Archive for On Blogs and Blogging
by Ewan Spence
February 5, 2008 at 10:28 am · Filed under 2008, Devices, On Blogs and Blogging, Photomessaging
Before I go on, you really should head over to Kathryn and Daniel’s Flickr set that inspired this post.
Anyway, this Flickr set has sparked a question in my head – the set itself was the traditional unboxing that any Apple fan does on getting a new product, except in this case it was an old (yet unopened) Apple IIc. The comments are a stream of memories, questions and observations that reminded me of a group of Archaeologists looking over some fossils. One comment to illustrate the fun, from Brad Graham… I double-dog dare you to tote that thing up to a Genius Bar, put on your innocent face and say, “Something went wonky with my Leopard install. Can you have a look?”
So here’s what sparked. How many text messages did you get yesterday? Last week? Last month? How about multimedia messages? Quick snaps that were never mailed to Flickr? My guess is they’ve been deleted from your phone, never to be seen again. In the digital age, we were promised, everything would be available, we’ll never have to worry about finding anything every again.
Turns out that the d in digital is more like disposable. How much information have you trashed out of your mobile phone in the recent past? We spend hours and hours each month (well, I do) trying to archive our deskbound emails, but with more and more SMS and MMS messages, more pictures, and now more and more video. How much of that are you saving?
Yes there are partner applications to capture this data on your PC (Nokia’s Lifeblog for one), and store it for you, but these are few and far between – and really only aiming at the higher end phones at the moment. Even if you have a compatible phone, how many are using this feature? And then archiving the results somewhere safe? Or are we trusting Yahoo’s Flickr and Google’s Picasa to treasure our memories?
Yes, there are benefits to digital – if Kennedy was to be assassinated today the number of smartphone videos, camera shots and digital witnesses would surely make any Warren 2.0 Commission’s job much easier – but if you go into the archives of analogue photography then you have lots of negatives and factual ‘colour’ around the Pullitzer Shot. Nowadays these would be deleted in the field. Or they send back only the cropped resized version to the news desk.
How much are we loosing from our heritage every day?
by Imran Ali
December 27, 2007 at 4:28 am · Filed under Communication, Convergence, Devices, Email, Ethnography, Mobile messaging 2.0, On Blogs and Blogging, Studies + Research
In the last couple of weeks, the various contributors to Mobile Messaging 2.0 have been holding an open debate on what the definition of a mobile message should be; with some insightful and thought provoking contributions from Debi, Darla, Ewan, Paul and Russell…almost the entire team!
From my own perspective as a user, cognitively, I don’t think I’ve ever made distinctions between mobile messaging or ‘fixed’ messaging. In fact the means of transmission is pretty much meaningless to me, with a focus on where I am, what I’m doing, what I’m talking about and with whom I’m communicating.
Every day I expect 100-150 incoming emails, around a 1000 blogposts at Bloglines, maybe 50-75 Twitters, an average of 5 voice calls, 5-10 Facebook messages and the odd notification from a blog comment, Facebook event, YouTube, Upcoming, Last.fm or eBay. Every now and again, I might even receive an MMS!
They’re all just messages - some land in my mailbox, others in various web application inboxes, some on my mobile phone. I might see a Facebook notification email arrive in my N95’s inbox and reply using the mobile web UI for Facebook. I may receive a direct Twitter on my phone as an SMS and reply using Twitterific on my Mac. Sometimes I wander around the house firing off replies from an iPod touch.
Conversations and communications start in one application, end in another and meander through various fixed and mobile networks…it’s all communication, driven by context and situation.
Perhaps there’s a meta-question we need to address collectively. Rather than exploring definition of mobile messaging, we perhaps need to understand why this definition is important. Are we more interested in the mobile portions of a conversation’s journey or in the multi-modal nature of that conversation?
I would argue that the latter question is perhaps more significant, simply because this is an area in which the industry lacks knowledge. Classifying messages by network or device is relatively easy to comprehend, but doesn’t reflect the reality of usage most of us now experience.
We can perhaps learn much more about the design and usage of communication by delving deep into the motivations we have when switching contexts between services, devices, location, time and relationship…
by Ewan Spence
October 4, 2007 at 7:01 am · Filed under Communication, News, On Blogs and Blogging
Anyone follow Formula One? Last month there was an Arbitration/Court case regarding McLaren and Ferrari, and corporate espionage regarding the design of the McLaren car. The actual mechanics of the case aren’t important for this article – what is important is how the result was announced. Because the majority of online websites and Formula 1 blogs somehow managed to jump the gun and while they got the verdict right, they all managed to enhance the punitive punishment given to McLaren.
The power of blogging, especially in covering news and current affairs, carries a great responsibility. In the case of this news, most of the news and blog sites received the first rumours of McLaren being excluded – the main news sites (such as the BBC) held off until the official statement regarding the case; the internet news sites and blogs all jumped on the ‘scoop’ and went ahead with the wrong verdict. And once one site had published the wrong news, every other site took that as the starting gun, and that was that. Confusion reigned for the next hour.
The Internet is one of the fastest reacting media there has ever been – the competitive blogosphere even more so. Within minutes, a message can go from one single website to being public knowledge around the world, with real-world effects. A recent spoofed message from an alleged Apple employee led to a story appearing on a leading gadgets weblog that caused a marked (albeit temporary) depression in Apple’s stock on Wall Street. As with any news, the headlines get a huge amount of coverage, the retraction garners one line on del.icio.us.
As the idea of citizen journalism becomes more accepted, and “news†can be posted with words, pictures and video from mobile phone handsets around the world, the news sites are under constant pressure to scoop each other. In a world where reputations can be made by getting the first post by just a few seconds, the ethos and ethics of strong fact checking, legal advice, and robust editorial guidelines that are present in old media may not be translating into the new world.
It’s the responsibility of everyone on the web to take care what they post, be responsible, realize that the ability of the web to touch everyone is a strength and a weakness in the same breath.
by Oliver Starr
July 5, 2007 at 10:00 am · Filed under On Blogs and Blogging
I have a small favor to ask of you. Please help me to improve the blogging experience. You may have noticed recently the profusion of buttons such as the “digg” or “sphere it” buttons that have started sprouting up all over the web. Ostensibly these buttons are designed to facilitate the posting of stories that readers find interesting on other sites to help these stories gain more attention. Judging by the frequent with which these buttons now occur I’ve been wondering just how much of a difference they make - who’s doing all that clicking? Is it you?
To find out I’ve created two surveys; one is aimed mostly at content creators and aims to discover how you choose to put buttons on your web site, which buttons you choose, why you choose them, and what sort of benefits you think you’re getting. The second is more for folks that tend to “digg” stuff rather than for those hoping to get “dugg” and win the “dugg lottery”
If you could be so kind as to take a couple of minutes from your busy day to answer one or both of these surveys I will be truly appreciative. I will also be happy to share the data I collect with anyone that actually completes one or both surveys.
Survey One: for Bloggers
Click Here to take survey
Survey Two: for Blog Readers
Click Here to take survey
Thanks for your help!
