things less interesting than a pigeon walking in a circle.
Add-Art is a free FireFox add-on which replaces advertising on websites with curated art images. The art shows are updated every two weeks and feature contemporary artists and curators.
This is just brilliant, a lovely hack for Firefox users to discard the usual tirade of advertising with a curated exhibition of art. Get cultured whilst you browse.
I was out with CG last night, and we were talking podcasts. I’ve recently become the vaguely proud owner of a new iPhone (in fact, we’re now a two iPhone house, as my wife has also just acquired one), and never really having an mp3 player in my pocket before (I’ve owned them, but always forget to take them out; being my phone however, i have to take it out), i’ve not listened to podcasts that much. Now, however, is a different case. I have lots and lots of time on my hands, and lots and lots of storage on my phone. So, we were discussing good sources. As if by internet magic, Laughing Squid also posted a video of one of the shows we talked about, featuring Ze Frank, The Sound of Young America. I’m hoping they’re not all visually hilarious, as radio isn’t a media for the mime, but its been duly added to my feedlist.
I’m also starting to plan a trip to San Francisco. I’ve always wanted to visit, mostly to see if it really is that hilly; possibly to stalk this guy; but mostly to go visit some interesting people.
Flickr image from arcticpenguin used under a CC License
I was in the audience for last night’s debate between Professor Jonathan Zittrain and Bill Thompson, on the subject of his new book “The Future of the Internet and what we can do to stop it“, hosted by Becky Hogge and the good people at the Open Rights Group. Having not read the book yet, there was fortunately a primer into his concerns over the “inevitable” reduction in freedoms we currently enjoy online, whether those freedoms come from threats such as malicious cracking, viruses and spam, tethered platforms, regulatory bodies or walled garden / happy valley situations like Facebook. Its a very interesting topic of debate, and I look forward to reading the book when the postman brings it next week. I can’t help feeling that some of Professor Zittrain’s points were a little ‘fear culture’ish to make people aware of the issues - in the same way that the instigator of the Y2K stories played up the significance of the problem to make sure it reached a wider audience (but of course turned into a media/social frenzy), but there is definately a great deal of truth in some of the points raised by both Bill, Johnathan and some of the questions posed by the audience. I’m not going to say anything more until i’ve read the book though, and he was an extremely interesting speaker - I can’t help thinking it will provide an interesting follow on from Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody which i’m reading currently.
As if by some form of perfectly organised timing though, RWW and the Guardian are running articles today about the public’s desire for some form of regulation into social networks like Facebook. I realised last night that regulation does not always have to mean restriction, and Sir Christopher Meyer of the PPC’s comment that “There is a need for public awareness about what can happen to information once it is voluntarily put into the public domain,” is absolutely correct, but I’m not sure that means OFCOM need to step in.
‘Public’ conversations in real life are aimed at the person or people you’re standing next to in your social circle and they can be overheard, but social norms mean we tend not to listen too intently to a mobile conversation taking place next to you. However, online, the flawless reproducability of digital conversations which also take place in this “public” arena added to the thought that a conversation online is therefore for “public consumption” make for bad juju. You wouldn’t photograph or record someone sitting opposite you on the train, but you might happily link to their twitter conversation, and that is quite a social disconnect. I think that might, in time, change, but whilst we’re learning new social mores to deal with this public/private dichotomy, self regulation is far more practical and relevant.
If you don’t want people to see it, don’t post it - even if you have privacy turned up to 11. That’s the rule. There are enough channels to privately get something from A to B without resorting to Facebook or similar, and that is about education. Teens are extremely savvy when it comes to privacy and posting on their social spaces, us adults are less aware. The Guardian article mentions journalists facebook doorstepping and whilst I can totally see how invasions of privacy are upsetting, if you’ve posted something on Facebook and haven’t considered who can access that, is that really private?
If regulation is placed on the social networks, it should be security focussed, imposing penalties for flaws in the code and the ability for crackers to get in and show supposed ‘private’ content, not user regulation.
Update: You can listen to an audio recording of the debate over at the Open Rights Group site. You might even be able to hear me ask about sewers.
Awesome. The world’s first ‘live ad’ last night on Channel 4.
Hardly anyone knows that a secret tunnel runs deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean. In May 2008, more than a century after it was begun, the tunnel has finally been completed.
This is such a beautifully simple yet well executed idea. I’ve seen the concept a dozen times before, yet this is on a global scale, and with Artichoke’s delightful exuberance and finesse, it makes something just that extra bit special. I’m planning on going to see it this week in London, and in a few weeks from the New York side when I’m visiting the US. I wonder how many people have looked in from both ends?
I’ve mentioned on this blog before about barriers to entry for innovations like opensocial or openid - and how some things are just too technical to become interesting to the mainstream. here is something which is lowering that barrier - and possibly (until tonight) the most anticipated 404 page i’ve ever bookmarked - http://www.google.com/friendconnect.
FriendConnect promises to offer social tools through basic embeds and snippets of codes, allowing content developers who aren’t necessarily the most technically savvy, to still enable their site with the power of social networking.
David Glazer, a director of engineering at Google, explains “Many sites aren’t explicitly social and don’t necessarily want to be social networks, but they still benefit from letting their visitors interact with each other. That used to be hard. Fortunately, there’s an emerging wave of social standards — OpenID, OAuth, OpenSocial, and the data access APIs published by Facebook, Google, MySpace, and others. Google Friend Connect builds on these standards to let people easily connect with their friends, wherever they are on the web, making ‘any app, any site, any friends’ a reality.”
Watch this, and many other spaces.
A new product from the innovation masters, Schulze and Webb, supported ably by my good friend Amy T. and her team at BBC Audio & Music Interactive R&D.
Olinda is a prototype digital radio that has your social network built in, showing you the stations your friends are listening to. It’s customisable with modular hardware, and aims to provoke discussion on the future and design of radios for the home.
Succinctly elegant as ever, Clay Shirky talks about why participation is the revolution
I don’t know if you’ve been following the ASLEF and RMT protests towards the new Mackenzie Crook film, but this response from the film-makers is pure joy
As twitter increases in users and awareness in the mainstream, more and more people are asking ‘yeah, but why?‘, more so than many other arguably less useful services. I’m not sure why so many people need a definitive answer to use what is such a simple service to join. The Guardian’s Jemima Kiss sums it up best I think:
There are so many possible uses for Twitter. It’s a very functional group messaging service - if your ten closest mates were signed up you could say ‘I’m in the pub’ and would only have to send one message instead of paying for ten. And you could also use it for more creative projects, something I’d like to explore when I clone myself and have some time to do ‘art’ outside of all-consuming work time.
The real point, though, is that we should all be a little more willing to explore these tools without feeling the need to classify it or nail it down to some definite function when it is still so young. So many inventions were born out of a completely different idea; vinyl records were a spin-off (no pun intended) from a project for talking dolls or some such… It’s far easier to dismiss something out of hand than to be open-minded, creative and playful.
This has tipped the scales in favour of getting Sky
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2008/04/gladiators_ready.html
Whilst i’m not surprised to see it happen, its great to actually see quantative reports that giving away free music does have a commercial benefit. last.fm, since launching their full length tracks service, have influenced an almost 120% increase in real sales throught their partnership with amazon. Last.fm, who have over five million full length tracks available on their service, reckon existing users are purchasing 66% more music as a result of the free tracks being available via the site.
I’m personally one of those people. I used to discover new music on Pandora and immediately go and buy the albums via amazon - but since its UK closure, I’ve had to rely on last.fm to find new artists, and probably buy two or three albums a month of artists i’ve never heard on the radio - far more music than i ever used to buy before making use of sites such as last.fm and imeem. I just hope the record labels take these figures to heart and realise not all digital consumers are out to ’steal music’.
via [mashable]
