XMPP and Twitter, coming back on? 

This post on the Twitter status blog, gives hope to developers wanting to hook into the full Twitter flow, the same flow that now only Summize has access to. Here's what they said: "We're hopeful that once we've improved the stability of the service we can bring back IM. It remains the highest priority feature weÕre working to restore." OK. That sounds hopeful.

Federating identi.ca? 

I note that a number of programmers I respect are trying to launch instances of the software behind identi.ca.

If they're successful, and if there is a decent way to connect them into a federation (meaning we can communicate even if we're using different hosts), then we're getting somewhere.

Is there some place where someone is monitoring the status? A wiki? A discussion thread?

I'm not planning on running one until the trail has been well blazed, maybe not even then, but I don't mind helping track the progress.

Update #1: Les Orchard has two instances running.

Update #2: laconica.kamleitner.com.

RMack on Internet freedoms 

I was catching up with On The Media earlier this week, and who comes on but my friend and former Berkman colleague Rebecca MacKinnon. I love those kinds of surprises, it lets me catch up, in a multimedia sort of way (it's better than reading an essay or blog post). A former CNN correspondent in China and Korea and founder of the Global Voices blogging network along with Ethan Zuckerman, now she's a prof at the University of Hong Kong. I got a really funny picture of her at the end of a movie in Nashville, a few years ago.

She has become an expert on freedoms on the Internet because of her connection to China; that's what she was talking about on OTM. Toward the end of the interview she said we even have issues with freedom on the net in the US. I thought she was being a little too kind.

This morning I saw a judge had let Viacom have all of Google's user data from YouTube, a very shocking thing for a judge to do. I thought RMack, with her perspective on Chinese freedom on the net would have something to say, and it turns out she does...

Rebecca MacKinnon: Corporate responsibility and the Internet.