Going 2.0

I’ve spent roughly the last two hours following the breaking news from China of a 7.5 magnitude earthquake, not on CNN, or Fox News, but Twitter. I’ve skimmed the news stories from the NY Times and CNN.com, but mostly I’ve been following the links being intermediated by Robert Scoble (@scobolizer.)

I believe the main reason I’ve stayed tuned to Twitter, instead of the traditional news outlets, has been the immediacy of the information, along with some first had accounts from people inside China. Typically news of this kind takes a little while to hit the airwaves anyhow, and this being an international story, that can further delay the dissemination of the information as well. Watching the links Scoble has provided has led me to first person accounts, the first posts on the USGS site, the stories as they broke on the media outlets, the first pictures, and so on.

To me this is where Twitter really shines. We can sit around and talk all day about what movies we saw, the cheese sandwich we ate, who’s posts are flooding the timeline, but when real stories are breaking, it is hard to beat this medium with its immediacy. The fact that Robert Scoble has over 20,000 followers, and attempts to follow each one back, makes him uniquely qualified to mediate this information.

I’m sure this is where we could have the discussion about whether or not this is “professional,” but in this day and age I’m caring less and less how polished my information is. I much prefer this immediate unfiltered access to information. I understand there is the danger for misinformation and outright lies from unverified news, but I think that is a fair trade-off for the chance at getting information before it goes through the broadcast news filter. Along with that, you can get a much more humanistic feel, following people that are tweeting from the scene.

I’d be surprised if being a Twitter news anchor is a job Robert Scobel would want to hold down full time, but his roll in doling out the information certainly shows that there is room for a reputable news personality to do the same. If a journalist wants to take on the task of following thousands of conversations at once, when these stories break, they would be on the front lines of the “broadcasting” process. I’m just glad Robert was up late tonight to do some trailblazing.

“It’s like, only the regular people still Tweet on the weekend.” @PaulJManoogian

Quick take on twitter this weekend. I must say it was odd watching the action during the Twitter outage. My take on it was that it was mostly the users who have a high number of followers that were not being seen. The folks that I follow with under roughly 250 followers I was able to still see fine. The Scobles, Arringtons, LaPortes, Winers, Pirillos, Calacanissses??, even Tom Merritt, silent. Unless you found some temporary work around like unfollowing then refollowing various folks you could get little spurts of posts. Most of those, of course, were in the vein of “can you see this,” or “Twitter still down?”

This did start little mini-discourses, with those that I could still see, about how those folks are using Twitter. Seems that most of them use it to drive traffic to their respective web-sites and blog postings, some actually have something to say, a few let us know what boring conference is on hand today, yet others clue you in what wine(s) went with dinner, and still some just say “look at me!” I’m sure if you’ve spent any time with Twitter, who is who here, is clear. The great thing is that this is all O.K.; there is something to be gleamed from all of this.

I’ve kept my follow list relatively short right now, while I still get used to the flow. I’ve tried to get followers from every continent, (still looking for a genuine Antarctica tweeter) as many various counties, and regions as possible, and a good cross-section of backgrounds. I follow the A-listers down to just completely random folks that probably wonder why I showed up. What emerges is a Kundalini effect with information and memes traveling up and down the Twitter chakras. The important thing is that it can start at any point, and travels both up and down then back again in a ripple effect.

The best example I’ve seen of this recently was the Midwest earthquake that occured late last week. I had just happened to have sat down at the computer when it hit. It was mild enough here in Northern Indiana to question if it was indeed an earthquake, that I tweeted it to see if anyone else felt it. Within minutes I saw the information flying around before the USGS had it posted, and well before any news outlet was reporting it. It then expanded from a “did you feel it,” to others calling on people in the region to check on them, and then reporting back, and then people posting links to which news outlets were covering it.

I believe this is Twitter at its best, when something is actually going on. Imagine what twitter will look like the nights of the Democratic and Republican conventions, during the presidential elections, during the next G8 summit (or similar) protests, during the next Katrina, or even the next WTC.

Its during these down, or if you want to call it slow, times that it is best for you to start deciding who gives you substance in their tweets, not just promotion (and yes, you can effectively do both.) This is so when the real need for good information comes up, you don’t fall into being duped with misinformation by those just trying to echo what “they” said. This is a great time to assess who is giving you original thoughts and meaningful links. Wine tips are great, but sometimes I like to just sit down to a good plate of meat.

Since I feel a need to write I’ll share something I’ve been kicking around my noodle. We’re  coming up on that time of year where you’ll no doubt get that e-mail telling you to stick it to the oil industry by boycotting gas stations for one day. I’ve always doubted the claims these e-mails make; the oil industry would feel no pinch since you’d just have everyone either fill up before, or after the target date. I think the only ones that might actually feel a pinch would be the gas station owners and tobacco companies. You’re less likely to make that impulse buy at the convenience store, inside your gas station, if you are not there.

While these e-mails are well intentioned, I think what would be a fantastic idea would be for everyone to plan for a weekend spent near home, aiming to minimize travel. I don’t mean this in a shut yourself in kind of way, but quite the opposite. What would be novel would be that this weekend would be for spending time with, initially your family, (remember them?) then your neighbors, (ever meet them?) and then your entire community.

To start, Friday would be, like it is for many homes, family night. You could watch movies, play board games, (remember those) bake cookies, plant a garden, even playing on a WII; whatever it would take for you to spend quality time with your immediate family. Surfing the web, talking on  your cell phone, emailing on your blackberry, or keeping up with your peeps on the social network du jour would not be acceptable uses of this time.

We then move on to Saturday, this could be set aside for a day spent with your neighbors. I’m not sure if it’s the community I live in now, but I sure do remember good old block parties. While I don’t really think it’s my block as much as the condition of our insulated society that we just don’t get to know everyone on our block anymore. I barely know my immediate neighbors, much less those down a few homes. This would be a wonderful opportunity for planning a large scale project like cleaning up a local park, a recycling drive, or something of that nature. You could then move on to organized events for kids, (or the big kids,) and then top it off with a good ‘ole pig-out BBQ.

That leaves Sunday which would then be an event for your entire community. Since the objective of this weekend would be to promote community interaction and environmental concerns, any number of projects could be planned around this day. The weekend would end much like the block party with more food, and perhaps this time local artists and entertainers.

I’m not sure what environmental impact a weekend like this could have, unless that ’s part of your communities plan, but the human impact that time spent like this could be invaluable. Getting out and taking part helps you feel ownership for your community so at the very, very least it would make for stronger neighborhoods, and communities. Wouldn’t it be a silver lining if the high cost of fuel today becomes the catalyst for bringing many of us out of reclusive tendencies, and helps us remember the joy of being neighborly?

What do you think? Am I just dreaming?

Before I begin, I would like to propose a homework assignment for the comments. For a casual computer user how would you propose to fill a 1TB hard drive? You should take out of the equation video editing and general business use. I’ll contend that there is not 1TB of quality content out there to warrant this size drive, and would like to be proven wrong, but first, please read on to see how I got to this pondering.

I’ve been spending the last few days porting myself into a new Dell desktop computer and have come across some interesting observations along the way. It seems that moving your data from computer to computer these days, is fairy analogous to moving to a new home. The last time I bought a new system I believe I just took some CD-ROMS to back up and transfer my files. This week however I have discovered how drastically my computer usage, and computing in general, has changed in the last five years.

I was to cheap to purchase the Belkin cable that would have made transferring the bulk of my data simple. Instead, I pulled out an old Netgear router and set up a simple network for kicks. When I found out I was one ethernet cable short (again, being to cheap and impatient to run out and buy one) I instead used an unused  wireless USB adapter from my old Tivo, to finish off the network. This in itself is a far cry from just burning some CDs and popping them in the new computer.

A week later now, and I finally feel comfortable that all the data is indeed in the new computer. In getting a new system I have also switched from XP to Vista so I’m also getting myself accustomed to a new interface and thus decided it’s time to really go through my files, and start tossing stuff out just like you might do when you move.

What I have come to realize is that I have more content then I know what to do with. Between my music, audio books, e-books, videos, and photos, I have enough content to keep a castaway content for years. I- tunes alone tells me it could run for 90 consecutive days before it would it would run out of new material, and that doesn’t include the new content podcasts provide on a daily basis there. I then came to realize that’s just what’s on my computer. When I add in my boxes of books, hunderds of DVD’s, multiple seasons of television shows, and cartons of unorganized photos, I’ve come to realize that I’ve outpaced my ability to keep up with my own content. No amount of cataloging, tagging, or general organization, is going to allow me to effectively use all of this content.

What this has left me to ponder is how, in the future, am I to decide what content I’m interested in keeping, or God forbid, actually view. My choices for input have become so wide and varied, that content providers better stop worrying about who is doing what with their materials, and begin to realize that the real problem is quality of content issue.

I’ll stand tall and admit that I have downloaded my share of movies and music over the last few years, but here’s my excuse: I don’t want to pay for crap! There has been numerous time that I thank the Internet Gods that I didn’t have to pay for the crud I just watched, but at the same time I could name a dozen movies that we watched “illegally,” only to run out and purchase them the day they came out on DVD. The same certainly applies to music as well. The bands I loved from the 90’s are still making albums, but some are crap, (”Zeitgeist” by Smashing Pumpkins comes to mind) some are brilliant (Flamming Lips “At War with the Mystics” comes to mind there.) I’m more that happy to purchase music that I care for, but I want to be spared purchasing a turd as well. Downloading the music beforehand gives me that heads up.

Perhaps that’s what the record and movie industries fear most, the ability of the average consumer to be in a state of content overload with the ability to easily access and screen new content for quality. They then no longer are able to trick us with slick trailers and ad campaigns. In theory then this can only benefit the consumer since, if they have to focus on quality, we should get more Junos and Superbads and less sequels and television remakes.

As hard drives get larger and MP3 and media players become more portable with larger capacities, human nature begins to take ove,r and you begin to obsess over filling those players. My hope is that the next time you are starring at the Best Buy ad, contemplating if you should pay up for that 1TB HD, ask yourself is there really 1TB of usable content out there for you? So the lesson learned here is never buy a new computer and stay up until 5am writing about it. (i.e. I’m tired, but wanted to get that stuff out there.)

Thanks for hanging in there with me. Now please go and try the comments homework.

Something Barack Obama certainly has going for him is his superb ability as an orator. His ability to inspire through the spoken word has, for me, brought to mind another “great communicator.” About fifteen years ago I found myself in Arizona inside the learning center at Barringer Crater. Playing on a monitor, was the address Ronald Regan gave the nation on the eve of the Challenger shuttle disaster. Within that speech was, to this day, the most stirring thing I’ve ever heard a public official say:

“And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle’s take-off. I know it’s hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It’s all part of taking a chance and expanding man’s horizons. The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to follow them.“

I stood there in public, openly weeping.

This was in the early 90s when political correctness and the culture of hypersensitivity was getting a firm footing. If there is anything that I believe has dulled the razors edge of our nation it is the notion that we must spare everyones feelings, and that a human life is to much to sacrifice for any outcome. Feelings based educational outcomes are noble in principal, but the fact is, not everyone is intelligent enough to be a doctor. Don’t hold back more able students to spare the feeling of those not as capable. As much as I feel for anyones loss, I cannot see loss of life in the pursuit of exploration a tragedy. If nomadic tribes stopped migrating every time an untimely death befell a traveler, our species could not have left Africa. The same thing applies for the early sea travelers, astronauts, skyscraper construction workers, test pilots, human medical test volunteers, even firemen and police officers.

I have not doubt that today there are men a women who, like countless other pioneers before them, are willing to apply their complete dedication to their chosen field of exploration. it doesn’t matter if it is stem cell research, environmental studies, experimental medical techniques, deep sea research, or human space travel; the whisper of exploration calls to us as a species. It is inevitable that these avenues will be well traveled, but will it be by our nation? Perhaps the best we can do is get out of our braves’ way and let them claim their future.

Ronald Reagan - The Space Shuttle “Challenger” Tragedy Address (text & video)

Ever since the announcement of the Bush administration’s emergency economic stimulus package, I’ve been fighting back my cynical nature. I tend to feel that I lead the typical American life, and feeling that way, I have to conclude that a lot of people are going to do with the money what we are, that’s right, HDTV! If we buy a cheap enough one we may even spring for a Wii while were at it, assuming we can find one. How in the world is my purchasing behavior going to stimulate the U.S. economy?
The fact that I’m tempted to actually do this, instead of doing the fiscally sound thing, and paying off a high interest credit card, sets off my conspiracy alarms. Not so much in a 911 cover-up sort of way, but more of a new opiate for the masses way. Who cares if we are slipping into a financial crisis as potentially disastrous as any in our country’s recent history, I can finally watch American Idol in HD!!

Ok, I admit that is a bit extreme, but I’m sure it is indicitive of how many average Americans will actually spend this rebate. Many people are going to get that big ticket item they’ve been putting off, and in many cases, the HDTV probably will fit that mold. I’m sure Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Amazon, and the like, will see a nice boost in sales this summer, but the sad truth is that it’s the manufacturers that are really going to be stimulated. Unfortunately, not many of those companies are here in America.

So what will stimulate the economy? I’m betting on the weak dollar to help out here. Something that America still shines at is good old tourism. We may not manufacture a whole lot of things here, but this is still an amazing country to get out and see, and with the exchange rate where it is, it must be a steal for our foreign friends to come over here. I wouldn’t be surprised if many overseas travelers, and even Canadians, may vacation here for longer periods of time, giving them a chance to see more of the country than just Las Vegas, New York, Hollywood, and Disney World.

What I truly think we need to do though, is to really start thinking out of the box here. Our country’s history is a story of invention, innovation, and revolution, and I don’t believe at all that that spirit is gone. I must admit that I get a bit excited at the prospects of true change that times like this can bring. I can already get a whiff of that in the political air, and I’m certain it’s only a matter of time before that happens in the economy as well. However, I think it’s going to take a bit more creativity than a feel good check that appears to me to be designed to appease the masses.

Being a true American, I hardly think I’ll be able to apply my better judgment over my insatiable need for pretty shiny trinkets, and not buy the HDTV. I suppose in the end the only real question will be shall I go with Westinghouse (o.k., I know it’s Taiwanese parts, but it is an American company), or Sony?