I stumbled on the "lifestream" blog of Cory O'Brien today. Being a fan of "lifestreams" (an aggregation of 'actions' taken on various sites) myself, I was interested to find that Cory's site was running on an lifestream aggregation platform called Sweet Cron, which was new to me. Sweet Cron is an open-source PHP-based application developed by "yongfook."

The developer, however, has since moved his own lifestream/blog to the free service called Posterous. Posterous, like Tumblr makes blogging easy, which is great. However, Posterous, like Tumblr, also has a very opaque business plan. Call me cynical: but I can't get my head around relying on "free" hosted Web services for more than transient projects. (I'm even starting to question my own previous musings about a "Software pyramid for a healthy non-profit".)

From the recent purchase of EtherPad by Google -- leaving even their paid customers in the lurch -- to the quiet shut down of free service TwitApps, it seems that hosted services -- paid or not -- can be volatile ground these days. There's a long list of web services that have joined the "dead pool" over the last few years -- I know that I've been bitten more than once (Stikipad, Ma.gnolia, etc.)

If you've read Free by Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson, you'll know that most of these services aren't free by any means; they are simply going for the largest market possible to make it feasible for 5% of users to pay the freight for the other 95%. If they can't reach the mass market necessary to succeed, troubling times lay ahead for the service's users.

Enough of these free services have shut down that I've started moving toward installed software again for my own personal needs. After enough wasted time looking for half-baked free services, I've found it becomes worthwhile to invest in running the service myself on my own infrastructure. Your mileage may vary of course.

All that said, I'm sincerely curious about what others are doing: Are you relying more-and-more on free services like Posterous and Tumblr? Do you think about the day of reckoning when, inevitability, they introduce a premium plan, sell your data, or show ads on your site? Do you back up your data regularly, or just have faith that all will be okay? Or, alternately, are you starting to dust off your old programming books and getting to work on your own solutions?

If you are a client, or a colleague, you probably have heard me talk about Bricolage — the industrial-strength content management system. If you’re a client of mine, you probably know why I talk about it (in fact, you’re probably using it every day). And, if you’re a colleague, you’ve probably wondered what the hell I was going on about. Well, I figured it’s about time that I explain why some people claim that “Bricolage is quite possibly the most capable enterprise-class, open-source application available.”

I saw a note from long-time friend Amanda Hickman this week announcing the release of the “Base Edition of NGO-in-a-box”. It reminded me of all the work that’s been underway (for some years now) at Tactical Tech to get the NGO-in-a-Box project up-and-running. NGO-in-a-box is probably one of the most impressively organized projects in the social-technology sector … from the NGO-in-a-Box site:

NGO-in-a-box offers a set of peer reviewed and selected Free and Open Source software (F/OSS), tailored to the needs of NGO’s. It provides them not only with software, but also with implementation scenarios and relevant materials to support this.

Good article quoting the usual suspects over at Charity Village:

Unless you work in IT, you probably don’t give much thought to whether the software you use is licensed or open source, freeware or shareware; you just want it to work properly. But with the flexibility and affordability that open source and shareware programs can offer, some nonprofits are taking a closer look. Find out about the available software alternatives and whether they might be right for your organization in this week’s cover story at: http://www.charityvillage.com/cv/news/cover.asp

(Not sure how long that link will work, so let me know if it’s not working.)

Also fun to see that all those lessons on dealing with spam have finally paid off for Mark Greenspan. Mark was over for dinner on the weekend and couldn’t stop talking about the Net Neutrality panel (lots of familiar names there) that he is helping to program at Next Media 2007.

UPDATE: The first event date has been announced here. Register early to avoid disapointment.

Are you leading a charge for change, but lack time for professional development? Want to understand how to embrace mission-supporting technology, but don’t know where to start? If you answered yes to either of these questions, then do we have an offer for you. We provide the space. We provide the battle-hardened “expert.” And get this: all you have to do is show up. Interested? Read on…

Just in time for your holiday reading pleasure, Magazines Canada has published their latest set of resources for small magazines. These 11 ‘hotsheets’ cover the gamut: Blogs and Small Magazines (by yours truly), Developing Your Niche, Fundraising for Small Magazines, Online Circulation Promotions (by colleague John Spencer), Swaps and Exchanges (by friend Lisa Whittington-Hill of This Magazine), Online Editorial Features, and much more. Other authors include names like: Matt Blackett, Deborah Brewster, and Hal Niedzviecki.

I’ve only managed to skim through these and can already tell that this is an incredible collection of no-cost resources for small publishers. (Have links to other great resources for small publishers? Please post them below.)

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been having a great back-and-forth with the Jon Spencer — the “data geek” of Abacus Circulation — that riffed off a few ideas provided by Steve Izma of Wilfrid Laurier University Press about the delicate balance between putting content online for free and making a living as an author or publisher.

The conversation was prompted by the upcoming New Internationalist annual general meeting (where the cooperative comes together to democratically decide on the themes for the next year’s worth of magazines); there was some indication that the question of “does putting magazine content online for free impact subscriptions?” might be raised. Jon and I both work with the New Internationalist: Jon as a circulation advisor and I as a Web strategist. So, given our different roles — and mutual interest (in seeing New Internationalist succeed) — we tackled that question together.

I had the pleasure of delivering a session on Friday at Magazines University for the Small Magazines Spotlight. “Mags U” is a four-day conference for magazine publishers from across Canada and the US held annually in Toronto. The event is organized by a number of groups, but appears to be spearheaded by Magazines Canada — a Canadian magazine industry association and the folks that brought the Genuine Canadian logo to the cover of many Canadian magazines.

The session I delivered was given the title of “Build it (online) and they will come” and I was asked to explore ideas of how to use the Web to connect to readers, to increase circulation, and to generate revenue. I also wanted to provide some practical tips and look at the role of strategy and creative approaches in the work I’ve done with publications over the last few years. I was flattered to find that well over 30 people were interested in hearing what I had to say on the topic (you just never know at these things). In the room were folks from Canadian Art, Dandelion, Descant, Film Print, Front Magazine, Geist, Graphic Monthly, New Quarterly, Owl Kids, Style, Tart Magazine, Urbane, and many others that I wasn’t able to jot down.

Collaboratively authored by Dmytri Kleiner and Phillip Smith

Last updated December 2004

Like many curious onlookers, you're probably wondering, Are free and open-source applications really able to meet our needs? or, Are open-source systems compatible with the software that our clients, partners and colleagues are using? The honest answer is yes. In the past two years, the pace of open-source desktop development has increased dramatically, the usability of Linux has been improved(http://www.relevantive.de/Linux-Usabilitystudy_e.html), the installed base of users has increased to an estimated 18 million (http://counter.li.org/estimates.php) and many large software companiesfrom IBM to Novell to Sun—have made significant commitments to develop on, integrate with and support open-source operating systems and software. Additionally, several "e-Riders" (organizations and individuals that support not-for-profit groups with technology) have started the process of moving their clients in the direction of free software (http://www.lincproject.org/), and many brands you experience every day, like the Government of Canada, CNN, Google and Yahoo, use open-source software to power their Web sites.