North by South (NXS) is excited to be attending the SMASH Summit that’s happening in San Francisco this week. And, we’re also just happy to see more events like this happening, as the industry starts to normalize some of the innovations that we have been recommending to clients. It’s going to make our jobs that much easier.

The way NXS operates, we make a lot of recommendations to our clients (or potential clients) after we hear out what they want to do. This includes a lot of very specific recommendations that are unique to each project but, for instance, some recommendations aren’t confidential eyes-only secrets: Most projects we come into contact with, we recommend building everything with open source/free software platforms. We recommend that the project is managed like open source projects are managed (because it works). Obviously, we recommend building a flexible team out of a distributed network of developers from the Latin American free software world.

For the most part, all of this makes perfect sense to all types of clients. And once the website or application is built, and our client tells us their pageview/traffic/revenue goals, we recommend using a methodology that is one of our strongest skill-sets we offer: the science and art of social/viral analysis-based marketing. And, sometimes, it’s a little harder to convince clients that they should be doing this.

We explain the logic of it. We also explain that our core team in San Francisco includes people who have been involved in all facets of designing, engineering, launching, scaling and optimizing literally several dozen virality-centered websites for going on a decade now, including Tagged.com (which recently announced a deal to exclusively rock a streaming Bon Jovi performance to its 80 million users; the user metric makes them the third largest social network in the US).

Even though peer-initiated user acquisition (viral techniques and analysis) has driven the majority of the Web 2.0 era, there’s still surprisingly little interest and understanding in applying these techniques at many startups and existing web companies.

Our theory is that there’s something in the stories from the dot-com boom that bring out the Horatio Alger in people. With “honesty, thrift, self-reliance, industry and a cheerful whistle,” some startups are convinced that their website or app just needs to get online, get a little attention and the meritocracy will reward them for their one-of-a-kind idea. They underestimate how many websites are out there; they overestimate how many new websites the average user really takes seriously enough to register and come back.

Some companies are run by witnesses to the unnatural pay-outs during the dot-com boom and take this as evidence that whatever clever idea they have will lead to vast riches. Some serial entrepreneurs with successful acquisitions under their belt from a previous era and are convinced they have another winner. And, there are a lot of new-comers to the internet industry — they have their own money or “friends & family” funding and they’re convinced that if they can just get their site online, the users will come and then the money will come. As a famous American author said: “real Horatio Alger stuff.”

At NXS, we’ve gotten pretty good at explaining all this and walking clients through the scenarios. We’ve moved entire web businesses to healthy, metrics-driven growth. We’ve gotten pretty good at explaining the basic concepts of viral user acquisition — at least enough to help companies start the move in that direction. Once they start seeing the returns from disciplined, metrics/testing/analysis-based website management, the rest usually comes naturally.

The point is that it’s good to see events happening that help explain all this, that emphasize the use of metrics, social marketing, analysis, leadgen paradigms and so on. From the SMASH Summit’s website, the topics to be covered include:

• Social Networks, Platforms & Apps
• Search Engines (SEO, SEM)
• Mobile & PDA
• Social CRM
• Metrics & Analytics
• Lead Gen & Affiliate Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Links, Embeds, & Widgets

All these topics can become pretty complex but the hard stuff is part of what development firms like NXS should be providing these days. The more that it becomes accepted that these techniques are needed to build successful websites and web applications, the easier it becomes for us to steer clients in that direction. And we’re glad to see that happening.

The momentum of the Latin American free software movement is accelerated every year by the International Free Software Forum, held in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Last year, North by South was invited to speak at fisl10, where a decade of free software revolution was celebrated. NXS gave a presentation about our business model and we were honored to be included in the special audience for President Lula da Silva’s address to the free software world.

This year, we’re happy to help spread the word about the innovation being launched for fisl11 — a special social network that intends to facilitate on-going collaboration for people who meet each other during the event. The idea is to strengthen the bonds formed at the event and provide a vehicle for people to publish news & updates about their projects. Talk about an open social network outside of one company’s control has been happening at FISL for years, an idea that is gaining popularity in Silicon Valley.

FISL11 will take place in Porto Alegre, Brazil, from July 21st to 24th. The call for submissions has ended already but you can still submit papers for the Free Software Workshop and online registration is now open.

Here is our coverage of fisl10.

For a long time now, NXS/San Francisco folks have begged, pleaded and cajoled our local government to follow the example set by Latin America to mandate a switch to free software whenever the taxpayers are footing the bill.

After all, this is San Francisco! We have more free software user groups than many small countries!

Well, finally, San Francisco has taken a small step towards our goal of a free software government. It isn’t exactly what we wanted … but it sure does come close.

On January 21, San Francisco adopted a policy that “mandates that city agencies always consider open source options when buying new software.” Ok … there’s not much real enforcement there. But San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom went on the record with: “[T]his is just the beginning. The potential is there for millions of dollars [saved] in software licensing costs. That’s the reality.”

More importantly, for free software advocates, this presents higher ground from which we can continue arguing for a stronger policy in favor of free software.

And, this policy has come out of a larger push called the Open Gov Initiative for the City and County of San Francisco, which validates many of the values of free software.

So, even though the policy lacks teeth and might just be a way to get us to stop calling the city’s IT department and complaining, it is, at least, a step in the right direction. Keep watching this space for more information on a stronger, coordinated effort to push for policies and/or legislation that contains real enforcement. If you are a resident of San Francisco and you’re interested in helping out, please get in touch!

In the interest of discussing software freedom, this bit of news is both surprising and challenges the ideas that we hold about freedom & democracy as “exports” from the United States.

Currently, President Obama is attending the Fifth Summit of the Americas, where Heads of State from 34 countries in the Americas meet to discuss regional policies for North, Central & South America. All of the countries of the Americas are represented - except Cuba.

These summits have a history of controversy and violence. During the Fourth Summit of the Americas, held in Argentina in 2005, large protests over the Free Trade Area of the Americas and the policies of the Bush Administration in Latin America led to pitched battles in the streets, complete with tear gas and Molotov cocktails. The Third Summit of the Americas became known as the Battle of Quebec, with similar violence erupting out of large-scale protests.

The Fifth Summit is being closely watched because of the significant political re-alignment of the Americas since these “siege summits” happened. Along with the new leadership in the United States, the wide-scale shift to the left in Latin America has meant that people like Evo Morales (who was one of the protesters during the last two summits) are now participating in the summit as Heads of State. Because of this shift, there is heavy pressure on the United States to end their 50-year embargo on Cuba and insistence that Cuba be banned from the Summit of the Americas.

In a related issue, bloggers are starting to take notice that countries like China are not the only ones to enforce a “national firewall” - as every sysadmin knows, a firewall controls both incoming and outgoing packets! And the “United States firewall” has been exposed by LinkedIn’s official policy of banning users from Cuba, Syria, Sudan, Iran and North Korea. Apparently, Google and Sun also ban users from these countries because of U.S. embargo laws.

Here is the official support response from LinkedIn to a user from Syria who lost their LinkedIn account:

Dear Anas,
Per the terms of our User Agreement, use of LinkedIn services, including our software, is subject to export and re-export control laws and regulations. This includes the Export Administration Regulations maintained by the United States Department of Commerce and sanctions programs maintained by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Under the User Agreement, LinkedIn Users warrant that they are not prohibited from receiving U.S. origin products, including services or software. As such, and as a matter of corporate policy, we do not allow member accounts or access to our site from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, or Syria.
Regards,
Kelly
LinkedIn Customer Support

Are you excited about fisl 10th edition? We are! The International Free Software Forum happens every year in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Celebrating a decade of the event, this year will be particularly special. For those who still don’t know, fisl is the oldest free software event in Latin America, happening this year between June 24-27. Registrations are open already and the earlier you do it the less you will pay! Applications for presentations/talks are open until April 26th and the results will be announced on May 25th.

The organizers just published on their blog the 14 international attractions confirmed so far (international from the Brazilian point of view). One of the most important names is Peter Sunde, co-founder of Pirate Bay. Their trial is related to the Azeredo internet law (1, 2) and the on-going discussion in Brazil about internet laws and ‘cultura livre’, which means ‘free culture’ (free as in freedom). And, yes, Stallman is going too.

The founder of LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project), Jim McQuillan and Scott Balneaves who develops LTSP packages for Ubuntu will participate as well. LTSP is pretty much the base for digital inclusion and computer recycling in Brazil for programs like GESAC and Cultura Digital which have created over three thousand computers labs around the country.

Another international attraction is John “Maddog” Hall, who says that fisl is the biggest community event for free software on the planet. Other names in the list are: Seth Schoen - a technologist from EFF who has been directly involved in the discussion about copyright law and encryption since 1990; Daniel Baumann - from Debian; Leslie Hawthorn - responsible for Summer of Code and Google Open Source blog. And this is all just the international attractions part of fisl, there are also workshops, a showroom, local attractions, meeting FOSS community folks from all around the world and lots of parties! This will surely be just the first of a number of news items we’ll post about fisl10 … thinking about a trip to Brazil and participating in 10 years of celebration with fisl? Yeah, we are, too!