Dillon Deliberating

Roberto Kussabi’s piece in the Guardian’s voluntary section takes on Google Plus Brand pages,  starts on a weary note “another day, another social network to get excited about”.  Having read the article I would posit ‘excitement’ is far from his mind and with good reason.   He does after-all “manages social media and online communities at a UK charity, I know that my time is limited”  and with regard to his charities digital efforts the numbers do not add up  “our audience simply isn't there yet, especially in the UK” .  Organisations considering a page on Google Plus should read his argument and for time poor digital teams he offers  clear level headed advice.  My perspective is not that of someone who manages social media.  Instead its that of a Google Plus veteran who’s seen Googles social layer oscillate from wide eyed optimism to those who would have it tossed into the  ‘dustbin of social media history’ to the tune of Ghost Town.  In terms of  brand pages taking care of my London Strollers walking group is about it for me.  

Were I have an issue with the article is about how is positions Google Plus.  How you look at Google Plus informs your expectations.  Robert chooses to see it squarely as a social network but others characterize Plus as Google’s social layer that will glue to together Googles disparate services.  Ed Dunbill writing in O’Reilly Radar suggested that it is ‘Googles backbone.  

We are told that “Some social-media gurus have even decreed that Facebook is dead and Google+ is social-media Utopia”  forgive me but I cannot think of any credible commentators that have characterised it in such manic terms.   Robert Scoble maybe one of the 'guru's' being refered to but more likely the 'Facebook dead, Plus is utopia' comes from over enthusiastic users.  Indeed Scoble has recently lambasted Google Brand pages so even he finds a chime with Roberto's article.  

In terms of a stampede, Buzz and Wave are mentioned. Let’s take Buzz,  this was less about signing up people but instead "Google attempted to jump start Buzz with lists drawn from its successful Gmail and Gchat services,"    As for Wave all that it shares in common with Plus is the word ‘killer’ characterised less as a social network  but instead as an ‘email killer’.  So with Google’s track record from Wave to Buzz it boggles the mind that Google Plus would be a ‘social media utopia’. 

Google Plus is not a utopia but its a shame Robert did not refer to the opportunities that Google Plus pages have to offer.  For example no mention of its stand out feature, Hangouts.  Nor does he refer to Google’s key strength, its search engine (Facebook will need to buy one) content put on Plus stands a chance of improved SEO.  

Google Plus could complete a hat-trick of failures for Google following Buzz and Wave.  Indeed Farhad Manjoo writing in Slate predicts this with absolute certainty.  However my view, Google Plus will endure not as competitor to Facbeook but as Google’s social layer that lays the foundation for Google’s social web.  As for non-profits on Google Plus I wish them well. For those brand pages that have set up ‘car park’ style by simply reserving a space, hopefully they drive the car and give Google Plus a go, time permitting of course. 

Further reading:

My blog entry posted July 2011 outlining my initial impressions of Google Plus: http://dillondeliberating.posterous.com/google-plus-coming-up-for-air

Food like money is unequally distributed with many like myself having for now access to plentiful amounts of food.  I feel slightly guilty and perhaps ungrateful to take advantage of Blog Action Day 2011: Food - to have a rant about one of my pet hates;  the upselling of food.  This mainly takes place in restuarants, cafes and fast food outlets.  In theory you should be able to say the following "can I have a burger and fries please"  without the upsell swinging into action "is that large fries, what drink would you like?".  

The upselling technique requires that counter staff do not listen to the food order but place the suggestion that you should instead be ordering a larger portion.  

We have Meat Free Mondays, I wonder if one day a month could be set aside, head office then instructs counter staff to stop upselling food.  On this day we could celebrate and enjoy smaller food portions.  Not only would our health improve but we would be conserving that most precious of commodities, food.  Of course I could stop going to to the types of resturants that engage in such upselling but this practice is more widespread than just the usual suspects. 

Firstly, Google Plus  is not a Facebook killer. Neither was Google Wave an email killer.  Indeed people should stop defining G+ against Facebook.  This is not a social media Cold War between Facebook and Google +  that is a far to simplistic view.  We live in a multi-polar social media landscape rather than one defined by bi-polarity. The founder of MySpace Tom Anderson now affectionately know as MySpaceTom put it succinctly:

“most services are’t killed by competitors, they kill themselves”.  

Rest assured readers so long as Twitter keeps its service simple and does what it does best 140 characters at a time it will remain relevant and widely used.  Twitter retains a vast amount of cultural power combined with a large user base, decline if it occurs will be relative. 

A new service arrives and the question that is asked is this;  What problem does Google + solve?  The problem it addresses revolves around how we share information on social networks.  So G+ puts what are known as Circles at the centre of the service.  Basically when you follow a person  on G+ you allocate them to a Circle of interest.  These Circle’s are segmented according to interests like News or you allocate people to a Circle based on your relationship with them.  So for example you can have a Circle for work colleagues or one based on an interest like Foreign Policy. In some respects you are creating an interest graph not a social graph.  So when you share something on G+ the default is not to share widely but to share narrowly. The question you are asked, is who do you want to share this update with? Maybe you just want to share it one person, maybe five or just the people in your Foreign Policy Circle. The choice is yours.  Google + is about how you share and gather information.  So in much the same way  I use Twitter lists, clicking on my Twitter list marked news I get tweets about breaking news. Likewise on G+ I click my Circle called UK Tech I get information updates from people working in that sector.  

The Circle concept is hardly original, on Facebook you can share updates and photos with a limited number of people but they obscure this feature.  What Google + does is put it at the centre of the service rather than hide it from the user.  Indeed the idea of managing and sharing information and the Circle concept itself is not original.  The experiment that is Disapora offered a service not greatly dissimilar to Circles. In the UK the Knowledge Hub had similar ideas two years ago. 

The difference is Google have successfully addressed the problem and offers a solution that far from being ignored has so far garnered 20 million users in under three weeks. Though statistics can misrepresent.  Lets take one statistic being bandied about;  G+ reached the 10 million user mark much faster than Twitter and Facebook.  Though this ignores that these services were built from the ground up were as Google has an existing user base for all its others services ranging from Gmail to YouTube.  

These users are within easy reach to convert them over to G+. In addition Android mobile phone adoption combined with the G+ app has the potential for G+ to ramp up the user base even further.   The question is this;  once converted will they attend the G+ church on a regular basis or become lapsed? The jury is out.  

In terms of users, a weary yes to those who ask;  they are for the most part the tech crowd.  You may already have met them on Twitter. Oh and before I forget we are all supposedly suffering from “social media fatigue” and a new network is just to much to bear.  Are we just reproducing our social graph on G+? Actually you are  expanding your social graph, meeting new people and best of all having a chance to engage with them beyond 140 characters. Indeed you might even want to chat with them using video in what are know as Hangout’s. This feature though again not original is for me the standout feature of G+. Using your webcam and mic you can hangout with up to ten people but this much more than just a stilted workplace video conference it’s actually fun.  The best hangout for me so far was one with Steve Rubel, assorted journalists and tech people.

Google + is having an extended honeymoon and like a hoodlum in a Woody Allen short story, we should not be ‘mollified by shiny objects’. So rather than abandon your social media family in favour of G+ let them co-exist.  The web is no stranger to the coast of utopia and some have wildly proclaimed that they will abandon their blog ships and surf the Wave that is G+.  Google + is not a blogging platform, the simplicity of Twitter is a joy to behold and Facebook is still the biggest beast in the room.  So unlike Mike Elgan I will not be going on a Google + diet by shifting all my activities to what is still a field test social network.    

Liking e-books does not mean not going down to your local library.  If you have a an e-book reader  then get yourself down to your local library. Hopefully many other libraries will follow the example of Sutton Library who held a drop in session aimed at getting you clued up on how to download e-books.  Armed with my I-pad and help from Jacquie the e-libarian I downloaded some books from the e-library.  

One of which I am happy to say was an audio book of Chuck Palahniuk’s ‘Tell All’.  This is playing away as I write and the voice is not that of a self service check out. The book is read out to the standards that would make BBC Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime feel a tad envious.  

Libraries have always been at the forefront of my mind from an early age.  My first library was in Coolock, Dublin. Going from green tickets for junior membership all the way up to blue for adult was a major achievement.  Adulthood starts with many things but entry into the adult library is still special.  So fast forward to 2011 I am now entering the e-library.  Of course this does not mean sittting at home just downloading books from the online catalogue. Absolutely not, I will be visiting my local library not only for the odd paperback but more importantly for expert advice on e-books, e-readers and all things digital around books.  

This is the future of the library, a place to interact with books, magazines, journals whether they are in physical or digital form.  The 21st century e-librarian is their to navigate you through the twists and turns of what is the beginning of a reading revolution.  As with all revolutions the situation on the ground is complicated like for example wading through different e-publishing formats, getting answers to questions like why is Kindle not allowing e-book lending in libraries using the e-book lender of choice OverDrive?  Though OverDrive and Amazon are making progress in the U.S,  hopefully some good news soon. Has anybody got an update on how that is going?

Anyway stemming from the first e-book drop in session I would urge Sutton Library and others in the UK to immediately set up E-Book Clubs.

Why?

• Gets people into the Library:  An E-book club could meet once a month. People could bring along e-book readers and chat about books they have downloaded recently either from the local E-Library service or from Amazon.  

• Knowledge Sharing:  The E-book club could be a place to exchange hints and tips and this could be supplemented by the presence of an e-librarian.  

• Top authors could visit: Corey Doctrow might come along and read from one of his e-books, I am sure he would waive his fee?

• Wi-fi:  More libraries have wi-fi so what better club to visit and download an e-book from your local libraries e-book catalogue.

• Focus Group:  By having an E-Book club libraries have a ready assembled focus group to make suggestions on how their e-library should develop.

So what I have learnt from the session? 

First, that the E-library provided by @SuttonLibraries  is not stuffed with dud books but has some well known books as well.   Two I spotted were; The Corrections and Freedom from Jonathan Franzen 

Secondly that OverDrive the service used to deliver e-lending to libraries is quite a neat application. Having dowloaded it to my I-pad it looks good, is easy to use and you can add not just your local library e-book service but others too.  Beyond the shores of Sutton, San Francisco Public Library are avid users and have produced a guide to E-lending and OverDrive that is well worth reading. 

Finally I learned that though I know the bare bones about the whole business of e-books, e-libraries and how to borrow e-books. Why do all the swatting up when you can pop down to your local library and ask the experts, your local librarians.  So welcome to the E-book club, long may it last.

Alone Together (2010) is the title of Sherry Turkle's book but we were far from alone at this well attended talk.  

The talk put out the pessimistic message that technology despite the breezy optimism of those who market it's wares has the potential to make you lonely. Not only will you bowl alone but the networked world filled with Facebook "friends" and Twitter followers can be just as lonely.  Dark stuff but it fits in with a recent mini surge of techno pessimism.  

The rise of this pessimism is I think a sign of technological maturity and Turkel admits that technology can be positive, her message is not one of boycott but instead it's a reality check that life exists beyond techlology. Tech utopians are still in the ascendency  pedalling expectations that technology is a force for good delivering eveything from revolution to pizza.  Sherry Turkle's work has a faint echo with the techno scepticism informing the recent Adam Curtis documentary #awobmolg and it does I believe form part of a more realist appraisal of technology. Indeed Turkle makes the bold prediction that it will be the digital natives not the parents who will recognise the limits  technology to deliver a better life.  Being digitally always on will not be the future but will instead be a thing of the past.

She deals with the past as she casts her mind back to what for her was an epiphany and this was not some social network moment but was instead seeing a group of men at MIT called the Cyborgs. Men so heavy with technology about there body that she suspected some form of physical disability. This moment put her on a research track lasting close to fifteen years as she researched how technology was affecting human life in ways that were not always beneficial. The Cyborgs she cites were not disabled at all but showed signs of mimicking robots. We sometime think of robots as exotic but they have been part of our lives for years. You could argue that the use of artificial limbs is a form of robotic technology added to humans. Personally though my own exposure to fully fledged robots has been cinematic. From the cold killer robots of Westworld (1973) to Woody Allen's Sleeper  (1973)  were a  home help robot serves up not just tea but the pleasure inducing Orb, Robots are so seventies.   Professor Turkle takes aim not at robots but how we as humans interact with them, sure they can make our cars, serve us food but let's not get emotional with them. We can be alone together logging onto social networks but once they are switched off don't expect a hug from a robot.  

Though not everyone she observes are down on robots, she came across one women who said 'that robots bring a certain civility to the household" it is perhaps only a matter of time before e-harmony match you not with a human but instead a glamourous robot who shares your passion for technology.  The floor was opened up for questions this led to a discussion about a group characterised as being vulnerable to loneliness and in some cases requiring high levels of care, the elderly. Robots could and are beginning to have a role in their care and if anyone saw the Panorama (2007) about how the elderly are neglected in care homes might think twice about the use of robots.

However Professor Turkle is partially right when she sounds the warning about the deployment of robots to alleviate emotional suffering, we do not need to talk it over with a robot we need our fellow humans for emotional interactions.  Robots have rehearsed emotions and something as simple as the colour of your shirt will be a deciding factor if a robot will interact with you over another person. Top tip from Professor Turkel; eschew black in favour of red to attract your robot lover. Maybe lover is to strong a word but a key idea that emerged from tonight was the idea that you cannot have intimacy without privacy. So think about that when you find yourself alone with a robot or are updating your status on Facebook.

So Wayne Rooney is on Twitter his handle is  @Wazzaroon08 , so what?   Usually I am not a fan of the celebrity Twitter but make an exception for Rio Ferdinand just call him @rioFerdy5  a Tweet from him put me on the trail of @wazzaRoon08 

In his own right brand Ferdinand has a considerable Twitter following and helpfully for Rooney he did a bit of brand verification on @wazzaRoon08 by hailing his Messiah like arrival on Twitter as the real thing.  Thankfully Rio did not have to Tweet out that we where fools and @wazzaRoon08 was an imposter and not the true messiah.

Once I saw Rio’s tweet verifying Rooney’s arrival nano seconds passed before I clicked follow and became one of over eighty thousand followers.  However it was not always like that for @Wazzaroon8 when I began following  he was swilling around with just over four hundred followers.  I clicked through to his profile a few minutes later and this had grown to over eight thousand followers.

Impressed I decided to screenshot (see above) for posterity his arrival and those vital first Tweets that will enter the national consciousness. Alas they were not commandments to lead a better life but ‘Hi Rio, do you want picking up in the morning pal?’ will with the right melody have a chance of reaching the terraces.  

Disclaimer, I am a Man Utd fan and keep the faith with Wayne Rooney.  Not knowing Rooney, the fecker has not even followed me back, his Tweets look authentic. Nice to see him engaging, adding some humility and finding time to compliment Fernando Torres.  Credit to Ferdinand who does a bit of Twitter mentoring with this bit of advice:

@Wazzaroon08 put my name on the tweet fella then I see it straight away. I thought so, 08 is for the PL + CL double season!

Of course as others point out this could indeed be a PR disaster but I am pleased Rooney chose Twitter.  We  now have a direct line to Rooney and him to us and that is what appeals to the likes of Rooney.  In some sense he and quite possibly his advisors feel this move will allow him to bypass the media. However the media will consume his Tweets and no doubt recycle them for a news story, quotes from Rooney will in the main be culled from his Twitter.  As other Man Utd players get a bit of Twitter action, Rooney will I predict in terms of followers  be the biggest. So who will get the first Tweet out after Tuesday’s Champions League game against Schalke?

Digital communicators rely on the Internet to deliver communications objectives.  They do this in some cases using tools that we take for granted.  That Facebook discussion, a Twitter Q & A exercise or our communications goals are achieved using tools offered by Google.  However digital communicators should on occasion step back and question the industry that provides the tools they come to rely on. This is what I did recently after attending a talk by Tim Wu whose book 'The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires (2010) inspired this blog post. 

Once applied, history can be something of a leveller.  Take for example the Internet which even in 2011 has the ability to astound and even hold you in awe of its power, especially in field of communications.  Where there is the Internet the word 'revolution' is never far behind.  So it was refreshing if not a bit sobering to hear Professor Tim Wu at the RSA recently, framing the Internet within a historical perspective.  By framing it in this way Wu allows the Internet to stand comparison to other media such as radio, television and films.  In their day all three of these mediums induced great bursts of idealism with grand proclamations of how they would benefit humanity.  Truth be told, they did, Wu in his talk he paints a picture of the early part of the 20th century of rank outsiders, amateurs and those who dreamt of making a fortune utilizing these emerging technologies.

The period was a wild west of ideas  with some unlikely innovators, for example farmers in remote areas of the U.S. who would hook up to early telephone lines not just to chat to one person but many.  Nor would they just talk but would  play music, tell jokes, trade gossip, one such farmer was Edward Burch who as part of a movement of early telephone connectors who would at pre-arranged times broadcasted to his neighbours from his telephone.  Not exactly the Twitter of its day but the keyword here 'connect' for him it was a telephone but today we 'connect' but do so over the Internet.  Running alongside and even before Burch were bigger players whose companies bear the name of what would later become giant monoliths like CBS, NBC, Fox and Paramount films.  Their founders where the great disruptor's of there day who fought against and subsequently created monopolies. They sought to control these emerging technologies. Disruptor's came in many forms and not all good, take Zukor for example whose vision for cinema was one of vertical control that allowed  Paramount to own the various layers that make up cinema; actors, studios, distribution and the the theatres.  One keyword mentioned earlier was to 'connect' the other key word that would come to dominate the information empires would be 'control'.  In Zukor, we can see a palimpsest  of Steve Jobs who is rightly lauded for innovation but is not shy when it comes to control.  Over at Slate Magazine Tim Wu produced profiles of each of the key players that created information empires starting with Theodor Vail (Telephony) , Adolph Zukor (Cinema) , Steve Ross (Time Warner), Ted Turner (TV) and Steve Jobs (Apple) all of whom are referred to as 'The Great American Information Emperor's.

What Tim Wu reminds us is that  during the 20th and the early part of this century the emergence of monopolies within the information industries of which today's internet is a major part.  The internet we learn from Tim Wu like many emerging technologies when they arrive do so with a burst of idealism that overtime incurs a relative decline. A sign of that relative decline is a lack of innovation with the technology delivering up an information products of mediocre proportions.  Today we can see Apple, Google, Facebook and to minor extent Twitter taking up what are the commanding heights of the digital landscape.  These are companies born from Schumpeterian innovation and are a  prime example of what can emerge from democratic states with capitalism as their economic model.   However over time these giant's of the information industry start to resemble monopolies that risk becoming more concerned with controlling the internet than innovating it.   They become so large that as companies they take on the role of not just players but who are instead taking control and altering the common ground that we all play on which is the internet itself, the carriage for so much of our day to day information.  

Tim Wu coined the phrase 'net neutrality' to explain what we he thinks we want to avoid and you can get a succinct definition of what he means here However it would be wrong to assume that the Internet and technology giants we know today are acting as a shadowy group, who like a Bond film are intent on taking over the Internet.  This may or may not be the unintended consequence of there dominance, only time will tell.  We as consumers are complicit in this process, why?  well we like the convenience of what Google and Facebook offer up as their version of the Internet. Take Facebook and for anyone who has seen the Social Network (2010) arose in a blaze of innovation that collated existing ideas but just delivered a better version of those ideas much as Bell did a century or so before with telephony.  As consumers we accept the limitations offered by these services in exchange for convenience.  The Facebook experience delivers up a version of the Internet that is not that different to a large hamburger and fries at the end of a drunken night. Basically it does the job and its a forgettable experience  but we do it again, log on, like page and when it asks in an Orwellian fashion 'what's on your mind' we sometimes let the cat out of the bag with our answers.  Fair enough this is a harsh and sometimes cliched characterisation of Facebook especially as it is often appended with the word 'revolution' when we talk of places such as Tunisia and Egypt.  That the Internet is utilised to a lesser or greater extent for political purposes and has generated varied opinion of which two poles are that of Morozov (The Net Delusion) and Shirky (Here Comes Everybody)

However the fact that it is used for political purposes in some cases makes it incumbent that the Internet remains open. That is the Internet as a carriage should remain open to all and priority not given to those who can pay that bit extra or who exert undue influence.  Indeed  governments who embrace the Internet giants lightly for now but who knows how tight in the future?  If the Internet giants like those before, film studios, newspapers and the automobile industry can help governments they will and often in a benign way that benefits us all.  However what the emerging monopolies fear most is regulation that would loosen their dominance over what is becoming the dominant information network of our time. How can we be sure that  monopolies are forming and to characterture the clairvoyant 'give us a sign'.  One sign Tim Wu cites is a lack of innovation with companies delivering up much the same product that has delivered so much riches to their coffers.   Google is an interesting case that seems to be guarding against this faith as it emerges as a dominant force, who reading has not used their products, not many I would wager.  An example from Google was Wave and yes it  ultimately failed but demonstrated a desire to move  beyond the status quo with an innovative product that consumers ultimately rejected.  Perhaps consumers are happy with the convenience that existing services offer or Wave was just a crap product, I of course thought the opposite .

The path is by no means set and the Internet will not necessarily follow the same path as was trodden in a 20th century that witnessed the emergence and subsequent breaking up of monopolies.  The open source movement is just one example that could in time act as a counter weight to the products that flow from the Internet and technology giants. By its very design the Internet maybe beyond control by one or a minority of the big players.  Let us hope so because if monopolies  gain control over what is termed the 'carriage' that in turn affects our ability to put freely our own information onto the Internet and have it treated no differently from others then this will have consequences in the future.  Of course the question then arises who owns that information?  so many questions and some of the answers might be over at Quora.  Innovation is far from dead.