Aside from being the harbinger of doom and albeit sounding like an old man watching a young man's game from the sidelines... I still think that New Media Technologies will ultimately have great power and influence even beyond what we see today and the possibilities for good use are limitless. Unfortunately, the price of freedom is vigilance, and we are anything but vigilant about our new media's creation and the ways in which it's used by average citizens.
The major problems facing the development of new media technologies are the same problems that all new communications technologies have faced but now it's instantaneous problems with zero response time and exponentially dangerous influences. On the other side of the coin, Twitter is now the most effective way for Chinese dissidents to meet at town hall style meetings to protest government oppression, with the latest and most notorious, a couple being put to one year hard labor for making tweets that could be taken as inciting revolution when seen out of context. They were jokingly saying that it would be a good idea to violently attack Japanese students. Maybe it would be good to use more than 140 characters when expressing an idea like... "OK, you're going to have to shoot him in the face after you storm the embassy because the guards will see you and be able to identify you later when we..."[ end of tweet ]"...go get ice cream LOL"
When we look to the future of new media and refuse to apply lessons of the past, we will be forced to confront the same problems we've always had but these problems will exhibit themselves in magnifying cross cultural ways that could be catastrophic, or possibly could lead to deeper commitments from groups who want to change things for the better. Individuals will increasingly have access to technologies that will allow for example, broadcasting from Tehran in real time, or Tweeting information from a destabilized Eastern European nation, or an Asian superpower to the rest of the world. Let's not forget however that all of these pieces of information will be unconfirmed sound bytes that ultimately must be held under the same scrutiny that coded messages sent during wartime would be. If information is power, and the most powerful groups have access and control over all the processing centers for this information, sooner or later that information becomes controlled in ways so as to paint portraits of individuals based on the use of information that was never intended to be exposed publicly.
The new technologies that we are being exposed to will be merely the stepping stones to a newer generation of increasingly powerful tools that will usher in a whole new epoch of technological advancement and multicultural societal convergences. It's going to be incredible. And when I say "incredible" I mean that it will looking back seem impossible to believe that we were all wasting our time with Facebook, Twitter, Second Life, and not building massive broadcasting satellites to speak with aliens and our friends in the future... LOL.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Privacy and Confidentiality
With essentially the dissolution of any and all journalistic ethics and the advent of such wonderful creations as "gossip sites", I think it's important to look at the factors that are now contributing to what really should be viewed as the virtual bill of rights being written in our time. The right to some semblance of privacy is inherently gambled every time we type something that we hope would not be read by any and everyone. Sites like Facebook, Google, MySpace have been collecting every shred of information for marketing purposes for years. But so has every other site that you've ever visited in your lifetime. And guess what, they share all that information with each other as agreed to in terms and services agreements. The invention and ultimately the acceptance of cookies and preferences, that have for years now been collected in order to manipulate consumer behaviors, has led to the consensus of most to just give up their privacy in order to have convenience and cheaper goods available to them. Those preferences have been collected for much larger and darker goals that the average citizen is completely unaware of and therefore vulnerable ultimately to the powers that are collecting this information. Information ultimately is power.
Look for example at the Supreme Court decision in favor of Citizens United. An obscure non-profit entity that was looking for an excuse to include corporate donation of campaign finance money, produced a film about Hillary Clinton that they did not care about releasing, and they knew would be impossible to release because of libel. They only wanted to get before the Supreme Court in order to rattle the first amendment saber to then slide campaign finance money in through the back door. They used political thinktanks that did extensive polling to come to the conclusion that the American people were more opposed to a woman who might have a scandal attached to her past and would side with the first amendment concerning the "censorship" than they were afraid to succumb to a complete and all encompassing oligarchical fascist state dominated by corporations.
In order to manipulate political behavior in perpetuity, old school corporate powerhouses used new media resources to research, understand, and ultimately hoodwink longtime foes and gain control over all governing bodies in America with the passage of some ridiculous law concerning "corporations rights" as individual citizens. This would have been impossible without gathering the kinds of information about technology and political savvy citizens in order to manipulate behaviors effectively.
Look for example at the Supreme Court decision in favor of Citizens United. An obscure non-profit entity that was looking for an excuse to include corporate donation of campaign finance money, produced a film about Hillary Clinton that they did not care about releasing, and they knew would be impossible to release because of libel. They only wanted to get before the Supreme Court in order to rattle the first amendment saber to then slide campaign finance money in through the back door. They used political thinktanks that did extensive polling to come to the conclusion that the American people were more opposed to a woman who might have a scandal attached to her past and would side with the first amendment concerning the "censorship" than they were afraid to succumb to a complete and all encompassing oligarchical fascist state dominated by corporations.
In order to manipulate political behavior in perpetuity, old school corporate powerhouses used new media resources to research, understand, and ultimately hoodwink longtime foes and gain control over all governing bodies in America with the passage of some ridiculous law concerning "corporations rights" as individual citizens. This would have been impossible without gathering the kinds of information about technology and political savvy citizens in order to manipulate behaviors effectively.
The Next New Thing
I would suggest a website specifically designed to link music and video producers together. Artists can post profiles and for a monthly fee, they would have access to other profiles of artists that would be interested in collaboration. Along with profiles, they would be able to have skype-like meetings over the website and find out if they have any chemistry rather than having to perpetually rent space to rehearse and re-rehearse every goon on the planet who has gotten their name added to or contributed in some way to a creative endeavour. The reason that I would recommend this be a pay for use site is to qualify prospective artists who want to meet other professionals and professional caliber talent for collaborative efforts rather than having to swim through an ocean of crappy profiles, and craigslist ads/responses. The site could be non-profit, and funding could ultimately be used to hire several techs to maintain the site, as well as pooled for competition prize money to help fund some of these collaborations. This would add some critical insight to music and video production that has been lacking for some time.
Advice to Brooklyn College
My advice to Brooklyn College would be not to employ any new media technologies whatsoever for students because they are physically incapable of maintaining and working with their already existing technologies which if it had been any other site on the planet, their would have been major networking changes years ago. This has created the illusion for incoming students that Brooklyn College actual has the capability of providing these technologies, instead of just being realistic about the limitations of the facilities. My only guess would be that the contract Brooklyn College signed as a city institution with its networking provider for example has been so corruptly agreed to as to agree to ignore the heinous dysfunction that exists. My further advice to Brooklyn College would be to expect more from their employees who are not performing their duties with any consideration or fire them instead of carrying dead weight. It is a terrible shame for the co-workers they are bringing down, because there are many hard working and talented members of the Brooklyn College family that seem to be continually overshadowed by the incompetence of a few in key positions.
I would however recommend that Brooklyn College allow those employees who are so committed to providing services to the campus, to have a broader range of access to any and all media technologies available on site to be employed for more effective time management and better delegation of duties. There could even be an effective training program that was provided for faculty and staff so that the inability to provide services could be bridged to a point of just being less than ideal rather than less than adequate.
It is virtually impossible to use Brooklyn College's facilities to do simple tasks like uploading online video, or depending on internet for any streaming capabilities.
I would however recommend that Brooklyn College allow those employees who are so committed to providing services to the campus, to have a broader range of access to any and all media technologies available on site to be employed for more effective time management and better delegation of duties. There could even be an effective training program that was provided for faculty and staff so that the inability to provide services could be bridged to a point of just being less than ideal rather than less than adequate.
It is virtually impossible to use Brooklyn College's facilities to do simple tasks like uploading online video, or depending on internet for any streaming capabilities.
Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds
This sounds as creepy as it is. I happen to have been alive for the release of the film "The Lawnmower Man", and I remember thinking that it was not so far away. Just like "Blade Runner", where present day Japanese ethnocentrism(racism to the rest of the world) drives robot production in the caregiving world, "Second Life" provides a detached and sanitized version of life much like that of "The Lawnmower Man". We've created a second life already through the television media in order to avoid social reaction to things like war. There is no more reporting on wars, just graphics that show K.I.A.'s and I.M.D.'s and W.M.D. sites etc. If I'm getting too close to a nerve, good, someone should be touching your nerves at some point in your life, because we live in an increasingly numb world devoid of values and compassionate responses(no you can't tweet those). I would be really excited to know that people spent as much time on developing their actual character, rather than "developing a character". In the NY Times article about seeing a band at Cake Shop, the author explains how watching the band from home on with a virtual version of the club's atmosphere is now her preferred method for seeing live music and interacting with the club scene. That's terrifying. when I was coming up, the Lower East Side was to be braved and those that braved it were invited to a dark gritty rendering of life in an urban setting that exposed the truth about Manhattan and New York, the social disparities and the lives being lived, abused, taken, and re-used. I am ecstatic to know that Dick Manitoba can recognize the dissolution of a neighborhood that once thrived in making some minor impact on the social order of a city that was driven purely by greed, racial tension, and abuses of power. “The Second Avenue Deli’s a bank, the Fillmore East is a bank, and you’ve got to pass by 12 restaurants and coffee shops just to get to the couple of places that still have character.”. All good things must pass, but don't give a pass to commercializing every New York scene like an episode of "Friends". This city used to be about neighborhoods, and now it's a sprawling mass of texting, Facebooking, Tweeting, bourgeoisie who don't care about anyone or anything in their path.
With all that said, I think that Second Life is a godsend to people with developmental and physical disabilities who cannot participate in the same experiences that so deeply enrich our lives. It would be great to see the technology used to its fullest and not just be exploited towards further laziness. If I don't like something about my appearance, my station in life, or my surroundings, there are actual tools in an actual world that I can use to change those circumstances rather than relying on living inside my new television.
With all that said, I think that Second Life is a godsend to people with developmental and physical disabilities who cannot participate in the same experiences that so deeply enrich our lives. It would be great to see the technology used to its fullest and not just be exploited towards further laziness. If I don't like something about my appearance, my station in life, or my surroundings, there are actual tools in an actual world that I can use to change those circumstances rather than relying on living inside my new television.
Twitter Discussion
It actually turned out to be confusing for most people I think to follow all the instructions about tweeting, RT'ing, and CISC3333 so I only found one other classmate and we messaged back and forth and I retweeted on my profile that messaging privately is not exactly tweeting...
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Social Networking
Social Networking sites have many corporate applications and are as the previous post shows, going to be strictly corporate entities from now on that look to use the free ad space to control the marketplace. As for real world application of Social Networking sites as corporate networking sites, it might be interesting to look at the rise of Linkedin as an example of a site that promotes and encourages users to make corporate connections and reccomendations.
In an ever changing global marketplace, employees have come to rely on very few things that remain constant, and being forced to change their mindset, schedule, work habits, etc. are all factors that come into play when corporate policy changes with management. Social Networking sites are a fantastic idea to allow executives to express their opinions in a forum that may not be so rigid and controlling. It actually lets employees drop their guard and participate in brainstorming sessions that do not require perfect adherance to policy or Roberts' rules, etc.
When Mr. Ghosn took over Nissan, as reported in Business Week, October 30, 2007 by Kenji Hall, there were understandably very mixed reactions, and in order to avoid the types of bureaucratic gridlock that can occur in such situations, Mr. Ghosn searched for ideas to build consenus and use the team he had to move forward. After his visit to IBM, he incorporated a simple strategy that IBM had been using for quite some time to avoid time wasting and to glean the best possible ideas from his team in the least time.
There will be an enormous number of applications that can be seen from the Mars Bar marketing attempt seen in "Analysis: Real Facebook shop in virtual world breathes life into Mars", Marketing
Week. Feb 21, 2008 that spawned a number of competitors and imitators to follow suit. Unfortunately, mass marketers have now been using Facebook as an ad platform for everything from oil changes to non-profit charities for quite some time. As a result, Facebook become a commodity rather than just a "place for friends".
Unfortunately for users of Facebook, this corporate transition has been the ultimate in privacy concerns and all of users' information was put up on the block privately through many different companies whose sole goal is information collection for marketing manipulation
in the long term. In the short term it means a voluntary dissolution of privacy rights that will lead to an erosion of civil rights as far as cyberspace is concerned.
There is no doubt in my mind, that this erosion of "virtual rights" in an already extraordinarily apathetic culture that has become over the last ten years a pure and unadulterated oligarchy, we have already and will continue to see the effects of civil rights degeneration for generations to come. the New Citizens Supreme Court decision in January 2010 to allow corporations the rights of private citizens is one factor that has led to these social networking sites losing any ability to remain democratic platforms. Quite simply, people are addicted to the access they gain from these sites, and will give up their rights of ownership to their own personal content and mold their preferences to this medium in a similar way that they have relinquished their time and attention to television, the "opiate" of the masses.
In an ever changing global marketplace, employees have come to rely on very few things that remain constant, and being forced to change their mindset, schedule, work habits, etc. are all factors that come into play when corporate policy changes with management. Social Networking sites are a fantastic idea to allow executives to express their opinions in a forum that may not be so rigid and controlling. It actually lets employees drop their guard and participate in brainstorming sessions that do not require perfect adherance to policy or Roberts' rules, etc.
When Mr. Ghosn took over Nissan, as reported in Business Week, October 30, 2007 by Kenji Hall, there were understandably very mixed reactions, and in order to avoid the types of bureaucratic gridlock that can occur in such situations, Mr. Ghosn searched for ideas to build consenus and use the team he had to move forward. After his visit to IBM, he incorporated a simple strategy that IBM had been using for quite some time to avoid time wasting and to glean the best possible ideas from his team in the least time.
There will be an enormous number of applications that can be seen from the Mars Bar marketing attempt seen in "Analysis: Real Facebook shop in virtual world breathes life into Mars", Marketing
Week. Feb 21, 2008 that spawned a number of competitors and imitators to follow suit. Unfortunately, mass marketers have now been using Facebook as an ad platform for everything from oil changes to non-profit charities for quite some time. As a result, Facebook become a commodity rather than just a "place for friends".
Unfortunately for users of Facebook, this corporate transition has been the ultimate in privacy concerns and all of users' information was put up on the block privately through many different companies whose sole goal is information collection for marketing manipulation
in the long term. In the short term it means a voluntary dissolution of privacy rights that will lead to an erosion of civil rights as far as cyberspace is concerned.
There is no doubt in my mind, that this erosion of "virtual rights" in an already extraordinarily apathetic culture that has become over the last ten years a pure and unadulterated oligarchy, we have already and will continue to see the effects of civil rights degeneration for generations to come. the New Citizens Supreme Court decision in January 2010 to allow corporations the rights of private citizens is one factor that has led to these social networking sites losing any ability to remain democratic platforms. Quite simply, people are addicted to the access they gain from these sites, and will give up their rights of ownership to their own personal content and mold their preferences to this medium in a similar way that they have relinquished their time and attention to television, the "opiate" of the masses.
Check out Social Networking Sites
Facebook bought MySpace today giving it the license and power to control all entertainment and media on social networking sites, and signaling the end of an era and a war of attrition for Newscorp, and mego-maniacal Rupert Murdoch's company. In regards to Social Networking sites, MySpace and Facebook are obviously the two most popular sites with Facebook having far surpassed MySpace quite some time ago number of users, and social relevance. Facebook has become the premier social network site while MySpace is the site for independent users to market their own user generated content.
Thiw is a perfect example of old media executives getting it wrong with new media. when "Tom" sold MySpace to Ruport Murdoch, and Newscorp. he was making a very smart move to leave what he saw as an ever changing marketplace with extremely high maintenance demands. When Newscorp. bought MySpace in 2006 with the idea of profiting from all the entertainers who had music/comedy/acting profiles, Murdoch and his cronies had absolutely no idea what they were doing in the marketplace and so they made astonishing errors in recoding things like mp3 players that did not work for months.
As for Friendster whose relevance does not even compute in the United States, I did make a little profile and connect with an old friend in the Phillipines and a filmmaker I know working in Vietnam, because in Southeast Asia, Friendster is a very popular site.
Flickr I have to admit is quite an engrossing experience to peer into other people's "private" lives as in Picassa for the same reason. I am hesitant to post anything on Picassa based on google's new requirements to give a phone number to recover e-mail accounts which is an obvious information collection service ploy.
Goodreads has the most inoccuous and interesting set up as the worlds largest private library of user rated materials that isn't a private corporation like Amazon.
Thiw is a perfect example of old media executives getting it wrong with new media. when "Tom" sold MySpace to Ruport Murdoch, and Newscorp. he was making a very smart move to leave what he saw as an ever changing marketplace with extremely high maintenance demands. When Newscorp. bought MySpace in 2006 with the idea of profiting from all the entertainers who had music/comedy/acting profiles, Murdoch and his cronies had absolutely no idea what they were doing in the marketplace and so they made astonishing errors in recoding things like mp3 players that did not work for months.
As for Friendster whose relevance does not even compute in the United States, I did make a little profile and connect with an old friend in the Phillipines and a filmmaker I know working in Vietnam, because in Southeast Asia, Friendster is a very popular site.
Flickr I have to admit is quite an engrossing experience to peer into other people's "private" lives as in Picassa for the same reason. I am hesitant to post anything on Picassa based on google's new requirements to give a phone number to recover e-mail accounts which is an obvious information collection service ploy.
Goodreads has the most inoccuous and interesting set up as the worlds largest private library of user rated materials that isn't a private corporation like Amazon.
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