| cybering cybersociology e-zine | |||||||
| mediated communication. virtual selves. typing with the intention of becoming aroused; intellectually, emotionally, physically.
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cyberingThursday, July 16, 2009In 2000, I wrote: "I wonder if voyeurism and authenticity will circle back on computer use itself. Sure, I could watch someone watch tv on their webcam, but I'd really love a peek at their harddrive and email. I'd like to watch a real-time scroll of their cybersex while I also watched their reactions. Imagining the limits of a totally documented and observed life.. say every one of their personal papers were scanned in, every one of their possessions had a picture and description; a list of their caloric intake was posted..." This speculation has in large part come true. There are sites to share to-do lists and life wishlists. Personal finance blogs where every monetary transaction is revealed. Solo and collaborative diet and nutrition accountings. Playlists and amazon wishlists. I have, I want, I do, I feel, I'm listening to, I'm eating, I'm watching. One conceptual artist out of RPI has his keystroke logger feed straight to Twitter. He has a rich life, so this window into his creative process could be fascinating... but of course it's impossible to "follow" him without being drowned out by the volume of his output to the exclusion of your own, or anyone else's existence. Here's Kevin Kelly writing recently on the idea of abundant datastreams:I can get free email, free storage, free photo manipulation tools, free genealogical sharing, free phone service, free twittering, free...well almost free anything...knowing that the hosts are monitoring (metering) my usage. Monitoring everything--all flows of materials, all flows of energy, all flows of people, all flows of attention--naturally creates rivers, if not oceans, of data about the flows of data. This flood of meta data is driven in part because the costs of bandwidth and computer cycles is itself "too cheap to meter." But in fact, meta data is too cheap NOT to meter--if we mean only to count and monitor it. The value of measuring the meta data of any bit seems to increase as the cost of the bit decreases. At first glance there is a worry that an avalanche of data from all possible sensors, running 24/7/365 will simply drown us. What value can their be in saving every email, every web page EVER, every keystroke? One thing we've learned from radical self-trackers and life-bloggers is that while the value of ubiquitous monitoring seems nil at first, data streams of trivial actions are often the streams that become most valuable later on. Your night-to-night sleep patterns are worthless right now, but they might form an incredibly valuable baseline in the future if some emerging illness were to disturb them. Likewise in business, mass logs of ordinary customer behavior are now almost a hassle but might become the foundation for both new innovations and aids in discerning failures in future products and services. Imagine a world were any set of historical data was available to you. Everyone has their own favorite data stream from history they would love to have. Such a trove would transform our lives. For that reason, monitoring everything will become commonplace. Cheaply metering data, in fact, is what propels the free economy. Metering is a type of attention. Products and services will be given away in exchange for the meta data about their use. Data about the free is now more valuable than the free thing itself." (from the technium)Self-reporting lab rats and focus groups -- something Jeff Jarvis touches on -- approvingly -- in "What Would Google Do." Along those lines, the Institute for the Future creates an artifact -- a "Reputation Statement of Account" with line-items of online interaction.
Wednesday, July 31, 2002Peter Merholz recently posted his intention to write an essay about cyberrelationships on his blog, PeterMe. The page includes a list of links on the subject. Peter had crossed my mind just yesterday, when I read William Safire's most recent "On Language" column, entitled "Blog." I tend to respect Safire's etymological, if not political, commentary, and he does have a staff of researchers, so it was quite disappointing how misinformed he was about the nature of, purpose of, and genesis of "blog." In fact, I believe it's taken as historical fact that Peter Merholz created the word, quite intentionally, announcing "I am now going to pronounce weblog we-blog, blog for short," sometime in 1999.
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| I'm not interested in a vanity press; I'm interested in providing a forum for issues that fascinate us about this medium. I'm also in need of a good designer (obviously). Consider this a template welcome page which will mutate rapidly as content comes pouring in. Anonymity or crediting wishes will be respected. links
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