Reading Reflection VII: wired…not!

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.

The common’s cattle

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.)

Communities Online

• “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!

Small Group Presentation Report

My presentation went generally well with the three groups, although the first twpo group were more engaged. On the last minute, it occurred to me to ask the second and third group what they had learned and though about McLuhan from their previous groups, so I could customize the presentation, however I don’t feel I was able to customize as much as I wanted to. I think I needed more time to question them, but I was too concerned about time. So my estimation turned out to be fine for reviewing McLuhan key points, but I failed to account for time for the video. I also felt I was very high-level with the related article.