Word-whore. I write 'em. I talk 'em. Information, politics, media, and the cybers. I drink. I use bad words. All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris! Vive les poissons rouges sauvages!
This image is supposedly some sort of profile of me, concocted from data gathered on the Internet by Personas, a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display at the MIT Museum.
I have no idea why such a big proportion is allocated to sport. But, hey, play with it yourself.
If the world was about to explode into a Total War lasting six years, would you know?
As I wrote back in 2007, TV documentaries about World War II cover the rise of Adolf Hitler in a few minutes. We forget that Hitler was head of the National Socialist Party from 1921, fully 12 years before he became Chancellor in 1933. It was another 6 years before the invasion of Poland.
What did it look like for people living it in real-time?
My guess is that for the vast majority of people the rise of Hitler had very little impact on day-to-day life — just as today the distant wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have virtually no discernible impact on my life in Sydney. Nor do the many minor changes to our laws which increase the powers of central government without any balancing increases in our own ability to hold that government accountable.
In the summer of 1932, a few politically-aware people sitting in sunny cafes might have discussed that odd Mr Hitler’s failed run for the presidency, but I doubt anyone would have seen it as heralding global war.
This is why I’m starting to find George Orwell’s diary intriguing.
Initially, as the Orwell Prize published the entries exactly 60 years after they were first written it was, to be honest, boring. Laughably so, in fact, as the meticulous journalist documented the day-to-day activities in his garden. On 30 November 1938, it was nothing more than: Two eggs.
But now, we’re only eleven days out from the German invasion of Poland. Thirteen days from Britain and France declaring war on Germany.
Orwell notes a Daily Telegraph report (pictured): “Germans are buying heavily in copper & rubber for immediate delivery, & price of rubber rising rapidly.”
Orwell’s journalistic eye could see the signs. Could ordinary citizens? Sure, gas masks were being distributed and air raid drills held, but did people believe them?
In 2007, did we believe John Howard’s “alert but not alarmed” scaremongering? Or didn’t we? And if not, but they did in 1939, what’s the difference?
I reckon Orwell’s diary will be an interesting read over the next 13 days.
Apart from my own astoundingly wonderful critique of that “research” on Twitter by Pear Analytics, I’ve been directed to two extraordinarily well-written responses by the redoubtable Stephen Fry and by Graham Linehan, creator of TV series Father Ted and The IT Crowd. I particularly like Linehan’s observation that Twitter has given us humanity’s first truly global conversation. A hopeful romantic?
[Update 9.40pm: It’s only 40 minutes since I posted this, but discussion has already turned to the topic of the government’s role in developing new services rather than the original Twitter-as-Chinese-whispers theme. Hey, join the discussion!]
Even though I’m one of Australia’s most prolific Twitter users, and even though it seems like I’ve spent half the week defending it from half-arsed criticism, I’m also well aware of its limitations. Like tonight.
Earlier this evening I attended the Government 2.0 Taskforce‘s Road Show in Sydney. At one point, I tweeted:
Nicholas Gruen seriously says that the government should have created community good like Google, Facebook and Twitter. #gov2au
That was soon picked up by people who weren’t in the room, who hadn’t heard the context. Hours later we’re still seeing tweets like this one:
@skaye: “The Govt should have invented twitter, flickr…” LIKE WTF?? #gov2au *shudder* (via @NickHodge) They struggle with discounts on utes!
Notice how the content mutated as the message was passed on? “Created” becomes “invented”, Flickr is added to the mix, and the “community good” qualifier has vanished.
Here’s what really happened…
Continue reading “Why Twitter is useless for covering conferences”
Forty percent of the messages on Twitter are “pointless babble”, claims a story doing the rounds at Fairfax and ABC News and elsewhere this morning. It’s rubbish.
In a piece for Crikey today, I dismantle this claim by market intelligence firm Pear Analytics. Their categorisation is vague and arbitrary, and completely misses the point of phatic communication.
Marketer Stephen Dann is even more scathing. In the comments Sarah, who works for Pear Analytics, digs an even deeper hole as she explains her methodology.
If some DJ posted on there they were playing at a club tonight, I counted that as Self Promotion. If some guy tweeted that he was “at the club with his niggaazz and ho’s”, I put it into babble.
So, if they’re a DJ it’s “promotion”, but “some guy” it’s “babble”. How is Sarah judging people’s value here? By whether they’re a DJ or not? By whether they’re communicating business and work needs rather than social? By whether they use “correct grammar” rather than street slang? That’s just snobbery, and possibly even racism.
It’s all just tawdry low-rent pseudo-science at the level of the Ponds Institute. And, as my Crikey piece explains, t’was all just to pimp a product.
The reason the original bullshit story was picked up and spread so fast, though, was that a Twitter backlash has been foretold. More about that tomorrow.
[Hat-tip to @crikey_news for the headline.]
The latest edition of A Series of Tubes is online for your listing pleasure. There’s me talking about NICTA Techfest 2009 — including an Australian breakthrough which could lead to bug-free software and the idea of the city as a social computing platform. There’s also a chap talking about NICTA’s new 3Gb/sec wireless networking.