stock in the company, the BHP Billiton Shareholders for Social Responsibilities group hope to enlist support from conservationists, churches and unions on the shareholder register.Mr Poppins has 60 of the 100 signatures he needs to get the issue on the agenda of the AGM in Adelaide next month, with more pledged. "BHP Billiton's outstanding commercial success and market pre-eminence carries an equally large moral obligation to provide leadership on issues of uranium production and nuclear proliferation," he said.BHP Billiton's profits have boomed 27% in the past year from burgeoning sales of iron ore, copper, aluminium, manganese and natural gas, and it owns the world's biggest known deposit of uranium, at its Olympic Dam mine in South Australia.Figures from BHP Billiton say it contains more than 2m tonnes of uranium oxide. With recent prices reaching as high a $68,000 a tonne, the value of the deposit is more than $1bn.BHP Billiton has long-term contracts for the sale of uranium oxide concentrates to the UK, France, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada and the US. "There are major strategic tensions between some of these countries, along with Israel and Pakistan, all of which have the capacity to manufacture nuclear bombs," Mr Poppins said.He is concerned that the Australian government has recently declared its support for uranium sales to Russia and India. And the notion that uranium was a clean fuel was wrong, he said. "Claims that uranium is 'carbon-free' completely ignore the substantial carbon costs of its mining, processing, power station construction, protection and disposal," he said.Mr Poppins was an engineer in computing and aviation before retiring to take up ethical investment issues.BHP Billiton said that shareholders were free to raise any issues at AGMs.Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/...nuclearpower
Our organization's motto is "creating conditions for people to live in	25 November 2007
... of the Organization for Social Justice in Ethiopia (OSJE), a local NGO working towards the ... not solved, hugely affecting the interest of business and commerce. Even recently, the amended electoral ... same vain, through a funding from Initiative Africa, OSJE has conducted a paralegal training in ...
Rumor: News Corp. in buyout talks with LinkedIn	22 November 2007
TechCrunch UK is reporting an "unconfirmed rumour" that the LinkedIn business social network is in talks with News Corp. about a possible buyout in January 2008.
Biofuels - Letter from GAIA Foundation	22 November 2007
Letter and paper from Theresa Anderson of the Gaia Foundation: Dear Friends and Colleagues,This year has seen the beginning of what promises to be the next newlarge-scale threat to Africa's food, land, environment and farmers -Biofuels.The reality of Climate Change has now been accepted by worldgovernments and industry, and with it, acceptance that Carbon Dioxide(CO2) from burning fossil fuels is responsible for heating the planet'satmosphere and changing weather patterns.Everyone agrees that CO2 emissions must be reduced, but one of thesolutions proposed is likely to create more social and environmentalproblems, and probably more CO2, than they claim to solve. As Europein particular looks to alternatives to fossil fuels such as oil andcoal, Biofuels from crops such as maize, sugar, soya and palm oil, arebeing promoted as the new "green" solution.However, Europe does not have enough land to grow its fuel needs. Forexample, even if the UK were to turn over all of its land to growingbiofuels instead of food, it would need 4 times the amount of land tomake enough fuel to meet its current needs. Europe is thereforelooking to Africa to provide the land that will grow the fuel.Already, we hear of large-scale biofuels projects mushrooming acrossAfrica, with the supports of governments keen to believe that this isthe economic boom of Africa's future. Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia,South Africa, Zambia, Ghana, Benin and other countries are at theforefront of the new Biofuels Boom.However, the negative stories follow these projects just as quickly.Protests, riots and arrests broke out in Uganda last month over thegovernment's plans to degazette Mabira Forest, the largest rainforestarea in the country. The forest was to be handed over and cut down forsugar plantations - some of which would go to producing biofuelethanol. Other news shows that land grabs, deforestation andincreasing food prices come about as a result of growing fuel insteadof food.Using land to grow fuel instead of food, rising grain prices, and thedisplacement of rural communities will lead to greater food insecurityin Africa. Any environmental benefits from using biofuels instead offossil fuels will be cancelled out as forests, peatlands, mangroves andprotected areas are cut down, burned, and converted to farmland. Andthe GM industry intends to use this as an opportunity to promote GMbiofuels, to gain a foothold into Africa where there has beenhard-fought resistance to GM contamination of food.While campaigns in Europe against increased biofuel targets are juststarting up (see www.biofuelwatch.org ), African farmers, communities,civil society and governments also urgently need to wake up and raiseawareness about the threats. We need to act before the land is givenaway, the forests are cut down, and the food priced out of the reach ofthe poor.Best wishes,Teresa**************************************1. Rural Communities Express Dismay: "Land Grabs Fuelled by BiofuelStrategy."Statement from South African Civil Society. Date: March 20072. Biofuels Boom Spurring DeforestationArticle from Inter Press Service. Date: 22 March 2007Stephen Leahyhttp://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=370353. Biofuel Demand Makes Food ExpensiveArticle from BBC. Date: 23 March 2007Nils Blythehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6481029.stm4. The Next Genetic Revolution?Article from The Ecologist. Date: 29 March 2007Robin Maynard and Pat Thomashttp://www.theecologist.org/archive...ntent_id=8315. If We Want to Save the Planet, We Need a Five-Year Freeze onBiofuelsArticle from the Guardian. Date: 27 March 2007George Monbiothttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis...3724,00.html 6. Biofuel Crop RejectedArticle from Cape Times. Date: 28 March 2007Melanie Goslinghttp://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=14&art_id=vn20070328014024150C782941****************************************1. Rural Communities Express Dismay: "Land Grabs Fuelled by BiofuelStrategy."Statement from South African Civil Society. Date: March 2007 More than sixty people met in Durban on March 5th 2007, to discuss theSouth African government’s Draft Industrial Biofuels Strategy, which isopen for public comment until the end of March. The undersigned NGOs,individuals, farmer organisations and rural communities fromKwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Limpopo and Mpumalanga who attended theworkshop, express our extreme disquiet and consternation with thestrategy. We believe that both the Biofuels strategy and the associated publicconsultation process are fundamentally flawed. As affected ruralcommunities and organisations, we are astounded that we have not beenproperly informed and consulted about the strategy. What makes it allthe more unforgivable is that the anticipation of a subsidised Biofuelsindustry is precipitating massive “land grabs” of municipal commonagesand traditional communal and tribal land in the former independenthomelands. While the DME pays lip service to developing Biofuels tomeet local energy needs, deals have already been struck for large-scaleplants to export Biofuels to the European Union. In the process ruralfarming communities are coerced into signing over their land for apittance for industrial plantations of canola, maize and soya[1]. We note that the draft strategy aims to contribute to South Africa’sdevelopment goals through job creation, transformation as well asreducing the negative impacts of energy consumption on the environment,but find little detail in the strategy on how this will be achieved.Instead we have found the strategy to be preoccupied with economicinstruments that will facilitate large corporate involvement inBiofuels with trickle down economic benefits to the poor at best, andpotentially disastrous consequences due to the expansion of industrialagriculture into new areas.We call on government to redraft the Biofuels Strategy in its entirety,including full participation of potentially impacted communities sothat a new strategy emerges that emphasises the development needs andpriorities of poor communities, particularly in rural areas.In particular, we suggest that the Biofuels strategy should aim at: • addressing energy poverty within a context of integratedenergy planning and rural development, with the genuine participationof rural communities, particularly women;• adopting an integrated energy planning approach, which mustinclude “true green Biofuels” such as biogas and ethanol gel and soforth;• making an unequivocal commitment to improving publictransport systems with a view to reducing South Africa’s dependence onfossil and now, liquid fuels;• Providing the economic enabling environment fordecentralised, community-owned Biofuels plants based on biodiverse andorganic agricultural production that ensure rural energy and foodsecurity;• Ensuring that economic instruments (subsidies, levyreductions and tax incentives) are targeted specifically to createsmall and cooperative Biofuels enterprises premised on best social andecological practice;• Including strategies to improve infrastructure, training,technical support, marketing and access to the Biofuels market in ruralareas for rural communities; and• Specifically excluding the use of staple food crops, largeindustrial plantations of monocultures, genetically engineeredorganisms and prime agricultural land in the production of Biofuels inSouth Africa.We further call on government to place an immediate moratorium onlarge-scale bio fuels projects and to stop the “land grabs”.SIGNED1 ACUSO Project2 African Centre for Biosafety3 Biowatch4 Buyambo Seed Bank5 Centre for Civil Society (Environmental Justice project),University of KwaZulu-Natal6 Diakonia Council of Churches7 Earthlife Africa eThekwini8 GRAIN9 Intuthuko Yesiziwe10 Institute for Zero Waste in Africa (IZWA)11 Kwa-Ngwanase Farmers Association12 Sigidi Trust - Bizana13 LAMOSA14 Lindizwe Help Group15 OR Tambo Farmers Association16 OR Tambo Youth Farmers Association17 PCD Vreyheid18 Siyakha Project19 Syazama Youth20 Tafuleni Co-op Project21 Timberwatch22 TWIG23 Ubuhle Project, Justice and Peace24 Uvuyo Holdings25 Wildlife and Environmnet Society of South Africa (WESSA)26 Women in Agriculture Rural Development27 Women’s Leadership and Training Project (WLTP)28 Zamukuphila29 Zululand Economic Development AgencyIndividuals: Peter Gilmore - Durban, Atul Padalkar - Durban, MdimadiMathenywa – Makhatini Flats, Fi Mntungwa - Underberg, Penny Zeffertt -KroondalAdditional South African support:1. Ekogaia Foundation2 Farmers Legal Action Group – South Africa3 Safe Food Coalition4 South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA)International support:1. Edmonds Institute2 Gaia Foundation, UK3 Stop BP-BerkeleyFootnotes:[1] For instance in the Eastern Cape, the Provincial Biofuels Task Teamand Eastern Cape Development Corporation, revealed plans to plantcanola on 500,000ha of the most arable non-irrigated commonage andcommunal land in the former Transkei and then process it into bio-fuelat a plant in the East London industrial development zone. R1.5 billionwill be spent on fencing and liming this land to prepare it formonoculture. Furthermore, while local communities forego their existingdiverse food gardens and communal grazing lands, multinationalcompanies like Monsanto will collect on government agriculturalsubsidies through the Massive Food Production Programme by providingseed, chemical inputs and even mechanisation on the farmer’s behalf.The EC Premier’s State of the Province Address for 2007 confirms thatan initial 70,000 ha of irrigated land in the Umzimvubu valley is to beplaced under canola monoculture in the next season.******************************2. Biofuels Boom Spurring DeforestationArticle from Inter Press Service. Date: 22 March 2007Stephen Leahyhttp://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37035Nearly 40,000 hectares of forest vanish every day, driven by theworld's growing hunger for timber, pulp and paper, and ironically, newbiofuels and carbon credits designed to protect the environment.'DEFORESTATION DIESEL'Workers load palm oil fruits onto a lorry at a plantation in KualaLumpur March 13, 2007. Vast tracts of forest in Indonesia, Malaysia,Thailand and many other countries have been cleared to grow oil palms.REUTERS/Zainal Abd Halim (MALAYSIA)The irony here is that the growing eagerness to slow climate change byusing biofuels and planting millions of trees for carbon credits hasresulted in new major causes of deforestation, say activists. And thatis making climate change worse because deforestation puts far moregreenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire world's fleet ofcars, trucks, planes, trains and ships combined."Biofuels are rapidly becoming the main cause of deforestation incountries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil," said Simone Lovera,managing coordinator of the Global Forest Coalition, an environmentalNGO based in Asunción, Paraguay."We call it 'deforestation diesel'," Lovera told IPS.Oil from African palm trees is considered to be one of the best andcheapest sources of biodiesel and energy companies are investingbillions into acquiring or developing oil-palm plantations indeveloping countries. Vast tracts of forest in Indonesia, Malaysia,Thailand and many other countries have been cleared to grow oil palms.Oil palm has become the world's number one fruit crop, well ahead ofbananas.Biodiesel offers many environmental benefits over diesel frompetroleum, including reductions in air pollutants, but the enormousglobal thirst means millions more hectares could be converted intomonocultures of oil palm.Getting accurate numbers on how much forest is being lost is verydifficult.The FAO's State of the World's Forests 2007 released last week reportsthat globally, net forest loss is 20,000 hectares per day -- equivalentto an area twice the size of Paris. However, that number includesplantation forests, which masks the actual extent of tropicaldeforestation, about 40,000 hectares (ha) per day, says Matti Palo, aforest economics expert who is affiliated with the TropicalAgricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in CostaRica."The half a million ha per year deforestation of Mexico is covered bythe increase of forests in the U.S., for example," Palo told IPS.National governments provide all the statistics, and countries likeCanada do not produce anything reliable, he said. Canada has claimed nonet change in its forests for 15 years despite being the largestproducer of pulp and paper."Canada has a moral responsibility to tell the rest of the world whatkind of changes have taken place there," he said.Plantation forests are nothing like natural or native forests. Moreakin to a field of maize, plantation forests are hostile environmentsto nearly every animal, bird and even insects. Such forests have beenshown to have a negative impact on the water cycle because non-native,fast-growing trees use high volumes of water. Pesticides are alsocommonly used to suppress competing growth from other plants and toprevent disease outbreaks, also impacting water quality.Plantation forests also offer very few employment opportunities,resulting in a net loss of jobs."Plantation forests are a tremendous disaster for biodiversity andlocal people," Lovera said.Even if farmland or savanna are only used for oil palm or otherplantations, it often forces the local people off the land and intonearby forests, including national parks, which they clear to growcrops, pasture animals and collect firewood. That has been the patternwith pulp and timber plantation forests in much of the world, saysLovera.Ethanol is other major biofuel, which is made from maize, sugar caneor other crops. As prices for biofuels climb, more land is cleared togrow the crops. U.S. farmers are switching from soy to maize to meetthe ethanol demand. That is having a knock on effect of pushing up soyprices, which is driving the conversion of the Amazon rainforest intosoy, she says.Meanwhile rich countries are starting to plant trees to offset theiremissions of carbon dioxide, called carbon sequestration. Most of thisplanting is taking place in the South in the form of plantations, whichare just the latest threat to existing forests."Europe's carbon credit market could be disastrous," Lovera said.The multi-billion-euro European carbon market does not permit the useof reforestation projects for carbon credits. But there has been atremendous surge in private companies offering such credits for treeplanting projects. Very little of this money goes to small landholders, she says.Plantation forests also contain much less carbon, notes Palo, citing arecent study that showed carbon content of plantation forests in someAsian tropical countries was only 45 percent of that in the respectivenatural forests.Nor has the world community been able to properly account for thevalue of the enormous volumes of carbon stored in existing forests.One recent estimate found that the northern Boreal forest provided 250billion dollars a year in ecosystem services such as absorbing carbonemissions from the atmosphere and cleaning water.The good news is that deforestation, even in remote areas, is easilystopped. All it takes is access to some low-cost satellite imagery andgovernments that actually want to slow or halt deforestation.Costa Rica has nearly eliminated deforestation by making it illegal toconvert forest into farmland, says Lovera.Paraguay enacted similar laws in 2004, and then regularly checkedsatellite images of its forests, sending forestry officials and policeto enforce the law where it was being violated."Deforestation has been reduced by 85 percent in less than two yearsin the eastern part of the country," Lovera noted.The other part of the solution is to give control over forests to thelocal people. This community or model forest concept has proved to besustainable in many parts of the world. India recently passed a billreturning the bulk of its forests back to local communities formanagement, she said.However, economic interests pushing deforestation in countries likeBrazil and Indonesia are so powerful, there may eventually be littlenatural forest left."Governments are beginning to realize that their natural forests haveenormous value left standing," Lovera said. "A moratorium or ban ondeforestation is the only way to stop this."This story is part of a series of features on sustainable developmentby IPS and IFEJ - International Federation of EnvironmentalJournalists.© 2007 IPS - Inter Press Service**************************************3. Biofuel Demand Makes Food ExpensiveArticle from BBC. Date: 23 March 2007Nils Blythehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6481029.stm
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Google's OpenSocial targets social apps API 'balkanization'	21 November 2007
Google's OpenSocial initiative to establish common, standard APIs for creating social-networking applications is still in its early days. But its impact for end-users, developers, Web site owners, social-network operators, and even business application vendors could be huge in the long run.In a recent chat with IDG News Service, Scott McMullan, Google Apps partner lead in Google's Enterprise division, described OpenSocial as an attempt to simplify the lives of developers by addressing what the vendor considers a "balkanization" of social-networking APIs.McMullan also articulated how OpenSocial's scope goes far beyond the creation of applications for social-networking sites, saying its core set of common APIs is intended also for the creation of social features and capabilities within Web sites in general and within business software.Below is an edited transcript of the interview.IDG News Service: Regarding the "balkanization" of APIs in general on the Web, do you plan to extend OpenSocial so that it contains open APIs for other types of Web applications -- not just social-networking ones, but for things like maps, where different vendors, like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, have their own set of APIs?Scott McMullan: In general, one could argue that any time you have two APIs that do similar things, you've got this inherent problem. I'm not sure if OpenSocial is going to [address] that larger problem, but certainly this is the context where we thought we could make an impact.IDGNS: Google has said that the scope of OpenSocial APIs isn't limited to social-networking sites, that OpenSocial can be used for creating social-networking features or components in Web sites in general and also in business applications.McMullan: Yes. Take, for example, Salesforce.com as an application whose goal is to coordinate a team of people to sell stuff. Sales is a quite socially driven activity. ... You have this group of people all coordinating [their efforts] to sell, and all within this one Salesforce.com application. It's a business application that has kind of an implicit social network to it. ... So you see how it would make sense to bring these social features more explicitly to Salesforce or any other application that has that similar dynamic.IDGNS: Is OpenSocial a solution in search of a problem? Are developers really clamoring for something like this? How many social-networking sites are out there today for which you can or would want to write applications? There don't seem to be that many APIs for social-networking sites out there.McMullan: There are a lot of social-networking sites. There's a long tail of them. There are a lot of big ones and small ones. In addition, my personal perspective is that the social nature of a lot of different applications is also an equally important part of the story. It's about the social features that we all find very compelling in social-networking sites, and we'd like to empower those across the Web. So getting ahead of the problem and creating a standard that we all can rally around to make that happen, and help channel that developer energy, is a big part of it. And these are early days for social-network platforms.IDGNS: In the real world, won't developers ultimately find themselves having to tweak and retool applications so that they are appropriate for different sites, because, say, the concept, the policies and the look-and-feel of Facebook are different from the ones of LinkedIn?McMullan: You certainly might, in the same way a Web developer has to take into account different browsers. There can be devils in the details, but hopefully [with OpenSocial] the vast majority of the effort is certainly not in porting. It's in perhaps the last 1 percent of tweaking.IDGNS: At this point, should developers start writing applications based on OpenSocial or rather wait, kick the tires, and send Google feedback?McMullan: We've got an Orkut sandbox, and there are other sandboxes for other sites coming online. When you're at the sandbox stage only, we're talking about, "Come, kick the tires, participate, learn, test, but know that the sandbox may have an API [revision] before it reaches production status." A big part of it is the policies and the production hardening that this requires for our partners, for anyone who implements this. It's something that takes time. We want to get that open feedback loop going with the world as soon as possible.IDGNS: Is Orkut [Google's own social-networking site] now fully enabled for OpenSocial?McMullan: It's still in sandbox stage.IDGNS: Many social applications are designed for end-users to load information into a database, be it text, photos, videos, audio, whatever. If someone adopts one of those applications for, say, the eight social networks he's in, he has to enter the data separately on each Web site. As part of the OpenSocial effort, will Google help end-users with this data portability problem?McMullan: That's an interesting idea, but we don't have anything to talk about regarding that at this time.IDGNS: Does OpenSocial have any features for advertising functions?McMullan: We don't have it now, but we're very conscious the developers want to monetize their applications. So, part of this discussion is to figure out how that can be made to happen and if the APIs have an impact there or if there are other mechanisms for advertising [that fall] outside of the API.IDGNS: OpenSocial, in theory, will let developers write an application once and have it be compatible with any Web site that supports the OpenSocial platform. However, for Web site publishers, is there value in having the same applications as 30 or 40 other sites, some of which it may compete against?McMullan: We're not that far into this notion that developers should be thinking about social features, not only for social networks but for all kinds of applications, in a standardized way. When you think about the number of developers that will be brought under the fold to unleash their creativity, one side is, yes, that one application may run on 20 different sites, so as one of the Web sites you feel less special. But the upside is you've got orders of magnitude more developers who can bring their creativity into your environment. Although the APIs are the same, the context isn't the same, the notion of friends isn't always the same, so you still have the ability to differentiate yourself and tap into that giant pool of developers. That's the ultimate upside.