Archive for the 'Society' Category

What if we were to hook up with old friends in real life the way we do on Facebook? What if we related to our friends in the real world as if we were on Facebook?

This video gives us a taste of what may lie ahead for our friendships…

I’m not reading books anymore - I’m trying to “go shelfless”. With the technology available these days, it seemed to us likely that you could abandon all shelving with the consequential enlargement of your living space. That’s an attractive idea, especially if, like me, your home is already jam-packed with books, CDS and papers that have taken up all the shelving space available already - what do you do as you buy new items?

One friend is very efficient at monetizing her acquisitions - once she’s finished reading her books, she sells them off again on Ebay. She used to rip the music of CDS and then sell the discs on Ebay too. She also gets rid of old clothes and other items the same way.

I’ve been wondering if one could minimise the clutter at an earlier point ie at the acquisition point - by going virtual or electronic.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about taking virtual notes using Evernote, which has so far been a great way to cut back on the bits of paper and physical notebooks that I would normally use. I “write” notes on my mobile phone-PDA using the letter recognizer function so it feels just like scribbling in a physical notebook or on the back of an envelope and zap it across to my online account.

I’ve recently discovered audiobooks via Audible.co.uk, which is a subsidiary of the US-based company Audible.com. So I’m not reading books but I’m listening to them. With Audible, you pay for each book you download just like you might if you bought a physical book from Amazon. But you can also sign up an account and pay a monthly fee of around £8 - each month you can download one title. The latter option is good value as you can download a book that otherwise costs more at that £8 price. Once you’ve downloaded it, the audiobook is yours forever and you can stream it from the online site or download it as many times as you like. The only limitation is that you can only play it on up to 4 computers/ devices that you register with your account - this is to stop you sending an e-version to all your friends and doing Audible out of business.

I’m really enjoying my first two audiobooks. I can listen to them while gardening or sitting on the bus. It’s so much more time efficient being able to listen to a book and do something else at the same time. And activities that used to be boring and painful to do are now quite pleasurable. Also, lying in the garden staring up at the blue sky while someone reads to me in my ears is just delightful - I don’t have to strain my arms lifting the book to read it as I lie down or crick my neck to get the reading angle right. And the books don’t take up any physical space - although you can burn CD versions of them if you want to.

My only complaint about Audible UK is that they have only 18,000 titles compared to the US company which has 40,000 titles. Many of the UK titles are older titles and / or of the WH Smith variety ie non-intellectual easy reading (though there are a few exceptions). I tend to prefer Waterstones or Blackwells which have more academic selections - or Amazon where you can get the most obscure books so long as they are in print. I was very excited when I first discovered Audible.com, the US site, as it had loads of books I wanted. For example, the US company has Naomi Klein’s latest book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Stephen Pinker’s The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature and Sudhir Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets. My excitement fizzled out when I came to the UK site - where none of these books are available. The UK site has lots on Churchill, how to make a million, chick lit and the latest popular non-fiction, which is fine if your tastes are limited to those topics.

So why don’t I just sign up for the US site? The frustrating thing is that if you try that from the UK, it refuses to allow you to do that and shoots you over to the UK site. Their support team explained to me, “The availability of certain book titles is linked the geographic digital download rights set by the publishers. A title can have different publishers in different countries and the rights are set on a country by country basis. Where possible, we try and secure rights on a world wide basis (for our US, UK, French and German sites) but there are times when this is either not possible or discussions are currently ongoing to secure the rights.” So I have to keep checking back to the UK site in the hope that the UK publishers will at some point issue the UK version of the audiobook.

Still, I have found a few books on the UK site that will keep me going for the next few months - hopefully as time passes more of the kinds of books that interest me will find their way onto the UK site and I won’t have to terminate my experiment with virtual books anytime soon.

Illustration: thanks to Drylcon from Flickr.com (CCL)

I got a new mobile phone a few months ago and I’ve been slowly exploring all its functions - and in the process, I’m discovering a whole new mobilesphere (I have no idea if there is such a word but it seems an apt way to describe the world of mobile media in the way that blogosphere describes the world of blogs!). My new phone is also a mobile computer, running Windows Mobile and 80% of its front face is given over to the screen - the phone part of it has a virtual keypad for me to touch-type the phone number. It runs a mobile version of Word, Excel, Outlook and Internet Explorer. It has WiFi so so I can surf the internet as well as send and receive emails if there’s a WiFi service available - but I also splashed out and signed up for a monthly data plan so I could be connected wherever I am. With unlimited texting and a huge number of talk minutes on top of all that, the way I relate to my mobile phone has completely changed.

I used my old mobile phone solely for voice calls - and I did not use it a great deal as I don’t like shouting out my part of the conversation in public while I’m on the bus or in the street. I hated texting as I am not very nimble on using the telephone number keys to type out words. My new phone has a Qwerty keyboard (ie like a PC keyboard) as well as letter recognition on a touch-sensitive screen. Now I can email or SMS to my heart’s content in public - an excellent way to pass the time on the bus or wherever I am in transit!

Being a writer with this new writing tool to play with, naturally, I was curious when I came across an article about mobile phone novels. These are apparently huge in Japan. According to Wired magazine: “A mobile phone novel typically contains between 200 and 500 pages, with each page containing about 500 Japanese characters. The novels are read on a cell phone screen page by page, the way one would surf the web, and are downloadable for around $10 each.” The novelists tend to be young twenty-somethings or even teenagers who type their novels via their own cellphones. According to the writer interviewed by Wired, she can type faster on her phone than on a standard keyboard. There’s even a first mobile phone novel award - sponsored by the premier site that hosts these novels Magic iLand: might you call it the MoBooker?

There has been one author in the West who has written a novel on his mobile phone. According to a news report, “Italian writer Robert Bernocco took advantage of his idle time while commuting to and from work by train, writing his 384-page science fiction novel, Compagni di Viaggo (Fellow Travelers is the English translation), on his Nokia 6630 phone, using the phone’s T9 typing system.” The book has been published in traditional book form by Lulu.com.

I have to say, I admire the abilities of these two writers to master the mobile phone keypad. Even with the mini Qwerty keyboard and letter-recognition function of my new phone, I do not have the patience to write more than a few short text messages or emails on the fiddly thing!

It seems to me, in the West, there has not been any novel specially written for the mobile phone, as far as I know. I don’t think that the reason is necessarily the difficulty of writing on a mobile phone keypad - presumably, one could write it on a PC, blog-style, and then post it to whatever mobile phone novel site there is around. I wonder if Wester writers shouldn’t try this potential new genre. It would be a great way for a new writer starting out to write 500 words at a time. It’s great for readers as most of us have our mobile phones with us at all times - it’s a handy way to read short bite-sized chunks. Writing short, gripping prose is pretty hard, to be sure, and reading a lot of text on a tiny screen can be hard on the eyes. But I think these are excellent challenges for a writer to evolve a writing style exactly suited to this new medium - rather like writing poetry to the constraints of the sonnet form rather than just sticking a few lines together in the modern free-form style.

Would you read a novel on your mobile phone? Do you know of any writers in English who have a written mobile phone novel? Would you, as a writer, be tempted to try writing one? Add a comment or email me and share your views.

Photo: thanks to europe.htc.com

I blogged awhile back about my research into the history of the web for the book I am co-authoring with Silvia Cambie on New Trends in International Public Relations. During the Christmas break, I’ve been working on the introductory chapter, developing my research into a coherent story. It starts with Tim Berners-Lee developing the first website in 1991, building on my blog post on that subject. But to get from the first website, a visually unexciting collection of text pages to the social media space of Web 2.0 that we have today is a huge leap.

So I’ve been trying to identify the milestones on the journey from 1991 through to the present day. How did an academic research tool come to change the world?

The key events for this story came together during the mid- to late 1990s.

It was all very well having websites but the processes and technology needed access them in the early days were still complex and time consuming and you needed to understand computer programming language to boot - not the best formula for viral take-up by the public. What was needed was a web browser that was cheap and easy to use. There were a number of attempts within academic and research institutes but the one that really took off was Mosaic developed in 1993 at the University of Illinois by Eric Bina and Marc Andreessen. Andreessen then went on to partner up with Jim Clark, former chairman of Silicon Graphics Inc and together they created the Netscape browser, which they gave away to consumers for free via download from the internet. This was the breakthrough browser that brought the World Wide Web to the world outside of academia and research and for a brief moment in history, it looked like Netscape would dominate the way we accesses the internet.

But they had not reckoned on Microsoft. Late in the day - 1995 - Bill Gates realised that his company was missing a trick by chasing interactive television as the next big thing and wrote his now famous “Internet Tidal Wave” memo. It was a clarion call to Microsoft that they could no longer ignore this internet thingy. Within a few months, they were able to bundle the first Internet Explorer browser with their latest Windows software, Windows 95. In just over a year after that, Microsoft overtakes Netscape as the winner of the browser wars with a third of the the market share.

Once Microsoft, with its existing dominance of the overall computer software market, had got in on the game, it was just a matter of time before the web would become mainstream, with access to the internet bundled into every PC that was bought for business or home use and developing products like FrontPage and Publisher, alongside Word that could easily create and upload webpages onto the net. Another bundled product, Outlook Express gave us the means for fast, electronic messaging while Microsoft Messenger offered us instant messaging.

It became so easy to publish a website, send an email, IM someone. It was at this point that the computer started to become an integral part of our daily lives - beyond word-processing, beyond spreadsheets, beyond CD-ROM games: beyond our individual selves. When it became a tool that gave us the ability to reach out beyond our individual studies and households to others out there in the world, that, to me, is when the age of the internet truly began.

Coming up in future posts: how computers got personal and the need for speed.

Photo: thanks to CommandShift3 and Zapfino from flickr.com (CCL)

Following on from my posts about the use of online video during the Australian elections and how blogs and Facebook are being used in Africa for political debate, I’ve also explored how blogs in particular have impacted on Singapore’s political scene recently.

Political blogs banned in Singapore during elections

During the elections in Singapore, the People’s Action Party (PAP) - Singapore’s ruling party since 1958 - banned online discussions during the campaign period, according to The Internet in Asia blog writing in May 2006. The article also includes a very useful link to other online articles about the ban of political blogs, podcasts and discussions online in Singapore.

The blog reports in June 2006 that bloggers and journalists tried to engage with the government to allow responsible political blogging:

“Singaporean bloggers and journalists have suggested that the government should engage with new media , instead of regulating it- as the blogosphere can regulate itself - for example, websites that feature wild, baseless accusations or irresponsible content will soon lose their readership and credibility, as readers move to other websites and that unfair criticisms will likely draw counter-arguments, sparing the original writer the need to respond to every comment. However, they also acknowledged the importance of bloggers being mindful of existing laws, and not breaking them. Popular bloggers Mr Brown and Mr Miyagi provided an example - the use of their slogan “prison got no broadband ” as an effort to educate bloggers on the importance of following existing rules.”

There was also some breast-beating over an audio parody sketch that may or may not have had a political agenda. The anxiety over this issue is quite a contrast to the Australian approach to their recent elections - most of the videos about the elections were satirical, irreverent and outspoken.

Unfortunately, this excellent blog from the Singapore Internet Research Centre seems to have given up the ghost around February this year so I will have to look elsewhere for the latest trends in Singapore’s uneasy relationship with political blogging.

If you’re based in Singapore, it would be great to hear your views about this issue. Since July 2006, has the government been more open to political debate online via blogs and podcasts? Do you think online debate of political or civic issues helpful to Singapore or unhelpful? Let me know by adding a comment or emailing me using the Contact form above.

Picture: thanks to news.bbc.co.uk

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This post and others in the category New Trends in International Public Relations is part of my research project for the book of the same name that I am co-authoring with business communications expert, Silvia Cambie. I am focusing on the social media aspects while she is working on the wider public relations issues.

To find out more about my research for this book, see my book wiki.

To see who has contributed to my research for the book, take a look at my Contributors List.

If you can help with my research for the book, please contact me via the book wiki contact link or email me via this blog.

by Guest Blogger Alan Lane

Ten years ago Britain mourned the death of Princess Diana, with an unprecedented emotional outburst. The events of the week that followed led many to ask: are those holding the reins of power really in touch with the public taste? Alan Lane looks at how her untimely death in Paris on 31 August 1997 left a legacy of debate for those advising on communication.

The news filtered through in the early hours of a quiet Sunday morning. Diana, Queen of Hearts, the People’s Princess, was dead.

The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a brutal Paris car crash, left a mixture of emotions. More than that, it left a debate in many circles on the complexities of modern life.

To some, the passing of the mother of the heir to the British throne opened deep cracks in the relationship between those in power and the people. To others, it was a death too soon at the age of 36; a caring, emotionally mixed-up shooting star who lived life on the edge, had been finally hounded to her grave by a posse of media monsters and a perceived indifferent Establishment.

Arguably the most famous, most photographed woman in the world represented a parable of our modern times. Her death opened up a whole new chapter on the term ‘relations with the public.’

An extraordinary week began to unfold. Close to two million people attended her funeral, which was watched on television by millions around the world.

Diana’s passing had for some a Shakespearean tragic element. The friend of kings, queens, millionaire playboys, of victims of landmines and AIDS had been snuffed out – ‘like a candle in the wind,’ as pop star Elton John had sung to an obviously moved funeral congregation.

Diana’s ability to touch public feeling across the world could not be denied. As one wry columnist and TV presenter said in a tribute: ‘she wasn’t just beautiful, it was like the sun coming up.’

Perhaps that was the real issue; her ability to be in touch with modern public taste.

Extraordinary response

Ten years on, it is worth asking what really was behind this extraordinary response to the death of a princess.

For sure, it signalled irreversible change in public opinion on what would be tolerated.

Thousands of mourners gathered around the Queen’s London residence Buckingham Palace cast the first stone of public dissent. They became restive, wanting a more public showing of mourning from the House of Windsor. The media responded, generating live street interviews and headlines reflecting this public discontent.

This whipped up pressure on the Royal Family, withdrawn from the public eye in mourning with Diana’s sons, William and Harry, at their Balmoral estate in Scotland. Being hundreds of miles from where Diana’s body lay in London, they were seen, perhaps unfairly, to be ‘out of touch’ with events.

One media columnist spoke of a ‘geological pressure exerted on the Royal Family by the media in the name of the people.’

What became clear was that a major shift had taken place in the public’s view on the role and authority of the monarch. An opinion poll showed only one Briton in eight wanted the monarch to carry on as at present. Eight out of ten thought the Royal Family had lost touch with the people. It was easy to suggest revolution could be in the air.

Many believed that without doubt, those advising the Royal Family had clearly failed.

Damage limitation

We can assess in hindsight how the Royal Family moved quickly towards damage limitation, advised in part by newly-elected Prime Minister Tony Blair – himself a natural communicator.

Prince Charles talked of greater accessibility to the monarchy and wide-ranging reforms to regain public support lost. Opinion research bravely commissioned by the House of Windsor after the funeral was used to test public feelings. Its findings were perhaps not surprising, reporting that the royals were seen as ‘remote, out of touch, wasteful, not genuine, lacking in understanding, poor value for money and badly advised.’

The Queen and Royal Family came south to London early, went on walkabout amid the flowers, and extended the funeral route so more people could take part. In a hastily arranged live broadcast, the Queen addressed the nation.

What had become clear is that a tragic death in a Paris underpass had in many ways, forced the hand of those in power.

Lessons in communication practice

Looking back, some would say public response to Diana’s death was a fleeting reaction which has not stood the test of time; that her grip on the national consciousness is a fading memory.

Yet her death has left many lessons for those advising on communication practice – including a Royal Family which no longer appears to look decades behind the times.

The world has changed. Public dissatisfaction with the Royal Family predates Diana’s death, but it was magnified by her passing in a way totally unforeseen. People of all colours, creeds and walks of life showed their ‘personal agenda’ can become the ‘public agenda’ if the support is there. Diana stood for a world challenging a power system seen as antiquated and outdated, a system run, as she put it, ‘by men in grey suits.’ Honesty and openness is now confronting evasion and secrecy; people want more control over their lives and what affects them.

Misreading the public mood. The outpouring of emotion following Diana’s death mirrored a world of people unafraid to show how they feel. The British usually avoid public displays of emotion. This time, they threw the rule book away. Some 70 per cent of the public who signed the books of remembrance set out by the Royal Family were women. A subtle feminising of public response suggests old standards of behaviour are no longer acceptable or at least have to change. As one public affairs commentator pointed out: ‘They (the Royal Family) have to understand that the duty, protocol and heritage thing is dead. The stiff upper lip went out of the window years ago.’

People want a figurehead. In a confusing, constantly-changing world, people look for role-models or assurances that their concerns are understood. Diana was a potent communicator who had enormous effect – whether attacking the Royal Family on television, or helping the poor and the sick. She was in touch with the changing public mood. Dazzling but flawed and vulnerable, she appeared to understand and more important, represent the problems of ordinary people. Said one columnist: ‘Princess Diana was so unbelievably popular because she had a perfect understanding of these things.’ Another said: ‘People want leaders to look up to and respect at a time of crisis and they don’t have at the moment.’

Figureheads need to go public. Those in positions of power can no longer retreat into their world and withdraw from accountability. People want to see them reacting and responding to public concern. One columnist suggested that the Royal Family ‘have to view themselves as any other sort of brand which interfaces with the public.’ Another said: ‘The palace initially misinterpreted the public mood. They didn’t see that protocol must be overruled by common sense and have been forced to perform a very public U-turn.’

A revolution in attitudes to authority. The public view of governments, corporations and even the monarchy has changed in many cultures. Long established respect and deference is being questioned. It now has to be earned by clearly demonstrated behaviour and effective communication. Exxon found that out when the Valdez tanker went aground in Alaska causing a major oil spill, while public unrest over Pan American’s handling of the Lockerbie air disaster was partly responsible for the airline’s demise.

What you say (or don’t say) is all important. By assessing the public mood and planning its communication much earlier, The House of Windsor could have offset much of the criticism it faced.

Don’t ignore the messages. The media is not always a true barometer of the public mood. Sometimes it mischievously and irresponsibly tries to create it. But its power to reflect what is being thought or said should never be underestimated.

We live in a visual age. Television has become the global messenger. People want to see their fantasy or reality. Diana provided the best of both – her life became public property; a TV soap with all the drama that was watched around the world. Television is a world of intrusion, where no human emotion or situation is so private or precious that it should not go on public display for the rest of us. It therefore needs to be handled with care.

Turning point

The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, was a turning point as well as being, according to media tracking sources, the biggest news story in terms of coverage for more than 100 years.

It reflected people wanting change and demanding a response from those with influence. It ushered in wide-ranging reforms on the practices of the media, driven by public opinion. Perhaps more important, it held up the mirror up to reflect changes in public expectations and how society had moved on.

Time will tell whether this change has any lasting effect; whether public opinion has made a seismic shift or whether it was just part of a blip in a nation’s emotional consciousness; whether those in power will continue to heed any lessons learned.

Yet at the time, in communication terms and in so many words, people were saying to the House of Windsor: ‘welcome to the 21st century.’

Alan Lane is founder and chief executive of VASGAMA providing reputation management consulting to international corporations and government. Alan is a member of IABC.

© Copyright
Alan Lane
VASGAMA

This post appeared earlier this week on the EuroComm Blog, and is reproduced here with Alan’s permission

Photo: thanks to Floyd Nello from flickr.com (CCL)

This post first appeared yesterday on the EuroComm Blog, where I am the lead blogger.

Not so long ago, when you organised a conference - especially an international one - it was a matter of course that you’d have a conference website to act as a portal for conference information, queries, accommodation and registration. Having a presence like that on the web has become a given. You don’t even question it.

Having a conference blog is a relatively new idea that’s probably only really taken hold during the last year to 18 months, with US conferences leading the way. Silvia Cambie and I spoke about “the conference website and blog” in one breath from the start as we talked about all the things we had to do to organise the EuroComm conference in Barcelona. We were comfortable with the idea of having a blog because we’re both bloggers.

Getting comfortable with an idea. It’s a key factor, I think, in whether or not a concept or a tool actually gets used by the wider world beyond the first adaptors. We just have to think back to the early 1990s, just 10-15 years ago, when businesses were trying to assess whether it was worth investing in word processors and computers. I remember joining a law firm in that time when the secretaries were still using electric typewriters and were stressing out whenever I asked them to make a change to the text of a document - because it meant pretty much typing the whole thing out again. Now, word processing is a necessity - and legal documents have unfortunately ballooned to hundreds of pages in some cases….

Back then, Tim Berners-Lee had only just invented the World Wide Web and hyperlinks so it would be another few years before businesses would get comfortable with the idea that a business website was a good thing to have. In 1995, the law firm I was working for did not have a website yet. In 1998, it seemed a daring thing for me as an individual to acquire my own URL domain name and have a website for my novels - only the biggest names in writing had websites back then. Now you can pick one up for under £10 a year and parents are even buying domain names for their children in the way that they would reserve a place for their kids at the best schools the moment the little darlings are born.

While talking to many business people and communications professionals, I’ve had a sense that there is still a residual uncertainty and even resistance to engaging in social media for business purposes. But overall, I am also seeing more and more businesses and enterprises start to use interactive online tools, even if it a small step like signing up to Facebook. My sense is that before long, the idea of social media will become more comfortable in people’s minds and it will become ubiquitous to have at least a blog alongside business websites - if nothing else, used as a way to add updates of company news.

What do you think? Do you think blogs will never work for some businesses? Or do you think that blogs are “so fifteen minutes ago”? Please add a comment and share your views.

Photo: thanks to ~aidan from flickr.com under Creative Commons Licence

The dark side

“The online world can lead to isolation and anti-social behaviour. It’s all very well having all these virtual friends on social networks but they can’t give you virtual hugs. You need real people for that.”

“Facebook and social networks are dangerous because you can lose your privacy. I would never want to put my details on Facebook.”

“I don’t read blogs. They’re not relevant for businesses, are they?”

“What’s social media? I don’t like computers. It’s all much too modern for me.”

These are a some comments that came up recently in a number of conversations I’ve had over the last year with some business people, intellectuals and professionals. It seems there are many people who have not yet had the time or readiness to be introduced to the remarkable opportunities for human communication that is available through social media tools. One of them even said to me, “It’s so refreshing to come across someone who is so positive about social media for a change.”

I felt like I was the odd one out at these particular gatherings. For awhile now, many of my closest friends and colleagues are happy social media campers like me and I’ve met numerous business people and professionals who are engaged and curious about the possibilities of online communications. So it has been a surprise from time to time to have been the lone voice of enthusiasm. It got me thinking. Why am I so positive about social media?

The bright side

There used to be an ad for BT, British Telecoms, the phone company with the tagline “Reach out and touch someone”. In my mind, social media offers exactly that experience. Perhaps I’m more sensitive to such opportunities, having lived apart from my family since I was 12. All the way across the vast globe, my parents and family were home in Malaysia while I grew up during my years at school and university here in England. The only communication used to be letters that arrived a week after they were written or through echoey, expensive phone calls once every few weeks. It could be lonely, counting the days till the next holiday when I’d be able to see my Mum, wondering what my family was doing just at that moment, imagining them having dinner together in Malaysia eight hours ahead while I was in a Maths lesson.

So, how amazing it is now to be able to email a message within seconds, type out an instant message - well - instantly, speak with my family online free or for a few pence and even see the other person face-to-face online as you do so. How fantastic to make new friends through blogging about shared interests even though you may be on different continents. How incredible to be able to follow each moment of another’s life through Twitter or Facebook status updates.

Existential crisis

And I don’t think it’s just me trying to recover from childhood loneliness. The reason so many millions have engaged so intensely online is because of the very human urge to connect with others and to express ourselves.

Yes, there are people who isolate themselves in their rooms all day playing on the internet. In India, universities have become increasingly concerned about increased suicide rates which they link to too much time spent on social networks. In Japan, a young girl blogged about killing her mother and her public journals were only investigated after the mother died - and it was found that she did indeed kill her mother. For me, the question is what kind of society drives young people into isolation because they feel they can’t talk to real live people right there next to them so that they feel that they can only engage online? How are those live people right there next to them not engaging with them, not hearing them, not understanding them?

Facebook

Using blogging and Facebook, I keep in touch with my family and friends in Malaysia and all over the world. I have made new and interesting friends whom I have met subsequently in real life and who continue now to be real as well as virtual friends. OK, I can’t get a virtual hug but I can get a verbal one through their written, audio or video messages - which must surely be better than the silence of being offline and disconnected from this global neighbourhood. In my real life, I still have my friends and family in the flesh who give me the real hugs and I reckon a lot of bloggers and social networkers enjoy that, too. It just means that my friendships and relationships are no longer all bound by having to physically being in the same place with those others.

Yes, you can lose your privacy on Facebook. But only if you choose to upload your personal data like your date of birth, your mother’s maiden name, your social security number etc. No-one is forcing you to do that. And, yes, employers are now checking Facebook profiles before they hire and an inappropriate photo of you can affect your chances of getting the job. With Facebook, the key is to use it judicously and to look at the privacy options you can set. It is prudent to think of it as a public space rather than a private one. There are advantages if you navigate your way through such a public space wisely - for example, you can ask for introductions from friends to other friends - which is particularly useful in a business context, replacing the old-fashioned letter of introduction.

Beware FUD

Crime, suicide, isolation, murder and loss of personal privacy are important issues and I am not dismissing concerns about them. It’s just worth stepping back for some perspective and context - and for the other side of the story to be offered up. There are millions of blogs and millions of people engaging in social networks and online games. In most cases - ie in millions of cases - these experiences are positive and the new technology is helping people connect with each other. Traditional media like newspapers and broadcast media thrive on FUD: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - no-one buys the paper to read that everything is fine and dandy. So newspapers etc will naturally pick out the doom and gloom stories. If you rely on the traditional media to tell you about social media, you’re only getting one side of the story.

Social media is here to stay and I think it’s a shame for those who choose not to engage out of FUD. They are losing out on ways to connect with friends, colleagues and family that can enrich their personal and business life. If you met your friends in a public place like a restaurant or on the street, you’d be sensible - you wouldn’t leave your handbag in an easily snatchable place, you wouldn’t give out your private details to a stranger walking by and so on. So it’s the same with social media - be sensible and you can get the best out of the time you spend online.

Photo: thanks to Ondra_L from flickr.com

Following on from my post about the founding father of the web, Tim Berners-Lee, who created HTML and the follow up, giving a bite-sized explanation of Web 2.0, here is an excellent video that animates the whole story from the humble beginnings of HTML code to the dynamic interactive arena that is Web 2.0 - and how Web 2.0 and social media is now making us re-think copyright, authorship, rhetoric and just about everything else.

Thanks to Lucy Soutter for sending me this video.