Park(ing) Day 2008
So, imagine walking over to your seventh-floor window in your downtown San Francisco office, taking a peek at the business below and finding a park, complete with benches and grass, suddenly erected on the side of the street … Mission Street, one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city.
Yeah, kinda weird. Turns out it was a stunt repeated in cities all over the world, called Park(ing) Day. Pretty cool, actually. It started in San Francisco three years ago as a guerilla project done by REBAR, a local artists group, as a way to draw attention to the need for more public space in cities. The idea flourished and went global. I took the opportunity to interview Jake Gilchrist, a project manager with the Trust for Public Land, who was manning the Mission Street site to find out a bit more about the project:
Google Chrome Kind of Freaks Me Out
For years I accepted my dependency on Google applications.* Then came Google Chrome.
When the search engine launched earlier this month, my first reaction was to leave work and download it immediately. My second reaction was to acknowledge the reality of the Google ad-monster, and make an effort to avoid the glorified browser.
We all know that Google is ad-supported, but Chrome has taken it to a new level. The browser allows Google to track every URL, partial URL, word or phrase you type into the location bar (even before you officially search).
Google sends your cookie out with every search, then all of this information connects to your main account so ads can sprinkle down on you from all the Google applications.
Lots of folks have objected to this model, including the entire country of Germany. Google has reacted with slight modifications that claim to make the data collected from browsers anonymous within 24 hours. However, security experts say that this development is still entirely insufficient.
I say, fellow Google addicts, beware. No need to discontinue use of these great Google services – but do try to use wisely. Opt out of ad-targeting when possible and use a virtual private network, which will will seal off your online behavior from spying eyes.
LaunchSquad client AnchorFree has an amazing free VPN called Hotspot Shield. You can download it now. Then you can download Chrome, and enjoy Google again without fear.
*For the record, I regularly use: two separate Gmail accounts, two Google Calendars, Google Docs, Google Reader and Picasa. On a daily basis, I search: Google News, Google Blogs, Google Maps, Google Video, and the Google Search engine. I have downloaded the entire Google suite of applications for my Blackberry. I have bought Google domain names. And I have now downloaded Google Chrome.
I Know Where You Are
Ever since I purchased my 3G iPhone, I have been amazed at just how handy the location-based service applications are. Being lost in Bodega Bay a few weeks ago, I was happy to find a crab shack using Yelp and being swayed away from the many little 2-star rated restaurants on the main Highway 1 stretch.
Suddenly, I found myself being thrown into a whole new generation of “tracking.” In college, it was all about checking friends’ away messages on AIM. Then came Facebook with its News Feed. Now, services such as Loopt allow users to know exactly where friends in their network are. So you know, you can randomly show up at a bar where you know your friends are at. Creepy? Maybe slightly. Way too intrusive? Perhaps.
Recently, another company called Pelago, has created a new social network allowing users to “share real world adventures and discover places.” They’ve forged a partnership between this new service, Whrrl, and HBO to let devoted fans of the popular show “Entourage” track where their favorite stars hang out. Correction – not the stars – rather, the characters. The relationship will allow users to share opinions and recommendations. Interestingly, Vincent Chase, the lead character in “Entourage,” actually writes reviews. Seems like now, we’re not only interested in friends in our network and reality television star tracking – we’re now becoming active players in the fictional lives of our favorite TV personalities.
It’s clear that as mobile devices becoming more ubiquitous, software companies will continue to find new ways to make location-based offerings more intuitive and creative. Advertisers, it seems, are not too far behind.
Managing Your Personal Brand Online - Or at Least Your Rep
The recent and frantic digging into the lives of Sarah Palin and her ilk has made me ponder the importance of managing one’s online persona - especially given how easy search engines and social networks have made it for complete strangers to get information about each other.
Although most of us don’t have the vice-presidency hanging in the balance of our online dirty laundry, almost all of us will have relied on our Web persona for a job sometime in our professional lives. Those jobs will almost certainly be worth more than “a warm bucket of spit” as well.
Long ago, when I graduated from college and was looking for a job in the real world, I began to seriously consider how my online presence may help or hinder my attempts to secure gainful employment. At the time, this simply entailed cleaning up a few areas of my Facebook account.
According to the results of a recent survey conducted by Careerbuilder, this was a good move on my part. The report found:
“Of those hiring managers who have screened job candidates via social networking profiles ([22 percent of all hiring managers surveyed]), one-third (34 percent) reported they found content that caused them to dismiss the candidate from consideration.”
This content included the following:
- 41% - candidate posted information about them drinking or using drugs
- 40% - candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information
- 28% - candidate bad-mouthed their previous company or fellow employee
- 27% - candidate lied about qualifications
- 22% - candidate used discriminatory remarks related to race, gender, religion, etc.
- 22% - candidate’s screen name was unprofessional
- 21% - candidate was linked to criminal behavior
- 19% - candidate shared confidential information from previous employers
These are all fairly simple - not to mention obvious - mistakes to avoid when it comes to your web-presence. This is especially true with social networks where the user is the one who controls what content appears on his or her profile. Facebook’s granular security controls put the onus squarely on the user to ensure that their profile reflects well of them.
It’s a slightly different game when the content isn’t so directly controllable, as is the case with much - if not most - information online. I found some good tips for managing this kind of content/information:
- Ask the owners of the site to remove or amend the questionable content. A friend of mine was mortified to discover the first hit for his name on Google was the results from a less-than-reputable athletic competition from his college days. He simply asked the site owners to remove it and offered a brief explanation why and the site was happy to comply.
- Crowd out the bad results by posting comments in blogs or forums using your full name. This is most effective with popular sites that are likely to have a good online ranking themselves. *hint* Make sure the site doesn’t require a login.
- Make online profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook and other networking sites. Not only will these help to drive the less-glowing elements of your online persona lower in the search rankings, but a prospective employer is likely to start their information-gathering campaigns on these sites. While crowding out negative content doesn’t eliminate it, for Internet searches, out of sight truly is out of mind. Think about it: when was the last time you went beyond the second or third page of results for a query? Instead of worrying about expunging all negative content, just try to push it onto that fourth page.
- Set up Google alerts for your name. This may sound megalomaniacal (and it is) but you’d be amazed at the variety of old content that gets crawled and dredged up every day. If you see it, it means others can too. At least this way you can be prepared.
This all may be moot if more countries follow Finland’s lead. Finland has dealt with this issue with the simple - if draconian - approach of banning employers from conducting Google searches on potential employees.
The best advice is simply to exercise prudence online - and in real-life situations that may be documented online. Either that or regularly change your name…
NBC To Football Fans: You’re Welcome
The tech world – and sports fans – were more than a bit disappointed in the way NBC handled the rights to its online Olympics video during the Beijing Games last month. The network kept all its Web video footage under strict lock-and-key, not allowing clips of any length to appear anywhere else besides NBC properties online. What this accomplished was, pretty much nothing, as sports news sites and blogs – where millions of people get their sports news from – were shut out from airing any Olympics footage.
Who knows how much NBC lost in ad revenue due to this ham-handed over-managing of video rights, but the broadcast giant reportedly generated only $5.75 million. It could have undoubtedly made millions more had it figured out a viral distribution scheme that carried along embedded ads - it’s not too hard to figure out.
The Peacock redeemed itself a bit on Sunday, though, with its cool, new streaming broadcast of Sunday Night Football on NBC.com. Check it out (click to enlarge):
First off, the stream is in HD – beautiful – and it gives viewers the power to control which camera they’re watching, giving them the ability to follow different aspects of the play, rather than the action where the ball is. They can follow receivers running routes to check how tightly the defense is playing them, follow the offensive line’s blocking scheme as well as the defense’s blitzing and coverage patterns. You’re still somewhat at the mercy of whomever is controlling the camera at the stadium, but at least you have a choice – and choice folks, is what online broadcasting should be about.
So while NBC got a big, fat “F” for its online Olympics coverage, so far, it’s passing the NFL season with flying colors.
Social Networking with Mario Batali? Yum.
I have to admit I thought I was pretty done with newfangled social networks.
Having at one point or another joined every network that seemed even marginally relevant, I had decided to commit to a select few in an effort to control what was a growing addiction. Despite my best intentions, however, my inner foodie was unable to resist the recipe lust inspired by CookEatShare.
A social network for chefs (be they of the professional or very unprofessional variety), CookEatShare aims to create connections between people based on a mutual love of food. Launched in June, the site bills itself as “the world’s largest kitchen” and already boasts chefs such as the eminent Jeremy Fox and Nate Appleman as members.
Whether you sign up or prefer to remain an outside observer, CookEatShare allows users to become “friends”, create, share and review recipes, form groups and start discussions. Truffle-crusted beef tenderloin anyone? I’m partial to the banana split pop.
Intriguing recipes aside, what makes the site unique from the multitude of food blogs and discussion sites out there is the close involvement of professional chefs. CookEatShare creates a valuable link between amateurs stumbling along with their dry pastry crusts at home and the chefs serving dark chocolate tortes to discerning diners. Chefs are able to drum up PR for their restaurants and interact with their fan base while aspiring cooks like myself have the opportunity to try our hands at recipes and actually interact with the pros that painstakingly developed them.
So while I won’t be going to Babbo anytime soon, here’s to hoping Mario Batali joins the site’s ranks and hands over the recipe to his famous papardelle bolognese. It’s unlikely that my attempts will compare to his much lusted after version, but no doubt that disappointment will be tempered by our new online “friendship”.