Archive for category society
Thugs, Cheerleaders or Citizen Journalists?
Posted by Paul Holmes in internet, photography, social media, society on June 17, 2011
The wounds are still fresh in the minds, and on the streets, of Vancouver.
We are angry, frustrated, and embarrassed about what some people made of the beautiful city of Vancouver on June 15th. As people around the world fight for freedom, and against tyranny, we smash cars and windows, ostensibly, because of a hockey game.
Much of the outrage heard on talk radio, the blogosphere, and social media itself, is about the so-called cheerleaders who stayed when the police asked everyone to leave. They kept their cell phones running, taking photos and videos, and posting them.
In social media circles, this could be called live-blogging.
So, did their presence instigate the problem, or were they getting in the way of the Police? Probably a little of both.
But the larger question is this: In an age of Citizen Journalism, were they Citizens or Journalists?
I guarantee that somebody will offer as defense in court over the next few months that they were exercising journalistic freedom by staying after the police asked them to leave.
After all, the traditional media didn’t leave. They were doing a public service, right? And, yet, no doubt, their presence inspired the rioters to continue, too.
Here’s the reality: There’s no Press Pass for a riot.
So where do we draw the line? If you have a popular blog, are you a journalist? If you have a Facebook page, are you a journalist?
Can you see police announce over a loudspeaker: If you have a Klout score below 62, you must immediately leave the area.
We’ve seen numerous other “publishing” laws apply to individuals (typically to the Facebook user’s surprise and detriment). In this case, we will see push back from self-styled citizen journalists who claim their presence was no different than the TV camera, or the newspaper photographer.
Are they correct? I suppose this will be for the courts to decide.
I’m willing to bet some lawyer with a name to make will drag this one as far up the court system as possible. I anxiously await the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in 2015.
As a total aside, love them or hate them, much of the citizen journalists’ content is helping police catch the real instigators.
Photo by Rebecca Bollwitt
Social Media – Top 25
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, personal, social media, society on August 30, 2010
Social Media Camp, Victoria BC, October 3rd, 2010
If you are using social media for business, you are probably best to stick with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter (perhaps with a dash of YouTube or Flickr). But if you are a geek like me, you might find a few little gems in this list.
25. Google Buzz
So much buzz, yet so little sting. It’s my new FriendFeed, although I don’t think Google intended it to be used this way. I rarely use it, despite the fact it’s in my face every time I use GMail.
24. MySpace
Oh! How far you have fallen, MySpace. For those of you who haven’t heard of MySpace, it’s a website where you can find music. Is there anything else? Not really. Don’t accuse me of dissin’ MySpace though, you’ll notice this list doesn’t include bebo, hi5, Friendster, Multiply, Plaxo, ecademy, or any of the other also-ran general interest social networks.
23. Identi.ca
It’s like a better Twitter, only it hasn’t reached critical mass. I hope they have some commercial success with status.net, because competition is good.
22. FriendFeed
As predicted, Facebook bought FriendFeed and did nothing with it. It was number 10 on my last list.
21. meme by Yahoo!
I have met some very interesting people on this. It’s another offering that blurs the line between micro-blogging and blogging (like Posterous and Tumblr tend to); it seems to be a great place to profile photography. Like VIMEO, it’s a better network not for the features or marketing potential, but for the interesting users and their content.
20. Hunch
Great idea – a taste graph for the social web. I hope it catches on; a good idea is only that unless it gains critical mass. Notably, the founder of Hunch was also a co-founder of Flickr.
19. StumbleUpon
I have nothing against StumbleUpon, and I know it can be a dream come true for people who spend all their time on SEO. It’s fun and easy to use, but I honestly don’t use it much…
18. Slideshare
Share your PDFs and PPTs easily, embed them elsewhere, and share them directly on Slideshare itself, with your friends and contacts there. Great tool!
17. Goodreads
Do you read good? This is a great social network for people who like to read. I love it, even though I don’t read so goodly.
16. Flixster
I like movies. In fact, I like movies a lot. The Flixster website itself is a bit MySpace-y, but the iPhone app rocks. You can mark movies you want to watch, and rate your movies, and add a review. It doesn’t seem this network has caught on, but I use it at least once a week.
15. Sprouter
If LinkedIn is Facebook for business, then Sprouter is Twitter for business. It seems to be catching on. Time will tell.
14. Tumblr
It’s a blog or a microblog, and a social network, all beautifully united. Simple. Fun. I use it a little.
13. Posterous
Another good and simple blogging tool. Notice Tumblr and Posterous are neck-and-neck, I only put Posterous a notch ahead because I use it to subscribe to some great blogs (and they e-mail me a daily digest). However, I don’t use it much to blog (see item 3 for my real bias).
12. Gowalla
Share your location with your friends. Creepy, but fun and interesting. There are a bunch of tools that do this: Gowalla, Foursquare, Yelp, BrightKite (not on this list), and now Facebook Places (not yet available in Canada). Admittedly I use all 4 (soon to be 5) on my iPhone, and sort of get a kick out of it. I like Yelp the best, and it has a legacy review function, which is, in my opinion, way cooler than the simpler Gowalla and Foursquare.
11. Foursquare
It seems to be the category killer, but the game is definitely not over, especially with Facebook getting in on the act, and Yelp revving up their user base. I put Foursquare ahead of Gowalla, because you can be Mayor of the places you visit! Imagine my joy in being Mayor of First Choice Haircutters!
10. YouTube
Oh, YouTube. So famous, so popular, so immature and anti-social. Your comments remind me of things I used to say when I was 12. YouTube is great because it will host your video, and because it has critical mass. But for grown-ups, VIMEO is much better.
9. VIMEO
It’s like a nice YouTube. Better content, and more mature users. I’m a bit surprised it’s done as well as it has, considering YouTube’s market dominance. There have been other contenders in the video space, too – DailyMotion, VEOH, and others.
8. Meetup
They actually had a friend feature, but they apparently phased it out. But it’s still a social network, in that you can find members of your meetup groups, and see what other groups they are in. It also allows you to indicate your interests, and suggests new groups to you based on geography and interest.
Best of all, Meetup is about meeting people in real life, not just online. And isn’t this the best sort of social networking there can be?
7. Digg
Geek alert. I still like Digg. It’s fun. Sorry.
I’m still a bit unsure about the new version (I was an Alpha user), but I think it will be better in the long run.
6. Facebook
I don’t really like Facebook. However, it must make the list because I do like that I can connect with almost all my friends there. Also, it has some great marketing tools (like Facebook Business Pages and Facebook Ads).
5. Yelp
I really like Yelp. I think it’s better than Gowalla and Foursquare. It started out as a review site, but they’ve since added the check-in functions to mirror Gowalla and Foursquare, and you can be a Duke (or Duchess) instead of a Mayor! What can be better than that!? It’s gaining critical mass, albeit not as quickly as Foursquare.
4. Flickr
Best. Photo. Sharing. Tool. Ever. Forget about TwitPic and TweetPhoto and that frog one… if you want to Tweet a photo, use Flickr! It has some incredibly powerful group and sharing functions, and is itself a social network, too. If you’re going to share photos on Twitter, it’s hands-down the most sensible tool to use.
3. Blogging using WordPress
I’m a huge fan of blogging, and a huge fan of WordPress!
I’ve organized two WordCamp events in Victoria, and cannot say enough good things about it. It’s a great product. It’s easy. It’s fun. It’s free (you have to have web hosting, but if you have a website, you can add WordPress fairly easily).
There are numerous other blogging tools (some mentioned in this list), but with the self-installed version of WordPress, you own your social media! And you build your own community. You are not reliant on a startup with an unknown revenue situation or business model to host your media.
I’m a big fan of integrating Feedburner and Disqus, too.
2. LinkedIn
Are you in business now? Will you one day be in business? Do you have business dealings? Are you a professional that might expect one or two job changes or career focus changes sometime in the next thirty years? Are you a student? Are you management? Are you between the age of 18 and 80 and expect to live and work for the next 6 months, or longer?
I’m not going to beat around the bush here. I’ve heard all the excuses for not being on LinkedIn. They are all misguided (at best), lazy or stupid (at worst), and of no validity whatsoever.
You must sign up to LinkedIn immediately, and shame on you for not doing so before now!
This is not Facebook – there are no party photos, funny status updates and kid’s stuff. This is serious business, and it will take all of 5 minutes a month out of your hectic schedule.
1. Twitter
I (heart) Twitter.
It can be whatever you want it to be. If you want to talk marketing on Twitter, there are definitely some best practices. But outside of that world, there’s no right or wrong way. Want to socialize? Want to meet people? Want to talk business? Want to talk shop with other people in your business? Want to find out the news or the weather?
Jump on in and join the conversation!
Twitter, as crazy as it may sound, in it’s 140 character glory, is really the everything network, and remains steadfast in it’s number 1 spot on my list.
Epilogue
There you have it, my exhaustive list. You may notice I removed Instant Messaging from the list. I’ve decided it doesn’t apply to this list. Like text messaging, I still use it, of course, and occasionally do business on it – but it’s not inherently social in the 1 to many sense that we’ve come to recognize social media as being.
Like my list? Hate my list? Agree with something? Disagree with something? Did I miss something real obvious?
Robots Of The Future!
Posted by Paul Holmes in humour, robotics, society on August 14, 2010
Robie Junior
It was Christmas, 1987.
My favourite magazine was Popular Mechanics.
I owned an 80286 PC with a 40 MB hard drive, 1 MB of RAM, MS-DOS 4.01, VGA monitor, and a 9600 BPS modem.
From this computer, I operated a BBS – for fun.
My lovely sister, recognizing my inner geekly beauty, bought me the most amazing present I’ve ever had – Robie Junior – a real robot from Radio Shack, and quite possibly the coolest toy ever made!
When it was in solo mode, it would roll around the house. If it hit a wall (or a cat), it would promptly say, “Whoops, excuse me!” Then it would turn around and go in another direction.
But turn on the control mode and it’s your own robot army of one!
Robot of the Future
I couldn’t help but think … it’s 1987, and this robot is amazing! I can’t imagine how much MORE amazing robots will be in the year 2000 … or 2010!
Imagine!?!
And here we are, 23 years later, and robots, uh, well, robots suck!
An R.C. robot, if you can find it, is about the same, or worse, than it’s 1987 forefathers.
Oh sure, we’ve got robots that vacuum your floor … if you have no stairs, or cats. Wow! How freaking revolutionary!
I’m still ticked about the flying car thing, too! But that story will have to wait for another day.
Book Burning 2.0
Posted by Paul Holmes in politics, society on August 3, 2010
The year is 2017.
You get on the bus, and people are busily going about their business.
A handful are talking on their phones, some holding it to their ears, and others watching their friends on the screen. Some people are reading or listening to music on their phone, and about a third of the people are playing or reading on their tablet devices – iPad’s, Kindles, one of those tablets made by a Chinese manufacturer – and that new one that RIM came out with a few years ago.
One guy is reading a book that’s made with paper.
Now I’m no futurist, but this future doesn’t seem very weird to me, nor particularly scary, at face value.
But now consider the added concepts of widespread censorship, like we see today in places like China, which is particularly notable for excelling at censorship. Now think of the long tradition of book burnings around the world – it’s been around about as long as we’ve had books!
Of course, every single one of those devices – tablets, phones, etc. – are all connected to the same network, the Internet.
Is this crazy talk?
It wasn’t very long ago that Amazon demonstrated their power to delete books from their Kindle device.
I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to imagine a future world, not that far off, where there are restrictions on what books are permitted.
Maybe it is crazy. But it does raise some interesting questions, like What sort of protections are there for consumers, both from intrusive governments and intrusive corporations?
What do you think?
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