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Notes from Scott Kveton’s presentation at TEDx Portland


Scott Kveton 
Co-Founder Urban Airship
  • Open. Mobile. Social. – the three areas he’s an expert at.
  • The crossroads we’re at now is that they are in collision.
  • Open
    • Demo: Took a picture. Uploaded it. Tagged it with location. It went out to thousands of followers on Twitter, on Facebook.
    • Three years ago you couldn’t do this.
    • Richard Stallman: the guy is who responsible for open. One of the most principled people in the industry.
    • In 1982, got really frustrated. At the MIT hacker culture, really open. Got pissed at businesses who were not shipping the source code to their software. In 1985, created a set of licenses for open, free software.
    • In 1991, Linus Towards, a college student, created Linux as a hobby. (Linus now leaves here in Portland)
      • He adopted the licenses that Richard Stallman created.
    • Linux is everywhere. Cars, phones.
    • Other kinds of open… 
    • Julian Assange, founder of wikileaks.
      • wanted to promote and force transparency at the government level.
      • release 250,000 diplomatic memos.
  • Mobile
    • 4 B mobile devices. 1 for every 2 people.
    • there’s 900 million people on the planet.
    • a third of all Facebook users don’t have a computer. they only use it on their phone.
    • Android, an operating system for phones. Based on Linux. It was purchased by Google. Now 600,000 Android phones activated every day. 
    • iPhone: a platform for creation. It knows who you are, where you are, who your friends are.
  • Social
    • friendster: v 1.0
    • myspace: v 2.0
    • what was different this time?
    • dinner with friend, december 2006
      • they get seated. everyone looks down and fiddles with their phone.
      • pre-iphone. “what are you guys doing?”
      • “Twitter”.
      • So I sign up…
      • twitter started in the bay area, it had a geographic area, and a certain density, and only later did they spread.
    • with facebook, they started at harvard, and slowly spread out.
    • with 4square, they targeted “bars and restaurants below 14th avenue”. very geographically focused.
  • Mohammed [lastname]
    • Lived in Tanzania
    • Unlicensed vegetable seller.
    • Policewoman confiscated his cart.
    • He offered to pay fine.
    • The policewoman slapped him in the face and insulted his dead father.
    • He went to city hall to protest, and was turned away.
    • He went back, doused himself in gasoline, and lit himself on fire.
    • The protests that resulted were peaceful, but utterly crushed by the police.
    • This wasn’t reported by mainstream western media.
    • But this lit off everything.
    • This wouldn’t have been possible without social media. 
  • social, mobile, open is completely transforming society.