Get out of the Silo:Using Open Source Software to

Share Content

Boris MannVP of Product Development

Raincity Studioshttp://www.raincitystudios.com

Interactive

(This IS theoretically the “relationships” day, isn’t it?)

Lessig / Hardt Style

(which means I’ll do a lot of talking and clicking and there will be a LOT of slides)

About‣Silo

‣Sharing

‣Open Source

‣and maybe Open Data, Data Portability, the Linked Data / Linking Open Data

‣Semantic Web? See Dr. Djun Kim in the other room

Interactive

(were you hoping I was going to forget?)

Who are you?

Who am I?‣Bias alert!

‣Blogger (which is kind of like a writer?)

‣Open Source Evangelist

‣Fan of Drupal

‣Technologist, Entreprenuer

‣ Vancouver as high tech hub

‣ Addicted to UNconferences

‣ (maybe that means Conference 2.0)

Silo‣One piece of content, one site

‣“Closed” data

‣Proprietary formats?

‣Maybe everyone uses XML and we can just do transforms

‣Business models that don’t rely on or encourage network effects

What happens to silos? I

Closed Data Open DataNo external access

Restricted access

Monopoly?

Standards(or at least, schemas)

RSS, APIs

Network effects!

What happens to silos? II

Closed Data Open DataLoss of incentive!

Why use the closed data when open is easier,

more accessible, more usable?

End of monopoly(end of business?)

Some percentage of critical mass

RSS, APIs, Aggregationaka Sharing

Network effects!No turning back, it’s

all open

Language Silos‣What happens when you search the web

in English?

‣…you only see the English content

‣Growth of other languages

‣Reaching more users (or even reaching in the first place)

This is maybe the most challenging, but also most interesting silo

Vancouver

Other Silos?

For you intranet folks, how about organization / institutional buy in!

Share‣Repurpose your content

‣mobile, PDF, etc. – digital workflows, XML, etc.

‣Re-use your content

‣set it free with RSS feeds, widgets, and social tools (and appropriate licensing)

‣Remix your content

‣Mashups and more – or even let your users play

Wait, what are we sharing?

‣Text

‣well, except for that whole multilingual thing

‣Audio?

‣Video?

‣Functionality?!?

‣Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs

Places to share‣Social bookmarking

‣Social networking

‣Photo sharing

‣Video sites

‣Widgets, blogs, embeddable content, oh my! (Email!??!)

But WHY share?‣Destroy the closed silo (network effects!)

‣Share knowledge

‣Become experts, THE reference source

‣…trafficothers? usability? user generated?

for the LOLs?

Invisible Cheeseburger

One more on why‣Semi-permeable membranes of content

‣Re-use it on

‣ Intranet

‣Extranet

‣ Internet

Facebook‣Post to Facebook

‣Import any RSS feeds as Facebook notes

‣For your business/brand page or personal page

‣Pictures, Links, Videos

‣Mobile? SMS and facebook...

Wait, wait...Facebook is for colleges, isn’t it?

Microblogging‣Mobile friendly

‣Twitter

‣Track anything with Twemes.com -- see http://twemes.com/cci2008

‣Jaiku

‣Fire and forget: add a ton of RSS feeds and they will post automatically to Jaiku

‣Pownce, etc.

Open APIs‣Application Programming Interfaces

‣aka talk to your developer

‣Flickr is a great example

‣blog this

‣many people use asmain image storage

‣also: hackers make cooltools and mashups

More Sharing?

Shock us with tales of content re-use and re-purposing!

Open Source‣What is it?

‣Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)

‣Source code available – and changeable and customizable

‣Licensing

‣Gnu Public License (GPL)

Todd O’Neill talked about “free” tools…not free as in beer, but rather free as in freedom

Why Open Source?‣Open Source != Free

‣ it can actually be quite expensive…

‣So why??! Some JL Schmidt quotes on Alfresco:

‣“Help drive the software to a fit with your culture”

‣“If it sucks, you fix it”

‣Community Return on Investment (ROI)

Engage‣Open Source is actually all about sharing

‣Hmm...or maybe not, but “scratching my own itch”, it looks like other people have the same pains

‣does rebuilding the same stuff for every new tool ever sound like fun?

‣Look for ways to coordinate ahead of time

‣share features, upgrades, maintenance

I’m totally a vendor‣Except, I win if you pick my platform

‣No single sourcing

‣Can even choose to take it in house and do whatever you want with it

‣depending on the license, you might need to share…with others, you could even turn it into a commercial product and NEVER share

‣I’m a fan of sharing

Evangelism‣Explore open source

‣Both the licenses and the tools

‣Think about your needs, and your need to be evolved in product evolution, and in control of your own destiny

‣Might need consulting to navigate…

‣…there are commercial vendors in many areas, or at least support contracts

Drupal is Social Publishing

‣Drupal is Social Publishing

‣or maybe a Content ManagementSystem

‣or maybe a Web ApplicationFramework

‣or maybe the next big, commodity Semantic Web platform

‣It’s a community

P.S.‣We love other open source tools, too

‣WordPress

‣Alfresco

‣ Joomla

‣Firefox?

‣…the list goes on…

Open Data?

What’s the license on your data?

The End