Seven inches of fresh snow fell overnight, making an odd spring image looking over the vase of daffodils on the desk outside the window. Just like looking from here to there, inside to outside, seasons juxtaposed, let's look at our present, much changed, from our times past.Things are now linked beyond what we could have ever thought possible.
March 2009 marks 20 years since Tim Berners-Lee first proposed a project that would become the World Wide Web. It took until 1993 before the public became aware of the creation and the general public didn't really come online until the mid-1990s with the commercialization of the AOL and Netscape browsers made navigation of the web easy.
Google officially launched in September 1998 and Facebook launched in 2004. Facebook has about 180 million users Facebook has 275 million users (57 million in the U.S.), as of the end of February, while Twitter only has about 10 million and is just three years old. The number of Facebook users over 35 has nearly doubled in the last 60 days.
Good things the internet has ruined forever? Well, newspapers are dying but we still debate if that is a good thing or not. Our economy is in a disruptive state, so are we. Ah.... the Ideas of March.
Boosting Brainpower via neurogenesis is a must read for all. We know so much now about the brain. From the article:
...rewiring is an example of neuroplasticity, the adult brain’s ability to change and remold itself. Scientists are finding that the adult brain is far more malleable than they once thought. Our behavior and environment can cause substantial rewiring of the brain or a reorganization of its functions and where they are located. Some believe that even our patterns of thinking alone are enough to reshape the brain.
So knowing that we no longer need to remember phone numbers and that we can track friends through facebook, that we can gps or iphone for wayfinding, that the revolution in information has already happened (and the financial crisis is just speeding along the demise of printed text --newspapers --much faster), then our future is still undetermined. One thing we know -- our brains will adapt and change.
But how? We know technology is changing us (read about one study and search engines and the prospect of wholesale rewiring of our brains through exposure to technology) but we are in process in this revolution, this warp speed change so how, exactly, is the question.
A couple of things struck me all at once so I had to ramble with them. Apple CEO Steve Jobs said "you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards." So for my illlustration I put a little newsboy by the red telephone booths that are soon to be a thing of the past in the UK, like the double-decker buses and the black taxi cabs. Well, little boys selling newspapers have long been gone but the print newspapers?
Tech Gear: Clothing is being made to accomodate the gizmos we carry, but putting on a computer, one sleeve at a time? A coat with built-in GPS? Well, Mastercard is working on having a wave of your cell phone transmit your payments. How about protection with a radiation-shielding bracelet?
Digital Photos: 3 billion photos are on Flickr. One year ago they had 2 billion. Facebook has 10 billion and is growing photos at a faster rate.
MUST READ BOOK? Is Surfing the Internet altering your brain? I'm going to read iBrain - surviving the technological alteration of the modern mind by Gary Small, MD and Gigi Vergan. Small, a neuroscientist specializing in brain function, has found through studies that Internet searching and text messaging has made brains more adept at filtering information and making snap decisions. Review: "We are changing the environment. The average young person now spends nine hours a day exposing their brain to technology. Evolution is an advancement from moment to moment and what we are seeing is technology affecting our evolution."
Trend??? I'm high tech in a high touch place. I stood in line to vote with a guy who doesn't own a cell phone. I've now met two people who don't email -- my first this century. I guess that is what comes with the territory in Santa Fe, a place where you can still only give a 7-digit phone number, something I quit doing when Houston went to 10 digits in 1992. iBet iBrain would tell us that high touch was evolutionary, too.
Former PTA President and blogger KCH says: "Honestly, this train has left the station, and I
don’t think it’s
easy/possible to totally hide from someone looking for you."
Congress wants to regulate it, political campaigns want to control it, parents are concerned and regular you's and me's are unaware of how public
information has become full of private matters-- free to remix and
distort, copy and distribute, and impossible to keep private and
controlled.
Your Personal Information is "out there" From
pending Senate committe concerns about consumer control of personal
information and how much outsiders ought to be able to gather
informatiaon, via NYTimes:
"...72% of Americans are worried that their online behavior is being
tracked and profiled by companies. Many also overestimate the extent
to which the law protects their privacy...43% of Americans
"incorrectly believe a court order is required to monitor activities
online." and 48% "incorrectly believe their consent is required for
companies to use the personal information they collect from online
activities."
Personal privacy is completely out the window (Googling someone is so last century). KCH writes in How Does Big Brother know so much?
about how, as a parent and regular person, you should be concerned
about what you can learn about people online and she writes:
Look up an address on Zabasearch (which claims three times more residential listings than the White Pages). iSearch claims to go beyond Googling and can
find someone's age and address and relatives, schools attended and
sexual orientation and social networks, including information on
children and teens. For an extra fee, you can find out the phone
numbers, addresses, email addresses and other background information.
Rambling in the mountains as the aspens leaves change is what I'm doing but I couldn't let September end without acknowledging Google's 10th birthday. Will Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, or Google Founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page be the Gutenberg of this information revolution.
Google wants to change the world, that's for sure, and it doesn't think itself "very Googley to stand on the sidelines – whether the challenge involves search, apps, or clean energy. So we're working to be part of the solution." Part of Google's 10th Birthday is Project 10^100 (that's ten to the hundredth"): Google's Project to Help the Most with a submission deadline of October 20. Do you or someone you know have an idea that you believe would help somebody, Google wants to hear about it. "We're looking for ideas that help as many people as possible, in any way, and we're committing the funding to launch them." Google Timeline tells the history of Google with little facts (when Larry met Sergey as his tour guide at Stanford or the first baby named Google, born in Sweden).
I like Google's Doodles -- this one was for Beatrix Potter's birthday on July 28. Although it is whimsical and fun, it is stunning to think how in ten years, Google really has changed the world. In the next ten, it might wipe out the next smallpox (in my media grad studies we looked at how the SARS was solved with global internet connections). Google's products are available in the 40 languages read by more than 98% of Internet users.
On Blogs, this from Technorati's founder Sifry: # Technorati is currently tracking 133 million blogs (we've done a LOT of culling spam blogs, and the number of bloggers keeps growing!) # 7.4 Million blogs have posted in the last 120 days - that's 5.5% of all blogs we track. # 1.5 Million blogs have posted at least once in the last 7 days. That puts MotherPie in the top 1.5 million of active blogs, one little spec in the blogosphere.
Sergey Brin, one of the two Google founders, has just started a personal blog he named Too("Google is a play on googol, too is a play on the much smaller number -
two. It also means "in addition", as this blog reflects my life outside
of work"). He writes about his mother's Parkinson's, his susceptibility to it, and how he found out about his susceptibility (through his wife's genetic company). Some are speculating why he would put his personal medical information "out there" but if anyone knows how we are all becoming an open book.
Steve Rubel writes on how children are encouraged by Google to "steal photos" and I think with Google we'll be able to know anything and the world will be flattened. I actually think that our culture of individuality may be on the wane.
This mural on the side of an adobe building on one of the main streets of Taos, New Mexico, makes you look twice to wonder what is real and what is painted (which is like blogging - what is real and what is a "created real"?). Being only an hour and a half north of Santa Fe, it is a fun day trip and we were up listening and dancing to Michael Hearne playing at the Old Blinking Light with old friends. My youngest turns 20 this month so no more teenagers chez Pie.
Less mom, more me? I'm sorting out stuff and doing new directions. I think being happy incorporates the idea of creating value with one's life and for women, this is a cyclical process. Even though I'm on break, posting very infrequently, I had to pop in on this subject.
I've focused on less time on-line, and more time offline, since July 1st and have, in a quest for more balance, backed off from daily blog posts. Plus which, there is a lot of noise and relevance is more a matter of content than volume. Just like there are rules for napping, and I think naps are a healthy thing, blogs can nap, too. Or at least my virtual self can with less frequent posts. I'm wanting to move into new media areas in real life beyond just my personal play here after finishing my Media Studies grad program.
The i-Phones came out July 11th and my blogging service, Typepad, informed me that iPhone users can now use the popular app Blog It powered by TypePad. This free web application makes it easy to use your iPhone to update your status on many of your favorite social networks, including Twitter and Pownce. It also enables you to create and publish blog posts when you're on the go. Hmmmm. Don't think so. I don't think I'll buy an iPhone just to blog.
Back to school tool: Also coming to a Target near you beginning mid-July: the Pulse Smartpen. I wrote last spring about how I thought this tech tool might be mightier than the sword. I'm checking it out for a back-to-school item for my two children heading back to college this fall. Maybe for me, too.
Spelling and the shifting of standards: The AP Stylebook, something that has been by my typewriter/computer since I left journalism school, is now something I won't spend money on. The new $18.95 version is out, and new spelling styles for professional journalists: it is ok to use wmd and 9/11 rather than spelling out the full thing. If it were available online, I might use it but really? Language has become so loose as we become so digitally txt-based and global that anything goes, (well, maybe unless you are a for-profit site). Now if it were available on Kindle, I would keep it there in digital form. If I had a Kindle. And I'm getting pretty close to getting one, after having written about them several times (here and here) in June. But the fact that the AP Stylebook is not out in digital form (think Wikipedia and The Free Dictionary, sources I use a lot), is yet just another example of how journalism isn't moving as a profession as it should to shift to digital and online for new media. Facebook announced that their language is loose, too, and spelling is less relevant online. From a blog on Facebook's service, I caught this: Ever see a story about a friend who tagged "themself" in a photo? "Themself" isn't even a real word. We've used that in place of "himself or herself".We made that grammatical choice in order to respect people who haven't, until now, selected their sex on their profile.
Words? Gen-Yers will be ever so much more playful with their language. Yet, thinking of language, last month when George Carlin died, the internet buzz was full of references to his famous "7 words you can never use on tv" but did you notice, on tv, in blogs and elsewhere the seven words were never used? Aha. Think. WTF. Bet wtf isn't in the AP Stylebook. Bad Words? Nuts, fug, came, poo and sucks are banned words in the NYTimes and goddam used to be used dating back to 1857 until Sally Field said it at the Oscars in 2007 and then they referred to the word as "an expletive".Words that will get attention in headlines?Try these: first, most, fastest, tallest, easiest, money, fat, cancer and sex.
Wordy Cheers while I'm on the road. Without a Kindle or iPhone. Or internet connection.
The Race is Still on...Will Firefox break the Guiness World Record for the most software downloaded in a single day on June 17 with the release of Firefox 3 ? The contest is still on. We're on global time here and the 24-hour period ends at 11:16 a.m. Mountain View. Download Day.... As I write this the number is already over 6.7 million downloads over 5,600 per minute with the U.S. leading the global way. After today, with ardent fans promoting the next version, the number is
going to be way over 7 million I bet. (24 hours later, on 6/18 there were over 11 million downloads. 6/18 update: Mozilla had more than 8 million downloads in the 24 hour period, way over the 5 million goal. 6/24 update: reasons to upload Firefox 3.)
Have you ever known a product to
have this kind of smashing success upon release? For free?
What is the future of free software? The Mozilla Manifesto ascribes to the idea that the world is a better place when people work together with pride to advance the vision of the Internet to enrich the lives of individuals and to help individuals have the ability to shape their own experience based on participation, accountability and trust.
Mozilla s Firefox web browser had 150 million users only ten years after the first Mozilla was officially launched. I've been an ardent user since 2004. If you download Firefox Verion 3,
be careful that you are running the required versions of Windows or Mac
operating systems In Microsoft land, Windows 95, 98, ME and NT 4.0 are
no longer supported. On the Mac side, the minimum OS X version jumps
from 10.2 Jaguar to 10.4 Tiger . Firefox 3, free, is available here.
McCain and Republicans must surpass the online edge that Obama has had. It will happen with oppositional branding. In the past, Republicans gained political power with a strong technological edge over the
Democrats by pioneering techniques such as direct-mail messages to
voters and dominating talk radio and viral emails and pyramid fundraising efforts using peer-to-peer bundling. Beginning with Howard Dean's campaign, Republicans fell behind in the area of internet strategies and now are being out-raised, outspent and
outmaneuvered online. Many have attributed Obama's success in the primaries to the army of young activists mobilized online (with $250 million raised via the internet).
McCain and Republicans are quickly mobilizing for an online battle for hearts and minds. They know how to do oppositional branding and hold a strong edge and the effort has launched big big time. Once an image is created it is hard to redo or overpower. Republicans have harnessed, neurologically, fear associations. Be scared is the two-word talking point, in general. Who do you trust an how will voting decisions be made? Trust is the ultimate key word. Will facts and details make it through the tsunami of information against our short attention spans? Will politics be infotainment (short on info, strong on entertainment).
Nixon and Kennedy campaigned on the idea of being media appealing on tv. The political trend has changed:
...it is no longer sufficient to just be TV mediagenic, for the
political center of gravity is shifting from the waning mass media
world of TV to the emergent personal media world of the Web and
cyberspace. To win, candidates must now be "cybergenic" — able to surf,
blog, IM and twitter their way into the hearts of activist "netizens."
The Willie Horton ad maker has online ways to attack Obama; an email army being recruited via ExposeObama.com to create viral email campaigns to frame Obama as a disatrous-for-the-county left-of-left liberal. The effort is noteworthy because studies have shown that peer-to-peer communication of political ideas and opinions is more influential than TV ads in swaying voters' perceptions of candidates and Republicans, with the age group, has been receptive to viral emails. Obama will fight back with an online rumor clearinghouse, fightthesmears.com, to refute stories on his faith, his family
and his rumored connections with controversial figures. Obama supporters are asked to help hunt down and quash these stories, but are the social networks able to go toe-to-toe? Will younger voters have resonance to reach older voters with email they "get"?
Steve Rubel's advertising agency did a study that showed that we trust in our peers (much of this is based on the theories of influentials by Italian Antonio Gramsci) and peer influence is most important in our decision making. The chart reflects the study results: Some 58% of opinion elites 35-64 in 18 countries said they trust "a person like me." Meanwhile, only 14% trust bloggers - a figure that has largely remained flat since 2006.
But what will happen with the younger demographics, the ones who don't rely on email and tivo through the tv ads and listen to music on iPods and not talk radio?
Bloomberg yesterday had an article on the new efforts being made for McCain:
Republican party officials are "over the age of 35 or 40... and unwilling to be anything but a modern ostritch," says one of the co-founders of an online site that helps Republicans raise money RealWorldRepublicans.com, targeted at 18-to-29-year olds.
Obama, 46, has 953,000 Facebook backers to McCain's 142,000, according to techPresident.com, a Web site that tracks such support. On MySpace, Obama has 394,000 supporters, more than seven times the number McCain has. On YouTube, the Internet video site, Obama videos have been viewed 50 million times compared with 4 million for the 71-year-old McCain. Last October, he launched Slatecard.com to aid Republican candidates in raising funds online, an effort to answer ActBlue.com, a Democratic site founded in 2004.
He has a way to go. Slatecard has collected just $375,000 so far, while ActBlue claims it has raised almost $50 million in the last four years.
Advertising Age noted that Obama had the best media strategy overall compared to Clinton and Obama won the user-generated media channel decisively. The age gap for the political zeitgeist will be the one to watch. The viral impact of the "I got a crush ... on Obama" video by "Obama Girl" and its various spinoffs enjoyed more than 60 million views on YouTube but for the older Republicans, the emails are powerful and viral and Obama has had a hard time countering these.
Talking points are the provenance of the Republicans. This is where the substance edge and opposition branding is a Republican strength. Social media is less strategic than neurological and semantical communications with the Republican attack vehicles for marketing.
Below is the attack ad being marketed virally off of the new website ExposeObama.com to create an image Obama will have to fight to overcome. Republicans branded Kerry as a flip-flopper before he could position himself differently. The marketing and branding battle is on to capture hearts and minds. Who do you trust? Will facts and subtance be important, or will it all be brief images and talking points and soundbites?
Digital photo frames? That's my hot gift right now and I was worried about these bad viruses that can infect them. My oldest daughter, newly married and in her first job out of grad school, has just set my birthday gift to her on her desk. Several years ago I gave one to my parents but it was too complicated to set up. Right now I'm setting one up for someone else. I'm collaborating w/ the two children at home, getting them to pose for pics. Father's Day! My tech-savvy friend Sandy had set one up for her husband.
I got this one, left, which is a 7" Insignia, from Best Buy. After looking over the products, I chose this one because I can use a thumb drive and it won't show and therefore, I can change out what is in the frame.
As an art lover, I can take digital photos in museums of my favorite pieces (those that allow it -- like the Met and MOMA, or the Price museum on the University of Oklahoma's campus), and get a larger frame, mount it on the wall and-- voila! -- digital art. Think of the art of your kids on the refrigerator. What could be a better way to display those things?
