Threads in Europe
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Threads in Europe

Byrichard

A few weeks ago Facebook (I refuse to whitewash that company by calling it Meta) decided to blackmail European users. The deal was simple. We were coerced. “Accept to pay for Facebook or we will force you to see ads. This was a lose lose situation that the European Union is now fighting. Imagine being given this choice. If you pay you’re going to be rewarding a company that has abused us.

Facebook Never Apologises for Being Immoral

Facebook enabled the spread of a genocidal message, it enabled the spread of disinformation to get both Trump elected and Brexit to be agreed to. It also experimented with making people more than once. Despite all of this Facebook never apologised.

When I was given the ultimatum of Pay up or you have consented for us to use your data they blackmailed us into either paying “protection money”, or being subjected to targeted advertising. It would give Facebook an excuse to say “But they agreed to us abusing of the data we have on them, and using profiling to manipulate them.

Pay or Be Data Mined

I got side tracked. The real issue is that people being given the choice to pay for facebook, or be manipulated Facebook could say “We gave Europeans the choice, and they chose to give their data rather than their money. This isn’t a choice. There are two to three billion users. It has a monopoly position so we can be isolated by not using Facebook, or exploited, by being on Facebook.

The Nuissance of Algorithms

I created my Threads account to preserve my username rather than out of a desire to use the social network. Instagram, Threads and Facebook all have the same problem. They force us to see crap generated by influencers and strangers, rather than friends. You can pay not to see ads, but you can’t pay to avoid the toxic posts by influencers. By toxic I mean anything that may have a negative effect on our mental well being, whether reminding us of our solitude, of our not being at an event, of not being at the right point at the right age in life and more.

Toxic Facebook

Instagram, for me, and many others, is toxic. I believe that Threads will be just as toxic. I noticed for example that we’re encouraged to like, rather than comment. Years ago I found that social media became far lonelier when people started to like rather than comment, reply or other. A like is a metric, a statistic. A comment is personal.

Social Networks Need to Be Organic

Social networks need to be organic. They need to encourage people to converse with each other, and to converse with the friends of friends. Social network should connect like minded people who have the time for each other, at a manageable scale.

After just a few minutes of using Threads I see posts by people with 4000 or more likes, hundreds of comments and more. My response is “I’m being forced to see content by people who will never reciprocate the attention. I am being spammed by influencers and other toxic individuals.

Of course, I could strive for finding something that 4000 people like, or three hundred people comment on but that’s not what social media is about. Social media is about a convivial intimate conversation between tight knit friends that eventually want to meet in person, rather than stay online. Facebook doesn’t encourage organic social network growth. It encourages the cult of personality. It amplifies the sentiment of being alone and lonely, of being ignored.

The Strength of 2006-2007 Twitter

The strength of social networks, including Twitter is that you started from a blank slate. If you had one friend you saw their posts, and their replies. If you had two friends, then you saw the same. The more active your social network became, the larger your circle of friends and contacts. There was a reward for investing time and attention on a social network.

With Threads we don’t have this. We see posts that are chosen by an algorithm that has nothing to do with our social graph. This is noise, and this devalues Threads because we spend more time dealing with noise, than worthwhile posts by friends.

And Finally

One of the greatest problems with Facebook is that it has a monopoly. It has Facebook, Threads, Instagram and Whatsapp. It has over two billion users. Whether you’re an early adopter, a late adopter, or a normal person, people with similar interests are on Facebook platforms so we’re forced to be there as well. Facebook has a monopoly, especially since the death of Twitter.

It’s a shame that social media has become a fight for attention, rather than an organic conversation between friends, colleagues and people who do specific activities together. Now is the time to use Threads obsessively to become visible, but I believe that I will end up feeling more solitude, rather than less.

Call of the Re-Wild

Call of the Re-Wild

Byrichard

Europe wants to bring back top predators like lynx, bears and wolves. In the US national parks brought back certain wild animals and it helped to control the population of elk and other herbivores, and to control the biosphere. 


The challenge, with Europe, is that it is tiny, compared to the wide open American spaces, and it’s densely populated. Wild animals can roam thousands of kilometres for food and more. Europe is thousands of kilometres wide, with plenty of people, especially in Northern Italy, Switzerland etc. To bring back wild animals is to bring them close to humans. 


I feel differently about bears and lynx. I saw bears in Giant Sequoia national park and felt no fear. As long as you keep some distance from them you should be safe. The US ensures that people either hang their food, or use bear cans to prevent wild bears from reaching their food. I have read that bears find ways of getting to the food anyway. 


With Lynx I am less afraid because with cats, foxes and other animals, when they see us, they run away. They prefer to run, than to challenge us. I have seen plenty of goat like creatures and felt happy to see them. 


Dogs and wolves are a different matter. Both fill me with real fear. I have just one desire, to climb out of their reach, or find something to shield me. Once I climbed onto a fallen down tree to be some distance from a dog, another time I climbed onto a pillar for a property to be out of reach of dogs. In two cases I just froze. I am afraid of dogs. By association I am scared of dogs as I fear the same behaviour. 


The reason for which I bring up this topic, is not to repeat myself, but rather to comment on the difference in attitude between dogs and wolves, on one side, and bears on the other. 


A single bear threatens a father and son, before killing a jogger and there is talk of whether to be afraid, and whether to cull bears. On the other side we have packs of wolves killing livestock, and getting closer and closer to human habitations and no one is worried. Humans have feared wolves for centuries, for a reason. 


I love the idea of wolves in spaces where you can walk for ten days without seeing humans. I hate the idea of wolves where humans are half a day’s walk away. Is the wildlife such a problem that wolves are justified? 


As a child I wrote a report about wolves, but with time my fear of dogs, and by association wolves, has grown. I’d rather encounter a bear, than a wolf. I have encountered bears, and lived to speak of the experience. 


At the Crux De Van I walked up a foggy hill and come to within metres of a type of goat. At La Dôle too. I have come across deer running across fields cycling, and surprised another deer while walking near some woods. I have seen two or three foxes and more. I love to see wildlife, I just feel a strong fear of dogs and related animals. I want to enjoy walks, without fearing dog, or wolf attacks.  

The COVID-19 Dynamic European Restriction Map

Byrichard

COVID-19 rules, restrictions and regulations are dynamic and changing much like drone rules. In Europe before you fly you should visit the local flight rule maps, to see where current restrictions are.


Information ranges from “You need third party insurance with coverage for up to two million in damages” or “In a town you are allowed up to this altitude, outside of a town, to that altitude, and in these regions you have a military flight corridor, thus a flying ban.


COVID-19 is a rapidly evolving situation so it would make sense to keep a Google Maps layer up to date with current information.


This information could be


  • prevalence of the virus
  • whether the number of cases is rising or declining
  • whether there are barriers or restrictions to entry
  • What are the curfew hours
  • What establishments are authorised to open
  • Where are the closest COVID-19 testing locations
  • Where are the closest Vaccination points
  • What is the hospital bed situation for COVID-19 situation


The demand for such a service is currently world wide and long lived. The motivation for such services may last for at least a few more months, if not seasons and years.


Google, Apple, Facebook, and maybe even Amazon, should work on creating such a service.

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European Identity and Free Roaming

Byrichard

European Identity will benefit greatly from free-roaming. Today roaming fees between European countries have been scrapped. This means that your mobile phone is the same whatever country you go to. It means that you will have the same access to minutes and data. When you travel you will no longer need to change app permissions to reduce data cost. It also means that your images keep backing up via your data plan.

Navigation and gaming

It means that you can use apps like waze, TomTom Go and others as you cross from one country to the next, and the next after that. When you’re playing a game like Ingress, Pokemon Go and others you will no longer need to buy a new sim card for every country. I use Waze in Switzerland and Tomtom go abroad to save on data but with Tomtom Go I only get traffic data when I have data.

Reviews and information

Google Local Guides, TripAdvisor and other apps will benefit from free roaming across Europe because when we travel we visit new restaurants, new bars, new museums, new village squares, hotels and campings. Many of them already offer wifi but now there will be no need for that wifi as we will be able to contribute at the end of the experience rather than in the evening when we get back to where we’re staying.

Walking is one of the key activities when travelling. You can easy get from 20-50,000 steps a day, especially if you’re doing Ingress missions but also as you look for a restaurant that looks or smells okay and with local cars parked in front. The only issue is that in towns cars can’t park in front of restaurants. With free roaming we can check reviews and leave our own feedback.

Roaming Free Europe is great because it means that we no longer need to buy sim cards that we use for a week or two. Switzerland is slowly aligning to roaming free tariffs.

Vancouver live in Europe – Streaming

Byrichard

The European Broadcasting union are providing live coverage of the Vancouver Olympic games to Eurovision member states. There are 6 live channels in Standard definition as well as a channel for certain events in high definition. Also available are the live broadcasts that members of the European broadcasting Union are making available to their home audiences. As a result you have a wealth of streams in a number of languages.

Vancouver live is where you will find this content. I am mentioning this because a lot of blog space and articles are dedicated to covering how the United States are providing streamed content to that part of the world but without demonstrating that streaming also has a place in the European market.

Twitter are stopping SMS

Byrichard

Twitter are stopping all SMS for many territories due to cost. They don’t need to send sms. If they had an s60 application similar to that by Jaiku they would incur no extra costs. We would simply take advantage of our dataplans to download the messages at any time that the application is running.

Worldwide we are going to find that there are a lot of dissapointed users. At the same time the centralised conversation that twitter managed to encourage will spread across a number of platforms. As a result twhirl is a good alternative whilst waiting for things to settle.

If the companies can’t behave then we’ll rely on Air applications to aggregate and monitor what’s going on. I already watch seesmic, twitter, identi.ca and friendfeed with twhirl.

All this to say something simple. If you want me to keep coming to your site provide me with the best user experience possible. If not then I’ll be as uncommitted as possible. So will everyone else

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Euro 2008, the victorious nation of Spain Celebrate

Byrichard

It’s a sunday night in Switzerland and I’m with some friends. Spain were playing Germany and won 1-0, a respectable score. I was there with the phone streaming the celebrations at the Geneva Fanzone in Plainpalais.

Here are the clips

Ten seconds from the end.

Spanish Fans celebrate.

Drumming atmosphere.

Happy girls dancing and the crowd.

Dancing Spanish Flag wearing people.

Because Women aren’t forgotten after all.

Girls dancing, boy texting, more dancing

More dancing

Still celebrating

Leaving the Fanzone

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Mobile spending

Byrichard

Important for global marketers, mobile handsets are the dominant way people access the Web in many emerging markets, as it is far cheaper, says John Gauntt, senior analyst at digital ad tracker eMarketer. With a computer, “The cost of entry to get Internet access is about $1,200 for the PC and broadband; a mobile is less than half the cost.”

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Source

As updated handsets spread and ad effectiveness measures are perfected, worldwide advertisers’ spending on mobile will pass $19 billion in 2012, eMarketer predicts, up from about $3 billion this year. Overall Web ad spending, which includes mobile, is estimated at $45 billion this year. (continued…)

“The paradox right now is that if you’re a hotshot creative (ad worker) and want to push mobile to the limit, you have to go to Europe and Asia.”