29 posts tagged Tech

I went to Webster Hall last night to see Röyksopp.  The show was great, it sold out and then some.  Since you couldn’t move (or see) from the floor, I chose the view from the balcony.  There, I noticed something rather peculiar.  At any given moment there was a minimum of 30 people on the floor with their phones or cameras in the air, taking photographs and filming.  No exaggeration, 30+ people at all times.  This isn’t anything new.  People are doing this all the time.

I personally prefer to enjoy a show with my eyes and ears, not through the lens of my camera or phone.  I’ll snap a photo here and there if I have a good shot and the lighting is just right, but that’s about it.  I think it’s a bit weird that people choose to wave their phone in the air for the entire duration of a show, but it’s just going to get weirder.

There are two types of people who are taking pictures and video during shows: those who post immediately to Facebook or Twitter, and those who take their shots home, edit them, and upload them to a portfolio or SNS of choice.  I’d venture to say that the first category of uploaders is growing faster.  People want to be the first to break news, share with their friends, and be the premiere source of a live story.  Everyone wants their time to shine and provide that golden nugget of information.

There’s a lot of room for building applications around live events.  Hot Potato is doing this right now, enabling people to converse and create metadata on a specific topic in real-time.  There’s plenty of room to explore and there’s a definite need for these services.  We’ve seen successful executions of this such as CNN and Facebook Connect’s coverage of the Presidential Inauguration, but there are very few tools that empower individuals to create their own streams around an event of their choice.  Tumblr is especially useful for this (spend some time in the tag channels and you’ll be amazed by all the quality content you find).  I can take a video of a performance with my iPhone, tag it, and immediately post it to my blog in a matter of seconds.  More importantly, it’s immediately discoverable in everyone’s dashboard.  It’s the platforms which empower people to create and disseminate information they’re interested in that are most influential.

The mobile service Hot Potato launched at the RealTime Crunchup earlier today.  My first impression is that it’s a local and mobile version of Facebook Connect.  This is a good thing.  Similar to the way Facebook lets friends and strangers communicate around live events on major networks (e.g. Presidential Inauguration on CNN), Hot Potato enables people to communicate in real-time around local events (e.g. concerts, parties, etc.).

It’s another iteration of local applications. You can check into places just like you would on Foursquare, but the features don’t just stop there.  You can write messages, post photos, and communicate with fellow attendees.  Essentially, it behaves like a multimedia mobile chatroom.  TechCrunch describes it quite nicely:

Hot Potato uses events as its primary filter, and adds a social and geo layers on top. You sign in with your Facebook account so you can connect with existing friends easily. You can also add your Twitter account. When you send out a note or put up a photo, it can be shared on Facebook, Tweeted out, or shared via email with a link back to the original content. The link goes back to a Hot Potato website where all the links are hosted. Or you can simply share your Hot Potato status (attending, watching, following).

There’s a ton of hype around local and mobile applications right now, and I think Hot Potato is poised to make some noise.  I’ll be following this one closely.

Two big things happened today in Twitter land: the Retweet feature was implemented across the site, and their call to action was downsized from “What are you doing?” to “What’s happening?”  Here’s my take on the matter…

The new Retweet feature needs some work.  People don’t like changing something they’re comfortable with, and the Retweet button is far off from the original user-developed Retweet functionality.  The fact that you can’t insert your own text into a Retweet is very discouraging.  Part of its original appeal (at least to me) was that it empowered people to put their own spin on someone else’s tweet (just like a Tumblr reblog).  I also am peeved by the influx of people I don’t follow into my dashboard.  It’s a bizarre feature, not to mention a startling invasion of my private space.  I follow the people I follow because I choose to.  I was happy with the old RT and Lists for finding new people to follow.  I don’t need them to infiltrate my dashboard without permission.

Evan Williams explains Twitter’s logic behind the new RT here.  He acknowledges that it’s a different type of RT:

People understandably have expectations of how the retweet function should work. And I want to show some of the thinking that’s gone into it. I’ve been a big proponent of this particular design internally at Twitter, because, while it won’t serve every use case, I think it offers something new and powerful.

His reasoning makes sense (it’s essentially a cleanup job intended to increase visibility around attribution), but from a user’s perspective such a drastic shift in functionality doesn’t make sense.  I think it would have been universally embraced if all it did was eliminate the copy/paste procedure by adding “RT” to the text box.  Then Twitter could iterate until they were happy with RT.   I would have been much happier with the rollout if it slowly progressed to where it is now instead of taking a giant leap.  Oh, and the RT button is Tumblr’s Reblog button rotated 90 degrees :-)  I like that.

Then there’s the shift from “What are you doing?” to “What’s happening?”  It’s not a seismic shift in functionality, but a shift in philosophy.  Biz Stone eloquently discussed the change:

The fundamentally open model of Twitter created a new kind of information network and it has long outgrown the concept of personal status updates. Twitter helps you share and discover what’s happening now among all the things, people, and events you care about. “What are you doing?” isn’t the right question anymore—starting today, we’ve shortened it by two characters. Twitter now asks, “What’s happening?”

This is much more in sync with Twitter’s “Pulse of the Planet” goal.  The new call to action won’t change the way people use Twitter, but it demonstrates a fundamental shift in the way Twitter thinks about Twitter.  It’s a movement from Twitter as a vanity tool to Twitter as a multi-purpose communication and reporting tool.  This isn’t new information, but it does mark a definitive and conscious change of focus for Twitter.

It’s been a big week for Twitter.  We’ve seen them take something the community created and change it as they saw fit, and we’ve also seen them embrace the way users utilize Twitter and let it change them as they saw fit.  It’s a prime example of understanding and adapting to user behavior.

Google recently introduced an expanded feature set for Google Analytics with enhanced goal and customization abilities as well as mobile tracking.  I’m finding the new Intelligence feature to be most useful.

It’s perfect for instantly detecting spikes and anomalies in traffic patterns and visitor behavior.  Intelligence lets me identify fluctuations in traffic and pinpoint exactly where, when and why they’re happening.  This is a remarkably powerful tool and beats the hell out of having to dig through pools of data to find deviations.

For instance, if you experience a traffic spike from a certain geographic area or demographic, or an unexpected increase in sales of a particular good, GA Intelligence will help you trace the root of the fluctuation in a fraction of the time it would normally take by narrowing and concentrating your search.

It takes me a while to finish a book nowadays.  With so much information coming from all directions, it’s hard to stay focused on one source.  Everyday I scroll through Tumblr, then I filter through Twitter and Google Reader and queue up my news for the morning.  I do all of this on my laptop and phone.  On top of that, I subscribe to a handful of magazines which I read religiously.  Altogether, this ends up being a ton of material I selectively consume.

There’s a lot of short-form content being created that’s packed with important details.  It’s succinct, informative, and easily accessible.  This style of news and entertainment consumption isn’t just a trend, it’s becoming reality for anyone with internet.  From a macro-perspective, this is a good thing.  Information flows quickly and freely and the readers win.  However, this glut of online information is compromising the role books play in our lives.

Recently I started reading John Battelle’s The Search.  I was initially apprehensive to pick it up, not because I didn’t have time for it or wanted to read fiction, but because it was written in 2005.  How relevant could a book on internet search written almost five years possibly be today?  (The answer in this case is very relevant.  The Search is a fantastic read about the anthropological effects of internet technology, particularly Google.)  I’ve been trained to value things that are “current” or “real-time” more than influential works from the past.

In today’s world of instant gratification, people have a growing tendency to overlook the value of books.  Blogs and online news sources cannot replace the depth and wealth of knowledge books provide.  That’s not to say one is inherently more valuable than the other - in a sense, they’re complementary goods - one providing a platform of rudimentary theory and knowledge and the other constantly pushing new trends and schools of thought.  As we enter an age where online media is becoming our primary source of information, we should never overlook or take for granted the benefits and impact that books have on our lives.  They will always be equally important.

For some crazy reason, I’ve set out on a mission to reread the most important books from a class I took in college called Contemporary Civilization (political and economic philosophy).  I wrapped up Marx’s The Communist Manifesto last night.  It was shorter than I remember.

At the most basic level, Marx sets out to extol the virtues of a classless society.  Communism is often confused with socialism (rule by the working class), but both schools of thought are rather Utopian.

It’s interesting to look at Marx’s take on communism in relation to social media.  Social media, in its purest form, is a purely classless society.  Everyone enters with the same credentials, capabilities, and choices.  In essence, it’s an open playing field where the only way to sustain community is to work together (i.e. share information).

Alas, this does not last forever.  People segregate themselves into affinities.  They befriend and follow people with similar interests or those they admire.  Within these verticals, some members are more established and popular than others.  There’s a definitive hierarchy that has grown out of a platform intended to be classless.

Look at Twitter.  Celebrities of all kinds have more followers and more clout than the average user.  Tumblr has even cultivated its own breed of “Tumblr Celebrities.”  On Facebook if you exceed a certain number of friends your profile becomes a fan page.  Maintaining a classless community in social media is impossible.  Inevitably, a bourgeoisie equivalent will emerge.

This is not a bad thing.  I’d argue that it’s a good thing.  Social media platforms are egalitarian in that they offer everyone the same foundation, but people can make conscious and independent decisions as to how they use it.  Fortunately, people have developed vibrant ecosystems around their interests, propagating activity and growth.

Social media has Marx turning in his grave, but it’s also inspiring people to learn, engage, and aspire.