Social Hallucinations

Internet Memes - what, how and where?

What makes us laugh? What makes talk? What is worth sharing? The overview of internet memes.

Via: Online University

 

What is Facebook Places?

Facebook Places has been launched in US and will soon reach probably the rest of the world. Some deaths are being discussed (Foursquare) as we try find out what Facebook places will mean for people and marketers.

Facebook for marketing as other geo-location services has a huge potential but how the potential turns out depends on the inventiveness of companies in adding more meaning to checking in. Checking-in is fun, especially in the first phase. It is like a game. The thrill of becoming a mayor, getting the badge. Then comes competitiveness. Ousting your friends from places and taking over their mayorship. Trying the first specials...and it appears there are no more specials near you. You just check-in less and less often. You ask yourself - why I should check-in. You lack the purpose. I believe the success of Facebook places for business will depend on the sense of purpose it manage to deliver to people.

As it goes for people, Facebook places will make geo-location accessible to broader audience. It will be another tool for sharing with friends where we are and what we are doing. As my colleague Lara wrote in her post on privacy: "Places provides us with another way of keeping tabs on our friends, of letting people know what we’re up to, of sharing what is basically unnecessary information with anyone and everyone we choose. It’s also another foray in to our private world, and will no doubt meet harsh critique from users who suddenly realise that what is actually private about their lives is diminishing at a very rapid rate."

Watch how you can check in with Facebook Places

 

The Future is Anchored in the Present

Once we used to believe it will be Google and Amazon who share the power and newspapers will be dead. We had no idea about the role Facebook will play. Why? Because we are anchored in the present. We believe in linear development of media and technology. We believe that some of them will progress and evolve undisturbed, while other become extinct. Well, fortunately the universe and people are full of surprises. It is interesting though to watch this video from 2007 and see how things have already took a completely different route.

Hat tip to Helge Tennø

 

Technology Epitaph is Useless

The latest Chris Anderson's article in Wired on the death of web was rather provoking and caused quite a stir.

What always surprise me is the easiness with which we kill things around and present them as useless. Like we discard old clothes, we try to discard the technology. We've already tried to kill radio, TV and print. All three are still living and doing quite good, but the way they are used has changed.

As history shows, technologies evolve and being shaped by people and their needs they can coexist and merge.

There is some pinch of sensationalism in the way of declaring web dead. Alexis Madrigal from Atlantic responded to Anderson's article: "What's Wrong with X is Dead".

"From the vantage point of the present, it may seem that technologies are deterministic. But this view is incorrect, no matter how plausible it may seem. Cultures select and shape technologies, not the other way around, and some societies have rejected or ignored even the gun or the wheel. For millennia, technology has been an essential part of the framework for imagining and moving into the future, but the specific technologies chosen have varied. As the variety of human cultures attests, there have always been multiple possibilities, and there seems no reason to accept a single vision of the future." (David Nye, Technology Matters)

Killing the web seems like the attempt to simplify and feel more in control over the complex and unpredictable world of people behavior and interactions - choosing a single vision for the future. It is tempting to have a single vision, because it is more manageable and controllable but world keeps on evolving into plenty of parallel and intersecting paths.

There is no need to write an epitaph when nobody died.

Digital Crystal Ball

The future is the remix of the present. Great example of the evolution of present into future is this service called Recorded Future, which offers unique analysis tools to aggregate and organize past and present events, and provides a comprehensive outlook of the future. You can get insights into what's going to happen for only $149 a month. Exciting idea and cheap price for taking a look into the future.

The World is a Global Village

Marshall McLuhan explores how electronic media are changing society moving from individuals of print culture to tribes of electronic media culture.

The old media aren't replaced by the new ones, the just change the role they play in people's lives and society along with cultural changes the new media trigger. Evolution.

It is incredible to see that 50 years old interview and experience how future proof are some McLuhan's thesis.

via Wabi-Sabi Lab

Your Life, Your Game: The Art of Collecting Points

Great show by Jesse Schell game developer and great performer on how Facebook and diverse social platforms will influence our reality, not only the way we communicate but the way we learn, shop ... the way we live! To sum up his fascinating thoughts: everything will be part of the game and we will earn points to get rewards...figure it out!

Dictractions foster creativity

It was good to read this article in Wired:'How Twitter and Facebook Make Us More Productive' that breaks the army of voices who present how distracting Facebook and Twitter can be and how much loss they generate for companies. This is just a one side of story as "social networks are particularly well suited to stoking the creative mind"

 
From my own experienced being focused for 8 hours on power points slides or excel sheets doesn't take me really productive. On the contrary it imprisons me in the fast tracks of routine thinking. There is nothing more inspiring than sharing thoughts with other people, finding impulses from completely different and not really connected with the problem you are working on sources. Our minds need to be kept fit and challenged to work properly.So stay connected and never stop exploring, sharing and learning. Play. Create. Share.

Photo by Adrian Wallet

Making is Connecting

The new promise of creativity and innovation by connecting digital tools, activism, happiness and social capital by David Gauntlett

Digital tools aren't really worth much unless they are enable people to do stuff, innovate, initiate the change. Brilliant.

Homo Skepticus?

The couple of last years we've been sticking to mantra "people trust people like themselves" (Edelman Trust Barometer) to convince business establishment to jump into social media wagon, to understand better how people act and activate the power of WoM.

We've always trusted the circle of friends, so called significant others and their recommendatiosn mattered a lot us as the key influential factors. We've done this and will keep on doing this as anything else would break the social ties and lead us to alienation.

Edelman comes with the new 2010 results of the Trust barometer and something interesting happens - friends/peers as those whom we trust drop from 45% in 2008 to 25% in 2010.

 
It is quite natural the question about our skepticism and our ability to trust arise.

I don't think we trust less our friends and peers. I don't think we've become more skeptical. I just think we are in the phase where we rethink the word friend / peer. The word friend got stretched widely due to social networks. We call friends people we've never met in our lives and people we have no common history with. We do have hundreds of friends on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo...whatever you call it. The social networks devalued word friend. Anyone can be my friend today. It just costs one click and you have a new friend. But it ain't so easy and we are aware of that. We are aware that social networks bring also "virtual friends" we can't really trust because we simply don't know them, don't know their agenda and there is no really point of reference between our and their lives. Who are really those hundreds of people we follow on Twitter, we connect with on Facebook? We know the faces, we know the key facts we can find out from info tab and status updates. What really connects you with other people are common experiences...

Web revolutionized our lives for sure but there are still some barriers we need to overcome, like integrating online lives with offline lives. Meeting people we know online, exchanging offline experiences will be the way to create trust. Online relationships won't replace face to face time and sharing of real time experiences.

We still trust "people like us" but we are simply not sure whether Johns we follow on Twitter are really like us...

Photo by mek22

via AdAge

How Web Has Reshaped Our Lives

The global brain, the endless flow of information, communication, work...Internet of the most revolutionary tools of these times. 

I have been with Web with over 10 years now and it has major influence on the way I work, learn about things, get in touch with people and meet people. Making business, sharing knowledge is easy and wide accessible to those who are connected. Internet created the intellectual wealth.

The impact of Web on our lives and its importance for the world has made BBC to create TV program dedicated to this subject: How 20 years of Web reshaped our lives - The Virtual Revolution.

There is no doubt Web influences our lives. The biggest question is now how we are going to use it to improve and fix the world and enrich lives of those who are living on the suburbs of World Wide Web, beyond the reach.

via Influx

Social connection

Social experts are keep on multiplying. Clients asking more for social media in briefs. Agencies race for making frameworks, models, products to sell to the clients...but everyone seems to forget one essential thing:

"You need a social profile to engage with other people and the world - but you need to be doing other stuff, constantly, to feed it. To be successful in social spaces, you need to be active in the world." (Faris)

 Neither people nor brands exist in social vaccum. What makes us social is our stories we tell, our experiences we share. Social doesn't fit frameworks and models cause it is unpredictable, cause it is people and interactions among them. Ideas, interesting stories, shared experiences are what connects people....not Facebook fan pages.

Visualize People's Thoughts

It is such a great tool to play around with - Web Seer - and visualize what's going on in people's minds when they google and explore differences and similitude, stereotypes, ideas by comparing 'Google Suggest' results. Plenty of interesting insights to dig for. I love how info-graphics democratizes data and make them more understanding-friendly. 

 

 

Did we become 21st century slaves?

"A society that becomes expert in tools and ignorant of reasons is taking the decision of self-enslavement. Curiosity by itself is harmless. It should be curiosity that generates action, that moves us, what finally makes us creative, which humanizes us." (cristian saracco)

Provoking thought. 

21st century slaves, slaves of bit of information that will never be turn into worthy ideas and actions cause no one ever took time to explore it. Scan, check, move on. Exposed to many impulses, endless stream of information and meaningless life-casting, we have no time to explore if we want to keep updated and follow. I actually believe that it's curiosity that stops us on the surface, cause we are curious what will be posted next. We know so many things but nothing really in particular and often one can doubt whether what we have just read was worthy or just bullshit. It resonates actually with H. Rheingold's thoughts on the importance of digital literacy. Giving the deeper thought, giving yourself time to comprehend and evolve, not just re-tweet. We have so much choice that disarms us and we have difficulties handling opt-out and we are continuously give partial attention to everything and in fact learning nothing except facts...

Internet is good because Internet is people and their incredible minds but you have to hit the right stream and have a courage to dive in. Some are exploring the deep blue, others float on the surface.I can't stop asking myself whether is it any different from times before 21st century? or are we really living in the intellectual wasteland turning us into slactivists?

What do you think?

What's the Point with Internet?

Technology, tools, wires, cables, waves...hyper-connectivity leading to removing "barriers to socializing". We can connect, talk, exchange ideas and create without thinking about time and space constraints. Is it a dream? Are we wise enough to use the advantage and possibilities to make a difference?

From always inspiring gapingvoid