Mob Aggro

Smart Mobs by Howard Rheingold is an in-depth look at a social interaction in the digital age.

Rheingold’s definition of a smart mob is a group of people with technological similarities. People with blackberries, cell phones, computers and other such items belong to this crowd, but what makes the owners of these items a group is interaction. People may not know each other in real life, only through cyberspace, but they clearly relate to one another and interact, even if it is on an impersonal basis.

I, for one, interact in a similar manner through World of Warcraft. I am part of a group of people that interacts regularly without prior knowledge of many of the group members and there are no constrains of physical proximity. The group is a hodgepodge of friends, family, co-workers, and the occasional random addition. People are from all over the country (California, Ohio, DC, Tennessee and Colorado, to name a few), have varying socio-economic statuses (pregnant stay-at-home moms, body builders, engineers, accountants, people living their parents’ basement, grocery store clerks, students), all ages (from about 16-60) and probably ethnically diverse, although I cannot tell given our medium of connection. On to the point.

People of all walks of life are now connected and can have a serious impact on society if they are properly motivated. For instance, people using text-messages overthrew then President of Manila, Joseph Estrada. This is bound to happen again.

Smart Mobs has a few other interesting points. The book says that youth adapt to new technology to stay in touch with their peers; technology will adapt to society, not the other way around; and that the original computer programmers operated on these principles, known as the hacker ethic: “Access to computers should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative. All information should be free. Mistrust authority – promote decentralization.” Gotta love the hacker ethic, I live or die by it.

Another interesting topic is augmented reality. Augmented reality is adding hyperlinks to everything you can see. Imagine walking down the street, being able to point your phone at a restaurant to get reviews, the menu, pricing and the how long the wait for seating will take. It could also be used on a tree to pull up a wikipedia entry, or even something about natural foliage for the area. The possibilities are endless, but in order for this to happen we have to have the capability and carry the device. It sounds like singularity is coming ever closer to reality.

Some people, mostly tech types in research, have adapted computers for augmented reality, and wear them around. These people have everything from scanners and eyepieces that give results to wi-fi capablilities. To some extent, people are already adapting to the idea of wearable computers. PDAs, Blackberries, cell phones, iPods and the like are all wearable and enhance reality.

Finally, Smart Mobs talks about reputation.  Reputation is used on the web in a variety of forms, people rate interacts will sellers on ebay and Amazon, rate articles on social news feeds and link to other pages increase their relevance on search engines.  We need to manage our social reputation because in the future our dealings on the internet may have an affect on real life.

Stilling Searching…for 500 words

The second half of John Battelles’s The Search discusses Google’s rise to riches, respect and the women that come along with those things. Ok, it doesn’t discuss the women, but I wanted to spice up this blog post a little bit as not to turn off the few readers I have.

In 2003, Google adjusted its algorithm to provide better search results and filter spam sites. These spam sites were identified by Google’s software found sites that illegitimately paid people through Ad Word’s revenue sharing. These sites paid the site’s owner for ever visitor that clicked on the page. This change in the algorithm affected thousands of legitimate, classifying them as spam and dropping their page rank out of the top 100 results. Going from first to last in searches killed once successful businesses. Businesses found they had to adjust their Web sites for search engine optimization (SEO).

Another chapter talked about allowing deep linking to password protected sites. Some sites, such as the Wall Street Journal, require a subscription to view articles. This affects their search results because the indexing program Google uses cannot read the articles, causing the page to be ignored by the entirety of the Internet. Battelle argues that people will pay for subscription services if enough people point to the article from other Web sites. I highly doubt this. People aren’t willing to pay for music, they aren’t going to pay to view the Wall Street Journal online when there are many other free sources of news.

The problem I see is barriers set up to stop us from gathering information, such as private libraries (like the JHU VPN thing we have to use to get research studies). I’m not entirely sure why universities keep this stuff under lock and key. If they are promoting knowledge and education like I think they are, we should have access to all of this information. Who is it going to hurt if I get my hands on a study about hamsters dancing to bad music or if I find that tobacco leaves are really a great alternative to fiber-glass insulation? Do we not want terrorists to know this stuff? It seems to me that it is a Marxist struggle of the haves (people with the knowledge) and the have nots (people without access to the information). Why do universities shut the average Joe out, but promote education at the same time?

On privacy issues, Google says it will never distribute our personal information. In the news recently, Verizon admitted it turned over customer information to the government. Since the USA PATRIOT Act, the government has had the right to demand information from companies about their users. The act says the government and the copy do not have to let the public know when this happens. I imagine that Google has done this and will never admit to it, despite denying it has happened.

Google tried to remain a private company for a long time, but its size forced it to go public. There was some apprehension with buying tech stocks since the Internet bubble burst, but Google has seen nothing but success since going on the market. Its shares are above $600 at the moment. This could be a sign that tech stocks are back and people are willing to invest in new technology again. Too keep the innovations coming and share-holders happy, Google Labs runs a think tank that has created a variety of computer applications that have made our lives a lot easier. Google Maps and Analytics came out of this thing.

Finally, Battelle talks about the future of search. He thins we’ve come up with searches engines that are about 10% of their potential. I can see why he thinks this. We still get irrelevant search results and much information either isn’t available or requires a password to get to. If these barriers were over come we’d have a modern day Library at Alexandria. The government is actually working on digitizing information at this very moment. I think a collaborative effort would stop different groups from digitizing the same information twice and speed up the process. I think that a lot of thing have already been digitized illegally by copy-right violators, and I think this resource shouldn’t be passed over. The work of these pirates is often of great quality, and documents found through searches should be used to check items off the to-digitize list.

In the near future, I’m hoping we’ll have one, massive online library that will be a central repository for all information. I think we have trouble finding the results we are looking for, even though we know they exist. For example, a search for habits of video game players will give more than just a blog or commercial site, all statistics compiled from scientific studies will be shown and gaps in knowledge will be easily identified for future research.

Makin’ Music

Last week Radiohead started selling their new album In Rainbows exclusively from their Web site. Not only that, but you get to choose how much to put in the band’s coffer by deciding what you want to pay for the album. I don’t tend to buy CDs because my money isn’t going to the artists I would like to support. With this formula of self-distribution you know exactly where the money is going.

I personally think this is brilliant. My beef with the record industry has been how poorly they treat their artists. Artists don’t typically see much of a return from their CD sales, probably receiving less than $.05 a CD. That doesn’t seem like a good deal to me. The artist works hard to sell music, perform, write songs, and create an image, only to make money for a greedy company. And this greedy company tends to mold artists into models that were monetarily successful in the past (Backstreet Boys to N’Sync, Brittney Spears to Christina Aguilerra, Puddle of Mudd to Lighthouse, etc., etc.).

Many artists publicly stated their problems with their record labels. Prince wrote slave on his face and started releasing albums under the moniker “artist formerly known as Prince” because releasing albums as Prince would have violated his binding contract with Warner Bros. Other artists have filled their contract obligations with quickly produced CDs that were recognized by their fans as meeting their requirements (Rumor has the Daft Punk’s last CD, Human After All, followed shortly by their “Greatest Hits” were released just so they could pursue their own interests without label “guidance”).

Now that bands, such as Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails (and on a side note, NIN is amazing to see live. Their front man Trent Renzor has been a pioneer in digital copyright. He tends to release music tracks and samples to the public so they can remix them as they please [double-sided note: Beastie Boys have done this as well, all under the creative commons license] and is providing a digital format [mp3s] with his next CD), have split from their labels, many other will likely follow suit. I think this is great. They are both well-established groups that don’t need the promotion a label would provide. They will do just find on their own, they have the capital, respect and ability to self-release. Unfortunately, I’m unsure how this will work for smaller groups. Social media sites are a great way for bands to promote their stuff, but it is hard for them to gain the exposure that record label would provide. There are success stories with this format of distribution (see: Arctic Monkeys and Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah), and I’m sure their story will likely be repeated in the coming years.

You’ll also notice that these viral bands don’t sound like other things you would hear on the radio or MTV. They are in a different market that is not yet tapped. Flagging sales, especially in rap, indicate record companies are run by suits without a clue using payola to get their crap a wipe at our ears. Fortunately for us, the Internet gives equal exposure to all artists. Chances are you’ll find something you like if you spend a little time looking.

With Radiohead selling a reported 1.2 million copies through their Web site, we’re sure to see more sales of this type. Even if people only paid the minimum for the $1 distribution fee, that is at least $1.2 million going directly to the artist; a pretty successful figure for radically different sales approach.

Searching…for something to write 500 words on

I just read the first half of John Battelles’s The Search.  The book covers the history of search engines, culminating with our current Google experience.

One of the interesting things Battle discussed was Google Zeitgeist (which has since been replaced with Hottrends).  This tool ranks popular search terms everyday.  This tool goes way beyond the simple tracking of search terms, it tracks the collective thoughts of the Internet.  It shows what is on people’s minds and what information they want to learn about.  It shows that Paris Hilton has peaked; it shows that people are worried about terrorist attacks; it shows people want the hoverboards in Back to the Future 2.  Ok, so I made those up, but conceptually it is true.  Hottrends has sumed up the conscious and feelings of the Internet population  each day since its inception.  This is an incredible marketing tool.  Movie producers should go on this site everyday to see what topic would create the next blockbuster.  Reporters should check it each day to write articles on topics people want to read.  Historians should view it as the exact feelings and state of the culture that day.  This tool is amazing.

The rest of the first 150 pages gives a history of searching on the internet.  In the late 1990s, companies though portals were the thing of the future.  Searches were not given much thought and they worked “well-enough.”   Yahoo and AOL were riding high on their success.  Searches still needed a lot of refinement.

Up until that point in time, searches were typically used in offline databases.  Defining the parameters for these searches was rather easy compared to an internet search.  In the offline search, the database was typically used for a well defined purpose and all possible combinations of searches could be programmed into the database.  There are only so many ways a person can ask for the number of books still in stock in a database.  The database won’t be used for anything elseOn the Internet, this is very different.  There are no defined parameters for an Internet search.  A person can ask for anything.  The problem was figuring out the proper algorithm to bring up the most relevant results.

Remembering search engines of the past (I used hotbot) bringing back poor results. Typing in what you were after didn’t typically provide useful results.  Site owners used metatags to aid search engines in finding their sites, but they had to use the same terms you did to bring up their page in a search engine.  Thinking of alternate search terms became an art. Shortly afterward, spammers got wise and started putting in random words to bring up their site in search engines.

To help curtail this problem Google developed the pagerank system.  Sites with more links pointing at them came back higher in the search results.   Legitimate sites should be well linked.  This system, used in conjunction with the web crawlers that searched and indexed site text, provided amazingly accurate search results.

Analog in a Digital Era

For those of you that don’t know, which I am assuming is most everyone reading this, I have two turntables and a fader. That means I am, in fact, a DJ on some level. I don’t tend to tout this fact as I am not very good. I have no reputation or battle experience, but I’m not in it for the accolades. I tend to break out the turntables when I’m bored to scratch and roll. It’s a lot of fun. You should try it if you haven’t already.

Ironically, I hooked my record player up to my computer and started to spin, only to find that I needed a new stylus. I decided to call my dad for advice. He has a lot of experience with vinyl, being born in the 1950s and all. This was technological role reversal; he usually calls me to help him solve a computer problem, but this time I had a history question for him. He laughed and said replacing the stylus was a lot easier than replacing a computer part.

While computer parts have been overhauled thousands of times in the past 20 years, there has been little change to the phonograph since its invention in the 1850s. The phonograph outlasted 8-tracks, cassettes and mini-discs, three formats that didn’t last more than a decade each. Only in the past five years have we adapted to digital music in the form of MP3 players. In the history of recorded music, that is a very small fraction of time. So why has this analog format lasted in a digital era? Records are expensive to produce; the record market is small; and the equipment for playback is pricey, hard to find and fragile.

I believe Hip-hop has something to do with this, but it is an interesting paradox. Rappers use the latest in sound technology to create their beats, but for all the digital production and computer manipulation you always see the DJ spinning his record collection. There is something captivating about watching a DJ manipulate a wax disc, a certain ascetic, maybe even a nostalgic appeal to simpler times. The DJ can do things with a record that can’t be done with a CD. Digital turntables can’t recreate the cuts, flares and chirps of a record scratch. At the risk of sounding like a lame elementary school teacher, scratching is very popular in music today.

It’s Bobby Digital vs. Robert Analog. It’s the 12th round and vinyl has compact disc on its back for a ten count. The CD market is on its way out. CD sales have plummeted, but I’m sure a market analysis would reveal that vinyl sales are steady if not rising. Somehow vinyl will still be around even after mp3s have been eclipsed by the next format.

Talking Nekkid – part deux

The second part of Naked Conversations by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble covers best practices and crisis management through blogs, among many things.One of the interesting things I learned when reading this book was to listen to your readers. Comments are free market research that shouldn’t be dismissed or disabled. Comments may leave a person/company feeling exposed because they are no longer in control.

Comments can be unpredictable, negative, nonsensical or offensive; no one wants to deal with the bullets fired directly by net terrorists out to cause problems just because they want to stir the pot and get a rise out of someone. This “griefing” should be ignored, but negative comments should be politely answered and taken as constructive criticism. Taking the audience’s advice lets you know where your blog needs to improve, gives free feedback and market research, and lets you know exactly what they want and expect from your blog.

I wanted to embed this video about blog comments as a humorous portrayal of what life would be like if we made the same inane comments as netizens, but couldn’t get the code from collegehumor.com to work with WordPress.

The government has yet to adapt to the blogosphere. Working for an NIH contractor, I’ve found the Institutes are afraid of negative comments. The government wants to be able to control all aspects of the information they provide, including feedback. I think this hurts their credibility and hinders their outreach. No matter how hard you try, you cannot please everyone; the government should have learned this lesson now that it is going on 230 years. Negative comments are to be expected. If your product is good, and in my case it is information to help people at risk for health complications, then people will come to your defense. I think if NIH allowed people to comment on their material, we would be able to drastically improve the content for hard to reach minorities by producing the information they are looking for. A lot of these groups already feel they are misunderstood and ignored; we could alleviate those feelings by giving these people a way to talk to us. Their comments might say we are doing a great job, or they may say we’ve got it all wrong and need to redo our outreach message.

I don’t think negative comments is only reason government sites don’t allow feedback. Someone needs to be hired and trained to moderate these comments. I think the lack of ability to monitor and approve all the comments made is a one reason some companies, such as the New York Times and the U.S. government, haven’t adopted this new communication tool. They think that this is more time consuming than it actually is, but we all know the government loves to pay people for their time even if it is spent filling out forms and taking smoke breaks.

Listening to the blogosphere also lets you know what people are saying about you on other blogs. This can be done using RSS aggregators, such as the Google Reader, to find mentions of your company – or anything of interest to you. I use the Google Reader to track all web hits on Ohio State football. The results run the gamut from injuries to scouting to fan predictions; the possibilities information tracking are as endless as the Internet itself. As stated before, the comments about your company on the Internet can be used to improve your site, reputation and company. The people talking about you are potential clients; their posts indicate an interest in your product or service. RSS feeds can be used to compile their thoughts and gives you the ability to meet what they are after.

RSS feeds have other benefits as well. RSS technology compiles all of your favorite blogs and sites in one location. Instead of visiting each page to check for new content, you only have to check your RSS aggregator. This makes tracking hundreds of sites easy to do. A quick scan of the reader keeps you up to date with news from around the web.   Anything you no long have an interest in can be removed from your RSS aggregator.  For advertising purposes, it is great if you get a customer to sign up.  Hopefully, the message is not lost because the subscriber asked to receive the notification.

Naked Conversations also says you should not shut down an unsuccessful blog or rename it. As with real life, moving your location loses customers because they might not decide to find your new address. Even people that don’t like your service know your location, so moving forces everyone to relink to your page and build your subscription database back up. Readers will be lost in the transition.

The name of the blog should represent something to do with its contents. For example, I am interested in a variety of things. Most of these things involve digital technology. I also tend to ramble on loudly and sometimes incoherently, hence the title of this blog. When know the contents are going to be some noise about technology.

As with anything, blog posts shouldn’t affect your job. If you are blogging about something that can get you fired, you do so at your own peril. People should know not to publish sensitive data or confidential material. People do lose their jobs if they do not blog wisely.

Halo 3 – A foray in disappointment

Halo 3 [hey-loh three] – noun.

1. hyped finale to the Xbox’s flagship franchise.
2. Bungie’s third installment of the Halo first-person shooter gaming series

adjective

1. to look good without any substance
2. disappointing, mundane
3. overrated

Example: “Lindsey Lohan is so Halo 3.”

I already beat Halo 3. I played through it on the Heroic setting, didn’t die very much and wasn’t excited by it. I can’t even remember the what happened in the last installment because it took three years to produce an even more banal sequel, but experiencing the same feelings of disappointment let me know this was indeed a continuation of Halo 2. I’m starting to think this whole Halo franchise is still riding on the coattails of an amazing original release.

The game play is what disappoints the most. Level design is confusingly bland and painfully repetitive. The short levels of this Halo installment break down like this: run, in a linear fashion, to a switch. Flick the switch and run back to where you started. I guess this is an improvement to the seminal Doom model; in those days you only had to find the switch to finish the level. The innovative level design of Halo 3 makes it so you have to go back to where you started! And I thought I would never have to do a shuttle run again after left my final middle school gym class!

The weapons are the same as always, with a few additions. I’m not going to go into them because you’ve seen them in other games before. I’ve also found you have to achieve certain goals in the game to unlock things, like alternate costume designs in multi-player. What the hell is that? What if I never played online to earn the rank to unlock this? I typically play the game with friends in my living room because Xbox Live! isn’t worth its salt and the people on there aren’t exactly “fun.”

Speaking of idiots, the game AI isn’t quite Hopkins material either. The enemies tend to stand around, giving me the opportunity to melee kill entire squadrons. If only the Germans had been like this on D-Day, the war would have been over after a 15 day pistol-whipping push to Berlin. Master Chief’s support isn’t much better. They shouldn’t be allowed to drive any of the game’s vehicles. A couple of times my driver managed to get stuck next to a tree and stopped moving entirely. I empathize with Ms. Daisy’s plight before she found Morgan Freeman. I’m not entirely sure why this happened, but I suspect some serious section of code was left out of the game. The original Halo had smarter enemies and squad mates.

There has also been the inclusion of power-ups you can hold on to for use during heavy combat. The teaser trailer of Master Chief running into a hail of enemy fire, only to thrown down a shield grendade(!) for protection isn’t nearly as exciting in practice. I think I only used these new power-ups once during the game.

Multi-player is just as blasé as the rest of the game. Boring levels, lousy layout, same weapons as always. I imagine this game will go out with the tide; there are always mediocre FPS games in the making. As of today, I hadn’t a chance to invite people over to play in my living room. My local social network consists very few males, and even fewer with an interest in video games.

On the positive side, the graphics are great and my 360 didn’t brick yet. The lighting effects, water rendering and virtual environments look great on my HDTV. Unfortunately for gamers on a budget, I imagine not owning a HDTV would make the game look exactly like Halo 2.

In summation, Halo 3 has great graphics if you have an HDTV, but a lousy story line and boring level design. Don’t buy this game. You’ll be done with it in less than 10 hours and suffer a severe case of buyer’s remorse. Rent it, if you can find a copy somewhere. I’ll loan you my copy if I believe you’ll return the game in its pristine condition.

Since World of Warcraft is the greatest game of all time, I rate games from one to ten days away from playing WoW. I give Halo 3 three days away from WoW. From now on, I’m only buying first-person shooters for my PC; lesson learned. I should have picked up BioShock or Half Life: Orange Box. Portal looks pretty sweet.

AT&T, you suck and so does your service.

I would like to take this moment to give AT&T the finger. I hope they can see it, because I’m doing it as hard as I can.

Read more about why AT&T thinks they can cancel your account if you talk badly about their service, policies or monopoly.

It also seems Apple has joined AT&T in thinking it rules the world. Apple has decided any third party applications they don’t like will render your iPhone useless! This is the equivalent of Microsoft saying Windows will no longer work if you installed a program that they didn’t produce. What gives?! Why are you hurting your business Mr. Jobs?! Has this deal with AT&T made somehow convinced you that you can do whatever it is you want? Or is it the other way around?

MMO Social Network?

 

My alterna-reality persona doesn’t want to meet you in real life.

There has been an announcement for Massive Multi-player Online Role-playing Game social network site. I think this seems sort of redundant. I’m already connected with my World of Warcraft guildmates on our message board and on Myspace. When I moved to DC, I met the ones that are locals. What do I need to join another social network for? The reason I’m in my guild and not another is because I like the people there. I’ve been in two other guilds and I would never want to meet any of those people. I don’t want to hang out with them, let alone have to interact with them on another level. I’m actually kind of concerned about the addition of the voice chat in the game.

I picked up Halo 3 and started an Xbox Live! account to play my friends. I joined a match with some random people and realized why I canceled my Live account 3 years ago – everyone on Live is a complete jackass that likes to curse and complain that your kill was stolen, lucky or some other excuse as to why they should be better than you. This added “voice interaction” is a actually an updated version of scrawling obscenities anonymously on a bathroom wall.

I can’t wait for all the guildless 14 year olds on WoW to get microphones. There is a reason they aren’t in a group. I play video games with my friends so we can hang out and have some fun. I don’t want to listen to people complain about their lack of skill and tell me I suck.

Myanmar isn’t a Nugety Candybar?

In an effort to stave a just revolution, the oppressive military regime of Myanmar has cut off cellphone and Internet connections because a lot of information was being “leaked” to the outside world on the state of the nation.

I can’t imagine this happening. First of all, I’m addicted to the Internet. I NEED it. Addicts will do some crazy things to get their fix. If Myanmar has a significant population of World of Warcraft junkies, then the military should pack up and apologize before someone gets hurts.

Secondly, this is both brilliant and dastardly. It shows the Internet is mightier than the sword, as the thousands of blogs and grassroots journalists that were spearheading the information campaign in a concerted effort have now been silenced. Will hand operated printing presses make a come back? Are pamphlets the new iPhone?! Will an Asian equivalent to Patrick Henry covertly blog “Give me liberty or give me death!“? I somehow doubt it. I imagine creating a Facebook group for a protest is a lot easier than setting type.

Regardless, viva la resistance!

Thank you for this information, Morgan Webb.