StatusReport: StatusNet at Cnbloggercon2009, Arab World, and Call for BETA Accounts

While we are gearing up for upcoming big 'tings (as one might say in Jamaica), I'm honing my presentation darts about StatusNet. Most recently I attended the most important conference on the Internet in China, Cnbloggercon2009, a conference held at the mouth of a cave in Lianzhou, China, a picturesque setting with both 3G usb connections and full 1 megabit connection via wifi for all attendees! China is really on the scene! Many luminaries in the Chinese (and global) Internet presented such as Isaac Mao, Zuola, Rebecca MacKinnon, and more. I did my best to promote StatusNet and rolling out hosted microblogging sites in the region. This week I'm working in the Arab World with many from Creative Commons and technology luminaries such as Reid Hoffman from LinkedIn.com, Mitchell Baker from Mozilla, Joi Ito, Donatella from CC, Wilbanks from Science Commons, Bassel from Aiki Framework, and more to promote entrepreneurship, investment, and all things open. Today, I'm speaking at the Jordan Open Source Association to many people about Free Network Services, StatusNet and how to plug in more to the world of Free Software and Open Source. Afterwards, I will wear multiple hats at the first Creative Commons Salon-Amman. Donatella at Creative Commons writes:
On the 16th Creative Commons will celebrate the first ever CC Arab Salon. Event is due to kick off at 6pm @Al Balad Theatre in Downtown Amman.
 
The Salon will feature media organisations, artists, bloggers and creative people from the Arab world who have used CC licenses and would like to share the results of opening up their work.
The Amman Salon is going to be a major step going towards fostering the creation of original Arabic content and encouraging the people to share it with the entire world.  To this extent, the enthusiastic support of the Royal Film Commission who is co-organising the event under the Royal Patronage of Prince Ali bin al Hussein has been extremely key and encouraging.

There are many stops on this train such as in Damascus, where myself and Joi Ito will be speaking about the Internet and Technology, yes, very broadly at the University of Damascus, at a mini-conference called Open Art and Technology (its in arabic). Then, this arab world tour will end with a big presentation in Beirut, Lebanon at the 4Sight Forum where I will speak about StatusNet and Microblogging in the Arab World. The end of the presentation will feature Bassel Safadi, who will build a service on top of StatusNet with Aiki Framework in 10 minutes! Beat that! Here at StatusNet, we realize the importance of the international community and are hopeful to work with many around the world. We are very close to a big launch, and are super eager to get excited communities working in Free Software, Open Source, and the non-profit space to send me an email to jon@status.net with the BETA account you want to create at *.status.net. We will be rolling out some early BETA accounts asap. If you want to get one faster, please spread the news about our service and e-mail me!