last week my friends and i got in to a debate about the "eminent" demise of facebook. they insisted that the sudden emergence and success of twitter was proof that people no longer considered facebook as the source for internet communication and recent (failed) redesigns of facebook were the death throes of the once all powerful site. i disagreed. for several reasons.
to begin with, i don't believe facebook and twitter are meant to do the same things. i would even go so far as to say that twitter is a "social networking site" in the strictest sense of the word. i say this knowing full well that i am not the model user/appreciator of twitter, but i do listen to those that love the site and what sticks out most to me is how unidirectional the messages of twitter seem to be. transactions on twitter seem to clearly fall into two categories, input and output, with little overlap. some people use twitter to glean bits of news from sources important to them (input) but, at the heart, twitter is geared toward the individual who wants to broadcast status messages to an audience (output). sure, followers can reply, but conversation is limited to 140 character snippets and a scrolling home page where new posts replace the oldest. in this way, it's hard for me to think of twitter as a community building site (community implies the exchange of significant content. and, yes, that was a value judgement.) and, as the "networking" part of social networking implies some sort of exchange, i really wonder how this is achieved under such time/space constraints. and, you know, telling 200 followers you had cream of wheat for breakfast hardly seems like a way to build or maintain relationships.
facebook is a horse of a different color. with a number of functions (contact information, messages on the public wall and the private inbox, picture albums, etc.) i don't understand how it is perceived as being in direct competition with twitter. if anything, twitter is simply one element, the status message, extracted from the entirety of the facebook world. now, i should disclose the fact that i think both sites are superfluous. facebook is just as guilty of encouraging the me-centered approach to 2.0 (i tag myself in a friend's picture, i list movies/tv/books that demonstrate my pop cultural savvy, etc. etc. ad nauseum) and i am just as guilty as the next in participating. that said, it fulfills my definition of social networking in that users exchange information. and, successful or not, the redesigns are always crafted with that input-output exchange in mind (you can digg a comment now, see new photos as soon as they are posted, read friends' status messages on your home page the moment they are posted...).
so will twitter kill facebook? not exactly. i think it's important to note how the twitter is keeping facebook on its toes, but i don't take it as a real threat. and while we may be too lazy to read an entire article in the paper (140 character summaries, please!), i don't think were willing to live by status messages alone. twitter's numbers may be rapidly increasing, but facebook has the edge in that this generation (see pew study) love uploading content (pictures, videos, audio...).
but i suppose the golden rule here is that nothing lasts forever. does any body even remember friendster? have all those myspace users run to facebook and never looked back? twitter may have its moment and facebook's popularity may lag (though numbers say membership is still growing) but one day the only places you'll find both sites will be on the wayback machine.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
new news
not just on the graduate level...
proponents of the change stress that children today must have a firm grasp of technology if they are expected to succeed later in life. detractors say this should not come at the expense of traditional (read: print) learning methods.
i think it's safe to say there's room for both. why not assign students the task of researching the victorian era in both wikipedia and a reliable print source? why not have them twitter in (historical) character?
the people have been heard! again.
it seems like facebookers really know how to cause a fuss over changes they don't like. last month they lead a rebellion against the terms of use clause that gave facebook indefinite ownership over all user content (you quit, but facebook holds the info in your profile hostage). this month, facebook users complained that the redesign to the site was no good and facebook acquiesced. apart from confusing regular users (me: "hey, where'd that button go? it was right here a minute ago.), the redesign streamed more details in the public forum (your "friends" see more and more about you on their home page) and made privacy settings difficult to locate. but, no more.
in light of this and our discussion on monday, i think i'll go investigate those privacy settings now.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
nicole's blog (brought to you by google)
After a long day at the office, I came home and found Iron Man on DVD on my coffee table (thanks roommate! Thanks Netflix!). A perfect end to a less than perfect day, I decided. I made dinner, kicked my shoes off and settled in for what I thought would be a pleasantly mindless two hours in front of the television. Mission accomplished, or so I thought for the first twenty minutes. I began to feel uncomfortable. Something was gnawing at the back of my mind. Something was out of place…or perhaps it was that everything was in it’s place – and a little too conspicuously. By the end of my two hours in front of the tv I had counted almost a dozen product logos and heard references to a few others… I can now say with all certainty that, superheroes and co.: use Hummers, BMW’s, Mercedes Benz’s, Audi’s and Rolls Royce’s to get to their destinations; tinker on dell computers; get a hold of their friends on the latest LG and Nokia phones; etc., etc., ad nauseum.
Now, I absolutely was not surprised by the looming corporate presence in this sure-to-be summer blockbuster. What disturbed me most, however, was the thought that, “For each product that I barely managed to identify, how many more did I only subconsciously register?”. I mean, it’s not like I set out to count ®’s and ©’s, and maybe I was a bit more keen on these things because of our recent class topics, but such marketing saturated entertainment really makes me question how much of what I do/buy is self-motivated.
I recently finished watching Merchants of Cool and I couldn’t help but be deeply affected by it. I am a part of the generation that was under that documentary’s microscope. At the time it was filmed (2001) I’m sure I fit some of the pop-cultural profiles/psychological landscapes they sketched out. And I’m sure this is no less true of someone outside that generation (no man is an island. We all react with/against our peers in some way), but it hit particularly close to home because I remember those particular popular phenomena as they occurred. Again, the question here really isn’t matter of taste (the 1960’s gave us the Beatles, while the 90’s gave us N’Sync, etc.) but of personal politics and how I transmit/absorb those ideas.
There was an interesting part of the documentary where they covered the work of “cool hunters” – people in marketing who go out and photograph what’s the hippest style of the moment. They report their findings to a client (for a fee, of course) and those clients, in turn, create an ad campaign based on this “newly discovered” trend. This is a system where the “underground” is exploited for profit, and the only reason we pay them any mind is because we see ourselves in the media.
If identities are fabricated and sold by near-omnipotent corporations, are we all a part of commerce whether we like it or not? And is there such a thing as a genuine expression of one’s self? The sad truth is, I don’t think there is. Our outfits are never truly unique because we’ve bought the clothing at a store. Every haircut has been had, every band has a following. We are all apart of some demographic.
So maybe the important thing isn’t trying to form an identity in spite of marketers, but finding others to identify with. Merchants of Cool spent a lot of time discussing the ways in which conglomerates benefit from our participation, but it seems as though there is at least one way we can benefit from our interaction with them.
Now, I absolutely was not surprised by the looming corporate presence in this sure-to-be summer blockbuster. What disturbed me most, however, was the thought that, “For each product that I barely managed to identify, how many more did I only subconsciously register?”. I mean, it’s not like I set out to count ®’s and ©’s, and maybe I was a bit more keen on these things because of our recent class topics, but such marketing saturated entertainment really makes me question how much of what I do/buy is self-motivated.
I recently finished watching Merchants of Cool and I couldn’t help but be deeply affected by it. I am a part of the generation that was under that documentary’s microscope. At the time it was filmed (2001) I’m sure I fit some of the pop-cultural profiles/psychological landscapes they sketched out. And I’m sure this is no less true of someone outside that generation (no man is an island. We all react with/against our peers in some way), but it hit particularly close to home because I remember those particular popular phenomena as they occurred. Again, the question here really isn’t matter of taste (the 1960’s gave us the Beatles, while the 90’s gave us N’Sync, etc.) but of personal politics and how I transmit/absorb those ideas.
There was an interesting part of the documentary where they covered the work of “cool hunters” – people in marketing who go out and photograph what’s the hippest style of the moment. They report their findings to a client (for a fee, of course) and those clients, in turn, create an ad campaign based on this “newly discovered” trend. This is a system where the “underground” is exploited for profit, and the only reason we pay them any mind is because we see ourselves in the media.
If identities are fabricated and sold by near-omnipotent corporations, are we all a part of commerce whether we like it or not? And is there such a thing as a genuine expression of one’s self? The sad truth is, I don’t think there is. Our outfits are never truly unique because we’ve bought the clothing at a store. Every haircut has been had, every band has a following. We are all apart of some demographic.
So maybe the important thing isn’t trying to form an identity in spite of marketers, but finding others to identify with. Merchants of Cool spent a lot of time discussing the ways in which conglomerates benefit from our participation, but it seems as though there is at least one way we can benefit from our interaction with them.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
vision of the future...from the past
in 1993, when the middle school me wished for a phone i could plug in to a tv on which i could chat my friends up, at&t had the bigger picture in mind.
like jessie's video about newpapers on your computer screen (gasp!), it's scary how close this company nailed present day communications.*
*it should be noted that at&t likely had sources tipping them off to these inventions...like the developers in their employ. the marketing is a bit disingenuous (and what marketing isn't?), in that it implies these technologies will simply come about in the future and does not disclose the efforts and money they are spending on producing such products. interesting none the less.
Monday, February 23, 2009
the people have spoken!
hallelujah! tropicana renegs it's new usability-challenged packaging thanks to the internet cries of many.
i'll never again stand in the freezer section searching, in vain, for the pulp free oj i love!
Sunday, February 22, 2009
the high, the low, and everything in between...according to mcluhan
so i've got this annoying co-worker. very annoying. any mention of movies/music/tv/art/radio/smoke signals/the earth's axis is a challenge to her to educate you on the premier example of that genre. i say i thought memento was good, she says citizen cane set the standard for reverse narrative (ok) and orson welles was way ahead of his time (duh) and i really should see the film if i want to anything about anything (i have. and whatever.) i say i find my mom's shellacked crafts kitchy, she says many of the old masters coated their works in a thin varnish to add a luster to their subjects and preserve their pieces (factually incorrect) and have i ever seen a work by rembrandt or vermeer (...my ba's in art history, thanks) because she will have to take me to the metropolitan museum of art and show me one in person (no thanks. and whatever.).
she is a person who operates on the principal that High and Low are definitive categories... and High is the only one that counts. and sure, i exaggerate to make my point here (except for the taking me to the museum part. that's verbatim.) - namely, that i think this is an absurd way of compartmentalizing life/art/media. nevertheless, i'm convinced that if we spend all our time categorizing the good and the bad we miss out on the fact that all things exist on a spectrum. clueless may be emma dressed up (or down, depending on your take) with "as if's" and "whatever's", fine. and it may say plenty about actors/fashion/slang, but what does it say about the culture in which it came about. why then? why in that form? CONTENT vs. CONTEXT, people!
mounting a high horse in defense of culture is a way of aligning yourself with the important. if you can create/label what others should value you are, in essence, saying that people must value you and your definitive opinions as well. this is my problem with my coworker. and with postman. both assert that the old is better because it's old. everything else is derivative and brings us further away from the serious work of art. this is a value statement (subjective!), says very little about the works in question (you claim, popular television programs aren't as good classic literature, but i still have no idea what criteria lead you to make that assessment) and is, quite frankly, so ego-driven it makes me want to poke my own eyes out.
if new is always bad, developing media will never be good. if i never have to change the way i interpret a work, then media literacy is dead. and if that's the case, then our culture, our narratives, will never change.
luckily, mcluhan saves us from this cultural apocalypse. for him, technology works us over - it changes both the form and the content of our media. he says, "there simply is no time for the narrative form, borrowed from earlier print technology. the story line must be abandoned...[television is]...influencing contemporary literature."
finally, change is good! mcluhan, in speaking about television, leaves room for all the technology to come. he recognizes that information and learning are ever changing and that does not necessarily mean that they are not as valid as what has come before. it is a far more democratic approach to media literacy and one that i can completely respect.
all theory of media aside...i'm off to watch the oscars now!
she is a person who operates on the principal that High and Low are definitive categories... and High is the only one that counts. and sure, i exaggerate to make my point here (except for the taking me to the museum part. that's verbatim.) - namely, that i think this is an absurd way of compartmentalizing life/art/media. nevertheless, i'm convinced that if we spend all our time categorizing the good and the bad we miss out on the fact that all things exist on a spectrum. clueless may be emma dressed up (or down, depending on your take) with "as if's" and "whatever's", fine. and it may say plenty about actors/fashion/slang, but what does it say about the culture in which it came about. why then? why in that form? CONTENT vs. CONTEXT, people!
mounting a high horse in defense of culture is a way of aligning yourself with the important. if you can create/label what others should value you are, in essence, saying that people must value you and your definitive opinions as well. this is my problem with my coworker. and with postman. both assert that the old is better because it's old. everything else is derivative and brings us further away from the serious work of art. this is a value statement (subjective!), says very little about the works in question (you claim, popular television programs aren't as good classic literature, but i still have no idea what criteria lead you to make that assessment) and is, quite frankly, so ego-driven it makes me want to poke my own eyes out.
if new is always bad, developing media will never be good. if i never have to change the way i interpret a work, then media literacy is dead. and if that's the case, then our culture, our narratives, will never change.
luckily, mcluhan saves us from this cultural apocalypse. for him, technology works us over - it changes both the form and the content of our media. he says, "there simply is no time for the narrative form, borrowed from earlier print technology. the story line must be abandoned...[television is]...influencing contemporary literature."
finally, change is good! mcluhan, in speaking about television, leaves room for all the technology to come. he recognizes that information and learning are ever changing and that does not necessarily mean that they are not as valid as what has come before. it is a far more democratic approach to media literacy and one that i can completely respect.
all theory of media aside...i'm off to watch the oscars now!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
the twitter on twitter
well...if david pogue says twitter isn't the time-sucking, ego-driven, of-the-moment internet phenomenon it appears to be...then may i'll reconsider my stance.
my gripes aside, he does raise the same interesting point that boyd did in her article on blogging. namely, that twitter can be "precisely what you want it to be".
pogue defines his twitter as being useful for somethings that would not "merit a full blog or article post." to that i would say, 'does a blog really have to be that involved in order for you to consider posting it?'
having all of these technologies that do, essentially, the same thing (facebook's status message is comparable to a twitter feed, twitter feeds resemble short musings in a blog post...) seems redundant (eliminating redundancies is what i do. i've got the cataloger's gene.). i can justify having a facebook that displays personal information within a network of people who are likely to need that information (it's been a helpful tool for making dinner/drink dates with old friends. whether or not they showed up for those meetings is another story all together.) in addition to having a blog where i upload content (something more involved than that status message). they connect me to people in different ways. the facts are on facebook (name, location, phone, email. leave a brief comment at the sound of the tone), the thoughts are on the blog (the who, what, where, when and why of my life. no character limit).
but, it looks like i've just talked myself into a corner trying to define what these technologies are. in trying to make them distinct things, i've uncovered that, yes, they can be anything.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)