Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Relevant to the conversation about privacy, potential employers are
starting to ask for access to an applicant's Facebook account:
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-employers-seek-your-access
-to-facebook-20120320,0,1581508.story
  

    
> <jet>, I don't think they care who you are.

I don't think "they" is universal.  

You're right -- XYZ App might not care who you are nor log any
personal data and effectively obey its policy.  However, If they sell
your anonymous data to an aggregator, or sell ads via a third party
using your behavior, that latter firm might be able to figure out
that you're probably Bob Jones at SXSW and attempt to sell to you or
sell your data.

The more data the better with some marketing, including getting your
name, address, and phone number so they can contact you directly with
offers.

I own a pretty common brand of truck and I get a lot of junk physical
mail about it and none about the more popular brand I don't own.
That's not magic, that's someone out there with my name, address, the
type of truck I have and how old it is.
  

    
Open vs Closed is closely associated with the privacy and marketing of
personal data issues. This, from GigaOM:

<If you step back far enough, beyond the ever-present Facebook vs.
Google or apps vs. browser debates, what you see is a tug-of-war that
has been going on ever since the internet first started to hit the
mainstream: the battle of open vs. closed, between the web giants and
platforms that want to control almost every aspect of your online life
and the traditionally open nature of the internet. The Pew Research
Center’s latest report is a glimpse into one aspect of that, with some
of those surveyed saying apps are the future and others saying they are
evil, and Mat Honan’s essay at Gizmodo about the “case against Google”
is another aspect of the same debate — the idea that Google, once
synonymous with the open internet, is now just another web giant trying
to control your online life. Where does the future lie?>
(http://gigaom.com/2012/03/23/open-vs-closed-what-kind-of-internet-do-we-want/)

Jon, where does the future lie?
  

    
The box I'd check says "all of the above." We'll have apps on devices
where they make sense, and we'll still have browsers where they make
sense. We'll continue to have arguments for closed systems and
arguments for open systems, or for strong copyright laws and for less
restrictive arrangements, e.g. Creative Commons. The "stacks" or
vertically integrated media empires will continue to evolve - some may
go away and others may emerge. Google is an interesting case; it's been
more horizontal than the others, and more open. The company's been
becoming more focused but it remains to be seen whether it will become
some sort of dark empire - I doubt it. As Bruce Sterling said in his
SXSW talk, these media empires are fragile, there will always be
further innovation and disruption.

To me the key question is whether we can keep the Internet open, or
build an open alternative if it comes to that. I think it's going to be
an ongoing struggle. I'm not predicting any winners - just more
struggle, more contention, for the foreseeable future.
  

    
I agree. It looks like a bumpy ride for the next 30 years across all
spectrums as we adapt and implement new media. Another so-called driver
is the move to  mobile and the cloud, resulting in what some are
calling the "appification" of the Web.

See the predictive survey from Elon University School of
Communications.
(http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/expertsurveys/2012survey/future_apps_vs_
web_2020.xhtml)

<...cloud computing and “appification” will keep the Web highly
viable, but some warn that by 2020 the Web, while more attractive and
convenient, will be more closed and excessively monetized, with
negative results.>

There is a tension between platforms (desktops/laptops and mobile) and
the way design is moving us. Just look at Windows 8's beta, designed
around mobile and touch screens. 

This all has implications for data storage, content creation,
monetization, etc.

More of the same??? All of the above?
  

    
Here's a link to Bruce Sterling's talk at SXSW which I caught off of
Jon's Facebook, and we have alluded to several times during the
conversation:

http://audio.sxsw.com/2012/podcasts/13-ACC-The_Ultimate_Bruce_Sterling_Talk.mp
3
  

    
It's important to remember that the web is not the Internet. Apps
won't necessarily leverage http and html. 

I don't think there's a tension between platforms. People have
computers and they have smart devices (i.e. smartphones), and they use
them differently, often to do the same kinds of things. I think it's a
mistake to imagine that people will stop using their computers in favor
of smaller devices - they complement each other. When I'm using my
computer, much of what I do is browser-based and web-based. When I'm
using my iPhone, I'm using apps. I don't want to stop using either - I
just use them differently.

Another point: tablets like the iPad are consumer devices, not
computers. There will be a base of users whose needs can be satisfied
with tablets and smart phones, who won't even need a computer - but
there will always be those of us who use computers, generally in
addition to and not instead of the consumer devices.

Another data point: There are people, often very young, who are
carrying smartphones but use them almost exclusively for text
messaging.

People who play the either/or game are seeing clearly what's
happening.
  

    
Yup, 'both/and' seems to be the best strategy. Thanks for clarifying
platforms and apps.

One last shading on the privacy issue via MIT's Technology Review:

<So should we conclude the Internet generation is happy to trade its
privacy for free or cheaper Web services? Not according to Nicola
Jentzsch of the German Institute of Research in Berlin, and colleagues,
who last week published research showing that most people prefer to
protect their personal data when given a choice and that a significant
proportion are willing to pay extra to do so.>

(http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/39938/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-03-23
)

As the dust settles on this issue, it may push folks to consider
paying for what they get. 
  

    
I don't think that article said where the subjects were. Europeans are
more hard-wired to protect their privacy, and given that the
researcher was in Berlin, shemight have had a disproportionate number
of Germans, who are famously paranoid about privacy: privacy laws
*still*, as I understand it, prevent you from getting an itemized phone
bill showing what you're being charged for. Only the police have
access to that information, and only under certain circumstances.
  

    
Thanks Ed. That's weird about the phone bill. Yes, it was primarily
done with a European population and what caught their attention was the
number of young people willing to pay. They weren't expecting that.
You may be right, that it is cultural.

Over here, it seems like they want everything for "free" - meaning no
charge for the walled garden in exchange for marketing your data. Where
else do people think all the money is coming from to have all these
fancy apps and gizmos?

I've had to use quite a  lot of extensions and tools to keep my
browsers locked down and have Facebook tightened up to a level I'm
content with in exchange for the service.

Not sure I'd call it a 'devil's bargain', but we all have to decide
what amount of data and privacy we are willing to exchange for the
service provided. 

When it comes to cell phones though, there's not a whole lot of give
and take (other than turning off location). It's one of the reasons I
sold my smart phone back to the provider. It's all a bit too invasive
and pervasive for me right now.
  

    
Continuing with my fuddy-duddy thinking. Alongside the both/and theme
of tech integration I'd like to bring up "old and new". Things seem
skewed to the new - the next app, the next release, the next, the
next... - the old, much of which works perfectly fine, seems to be
getting short changed.

Normal in any tech and media shift. As a grandfather, there's only so
much Sponge Bob Square Pants and I Carly I can take. So I've been
making a point to introduce the kids to the Muppets and Rocky and
Bullwinkle. Delighted to say that they love them. There's an edge there
you can't find on PBS and Nickleodeon. I'm always on the look out to
involve the kids in some old school as well as let them teach me what's
new. They are showing me how to use the iPad2 for interactive stories
and games. And I am taking them on adventures in the physical world -
museums, parks, libraries, etc., swimming and teaching the oldest to
play tennis. I want them to experience digital and analog. We are
learning together. But I don't see a whole lot of that going on at
large.

How about you guys? Similar, different?
  

    
If I had kids and they didn't realize that moose and squirrel rule,
I'd sell them to the soap factory. 

But what you're describing is something I've been itching to write a
book about. I call it Neophilia: the natural assumption that the new
thing is the best. The classic example is Microsoft Word 5 for me: did
more than I needed, but easy to use. Why couldn't they have frozen it
as Microsoft Word Classic as a standalone? Then they could rename the
subsequent versions as bits of Office (2/3 of which I don't use) and
leave the rest of us thinking nice thoughts about Microsoft. 

Of course, I've used Apple products since 1994, so don't even get me
started about them...
  

    
>  Things seem skewed to the new - the next app, the next release, the
next, the next... - the old, much of which works perfectly fine, seems
to be getting short changed.

At the genesis of digital culture, a bunch of us self-referred as
"neophiliacs" - and that's the same thinking you have with people
who're into fashion and style and staying on top of (or in front of)
trends. When you're young, everything is new, but as you grow older,
you become less focused on the new and more focused on what you're used
to, what you're comfortable with. You reach a point where you realize
there's really nothing all that new. 

I think that's only part of the puzzle with apps, though. The fact
that so many new apps are appearing is attributable more to production
energy than potential consumption - i.e. there may be dozens or even
hundreds of Facebook imitations appearing, because budding young
entrepreneurs often begin by trying to build new versions of
already-successful platforms. This can work: Facebook was just another
in a series of social networking platforms, several of which had at
least some success (if adoption=success, not sure they were
profitable)... Ryze, Friendster, Orkut, Myspace. Facebook nailed the
right combination of interface, features, and timing to get mainstream
adoption, so it "won."

Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon are all successful product companies, but
Google and Facebook have a different model, and they've succeeded
because they're clear that their users are not their customers.
Sterling said that the users are the products - the word he used was
"livestock." Actually, the product is the users' attention, and in this
case they're very much like mass media platforms - print periodicals,
television and radio all attributed their profitability to the selling
of attention. To be viable in this market, you have to have signficant
attention to sell. In the mass media world, the means of production and
distribution were significant, so you inherently had just a few
channels on which most people were focused. Now the means of production
are inexpensive and abundant, and you have many players, but only a
few get sufficient volumes of attention to be profitable in a big way.
Others (e.g. The New York Times) have to charge users directly to make
a profit, because they don't have enough adoption and the right model
to be profitable through ad sales alone. You also have nonprofits like
Wikipedia depending on fundraising efforts.

This is the world we're in today and the context for SXSW, which has
succeeded because it's done a good job of staying forward enough
without being too far ahead of the curve. SXSW shows you the present
and near-future of media, and right now it's divided in the same way
that the Internet context is divided. So much more of it than before is
about marketing and celebrity, but you still have programming about
democratization and about smaller, more intimate or personal uses of
Internet.

(Ed slipped in with a mention of "neophilia" while I was composing
this response...)
  

    
That last assessment should be in the NYT Jon. Really excellent all
the way around. 

Thanks Ed, I've raised all my children, and now grandchildren, on the
Rocky and Bullwinkle paradox...especially Mr. Peabody and his boy
Sherman, and Fractured Fairy Tales. This new stuff on Nickleodeon is
just too much pablum for future livestock, as Bruce would say.

BTW, saw Hunger Games this morning - won't say how - it was
surprisingly entertaining and beats the heck out of Vampires. Hopefully
dystopian;)
  

    
Ed, follow that itch!
  

    
Jon, don't get me wrong, I'm an early adopter; like to see what's out
there and what the implications might be in a cultural way. I don't use
all that much, but I poke around with almost all of it. It's more a
question of balance. 

It's the problem I have with the iPad3 hysteria. Why, what does it
really offer that's any improvement over what's already available?
Jeez, you can't use Skype on it, you can't even use LTE for downloading
or streaming movies. And it might cook your cookies. It's just the
next new thing, which is great for Apple's stockpile of money and
people who want to take advantage of the discount now available for
iPad2. It's a market driver, that's all. More folks in the Apple silo.
  

    
It's a generated hysteria, effective marketing. You feel it if you're
reading the trade sites, and of course there are people who get excited
about such things. Remember our earlier discussion about CES
(http://www.cesweb.org/) - we've got an whole new realm of evolving
convergent products like the iPad... lots of money going there. 

It's hype. Most people are quite about less than hysterical - but
they're still buying iPads and iPhones... and various Android flavors,
etc. These information appliances are great for mainstreaming the
digital revolution and bringing digital convergence to the masses,
including those who don't know a USB port from a hole in the ground,
and would never know how to recover from a blue screen crash. 
  

    
Which brings us to digital literacies, or "how do you actually use
this stuff and make the best sense of what's out there in cyberspace"?
  

    
This comes up more and more often. Yesterday I was interviewed by a
journalist from Canada who was interested in facial recognition
software, especially the privacy implications. The conversation went to
the question of digital literacy required to understand risks implicit
in various sorts of online activity. I noted that I'm very public and
open online, that I use the least restrictive settings on systems like
Facebook and Google+, and that I can do this with minimal concern
because I have an inherent understanding of the context. I know not to
share anything on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook that I'm not
comfortable sharing with the world.

There's also the concern whether your time online is wasted or useed
productively. This is partly resolved with the same focus and
discipline you might bring to other activities, and partly through what
we call digital literacy, an understanding of the tools, their best
uses, how they can support productivity, and what uses are
counterproductive.
  

    
Potpouri --

The Future of Mobile - Slide Deck by Business Insider, good
comparisons
                       of platforms and usage.

(http://www.businessinsider.com/the-future-of-mobile-deck-2012-3?nr_email_refer
er=1&utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=SAI+Select&utm_campaign=
SAI+Select+Mondays+2012-03-26)

Livestock or vegetable cash crop? Further points on users as data on 
                                  the stacks, via @bruces

(http://broadstuff.com/archives/2603-You-The-Next-Cash-Crop.html)
  

    
That last link references VRM (vendor relationship management) at at
the end of the post: "This has been the aim of VRM for some time, to
give people the tools to participate more or less equally in the
market, and, as the whole issue of privacy becomes more understood (and
fought for) one can only hope that we do not become cash crops. But it
still has to be worked at, powerful interests want to reap what you
sow."

Doc Searls has a book that's relevant, _The Intention Economy_:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Intention-Economy-Customers-Charge/dp/1422158527/
He'll be here (at Inkwell) at some point to discuss it.
  

    <scribbled by tcn Wed 28 Mar 12 03:45>
  

    
Apologize for the lengthiness of the above post. I pushed my own
button:)
  

    
<122> scribbled - bad link


Thanks for that link Jon. That should be a great conversation. Nice to
see that the user is pushing back and companies are actually paying
attention. Advertising is probably the biggest driver out there right
now. We are in the marketing age of "push and pull" and the equation
works best when both sides are understood and respected. It is not
inevitable that the big 5 become the Evil Empire. 

I'm thinking let's go out with a big bang and touch on the underbelly
of the whole shebang. Code. The deus ex machina that results in all
the
things we see and play with in our everyday digital experience.

Some essential pieces are out there for a glimpse and grasp of 'the
Borg':

From Neal Stephenson's In The Beginning was the Command Line
(http://www.ridemybike.org/command1.pdf) to 

George Dyson's new book, Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the
Digital Universe
(http://www.amazon.com/Turings-Cathedral-Origins-Digital-Universe/dp/0375422773
)
 to

Anything by Jaron Lanier to rattle your brain.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaron_Lanier)

The Edge (http://www.edge.org) has had several conversations with
George Dyson over the years, most recently this current one about
self-replicating code and Dyson's metaphor of the WEB as a biological
entity, beginning in the earliest days of computing at Princeton. He
views the WEB as a physical reality, thought crazy at the time he
first
mentioned it and now being taken quite seriously. He estimates that
over 5 trillion bits of code are being created each second. Chew on
that NSA. 
(http://edge.org/conversation/a-universe-of-self-replicating-code)

It's a bit like turning on the light switch without any understanding
of electricity. This is the OZ; what's behind the curtain of the
wonderful world of digital. Doug Rushkoff, in his Program or be
Programmed, thinks we must at least have a 1st grade education about
all this. So, I throw in all these links and hope something or someone
bites.
  

    
Jon, in response to VRM, Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins) and Brian
Solis held a panel at SXSW...Billy is interviewed by Alex Jones on
Infowars.com (You Tube) and
really gets rolling around the 13:22 mark...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9TVc8Tob98&feature=youtu.be