According to a New York Times report from March, Link and Lee were arrested by North Korean border guards near the China-North Korean border after interviewing North Korean refugees in Chinese border towns. During the trip, the two journalists must have entered North Korean territory - though it is not clear if they tried to enter North Korea deliberately or if this was an accident. As Slate's, Nina Shen Rastogi, reported last month when the trial of Link and Lee began, we know very little about how the Central Court, which handles all "grievous cases against the state," really works, though we do know that rulings from the Central Court can not be appealed and that legal education is not a required qualification for being elected as a judge.

The (Potentially) Good News

The Washington Post, however, also reports that several North Korea experts predict that the U.S. government (or an intermediary) and North Korea will soon begin talks to negotiate the release. Chances are that North Korea will try to use the two as pawns to negotiate with the U.S.

So far, Current TV has not publicly commented on this situation.

"MySpace was the original open platform, and the MySpace Application Gallery is the evolution of that vision, taking MySpace users around the world to the next level and empowering them to take control of their online presence in new and exciting ways," said MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe in a press release. While it's a bit of a stretch to call MySpace the original open platform (they apparently forget that nasty time a couple of years ago when they were blocking widgets left and right and thought the better strategy was to build competing service - see: MySpaceTV vs. YouTube), it is likely that apps will play well to the MySpace crowd.

We're not sure if they'll empower anyone to "take control of their online presence," but the same crop of silly, fun applications that have done so well on Facebook, should play to the MySpace audience as well.

When MySpace launched their app gallery in beta in March we noted that application spam, a problem that has plagued Facebook, may be a large hurdle to adoption unless the company can nip it in the bud. "MySpace has largely killed the messaging spam that plagued its user experience for so long, [so we] don't imagine users will be happy to see something like it back again," we wrote. MySpace has already started putting app notifications in their equivalent of the Facebook News Feed, with all of their 120 million exposed to applications, it will be interesting to see if app spam becomes a problem.

Today is an important day for the MySpace platform, though. We fully expect a quick uptake from MySpace users, who have already shown an affinity for widgets. The long term success of the platform may depend on whether MySpace can keep the noise to an acceptable level.

Big Opportunities:

1) web 2.0 in enterprise; "turning themselves inside out"
2) web 2.0 evolving into cloud computing
3) ambient computing (mobile phones and ubiquitous sensors)

e.g. dell ideastorm

real time user facing services based on data from customers -- your bank doesn't give u this, but google does

finding meaning in that data

google pagerank = meaning hidden in links (link is a vote)

other areas where "there is hidden meaning in enterprise data"

wesabe -- how people spend their money is a vote (nb: Tim noted he is an investor)

eg merchant pages give people collective intelligence about spending

2) cloud computing

Amazon got ahead of the curve by doing internet as OS; an ecosystem developing around Amazon's infrastructure. Google has got into the game with Google App Engine. Startups like EngineYard also interesting players.

Openness is key - programmable web

3) mobile / ambient

software above the level of a single device. So mobile does not equal the phone. He talks about Microsoft Live Mesh, noting that it is currently only Windows - but he's waiting to hear from Microsoft on its future.

new interaction paradigms - eg CNN's political coverage using mapping technologies

Megaphone in New Orleans

The Dash, turns cellphone into GPS

Microsoft Clearflow - sensors everywhere, puts in a "dispatch layer", aims to improve traffic reports

Quake-Catcher Network - uses motion sensors in your laptop

This all = Ambient computing; "web 2.0 not something we interact with on a laptop, it is all around us."

Conclusion

So are we done yet? NO.

Tim lists some examples of big goals that web 2.0 can still achieve:

Changing government structure

Publicmarkup.org

Everyblock

InStedd

Tracking illegal deforestation using Google Earth

Earth Day

An Inconvenient Truth

wattzon.org (how we use our energy)

To conclude, Tim urges us to "not follow the headlines" and the hot things, but go after "big, hard problems".

Tim finishes with a poem that is important to him, called 'The Man Watching' by Rainer Maria Rilke [thanks Sean for the link]. Very nice touch! His main message is to tackle big hard problems, with web 2.0. Make a difference.

Today we were emailed about a new GTD app on Facebook called Get Stuff Done. It's a solid group networking and task management tool, and in just a few days has over 200 users -- but prospects for long term success are bleak. Two other project management apps that we wrote about in Facebook last November, Projects and MyOffice, barely register on the platform these days. They have just 1,000 and 3,800 users respectively according to Adomonics.

Clearly, there is a potential for Facebook to be a useful productivity tool -- it is one of the web's best address books, and plays host to some of the richest social data, which could be used for very worthwhile purposes. But it has yet to shed its "fun" image. The top 40 apps on the Facebook platform are all of the "play" variety. And of course, Facebook doesn't want to completely shed its college clothing, it parlayed that core "fun" networking image into a $15 billion valuation.

About 5 months ago Stowe Boyd seemed to predict that in 6 months Facebook would be a viable competitor to LinkedIn. Since that time Facebook has taken some steps that clearly make the site better suited for business networking (granular privacy controls, friend groups, friend suggestions, etc.), but as we approach that half year threshold the "not for work" image remains.

A couple of days ago Nick O'Neill wondered if productivity apps would ever find a place on Facebook. It is hard to answer that question with a flat out no, because the opportunity is just too great. As Facebook's core audience of early college users grow older and enter the work force, if the company can retain their attention, then certainly Facebook could be a worthy platform for business networking. But evidence points to that being doubtful to happen any time soon.