Clare Townhill

Internet of the Afterlife

What does it mean when the internet is not just real but is also an icon, and a symbol? Five thought provoking global stories of the internet as a place you drive to, asynchronous occasion, as an intermediate destination without keyboard, interface or electricty, that comes to you, the internet as an imagined space and last but not least the internet as an offering to the afterlife. Wonderful.

Audio Weds

Obviously having a bit of an aural day today. I've been singing into, humming at, and generally fiddling about with SoundHound all day (and yes I know Shazam did this first). Like so many wonderful little app products it goes straight to the heart of a human behaviour/pain/need. Watching people tunelessly, desperately intoning 'that song that goes' to skinny tshirted and bejeaned hipsters in Rough Trade is one of my favourite things until of course I am in the poor soul in pursuit of an earworm with nowhere to go but the withering record shop staff. No more you bastards: SoundHound is on my side and I know now that lovely little snippet that just floated by me on NPR was the Orchestral Intro from Plastic Beach by Gorillaz. Hah. 

 

 

A Return to the Intimate Network

Every now and again you stumble across a blog or a site that truly enrichs the way you think. Every single post on Neil Perkins' blog 'Only Dead Fish' makes my brain fire. This week's post is on the app Path a network that caps your friendship group to no more than 50 members. Here's a snippet and a link:

Since its redesign, Path has gotten a lot of attention. Many would say that having created a ground-breaking piece of mobile UX this is deserved. I've had Path on my phone for a good while but not really used it. The redesign has tempted me back to play around with it, but it's not yet something I open up regularly, partly because I'm not sure what place it has in amongst all the stuff I use on a daily basis. That may change, but for now that's how it is.

One of the interesting things about it though, is that it was designed from the outset to be an intimate network. When it began, the number of people you could friend on it was capped at 50. They've since relaxed that limit to 150. But they're still clear about where that reasoning comes from:

"We are inspired by Professor Robin Dunbar from Oxford University, whose research delves deeply into the number of trusted relationships humans can maintain throughout life. We tend to have 5 best friends, 15 good friends, 50 close friends and family, and 150 total friends. At Path, we're building tools for you to share with the people who matter most in your life."

http://neilperkin.typepad.com/only_dead_fish/2012/01/intimate-networks.html

I've been interested in networks for sometime now. The influence of the intimate network of those closest to us has a profound impact on behaviours across a broad spectrum of health and emotion (smoking, eating, alcohol, weight, happiness to name but a few). The work of Christakis and Fowler is wonderful:

http://edge.org/conversation/social-networks-and-happiness

http://edge.org/conversation/social-networks-are-like-the-eye

 

 

Brain Plasticity and Tiny Breakdancers

A truly amazing video from TED's Chris Anderson on web-taught dance and the effect of video on learning. Astounding stuff:

 

Where am I?

Since SXSW I've developed quite a crush on Genevieve Bell. She's the cultural anthropologist at Intel in the Home Technologies Group. This is her talk 'Context is Everything'.

The perils of doing as you're told

I've maintained for some time that the people behind cycle lanes hate cyclists. This nice little video from a guy in NY ticketted by the NYPD for not cycling in the cycle lane really struck a cord with me: 

I feel you brother. I feel you.

"Can't you just put it on iTunes?"

http://twitter.com/#!/Rachel_J_Lewis/status/76543657834057729

One Star Ouija

I'm really enjoying the comedy Amazon reviews at the moment; the ones for the 'Celtic Spirit Board (Ouija) are particularly brilliant:

'I purchased this item for my four year old daughter to assist with communication after her tongue was tragically pecked off by an angry swan in a freak duck feeding accident last year. 

Firstly can I just say that I would recommend this to any parent hoping to improve thier child's literacy skills. Even at her young age, within a few minutes of using the board she was writing out her first message "The dark lord cometh". Naturally we interpreted this as a request to watch her favourite Harry Potter DVD and duly complied. Suffice to say, we were astounded by her use of vocabulary and correct spelling. 

Little Ellie is a changed girl since receiving her Celtic Spirit Board, she plays with it for 16 hours a day and screams (albeit completely silently) when we try to take it away from her. Since the accident she had been so down in the dumps, but now her eyes light up with a horrific eternal fire that burns deep inside them. 

Somewhat bizarrely, since receiving this item she has also excelled in her pre-school gymnastics team, being the only member who can jump a full 20 feet into the air, perform a triple somersault, rotate her head through 360 degrees and perform a perfect landing. 

There is just one negative point I feel I should raise about this item. Since purchasing it we have found it increasingly difficult to find shoes to fit little Ellie as her toenails have dramatically thickened and merged to give her feet the appearance of hooves. I do however consider this a tiny price to pay for the dramatic difference this has made to my daughter's life. 

Brilliant! 

@randomvitriol

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/cr/B0029S26VW/ref=aw_cr_p_kitchen_g_1_2?n=1&qid=1302819655&sr=8-3

 

In the 'Attention Economy' I fear bankruptcy

What does it mean when most of our attention is consumed by the pursuit of attracting the attention of others?

It was back in 1971 that Herbert Simon suggested that “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention“¹ and now the difficulty of capturing people’s attention (“a highly perishable commodity”)² has some theorists suggesting that the future “attention economy” will have “its own different implicit rules, roles, cycles, values, etc.“³

If everyone has everyone’s attention the value of attention is nullified. Thus to avoid mental bankruptcy, navigating an “attention economy” means saving, investing and being cunningly conscientious of your own attention. If you treated your attention as a monetary value, would you be considered broke, middle class or well-invested?

1. Simon, H. A. (1971), “Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World”, in Martin Greenberger, Computers, Communication, and the Public Interest, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press [↩]
2. Thomas Davenport, John Beck, The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business (Harvard Business School Press, 2001), p. 11 [↩]
3. Michael Goldhaber, The Attention Economy Hypothesis in Brief, http://goldhaber.org/?p=197 [↩]

It never ceases to amaze me how few people who work in the Communications business understand this principle or what a profound effect abundance has on people's ability and propensity to be able to make decisions. Recently I've been lucky enough to start working with Hannah Charlton and Tony Ward - two great allies in insisting on annoying people with the question 'why would someone bother?' and 'what value does it deliver?'. The Economist article on the tyranny of choice 'You Choose' is a great complement to James Shelley's piece above.

James Shelley

Economist: You Choose

Immersion

Stumbled across this on one of my many wanderings down the back of the internet.
Robbie Cooper is an interactive artist. His exhibition ‘Immersion’ explores the changing relationship between humans, screens, identity and image. Inspired by watching teenagers absorbed in computer games in Chinese internet cafés, Cooper’s portraits capture everyday people as they become immersed in different types of media. Shooting through the screen, these images are single frames taken from high-definition video footage. Filming long periods of video helps Cooper’s models to forget they’re being photographed and results in natural moments of unguarded behaviour.
More here: http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk