Text is not Dead

Check out this video with McLuhan’s narration on the topic of television.

I started thinking about what Colin wrote about snapshot thinking. In this current digital age, people have little choice but to get only a snapshot of the news. David Grimshaw wrote about information overload (and, Dan, I think you’ll appreciate this):

The term “information overload” has its roots in the context of computer-mediated communications … Lest one is tempted to think of information overload as a new problem, let us recall the words of T. S. Eliot (1934), “where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”Eliot reminds us that turning information into knowledge is not easy and is far from automatic … It is important to understand the process by which data is or can be transformed into knowledge.

It’s impossible to process all of the information out there, and we have been reduced to trusting the very machine that has overwhelmed us with serving us only the important news. And, what’s important is typically judged by its popularity. When has the opinion of the general population been trustworthy. Is that wise?

Just how much control does the internet have over society? We know it is the source and sometimes the only source of news and information. Will we ever get back control? Will we ever actually make choices about information without the influence of the almighty computer? As I get close to the end of this semester, I have been asking myself these questions. And, I’ve found that, to an extent, I agree with the way Mark Laporta, a blogger, puts it:

Because thanks to search technology, we have seen the Internet — and realized it is us. When it’s all said and done, what we “mean” can only be grasped after a lifetime of experience in the wetware of everyday human existence. That’s still the most effective aggregator of the human wish list.

The ideal is balance, but is there any real way to achieve that? Can we move past seeing things in snapshots?

Should we be nervous? That is one of my questions as I consider the significant power of the internet in our lives. In thinking about the notion that artists are more sensitive to shifts in culture, especially when it comes to media, I can’t help but ponder Terminator, I Robot, Minority Report, and even that flop of a film with poor Sandra Bullock, The Net. All of the stories behind these films show a world taken over by the machines, and that world is scary and out of control. I think humans have always been at least a bit dubious of machines, computers, and the internet. I remember when people were reluctant to begin using debit cards. In response to the internet’s growing power, people have decided to make it friendly, by making it fun. Fun things are innocuous. When Google has a picture on its homepage or even just it’s colorful letters, how can one be doubtful about using it? The biggest shift in making it fun has been social media, which at first started out as a form of entertainment and now acts as a necessary tool for connections. Whether we should be watchful of the growing internet, no one is willing to disconnect from it. We have acquiesced. It might be taking over the world, but we’re fairly convinced that the world is a better place for it.

As I read Marshall Mcluhan’s theory of hot and cold media, two things came to mind: the idea was brilliant for its time, and in spite of the simplicity and intelligence of the idea, it is far too absolute for the medium we use most today, the internet. Or is it still accurate? If one thinks of the internet as a stage upon which different kinds of medium play, perhaps the absolute notion of hot and cold still applies.

According to McLuhan, cold media requires more participation from the user than hot media. Text on website would be cold, while video would be hot. Therefore can be thought of as more of a platform than a medium itself. If the internet is a medium, then Scott Rosenberg explains it is both:

Where would the Internet fall on McLuhan’s temperature meter? It remains almost exclusively a medium that transmits and reproduces vast quantities of text at high speeds. McLuhan interpreted the evolution of writing from ideograms and stone tablets to alphabetic characters and print reproduction as a “hotting up” “to repeatable print intensity.” By that standard, the Net is boiling.

On the other hand, its functional characteristics match those McLuhan identified as cool. There’s no question that the Internet is among the most participatory media ever invented, like the cool telephone. And its cultural patterns — with its oral-tradition-style transmission of myth and its collective anarchy — match those of McLuhan’s tribal global village.

Somehow the Net is both hot and cold at once. Maybe that’s just a function of how broad and easily manipulated McLuhan’s categories are. But maybe there’s a valuable insight here into why it is that certain media — like the Internet and talk radio — have been able to vault to prominence so quickly and powerfully.

But if something is both; is it really either one? Here’s what Rosenberg says:

When you mix water from the hot and cold faucets in your sink, your hands may first feel the extremes of the separate streams. After a while, though, all the water just feels lukewarm.

McLuhan would, I think, have found the Internet thoroughly fascinating but ultimately — like any electronic medium — too powerful, too addictive and too pervasive for comfort. He might have had to revise his spectrum a bit to accommodate it, too.

Hot media, cold media — and now lukewarm media. First they fill up one of your senses to the brim; then they invite you to dive in. First they run hot and cold; then you don’t feel them at all.

While absolutes such as McLuhan’s can apply to many different types of medium for many, many years. I do believe the internet is one that doesn’t fit within his mold. How could it? But when McLuhan’s theories are so accepted and studied- as well they should be- how can the internet be understood? McLuhan surely did write the book on “Understanding Media,” but I’m not sure anyone has conquered understanding the internet.

The Dark Side of Reddit

I browsed through the Reddit site, and at first, I thought it was just another interesting website where users voted on the content. However, after reading this site, which I stumbled upon while trying to understand how to use Reddit, I see that it’s a community, and that community can be a little feisty.

Apparently a common problem in this surprisingly exclusive community is banishment. But the site doesn’t just ban a person; it does so without telling the victim. Fear of confrontation? Gerald Webber writes about this rude phenomenon.

Honest truth, I’m not even going to bother to start a new reddit account, because what gives reddit the right to delete my account without warning or notice.

And I don’t appreciate the fact that individual moderators have the ability to delete my submission just because they don’t like it or have a submission of their friends they want to promote. I don’t have proof that they are doing this but its simple to see, if you give these types of powers to users, they will abuse it discreetly.

The Internet Journal (the source of the picture above) addresses the issue in its article about the FAQs of Reddit.

Why are my comments invisible to everyone except myself?

The reason: you are banned, my friend. Reddit way of banning is really unique (and can be treated differently).

I call it “ghost banning” – you think you still exist but no one can see you any more. You still come daily, vote for stories and leave comments but your efforts are invisible to the community- because you no more exist, sorry.

As we said in class, “users are a necessary evil.” Banning people, indiscriminately, gives the message to users and contributers that they’re not necessary in this superior community. Big mistake. And, banning without even informing the person is just bad form.

As we work and study social media throughout this class, I am beginning to feel that the Internet world is run by a group of powerhouse search engines and social media platforms. Up until recently, those entities only competed against their own kind: Microsoft and Yahoo compete against Google, and Twitter and LinkedIn war to knock Facebook of its newly built pedestal. But now, now things are getting ugly because the newest threat to Google isn’t Yahoo or even Bing; it’s Twitter.

Lew Moorman makes the following point:

There are some things Twitter is just flat out better at for getting information than Google. Here are just a few: researching companies, products and services for real customer feedback, breaking news and live events/conference updates. It is not a total threat but Twitter is so superior in these areas that people will indeed make the effort to search somewhere new to get the information. I do.

He goes on to give an example that blogs are tweeted and retweeted, so searching for a topic in Tweet Search provides more up tho the date and accurate than the one hit provided in the Google search. I find this interesting because once again, user-generated content is beginning to topple the ivory towers of the more structured entities, such as those that would come up on a Google search. If someone Google’s a news story, that person will likely get the version from CNN and MSNBC. Those sites have stories that are reported on and updated by a small staff of reporters, maybe only one. A Twitter search, however, will yield tweets from many people, some of whom may have more timely, and others may be first-hand witnesses.

This data is gold… The more info [Twitter] get[s], the more value they create. How will they use it? Well, we will see. But, if I was Google, I would be paying attention.

Check out this video from Newsy.com on wether Twitter is a threat to Google.

I found this great picture of Twitter’s history.

This one- number five- really deserved its own post.

Botanicalls

This is really odd and remarkably cool.  A person can buy the Botanicalls sensor and place it in the soil of the potted plant.  A built in controller translates the readings to information” that can be sent over the internet through an embedded ethernet connection.”  Essentially, a thirsty plant can tweet its owner that it needs water, and then it can tweet a thank-you, really “water me please” and “thank you.”

One interesting thing about Twitter, and something I certainly didn’t know, is that only 11% of the users are between 12 and 17 years old. So, teenagers are not responsible for the drastic increase in its popularity.  Adults are the primary users.  And the question is- for what?

One

I personally find Twitter to be a great tool for cultivating an audience.  I tweet about my writing, what I read, and anything else that springs to mind in that arena.  Here’s an example of some of my followers I have gained using this fairly basic idea:  writersjobs, eBooksReviewer, LATimesBooks, and something called Literature_Book, though I’m not quite about that one.  Among these entities, I have actual real, live people as followers as well.  If I tweet about a blog post and put a link to it, I’ll have a huge increase in comments, which translates to readers- an audience.

Two

I also use Twitter to keep track of events that interest me.  For example, I follow the New York Times, Huffington Post, and my favorite columnist, and Newsweek, to name a few.  The tweets from the above are usually intriguing and informative.  For me, reading the Twitter updates allows me to consume a large amount of information by taking very small bites.

Three

Some use Twitter for professional networking.  I personally think this platform is a great deal more friendly than Linked In.  And, I hear that Twitter and Linked In are now friends, so people can use their contacts in both and cross reference those who are on both.

Four

According to some of my reading, Twitter has a number of applications that can be used to tweet reminders, such as doctor appointments and things to pick up at the grocery store.

I am posting what I will present on Monday evening. I had done quite a bit of my research earlier and posted it, so I apologize for the unavoidable repetition in summarizing my area of focus.

The importance of video on news websites, specifically hyperlocal ones.

News is a consumer product. There’s no way around that idea. Many have it to sell and others give it away for free, but it’s a commodity heavily traded on the Internet.

Video is key to selling that product.
• It increases page rank. If you’re not on Google, then where are you?
“Web videos…help to insure that [a] website will be seen by others. Most search engines now include web video in their evaluating of a websites value, which directly relates to the site’s search engine placement. Like photos, blogs, and text, web video now weighs in heavily when search engines decide how high in their placement to list a site.”

• It increases (sometimes doubles) the amount of time a person spends on a site. This is important because the attention span of a web user can be only minutes.

• It’s interactive. Unlike an advertisement that subjects a viewer to the video or add, a web video is a choice. When a person clicks to voluntarily view a video, he or she is already making a commitment. In my opinion a viewer is far less likely to stop viewing a reasonably timed video than he or she is to stop reading an article. Videos simply hold a person’s interest more. We’re a visual culture, and video has the advantage of being entertaining and visually appealing (unlike print).

• It’s easy. People have no time these days. Video is quick and easy to consume and easy to share with others. We have viral videos, not viral text.

• It’s expected. Major national news sites have been incorporating video for years, and they have only increased their use of it. When people view or read the news on the Internet, they expect a certain type of content and form. They may not expect CNN, but the more familiar they are with the site, the more comfortable they are, the more user friendly they feel it is, and the more likely they are to come back to it.

A note about user generated video (citizen journalism)

Joan Stewart writing for The Publicity Hound makes the point that user-generated video is growing in importance as news staff is being cut.

• It allows people who are witnessing breaking news to record it and send it to the news stations. With limited staff, journalists can be everywhere, and even if they could, they can’t travel at the speed of light. Sometimes the most accurate and up-to-the-date coverage comes from someone recording video with a cell phone.

• It opens the door for anyone to submit video, and it doesn’t have to be breaking news.

She quotes Jeff Crilley, a Texas reporter: “If you deliver powerful video on a slow-news day, you could be the lead story.” He recalls a story of a high school senior who was dying of cancer. People didn’t think he was going to live to see graduation, so the entire school held an impromptu graduation ceremony at her house. As student shot a video of the event and sent it to the TV station. The station aired it, and a “media frenzy” followed. The video aired nationwide. And, that TV station had it first.

A news website, even a hyperlocal one, or especially a hyperlocal one, would be crazy to not have video on its page. Video has the capability to grab people’s attention, inform them, move them, and make them want to come back to the page. And, a satisfied customer is one who returns over and over again to buy the product.