Internet Icons Are Merely Universal Traffic Signage
An acquaintance of mine asked a really great question on Twitter last week about why we use the “favorite” feature on Twitter—he uses it more as a bookmark and I explained that, for me, it’s a “a non-verbal way of saying, ‘I’m in like with you,’ insofar as you agree with/like said thought.” Amidst this conversation was the somewhat late hullabaloo over Gmail’s redesign (I say late because the redesign leaked in October and has been available for usage for some time now) and its utilization of symbols over text in the new interface. While I don’t think the Gmail redesign deserves discourse, the trend toward universal virtual “signage” is worth a moment or five.
Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen a surge of icons/emoticons/shorthand takeover text conversations—even online. Suddenly, we have the usual code emoticons, hashtags, the reblog/replay icon, stars (which serve to favorite, bookmark, and flag for later usage), and the ubiquitous heart. They all mean different things to those who use them and yet they all somehow communicate the same thing, “I’m in like with you.”
I use the starring feature in Google reader a lot, usually as a flag to come back to X-post because 1) I just really dug the post or 2) I want to reference something of it in a blog post of my own (or other project.) I also use the star as a “favoriting” tool in Twitter, but not necessarily just to denote that I like the tweet…it serves to say that I connected with what was shared, that I connected with the tweeter, or to denote that I like the anecdote, but it’s not necessarily something I’d share with my followers. Other platforms offer other options…Tumblr’s heart (i.e. like) “button” is a tricky one for the fact that it doesn’t always equate to finding something positive in what’s being said (much like Facebook’s “liking” feature.) Even tagging can have a social aspect to it beyond optimized search—it can be part of an inside joke between friends or a collection of thoughts tied to a general consensus.
Like traffic signage, these icons provide guidance along the virtual roads of the internet age. Google’s transition to icons over text is merely a contribution to and acknowledgement of the non-verbal line of universal communication that comes with signage—no matter how one is using said signage.
While starring or “hearting” a blog post or won’t do the justice that a written comment will, but both signal the same message: we share a common line of connection and understanding.
Ethics and Information as a Commodity
Information has become a commodity. One cannot ignore the debates about information shared online on a personal basis, as well as the more serious situations such as Wikileaks and Bradley Manning.
I find myself conflicted when it comes to these discussions because the question is so much more than what information should be shared and should not be shared and by whom. On one hand, I believe that information should be free and available. While I understand the need to keep classified government documents from the public eye in order to protect the safety of others, part of me has cheered at the efforts of Wikileaks. I have cheered in part because I challenge the motives behind efforts made by any government to “protect” it’s own efforts and population. Consequentially, however, we must ask who specifically is/was affected by the release of said data.
On the other hand, the fact that our level of personal privacy is progressively disintegrating troubles me. The theft or usage of information gleaned from social platforms—often by the platforms themselves—disgusts me when efforts have been made by users to protect that information. Companies say that we voluntarily give them the information and it’s our responsibility to safeguard it. I support that. What I don’t support are the actions taken by these companies to exploit loopholes in order to get what they want in terms of social status by way of data hijacking.
What it comes down to are ethics and ethics applied at both the micro level and the macro level. Should people have the right to know what their government is doing—especially if it involves things such as torture or genocide? I think so. Should people have the right to pilfer through your search history on Google simply because they can gain access to it? I think not. These are two questions of ethical behavior on opposite sides of the spectrum whose answers might mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
Ethics and context will forever be at opposition with one another. No matter how much the world would love for life’s happenings to remain black and white, the experience of life itself is subjective and conditional. In terms of the transfer and distribution of information, should we not be questioning the factors and environment of a given scenario before passing judgment? Why then do we fail to do this more oft than not?
Net Neutrality and Access to Content
The media industry is whining and pissing off all the Googleheads. Apparently, several networks are blocking access to their content when it’s being connected to via GoogleTV. Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures in NYC wrote about this twice over the last week and stirred up some opinions with his viewpoint on net neutrality. Let me preface this with saying that I am not a traditional tech person and my understanding of net neutrality is from a different school of thought than most of the individuals in the tech and online world.
Here is what I comprehend: net neutrality and its proponents advocate that the government and ISPs should remain unprejudiced when it comes to online content -meaning that the government and ISPs can’t interfere with content simply because they don’t like it. For a more lengthy explanation, anyone can head over to Wikipedia and search for net neutrality.
There’s no word from the networks -such as CBS, ABC, and Hulu- as to why there’s the block. There’s also not too much specifically coming from Google camp -yet… but I don’t think this necessarily has to do with net neutrality.
A network blocking access to it’s content when accessed via X-platform has less to do with net neutrality and more to do with web syndication. Syndication has been around for decades in the entertainment world -from radio syndication during the early 20th century to television and film syndication over the last thirty or forty years- and it’s big business. Between selling the rights for a certain show to air in syndication to format sales (e.g. Britain’s Popstars show and American Idol = result of format sale), people make lots of money. Some shows and films even earn more money in syndication than they did during the original airing, such as the original Baywatch. Because of the financial aspects involved, of course networks are going to get fussy about which platforms have access to their content -they want to make sure they get paid!
I don’t suspect that the block for GoogleTV will be a permanent thing, however. Hulu and Netflix have continually grown their inventories, so it’ll only be a matter of time before Google has access, too -it’s only getting so much fuss because it concerns GOOGLE.
One portal to the entire world…
Consider the following scenario: sometime in the future, everything will be in digital format. Nothing will be printed at all -not your bills, not your contracts, nothing. Sometime in the near future, you won’t store anything on your own computer either. Your music collection, your pictures, your “newspaper”, your personal library -all of it will live in its own personal home in the Cloud.
Imagine carrying all of your personal information -absolutely EVERYTHING- in the palm of your hand or in your pocket and only needing a single passcode and ID to access it.
You take out your smartphone, open the main application, and enter your login information. One main login for everything. Your bank account is there, your mortgage contracts are there, every possible piece of information for your entire academic history is there (transcripts, records, report cards, term papers, etc), your travel history, your credit report, your personal library, your music collection, EVERYTHING. You take a class and the instructor uploads the class information. You automatically have it upon coming online. You don’t go to website and put in special login information to gain access to it. What if you only need a single ID and passcode to access all of this instead of fifty million different passwords that you somehow have to keep track of? Or what if there’s a built-in application that magically remembers every single password and instantly logs on to all the applications all at the same time, upon powering up?
Maybe Google and Apple have teamed up to make this happen. Maybe the government fits in here some place. Maybe not. With everything moving toward efficiency -mobile devices that serve as stereos, computers, phones, cameras, calendars, address books, televisions, and more- this notion can’t really be that far off. Do we trust whoever decides to put this into motion? Should we? Should we embrace the technology when it comes about or all vow to become Luddites?
Think about it -information is power and whoever has control over the information has power over the masses.
Privacy, social media, and Google
Sometimes we keep our social profiles separate for very valid reasons and social media platforms—or technology companies—shouldn’t circumvent those efforts as a means of upping their own social capital value or out of some need to be more “socially-connected.”
What I post and the reasons behind what I post to Twitter are entirely different than what I post to Facebook. What I post to this blog is not always something that I would write about for the paper. Why? Because I have different audiences on every platform and frankly, I have a need for some level of privacy in what has become a very public world. What a novel idea.
Privacy on many of these sites continues to be a point of discussion. Whether it’s utilizing a secured url for login pages on Facebook or Twitter or having the ability to turn off the friendly little cookies that allow you to comment via your Facebook page about articles, videos, and whatever other schlock you might be looking at, privacy is important. People don’t like their information being rifled through—no matter what’s its being used for or not being used for.
Google is the latest to initiate a new “social feature” without being upfront. I run a search on Google this evening and guess what pops up?
When signed into Google, the platform automatically searches for public profiles on social networks that might match yours and it does this without asking your permission to do so first. Doesn’t this sound a little bit like the passive privacy adjustments Facebook’s been crucified for in the past? My Twitter profile is public at this point, but I make a point of privatizing other profiles that I have for the purpose of filtering audiences. I’ve made a point of disallowing Google to keep track of my search history. I’ve now made a point of barring Google from searching for profiles to “connect” to my Google account. I did these things to maintain that minuscule level of privacy that I’d like to keep without having to completely take everything down.
This isn’t really so much about Google, though. This is about the fact that the concept of privacy has gone away. Not only is it not given most of the time, but increasingly it’s assumed that no one really wants any privacy. We know that we’ve given you our information. We’ve utilized the tools you’ve given us to keep confidential what we deem necessary. How dare you thumb your nose at us in order to get what you want. What happened to personal and professional ethics?