Archive for the 'The Internet' category

What Twitter Is… To me…

Feb 24 2009 Published by under Elections, Miscellany, Society, Technology, The Internet, Twitter

I spend a lot of time on Twitter. If you know me, you know that. I spend so much time on Twitter that I had the distinction of being labeled a “nuclear followcost” – in other words, it is really, really annoying to follow me because you’ll actually see me saying something.

So yesterday morning on my way past her office, I stopped to talk to a coworker. She mentions that she just signed up for Twitter. But, she explains, she hasn’t done much with it since she’s not exactly sure what the point of it is.

Twitter is Every Conversation Taking Place Anywhere in the World

In a nutshell, that’s it. If someone is talking about anything – from a good book they read to an interesting article in a magazine, from doing the dishes to the political situation in Darfur – that conversation is taking place on Twitter.

I like to refer to the Internet as the digital water cooler because I see it as a place to have any discussion. Unfortunately for actual water coolers, they are place and time limited. You can only have discussions with the people around them while they’re there. That puts restraints on the people available as well as the topics you might cover.

The Internet has none of that. You can consume and produce your part of the conversation at your convenience. You can read blogs, leave comments, form communities or anything else on your own terms. Twitter is the ultimate representation of that.

Twitter is Egalitarian

On Twitter, you can say whatever interests you, but you will be saying it to a very small audience because Twitter is an egalitarian society – everyone starts with zero followers.

While there is a class of people that are obsessed with the number of people who follow them, I think they miss the larger point. I think the much more relevant number on your stats is the number of people you are following.

It would say more to me that you follow 10,000 than it does that you are followed by 10,000. Twitter is a pull technology. I have to actively choose to pay attention to you. I believe the important number is the count of people you choose to listen to, not the number you can talk to.

Frankly, I don’t follow a lot of the “high value” Twitterers. I don’t buy that they have more to say.

As an example, look at this list of the 10 most influential tweeters in DC.

@PJRodriguez and I were discussing the list over lunch yesterday. He pointed out that @barackobama and @algore are almost completely without merit on this list. Why? Barack’s Twitter account has had nothing to say since the day before the Inauguration. Gore rarely tweets at all, and when he does, has little of consequence to say.

The Politico’s argument for including them is ridiculous – “that spigot could be a powerful communication tool should he choose to turn it back on.” By that standard, people not actually on Twitter could be counted as influential because of the unrealized potential of their influence. If Jesus returned to earth and started tweeting, he’d surely be #1, so why isn’t he on their list?

But What Does This Have to Do With Listening?

To me, listening is more important for three simple reasons:

  • I listen to people who listen to others – I could honestly care less about David Gregory, and much of that is because David Gregory could clearly care less about hearing from me. He has 72,000 followers, but only follows 84 people. Are you really telling me that out of 6 million people on Twitter, only 84 of them have something interesting to say? It’s elitist and bullshit.
  • I find that most people are interesting at least part of the time – I follow as many people as I can, and keep Tweetdeck running on a separate monitor. I scan it frequently throughout the day. I do so because I am constantly finding items of interest and engaging in interesting (to me at least) discussions with people about randowm topics. I would probably spend more time on the public timeline, but it’s a bit too overwhelming.
  • The information I get from “low value” Tweeters is generally more interesting than what “high value” tweeters offer – Many “low value” tweeters talk about things they find interesting. Many “high value” tweeters talk about themselves.

Are You Saying There is a “Right” or “Wrong” Way to Use Twitter?

Absolutely not. That would be like telling people there is a right or wrong way to be interesting, or to be friends, or to think. Use of Twitter is as individual as the users. I hate seeing comments like this one:

For normal humans, though, there is really no need to follow more than a few hundred people.

That’s douchebag-speak for “I don’t follow more than a few hundred people, so if you do, you must be defective.” It’s the same braindead logic that inspired this article.

The clinical psychologist Oliver James has his reservations. ‚ÄúTwittering stems from a lack of identity. It‚Äôs a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity…

[A]grees Dr David Lewis, a cognitive neuropsychologist and director of research based at the University of Sussex. “Using Twitter suggests a level of insecurity whereby, unless people recognise you, you cease to exist. It may stave off insecurity in the short term, but it won’t cure it.”

That’s such a boneheaded thing to say. Do you apply the same logic to talking to friends? Do I only have friends and talk to them to stave off my own insecurity? If that’s the case, what does that say about these pseudo-intellectuals and their cocktail party circuit? Are they just circle-jerking each other to feel better about themselves?

Ok. The answer to that is probably, “YES!”, but you see my point.

What Twitter Is To Me

I made earlier mention of the digital water cooler and the fact that it is time and place limited. What exactly do I mean by that?

In the real world, I could pop into the office next door and talk to a co-worker about my hobbies and my interests. Or I could talk to my neighbors and the other parents at my kids’ school.

But there is a good chance that my interests won’t be their interests. There is a good possibility that their interests will bore me to tears.

By using Google Alerts or Twitter Search, I can find people talking about things that interest me. Bands that I like, hunting tips, movies, politics… whatever. When I want to talk about these things, I can join a conversation with others who share my interests.

That conversation could be with someone a half a world away, who I may never meet, but I will find fascinating anyway. And for the duration of that exchange, they may be the most fascinating person I know.

That, to me, is the power of Twitter. It is the ability to make deep, and yes likely brief, connections between people on meaningful topics. It serves to remind us that we’re not alone, and we all have something interesting to contribute to the human conversation.

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The RNC Tech Summit – Some Thoughts

Feb 13 2009 Published by under Marketing, Politics, Republicans, Technology, The Internet

There is a closed street outside our door that is not on any GPS system. Everyday 10 cars drive right up to the brick wall, because the GPS said to.

That statement was sent to me via Twitter in response to a point I made about the GOP Tech Summit. I had said that the best GPS in the world won’t get you anywhere if you don’t know where you want to go.

Much of the chatter I heard from the Summit centered around the tools, the technology, the apps, Twitter, etc. But none of it addressed the much larger point – we need to know where we want to go before we can ever turn on the GPS.

The summit is a good idea, and I commend the RNC for having the idea.

However, I think the party really needs a better sense of where it wants to go. It is not enough to simply want to get back in power. It’s not enought to say you want to win elections. It is certainly not enough to say we want to deploy new toys and gadgets without any idea of what we want to do.

In the 1990s, we had a vision. We had an agenda. We had a set of core concepts around which we could rally.

Today, we have none of that.

Are we for fiscal responsibility and small government? That’s kind of hard for people to believe based on immediate past experience. Obama, rightly, beat us about the head and neck with that one in his presser. We simply have no credibility on those issues.

Are we for ethics and accountability in elected officials? Well, we kind of pooched that one too.

The way to demonstrate our commitment to these ideals is using the technology to put our money where our mouths are.

We need to identify dirty politicians – not just dirty Democrats. If our guys are implicated, we need to primary them.

We need to put all legislation online for public discussion – not three days before it’s law, but the moment it is suggested. Imagine all the legislation of Thomas together with all the power of a Wiki? What if we allowed the people direct participation in the legislation our elected Republicans submit? How could the Democrats refuse to hear bills if they carried the signature of tens or hundreds of thousands of co-sponsors?

These are just a couple of ways we can use tools to support our agenda. Unless we’re having that sort of discussion, all of the “we should use Twitter more” nonsense will do us no good at all.

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Vegas, Celebs, Tech Toys, and the Porn Awards

Jan 12 2009 Published by under Gadgets, Technology, The Internet, Travel

To be clear, I still hate Vegas. However, the city of alcholics and broken dreams did get a bit of a boost in my eyes this past week. Maybe it was hanging with Star Trek: TNG’s Geordi LaForge (LeVar Burton – @levarburton on Twitter – to you and me) on the Lovesac bus. Maybe it was also meeting James D. Kirk – his real name – on the same bus. Maybe it was dinner next to Alice Cooper at Osetria del Circo, but the very surreal mix of celebs on Firday night made me think a bit better of Sin City.

CES was also better this year.

Flash drives in a hundred flavors at ONE CES booth

Don’t get me wrong. The number of booths pimping flash drives still outweighed the number of decent tech offerings about 3 to 1. That ratio is, however, significantly better than the 10 to 1 of last year.

And just in case you think I was joking about the wide variety of shapes and sizes of flash drives on display, the pic to the left is just one booth’s offering. This particular company has a 47 page catalog of options (my favorite is the goofy little sheik on page 13).

If you don’t see what you want (say a banana shaped flash drive to promote a fruit company), just call them, and they’ll crank one out for you. Personally, I think they should do more work with the porn awards that were also going on in Vegas. They could give away little donger shaped drives pre-loaded with clips of the nominees for best threesome and best oral.

As for the rest of the technology, I did find some cool stuff. I’ve shared a couple of the items related to broadband networks and TV via CableTechTalk.com. I really dig the PC Ride (video below). It’s a car shaped CPU that retails at $2,495. I’m not a big fan of the desktop case, so I was pleased to see someone making a different shape. I guess it’s only a matter of time before someone has a 47 page catalog of PC designs, though.

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

I also really dug the ultra-thin TVs that most of the manufacturers unveiled. Just in case you haven’t heard “Oh my god! It’s so small!” enough in your life, bring one of these home.

A dive mask with digital <br/> camera built in

Some of the really cool finds I didn’t put up on the cable blog because they aren’t really broadband/connected home specific. For instance, I love little more than the ocean. Any time Mrs. Quip and I vacation, we generally head for a tropic island. While there, I like to snorkel, and often wish I had an underwater camera.

The dive mask to the right has a 5.0 MP digital camera built into the mask (I know, it’s a grainy picture). Push a red button on the top right (your left) to snap a picture.

I’d love to take this with me on my next trip to the Caribbean.

Crayola's new video cam for tots

Another cool find (especially for parents with aspiring social media monsters for kids) is Crayola’s kid friendly video camera.

Now your toddlers can film themselves dropping mentos in diet coke and destroying your living room. When they’re done, you can use it to film them washing Diet Coke off the walls.

When the little critters grow up, and tire of tedious housecleaning, they’ll no doubt move on to killing copious amounts of brain cells by vegging out in front of the TV playing video games. By the staggering amount of controllers and promos for it, there’s a good chance Guitar Hero 12 or Rock Band 9 will be the game of the day.

If, however, they decide they’d like to learn to play an actual guitar, you should check out JamVox. JamVox is a software application and a mini-amp. Connect the amp to your PC and an actual guitar, and the software will strip out the guitar track of any song – allowing you to play along with your favorite music. Think of it as Guitar Hero on the extra, extra hard setting. The difference, however, is after your done some chicks will actually be impressed because you can play a real instrument.

JamVox allows you to play along with your favorite music

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On Moral Foundations And Libertarians

Oct 02 2008 Published by under Democrats, Hunting, Miscellany, Political Parties, Religion, Republicans, Sex, Society, Sports, Twitter

One thing I really dig about Twitter is the fascinating links people share. Today I got into a discussion with Kevin McCann about a snippet from this TED talk on moral foundations and the difference between liberals and conservatives.

Sports is to war as pornography is to sex.

The speaker’s point was we live out our collective need for the latter is each by participating in the former in each pair. We have a tribal background that makes us warlike, so we engage in sports. I think the point is fundamentally flawed. I, like most people I know, have a healthy competitive streak, but engage in sports because it’s fun and I get exercise. It’s not because I want to act out conflict issues.

What was more interesting about the TED discussion, though, was the exploration of the different moral values shared by liberals and conservatives. The site drove to a website where you can participate in the mass moral survey. I tripped on over and took the test and here are my results compared to the larger populations of “conservatives” versus “liberals”.

My Moral Compass

My Moral Compass

What I find fascinating is how far out of sync I am with liberals and conservatives. The site doesn’t give you the option to explore your score as it relates to others with ideological interests matched to your own. I’d be curious to see if other “libertarians” had similar scores. I scored far lower on the religion/purity scale than even the liberals, but I also had far less respect for “authority” and “loyalty” than even the lefties. I’m not sure if that’s a reflection of my membership in the “leave me the hell alone” coalition.

Some of the questions about “harm” were a bit skewed by the study’s lack of distinction between harming people and harming animals. I’m a hunter. I like to put meat in my fridge. Yet the test asks whether I think “it’s morally wrong to harm a defenseless animal.”

I said I absolutely disagreed for the simple reason that shooting a deer could be described that way. Frankly, I think anyone who has used shampoo tested on animals that had their tear ducts removed or eaten a Thanksgiving turkey that has been force fed growth hormone injected grain for a year or two has done more to “harm” defenseless animals than my one bullet, one kill hunt. But that’s another discussion.

That view does, however, account for the low number on my “harm” trait. It was also impacted, apparently, by my negative response to the statement that the single greatest concern we should have in life is that nobody suffer. Suffering is part of life, and common to every animal in the animal kingdom. We’re never going to change that.

My larger question still remains. Are libertarians dramatically different from liberals and conservatives? If you’re interested in answering that question, and consider yourself libertarian, register at yourmorals.org and take the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. Once you have, leave me a comment with your political ideology and scores. I’ll compile them and report back in the future.

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The Great Thing About The Web #BWE08

Sep 20 2008 Published by under Bloggers, Society, Technology, The Internet

Anil Dash from SixApart is discussing the ways and reasons people use the web. He glossed over a point that I think is really the key idea of the web, and social media generally. While discussing the idea of collaborating with people around the world, he commented that the web connects us with people who share our passions about things that our friends and families may be sick of hearing about.

That is a critical point for people who aren’t connected, or people who aren’t actively using web 2.0 applications. In a study of people who are not online, Parks Associates found 44% of those not connected claimed “there’s nothing interesting online” as the reason they didn’t want an Internet connection.

That’s a funadmental problem you will have to overcome if you want people to adopt broadband. The easiest way I can think of to show someone the value is two part.

First, ask them what their interests are. What is the one thing you love, that you wish you could discuss with more people? What hobby is your wife sick of?

Second, take them online, and search for the active discussions of that topic. You’ll likely find hundreds or more.

And that’s the power of the web. It’s not just that conversations are no longer tethered. It’s a much larger idea that someone out there cares about the ideas that you care about, and no matter how odd or rare your interests may seem to your offline friends, you’ll find it’s not odd or rare at all online.

For years we decried the effect the Internet and media were having on people and the way it divorced them from their relationships. This was the fundamnetal concept of Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone”.

Far from an isolating force, however, the Internet and social media have proven to be just the opposite. They have removed from human interaction the physical restrictions, and allowed people to gather together in unprecedented ways.

This was the thesis of a post called “Volunteering Alone” that I wrote for the Personal Democracy Forum in 2005. In response to Zephyr Teachout’s comentary on the need to reconnect people “offline”, I argued that the genius of Internet activism is the fact that it removes the physical presence requirement.

The Internet has the power to remove campaigns from activism in the same way eGovernment removes the government from transactions. It’s just the citizen and his browser. People choose to be active on their schedule. The campaign or party empowers activism, but allows me to be active on my terms.

In exactly the same way, the Internet removes the physical presence requirement from discussions of everything from gardening to politics to television programs. Your interests are shared interests regardless of whether they’re shared with people in your home, in your town or across the globe.

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