Until now conventional forces have kept away from learning how to tell their side of the story. Maybe – as with business – their essential bureaucratic nature and need for control – inhibited the use of social media.

But the IDF have decided that they have to get their story out there and are agressively using YouTube and now Twitter. Here is a neat summary with links from Global Dashboard.

Two of my favourite blogs, MountainRunner and Danger Room highlight the IDF’s attempt to win over the blogosphere using Twitter and You Tube. Why? Because according to the head of the IDF’s press team: “The blogosphere and new media are another war zone, we have to be relevant there.”

The YouTube channel was created with the aim of distributing footage of precision airstrikes. Interestingly YouTube took down some of the ‘exclusive footage’ showing the IDF’s operational success in operation Cast Lead against Hamas extremists in the Gaza Strip, but appears to have returned some of the footage due to popular demand.

Elsewhere the Israeli consulate in New York hosted a press conference on Twitter in order to answer the public’s questions regarding the situation in Gaza. How one measures the success of the twitterference is difficult but, as both Matt and Nathan point out, reducing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to tweets of 140 characters or less makes for interesting reading:

‘We hav 2 prtct R ctzens 2, only way fwd through neogtiations, & left Gaza in 05. y Hamas launch missiles not peace?’,

‘we’re not at war with the PAL people. we’re at war with a group declared by the EU& US a terrorist org’.

I think that this is just the beginning

With Gustav a day away from landfall many of the most experienced people in the field are coalescing on a Ning site that will aggregate as much information as possible in one place. Wiki, Twets, RSS feeds from Blogs, Video – everything.

Here is the address of the site

It turns out the song was big in 1970, after which the group — originally from Scotland — faded from the limelight. (A reconstituted band with one of the original members still tours.)

On YouTube, an incredible live 1970 performance of “Reflections” by the band is available, and at the time of this post, was viewed about 157,000 times. Accounting for multiple viewings, it’s likely that at least 100,000 people across the globe now have seen the performance, which up until a year ago was lost to the ages.

It’s now well established that Web 2.0 technologies now provide long tail of opportunity that can stretch into months and even years past the point a product or service was launched.

But are we seeing the long tail extending across multiple decades as well? It’s entirely possible that YouTube videos, for example, are ginning up new interest in long-lost bands and performances (as well as well-known ones, such as the Rolling Stones, U2, and Led Zeppelin), and perhaps increasing current airplay, CD sales/downloads, and thus, re-energizing revenue streams (and royalties) that went dry 30-plus years ago.

They say that the Internet has sped things up, to the point where opportunities and income can be gained or lost in a matter of seconds. But perhaps the extreme opposite is true as well.

What would you call a long tail that thins out into a long, long, tiny thread, then suddenly expands again? Is Web 2.0 delivering the ultimate time-shifted economy?

It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the internet than America. As one foreign diplomat asked a couple of years ago, “How has one man in a cave managed to out-communicate the world’s greatest communication society?” Speed, agility, and cultural relevance are not terms that come readily to mind when discussing U.S. strategic communications (My post at Fast Forward yesterday)

I am starting to see something here. War has been the agency that accelerates the development of key new technology.

In the 1860’s the civil war put the train on the map. Post the war, an enormous track laying boom exploded around the world. The military made the train the backbone of the industrial approach to war.The same with flight. In Europe, the military saw the potential of flight immediately. But the US did not – that is why Rickenbaker flew a Spad.

The Wright Company in particular and American airplane companies in general continue to lose their technological edge to the Europeans. This is due in part to the U.S. Government’s failure to support the fledgling airplane       industry. While the governments of England, France, and Germany are buying hundreds of airplanes for their armed forces and supporting aviation research, the United States is spending roughly the same amount of money   as Bulgaria. (First to Fly)

By 1918, the future of flight was assured. There were no doubters – and like the adoption of the train, this new way of connecting people has transformed our world.

So back to social software. As impressive as Facebook is, as impressive the growth of blogging – this is all personal. Organizational life and how we all live has not been changed yet.  There is immense resistance in the key institutions of our time to its introduction. Leaders in business, education, healthcare etc all fear the outcome of adoption.

The big money is all based in an advertising model. If you can form a large group, you get rewarded. But the true potential of the tool set is not being invested in.

The true potential of social software is that it allows many to many to meet in real time at low to no cost. This means that you can see what is really going on – the business intelligence aspects are immense and transform research as it is conducted today. It enables you to get your message out in a real time and precise way – will transform marketing. Most of all it enables people to have very different relationships. Large, central capital based organizations are no longer needed. So everything that we do now such as how we educate, provide healthcare, provide services will be radically transformed.

Our large institutions can no longer do anything properly. The military is no exception. It is too big, too slow, too ponderous, too expensive. It cannot deal with war as it is waged today. The military are themselves full of resistance to the kind of change that social software implies.

BUT, people in the military who are losing the war of public opinion – who know now that Human Terrain  is the new battlefield – are weighing the idea of loss of control with losing the war. My bet is that they will seek to win the war. This is what Gates is starting to say.

The greatest irony is that their enemy is showing them how to do this. Here is a CNN report on why NATO is now getting behind a Social Software approach to war. (Posted yesterday- sorry about the repeat but this makes sense)

CNN interviews a NATO Official in Afghanistan who echoes the Secretary and insists that we better get good at this or risk losing the real war – which is all political.

The strategy aims to counter years of propaganda video posted on the Internet showing Taliban attacks on NATO forces which fighters use to claim that NATO’s position in the Afghan war is deteriorating.

“The Taliban, who are literally cave-dwellers, are doing better than we are on a key battleground — and that’s video,” said NATO spokesman James Appathurai. “They deploy with videographers. We don’t. They have DVDs out in an hour, we don’t.”

Wielding video cameras like weapons, fighters quickly upload images of their attacks and create a valuable morale booster for their supporters.

Now, after much internal debate, NATO has begun declassifying and posting top secret combat video on YouTube and other Web platforms to try and beat the Taliban at its own game.

“We’re, in a sense, winning the tactical battles, but we’re not focusing enough on the strategic battle, which is public opinion,” said Appathurai.

The link to the excellent report and video is here.

In 1918, America could see for itself the power of flight. The nation adopted it like no other.

So here is my prediction. The first institution that will really invest in developing Social Software to radically improve how it delivers will be parts of the military. As with the train in the civil war and WWI, as with flight in WWI and WWII, how we deploy, how we fight and what victory is will be redefined.

The greatest irony will be is that the lesson for this change will have been taught by Al Qaeda.

This will not be an all or nothing adoption. Even in the 1920. and 1930’s Billy Mitchell fought an uphill battle with his superiors about the value of aviation. But the wedge was in.

The first flight was in 1903. By 1945, aviation was the new dominant military power. By 1975 aviation had captured the civilian world.

I think that history will look back at Facebook and smile.

Well done Mark – but look at what this technology really did!

Intuitively we know that while these are important, that there can be a “Quality” of story and of emotional truth that transcends all of these conventions .

I would like to offer up to you an example of what I mean. This 2 minute clip is taken from Ohio Stories – a joint effort by the Ohio Public TV stations to offer their members the opportunity to tell their war stories prior to the opening of Ken Burns epic new documentary on The War that begins on September 23rd.

To this end, WOSU, Columbus, had a kind of Antiques Roadshow, where people could come in and show and tell about themselves or about family members and their experience in the war.

In this clip, we see a woman of about my age, who is a pastor talking about a chalice made from the scrap metal from both a German and an American plane that was used to
celebrate communion. In itself a neat story.

But is it in the last few seconds of the short clip that we go to her heart and to the heart of all of us and what could have been sentiment becomes truly profound. Behind the words we hear her own pain and her own confession – this is not a pastor preaching but a woman opening her heart to all who wish to hear.

But the clip has none of the “Qualities” of a conventional clip. The sound is terrible, the lighting poor and the frame awkward. None of this matters – the “Quality” is in her truth and in her daring to be human.

This is the power of story when story is elevated beyond “performance” and becomes universal.

Here is a new experimental site of mine. Rob’s War Stories. My purpose is to find out how to draw on the almost infinite amount of information on the web and see if creating context in a niche might help.

I am a huge fan of the history of war – my poor wife!! – I have found that YouTube has a ton of great material and of course there are all the books to be read and all the articles to be read. Much of my recent leisure time has been spent watching and surfing. It is very time consuming and I wondered what it would be like to find a War Web Channel that had a personal view and that could put much of the disparate material together and in context.

So this in 3 posts is my first step.

The larger issue for me is how my clients in Public TV will handle a video world where the content is free and is easily found on the web. How will they find value. So linked into this is our work on The War and how we are collecting material from our viewers on their war stories.

KETC will have over 50 6 minute epics by the launch of the Burns series in September and they plan to make these stories and these men and women the centre of their pledge week then. Here is the Living St Louis Team with their 9 minute epic of the local hero Omar Bradley – they can fill 9 minutes like no one else can.

WOSU is working with the other Ohio PBS stations on collecting and playing back their own stories as well. Here is Paul Harris talking about his experience as he entered the previous all white workforce. We take it for granted today – then it was a novelty and he had to prove that he too was a man like all others.
Somewhere here is the future of TV I think – rather than the networks – I think that mavens will create their own channels. The more niche the better.

What do you think of this?

Throughout the clip we are left hanging on an emotional cliff, trying to decide if Greg can focus on SOA rather than be overcome by myriad nonsensical distractions from vendors and industry analysts. [I'll drop the price of that ROI assessment to $9k and guarantee delivery in 14 months.]

Greg the Architect is a creation of TIBCO Software. In the latest installment, “Focus Pocus,” Greg, a long-suffering enterprise architect, desperately needs a vacation, but he’s sidetracked by Jerry, the CIO, and dragged to a SOA conference at the Biscotti Center.

I don’t want to reveal the thrilling conclusion, but let’s just say it involves a colleague, a small mountain of turgid white papers, and a clever subterfuge by our hero, Greg.

In Focus Pocus, Greg’s performance comes across a little stiff, although that may have a lot to do with the fact that all characters are portrayed by GI Joe-type action figures (Thunderbirds?).

Enterprise architects may see themselves as a little more flexible than that. If the producers want to win over architects, claymation may be the way to go (Gumby?). Let the architect bend a little to adapt to the situation. And your little pony, too.

Greg started out as part of the SOA Now Journal, also produced by TIBCO, and he now has his own Web site (fan club?), where viewers can see past episodes and download “fun stuff.” A social SOA network in the making.

Perhaps TIBCO should consider a virtual reality game where users could put Greg through some grueling IT paces, sort of like Toontown Online meets Second Life meets the corridor outside a typical CIO’s office. Flying white papers that land anywhere but on your head would cost 20 life points. Data cleansing stations could renew his energy. The registry/repository lounge could be where text messages are shared with end users. The player with the shortest requirements list at the end wins. [No charge for that consulting, BTW.]

Akamai, which maintains a globally distributed platform to cache and accelerate online content, media and applications, this week launched its Real Time Web Monitor to offers three visualizations that give users a graphical picture of Internet health worldwide.

“It’s easy to take for granted that the Internet will always be on and always working,” said Prof. Tom Leighton, Akamai co-founder and chief scientist. “Reality shows us that there are many factors on any given day degrading the Internet’s performance.”

The three monitors, which users can toggle between with on-screen buttons, sport interactive settings, allowing users to customize data.

The new monitors include:

• Attack Traffic: Displays real-time attacks by geographic region — state, province, or country — based on data from scanning randomly generated IP addresses to chart the number of connections attempted and packets captured from Trojans and worms.

• Network Traffic: Monitors the amount of data being requested and delivered in any geographic region at any time, with online displays of the top 10 regions with the most traffic.

• Latency/Speed: Measures latency between major cities using automated tests, including the 10 worst cities, indicating absolute latency (current status) and relative latency (difference between the current status and the historical average latency).

As the old saying at the mission goes: If you’re going to eat the meal, you’ve got to listen to the sermon. A pull-down menu at the top of the screen will bring users to network performance monitors that show how Akamai can help work around the speed and latency, as well as lost-packet, issues and indicates this with a straight line connecting user-designated cities. Non-Akamai use is depicted with a curved line, marked with “X”s that represent lost packets.

Users can also view monitors that show Internet usage worldwide by interest area: retail, music, and news. This comes from data that is assembled by Akamai from its own Web monitoring. Another link to “Visualize Akamai” shows active streams, HTTP hits per second, and visitors per minute.

The new Internet health views come just weeks after a spate of attacks in the Baltic region caused concern over a possible ramp-up in strategic or militaristic web attacks.

Disclosure: Akamai is or has been a sponsor of BriefingsDirect B2B podcasts.

Silverlight is a proprietary runtime for browser-based Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), providing a subset of the animation, vector graphics, and video playback capabilities. And while Microsoft has made the use of Silverlight applications cross-platform for multiple mainstream browsers that run on Windows and Mac OS X, there was not much Linux desktop support. Not too surprising.

But because Mono has long been developing a .NET runtime for Linux, and because Silverlight is closely associated to .NET, moving the Silverlight functionality to Linux-based browsers such as Firefox should be completed by the end of 2007, said de Icaza in an interview on Friday.

What’s more, de Icaza expects that Silverlight applications will also run in a non-browser fashion on Linux desktops due to the standalone canvas capabilities.

The rub on the effort is whether there is enough market uptake of Silverlight to make it a worthwhile effort, said de Icaza. The need to move the Microsoft animation and RIA applications for use on Linux will depend on how well Silverlight does in general. Time, as they say, will tell. Adobe with Flex/Flash/Apollo is on quite a streak right now. I’m going to have to learn this Flex tool, me thinks.

What’s interesting to me is that developers are now getting more RIA choice, probably than ever, especially with Google Gears and its offline “software and a service” functionality. We’re about as close to “write anywhere, run anywhere” as we’ve ever been. The winners, of course, are the end users who will get getting great applications, interfaces and RIA front ends for SOA in ever-dressier and productive forms over the next several years.

One of the beneficial consequences of creating a lot of online content and sharing it with a lot of publishers is that the content gets powerfully vetted — its relevancy to viewers diagnosed as it were — by the major search engines that track online behaviors. And that has meant that essential keyword searches on topics near and dear to me and my clients generates high ranking for my podcasts, blogs, videos and transcripts.

For example, do a Google search on “application modernization” and a blog I did on a podcast on the topic is at or near number 7 rank out of 97,000 results. Do a Google search on “SOA analysts” and the first results page is dominated by my content, out of 10,500 results. Not too shabby.

I think this is the most powerful new rationale for making online publishing a core competency for any company, organization, or community. As search becomes, in effect, the new media — constant online publishing of high-quality content is the most cost-effective means to reach and educate your most important global audience … directly. Both the long tail and “short head” are served, and you only need to create compelling and relevant content on an on-going basis — and not necessarily spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising and/or SEO.

As a result of my success with search-based content relevancy, I was recently asked to contribute to new bog on new marketing strategies, called the Inspire Blog on smartmarketers.com. My debut entry is the first installment of a podcast discussion I recently had with IT media guru Sam Whitmore, founder and editor of Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey. The entry makes the case for the power of content in search relevancy. The next installments will deal with how to actually create the content that ranks best.

On that note, I’ve also been creating videos based not on talking heads but on a webinar — existing high-quality rich content that can be repurposed for search relevancy and global reach. Take a look. It’s the first step of what could end up a popular model for reaching audiences through YouTube. That is, take all those webinars no longer getting many hits and give them new life online via video search.

More targeted search opportunities may be brewing, and we should soon expect media search engines designed just for B2B commerce. Rumors are that Jason Calacanis may be at work on just such a business niche-focused search platform approach. All that’s needed now is the content to make such engines the new power-plays for online ecommerce.