Six Feet Under a Data Centre: Let’s talk about Death and Legacy online

Six Feet Under a Data Centre: Let's talk about Death and Legacy online

I have great news I will be at Republica in Berlin this year. Its such a great festival/conference and vast in size. But better still is the subjects covered.

Last year I went to 2 great sessions about death and legacy by Linn Friedrichs, and then Savena Surana and Arda Awais from Identity 2.0. Last year Linn gave this talk and the Identity 2.0 women this one.

Framework laptop and Android phone in the Vanitas style
Framework laptop and Android phone in the Vanitas style (generated)

I enjoyed both and felt like they needed to be introduced, so I connected them,  along my own interests in digital legacy. Now we’re on a stage together talking digital legacy a super important subject which doesn’t get enough attention.

How do we die online? Innovation, hypes, and glitches – the shifting tech landscape chips away at the taboos surrounding death and reshapes how we address loss and legacy. Join a candid conversation about digital death care, forever-promises, AI ‘seances’ and a new dimension of digital rights.

See you all there!

Youtube isn’t the place it use to be?

Will smith is a youtuber now

I had the absolute joy of attending the 12th Thinking Digital Conference. One of the speakers Chris Stokel-Walker so called YouTube Investigator, raised a number of interesting points about the evolution of youtube from its history as place for cat vdeos, pirate videos and silly antics; to a place with 1.9 billion monthly views, algorithmic bias and massive hollywood stars (Will Smith is on Youtube, bloody heck?!)

Chris made the point “youtube grew up faster than hollywood” alongside the fact its one of the most desirable career paths for young people currently and the vast amount of video being uploaded is unthinkable now. 4 months of youtube uploads will have you watching till the year 8096!

Youtube litteracy

He’s right, our media literacy around this all is seriously lacking, and its very clear while reading theverge piece I recently read.

Updated Sunday 19th May…

Weirdly enough I was reading a piece titled The Instagram Aesthetic Is Over, which I felt was very fitting. As it almost felt like while Youtube was becoming less authetic, Instagram with its super glossy unnatrual filter was shaking that off. They seem to be going in opposite directions?

“Everyone is trying to be more authentic,” says Lexie Carbone, a content marketer at Later, a social-media marketing firm. “People are writing longer captions. They are sharing how much money they make … I think it all goes back to, you don’t want to see a girl standing in front of a wall that you’ve seen thousands of times. We need something new.”

James Nord, the CEO of Fohr, an influencer-management platform, says he sees this shift play out in his clients’ numbers every day. “What worked for people before doesn’t work anymore,” he says. “For the first time, influencers are coming up against this problem of, How do I continue to grow as tastes change?” A year ago, an influencer could post a shot with manicured hands on a coffee cup and rake in the likes—but now, people will unfollow. According to Fohr, 60 percent of influencers in his network with more than 100,000 followers are actually losing followers month over month. “It’s pretty staggering,” he says. “If you’re an influencer [in 2019] who is still standing in front of Instagram walls, it’s hard.”

One BBC for everybody

https://twitter.com/scottygb/status/719875893716500480

 

Interesting tweet from Buzzfeed who were talking to Netflix’s CEO, while talking about the BBC and Top Gear.

Hastings: The BBC has been a pioneer. They have been the first to invest in technology like the iPlayer, which has done a great job. … [In the future] they’ll have to get rid of the iPlayer branding. It should just be the BBC.

What comes to my mind…?

In writing, you must kill your darlings.”

Well that, Chris’s post and the many conversations I have had over the last 5 years.

How to make an impact online with myself

https://soundcloud.com/krishnade/building-your-personal-profile-online

Just before Thinking Digital Manchester, myself and Mari did a workshop on increasing your personal impact. I was interviewed by Krishna for Sage (The major sponsor of Thinking Digital)

You can hear the whole interview above, soundcloud and of course on the Sage blog. The interview includes…

  • A debate about authenticity and what I feel it means
  • How I manage what I post and share online
  • How to become comfortable with your online profile
  • Perceptive media and what to expect in the future
  • How I decide where to put my energy online
  • What I call success…
  • What I would do differently if I was to start today.

Its a nice interview and thanks to Krishna for being so lovely. Of course Sage for the opportunity.

Avoiding a Tantrum over online dating

Everyone does it, yes even you and me!

You send off a message to someone of interest be that person a potential date, partner or even spouse. Then before they can respond you are cursing the air and everything. Why have they not responded, surely they must have seen the message? Maybe they are ignoring you or too busy doing what? Suddenly the mind starts to wonder…

In online dating this can be pretty bad as Dating site reviews points out in Avoiding an Inner Tantrum

a man looked at his phone, then sighed loudly. “I can’t believe I haven’t gotten a response yet,” he complained to his companion. “I texted her ten minutes ago.”
“Maybe she’s in another room and hasn’t read it yet,” offered the companion.

The man scoffed. “What is this, the eighteenth century? But no, she’s read it, the phone tells me that it was seen. The question wasn’t that difficult. I can’t believe she’d just ignore me. She does this all the time, too. In fact, last time -” He cut off in mid-sentence as his phone chimed. “There!” he exclaimed. “She says she was in her car and couldn’t text while driving.” He and his companion were silent. Finally, the man spoke. “At least she had a good reason,” he said.

If you think the man was being bratty and boorish, you’re not alone. However, we’re all guilty of a little of that behavior, especially when it comes to waiting for responses to first-contact emails. When we send off a message – particularly to someone we’re interested in – it’s not uncommon to sit there, drumming our metaphorical (or literal) fingers, hoping we’ll get an answer immediately.

I have witnessed this behavior in myself in the past and many times in other people including ex-girlfriends (no names).

When Northern Lass 32, wrote the piece which first got me writing, I could hear frustration but also a bit of inner tantrum forming (hey we’ve all been there). Even if you read some of the data about the differences in replies women and men get on online dating you can sense a little bit of inner tension. Everyone is different and this seems like a good use of gossip or anonymous blogging (if there is such a thing now?) Let off a little bit of steam.

As I started out saying, everyone gets them and but its really good to take note of when your starting to boil inside and ask almost unreasonable requests of someone else.

I generally think everyone is super busy, too busy to reply to my message, email or tweet. Actually one of the beautiful things about twitter at the start was the ability to reply to a tweet at your own leisure rather than a instant message on someone elses clock. Now if you reply to a tweet days later, people wonder what the hell your doing or even what you’ve been doing in the meanwhile? (oh how the mind wonders…)

With online dating, your contacting someone who might not be interested, just got into another relationship, just went on holiday, going on holiday, just had someone in their family die, just been admitted into hospital, moved country, lost there phone, had a broken internet router or any number of other things. Some of these might sound silly, but I can tell you for a fact they have all been used as excuses for why women haven’t got back to me.

What is a Catfish?

Catfish doc

A few people recently have asked me,

What is a Catfish?

Well urban dictionary says

A catfish is someone who pretends to be someone they’re not using Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances. For example…

Did you hear how Dave got totally catfished last month?! The fox he thought he was talking to turned out to be a pervy guy from San Diego!

I was really falling for that gorgeous gal on Facebook, but she turned out to be a catfish

So catfishing is…

The phenomenon of internet predators that fabricate online identities and entire social circles to trick people into emotional/romantic relationships (over a long period of time).

Possible motivations: revenge, loneliness, curiosity, boredom

The term catfishing was inspired by the 2010 documentary “Catfish.”

Gwen was worried that her online boyfriend was a phoney after she saw a TV program about Catfishing.
Its a newish phenomena but has a history in the way some rather disturbed humans deal with new communication technology.

Lets look at the Catfishing of our twitter/dating acquittance Claire Travis Smith and many other woman, as a example… in the hoaxer who breaks womens hearts.

The name of Amy Palmer has been changed, too. She may not deserve a covering identity, another one; even so, after discussion with psychologists and with editors at the Observer it was agreed that this extensive, energetic fraud could only have been conducted by a profoundly disturbed person. When I presented the evidence gathered to an investigative psychologist, Dr Keith Ashcroft, he suggested “the temporary relief of boredom” as one of the hoaxer’s motivations. He also introduced me to the psychologists’ term “duping delight”. Dr Ashcroft explained: “Essentially a thrill derived from having victims being intensely controlled and manipulated by carefully formulated deceptions. This is often the modus operandi of a psychopath.”

Catfish = Psychopath, maybe? I usually think of them as people with problems who’s self confidence might be quite low.

Its important to note, most Catfishers do not do it for money. So there quite different from spammers or scammers, although the process of convincing the mark/victim can be very similar to start. Anyone can fall for it, not just women but men too…Its worth mentioning on top of all this, MTV have a series using the same guys behind the 2010 documentary.

The show is your typical MTV stuff but when your watching you think “nahhh not me“, well let me tell you its easily done and once they got you, they got you good.

I have been lucky to avoid them to date but its worth following rule number 7 in dawn porters guide to dating.

7. Get real – and get real early. Don’t fall for the spell of email and text – feeling close online says nothing about whether you’re compatible in real life. So talk on the phone and meet up as soon as you possibly can.

As someone once said, if it seems to good to be true, it probably is… Now I’m waiting for the 419 eater for catfishers. Maybe it should be called Dogfishing or something like that?

Panaroma barely scratches the surface

match.com - Make Love Happen

If there is something I would like to see regulated in some way, it would be online dating…

Panorama exposes the tricks of the UK’s online dating industry, worth millions of pounds a year. Reporter Fiona Walker investigates how some unscrupulous dating websites are preying on those looking for love and searching for their perfect partner. She reveals a world where millions of photos and private details are taken from social media sites without people’s consent and reused to set up fake profiles of imaginary potential partners to tempt the lovelorn. Celebrities, politicians and even children are among those whose personal information has been targeted. Whistleblowers reveal how they create fake profiles and adopt multiple personas to reel in those looking for love – all to boost profits.

And its about time….! Tainted Love: Secrets of the Dating Game (on BBC iplayer for 1 year)

BBC News and Panaroma did good but you’ve only just scratched the surface…

How about the bogus matching claims, The Major private data sharing including HIV and STD Statuses of Customers, The crazy amount of trolling on dating sites, The nasty online scams which come around all the time, Warning users that some members might actually be murders,  the catfishers and finally something which is too wrong I can’t even bring myself to describe how and what it is… 🙁

Once again… I say NEVER pay for online dating because these techniques are too common in the murky dark world of paid online dating…

Dawn’s guide to the odds of online dating

Well you can’t knock Channel4 for their number crunching, Matt Parker (stand up maths guy) sits with Dawn O’Porter and explains the odds of a decent match to Dawn. Something the Year of Making Love never really explored and got slated for by myself and others.

I’ve been thinking if online dating may be passing its prime as it passes into the mainstream myself. But its hard to get a grip due the lack of data out there. Dawn’s 1000 isn’t bad but you really need a much bigger sample than 1000 to really get a sense of whats happening out there.

Anyway in a previous episode Dawn had a list of do’s and don’t for online dating… I think most of them are similar or taken from Susan Quilliam (relationship psychologist) tips… Here’s the points

1. Be ready to date. If you’re not over a previous relationship or anxious and demotivated about going online, you’ll self-sabotage. Wait until you’re emotionally available, confident in yourself, ready to put in time and energy.

Absolutely… When I first got divorced I thought I was ready to push myself out there but in actual fact I was too early. Luckily the woman I met were nice enough to point this out to me.

2. Decide what you want first. The site you use, your profile and photo all need to be chosen to suit the partner and partnership you’re looking for. So before you ever go online, think carefully through your wants, needs, deal breakers.

Yes not all sites are the same, some are known for certain types of people and so you need to think long and hard or at least try a few before going forward. Its no good trying match.com and saying well it doesn’t bloody work. I would also add don’t be put off by free online dating. In actual fact I would swear by it for many reasons including that fear to do everything in one month before the credit runs out .

3. Ignore the numbers. No site – however huge their database – will bring you results if the site users aren’t your kind of people. Plus, the ones with big memberships can overwhelm you with numbers. Instead, trawl sites to find one you personally identify with.

Indeed, Match and e-harmony are well known and over subscribed with the kind of people who (I’m assume if your reading this blog) you don’t really want to date too often. Niche dating sites like Guardian Soulmates can be pointless because everyone signs up anyway. Think uniform dating advert.

4. Don’t sell – invite. Writing your profile shouldn’t be a marketing exercise. In fact, research suggests the more you major on “I”, the more you’ll actively put people off. Instead, welcome in prospective partners by writing warmly about the relationship you’d love to have with them.

Although this might be true, I would fight back with to sell is human. You can tell a lot by what someone wants and what they are selling about themselves. Inviting is good but sometimes you need to stand out from the crowd.

5. Choose a welcoming photo not a mug shot. Get a friend or a professional photographer to take hundreds of photos of you smiling and laughing. Then choose the ones where you look the most relaxed and approachable.

Absolutely… I’ve already talked to death about pictures never to use… It still shocks me the kind of thing people put in there dating pictures… For example I was scrolling through my ok cupid locals and was blown away by a woman putting/swallowing a beer bottle. Ok its unique but boy oh boy why oh why would you ever think it was the kind of thing you should use for your dating picture? And don’t get me started on white chicks and gang signs.

6. Don’t go shopping. Studies suggest that, when faced with too much choice in partners, we make decisions on irrelevant criteria, such as whether someone wears glasses. Instead, decide who to approach based on whether their profile lets you imagine having a good relationship with them.

This is something me and imran are interested in… The digitalisation of dating/mating and whats it doing to our brains our habits and the way we see each other. I really need to sit down and read dating in the age of algorithms. I’m sure Sherry Turkle author of alone together and Barry Schwartz author of the paradox of choice would have plenty to say about this whole thing too.

7. Get real – and get real early. Don’t fall for the spell of email and text – feeling close online says nothing about whether you’re compatible in real life. So talk on the phone and meet up as soon as you possibly can.

Ah yes the whole thing about certain people are far too comfortable with chatting from a far. Sites such as Howaboutwe.com are fighting back trying to urge members outside to meet each other but generally if your person you’ve been chatting to for a long (2 months) while refuses to meetup. Think Catfish?

8. Tell the truth. Most folk on dating sites are genuinely looking for love – if they’re not, they go to ‘hook-up’ or ‘married’ sites. But many people are also insecure, so tweak age, height or weight to make a good impression. It works best to be truthful – anything else creates a false start to love.

Yes the truth is the best place to work from. Yes I know lots people lie about there height, weight, job, etc but if you have that much of a problem about it. Just don’t put it down.

9. Don’t expect instant success. In everyday life you may meet hundreds of people at work, socially or by chance before you find someone to date. The same’s true online – it can take months of regular searching before you find a match.

Yes chill out, as I said to Northern Lass 32 from the Guardian

Chill and take your time, stop rushing and just let things wash over you as interesting experiences

It takes time and you should enjoy the time you have while single.

10. Ignore bad behaviour. Because online dating’s so new, we haven’t worked out the courtesies: for example, many people don’t respond to approaches made to them. So if you get snubbed, rejected or dumped, ignore it; not your fault.

I agree, move on. The rules are not set and even if they are for a small community. There is floods of newbies coming into the online dating industry. Some of them don’t understand how the internet works, some don’t understand socially what works. Just brush it off and move on…

11. Get support. Find a dating buddy, someone to help you through the tricky stages, support you through disappointment, celebrate your success.

A dating buddy? Hummmm not so sure about this one. Me personally think talk about your experiences with friends and family. Yes they will laugh at first but after a while they will become supportive in some way. Also think this isn’t a zero sum game. If you make a great new friend, you win. If you meet someone you never want to see again, well you kinda of win again. Just look at it all as experiences

As usual I found a myself with a request for my video via youtube’s system, should have used the same technique as I used on this video

Dear Mr Forrester,

Your video “dating data based on 1000 people“, may have content that is owned or licensed by Channel 4, but it’s still available on YouTube! In some cases, it may be blocked, or ads may appear next to it.

This claim is not penalizing your account status. Visit your Copyright Notice page for more details on the policy applied to your video.

Sincerely,
– The YouTube Team

Hopefully the advertising will be enough…

Build for asynchronous communication

When I was at University studying Interaction design many moons ago. We once had a live brief set by Mitsubishi. This was believe it or not in the hay days of 2.5g aka GPRS and if your lucky EDGE. However the promise of these mobile technologies was the ability to be online all the time.

I wrote my dissertation about the promise of 3G and how it ultimately was hype which the consumer would be let down by. Watching 4G you could pretty much replace the number…

but what I’m more concerned about is the amount of apps which assume your online always.

This seems insane specially with the amount of tablets which only have Wifi & Bluetooth connections.

A couple which have really bugged me recently…

Instapaper
I like Instapaper specially when they introduced the option to send your list to the Kindle for free. In fact I dropped Pocket/Read it later soon after that. Heck I’m even a subscriber paying my 1 pound per month for the service. The instapaper apps on Android mainly are all good but when saving a post out of my Google Reader to Instapaper its failed due to not being online! This is frankly stupid. A few I have tried include PaperMill (my current Instapaper reader), Everpaper, Papermache and many more. So bad, I actually have the one app (send to instapaper) which does it correctly installed along side Papermill.

From the developer of send to instapaper,

Save a URL to Instapaper to read later even if your phone is not currently connected to Internet.

I wrote this app because all available Instapaper clients on the Market fail to work in offline mode. When I decide to bookmark a URL in Instapaper these apps make a request to Instapaper server right away. They of course fail if I am not on the Internet, a common situation when I am reading on my phone in Prague subway on my way to work.

This “Send To Instapaper” app is intelligent enough to know the phone is not online. It would store user requests in a little database and submit them to Instapaper.com later when the phone gets connected to Internet.

And the developer is so right… Its not hard it just takes a little thinking about the user scenarios.

I wish it was just a one off but its not and the developers should be frankly ashamed.

Creating a site for a vivid lounge

New Vivid site

I had it with bloody Facebook… But what I can’t understand is why on earth some businesses rely on it for there business.

Vivid Lounge is one such business.

They do have the domain name vividloungeuk.com (thankfully) but as you can see nothing is there. They do on the other hand have a Facebook page with regular updates. Now I understand running a business is a lot of hard work this is why I decided to do something about it by offering them a website to replace the blank page.

I decided to use Squarespace originally because its pretty quick, solid, smart and I heard good things about it. Using pictures and content from the Facebook I was quickly able to create something useful. Unfortunately Squarespace doesn’t allow you share the site unless you pay the minimum fee. As usual my tweets are copied into facebook and Oli said something quite useful.

I debated doing this for places I likes that didn’t have functional websites. This is too true http://theoatmeal.com/comics/restaurant_website

Then a recent follow up he mentioned http://en.wordpress.com/restaurants/. WordPress for restaurants.

It looks ideal but maybe too complex for vivid lounge at this moment but could be useful for future plans