<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Dmytri Kleiner/ Friends.</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dk@telekommunisten.net">dk@telekommunisten.net</a>></span><br>
Date: Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 7:00 PM<br>Subject: Give Thimbl The Open Web Award!<br>To: "Dmytri Kleiner/ Friends. Subscriber" <<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>><br><br><br>
(Mailing list information, including unsubscription instructions, is located at the end of this message.)<br>
__<br>
<br>
<br>
//////////////////////////////////////////////// � � � �<a href="http://www.thimbl.net/award.html" target="_blank">http://www.thimbl.net/award.html</a><br>
<br>
# Why Thimbl should win the Transmediale/Mozilla Foundation Open Web Award<br>
<br>
The Telekommunisten Collective thinks that people should finger each other<br>
often as possible. Maybe even several times a day, hell, why not once an hour?<br>
As often as you like!<br>
<br>
People thrive on interaction with other people. Mutual stimulation is a deeply<br>
felt human need, a key characteristic of what makes us human. Imagine that<br>
instead of reading your status updates on Twitter or Facebook, your friends<br>
would just finger you instead.<br>
<br>
The Finger protocol was originally developed in the 1970s as a way to publish<br>
user and status information, such as who you are, what you're working on, and<br>
what you're doing now. This is how the relatively few folks with access to<br>
networks posted pithy personal bios. From when colourful polyester pants were<br>
still groovy until the 90s people used to Finger each other all the time!<br>
<br>
Finger evolved into a completely decentralized system, where any user could<br>
finger any other user as long as they were both on the Internet. There were no<br>
big companies in the middle to control these users, or monitor them, or try to<br>
turn their personal data into money. Fingering was a personal matter between<br>
users, direct and unmediated, and nobody really knew exactly who was fingering<br>
who. Promiscuous, right?<br>
<br>
Sadly, these heady days of open relationships slowly came to an end. Finger<br>
software was developed before the Internet had many users, and before<br>
development was driven by commercial interests. The idea was bold, but the<br>
software was primitive.<br>
<br>
Capitalists and their desire for profit have no interest in such freedom and<br>
promiscuity and chose to instead fund centrally controlled systems, in which<br>
they are intermediaries. Investors wanted control, so that they can commodify<br>
and monetize these relationships. Instead of users fingering each other with<br>
reckless abandon, people are now stuck with centralized, privately owned<br>
services like Facebook; chaperoning their relationships, imposing user policies<br>
on them, and monitoring and monetizing their conversation.<br>
<br>
Back in June 2010, Telekommunisten had had enough! "People must be freed from<br>
these puritanical, controlling, consumerist, profit-seeking cults", they<br>
thought. If witchcraft, wet shaving, rocker hair and skinny jeans could make<br>
comebacks, why not Finger?<br>
<br>
The Thimbl project was born, and immediately started working on giving the<br>
project an online identity and releasing tools to create a microblogging<br>
platform built on Finger, that groovy 70s protocol.<br>
<br>
In October, Telekommunisten received the news that Thimbl was one of three<br>
projects nominated for Transmediale/Mozilla Foundation Open Web Award and<br>
almost immediately, Thimbl broke on Hacker News and the project started to<br>
attract significant interest.<br>
<br>
Thimbl started popping up all over the place: P2Pfoundation, ecopolis, alt1040,<br>
O'Reilly Radar, OneThingWell, Ecrans, reboot.fm... Evan Prodromou from<br>
competing service <a href="http://identi.ca" target="_blank">identi.ca</a> even took a playful swipe at us! Finger was<br>
becoming cool again. The masses were longing to finger each other!<br>
<br>
In a few short months, without much in the way of a marketing strategy and with<br>
a budget that could be stored in a matchbox, Thimbl has managed to gather over<br>
250 followers on Twitter - the very service it someday hopes to compete with -<br>
and has been the subject of hundreds and hundreds of tweets. Thimbl even has a<br>
small following on <a href="http://identi.ca" target="_blank">identi.ca</a>, which is closer to the heart of Thimbl than the<br>
service with birds and whales.<br>
<br>
The <a href="http://thimbl.net" target="_blank">thimbl.net</a> website has over 300 'Likes' with its Facebook button and the<br>
Telekommunisten Facebook fan page is abuzz with talk of Thimbl. The project has<br>
even gathered over 100 votes on the Drumbeat platform. Not bad for a project<br>
that was completely unknown to all but a handful of people when the award<br>
nominations where announced!<br>
<br>
Still, the problem remains: Capital will not fund free platforms like Thimbl.<br>
Even with the buzz Thimbl has, building a community big enough to actually<br>
create a viable platform without financing is a major challenge.<br>
<br>
Wouldn't it be great if Thimbl could actually win the Open Web award? The<br>
endorsement of Transmediale and the Mozilla Foundation would be a tremendous<br>
boost for the project, perhaps enough to give the community the needed escape<br>
velocity to break free from centralized social media like Twitter and Facebook<br>
and make Finger the once and future king of personal status updates!<br>
<br>
Transmediale and The Mozilla Foundation had a great idea: instead of having a<br>
jury decide the winner of the award, present three projects to a community<br>
engaged with the open web and its technical, political and artistic dimensions.<br>
Mozilla had recently launched the Drumbeat project, just for this purpose, as a<br>
hub for projects that embrace the open web to get support and find<br>
contributors. So it made perfect sense for Drumbeat to host the voting for the<br>
award.<br>
<br>
Drumbeat is a fantastic initiative from Mozilla and has a really promising<br>
future. However, Drumbeat is a relatively new platform. As a result none of the<br>
projects received much attention from existing Drumbeat users or from the<br>
Transmediale community jumping on to Drumbeat to participate. The idea that an<br>
impartial community would consider the three projects and select a winner<br>
didn't quite work out. Instead, it has become a competition to rally the<br>
existing supporters of the three projects to sign up to Drumbeat and vote for<br>
them specifically, without genuinely considering voting for the others. This<br>
means that, honestly, the vote count is about as impartially meaningful as a<br>
Florida election run by Diebold.<br>
<br>
Thimbl is up against two cool projects as candidates for the Open Web Award;<br>
Booki, the book publishing platform behind FLOSSManuals and many great book<br>
writing sprints, and Graffiti Markup Language, a project to enable analysis and<br>
archiving of graffiti writing which has the support of many awesome, large and<br>
active communities like F.A.T. Lab and eyebeam.<br>
<br>
If the open web award is really meant to give well-earned support to existing,<br>
successful projects like Booki and GML, then we will celebrate their success<br>
with them at the award ceremony in a few days. We readily concede that Thimbl<br>
has not yet achieved anywhere near what these projects have and that our<br>
community is much, much smaller and far less known.<br>
<br>
Unless we succeed in our desperate bid to convince Lady Gaga to dump Polaroid<br>
and instead dedicate her star power to the cause of ushering in a new golden<br>
age of rampant fingering, we are very unlikely to win based on Drumbeat vote<br>
count.<br>
<br>
But if Open Web Award aspires to "clearly demonstrate the unbound potential of<br>
the open web in ways that can spark new thinking and practices," as stated,<br>
then, damn it, Thimbl is the most about the open web!<br>
<br>
We live and breathe the open web, directly addressing the technical and social<br>
issues facing the open web in every aspect of the project, in the code, and in<br>
our manifestos. We talk to anyone who will listen about how the open web is not<br>
just critical to the future of the Internet, but to society itself. And people<br>
are beginning to take notice.<br>
<br>
Selecting Thimbl for the Open Web Award at Transmediale would be one heck of a<br>
powerful spark. Igniting the new thinking and practice that led to the idea of<br>
Thimbl with a clear and bold statement of support for an open web that is truly<br>
open! The multitudes are trapped and frustrated, clinging to their social<br>
interactions within sterile, commercial platforms, longing for wanton,<br>
unbridled realms of contact.<br>
<br>
Join us in inscribing upon on our banners the revolutionary slogan, "Don't be a<br>
Twit, it feels good to be fingered!"<br>
<br>
Give Thimbl the Open Web Award!<br>
<br>
With Kind Regards, Your Telekommunisten.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.thimbl.net" target="_blank">http://www.thimbl.net</a> � � � � � � /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////<br>
<br>
<br>
(psst... pass it on)<br>
<br>
<br>
--<br>
The following information is a reminder of your current mailing<br>
list subscription:<br>
<br>
You are subscribed to the following list:<br>
<br>
� � � �Dmytri Kleiner/ Friends.<br>
<br>
using the following email:<br>
<br>
� � � �<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a><br>
<br>
You may unsubscribe from this list at any time by<br>
visiting the following URL:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://freshsent.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/friends/michelsub2004/gmail.com/" target="_blank">http://freshsent.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/friends/michelsub2004/gmail.com/</a><br>
<br>
If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the<br>
entire address. Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break<br>
this automatic unsubscribe mechanism.<br>
<br>
You may also change your subscription by visiting this list's main screen:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://freshsent.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/friends" target="_blank">http://freshsent.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/friends</a><br>
<br>
If you're still having trouble, please contact the list owner at:<br>
<br>
� � � �<mailto:<a href="mailto:dk@telekommunisten.net">dk@telekommunisten.net</a>><br>
<br>
The following physical address is associated with this mailing list:<br>
<br>
Cafe Buchhandlung<br>
Tucholskystr 32.<br>
Berlin-Mitte<br>
<br>
Amtsstunden: Jeden Deinstag, 20:00 - 24:00<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.telekommunisten.net" target="_blank">http://www.telekommunisten.net</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a>� - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br>
<br>Connect: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.ning.com" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.ning.com</a>; Discuss: <a href="http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation" target="_blank">http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation</a><br>
<br>Updates: <a href="http://del.icio.us/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://del.icio.us/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://twitter.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens</a><br>
<br><br><br><br><br><br>