Books binge

December 29th, 2007 • On my mind...

I know I need to stop – and I know I need to finish the books currently on my shelf. But today I bought two more books that I simply have to read. Of late, I’ve been gravitating towards books with a more academic flavor. So in case these interest you,

Fans, Bloggers and Gamers – Understanding participatory culture by Henry Jenkins

The Hidden Sense – Synthesia in art and science by Cretien Van Campen

I’ve resolved to finish reading these books before the year’s end. I’d love to discuss if any of you have read them before or are interested in reading with me.

Recap

December 28th, 2007 • 1 comment On my mind...

Attributing my silence on my blog to work and life is becoming a common excuse, I notice Without making much fuss, here are some things I’ve been doing or are on my mind today!

• Exploring NYC stores and restaurants. Spending way too much time at the MOMA Design store. The place where I work gave us (thank you!) gift-cards to the store and I have yet to decide what to spend my monnies on!
• Spent a few hours yesterday at Kinokuniya at the Rockefellar Center. Kinokuniya is an all-Japanese bookstore – they also have cool stationary and a few English books. If you are a Japanphile like me, you will LOVE this store. It’s a pity I can’t read or write Japanese yet but the store is a absolute sensory delight.
• Browsed through Librairie De France, collection of classic French children’s books
• Watched the entire Season 2 of Heroes  back-to-back on hulu.com.
• Reading (previously unread) books my my favorite author Haruki Murakami – Currently reading, UnderGround.
• Shuttling between Philly and NY, hanging out with friends, cooking meals and simply relishing this break.
• Tweeting is yet to come naturally to me.
• Bhutto’s murder shook me – pushed me to wonder, am I doing something important enough with my life. Such a bubble we live in sometimes.
• When I was younger, I’d want to hold on to one day of the ending year — just one day for me to live whenever I chose to. Now, 1st Jan is just another day Doesn’t mean we don’t bring it in with a bang though

So that’ it for today!

Short history of micro-blogging

December 13th, 2007 • 6 comments Social Media

Facebook got rid of the "is" from their status update today, aligning itself to it’s audiences demands and conforming to be more twitter-like. The facbeook ’status’ messages today are abuzz with news about the disappearance of "is." 

This fascination with our own lives and the desire to share it with strangers amuses me sometimes. Everyday I am reminded of the ‘celebrity’ I could morph into if I wanted to.
These social tools have helped us manifest our illusory popularity within our niche groups, subjecting those in our circles to continuous broadcasts about the trite and sometimes, intimate details of our lives. We call it micro-blogging.

Wikipedia defines micro-blogging as,

"Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user."

It bothers me that we think of it as a revolution when it simply is just an innovation, an iteration at the most. Lets revisit the IRC chat days. ICQ identified users with a unique number and allowed them change their handle and keep the screename dynamic. In the first month alone when I started using ICQ (1998/ 99 was it?) my screen-name changed every few hours depending on my colorful teenage moods and emotional beat.

MSN  Messenger too, allowed for the same and in addition to giving users the flexibility to keep dynamic screen-names, it also allowed them to customize their status messages which in my case, (and those of my friends) varied from laments about life, homework & college to song lyrics and my whereabouts. But the information was being broadcast to 80 some friends with whom I shared real, tangible, offline relationships.

AIM messenger gave users a static user name with the ability to customize messages, updates and even icons- little widgets and tools that allowed users to express themselves and share bits and pieces of their lives.

Cellphone ringers in India allowed me to choose my current favorite songs so when my friends called me, instead of hearing the phone ring, they would hear the ’song of the moment’ which in most cases was a direct reflection of my life.

I outline these instances because in each and every one – users like me and you have with precision been broadcasting our lives to our friends. And we’ve probably been doing this before the term blog was coined.
These options have simply enabled the frequency with which we now share these details — evolving into a more robust, almost pollutant iteration of what we grew up with.

This evolution of micro blogging offers users the ability to become active participants instead of being passive observers. So now, we aren’t only sharing, but also conversing and commenting via micro-tools with an intensity that wasn’t as palpable in the earlier versions. Also and perhaps the most intriguing facet of our current version is our ability and our open-ness to broadcast our life events to an extended and expansive social circle.

My opinion on micro-blogging fluctuates – I know we are fascinated with ourselves but my life (and the other 98% of people’s lives) are barely interesting. They are simple, ordinary lives and I don’t know how if that begets incessant broadcasts. That’s just my two cents. (All the same, I have been guilty of doing the same)

It bothers me sometimes. I see a lot of micro-blogging happening on facebook that is merely by professionals who instead of using facebook as a social utility tool which is what it is meant to be, use it to toot their professional horns. To me, this dilutes the essence of facebook and I almost wish I could take my friends and shift elsewhere. But who would follow me?! And where would I do?

I suppose, the next evolution…..

Online Identities & Social networks

December 10th, 2007 • 1 comment Social Media

My friend sent me an invitation to join Social Chat on facebook. Out of curiosity, I installed the application to check it out. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect but meeting strangers on facebook is not a functionality that fits within my framework of facebook.

I was confounded when a private message popped on my screen (deja vu –1998/1999–  rediff chat anyone? excite.com chat?! ) and asked,

A/S/L?

I haven’t heard that term in over 8 years. (For those not familiar with the term, A/S/L stands for Age/ Sex/ Location - a phrase that was used in the heyday of online chat when people were just discovering alternate ways to meet other people online)

But we are in 2007 now. There are social hierarchies in place. We have various identities online for specific reasons. An individual’s identity on J-Date is going to be different from their persona on linkedin or even facebook. My identities on certain networks are built to meet people (ning, linkedin, cyworld)  but on other networks, namely facebook, I want to connect with people I *already* know.
Applications like Social Chat dilute the meaning of facebook for me. Thankfully, it is only an application and I have opted out already. But this leads to an interesting question – should content, in this case, applications, be curated on facebook? Should there be an editorial team that decides what makes the cut and what doesn’t?

Or is it best left for the public to decide?

Life on Flickr

December 7th, 2007 • Social Media

                                                                                                                         Scott and I were brainstorming yesterday evening and looking at this MOST POPULAR Tags list on Flickr. Funny how we never thought about it like this before…

Like the Google Zeitgiest, Flickr’s most popular tags are a great representation of what matters to us, humans, on a macroscopic level. Of the 2 billion photographs on Flickr, this tag cloud is a fantastic portrayal of our lives and what we value most.

Family, friends, kids, festivals and vacations, the summer months, clouds, sunsets, beaches and the water,  concerts and music, food,  birthdays, weddings and honeymoons, our pets, traveling and exploring the world, outdoor activities and games…..

Life is so simple, no?

Connecting the dots

December 5th, 2007 • 6 comments Culture Briefings, Social Media

I’m reading a book called, "Pathfinders – A global history of exploration."  It attempts to trace the history of mankind. In it’s own words,

"This book is about encounters – encounters between cultures- and the outreach of ambition, imagination, efforts and innovations that made them possible."

So last night, as I was reading about the divergence and convergence of cultures traced through DNA in this book– Nightline, incidentally played a short feature on how genes can help you discover your ancestry.

The feature is heavily based on the philosophy and efforts on one particular USA based company called Sorenson Genomics. Sorenson has collected about 100,000 samples of DNA from 172 countries over the world and is building an extensive database that will help people trace their genetic lineage.

"I think the hypothesis was that if he could get any two people in a
room, and through this database show them how they were related and
where they came from and how they belonged … that this would change the
way they would feel about each other. That instead of animosity perhaps
they would feel a connection and that would lead to a more peaceful
environment," David said.

I am obviously very interested. My grandparents are from Karachi, Pakistan – what then used to be India. They fled to Bombay, India around 1947 and have since dug their roots there. With the death of my grandparents, it felt like a part of my family history was stubbed right there. Oral history tends to get lost over generations and all that is left is curiosity.

Sorenson Genomics have created DNA kits available for $150 — they use their existing (and ever increasing) database to help you connect your dots. Yesterday on Nightline, Martin Bashir of Indian descent learned that his ancestors were Africans, Rajputs from Rajasthan and Brahmins from Uttar Pradesh.
Another DNA-tester who was adopted and had no idea about his background was able to trace his ancestry to Turkey.

Digital advances are moving us in an entirely uncharted territory. I just rekindled old connections today on Facebook using Friend Finder and I joined an Indian youth social network on ning to connect with other young Indians — is the next evolution finding people with the exact same DNA as me who could be my long-lost, distant cousins ? It is a real possibility.