Archive for April, 2009
by Bill Ives
April 14, 2009 at 7:58 am · Filed under
FASTforward'09
Here is a catchy CNN headline, Scientists Warn of Twitter Dangers. I found this is through Twitter (@charlesyeo) so be careful reading it in case there is an infection. The article starts with: “rapid-fire TV news bulletins or updates on Twitter or Facebook could numb our sense of morality and make us indifferent to human suffering, scientists say.” Now being a former research psychologist I look at this with a bit of skepticism. There have to be a lot of operational definitions for starters. The original work on moral development turned out to be more about reading comprehension. I do know that Twitter has also alerted people to a lot of human suffering in crisis situations (e.g. Mumbai attacks) and helped to bring others closer to what is happening.
I read more. It goes on. “Brain scans showed humans can process and respond very quickly to signs of physical pain in others, but took longer to show admiration of compassion. “For some kinds of thought, especially moral decision-making about other people’s social and psychological situations, we need to allow for adequate time and refection,” said Immordio-Yang.
Now, I have often reflected on the content of Twitter and tweets have raised awareness of something that I would not have known about otherwise. Just because you see something quickly does not mean that you process it quickly. Another scientist comments in the report, “USC sociologist Manuel Castells said the study raised more concerns over fast-moving TV than the online environment.”
I would agree with Manuel as TV is non-stop. Remember Twitter is still an asynchronous communication channel, just a fast one. The reader has to read and can set their own pace to reflect or not. Also, many Twitter feeds of value actually link to a longer piece like a blog post where you can get the details, like the Twitter post that alerted me to this story. I scan Twitter feeds, look more closely at the interesting ones and then click on the link for the details.
In this case about Twitter dangers you certainly need to go beyond the headline. At the end the article mentions that “Research leader Antonio Damasio, director of USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute, said the findings stressed the need for slower delivery of the news, and highlighted the importance of slow-burn emotions like admiration.” I do not think they should jump to this conclusion so fast.
Twitter should not be viewed in isolation. It is an awareness tool that can lead to slower more in-depth reflection through other channels that allow for longer and more reflective content. I do know that studies have shown that reading print can cause more reflection in certain situations than seeing video because the reader is in more control of the speed of processing and uses their imagination more. Of course, in other situations video gives a richer experience. There are no easy answers here and more work needs to be done.
Post Script – Taming Down the anti-Twitter mentions – After I posted this CNN changed the headline to Scientists Warn of Rapid-fire Media Dangers. They also changed the first sentence from “Rapid-fire TV news bulletins or updates on Twitter or Facebook could numb our sense of morality and make us indifferent to human suffering, scientists say.” to “Rapid-fire TV news bulletins or getting updates via social-networking tools such as Twitter could numb our sense of morality and make us indifferent to human suffering, scientists say.”They also took out other references to Twitter later in the text. Interesting. I could specultate on why they bad changes but will leave it to you to decide.
by Bill Ives
April 12, 2009 at 6:25 am · Filed under
FASTforward'09
I was an early blogger and slow to get to Facebook but like it okay. I am a passive LinkedIn user. I made fun of Twitter for months (see Unending Growth? Part Two – Twitter) but some my fellow FaastForward bloggers showed me how to use it right. Now I am an addict (Concluding Twitter Week: Predictions on How Twitter Will Change Blogs in 2009). I guess I should thank them? So what about FriendFeed? I am not a tools person. I use Facebook a lot less now that I have Twitter.
Here is TechCrunch post that says, New FriendFeed: Simpler, Faster, Better (Maybe Too Fast). It says that FriendFeed is often the innovator and the others copy its features. But do we need another social media tool? What new does it bring?
After my Twitter experience I am not passing judgment but looking for advice.
by Bill Ives
April 9, 2009 at 9:20 am · Filed under
FASTforward'09
I searched enterprise 2.0 on Twitter and found that Jeremy Chone posted on Enterprise Web vs Consumer Web [2.0]: Top Six Differences. I think the post offers an interesting starting point on the topic. His six are listed below with some comments added. You can find more useful detail in the original post.
1) Scale (Users vs Applications) most web apps strive for rapid growth and need to handle this scale. While enterprise apps have a different objective, supporting a relatively fixed number of users with growing needs.
2) Experience (Simplicity vs Functionality) Successful web apps are often very simple (e.g. twitter, del.icio.us). Enterprise apps usually require more functionality as suggested above. However, enterprise apps could learn from the web here. I have seen many enterprise apps start with simplicity and gain popularity because of this ease of use. Then they bow to demands for increased functionality and become too complex to use and lose out.
3) Security (One for One vs One to Many) Both need security but the enterprise requirements are more complex.
4) Transaction (Decoupled vs Complete) This one gets more technical. Many web apps allow for some stale data to survive to reduce overall costs while enterprise apps cannot tolerate this and go for greater data integrity at a higher cost.
5) Integration (Loose vs Strict) The web2.0 is in part define by open APIs and successful apps have allowed this. As Jeremey writes, “in consumer application integration is about breadth rather than depth. In the enterprise space, on the other hand, application integration has to be thoughtfully designed and managed and often has an impact in all layers of the application.” Testing, among other things and gets more complex.
6) Search (Page vs Data) Google looks for web pages. This is its power on the web and its weakness in the enterprise. As Jeremey writes, “in the enterprise Web, search is record-centric, and users do not search pages but records with all their associated attributes.” There are now enterprise apps that integrate both search needs.
by Bill Ives
April 5, 2009 at 5:38 pm · Filed under
FASTforward'09
Steve Rubel recently posted, Twitter Search Traffic Poised to Eclipse Google Blog Search. He wrote, “As of February, Twitter Search attracted 1.35 million users while Google Blog Search, which has been plagued by relevance issues, sits at 1.38 million users.” Now this is impressive for Twitter search but I am sure there is no comparison to Google web search. I never use Google Blog Search since blogs show up quite well on Google web search and you get a more complete picture. So, if my actions are at all typical I am not surprised that Google Blog Search is flat.
I have recently started using Twitter search for a variety of reasons. I use it primarily to search on topics and not to find mentions of my own work or presence. I have other tools for this purpose that pick up Twittering (e.g., Techrigy and Filtrbox). But Twitter search is useful to look at what is being said about events (e.g. FastFoward 09) or issues (e.g., knowledge management aka KM).
Steve closes with this important thought, “Keep an eye on the social search space. It’s not a short-term threat to Google, but it certainly represents a major shift in where and how we will search for relevant news and information by layering in trusted sources.” I think this is the future of gathering content from the Web, the mix of trusted sources with topic search. This concept goes beyond the importance of individual cases like Twitter passing Google Blog search.
by Joe McKendrick
April 5, 2009 at 3:20 pm · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Software, Messy World, SOA, Social Computing, Social Media, User Revolution
As social media has grown within and outside of enterprises, the question of legal and regulatory liabilities for content has remained in the background. However, we may start seeing more policing by regulators and intrusion by legal departments.
According to a new report in the Financial Times, “revised guidelines on endorsements and testimonials by the Federal Trade Commission, now under review and expected to be adopted, would hold companies liable for untruthful statements made by bloggers and users of social networking sites who receive samples of their products. The guidelines would also hold bloggers liable for the statements they make about products.”
A counter-argument by Richard O’Brien, vice-president of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, said it was premature to regulate blogs or other forms of new media. According to FT, O’Brien rote to the FTC that “regulating these developing media too soon may have a chilling effect on blogs and other forms of viral marketing, as bloggers and other viral marketers will be discouraged from publishing content for fear of being held liable for any potentially misleading claim.”
Over the past decade or so, the legal system caught up to email, which must now be managed and is treated as any other corporate record or statement. That is, companies are liable for the statements made by company representatives within email communications. Even more recently, instant messaging has fallen under the same scrutiny. Both email and IM, in fact, are construed as electronic communication. In fact, the United Nations Commission on International Trade (UNICTRAL) Model Law on Electronic Commerce — which serves as the basis for many national laws — defines a “data message” as “information generated, sent, received, or stored by electronic, optical, or similar means including, but not limited to, electronic data interchange (EDI), electronic mail, telegram, telex, or telecopy.”
The UNICTRAL definition was drafted earlier in the decade, but certainly can be extended to social media. How liable will organizations be for any and all statements made by employees or representatives in blogs or social media sites? That is a question that inevitably will be hashed out — and hopefully, we can keep the lawyers from quashing the potential of the social media sphere.
In fact, a survey out of the University of Southern California last year found almost of half of organizations may be holding back on social media inittaives due to liability and legal concerns.
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