It’s true, I guess. There are apps able to stalk trace the movement of your friends via FB or Twitter etc. and when they find other people that share your interests and are in your area …they’ll let you know! For example – suppose you’ve ‘liked’ some pages on tree pruning, have visited Cambodia, enjoyed the novel ‘Brave New World’ and bought merchandise from the GAP. Well, according to technology, you could get an alert on your smartphone telling you that someone with those exact same stats is sitting in the coffee shop just a block down the street. Then, perhaps, you could hone in on them and strike up a conversation on your shared interests. Brilliant!
Actually, it is almost brilliant. Smartphones have, according to many, put up a social divide between people …so now it seems that the very same device can atone for its sins. In theory -ha. Honestly, I can’t even guess as to what people will do anymore. Things change that fast. Not just technology, but habits – and eventually culture. I do know that I am, as much as I think that I’m not, on the outside looking in when it comes to gadgetry. I like to see what’s out there, but my somewhat sheltered life doesn’t allow me to actually engage in much of it. At times I feel that perhaps my ‘getting older’ is excluding me, but then it’s not really my age as it is my demeanor that’s holding me back. Or something to that effect.
I joined the facebook/twitter revolution, again, for that exact same purpose …to see what’s going on. After ‘reconnecting’ with friends it appears I haven’t missed anything. My cousin posted on my wall that she gives me 6 months before I leave again. Lol …it’s been a few weeks and I’m itching to go already. But I’ll stay the course this time around. My real name and face out there for strangers and evil corporations to exploit at their convenience. I mean, if I’m gonna complain about something I should at least know what I’m complaining about!
This makes me happy (click). I’ve been waiting for something of a facebook backlash for a while now. Here’s hoping for an early Christmas present this year.
This makes me sad …”We’ve been blessed with natural resources…“ It’s a comment I overheard by a member of my parliament while on Rutherford’s 630 CHED radio program. It seems he was upset with Obama’s recent decision to delay the XL pipeline. From what I can gather, the boundaries that define Canada have been bestowed by some deity with abundant materials that we Canadians can exploit as we see fit. Sweet, I love deities that play favorites …especially when they’re on my side.
This makes me relieved (click). I don’t like pirates. Water-logged or digital. What I hate worse than pirates though are ‘artistic thieves’ – ones who steal creativity by limiting its growth. Clay Shirky summed it up well in this recent Ted Talk: “The 20th Century was a great time to be a media company […] If you were making a TV show, it didn’t have to be better than the other TV shows of the day …it only had to be better than the two other shows that were on at the same time.“
This makes me laugh (click). It seems someone’s been playing the old iPad switch-a-roo, and a few consumers have gotten a bag of clay instead of the real McCoy. It’s not all that funny if you got one I suppose, but what I’m excited about is for those with time on their hands to throw together some videos/skits with Apple ‘fanboys‘ actually trying to use the product. Clay iPhones will be the next big seller if I know my trends.
Finally, this makes me wonder… “To admit that our ancestors are bacteria is humbling. It has disturbing implications. Besides impugning human sovereignty over the rest of nature, it challenges our assumptions of individuality, uniqueness, and independence. It even violates our view of ourselves as discrete physical beings separate from the rest of nature and – still more unsettling – questions the alleged uniqueness of human intelligent consciousness.” pg 32. Dazzle Gradually by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan.
My Interweb seems to be letting me down lately. I suppose it’s not the internets per se as much as it is the people frequenting them …where are you guys?
That’s the general feeling I got tonight as I had a chance to go through my RSS reader. I use a standalone reader to subscribe to page/blogs that I find interesting because it’s a lot faster to skim posts and content without having to claw my way through poorly designed sites. Over the years (lol, yes it’s been years) I’ve added many different feeds from places I find interesting, and when online it updates me with fresh content. Tonight I had the chance to scroll through my reader, checkout the blogs/sites they connect to and realized that a LOT of the people I follow (used to follow I suppose) haven’t been online for years! Usually I’ll get the odd post once every few months that signals they’re still around, but there’s many blogs that I’ve completely forgot existed …and I find that they actually don’t exist! Some I kinda hoped would still exist …or re-exist that is. Some have been abandoned, some removed …it seems there are very few people who blog regularly anymore. At least, not from the content and sites that I stumble across. However, don’t let my ‘getting out there’ be any indication of what’s actually out there – I’m as lazy as (blank) when it comes to a lot of things.
Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m the diehard who doesn’t know when to quit. Of course social media (the other social media that is) has a lot to do with it. Why, that’s one of the reasons I jumped ship …too much time online meant something had to give; the blog or keeping up with the Joneses. Routine on the internet is an always changing thing too I figure, as people move and shift with sites and technology. And who could forget real-life of course! (Yes, I have one too.) Yet, truth be told, I’m somewhat proud of my resilience in the mighty (if it can be called that anymore) blog-o-sphere (if it can be called that anymore). I have though, gone through a few changes myself ….design phases as well as a few domains. But that’s just cosmetic, and as hard as it’s been at times I’ve racked my brain to come up with something to say somewhat regularly. It may not be much mind you, but it has been regular. Yep, regular. My blog is like fiber.
But fiber’s good for you kids. It keeps you clean. Lol …I don’t what that means exactly. More importantly though I like going against the grain when it comes to things, and if updating a blog for over 5 years with meaningless crap sets me apart from the norm by placing me in a corner with a dunce cap on my head then so be it. I’ll wear that cap proudly. I’ll fight the good time-wasting fight. I’ll go down with that ‘no one is listening’ ship. I’ll be the Rocky Balboa who doesn’t know when to quit. Heck, I’ll update this blog if I have to reach out from my clammy grave with my cold, steely-dead fingers to my bluetooth enabled keyboard (if the batteries are still working) because I’m dedicated damn you! Dedicated I say!
*either that or I’ve wasted invested too much time on this already and to admit that means exactly that. lol, yes …that’s (kinda) in this book that I did eventually read*
If I’m understanding this correctly, some people can’t imagine their lives without things like knowing the weather, games, how to get somewhere, listening to music and checking in on news stories. Wow, aside from ‘news stories’ …well, it’s a sad reflection on the times kids.
Speaking of kids and reflections on the times, while at a gig the other night there were two girls dancing with each other (about 19-ish) and they both were texting at the same time. Texting while dancing. It was too funny. The keyboardist looked up at me and we both laughed. I then, in mid-song while still playing my bass with my left hand, reached into my right pocket, pulled out my slide phone and pretended to text as well.
Hummm, maybe that’s another thing I should practice.
Oh, and this just in. I saw a combination ‘Thrift Store and Tattoo Shop’ the other day. I’ll try to get a picture of it if I can next time I’m in that area. Personally, I’m holding out for those kiosk/automated inking centers that will soon be next to all those automatic blood pressure machines you find in drug stores. Yes, I dare to dream ;)
What’s the plus for you ask? Well …if it was minus then that would be worse! Duh. Here’s my take on this supposed FB rival; I’ve created my account and expect others to follow and eventually for it to take over the world where at which point I will delete my profile because it’s a waste of time but then create a few new ones over the subsequent years to eventually find that ‘iNet’ has been created by Apple and then begin the entire process over again. And again. And again…. You get the picture.
If there is a plus to Google’s social network it is the integration with Gmail and all its other ‘can’t live without’ internet shenanigans. And if I could offer one piece of advise to the mighty overlords it’s this: Don’t place privacy, security, clean design or functionality AFTER the advertising dollar.
Eli Pariser has a great TED Talk you should check out. I’ve griped about this before (here and here) but was somewhat surprised to know that other ‘internet systems’ do the same sort of thing. They do it under the guise of ‘relevancy’ and Eli discusses this in terms of algorithmic tailoring. Essentially he argues that we’ve come to exist in online ‘bubbles’ where the internet is customizing the information we look at. It’s akin to Big Brother (in a way) telling you what you want to know as opposed to you being able to see for yourself. It’s a personalization of data …something served up for us based on our previous needs and habits.
He didn’t talk about why the need for personalization though, and I think that’s the interesting part. I feel you get personalized attention because Google and Facebook etc. have advertisers (the people paying the bills!) that need to register some sort of influence on you. That is, there’s no point in Lego brand toys being advertised to a financial advisor, and as such each individual needs information that is relevant to them and their purpose online. In a way it makes sense, but in another way it stifles what you get access to. It’s as if convenience has throttled content …and we’ve naturally allowed the information we receive to become convenient. And it shouldn’t be.
While on facebook a few months ago I considered deleting my account. Yes, again. What happened was I got frustrated with all the ‘crap’ that was on there. I also discovered too that facebook is only what you put into it. That is, if you don’t actively involve yourself in the conversations and what-not, then you simply become a bystander. I also also discovered that being a bystander is akin to not being there, and so for the majority of my ‘friends’ I may as well have not existed. My problem is that I see facebook as FUNbook …mostly, and unfortunately most of my ‘friends’ don’t share my silliness. It often seems to be a self-promotion tool for many (gigs, opinions, faiths etc) and there are only a few who like to laugh at themselves. Not enough as far as I’m concerned.
Anyway, one day I was overwhelmed by the amount of advertising I was exposed to. On my profile page, on pictures I viewed, on searches I did, on articles I read, on videos I watched ….everything! The internet has become ADnet. (and I’m sure someone will do a study one day to see how we’ve evolved our browsing habits to recognize ads before we actually see them, thereby bypassing their relevant information. Of course advertisers will pick up on this and we’ll be targeted other ways I’m sure. lol …through implants is my guess). So, in my ‘treating facebook as silly’ mentality, I decided that if I can’t beat them I may as well join them, and I did my own video-ad by simply reading what was written on my facebook sidebar. Lol, it was stupid …as in really stupid. But at the same time I was trying to make a point; that we’ve become giant ads ourselves (whether for products we use or our own personal opinions and views) and have essentially adopted the same advertising techniques as marketers …but with a personal touch that isn’t so in-your-face. We’ve branded ourselves, which isn’t so big a deal, but at the same time have become that walking, talking, facebooking billboard we resent. When you step back from things though, I don’t think we’re so different from those monsters we create.
The ad I did at the bottom of this post was followed by a series of others that changed slightly as I got creatively involved (some non-ad’s as well.) Eventually it turned into a ’50 ads in 50 days’ project, and for better or worse I followed it out to the end. I did discover some interesting things though; for example my ‘most fun’ experiences were ones that involved the littlest planing; as soon as I began to labour over expectations I got bummed out and usually dropped the concept. Some I did rework a bit, and it seemed (sometimes…) to show in my facebook responses. Others though, may have been a bit too ‘inside’ for non-insiders to catch …and only a few of my close friends might get a laugh out of. The thing though was that I got a laugh out of them …usually, and that was the important part of the project! (and the part that I occasionally forgot)
As I watch some of them now I kinda cringe -lol. But I have to remember they were what they were at the time and they all, in some way, contributed to each other. Some were stepping stones while others made the cut. I went about them with that ‘suspended judgement‘ thing I talked about many times in the past (thanks again Gord) and when you do that you allow yourself to not just fail, but to not be too devastated because of it. The result is that you’re still moving forward …and that’s all one really hopes to do at times.
If you click here you’ll get my Noway Outski youtube channel where you can browse the 50 videos I posted on facebook. Right now I’m talking a break from things, but it’s my intention to add more ‘stuff’ when the time is right. I’ll add some more misses I’m sure, but I’ll hopefully add some hits as well. FIngers crossed. Lol, it’ll be what it’ll be I suppose.
I also want to mention that while doing some research lately I found it refreshing that Wikipedia is ad free. Yes, I often browse wiki as a introduction/source to other articles and pages and for some reason it caught my eye that I didn’t have to avert my eyes from stupid advertisements. I made a donation to them a few years back (during one of their fundraising drives) but decided to make a paypal donation out of the blue a few weeks ago. I look at it as an online library fee.
