It first really struck me in high school. I was in school with people I had largely grown up with, and they knew me a certain kind of way. Neither good nor bad, I suppose. This may have happened to you: you were a kid who was short. Or fat. Or slow. Or whatever youthful trait that was outgrown by adolescence. But it was hard to see yourself as changed when your friends pretty much saw you the way they always had, fit you into a particular position in the social order of things. I went away for the summer to camp when younger, and summer school when older, and at those new locales the other kids saw me for who I was right then. And I recall it as being somewhat liberating, particularly when i wasn’t all that thrilled with every part of the status quo. It was possible to be a geek in high school, and move past that to being a little more cool at summer school.
College again provided an opportunity to “move on.” Your “high school friends” knew you one way, and your “college friends” knew you another. This process could continue, most effective when you actually had an opportunity to grow: either in maturity or wisdom or in some odd dimension.
High school reunions were moments to sample “how folks turned out” or “who they became” – always somewhat interesting in the context of who they were then (e.g. the stoner becoming an executive; the bully becoming a nice dad. At my 10 year high school reunion I was voted "Most Improved" which i found a dubious distinction.) But for the most part, it was always easy to move on, just by moving. Time and distance did their natural trick to erode links, and thin lines of communication. There were no overlaps. There were clean breaks. I was always grateful for this.
And now there is Facebook.
For my generation, there is this slow and somewhat conflicted reconnection with our past life – with relationships long ago evaporated, now reconstituted with an eyedropper of Internet. Here are my high school friends… and my camp buddies… and my freshman hall… and my old flames… and my distant relatives… and former co-workers… as if decades haven’t transpired in the interim. Not since my wedding have so many diverse and disparate facets of my past come colliding together in a sort of pastiche of biography. I remember that wedding day, seeing my cousin having a drink with my college roommate, joined by my last boss, and finding the whole thing fun but still disquieting. And yet every day I scan through names, the Facebook friends, that are entertaining to read in list form, from each corner of my history. The reconnecting has been fun, like standing at a greeting line at a fantastic reunion. But I’m not sure about the ongoing swirl. I’m reminded of a line from Jurassic Park, when the characters are debating the merits of bringing back dinosaurs made extinct naturally eons ago. “You know, at times like this one feels, well, perhaps like extinct animals should be left extinct.”
Old old friendships are a double-edged sword. Reconnecting starts with curiosity, and honestly, I’m not entirely sure where it leads. So far it’s cool, mediated by Facebook, privacy settings and actual geography. I hope I’ve evolved in maturity in such a way as to get some of these relationships right the second time around.
Kids today won’t know the effect of really losing touch with “old friends,” and may stay connected with their babygroup or kindergarten class continuously for their entire lives. The simple idea of “reconnecting” might become as quaint as “dialing” a phone. Still, they are losing that all-empowering option to “move on,” of growth and change without the constant tug of who they were and who they left behind.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Voyeurism, Exhibitionism and Facebook
I know that “voyeurism” and “exhibitionism” are sexually charged terms, but I can’t see any way around using them here: the powerful dynamos that are the engine of Web 2.0 in general, and Facebook in particular, are this dyad of voyeurism and exhibitionism. Being in any online community, at some level, feeds a desire to see into other people’s lives, or be seen.
There is no getting around the fact that I embrace these things: I feel like a trained voyeur: a photographer and videographer, historian and editor, I like to watch, I like to explore that way. I’m also an amateur exhibitionist, as are all teachers and bloggers and authors and entrepreneurs, who routinely stand before small or large groups and have something to say. I am certain in my grade school I excelled at “Show and tell.”
The people who are drawn to online communities have given in, to some degree, to their inner exhibitionist. This is my life. These are my friends. These are my books and favorite things. Your Facebook life is the inside of your high school locker: semi-private, but still often a statement about who you’d like to be, how you’d like to be seen. Rather than simply rely primarily on your own self-descriptions—like a resume, posted photos, or personal statements—the crux of social networks lies in dynamic self-definition through associations: who are you friends with? what groups do you support? What networks are you in?
I believe that the best thing about these relationships is that, for the most part, they are “pulls” of information, not “pushes.” We post. And that news can be ignored or not. But this is so much different from “pushes,” like phone calls and emails that are directed, bang on our doors and demand receipt. Instead, these are passive announcements, received only if your audience tunes in, and absorbed at a rate of the recipient’s choice, not the broadcaster.
In a way all this reminds me of a radio show I had at my college AM station: It was a wake-up show, and I was there at the station, my brightly lit glass booth, broadcasting at 5am, but I don’t really think anyone was listening. Still I went through the exercise for a few months. Social networks are like that. On Facebook there are people out there. Your friends. Or maybe some of their friends. Watching. In the lingo of the online communities most people are “lurkers,” they click through links to see what (or who) is there. Look around a little bit, maybe amusing themselves in the process, and ultimately go back to pruning the little garden that is their profile. A rough number I’ve heard thrown around is that for every person who leaves a note or communicates with you via that online network, there are more than ten who pass through and leave no sign of their exploration. It might even approach a hundred. At Netflix, my community work often involved balancing the exhibitionism and voyeurism* without becoming creepy. That creepy line is all important.
Actually, there is a subtle kind of pushing. As marketers understand, the key to getting in front of people (if that is your goal) is through novelty – and thus the fine art of frequent updatings (status, blogs, photos) without crossing into spamsville. Facebook’s success is and will continue to be the ease with which they provide the ability to throttle up or down the noise coming from any particular member. Which brings us back to voyeurism and exhibitionism. Sure they’re charged terms, but they aren’t extremes. I'm pretty sure that the rise of social networks rides on our increasing comfort with these two experiences -- both in balance and degree.
* I tried not to use these terms, btw.
** I saw this at the Sundance Film Festival too, btw. It seemed that there was a large segment of the attendees who where principally there to be seen (actors, studio execs, posers and B.Ps) and hoards there to see (journalists, photographers, fans); I made a short video documenting this phenomenon.
There is no getting around the fact that I embrace these things: I feel like a trained voyeur: a photographer and videographer, historian and editor, I like to watch, I like to explore that way. I’m also an amateur exhibitionist, as are all teachers and bloggers and authors and entrepreneurs, who routinely stand before small or large groups and have something to say. I am certain in my grade school I excelled at “Show and tell.”
The people who are drawn to online communities have given in, to some degree, to their inner exhibitionist. This is my life. These are my friends. These are my books and favorite things. Your Facebook life is the inside of your high school locker: semi-private, but still often a statement about who you’d like to be, how you’d like to be seen. Rather than simply rely primarily on your own self-descriptions—like a resume, posted photos, or personal statements—the crux of social networks lies in dynamic self-definition through associations: who are you friends with? what groups do you support? What networks are you in?
I believe that the best thing about these relationships is that, for the most part, they are “pulls” of information, not “pushes.” We post. And that news can be ignored or not. But this is so much different from “pushes,” like phone calls and emails that are directed, bang on our doors and demand receipt. Instead, these are passive announcements, received only if your audience tunes in, and absorbed at a rate of the recipient’s choice, not the broadcaster.
In a way all this reminds me of a radio show I had at my college AM station: It was a wake-up show, and I was there at the station, my brightly lit glass booth, broadcasting at 5am, but I don’t really think anyone was listening. Still I went through the exercise for a few months. Social networks are like that. On Facebook there are people out there. Your friends. Or maybe some of their friends. Watching. In the lingo of the online communities most people are “lurkers,” they click through links to see what (or who) is there. Look around a little bit, maybe amusing themselves in the process, and ultimately go back to pruning the little garden that is their profile. A rough number I’ve heard thrown around is that for every person who leaves a note or communicates with you via that online network, there are more than ten who pass through and leave no sign of their exploration. It might even approach a hundred. At Netflix, my community work often involved balancing the exhibitionism and voyeurism* without becoming creepy. That creepy line is all important.
Actually, there is a subtle kind of pushing. As marketers understand, the key to getting in front of people (if that is your goal) is through novelty – and thus the fine art of frequent updatings (status, blogs, photos) without crossing into spamsville. Facebook’s success is and will continue to be the ease with which they provide the ability to throttle up or down the noise coming from any particular member. Which brings us back to voyeurism and exhibitionism. Sure they’re charged terms, but they aren’t extremes. I'm pretty sure that the rise of social networks rides on our increasing comfort with these two experiences -- both in balance and degree.
* I tried not to use these terms, btw.
** I saw this at the Sundance Film Festival too, btw. It seemed that there was a large segment of the attendees who where principally there to be seen (actors, studio execs, posers and B.Ps) and hoards there to see (journalists, photographers, fans); I made a short video documenting this phenomenon.
Friday, January 09, 2009
Instant Watching
Remember the food processor on Star Trek? You just told it what you wanted, hit a button, and a fully prepared dish appeared, almost instantly. It was almost comical if it weren’t so darn appealing. In the 1970s, Francis Coppola, the hippest creative cat in San Francisco, was so connected and sophisticated that he could pick up a phone and shortly thereafter he could watch a 16mm print of many classic movies on his home projector, ordered from the collections in the Pacific Film Archive. Almost no one in America could really do that. For a film fan, it was a remarkable luxury and privilege.
Today almost every bit of moving video content ever created over the past 100 years is now archived and available on DVD. The majority of it is in warehouses of Netflix. For a few dollars each month, any person in America is a couple days away from any movie ever created. But increasingly, each of us is within an instant from watching this collection. Today only maybe 10% of the theatrical filmed content is on demand (whether from Netflix or from other sources as well). That number will increase a little more every year, until in three or five or whatever years, so much of that enormous library will be instantly available that further increases won’t matter at all. Already, last night, I had an evening where I wanted to watch a film, and the options were paralyzing. The joke at the earlier part of the 1990s was “57 channels and nothing’s on”* (which rapidly grew to thousands of channels with less and less quality content)**, but it is just as debilitating to have a queue of dozens or hundreds of things that you’d actually kinda like to watch- -- not, as it has been in history – limited by availability or the whim of some corporation with an agenda, but unfettered. New-found freedom and new burden of responsibility. It’s all my decision: a documentary about Bach, a classic like The Maltese Falcon, a mindless end-of-the world sci-fi flick… and so on… there are hundreds of really good options, not at all like wasting an evening with whatever moronic sitcom NBC cranked out for me to waste this part of the evening. Now I’m choosing that moronic sitcom not just over all the other moronic sitcoms on the other stations at this hour, or the mediocre recorded options from the past few days, but I'm saying I want to watch this moronic sitcom more deeply than ANYTHING ELSE ever made. Time shifting that crap starts to feel foolish when there is so much quality content all over the place, finally. So do I go for the Twinkies now that mom is out for a bit? Or do I at least try to have a balanced meal?
* 1992 song by Bruce Springsteen.
** LA Times, October 11, 2005 “4,000 channels and nothing’s on”
Today almost every bit of moving video content ever created over the past 100 years is now archived and available on DVD. The majority of it is in warehouses of Netflix. For a few dollars each month, any person in America is a couple days away from any movie ever created. But increasingly, each of us is within an instant from watching this collection. Today only maybe 10% of the theatrical filmed content is on demand (whether from Netflix or from other sources as well). That number will increase a little more every year, until in three or five or whatever years, so much of that enormous library will be instantly available that further increases won’t matter at all. Already, last night, I had an evening where I wanted to watch a film, and the options were paralyzing. The joke at the earlier part of the 1990s was “57 channels and nothing’s on”* (which rapidly grew to thousands of channels with less and less quality content)**, but it is just as debilitating to have a queue of dozens or hundreds of things that you’d actually kinda like to watch- -- not, as it has been in history – limited by availability or the whim of some corporation with an agenda, but unfettered. New-found freedom and new burden of responsibility. It’s all my decision: a documentary about Bach, a classic like The Maltese Falcon, a mindless end-of-the world sci-fi flick… and so on… there are hundreds of really good options, not at all like wasting an evening with whatever moronic sitcom NBC cranked out for me to waste this part of the evening. Now I’m choosing that moronic sitcom not just over all the other moronic sitcoms on the other stations at this hour, or the mediocre recorded options from the past few days, but I'm saying I want to watch this moronic sitcom more deeply than ANYTHING ELSE ever made. Time shifting that crap starts to feel foolish when there is so much quality content all over the place, finally. So do I go for the Twinkies now that mom is out for a bit? Or do I at least try to have a balanced meal?
* 1992 song by Bruce Springsteen.
** LA Times, October 11, 2005 “4,000 channels and nothing’s on”
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
A Pernicious Trend: Massimplification
It hit me first with Apple and iMovie a year ago. They took a pretty good, pretty simple editing system (iMovie HD) and they took out the editing features to make it even simpler (iMovie 08). It was rebuilt from the ground up, based entirely on the assumption that most users, in spite of the product's name, don't want to make movies. They shoot bits of video with their cameras or phones, and want to share them. Trim off the edges maybe. But nothing like "editing." All that crap about reverse shots and cut-away shots and timelines was for video geeks, maybe a small percent of their users. From a business standpoint, it was the right move. Just because I happen to be in the "fringe" that wanted those features, I'm sure that making the software simpler will improve its use and their business objectives. Sigh. So I moved to Final Cut Express to do my basic editing.
Then there was my experience at Netflix. The Community, in particular, but in many other features of the website as well, there were lots of things we could design and build that would be really really cool for movie fans, from playing in social networks, to half-star ratings, to letting people search in their queue when they couldn't find something they knew was there. But it was clear that these were features that only appealed to those who were geeks (folks who loved social networks AND Netflix, or for people with so many movies in their queues that they lost things there). The fact was that these things mattered to only a tiny fraction of the subscribers, and there were a lot more important things we could do to add value, in particular, simplify the site. Less is often more. I know, i know -- I'm a movie geek -- and the cool moviefanish things I'd love to have don't always make good business sense. So I created a ning community for movie fans, and Netflix users in particular.
So at Macworld I was excited to see the new features coming out in many products, in particular, Intuit's QUICKEN. I've been using this product for eons, and while I don't upgrade every time there is new software, I keep my eye on it for when improvements seem to warrant the effort. I was excited, then, to see what was about to roll out. GASP. To my dismay I found that they were pulling a Netflix on me! They are removing a number of features I have come to rely on in my QUICKEN (its simple way of working was a nice little brother to the small business software we use at Petroglyph, Quickbooks...) but the new version seems all different. I'm still in shock, but i remember someone rationalizing the loss of many standard reports, and also explaining to me that they were changing finance "categories" to something more like tag clouds.
Tagging has its place, and i used to urge my partners at Netflix to use the more modern notion of tagging and move away from the archaic (Dewey-decimal-like) genres of classification, but this makes me uncomfortable in my accounting software!! Their simplifications struck me as hip but in the wrong direction. Still, one cannot escape their logic: only a small percent of their customers use QUICKEN to track their finances, balance accounts and follow portfolios. Most use it very lightly, and find most the features of little use or, worse, in the way. Just getting America to balance its checkbook would be a push, categorizing expenses across various accounts... face it, once again I'm in the unfortunate fringe.
INTUIT hasn't released this new version, and things might change before it comes out, and they certainly will add features over time. But I'm feeling the pain i often feel in the consumer space -- as these products are first released they are created for people more like me: early adopters, technically savvy and exploring of features. But over time, as markets grow, my needs represent a smaller and smaller portion of the products' direction.
Product success often leads to (and comes from) "massimplification," the focused simplification (or dumbing down, if you must) of a technical product to make it more useful to the largest number of people, often nudging out early adopters and creating niche product opportunities in the process. I don't like it. But it's better, I suppose, than the alternative: feature-creep. Microsoft, like many developers, tends to continue adding features to their products with each release, features that appeal to smaller and smaller numbers of end-users, their installed base of users, further and further alienating new users. I used to call this the Peter Principle of Software Development, which goes: a company will continue adding features to a product until it is almost unusably complicated; this inadvertently creates an opportunity for a new product to pick and choose which features are necessary, and who then can better optimize for new users. Both extremes are lousy, but when i write it out here, it looks like both ultimately create new product opportunities.
But I don't have to like it.
Then there was my experience at Netflix. The Community, in particular, but in many other features of the website as well, there were lots of things we could design and build that would be really really cool for movie fans, from playing in social networks, to half-star ratings, to letting people search in their queue when they couldn't find something they knew was there. But it was clear that these were features that only appealed to those who were geeks (folks who loved social networks AND Netflix, or for people with so many movies in their queues that they lost things there). The fact was that these things mattered to only a tiny fraction of the subscribers, and there were a lot more important things we could do to add value, in particular, simplify the site. Less is often more. I know, i know -- I'm a movie geek -- and the cool moviefanish things I'd love to have don't always make good business sense. So I created a ning community for movie fans, and Netflix users in particular.
So at Macworld I was excited to see the new features coming out in many products, in particular, Intuit's QUICKEN. I've been using this product for eons, and while I don't upgrade every time there is new software, I keep my eye on it for when improvements seem to warrant the effort. I was excited, then, to see what was about to roll out. GASP. To my dismay I found that they were pulling a Netflix on me! They are removing a number of features I have come to rely on in my QUICKEN (its simple way of working was a nice little brother to the small business software we use at Petroglyph, Quickbooks...) but the new version seems all different. I'm still in shock, but i remember someone rationalizing the loss of many standard reports, and also explaining to me that they were changing finance "categories" to something more like tag clouds. Tagging has its place, and i used to urge my partners at Netflix to use the more modern notion of tagging and move away from the archaic (Dewey-decimal-like) genres of classification, but this makes me uncomfortable in my accounting software!! Their simplifications struck me as hip but in the wrong direction. Still, one cannot escape their logic: only a small percent of their customers use QUICKEN to track their finances, balance accounts and follow portfolios. Most use it very lightly, and find most the features of little use or, worse, in the way. Just getting America to balance its checkbook would be a push, categorizing expenses across various accounts... face it, once again I'm in the unfortunate fringe.
INTUIT hasn't released this new version, and things might change before it comes out, and they certainly will add features over time. But I'm feeling the pain i often feel in the consumer space -- as these products are first released they are created for people more like me: early adopters, technically savvy and exploring of features. But over time, as markets grow, my needs represent a smaller and smaller portion of the products' direction.
Product success often leads to (and comes from) "massimplification," the focused simplification (or dumbing down, if you must) of a technical product to make it more useful to the largest number of people, often nudging out early adopters and creating niche product opportunities in the process. I don't like it. But it's better, I suppose, than the alternative: feature-creep. Microsoft, like many developers, tends to continue adding features to their products with each release, features that appeal to smaller and smaller numbers of end-users, their installed base of users, further and further alienating new users. I used to call this the Peter Principle of Software Development, which goes: a company will continue adding features to a product until it is almost unusably complicated; this inadvertently creates an opportunity for a new product to pick and choose which features are necessary, and who then can better optimize for new users. Both extremes are lousy, but when i write it out here, it looks like both ultimately create new product opportunities.
But I don't have to like it.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Macworld '09
I'll be at Macworld '09 on Tuesday and Wednesday. If you're there, come by the Peachpit booth where i'll be making my base of operations. I'll be doing at podcast at 3pm there on Tuesday, if you have questions or want to meet up. See you in the city.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Good-Bye DVD Collection...
Today was a day that goes in my calendar. It was the day where I took my collection of DVDs and placed them in boxes. Not moved to the garage just yet, but I have that nagging suspicion I’m going to be needing less and less access to these discs. I remember the day about a decade ago when I did the same thing with my CDs. I had taken a week or two and transferred my entire music collection to a hard disk. I uncabled my CD-player, inserted my iPod, and moved cartons of CDs to the attic. How long before I dump them? Let’s see: I left college 25 years ago with my cassette tape collection, mostly labeled, and a small stack of vinyl. I never used the record player again, really, but I needed a cassette player in my car until my last car a few years ago. I took those dusty cassettes to the dump around the time I boxed the CDs. VHS tapes are already in the garage, and I’m starting to toss those as the DVDs move in.
I still watch DVDs, of course. But my motivation to buy is beginning to wane. That urge to own is ameliorated with the supple balm of Instant Access to almost anything, and 48 hour access to everything else. NETFLIX!! I’m enjoying the simplicity in my home that includes no shelves of records, no racks of cassettes, no boxes of CDs, and now no stack of DVDs. Sigh. Books really can’t be all that far behind, can they?
I still watch DVDs, of course. But my motivation to buy is beginning to wane. That urge to own is ameliorated with the supple balm of Instant Access to almost anything, and 48 hour access to everything else. NETFLIX!! I’m enjoying the simplicity in my home that includes no shelves of records, no racks of cassettes, no boxes of CDs, and now no stack of DVDs. Sigh. Books really can’t be all that far behind, can they?
Friday, January 02, 2009
rick's picks: i'm wrestling with the idea that i agree with Martha Stewart...
A lot of food gets put in front of you at a conference: some of it is good, some is bad, but some is memorable. It has been a month maybe since the EG, and i'm oddly haunted by these pickled green beans that were handed to me at some point. I wouldn't think of myself as a "pickled" guy normally, but i was drawn to these appetizers at one point in an evening. They were different but familiar. This was (ironically) the way George Lucas and Ben Burtt agreed the sounds of Star Wars should be, and Burtt combined and distorted real animal sounds to invent those Wookie voices and space ship zooms. But I ramble. I remember those green beans that way. I liked them and they made me feel a little satisfied with myself as I was enjoying a green vegetable, which i think is good. I am always tempted towards something that is a lot more fried, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, after devoiring a few little cupfulls I found i was hunting for the person wandering around with the tray, to ask them what I was eating and if there were more. I was directed to this guy. Rick. These are his pickled things. He offered an array of really interestingly pickled things, but as i said, i'm not really a pickled guy, and they didn't have much appeal to me (although I believe i know people who will really dig the "phat beets"). I was eating both "windy city wasabeans" and "mean beans" and I went online to order me some more.
I'll let you know when they arrive and if they deliver on the memory i've got. I'm really looking forward to these.
rick's picks >>
When I went to their website, the first thing I saw gave me an odd rush: Martha Stewart had featured him on her show back in September. I guess i missed that, not really paying much attention to Martha Stewart. But here she is, and I agree with her, these pickled vegetables are worth trying.
POST SCRIPT (1/13/09): My memories did not disappoint! The package arrived today and I dug into the entire set. They are really excellent, and while a bit pricey for some veggies, they are truly unique and tasty and worth having from time to time to spice up special events. For me, the special event happened to be a Tuesday afternoon, but you could hold out for something worthier...
POST SCRIPT (2/2/09): The Mean Beans are just a little zesty for my general enjoyment, but the Windy City Wasabeans are fan-fuckin-tastic. When my supply ran out recently, I kept the jar of "sauce" and debated what to do with it (toss it? it just seemed so wasteful.) So on a lark I cut up a zucchini and dropped the raw pieces into the wasabean jar. 24 hours later I tried one. WOW. Like magic those veggies are Ricked, and i have a new hobby. Lots of things to try.
Anyway, after devoiring a few little cupfulls I found i was hunting for the person wandering around with the tray, to ask them what I was eating and if there were more. I was directed to this guy. Rick. These are his pickled things. He offered an array of really interestingly pickled things, but as i said, i'm not really a pickled guy, and they didn't have much appeal to me (although I believe i know people who will really dig the "phat beets"). I was eating both "windy city wasabeans" and "mean beans" and I went online to order me some more.
I'll let you know when they arrive and if they deliver on the memory i've got. I'm really looking forward to these.
rick's picks >>
When I went to their website, the first thing I saw gave me an odd rush: Martha Stewart had featured him on her show back in September. I guess i missed that, not really paying much attention to Martha Stewart. But here she is, and I agree with her, these pickled vegetables are worth trying.
POST SCRIPT (1/13/09): My memories did not disappoint! The package arrived today and I dug into the entire set. They are really excellent, and while a bit pricey for some veggies, they are truly unique and tasty and worth having from time to time to spice up special events. For me, the special event happened to be a Tuesday afternoon, but you could hold out for something worthier...
POST SCRIPT (2/2/09): The Mean Beans are just a little zesty for my general enjoyment, but the Windy City Wasabeans are fan-fuckin-tastic. When my supply ran out recently, I kept the jar of "sauce" and debated what to do with it (toss it? it just seemed so wasteful.) So on a lark I cut up a zucchini and dropped the raw pieces into the wasabean jar. 24 hours later I tried one. WOW. Like magic those veggies are Ricked, and i have a new hobby. Lots of things to try.
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