digital ecologist (beta)

Every where I turn there seems to be a foundation, organization or center developing curriculum to teach kids how to develop their digital skills. I confess I’m very skeptical of whether we really need this, though I’m recognize that there are tremendous divides among the different social, economical and mental abilities among young people and perhaps this is the main reason why we need to develops new educational standards that include digital skills. Not everyone can pick up a computer and figure out how to blog…

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We (my MCDM classmates) been having a discussion in flipthtemedia.com on what we understand of the concept of media, and what is ‘flip’ the media. Although the discussion quickly turned to the practical application of the blog scope and it’s organization, there were a few reactions from my classmates worthy of note, in particular John Liston really hit it in his comment:

“That being said I see “flip the media” as a new way of thinking. I cringe at using the cliché of “democratizing the media” but it seems as if that is the whole idea. The ability of the common person to share the news without the gatekeeper seems to be at the very heart of what we are doing. I don’t think we should be hung up on certain technology but rather the phenomenon that each and every person has access to news from everywhere and is able to contribute to the conversation. Technology is just a tool, the idea that is becoming affordable to all is the revolution.

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Recently I’ve heard more and more complaints of mobile spam, including NY Times David Pogue’s complaint about Verizon’s spam, and it got me thinking how ineffective CAN SPAM law has been –it is ILLEGAL to spam mobile devices without explicit customer consent (OPT-IN). I have not seen much evidence of decline in email Spam since the law was enacted. My experience tells me that only companies that were big or famous enough to attract a lawsuit and risk paying the CAN SPAM hefty fines (and the negative brand impact) made an effort to comply with the CAN SPAM law for email. So the only somewhat effective measure of SPAM control are ISPs/email filters. Hence, the FTC and FCC are pressuring mobile industry leaders to come up with some filter controls that put back the control on the consumer, specially because we PAY for the ‘unwanted commercial messages’ (aka SMS SPAM).

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NY Times David Pogue’s review of the Flip continues to attract a lot of reaction. See the follow up post ‘Why There Aren’t more Flips“. Funny how this little thing can create some much reaction. It’s premise is SIMPLICITY (even though sometimes it fails to deliver on that). This principle simplicity seems to the key to success when it come to technology and it’s most iconic example: the iPod.

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