The Internet Makes Kids Write More – LOL!
We’ve touched on this issue a bit before, but given that we here at LaunchSquad work in an industry almost entirely based on the written word, its worth revisiting. A major pet peeve of mine is hearing people talk about social technologies as narcissistic or meaningless babble. This – sadly – often comes from traditional media folk who are often scared at how the Internet is revolutionizing their profession, and it’s an irritating and incredibly disingenuous thing to say.
So, Clive Thompson’s piece in Wired, “Clive Thompson on the New Literacy” was a breath of fresh air. In it, Thompson analyzes a study done by a Stanford professor that claims that we in general, and kids specifically, are writing more now than ever, and amazingly, 38 percent of that writing is so-called “life writing,” or personal writing.
This is remarkable if you think back to the pre-Internet and e-mail proliferated 1990s. People simply didn’t write back then unless it was for class or work. I remember when I got my e-mail account in 1997 during college, I used this mysterious new creature primarily for sending assignments and occasionally writing cute little notes to my girlfriend, which still felt oddly impersonal. But think how much that has changed. We now use the written word for interpersonal communication more than any time in history. Yes, some of those conversations are, “OMG, u r the gr8est person I no. LMFAO!!1!” – but it’s still transmission of thought through the written word, something that was dying in the pre-Internet era.
That idea of the Internet killing off writing is beyond irritating and is simply not true. For all the “LOL” and trite abbreviations we see online, there is also a ton of useful stuff that kids – and adults – read and write. People simple read and write a ton more than they did 10-15 years ago. And to all the fuddy duddies who complain about the “death of prose” – please, shut up. More reading and writing is a good thing, be it in the long-winded, haughty pages of the New Yorker, or the adolescent ramblings of MySpace.
Athletes and Social Media – A Match Made In … Well, Somewhere
The rise of social media has been a gold mine for sports fans. First, sports blogs – like the essential Deadspin and Kissing Suzy Kolber, which is currently the apex of American sportswriting – cut through the veneer of hero worship and an almost mysticism that had been a part of sports coverage, and stopped taking games and athletes and those that covered them, so seriously. But social media tools, chiefly Twitter and UStream, have given athletes a direct line to fans without the filter of the media, agents and the leagues they play in.
More specifically, the absence of filter has allowed the, ahem, eccentricities of some athletes to shine through. This isn’t always a good thing, but it’s certainly entertaining. Some highlights that range from hilarious to genuinely sad.
Chad Ochocinco: A Bit Crazy, But Hilarious
By just reading him name, it’s pretty easy to see that Cincinnati Bengals WR Chad Ochocinco is a bit different. The former Chad Johnson (he had his name legally changed) has embraced both Twitter and UStream with a passion. Since joining Twitter on May 16 of this year – 102 days ago – Ochocinco has Tweeted 6,679 times. That’s an average of 65.5 Tweets per day, which is … just mind blowing. He’s called out reporters, the NFL and updated us on every mundane detail of his life. He even mourns the inability of Jennifer Aniston to keep a steady boyfriend. “The Chad Ocho Cinco Show” on UStream is pretty much the same thing – hours and hours of Ochocinco’s life: Leading a locker room tour at the New England Patriots’ stadium before a game, sitting at his Web cam talking to fans for literally hours on end, or watching football with friends.
Stephon Marbury: Star Wreck
Anyone who has followed Marbury’s NBA career can tell you the storyline: An immensely talented athlete storms the league for a year or two, then starts to fade as doubts about his commitment and discipline surface. Time passes and he becomes an overpaid bench warmer until he stops playing, or even suiting up, at all. Then he gets a huge star tattooed on his bald head. Now out of the NBA and assumedly unsure of what to do next, Marbury decided to live stream his life for a weekend in late July. The result was an outlandish 72 hours in which Marbury claimed to see Jesus in his shower, got angry at … something, broke down crying while listening to a Kirk Franklin song, and, best of all, got into what seemed like a hit-and-run accident while streaming live in his car:
Michael Beasley: An Actual Sad Story
While Ochocinco is just a weird guy having fun, and Marbury is dancing around the edges of sanity while somehow not stepping outside the lines, Michael Beasley, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft, started a three-day spiral last weekend that ended with him checking into rehab, by posting a picture of his new tattoo to his Twitter account. In the bottom corner of the picture was what looked like a rolled up bag of marijuana. Sports blogs quickly pointed out the potential indiscretion and, as the news gained momentum, Beasley posted a couple more updates to (now shut down) Twitter account:
“Y do I feel like the whole world is against me!!!!!!! . . . I can’t win for losin!!!!!!!!!!”
“Feelin like it’s not worth livin!!!!!!! I’m done”
“not feelin this at all!!!!!”
The next day, he checked into rehab and his father announced that he was going to get treatment for depression.
There are countless athletes who use the Web and use it well: Shaq’s Twitter feed is a goldmine of hilarity, and Washington Redskins’ tight end Chris Cooley is a social media machine. But there seems to be something about social media that enhances that special brand of crazy that can only come from being handed millions of dollars and unlimited fame at age 20.
In Memoriam: My Last Desktop PC
I have always loved my desktop computer. Regardless of improvements in the computing power, graphics or RAM of the various laptops I’ve owned, my trusty desktop has always been a bit cheaper, a bit faster, a bit better than its portable kin. But last month it happened. Moore’s Law, which always seemed to side with my desktop, broke completely down on the side of the information super-highway. The speed of the CPU, the size of the hard drive, the clarity of the screen just didn’t make much of a difference anymore for a user looking to stream some TV, surf the Internet, take part in some social media, play music and use all of the usual suspect office software products.
Am I alone? Hardly. iSuppli recently noted that desktop sales are expected to fall 18.1 percent this year to 124.4 million from 151.9 million in 2008.
Perhaps you just need a netbook you say? Perhaps. I like the concept of the netbook, and I really like the all-in-all lightweight approach to its hardware and software. However, I have an iPhone that meets my ultra-portable needs, and with a large HD screen, HDMI, ample ram, huge hard drive and all the other expected current-gen goodies, a powerful laptop covers me perfectly.
I admit I will strangely miss the ever present sound of the desktop fan whirring near my knees, and the comforting of knowing that if I ever need that retro feel I could still add a 3.5-inch disc drive from eBay into any of the desktop’s vacant drive bays. However, innovation marches forward and in this replacement cycle the desktop is simply being left behind.
How I Learned To Quit Apple And Love Android
I’m a very loyal person in most aspects of my life – to my friends, my sports teams (despite a dalliance with the Tampa Bay Rays this season. Hey, the Mariners really sucked!), and also with what I buy. I’ve owned two cars in my life: a 1988 Volkswagen Golf and a 1998 Volkswagen GTI; I only buy Adidas sneakers; I’ve used a Mac my whole life; and I’ve had T-Mobile since I got my first cell phone 10 years ago.
Those last two were the cause of a great amount of conflict over the summer when I was deciding which smart phone to buy. Being an Apple enthusiast and fan of all things cool, the iPhone was the natural choice … but, my contract with T-Mobile that doesn’t end until mid-2010 said otherwise. So, I decided to go with the G1, Google Android-powered phone from T-Mobile.
This was no small task, mind you. We’re huge Apple advocates here at the Squad, and I also have been one my whole computer using life. There’s really nothing I don’t like about Apple, so leaving the flock for another farm was mildly unsettling. And there were problems – I had a major software meltdown and weird battery issue within one week that made me want to throw my shiny, new Android (which I’ve named Marvin) against the wall.
But aside from some usability issues that stemmed mostly from my predilection toward how Macs work, I actually think Google’s Android outclasses the Apple’s iPhone. While there are few differences in the phone’s performance with features users have come to expect – Internet, e-mail, GPS, mapping functions – where Google pulls ahead is the open operating system and basically unlimited possibilities for app development. The iPhone has a lot of really cool apps, but the operating system is basically a take-it-or-leave it proposition. Annoying bugs in the system, or a core application that makes your iPhone tough to use? Well, until Apple decides to deal with it, too bad. On Android, somebody simply has to develop a patch or new piece of software that can replace the core application. With Apple, that’s a big no-no.
A lot of people feel that Apple has been getting too big for its britches lately and acting in increasingly Microsoftian fashion. While I don’t know that I’d go that far, Android is a huge leap forward from the iPhone in promoting the open, collective approach to software and device development that is clearly the future of technology. Make a cool platform, open it up and let everyone else do the work to perfect it.
Smart phones are in their absolute infancy, and the fully-capable phone of two years from now will be light years ahead of the G1s and iPhones we know now, but Google clearly has their eye on that future, while Apple – innovators that they are – might be a bit too concerned with promoting their brand. Prove me wrong, Apple – I’d absolutely love it.
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:
Cool or Scary? You Decide
What you see above is an image from a video the British Broadcasting Company put together using GPS and video imaging to track “the great migrations across our landscape.” The BBC took the GPS trails of taxis in London, freighters in the British Channel and planes flying in and out of Heathrow Airport, then superimposed their routes over composite images of different areas in England. The result? A beautiful pastiche of human travel and movement that’s both interesting and visually stunning. The network also stitched together the call patterns of England’s cell phone users down to the second, producing an image that looks like a blooming flower as London awakens.
It’s very cool, but also a bit weird. You know that GPS unit in your car that tells you how to get from downtown to that flower shop in the Marina you love? Or how about the cool, new GPS unit in your iPhone that let’s you see exactly how close you are to that obscure alley in Telegraph Hill you’re hunting for? If the BBC can do that, be sure the government can do a lot more. Not to fasten the tinfoil hat too tight, but there’s definitely a question here about what information companies and the government can use and what they do with it. It’s that way with all technologies, but the GPS phenomenon makes the argument a bit more real. After all, it’s about where you’re standing – right now.
A few years back, rapper Mos Def had the same thought:
Fourty percent of Americans own a cell phone
so they can hear everything that you say when you ain’t home
I guess, Michael Jackson was right, “You Are Not Alone”
With new technology, comes new problems. Stick around, this one will be with us for a while.
Technology and the Too-Fast Swimsuit
Despite many lessons and summers reluctantly spent at swim practice I was never much of a competitive swimmer. Perhaps the high-tech Speedo LZR Racer suit could have been of some help?
Introduced in February, Speedo’s new suit and it’s ultra-lightweight technology are transforming the sport while creating a great deal of controversy in the run-up to the Olympic Games this summer. 18 of the last 19 swimmers who have broken world records have worn the LZR, and many claim that the groundbreaking technology helps them float and feel as if they are swimming downhill.
Great news or cause for concern? In short, nobody’s quite sure.
Developed based on NASA intelligence, it is clear that the LZR gives its wearers an advantage of sorts — but is this advantage unfair? FINA President Mustapha Larfaoui is adamant that all swimmers be able to access the technology but the issue of accessibility is only the tip of the iceberg.
Who gets credit for world records broken by wearers of the LZR — the athlete or the technology? Should the suits be banned for giving athletes that extra edge? Swimmers already regularly shave their legs before big races, is this really that different? Can this really be considered technological doping (if there is such a thing)?
Questions abound– and in the meantime “swimming’s fastest year” continues.
Lifan: The Guys Who Are Freaking Out The Auto Industry
I’m not a big motorcycle guy. In fact, I was a little freaked out when my kid sister, a grown-up AP reporter, bought a Yamaha scooter. But I’ve got to say, I’ve been fascinated with the brand Lifan Motorcycles, ever since I read about them in Don Tapscott’s
Wikinomics.
They’re decently large company ($900M annually), but they’re only about 1/50th the size of, say, BMW. They’re based out of Chongquing, a growing metropolis near the Yangtze River. It’s no little city-state, either – Chongquing is the most populous of China’s provincial-level municipalities. Lifan burst onto the scene fairly recently (around 1992), initially beginning as a motorcycle repair shop. Today, they’re cranking out over 700,000 cycles a year, shipping to over 100 countries.
It’s no surprise that Lifan and its Chinese compatriot brands are really taking over the motorcycle industry; they currently account for nearly 50% of the global motorcycle output now, according to Tapscott’s book. It’s what they’re doing with cars that’s beginning to really freak out the global automotive industry. They make a car called the Lifan 520, which I’d position against a Kia Optima or a souped-up Honda Civic. This car has leather seats, dual airbags, a DVD system and a huge trunk. It retails for $9700, which is about $6000-8000 less than the other two cars.
The reason Lifan made it into a book that was largely about knowledge management and peer collaboration was because they used these methods to create tangible goods, rather than information-based services, which is usually how this type of technology is leveraged. Lifan’s physical assembly model is totally modular.
Remember, this company sprang out a repair shop not too long ago, so the idea of using interchangeable parts to accomplish larger tasks is in their blood. In the car and motorcycle industries, traditional production networks resemble a pyramidal structure, with one leader commanding network segments to crank out whole products. Lifan has trumped the supply chain challenges that the hierarchical model encountered by working in clumps, or clusters. These small entities collaborate on development, design and manufacturing.
By the way, don’t bother looking for a Lifan 520 on Craigslist. I already checked. They’re not in the States yet. To learn more about how Lifan is using peer collaboration, pick up a copy of Wikinomics
Tech Blogs – Oh, The Humanity!
Robert Scoble had an interesting post a week or so ago, about tech blogs losing their soul – or “humanity” as he called it. It raises an interesting question: Can tech blogs have soul? Of course, anything created by human beings reflect human biases, emotions and experiences (i.e. humanity) but is it really possible for blogs about technology and business – both decidedly mechanical things devoid of any soul – to have a sense of humanity?
Of course it is. There are blogs in every category from sports to television and politics that approach their subjects with humor, passion and intelligence and the tech world does too. What Scoble worried about were blogs simply becoming a repository for unexciting product news and blind devotion and reverence to companies and personalities, rather than driving creativity and thought leadership as they have for the past couple years.
Scoble’s concern may stem from the sheer number of tech blogs out there. There’s plenty of innovative, insightful and daring blogs out there – Scoble’s is one of them. During a press conference Friday morning for Google’s new OpenSocial platform (check out our client NewsGator’s Didja Hear!? application), Scoble was Twittering the conference and then decided to open up questions to the 7,000 people who subscribe to his Twitter feed, and then acted as a gatekeeper, relaying the incoming queries to the Google folks. Instantly, a press conference with an industry giant that had originally been limited to about 25 top bloggers was open to anyone who wanted to ask a question.
That’s a fantastic story that evokes everything that blogs and social media should be – open, egalitarian, collaborative, free … and distinctly human.
Microformats: Do You Need To Know This?
I’ve been reading up on microformats for the last few weeks and spending a bit of time over at Microformats.org. Today, I came across a pretty interesting but very dense book by John Allsopp called Microformats. (For your convenience, I’ve added the title to the Metzmash Canteen). The point of understanding how microformats will play in your future communications and marketing is all about figuring out how your brand is going to answer questions.
How is your toilet company, for example, going to answer a question like, "What is a toilet that will fit into a 38" x 24" x 24" space in our new bathroom, that doesn’t use a lot of water and is available in black?"
It would probably take a human searching on the Kohler website and about 15 or 20 minutes to figure that out (have you figured out that I’m in the bathroom remodel market yet?). But there probably is a toilet on that website that meets those exact specifications. That’s where microformats could feasibly come in – product pages and PDFs can be enabled for better searchability. That’s what John Allsopp‘s book is all about.
Chapters One and Two are a sturdy preview of what you need to know about microformats, and there’s a fairly solid breakdown of publishers who are currently using them (Yahoo, Cork’d, Eventful, Apple, edgeio). The later chapters get into some real heavy stuff that you’ll want to look over with the I.T. department, but Parts One, Three and Four look like they’re gonna be required reading for marketing and brand managers in the next few months.
The bits and pieces of Alsopp’s book that I’ve investigated are definitely on the geekier side of the marketing spectrum, but if you’re looking for a pretty solid download on emerging best practices of the semantic web, this is a helluva place to start.