Tag: internet

The Different Types of People There Are on the Internet

Social Media Cafe

Yesterday afternoon I was waiting for my date and she was running really late. But to be honest she did text me to say she was running very late although I was already at the location we said we would meet. It didn’t matter because I was laughing my ass off (yep ROFL) reading my kindle while sipping some very nice teas (guess where I was).

The thing I was reading was my personal Read it later list…was The Different Types of People There Are on the Internet.

I did tweet it from my kindle but Amazon in there wisdom doesn’t support self publishing very well, so you got some quotes but not much else.

This one had me in stiches…

People Who Are Social Media Evangelists

With their dogmatic approach and cries of ‘Social media, therefore world peace’, the self-proclaimed evangelist is deft at confusing causation and correlation to squash a complicated world into their Twitter-tinted narrative.

Where religious fervor was harnessed to defend the church from barbarians, the social media expert rabidly protects their beliefs, as they plunge their faith into herd mentality safe in the knowledge that they are part of a greater good that will heal the world and keep them safe.

Despite claiming to espouse groupthink and the importance of social diversity, the social media evangelist will only speak to other like-minded scholars of the internet.

Pragmatism and empiricism are tools of the crusty old world order. The social media expert is a master of narrativisation and the extrapolation of the anecdotal or rare event into a universal law.

Like 1984’s Big Brother, the social media lover is a deft switcher of allegiances in the interest of the common good of social media. Writers and thinkers will be held up as messiahs before being cast off as pariahs for doing so much as questioning the accepted truths of social media.

Detractors are swatted aside with a derisory allegation that they ‘just don’t get it’, as the social media expert truly believes that reading Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody elevates them to an ivory tower of intellectualism that is unscalable by any other human being, regardless of their superior qualifications or proven track record.

There is an irony in almost all the pillars of truth accepted by the social media evangelist. Yet like the Stoics before them, they hold steadfast, as there is nothing you can subject evangelists to that will cause them to question their unwavering faith.

Most importantly, the social media evangelist will spray empty aphorisms and appropriated language from economics and social sciences all over their feeds and blog posts in an attempt to intellectualise the fact that they just like pratting about on Twitter and Facebook all day.

via James Seddon

The reason why this had me in hysterics was because we all know people like this. Heck I’ve been known to say "… just don’t get it" quite a few times from my ivory tower of intellectualism (*smile*). If your slightly offended by this description, theres this version which is pretty much the same but more subtle.

Its also worth mentioning this is all a internet take (remix) of what was written on the stranger. I’ve been researching the stranger for #geekstalksexy part 3, after my exwife suggested I go check it out.

The best advert of 2010: Old Spice vs Thinkbox

Interesting the differences and between the number one voted adverts of 2010 online and offline. For me the Old Spice advert was extremely clever and certainly does something very different while the Thinkbox advert is what you would expect from TV advertising, fun, entertaining but thats it. Of course I’ve also not included the follow up ads for old spice which made the whole thing so much more interesting for us all.

The best of the web advertising, The Old Spice Advert

The best of TV advertising, Every home needs a harvey Advert

The TV tracker

Tioti tv tracker

via Paul Pod at Tapeitofftheinternet

In the last blog post about SharetheTV and Trakt.TV, I mentioned the need for a way to track TV episodes which your social network were on. It got me thinking what ever happened to the promising startups of the time including tape it off the internet (tioti.com) and sharetv.

Back then, all these services relied on you putting all the data in and to be fair it might have been a little early. Now you got serious processing power under the TV from boxes like XBMC, Boxee, GoogleTV, etc. Setting up a TV tracker site would be pretty easy now. Almost all the boxes now talk to the Internet and there’s APIs a plenty now.

It is surprising no ones really pushed the idea yet. Like the prototype above shows, it doesn’t take much to get it right.

Know your meme public message broadcast

I love know your meme and have been catching up with the episodes I’ve missed for a while but I love this almost like a public service message episode which is attached to downfall.

In response to Constantin’s attempted takedown of these satirical videos, the Institute for Internet Studies offers this helpful public service announcement explaining how to dispute a wrongful copyright claim on the grounds of Fair Use.

Google tv redefining TV? Not quite…

I totally missed Google TV and Google IO while I was in Hospital. It was one of the first things I asked for when I woke up, sad but true.

So my manager gave me a cut out about the Google IO event, which seemed to focus on Google TV and the next Android (still exploring). So generally if I was boxee I would be alarmed but not too concerned. They could really take advantage of the standards google’s using to power the remote for example. But lets not forget Google have a massive influence and moving into there area has to be worrysome. Now lets get this all in perspective.

This isn’t about Apple vs Google, its about the open internet vs the closed world of the TV. TV has been tightly controlled for years by the TV producers, etc. Now that wall is falling down.

Other people have written about the hardware and software so I won’t do that, instead I’ll look at the concept.

For a while now the BBC and its content producer partners have been working on spec for the next generation of Television viewing aka Project Canvas. When I first saw this I was surprised because it really lacked the internet and openness. I walked away thinking this is what a broadcast company would put out thinking about the notion of convergence of the web and tv. However this really did my head in because all the clever internet ideas of what Canvas could have been have been picked up Google and the google TV. Which is a shame for the BBC.

However, the weird thing is that although Canvas is what a broadcast company would do. GoogleTV is what a internet company would do if they wanted to converge the TV with the internet. However just thinking about the UK market for now, freeview has a major following and I can’t really see Google TV make much of a dent in that right now. I might be wrong but Google TV is very much a American thing and google haven’t really thought about the other markets as of yet.

So back to Google TV, there partners include Intel, logitech, Sony, bestbuy, dish network, Adobe, plus others. Note none of these are actually Content creaters/producers except of course Sony. The Sony side there talking to seem to be the engineering side rather than the content producing side. There was no deals or even talk about the content side of Sony. There will be a massive push in the states from Best Buy but details about the rest of the world is almost non exist.

Generally GoogleTV is once again interesting (and comes up open trumps here) because it can browse any website instead of the Canvas/XBMC/AppleTV model which is apps or scripts which allow you to access certain sites. There is a real opportunity to make TV aware sites like Youtube TV which was also announced at Google IO 2010. I’m actually very surprised no one has yet wrote a XBMC or Boxee script to take advantage of the new Youtube TV format. Generally this means your site can be viewed by millions and millions of people on there TV while they watch something else. But I wonder with no content producers on board will the likes of Hulu block GoogleTV or provide a crippled experience? In a ideal world I guess Google would suggest that everyone should use YouTube to deliver there content to the world, like channel 4 now do. And thats the killer thing, for everyone who uses youtube and other video sharing sites to distribute there media. Google are tackling the TV problem from both directions. Hardware, software and altering the code of the web.

Its opens the door to all the user generated media out there. TV producers must be somewhat rocking in there seats with a little bit of fear. Google have opened the door to the open web and have the might to keep it open. The problem is the price.

No one knows the price yet but the hardware is going to cost at least £50 or $50 which means its not going to get the penetration it requires. Its mainly going to be a glorified Tivo unless they can get the price down. Those who can afford the box have already got something like a Apple TV, XBMC or Boxee running. It won’t take much for them to adopt the open standards and emulate exactly what a google tv box does.

Theres also a problem when it comes to the social aspect of (or identity of the people watching) TV. Google TV already picks up the bluetooth of the phones of the people watching the TV (in the same room) but is that what you really want? Interestingly in the Google TV primer theres some hints of the problem.

Here are a few tips for those who haven’t designed for TV before. In a television environment, you must:

  • Understand that content is king.
  • Get users to the content as quickly and easily as possible.
  • Don’t interrupt when users are watching TV. Instead, make the viewing experience better.
  • Respect the living room context.
  • Think about what users will and won’t want to do when viewing TV with their family and friends.
  • Remember that TV is social.
  • Consider how groups might use your website or application.

Offer ways for individuals to use your site or apps in social settings.

  • Learn the pros and cons of TV screens and audio.
  • TV screens are wider and colors look different.
  • Text must be readable from a distance.
  • Sound is now a viable interface element.
  • Make it easy.
  • Offer simple choices and make actions obvious and easy to select.
  • Provide navigation that is simple enough for a remote control.

Thats only the start of the problem. Its great what Google has done but I can’t imagine what developed applications made for a phone will be like on a TV. Its goes back a little bit to what I said about the Apple TV.

The Living room is a funny place filled with different people and different exceptions. Google really needs to reach out to the content creation community and listen to what they say. Right now Google TV looks like something a Internet company who don’t fully get the dynamics of the TV/living room would build. Fantastic they have taken the standards route and pushed openness as far as it can go into the living room but now its time to consider the content and the experience. Or at least get some partners who do understand the content and experience. If they don’t I can see the Hulu problem growing and it may cause even more paywalls like the current newspaper situation.

A Bill of Rights in Cyberspace

Jeff Jarvis from Buzzmachine has published a bill of rights for cyberspace. To be honest I actually quite like them, I’m not sure about cyberspace. I’d also love to hear Jonathan Zittrain’s view on the last right, I think its ok but could be better written.

point and click for cyberspace

A Bill of Rights in Cyberspace

I. We have the right to connect.

This is a preamble and precondition to the American First Amendment: before we can speak, we must be able to connect. Hillary Clinton defines the freedom to connect as “the idea that governments should not prevent people from connecting to the internet, to websites, or to each other.” It is this principle that also informs discussion of net neutrality.

II. We have the right to speak.

No one may abridge our freedom of speech. We acknowledge the limitations on freedom of speech but they must defined as narrowly as possible, lest we find ourselves operating under a lowest common denominator of offense. Freedom is our default.

III. We have the right to speak in our languages.

The English language’s domination of the internet has faded as more languages and alphabets have joined the net, which is to be celebrated. But Ethan Zuckerman also cautions that in our polyglot internet, we will want to build bridges across languages. We will want to speak in our own languages but also speak with others’.

IV. We have the right to assemble.

In the American Bill of Rights, the right to assemble is listed separately from the right to speak. The internet enables us to organize without organizations and collaborate and that now threatens repressive regimes as much as speech.

V. We have the right to act.

These first articles are a thread: We connect to speak and speak to assemble and assemble to act and that is how we can and will change the world, not just putting forth grievances but creating the means to fix them. That is what threatens the institutions that would stop us.

VI. We have the right to control our data.

You should have access to data about you. And what’s yours is yours. We want the internet to operate on a principle of portability, so your information and creations cannot be held prisoner by a service or government and so you retain control. But keep in mind that when control is given to one, it is taken from another; in those details lurk devils. This principle thus speaks to copyright and its laws, which set the definitions and limits of control or creation. This principle also raises questions about whether the wisdom of the crowd belongs to the crowd.

VII. We have the right to our own identity.

This is not as simple as a name. Our identity online is made up of our names, addresses, speech, creations, actions, connections. Note also that in repressive regimes, maintaining anonymity — hiding one’s identity — is a necessity; thus anonymity, with all its faults and baggage and trolls, must also be protected online to protect the dissenter and the whistleblower. Note finally that these two articles — controlling our data and our identities — make up the right to privacy, which is really a matter of control.

VIII. What is public is a public good.

The internet is public; indeed, it is a public place (rather than a medium). In the rush to protect privacy, we must beware the dangers of restricting the definition of public. What’s public is owned by the public. Making the public private or secret serves the corrupt and tyrannical.

IX. The internet shall be built and operated openly.

The internet must continue to be built and operated to open standards. It must not be taken over or controlled by any company or government. It must not be taxed. It is the internet’s openness that gives it its freedom. It is this freedom that defines the internet.

The best and worst of Hotel Wifi

Lloyd hotel from the north view

Hotelchatter posted up a list of its best and worst wifi enabled hotels. Its mainly American centric but there is a international version here.

Number one in the international version is the Lloydhotel.

Amsterdam: Lloyd Hotel. Free WiFi. Worked so fast in this large hotel. So fast we downloaded an entire season of The Office on iTunes within two hours.

Even 2 years ago it was flipping fast and effect-less. Every 4 rooms shared a wireless point and there was more that enough through-out the rest of the hotel to get wireless outside, the lobby and beyond. I think the only place you don't get wireless is in the lifts. I also got upgraded to the D level penthouse on the weekend, so I'm a little bias generally towards a simply awesome hotel.

Since joining Backstage, I've spent a lot of time in hotels and always try to pick hotels with Free Wireless. Usually the problem I get is that the wireless is in the lobby not the rooms or its not actually free its pay wireless by someone like Tmobile, BT or much worst Eurospot. The other issue is that most hotels don't care or have no one who actually knows the difference. When trying to book a hotel in Newcastle I phoned up about 12 hotels and at one point had to describe the BT open zone, Tmobile logos over the phone because the reception couldn't tell the difference between free and pay wifi. No lie!

So yes the situation in the UK is pretty dire once you get out there. I'm certainly thinking about submitting some of the hotels I've been to on the international hotelchatter site. I remember a hotel I stayed in during my last trip to Manchester, it costs equivalent to 10p a minute for internet access through a wired connection (there were no bundles or offers available) I believe it was operated by swissport or europort. And thats the biggest problem, you can read the website and find it does have internet access but what kind is unknown by even the staff or management.

On the upside, GNER trains have wireless through-out the trains and although it costs about 10 pounds for 24hours, its certainly worth it for a 6 hour journey to Scotland. Recently I heard the Cloud have covered the City of London (business square mile) in rich wifi. I don't think its free but at 11.99 per month for unlimited (yes what does unlimited really mean) data its not a bad deal if your wanting wireless in the UK. The cloud has also been pretty good about inter-operating with BT and I think you can even interop with Tmobile hotspots. There's no douht where ever you go now in London at least, there is some kind of wireless and its usually operated by one of the big 3. Sometimes I do see Orange hotspots, but I can't seem to get Orange to just add it to my existing mobile bill.

Generally its all a big mess but soon I'm sure like the Marriot adverts I keep seeing, hotels will wise up and start highlighting the fact they have free wireless (although I'm sure it will just get added into the room bill).

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The rate of change in education?

Rates of Change

I found this via the are you paying attention blog. The person behind this has a point, and sums it up so well with this beautifully crafted graph.

It doesn’t matter how much <Insert School District Here> grows (or plans to grow) over 5 years if everything outside that school is changing 10x that speed.

2006: My Tasks With Computer
1. Instant messaging (In Game & Out of Game)
2. Audio (Music, Streaming Audio, Podcasts, Conferencing)
3. Gaming
4. RSS Feeds
5. Web Publishing
6. Word Processing
7. Email

1996: My Tasks With Computer
1. Email
2. Word Processing

Most schools ban instant messaging, audio, gaming, web publishing, and email….leaving computers for a) word processing/productivity and b) research. Roughly the same stuff we were doing in 1996.

Although I understand the reasoning behind banning the other activities at schools, it certainly doesn't help encourage young adults into courses around computers and the internet. Although I guess most young adults will be drawn into the industry and further education through there own home computer setup (hopefully). Lets face it if computers were just about email and word processing most of us would have gone elsewhere to express ourselves. Where's the social aspect of computers? Where's the self expression?
They maybe young but were stifling their creativity surely?

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The current state of Tape it off the internet.com

So TechCrunch UK did a post covering Tape it off the internet. The review was interesting but I have problems with Tape it off the internet in its current state.

So first up adding a new show is simply a nightmare. I wanted to add the new BBC conspirancy Drama, The state within. But I couldn't find where you do this. Sheila also had this problem but she actual found it once. Now it seems the option is gone for now. My next problem is the RSS Bit Torrent support. It does work but I don't want to see the wrong episodes. Yes if you use your brain you can work out the correct one, but ideally tioti would automaticlly work out whats correct and whats not. My Bit torrent client does this with a simple Regular Expression, it would be great if tioti would also do this.

My other concerns are centred around the user interface. Its using so much ajax calls it actually becomes very ignoying. Unlike Flickr, it seems you have to do one thing then wait for the little red staus box to change before doing anything else. I'm sorry but if your going to use Ajax, use it so I can change many things at once. You might as well use page reloads if your not going to allow multiples changes at once. The user experience of Tioti is also really weird. It doesn't seem to make sense. For example on the episode guide why can't I also change the rating for the show here and maybe start a discussion? I think the episode guide should also be the centre of the experience. From there you should be able to download, discuss and rate a show. Then click on a season and get simlar behaviors. How cool would it be to click one button and get a rss feed for all the previous shows? It would certainly help people catch up.

I've posted up some screenshots with comments to cover the rest of my complaints regarding the UI

The social side of things is also bizarre. You can do the usual things like share a show with a friend and get into groups and discuss the show (like your going to do that in the closed walls of tioti instead of the real fan bases like lostcast). But you can't share episodes with friends, which should be fine because your only sharing the torrent file or link to the torrent file. Which is also where things fall down. See Tioti will recommend torrents but what I'm actually interested in is torrents which my friends have downloaded or are currently downloading.

So my recommedation for Tioti is a plugin for Azureus like how last.fm works now. I mean if you can get a plugin for most of the top torrent programmes then you'll be away. I mean imagine if Sheila started seeding episode 7 of Heroes and I'm on her friends and heroes list. Then Tioti could alert me to that fact and link me to the same torrent file. This fits in with the whole Azureus 2.5 share with a friend option and Tribler social p2p system.

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