digital ecologist (beta)

Seeing What’s Next: “Breaking the Wire” 2004. Christensen

A critical piece here is pricing, mobile technology is only affordable with low capacity data: texting and voice. Video and data is extremely expensive, everywhere. Telcos have already understood that we’re in a mobile, multi-tasking society and therefore it makes sense that we need technology that will support that. However, telecommunication companies are also trying to offset the massive losses from the landlines business, which in a price-cutting world of overshot customers is extremely difficult to do. But telco companies have the resources (as Christensen argues) to really invest and develop the necessary infrastructure to support mobile technology. This brings me to the second critical factor: The infrastructure. The crux with infrastructure is that it is proprietary and therefore is hard to visualize any disruptive technology player able to offset traditional telecommunication companies… other than the government.

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The tragedy of the commons may be why we are in perpetual reach for perfection but we can never reach it, if we did we would destroy ourselves and if give up trying, we would destroys us too. We’re caught. Maybe this is the principle of the continuous state of chaos and change we live in, and I guess this is why the dialectic principles stand: every thesis contain it’s antithesis. Thus, every virus contains its vaccine.

Perhaps the Internet makes the tragedy of commons even more complex than in any other spectrum of life, because with the Internet the “commons” is much bigger, spread- around, and therefore, elusive. Thus the question of regulation of the commons is also more complex; its enforcement… is just unbelievingly difficult. For example, we see many regulatory models in cyber-commons like wikipedia, online games, SecondLife and the millions of online discussion boards that have strict regulations. Some of these cyber-commons control their population growth by only accepting “invites only”, others are open to anyone to join, but they require you to abide to their rules. Some cyber-commons allow anyone to “report” or “flag” a member as a way to enforce regulation. Imagine the conflicts of having a real-life system of flagging people publicly and then a “governmental entity” removing this person from our commons — scary sci-fi? (This reminds me one of the films that changed my perception of the world: Brazil, 1985.)

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• “Communities in Cyberspace”
• The Hong Kongs, New Yorks and Tokyos of the Internet (NYT, 30 October 2007)

The “Communities in Cyberspace” reading reinforces my view that in general the human reactions are similar no matter what technology we are looking. Yes, there are nuances with each one of the applications, but in general we’re still dealing with the same issues of identity, honesty, regulation, quality of communication, etc. One possible explanation is that the technology hasn’t really changed that much (just looks better). For example, Kollock and Smith talk about “usenets” and “newsgroups”, which are not that different than blogs today. But by improving the speed, the range, and controls of online collaborations tools we are seeing a more robust development of these online communities. Though we should not forget, that “online” communities were present in the time of the Telegraph!

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Through the many burned-by-blog-fire examples that Gillmor gives in his chapter “The Gates Come Down,” we get the sense that we are navigating through the waters of transformation of news media, very murky waters that is. The “new” news media is, on a good day, very transparent; on a bad day, an untangled yarn of petty debates that does nothing but render journalists, bloggers and readers exhausted. I can understand Gillmor’s argument and I sympathize with him: it is difficult to open up the gates to the public and, as he demonstrates, we don’t really have a choice — the gates ARE open. So you’d better learn to swim. Now, the thing is that nobody has a formula on how. Those who have claimed that you just need to be “open” have discovered that is a much rougher and unpredictable process than that.

As Gillmor mentions, news media earned their power before the Internet existed, and now it’s confronted with a shift in power, they are not the only one with distribution potential, image or even data gathering. The audience can now express themselves in the same terms, just as fast and as wide spread. This, I believe, is the center of the tension. It’s all about a shift in power, and we’re all trying to assert our agency accordingly. I don’t agree with Gillmor on looking at this trying to assess if it’s a good or bad thing, or if it’s going to improve or not journalism. The point is that it’s the way the world is now and we have to adapt, we have to make our choices and we have to reassert what we believe on, who we are and how we associate. There are pros and cons to new media, as there is with everything.

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McLuhan (1964, 2003) The Medium is the Message.

McLuhan’s book had been sitting in my library for over a year. I tried to read it a few times, but I got flustered with his whimsical writing. I needed a little more context. And context is what the whole McLuhan debate is about. Before I ever read McLuhan, I had heard so much about him… so many quotes!! Now, I know one cannot read McLuhan without context. One cannot understand his quotes without the full context of his writing. And yes, it takes at least two reads to get it, and it’s very necessary to read other people talking about McLuhan, to get McLuhan. But he knew this. He was surrounded by the 60s: Existentialism, avant-garde, Modernism and postmodernist philosophy, and, oh yes, Art! When McLuhan talks about cubism breaking down all the illusions of time and perspective in the picture plane, that is exactly what he does with his writing, which is why it’s so complex. The more context you get, the more you start to understand him. So I couldn’t help but make all kinds of associations with art (minimalism and pop art), literature (hello, James Joyce and Borges), and films (Goddard and Woody Allen -note McLuhan has a cameo in Annie Hall).

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Readings:

• “As We May Think,” by Vannevar Bush from The Atlantic Monthly, July 1945.
• “Whither Moore’s Law” in Christensen (Seeing What’s Next)

Christensen Morse’s Law could renamed Bill Gates’ “640K ought to be enough for anybody” law. Though I found this to be an interesting case study that disputes the general notion of endless need to continue to transmit more data with the same (or smaller) conductor, I think Christensen’s warning should be taken with a grain of salt. In my view, possible overshooting in the semiconductor industry can be explanation of why the market fragments and customization rises. This is not a unique instance, it’s a phenomenon that applies to many goods and services precisely because of the one-size-doesn’t- fit-all model that Christensen argues in earlier chapters. There are always overshoots and undershots he says, so maintaining a mass appeal becomes harder over time. I would even argue that even if you managed to have the quick strategic response to diversify your products/services for all types of consumers that it may not be the most financially sound decision. Some companies actually do better maintaining their expense/return ratio by focusing on one type of consumers and letting go of others, such is the rationale for luxury goods.

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• Christensen, Seeing What’s Next - Part 1 - Using Theory to Analyze
• “Ecologizing Mobile Media,” by Howard Rheingold. 2004.
• “Determining Uses and Gratifications for the Internet,” from Decision Sciences, Vol 35 No 2, March 2004.

The readings by Rheingold and Christensen provided me with frameworks to identify key factors present in the evolution of technology in the marketplace, and I believe they can be used jointly to evaluate upcoming change, rather than viewing them as two separate approaches. The third reading (Stafford) was more of psychological approach to the process of technology adoption.

Although both Rheingold and Christensen use the telecommunication industry as a case study, I interpreted Rheingold’s application of Neil Postman’s “Ten Principles of Technology” to mobile phones, as model for why innovation and change happens in an industry segment. On the other hand, Christensen shows us a model of how to evaluate “what’s next”.

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Readings:

• Winston, Media Technology and Society - “Introduction” and “Chapter 1: The Telegraph”
• Fidler, Mediamorphasis - “Technologies of the Third Mediamorphosis”
• The Economist - “How the Internet killed the phone business,” 17 September 2005

Patterns is the theme that emerged from this week’s readings. The central premise of Winston’s book is to look at the evolution of communication technology and identify patterns/models of change by tracing key technological inventions, and studying the social dynamics that drove their adoption –he even makes some rather confusing diagrams to illustrate the process.

It’s a common practice to look at history to understand the current situation. And yet, how come we are unable to predict the future? I think human evolution is more akin to Theory of Chaos; it’s so vast we are unable to predict it. Historians have helped create the illusion the past is a linear set of facts that are in direct consequence of one another. I think it’s just the result of looking at the past through narrow lenses (i.e. only looking at inventions by men in developed countries), not that it’s a useless activity, but one should recognize its limitations (Winston saves himself by admitting some limitation at the end of his introduction).

However, I agree that finding patterns in the past helps us better understand the world because it offers us an interpretation of why things happened they way they did. Such is the case of the suppression and control dynamics described in the readings on the advent of radio, telegraph, and VOIP.

What is evident is that there is a vast set of dynamics that converge behind every major technological advance. And that even though communication is a very basic human need, it is much more complex than it appears.

Questions to ponder:
(1) How and why have we capitalized (and developed enormous industries from it) the basic and “free” act of communicating with one another?
(2) Can, and will, the commercial communication industry coexist with the non-commercial communication activity on the same “stage”?
(3) Can the unorganized and uncontrolled nature of the Internet continue to survive in the face of the organized power of capital society? And what will we miss out on, if this does not happen?