I think Cisco believes that the world of work will change a lot more than it already has over the years since the dot.com bust.

I also remember a few years back learning that Cisco was involved (in alliance with Electronic Arts, I believe .. I'd have to go back to the source, a book titled Work 2.0) in some quiet research about the use of video game principles and techniques in workplace application.  I was doing the research because I was trying to convince one of my then clients that the video-game idiom would be found in more and more workplace productivity and learning applications in about ten years (that was five years ago).

Anyway .. Cisco just forked out a lot of moolah for a web service that helps people conduct meetings online .... a really lot of moolah, $3.2 billion !

Via AP and the New York Times:

Cisco to Pay $3.2 Billion for WebEx
March 15, 2007


SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Cisco Systems Inc. said Thursday that it has agreed to acquire the online meeting company WebEx Communications Inc. for about $3.2 billion in cash.

Cisco, the leading maker of routers and switches that direct data over computer networks, said it will pay $57 per share of WebEx. That represents a 23 percent premium over WebEx's closing price of $46.20 Wednesday on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Shares of WebEx soared $10.53, or more than 22 percent, to $56.73 in early trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Cisco shares lost 6 cents to $25.79 on the same exchange.

Cisco said the acquisition has been approved by both boards and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007. Cisco said it expects transaction to have an immaterial effect on its fiscal year 2008 earnings after one-time charges are subtracted. The total purchase price will be about $2.9 billion when factoring in WebEx's $300 million in cash on hand.

The San Jose-based company has recently made a number of acquisitions branching out from its core business of supplying networking gear and into communications, social networking and other areas that help drive traffic over the network and increase demand for its core equipment.

Tags: Cisco, EA, WebEx, networking, collaboration, the future of work

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 Glenn Greenwald's clear warning this morning about the infrastructure of a surveillance society ...

The Bush administration has created vast and permanent data bases to collect and store evidence revealing the private activities of millions of American citizens. When the FBI obtains information essentially in secret -- with no judicial oversight -- that information is stored in those data bases. This is all being done by the executive branch with no safeguards and no oversight, and the little oversight that Congress has required has been defiantly and publicly brushed aside by the President, who sees legal requirements as nothing more than suggestions or options which he will recognize only if he chooses to.

That is the constitutional crisis that we have endured under virtually the entire Bush presidency -- the crisis which, for the most part, our mainstream political and media elite have collectively decided not to acknowledge.

... comes on the heels of last night's Leonardo Institute's annual Leonardo Lecture, delivered by Boing-boing co-founder, cyberactivist and sci-fi writer Cory Doctorow.  He delivered a bright and snappy talk (he's good .. clear, down-to-earth, understatedly yet pointedly funny and sarcastic (in an unique Canadian way , I'd say) ... he happens to be Canadian and so carries, I believe, a Canadian-ish perspective on culture in North America and the world kind of mien, if you know what I mean.

The audio recording is here ... it's worth a listen.

He drew a nicely synthesized and coherent verbal time line about the evolution of the Web, the cognitive processes we've been undergoing as we read, watch, think, write, publish, click and exchange through the Web, where ideas, concepts and creative works come from and why a fundamental revamping of copyright and digital rights issues is necessary and hasn't happened yet, and the dangers of a surveillance society ... all key aspects within or related to what I call wirearchy - organization and governance stemming from being wired and interconnected in pervasive ways in the course of many basic human activities.

Cory related an interesting story that for me distills much of the mental and cultural shaping we are undergoing / living in a world in which we are penetrated and surrounded by integrated and interconnected information technology. The well-known aphorism "First we shape our structures, then our structures shape us" also comes to mind.

He started with his love-hate relationship with Disney's Magic Kingdom (saying it was only natural that his first novel was titled Down And Out in the Magic Kingdom), and how the entry to Magic Kingdom now requires fingerprinting (though Disney takes pains to emphasize that they are only taking "an imprint of the unique characteristics of the shape of your finger" (not sure I have that as verbatim from Cory), but the point was they are not recording these characteristics for the purposes of fingerprinting.  But once captured on a mass basis, these would or could be available to the users of the Total Information Awareness data bases, for example.

However, if you don't want to be fingerprinted but still go visit the Magic Kingdom, you can go and present additional identification .. in other words, be shunted over  to another passport line where you are checked out a bit more.  So he says he and his friends do that when they go.  One time when they went, he and his friends were declining to be fingersussed, slowing down the entry line when a 10-year old kid behind them piped up something like (no verbatim) ... "Come on, it's how you get in".  Cory's story made the point of how if we are not careful, if we do not watch the watchers and use our fundamental right to not agree, it all too easily becomes just part  of what we do .. and it feeds the databases.

Anyway, a good talk though the issues are familiar to me.  Cory knows his stuff.  It's also always interesting to be in public places and listen and watch as more and more people are connecting more and more of the dots about the Intertubes and its sociological implications.

Tags: Cory Doctorow, Leonardo Lectures, Leonardo Institute, EFF, TIA, Disney, Magic Kingdom, Fingerprinting, surveillance society, wirearchy

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The ongoing professionalization of amateurs ?

It seems like Next New Networks is raising the bar (or is it lowering the threshold) in terms of soliciting and promoting _user-generated content_.

Via the New York Times

Internet Start-Up to Take a Hybrid Media Approach
BRAD STONE
March 8, 2007

Several cable television veterans are putting their band back together and taking their act to the Internet.

Next New Networks, a New York-based Internet start-up run and backed by former executives of MTV and Nickelodeon, will announce plans today to begin a series of video-oriented Web sites — what the company calls micro-networks — on niche topics like do-it-yourself fashion, comic books, car racing and cartoons.

[Snip ...]

Next New Networks plans to blend elements of old and new media into a type of hybrid entertainment that is different from traditional television and user-generated sites like YouTube. Its various Web properties will revolve around professionally produced videos of three to eight minutes, which it plans to pitch to sponsors as safe and predictable places to advertise online.

Many of the programs will solicit contributions from their audiences, but the company will screen submissions before they approved as final product. The company plans to generate some programming itself while also identifying talented video contributors and bringing them into the Next New Networks fold.

It is starting with six Web sites, including Fast Lane Daily (fastlanedaily.com), which features a daily news program for auto enthusiasts, and ThreadBanger (threadbanger.com), which offers a five-minute weekly show with MTV-style anchors who discuss the homemade-clothing culture.

Mr. Seibert, the creative director, is bringing two existing video sites to the network: Channel Frederator (channelfrederator.com), a weekly program on animation, and VOD Cars (VODCars.com), a curated collection of video clips from the car culture.

The founders believe the Internet offers a programming opportunity similar to the early days of cable, which traditional media firms are not exploiting.

“The nature of big media companies is about incumbent brands and repurposing and refashioning their material for the Web,” said Mr. Scannell, the chief executive. “We have no incumbent brands. We’re a white sheet for creative people.”

Mr. Miller, who left America Online last October under pressure from his bosses at Time Warner, cited the founders’ cable experience as the reason he is backing the company.

“To me these guys are returning to their roots,” he said. “They are unshackled from large media environment where it is much more about what your quarterly goals are, and can go back to developing new networks and ways of communicating with audiences.”

In part, Next New Networks is also challenging the idea that the chaotic terrain of sites like YouTube and MySpace can be a friendly place for advertisers.

“Video sharing is awesome, but advertisers are knitting their brow,” Mr. Scannell said. “They want to know what they’re backing. There is a place for brands to deliver something that is consistent.”

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