December 30th, 2008
A quick break from end-of-year musings to revisit a slightly more real world. I had an interesting conversation with Pete Forsyth at the Green Dragon during Beer and Blog last Friday (I know, that’s a mouthful; I don’t talk that much about the tech junkets I go on, but they are frequent and often cleverly-named). We spoke of a concern dear to my heart: the licensing required to share a photo with Wikipedia. In a nutshell, to give your photo to Wikipedia, you have to allow unlimited commercial use of the image. This can be tough as Coca-Cola can now paper billboards with my photos to their heart’s content. But it’s not a simple issue.
Pete wrote a thoughtful post as a result of this conversation and its comment thread made me think deeply. I’d be interested in your general opinion, too. It is such a muddy issue that I had trouble coming up with a coherent comment, a snip of which is below:
I am attached to specific photos not because of the weight of commerce they entail, but because of the personal nature of their expression. Releasing them into the wilderness always makes me feel a bit exposed, a nakedness I can handle in terms of college students working on term project collages and poor post-rock bands who need images for CD covers but yet take umbrage when metaphorical uber-corps have unlimited raping access. Yes–this is my own insecurity.
Am I right to feel this way? Maybe not, even if it is somewhat culturally natural. Is it reconcilable with my goals here? Probably not. Mostly now I am confused, somewhat ashamed of my own desire to hoard my own images.
OK, now go read the post.
Tags: commercial, copyright, licensing, Photography
Leave a Reply
November 11th, 2008
Leave a Reply
October 8th, 2008
Jason Grigsby stands in front of the big screen demo of the Obama '08 iPhone application at the Mission Theater in Portland. It's my computer, which is why you see my name in the top right and my photo as the background.
Last night was neato. We filled the Mission Theater in Portland with a lot of enthusiastic debate watchers. Rep. Earl Blumenauer spoke and said nice things about us and the potentials of technology like this. Team members (including me) got a chance to take questions and show off the capabilities of the application.
So, if you were there, thank you very much for coming. It made me feel very happy.
I’m also glad that team members Jonathan Wight and Dom Sagolla were able to fly in from South Carolina and San Francisco, respectively. They’re good people.
Tags: debate, iphone, mission, obama, party
Leave a Reply
October 3rd, 2008
If you live in town, please join us next Tuesday evening to celebrate the launch of the Obama ‘08 iPhone and iPod Touch application and to watch the next presidential debate. We’ve reserved the Mission Theater for this event, and it is expected to hit capacity (fire code). It’s free, so get there early!
Get more information and RSVP:
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1165315/
Tags: appearance, campaign, debate, iphone, obama, politics
Leave a Reply
October 2nd, 2008
It is with great joy that I am finally able to share with you the project that I (and a ridiculously talented small group of people) have had the good fortune to be a part of: Obama ‘08, the official iPhone application for the Obama/Biden presidential campaign.
Neat, huh? The amount of energy that went into this was fun to be around. Raven Zachary and Jason Grigsby’s strategy genius, Jonathan Wight’s very powerful development fu, Mike Lee and Tristan O’Tierney’s hacking support, Louie Manta’s visual-zing-wow aesthetics, Aileen Jeffries and John Keith’s many-faceted support, and Dom Sagolla’s tireless testing work. Phew. That’s the lot of us.
Two things were great about this experience. One, it gives me–someone uncomfortable with calling or bothering strangers and not particularly skilled in the art of persuasion–a real way to make an impact for a cause I am very fond of. Two, I got to wear all sorts of professional costumes; the project involved me being involved with all of the following: JavaScript, PHP, mysql, CSS, graphics, HTML, XCode, bits and bots of Objective C, copywriting, templating, clicking and dragging. It was fun.
Go learn more and download at http://www.barackobama.com/iphone
Early News Coverage
Teammate Blog Coverage
Tags: app, election, iphone, obama
Leave a Reply
November 11th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
This is funny… but it may not be Engrish! When I was in Hong Kong a couple of years ago, there was a debit card called the “Octopus”. I thought it was funny at the time and took my own picture (which shows the sign in context). But technically the grammar is correct, so it may not qualify as Engrish