Ged Carroll

Category: online | 線上 | 온라인으로 | オンライン

The online field has been one of the mainstays since I started writing online in 2003. My act of writing online was partly to understand online as a medium.

Online has changed in nature. It was first a destination and plane of travel. Early netizens saw it as virgin frontier territory, rather like the early American pioneers viewed the open vistas of the western United States. Or later travellers moving west into the newly developing cities and towns from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

America might now be fenced in and the land claimed, but there was a new boundless electronic frontier out there. As the frontier grew more people dialled up to log into it. Then there was the metaphor of web surfing. Surfing the internet as a phrase was popularised by computer programmer Mark McCahill. He saw it as a clear analogue to ‘channel surfing’ changing from station to station on a television set because nothing grabs your attention.

Web surfing tapped into the line of travel and 1990s cool. Surfing like all extreme sport at the time was cool. And the internet grabbed your attention.

Broadband access, wi-fi and mobile data changed the nature of things. It altered what was consumed and where it was consumed. The sitting room TV was connected to the internet to receive content from download and streaming services. Online radio, podcasts and playlists supplanted the transistor radio in the kitchen.

Multi-screening became a thing, tweeting along real time opinions to reality TV and live current affairs programmes. Online became a wrapper that at its worst envelopes us in a media miasma of shrill voices, vacuous content and disinformation.

  • Oddpost webmail

    Before Oddpost

    When you think about Oddpost, you have to cast your mind back almost two decades in 2002, the web was a very different place. In order for applications to do anything they would have to refresh the whole page. You couldn’t dynamically edit a document with other colleagues like you can with Google Docs for instance.  Which made applications like time tracking, or updating the basket on an e-commerce site a bit of a pain.

    The catalyst for change for app like performance in the browser was a webmail client called Oddpost.
    Oddpost RSS aggregator

    Oddpost.com

    Oddpost was different in a number of ways to anything else at the time. At first glance, it looked like a three pane desktop mail client, there was less navigation controls than your webmail interfaces at the time. Which heralded a very different design approach in subsequent web 2.0 companies. It is hard to articulate now, Gmail wouldn’t arrive for another two years and when it did it was invite only which meant that for the average Joe it took a while to come around. There was no download or application required to make it work (like a Java applet for instance). Oddpost, instead used technologies which are now humdrum, but a decade ago were the web equivalent of a revolution. Dynamic HTML, XML, and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) allowed individual elements of a page to be updated that provided a desktop app-like experience.

    Design

    Oddpost’s design approach didn’t lend itself to advertising that would slow down it’s dynamic interface and its method of updating components of a page rather than the full page adversely affected the page view metric advertisers cared about at the time. Storage was more expensive than it is now, so it made sense that Oddpost was a paid-for product.  In return for your subscription of $30/year got you a whopping 30MB of storage in your email box and an integrated RSS reader (rather like mail.app with OSX or Outlook with Windows).  In addition to the unique interface Oddpost offered support for both POP3 and IMAP standards which allowed access over an email client. IMAP allowed you to keep the files on the system providing you with a standard view using the web interface, your own computer, PDA (using Bluetooth and your cell phone as a wireless modem) or early smartphones like the Nokia 7650 and Nokia 6600 which came out in 2003. I was unusual at the time in having an IMAP email account, the entry cost for this service was purchasing an Apple computer.

    Oddpost was rough around the edges. It would be another few years before the metal lid of an Apple laptop would be as common as it is now, so it wasn’t as much of an issue that Oddpost only worked on Internet Explorer (version 5 or better) for Windows. The search functionality only did the headlines of messages not the body text. The company was eventually acquired in April 2004 by Yahoo! as it looked to bolster its position as an email provider against the then new Gmail service.

  • 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….

  • Facebook engagement advertising fraud & things that made last week

    A nice video on how Facebook engagement advertising fraud works. The illegitimate way to buy likes from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.  But you see similar fake likes when you you use Facebook advertising. This can be seen in the behaviour of the lakers. The Facebook engagement advertising fraud is run by Facebook itself. More on Facebook here.

    As good as special effects get, this time lapse footage of the sun still amazes

    It is interesting how retail is looking to replace sales assistants. Nestle is rolling out SoftBank robots in Japan to sell cans of coffee. The robots are manufactured by a French startup that Softbank bought into. They are doing interesting things with these robots in Softbank mobile phone shops as well.

    Interesting idea by jam band Phish that combines a Disney sound effects album from the early 1960s with their live performance. First I am amazed that Disney hasn’t sued them into oblivion as they are very careful about their intellectual property rights and the way brand assets can be used. Secondly, it is an unusual direction for Phish to take as well.

    Phish are best known in the UK for being the inspiration behind the name of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream. They come out of the live tradition of rock with devoted fans that The Grateful Dead pioneered. Many of the younger Deadheads that I have known think that Phish are the closest to the real deal of seeing the Dead live before Jerry Garcia left us.

    Guardians of The Galaxy is rolling out on digital distribution, Blu-Ray and DVD in the US which seemed like a good time to highlight the many different ways of saying ‘I am Groot’ in different terran languages. I am not a big fan of the Marvel universe but I do like the tripped out kooky vibe of Guardians.

  • Chinas massive foreign reserves + more

    No easy fix for Chinas massive foreign reserves | SCMP – Chinas massive foreign reserves surplus presents a similar challenge to what Japan faced in the 1970s and 1980s. China massive foreign reserves will likely be used to try and reinforce its existing hegemony. We are already seeing state banks giving mobile network providers negative interest loans to buy Huawei equipment, software and services. Funds will be made available for sovereign debt capture, strategic technology acquisitions and undermining the US dollar as a defacto word reserve currency. This means that US treasury bonds will be less attractive to China. It also explains why it has laid the foundation for a ‘Euroyuan’ market alongside the ‘Eurodollar’ market in the financial district of London.  (paywall)

    Richemont H1 profits down 23pc – Luxury Daily – looking at this they were hit by a slowdown in APAC and the increase in Japanese sales tax

    China’s 24-hour online shopfest explodes into life with $2 billion spent in first hour | Techinasia – 11/11 is remembrance day in many western countries but in China it is singles day, a made up festival to drive online sales

    Foreigners buying from Japan get free stuff?! But not all buyers are impressed | Rocketnews – the UK is too cynical and jaded

    Michael Douglas | Canali – I love this content that Canali have done with Michael Douglas

    Masque Attack: All Your iOS Apps Belong to Us | FireEye Blog – iPhone users, enterprises are a security weak spot for you

    Obama says FCC should reclassify the internet’s regulatory status – Vox – this is huge. Seriously.

    Meet Shingy, AOL’s “Digital Prophet” | The New Yorker – how the fuck haven’t I managed to blag a job like that?

    Uber is recruiting 50,000 veterans as drivers | The Verge – the sub header is ‘are they being taken for a ride’ as sub prime Uber driver debt mounts

    HKTV eyes second test after problems in first round | Hong Kong Economic Journal Insight – reading this gives you an appreciation of how much of an achievement the likes of RTE Player and BBC iPlayer achieve

    A major misconception about Facebook visibility – Campaign Asia – tips: mirror audience language and semantics, have opinions

    We’re seeing a very different Microsoft — Gigaom Research – a very different Microsoft: one that is willing to partner, willing to accept the new economics of mobile, and learning how to coax customers to its web services with premium features instead of absolutist tactics.

    Juniper shrinks its MX monster router onto a USB stick • The Register – really interesting development, I wonder what’s the minimum hardware it could run on?

    Tech giants who encrypt comms are unwittingly aiding terrorists’, claims ex-Home Sec Blunkett – odd the way this is a consistent message from politicians, it feels like softening up for regulation in the UK that will look more like China’s harmonising the internet. It could be good for PRs involved in reputation management – only a matter of time before censorship is a service purchased like media relations. Expect innovation and digital competitiveness to suffer as the UK loses out to other EU countries. Google HQ in Germany or Ireland anyone?

    prosthetic knowledge — ABB Robots Katana Fight – we’ll look back on this clip as history when we’re all cut down to size by katana wielding terminators

    Adidas China Social Campaign Report | Resonance China – interesting work done including trying to encourage behavioural change amongst groups of young women’s social interactions in the real word – positioning sport as a competitor activity to spa treatments, eating out or shopping

    ‘Smart factories’ could revolutionize production | Shanghai Daily – interesting move as China tries to move up the value chain and deal with the demographic time bomb

    Parallel car imports | Shanghai Daily – interesting action. This will be competition for imported and made-in-country but foreign brands of cars like Mercedes. Will the parallel cars be looked after by the dealer networks? I remember in the UK, BMW disliked servicing parallel imported cars from Belgium and other countries

    Middle East authorities are cracking down on audio that gets you “high” | Quartz – like something straight out of a William Gibson novel

    GT Bankruptcy Provides Rare Look at Apple’s Relationship With Suppliers | Re/code – can imagine ‘put on your big boy pants’ being quoted in business schools for years to come

    CBSN – Live Streaming Video News Channel – CBS News – interesting direct from TV to online transfer of news, I wonder if the ad revenues will stack up? More media related content here.