From high tech to low tech, Scott McLoud (Understanding Comics) penned for google a fascinating comic-style tour of Chrome’s development. Damn those google guys are smart!
Technorati Tags: Chrome
Archive for the 'Web 2.0' Category
Michael Wesch has created some of my favorite YouTube videos about the current technology zeitgeist. The Chronicle of Higher Education did this pretty cool article and video (posted above).
I thoughtful and interesting treatise on how we read online (and tips for (not) blogging too!).
How we read online. - By Michael Agger - Slate Magazine:
You’re probably going to read this.
It’s a short paragraph at the top of the page. It’s surrounded by white space. It’s in small type.
To really get your attention, I should write like this:
* Bulleted list
* Occasional use of bold to prevent skimming
* Short sentence fragments
* Explanatory subheads
* No puns
* Did I mention lists?
What Is This Article About?
For the past month, I’ve been away from the computer screen. Now I’m back reading on it many hours a day. Which got me thinking: How do we read online?
YouTube just announced on its blog a new citizen journalist initiative, which is described above by YouTube News & Politics manager Olivia M. I have to admit that the whole style and approach of the press release is interesting because normally it’s traditional media companies who try to hip-ify themselves through remediating (appropriating) the style of user-generated media (i.e. with amateurish production). It’s a complete melding of the prosumer aesthetic when one of the biggest internet companies in the world (Google) makes its company style completely “uncorporate.”
Does information want to be free? A case study in how to control the Internet.
Great Wall 2.0: How China Leads the World in Web Censorship - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News:
The virtual People’s Republic abides by other laws than the rest of the Internet. But how do the communist sentinels of cyberspace manage to control the information flow so precisely?
Surveillance computers form the backbone of the Chinese security system, monitoring the bulk of online communication round the clock. The machines are supported by an army of government censors, whose numbers are estimated at over 30,000. This Herculean effort is on the increase as Internet users multiply at a record rate. As of February, China officially has the most Internet users in the world (221 million to America’s 220.6 million). And what happens in China can easily change the Internet as a whole. Experts believe that the country has already exported its innovative censorship methods to countries such as Iran and Vietnam.
Dozens of media researchers are now studying the architecture of the Great Wall 2.0 with a mixture of horror and fascination. What they’re discovering is how surprisingly dynamic, subtle and state-of-the-art the censors of the 21st century are.
No doubt about it. The media world is changing as we know it. And guess what? It isn’t white.
PS I recommend clicking through to Slideshare in order to view the presentation full screen.
The Surveillance Camera Players doing tactical media.
One of my favorite media theorists, Geert Lovink, wrote the indispensable Dark Fiber, a collection of critical essays published by MIT about media activism and networks. His discussion of tactical media as an alternative to culture jamming is why I put any kind of media activism under that category of the same name.
In a recent interview, he discusses politics and social media.
SBJ: Have social medias taken over the political debate and activism or do real life debates and organisation still serve a purpose–and if so which?
GL: Taken over? No, there isn’t any statistical evidence for that. Television, assisted by newspapers and radio, are still dominating the political agenda. The Web is playing a strange, new role in all this. For many, Internet is the perfect place to hang out and escape the boring, pre-programmed world of the ‘old media’. Simultaneously, society is moving into the Internet at the same time, just think of the re-invention of advertisement out there. What we see happening is not an easy convergence of media. Real and virtual mix but in unexpected manners. That’s the fun of it. However, the current crises are not properly addressed either in cyberspace. It’s really questionable to think that the paperless Internet is contributing in a positive way to the global warning and environmental pollution that we have in China as the place of production and Africa as the waste basket. But I remain positive. Remember that all these hyped-up self-important dotcom people in the late nineties had no idea about their own upcoming crash, let alone about the social aspects of Web 2.0. This makes me optimistic about Web 3.0, 4.0 and so on. Why won’t some Afro-Brazilian consortium draw up the principles for the Internet architecture in 20 years time?
Want a company Web site for nothing? Ad agency Modernista has come to the realization that hosting Web sites is unnecessary when you can distribute your content across the Web. Why not? Host your images at flickr, network with Facebook, put your company information on Wikipedia and make Google your home page. Conceptual, geeky, or just plain viral? You be the judge.
Graphic via textually.org
I’ve noticed an increasing pop culture awareness that we are addicted to our networked technology gadgets– a no, duh kinda revelation– but I was quite surprised (well, not really, it was inevitable) to see it pathologized with a new term, “Disconnection Anxiety.” I think the term sums up our entire planetary situation, actually, and it began long before the Internet. You could say that a system predicated on objectifying nature and reifying existence produces the ultimate disconnect anxiety, and that’s why you see so many drug ads on TV these days. Social Distress Disorder, Disconnect Anxiety… these are just other names for alienation, or the pain we feel from becoming aliens on our own planet.
I just hope a good dose of mindfulness is in the offing instead of a handful of pills.
textually.org: 68% of Americans feel “disconnect anxiety”:
According to a recent study from Solutions Research Group, 27% of Americans feel “acute” anxiety when disconnected from the Internet or their mobiles; 68% feel some level of anxiety.
“This goes for both mobile and computer connections. More than 80% of those surveyed reported that their mobiles are always with them and always on. Nearly 40% report logging on to the Internet via their computers while in bed and more than 60% admitted to using their Blackberry’s in the washroom.
American’s are logging on for safety, work and social life and for navigation according to the report. Many users report that they feel safer when connected via mobile or computer and many say they need constant connections because of a hectic work or social life.
Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, is a Silicon Valley veteran at a mere 36 years of age. His latest pride, Ning, is a place were you can start your own social network. I think it’s an awesome idea. There already is one for media literacy, created by Understand Media’s Nick Pernisco.
What follows is a snip from a short interview with Anderson who has some pretty harsh words for the newspaper industry, but maybe he’s right.
SPIEGEL: But who is on to the next big thing? News Corp. bought MySpace, Google has invested in AOL, Microsoft purchased Facebook shares and is now fighting to acquire Yahoo. It looks like the pie will soon be cut up and distributed.
Andreesssen: No! If anything, I think this rate of change is accelerating. TV and the press have always functioned according to the same sets of rules and technical standards. But the Internet is based on software. And anybody can write a new piece of software on the Internet that years later a billion people are using. My theory is: Every year there is a new killer app. One year it’s Ebay, the next year it’s Craigslist, then it’s Napster, then Paypal, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and so on. I have invested in a whole series of start-ups that are all candidates to be one of these new big things — take Digg, for example …
**
Newspapers with declining circulations can complain all they want about their readers and even say they have no taste. But you will still go out of business over time. A newspaper is not a public trust — it has a business model that either works or it doesn’t.
Technorati Tags: Marc Andreessen, Ning
The following news item interested me because of the manner in which a court order instructed the shutdown of Wikileaks.org. It’s instructive of how difficult it is to “kill” a Website when in a distributed environment.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Whistle-blower site taken offline:
Wikileaks.org… main site was taken offline after the court ordered that Dynadot, which controls the site’s domain name, should remove all traces of wikileaks from its servers.
The court also ordered that Dynadot should “prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court.”
Other orders included that the domain name be locked “to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar” to prevent changes being made to the site.
Technorati Tags: Wikileaks.org
Crossroads of Web, credibility full of potholes — chicagotribune.com:
Earlier this week, the Tribune shut down comment boards on its Web site for all political news stories. It also took down comments on an opinion column about Muslims, and on a story about the Illinois governor and a story about a violent crime in which a child was killed.
Those are the latest on the list of volatile topics — including race, immigration and rape — that bring out anonymous writers who are so nasty, obscene and racist that the boards were beginning to read like a community of foul-mouthed bigots.
So much for the Web 2.0. I wondered why comments sections are so full of spam and idiots. Now we know why.
I’m cribbing notes from Rising Voice’s David Sasaki who wrote an excellent roundup of how the Web is a tool for Kenyan activists to document the current crisis.
Ushahidi is an organization that is combining SMS alerts of Kenyan violence with google maps that gives a timeline of civil incidents but also a way to map the state of the conflict in real time. You can view the timeline here.
And here a post of the potential of twitter in Africa.
Something to consider the next time you log into Facebook.
Facebook’s privacy policy
Just for fun, try substituting the words ‘Big Brother’ whenever you read the word ‘Facebook’
1 We will advertise at you
“When you use Facebook, you may set up your personal profile, form relationships, send messages, perform searches and queries, form groups, set up events, add applications, and transmit information through various channels. We collect this information so that we can provide you the service and offer personalised features.”
2 You can’t delete anything
“When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information.”
3 Anyone can glance at your intimate confessions
“… we cannot and do not guarantee that user content you post on the site will not be viewed by unauthorised persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the site. You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of user content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other users have copied or stored your user content.”
4 Our marketing profile of you will be unbeatable
“Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (eg, photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalised experience.”
5 Opting out doesn’t mean opting out
“Facebook reserves the right to send you notices about your account even if you opt out of all voluntary email notifications.”
6 The CIA may look at the stuff when they feel like it
“By using Facebook, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States … We may be required to disclose user information pursuant to lawful requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws. We do not reveal information until we have a good faith belief that an information request by law enforcement or private litigants meets applicable legal standards. Additionally, we may share account or other information when we believe it is necessary to comply with law, to protect our interests or property, to prevent fraud or other illegal activity perpetrated through the Facebook service or using the Facebook name, or to prevent imminent bodily harm. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies.”
Technorati Tags: facebook
Slate produced this featurette on the deepening of ad creep as it now penetrates the Web. This should come as no surprise or shock, once we realize that the Web is the new TV. Incidentally, the Slate video itself opens with an ad. Hmmm.