(sent via mobile device)

(sent via mobile device)

Obama's victory and the WWW inextricably linked.

Hundreds of volunteers brought their own cell phones to a warehouse and did get out the vote calling. Instant organization. Instant infrastructure. Lists were on the Internet.

Election: new possibilities. Web like electricity. Used to be a marvel. Now commonplace. Need to do the same with the web. Make its power ubiquitous and easy and available for everyone. Then it becomes truly revolutionary.

Web 2.0 - how can we rearchtect the mechanics of participatory democracy using the web.

The printing press revolutionized the public sphere. Created new info infrastructure --> age of reason --> democracy.

TV re-feudalized media.
Then Internet re-democratized it.
Current.com tries to bring the democracy of Internet to TV.

Web 2.0 needs to have a purpose, a social purpose. Not worried about this new excitement and engagement losing steam. It's just beginning.

Need a new energy smart-grid.
Need a national retrofit program for homes and businesses.

Lifestyle changes?
Definitely. Food, transport, housing, everything. We don't get to go back to the way things were.

Need the follow-up film to Inconvenient Truth.

Need a declaration that in 10 years all of the US domestic energy needs will come from domestic and renewable resources.

Great social leaps forward have been tied to changes in communication. We've gone through the passivity of tv and come out the other side.

What anyone needs to transform collective engagement:
* Vision
* Shared values
* Means of communication of the most important goals.
* Maintain the health of the info ecosystem.

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China now encouraging large private media conglomerates because they've found them just as easy to control and regulate as govt media.

Much of the censorship in china being done by private companies on behalf of government - yahoo, google, baidu.

Www.globalnetworkinitiative.org - initiative setting standards of conduct and responsibility for players getting into these markets. Google, Microsoft, on board.

Are we overreliant on a small number of web 2.0 giants. (eg skype SMS leaks in china). So we need more free, open source alternatives.

AA: People in the developing world can't afford to upgrade their energy consumption (coal, wood, charcoal) and can't get access to the carbon offset market, which could help pay for switching fuels, because of high transaction and auditing costs. MicroEnergy Credits works with microfinance loan officers to check on energy systems (solar panel, cookstove) with geocoding. Allows individuals in the developing world to change their energy consumption for the better and pay for it with carbon offset dollars.

RM - Google: Android has 3 ways of reporting location -- GPS chip, WiFi, or cell-ID tracking. Great platform for location aware services.

TM - Skyhook - A location tech company. Sent out '000s of people to drive every street and map every WiFi access points. Can then use that to figure out your location. Used as the WiFi location service for all iPhone 3G phones. Now 500 apps on the iPhone that use location services.

GS - Sense Networks: Analyse large amounts of location data to index the real world. A search engine looks at pages. We look at real places. What kinds of people are in all of these different places. Put that analysis back on to the real world. Anonymous. Allows customization, advertising, churn modeling.

Why is this just breaking out with iPhone now:
Skyhook - Apple gave location services to developers for free. First time that happened. Used to be license fees, big contracts.

The Developing World
AA: Half the population of the world has a cellphone. But these aren't smartphones. The carriers don't have a business model in the developing world to subsidize sophisticated phones. So SMS is everywhere.

GS: SMS took off when you could do it across networks. The carriers are starting to do that with location services, doing more work with background pinging, enabling location apps for non-smartphones with no new hardware.

Who's missing the boat? Apple won't let you do that constant update. Facebook won't let you find out where your friends are. Who else?
70+ apps on the iPhone communicate your location to your friends. Facebook doesn't. Twitter doesn't do it easily either.
Google - but it's still early days. Developers are still getting educated. I should be able to say, "I need a cab." and have one come and find me.

Privacy and Controls. Fire Eagle lets you control who has your location.
GS: User has the power to say "delete my last 24 hours" or "delete it all". We don't own it. The user owns it.
TM: Interesting usability challenge of how we expose what is being collected, where it's going, how to control it. Like cookies -- all browsers have controls for cookies, but few people use it.

GS: Looking at taxi cab data - when are people going to work in the financial district. While the market was going up, tracked with how early they got into work. Looking at when people of different income levels and when they take cabs vs. financial markets and consumer confidence. Takes out all of the bias errors that comes from surveys, polls, etc. Great graph of nightlife traffic vs. Lehman crash.
New app: CitySense -- where is everybody going right now? On blackberry now, iPhone soon. Shows where everybody is going in cabs. (In exchange for my data, we'll tell you where everybody is.
http://www.citysense.com
(bought the data from cab companies all over the country. For the income bracket work, used block level census data.)

Shai Agassi:
Cars become part of the distribution network for electricity, rather than just being consumers of electricity. If a car has a battery, and it moves, it can become part of the infrastructure.

Car share: good, but doesn't replace car ownership. It replaces taxis, transit and car rental.
Don't need to solve the urban driver. Need to solve the suburban and exurban driver -- 25% of cars that account for 66% of oil use and transportation. They can't share cars. This is where we should be focusing EV development.

Between 1942 and 1945, there were zero cars built in the U.S. Lesson: we have had zero-growth situations before. But also, that was a *central* decision. "Stop making cars, we need to win the war." We could make central decisions like that again if we felt our backs were up against the wall.

Tesla Motors: making 800 electric cars a year at $109,000.

http://www.teslamotors.com

The Roadster: Faster than a Ferarri, more fuel-efficient than a Prius
Goes 0-60 in 3.9 sec, upgrading to 3.6 with new powertrain next year.

Range is 250 miles. Highway and city with the AC on. Can plug it into any outlet.

While this is a car for rich people, it also works out the technology so that it can be scaled. The next car is a sedan - Model S - that will start for $30,000.

Q: There hasn't been a successful auto startup since Jeep in 1941, how is this going to work? You've had to cut staff and delay your sedan.

A: Market collapse meant we can't raise money for major manufacturing right now. (Need about $100M). Would have had to give up control of the company. Instead, we went back for $40M from the original 7 investors. Enough to get the roadster business and powertrain supply business going. Expect to be profitable off the powertrain business by Q2 next year.

Q: How did you approach the lay-offs.
A: Reduced the staff working on the model S to 10%. Took a "special forces" approach. Keep the Navy Seals, let go those who still may be good, but aren't exceptional. Kept the highest level of dedication and talent.

Lets you install solar cells on your house without paying up front, then pay by the month with the leasing costs paid for by the energy savings. Founder: Elon Musk, same founder as Tesla Motors
 http://www.solarcity.com

BTW: Musk is pretty incredible. co-founder of PayPal. Then turns around and starts Tesla, invests in SolarCity, and starts SpaceX. 37 years old.

JH: 2008 presidential election is like the 1960 election, where a new medium became the dominant medium for the election. In this case, the Internet.

JT: Saw it start to happen with Howard Dean. "A change from the Wright Brother days of 2004, to where the Obama Campaign launched a man and landed him in the White House." The official YouTube videos from the Obama Campaign were watched millions of times. If that was regular advertising, would have cost $47M dollars to buy that on traditional networks.

GN: Allows people to feel a real connection to this cause, not just the candidate. Extraordinary. But now, what does it mean?

AH: Completely agree. Were it not for the internet, Barak Obama would not be president. Galvanized both fundraising and organizing power. The Internet has killed Karl Rove politics. The people who are on the Internet don't let untruths persist. When smears go out, people get obsessed with proving them wrong. Happened with terrorist accusations, Bill Ayers. The echo chamber just got too deafening to keep repeating them.

The rise of the left blogosphere. Previously we had Drudge, then the left blogosphere arose and we had balance. Is Drudge history?
AH: Truth isn't about right vs. left. Sometimes its on one side or the other. It doesn't lie in the middle all the time.

JT: Mainstream media does "he said/she said" without looking for truth. The blogosphere wants to get to the truth. myWhiteHouse.gov (JT's proposal) would allow people to confront their elected officials about the money they take from lobbyists, when they don't work in the people's interests. People want the presidency to succeed and want to find ways to help make that happen.

To Gavin: Has the web changed the way you govern?
GN: We aren't really good with this yet. We don't know Facebook, but Facebook users know us. I'm now obsessed with Facebook. (AH has maxxed out the number of friends she can have on FB). The fundraising side is incredibly powerful, in $5 and $10 bits. The downside: every single thing you say is part of the record forever. Every politician is now in a 24/7 reality show.

GT: This medium demands authenticity. TV demanded fake. You can fool anybody for 30 seconds. Politicians haven't been used to this.

Any moral/ethical qualms about sending out citizen journalists who don't declare themselves as reporters?
AH: We don't _send_ anyone out. They're just out there. Our journalists are "off the bus". They don't have "access". But they're there and they're obsessive... There are new rules. There are no off-the-record fundraisers. But they should acknowledge themselves.

GN: But are we more authentic or less authentic if we're on the record all the time? There is now no off-the-record.

JT: You're going to have to be who you are. You aren't saints. You're human beings.

The web was used in the Obama campaign to organize and fundraise. In Feb, he raised $70M (the most ever) while holding *zero* fundraisers. What's the future of this?
JT: It's the best opportunity for campaign financing reform. Gives a politician the opportunity to say: I'm not going to take any cheque over $250. Real reform could happen on a voluntary basis. The organization was the other huge strength. Google Maps, tools to decentralize.. Obama won every state that matters in the primary race because of those tools. That whole lead came from his ability to use tools, and his volunteers to use those tools. #3 The power of Will.i.am and other user-generated content allowed a whole new level of civic engagement.

AH: You don't just sit on your couch anymore. With the internet, you're engaged. You're making choices. And you can do it yourself. And not just soundbites. You can watch Obama's 37min speech on race that you never get to see on TV.

GN: There are still hundreds of millions who have no Internet access. For them, TV is the only media they have. We need to empower folks.

JH: The depth and scale of Obama realignment is underestimated. With that email list and that organization, he was almost elected as an independent with Democratic backing. Does his success change the way he will govern? Does it get rid of the two party system?

AH: It's the most important thing going on. It's past right-vs-left. It isn't Clinton's triangulation. To really transform, have to transcend divisions and find a new centre.
GN: if you don't want to be part of the Dem or Rep party, you'd better be part of the "get it done" party.
JT: He has 10M people in his network. that's 1 out of 18 people in the US. They have parents, friends, co-workers. They have the ability to pass the truth around. It's amazing power to move an agenda forward. Have to be careful tho: 47% of the country didn't vote for him. You have to bring those people along.

Audience: The Proposition 8 campaign saw both sides of this. The pro-gay sites got anti-gay sites served to them because pro-Prop 8 supporters invested so heavily in Google Ad words.
GN: There are still people out there writing big cheques. But this next generation is more connected, less polarized, and it will make an extraordinary time.