Monthly Archive for August, 2010

From Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff, Wired Magazine

You wake up and check your email on your bedside iPad — that’s one app. During breakfast you browse Facebook, Twitter, and The New York Times — three more apps. On the way to the office, you listen to a podcast on your smartphone. Another app. At work, you scroll through RSS feeds in a reader and have Skype and IM conversations. More apps. At the end of the day, you come home, make dinner while listening to Pandora, play some games on Xbox Live, and watch a movie on Netflix’s streaming service.

You’ve spent the day on the Internet — but not on the Web. And you are not alone.

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From Evan Ratliff, Wired Magazine

A few years ago, I belonged to an informal group of freelance writers and editors who would assemble regularly to drink and talk shop. One evening, someone in our rotating cast brought along a new member, who began regaling us with tales of her editorial triumphs and financial success. Apparently she never got the memo that our gatherings were outlets for complaint and commiseration. As the evening wore on, the rest of us adopted a logical, if immature, course of action: We all pretended to go home and then reconvened at another bar without her. In the parlance of our times, you might say that we collectively unfollowed her. If this episode had actually taken place in today’s world of online social networking, however, we probably wouldn’t have batted an eye. The self-aggrandizement that offended the group is standard fare in my Twitter feed — my own posts too often included. (BTW, I’ll be appearing on TV this week.) But far from clearing out the virtual bar, expressions of vanity online are usually rewarded with a cascade of back-patting: a virtual thumbs-up, a hearty “congrats!,” a “proud-to-know-you” retweet. Social networking sites have inverted the rules of privacy and etiquette, and no cultural norm is tossed aside more often on the Web than plain old modesty. This raises an existential question: When you celebrate yourself online, are you a willing participant in a brave new social future, or are you just being an ass? Don’t panic; it’s the former — as long as you strike a balance.

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From Kate Murphy, The New York Times

When Adam Savage, host of the popular science program “MythBusters,” posted a picture on Twitter of his automobile parked in front of his house, he let his fans know much more than that he drove a Toyota Land Cruiser.

Embedded in the image was a geotag, a bit of data providing the longitude and latitude of where the photo was taken. Hence, he revealed exactly where he lived. And since the accompanying text was “Now it’s off to work,” potential thieves knew he would not be at home.

Security experts and privacy advocates have recently begun warning about the potential dangers of geotags, which are embedded in photos and videos taken with GPS-equipped smartphones and digital cameras. Because the location data is not visible to the casual viewer, the concern is that many people may not realize it is there; and they could be compromising their privacy, if not their safety, when they post geotagged media online.

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