RSSAfloat on the endless news tide
By Angela Gunn | Published June 26, 2009, 7:12 PM
This episode of Recovery is brought to you by second bananas. Ed McMahon knew he was one, but I'll bet Farrah Fawcett would have been surprised how things worked out. (What, too soon?)
There's an application just launching into beta called thisMoment, and I've had a tab open for it all week in hope that I'll catch some quiet time to try it out. Harry McCracken at Technologizer got there first, and he describes it as "part social network, part media sharing site, and part Facebook application."
It looks a little like some of the Digital Past to Digital Presence projects I saw last winter at Microsoft Research. ThisMoment -- again, I'm going by Harry's description, but you will encounter no finer tech observer anywhere -- is based around photos and videos (yours and other people's), which one tags, annotates and shares with others. You could work up something semi-private, like a collection of images and memories in the wake of a family reunion, or you could cast your lot with everyone else who went to Bonnaroo and recreate that larger experience, minus the $5 bottles of water.
A lovely idea. So what would it look like if we put the last week in there? Not just the Michael Jackson stuff -- there's already plenty -- but the whole thing and what the shared experience was.
Because we've sure got video -- Neda bleeding out, the Thriller video, Ed McMahon laughing at the Johnny Carson's "Carnac the Magnificent" routines, the crowds gathering in front of the UCLA Med Center and the Apollo, Mark Sanford's unendurably awkward press conference. We've got pictures -- Farrah in that red swimsuit, Michael Jackson's evolution from adorable kid to good-looking guy to monstrosity, all the avatars and icons that turned green in support of Iran's protesters.
And good grief, have we got annotation and tags. All week long, Twitter and Facebook have been providing their acolytes with the sense of bobbing on a great sea of humanity. Events splash in and ripple. Odd things come to the surface. Weird rumors stink in the sun like kelp (seriously, people, Jeff Goldblum did not fall off a cliff; stop making stuff up). The tide undulates -- Michael Jackson's a punchline, Michael Jackson's a tragic figure, Michael Jackson's the top artist today on blip.fm and BitTorrent; Sanford's a weirdo, Sanford's a liar and a hypocrite, Sanford didn't deserve the humiliation of having his love letters read out in public. And strange, mythical creatures float by: A mourning Lisa Marie Presley posts to her blog with an angry, sincere glimpse at that strange marriage to that strange man.
All this has happened before, of course. Stuff transpires, and we rush to the virtual barricades. But this week felt different, because there was simply no letup. We were one big real-time sea of reaction and information trafficking. And a remarkable portion of the news was stuff we broke ourselves: TMZ was, ironically, perhaps the most "mainstream" of the leaders on each of this week's big stories.
In fact, that may be the most important takeaway of all. TMZ had the drop on the Michael Jackson story, but a lot of people -- me included -- waited for the LA Times to make it official. Well, turns out TMZ and Harvey "People's Court" Levin had their facts straight and did fine work following the trail -- and, like the sources following Iran and the week's other events, it never stopped coming, with new sources picking up the thread as others stepped offline for whatever reason. There was no "news cycle"; there was only news, compiled iteratively as facts could be acquired.
In contrast, some of our more mainstream news outlets couldn't be bothered to show up as news broke over the weekend (I'm looking at you, MSNBC). Accuracy and reliability for online news sources is trending up, while non-online sources are dropping the ball repeatedly. At some point, these trend lines will cross. That time just might be now. (And how ironic that MSNBC, originally the child of a tech firm and a communications giant, is the symbol of the old system's fall.)
I'm not claiming that Twitter is your new BBC, or even your new Jon Stewart. As a press colleague put it the other day, Twitter is a source of news tips, not news. But something in the sea of online information changed this week. Mark the waterline. You'll want to remember it later. "This moment," indeed.
Let your geek flag fly and have a great weekend.
I love how people are crying hysterically over Michael Jackson, thus proving they think they are less important than a stranger they have probably never met. You have to love the unimportant sheep.
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|I love John Dvorak's quote " There's a vast amount of information on the internet, too bad 90% of it is wrong."
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|I heard a very interesting report today, which indicated that the vast majority of people who first heard the news of Michael Jackson's death via Twitter or Facebook turned on their TV sets to CNN, FOX, MSNBC, or one of the other mainstream media outlets to confirm that the story was really true and then learn more.
The report noted that people were less likely to accept a tweet or post on Facebook as confirmed fact without double-checking to see if the story was really true, meaning that while news may travel fast...facts do not travel quite as fast.
Also, @ Angela
I am pleased to report that the mailman appeared on Friday morning with the package I had been expecting from BN and I want to thank you for your efforts to ensure the process. was seen through to completion.
In fact, it arrived just before I leave for vacation on Monday, where I'll be in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York in a secluded area with no TV, radio, cell phones, newspapers, computers, hand-held devices, email, etc.
We will be completely disconnected, which is my idea of a real vacation.
My best wishes to all at BN and on the forum for a very happy, healthy and safe 4th of July holiday. ;)
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|respectfully, what is your point?
i don't see anyone being afloat on a sea of information, because its easy enough to stand on furtile ground by switching off the computer, tv or radio.
in my opinion, pieces of information on the internet are like a school of tiny silver fish, glistening as they instinctively change their course to confuse their predators.
so it might be fair to say that everyone is a virtual barracuda - highly selective of what they are hungry for.
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|I honestly don't give a sht if you think I'm sissy, but when I got news of MJ's death, I have to admit I had to wipe a few tears off my face (don't recall EVER doing that for ANY celeb). What a poor guy...such a naive pure soul... Abused as a kid, falsely accused, persecutad by public, humiliated, had low self esteem regardless of how much ppl adored him (as exhibited by his attempts to always look "better"), etc...
I'm trying to remember the song he sang in the back of the SUV as he was arrested. I think it was some gospel song but I'm not sure... Anyone knows/remembers?
.........mark of an innocent man:...........
Sources also told Friedman that Jackson's camp has been preparing to face such accusations for months.
They plan to hold the boy's mother up to severe scrutiny, and will likely argue that when Jackson tried to end his financial support of the boy and his family, the mother became, quoting a Jackson insider, "a scorned woman."
"She's very screwed up," said one source. "There's videotape of her acting weird, too. And Michael was very kind to her, even getting an apartment for her boyfriend."
The Jackson team's argument will be, according to sources, that when the boy's mother was told by Jackson's people that the free ride was over, she ran to a lawyer.
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|redacted by poster.
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|Thank you Mz. Gunn for a good piece and I especially like your last sentences:
"Mark the waterline. You'll want to remember it later. "This moment," indeed."
Everyone here (for the most part) has tremendous knowledge of computers and their workings . I sometimes stand or sit in awe of your knowledge. But I hope that in this rush to benchmark and advocate this or that, we never forget that it is the uniquely human experience that allows technology to transfixed and then transform us in a moment. Sometimes we need to change the filters we've put on but without the human experience we are left with nothing but wires and circuit boards.
In my many moments, the most important one came in the 60's when for some reason, I changed from a gangling basketball fanatic to a passionate advocate for Civil Rights and the Anti-war movement. What move me? Yes technology but more impotently, the use of that technology to transform me .
So, in typical BLt30 fashion, I leave you with an off-the wall thing (no offense Facebook): a poem
A Curriculum for Poetry
1) Walk in the October moon.
2)Dream.
3)WAKE UP!
4 Look for ground luminosity in every living thing,
and under the moving marks on paper.
5 Make a rosary out of your scars. Pray it.
6) make peace with the fact that the sun will explode in 1.1 billion years, melting everything, then shrinking into some kind of dwarf or other, leaving nothing but a bunch of frozen dust floating around in the cold dark.
7) Eat more spinach.
8)Accept the fact that we are all made of stardust
our little lives are held in pace by the specific gravity
of the stories we spin.
9) Spin a new story
10) Remember-Truth is heavier than fiction.
11) Cut the hand open and let the heart speak for itself.
12) Love. Love it all. Let its mortality tear the heart to
bits. let go. then love it all. allover again.13) When feeling like a fool, strive to be the perfect fool.
14) Descend into hell, but always be home in time
for supper.
13) Write it all down.
Written by Claudia Mauro
what does it mean? that is up to each of us
wires, motherboards and benchmark = Nothingness
wires, motherboards, benchmarking PLUS that "moment" that transform us = Greatness and mortality. In each person here, these qualities lie if only we, for a brief moment, change our own filter and see our world slightly differently.
And now in typical blt30 fashion, I'll leave to smoke a joint and ponder how many universes reside in each pore of my thumb:)
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|In fact, the whole last paragraph has been somewhat true since the Eurovision Song Contest. That was when I first realised that any news that was due to come out would be first available by the wonders [anti sic] of Twitter.
Good lord. Have I really had that much to drink?
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|"Michael Jackson's evolution from adorable kid to good-looking guy to monstrosity"
In a slightly unusual fashion for me (can you tell I'm drunk?) I'd like to say he'd honestly got rather a lot better since the "oh dear god his nose has fallen off" stage.
I couldn't help but feel somewhat shocked at his death.
I'm rather quietly delighted he's due to be #1 in both the singles and albums charts in the UK this week and that there was a flash mob doing a moonwalk in liverpool street station's outside area last night.
I'm bound to be in a minority here juding by the amount of american's who read this place but hey ho.
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