Darth Aol, A Princess, And A Legend of a Free Press

Return of the Jedi-ess

Sooner or later, Techcrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis will master the graceful art of the kowtow. Or join the ranks of freelance writers who struggle to pay the rent, story to story. OR not. Perhaps, Alexia will become a freedom fighter celebrated for her snarky courage and determination. Certainly, Alexia imagines that all her klout gives her the right to criticize her employer’s evil ways. Yeah, we’re talking about AOL.

You can read how Princess Alexia spanks Darth Aol here.

As a fellow Trojan (we are both alumni of the University of Southern California), I should be sympathetic just because! Fight on, Alexia! “Fight On!” was our motto at USC.

On the other hand, she’s fighting a bigger fight – the kind of fight that I can get excited about. Alexia is fighting corruption. She may not even know it. But Alexia is fighting the corruption of the press – an institution whose relevance to Freedom and Democracy was once considered so vital that it necessitated unambiguous protection by a Constitutional Amendment.

Why does email suck?

Email sucks

Founder of Digg, Kevin Rose says, email sucks.

Rose cites his stats: 938 unread work emails. 1002 unread personal emails.

I know the feeling.

My Gmail stats:

Inbox: 28175
Facebook: 8210
Twitter: 6136

I won’t even mention how many emails are unread. If you really want to engage me, send me a message in Facebook. Or tweet me in Twitter.

As I commented at James McCullough’s blog, Four Sides… the problem is the email app – not email.

Digg’s former CEO Kevin Rose is mistaken to emphasize email as the problem. Rose’s three sentence solution is a ruthless yet savvy approach for keeping up with the demands of accelerated communications in a high speed world.

But it doesn’t solve the problem of the out-dated email app.

Facebook

In the not so distant past, I have argued that one driver of Facebook’s rise to almost universal appeal was how people use Facebook messages as a substitute for personal email. People effectively connect and communicate with friends and family though Facebook in a superior manner to personal email. Unfortunately for Google, Yahoo and Hotmail, Facebook effectively makes the generic personal email account so 2002. In other words, obsolete.

I’m sure that Facebook hasn’t figured this out as succinctly as I have stated it. But the move to Facebook mail addresses suggests that Mark Zuckerberg might have a clue – as hard as that might be to imagine.

Fforward this: The next step for Facebook is to make the messaging center relevant in terms of mail/message management. Done well, this would be the game-changer that would make Google less relevant. It very well could be an obituary for Yahoo.

A killer email app

The killer email app will be:

1. Engaging
2. So easy to set up filters that a dummy like me can do it in 1 minute or less
3. Present decision-making information in a clear and actionable way

It’s that simple.

Who wants to build that with me?

Stan Faryna
17 March 2011
Bucharest, Romania

If you’d like to connect with me, follow @Faryna and tweet me up on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/faryna

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About Stan Faryna

Mr. Faryna is the founder and co-founder of several technology, design and communication companies in the United States and Europe including Faryna & Associates, Inc., Halo Interactive, and others.

Stan Faryna served as a Global Voices author and translator. Global Voices is a non-profit global citizens’ media project founded at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, a research think-tank focused on the Internet’s impact on society.

His political, scholarly, social and technical opinions have appeared in The Chicago Defender, Jurnalul National, The Washington Times, Sagar, Saptamana Financiara, Social Justice Review, and other publications.

Mr. Faryna also served as editor-in-chief of Black and Right (Praeger Press, 1996), a landmark collection of socio-political essays by important American thinkers including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Copyright

Copyright 1996 to 2012 by Stan Faryna.

Here’s my fair use policy for my content:

If you want to share my content with your own audience, you may quote a brief excerpt, if and only if, you provide proper attribution (Source: The unofficial blog of Stan Faryna) with a direct link to the source. Generally speaking, as long as you are not acting as an agent or on behalf of a corporation or institution, I am not interested in any payment for the quotation or use of a complete article. Nevertheless, you may not republish or translate the entire article without my written permission. Send your request for permission via Facebook. Or tweet me up me on Twitter.

Twitter, Facebook, and other web apps as instruments of political and social change

The debate over the usefulness of Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube (and many other internet services) is being argued in regard to steering and consummating political and social change at ground zero. The sweeping change in hearts and minds across the Arab world have fueled these debates – especially the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, but also the events in Bahrain, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, UAE, Yemen, and beyond.

No well informed opinion can deny that humanity’s struggle for freedom and dignity has received more attention now than ever before. The unfolding drama and embrace of change have never captured the imagination and hearts of so many of the world’s population as the recent unprecedented changes in the Arab world.

Never before have so many experienced true revolution directly by picture, video, text message and blog post. Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube (among other social media) made this possible. And let us not forget that it was the English language which was instrumental to the sharing of information, inspiration, insight, sympathy, anguish, hope, and, yes, outrage.

The Scourge of Inexorable Corruption 1.4

You can read the previous post in this multi-post commentary here.

Fight On!

What we all want is a better world. A better life. Isn’t that what we really believe Democracy and Freedom is all about?!

Such democracy is not something we can purchase at a store – online or offline. It’s not a one time, one click purchase. No government can deliver on that. For each of us, it is a life-long commitment to demanding it from each other -demanding the things that matter most. And not just demanding those things – but also giving them.

The Scourge of Inexorable Corruption 1.3

You can read the previous post in this multi-post commentary here.

Silence and indifference is complicity

Outside the Romanian Anti-Corruption Court, there were no protesters. No one was demanding justice. Not one desperate mother. Not one hungry pensioner. No one.

The absence of protest against corporate greed and tax evasion may be because no one was paid. Obviously, no one was paying. Protest, some Romanians say, is freelance work for the poor.

How did they become so cynical?!

The Scourge of Inexorable Corruption 1.2

You can read the previous post in this multi-post commentary here.

Complicity

Our world seeks change. And it is ours to drive that change – a change that leaves the world a better place than the world which we received into our servant hands. Change, however, must begin with our refusal to be complicit in wrong-doing.

And that’s no easy thing to do.

In the case of Realitatea-Catavencu v. The Romanian People, the complicity of Romanian journalists and media agencies in downplaying the investigation of fraud and tax evasion is nothing less than a betrayal of the people’s trust in main stream and new media.

The irony is not lost on me when journalists who decry the failure of the Romanian government are complicit in corporate schemes of tax evasion that disable the Romanian economy.

This is not unique to Romania; it happens everywhere for one reason or another.

As Jeff Jarvis, Director of the interactive journalism program at City University of New York, has noted on Twitter and elsewhere, main stream and new media (a la AOL) increasingly conspire with governments, corporations and powerful interest groups. For profit, obviously. Despite the messiness of citizen journalism, Jarvis believes that the truth is out there.

The Scourge of Inexorable Corruption 1.1

You can read the previous post in this multi-post commentary here.

Case Study in Corruption: Realitatea-Catavencu defrauds the Romanian People

The present anti-corruption investigation of the Romanian Press agency, Realitatea-Catavencu, is an interesting example of how difficult it is to overcome corruption.

Realitatea-Catavencu is a major media group in Romania that includes television, radio, print and new media networks including The Money Channel, Academia Catavencu and Realitatea TV (one of the leading news channels in Romania). This group is currently being investigated for tax-evasion practices on a sophisticated level. In lieu of a complete salary payment that is commensurate with the duties and responsibilities of a position at Realitatea-Catavencu, employees receive part of their salary in the form of compensation for intellectual property contributions.

In other words, Realitatea-Catavencu paid employees the minimum salary as salary and additional amounts of a negotiated salary through compensation for intellectual property. Realitatea-Catavencu used this scheme to evade the higher taxes on officially registered salaries. Salary taxes and various mandatory contributions can reflect up to 100% of a net salary, whereas taxes for compensation for intellectual property is about 16% .

The Scourge of Inexorable Corruption 1.0

The following commentary was first published in Servant Hearts.

The struggle for a better world

For those who share in the hope for a better world, there is a keen awareness that our pluralistic hope includes the expectation that good government (or state) is key. A more perfect union, in other words. A more perfect union is one where the political union of the will and aspirations of the many is dedicated to the common good founded upon the dignity, virtue and destiny of the human person.

When the Egyptians succeeded in ousting President Hosni Mubarak, people across the globe were inspired. This collective inspiration is a testament to everyone’s shared hope for a better world. The protests spreading across the Pan-Arabic world in concert with each other also suggests that such hope is basic to all.