Watching the initial [response] of craigslist owner Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster to the shitstorm that erupted following the arrest of the “Craigslist Killer" (who used the site’s prostitution ads to connect with his victims) was remarkable. Cloistered away in their little Silicon Valley bubble they clearly hadn’t a clue about how to manage the scrutiny of meatspace media and ambitious law enforcement officials looking to score. At first they refused flatly to make changes to the way they did business, falling back on the Web 2.0 mantra that the craigslist community would police itself (after all, users provide the content for free, why shouldn’t they also provide the editing for free?). Then, when it became clear that Newmark & Co. were heading to court and maybe to jail on fraud charges, they acquiesced and agreed to change the way they manage listings for adult services – including hiring additional staff to screen out illegal material.

But at least one AG is not satisfied and has threatened to initiate criminal action against craigslist if they don’t remove even more objectionable material from their site by this Friday. Today, Buckmaster [responded] to the Attorney General of South Carolina in a blog post (of course) and just when I thought they couldn’t be more clueless about how to handle this PR disaster he surprised me. Instead of doing what any mature company would do in the face of aggressive policing (think Microsoft and the European Commission…), i.e., aiming to get the moral high ground by swiftly agreeing to meet or exceed demands for cleaning up their sites, Buckmaster demands an apology from the Attorney General, challenges the AG to prosecute South Carolina newspapers that also run off-color ads (and suggesting that he won’t because of cynical self-interest) and offers what I’ll call the “me-too” defense: craigslist shouldn’t be singled out for abetting indecency because all the other kids in the playground are doing it too! The PR trainwreck thunders on.

Sensing that this has the potential to tame the Web 2.0 golden goose that drives so much revenue with so little managerial oversight and cost, some of the New Media machers are weighing in with support: Mike Arrington at [TechCrunch] urges Buckmaster to “Stand firm. Don’t back down. In fact, just turn off the South Carolina site entirely and ban IPs from that state. Forever. And if they press criminal charges, fight it with everything you have.” Then, with a little less bravado, “And if you do end up in jail, don’t worry. I promise to visit at least once a month, even though it will be in South Carolina.”

New Media gadfly Jeff Jarvis takes time out from dancing on the graves of newspaper journalists to [offer], “And so, once again, the internet becomes a threat to the control and power of an elite and they are exploiting craiglist – and the murderer who used it – to reassert their control. But it has the marks of a witchhunt.” Jarvis doesn’t seem to get that the “elite” is law enforcement and the issue is violations of local decency laws. Minor matter.

Perhaps one of Buckmaster’s friends (does he have friends?) could suggest that he take some of that huge profit he makes from the site and hire a decent flack. And a lawyer.

• South Carolina Dems elect McCain
• NYT to Google: “That was AMAZING, give me a cigarette!”
• Google Cedes Enterprise to Microsoft

A couple of events occurred last week that might have seemed completely unconnected but were, I think, flip sides of the same coin: in the first case, a Swedish court convicted the owners of the Pirate Bay file sharing site of copyright violations involving facilitation of theft, sentencing them to fines and prison time, and, in the second case, Oprah devoted valuable on-air time to the Twitter phenomenon, introducing her legions of fans to the service and calling out Ashton Kutcher as the first Twitter user to gain over 1 million followers. What ties these apparently disparate events together is the fact that they demonstrate in unique ways the mainstreaming of the internet as a medium and its changing character(s).

Piracy 2.0

As an invention of technology, it makes perfect sense that the early proponents of the internet were members of the “technorati” – the geeky folk who build and fund tech start ups and those who buzz around them. Back in the 90’s as the commercial internet was just taking off, one could read one after another manifesto from these folks proclaiming the nascent medium a digital Valhalla, revolutionary in its potential. A good example was [“Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age”] in which futurist Alvin Toffler, venture capitalist Esther Dyson and others attempted to spell out the game-changing nature of this new technology and what was needed to foster it:

To start with, liberation – from Second Wave rules, regulations, taxes and laws laid in place to serve the smokestack barons and bureaucrats of the past. Next, of course, must come the creation – the creation of a new civilization, founded in the eternal truths of the American Idea.

Likening themselves to frontier settlers, they wanted complete freedom to reinvent commerce on the web any way they saw fit. Such freedom would, of course, lead to the unfettered creation of enormous wealth and that is exactly what happened (well mostly for well-connected technocrats, anyway). But the lack of oversight also led to a Wild West ecosystem online where hordes of thieves committed untold abuses of intellectual property. Sadly, some who should know better even sought to undermine claims of intellectual property by basically implying the [inevitability of theft] and [apologizing] for it under the rubric of “free culture”.

It was just a matter of time before the law caught up with the internet and that is what happened in Stockholm. In a landmark ruling, a Swedish court proclaimed that existing laws covering copyright applied to the online entity. While the punishment meted out by the court (one year of jail time and millions in fines) may be reduced on appeal, the judgment is an important precedent that moves internet transactions more firmly into a legal realm with a long history of addressing intellectual property claims and that can provide content owners greater protection. Though not popular with some zealous internet users, who, understandably might prefer a more lax environment in which to sample from creative works, ultimately it benefits them as well since it hastens the day when there are clear limits to what can and cannot be shared online and the ambiguity around liability is cleared up. The libertarian ethos of the inventor/early adopter crowd is giving way to something more traditional and that’s probably not a bad thing.

The Changing Face of Online Fame

Another example of a “changing of the guard” involved the sudden boost in popularity of [Twitter], thanks to high-profile efforts by Ashton Kutcher and Oprah. Since its release a couple of years ago the service has largely been the province of tech early adopters and their fans. Until fairly recently, the most popular users were the usual Who’s Who of the Silicon Valley scene: Robert Scoble with 80,000 followers; Dave Winer and Jason Calacanis with each about 40,000 and a few others ruled the roost — opining on the virtues of communication in 140 characters installments as if we were witnessing Gutenberg for the 21st century. For most of the rest of us (and, to be honest for the tech stars as well…) Twitter was merely the latest toy for vanity publishing – a way to extend our egos into the network. And, as with all other Web 2.0 inventions, the promise of equal access to audience was trumped by [network effects] – resulting in an “A-list” of users, and everybody else.

What turned out to be somewhat revolutionary was the disintermediation this toy provided to users who were already famous (real world famous, not tech famous). Once upon a time, famous people had to work closely with and for mainstream media outlets whose reach largely determined the public’s perception of them. As the internet fractured old media monopolies it led to a proliferation of new sites that trade on celebrity reputations (e.g., Perez Hilton, TMZ). Managing one’s image became infinitely more difficult in such an environment (just ask Britney). But social media services like Facebook and Twitter shift control away from the media outlets back to the celebrity. What fan wouldn’t prefer getting a message delivered directly to them from their favorite star over reading something about them on a blog or news site? In a celebrity-obsessed soundbite-driven culture, Twitter becomes the apotheosis of public relations image management: stars get to deliver their own sound bites directly into the heads of their fans. So easy even an actor can do it!

Alas, the former A-list is not very happy about these new usurpers of their social media thrones. The Philistines are knocking down the gates and there is [grumbling] about the cooptation of Twitter by “big media”. But that’s just sour grapes by those who see their influence dwindling. The rest of us should welcome the evolution. Imagine if television programming in the early days had been restricted to the offerings of the engineers who invented the medium? It would’ve died a quick death. But, happily, we got to watch Lucy. If I have to have someone else’s words broadcast to me through this new medium, I’d much rather it be someone who can at least entertain me. The New Media, same as it ever was.

• Hubris 2.0
• Gawker Stalkers Beware!
• Microsoft Delivers News Network

Even after bloggers and online journalists took the Times [to] [task], today the other shoe dropped — Google published a [website] entitled, “Facts about the Yahoo-Google advertising agreement” that collects in one place the flackish arguments in favor of the deal that’s now under review by the Department of Justice and European Commission. The site quotes prominent sources that back up Google’s claims, notably highlighting the very New York Times article that people have raised issues with and also features a quote from Maurice Levy — the CEO of Publicis — who views the deal as “very positive.” No kidding.

The arrogance of this company is really… unbelievable.

• NYT to Google: “That was AMAZING, give me a cigarette!”
• It’s Google’s News, and don’t you forget it.
• NYT Continues to Carry Water for Google

Was it good for you, Baby?

Something is officially fishy at The New York Times. It’s been obvious for awhile that the editorial oversight of the Technology section of the online paper was not subject to the same rigorous standards as the more traditional news sections (one need only track the baffling ascendancy of the gossipy Saul Hansell for evidence), and I’ve commented here on some of the more egregious [recent] [examples] of apparently favorable treatment that Google has received from one of the Times’ tech writers. But this weekend, something happened that was categorically different. On Friday, they published a column by Randall Stross entitled, “Why the Google-Yahoo Ad Deal Is Nothing to Fear,” that presents many of the anti-anti-trust arguments that Google has been making in favor of the pending Google-Yahoo ad merger that is now under review by both the Department of Justice and the European Commission. The article is significantly deceptive. The author regurgitates Google PR boilerplate about how the deal will not risk price-fixing by Google, though they will basically control somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of search advertising, because Google’s system is auction-based and (in theory) advertisers set the prices. Stross then compromises his own argument by acknowledging that prices may be higher than in the current environment with Yahoo acting as a competitor to Google but so what? — the quality of ad delivery from Google’s system is worth the increment. Stross works very hard to pitch the concerns about Google’s growing monopoly position as mere corporate warfare on the part of Microsoft — and quotes David Kenny, of the ad holding company Publicis, on the beneficial effects the deal could have for Yahoo and the advertising environment. What Stross neglects to mention is that Publicis is a business partner of Google and stands to benefit, through [preferential pricing], from the deal. Additionally, what the New York Times neglects to inform its readers is that Randall Stross — identified in his byline as “an author based in Silicon Valley and a professor of business at San Jose State University” is the author of a book about Google to be released this month that, according to [advance press], “[is] Based on unprecedented access he received to the highly secretive ‘Googleplex,’”. Sounds cozy, no?

Access is the key, more on that in a moment…

The New York Times is not alone, of course, in apparently bending their standards when it comes to reporting on Google. Last week Jeff Jarvis, a former associate publisher of the New York Daily News and reporter for the Chicago Tribune turned New Media gadlfy published a [post] on his popular blog entitled, “Google: Monopoly or Marketplace?” written in response to a [piece] by Joe Nocera of the Times [important to note -- Nocera is a Business columnist who only writes occasionally about tech matters] that raised concerns about Google’s transparency. In his post, Jarvis downplays the need for regulatory involvement in the Google-Yahoo deal by arguing that it’s in Google’s own interest to regulate itself and avoid any hint of impropriety. Like Stross, he doesn’t deny that after a deal with Yahoo Google would hold a monopoly over search advertising, but he believes that market innovation and Google’s own transparency might keep it from becoming a threat. He should re-read Nocera’s piece to get a sense of their transparency. Unlike Stross, Jarvis discloses that he is also publishing a book about Google and admits that his book is admiring of the company. The disclosure is one step ahead of the Times and is appreciated because it provides a lens through which we can critically assess his sentiments.

People who write about business are completely dependent upon access to executives that they write about. Google knew this when they embargoed CNet back in 1995 for publishing an [article] that used the search engine to disclose personal details about CEO Eric Schmidt. It was an extraordinary reaction — to punish a news organization by shutting off all access — and typical of a company that believes they play by different rules. At the time I wondered what the aftermath would be and now I know — it worked. It effectively put tech journalists on notice that if they wanted access to the company that would be the dominant player in the most important new medium of the 21st century they’d better be friendly.

UPDATE 9/25: Jeff Jarvis left a comment saying that he did not seek access from Google in the preparation of his book. A reference to (presumed) access on his part has been removed from the section addressing him.

• Logrolling in Our Time – The Sequel
• NYT Continues to Carry Water for Google
• Yahoo needs a strong husband

One of the wonders of [Hulu] is that it allows you to view and share full-length features. I’ve wanted to share the segment called “The Grid” from Reggio’s 1982 classic Koyaanisqatsi for as long as I’ve been writing this blog and now I can. Albeit with the risk of commercial interruption… Even still, if you’ve never seen the movie you’ll get a sense of one of the most amazing cinematic experiences ever committed to film.

Koyaanisqatsi carries the rap of “message movie”, decrying modern technology — an overlong music video whine — but it’s much more subtle. Reggio himself refused to label it as anything beyond a meditation on technology. Sure, there are some digs at the regimentation of life that tech imposes (keep an eye out for the unsubtle visual metaphors using snack foods…), but I can’t help watching this and not being amazed at the beauty of man-made forms and rhythms. The scene of commuters rolling off the old PATH escalators at the World Trade Center in waves is an astonishing blend of nature and technology.

And if you have good speakers attached to your computer, crank the volume — Philip Glass’s amazing score will make your head fly off. In a good way.

• Network, 30 Years Later
• Brokeback Redux
• Virtual Everything

All is not well in the Web 2.0 world. There’s a basic tension in the world of people who write online that has been brewing for awhile and has bubbled up once again. Until very recently, publication was a relatively limited option for most people who sought an audience for their writing primarily because of the costs involved. With barriers to entry high, the probability of being offered the opportunity to reach an audience was slim — but, if successful, was rewarded with a fair probability of being read. The internet promised to change that formula, and has. On the one hand, technology has reduced the cost of publication to near zero, which allows just about anyone to self-publish and seek an audience. On the other hand, somewhat ironically, the increased number of competitors for reading attention has effectively reduced the probability of any particular writer collecting a significant audience to near zero. What Web 2.0 offers with one hand it takes away with the other: the democratic, hierarchy-flattening promise of technology leads not to a Commons where all voices are equally considered, but rather a cacophony of voices, above which only a few are heard clearly.

Chris Anderson’s theory of [The Long Tail] could be seen as an article of the Commons faith — as with any other consumable, with technology providing even residents of the long tail of the consumption distribution access to readers, one could still hope to find at least a niche audience. But [recent work] out of Harvard suggests that the web actually acts to flatten the long tail and magnify the impact of the short tail. For those who are frustrated by the apparent inequities of the online publishing world, this will not come as good news.

For bloggers, the short tail is embodied in the “A-List” — whether in the tech or political worlds — the celebrity bloggers, like Robert Scoble and Arianna Huffington, who collect the most readers and who exert extraordinary influence over the public conversation. One regularly reads impassioned essays such as [this one] by Jim Kukral declaring war on the idea of the A-List or even, as in Krukal’s case, wishing it away entirely by decree. But there are reasons A-Lists exist that can’t be wished away. The principal one is: they provide value. A-List bloggers gain their authority because they enjoy advantages that most writers do not, primarily access. By dint of geographic location and professional history they are directly connected to sources of news and product information that are highly valued by their readers. Their connections make them valuable to their readers who, in turn, make them popular, more influential and better connected, hence, more valuable. It’s a “virtuous cycle” that benefits the A-List bloggers and their readers but not, alas, the millions of other bloggers scrambling to gain attention for their work.

Those who are unhappy about the elite status of certain writers need to be clear about who they are really unhappy with and why. The “who” is other readers, like themselves. The “why” I’ll leave to them to figure out.

• The Brand Called Who?
• Tech Porn
• Pirates and Philistines

Hundreds of iPhone fans stand sweltering in 90° heat, oblivious to impending disaster.

Unless you spent the day on the Moon you’re aware that today was the day Apple rolled out the new iPhone 3Gs. Alas, the launch wasn’t quite ready for prime time and the faithful, who began queuing up early in the morning, spent most of the day struggling with failed activation servers and even credit card approval crashes. I walked over to the big new Apple Store in the Meatpacking District to find — even at this hour (4pm) — hundreds of people in a line that ran down 14th Street. Standing under black Apple branded heat collectors… er, umbrellas that were handed out by the store, they were quiet and a bit somber. As is only appropriate for religious pilgrims on their way to the shrine.

• Apple moves into the neighborhood
• Why Apple Matters
• iPhucked: Apple advocates face an angry god

NYT: You’ve got a friend…

One of the hallmarks of an effective PR operation is the ability to get outlets with high prestige to write well of your client. To my mind, there is no more effective public relations operation going than the one at Google. Not only do they have the good will of Silicon Valley’s heavy hitters and “influencers” in their corner, but also thousands, perhaps millions of bloggers and early adopters. Their magical touch extends well outside of Silicon Valley, as well, all the way to the ink-stained hallowed halls of major news outlets, including the New York Times.

There’s a piece today in the Times entitled, ["Google, Zen Master of the Market"]. The article describes Google’s growing power in the online economy, calling on academic sources to describe the “indirect network” effects of their dominance that act to inhibit competition. And yet, the full implications of that dominance are not developed — are, in fact, blunted. Parallels to Microsoft’s dominance in the PC market are invoked, but not, as one might expect to describe Google’s ad platform as the advertising “operating system” of the Net — rather, the writer takes pains to point out how the cases are different. Elsewhere in the article, serious questions about Google’s transparency and the ability of regulators to assess its behavior are raised and then, instead of seeking input from Google’s competitors or the advertisers who are constrained by the ad monopoly, the writer goes to Google for a summation in which we are told, “Google looks at what happened to Microsoft, and we’re going to follow the rules.” Whew! That’s reassuring. End of article.

The style of the writing seemed familiar so I checked and, sure enough, it was written by Steve Lohr the same writer who penned a Google [puff-piece] back in December entitled, “Google Gets Ready to Rumble with Microsoft”, in which every talking point that the Corp Comm folks in Mountain View were floating about their (non-existent) competition with Microsoft for the enterprise space was trotted out in the guise of reporting. In both cases, Lohr, either through ineptitude or something else, buries the real story: in the enterprise piece, whether Google is being led over a cliff by an Ahab-like Eric Schmidt seeking that one last go at his white whale and, in the current piece, whether the remedy to Google’s dominance of the ad market is to insist that it be opened up to competitors. In other words, if Google’s ad network is the de-facto operating system for search commerce, should it be “interoperable” and non-exclusive the way Windows was forced to be?

I would’ve enjoyed seeing Hal Varian’s response to that question.

• The Trojan Horse with a Touchscreen
• NYT to Google: “That was AMAZING, give me a cigarette!”
• Is Eric Schmidt leading Google over a cliff?

The tech sites are all atwitter — [literally] — with the news from Apple that the second generation iPhone will soon be released with more speed and utility for fewer bucks (at least upfront). The big news from the announcement is that the new phone will be targeting enterprise customers by offering compatibility with Microsoft Exchange. But the bigger news, I think, is the announcement of a new platform called [MobileMe] that promises seamless, internet-based, synchronization of information across multiple devices and operating systems. It’s a pitch at developing a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that will compete head-on with Microsoft’s Live Mesh and looks to leverage the Trojan Horse infiltration of the enterprise space by iPhone 3G to gain mind- and market share in this developing market. Very impressive.

A few days ago I [wrote about] my trial of the Live Mesh service and I was impressed with what they were offering. Still am, but not so much. Granted, MobileMe may not be as ambitious as Live Mesh — but it delivers basic services, for an honest-to-gosh fee (remember those..?), and it’s shipping now. Mary Jo Foley over at ZDnet [wonders] if Microsoft’s slow development pace on Live Mesh is due to the kind of internecine competition that Microsoft is famous for. Perhaps the sight of Apple getting the jump on them (again) will help settle those squabbles.

Well, of course, if there are potential winners in the zero-sum game of “Who’s on Top” there also must be losers. Who’s the biggest loser on the platform playing field? It’s not Microsoft. As Steve Gillmor and others have [noted], Microsoft’s market share in the enterprise is so formidable that they can actually benefit from competitors opening up new market possibilities for them. First mover advantage is more important to the also-rans. Apple can take a bite out of their market share — maybe even a big one — but time is on Microsoft’s side. For now. No, the big loser is clearly Google. Aside from that little matter of riding a one-trick revenue pony, the [biggest problem] Google has always had is that they depend on a competitor, Microsoft, to provide access to a majority of their customers (and income). They are channel-bound in the worst possible way. Hence their rush into mobile operating systems with Android. But, alas, Android is still vaporware and the new iPhones ship next month. Perhaps to drive the point home about the potential loss to Google from their platform push, the Apple [product announcement] hits repeatedly on the fact that, “MobileMe web applications are 100 percent ad-free“. That’s gotta sting those Stanford-minted egos in Mountain View — Steve Jobs, the Reed College dropout, and his company not only have a beautifully-developed channel to their customers that can take advantage of Microsoft but is not bound by them, they actually get customers to pay for their products!

What a concept.

• NYT Continues to Carry Water for Google
• Is Eric Schmidt leading Google over a cliff?
• Microsoft Delivers News Network

Live Mesh opening screen (in browser)

I’ve been participating in the technical preview of Microsoft’s Live Mesh — their device and data synchronization platform that promises, in the company’s words, "to use the magic of software and internet services to connect and bring devices together into your own personal ‘mesh’… this new software-plus-services platform enables PCs and other devices to ‘come alive’ by making them aware of each other through the Internet." For now, the product is only for PCs running Vista or XP — but support for Mac and additional devices is coming. For those who haven’t been able to try it out, yet, I’ve detailed the mesh experience and some thoughts on how successful it is and where it might be heading.

Installation

Live Mesh Install	Live Mesh Login	Live Mesh Desktop Widget
Download device client (Fig. 1). Post-install Windows Live login (Fig. 2). Hover over System Tray icon to view client widget (Fig. 3). Click photos to enlarge.

Live Mesh consists of a "cloud" component, where your virtualized workspace exists and files are stored (5 GB storage limit, for now), as well as client-installed components that act to synchronize the data you store in the cloud across different devices. Upon visiting the Live Mesh site for the first time and logging in with your Windows Live ID, you are presented with a screen that lists the access points to your cloud workspace — initially, via Live Desktop alone (see below). In order to add devices click on the "Add Device" option (Fig. 1) to download the client-specific installer — in this case for desktop PC. Upon installation of the client runtime, you are presented with the login screen that will appear each time the device is booted (Fig. 2). Once logged into your "cloudspace", the client widget resides in your system tray and will show the status of your devices, shared folders and messages when you mouse over the icon (Fig. 3).

Sync Devices

Add folder to Mesh	Folder status in client widget	Invite others to share your mesh
Add local folder to Mesh (Fig. 4). Widget showing folder status (Fig. 5). Add/invite others to share folder (Fig. 6). Click photos to enlarge.

In order to sync data across devices and your Live Desktop, you have to add local folders to the mesh. Since the client application hooks into Explorer, you need only highlight a folder on your computer, right-click and select "Add folder to your Live Mesh", which will bring up a dialogue allowing you to name the share, as well as determine which of your devices should sync to it (Fig. 4). Once set, the folder icon changes appearance to indicate its status as a synced folder and gets added to the status widget (Fig. 5). From this point, any changes made to the folder on any device linked to it will be reflected almost immediately across devices (subject, of course to the speed of your internet connection). Additionally, once a folder is added to your mesh, you may right-click on it, choose "Live Mesh options" and invite others to join your mesh by sharing sync with this asset (Fig. 6). Remote users sharing this folder will also be able to view the messages you associate with this synced asset, providing work collaboration features.

Live Desktop

Live Desktop Explorer	Messaging interface	Rich media via Silverlight
Live Desktop explorer (Fig. 7). Post message to shared users (Fig. 8). Silverlight-enhanced media viewer (Fig. 9). Click photos to enlarge.

Perhaps the most significant feature of Live Mesh involves the Live Desktop which allows browser-based access to a virtual workspace containing your meshed assets. The Live Desktop Explorer (Fig. 7) is like a stripped-down version of Windows Explorer where you can manage synced folders and files, upload and download files, review "news" related to your shared assets’ status and send messages to users participating in your mesh (Fig. 8). The Explorer loads the Silverlight runtime to provide rich-media previews of your graphic assets — now just for static graphics but video to come, soon (Fig. 9). It’s not hard to imagine how this feature will develop over time, given Microsoft’s ambitious plans for Silverlight. Live Desktop turns the cloud component of Live Mesh into a rudimentary desktop/server that can be accessed from anywhere and that allows the ability to make changes to assets that will be reflected immediately across your mesh, and the devices (and collaborators) who share in it. Those who are champing at the bit for Microsoft to move its productivity apps into the cloud may take heart. It’s not Office, but it’s damned close to Sharepoint…

Remote Desktop

Connect to Home from Work desktop	Live Desktop remote connect	In-browser remote control
My work desktop showing meshed devices (Fig. 10). In-browser remote desktop connect (Fig. 11). Remote desktop access within browser (Fig. 12). Click photos to enlarge.

Not only can you sync data items across devices, you can control those devices directly. Microsoft has provided two methods of device remote control that reflect the local + cloud, software + services dyad of the Live Mesh design. When working from a device with the client runtime installed, you may connect to any device that appears in the list of devices tracked in the client widget. Figure 10 shows my computer at work and the list of available devices with the option to connect to my Home desktop. Clicking that option opens an instance of what I believe to be a re-worked Terminal Services client window to the remote device. However, as with Live Desktop, the real magic happens in the browser. If accessing Live Mesh via browser, you can choose to connect to one of your devices (Fig. 11) and an Activex-based remote desktop client will load in the browser, which provides full remote control of a computer from within the browser (Fig. 12) — including those behind firewalls, without need of a VPN connection. IT departments may not be thrilled with that, but I am.

Review of the Preview

So is it good? Well, for a beta product that isn’t even out of limited testing, it’s remarkably good. I’ve only found a couple of glitches (for some reason, I cannot download files from Live Desktop at home — but that may be a fault in my Internet Explorer install) but otherwise have found features to work as expected and have already come to rely on it in my daily Work->Home->Work workflow. Others in reviewing this current offering have noted that there are other products already out there that provide a number of these services better (e.g., Box.net for online storage and collaboration, GoToMyPC for remote control) and that’s all true — the storage limit in Live Mesh is skimpy and the remote desktop client is pokey — but these things will improve over time and, besides, critics who harp on these things are missing the point. Microsoft may not be the first mover in these areas, but their enormous reach means that their implementations will, perforce, change the way people work with computers, cell phones and anything else that the "mesh" can encompass. And don’t forget, this is just their first pass at this. The asset and messaging synchronization and remote control features are nice enough — but this looks like the first pass at a web operating system, where cloud-based applications can run on top of any kind of hardware. In a release announcement, Amit Mital, the Microsoft manager for this product listed the ultimate goals that they are targeting:

• "Unified Device Management" – enabling your devices to report into a common service, for status, for health, or to report their location.
• "Unified Data Management"- or the transparent synchronization of files, folders, documents & media, the bi-directional synchronization of arbitrary feeds, of all kinds, across your devices and the web.
• "Unified Application Management" – for centralized web-based deployment of apps across the devices you own.
• "Centralized Management" – where you could configure and personalize your devices and remote control into them from just about anywhere.

Sure sounds like an operating system to me… This video further explores the potential of the Live Mesh platform:

• The Trojan Horse with a Touchscreen
• Lies, Damned Lies… and Public Relations
• Diary of a Rat 2008 Predictions