Michael Arrington from Techcrunch just posted a very interessting article about the us congress loving social software sites.

US House Resolution 5319, the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), was passed by a 410 to 15 vote tonight. If the Resolution becomes law social networking sites and chat rooms must be blocked by schools and libraries or those institutions will lose their federal internet subsidies. According to the resolution’s top line summary it will “amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms.”

We thought it was a joke when we´ve been asked to register a soccer team for the "Netsoccer Beach Club".

There's no going back now - it is looking like we are going to have to play. Uh oh! The only problem is that so far only women and one man have agreed to take part - and he doesn't count as he is the IT guy! What's up with our male team colleagues? When it comes to football it looks like the women around here are on much better form up front than the men. 

Who is winning the race this week? It´s Thursday and you have another 4 days to vote!

Be generous with your stars, but don´t give them, if you´re not happy with a design. Leave a comment under the design instead.

Latest openDESIGN Challenge Entries

Found on Businessweek online:

"Whose video is it, anyway? YouTube´s runaway success has opened a Pandora´s box of copyright issues"

Pick up this low hanging fruit and start administrating your contacts in a very lazy way: Tag them! Today we´ve flicked the switch on for our new contact tagging system that enables our members to assign tags to their individual personal contacts.

Read more about it here.         

Read more about "The Venice Project" of Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis.

After the duo launched the peer-to-peer phone service Skype in 2003, it seems to be time for something new. Definitely worthwhile to monitor their latest project, since the legal battle about distributing video over the web is on and plenty of competition to crack.

Anyhow, ebay made sure that Zennstrom and Friis are officially not intending to leave Skype or reduce their engagement. Facing the loss of their share of up to $1.5 billion and eBay payments over the next three years might do the rest.

The first week of voting is complete and here are the results:

3. "Orange Hope"

2. "Clear & Straight"

1. "Bright Evolution"

Congratulations to the "Schöne neue Kinder" team for their "Bright Evolution" proposal - You are the first community winner and receive six months' free premium membership on openBC, as well as automatically being placed in the shortlist of overall best designs!

If you have submitted a design last week that didn't win, you might want to modify it and resubmit your entry – perhaps you'll have more luck then.

Btw: As we are still in the process of setting up the jury, so we cannot announce a jury winner this week. But we are confident that we'll be able to assemble a complete jury by the end of this week and will declare two jury winners at once next Monday.

Thank you to everyone who has already posted comments to the openDESIGN project.

We are currently sifting through each and every one of them and deciding together with our design team how exactly to respond with a revised design proposal. That's the reason why there won't be a new submission for the openDESIGN Challenge from our designers this week.

You will see the same design as last week in this week's gallery as we need a little time to conceptualise our new profile page proposal. But we will keep posting suggestions and ideas in the Designer´s Journal during the coming week.

Subscribe to the RSS feed if you'd like to stay updated on the latest developments!

We'd like to wish everyone a productive week ahead – Keep the entries and comments coming... we're looking forward to all new input and wish every participant the best of luck!

I lost count of how many times we were asked for a user’s manual, a “How to” book explaining openBC and its functions in detail. So when Heise publishers approached us last fall we decided to work together to make it happen. Stephan Lamprecht, the author of many best-selling IT books and a very experienced openBC user wrote the book, being “consulted” by openBC’s Member Relations team: What are the most frequently asked questions, what are the most common problems and what are the most popular functions among openBC users?

Stephan Lamprecht came up with a great book, a mix of a step-by-step manual of how to make the most of your openBC membership and of different interviews with openBC users who talk about their experiences and have some words of advice for the less experienced user.

The book will be available in stores from July 28th onwards. Of course you can also order it online.  While this first edition will be available in German only, we are considering translating and publishing it in further languages and countries in the future.

Have a look at Designer´s Journal and follow how the new look evolves.

Lars said

#73 _Oh what a start. Thank you all for your comments and thoughts. There is a lot in for us. Wether it is colors, optics and even functions (yes we will include MUCH more Ajax, and we do want that you can type in more contact informations). We appreciate comments like "the new design looks shit" and "stick with what we have" ("never change a winning team" and good to know that you actually like what we have so far). I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, we got to change things to improve the user experience. We have currently too many links per side in general, we got 2 navigations (left and top navigation - this is 1 too much), we have to have a new concept and universal system of how to enter informations (messages, tags, profil page, groups), and a better design concept of tabs. We are starting here an dialogue, and please if you think we can do better, help us and put your designs up, too.

Thank you Miriam for posting your ideas! You´re the first one.

Submit your design here

Hanno, Christoph and Andreas burned the midnight oil  last night, moving the design competition to a new server. They also got our service provider to walk several extra miles for us and helped us with continuous tech support way after 10 pm.

Thanks a million to all three of you.

Wow, we didn’t expect such a massive response straight away to openDESIGN – Our press server is working flat out but is having trouble keeping up with the rush at the moment.

Please bear with us and we’ll get this show back on the road in no time…!

Update@ 7:49pm
Our admins just informed me that there was a technical problem with the server this afternoon. We are currently setting up a new server to replace the defect one. Thank you for your patience!

BTW: openBC itself is running fine as only one of our secondary servers used for this kind of campaigns has been affected.

openDESIGN is about YOUR input.

The great thing about openBC is that both its users and employees contribute to the daily improvement of the service: the greater the member activity, the more valuable our site becomes as a resource.

So it makes perfect sense to actively involve the online community in the re-design process of the openBC interface. The openDESIGN Challenge aims to realize this vision, which puts our open networking philosophy and firm belief in the wisdom of crowds into practice.

Our design team consists of first-rate professionals - and they have big plans for openBC in the future. But we know we’re not the only ones who can come up with inspired ideas. That’s why we’re scouting for new design talent as well: The openDESIGN Challenge calls on interested designers to get involved in the coming six weeks and upload their own proposals and visions for the new re-launch. See our About pages for details here!

The finished design will be a joint effort between our designers and the online community. We’re looking forward to an active, positiveexchange of ideas and wish all budding designers out there the best of luck!

That´s a good start into the week.

You Are 52% Cynical

Yes, you are cynical, but more than anything, you're a realist. You see what's screwed up in the world, but you also take time to remember what's right.

tag: openblog

“Vlogging with German Chancellor Angela Merkel” - The German Chancellor Angela Merkel interviewed by Lyssa, aka Katharina Borchert, aka Lyssa Borchert.

Weeks ago Angela Merkel decided to have her on vlog. As far as I know the first time ever a Head of State is using a video podcast to provide an insight into working life. 

A smart move. Though critics have noticed that the recent vlogs have been much too static, Lyssa created an atmosphere where Angela Merkel seems to be more private. I like it.

tag: openblog

Don´t you ever wonder why most of your job interviews are either boring or funny?! Leaning back and thinking about the job interview I had, little trailors start playing in my head. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I remember a job interview where I was grilled by two bad men in black take ons. They asked me over and over the same questions, like “What would you do if I threw your concept into the bin?” or may favorite one “What would you do if a journalist calls?”. Uhm, start crying?!

I was sitting there for about 1,5 hours answering the same questions. Sweating and annoyed (this combination doesn´t let you look good). They never had a look at my bio nor listened to what I´ve said. Days later the boss called asking me if I liked the interview. I said no and he said “Fine, when do you start?”. I turned the offer down. I felt good.

I had my funniest moment in a job interview, when an HR person asked me – out of the blue – what my partner would say about me, if I would be a moccasin. Hehe. If I would be whaaaat?! You mean a single one, or a pair?!

My initial thought was I had a starring role in hidden camera. I glimpsed at the person who was leading the department and he looked like “whaaaat?!” as well. Okay, you have to know that my partner and moccasins fit together like the pope and a Hillary Clinton suit. The picture in your head is not really working, right? My brain was totally confused and I was close to bursting out laughing.

The imagination was just too funny. “Daniela is a very comfy moccasin. I once bought her, because she was reduced and I needed a pair of her.” Hey, what else would a man say about a pair of shoes?!

My good manner and the atractive position prevented the damage. Now it´s me who´s sitting on the other side of the table looking for great people to welcome them to our team.

And that´s why I never ask you about moccasins.

tag: openblog

Did you notice? Some of you probably did and many will follow.

At the moment we´re unveiling step by step a new tagging system that enables you to assign tags to your individual personal contacts. I was invited to test it and I think it´s ace!

How does it work? It´s as simple as ordering a cool beer on a hot summer night. All you´re doing is using tags on openBC when adding or confirming a personal contact, or by clicking on the contact pages of already confirmed contacts.

Want to test it?!

We haven´t launched it yet and I am curious to hear your feedback.

tag: openblog

Yesterday I found a little gem on the Internet which I want to share with you. Edward W. Felten from Princeton University recently published an essay about "Nuts and Bolts of Network Neutrality".

It´s a quick read with a powerful take-away. Get it.

One of the reasons the network neutrality debate is so murky is that relatively few people understand the mechanics of network discrimination. In reasoning about net neutrality it helps to understand the technical motivations for discrimination, the various kinds of discrimination and how they would actually be put into practice, and what countermeasures would then be available to users and regulators. These are what I want to explain in this essay. [...]

[...]Neutrality regulation is generally supported by companies that provide services at the edge of the network, and is generally opposed by companies that manage the middle of the network. Each group wants the part of the network that it controls to have most of the intelligence, because more opportunities to innovate—and profit from innovation—are available to those who control the intelligent parts of the network.[...]

tag: openblog

...or at least how I felt after a busy busy week, tropical temperatures in the office, long meetings and no blogging.

This week we start fresh, with more blogging and more inside openBC news.

And fresh flowers ;-D

tag: openblog

Bad weeds grow tall...my granny would say, if I would tell her what recently San Fransisco based social networking company Friendster has achieved.

Friendster said Thursday that it has received a patent that covers online social networks, one the company had applied for long before its decline and recent recapitalization. The U.S. patent, which was awarded June 27, is extremely general, and would seem to cover the activities of many other sites, especially those like LinkedIn that allow people to connect within a certain number of degrees of separation. [Red Herring]

tag: openblog friendster

I am writing this blog entry using my 3G / UMTS Card in the Munich underground. The whole way from Munich City to Munich Airport! Amazing, we need this in Hamburg, too

Soccer, Football, Fussball or whatever you call it. It has been an amazing 3 weeks of excitement in Germany. Yesterday the German team lost 0:2 to Italy. Daniela and I watched together with our Vice Chairman Eric the game. Unbelievable ... How can you loose in the last 2 minutes of the extra time? Ok the Italian team was just better. Since Eric is a Frenchman I had to promise him to cheer for the Team France today. Thanks to Yahoo! I got a hospitality VIP Pass to see the game in this amazing new stadium today live in Munich.

thanks to the world cup Germany has regained a good national pride. It's en vogue to have flags and to cheer for our country. It is the first time, I experience this feeling.