Perverted by Language - The Mutation

Perverted by Language - The Mutation

What does phatic language itself represent? The constant usage of phatic in terms of status updates does represent a dialogue being entered into, but it results in a parallel discourse as opposed to real discourse. Essentially, people are talking at one another, or an ill-defined notion of the ‘public’. It was Soren Kierkegaard who maintained that the public is people in general, but no one in particular. It is the thing that has the majority interest, the received wisdom, the widespread urge. It is a major force in our lives and thoughts, but no one is it. You can’t pick out a single person and say that they are the public.

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LinkedIn: Social Media Today Group

LinkedIn: Social Media Today Group


Its always the last place you look.  I have been active in Twitter and Facebook and just expanded LinkedIn recently.  What surprised me is that it is LinkedIn, full of its adult professionals that is the pit of spammers and scammers. 

Really, the idea to use a great tool like e-mail, or a social network, to try and push some impossible business idea that is not well worked out, is not something teens or people interested in seeing who among their high school friends is gay are likely to do. 

The interesting thing about Web 2.0 is that it is pretty safe in the hands of normal users.  Social Networks become spams pits when business, that is people who think of themselves primarily as business people, get involved.

Presently I am more willing to wait for all my business contacts to join Facebook or twitter than try and make a go of it on what I can only see is the next version of highschool.com.  And it does not even have an API or a good UI.  Its funny that all the software business experts are using the worst software tool.

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Week in review

New weeks sees the SharePoint best practices conference in London.
http://www.sharepointbestpractices.co.uk/

I am not going to be there but some great partners like K2, Code and Content, Quest, and Microsoft press will be there.

This week so the world learning that science had established that going on Facebook made for not only more productive workers, but significantly higher productive workers. It seems that short breaks help produce better concentration. I would also add that most traditional employees simply escape all day in to fantasy whereas facebook keeps them focused.

Will bosses start to change policies on these sites. It is my impression that generally in the short run business is not about money but power. The thing about a market is in time it becomes about money, and we will see major changes in coming years.

Also this week we learned that Jimmy Wales was giving up on a Wiki Search.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7976275.stm

After failing to touch search Wales, the man who gave away one of the biggest ideas in computer history will now try, and fail, to create a wiki social network.

Its hard to feel sorry for a guy since in my opinion his determination to pursue an open source alternative to Google (which he would be able to profit from unlike Wikipedia) was pursued at the cost of making Wikipedias search better, or lets say less bad. The end result is that Google is bring Wikipedias free content in its searches where it can make money off it.

The thing I think about web 2.0 is this. Someone is going to make the money, if you make a massive site with millions of hours of human labour someone is going to make money. If you selflessly refuse to make profit, like the Soviet Politburo that "runs" Wikipedia, someone else like Google will just make it for you.

Could Web 2.0 become "Web squared"?

Could Web 2.0 become "Web squared"?

That was the conundrum raised by the man who actually popularised the Web 2.0 moniker that many have grown to love and hate in equal part.

But during internet veteran Tim O'Reilly's keynote speech at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, he looked back over the past five years to demonstrate that the "baby we built with technology is growing up and it's starting to go to work".

He told the assembled audience of developers that the web was more than just a fun place to hang out and catch up with friends on Facebook or MySpace.

As proof of the "maturation" of Web 2.0 technologies, Mr O'Reilly described how they were increasingly interacting with the world through the use of sensors.

As proof, he cited the Google search application that predicted where flu would hit next, an energy metering aggregator called Amee and an internet sensor that Twittered people automatically when their plants needed watering.

"We are starting to see a co-ordination of these sensors. That is the future," stated Mr O'Reilly, the founder of O'Reilly Media, which organised the conference along with TechWeb.

He then told the audience that this led to a formulation "moving beyond Web 2.0 as it really engages with the world, it really becomes something profoundly different and we are calling it Web squared".

At that point, a slide came up with the words "Web 2.0 + World = Web Squared."

Alive and well

Certainly the Web 2.0 title is one that even Nate Elliott, a principal analyst for Forrester, feels is sounding tired.

"Yeah, it's time to call it the Web 7.0 conference or what about 9.2," he joked.

Co-conference chair Jennifer Pahlka from TechWeb acknowledged that the title definitely seemed to get under people's skin.

Robot achieves scientific first

A laboratory robot called Adam has been hailed as the first machine in history to have discovered new scientific knowledge independently of its human creators.

Adam formed a hypothesis on the genetics of bakers’ yeast and carried out experiments to test its predictions, without intervention from its makers at Aberystwyth University.

Hey, boss! Facebook makes better employees - Tech and gadgets- msnbc.com

The University of Melbourne study showed that people who use the Internet for personal reasons at work are about 9 percent more productive that those who do not.

Hey, boss! Facebook makes better employees - Tech and gadgets- msnbc.com

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As new social communities emerge, what happens to old real communities

Story just something to reflect upon:


Apr 1, 6:33 AM (ET)

By SEANNA ADCOX

SANDY RUN, S.C. (AP) - Mary Sue Merchant died of natural causes in a tightly locked house on 25 acres in this small community, with only a dog for company. Now her small town is reflecting on why no one noticed for 18 months.

Nobody knew the reclusive widow was gone - not even when the house was sold for back taxes while her decomposing body lay inside. Sometime later, the lonely dog died of thirst in the same room.

"We didn't know this lady existed," Sheriff Thomas Summers said.

Only after the 72-year-old woman's body was found last week did it occur to neighbors they hadn't seen her in a while. And some people wonder if they've lost a fundamental connection of small-town life.

"We've lost the community," said the Rev. Neil Flowers, who plans to talk about Merchant on Sunday at Beulah United Methodist Church, a few miles from where Merchant died. "We do our own thing. We lead busy lives. We go and go and go ... and stay within our comfort zone."

Wikipedia founder abandons search

Wikia Search, a project created by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales with the aim of creating a community-led search engine, has been ditched.

He announced the decision to "close the doors" on the project in a blog post.

Wikia Search "has not been enjoying the kind of success that we hoped for," said Mr Wales.

g20 Photosynth

Cassandra: Twitter is for tweets

Source: Cassandra: Twitter is for tweets

The postings on Twitter are called “tweets” and the idea is that it’s a way to stay connected with friends, co-workers and strangers by allowing brief status updates to be read by people who are following you.

Ariel Leve

flickr.com - Traffic Details from Alexa: The rise of Twitter

flickr.com - Traffic Details from Alexa

As Web 2.0 tools go Flickr and YouTube are the old hands.  Yahoo, I have to say has failed against Google's YouTube.  When you think that everyone in the world has a digital camera and can take digital pictures that can be posted on Flickr in SMS, and that it was one of the earliest flagship Web 2.0 its stagnation against a more restricted YouTube is a bit sad. 

But Fickr has never helped people to achieve anything with its tool.

Facebook is a new comer which has recently become and established player much larger than Flickr.  Not because it offers much of anything, but because its easy to use and offers the community a tool where it can own its contacts and discussions.

Its all about ownership in Web 2.0  and we can see what I think to be the ultimate Web 2.0 tool: twitter.  Twitter I can't praise enough as a concept, and watch as it becomes the latest to break past Flickr in the major Web 2.0 field.

I've used Flickr now for about 5 years I think, and I have to say that in that time it has offered almost no improvement in function.   Actually I like Flickr 2004 much more than Flickr 2008 and I almost never use the product.

The main problem is Yahoo.  Yahoo does not get Web 2.0 and I hope Microsoft does take it over and bring some business sense to the product.  Microsoft does not seem to know it but it always has been doing "Web 2.0", Microsoft provides the standard tools for users to communicate with, and it can extend Office to THE web 2.0 tool.

I was a bit sad to see Azure does not yet have a branded Office section.  Office Live IMHO should not just be a PART of the mostly failed Live.com launch, but should be its own brand on the Internet.

flickr.com - Traffic Details from Alexa

Though Live's web presence is strong I find nobody comes to my blogs via Live.com even though I am blogging about SharePoint and Live.com!!!!  I am using Live.com myself and its kind of a lonely experience.

Live is hotmail, IM and maybe Office and I think rather than pushing some strange Azure concept Microsoft should push extending and integrating Office via the Cloud and SharePoint.

And that's my penny

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What is Azure? Should I care about it?

After a few days evaluation of Azure information I feel confident in these answers.

Azure is a marketing concept more than a technology. Microsoft is trying to transfer Windows in to the Cloud in order to translate its power in client and enterprise to the Cloud. What Azure promises to be is the OS of the Cloud. I have yet to hear anyone say they need an OS of the Cloud, in fact part of the entire thing about the Cloud is to abstract OS and deal with services. Microsoft is presenting Azure as a platform that can host services while abstracting data center infrastructure.

Should you care? Well it would be nice if there was a demo that worked. What I have seen on Microsoft page looks to me to be Hyper-V branded Azure. I can't for the life of me understand how its much different than just visualization. So until Microsoft can clearly present something you can do with Azure you can't do without why should you care?

I am deeply split on this technology. If Azure is a "everywhere" OS replacement to Windows that connects machines, enterprises and Clouds in a seamless abstraction then cool. If Azure is a desperate effort to insert a costly Microsoft technology in to the Cloud than no.

I guess its up to Microsoft to prove the technology over the coming months. Today it can't afford to wait, there are plenty of Cloud players who can do this stuff.

I mean I just rented a hosted service for $40 a year, unlimited storage and a vague promise of it being Green. Apache, Linux, MySql and PHP. There are some nice WCM tools in place. Beyond just the threat from Google and other new players, someone might just introduce a set of open source tools that run and host services, including .NET services, for free and just as good as Azure. Azure today is a lot of command lines!!!!

But I do rant. It will be interesting to see how this all comes out.

My own bet.....just for fun I will say there is a 65% chance you will never here of Azure again and a 95% chance the brand will be dropped in 2 years: gone the way of Bob, Vista, Encarta, and PerformancePoint.

I am sorry but this just looks like a doomed Microsoft hatchet job. Sorry if this offends anyone but that is what it looks like.