Ged Carroll

Category: media | 媒體 | 미디어 | メディア

It makes sense to start this category with warning. Marshall McLuhan was most famous for his insight – The medium is the message: it isn’t just the content of a media which matters, but the medium itself which most meaningfully changes the ways humans operate.

But McLuhan wasn’t an advocate of it, he saw dangers beneath the surface as this quote from his participation in the 1976 Canadian Forum shows.

“The violence that all electric media inflict in their users is that they are instantly invaded and deprived of their physical bodies and are merged in a network of extensions of their own nervous systems. As if this were not sufficient violence or invasion of individual rights, the elimination of the physical bodies of the electric media users also deprives them of the means of relating the program experience of their private, individual selves, even as instant involvement suppresses private identity. The loss of individual and personal meaning via the electronic media ensures a corresponding and reciprocal violence from those so deprived of their identities; for violence, whether spiritual or physical, is a quest for identity and the meaningful. The less identity, the more violence.”

McLuhan was concerned with the mass media, in particular the effect of television on society. Yet the content is atemporal. I am sure the warning would have fitted in with rock and roll singles during the 1950s or social media platforms today.

I am concerned not only changes in platforms and consumer behaviour but the interaction of those platforms with societal structures.

  • A laser cut record & things that made last week

    Laser cut record

    A frickin’ laser-cut record. How awesome is this? Back in the day there were efforts to use laser pick-ups to read vinyl records in a way that wouldn’t affect the records over time. Dragging a diamond tipped needle through a groove was viewed as destructive. The first prototype was demonstrated publicly in 1977.

    An American company called Finial demonstrated a commercial product. But its business no longer made sense and eventually the intellectual property was picked up by Japanese company ELP Japan. ELP Japan build laser turntables to order. The laser cut record turns this philosophy on its head. The record is no longer a valuable artefact, but something that can be replicated over and over again.

    A simple but delightful Japanese Vine. Simple but amazingly cute gerbil with a priceless reaction when its human stops stroking it. I remember petting the dog that I owned at the time and eliciting a similar reaction of why stop. This seems to be a reaction that’s hardwired in; a sudden stop in grooming by another might indicate that they sense danger and consequently I should be on alert.

    A totally awesome Japanese game for the Sony PlayStation featuring Godzilla and all manner of kaiju. The odd thing about this Bandai Namco game is that it is for the PS3 rather than the PS4 which is gaining the lions share of console sales. One can only guess that this was a project that massively overshot its initial launch date?

    A smooth jazz version of Van Halen’s Running With The Devil, which seems to use studio stems of this rock classic. It works amazingly well, which says a lot about Van Halen’s songwriting and general musicianship

    Finally a video of park life in Beijing. It is hard to emphasise the amount of smoking that happens in China, so this video shows you instead. More related content here.

  • Canada on Twitter

    Canada on twitter will be an event that will have delighted my friend and former colleague Matthias Lüfkens. Matthias founded the    Burson-Marsteller Twiplomacy project. Time spent at the World Economic Forum on social media meant that Twiplomacy has been a long time personal passion of his. The Twiplomacy looked at which countries have accounts and whom they follow and are followed by. The study isn’t exhaustive, for instance it doesn’t cover China’s wolf warrior accounts.

    Canada rolled out an official global account
    Canada on Twitter

    The first post that announced Canada on Twitter showed Canadian self depreciating humour with its ‘eh!’ ending imitating Canadian speech patterns. This account was as much aimed at Canadians as it was at generating digital soft power.

    In reality Canada has had a number of digital diplomacy accounts before aimed at specific interest groups like the European Union or Iran. But don’t let those wrinkles get in the way of a good story.

    And the internet (actually just over half of them Canadian netizens) responded back. As with most political discussions online this was a male-dominated discussion.
    1

    The conversation areas touched upon seemed to mirror the kind of issues that are currently rippling through Canadian politics: the environment, Quebec independence and care for veterans. There was a wonkish strand that talked about this accounts role in digital diplomacy for the Canadian government. Conversationalists also name-dropped well-loved Canadian brands like the Tim Hortons coffee and doughnut chain and the country’s love of ice hockey as the national sport.

    Canadian based brands took time out to welcome their country’s government on to Twitter.
    Canada

    The biggest shock for me was that the account showed blatant favouritism towards Hootsuite compared to other Canadian social monitoring companies like Sysomos. Hootsuite was the only commercial entity that the account followed in what looks like a case of casual nepotism or a default setting in Hootsuite’s management tools. If its Hootsuite’s default setting that’s a scummy way of building followers and engagement. More online related posts here.

  • 1 percent dominance + more things

    This is the proof that the 1 percent have been running the show for 800 years | Quartz – know your place serfs. Interesting long term research on the 1 percent. There is also research that shows that the descendants of Chinese landlords doing better. These would have been the pre-revolutionary 1 percent. This rise of Chinese landlords descendants occurred despite landlords being executed and their families persecuted in China during the Mao era. More economics related content here.

    Rescuing gadgets from the golden age of ‘Made in Japan’ | The Japan Times – inspiring and deeply saddening at the same time

    デザインアンダーグラウンド – ラジカセ・ヴィンテージ家電、オーディオの販売・修理 – Design Underground Factory restoring beautiful Made In Japan consumer electronics

    South Korea puts cost of reunification with North Korea at US$500 billion | South China Morning Post – and I bet it would go up from there due to corruption and security issues

    Recode Drops Comments | Recode – a blog without comments, also has implications for time on site, if I was an advertiser with them I would find this choice very curious

    Beefed up iPhone crypto will lead to a child dying, DOJ warned Apple execs | Ars Technica – the problem is that this has been discredited by experts a number of times and they keep trotting it out

    Technics To Launch FLAC Music Download Store Powered By 7Digital – hypebot – nice to see the name resurrected now about some decent pro-audio and DJ gear?

    Huawei: KRYDER STORAGE CRISIS is REAL and ‘we’re working on it’ | The Register – is the cause of Kryder’s Law shrinkage a move to SSD and lack of investment in disk science?

    Apple Releases Its Most Important Typeface In 20 Years | FastCompany – download the font, really nice

    ‘Qualcomm’s opportunities greater than challenges’ | RTHK – waiting for the second shoe to drop

    Samsung will make far fewer phones next year | GigaOM – reducing SKUs, tidying up the brand and extensions. I guess this also means less risk, innovation and the decline of their successful ‘fast failure’ model

    FB Techwire | Facebook – yet another way of wringing money out of businesses that do ‘over promotional’ posts

    Opera’s app store will replace Nokia Store on feature phones | GigaOM  – and on Symbian handsets

    Why Apple’s absurd valuation makes perfect sense | Quartz – it does seem insane to me….

  • Modern cryptography + more things

    Modern cryptography

    Keeping Secrets — STANFORD magazine – great article on the origins of modern cryptography. Without Diffie and Hellman you wouldn’t have e-commerce, VPNs or secure messaging. Modern cryptography as we know it goes back to an academic conference at Cornell University in 1977. To learn more about this I can also recommend Steven Levy’s book Crypto, this covers Diffie Hellman right up to what we’d recognise as the modern web.

    Culture

    The Brain Dump | Motherboard – new Bruce Sterling story

    FMCG

    Li Ka-shing turns up heat on food investment with vegan cheeseburger | WantChinaTimes – interesting investments in food technology

    Luxury

    Intel Reveals Details of MICA Smart Bracelet – Personal Tech News – WSJ – interesting that they chose Opening Ceremony as their collaboration partner

    Media

    Why podcasts are suddenly “back” – Marco.org – they never went away. The challenge previously had been creating a suitable financing model for podcasts. We’ve ended up with a number of routes:

    • The content loss leader for platforms – Joe Rogan’s buy out by Spotify
    • Patreon donations and merchandise – Cocaines & Rhinestones podcast
    • Radio show style sponsorship – the Pivot podcast with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway
    • Radio style adverts – The Economist podcasts

    Technology

    Non-Microsoft Nokia launches Android N1 tablet with Foxconn — GigaOM – interesting move that could put Hon Hai on a path to becoming a brand in its own right. Hon Hai has encouraged migrant workers leaving to set up franchise electronics stores in the past, which would be their distribution network in China. The big question is how much brand equity amongst consumers is left in the Nokia name?

    China’s global internet conference excludes many of the industry’s biggest players | Quartz – why would western internet companies bother going? They are effectively shut out of the Chinese market. Network software and equipment makers have even less incentive as China seeks to undermine stands norms for their own ends

  • Dreadzone at Under The Bridge, Stamford Bridge

    It has become a tradition that my friend Simon and I meet up to catch Dreadzone on their annual tour last Friday. Simon had come in from Saudi Arabia so its a pretty big deal for us. This was the first time I had been to a gig at Under The Bridge. The space is a purpose-built live venue under the stadium where Chelsea play.
    Dreadzone at Under The Bridge, Stamford Bridge

    It is the most comfortable venue that I have been to. Molton Brown products in the toilet, spotless facilities, comfortable seats and a stand-up area in front of the stage. There are screens all around the venue to allow you to follow the gig and a great sound system.

    Dreadzone put on a great gig, lower energy then previous gigs I had seen them at, but still a great performance. The location of the venue brought out a really mixed audience. Friends and family of the band, long-time Dreadzone fans, middle class professionals with fading celtic tattoos, elderly punks and older mods. I suspect that there were some locals as well, nice young things who looked rah.

    The gig seemed to be supporting the reissue of Dreadzone’s album Sound, which is due to be repressed on vinyl. It is interesting that Sound isn’t snared up with a record label. I presume that the band own the masters and are consequently in control of their own releases. Sound was released in 2001, six years after their breakthrough album Second Light. It is designed more as a record to be taken as its whole, rather than a series of more accessible songs. Different genres flow through the album and it works as a live playlist. Although they did make sure to put in some crowd pleasers as well. More events here.