Thursday, May 08, 2003

Dipping snuff and blowing bubbles in business school (thanks, Eliot!) 11:37:05 PM    comment []

Howard on the Historical Roots of Social Software. Three separate emails this morning directed me to Tom Coates' post about the definition of social software. I thought I would offer a few resources for those who are inclined to look at the historical roots of this new phenomena. First, I applaud Coates reference to Engelbart, because the social aspects of computer augmentation was very much on his mind as early as the 1950s. I wrote about that in 1985. At that time, and in many conversations since then, Engelbart stressed that his original framework for augmentation included "humans, using language, artifacts, methodology, and training," although most emphasis by most people in the intervening decades has been on the visible part, the artifacts. In that sense, the emphasis on social software today is (or ought to be, in my opinion) a reminder that the real capabilities of augmentation lie not just in the capabilities and affordances of the hardware or software but in the thinking and communication practices these tools enable. Of course, in 1993 -- hard to believe it was a decade ago -- I wrote about the Well, BBSs, Usenet, Muds, IRC, etc. in The Virtual Community. So much debate and commentary has flowed around the notion of "community" in this context that it doesn't make a lot of sense to rehash it here and now, although, arguably, online community is an early example of Technologies of Cooperation. I would only note that when a particular group of people uses social software for long enough -- whether it is synchronous or asynchronous, deskbound or mobile, text or graphical -- they establish individual and group social relationships that are different in kind from the more fleeting relationships that emerge from task-oriented group formation. Although the enterprise of Electric Minds is long forgotten, I talked a lot about "the social web" in 1986-87. The original conversations are gone, but a snapshot of the editorial content Electric Minds exists -- note in particlar The Virtual Community Center.. In 2001, I updated "The Virtual Community" with a new chapter that went into detail about the community debate and brought in the notion of social networks: and three years ago, Lisa Kimball and I wrote about the advantages to enterprises of establishing online social networks. And of course many others from the social sciences, political science, and the technology side have studied and written about the way people use computer-mediated communications in teams, group formation, and social networks. I don't want to give the impression that I've been the only person writing about this: indeed, I have two shelves of books by authors from a variety of disciplines about the social, political, psychological aspects of social cyberspaces. Certainly, we have much more to learn. And I applaud the reinvigoration of interest in a phenomena that popped up just as soon as people could send email to distribution lists (HUMAN-NETS was one of the oldest discussions of social software.): I think the emerging field would do well to acknowledge and build on this earlier work. Something new is happening, truly, in terms of the kinds of softare available, and the scale of use. But in many ways, this something new would not be happening if many people over many years had not coded, experimented, socialized, observed, and debated the social relationships and group formation enabled by computer-mediated and Internet-enabled communication media. 8:40:19 PM    comment []

Balancing Data Needs And Privacy, by Leslie Walker, Washington Post. [Theresa] Lunt is the computer security expert here at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) hired by the Pentagon's research arm to create a privacy appliance prototype for the [Total Information Awareness] electronic surveillance network. This seems (besides Marc Rotenberg's quoted worry about the fundamental contradiction of trying to build privacy protection into a massive surveillance system) to neglect fundamental demands of integrating or even interfacing disparate data structures. Bears watching, though. 2:35:39 PM    comment []

In the morning electronic mail: Something is happening. Galileo and Descartes were only harbingers. Something is happening now -- the mercury is rising in the ground, like water climbing up the bore of a well. Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson The Baroque Cycle is about to begin . . . The site gives September 23, 2003 as the date on which the Cycle begins, along with the afore-blinked excerpt and some other teaser information. 12:35:21 PM    comment []

Fairfax Targets Sellers of Bootlegged Music: Suspected Distributor Is Arrested; Counterfeit CDs and Tapes Are Confiscated. By David Cho, Washington Post. Fairfax County police yesterday announced a crackdown on businesses selling bootlegged music, putting on display $325,000 worth of counterfeit compact discs, audiotapes and other merchandise that they said were seized in recent raids. Calling the operation unprecedented in its scale within the county, police said they had arrested a 38-year-old distributor who worked out of his Beltsville home with a CD burner and a color printer. They said they expected to make additional arrests soon. The Maryland man was charged with one felony count of distribution of a counterfeit recorded device. Authorities were in the process of obtaining warrants yesterday to charge three others with the same felony count. In addition, the owners of 23 stores -- nearly all of them small, immigrant-operated businesses -- in the McLean and Mason areas of Fairfax are being charged this week, each with a single misdemeanor count of selling illegally copied music, police said. 11:35:12 AM    comment []

Survey: Swappers buy music, too: Offering some insight to the recording industry as it struggles to boost sales online, a survey finds that Web surfers who download music from song-swap sites are more likely to buy music online, as well as offline at retailers. (Reuters). [The survery of 36,000 Internet users] showed that nearly 31 million active Internet users aged 18 or older--representing 22 percent of the active Internet universe-- downloaded music in the past 30 days, and 71 percent bought music in the past three months. The research indicated that in the past three months, online music enthusiasts were 111 percent more likely to buy rap music than average Internet users, Nielsen/ NetRatings said. Nielsen/NetRatings classified online music enthusiasts as people who had downloaded music in the past 30 days, whereas the average Internet users are people logging onto the Internet for surfing and other purposes. Rap music ranked number one, dance/club second, followed by R&B, soul, and rock. 10:35:06 AM    comment []

"Christian Right Talks of Bolting GOP in 2004" [Daypop Top 40] 7:50:54 AM    comment []

Copying iTunes streams [bOing bOing] 6:49:08 AM    comment []

Rift in India Leads M.I.T. to Pull Out of Media Lab. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has pulled out of Media Lab Asia, citing disagreements with the Indian minister of information. By Saritha Rai. [New York Times: Education] 6:48:25 AM    comment []

Wizards Decide Not to Retain Jordan: Bitter Meeting Leads to Retired Star's Departure. By Thomas Heath, Washington Post. The highly anticipated summit had been arranged so that Jordan, 40, could ask the 79-year-old owner for his old job after spending the past two years as a Wizards player, selling out every game and making an unprofitable franchise profitable. But before Jordan could make his case, Pollin began the meeting by informing him of his dismissal, sources said. From there, the discussion quickly escalated into shouting and invective that one person familiar with the meeting described as being as bad as it could get without fists flying. . . . In late afternoon, Jordan released a statement saying, in part, It was well understood that when I finished playing, I would return as president of basketball operations and this was definitely my desire and intention. However, today, without any prior discussion with me, ownership informed me that it had unilaterally decided to change our mutual long- term understanding. I am shocked by this decision, and by the callous refusal to offer me any justification for it. . . . The Wizards said the search for Jordan's replacement would begin immediately. [Washington Post: Front Page] See also Jordan Surprised and Inflamed as Wizards Show Him the Door, by Mike Wise, NYT. 6:46:51 AM    comment []

Truth Emerging About Bush's Aircraft Carrier PR Stunt. NYT: White House Clarifies Bush's Carrier Landing. The White House said today that President Bush traveled to the carrier Abraham... [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] I saw Maxine Waters light into Peter King on television last night over this issue. King said that Robert Byrd had no moral standing to comment on the President's behavior because of his racism from long ago, whereupon Waters told King he was a racist, too, that she knew about his racist behavior far more recent than Byrd's Klan membership. King, at one point, said, "Did you just call me a racist?" Waters said, "Yes. I did." But King did not do the obvious: ask what in the world she meant. He really didn't want her to explain. 6:37:25 AM    comment []

Great insights: The Queer Heterosexual, by Tristan Taormino, in The Voice. The LGBT movement has also had broad, significant effects on sexuality—not just queer sexuality, but the sex lives of everyone. . . . . . . . I gladly welcome the queer heterosexuals into the fold. It's the religious right's worst nightmare: We've infiltrated the ranks! Our men have taught your men how to dress better, and our women have sold your women devices to replace your men! And now that we're in your most private and sacred of spaces—the bedroom—you're having sex like queers and you don't even know it! 4:34:05 AM    comment []