Jack Abramoff, recently convicted D.C. powerbroker, has nothing on the FCC lobbyists. This organization has been used by interest groups again and again. Witness the unwillingness of the Commission to loosen restrictions on Cable companies to deliver Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), the technology that will finally replace your landline, even for overseas calls. On the flipside, the same Commission will not allow Telecomm providers the ability to deliver digital television: contracts will have to be developed at the county and municipal level.
Disruptive technologies like these are usually the ones that have the potential to deliver the most value to consumers. Too bad your politicians don’t agree; both of these regulatory hurdles are boondoggles to pet industries.
The fact is, digitization of content truly has democratized information. The only thing stopping the flow are punitive encryption methods and broadcast flags, and the more noble, age old principle of the copyright, designed by Congress to “spur technological innovation.” Yet even that is now being used for the opposite… Go figure?
Power has a way of serving itself and not its end, but there is hope. Enlightened thinkers like late economist Mancur Olson profess a theory that “rational change comes by irrational forces.” Case in point: the preponderance of piracy is only quickening the deployment of digital content delivery.
Were I a content provider or creator, you can bet I’d have a cutting edge Intellectual Property lawyer and a silver-tongued (and gold-palmed) lobbyist. But as a consumer, I’m more interested in how you “vote with your feet,” i.e. use your dollars. Fortunately, enough players are realizing that they had better build a digital pipeline or kiss their business good buy.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
The Silver Lining
Regardless of the consequences, we cannot go back, the forbidden fruit has been tasted. I’m excited about blogs, and not in some rose-colored glasses way. The real reason is that I’m inclined to like any technology that inculcates free thought. I’ve long thought that the problem with certain forms of media, like TV, wasn’t the content per se but our spoon-fed, passive assimilation of the format. The change from mass media to user-generated / user-driven content is therefore positive.
Firstly, because of blogs, heated debate is no longer merely the dominion of TV hotheads. It’s harder to sit on the sidelines and have your views made for you when you’re not only choosing what to read but are a willing participant. Americans sitting in front of the TV has led to what I call the machine mind, a mind that always produces certain outputs when fed certain inputs.
But I’m not so much simply for debate as I am for free thought. User-driven content such as blogs are no longer subject to an elitist inteligentsia (or oligarchy, if you believe Fox News critics) choosing what is news, sites like Digg.com let us do that.
Now the often-cited criticism of blogs is that they are purely editorial. However, 20th century academia long ago defeated the notion of bias-free journalism anyway, b/c all humans are subject to passions and even subconscious biases. Maybe Hunter S. Thompson was right, inject yourself into a story and your readers may learn from you! At the least, it’s more fun.
In hindsight, the Luddites’ critiques are not without merit. Blogs will always be subject to the passions of their viewers, but then again, narrow-minded people are everywhere. Nevertheless, the human yearning for freedom of expression trumps the caretakers of “respectability.” Like any technology, it turns out that blog tech is neither good nor bad--the devil is in the implementation. User-generated content will have to be user-policed.
Firstly, because of blogs, heated debate is no longer merely the dominion of TV hotheads. It’s harder to sit on the sidelines and have your views made for you when you’re not only choosing what to read but are a willing participant. Americans sitting in front of the TV has led to what I call the machine mind, a mind that always produces certain outputs when fed certain inputs.
But I’m not so much simply for debate as I am for free thought. User-driven content such as blogs are no longer subject to an elitist inteligentsia (or oligarchy, if you believe Fox News critics) choosing what is news, sites like Digg.com let us do that.
Now the often-cited criticism of blogs is that they are purely editorial. However, 20th century academia long ago defeated the notion of bias-free journalism anyway, b/c all humans are subject to passions and even subconscious biases. Maybe Hunter S. Thompson was right, inject yourself into a story and your readers may learn from you! At the least, it’s more fun.
In hindsight, the Luddites’ critiques are not without merit. Blogs will always be subject to the passions of their viewers, but then again, narrow-minded people are everywhere. Nevertheless, the human yearning for freedom of expression trumps the caretakers of “respectability.” Like any technology, it turns out that blog tech is neither good nor bad--the devil is in the implementation. User-generated content will have to be user-policed.
Blogs: Through a Scanner Darkly
Being my first blog entry, it’s a perfect time to touch upon the radical aspects of this new technology. We’ve all heard the “Utopians,” as noted tech pundit John Dvorak refers to them, evangelize the nigh divine powers of the blog to “eradicate media as we know it” and “free the peoples of the world.” Rather than support or refute these claims, I’ll analyze what may account for Blogs’ meteoric rise, but also the dirty underside of the blogosphere that you won’t want to talk about at parties.
Firstly, Old Media isn’t interactive. Let’s get something straight, my generation, known as the Millenials, have attention spans roughly the length of an SNL skit. This phenomenon is only aided by our rearing on MTV (which no longer plays entire music videos) and videogames, but also by learning our social skills on AOL Instant Messenger engaged in five convos at once. We don’t even have the time to finish the noun, conversation. The point is that there’s not much interesting about a 2D piece of newsprint at our local Starbucks, and you can get far more information out of scanning blog / news sites like Digg.com than you can digest from 15 minutes of even CNN Headline News.
The blog grew out of even larger social trends first detailed by sociologists like Harvard Professor Robert Putnam, and recently elucidated by a study by National Institute of Mental Health. More precisely, the study shows that Americans have half as many friends or “confidants” than even twenty years ago, ranging from 3-6 today. The National Institute focuses on the growth of cell phones, internet, and videogames & DVD as occupying our social time. Furthermore, 20% more Americans claim they rely on family. In his book, Bowling Alone, Putnam links it to entertainment, yes, but to larger trends like suburbanization and the explosion of the creature comforts technology has brought us, such as AC! As a UF Public Administration professor once said, kids in the 1960’s had no AC and 5 television channels, so the family spent recreation time outside or with neighbors. Let’s also note that this week is the 50th anniversary of the American Interstate system, the “technology” that made suburbanization possible. So in essence, the blog’s ubiquity can be attributed to Joe Six Pack’s desire to hear and be heard, hence the heavily-used (and abused) comments feature on most blogs.
What’s sad is that repression of the desire to socialize is going to lead to consequences that cannot be remedied through Internet chat. Sociologists are just now discovering the tendency of internet communication to retard social skills, such as recognition of body language and gestures. The topic is so hot that our own President deemed to discuss it at a Graduation speech at University of Texas, warning students not to let technology “use them.” Even scarier, it’s my own assertion that the Columbine / Grand Theft Auto phenomenon is more linked to the lack of socialization, rather than what entertainment kids consume at home. Philosophically, if a person never derives the pleasure of socialization, if they never learn to value others merely for themselves, then all the world becomes utility, and people become mere objects, exacerbating the sociopathic roots of crime. Can the cost-savings of truck shipping ever make up for the dearth of social skills, especially when our Information Economy increasingly relies on those skills? Epitomized by a Stanford study of Fortune 500 execs, success in business depends on communication skills and not quantitative. As long as society seeks to fulfill this human need to communicate merely by digital means, we may never remedy the deep ills plaguing our lives or cure our loneliness.
Next time, I’ll talk about what I think the blog does contribute.
Firstly, Old Media isn’t interactive. Let’s get something straight, my generation, known as the Millenials, have attention spans roughly the length of an SNL skit. This phenomenon is only aided by our rearing on MTV (which no longer plays entire music videos) and videogames, but also by learning our social skills on AOL Instant Messenger engaged in five convos at once. We don’t even have the time to finish the noun, conversation. The point is that there’s not much interesting about a 2D piece of newsprint at our local Starbucks, and you can get far more information out of scanning blog / news sites like Digg.com than you can digest from 15 minutes of even CNN Headline News.
The blog grew out of even larger social trends first detailed by sociologists like Harvard Professor Robert Putnam, and recently elucidated by a study by National Institute of Mental Health. More precisely, the study shows that Americans have half as many friends or “confidants” than even twenty years ago, ranging from 3-6 today. The National Institute focuses on the growth of cell phones, internet, and videogames & DVD as occupying our social time. Furthermore, 20% more Americans claim they rely on family. In his book, Bowling Alone, Putnam links it to entertainment, yes, but to larger trends like suburbanization and the explosion of the creature comforts technology has brought us, such as AC! As a UF Public Administration professor once said, kids in the 1960’s had no AC and 5 television channels, so the family spent recreation time outside or with neighbors. Let’s also note that this week is the 50th anniversary of the American Interstate system, the “technology” that made suburbanization possible. So in essence, the blog’s ubiquity can be attributed to Joe Six Pack’s desire to hear and be heard, hence the heavily-used (and abused) comments feature on most blogs.
What’s sad is that repression of the desire to socialize is going to lead to consequences that cannot be remedied through Internet chat. Sociologists are just now discovering the tendency of internet communication to retard social skills, such as recognition of body language and gestures. The topic is so hot that our own President deemed to discuss it at a Graduation speech at University of Texas, warning students not to let technology “use them.” Even scarier, it’s my own assertion that the Columbine / Grand Theft Auto phenomenon is more linked to the lack of socialization, rather than what entertainment kids consume at home. Philosophically, if a person never derives the pleasure of socialization, if they never learn to value others merely for themselves, then all the world becomes utility, and people become mere objects, exacerbating the sociopathic roots of crime. Can the cost-savings of truck shipping ever make up for the dearth of social skills, especially when our Information Economy increasingly relies on those skills? Epitomized by a Stanford study of Fortune 500 execs, success in business depends on communication skills and not quantitative. As long as society seeks to fulfill this human need to communicate merely by digital means, we may never remedy the deep ills plaguing our lives or cure our loneliness.
Next time, I’ll talk about what I think the blog does contribute.
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