Web 2.0 too clean?

Who can argue that the web 2.0 hype caused websites to look 'too' clean, too shiny and a feeling of plastic all around.

Identity is important. Therefore style and content should go hand in hand to give the surfer the feeling that what you're offering or saying is more unique than the colour/plastic look.

So here some tips:

How to destroy the web 2.0 look.

Does 'Media' equal 'News'?

Is the expression 'The Media' simply another way of saying the News?

- I think not.

Media is the plural of medium, which is a means of conveying a message, a means of communication. A tool which we use many times a day. These media include anything from television, to newspapers, magazines, the internet protocol, billboards etc. There are many more messages being transmitted towards the viewer or the listener than just the news. This includes entertainment, advertising, to be short, any message sent by a sender to a receiver. These receivers can be be many in the case of a few to many model (traditional broadcasting like television or newspapers) or a many to many model (like the internet).

If we continue this line of thinking we are all part of what is commonly referred to as the 'media'. In this age of the internet and the endless possibilities to share our opinions, stories and rants through blogs (There are so many free services like Google Blogger, or Wordpress ...), social networking tools (MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, ...), instant messengers (MSN Messenger, AIM, ICQ ...), short message updaters (Twitter) and Wiki's (with for example wikipedia) ... We're all our own publishers, senders of information and sharers of thoughts.

Dictionary entries: Medium, Media

Facebook Employees know what you are doing.

While Facebook doesn't allow the publishing of profiles. They themselves can look at any of them and see everything a user does or who's profile he or she visits.

We users can only see those people's profiles who are our friends. But we shouldn't forget that there's an allseeing eye watching over us. There's a lot of information in these profiles about every user and should we trust coorporations to keep our information safe?

A top US intelligence official says that citizens should change their notion of privacy to match that of their governement. Privacy should be regarded as a framework as a system of laws, rules and customs. Instead people should focus on how the information, that will be gathered anyway, will be safeguarded.

There are fragments of each person spread all over the world. Personal data in governement computers concerning every part of your life. Information about your financial status in banks and financial institutions. And now information about your personal status in the Facebook database.

While Facebook is obviously not the only party we should realise that everything we do can be watched. When will that time come that some people will be able to see everything at once ...

Sources: Valleywag, Ars Technica

Online identities

Rheingold:

"... are relationships and commitment as we know them even possible in a
place where identities are fluid? ... We reduce and encode our identities as
words on a screen, decode, an unpack the identities of others."

and Mark Poster:

"Without visual cues about gender, age, ethnicity and social status,
conversations open up in directions that otherwise might be avoided."

Both in "Cyberspace, Cyberbodies, Cyberpunk", p. 90

If we relate this to Facebook where we have all the information of the other persons if they are added to our friends list? In how far would we communicate in the same way as we did when we had an anonymous nickname and avator, not linked to our identities in Real Life. If everything can be linked to our person, will this decrease a sense of need for personal expression? Will opinions that don't agree with that of the general public be closed down in fear or repercussions?

There is something that could be said about the safety of anonimity. That you can say what's on your heart, without having to think about the future and outcomes that are impossible to be foreseen at this moment .. Here comes to mind the posting of pictures where you're drunk, partying, smoking pot or just anything that might conflict with future interests of companies or other entities.

The need for pseudonyms might be greater then we think.

Flock

There is something quite strange with being able to check on your friends updates, browser flickr, and stumble through YouTube in the same browser window. For this I installed the beta version of the browser Flock, the browser with a social flavour. We'll see how this turns out and if this changes my online behaviour.

Blogged with Flock