wrong side of the virtual tracks

Social networking sites are a lot like your neighborhood bars. They’ve each got their own atmosphere, crowds, and you choose which one you'd like to be at based on your preference for either of those qualities. This is a great way of assessing the types of (potentially like-minded) people you may meet on these sites; however, this site selection usually gives way to an "us vs. them" mentality. in Boyd’s article, "Viewing American Class Divisions through MySpace and Facebook" the "us" and the "them" become the "hegemonic" and "subaltern" teens - or what the rest of the America would call the "good" and "bad".

 Boyd’s discussion of social networking sites reveals a very scary comparison that is leveled against today's teens. The idea that those who conform to societies rules are good and those that do not are bad can't be good for teenagers as they develop their sense of self and, furthermore, isn't a maxim that is completely true. The fact that this "good vs. bad" dialog has been translated to teen’s online socializing behaviors is even more startling.

 And yet, as arbitrary as this internet-age social code seems, I have witnessed it exactly as Boyd portrays it. I came of age around the same time that Friendster, the first social networking site of its kind, hit its peak. At the time, the novelty of connecting with friends over the internet far outweighed the hipness of its aesthetics or exclusivity. Actually, that’s not entirely true. At the time, Friendster had little to no competition so there were no hipper/better sites to flock to. But, in the years that followed the competition appeared and Friendster was left in the dust. Facebook emerged as the go to place with those for a .edu email account and MySpace was the catch all for everyone else who wanted profiles but lacked credentials. In Boyd’s article she points to a number of reasons for the social divide between Facebook and MySpace (aesthetics, interest in bands, etc.) but I think these elements are all symptomatic of their beginnings. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was a Harvard student replicating the university’s internal website for profit. The fact that it persisted as a site for “.edu-havers only” for years after its inception is key to understanding its ivory tower outlook today.

 Even now that Facebook has opened its gates and allowed entrance to high school students and the middle aged alike, the elitist current has not flagged. I could write a dissertation on the disadvantages of being Facebook friends with my mother. I could also note the fact that online communication between me and my hometown friends (who still reside in the lower middle class enclave famous for Pat Benetar and the number of pubs per capita we grew up in) is limited to MySpace messages and infrequently checked emails, all for lack of computer access. It may seem like a lot of work must be done in order to change people’s opinions about these sites and the people who use them, but I wonder if that is all that important. In as much as self-imposed caste systems are limiting, they are still self-imposed.

Podcast promo, etc.

i consider myself someone who's familiar with a lot of the new technologies out on the market today, so it was surprising when i realized i had no idea how to work GarageBand on my computer. the scary thing about new programs like this is it seems like you are venturing into a foreign world: new language, customs, etc. the upside in this case is that there are plenty of people who have gone before you, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs in the form of youtube videos, webpages, and podcasts (interesting that people use the medium to describe the in's and out's of said medium).

so, now that i've taken in what these resources have to offer me, i've created my very first audio recording. i'm glad i've had this experience to force me to deal with this technological obstacle. for someone who has easy access to these programs it seems a real shame that it's taken me this long to use them. regardless, i really appreciated the fact that after a few tutorials i was able to grasp the major concepts/functions and craft exactly the audio piece i wanted.

the practice of recording my audio and uploading it to my itunes, really made me realize how democratizing technology can be. if i can learn how to do this, with the right tools, anyone else can.

fingers crossed. let's see if this works.

from blog to pod

podcasting is one of those inventions that makes me thankful for technology. this is exactly what technology is supposed to do for us: bring together people from all over to share their views on just about everything with no mediating forces to stop them from doing so. the fact that so much of what is on our airwaves is brought to us by the good people at Clear Channel Communications means that most everything we hear on the radio is profit related. Curtis Fox, in his review of podcasting, mentions the real world constraints of being a cog in the corporate radio machine: padding a show to fill the prescribed segment of time, breaking for messages from your sponsors, affording the massively expensive airtime, etc. podcasting makes these concerns obsolete and, best of all, anyone can do it. i don't know what the average hourly rate is for time on an FM frequency is, but i can't imagine it's something a housewife or college student could afford.

what may be even more significant than the democratization of the medium is the fact that, in podcast form, amateur broadcasters don't have big brother breathing down their neck. the FCC does not police the podosphere...and thank god for that. it's enough that corporations decide what messages i should be bombarded with, having the federal government decide what isn't appropriate for me to hear is beyond frustrating.

popular commercial radio may remind me that its got "more music, less commercials, every hour" than its competitors, but i still feel like i'm being sold something every minute. and public radio may have the content i like (relatively free from corporate brainwashing), but it's not radical by any stretch of the imagination. i just can't win here.

but i believe podcasting can be a real success through its free and diverse content. my only concern is, as podcasting's popularity increases will there be better way to promote and organize all of the offerings out there? efforts like story corp's are a good framework for cataloging personal oral histories, but will places like the paley center for media (which is the brains behind nyc's museum of television and radio) organize large scale efforts for recording our oral history on the web?

google busts

big brother (in this case, google) is watching. some other famous moments caught by the google street view cameras.

• guy passed out drunk
• guy falls off bike
• guy sells drugs

for more, see my new favorite blog: Street View Stuff

[too lazy to give this a title]

from the comics i read to the movies i watch, it seems everyone is talking about universal knowledge and the collective unconscious. the idea that great progress is made in silent and sudden bursts is circulating. turns out the answers to all our problems are simply in the ether...or on google.

of course, not everyone falls into the pro-google category i would claim i belong to. those more "old school" than carr would say that answers not hard-won by tireless research are not truly earned or deserved. that google makes nearly unlimited amounts of data (it's safe to say call any database with one trillion items "nearly unlimited") available to us in a few key strokes has certainly changed our culture. it has changed the path of human intelligence and i don't think this is a bad thing.

carr cites a number of examples where technology threatened a way of life and those that witnessed the change cursed it. you'd probably have a hard time finding a group of people today who think guttenberg was a jerk, but the whole movable type thing didn't go over so well with those that had a vested interest in the hand-printed word. sure, hindsight is 20-20 and we know now that the democratization of information revolutionized the world, but let's learn from history a bit before we go repeating it.

google, yes, makes us lazy. i think that's a fair (ish) statement. with the internet on my phone, and my phone with me wherever i go, i never hesitate to consult the internet when my brain refuses to supply an answer to the question at hand. maybe that's not the best behavior. but what about the positive changes the internet/google brings? carr talks about the plastic brain and i think i've got it because i know my neurons are moving! my hard drive reformatting! i may be easily distracted as of late, but i am able to make faster connections to a wider array of material than ever before. i may forgo a deep reading of article, but when i recall several pieces together i am making quick, sharp choices. i am storing more information and learning how to synthesize more complex ideas at a greater speed and that is a very good thing in my book. the content of these ideas doesn't matter as much as my increased comprehension skills.

carr talks about the threat of people becoming machines too, but i feel this is just a sensationalist way for others to try to scare change off. there will always be the human element, the part of this technological evolution that introduces chance into the equation, and i don't believe that can ever truly be overcome by algorithms. mankind will continue to build smart machines and tell them what they must know, but i have no fear that the reverse will happen.

ps. for someone who claims his attention span is spread thin, he wrote a pretty lengthy article. i wonder if it took him multiple sittings to finish the re-read.