Dialogue on Doors7

moleitauLeave a comment

Been meaning to write up something a little more considered than my raw notes on Doors7 [here, here, here and here] – and haven’t managed it what with all my comings and goings, laziness and, erm, work.

As a result I’ve been getting some feedback about the notes, and my use of the phrase “usefully-annoying” to sum up my experience there.

So, it was with a certain trepidation I clicked on the email I received from event head-honcho, John Thackara; but in the resulting email-tennis, I think we got to an understanding: I certainly came to refine my reaction to the event through doing so.

John has kindly allowed me to publish his email here, and I’ve published my reply – which comes as close as I think I’m going to get to a reflection on Doors7 in the time I’ve got right now. It’s kinda long, but I hope y’all enjoy it as much as I did briefly corresponding with John.
Read More »

HiptopPlanet

moleitauLeave a comment

Once or twice in a week, I go and visit hiptop nation.

I love it. I still love it.

It’s so full of little slices of realness.

Low, low, cross-cultural barrier to entry (cf. previous post about this) No need to be a great writer, thinker, proselytizer to blog there… Just see something that catches your eye and post it…

It’s got so much – no other word than the very cheesy, disneyfied – ‘heart’.

I love it like almost no other place on the web – it’s being let in on
millions of little personal places all at once. I can’t wait until it’s
HiptopPlanet. I want to see tacos in Texas next to street violinists in
Vienna next to schoollife in Kabul next to crazy bleachhair Ginza action in
Tokyo.

It’s going to be like those cheesy ads that tech companies used to run full
of images of grinning gap-toothed farmers in paddy field next to wall-st
brokers or something, except it’s been handknitted, ground-up by a bloke
called mike who just happened to love his hiptop.

Some lovely things this morning:

I’m not really thinking too critically about this at the moment, just preferring to enjoy the web getting “more real”, more open and react until I can participate: but there’s been lots of people are, with much comment about ‘this’ lately, mostly hubbed-on Justin Hall’s ‘Moblog’ writings:

» Justin’s original piece in “The Feature”
» Adam Greenfield on HipTop Nation
» Smartmobs Category: The Mobile Many

Possidifficulty

moleitauLeave a comment

At Doors, one of the participants mixed up his words while presenting, and said instead of ‘possibility’ the wonderful, fantastic:

“Possidifficulty”

This word has already found much usage, in my work-life particularly, for example:

“that phase of the project is an area of possidifficulty”

Or, with elbow-patches on my blazer and attempting my best, most-pompous Carl-Sagan-type voice:

“Social software is an area that presents boundless possidifficulties”

Try it yourself! The possidifficulties are endless!

Groups online, and the Turing test.

moleitauLeave a comment

I thought, somewhat flippantly, a while back:

Could a group of full of non-human, artificial participants be distinguished from a group of humans participating in a mailing list or group message board.

If you joined a mailing list full of sufficiently-advanced bots, how long would it take you to tell the difference, if you could at all?

In social situations, are we more easily fooled?

Pretty, difficult.

moleitauLeave a comment

Stewart’s diagrams showing overlaps of social networks in the GNE are beautifully reminiscent of Buckminster Fuller’s “Tensegrity” structures.

They also bring home the messy, nuanced and subtle nature of human social relations, and the attendent difficulty of recreating/augmenting them in a media where the ‘experience design[ed]’ is sometimes little more than “one page of paper after another slapping you in the face on a windy street” [© Jessica Helfand]

A hunch of mine is that successful social-software will seem messy like a meatball to plan, resource, design and build, but will have the beauty and poise of Bucky’s tensegrity structures when it happens…

Social Saffo-ware

moleitauLeave a comment

The mass-amateurisation of futurology commences, with this BBC site that uses the DNA engine to create a collaborative speculation on things-to-come, with the somewhat-perverse goal of turning it all into a book.

It’s going to be interesting to see how it develops, and how the mix of ‘celebrity writers’, ages, newbies and H2G2 regulars works out: already there is a certain extropian/hitchhiker’s guide flavour to the contributions that might raise the barriers to others?

Also, it will be fascinating to see how the influence of a ‘deadline’ and editorial process for the physical publishing of the book create feedback for the community’s efforts.

Some selections of what’s there so far:

Another thought about collaborative authorship projects such as this: does a reliance on text that most of the existing tools/platforms/environments mean a bias toward those who are literate in the first language of the website in question; with a corresponding bias towards the age, education and nation-of-origin of those able to participate?

Perhaps Josh and the other Futurefarmers’ new project “Co|Mix” points a complementary path forward.

» www.bbc.co.uk: BBCi book of the future

The gossip singularity

moleitauLeave a comment

I imagine it’s been a crazy week for those involved in Popbitch. This week, there has been a very high-profile football player who has been very annoyed at rumours about his life circulating around the internet. The Times of London reflects on this today [registration required], and expands the case to look at the intrinsically ‘rumour-mongering’ nature of the internet:

“It is not just celebrities who keep falling victim to the gossip websites. From chief executives to Hollywood directors, the battle is on to retain some control of the web’s 24-hour information barrage and, if possible, take advantage of it. One false rumour on a bulletin board or in an e-mail can travel around the world within seconds, and no matter how firmly the claims are denied a corporation’s reputation can suffer from a few keystrokes.”

Some words of consolation for the popbitches:

“It is a point where our old models must be discarded and a new reality rules. As we move closer to this point, it will loom vaster and vaster over human affairs till the notion becomes a commonplace. Yet when it finally happens it may still be a great surprise and a greater unknown.”

Vernor Vinge, The Singularity

And, on the other hand…

“Everybody’s looking for the
big surprise

But nobody will notice when it
does arrive”

“Coming in from the cold”, The Delgados

I think we’ve hit the gossip singularity where almost anything you can think about someone in a position of celebrity will get reported somewhere, and what’s more, it’s no bad thing.

The aftershocks of the death of deference experienced through the satire boom of the early 60’s have bounced off the lower strata of the 7-layer-model and travelled back to smack the new establishment upside their giant, 16-by-9 heads.

The “24-hour information barrage” demands that everyone’s an editor, and we decide what entertains us, and what we think is true – together. The flipslide of the blogcirclejerk is that we factcheck [each other’s] asses.

Fast, cheap and out-of-control, we’ve reached the gossip singularity. The “new reality” of the network, that is already demystifying and destroying celebrity might yet regulate the hubris of both the financial markets and politics.

Newsbitch, anyone?

Reputation

moleitauLeave a comment

A couple of quick things. A colleague of mine here at the BBC, Dan Dixon (along with Igor and Dharmesh) has put together a very clear presentation [powerpoint, 127k] of some of the state of the art and issues around ‘reputation’ systems. He’s kindly let me post it here, both in the hope that others will find it useful, and that we’ll get some constructive criticism and suggestions.

Dan also points out this great primer on the area of reputation, from Kuro5hin.