instant gratification isn't so gratifying

I recently had an awesome conversation with a few of my friends about how our generation is one obsessed with instant gratification. As I said in one of my phone posts, I have about 5 methods someone can communicate with me that all funnel into my phone, which I always have on me. So if someone sends me a message on facebook, an email, a text message, a gchat or calls me, I will know instantly. For me it’s convenient and efficient but what if I don’t really want to talk to the person who’s messaging me or heaven forbid forget to respond? Generally people are so used to an instant response that if the person they’re trying to get in contact with doesn’t respond in 10 minutes or less, something’s wrong.

What does this mean for us? The conclusion of the conversation with my buddies ended with a sentiment that we’re all growing up impatient and needy. I guess it’s true but it has certainly changed how we do other things too. For instance, I feel really connected with the news and if something disastrous were to happen I would know pretty quick – that makes me feel safe.

On 9/11 my mother had a really hard time getting in touch with my aunt, who was a flight attendant for American Airlines and possibly involved in the attack (she wasn’t, thankfully). Now let’s keep in mind that this all happened in 2001, my mother (who was teaching at the time) had to go down to the office and use the principal’s phone because it was the only one in the building that could call long distance. In 9 years almost every person walking around has a phone in their pocket that can call anywhere in the world. Crazy. I’m pretty sure that if something of the magnitude of 9/11 were to happen again the cell phone towers would be so overwhelmed that no calls would be able to go out anyway. If that were to happen all of us instant gratification creatures would FREAK. Till then…

All of this really does make you think about our culture and how it can change so quickly. I wonder if our culture shapes our technology or if it’s the other way around. Facebook has changed the lives of young people and has evolved to meet different needs and methods of communication. I remember when the news feed came out there were petitions and everyone was really upset about it, “I don’t want EVERYONE to know everything I’m doing”. Now we rely on it; we love it. I remember when I was personally upset about the news feed I sent an email to Mark Zukerberg who told me (in a form letter) to try the news feed and I’ll learn to love it, I’ll grow to not be able to live without it. It’s true. This makes me think that for the most part, we grow into our technology, instead of our technology growing around us. There seem to be products everyday that don’t catch on or don’t seem to make sense, until we use them and grow to need them.

The reason why I decided to write this whole post at all was after reading an article about how Skype is teaming up with facebook and there will be an option call people right from the news feed. This made me think of how my friends were talking about instant gratification and how soon there will be ANOTHER way for people to contact each other. I think it’s a cool idea, I think people will use it and love it but it is a little scary that there is another way to be accessible. Sometimes is nice to be out of touch, out of communication. I’m worried that we spend too much time talking to others that we forget the introspective exercise to figure out who we are independently before we decide how we fit into society.

P.S. This article by the onion seemed inappropriately appropriate.

selling less of more

So I've been reading The Long Tail a book by Chris Anderson. I first heard the phrase "the long tail" while in Australia, taking a class in web production. It totally made sense as soon as I heard it, about how the web has brought about a new industry not only for consumer markets but also with information in general. To explain it, look at the graph on the left. Let's give the example of music. The red part is where all the "hits" are, the britney spears, DMB, nirvana. These are the CDs that are carried in retail stores. The orange part are all the other CDs and songs that aren't as popular but there is still a market for. These are the songs that are listed on itunes or in the amazon music store. What Anderson says in his book is that the amazing thing is that the tail goes on for a long long time, almost never getting to 0, that's incredible! That means for every joe-shmo garage band track that gets sold, when combined with all the other joe-shmo garage band tracks out there, those sales can (and do) account to 25-50% of the revenues of online sales. Internet stores like amazon.com or itunes are not constrained by the physical limitations that traditional retailers are. That means that they can give the option of selling many more diverse genres of a song or go into more obscure listings because they'll only sell 4 or 5 copies, but when the cost of supplying these songs is almost nothing, it can be quite profitable.

While talking to the professor I'm working with this summer, Steven, he brought up an amazing idea that TV is going to go into the long tail very soon. With cable and fios tv, we are no longer limited to the channels available on old-fashioned antennae-frequency television. MTV, and VH1 aren't going to be the only music channels, it's going to be joe-shmo TV coming live from the basement! Like.... Wayne's world or the truman show, shows that also have a niche market.

At the same time that I think this is all so incredible and amazing, I'm also worried that the niche market might just be another phrase for "sifting through all the crap to get to something good". Take you tube, there are some really clever shows, programs, projects and comedy that are completely uncensored and raw. We have all been there though when you have to watch 8 bad videos to get to a good one. I mean how many more videos do we need of babies laughing and why is that "charlie, you bit my finger" bit so damn funny? Same goes with blogging and news. Not every blog can be as informative and ground-breaking as, say the Technocrat-shilton blog. I mean there are all those live journals about "omg my bff jill is a huge jerk", but I guess there's a niche for that somewhere. I guess I'm just worried that the good information is going to get clouded by the ...crap. We'll see, we'll see.

is this counter-intuitive?

Blogging, along with many other web 2.0 technologies have changed the way we communicate in a very big way. I often wonder if blogging (yeah I know..) is a good thing or is clouding the information airwaves. I mean how wrong can I really think it is if I am participating? I guess my point is that I think that I'm writing relevant commentaries and am furthering information that is ... important. I think there is a lot of blogging that isn't relevant or beneficial at all. When I was talking to a few of my professors yesterday about how I have a blog both of them got this kind of pained look on their faces and I could only imagine their internal dialog "am I going to have to read about the fight she got into with her best friend and the name of her cat" aka: many people blog about personal information, especially people my age.

Blogs have become a good way for people to communicate in politics, and in the news. People running for office keep blogs to try to give people a better sense of who they are and such. News blogging is really hot right now. I guess you could classify the technocrat blog as a sort of news realm. But more specifically blogging offers journalists a non-affiliated space to publish unbiased (in terms of the big news companies) news very quickly. There are many journalists, for instance, blogging about the war in iraq through blogs. This is one of the first times that such raw, unbiased information about a conflict like this has been so accessible. humm.. something to think about.

netflix roku- you know what, I like this...

I have started once again to keep myself up-to-date with the tech news etc. and while browsing the google tech news I came upon an article about the new Netflix Roku. For some reason I never got into the Apple TV idea, I guess because I'm not a big fan of the apple store in general. My main gripe with it is the damn DRM stuff. I feel like downloading music legally from the itunes store is so pointless- you can't do anything with the songs once you get them For instance, I was making a youtube video the other day and I really wanted to use this particular song. Instead of sifting through all the bittorrent websites (yeah, I use bittorrent- what about it?) I decided to use the itunes store. I found the song and downloaded it and then quickly realized that I couldn't use the damn thing because of the DRM certificate. I digress..

I dove further into the hub-bub over the new roku player and I think it's a pretty good idea. A simple, stripped down media player that allows users to rent and stream movies and tv shows right from the internet. Netflix is doing a good job bridging the gap between on-demand video and traditional DVD rentals- I dig it. Critics have mixed reviews but there is still a lot of support for the new product saying that it is definitely a cheaper rival to the apple TV. I said not too long ago that I was excited about amazon.com "renting" movies and TV through the internet and could easily make it into this same streaming idea- this roku player is doing the exact same thing just making it a bit easier. I'm not sure about it but I also think that netflix may have a better selection than amazon, but who knows. Bottom line, I'm into this roku idea.. I'm not sure I would get it for myself (right now anyway) but I think it's worth investing in if you have the time and money to watch a lot of movies. Update on my life: I haven't been using netflix anymore because I found it to be a bit expensive for my college taste and the time I spend watching movies is the time I'm not sleeping, so that's that.

You Tube move over!

I don't know how this can be legal. I mean I'm so into tv-links.cc but now there's a new site called hulu that promises viewers the ability to "watch your favorites. anytime. for free". It almost seems too good to be true! But I guess it isn't.. this article tries to clear up some of the confusion (though not too well),

"Web video, despite its fresh-faced allure and burgeoning consumer demand, is one that is for the most part unprofitable for large networks now. Web advertising prices don't yet amount to a valuation that can be considered amply supplemental to the networks' present-day income. The tried-and-true standard broadcast and cable television mediums are by far the cash kinds of television at the moment," he added.

Therefore, he said, the more viewers the networks can reach online to generate more ad revenue, the better. The best way to reach more viewers online would be to participate in a concentrated effort like Hulu backed industrywide, he noted.

I guess what they're saying is that it's not profitable for networks to show their own shows on their websites. They seem to think that it's better to participate in a website or service that offers many shows in one concentrated place. Well I for one can't wait for it to be open. One day. Lately I've been setting up one of the less popular computer science labs with the projector and surround sound. It's pretty amazing, I'll tell you. Remember when I said I was going to use my computer as a tivo? Well I haven't yet. BUT I'm really into the projector thing in the comp sci lab, I don't care how nerdy that sounds.

wooooooooooah nelly!

Have you ever heard of a company called DoubleTwist? Me neither, until I read this article about their DRM-stripping application for both music and movies. Yikes, this doesn't sound legal! According to the article not only can the application free your files of the constricting DRM protection but you can also upload and share your files through facebook in a little P2P action. As I was reading I kept thinking "this can't be legal, this can't be legal" but it says "And there’s an excellent chance we’ll see a flurry of lawsuits against DoubleTwist in the near future since the application most likely runs afoul of the DMCA. However, since DoubleTwist is, according to the EULA, owned by a company named SpiceFlow, which is incorporated under the laws of the Cayman Islands, U.S. laws may not be able to touch it". This will NEVER fly. Of course the article also warns users that to use the program you must register it online (for free) but this will allow the company to track usage. I can't wait for the big companies in music sales (ahem- apple) to come down on these fellas! Grab your popcorn kids, this is going to be quite a show! choo-chooooo, *train wreeeeck*!!!

THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congress Considers New Net Neutrality Bill Thanks to Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Chip Pickering, a Mississippi Republican legislation has begun to have net neutrality! This is great! I have nothing else to say, read the article.

~Shil

Yikes!

censor, censor, censor!! Yikes! look around people, we're being held down by "the man". This is not a new topic for my avid technocrat-shilton readers. Not too long ago I talked about net neutrality. If you'd like, I'd recommend flipping back to that old blog post to watch the youTube video. Lately there has been a lot of talk about how some cable companies are slowing down traffic to bittorrent downloads. This scares me... a lot. I'm worried about how the internet is going to change, for real. I understand the concern over bittorrent downloads. Bittorrent is very hard to control, it's not like the conveitional P2P file-sharing sites. Cable companies slowing the traffic is just about one of the only ways to deter the illegal downloads. I really hope that this lack of net neutrality doesn't come back to haunt us later, though it only seems to be getting worse.

I like my memory like I like my coffee.. fast and cheap

I've talked about mozy in my blog before but focused on the consumer benefit, rather than the commercial use. I came across an article today about how companies are using online servers as opposed to conventional hardware. It makes sense I guess, one of the most costly parts of the computer is the hard drive/server, why not just get it from somewhere else? The article says that the memory is cheap, "Amazon charges 15 cents for a gigabyte of storage and 10 cents an hour for a server, services that customers say are up to 90% cheaper than rental alternatives from computer-hosting companies like Equinix and Rackspace". I bet a lot of companies use these services, being so cheap and all. I tend not to think too much about what or how big companies run their systems, perhaps I should pay more attention. This stuff it really interesting, it's like there's this whole underground of activity happening right under our noses.

Digital downloads Vs. movie rentals

Businessweek brought up the idea that services like netflix may be threatened by movie downloading services. A quick trip to Amazon.com's unboxed site shows that you can rent movies via download for .99 and the file will expire in 30 days and once started will expire after 24 hours. Very interesting. Now I had netflix last semester and I LOVED it. I paid $15 a month for the two-at-a-time unlimited plan. On top of that plan I had 15 hours of online movie viewing a month, pretty sweet I thought. On average I probably watched about 2 movies every 5 days or so ~12 movies/month. It looks like I could save money as well as having the convenience of not waiting for snail mail if I took advantage of amazon's rentals.

I'm sure I'm not alone. About 5 years ago movie rental businesses noticed that digital services like comcast's OnDemand and netflix were cutting into their physical store/disc profits. Now online movie rental sites like netflix are noticing a similar change for consumers to download movies rather than waiting for the mail to arrive. It makes sense I think, the way the internet is these days. The service amazon has is a good one, and young people I'm sure are into the DRM free files, as I've said before. Bottom line- with a few cables, next semester I'll turn my computer into a TiVo using Amazon's movie and TV downloads :)

What's next for facebook?

But Facebook, like Apple and Google, has so far been successful in crafting its image so that even many industry insiders are continually convinced that something borderline revolutionary is in the works behind closed doors. The $15 billion valuation was, essentially, a sign of confidence in the shaky fact that Facebook's current advertising strategy is that it's developing an advertising strategy.

I too think that our beloved facebook is on the verge of something big. The buzz around the microsoft/facebook deal has propagated much anticipation of what facebook is planning; microsoft knows something that the rest of us don't. Some believe that it will be in the realm of advertising. I suppose there's not much else that the site can do to bring in huge revenues. I think that facebook should have used their application venture as a money maker, too bad that ship has sailed. If facebook charged the application writers a nominal fee their profits would increase exponentially. Thus far facebook users have experienced a luxury that myspace users have not- an advertisement free experience. This will soon change, but as I said in my last post, targeting advertising is the wave of the future, and what better place to really see it flourish than in a social networking site. People post such personal information, ads towards their personal interests would be of unmeasurable use to advertisers. That is the problem with most ads, they're not personal enough. Google has a good thing going with their adwords, placing non offensive (not tacky flash banner ads or banner ads in general) ads on the sides of pages that coincide with keywords from the site. If a powerhouse like microsoft can work with the genius of facebook to effectively harness targeted advertising I think it can be good for everyone. On the otherhand, mess it up and facebook will lose a lot of users. If facebook gets to be anything like the over-commercialized myspace, users will go running to other networking sites.

Social Networking

How did social networking sites come to be? I suppose it would be the next logical step after the boom of reality TV started by the Real World. I remember even when I was very young, being interested in the daily lives of normal people. At a time when unbelievable feats could be constructed with special effects, young people would rather watch someone in an almost god-like way than be dazzled. Reality tv was soon adopted by all walks of life, especially with the popularity in shows like Big Brother right down to Top Chef and the Amazing Race.

Then one day a man by the name of Mark Zuckerberg came around with a novel idea- to make reality internet. I tried to think of why I really liked facebook, what made it something that I wasn't joining but truly enjoying. The conclusion that I have come to is that it is simply a good way to keep in touch. Email was a good way to keep in touch, but facebook allows people to stay in touch to a large number of people, effortlessly. My 565 friends on facebook can see me though all my journeys in Australia and all I have to do is post a few photos now and then. The best part is staying in contact with people who would otherwise fall between the cracks. "In Hollywood it's not what you know, it's who you know" and you never know when Timmy from middle school is going to be your tie to your next dream job. Personally I think facebook and the social networking sites are good, but could be better. The reason why I wanted to join facebook over myspace was because at the time it was only for college students. Somehow that made it safer in my eyes. Now anyone can join and everyone does. I wish that there was a social networking site for adults (or anyone above.. say 18 years old) that was as secure as facebook was when they still checked email addresses to the universities.

I also fear for the people who get too wrapped up in these fake lives and forget that there's a real one going on. I was reading recently about the anti-social networking movement to try to get people to realize that there's more out there. Second life is a program that I don't even understand yet. I read an article about it maybe 6 months ago and I downloaded the program and tried to understand it. Second life is another world where people buy and sell fake property and objects with real money. Some can make a living off the site alone. I understand that the properties can be amazing and everything but how are real people getting so into this? Is it just so close to reality that people would rather live in second life that in the real world? In this life there's too much going on around us to get wrapped up in a video game- that's all it is. I would much rather be out enjoying my life than entrenched in a fake one. If this is what social networking is leading us to then I'm not so sure I want to be apart of it. Like the photo says, get a first life.

Comcast is smart-assed

Damn you comcast! This is the first account that I've heard towards measures to block bittorrent traffic. I always thought that bittorrent would be the hardest of the peer-to-peer networks to stop because it's entirely web based. Programs like napster were easy to shut down because it was one concentrated network that had a centralized base that could be destroyed. Bittorrent is different because there's not one website that has all the bittorrent files, they're literally all over the web- much harder to track down. Alas, comcast seems to be doing a good job of targeting the traffic and shutting it down. As I said in my net neutrality post, I'm afraid that we will look back at the web as we know with a sour taste because of how limited we will be in the future. Until then my friends, take advantage.

Net Neutrality

Alright.. well.. I'm not sure if you know what's going on, ok, before reading any more.. watch the youtube video..

Now that we're all caught up to speed, wtf?! There are companies trying to limit what we can access on the internet! I guess we could all see something like this coming. Remember the days when downloading music from napster and morpheus was a joke; frankly you were stupid not to take advantage of it. The internet always leaves me with this "too good to be true" feeling, and it seems that's exactly what some companies think it is. I don't want it to come to a point when we all sit back on our rocking chairs as old farts reminiscing about the good old days. I'll think back with a twinkle in my eye to when the web was as vast and free as the air we breathe and I'll curse the man for what it's become! Perhaps if we all come together in true democratic fashion we can squash the industry's aim to squeeze every last cent out of us (or in some cases completely limit us) so go to