Twitter changes lives and gets no respect

The sky outside is like white noise on my windshield. My wipers strain to shove the slush to the sides of my vision while my hands attempt to maneuver my trusty Dodge Caravan through the muck all over the road. Every time some random 4x4 pickup truck wobbles past me, I hold my breath. I try to keep my bearings set on the tracks set in the snow from the FedEx van in front of me. The FedEx driver is keeping it slow and steady and I can't justify deviating from their sound plan.

Suddenly a veritable boat of a car sails onto the highway in front of us. In a matter of seconds the car spins out in front of me and the my package-toting companion. After a quick slam into the right barrier the driver over-corrects and tears back onto the highway, cutting a perpendicular line across the road, straight towards the stalwart package deliverer.

I can't help but wonder what caused these other people to be out on the road in this blizzard. The FedEx van has an obvious goal, but the giant, brown hooptie that broadsides it appeared to be on the road with the an explicit mission to cause havoc.

In between orders at work, I run across this article on Mashable. The 9% Twitter usage is a bothersome statistic. It makes me think that if we somehow utilized Twitter in a smarter manner it could truly have a purpose that would draw in millions of users from across the country. Look at Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Their use of this social network helped unify people to one goal. It was a tool that received great attention and served a great purpose.

Looking back on the traffic accidents, I can't help thinking that at least some people would benefit from a dedicated Twitter feed. How about one that tracks the daily routes for those commuting from Albany to Troy? I'm sure some network weatherman already have something like this. Tack on some user-friendly software that allows for certain tweets to be read out loud to you by your car and we have a computer that informs you of the accident after Exit 6 or the pile up on on Manning, "try cutting down South Main instead."

As I saw this horrific accident play out in front of me, I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw the flashing blue lights of a volunteer fireman flick on behind me. I drove on to clear the way for him to reach them. Thinking about that now, I realize that it wouldn't just be civilians that could benefit from such connectivity.

Facebook, the most popular dictatorship

Facebook is a private company. It therefore should not come as a surprise when it acts like one. Facebook compiles data on its members, sells that data to advertisers and uses that information in ways to learn even more about its nation-size level of users. It does this with no qualms and no cover ups. We talked about this briefly in my class on social media. I find this New York Times tech blog entry to be quite helpful in explaining the predicament.

Here we have the New York Academy of Art and a number of users getting their material taken down and their Facebook accounts locked after posting pictures of paintings and drawings of nudes.

Facebook’s infamous photo policy is that obscene or gratuitous photos are not allowed, the NY Times has covered this previously when breastfeeding moms were crying foul, and now it is the one of the High Arts that finds itself in the proverbial hot seat. The crux is that apparently this policy has an exemption when it comes to paintings and drawings. According to the article, Facebook made a mistake when it removed the academy’s drawing

I’m not sure what the big hubbub is though. Amazon faced an uprising when it stood up for “free speech” when it defended selling a book about pedophiles. Finding this PR nightmare a frightening display for their stockholders they eventually removed the book. They then found another horde ready to demonize it for censorship. One can even find dichotomy erupting in the comments section.

This is something a private company (and by private I mean private sector) shouldn’t have to deal with.

The only thing the Amazon and Facebook have to deal with is their investors’ interests. When it comes to their services they don’t have to answer to anyone, not even their customers. Of course, not listening to your customers should not be a long-term strategy to be employed by any company. However, most companies should think long and hard about any moralizing stance they take to gratify a handful of patrons.

If the customers boycott then they make their message known and they may in some way injure the company for its lack of compassion. If they use the companies own tools to attempt to undermine them, such as the breastfeeding mothers, then their efforts will most likely be wasted as the company is unlikely to see any loss of profit as a result of their actions. Either way, it’s not the company’s problem; it’s the consumer’s problem and unless they can create real and sustained trouble for the company then the business ought not to concern them.

Nir Rosen, moral choices and bloody goblins

I started playing a game called Dragon Age: Origins. It’s got swords and goblin-like creatures and battlefields flooded by gallons of blood. It’s rather geeky. It’s also quite thought provoking. One of the features in the game is the ability to make choices and most choices in the game are not as simple as Coke or Pepsi.

During my first few hours in the game, I made a choice to betray a friend when I knew he had turned down a crooked path. I chose to carry on with him, pretending all was well, while attempting to seal his fate. He was unaware of my treachery until it was too late.

My betrayal ended up with my friend lashing out on his apprehenders, erupting the scene by revealing himself to be a cursed blood mage and stealing off into the night, more than likely with wicked vengeance on his mind. So, after that disaster, I chose to try to be as honest as possible from then on. I know now that even a simple choice may have dire consequences later on.

It’s a very realistic aspect of the game to put weighty choices in someone’s lap with almost no warning whatsoever. People face moral dilemmas often in life and must make the choice of whether to sink deeper into a despicable act or to reach for an ethical lifesaver and pull themselves back out onto the shores of right.

Journalists, in particular, have to make moral choices more often and farther reaching than most people. This past week Nir Rosen found some black comedy in the brutal rape of a fellow journalist, Lara Logan, in Egypt. He decided to swap tweets about it with friends. He also decided to start ripping on the assault of the Anderson Cooper while he was at it. Then some other people noticed it.

Nir Rosen

It is actually rather funny, a lifelong journalist forgetting the gravity of his own words.

His most remorseful statement was, “My career was dedicated to defending victims from oppressors and instead I now look like I mock victims and justify their oppressors.”

It’s a response that seeks forgiveness but fails to engender pity. Nir Rosen surrendered his fellowship at NYU and might as well surrender his reputation too.

A Google search on Nir Rosen, as of today, lists 3 results before delivering a slew of stories related to his reckless tweets.

A professor at NYU that shares his surname, Jay Rosen had just four words for Nir Rosen’s excuses. Jay Rosen would be right too. The best thing that Nir Rosen could do is to put this episode behind him as quick as possible, no explanation is necessary.

As I return through the land of Ferelden I find myself exploring the southern woodlands outside of Ostagar. After hacking and blasting through hordes of goblins, my party encounters a girl with a rather snarky attitude and a bizarre sense of fashion. My companions believe that she is wicked, deceitful and possibly a witch. Finally, I’m given a choice of how to consider her. I make my decision and rest easy, after all this is merely a game.

T is for Tahrir, Twitter and Toppling dictators

Yesterday there was a revolution. It also happened to be tweeted.

So, despite Malcolm Gladwell’s moving argument, he was technically wrong.

Of course, at the same moment I feel like most criticism against Gladwell actually tends to further the meat of his argument. I read Dave Pell’s almost immediate response and his more recent tirade, and both tend to refer to Twitter as a more advanced version of the telegraph.

Even Gladwell appears to have been swept up into this silly argument over the importance of social media in a people’s protest.

His argument was that no revolution has required anything more than the discipline and resolve of its members.

Pell, meanwhile, likes to poke fun at this by pointing out how people have embraced this new medium and how governments actually started to target it. According to Pell, social media didn’t cause the revolt and it didn’t continue it but it sure as heck helped it.

So, where does social media fit into all of this?

Oh, I know, right here.

We’ve probably all heard the arguments that television helped fuel American’s growing discontent with the war in Vietnam. Well perhaps the same can be said of Twitter.

No, I don’t think a lack of Twitter or Facebook would’ve stopped Egyptians from fighting for their rights. Yet no one now can really doubt the usefulness of this new online network for their cause. Of course, even Mubarak may be forgiven for thinking that a “Twitter Revolution” would be fickle and spineless, but this wasn’t a Twitter revolution.

This was a people’s revolution. That also happened to be tweeted.

S.E.O., the new yellow journalism

Claire Miller wrote in The New York Times Tech Blog that tactics used by The Huffington Post to increase page hits could soon be adopted across the web.
Using search engine optimization or S.E.O. The Huffington Post manufactures headlines that match the current top searches of the day. As the article points out, sometimes they manufacture a news article to go along with it too. Using these methods, their website appears at the top of most Google searches and subsequently has a robust amount of page hits as a result.

Sure, Google’s results page is relevant to your advertiser’s opinion of
your site, and therefore your bottom line, but The Huffington Post seems to take this practice to a point where some may question their integrity. What if more established news sites to begin using these practices, if they haven’t already, what would we think of that?
Not long ago, The New York Times Magazine published an article on a designer eye glasses merchant that found his horrendous customer service and bullying behavior actually increased his websites spot on Google searches. Despite criminal harassment of his customers he found that his site would actually come up higher on the results page than the actual manufacturer of the eyewear. Needless to say, he learned his lesson.
The lesson seems to be any behavior, whether petty, rotten or immoral, that appears to increase one’s online exposure is justifiable. So, while some honorable news sites may abhor this behavior the less moralistic among them will be busy undercutting them, as there’s not much loyalty when it comes to online advertisers.
Now it would appear that the news world will have soon turned full circle and settled down close to its yellow journalism roots. It’s a dire prediction, but I’m sure Hearst would’ve eaten his heart out.

Social media takes a step closer to the Free Press

According to this article by Aemon Malone at Digital Trends social media may now have a precedent as free speech.
The article is about a court case involving an employee that was fired for posting derogatory comments about her boss on her Facebook wall. Luckily, she had the National Labor Relations Board in her corner of the courtroom. The NLRB is an independent federal agency that was created to protect the rights of employees from abusive management practices.
I wouldn’t exactly say this protects employees from posts about binge drinking at 3 a.m. on a work night or tweets about bringing cannabis brownies in for the team meeting, but it does say something about the government’s level of respect for social media. As far as the more scandalous updates go, maybe you should save them for a priest or the nearest equivalent.

Image courtesy of WebProNews.

The write and wrong of blogs

With a catchy lead the blogger has the reader trapped. The visitor may try to flee but the writer has authored a web of words that snare the hapless victim and allows the blogger to inject the venom of their inane subjectivity. The reader cannot flee as they are paralyzed by the lethal combination of bristled prose and gaudy video. Before long the reader is emptied of substance, a shell. With slackened jaw and vacant eyes this forlorn guest is disposed of as the blogger waits for their next hit.

Not every blog is devoid of substance and draining to read, however, I would have to say most of my forays into blogdom have been nightmarish journeys.

One such trip to stupiddope.com, a name that seems to exude it’s hosts aspirations, reads like an advertisement for music artist's latest side projects. Thanks stupiddope, I now know what useless things to waste my time and money on account of your gracious coverage.

Yet, somehow, the blog of published author Cherie Priest, cheriepriest.com, is inexplicably worse. Actually, I can explain it. It reads like mind-numbing drivel. Now, I’ve never read any of Priest’s books but if she writes them in the same manner she may actually be attempting to wage a war on the written word itself.

Worth noting is both of these blogs “showcase” status on wordpress.org.

Then there is the trap. The aforementioned blog that at first amuses you and then slowly grabs hold of your face and delicately extracts your brain through your eye sockets. Bloginity.com is a pinnacle of the blog world’s sordid amusement parks. It’s a trash heap of garbage news, aka – entertainment news. Despite this rubbish, the site is also chock-full of bright imagery and snappy dialogue with embedded video streams to boot. A glittery Vegas of the web.

Can I find a hand-hold on this crumbling cliff of sanity?

Yes, blogs on serous news sites appear to be structured and composed in a manner that not only obeys logic but grips the reader and pulls them into a story with substance. Take the LA Times blog L.A. Unleashed or Wired’s Danger Room.


No, they’re not all amazing stories, but they are actual stories that were found and written up by a capable journalist with more than just a half-ounce of integrity. In the end it’s more than adequate, it’s laudable and a breath of fresh air.

You see, the blog is more than just another site on the web. On an interface that abounds with quick quips and clips the blog is the online sanctuary for the true writer. The last thing our generation needs is the rest of the tawdry mess of the internet invading this haven of language and culture. Then again, on the internet nothing is sacred.

Image courtesy of Blogginity

Has the world lost its ability to savor?

I read a blog post by one of our fellow students that feared it might bore the reader in 3 short paragraphs and it got me thinking. Our common perception of a social media outlet is Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. These are sites that allow their users to create and share with millions across the globe. I like to look at Twitter and shake my head.
Here we have a site that has spawned an army of users that broadcast

billions of short and sweet blurbs. If Facebook is a site where one samples bits of news like sticks of gum, thrown out before they lose their flavor, than Twitter is like the Everlasting Gobstopper of the internet. It is an infinite, amorphous monster that tears a sports team to pieces in one second while sharing its latest cornbread recipe the next.
If Gary Kamiya worries about the substance of internet content in his piece about the death of the newspaper , then perhaps solid and thorough investigative reporting’s most fervent enemy is the attention span of the modern news consumer. If people have begun to lose their ability to savor the news, like a succulent salmon filet (with a side of asparagus lightly fried in olive oil and a fine glass of pinot) then maybe the news as we once knew it is doomed to never return again. However, perhaps it’s because of the modern news media’s own lack of confidence in solid reporting.
Why blame the public for snacking on the sweet bits of Charlie Sheen’s latest failure at life when the latest news about the wicked storm that slammed Australia this morning was a deep-fried fritter about a baby and the latest political news involving the health care bill, written by a health care expert, contains no actual information about health care? Talk about empty calories.
Still, there are a few bright spot for any news consumer’s palate. The LA Times coverage of the clashes in Egypt shows that a hard-working news crew’s efforts at in-depth reporting have a purpose and that there is still an audience that is hanging on their every word, even when there are over 500 of them. Then again, at this moment there are only 3 comments so far on the article. Not the most heartning of responses for a city with over 4 million people.
Obesity is a so-called epidemic. Perhaps the news has to realize its own reader’s gluttony and change their appetites if they want to survive Kamiya’s dire prediction.

Image courtesy of Cocoia Blog