Remember this, I do.

When we first joined Facebook it was filled with chronological timelines kept active by university friends. At that time algorithms did not affect what we saw or how frequently and there was a sense of community. In the last two or three weeks we have heard a lot about Cambridge Analytica and other companies because they have siphoned off user data and used it to manipulate people in a number of political events. 

During this time articles have been written detailing privacy and the threat that social networks pose. I have seen very few, if any articles looking at people and how easily misled they have been. I see very few articles exploring the issues surrounding how such a large portion of the population is susceptible to being misled. 

The events of the last week are a perfect demonstration of the Manufacturing of Consent that Noam Chomsky wrote about in his books and discussed at his lectures. He spoke about looking at the dominant headlines and looking at what was ignored. He spoke about taking an active look at what is being said and by whom. In theory, the very people that were misled by the manipulation are the people that would have been seduced by his rhetoric. 

What I really want to see, is a shift away from websites like Facebook towards blogs and online communities where users interacting with each other are not manipulated by algorithms. I want to go back to an age where web forums, chronological timelines and more, are the norm. Facebook experimented with emotions in timelines a few years ago, now they have allowed companies to syphon off data and most importantly they are being accused of helping aggravate the situation in places like Myanmar.

The best way to hurt a company like Facebook is not to delete your account. It is for them to lose your eyeballs. It is for you to stop using the site, to start using others, and to reduce their income. If they want to treat us like a commodity then we can return the favour. We can use them fleetingly. 

Yesterday I tested the Olympus camera during a rafting trip down the Dranse river in France.

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There are many Geo location websites in the web. They have something in common. Using them openly in front of others will not result in positive opinions.

As a result of this you want them to work flawlessly. Spending three minutes logging in is too long.

That’s why foursquare has been deleted grim my phone. I am not ready to use that type of service when the site goes down for four hours.

I feel this way after twitter. Popular site with a lot if downtime. Relations between people degraded as communication became more hit and miss. Now friendships and the core of interesting users is gone.

Why invest in social networks where indifference is prevalent. Tara for now foursquare. See you in a year.

I’ve seen a lot of people create link posts where there’s no comment just links and these are not effective. They’re not effective because they require the audience to click through and read the entire post to see what you thought was of interest.

Instead I’m going to choose key paragraphs and link to the article. If you like the paragraph then simply click on the link and you’ll get the full article within it’s context.

The user-generated video content tsunami has clearly changed the shape of the online environment we live in today. In fact, the growth of UG video so far is turning the Internet into a non-interactive medium. It’s created the quagmire we’re in today because the industry is treating all online video the same — meshing UG video with professionally produced brand videos. Even if consumers want to sit back and watch a monkey juggling video online, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to lean forward when they visit Web sites to get information about that car or house they’re thinking about buying.

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 I believe it’s not about gazing into a crystal ball to predict what ad format will produce the greatest CPMs. In an industry as exciting, creative and fast-moving as ours, it seems we are all becoming as distracted as the consumers we are trying to attract. But we need to remember the basic premise that advertising is communication of valuable information. And for it to be effective, we need to communicate the message multiple times in multiple ways; we especially need to recognize that every time the message needs to be a fresh exciting experience that engages and resonates with target customers, motivating them to take action. David Ogilvy once said, “What really convinces consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.”

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Instead, go to work tomorrow worrying about something even more important.  Rather than how many see your commercials, worry about how much time they spend with them.

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Let me know whether you like this style of posting. Now to go on with traditional feedreading.

Plurk is one of the most interesting mobile “microblogging” tool available at the moment because of it’s simple interface. Without the need for additional applications, expensive data packages and more you can follow the conversation of your contacts and friends in a way that neither jaiku nor twitter allow.

If you’re on your home network then jaiku is interesting because you download the messages. If you’re travelling then twitter is semi useful to read messages whilst mobile. The biggest limitation with twitter is the api limit. Frequently I have found that I can’t access the messages due to a 404 error. That’s problematic.

That’s why I like plurk. It provides a simple front page where you can see all plurks. Select a plurk and you can read the responses and respond yourself. That’s great because it means you can converse without putting your life on hold to keep the conversation going.

What’s particularly interesting is that there was a time when twitter was as advantageous as plurk for mobility but due to costs they were unable to provide the service anymore due to cost. Cost is an excuse for a lack of lateral thinking.

By creating a good wap interface that can as easily be used as easily on an n95 as an ipod touch plurk have circumvented most of the cost problems and provided a service that just works. Of course their user base is much smaller and it’s easier to deal with the requests. We’ll see how things progress from here.

La Tour D’ai in Switzerland is a great opportunity to look across to the Canton de Vaud and the Lac Léman. From here you can look at several canton. The via ferrata has a nice little walk to the base. At this point you start the climbing. It’s an easy aerial via ferrata.
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