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.

  • Counite

    I received an email today from the development director of a new social and business networking site called Counite based in Altrincham, a town in the Cheshire ‘stockbroker’ belt between Chester and Stockport. They had apparently culled my name from existing sites that I has subscribed to.

    In the mail I was offered “We will provide you with a free 12-month subscription and would just ask for you to visit the site on a regular basis after the launch, invite some of your business or social contacts along and provide us with some monthly feedback on the site performance. We can ensure you that you will be impressed with the features and functionality, and will greatly benefit from this membership.”

    I was a bit perturbed by Counite with regards the free 12-month subscription statement that implies Counite may get expensive afterwards unlike LinkedIn, Orkut or AlwaysOn Ziabatsu.

    Some of their own words about Counite “This exciting new site takes a global approach to networking using a complex contact management application that identifies your connection to other Networkers. We believe it will be the most comprehensive networking site ever launched with the industry’s most advanced communication tools including Voice over IP.” So the project is buzzword compliant for any vulture capitalist with some pennies burning a hole in their pocket.

    The sites launch follows the demise of some of the UK’s first generation of networking sites: BuddyNetwork and Pollen, so we’ll see how they go. More related content here.

  • Donkey Bong and other curios

    I’ve had a number of links sent to me that were too good not to share with you all: Donkey Bong, Graff Jewellery, PBS on porn and more.

    Donkey Bong

    JoeCartoon clogged up many networks in the late 90’s with his un-PC and puerile flash animations, creating characters like the Cheech & Chong ‘Stoned Fly’ and Gerbill. The most memorable animations like the frog in the blender and gerbil in the microwave allowed office workers to unleash the passive sadism that lies beneath us all and put the phrase Who’s ya Daddy? into popular English usage. His work has defined what a viral campaign is. He is back with another dollop of surreal weirdness and ultraviolence in Donkey Bong. More on it here.

    Graff Jewellery

    No not Graff – the most fabulous jewels in the world, but graffiti enabled by the reverse setting on a diamond ring by Tobias Wong. Get caught making use of your ring to make your mark on the world by tagging car and train windows, luscious pearlescent paint work on a TVR or your boss’ computer screen. You can see Tobias’ diamond project here.

    PBS On Adult Entertainment industry

    OK, we are currently pitching for a UK-based adult entertainment orientated television channel and web site, this this website designed to complement a PBS Frontline documentary on the adult entertainment industry was useful for research into the business . Seriously though, looking at this, there are some scary people out there, interesting facts – a starlet in the industry has an average career lifespan of just 12 months. Sombre, disturbing and yet compelling reading here. Glamourous like Boogie Nights it ain’t.

    Supercharged Records

    Email text from Supercharged Records: “Click on the link below to hear an exclusive preview of all the tracks from the forthcoming Freestylers ‘Raw As F**k’ album!

    Turn audio off on the front page and click on ‘album info’ and then ‘preview album’

    http://www.thefreestylers.com/

    We would also like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you how have purchased Push Up. Thank you!

    The album is out in the UK on the 5th July, contact you local record store to pre-order a copy!”

    More culture related posts here.

  • Plaxo Is the New Google?

    Plaxo is a useful addition to the arsenal of the knowledge worker. We go through lives developing thousands of connections but probably only keep in regular contact with a couple of hundred. (This is broadly in line with the Dunbar number proposed by anthropologist Robin Dunbar.)

    Plaxo vs. Google missions

    Where Google plans to organise all the world’s information, Plaxo seeks to organise all our address books.

    With Plaxo you complete an account and update it if you move jobs, that way your looser network can keep up to date if they are members of Plaxo too.

    Pros

    – Cheap, free software, you only pay for support. That also means limited growth

    Cons

    – Only works with Outlook at the moment, so not great for people orientated businesses like the creative industries, how about conduits for Lotus Notes, Entourage and Apple iSync?

    – Privacy concerns, where there’s data there’s risk and businesses are increasingly using online services to run their businesses; it makes sense for consumers to use similar services to run Me, Inc. Privacy restrictions makes it harder for Plaxo to monetise customer data held

    – Is reliant on a critical mass of users; Plaxo only updates less than 9 per cent of my contacts and its user base does not seem to be expanding at the rate of Friendster or LinkedIn

    Anyway, make up your own mind by watching an interview on CBS Marketwatch with the founders. More technology related content here.

    More information

    Dunbar, R. I. M. (1992). “Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates”. Journal of Human Evolution.

  • Howard Dean

    Howard Dean was feted by the media before the nominations started, because of a vocal and visible core of supporters, but then disappeared as the votes were cast. IT Conversations has a very interesting recording of a speech by Joe Trippi who was responsible for Howard Dean’s democratic party campaign at the recent O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. The Dean campaign looked to overthrow the system of interest group money purchasing television spots and presidential ads and so an election. He was inspired by the dialogue empowered by different web technologies.

    Joe Trippi admitted that he was defeated by the system of lobbyists, money and traditional media. Dean started with 137,000 USD in the bank, 437 supporters nationally and a campaign team of seven. Dean did manage to use the Internet to get grassroots support to achieve an unparalleled amount of campaign funding from over 300,000 supporters.

    The use of Meetup.com to get online supporters to meet up and then plan real world grassroots action over the water cooler, or over the garden fence was a key element of the campaign.

    Trippi said that the internet community do not get the harsh realities of real world politics – money matters. It has also shone a spotlight on the established political machine of special interest groups.

    Is Trippi the next Peter Mandelson? I don’t know but his tactics to promote Howard Dean have raised awareness of the web as an effective political tool. The key problem with the Internet based campaign is it couldn’t respond to the repetition of negative television advertisements and negative new stories in the established media. So there is hope for PR people and ad agencies yet.

    As an aside I would be interested to see how online grassroots lobbying communities like MoveOn (from the people that gave us the original Flying Toasters screensavers back in the day) will influence the political debate. More related content here.