Of rats and humanity (Steinbeck not included)

The award for best rebuttal of disproportionate stupidity this month goes to Maximilian Forte (aka Dr. Max Rat) at Open Anthropology. I'm not even going to summarize his recent encounter with ignorance; it has to be read in full. Read it now. Seriously.

Upon reading his post I was once again brought back to the awkward time- and culture-warp experience I deal with every time I return Stateside. I find the "us" and "them" justification of horrors against humanity to be particularly severe in my home country. Infuriatingly so. In the "war" in Iraq as in Afghanistan, it is impossible to throw around the word "terrorist" without feeling hypocritical. And yet the labels are taken for granted across all sectors of society. "We" are ultimately right: you can tell, because we have the military power to back it up. "They" are absolutely wrong: you can tell by the color of their skin and, let's face it, they're just not like us.

The truth is that we are all rats for the way we treat other human beings and the way that we allow them to be treated (more often than not on the basis of an arbitrary hierarchy of superiority). A world without borders will never exist, not because of geography, but because of humanity's repugnance towards itself.

The highlights of this eloquent and brilliant post (aside from the strong desire the interchange induces to bang your head against a brick wall) are the following obvious facts that warmongers and liberals alike are consistently afraid to admit:

1. "Salam murdered a foreign occupier." and "Salam got murdered in his own country by foreign occupiers."

2. "If you don’t like it, then stay the fuck out of Afghanistan, and you won’t get killed."

Not bad for a rat cowering in an ivory tower, eh?

In other news, Google truly is the key to understanding humankind; namely, how amazing it is that people have managed to maintain their stewardship of the planet for so long. In other words: "We. Are. Doomed." Check out these suggested search results based on keyword requests in Google:



[from Gizmodo]

I like when people ask me why I'm an anthropologist and what insight my research on the Internet could possibly provide in understanding human society. It's priceless!



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A propos, 3.0. Google Gears.

In my last post, I discussed how the more dynamic content we can began to expect from the Internet will make use of applications which not only add features to your browser, but provide desktop utilities to complete tasks normally done solely online. I mentioned that the ability to work offline and upload edited materials all at once seemed so familiar (Juno email client from 1996, anyone?). Today I read that the Google has enabled the facility to access Gmail accounts in an offline state, so that "even if you're offline, you can open your web browser, go to gmail.com, and get to your mail just like you're used to". Presumably the benefit to this over a standalone email client is that it is less cumbersome and more suited to mobile as well as desktop computing (although data will still end up stored on your hard drive).

While the basis for this announcement was offline Gmail, the Google Gears tool upon which it relies can enable offline functionality for virtually any site. There is even a Geolocation API which uses WiFi antenna data, which sounds good from a development point of view.

From Google Gears:

Gears is an open source project that enables more powerful web applications, by adding new features to your web browser:

Let web applications interact naturally with your desktop
Store data locally in a fully-searchable database
Run JavaScript in the background to improve performance

Gears is a plug-in that extends your browser to create a richer platform for web applications. For example, webmasters can use Gears on their websites to let users access information offline or provide you with content based on your geographical location.

So what applications will it have? Can field researchers such as anthropologists, who may rarely have access to a reliable Internet connection, make use of the service, not only for emails, but for data storage? The idea to allow virtually any website to synchronize data when a connection becomes available might be particulary suited to field research in remote areas.



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Point and click on the go

Perhaps integrating similar and/or related services will improve Google Street View?

Geovector, Cybermap local search solution for mobile phones
Geovector, a provider of pointing based search solutions, and CyberMap Japan, owner of mapping services provider Mapion, have launched Mapion Pointing Application 2.0, called Mapion Pointing Appli, for mobile phones in Japan. This upgrade reportedly transforms Mapion's existing Geovector pointing mobile search service into a fully commercial application. Mapion Pointing Application allows users to easily find and launch content by pointing and clicking mobile phones at retailers, restaurants, historical sites or any of Mapion's 700,000 Points of Interest (POI) across Japan. The service combines Mapion's POI data with Geovector's pointing based technology and spatial search engine. The new release include features such as user driven opt-in advertising, sponsored categories and preferred placement. The service was initially launched over the KDDI network in January 2006, and is now available for download with Sony Ericsson models W32S, W41S, W44S and W51S phones, the W41K by Kyocera, the W42CA by Casio; and in July, with the W52S from Sony Ericsson. [source]


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I can see my house from here ...

I realize that this is extremely delayed due to my recent lapse in posts and the fleeting state of news in the blogosphere, but I feel that it is worth posting nonetheless. Google has launched its Street View option on Google Maps (US). I spent some time browsing the few available streets in my hometown and concluded that if I am ever in need of a street-level view of a particular building or square foot of pavement, it might come in useful. Over all, however, the novelty seemed to wear off quickly as I found the display increasingly choppy and I struggled to find something worth looking at. As a service, it would probably be better if it were integrated into Google Earth as a desktop application, rather than Google Maps as an online tool.

Of course, there are more critics of this new service than there were of governmental wire-tapping. A host of unethical and dangerous activities are quoted as possible threats to personal privacy and safety. I am undecided as to whether or not this is a good idea, because all good ideas can often be perverted into bad ideas. However, what does interest me is how this relates to the ever-increasing confusion over what constitutes "public" and "private" space. In many (if not all) countries around the world, new technologies - from mobile phones to satellite imagery - are changing the ways in which people interact with, and understand, spatial demarcations in everyday life.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

"There's a distinction between what Google has a legal right to do and what is the responsible thing to do," said Bankston, who believes the company should have blurred the images of unwitting pedestrians before it posted the street-level pictures. "It's a problem we as a society have to grapple with, and I think we are just now seeing the fault lines emerge." While he thinks some of the issues raised by Google's new service are prime fodder for a healthy debate, Weinstein worries that it might inspire overly repressive laws.

"It's a tough area, but it just seems there is no way around the fact that public spaces are public spaces," Weinstein said. "You don't want to create an environment where it becomes illegal to take photos in public. It can be riskier not to be able to see something than it is to be able to see something."


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Conflicting views on Web 2.0

Back in 2006 [source], the impact of Web 2.0 on surfing behavior was already being debated.

"Web 2.0 sites have often been dismissed as just a passing fad but a recent survey by Comcast shows user-generated content to be a real money spinner. Web sites using Web 2.0 methods and user-generated content (UGC) are proving to be some of the most successful and fastest growing websites in the UK. Digital media measurement company comScore World Metrix has released an analysis of UK Internet users' activity from July 2005 to July 2006, and many of the leading sites are sites that feature mainly free, user-generated content.

.... "Web 2.0 is clearly architected for participation, as it attempts to harness the collective intelligence of Web users," commented Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe. Many of the sites experiencing the fastest growth today are the ones that understand their audience's need for expression and have made it easy for them to share pictures, upload music and video, and provide their own commentary, thus stimulating others to do the same. It is the classic network effect at work."

More recently (a bit late?), The BBC [source] reported that the Web 2.0 "wave" is starting to take hold. This article suggests that Web 2.0 is allowing browsers to become more utilitarian, like the ancient artifacts of packaged computer programs, once purchased, boxed and shrink-wrapped, in shops that you visited in person.

"In a basic way it demonstrates how web browsers are gradually being used by consumers for far more than just looking around in cyberspace. As people gravitate to the internet for more and more free services and solutions the web browser could become the central window through which our daily lives are conducted, potentially replacing most desktop applications. Software giants like Microsoft and Adobe have been launching their own online applications, some of which resemble their well-known retail titles. Adobe has released a stripped-down web version of its video editing software, called Remix, and later this year plans to launch an internet version of its very successful photo manipulation program, Photoshop.

... I think they are genuinely trying to figure out how to make this work, because they know it's going to be a big part of their companies in 10 years. .... Docs and Spreadsheets is [sic] a product that most consumers could happily use instead of Microsoft Office, with multi-user, location free [sic] collaboration being an added benefit. .... One incentive for companies to supply online software is compatibility. In one go, all customers can be upgraded to the newest version and create files that are universally compatible, unlike different generations of Word documents. "So the companies really like it, and it's to the companies' advantage for the software to work extremely well and for you to use it all the time because then they get more information and then they can sell you more stuff." To older users of desktop applications, who are usually more cautious about their online activity, this might seem disconcerting, but for younger computer users, the MySpace generation who freely flaunt the details of their personal lives, it might be not be such a big deal.

I think this brings up some decent concerns along with the benefits of online programs. It is true that there is a great marketing potential for companies, and a greater usability potential for consumers, especially with compatibility issues. It is likely, however, that companies like Adobe and Microsoft will continue to offer only watered-down versions of their popular programs online. As for Google, I have to say that I perused their online word processing software some time ago, but chose to remain with my reliable Microsoft Word. I suppose I am one of the older (out-dated?) Internet users more weary of making insecure material which I would rather keep private.

The variable definition of Web 2.0 makes this post difficult. I attribute the label 'Web 2.0' to sites which run by UGC in that it involves some kind of community-based user interactivity. Using a word processor online wouldn't really constitute an aspect of Web 2.0 unless the documents were made public, possibly with tagging capability? I suppose that is the difficulty with labelling rapidly changing elements like the Internet. There is too much crossover for any terminology to stick around for too long.

At any rate, within a few days of the BBC post, I read an article which claims that Web 2.0 is failing to impress users.

A Report from Hitwise shows that only a tiny proportion of visitors to so-called Web 2.0 sites actually participate in the information sharing or user-generated content process. Web 2.0, the current internet buzz term for collaborative web sites that allow for some degree of user-generated content, is proving to be far less of a draw for web users than the hype suggests, a study has showed. A tiny 0.16 percent of visits to Google's top video-sharing site, YouTube, are by users seeking to upload video for others to watch, according to a study of online surfing data by Bill Tancer, an analyst with web audience measurement firm Hitwise. Similarly, only two-tenths of one per cent of visits to Flickr, the popular photo-gallery site owned by Yahoo, are to upload new photos, the Hitwise study found. The vast majority of visitors are the online equivalent of the television generation's couch potatoes - voyeurs who like to watch rather than create, Tancer's statistics show. [source]

But is this actually surprising? Well before the days of 'Web 2.0', how many Internet users made their own websites, and how many just visited other websites? Even more archaic an example, how many people write their own books and how many would visit a library to read one? I therefore think that the statistics presented in the article do not actually support that argument that Web 2.0 is failing to impress users.

Which leads to the question, how does one define a Web 2.0 user and in what way does that differ from an Internet user?


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Spain's Cuatro launches YouTube web portal

Spanish television channel Cuatro is launching a portal on Google's YouTube, showing clips of the broadcaster's most popular programs to try and build a young audience in and outside Spain. The move by Cuatro, a free-to-air channel launched by Spanish TV group Sogecable in November 2005, follows a similar move by the BBC earlier this month. "With a community of millions of young users on line, YouTube is a perfect platform to reach new viewers," Cuatro's director of content Elena Sanchez said in a statement on Thursday.

YouTube, bought by Google last November, first gained popularity for short, comic sketches that were created and posted on the site by users. It has also faced increasing legal threats from big media companies, including a $1 billion lawsuit from media conglomerate Viacom Inc, angry that the site has become a popular means of pirating their television shows. Cuatro is Spain's sixth most popular free-to-air channel, with an audience share of 6.4 percent in 2006. [source]

Well, it is no secret that a website designed to allow users to post their favorite video content will result in the posting of popular television and other visual media programming. Of course, much of the content on YouTube is user-generated and personalized video, but many people also supplement their online viewing with commercial programming. In many ways, Internet, and computers in general, have become analogous to the television revolution. The difference, of course, is the Internet is faster to respond to the demands of users who want to choose - and, importantly, contribute to - their own content.

It is, therefore, about time that more European television stations realize the possibilities - and financial dangers - inherent in Internet video sharing supplementing existing programming. To what extent the spread of Internet programming is bound to be the death of television reminds me of the debate surrounding VCR being the death of the movie industry or cassette tapes being the end of the music industry.

It is true, as Cuatro argue, that YouTube is an excellent source of young viewers - or viewers of any age - for their programming. The tactic of putting television programmes online for later or continued viewing (including archives of past episodes, previews of newer episodes, discussion groups, photos, blogs, etc.) is no longer 'new'. Most networks do it in some respect. Is there, then, a qualitative distinction between this practice, and using an already popular platform (YouTube) to cash in on an already expansive user base?

As an anthropologist, I am not entirely interested in the corporate economic outcome of these activities per se, but more how they relate to the actuality of human society on the ground (in the home, that is). Are people moving away from collective television viewing and towards more isolated, individualized viewing online? I would venture that there is more convergence. People are more likely to combine various types of technologies (including viewing content on mobile phones or video iPods) than to abandon one for the other. Even if Cuatro and other companies offered full-length episodes of programmes online for free, would viewers abandon their TV sets?

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