Shall We Play A Game?

We have come to the end of a long semester in which we have discussed all manner of things – blogs, long tails, hardware vs software, even the philosophy of Search. In our last week before we delve into furious paper writing, we read by Julian Dibbell. Play Money gives several examples of how people can get rich by playing video games, yet, what it’s really doing, is discussing the value of play in terms of success and innovation(in honor of this being the last post, I will try to keep this near the 500-word minimum).

Play is vital. This is a heck of a claim to make and it’s one, I think, Dibbell makes quite plainly. Our heritage is full of play – card games, horse races, chess, backgammon, question & answer games. As children we play all kinds of games and let our imaginations run wild. As adults, notsomuch. As adults it’s 8:30a – 5:30p with a lunch break if you’re lucky. Innovation has to fill out forms, be processed, be approved or denied. Souls are lost in the grind. Then again, I guess that’s why it’s called the “grind,” right? You’re working hard to achieve all that a tiny cube can give you. Sure, you might achieve the zen state of flow, but flow does not give satisfaction. A state of flow removes a sense of time, space, and being. Any worker can get so good at their job that flow can happen, except I call it zoning out. Flow, I think, is more like focus – intense focus. It is the world around you fading away until all that exists is what is right in front of you. A good game will do that to you.

In his book, Dibbell talked about his experiences with Ultima Online – a MMORPG. His experiences showed him a world he didn’t know existed, but only because he never thought about it. Gaming takes all kinds and doesn’t judge…well, except for it’s own hierarchy – n00bs, gamers, and pros. A n00b is a new gamer, or someone unexperienced in a genre of gaming. I am not a n00b to gaming, but I would get my butt handed to me at any PC-based game, such as UO, Everquest, or even World of Warcraft, which I played in high school. I would define a gamer as someone who logs in serious hours for play – 20+ a week or more. A pro? These days, a pro gets drafted into the MLG, or Major League Gaming. MLG is an organization like an other sports organization -there are tournaments, cash prizes, solo competitions, or team matches. Heroes are made and the loser go home to practice. Dibbell learned first hand what it feels like to go against a pro. It hurt him bad, but it got him on his way to learning just how people use gaming to their advantage.

So what did he learn exactly? He learned that there is an economy to UO and that people in the real world make money off of fictional items. This, to him, was astonishing. People could pull in upwards of $1-3,000 a week if they knew what they were doing in selling “gold” or “rarities” to other players. Some players would even create and sell entire character profiles to new users as a way to make a buck. I didn’t understand the shock of learning there is an economy lurking within the game. It was designed for players to create their own worlds where the money is, truthfully, no object. You run out, you go mine somewhere or kill something. Financial supply is infinite, only the space wasn’t. So people got plenty of money and needed places to put things. So like in the real world, people began to collect virtual junk which they would then buy and trade in the real world as well. My thinking – if we can charge people to use the airwaves, which are supposed to be free to the public, then why is it so strange for an economy to emerge like this? I guess because people assume that games aren’t to be taken seriously. Games have rules, which, in order to be successful, you must follow to the letter. But if you make a virtual world, you can’t help but expect it to begin to form a reflection of the real one.

Dibbell mentions how the reality of UO blurred into reality in odd ways, much like The Matrix, but I thought of it more like Phillip K. Dick’s book Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep? More commonly known as the movie Blade Runner, the story is about a man who hunts Replicants, or androids that can pass as humans. Though Ridley Scott’s version of the story toys with the idea that Harrison Ford’s Deckard(the Blade Runner) was a replicant himself, the book makes it clear that not only is Deckard human, but killing the androids is a good way for him to get an authentic pet since his robotic one broke down. The world of Deckard is a mish-mash of machine and reality clashing until it’s hard to tell the difference between the two with humanity clinging to the idea that it’s still in control. As thinking, breathing people, we should know what happens when you give something life – it takes on it’s own natural course. Such was the case with the Replicants who wanted freedom from enslavement from the humans and such is the case with those who enter into UO or ARG’s like Second Life. These are places that were built to entertain, but from within birthed their own ecosystems.

Well, I didn’t keep it near 500 words like I’d originally intended, but that often happens. I’ll try ignore the irony of discussing real world matters on this machine that sends the bites of data across the metaverse for anyone to read. This is my new reality. These are the rules by which we play now. Though, to be honest, I haven’t had much time for games since I started at JHU, I do still enjoy a good game and I, for one, don’t think I’ll ever step foot in a MMORPG. I don’t like the lack of rules. It took me long enough to win a game of Monopoly. I don’t think I’d like to try something where I don’t know how to judge my progression….but that, my friends, is for another day.

On a side note, the CBS show Numb3rs recently did an episode in which a ARG MMORPG was featured and discussed. I highly recommend that anyone with cable On Demand check it out. It was called Primacy.

I know give you the trailer to WarGames:

Backing The Wrong Horse

This week’s readings were a continuation of Wikinomics and to begin Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail. Over the course of weeks, we’ve read books talking about the advantages of open collaboration in the work place. Microsoft created Channel 9 enabling them to change their public face and appear more human to their customers. Bob Lutz, CEO of GM, manages his own blog to share his insights of his company with the public to make himself appear more approachable and the company more friendly. What open collaboration shows us is more can be done effectively if we work together, but only if you have a really good idea.

But what if you ignore it altogether? What if you hold your head under the surface of the earth singing a happy tune ignoring the world in which you live? Well, you do that, everything still changes, but you have a lot of dirt in your ear. This, I’m afraid is what’s happening to the music, television, and radio industry. Heck, why be so gentle – the broadcast industry just doesn’t know what’s going on anymore. The Federal Communications Commission was designed to patrol the airwaves when the spectrum was defined as limited. Signals took close in range could overlap and blur causing transmission trouble for the small rural areas. However, once modernization took over, cities became larger and technology got better and, hey, the spectrum got larger. Now, in addition to AM and FM, we have HD Radio. Simply put, HD Radio is a near simultaneous broadcast of two signals on the same frequency(Truthfully, they are on different frequencies, but for the purpose of railing against the FCC, they are on the same frequency.) Ok fine, HD Radio isn’t on the same frequency, it’s one or two slight movements to the right or left of a frequency to be different, but different enough from frequency X to be called frequency X1b. HD Radio is a reaction and less of an invention. It is a marketable and controllable form of pre-existing music technology. It is also a reaction to the growing number of individuals listening to their iPods, Zunes, or other portable media players. Even online music services by Yahoo! or Pandora are proving to be better sources of unfiltered music than terrestrial radio of less than the cost of either and HD Radio player OR Satellite. That’s not innovation, that’s defense. Certainly necessity is the mother of all invention, but the all-mighty dollar is the biggest driving force there is. And let’s not kid ourselves, really, that’s what this is all about.

Amazon.com is an example used in both Wikinomics and The Long Tail as being a hub for capitalism. It’s a hub because it had become the ultimate catalog and one of the ultimate open source business models. While Wikipedia is a public library for anyone to add, subtract, or edit, Amazon.com is a company where anyone can go to purchase items. Though it doesn’t have the bazaar functionality of eBay, Amazon.com does provide many popular items, as well as an enormous number of niche items. Additionally, Amazon.com allows sellers to link up with them in order to drive up business for both the small business owner and Amazon.com. The symbiotic relationship does more for the small business owner, I think, because Amazon.com is already a branded company so having a connection to the small business provides a sense of comfort to the customer. What drives Amazon.com, unlike the big business models of Viacom(whose own Sumner Redstone claimed himself a “non-adopter“) or Apple who really seems to know how to build a better(?) iPod, is innovation and connection. Microsoft connected with Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury to create Sync so a driver can control the music vocally, but that’s not innovation, that’s comfort. That’s building in a logical thought pattern – it’s how can we make driving safer and easier? Well, we can’t stop idiot drivers from talking on their cells, texting while driving, or playing with their music players, so let’s make it controlled through voice-activation. Too me, that’s not new. What’s new is making a challenge to developers and programmers everywhere saying – you think you’re good, help us come up with the next big thing. That’s innovation. Step outside of the comfort zone and create a new niche.

Chris Anderson had a lot to say about the power of niche’s in his book The Long Tail. Niches, he suggests, often have a larger demand than popular items. Niches are the X axis with popular items(film, music, books, etc) being the Y. My favorite explain he provides when discussing the business of movie-making is what a hit film should be, mostly because it sounds an awful lot like the biggest selling summer movie of 2007 ::sigh:: Transformers. It had upwards of $200 Million dollar budget, it had big names, and it had incredible special effects. My love for Optimus Prime notwithstanding, it was a BAD movie. A thin storyline held together by bad shots and terrible dialog. But it made millions globally, so a sequel is on the way. Whereas innovative films like The Boondock Saints made very little money as a Direct-to-VHS/DVD, YET 50,000+ of people went nationwide to the 1-night screening of the Director’s Cut edition. The sequel of which is still seeking financing while Transformers 2 rolls out in ’09. I only wish that the studios would start to listen to their constituents instead of their stockholders. If they did, the products would be better and maybe we’d get a sequel to Serenity as well (for the groundlings, Serenity is a film made 2+ years after Fox shit canned it. The fans demanded more, and Joss Whedon(creator) was able to make it so with a little help.) It’s interesting what a little public involvement can do, isn’t it? A film can be made of a canceled TV show or even have one brought back after DVD sales go through the roof – Family Guy anyone?

I guess what I’m trying to say can be summed up best by what my girlfriend just said, the reason Microsoft is so big is they don’t offend anyone’s gentle sensibilities. If you make popular products, people will buy them. They will be a hit and they will sell. But if you make something new, if you make something lasting, people will remember it and get involved. If you don’t believe the power of niches, take a chance and go here. The truth of the matter is this, if you don’t innovate, you’re dead. That’s good business. “Content is King,” says Sumner Redstone, but people also want connection, they want interaction. They want it now, and they mostly want it for free. If CEOs don’t start listening, they’ll be too late to realize they’ve been backing the wrong horse.

Resistance is futile

This week, like many before, has been a sad one for the meek continue to inherit the earth due to strength and fear. Doesn’t make much sense does it? The meek shouldn’t rule with strength and fear, but in our times of technological advancements, we’d rather fight over royalties than communicate. I’ll be honest, that last comment was in no way related to the recent Writer’s Guild strike going on the east and west coasts because I think they deserve the money. The shows aren’t driven by the actors(though they wouldn’t be as good without them) or the studios(though without them they wouldn’t have a place to air), but without the writers, no one has anything to say. I think that they deserve to get residuals from DVD or online sales. Or at least an increase in them. They have mouths to feed and people to entertain – PAY THEM SO I CAN WATCH THE DAILY SHOW DAMNIT!! Anyway, the meek I speak of are the people on the other side of the conversation – the people in charge. The people that think that the Internet is not something to be embraced because old time values will hold. These people should either start thinking outside the box or get out of the way. Resistance is futile….they just don’t know it yet.

For this week we read the end of Smart Mobs by Howard Rheingold and the first five chapters of Wikinomics by Don Tapscoot and Anthony D. Williams. The most enjoyable thing about the readings thus far has been how enlightening they seem to be about the most obvious concepts. For example, in an age where gas prices are supposed to hit $4.00 a gallon for unleaded, it would make sense for us to figure out a way to conserve or share resources. The better able we are to work together, the better off we’ll be. In the case of Smart Mobs we’re given the example of NYCWireless, an organization that helps provide WiFi to the urban sprawl that is Yonkers. In of itself, it is an excellent idea and considering how cheap and alternative it can be to using a major corporation like AT&T, Sprint, Comcast or Cox Communications(to name a few). The airwaves are free to the public, so why should the public be confined to the rules of the FCC when those rules were developed in 1927, a much more archaic time than those we are living in today? Why not just build our own WiFi towers and share the band? The answer, most of the time, is if you have WiFi, anyone can use it. That’s the point, though….right? Not when users want to protect their information and right now, WiFi does not have the same protections as hardlines. But what’s so wrong with no secrets? I, for one, have repeated over and over in my posts like I do like my privacy, but if everyone has no secrets, then why would it matter? Clearly a smart mob can work if directed properly, yes? Which brings us to the readings in Wikinomics. At first glance I figured that the title had been chosen using a method described in the most recent edition of Wired Magazine only to realize that, no, the title wasn’t a joke about an online encyclopedia, but rather the Economics of Wiki.

In the first chapter of Wikinomics quotes Rheingold as saying, Collectivism involves coercion and centralized control; collective action involves freely chosen self-selection and distributed coordination. What does this mean and how does it relate to our readings? Collectivism is the method practiced by the old guard – create a company, hire staff, produce a product. Some companies have a small turnover rate because they treat their employees well and some just the opposite. Being part of the collective means that while you are part of the company, everything you do is for the betterment of the company. Collective action, however, is more like free-flowing. Individuals gather together to work on a project for the sake of developing something they wish to create. The best example is the basis for the book – Wikipedia, possibly the most thorough online source of information in the world. But why? Why would it be so trusted and why would anyone want to remove themselves from collectivism to be part of the collective? The answer is information.

The original internet was created as a method of accessing databases for academic research. Easier access to information was the drive for companies like Yahoo! and Google. Wikipedia, however, isn’t a company in the strictest sense. It’s not selling ads, developing radio stations or creating mobile phones. It’s a hub for information that is becoming increasingly more accurate than any other news source. The book cites the bombing in London as an example of people posting information over the course of a day, but I would rather use the article about former wrestler Chris Beniot who died earlier this year by hanging himself after killing his wife and child. Wikipedia not only had one of the first reports of his death, but details surrounding his death had been posted by someone prior to the police being called and sent to his home. While the people who posted about the London bombing of 2005 were able to keep an accurate record of what happened, the fact that anyone could add information about the death of Beniot before it was public is both interesting and terrifying. For the sake of this post, I’m going to go with the former. The ability for mass amounts of people to contribute toward the goal of information is amazing. There is so much in this world that I don’t know, but now have access to just by searching Wikipedia. It has the possiblity to become the new great library of Alexander. This library, I would imagine, won’t disappear into the nether regions. So what does all this have to do with my original statement of the new guard vs the old? As discussed in the reading, there Peer Pioneers, Ideagoras, and Prosumers. Those that develop the ideas, those that adapt to emerging technology and the consumer who claims right to everything.

The old guard would like us to pay for everything that is created. Me, I don’t mind. It’s like paying taxes. I want to drive on the road, but I’d prefer it to be a well-maintained road. So I pay my taxes and I get to drive on a safer road than others. If I pay for the content, then they get to make more content. Here’s my issue: I don’t trust the people that sell me content. In the reading, the Sony BMG DRM debacle was mentioned. I was one of the people involved in the class action suit(granted it was by no action of mine other than sending them my Cyndi Lauper cd back in exchange for a DRM-free copy) . Sony wanted to make sure I only made 3 copies of that disc, so they included protections to ensure it. Trouble was, those protections messed up my computer. Using the same trust I have for Wikipedia, I am more likely to go to LimeWire, KaZaa or any other free downloading software to get my music because most music lovers don’t want bad music. They want safe music. If I can’t trust the company who sells me a CD, then why should I buy it from them? The numbers don’t lie. Recently an article stated that MP3s are outselling CDs 4-to-1. Personally, I love CDs, but if I can’t trust them, I’m not going to put my money into them and I can’t stand iTunes. Where else am I going to go? Television companies are getting nearly as bad, but I think that has more to do with a poor perception of what the internet can bring. NBC recently backed out of a renewal with iTunes to sell their properties. This was a DUMB idea. If people don’t get it from iTunes, they’ll get it from Mimo. Why should I pay $3 per episode when a box set costs $40? Or better yet, why pay at all when it comes over the airwaves for free? So far, the old guard don’t have answers for that. I work for an old guard company and I’m watching us fall farther and farther behind because we don’t seem to understand what our audience wants. I guess it doesn’t help that our staff doesn’t understand the internet past shopping on eBay.

Out of respect for what’s to come, I will leave you with this – a video mash-up of Midway’s Mortal Kombat theme with scenes from Dragon Ball Z. This a video similar to what was referenced in the reading as being a powerful form of self-promotion because the consumers are being active in the product, of which, there is no greater kind of promotion. If your audience loves you, they will buy it, make it their own, and buy more later. Any good product is worth paying for, which is why Linux and Firefox have been able to survive for so long on donations alone.

Or this: The Codex, episode 1, a machinima based in the Halo universe.

Interestingly, the highly successful series is no longer able to make it more films because Microsoft’s new licensing rules don’t allow it. Gamers can now record game play through Halo 3 but they can’t do anything fun with the content. Gotta love the contradictions of new technology.

Or this: an episode of Red Vs. Blue….see for yourself.

mOBSCENE (thank you mr. manson)

Howard Rheingold’s Smart Mobs is a discussion on the way we communicate. From phones as a fashion statement to wearable computers to how we present(or represent) ourselves online. What I found most interesting from the readings were the discussions of the world as a common area, Game Theory and the inevitable future of the internet.

Rheingold, using Linux as a prime example, was developed by many people with one focal person “heading” the project. I phrase it that way because the kernel for Linux was created by one man who used our entire world’s developer and hackers to created a viable operating system. The reading from Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral & The Bazaar focused on the creation of software and operating systems using this method. Developing a program on your own, Raymond and Rheingold discuss, can be a trial unto itself, but by utilizing many individuals, a program can be fixed, modified and released at incredible rates due to the many eyes working on the project. Or as Raymond called it “Linus’s Law” – Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. Most companies don’t like to take this route of transparency, possibly to maintain secrets, but code can be changed and improved if the right eyes see it. I wonder if the Music Industry could learn something from this, certainly the company I work for could. Industries need to learn to adapt and grow with the Internet which is only getting larger every second. Like in nature, you either get stronger or you die. The Music Industry thinks it is dying because of the lose of CD sales that have been in a ever steadying free fall since….2000? In a recent post by Chris Anderson on his blog The Long Tail, he discusses how it’s only CD sales have been failing and not the industry as a whole. Certainly the growing strength of iTunes has made an impact plus musicians like Madonna leaving labels for ticket sellers to promote herself can hurt the industry, but what about artists who decide to sell directly like Radiohead or slam poet Saul Williams? Saul said in an article that “the ways of middlemen proves to be a passing trend” and I can’t help but wonder if he’s right. P2P services aren’t waning under the pressure from the RIAA, which in our lifetime could be considered the modern day Leviathan, except we don’t fear the rule from above. The code is out there, the information is available for anyone who dares seek it. Isn’t this the hackers code?

Here enters Game Theory. Ideally, I think, working together to achieve a common goal brings the best results(Linux), but Game Theor, Rheingold explains, is more about whether you trust the people you’re working with, against or for. The example he gives is of two prisoners that risk prison by trusting their partner when held and interrogated in different cells. It was determined that a TIT FOR TAT system worked best or, as Rheingold put it, a “shadow of the future.” I do something for you, you help me with something. In this manner people are able to succeed. As it is Halloween-time, I would be horribly mistaken to leave out one of the great horror/psychological films that deals with this very well – SAW. Two mean trapped in a room, chained to the floor with only themselves to trust and rely on to get out. Though the films have gotten more and more gory as they have gone on, the underlying theme remains – in order to survive, you have to trust.

This I think is really the direction of our inevitable future. It’s not the wearable computers or virtual reality. It’s not being able to buy sodas with a cell phone that matches your hair color and fits neatly in your back pocket. It’s sharing information completely and freely. Science, and some philosophers, might suggest that information can do no harm but enlighten and the internet can help connect the minds and ideas of people that might never speak. Perhaps if the USA stopped trying to keep people on differing communication networks from talking, we’d all have better ideas and smarter kids(not that I have or want any right now). I would like my kids to be part of the Smart Mob. I just hope we don’t have to pay by the minute for them to be part of it.

From my heart and from my hand….

Search is an amazing thing. Information is literally at our finger tips, and all we have to do to find it is ask a question. Long hours of research can be boiled down to a few clicks. Whether browsing through blogs, RSS feeds or Google, information has never been easier to find. Certainly the nicest thing about search is how easy it is for me to find out more information on The Amory Wars, the overall title for the story that takes place in the first four Coheed & Cambria albums. It’s a complicated story, so having the information on hand is nice, but search, Battelle tells us, gives off as much, if not more, information to the Search provider.

The internet is a tricky mistress. With no clear guidelines on what is acceptable and what’s not, the definition of “good practice” has been very trial-and-error. Google, in an attempt to keep things fair, often updates it’s algorithms in an effort to keep things fair, but as Battelle discussing, innocent people get caught in the crossfire. Now I’m not entirely sure how companies go up and down in the ratings. I know it has to do with ranking – the more people that come to my page, the more popular it gets, the higher the ranking. Makes sense. But how does an algorithm know what is a legit website versus a non-legit one? This is one question that I wish had been answered. When we read Naked Conversations we read about how to get in front of a problem and the value of speaking directly to the customer. Reading how Google seems so very distant from its users seemed incredibly counter-intuitive to standard business practices. Google, however, has demonstrated that it doesn’t need to provide damage control whenever thousands of users suddenly go missing from the ranks because thousands more fill in the gaps so that the only people that notice it even happened are the ones it happened too. I wonder if this is a case of too much information making us blind to the affects of the internet on business-people and consumers. As long as the hamburgers keep coming, we don’t need to know about the meat supply? I don’t know, but I can tell you that I don’t like the privacy issues.

I wrote about this in my last post and I feel it deserves to be discussed again. Privacy is a real issue and any mention of the PATRIOT ACT reminds people of how real it is. What many people may not know is the silent information gathering that takes place every time we browse the internet. Last post I discussed how Google gathers information, but what I have sense learned is how additional information is gathered. I didn’t know, for instance, that companies like DoubleClick actually keep track of not only the websites you go to, but track the click stream as well. Which sites you go too, which ads you click on, what articles you read – this thing follows you around and gathers data on all of it. All in the interest of being able to sell you a better hamburger. Ironically, I did a search for profiling – a term often used to describe a method of identifying characteristics of criminals – and found this definition right off the bat. If you don’t want to click through the link, it states that profiling is a form of performance analysis that takes place in order to improve a system. I get this. It makes sense when you want to improve services, but if information is gathered without my permission, I think there is a line that still needs to be drawn. Luckily, Google has argued with the government about releasing private information they have gathered, but I just wish they would stop giving it away to third-party advertisers. My life should not be equated to a cost-per-point for ad sales.

Nowadays, “search” is everywhere and sites are popping up more and more everyday. From AltaVista to Yahoo! to Google, “search” is the backbone of curiosity. Without search, we would never find anything. We’d never have those yahoo moments to even find googol(cheesy, I know, but it’s true). We need search and it’s everywhere. I just hope we don’t lose site of the question because we’re too busy trying not be seen searching.

Weird Science

This blog gets its name from my favorite quote by Seneca the Younger, Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit.
Loosely translated: In all great talent lies an element of madness. This line very much fits the subject of John Battelle’s The Search. Battelle discusses the rise of Google and the near-rise of its fore-fathers. The story is full of pride, money, passion, and just a hint of a soap western spice. Though Battelle seems bent on pushing the concept of “Search” as the focus of his book, it comes across more like a history lesson of the internet. Certainly the concept of “Search” as a philosophical idea is a fascinating one and its one that has pushed humankind to strive for more. Some might even categorize “Search” as curiosity as a verb. “Search” is movement. “Search” is interesting. I’m not so sure about the reading, though.

Google is the penultimate database. It keeps track of everything that near every Internet user does. I’m not talking about information like passwords, but something more private – your cyberprint. Google has developed the Database of Intentions that Battelle describes as the “aggregate results of every search ever entered, every result list ever tendered, and every path taken as a result” (2005, 6). Though I use Google several times a day, at work and at home, I don’t like that it keeps track of my whereabouts. Certainly by tracking what information I am seeking is the system better able to function for others, but privacy should never be forsaken for more information. From an academic prospective, information should be free-flowing like a river so creating a database that is a listing of every site, every link that I go to on the web makes sense. Information should be free. From a personal perspective, what I do in the comfort of my own home is my business. I may rent my internet from a provider, but what I do with it should be free from nosy nellie neighbors and government offices. Should, of course, being the main point. Reading this book got me thinking about the privacy issues that Google has faced since 9/11 and I found comfort in remembering their fight to prevent our government from having access to their database. Information should be available to the public, but privacy, I think, should never be sacrificed.

One interesting comment that Battelle made was also in his opening chapter. He spoke of his fascination with computers and how “a representation of the plastic mind made visible” seemed to come alive to him through the Macintosh (2005, 4-6). This not only works in regard to what Google has done for “Search” by making it far reaching and all-encompassing, even as the Internet gets larger and larger., but also in regard to ourselves. Certainly technology has had a strong hand in making information gathering easier. I wonder, though, if the benefits are worth it? We have a world’s worth of information at our finger-tips, but we sacrifice privacy each time we log in. The information that we find may not even be reliable because it’s fallible people posting the information, so really, is the information any more valuable than it would be if you found it pre-Gopher? While I do think some of the brightest mind of our generation did find a way to fill a need within the academic community, Brin and Page are no Ginsberg and Google is no Howl.

On a side note: Did you know that if you search for “Google” on Google and hit the I’m Feeling Lucky button it only refreshes your page? This is only slightly less interesting as when you type in “French Victories” and click I’m Feeling Lucky. That, at least, is worth one attempt.

Naked Conversations (Round Two – FIGHT!)

While the first half seemed optimistic toward the value of blogs, the second half of Scoble and Israel’s Naked Conversations read more realistically. Blogs become more than just tools by programmers and designers to make a company seem friendlier by making the employees more “real.” The logic behind that makes sense, but the application still doesn’t strike me as concrete. If Bob works for Microsoft and Bob and I become so close he’s the best man at my wedding, I might still hate Microsoft – but not Bob. No matter how Bob paints Microsoft as either good for me or their competitor as better, Bob will always be my best man. The blog hasn’t changed my perception of Microsoft any more than if I met Bob at an Apple store and he worked as an evangelist for them. In essence, I don’t buy that blogs are the be all end all of online communication(and thankfully neither do Scoble and Israel), but the point of the book is to sell me on the idea that individuals and companies (large and small) can benefit from this new technology.

Though the book continued to rally behind it’s mantra of Be Honest, Be Transparent, Be Yourself, I felt as though the real message could have been Be Careful, Be Respectful, Be Aware. As wonderful as blogs can be, what goes out into the universe often comes back. A weatherman from my hometown of Roanoke was fired because of illicit photos posted on MySpace. Students that were Resident Assistants for the Housing Office at UNC at Asheville were let go because of photos they had posted of their behavior unbefitting of an RA. (Disclosure: I was an RA for 3 years at UNCA, and I knew the staff fairly well. The event I mentioned took place the year after I graduated and I was told about it from a friend who was still on the Housing Staff.) Scoble and Israel, however, describe the “rules” of blogging as simply “Be Smart.” Actually they have several suggestions on how to blog, but the specific explanations have more to do with how to make it entertaining. Evidently, my authority on a subject comes from the many posts that I make on a subject and if five people or more link to my blog. So if I’m entertaining and five people like me, then I’ve created a good blog. Or have I? Do I allow comments? Should I? How should I approach comments? Do I combat them? Do I curtail to abuse? What if no one comments to my blog? Does this make me boring? Should I just back away from the key board now? Scoble and Israel would say….would say….::looks at Magic Eight Ball:: “Ask Again Later.” As bloggers and journalists themselves, they value the blog as a tool of the people, but I say that unless you have a clear definition of what the tool does, it can’t be used properly. I say that unless you explain to me that a blog is good for specifically “this” and you should me “this,” I will believe. For now, Scoble and Israel have merely made me skeptical.

The one thing I felt they explained clearly was how a company could effectively use Crisis Communication to get in front of a problem. In the case of Kryptonite Locks, the bike lock company who couldn’t comprehend the “power” of blogs – they dealt with the issue as best they could. They gathered their staff and tried to answer the problem without talking with the public. That proved to be a big no-no in the blogosphere as bloggers seem require real-time conversation based upon the reading. Kryptonite Locks has since learned their lesson and has even created a blog of their own. The book raised the question of why would the company ignore so many people, when I want to know why those people couldn’t wait to get a good answer in response. Clearly there was an issue with the locks and had I been one of those people, I would have wanted answers, but you can’t get what they don’t have. If they didn’t know there was a problem to begin with, they can’t know how to fix it. Truth is, particularly now with all the advances we make in communication and technology, there is almost no puzzle that can’t go unsolved. I felt bad for Krpotonite Locks for what seemed like a grotesque mob that formed outside their door. This was an old media company being attacked for not producing new media results. The effects of blogging on Kryptonie Locks, however, was nothing compared to Heather Armstrong and the many others that followed after.

According to Scoble & Israel, Armstrong was fired from her job after blogging about her work. In fact, the term for anyone who has suffered such a fate has been titled “Dooced” after her website. Though Scoble & Israel touch on the issue in the early chapters, unclear guidelines for blogging have led to numerous firing over the years because employees represent their company. Scoble & Israel suggest several ways to avoid getting fired on page 182 by “not leaking privileged information, damaging the companies relationships or breaking news in advance” to name a few. Special thanks go to go Penny Arcade for providing the link to The Stranger which resulted in the link for my next and final example: Jessica Zenner. Jessica was fired by Nintendo for posting about work. According to the article, Zenner was fired for the personal comments she made about her co-workers and the fact that Nintendo has a no blog policy. While I do think that Zenner being fired for her blog comments on a personal page is wrong, I also think that if you’re going to post about your own life, sometimes discretion is the better part of valour. In a world that is rampantly becoming more about how to get information and less about the consequences, maybe it’s time we took a second to think about what our actions do.

I for one know that what I right here with be examined and scrutinized. Not just by my instructor, but by anyone else who reads this. Blogs, Livejournals, MySpace pages and FaceBook – among others – are a privilege we take for granted without realizing it. But if blogs are part of a revolution in communication, I worry about where we are headed. Instant information is good. Communication among people even better. I’m just not so sure how comfortable I feel about trusting the internet for all my information gathering needs. Just because a blog says that your name is Bob, doesn’t mean you’re not really Joe.

On that note, a much needed laugh courtesy of Penny Arcade:

Naked Conversations (Round One – FIGHT!)

This week’s readings came from the first eight chapters of Robert Scoble and Shel Israel’s Naked Conversations. Though each chapter discusses different aspects of the dialogue that occurs through blogging, or what they call the one-to-many conversation, each chapter carried a specific theme throughout: be truthful, be passionate, be yourself.

Blogs may be as useful as sharing ideas and thoughts as other weblogs like Livejournal, but what sets apart blogs is how they have become the device of choice for CEOs and Mom & Pops. Programs like ICQ(the fore-father of AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and others) and Firefox(a browser I am using to type right now) all became popular through blogs. Firefox, for example, became my browser of choice after I graduated college in 2003 after several, more computer-savvy friends told me about it. I didn’t like Netscape too much, so with my options so limited, I didn’t have much choice. Now I prefer only Firefox and I recommend it to anyone who is still using IE or Netscape. This would make Joe Hewitt, a founding member of Firefox, jump for joy.

In chapter 3 they discuss viral marketing as part of the word of mouth process. I like when they say that:

Word of mouth is most viral when the words credibly relay such passion. Viral also seems to work best when it is home-brewed, rather than part of a marketing push.

Reading that, my thoughts immediately moved toward the PSP promotional campaign. This marketing push involved a blog created by company hired to drive sales. If “Charlie” could help get “Jimmy” a PSP because of all the “awesome PSP support” from readers, then who knows – maybe sales might go up. If you talk about it, maybe people will buy? The real story came about when people found out the blog was a phony. In the first two chapters of Naked Conversations we read about how Microsoft got a PR make-over by communicating with consumers – maybe someone should send the folks at Sony a copy of the book.

We don’t like being lied too. We don’t mind playing a game that advertises a product like Halo 2(ilovebees) or The Dark Knight Returns(Harvey Dent’s page and the Joker Page(highlight the entire page)), but don’t try to sell us on the idea that a product is fun and because a blog tells us to buy something we should. If we are going to live in this open-global community, we need to be able to trust what is out there. If it’s a game, tell us – if you’re trying to sell us something, tell us that too. Just be honest.

One other thing I wanted to touch on from the reading was from the end of chapter 2 – Google’s Ascendancy. No one seems to know the length of Google’s reach, but when it comes to information, they have access to nearly all of it. While it’s nice to see a company provide a great service and rise up over it’s competition(Yahoo!, Ask.com) , Google may have started selling your computer space to make them money. As someone who loves radio and technology, I’m not sure I trust a search engine with too much of both.

As a last thought, the be truthful, be passionate, be yourself mantra of the chapters felt very fitting on today of all days. Today is the first day of Jammie Thomas’ trial. She is the first of 26,000 individuals that will be undergoing prosecution for sharing files over the internet. Ms. Thomas, like many individuals around the world shared music of various genres with others through a P2P service, but she was caught by the RIAA and will be the first scapegoat for the music industry. Now I realize that musicians deserve to be paid for the songs they create and that songwriter’s do to. What I don’t understand is why in an iWorld, music can’t be shared just like everything else. If it’s good music people will pay for it. Sharing tracks over the internet doesn’t seem much different from making a mix tape of tracks for a friend except that you get to choose which songs you want. Evidently the RIAA doesn’t want you to listen to music unless you’ve paid for a copy and only keep it on the disc you bought. It’s already illegal in some countries to make copies so by ripping it onto your computer and saving it for yourself, be careful – after the RIAA gets done with terrestrial radio, they may be coming for you.

Now I leave you with this message from 1999/2000 and Camp Chaos.

(BE WARNED: Foul language)

Land of Confusion

Sunday night Genesis played at the Verizon Center for a sold out crowd. Featuring all the members of the original group, except Peter Gabriel, they displayed the same vigor that shows through in the Walk This Way Live CD I’ve been listening to for years. Though I would proclaim myself a fan, I am more a fan of the music sans-Gabriel when their style veered away from Art and into Pop. In fact, though I grew up singing Sledgehammer, Big Time, and In Your Eyes, I had no idea of the connection between the Genesis I saw Sunday and the group I grew up with. Though they performed a fair share of tracks from albums like Invisible Touch and other albums, whose names I don’t know yet whose lyrics I have memorized, the songs that surprised me were the tracks from the Gabriel-era. The sound was of vintage Who but the feel was pure Gabriel.

Why, you must wonder, do I ramble on about Genesis? The songs they performed Sunday night ranged from their catalog of 30+ years. Words penned in their youth mixed with notes on a page to express an emotion. For one, this is not to different from what individuals are doing now on the internet with blogs. For two, when they began to play Land of Confusion, I realized that the lyrics are as true today as they were in 1990 when the song was first released.
Where the first week’s readings set up the ideas and concepts of what a blog is and what it can be used for, this week’s readings discussed the realities of what hyper-connectedness means. How sometimes the price we pay for being so public about our thoughts and opinions can be hefty.

At the beginning of Chapter 7, Gillmor mentions what happened to Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan who, after speaking out against the government, moved to Toronto and kept up the fight from there. Rallying fellow Iranians to speak their minds and fight in the revolution. Voicing your thoughts like Hossein is taken for granted in the US. Sure, everyone has a voice online and most of it is “look-at-me” material, and this is why no one listens to anything real. Why when we hear about the death of radio on the net, the death of choice, the needle pressed into the flesh of small webcasters everywhere because SoundExchange demands it, the only sound you hear are the sounds of iPods being turned up beyond the safe level of human ears. Why? No one cares.

At the end of chapter 8, Gillmor discusses trust on the internet. Receptacles for the internet like Google provide reliability. It is reliable because it has a reputation. Though he doesn’t go into great length on the subject, the concept he presents is simple – the more people use something, the better it must be. I would argue that this is highly presumptive. Just because a majority of people use Google, myself included, doesn’t make it more reputable than other systems, it’s just the system people use more. The information that Google accesses is most likely the same information other search engines will find, but again, Google has become the most common. Before that Yahoo and before that….well, something else that we’ve now forgotten. The information must be reliable and it must be accurate – something that Gillmor discusses in the first section of reading. I don’t understand why he sets it aside when discussing reputation and trust.

As far as the internet is concerned, no one has all the answers. Looking at the maps presented to us by Nicco’s first 2 videos, the web is a vast place, but that vast place is connected by a lot of small connections. I think it’s these connections that allow information to travel so quickly. I’m not talking about servers or data streams, but about the people that use the internet to communicate with each other. People’s connectivity is the strongest asset for the internet and the weakest for people who don’t understand it. By this I mean the MPAA, RIAA, and other organizations that don’t realize what they have at their fingertips. Instead, they try to find ways to protect the old ways. This being intellectual property. Now I’m in favor of writers, producers, performers of all types being given their due whether it be money or simple acknowledgment, but going after college students for listening to music is too much. In Germany, as I posted on del.icio.us, the government has made it illegal to make personal copies of DVDs or CDs. If the RIAA keeps going at this rate, soon we will share the same fate. But we won’t care because we have our iPods that play the songs that Starbucks has softly broadcasting inbetween the murmurs of coffee beans grinding. These are only our civil liberties we’re talking about. Gillmor seemed to understand this when he wrote that “I believe in cop-right and I want to support it – but in the right way….Locking down heritage means locking out vital innovation, and I don’t want to be one of the people who turns reasonable protections into absolute control” (2004, p. 240).

Truly we are still living in a land of confusion. Fighting a war that seems no one can win. Big business fighting to stay big.

Superman, where are you now?

Morning! (because it’s time for breakfast somewhere)

Good Morning Everyone!

This is my very first post. Exciting huh? I know I’m all a twitter.

Truthfully I don’t know what to write here that would or could be significant for as was once written in Calvin & Hobbes, “I AM SIGNIFICANT…..screamed the tiny dust speck.” So with that in mind, I will write about what interests me and that would be everything. Music, movies, books, comics, technology, video games. Some will be discussed as a singularity, others as a amalgamation of sorts(my favorite kind). Particularly as October 23rd comes closer, comments concerning the band Coheed and Cambria and their new album No World For Tomorrow. Coheed and Cambria’s fourth studio album, The Amory Wars finishes the story of the Kilgannon clan.

The promotional method for the newest and last album in the series takes full advantage of New Media by creating a grassroots campaign. It all began with a bulletin from the band that only “friends” could see. This bulletin let fans know about a website for the new album, a website with a countdown and a picture of the Keywork.

Without getting too offtrack on the mythology of the story, for those that know what the Keywork is and what has happened to the Kilgannon clan – the notion that their story is coming to an end is both heartbreaking and exciting. Back to the campaign – as the countdown clock reaches zero, typically on a Monday around 5pm-ish, a new message is post from the band. From art to be included with the album, a first glimpse at the music video for the first single, and even a message from the band – everything is controlled by the band with their audience in mind. Though the communication is strictly one-way at this point, the way in which they are communicating makes the final album more than a release, but an event. Thus far, no posters have been displayed, ads have no appeared on multiple channels, it has only been the foot soldiers in the war spreading the message of The Crowing, the nickname for the main character and sole-surviving member of the Kilgannon family, Claudio.

This bring us to this week’s reading….
We The Media: Grassroots Journalism By The People, For The People by Dan Gillmor discuses the innovative nature of New Media. Gillmor suggests that the increase in available technology and the ease with which individuals are beginning to utilize New Media, the structure of standard communication and journalism is changing. From SMS, RSS, blogs, and email to cell phones, digital cameras and Peer-to-Peer sites, the way people communicate is changing and at rapid speeds.

In 2004, the time of the original publishing of We The Media, most cell phones didn’t feature cameras, or if they did the quality was terrible, but like the emergence of the cell phone itself, simply having the featuring was stunning enough. So now when Gillmor discusses the implications of a phone with digital quality photography available and the threats to security of regular individuals, I only think of what is going on now with the Disney starlite, Vanessa Hudgens. Private photos taken from a cellphone have traveled around the world and possibly jeopardized a young actresses future. This, however, is the truth of the world we live in where access to information is everywhere and at the click of a button can go anywhere.

In a later reading, Gillmor discusses the power of blogs to communicate a message. Gillmor discussed the power of individual people as they come together in pursuit of information and communication with the example of Howard Dean. Of all the factors that powered Dean’s rise to the forefront of the 2004 Presidential Election, Dean’s use of the website Meetup gave voice to many people who came believe in his message for the future. Though Dean would become a joke to many, his use of the internet as a sophisticated networking tool would not be lost.

Though grassroots campaigns were often run by the few, the internet has given the few a microphone to share their thoughts without fear of being shutdown and allowed others from around the world to join on the discussion. Clearly the members of Coheed and Cambria understand this in the way they have embraced the new paradigm of communication. By communicating directly with the audience, sending “personal” messages through Myspace and the NWFT website which, until recently, was mostly concealed to the general public, the band has given fans a deeper connection to the music and increased the bond between fan and musician more than any record label’s PR blitz ever could.

The power is not just in the message, but in the way the message is delivered. Gillmor, I believe, would agree.